I'm standing in the Sheriff's office waiting for him to return. Stiles is missing, again. Somehow he got out of Eichen House. The one place I thought he wouldn't be able to. My guess is that he's no longer Stiles. I'm assuming the Sheriff asked me here to ask me for my help.
Malia, the coyote we helped turn back into a girl, apparently was at Eichen with Stiles. She found Scott and told him about what happened there. I guess Stiles told her everything about the Nogitsune. She said that they found the Nogitsune's body in a wall in the basement.
Along with a sword and a picture from 1943. In the photo is a girl who looks identical to Kira. Scott's currently talking to her about it. I hope they can come up with some answers. I'm getting tired of playing games. I left Emma home with Charlie. I knew that she wouldn't want to come even if I asked.
I heard the office door open and looked that way. Chris and Derek walked into the room, followed by Stilinski. He told me that he was able to get the charges dropped so that Chris and Derek could go free. Chris saw me and looked surprised, but he didn't stop and stare like Derek did.
Emma told me that she went to see him and Chris when they thought I was going to die. I'm sure they both were relieved to hear that that wasn't going to happen. But I can only imagine how it must have felt to be trapped in a jail cell while the person you love is dying. Even if he couldn't have done anything. Not to mention that it was his words that started the whole thing.
The Sheriff closed the door and then walked behind his desk. "Now, Miss…" he trailed off, seeming to be searching for the word.
I looked at him. "Just call me Kit."
He nodded sympathetically, like he was sorry he didn't know what to call me. Honestly, I'm surprised I know what to call me. "Kit, if you need to leave at any time, you just go."
"I'm fine," I said. "Thank you for the concern. But the only thing that'll make me feel better would be for me to get my hands around the throat of that Nogitsune."
He looked concerned for a minute. "We're not going to kill Stiles," he said it like he thought I had the wrong idea.
"Yeah, I know. But you can strangle someone without killing them." I knew I was digging myself a hole so I just stopped talking.
"Okay." He sighed and then looked at the others. We were all standing in front of the Sheriff's desk. "The specialist I saw in L.A. told me the thing that every doctor says when he's trying to avoid a lawsuit. 'We can't say for sure.' And then I spoke with Melissa. These are brain scans. My wife's and Stiles'."
He pulled the two scans out of a file and held them up. "I knew they were similar." He handed then to Chris. "But those are the same. Exactly the same." Both Derek and I looked over at the scans. Sure enough, the two lined up perfectly with each other. I'm pretty sure they're not supposed to do that.
"I'm guessing this isn't possible?" Derek said.
"Not even remotely."
Chris put the scans on the desk. "So the trickster is still playing tricks."
Derek sighed. "But why this trick?"
"When I was in the Army," the Sheriff said, "an officer told me, 'If you want to defeat your enemy, you don't take away their courage. You take away their hope.'"
"You don't look like a man who gives up hope easily," Chris said.
"But Stiles might. If this thing inside of him, if it's using his mother's disease as some sort of physiological trick, then this isn't just a fight for his body. It's also a fight for his mind. Right?"
"You know, he's left people severely injured."
"And others severely dead," Derek said as he looked at Chris.
"That's why I need the three of you," the Sheriff said. "I need people who are experienced in this kind of thing. I need you to help me stop him." It was then that I realized that this wasn't just the sheriff asking for our help. It was a worried father who knew that his son was in trouble with something that he had no power to stop.
"And by stop him," Chris said, "you mean trap him." I'm not even really sure why Chris had to verify. Of course he wants his son back in one piece. The Sheriff gave Chris back his weapon, one of those electrocuting ones. They shared a look that said that they understood each other.
But I wasn't too sure. Chris is still a hunter. He hunts things. And usually, the things that he hunts don't walk away. But then again, maybe it's a good thing to have someone who can do the hard thing of killing Stiles, should it come to that. I just don't hope it'll come to that.
We all then headed to Argent's to come up with a plan. I had walked here, and both Derek and Chris were brought here in the back of a police car, so we let the Sheriff drive us there. Derek and I sat in the back. It seemed that he was avoiding me. He hadn't said a word to me.
But as I thought about it on the way there, I came to a different conclusion. That maybe he was trying to resist the urge to touch me, to over step. He just spent a day or two thinking I was going to die and that he wasn't going to be there. And, now, here I am. But it's not like he can touch me.
If he did, he might think that I'd think that he was moving too fast. That he was trying to make me love him. Kind of like what happened at the school. After that, we haven't really talked much. I think that he's so afraid of losing me that he's not going to do anything with me at all.
We pulled up outside the building and all filed out of the car. Chris was in the lead with the Sheriff close to him. I caught up with Derek and grabbed his wrist to stop him. He did, looking at me curiously. "It's okay, you know," I said.
"What?"
"To feel something." I wasn't quite sure where I was going with this or why I chose now to talk about it. But here I am. Me and my big mouth. He looked away, glancing around the parking lot. "You don't have to not be you on my account. And you don't have to be afraid that the next word you say or the next thing you do will scare me away."
He looked down at me, his eyes meeting mine. I realized I was still holding onto his wrist and let it go, a little too quickly. "Are you sure about that?" he asked. I know, my bad. But I'm new at this whole love thing. Not to mention that this is even weirder. We were in love and I don't remember it.
"Something tells me that I fell in love with you, not the version of you you wanted me to see."
"Something tells me you're right."
I smiled. "They say the heart doesn't forget. But I think mine needs a reminder." I turned and walked toward the entrance, seeing that Chris and the Sheriff had stopped. They both started walking, pretending like they weren't just watching us. But I know that their human ears couldn't hear anything, anyway.
When we got to room 402, Allison let us into the apartment. Then we went into Chris' office. "This is everything non-lethal I could find," she said. The desk was covered in a few random things. Rope, a flashlight, tranquilizer darts, hand cuffs, zip ties. Everything minus the guns and poisoned bullets.
"Take all of it," Chris said. Allison began filling a duffel bag as the Sheriff spoke.
"What's the plan here?"
"Our best shot right now is for Derek and Kit to try and pick up Stiles' scent at Eichen House," Chris replied. "Especially if he went through something stressful there."
"Should all four of us be going in the same place?"
"Well, where else has Stiles been showing up?"
"Uh…" I looked around at everyone. "Does anyone else get the sense of déjà vu, here? We already did this."
Derek nodded. "He disappeared. We started looking for him. Then walked right into a trap at the hospital."
"He's getting us to repeat the same moves," Chris said.
"So, what do we do?" Allison asked. "Wait for him to come to us?"
"We can't," Derek said. "Not if the Oni find him when the sun goes down." Oh, the Oni. Pesky little things. Can't they just be good little demon ninjas and let us do our job?
"Scott's working on that right now with Kira," the Sheriff said.
"That's the problem," Chris said. "We're all trying to out-fox the fox." Then everyone hung their heads with gloomy looks.
"Listen," the Sheriff said. "I'll understand if anyone wants to back out." The room was quiet for a minute.
"On a normal day, I'd say not being the Kirin was a disadvantage," I said. "Stiles thinks he knows this version of me. Which, I think, is what that whole thing was about the other day. He was trying to scare me into leaving. Now, I don't know about the old me, but I don't run from a fight. I'm staying and seeing this through."
"I'm not going to be the first wolf to run from a fox," Derek said.
"Apparently I'm carrying a lightsaber," Chris said.
"Dad, you, Kit, and Derek hit Eichen House," Allison said. "Sheriff, it's you and me in the hospital. We all meet in the school." Allison and the Sheriff walked out of the room. Derek and I started to leave, but then he stopped. I turned back and saw that Chris had opened a decoy book on the desk and was now loading the gun that was in it.
"Making sure you have a few lethal options just in case?" Derek asked. But I could hear the hostility in his voice. I was hoping the two being locked up together would, I don't know, force them to get over themselves? Guess I was wrong.
Chris looked at him. "I like to prepare for the worst."
(EMMA'S POV)
I sat on the couch, supposed to be reading a book. But I haven't turned a page in an hour. All I could do was stare at Charlie. And think about how, soon, I'll have a child of my own to look after. And how I'll be doing it all on my own. I stood and walked down the hall to my room.
I went to my night stand and pulled out the drawer. The only thing inside of it was the only personal belonging I managed to bring with me. I reached in the drawer and pulled out the necklace, sitting on the bed and cradling it in the palm of my hand.
This necklace was given to me by my husband, Dylan, the night that he proposed to me. It's a silver pair of angle wings in the shape of a heart. The two wings fold open, revealing a message inside. Engraved into the metal was written, "I have fallen in love many times… Always with you." On the left hand flap was engraved my initials, 'EK', and on the right side were his, 'DJ'.
Feeling our child grow inside of me, all of the constant danger we always seem to be in, it's all made me think of him. I can't get him out of my head. I know I only lost him three months ago, and that I should still be grieving. But I don't think I ever started grieving.
Our Pride was taken over and then he died. But the Pride was still in danger. I pushed all my feeling away and tried to focus on saving them, instead of feeling sorry for myself. I couldn't even save his parents. Joy is all I have left of that former life with him. Her, and our baby.
I sighed. What am I doing? I'll tell you what I'm doing. The Pride is safe, thanks to Derek, I'm assuming. And Kit seems to be doing fine, not that I really want to join in the fight. I don't want to risk losing my baby for people I don't know. What I'm doing is…I'm finally letting reality sink in.
I'm finally letting myself believe that he's gone. That everything we planned on doing, the life we planned on having, will never happen. That I became a single parent even before I knew I was a parent. My fingers enclosed around the locket, as hot tears rolled down my face.
I didn't realize just how much my heart hurt. Just how much I missed him. I laid on my side, the pillow under my head and the locket close against me. And I let myself do what I should have done when this all started. I let myself cry.
(KIT'S POV)
We had just gotten inside Eichen when Allison texted Chris. Stiles was at his house in his room. He set off the alarm on purpose so that the Sheriff would be notified of it. We rushed there as fast as we could. But Stiles was gone when we got there. He wanted us here, I'm just not sure why.
"What is all this?" Chris asked. We were all in Stiles' bed room, hoping to find something. So far, all we've found is a chess board. The pieces are all over the board, with sticky note labels on most of them. "What are these sticky notes for?"
"This is what Stiles used to try and explain to me about all of you," the Sheriff said.
"Well, maybe it's a message from Stiles," Allison suggested. "The real Stiles." None of it really made sense. A piece with Isaac's name lay off the board, along with a Blair and a Tobias piece. Jackson was on the board, so he was still around just not a player. Lydia's not on the board. But Deaton is. That doesn't make sense.
My name was on the board, next to Deaton's piece. Both of which were on the farthest side of the board. Does that mean, he doesn't think of us as a threat? Aaron's piece was next to Scott in the middle of the board, who was next to Allison. And then I saw one other slightly alarming detail. Kate's name was on the board. Like, an actual integral part. She was a space from Chris, both just past the half way mark. Why is her name on the board if she's dead?
I was about to ask when Derek spoke. "You think there's any reason why my name's on the king?"
"Well, you're heavily guarded," the Sheriff said. Ironically, he's guarded by Ethan and Aiden. Next after that is Peter, and then Scott, Allison, and Aaron. Another person missing was Emma. Her name wasn't on the board. "Though I guess the alarming detail is that you're one move from being in checkmate."
"It's not a message from Stiles," Chris said. "It's a threat from the Nogitsune."
"He's at the loft," Allison said. "That's what he's trying to tell us."
"And he wants us to come there."
"Night's falling," Derek added.
"This couldn't sound any more like a trap."
"I don't know why you're surprised," I said.
"I don't think it is," the Sheriff said.
Chris looked at him. "I think your opinion might be slightly biased, Sheriff."
"Hear me out. What we're dealing with here is basically someone who lacks motive. No rhyme, no reason. Right?"
"Meaning what?"
"Our enemy is not a killer. It's a trickster. The killing is just a by-product."
"If you're trying to say it won't kill us," Derek said, "I'm not feeling too confident about that." I wasn't sure what I thought.
"It won't. It wants irony," the Sheriff said. "It wants to play a trick. It wants a joke. All we need to do is come up with a new punch line."
"Easier said than done," I said. "It's not just a Nogitsune you have to out trick, but Stiles, too. It's just like a Kanima and it's master, they're practically the same person." I froze, nearly cutting off the end of that last word. I looked around at the shocked faces I was getting. I just said something I wasn't supposed to remember.
I shrugged. "That's been happening a lot. My mouth just kind of takes over and I have no idea what I'm saying. Like at the station with Agent McCall." I sighed. "But the point still stands. The two are the same." They looked at me with that look, again.
Letting me know that the old me was showing. That she slipped out and they saw her. Giving them the false hope that I might be her again. But I don't want to do that. Because I don't know if I'll ever be her again. And giving them that false hope, seems worse than the old me never returning at all.
The Sheriff had some kind of plan. And for some reason, we let him do it. We all went to Derek's loft, but only the Sheriff went in. We wanted to know if this was Stiles or the Nogitsune we were dealing with. Or rather, the Sheriff did. I'm under the 'shoot first, ask questions later' mind set. I'd rather assume he was the Nogitsune and just save us the trouble of checking. But not everyone's like that.
On the way, Allison texted Scott and told him what's going on. Hopefully, he'll be here soon. Because it sounds like it's not going well in there. The Sheriff just declared him the Nogitsune. Allison, Chris, Derek, and I walked into the loft. Stiles seemed to smile at the sight of us.
We stopped next to the Sheriff, standing on either side of him, about four feet from Stiles. Next to me, Allison raised her taser, pointing it at Stiles. She pulled the trigger, letting the prongs fly. Stiles caught them, being completely unfazed by the electricity flowing into him. He grabbed enough of the wire to yank it out of her hands and through it across the room. Well, he's stronger than I thought. That's just…wonderful.
Derek growled. He stepped forward and tried to hit Stiles. But Stiles caught it, turning the action back on Derek by twisting his arm behind his back. Stiles pulled him to a table that he slammed Derek into before swinging him around and making him air born. Derek slammed into one of the support columns before crashing to the ground.
Stiles turned around, a smug look on his face. His eyes landed on me. I was holding back. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do more, attack Stiles or go to Derek. But I knew that either one was probably a bad idea. So I remained still, holding back a growl.
"What's wrong Kit?" Stiles said. "You don't want to give it a try?" Stiles took a step forward. I instinctively put my arm across Allison and we both took a step back. Behind Stiles, Derek growled. He was still on the ground, but clearly not happy with Stiles coming near me. Stiles turned around and looked at him. "Oh. Is that so?"
And then we heard a gun cock. I cringed. Chris had his gun pointed right at Stiles. Stiles faced him, almost daringly. But at the same time, he looked just as shocked as we did. I knew Chris had the gun, but I didn't think he'd actually pull it out. And especially not right now.
"Argent, listen to me," the Sheriff said. "Don't do this."
"Why not?" Chris asked. "I've done it before." I calmly stepped closer, Derek now to his feet and surveying the situation also. "Werewolves, Berserkers. I can easily add a Nogitsune to the list." The Sheriff then pulled out his gun and pointed it at Chris. Okay, now this is out of hand.
"You're not gonna shoot my son."
"You said it yourself, Sheriff. That's not your son."
"Put it down. Put it down."
Stiles then looked at the Sheriff. "Dad, he's gonna shoot me." My eyes widened. He said it with all the sincerity that the real Stiles would have. "He's gonna kill me, Dad."
"Don't listen," Chris said.
But the Sheriff wasn't having it. "Put the gun down. Put it down." But Chris wasn't budging either. "Now! Do it! Put it down!"
Stiles looked at Chris. "Pull the trigger," he said. "Come on." The whole time the Sheriff is yelling for Chris to drop his gun and Stiles is telling him to shoot him. "Shoot me." And then it turned into a yelling match. Allison yelled for her dad, the Sheriff kept yelling at Chris, Stiles was yelling at Chris.
"Strife," Allison whispered next to me.
I looked at her. "What'd you say?" I knew what she said but I needed to hear it again. That we'd fallen prey to another trap. The room slowly darkened as the sun set.
"Stop!" Allison hollered. "Stop it. This is what he wants. This is exactly what he wants." The room was completely dark, except for the moon light. The men still had their guns aimed, but they stopped yelling.
"Not exactly," Stiles said. "I was kinda hoping Scott would be here. But I'm glad you all have your guns out. Because you're not here to kill me." He turned around and faced the large window, as four Oni appeared through it. "You're here to protect me."
Stiles walked back behind the Sheriff and Chris, as the Oni drew their swords. Chris stepped forward and pulled the trigger, but all the gun did was click. He pulled it a few more times before tossing it and going for his spare. Then he and the Sheriff began shooting the Oni. Two of them vanished into the shadows.
Allison and I moved behind Chris and the Sheriff, facing the front door, forming a box around Stiles to protect him. The two that had vanished reappeared in front of us. Derek came up next to me as Allison pulled out one of her knives. I glanced at Derek, but his eyes were set on the Oni. The Oni rushed forward as my eyes glowed and I growled.