The last thing James "Jay" Hale ever imagined was to begrudgingly return to Beacon Hills, find out his older sister was murdered, and then be forced to go on a wild goose chase after an enigmatic Alpha that seemed to have a particular interest in ru...
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CHAPTER NINE: The List That Keeps On Growing
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After finding out who the real killer of his family was after years of being left in the dark and told nobody knew anything, it was safe to say that Jay was on less-than-friendly terms with Derek. Of course, he only planned on ignoring him for a day or two considering they needed to work together to find the Alpha, but he was letting himself be petty for the time being.
He just couldn't understand why Derek never told him about the Argents in the first place.
But maybe that wasn't the real issue though, because somewhere deep inside of Jay's twisted head he also felt like a complete idiot—something that was also Derek's go-to insult during arguments that all of a sudden seemed to hit a little too close to home now. Before, he'd taken the name-calling in stride, only thinking that it was patronizing and annoying. Now, though, it felt like something he actually was and it only made him feel worse.
He kind of wished Derek hadn't brought it up at all. It was nicer living in denial, Jay thought.
But now all he could think about was how stupid he was for not piecing it together himself because, after all, the Argents really were the only people who knew about the Hales in Beacon Hills so it would make complete sense that the hunters had been the ones to cause the fire.
The realization of his inept stupidity only added another point to the long list of things wrong with him. One that he kept neatly tucked away inside of his head, only bringing it back out during particularly depressive times to mull over and add onto:
1) He was a TERRIBLE werewolf: It was a hard reality to come to terms with, but one that he had to accept very early on. Derek and Laura were able to train and master their abilities with the help of their mother and other pack mates before the fire. But seeing as Jay was a kid and the fire happened before he could go through his formal training with his mom, he was never really able to get on his two siblings' level no matter how hard he tried. Therefore, everything he could do, they could do better.
2)He was annoying and incompetent: Going off the last point, Derek and Laura had to raise Jay and try to teach him werewolf 101 to the best of their abilities. Derek was always vocal about how annoying Jay was, yelling at him for being too slow and not understanding things before giving up on him entirely. The man would push too hard until Jay would quit himself. Laura, although she never said it, clearly thought the same. But instead of pushing too hard, she would be the first to give up. At a certain point, even Jay grew tired of his own uselessness.
3) He was nothing more than a naive kid: That one was pretty self-explanatory. Jay always seemed to find himself stuck in the worst situations due to his own naivety, and someone always had to pull him out from them. He was just a kid, but at what point would he finally learn from his mistakes and grow up? Who knows.
