Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf.
CHAPTER 11: Arrow
Derek and Braeden were asleep in bed. The security alarm sounded and they bolted up. They each grabbed their guns and walked to the front door, expecting the worst. Although the dead pool had been stopped, they were not letting their guard down. Derek saw a shadow in the sliver of space between the bottom of the door and the ground. He gestured to Braeden and together, they slid the door wide open and took aim at the intruder. Lydia stood there dripping wet. She let out a loud scream.
A few stories below, Rose and Parrish looked up towards the ceiling. They quickly left and took the stairs to Derek's floor.
"Lydia?" Parrish said when they arrived at Derek's. She was shivering visibly. Rose rubbed the sides of her arms to warm her up.
"It's okay, Lydia. It's okay," she said soothingly.
Parrish took off his jacket and put it around her shoulders. "What happened?" he asked Derek and Braeden.
"She came to the door and started screaming," Derek said. He knew what this meant - his name had unlocked the third part of the dead pool and now Lydia. He was going to die.
"Let's go," Rose said gently to Lydia, guiding her towards the elevator. Parrish followed behind. He apologized to the neighbors who had poked their heads outside to see what the matter was.
Lydia didn't say a word as the three of them went to Rose's loft. Rose lead her to her bedroom and gave her a towel and bathrobe.
"Go and take a shower, I'll wash your clothes for you. There's a hair dryer under the sink." She was about to go back downstairs when Lydia grabbed her wrist.
"Thank you," she said. Rose smiled at her kindly.
Parrish was at the dining room table, cleaning up the scattered papers on it and stacking books on top of each other. They had moved the microscope and everything that had to do with their research downstairs. "We should probably put this stuff away," he told Rose as she made her way down the spiral staircase.
"Good idea."
They had gone back to Rose's after the eventful night at the police station. Parrish wasn't pleased that Rose had drugged his fellow deputy. He woke up Marcus and released him from his duty of guarding Rose, explaining that she was no longer in danger. When the disgruntled cop left, Rose told Parrish about meeting Deaton and what he did to her blood. Rose was researching wolfsbane - how to cultivate it properly, legends about it, its cellular structure - and Parrish was reading into supernatural creatures that could withstand fire when they heard Lydia's scream.
Rose went into the kitchen and prepared some soup. She took Lydia's wet clothes and put them in the washer along with some of her dirty clothes.
"Did you hear her scream?" Rose asked Parrish. "I've never heard anything like that before."
"I think that's part of her abilities," Parrish said. "Banshees can predict deaths."
"So you mean she was predicting Derek's death?" Rose bit her lip and started pacing. "Derek can't die."
"He won't," Parrish reassured. "Scott won't let that happen."
Lydia climbed down the stairs in Rose's bathrobe.
"You're welcome to stay here," Rose told her. "It's still raining outside and it's late. Do your parents know where you are?"
"My mom is in LA for the weekend," Lydia said.
"Then you should definitely stay."
"Sorry for ruining your night," Lydia apologized, looking from Rose to Parrish.
"You didn't," Parrish said. "We were just...hanging out."
Rose transferred the laundry into the dryer and went to the kitchen. She brought out three bowls of soup on a serving tray and a pack of sodas. "I made us some soup. It's ramen, Japanese noodles."
They gathered around the coffee table where she sat the tray down.
"And you learned to make Japanese noodle soup how?" Parrish said, blowing on the soup and sipping on it. "It's good."
"I dated a Japanese guy in college and he introduced me to it," Rose said. She noticed Lydia hadn't touched her bowl. "You okay, Lydia?"
"I keep hearing things," she said. "I thought it would stop since the dead pool is done. But I keep hearing things."
Parrish shifted in his seat. "When you screamed earlier, was it because you think Derek will die?"
Lydia nodded. "It's just like Allison all over again."
Rose looked up at her at the sound of Allison's name. She vividly remembered her dream.
"I knew she was going to die," Lydia continued, tears forming in her eyes as she recalled the memory. "I tried to tell her to not come find me, but she didn't listen. She died in Scott's arms. She loved him until the very end."
Rose and Parrish stayed silent. This was the first time Rose heard exact details of Allison's death. It must have been hard for Scott to watch his first love die.
Lydia wiped away a tear and started eating her soup. They ate in silence until she stood up suddenly. She walked around the loft, as if she were searching for something.
Rose and Parrish looked at each other in alarm. "Lydia, what's wrong?" Parrish asked.
"I hear someone," Lydia said, almost whispering. "Someone's trying to tell me something."
Rose gulped. She was a firm believer in ghosts and hated the thought of one haunting her home.
Lydia walked to the hallway closet, opened the door, and found Rose's archery equipment. She pulled one of the arrows out of the quiver and brought the arrowhead close to her ear.
Rose and Parrish followed her and watched her from down the hall. Lydia hit the arrowhead softly against the doorframe of the closet. She brought it back to her ear and listened. Her eyes widened and they wondered what she heard. Lydia hit the arrowhead again with more force and listened to the vibrations once more.
She turned to look at the other two. "We have to go to the cemetery." She walked towards the front door.
"Wait Lydia," Rose called after her. "At least put on some underwear."
Twenty minutes later, Rose parked outside the Beacon Hills Cemetery. The rain had calmed down and there was only a slight drizzle. Lydia led the way through the mass of gravestones, followed by Parrish, with a hesitant Rose in the back, all with flashlights and umbrellas in their hands. Lydia slipped on the wet grass and fell backwards. She was saved by Parrish who sprang forward and stabilized her.
"Thanks," she said. "We're almost there."
"Do we really have to do this?" Rose complained behind her friends. "This is crazy!"
Lydia stopped in front of one of the gravestones. She shined her flashlight on the name.
ALLISON GISELLE ARGENT
"Why are we here?" Parrish asked. Lydia hadn't said a word of explanation about their last-minute adventure and his patience was running thin.
"Allison told me to come here," Lydia said. "That Rose needed to have something."
Rose remembered Allison giving her an arrow in her dream. She shivered. "Let's just come back in the morning. It's too dark to see anyway."
"Are you scared?" Parrish asked her.
"Of course I am. Aren't you? We're in the cemetery in the middle of the night!"
Parrish shined his flashlight on the tombstone at the inscription under the date of birth and death.
BELOVED DAUGHTER AND FRIEND
ALWAYS IN OUR HEARTS
"Where is it?" he asked Lydia.
She put her umbrella and flashlight down, kneeled, and started to dig the muddy earth around the tombstone. Parrish joined her, while Rose stood above them with the flashlight.
"You can't do that!" Rose exclaimed. She wasn't the most religious person but she did believe in God and an afterlife. And she definitely believed you shouldn't mess with the final resting place of the deceased. "You're desecrating her grave! Let's just go, please! Lydia, stop!" she pleaded.
Lydia removed a potted flower in front of the tombstone and started to dig with her hands. Almost immediately, she felt something hard. "It's here!" Together, she and Parrish shoveled mud out of the way with their hands, revealing a stick poking out of the ground.
"What is it?" Parrish asked.
"It's the end of an arrow," Lydia said.
Rose's stomach dropped. Her dream was coming true. Somehow, Allison had connected with her and she was now going to receive the arrow the late huntress wanted to give her.
After several attempts and more digging, Parrish pulled the arrow out of the grave. The trio shined their lights on the arrow to examine it.
"There it is," Rose said, her heart beating so fast she thought she was going to have a heart attack. She showed her friends the fleur-de-lis stamped on the arrowhead.
"A fleur-de-lis?" Parrish asked.
"It's the sign of the Argents," Rose said. "I saw this arrow in a dream."
When they got back into Rose's car, she explained her dream and Allison's message.
"This is too weird," Parrish said. The more he knew about the supernatural world, the more he wished he could un-know everything.
"I think this is the silver arrowhead Allison made," Lydia said, examining the tip of the arrow once more. "When a hunter graduates, they make a silver bullet, but Allison wanted to make this instead. I thought they used all of them up when they fought the Oni, but this one must have gotten left behind."
"From the looks of it, this might have been a trial run," Parrish said. "Look at the fleur-de-lis. It's kind of smudged right here." He pointed at the imperfection with his muddy finger.
"But how did it get in the grave?" Rose asked.
No one had an answer.
Early the next morning, Scott woke up and shut his alarm off. Even though it was the weekend, he needed to wake up early to prepare for the rescheduled PSAT and his physics exam the following Monday. Then he needed to think of a way to impress Kira for their first date. He also had to drop by Derek's and give back the money he took from Garrett's locker. He had been horrified to see his mother standing over the duffel bag that held the cash when he got home last night. She told him it had to go back to Derek.
Scott washed his face and looked at himself in the mirror. He shifted to this wolf form and looked for anything different. Last night, he thought he was going to kill an assassin. It felt a lot like his dream when he was slashing the Mute before Allison stopped him. He opened his mouth and examined his fangs for any changes. If Stiles and Malia hadn't stopped the dead pool in time, who knows what Scott would have done?
He remembered what Deaton had warned before he, Stiles, and Allison "sacrificed" themselves in order to save their parents from the Darach. He had told them that they would feel a darkness around their hearts. Scott realized it was finally happening to him.
"Morning, sweetheart," Melissa greeted her son when he joined her in the kitchen. Scott could sense she was nervous about something. She put a bowl of cereal and a banana in front of him. "I want to ask you about something."
She went to her purse on the kitchen counter and took out a folded piece of paper. She unfolded it and gave it to Scott. "I found this at the printer at work." It was the Allison dead pool list.
Scott felt himself panicking. He did not want to have this conversation with his mother yet. "It's fine, Mom. Stiles and Malia stopped the dead pool and the Benefactor was caught last night. You don't have to worry about it anymore."
He started eating his cereal and hoped his answer would pacify her.
"I'm glad it's over, but there's something else I wanted to talk to you about. I saw Rose's name."
Scott looked at his mom in anticipation. "You did?"
"Yeah," she said, putting her hand over his. "Now you know the truth."
"You knew I had a sister?" Scott exclaimed. "How?"
"When Rose shot herself, the doctors found out she had a rare blood disorder. It's genetic and I knew your father had it, too."
Scott's head started to hurt. "Does he know, too?"
"No," Melissa replied. "After finding out about the blood disorder, I asked Gloriana about it and she finally told me about her past with your father. When I started dating him, she begged him to pretend they didn't know each other, and your father granted her request. She told me it was just a brief summer fling and that she truly believed Rose wasn't his daughter. I brought up the fact that Rose's disorder was genetic and we had a paternity test done in secret. It came out positive.
Gloriana was in tears. She said Rose could never find out. Your father and I were separated and he was living in San Francisco at the time. I wanted to tell him, but your tia said she would tell him when the time was right. I agreed that she should be the one to say it. I just didn't know it would take her years."
"So what are you gonna do now that Rose knows?" Scott asked.
"Your tia called me yesterday and she's planning to tell your father. How's Rose doing? I've tried calling her, but she's not picking up."
Scott tried calling her himself but only got her voicemail. "I'll bring her here," he said. "I'm gonna drop by Derek's to give back the money and see if she's at home."
He finished his breakfast and drove his motorcycle to the lofts. Scott dropped the duffel bag of money on Derek's coffee table. "Sorry it took so long to return it to you."
Derek looked at him with understanding. "I get it, Scott. You may be the True Alpha, but that amount of money would tempt anyone."
"You're not mad?" Scott was sure he was going to get yelled at.
"No," Derek said. "The money is all Peter's anyway. It would probably be a good thing if we didn't get it back."
"And where's your money?" Scott asked before he could stop himself. He couldn't help but notice that Derek didn't seem to have a job.
"You're standing on it," Derek said. "I own the building and a few other properties. I have some investments and mutual funds, some bank accounts. My mother passed everything down to Laura and me after the fire."
"I know Lydia was here last night. Rose told me," Scott said. Rose had texted him late last night, saying they had to find a solution before Derek was killed. "I'm sure Deaton can fix whatever Kate did to you."
"I need to go down and see Rose," Derek said. He knew she must have been angry at him for bailing on their plan to stop the Benefactor.
"I need to go see her, too," Scott said.
On their way down, they ran into Stiles who was stepping off the elevator.
"What are you doing here?" Scott asked.
"We might have stopped the dead pool, but I still want to know what Rose is and why she was so special for Meredith to want her captured instead of killed. It's all too weird, don't you think?" They rang the doorbell.
"I've already tried using mountain ash and she was able to cross it," Derek said. "I don't think she's supernatural."
Rose answered the door and let them inside. Lydia was in the kitchen cutting fruit.
"Did you stay here last night?" Scott asked.
"I did," Lydia replied. "We have lots to talk about."
They all brought each other up to speed about fighting the assassins in Argent's warehouse, how Stiles and Malia found the dead pool machine in Lorraine Martin's lake house, and how Peter was the mastermind behind the list.
"So where's Peter now?" Scott asked. He looked at Derek for an answer.
"I don't know," Derek said. "He hasn't been staying with me for awhile now. We barely even talk."
"I guess I owe you an apology," Stiles said to Rose. "I was kinda trying to convince everyone that you were the Benefactor."
"Oh yeah, that makes sense. I just wanted all the werewolves in Beacon Hills dead. Especially my cousin and my best friend," Rose said sarcastically.
"I was just trying to connect the dots!" Stiles said. "I'll get you another cupcake so we're even, okay?"
"Absolutely not. There might be a day when I'll need your help. I'll collect then," Rose said to him.
Lydia told them what Meredith said about Rose being "the flower."
"The flower," Scott repeated. "Because her name is Rose? And how did you make the Alpha strong?"
"I don't know," Rose said. "I don't remember ever making Mrs. Hale or Laura stronger."
They all looked at Derek. "If I knew what that meant, I would've already known what Rose was."
"Derek, remember prom night? Remember when I shot you with that arrow? All those events seem jumbled up in my mind," Rose said.
"So what?" Derek said, not catching on.
"I saw Dr. Deaton last night. He said Laura took away our memories. Whatever I did in the past to make her stronger, she wanted us to forget."
Derek tried to remember what Rose could have done. "I guess that's possible."
"Remember when Deucalion took Isaac's memory?" Scott said. "Deaton used ice water to get him to remember. So it's possible to recover lost memories."
"So whatever Rose can do, she's done it before. That's why she was on the dead pool wanted alive - so that Peter could use her to get stronger," Stiles concluded. "I guess my theories were wrong, then."
"What theories?" Lydia asked him.
"I was thinking about what kind of supernatural Rose is," he said. "I thought she was a siren or a succubus."
"A mermaid? Really Stiles?" Rose asked.
"What are those?" Scott asked.
"A siren is a mermaid that sings to sailors, distracting them and causing them to die in a shipwreck, and a succubus is an enchantress who seduces men and eventually kills them by feeding off their energy," Stiles explained.
"And why did you think Rose was those things?" Derek said. Rose crossed her arms and waited for Stile's reasoning, interested in what he had to say.
"As long as I've known Rose, guys have been chasing her. I even had a crush on her in the first grade. I thought she had some kind of control over men or something. Plus, she sings."
"That's not true," Rose argued.
"When was your last boyfriend?" Stiles asked, ready to prove his point.
"We broke up about three months ago."
"Exactly! You always have a boyfriend and now you're probably gonna seduce Derek and suck the life out of him which is why his name unlocked the third list!" Stiles said.
"I'm not a siren or a succubus!" Rose said in frustration. "That has nothing to do with strengthening the Alpha."
"Then we need to help you remember what happened in the past," Scott said.
"There's another thing I need to tell you guys," Lydia said. "Parrish, Rose, and I went to the cemetery last night. We found an arrow in Allison's grave. She told me that Rose needed it."
Rose explained her dream about Allison and how it was the same arrow. She also told them about her dream with Mrs. Hale.
"That's the real reason why I came back," Rose confessed. "I need to save Derek."
"So you're a banshee," Scott said. "Maybe not like Lydia, but you can talk to the dead." It gave him peace knowing that Allison was trying to help them.
"She can cross mountain ash, though," Derek said. "If she was a banshee, she would've felt a barrier."
Lydia shook her head no. "That's not true. I can touch mountain ash. I'm immune to it."
"Then that's it," Stiles said. "Rose is a banshee and she helped Derek's sister and made her stronger. But you know what I don't get - how did Rose dream about Allison when they've never met?"
"Who cares," Derek said.
"But it doesn't make sense. When we dream about people, it's people we've seen before. Our minds can't just make up faces."
"Who has a picture of her?" Rose asked.
Lydia showed her a picture of Allison on her phone. "Is this who you saw?"
Rose studied the photo. "It was definitely her. Look, I don't know how she was able to get to me, but Allison did and now I have the arrow. And I think I know exactly who I'm going to use it on."
"Who?" Scott asked.
"Kate."
When everyone got up to leave, Scott stayed behind to talk to Rose.
"My mother wants to see you. She's not angry at you. In fact, she's known since you were a teenager," Scott said.
"Really?" Rose asked. "But she never treated me differently. Are you sure?"
"Just come home with me," Scott said. "You need to talk to her."
Derek did a few more pull-ups before taking a break. He was back at his loft thinking about his sister taking his memories. He tried to remember exactly what happened when Rose shot him that had caused a rift in their friendship. Was it an accident? Did they have an argument that lead up to it? Were they in the woods, at school, at the Hale House? Derek didn't know any of the answers and was getting more convinced that it was true.
If that was the case, why did Laura feel the need to make them forget? He knew his sister would do anything to protect him. Was she trying to protect him from Rose? Did Rose do something that hurt them?
If she did, then it had to have been an accident. Rose was a strong ally to Laura. His sister had relied on her heavily after the fire. He knew Rose would never have purposely done anything to hurt them.
Whatever happened, there had to have been a good reason for Laura to take their memories. Derek was determined to find out the secret.
Rose stood outside on her balcony, watering the wolfsbane plants. She thought about Deaton's words to her the night before - that the wolfsbane was part of her now. The more they discussed what kind of supernatural she was, the more she felt that everything came back to what happened on prom night. She knew her being on the list had something to do with the wolfsbane in her blood. It made sense that she and Derek couldn't remember what happened if Laura had taken their memories.
"The flower that made the Alpha strong," she said to herself. She looked down at the wolfsbane. "The flower..."
Everything made sense to her now. She called Parrish to share the news.
"Jordan," she said when he picked up. "Where are you?"
"I'm trying to find Peter," Parrish said. "I think he's up to something. What's wrong?"
"I think I know what my blood does, why I was worth $20 million," she said excitedly. "It was so obvious, I can't believe I didn't see it before. Can you meet me later? I'll explain everything. I have to go talk to my aunt soon, but we need to see Marin Morrell."
Scott and Kira were making out on Derek's couch. Scott was glad they finally had the chance to just be normal teenagers and not worry about Benefactors or dead pools. He was determined to be good to Kira and to make up for all the time they lost dealing with their supernatural problems. Kira was important to him and he wanted to make her a priority in his life. He hadn't felt this way about anyone since Allison and it felt nice.
Scott heard something approaching and broke their kiss. The sound of glass breaking made his heart jump to his throat. They turned to the window and saw Kate in her were-jaguar form with one of her berserkers. She had a manic look in her eyes and bared her fangs at them, ready to tear them apart. Scott shifted and together, he and Kira prepared to fight.
Parrish wasn't picking up his phone or answering Rose's texts. She looked at her watch impatiently and decided that she had to leave without him. It was nearing the time for their meeting with Morrell. It was the night of Scott's game and she had wanted to cheer him on, but she didn't want to miss the opportunity of meeting with Morrell. Rose was scared that Derek would drop dead at any moment and was desperate for some answers. She needed to figure out how to save him when that time came.
She had considered telling Derek she might have found a way to get his powers back but decided against it. As much as she wanted to tell him what was going on, she knew it was better to explain everything to him once she knew for sure what her blood could do.
She drove to a small community just outside of Beacon Hills and found Morrell's house. It was a one story with a clean lawn and fresh flowers planted in the front. Morrell greeted her at the door and took her to the kitchen.
"Thanks again for meeting with me. I really need your help," Rose said.
"Alan told me about your blood and how it might help Derek's condition."
"He said that the wolfsbane was part of me and Meredith said she put me on the dead pool because I was the flower and that I made the Alpha strong. I think she meant that I was wolfsbane and from what I know of it, wolfsbane hurts and heals werewolves," Rose said. She had been concentrating on the harmful effects on werewolves and completely disregarded its healing abilities until just recently.
"That's right," Morrell agreed. "It has dual properties and can be manipulated to act as a weapon or a medicine."
"I think after I got shot by Kate Argent, my blood became like wolfsbane. Maybe Derek and Laura got hurt and I was able to cure them with my blood. Maybe it did something to Laura that made her stronger. But something must have gone wrong, so she took the memories about the whole thing away from Derek and me." Rose was sure she was right. The pieces were finally falling into place. She just had to recover what Laura took to get the whole picture.
"It's an interesting theory," Morrell said. "It's definitely worth looking into. If we can make your blood into a medicine, we might be able to save Derek."
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I would love to know what you guys think will happen next. Why did Laura take Derek's and Rose's memories? Please review!