FALSE HOPE
ASPEN and Allison had taken their seats on the bleachers when the strawberry blonde bombshell arrived. Aspen could honestly say she didn't expect her to show, or at least, to sit with them.
"Allison!" the Martin girl said enthusiastically, before her eyes set on the other brunette in the seat next to her. "Aspen." she greeted, not so enthusiastically.
"Hey." Aspen replied, tugging her lips into a half-hearted smile. Lydia took a seat on the other side of Allison, the two of them talked while Aspen sat there on her phone, trying to be as least awkward as she could. She hadn't been checking her messages frequently enough apparently, because only now did she find a text from Scott that she most likely should've seen sooner.
SCOTT: Allison's dad is a hunter, tried to kill me.
Well that was blunt and straight to the point, Aspen thought.
It was pointless texting back because not only was the message from two days ago, but she could also see Scott gearing up for the game.
But she had so many questions. Does Allison know about werewolves? Is she some undercover huntress that secretly wants to kill Scott?
Aspen shook those thoughts off, Allison had become such a good friend of hers in the matter of a week, she was too kind, too pure, to be something like that. Besides, Aspen sees the way her face lights up when she talks about Scott, and when she looks at him. Theres no way she could be faking that.
She would know.
The game commenced, and so far Scott hadn't caught a single ball, which was odd seeing how he was at practices.
"Which one is Scott again?" said the Argent girl.
"He's number 11." Aspen replied, pointing to where Scott was on the field.
"A.K.A the only one who hasn't caught a single ball this entire game." Lydia mocked.
"Is that really necessary?" Aspen sighed, hiding the spite in her tone.
"Merely stating the facts here." was Lydia's response.
"I hope he's okay." said Allison, making Aspen smile at how much she already showed concern for Scott.
"I hope we're okay. We have to win this." Lydia retorted, turning Aspen's smile into a scowl once again. "Allison." Lydia said, picking up what looked like a support sign, though Aspen couldn't make out the words on it from the angle she was seeing it from. But once Allison, reluctantly, helped with picking it up, Aspen could read it clearly.
We luv you Jackson.
Aspen giggled at how miserable Allison looked holding the thing.
They continued to watch the game, which seemed to get weirder and weirder. Once Scott was actually receiving passes, Aspen's face lit up with pride, and once she realised Lydia's efforts of excluding her were working, she bailed and went to sit with someone who wouldn't.
She ran down the bleachers to sit on the bench which is typically reserved for players, but Coach Finstock had just grown accustomed to the fact that Aspen Carter pretty much has a reserved seat on it.
"Scott's making quite the comeback, huh." she said as she sat herself beside Stiles.
"Look who came crawling back." Stiles smirked, referring back to their conversation earlier.
"Get over yourself." She joked, smiling at him.
"Well, we might actually win this thing."
That's when it got weird. From what Aspen could see, she could've sworn the other team just deliberately passed Scott the ball.
"Did the other team just deliberately pass us the ball?" said Finstock, squishing his head between Aspen and Stiles, quite frankly scaring the shit out of the brunette. Stiles saw how startled she was and chuckled.
"Yes I believe so, coach." Stiles said in answer to Finstock's question.
"Interesting."
Moments later, the game was seconds away from finishing and the score was at a tie. That was, until Scott scored the winning shot.
"Goal! YES! YES! There you go!" Coach exclaimed. Aspen and Stiles practically jumped out of their seats and celebrated with a high-five, both of their grins matching each other's.
"He did it!" Aspen shrieked.
"Yeah he-" Stiles' voice trailed off as his gaze lingered on the pitch. Aspen snapped her fingers in front of his eyes.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Man of the match is making a break for it." Stiles muttered. The pair of them were about to run after their friend before they found themselves in front of Sherif Stilinski, who looked like he had news to share.
Apparently, the medical examiner determined the cause of death of the body in the woods as animal, not human.
Ergo, Derek Hale is out of jail.
...
Somehow, between being told Derek Hale had been let out of jail, and running off to find Scott to inform him of sed news, Aspen and Stiles found themselves in quite the predicament.
That predicament being watching Scott shove his tongue down Allison's throat in the boy's locker room.
"Would you stop that." Aspen whispered at such a low volume that hopefully Allison wouldn't hear them. Scott, with his supernatural hearing and all, obviously would.
"Stop what?" Stiles replied in the same volume.
"Watching them."
"I can't look away!"
"You are unbelievable."
"He's the only one of us getting any action, it's intriguing."
"Oh really?"
"Yes, really. Unless there's something you'd like to share with the class."
"I gotta get back to my dad." said Allison, snapping the pair out of their hissing and bickering. "Hi Stiles. Aspen." she added as she walked out, making both of their faces light up red with the embarrassment of being caught.
"Hey..." Stiles said awkwardly. Instead of following his lead on the awkward train, Aspen rushed over to the raven-haired girl to be the utter gossiper she was now becoming.
"You are so telling me everything later." she whispered, Allison replied with a light giggle and a simple "Of course I am" before exiting the room.
"I kissed her." Scott said once Allison was out of the locker room, completely dazed.
"We saw." Stiles replied bluntly.
"She kissed me." Scott added, still completely out of it.
"Saw that, too." Aspen deadpanned.
"That's pretty good, huh?" said Stiles.
"I-I don't know how, but I controlled it. I pulled it back. Maybe I can do this? Maybe it's not that bad?" the McCall boy said hopefully.
"yeah, we'll talk later then..." said Stiles, itching the back of his neck.
"Let's just tell him now." Aspen argued, confusion growing on Scott's face.
"Tell me what?"
"The, uh, medical examiner looked at the other half of the body we found..." Stiles began.
"yeah?" said Scott.
"Medical examiner determines killer of girl to be animal, not human. Derek's human, not animal. Derek? Not killer. Derek? Let out of jail."
"Nicely put." Aspen retorted from beside him.
"Are you kidding?"
"No, and here's a bigger kick in the ass- his dad ID'd the dead girl, both halves. Her name was Laura Hale." Aspen explained, emphasising the name 'Hale'.
"Hale?!" Scott exclaimed.
"Yup, looks like the big bad wolf has a sister." said Aspen.
"Had a sister." Stiles corrected.
...
Aspen had made it home, courtesy of Stiles, to find her mother sat alone in their living room. Her expression was unreadable, so Aspen wasn't too sure what to make of it.
"Mom?"she called out, her mother turned around to look at her, and greeted her with a smile. "Are you okay?" Aspen couldn't help but ask. She further examined her mother's face, and was concerned to see her eyes were actually red and puffy. She had definitely been crying.
"Mom what is it? Whats wrong?" Aspen said warily, throwing her bag off her shoulder and running to the couch to comfort her mom.
"I think..." Maggie stuttered. "I think someone's messing with us."
Aspen fell into a state of even more confusion and concern when she saw that there was a piece of paper in her mother's hands. The younger Carter embraced her mother in a hug when she saw that tears were returning.
"Mom, please, just tell me what's going on." she said softly. "You're scaring me."
Maggie wiped away her tear with the cuff of her button-down shirt, and handed her daughter the piece of paper. Aspen stared at the paper for a long moment, before hesitantly opening it.
I'll be back when it's safe.
- Ace
That's all it said. Although Aspen knew that this was some sicko playing games with her and her family, she still felt a sink in her chest. Ace died over six years ago, they buried him, they mourned him. Why would some psycho want to put her and her family through that pain again?
"You're right." Aspen choked out, her voice suddenly all dry and groggy. "Some sicko is just messing with us."
"I hate this town." her mother sobbed, her head in her hands. "I hate this goddamn town!"
Aspen's heart ached seeing her mother like this again.
"W-where's dad?" Aspen asked, her voice still raspy. Her mother let out a huge sigh, lifted her head out of her hands to face her daughter.
"I don't know." was her response. "I came back from work and that thing was just lying on the kitchen counter."
"Do you think he's seen this?" Aspen asked, her voice only coming out as a whisper this time and she fought the tears pooling in her eyes.
"I wish I knew, I guess there's a chance he's got a late shift at the hospital and hasn't been home, or maybe he came home and saw it and..." her voice trailed off.
"Hey, hey..." Aspen whispered, wrapping her arms around her mother to comfort her.
If there was one thing that became clear in that moment to Aspen Carter, is that she was wrong about everyone having some good in them. Because whoever did this? Whoever decided to rip open the wound that is Ace Carter's death all over again, is cruel. It's not only that they've ripped open a wound that was somewhat healing, it's that they had given the Carter's something that none of them will admit they now have.
False hope.
...