Summary: There's just no way to make a choice like this. Is there?
Stiles sat speechless.
Stunned.
Turning the words he'd just heard over and over in his mind, trying to make sense of them.
He couldn't.
It took him several efforts before he gathered enough spit in his parched mouth to make his tongue move, to force words out of his throat.
"Why ... why are you doing this?"
The man looked at him with something which almost seemed like pity on his face. Only, Stiles knew that wasn't possible. Pity was an emotion these men were incapable of. Pity had nothing to do with the words he'd just heard.
"Why?" The man cocked his head, giving Stiles another long, scrutinizing look before he continued. "Simple, kid. Because we can. And because this is the only way this is gonna end. With you and that monster dead."
Stiles flinched, trying to back away as far as possible when the man suddenly hunched over and placed both hands on the chair in which the boy had been strapped down.
"The only choice you're getting is the manner in which the mutt dies."
Shaking his head, trying to wet his lips, Stiles tried to convey his inability to understand. The man picked up on it.
"Call it ... a courtesy. To you, because you're human." He scoffed. "Well, barely human, seeing how you've been running with these creatures." The man stepped back. "We'll give you an hour to think it over."
Stiles watched in silence as the men stepped through the door out into the hallway, then slumped down in the chair. An hour. An hour in which he had to make a decision over Derek's life. No, that wasn't right.
Over Derek's death.