LYDIA
As Lydia sat there, looking over Jackson, trying to keep her calm, she couldn't help but feel many impulses fighting in her for control. She didn't know if she wanted to embrace him or kiss him or kill him. At the core, however, she was pissed.
When she had been kneeling in the alley and saw Jackson with Danny, Lydia was sure she had to be hallucinating. Jackson wouldn't be in Beacon Hills. He couldn't be. If he was, then he would have called… or at least, she had hoped he would.
If she hadn't been so consumed with anger and confusion, Lydia might not have followed the dup to the shotty looking diner, but she did. After they walked in, she snuck in and tried to stay out of their sight, which had worked.
Once Danny had left, however, Lydia didn't hesitate to move in. She had a lot of things she wanted to say to Jackson.
"Lydia," Jackson said steadily, as if he were tiptoeing over a minefield. Lydia couldn't help but smirk – he should be afraid of her right now. "Lydia, what are you doing here?"
"What am I doing here?" she asked. "I live here. Really, if anyone should be asking, it should be me. What are you doing here?"
"You weren't supposed to know-"
"Evidently," Lydia replied, malice on her tongue. "Jackson, you just suddenly stopped talking to me after you went to London. I had to find out from your parents that you were still alive and at some weird prep school I've never heard of."
"What would the point have been in calling you? Lydia, we broke up, remember?" Jackson replied incredulously.
"We're friends!" Lydia replied, nearly yelling. "You're someone important to me – no, you were someone important to me, until you dropped me like some bad habit. I'm mad because my friend just stopped talking to me out of nowhere. I was afraid something had happened to you!"
Jackson turned away from her then, a look of shame on his face. Lydia exhaled and tried to recompose herself. When she pictured reuniting with Jackson, this hadn't been how it was supposed to go.
"I'm sorry," Jackson replied, rubbing his eyes. "But you really were not supposed to know I was here… Ugh, Leo is going to kill me…"
"Who?" Lydia asked, feigning calmness.
"No one," Jackson replied, shaking his head. "Look, you can continue yelling at me and telling me how awful of a person I have been, because really, I have those things coming, but can you promise you won't tell the others I'm here?"
"What?" Lydia said, confused. "Why do you not want anyone knowing you're here? Are you suddenly on the run from the law?"
"No," Jackson replied with a exasperated tone. "It's just – I can't tell you, okay?"
"What do you know, it sounds like we're getting back to how we used to be," Lydia replied sarcastically. "You sitting in front of me and telling me that you can't tell me something, for whatever dumb reason you have conjured up this time."
"Lydia – okay, I guess that was justified, but I'm not here on personal business. I can't talk about why I'm here," he replied. Lydia wanted to grab a glass of water and toss it at him. She'd never done it, but she was beginning to understand why so many people fantasized about doing it.
"Why?" she asked.
Jackson looked away again and didn't respond. Lydia sat back in her seat, trying to calculate the perfect way to extract the answers from him. She'd been so good at getting him to open up to her, to not always be so hard and rude – well, to anyone who wasn't Danny. He'd always been normal around him.
In the few moments they sat there, silent, Lydia could hear the door of the diner open and close a few times. The place didn't seem like the kind of place you'd think people would visit, but apparently it had a lot of business. Lydia wondered if it had to do with the fact that it was secluded and seemed to house many sketchy looking people in here.
"Jackson," Lydia began, "I'm… I'm just worried, okay? You and I used to be close. Even before we dated, and especially afterwards. But after you left, it seemed like you would call or text me less and less. Eventually, you just stopped. I went the rest of the summer thinking maybe you needed space. But then it continued, and even after talking to your parents and chatting with Danny, I still couldn't get any information out of them other than you were at some 'gifted, prestigious' school. How can you be at some private school when you're a werewolf?"
"I'm not a werewolf," Jackson responded, looking at her.
"Sweetie, I've seen you get all furry and claw-like. I think you're a werewolf," Lyda replied.
"No, I mean, I'm not technically a werewolf…" Jackson replied, to which Lydia crossed her arms.
"I swear if you say were coyote, I will find a glass of water to throw at you."
"What the hell is a werecoyote?" Jackson asked, a familiar look on his face – amusement. "Look, I'll tell you… more, but not here, and not today. But you can't tell anyone I'm-"
Jackson stopped abruptly, looking over Lydia's shoulder, and she sighed. Why did he always have to be so dramatic?
"Fine. If I have to, I will keep your secret for now, but I will eventually have to tell the others," Lydia replied. "Especially with what has been happening here since you left."
When Lydia looked at Jackson, his face was startling. He looked like he was terrified. She didn't see that lack very often.
"Jackson… I mean it," Lydia replied, and reached across the table to grab his hand as a way of reassuring him, but he grabbed her hand faster and looked into her eyes.
"I need you to trust me," Jackson replied. "Right now, no questions, nothing until I say its okay. We need to go. Now."
"Why?" Lydia wanted to ask – but didn't. There was a look in his eye that was beginning to scare her as well. She simply nodded, and she could see that he looked super relieved. He got up from the booth, pulling Lydia up with him, and angled himself away from the entrance.
Lydia looked in the direction Jackson was taking her, and saw there was a back entrance. Why they were going this way – well, Lydia didn't know. She wondered if she really even wanted to know.
They slipped out of the diner easily enough, and once they were out by the desolated back alleyway toward the diner, she could feel Jackson's shoulders lift.
"What was that all about?" Lydia asked.
"There were some people I recognized inside. If they had seen me… well, it would have been bad," Jackson replied his mind seeming to be elsewhere. He kept looking around the alleyway, which unnerved Lydia.
"Jackson… are you actually in some kind of trouble?" Lydia asked. "Look, I know you said you don't want anyone knowing you're here, but maybe if we go to Scott, he could help."
"You have no idea how much part of me wants to do just that," Jackson replied. "I know how much McCall has grown since I've been gone. But-"
"Well, well, well – it seems my eyes are betraying me," a voice sudden said from behind the duo, and as they spun around, Lydia saw a group of strange men and women. There was a man in the front, seeming to be the speaker. "I thought I recognized you. I was hoping that hellbeast the she wolf conjured up had killed you as well as your friend."
"Sorry to say, we didn't plan on dying," Jackson replied through gritted teeth, and immediately moved in front of Lydia, putting her behind him. She wondered why he was shielding her. These people seemed concerning, but there was only five of them. Lydia had seen Scott and Derek both wolf out and take on much more formidable obstacles.
"That's too bad… well, we might as well let you know," the man replied, "you will be dying here, buddy."
Lydia couldn't help it – compared to everything she and her friends had faced, five homely looking people didn't scare her – she began to laugh.
"Lydia," Jackson said through gritted teeth, squeezing her arm as if to silence her. She couldn't understand why he seemed so concerned.
"I'm sorry," Lydia replied, "you people must be really drunk or high or whatever it is you do to have fun on the street. My friend here is much stronger than you think."
"We know all about this little shapeshifters tricks, ma'am," the man replied, now staring at Lydia. The moment he spoke those words, however, she stopped laughing immediately. "But you're not part of this little lady. You may go. No mortal girl should be seen consorting with a monster like him."
"What did you just call him?" Lydia asked, her anger returning. She tried to push past Jackson, but he kept her back. It was then that Lydia began to notice the items the group of strangers were carrying. Weapons, be it knives, guns, bows – they were equipped for a fight.
"You're Hunters," Lydia replied.
"Seems his girl knows a little more than she ought to," one of the females in the group said. "Should we still let her go?"
"As far as I can tell, her only connection to the shewolf is this boy right here. She's innocent, just like the rest of us," the man replied.
"Innocent?!" Jackson yelled. "None of you are innocent. You tried to kill me and my friend when we did nothing to you."
"Your existence is enough to warrant a death sentence, monster!" cried a voice from behind Lydia, and she turned around to see another group of Hunters surrounding them. She realized they were trapped.
"Lydia, you need to leave," Jackson whispered. "They'll let you out. I can handle this."
"I'm not leaving you," she responded, turning away from him and putting her back to his, facing the other group.
"You'll just get in my way if you stay here, Lydia!" Jackson replied angrily.
"Hurry up and get out of the way, girl, or we'll make you move," the main man said.
Lydia didn't know what she should do. These people were all Hunters, probably more skilled and trained than her, and there was at least eleven surrounding her and Jackson. Then again, they all thought she was just some mortal.
The joke was on them.
Lydia decided then that she needed to tap into her scream. But before she could, the Hunters at the other side began rushing towards her and Jackson, and she could hear the ones in front of Jackson doing the same.
"Damn it," Jackson said angrily. She could hear a strange sound coming from him, and when she glanced at him, she saw him changing into his werewolf form.
If Jackson was going to fight, then so was she.