WHY DO I STILL? | stiles stilinski v. isaac lahey

NINETEEN

She retired then, not aware that it was Kate that set the fire. She had made a decent bond with Chris back then, knowing he followed a code and stuck to it, knowing he was a man of morals, and eventually, they moved away to raise Allison somewhere else.

Merced was on her way to the Hale house when she saw the smoke, but by the time she had gotten there, the house was engulfed in flames. She attempted to calm down the fires, but with her emotions high, nothing to channel, and no one to anchor her, she only ended up breaking down and causing trees around them to fall.

Merced tried to find Derek, Laura, and Cora, knowing they had been in school when the fire started, but she couldn't find them. Eventually, she had given up the search, and decided that unlike her parents, she wasn't going to raise her daughter to know about the supernatural world. The first step, was taking her memories of what little she already knew of that world.

✧☾✧

"So, that's why Derek is so damn nice to me?" Haven connected the dots. "Because you were friends with his mom. Because he used to play with me when I was a baby?"

"And because the two of you are godsiblings," added Merced. "I'm his godmother, and Talia was yours."

"How do I not remember any of this? The Hale fire happened when I was eleven!"

"I took your memories from you of them," Merced informed her. "Thought it would be safer that way."

"And when Derek came back? He and I became friends, and he just never thought to tell me?"

"When he came back to town to find Laura, I offered him a place to stay and got him caught up in how you were, how you remembered nothing. When he found Laura dead, he told me it would be best to continue to raise you outside of the life of the supernatural because he wasn't sure if he could handle you dying, too. He already lost the rest of his siblings," explained Merced. 

"But then I got involved anyways, and he still hasn't explained everythi—Oh my GOD,"  Haven exclaimed.

"What?"

"I called Derek hot," she cringed. "And he looks at him like I'm his little sister!"

"You actually called him Wolfie McHottie if I remember properly," her mother teased.

Haven cringed even harder, "HE TOLD YOU?!"

"So, what happened that made you lose control?" Haven asked her as they got up from their seats, going to clean up the kitchen.

"Allison's parents asked me for help with the kanima problem," she said. "Well, for both of our help. I told them I'm retired, and I plan to stay retired."

Haven glanced at her mom from the corner of her eye, frowning. 

"But I have a feeling you're not going to back down from this fight," Merced sighed, grabbing her daughter's hands in hers, making her face her. "Not when the people you love are smack in the middle of it. You're a Marshall witch, after all. You're a Salazar, and your dad would be proud of you."

"What was he like?" Haven questioned. "When he found out about what we were?"

"A bit like Stiles, actually," her mom nodded with a faint smile. "Maybe that's why I'm so fond of him."

"C'mon, let's get going," Merced told her, grabbing her keys from the counter.

"Where?"

"I'll drop you off to Stiles' house. I know you plan on helping them save Jackson."

✧☾✧

Stiles and Haven rushed out of his house once it was time to head to the venue. Sheriff Stilinski was getting out of his car as they ran out the driveway.