And make decisions that you think are your own:
Your grandfather comes for Kate's funeral, and even amidst the photographers and his gentle introduction, you can tell he's dangerous. You know he and your father don't get along, and he's clearly trying to get on your good side, which can't be good. You suspect he's even more bloodthirsty than your parents.
But whatever, you'll do your best to stay out of it, play the over-sensitive, animal-rights supporting teenager. Hopefully, he'll end up just as disgusted with you as your parents are and have no interest in making a hunter out of you.
The next day is when everything changes.
"Nice jacket," you say when you sit down next Isaac in French class. It's a little big for him, but it's nice to see him wearing something other than that worn-down hoodie. His black eye is gone too, and that's nice to see as well. Even though it doesn't change anything, you always like it when his injuries heal. It feels like getting another chance, even though he never does.
Isaac gives you a very strange look, searching for something in your face.
"What?" you say, frowning.
He turns away from you then and refuses to speak to you all class. You try and catch him after class, but he ignores you, and you can't find him during lunch. By then it's pretty obvious he's avoiding you, but why? Did...did you do something? You can't think of anything you did out of the ordinary. You're pretty upset by the end of the day, and furious at him and yourself. You haven't had a friend in more than a year. Why do you care so much? And more importantly, why has he decided all of the sudden to ditch you?
You don't find out until the end of the day. When you see Isaac get into a car with Derek Hale.
You stand on the sidewalk outside of the school, frozen in horror, unable to feel anything but the scream rising in the back of your throat.
"What the hell?!" you hear Scott McCall yell, barreling out of the school doors past you, fury all over his face. "Derek, what did you do?!"
He goes up right to Derek's car and you can't hear what he's saying but he looks livid. You're too numb to register what this means. None of them seem to notice you, so you stumble to your car, and get inside with shaking hands. You sit down, shut the door, tears welling in your eyes and let out a truly pathetic sob. You grip the steering wheel, suddenly having difficulty getting air into your lungs, and sob, pressing your face into plastic. You don't know how long you sit there, but when you finally sit up the school parking lot is mostly empty.
"I...I have to go home," you say to yourself, rubbing your wet eyes. Your hands shake as you start the car, and you pull out of the parking lot extra slowly, not trusting yourself.
You're such an idiot, you realize as you make your way home. Respect his wishes?! Isaac wasn't like you! Your parents may be murderers, but they've never hit you, not like Isaac's father did. You're not the same. How could you think for one second you were? Were you so desperate for companionship that you deluded yourself into thinking it was okay that Isaac didn't want anyone to know? You should have told someone. You should have told someone and gotten him the hell out of there. Yeah, maybe it would've been foster care and he would probably never have forgiven you, but at least he'd be alive.
Your parents are going to find out. They already know about Derek Hale and he hadn't even been subtle today, picking up Isaac from school. You guess this means Derek killed Peter and became an alpha himself. Will he make more? You don't care. It's too late for that. Your parents are going to find out and then they're going to kill Isaac.
You get home faster than you should- you were speeding and you're pretty sure you ran at least two red lights- and stumble out of your car. Thoughts of taking one of Kate's guns and shooting Derek Hale in the head flit through your mind, but mostly all you want to do is curl up in your bed and cry.
"How was your day?" your mother asks from the living room where she's sitting with Gerard going over some paperwork. Neither of them look up at you.
You burst into tears.
"Allison!" your mother says, sounding shocked. She gets up and wraps her arms around you, asking you what's wrong, what happened, but you can't tell her. You bury your head in her shoulder and cry and cry, because your parents are going to kill your only friend, and there isn't anything you can do to stop them.
Later, when you're tucked safely under the covers, both of your parents come into your room with serious looks on their faces. Your hands curl into fists and you resist the urge to back away from them. You know, intellectually, that they would never hurt you, but you haven't felt safe with them for a long time now.
"Allison, what happened?" your father says, an angry look on his face, like he thinks something might have happened at school. He's right.
Your mother sits down beside you on the bed and strokes your bangs off your forehead. You thought they'd be angry at you at your outburst, but they just look worried. For a split second you want to tell them everything. Explain that Isaac's father was hitting him and Derek Hale took advantage of that. Swear that he'd never hurt anyone. But they hadn't shown any mercy to Emily Doroshenko, even as she begged for her life. You cannot trust them with Isaac's.
"Is this about Kate?" your mother asks, softly.
You close your eyes and nod, glad to have an out.
"You have to be strong, Allison," your mother tells you, shaking your shoulder a little bit. "I know what people must be saying, but you have to remember that they don't know what they're talking about. They don't know you."
You don't care about Kate right now. You can't. Kate is dead and there's nothing you can do about that. Isaac is still alive, but you're not sure how much longer he will be.
"I don't want to talk about this right now," you murmur and roll over away from them, pressing your face into your pillow.
"I know," your father says, sounding intensely uncomfortable. "You don't...you don't have to talk about it with us. But your mother and I were talking, and we think it might be best if you talk to someone."
It takes a second for you to realize what he means, and you almost laugh at the irony. They must think you're doing really badly if they're the ones suggesting therapy. Your parents hate overly emotional discussions and you would guess they find the idea of sending their daughter to therapy distasteful. Maybe you should've pretended you have friends.
"I don't care," you say truthfully, not bothering to raise your head. "Leave me alone."
They do. You hate that you can never manage to hate them.
You don't want to go to school the next day. Last night was the full moon, and if anyone's dead, you don't want to know about it. You stay home, buried in your bed under your covers and your misery. You wonder if you could get your parents to send you away to boarding school. You doubt it. You tried before, but they didn't like the idea of not being able to keep an eye on you. Now that you're apparently a headcase they'll like the idea even less. Maybe if you could somehow convince your therapist that it's a good idea...
You want to stay home the next day too, but your father puts his foot down, and you find yourself walking up to the school door, dread filling your stomach. You couldn't even eat this morning you were so scared and now you feel like your insides are staging a rebellion. You don't see Isaac until Chemistry. He's sitting with some blonde girl you don't recognize, so you end up with Lydia Martin, who also pretends you don't exist. You spend the entire class trying not to stare at the back of Isaac's head, and you can't help but notice Scott and Stiles glaring at Isaac furiously. It make you feel a little better, just a little, to know that you're not the only one horrified at the idea of Derek Hale turning your friend into a werewolf. You leave the cafeteria quickly after you finish lunch, but apparently you weren't the only one with that idea, because you walk right into a confrontation between Scott, Isaac, and the blonde girl he sat next to in Chemistry.
"-ell Derek that he even thinks about biting one more person-" Scott is saying angrily, fists clenched at his side.
"You'll what?" Isaac scoffs, looking contemptuous and carefree. Was he always so tall? He must have been, but you never noticed before. His face is barely recognizable to you. His soft looks are replaced by cruel smirks and you wonder if the human part of you dies when you become a werewolf. If your friend is already dead. "How are you going to stop us?"
"He's using you," Scott replies furiously. "He's just trying to add to his own power. Don't you see that?"
"Oh, please, like you really care," the blonde girl says, looking annoyed. "Cut the noble act. If you want to be strong, you should join us too."
"That's not going to happen," Scott retorts, teeth clenched. "Tell Derek, I want to-"
He stops suddenly and turns to look at her. Shit.
"You want something, sweetheart?" the blonde girl says, red lips curling into a cruel smirk. She saunters over in front of you and there's something about her face that looks familiar, but you can't place it.
"No," you say coolly, not daring to look at Isaac.
"Then fuck off," she says disdainfully. The shirt she's wearing is ridiculous. You've never seen cleavage like that on a sixteen year old before. What does she have in there, a whole box of tissues?
You bite the inside of your cheek to prevent yourself from saying something you might regret, something about your family and wolfsbane. Instead you just stare her down.
"You stupid or something?" she snaps, taking a step forward.
"Erica," Scott and Isaac says warningly at the same time.
Erica? You think? Erica Reyes? The girl with the medical condition and crazy hair who rarely participates in Gym and wears sweats everyday? She's unrecognizable as a werewolf. Did it cure her?
You look at Isaac, but he avoids your eye. "C'mon, let's go," he says dismissively. "This is a waste of time."
He doesn't even glance at you as he passes, and you're shocked by how much that hurts.
"Whatever," Erica mutters, rolling her eyes, leaving you and Scott behind. You don't turn around to watch them walk down the hallway, but you hear Isaac laugh at something Erica says, and God, that cuts deep.
"Are you okay?" Scott asks you worriedly, and you blink furiously, realizing your eyes have filled with tears.
"Fine," you say angrily, wiping them away. Haven't you cried enough over the past few days?
"I'm sorry, they're..." Scott says lamely, looking concerned. "I don't know what's going on with them."
"Right," you say dully and turn and walk away, because you probably shouldn't be talking to him anyway.
Being around your parents and Gerard is excruciating. They all look at you as if you might shatter any second and they keep asking if you're feeling okay, like you have the flu or something. Gerard corners you after dinner and makes some speech about the importance of family that you zone out through, nodding and yes-ing at the appropriate intervals. Family, yeah, right. You can't trust anyone right now.
It only gets worse the next day when Erica and Isaac are joined by another boy, the big black kid who always got a whole table at lunch to himself because everyone was too afraid to ask him to move. When you were still talking, Isaac told you that someone said something about his sister once and he punched them and now everyone was afraid of him.
This can't be happening, you think numbly, watching Erica, Isaac, and the black kid walk down the hallways together with arrogant smirks and leather jackets. What is Derek doing? How many is he going to make? Why are they all sophomores? Does he have more outside the school, or is it just them? Does it have to do with Scott, who clearly wants no part in this?
You don't know what to do. This is getting ridiculous. When your parents find out-and they will find out, they're not even trying to be subtle-what are they going to do, kill all of them? You're going to go mad, you think during Chemistry, as you stare at Erica and Isaac's twin blonde heads in front of you, Stiles and Scott across the aisle, whispering together furiously. You're in hell. You have no power, no information, no way out, and pretty soon people are going to die. After Chemistry is over you head straight to the bathroom, fighting the tears welling up in your eyes until you can lock yourself in a bathroom stall, but when you get to the girl's bathroom Lydia Martin, who wasn't in Chemistry today, is standing in front of the mirror, fixing her make-up, mascara lines down her face from tears.
"Can I get a little privacy in here?!" she snaps at you, even though it's a public bathroom, and you turn and walk out immediately, resisting the urge to punch a locker.
You have got to be kidding me, you think, digging your nails into your palms all through Econ. Your life is falling apart and Lydia is sobbing over her stupid boyfriend? Or maybe it's that everyone thinks she's a nutcase now. Whatever.
By lunch you can't stand it anymore. You'll go insane if you spend one more day like this, not having any clue what's going on. You don't have any choice but to get involved.
"What the hell is going on?" you ask, slamming your tray down next to Stiles and sitting down next to him, across from Scott.
"Wh-What?" Scott says, exchanging a confused glance with his friend. "What do you mean?"
"Is Derek Hale insane?" you ask, getting straight to the point. "Is he rabid? Having difficulty keeping his teeth to himself? Where does he get off biting half the sophomore class? Does he have a death wish?"
Scott gapes at you while Stiles chokes on his baked beans. "Y-You know?!" Stiles says, flailing a bit in his seat. "How the hell-"
"Yes, because you all are very subtle," you retort, wanting to get this part over with. You're not here to shock them with your unexpected knowledge. You're here for answers.
"Do your parents know?" Scott asks urgently, eyes widening in horror.
"I don't know," you say, shaking your head. "They know about Derek Hale, obviously, and he's not exactly being subtle, so I can't imagine it'll take long for him to find out about his minions. They don't know about you, and I aim to keep it that way."
"Oh," Scott says and then frowns. "Why?"
"They'll kill you," you say flatly. "I've seen them do it."
Scott and Stiles both go very pale. They glance at each other, seeming to have a silent conversation about what to tell you while you try not to tap your fingers impatiently on the table top.
"Derek...wants a pack," Scott tells you slowly, while Stiles gives him an annoyed look. "I don't know why...he doesn't understand. He was born as a werewolf, so he thinks it's a gift. He doesn't realize how much this can suck sometimes." He pauses and then his eyes widen. "Last month when I was acting like a total jerk, that was because-"
"Yeah, I know, I don't care," you say dismissively. "Is he planning to fight my family?"
"I don't know?" Scott says helplessly. "I tried to talk to him, but he's not listening to me. I think he's done biting people-for now-but we have no idea what he's planning."
Great, you think, biting your lip in frustration. There is just no way this is going to end well, is it?
"Right," you say calmly, looking Scott very seriously in the eye. "You need to stay out of this. They don't know about you yet, and if you get involved, they're going to find out about you."
"What?" Scott says, bewildered. "I can't stay out of this! Look, no offense, but I can't just let your family kill people."
You give him a very strange look. Why would you be offended by that?
"You can't get caught in the middle of this. Don't you understand what's happening?" you say frustratedly. "My grandfather coming here, Derek turning Erica, Isaac, and what'shisname-"
"Boyd," Stiles interjects.
"-it's like battle lines are being drawn."
"I know," Scott says.
"There's always crossfire," you say, annoyed at his earnest expression.
"What am I supposed to do?" Scott says, looking helpless. "I can't just stand by, I can't pretend to be normal."
"Why not?" you say, frowning. "This doesn't have anything to do with you."
"Because I'm responsible," Scott says, nonsensically. "For all of them. You know this is going to get out of control, and if they get hurt-"
"What?" you say, looking at Stiles for an explanation.
"Hey, don't look at me, I had this conversation with him two days ago," Stiles says, holding up his hands defensively. "I happen to agree with you."
Scott glares at him. "And I said-"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're very heroic, the urge to make-out with you is ever-present."
"Stiles!" Scott says, looking horrified.
"So those rumors are true..." you can't help but saying, raising an eyebrow.
"No!" Stiles exclaims at the same time Scott says. "What rumors?"
"Hey, you don't happen to know what's going on with Lydia, do you?" Stiles asks, transparently trying to change the subject.
"What do you mean?"
Scott and Stiles exchange a glance. "Peter bit her," Scott says after a second. "But she's not a werewolf. And she's not dead. As far as we know, those are the only two options. Even Derek doesn't understand what's going on."
"Peter bit her?" you say, your chest tightening. "My parents thought a beta did it."
"No, it was definitely Peter," Stiles says darkly.
You pause for a second to mull this over, but decide it's not the priority here. As long as no one tells your parents about this, Lydia will probably be fine.
"Who killed Kate?" you ask after a second, trying to keep your face blank.
"Peter," Scott says quietly, regret all over his face. "And then Derek killed him, which is why he's an alpha now."
You take a deep breath to steady yourself. Good. At least that's done.
"I'm sorry, Allison, I couldn't get there in ti-"
"I don't care," you lie, shaking your head and clearing your throat. "She deserved it."
Scott looks worried, Stiles, awkward, but you don't care what they think of you. That isn't why you're here.
"Don't get involved," you say, getting up to leave. "I'll do what I can, but I won't be able to protect you if they come after you."
"Then why are you involved?" Scott says, staring at you strangely. "This doesn't have anything to do with you either."
"I don't have a choice, at least not for another two and a half years," you reply bitterly. "And I'm not about to let my parents kill my only friend, even if he's acting like a dick right now."
Scott looks a little pityingly at you for that, even though you're not the only one who only has one friend here.
"No offense," Stiles says dubiously, "but why should be trust you? This could be a trap."
"If I was going to tell my parents about you, I would've done it the first day of school," you say, rolling your eyes. "And did you really think Jackson stopped bothering you all on his own?"
Scott and Stiles gape at you as you walk away, and they're not the only ones. When you leave the cafeteria, you find Erica, Isaac, and Boyd standing outside the door, incredulity all over their faces. You don't know how much they heard, but the damage is done. Isaac, unsurprisingly, won't meet your eyes, but somehow you it doesn't hurt that much this time. You're pretty sure Derek told him to stay away from you because you're an Argent. You walk back to your locker, a strange sense of calmness spreading through you. You can do this. You have to.
You lie to your therapist. What, like you were going to tell the truth? You tell her what she wants to hear, that you're sad for no reason, that you have a hard time connecting with your classmates at school, that you're angry all the time and you don't know why. You don't talk about your parents, though. You know she's not supposed to tell them what you say, but your parents have a way of getting around the rules. You wouldn't put it past them to steal her notes or something. She wants you to come back and to discuss the possibility of you going on medication, which, wow, that is so going to go over well, but you just shrug your shoulders and let her go outside to speak to your parents, your mind already on other things.
Your parents are angry and silent on the ride home. It doesn't seem like they're angry at you, but at themselves for raising such a failure of a daughter. You would never want to be what they consider a success, but it still hurts to think of the depth of their disgust at the idea that you're clinically-depressed. They barely talk to you at all when they drop you off at home and then go off grocery shopping for dinner, leaving you alone with Gerard. He pretends not to know where you were and ropes you into playing Gin with him in the living room. His attempts to pretend to be a harmless old man disturb you and you quickly start talking about your animal rights interests to put him off. It works as well as it did on your parents and Kate and you only play one game before he says he has some work to do and goes down into the locked basement. Your family is so stupid.
On Monday, the entire sophomore class is abuzz with gossip about Lydia Martin's latest in-class breakdown. You see Lydia sitting alone at lunch, her head buried in a book in an attempt to hide from her classmates' stares and you can't help but feel a little bad for her. You wonder if you should tell her what's really going on. She's not a very nice person and you don't really like her, but you remember what it felt like to suddenly find yourself in a strange dark world that you couldn't talk to anyone about. You found out through your parents, but Lydia probably thinks she's going crazy after being attacked by a werewolf.
You know when Gerard announces that he's going to be taking over as principal of Beacon Hills High that they've found out about Erica, Isaac, and Boyd. It's not surprising, considering Derek Hale's idiocy, but you spend the rest of the night in a dark mood, hating everyone and everything. It runs into your next day at school when you see him there for his first day. You remember when school used to be your only escape from the house. Earlier this year you'd actually been looking forward to going everyday. To seeing Isaac. But Isaac doesn't talk to you anymore, even switched partners in French class, and now your insane grandfather has invaded your only safe space.
You lock yourself in a bathroom stall during your free period to cry. After a couple minutes Lydia Martin gets into the stall next to yours with the same idea and you start laughing inappropriately at the ridiculousness of the situation you've found yourself in until she screams at you to leave her alone.
You spend the rest of the day with your head down, avoiding Derek's betas and Scott and Stiles. Your grandfather drops by your locker at the end of the day asking if you want to see the lacrosse game with him tonight, but you decline. You don't want to watch Isaac play anymore.
The next day, Stiles and Scott sit down across from you during lunch, twin serious expressions on their faces.
"What?" you say, too tired to be hostile.
"We need your help," Scott jumps in immediately, not even bothering to touch his lunch tray. "This is getting way out of control and someone is going to end up dead if we don't stop this."
"What do you want me to do?" you says skeptically, poking at your mashed potatoes with your fork. "What do you want to do? I don't know about Derek, but my parents are never going to stop. It's like a religion to them."
"Yeah, that's seriously screwed up," Stiles says, face twisting in distaste. "Derek and his minions are probably equally screwed up, so this is all going to end well."
"Unless we do something," Scott insists vehemently. He looks at you earnestly with warm brown eyes and you try and remember that his naivete is dangerous. "If we could just get them to agree to a truce-"
"A truce?!" you say with an incredulous snort. "Yeah, right." Stiles looks a little sheepish, but Scott looks perfectly serious. Oh, you have got to be kidding. "No," you say urgently. "Didn't you listen to anything I said? Don't get involved. The best you can do is avoid detection. I'll do what I can, but I can't help you if they find out about you."
Scott frowns, a regretful expression flickering across his features. "I don't have a choice," he says firmly. "I'm part of this. I'm not going to stand back and let them get hurt."
You open your mouth to argue, but Stiles cuts you off. "Look, you're never going to change our minds, so why don't you do something useful instead," he says, looking at you, but clapping Scott on the back. "What do you know about your grandfather?"
"Gerard? Not much. I don't really know him. He and my father don't get along. He's mostly just been this guy who sends a check in the mail for my birthday," you say. "But he's definitely here because they found out about Is-about Derek's betas."
Scott and Stiles exchange nervous looks.
"What?" you say worriedly. "Did something happen?"
"No, just wondering," Stiles says, shaking his head, but you're not sure if you believe him. He looks fidgety, but then again he's kind of always fidgety.
"Just stay out of it," you snap, annoyed that they won't listen to you for their own self-preservation. "Trust me, you do not want to get on their radar."
You shovel the rest of your mashed potatoes in your mouth and then pick up your tray and leave. Idiots, both of them. How could they possibly think they could do anything? Your only assets are that you have access to your parents' private conversations and they don't suspect you're on to them.
"Allison, wait!" Scott says after you dump your tray and head out into the empty hallway outside the cafeteria.
You turn around and try not to look annoyed. If he dares to ask you out again...
"Look, I wasn't entirely...I should've-" Scott says, lowering his voice and looking around the deserted hallway before continuing. "I'm already involved. Your grandfather knows about me."
That same buzzing noises fills your ears and you close your eyes, suddenly feeling short of breath.
"H-How did he-"
"I broke my leg at the lacrosse game last night," Scott says quietly, looking regretful. "He knows. He threatened me. He threatened my mother."
"Your mother?" you say, confused. "Is she a...too?"
"No," Scott says, looking baffled. "No, she's...normal. She doesn't know anything about any of this."
And he'd still threatened her? A human? You don't think your parents would do that. Did they know?
"He wants me to give him Derek," Scott says, looking very wan.
"Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing," you say without thinking, the familiar anger at Derek Hale, someone you have yet to meet, boiling in your gut.
"That's not going to happen," Scott says sharply, and the determination in his face surprises you. There's a sort of strength about it that you wouldn't usually have associated with Scott McCall. "There's another way, I know it."
It should anger you, his naivete, but instead it makes your stomach tighten and cheeks flush. You desperately want to believe that he's right, that this isn't going to end in a massacre. But how can he? Some crazy old man just threatened to kill him and his mother. You're barely holding it together right now, horrible nightmares about your parents murdering Isaac haunting your sleep. Being in the same room as your parents for dinner invariably causes you to lose your appetite. How is he doing it?
Without thinking, you reach out and cup his face with both hands. His eyes go wide, but you don't give him time to speak as you lean in and kiss him gently on the mouth.
His mouth is very warm against yours and the slightly stubbly skin of his jaw feels good under your fingers. He is very still under your touch and it makes you want to kiss him harder, pull him in close and feel his body against yours.
You don't, of course. You draw back instead and watch his eyes flutter open, a very soft look on his face. You like his dark eyelashes and the way his jaw's kind of lopsided.
"Umm," he says, cheeks flushing. "What-"
"I'll take care of it," you swear, giving him a serious nod. "So stay out of it."
He stares at you as you walk away, dumbstruck, and maybe he wants to say something but then the bell rings and you get lost in the crowd of people exiting the cafeteria.
You don't get another chance to talk to him either, because at the end of the day you notice maintenance workers installing security cameras in the hallways.
Gerard has to go. He cannot be allowed to threaten people's innocent mothers. You hope your parents don't know he did that.
You wait until he goes out and then sneak into the guest room to look through his stuff. You write down all the names of the medications he's taking (and they do seem kind of a lot, even for an old person) but you don't end up looking them up because you find the medical report inside the safe next. It's locked, but you've known the combination for years. You used to check it weekly to see what your parents were up to.
Lung cancer. Stage IV. Inoperable. Chemotherapy unsuccessful.
He's dying.
Good, is your first thought, even though you know you shouldn't be so cavalier about someone's death.
You replace all the files where you found them and retreat back to your room to think this new development through. The first question is why don't your parents know. You're pretty sure they'd act differently around him if they knew of his disease. It could just be that he doesn't want to burden his family with a terminal diagnosis or that he doesn't want their pity. Maybe it's why he's suddenly so ruthless he even surprises your father. Maybe he knows it's his last chance to avenge Kate's death. What he doesn't know is that Kate's killer is already dead and he's going after his killer and his newly-bitten werewolf minions. You doubt he'd stop even if he knew the truth, though.
You're not really sure what to do with this information. You weren't able to find how much time he has left, but it's probably irrelevant if he's well enough to still be walking around and attacking werewolves.
It takes you two days to realize it and it's only because you eavesdrop on your family's conversations at night in which Gerard expounds upon the necessities of capturing Derek and finding out what he knows and overhearing a conversation between two lacrosse players about how they wonder what medication Scott's on now that relieves his horrible asthma.
It can't be what you're thinking, right? There's no way your werewolf-murdering grandfather would ever want to become a werewolf himself. That would go against everything they believed, wouldn't it?
You'd like to share your theory with Scott and Stiles, see what they make of it, but you can't talk to them in school anymore and you never see them anywhere else.
So you do the next best thing. You purposefully screw with your grandfather's life in revenge.
"Were you even going to tell me?!" you shout, striding into the hallway the second your parents come home.
"Allison, what-?" your mother says, understandably. You've never yelled at your parents before, even before you found out what they really did with their lives. In recent years, you've mostly been quiet and sullen around them, completely uninterested in interacting with them all, much less starting fights.
"Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about!" you yell, fists clenched at your sides. It feels surprisingly good to yell at them, even though you're not really angry with them over this specific issue.
"Allison, what is going on?" your father asks, face creased with disapproval at your outburst.
"He's dying and you weren't even going to tell me?!" you shout, voice shaking with rage. You're murderers and you tried to make me one of you with the gymnastics and the archery lessons? The self-defense classes? When you hunt down sick people who can't control themselves and shoot them in the head? "What, were you just going to wait until he dropped dead?"
Your parents look bewildered.
"Gerard!" you scream, your voice reaching a pitch you didn't even realize was possible. "Don't try and lie to me, someone from the oncology ward called about counseling!"
It's a pretty weak excuse. There's no way a medical professional would tell some random girl over the phone that her grandfather was dying. But your parents have no reason to think you'd be lying and you can tell they believe you by the shocked looks on their faces.
"What?" your father says, staring at you in confusion. "Allison, what are you...Allison, Gerard's not dying. It must have been a mistake or a prank..."
"They said his name! And a prank?" What, did they think that Derek called your house to tell you that your grandfather was dying of cancer? "Who would do that? Why do you think he's come here after all these years? He wants to be with his family! And all those pills he's always taking, what do you think they were for?"
You see it sink in on their faces and let out a snort of disgust. "You really didn't know either," you say, trying to tamp down the rage still burning in your chest. "Great. I'll just watch another family member die then."
You turn and take the stairs up two at a time.
"Allison!" your dad shouts, but you don't look back.
"Leave me alone!" you scream and slam your room door behind you in a fit of childish rage.
You fall back on your bed, breathing heavily from your quick climb up the stairs and grin at the ceiling as you hear your parents talking indistinctly on the ground floor. Hopefully now they'll question Gerard, or even better, do as you did and look through his things in the guest room.
After half an hour they leave the house, without coming upstairs to talk you out of your sulk or reprimand you for your bad behavior and you take it as a good sign. They don't return until three hours later, and when they call you down the stairs, you feel sick when you see Gerard sitting on the couch next to your mother.
"Sit down, Allison, we need to talk to you," your father says seriously.
Shit, shit, shit, you think as you sit down on the arm chair across from your grandfather. He has a penitent look on his face that does not bode well. You should have thought this through better.
Your parents explain to you in their stilted, awkward, we-don't-like-talking-about-our-emotions way that Gerard is indeed dying and hadn't told anyone for fear of upsetting them. It's very sad and unfortunate, but he's lived a full life blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. It's like they got this crap from a bad Lifetime movie.
"I'm sorry that you found out that way," Gerard says, looking sad, and contrite, and generally harmless. "I hope you understand why I was reluctant to tell you. Your father and I...well, we haven't always been on good terms in the past." He even pauses to give your father a regretful look. It's a nice touch and by the way your father's eyes soften you can tell it works. "But after Kate...I-" He clears his throat uncomfortably. "I wanted to be with my family."
"Okay," you mutter, looking down at your feet uncomfortably. Hopefully it'll look like you're embarrassed at his display of emotion, when you're really berating yourself for your stupidity. Of course your parents wouldn't automatically assume Gerard was planning on getting himself bitten by Derek to cure his cancer.
You want to ask him how much time he has left, but you think you've already pushed it enough for today. He'd probably lie anyway.
You think that's the end of it, after that. It's almost disgusting how things go back to normal between your family, though you do see your father making more of an effort to be friendly to Gerard. God, you can't believe you actually helped bring them closer. It's not until it's too late that you realize that while your parents might have been distracted by the revelation of Gerard's imminent death to question how you got hold of that information, Gerard wouldn't be.
Two days later, when you're parking your car outside your house after coming back from school, he strikes.
You actually see him coming, see him close the garage door behind you and stride towards you with a murderous expression on his face, but there's nothing you can do. You're trapped.
He slams you face-first against the wall so hard you see stars dancing in front of your vision. You try and struggle out of his grip, but he's surprisingly strong for an old man dying of cancer and he pins your arms behind your back with ease.
"Oncology ward, huh?" he breathes into your ear. "Clever, but not clever enough. You've been sneaking through my things, haven't you? But why? What did you hope to achieve with that little stunt?"
"Let go," you say furiously, starting to panic, breathing heavily against the wall. Your parents won't be home for hours. What is he going to do to you?
"Or what?" he says, tightening his grip on your wrists. "Now tell me what you know! Who told you to look through my stuff? Was it one of Derek's betas? Your classmates? Or was it the Scott McCall?"
"I don't know what you're talking about!" you gasp, still trying to squirm helplessly out of his grip. Your left cheek aches where it's pressed into the wall. You hope it won't bruise. "I just...I was just curious, I didn't mean to-"
He flips you around and shoves your back against the wall again, crowding into your space to look at you as if he's trying to stare into your soul. You cower and try to look as terrified and innocent as possible.
"If you get in my way again, I'll kill you," Gerard say, growls practically, shoving your shoulder back against the garage wall roughly. "I'll kill you, I'll kill your mother, I'll kill your father."
"What?" you gape at him, mouth dry with horror. He's insane. You have no idea. To think he would go this far...
"And if you tell anyone about this, they'll never believe you," he says, a smug smile on his face that you would probably despise if you weren't busy being so terrified. "Do you understand me?"
"Y-Yes," you choke, shaking with fear.
"Louder, I can barely hear you!"
"Yes!" you gasp, probably too loud, feeling tears prick at your eyes.
"Good," he says decisively and steps back, the hard look on his face making him barely recognizable from the genial, smiling grandfather he'd presented himself to be at Kate's funeral. Without another word, he turns away and goes back into the house, shutting the basement door behind him.
You gasp and slide down the wall to sit on the dirty garage floor, tears spilling down your cheeks. You believe him. He would definitely kill you, kill your mother, kill his own son. How is this happening?
You sit there shaking for a while before you pull yourself to your feet and open the garage door again. You can't stay in the house alone with him.
You get into your car and drive to the nearest parking lot, a strip mall with a Taco Bell, a chiropractor, some tax attorney's office, and a 7-11. You sit in your car and watch the sun go down, cursing the day your parents decided it was a good idea to move to Beacon Hills. Everything would have been better if they never came here. Kate would still be alive. You would have never met Isaac, never let yourself be hurt by his betrayal. Gerard would never have come here to kill him and Scott and every other person who had the misfortune to be bitten by Derek Hale.
Your cheek is bruised. You examine it in the rearview mirror in the fading light and curse. You could probably steal your mother's concealer to cover it up, but you're not sure you can get in the door without them seeing. You'll have to buy some yourself.
You go into the 7-11 and are just rounding the corner into the toiletries aisle when you see Boyd at the other end of the store, looking at you suspiciously. You pretend not to notice and focus on finding the right shade of concealer, but surely he must be able to hear your rising heart beat, or see the flush rising in your cheeks. You check out quickly and nearly jump out of your skin when you turn around at the counter to see him standing behind you with a coke and a pack of M&Ms in his hands. He gives you an extremely unimpressed look, but you still give him a wide berth as you exit the store and hurry to your car. Unlike Erica, who has taken to bullying other people in your class in what you assume is revenge, and Isaac, who is more than happy to help, Boyd seems to be more level-headed, from what you've seen of him. But you don't really know anything about him. And considering your parents are trying to kill him, you know it's best to keep your distance. You apply the concealer to your cheek and lie to your parents about being at the library when you come home. Gerard acts completely normal, as if he hadn't just threatened your life, the lives of every person in this room a couple hours ago, and you don't dare look at him for fear of seeing that same manic look in his eyes. You excuse yourself early, ostensibly to do homework, but instead you curl into bed and stare at the door, ears straining for any sign of footsteps approaching.
You don't sleep very well that night, the fear that he might sneak into your room and murder you ever-present. You need to buy a lock for your door.
A/N: And everything is terrible. :D
Please review!