Good Grief ✧ Stiles Stilinski

Chapter Twenty-Four: Hesitation Is For The Weak

Stiles was horrified about the possibility. "Look, I don't know. I sw—I swear to god, I have no idea!"

"Deception has a particularly acrid scent, Stiles. Tell me the truth or I will rip her apart."

"He doesn't know," Jay finally spoke up, swallowing the urge to tackle Peter again and again until finally, he landed a successful hit. He almost wished he didn't care about Lydia. That way, he wouldn't feel so obligated to make sure she at least made it out with a fighting chance.

He also wished he could be more sure about what was happening. Peter's body language and chemosignals rang true. He wanted to find Derek, and that was also what Jay wanted. Alas, Jay felt as though he were at a standstill.

Call him selfish, but he'd choose Derek being alive over killing Peter and avenging Laura if that was the choice he was left with. He wasn't going to lose both of his siblings. He refused.

Peter gave him an apathetic look. "Are you sure about that?" He raised an eyebrow, nodding toward Stiles who was visibly sweating underneath the heavy field lighting.

There was a stretch of silence that settled as Jay turned to face Stiles for the first time after being so focused on Peter. There was no way he knew, right? If Stiles knew how to find Derek, then surely he would have said something by now. Sometime between Jay pulling his hair out and contemplating arson, Stiles would have said something.

But sure enough, Stiles seemed to hesitate, swallowing hard. "Look, I don't know, okay? I swear to god I have no idea." He pleaded, and Jay's eyes traced the movement of his throat, zoning into the pulse underneath beating frantically, jumping over the lie.

Stiles knew.

Peter ran a clawed finger across the fullness of Lydia's cheek. She looked so pale that the heavy blush she spent thirty minutes pouting to Jay about, wondering if she put too much on or not, looked like blood smeared on her cheeks.

"Okay, okay, okay, look, I..." Stiles exhaled shakily, putting his hands up. Truthfully, he didn't give it much though. When Scott told him about what happened and how Derek was taken, he had a little nudge of something, but he let it go. Now, however, his brain was scrambling back to the moment trying to grab the thought again. "I didn't know, I swear I didn't know, but I think—I think he knew—"

"Knew what?" Jay spat, hands clenching at his sides.

Stiles flinched at being on the receiving end of the rage. "Derek—I think he knew he was gonna be caught."

"By the Argents." Peter nodded. "I guess old flames never quite die out." He had that same knowing smirk on his lips, and Jay's eyebrows furrowed once more in confusion and irritation. "And?"

"When they got shot, he and Scott—I think he took Scott's phone."

"Why?"

"They all have GPS now. So if he still has it and if it's still on..." He met Peter's eyes but couldn't seem to get himself to look over at Jay. "You can find him.

It was an answer that Jay should have been able to piece together himself. For all the recent situations involving tracking a phone as the solution, he should have thought to do the same for Derek.

He couldn't even be angry at Stiles at the moment, not when he felt so incredibly stupid himself.

Meanwhile, Peter was more than satisfied with the answer. He removed his hand from Lydia's neck and completely lifted himself away from the girl to stand at his full height next to Jay. "Well, time to go." He clapped his hands together.

Jay still didn't make a single move, but Stiles immediately crawled over to check Lydia's pulse. "I'm not leaving her here!"

Jay watched with a certain numbness. "You're not going." He said, simply put, taking in how Stiles' head snapped up to meet his, eyes panicked and frustration etched across his face. "I can track the phone myself. You and I both know a kindergartener could crack Scott's account. Stay here, take Lydia to the hospital."