Chapter 3

Stiles stalked into the empty locker room, head hung low on his drooping shoulders. The practice had gone badly. Scott had gone with Allison and Isaac for some work and that had left Stiles fending for himself. Usually he did fine but today his focus was somewhere else and thus he had taken quite a beating, in the spirit of the game, of course. He sat down on the bench and scratched his head dejectedly. Scott had pointedly told him to stay of out this but being Stiles, he couldn't really stay out of trouble, could he? And his spidey senses were tingling, to put it in a way.

Ever since Allison had spoken about the new hunter, he had been on edge. Something deep inside his stomach told him that the hunter was bad news. Though Allison had said that hunters can't encroach upon the area demarcated by other hunters according to the code; and that Beacon Hills belonged to the legendary Argents, whom no one messed with, Stiles could not help but feel a kind of worry for his best friend. It was to ease his worry that Isaac volunteered to secretly oversee the weapons deal with the Argents and John Walsh. Scott was adamant that Isaac should not go alone and went with them, leaving Stiles in the relative safety of their school. But Stiles was still not fully satisfied.

He was drawn from his reverie suddenly when he heard footsteps coming into the locker room. Stiles reluctantly craned his neck to see Danny come in. He was taking off his helmet and wiping his sweaty forehead. He saw Stiles, he just said a "hey", carrying on with ridding himself of the heavy gear. Stiles dropped his head, and sighing got up to change. It was a silent few minutes before Stiles felt Danny's eyes upon him.

"What?" he turned to Danny.

Danny shrugged, "Nothing."

Stiles could see that it was not 'nothing' from the way Danny shuffled on his feet so he kept staring at the other boy with his eyebrows raised and in about five seconds, Danny caved in.

"Okay, so I know about Scott." Stiles raised eyebrows further up, not really knowing what to say.

Danny saw that and quickly added, "And about Ethan and Aiden and Isaac. I'm pretty much up to date."

"Oh? Ok that's good to know I guess?" Stiles muttered, unsure of himself.

"But can you tell me exactly why Ethan and Aiden are so freaked out?"

That took Stiles completely by surprise. He didn't know that. Well, he knew but he didn't seem to think it was important. But when Danny brought it up, it suddenly became of consequence. Something was definitely happening with the twins and Stiles needed to find out what.

"What happened?" Stiles asked, hovering around Danny, who had taken his seat on the bench.

"Well, yesterday after Ethan returned, we went back to his place. We were just hanging around you know but Aiden came in, he was really flustered. In fact, turned out that he couldn't remember my scent –"he stopped, unsure of how to go on. Stiles nodded encouragingly. After all, he knew it takes practice to get used to having friends pick out your 'scent'. It worked and Danny continued, "—yeah, so he didn't recognise my 'scent' and barged in with eyes glowing, his fangs and claws all out, you know! He thought something happened to Ethan. It took us around 10 minutes to calm him down! What is going on with them?"

Stiles's head was reeling by now. Shit, they asked them for help. Maybe, just maybe they were in trouble, biiiig trouble and they actually did need help. Stiles grunted exasperatedly and pulled out his phone from his locker.

"What are you doing?" Danny's voice asked over his shoulder.

"Calling Scott. He needs to know this."

Scott picked up after 4 rings.

"Hey, we're fine." His voice reported over the phone.

"Yeah, I know," Stiles said, the relief evident in his voice but he continued, "But the twins aren't."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean they might really be in trouble you know? Danny says they are really freaked out about something –"

"Wait, Danny?"

Stiles allowed himself a small smile. "He knows."

"Oh! Ok so what did he say?"

"He said that the twins are going really crazy. He said Aiden was freaked out enough to have wolfed out in front of Danny, eyes glowing red and all –"

"Blue."

Stiles stopped midsentence. He knew Scott was listening with rapt silence. Danny's interruption had surprised them both.

"What..?" Stiles looked at Danny quizzically.

"Their eyes glow blue, not red", Danny stated.

"Are you sure?" Stiles asked, the events of the previous morning falling into place.

Danny rolled his eyes, "Ethan is my boyfriend! Yes, I'm sure!"

Stiles turned back to his phone and added in a softer tone, "Scott, the twins aren't alphas anymore." He knew what Scott was thinking despite the heavy silence. The twins are in serious trouble and not strong enough to defend themselves.

Aiden lightly kicked a scrap rusted tin can out of the way. They were at a distillery, or what used to be one but hadn't been anything more than a useless shed for a long while. Ethan followed him examining the old, mouldy walls. His eyes landed on the fractral circle pattern that vaguely resembled the Fibonacci graph on a steel wall.

The Hale's revenge symbol.

Ethan's muscles tensed and he nudged his brother's attention to that. Aiden eyed it wearily, "No, he wouldn't do that to us. We helped them."

Ethan took a deep breath, "They refused to accept us into the pack."

"Yes, but they wouldn't kill us. Not like this anyway. Besides, this looks very old," Aiden said, pointing to the marking on the metal.

Ethan nodded. "I wonder why Scott wants to meet."

"We'll find out," Aiden said, as he picked up footsteps right outside the distillery. Ethan too had heard it but they both stiffed slightly when they realized that there was only one pair of boots approaching.

"I thought Scott and Derek were coming."

Ethan shrugged; his eyes scanning the door way when suddenly, his expression darkened, and eyes grew wide with pure terror. It was in that very moment that familiar and dreaded scent reached Aiden and he turned to see what his brother perceived.

"How is that possible?" Ethan whispered, his words shaking, claws out in defence.

The man standing in front of them laughed. He was strong built, about six feet tall.

"Good to see you remember, boys," he sneered.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Aiden shouted, barely able to mask his terror in anger.

"Just paying you a visit. I don't want my boys to forget me, do I?"

"We aren't your boys, John!"

"Oh yes, you are my foster boys. As far as I remember, you killed my boys," the man said, his voice now menacing. The initial sugar coated voice now gave way to it true colour, the ruthless and lethal tones of determination lining it. He reached inside his overcoat and brought out what looked like a small round object.

Before the twins could even realize what's going on, John had lobbed the grenade towards them.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? I promise that the next chapter will be action packed but till then, plz do tell me what you think! read and review!