Artifice ♛ Scott McCall

Rule of Three

"Did you miss your favorite child?" I say walking into the kitchen. I laugh when I see my father jump before looking at me and smiling. He walks over me and pulls me into a hug. We got in late last night due to the whole deer thing. He was already asleep when I had gotten home, and I wasn't going to wake him up.

"Don't ever leave me alone with Stiles for that long again." He says into my hair making me laugh. I pull away and smile at him.

"How were things while I was gone?" I say fixing a mug filled with coffee.

"Pretty normal actually." He says making me turn towards him suspiciously. He still doesn't know about the supernatural. I feel kind of bad keeping that from him, but I want to keep him safe. And if that means keeping him in the dark then so be it.

"Normal how?" I ask sipping my coffee, cringing when there wasn't enough sugar.

"Crime rates have decreased almost 20% in the past few months." He answered.

I smile at him, "That's because we have the best sheriff around."

"You got that right." He says making me laugh. "Where's your brother?"

"Who knows when it comes to that kid." I answer. I follow him upstairs to Stiles' room. We walk into his room to see him on his computer. I lean on the door frame. This should be funny.

Stiles noticed our presence because he spoke up, "You know how many vehicle collisions last year involved deer? 247,000."

"Oh, God, please normal like your sister and go to school." Dad says rubbing his face.

"But that's crossing the road. This one last night came right down the middle." Stiles said ignoring dad's comment.

"I'm not gonna beg you." Dad said.

"Okay, good. I'm impervious to your influence anyway." Stiles mumbled still not taking his eyes off of the computer.

"Would you consider a bribe?" He asked.

"You couldn't meet my price." Stiles said.

"Extortion?" Dad said.

"You got nothing on me." Stiles mumbled.

"My turn." I say. I hand dad my cup and walk up to Stiles. I grab the back of the chair and start pulling it backwards.

"Evan, what are you doing?" Stiles asked me still trying to type on the computer. I kept pulling backwards until he went flying out of the seat. Dad and I both laughed as he glared at me.

I pushed his chair back to his desk. "I missed messing with you almost as much as I missed my bed."

×××

I grumbled as Lydia, Allison, and I walked into school. This is one place I did not miss. I lean onto the locker next to Lydia's. I play with my brown leather jacket as Lydia looks at all of the new faces of freshman.

"Freshmen. Tons and tons of fresh men." Lydia licked her lips as she looked around. I rolled my eyes at her.

"You mean fresh boys. Lydia, they're 14." Allison scoffed at her.