t w e n t y f i v e
e c l i p s e
"WE KNOW ABOUT THE LUNAR ECLIPSE," told Ethan to Derek, "so don't think Kali's gonna sit around waiting for it to level the playing field. She's coming." Ethan dry swallowed. "And my brother's coming with him."
Ethan was standing next to Amelia and Lydia, while Lizzie was next to the strawberry blonde. They were all looking at Derek, Peter and Cora.
"Good enough for me," said Peter making Amelia roll her eyes. "Derek?"
"You want me to run?" Derek asked Peter.
"No," talked Peter, "I want you to stay and get slaughtered by an Alpha with a psychotic foot fetish," he said sarcastically. "Of course I want you to run! Sprint, gallop, leap hour way the hell out of this town."
"If you wanna fight and die for something, that's fine with me." Amelia looked at Cora. "But do it for something meaningful."
"I agree with Peter," announced Amelia, surprising everyone.
"You... what?" Asked Peter and she shrugged.
"I have a busy night tonight, okay? I can't protect two at once, and Derek has the better chance to run away for his life. I'm just saying. Run, Derek, run as fast as you can't. Go to the airport and get the first ticket out of here."
"How do you know I'm gonna lose?" Derek asked, and Amelia laughed, making everyone look at her.
"Oh, it was a serious question, sorry," she apologized before crossing her arms in front of her chest again.
Peter decided to answer the question. "We don't. But I'll bet they have an idea," mentioned Peter, pointing and Lydia and Amelia.
Amelia simply waved, smiling.
"Or she has an idea and Amelia is here just doing company," corrected Derek's uncle before looking at Lydia. "Don't you, Lydia?"
"I don't know anything," said Lydia and Lizzie stepped closer to her.
"But you feel something," talked Peter, "don't you?"
"What do you feel?" Derek asked Lydia.
"I feel like," Lydia started, "I'm standing in a graveyard."
Amelia looked towards Derek.
Oh... crap.
• • •
Kali kicked the alarm down, looking towards Lizzie, Lydia, Amelia and Ethan.
"Where is he?" Kali asked and Lydia snapped her fingers nervously.
"I think he said he was heading out to do some shopping, run a few errands." Amelia raised her eyebrows before looking at Kali. "The usual werewolf afternoon."
"Who do you think you're talking to?" Kali asked her as Lizzie and Amelia gave a step forward.
"Someone in desperate need of a pedicure. I'd be happy to give you a referral."
Kali was about to growl to Lydia when Aidan stepped forward from behind the woman, making Amelia raise her eyebrows in surprise.
"Oh really?" Kali asked Aiden. "Did someone take their little assignment too seriously?"
"She's not the problem," Aiden told Kali.
"Maybe the problem is where your loyalties lie."
"Oh God," Amelia heard Lydia whisper. "Is this about to get really violent?"
"Probably," replied Ethan.
But they got interrupted by the glass on the ceiling breaking apart. While Lizzie pushed Lydia away, Ethan pushed Amelia to the side, everyone watching Jennifer land on the floor, looking up towards Kali and Aiden.
"She flies now?" Whispered Amelia to herself as she saw Jennifer stand up, looking at the two.
"So, who wants to go first?"
They saw as Kali started fighting Jennifer.
Amelia quickly stood up from the floor and ran towards Lydia and Lizzie, seeing how her sister was also preparing the crossbow.
"Okay," said Amelia, "who do we shoot?"
The two sisters looked at Lydia but she shrugged, stammering. "I have no idea."
They saw as Jennifer pushed Kali away before proceeding to fight Aiden, making Amelia raise her eyebrows.
Ethan took off his shirt and Aidan did the same, both of them walking towards each other and starting to join, but Jennifer grabbing them by the neck, pulling the two apart.
"I think her," whispered Amelia as she put the arrow on the string, but before she could, Kali stood up again, making her put the bow.
"That's right Kali, look at me," Jennifer told her. "Look at my face. Do you know what it takes to be able to look like this? To be able to look normal?"
"I don't care," Kali replied as Amelia stood up, tensing the string.
"It takes power," Jennifer told her anyway. "Power like this."
Jennifer lifted the broken glasses from the floor, making them levitate as a big storm grew on the sky above her. Amelia slowly put the bow down as she saw it, as she saw Jennifer.
"I... I should've..." started saying Kali, stammering. The broken glasses started pointing at the alpha. "I should've ripped your head off!"
Jennifer threw the broken glasses at her, killing her.
The woman slowly turned around and walked towards Amelia, Lydia and Lizzie. The two protectors aimed there weapons against her.
"You touch her and I swear to God..." started saying Lizzie.
"What? You're gonna hit me with your little arrows?"
"No," Amelia said, "they will."
Jennifer turned around to look at the twins in their gigantic Alpha form. They attacked her, but Jennifer broke their neck behind her back, making them fall onto the floor.
Amelia dropped her arrows and went against her. They fought for a few seconds before Jennifer broke her back, making her look towards the broken ceiling.
"You should've stayed dead."
Jennifer tossed her against the door, making the girl close her eyes.
"What's the line Coach likes to say? The bigger they are..."
• • •
She felt someone hit her on the cheek.
"Don't hurt her!" Derek yelled Cora as she was about to hit her again, but Amelia grabbed the werewolves wrist as she woke up.
"Hit me again, I dare you," she told the girl before standing up, looking towards Derek.
"Are you wondering how is she alive, Derek?" Jennifer asked him as the werewolf turned around. "I let her live."
Amelia looked around towards the Alphas on the floor before looking at Derek.
"You did this for me?"
"For us," Jennifer replied. "For anyone who's ever been their victim."
"You kidnapped one of the only people I care about and locked her in a dark room filled with wolfsbane so stop talking to me like a politician. Stop trying to convince me of your cause!"
"Fine!" She exclaimed. "I'll convince you of someone else's. Scott." Amelia raised her eyebrows. "You can save his mother, Stiles's father."
"How?" Derek asked.
She stepped forward. "I need a Guardian," she told him. "That's a role that can either be filled by the three parents I was forced to take... or by you."
"You bitch," whispered Amelia as Cora held her down.
"I can't help you," told her Derek. "I'm not even an Alpha anymore."
"All I need is for you to help me get Deucalion in the right place at the right time," the woman told him and Amelia stopped fighting Cora's grab.
"You just killed three of 'em on your own. What do you need me for?"
"You haven't seen him at his strongest. I have," Jennifer said. "And if he's got Scott with him, I don't stand a chance. Unless I have you."
Amelia looked at him. "Don't do it!" She yelled, making Derek turn around. "We'll find another way to get Melissa and the sheriff. Just don't—"
"Amelia leave," Derek ordered her, making her stop fighting Cora and start breathing heavily. "Go find Stiles."
"No..." she whispered. "Derek..."
"It's an order..." Amelia closed her eyes. "Leave..."
Cora let go of her and Amelia looked at Derek before she approached him.
"Just... please don't die." Derek nodded before he hugged her. "Please don't die..."
• • •
Amelia was running through the woods, trying to find her way through them with all the wind that was hitting her. She placed an arm in front of her face, trying to cover it with it.
"Stiles! Stiles!"
But she couldn't find him anywhere.
"Stiles!"
"No, look at me! You are not a killer, okay? You are more than that. You don't want to kill Derek, you don't want to kill Scott. I know you don't. Just look at me, okay? You are one of the good ones, Amy, I know it."
Amelia closed her eyes as the wind kept hitting her on the face, stopping in her tracks.
"And if you die, Amelia Sealgair, I will literally go out of my freakin' mind. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me and if I lose you when I just got you I'm gonna go insane."
Amelia frowned when she heard something above the wind hitting the trees next to her.
She heard a heartbeat. A slow, steady heartbeat.
Amelia followed the sound until she reached Stiles's jeep, who was crashed against a tree.
"Stiles!" Yelled the girl, approaching the vehicle. She opened the door and entered the jeep, noticing Stiles, unconscious, with a hit on the head. "Crap... Stiles, come on, wake up."
But he wasn't waking up, he simply wasn't.
Amelia proceeded to toss Stiles on the backseat before sitting on the driver's, trying to start the jeep again.
"Come on!" She yelled, hitting the steering wheel. "Come on!"
"Amelia?" She heard Stiles whisper from the backseat and she turned around.
"Hey, baby... I'm getting you out of here," she said before looking back up. "God, we're abandoning this jeep."
"What!? We do not abandon the—"
"We are abandoning the jeep!"
Amelia helped Stiles get out of the car. She grabbed Stiles's hand and put it around her shoulders, dragging as he kept pointing directions with the aluminum baseball bat he got.
Amelia suddenly felt as Stiles was getting heavier and she looked up to the sky.
"The eclipse," she whispered. "My powers."
Stiles grabbed the girl's hand and with all the strength he got, she drove her to the Nemeton.
The couple arrived and they got inside a root cellar, where they saw everyone trying to hold the ceiling up as it was falling down due to the gigantic storm.
"Lia!" Yelled Isaac. "I can't hold it!"
"It's the eclipse..." she told Isaac as she stood next to him, trying to help him.
Stiles proceeded to but the aluminum baseball bat under the columns that her father and Allison were holding, making it maintain the cellar like a new column.
"I always said aluminum was better than wood," told the sheriff to Stiles as the guy chuckled, hugging his father.
Amelia looked up as the place was crawling down before looking at the rest.
"Amelia do something," Isaac told her and she quickly turned around.
"Who do you think I am? Wonder woman?"
Isaac raised his eyebrows. "That's exactly what I think you are."
Amelia rolled her eyes before protecting her head from the little stones that were flying at the cellar, and Stiles approached her, covering her head.
"For fifteen minutes, I get to be your hero, not wasting it," whispered Stiles to her ear as he kept pulling her towards him, his dad joining them.
Amelia looked around, trying to find a way to get out of the cellar but it was impossible as a human. They were stuck in there.
They saw as the yellow light that it was once shining slowly turned blue again, making her look up.
"It's over," she whispered before looking at the rest, her eyes glowing again. "Let's get out of here."
"Amelia, the storm," Isaac told her. "Werewolf or not, we can't go through that."
"She wants to bury you guys alive," Amelia let them know as she covered her eyes with her arm so sand wouldn't hit her. "And she has Derek, so I'm not letting her."
Stiles looked at her. "Derek's with her? Why would..."
She needed to get out. Jennifer wanted to bury them alive under there, to sacrifice them next to the Nemeton, and she was going to succeed if she didn't do something.
She crawled slowly towards the entrance, but the wind would only make it impossible for her to keep on walking.
But she got interrupted by silence, the wind stopping and the storm easing.
"It ended," whispered Amelia before looking at them, chuckling. "It's over..."
She saw as they all chuckled too. Amelia was about to sit down when her phone started buzzing, the girl picking up.
"Scott?" She asked before looking at the rest.
"Hey. You okay?"
"Yeah, we're okay," she panted. "We're all okay." Amelia smiled at the group, holding Stiles's hand. "How 'bout you? Are you okay? Derek okay?"
"Sort of." Amelia frowned.
"Well... you think you can come get us?" The girl asked, smiling to the rest.
"Yeah, of course."
"Great," she said. "Okay... uhm... Scott?"
"Yeah, Amy?" The girl smiled at the nickname Scott had started so many moons ago.
"Would you bring a ladder?"
She heard the group bursting out laughing, making Amelia smile widely as Stiles held on to her hand, caressing the back of it with his thumb.
• • •
Amelia placed alcohol on the wound on his forehead and Stiles hissed in pain.
"Ouch," he whispered. "What I do for battle scars."
The two were on the back of the jeep that was still crashed against the tree, waiting for Stiles's dad to get the truck to pull it out.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly, making him look at her. "For lying."
"You apologized for that already, Ames," he told her but she shook her head.
"But you didn't forgive me," she assumed while she placed the band-aid on top of the cut. "And I get it... I wouldn't forgive myself either."
Stiles sighed before putting his hands down, looking at her. "Why... Why didn't you tell me?" She looked up. "Why didn't you trust me?"
"Stiles... Honestly, the reason I didn't tell you it's because I didn't want to believe it myself," she admitted softly. "I spent for months locked in a library reading how my ancestors killed hundreds of my kind... the same way my father tried to murder me. And all because of this thing, this power that we have. The ability to sacrifice myself for someone."
Stiles grinned. "You knew I wouldn't let you do it."
"That and... that I'm not capable of doing it for you." Stiles frowned as the girl placed a strand of hair behind her ear. "I love you, Stiles, and I mean it when I say that. I suck at showing it though. I'm not good at showing love. I mock Scott every time he says something sentimental, I never let Lizzie start talking about her problems because I'm afraid I'm gonna the wrong thing so I prefer to stay away." Stiles was surprised by this whole honesty. "I spent most of my life thinking that my father loved me and it turns out that... he just loved the idea of me. You know, my aunt Camilla, Dahlia's mother, was the most talented out of the two? He had that with me, and he loved it. He loved that he could brag me around like a trophy. And I thought that meant that he loved me, and that he was proud of me."
"You think you father didn't love you?"
Amelia sighed. "I think that I got the wrong idea about love," she said. "And when I found myself between this horrible situation what I did was push you away... And now I realize I was wrong, and that was not the way to handle things. I was just..."
"You were doing your job," he completed for her. "Amelia, you were trying to protect me. Not by using your arrows or your fighting skills... you were trying to show your love by the one thing you're great at: protecting. But I'm not Scott, or Derek, so your plan clearly backfired."
"I'm not good at this, Stiles," she mumbled. "You... you're not hard to get... you're hard to earn. And I keep wondering if... If I don't deserve you."
He grabbed her hand and she looked up. "You don't need to deserve me... you just need to love me as much as I love you." The girl smiled. "People make mistakes, Amelia, and you're that kind of person that does not admit them and prefers to be right all the time... and, god, that's why I love you so much. I once told you that we were complete opposites yet we match perfectly, and I still believe that. Doesn't matter how many guys you are with or... how many mistakes you make that you're too proud to admit... that feeling is not going to change. It's you... It's always been you."
Amelia just smiled.
"I know you hate lying to the people you love. When you were protecting Scott in secret, you wouldn't talk to Lizzie so you shouldn't have to lie about where were you. After we overheard that conversation the sheriff had with Melissa... you pushed Scott away because you couldn't lie, you couldn't look at him and betray him. And I know that's why you pushed me away... it's what you do. You value honesty, I know that. I will always know that. Because I know you. And I admire you for that: it takes some balls to deprive yourself from your own happiness."
"Or, it's a sign of weakness, and the depriving yourself from happiness is just collateral damage."
He shook his head. "You know damn well you're not weak, Amelia."
The girl chuckled. "I thought you were gonna yell at me," she admitted and Stiles licked his lip.
"Not you... Isaac, maybe."
"Oh my—"
"In my mind I'm hitting him so many times with a baseball bat, you can't imagine." Amelia rolled her eyes. "Why did you date him anyway?"
Amelia looked at him. "Because I liked him and... to not think about you," she whispered and Stiles smirked. "Oh my God, I bursted up your ego."
"More than it was already? Come on," he said, smiling. "I love you, Amelia... that's not gonna change."
"I love you too, Stiles... and that's not gonna change."
• • •
Amelia placed her hand on Scott's shoulder as he walked into the school, while Stiles held her other hand, interlocking their fingers.
Scott smiled at her widely as they walked through the hallway, the three together.
"So you guys are back together?" Scott asked them and they both nodded. "Took you long enough."
"Shut up, doggie."
Scott laughed as they kept walking. Stiles looked at her and smiled, kissing her cheek loudly before looking upfront, to the hallway.
"Hey where's your cousin?" Stiles asked her and she exhaled.
"Don't ask if you don't want to know the answer," she told him, making him raise his eyebrows.
"Hey, Amy," Scott called her and she looked over to him. "Lizzie told me that you cried a lot when I was in the ice," the True Alpha said to her.
"Oh my God..." she whispered while Scott bursted out laughing, and the same did Stiles.
"Aww," Stiles exclaimed, "little girlie cried for her little doggie dog."
"I'm gonna kill both of you, I mean it..."