Daybreak

Chapter Six

Stiles had forgotten how quickly time moved when you didn't anticipate every day as your last. In the blink of an eye, a month and a half had passed since Stiles had boarded up with the Hales. A month and a half, and not once did Stiles venture into town. . .

It's not that the pack kept him from going, or anything—in fact, he'd had plenty of opportunity to go and get a change of scenery—he'd been purposefully avoiding it. Facing the familiar ghosts that orbited around and were within the pack was one thing;

Derek had been a completely different person from the hardened, angry wolf he'd remembered. Deaton was someone he'd only grown close to at the very end of his time in the life he used to have and he didn't really run into younger Deaton that often during the day. Cora was someone he vaguely knew in his time and the younger Cora had unexpectedly grown on him. Peter was apparently traveling—backpacking through jungles and over mountains and doing some soul-searching or whatever. Finally, he'd never met Laura or the rest of the Hale pack before the fire so most of them were new faces and only a few had stories attached to them.

Sometimes being around the pack brought up unpleasant memories, but it was mostly manageable.

However . . . town was where he'd been raised. Where he had been the sheriff's son and knew more people than the sheriff himself. It was where he'd learned the names and life story of every officer—and quite a few criminals—who entered the police station. Where he had a love-hate relationship with his neighbors for all of the stunts he and Scott had pulled during their days. There was a life time of teachers and bored cashiers and nosey housewives and notorious stray cats that terrorized kids and teens alike on their walks to school.

It was where Scott was still tiny and asthmatic, eager for a friend but terrified of the world. Where Erica was tormented by seizures and underprepared, underpaid parents. Where Boyd had just recently been sent to stay with his grandmother while his young, single mother was desperately trying to get her shit together enough to get her son back. It was where Isaac's brother was still alive and their father was just a normal guy that maybe got just a little disgruntled after a beer or two. Where Jackson was being pampered and preened by parents compensating for the fact that he wasn't really theirs, and Lydia was fascinated by the esteemed scholars her mother and father were and had yet to witness her mother with her arms looped around a man years younger who certainly wasn't her father.

It was where Stiles' dad was still an earnest—if not a little overworked—deputy, and where his mom was still happily unaware of her illness. . .

Stiles had been avoiding it, basking in the protective buffer of the preserve, allowing himself to forget who waited beyond the trees. It was easier to just pretend he was somewhere else entirely—another world even.

Unfortunately, Stiles' plan to stay as far away as possible so as to honor the whole 'out of sight, out of mind' thing came to quick end when one of the youngest pups had run out of formula and everyone else was either gone, busy, or couldn't drive. Even Mark, who had continued to stick to Stiles like a shadow, had been told—ordered—by Talia to join her and half a dozen other wolves on a hunt in the preserve. Once again, Stiles knew she had done it to give him a reprieve. Which he had been thankful of for the first hour. His peace did not last, though.

Which left Stiles to go on the quick grocery run so that the fussy pup—a little pink-cheeked brat named Elijah that was only satiated when his parents were near tears—wouldn't nearly suffocate himself when he inevitably wailed so loud and fiercely that it wrecked the kid's throat and turned his chubby little face beat red. On more than one occasion, the little banshee-impersonator had been thrust into his arms mid-fit by one of his desperate parents as they frantically tore their surroundings apart looking for a pacifier. Stiles had nearly left with a burst eardrum.