˗ˏˋ⋆ H E A V E N L Y ⋆ˎˊ˗
↳ 𝒙𝒙𝒙𝒊𝒊𝒊. 𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒐𝒘 𝒐𝒇
𝒐𝒑𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒚
𝘵𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘰𝘭𝘧, 𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘸𝘰
(𝔅𝔞𝔱𝔱𝔩𝔢𝔣𝔦𝔢𝔩𝔡 / 𝔐𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔓𝔩𝔞𝔫)
><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
GRACIE SCREAMED IN EXCITEMENT, JUMPING UP AND DOWN. NEXT to her, Noah was going crazy with pride and Melissa was equally excited, yelling Stiles' name.
With two minutes left in the game, Stiles was on fire. He caught the ball from his teammate and sprinted down the field, twirling around the opposing team's defense like he was made for the sport. He easily scored, tying up the game.
The whole crowd was on their feet, cheering him on. There was a minute left in the game and one goal to win.
And Stiles didn't disappoint.
He scooped up that lacrosse ball and took off, his teammates running after him and shouting in encouragement. Gracie waited anxiously and then screamed excitedly when he got to the goal and swung his stick forward.
It felt like time slowed down as the ball went into the net when Stiles scored the winning goal, and then the buzzer rang, signaling the end of the game. The crowd roared in excitement. Smiling wildly and jumping up and down, goosebumps erupted all over the Hale girl's body.
Stiles had done it. He won the game.
But all the air had been sucked out of the room when the lights around the field all went out at once. The crowd was screaming as chaos erupted. They were running down the bleachers and heading toward the field and the parking lot.
Melissa and Noah had taken off, seeing if they could do anything to help the situation. Gracie was frozen.
Something was wrong.
The Hale girl jumped off the bleachers, running onto the field as the lights came back on one by one. There was already a crowd in the middle of the field, surrounding something.
"Somebody's hurt," they heard a guy say as they passed him. "Somebody's down on the field."
Gracie's stomach dropped. She pushed past the crowd in order to get to the middle to see what was going on. Jackson was on the ground, unconscious, with Melissa hovering over him, doing chest compressions.
"He's not breathing," she said rapidly. "No pulse."
"Oh, my God!" A voice cried out. Turning, Gracie looked beside her and saw a heartbroken Lydia. "There blood. There's a lot of blood."
Gracie shook her head in complete shock. Jackson wasn't supposed to be dead. He was the kanima, the kanima that Gerard controlled. And now he was dead?
He couldn't be dead.
He couldn't be.
"Get down here!" Melissa barked at her, in full nurse mood. "Get down her and hold his head."
Gracie scrambled to obey, dropping to her knees right by Jackson's head. She tilted his head up just as Melissa instructed her.
"Where's my son?" She suddenly heard Noah shouted from a few feet away, looking around the thinning crowd. The Hale girl stood up as she let Lydia take her place. She looked out into the crowd of people around her. "Where the hell is my son?"
Gracie stood in the boy's locker room frozen. Most of the players had left, really unable to celebrate their victory after Jackson was killed and Stiles had gone "missing".
Whatever Gracie was feeling, she couldn't snap out it. She couldn't ignore it. It was the overwhelming feeling to move, to stop fighting whatever was inside of her and find where Stiles had been taken.
"Gracie, hun, are you okay?"
Gracie blinked at the gruff voice and quickly focused, nodding her head at Stiles' dad, who hadn't left since the game ended after calling in all his deputies. "Yeah, sorry Sheriff."
Noah waved her off and continued telling her, Scott, and Isaac what he had planned on doing.
"I've got to meet with the medical examiner and try to figure out what happened with Jackson," he listed. "I've got an APB out on Stiles. His Jeep is still in the parking lot, so that means...Hell, I don't know what that means."
Gracie knew what it meant and so did Scott and Isaac. Gerard had taken Stiles as soon as that game buzzer went off, taking him who knows where.
"Look," he sighed heavily, shoving his little notebook into his pocket. "If he answers his phone, if he answers his emails, if any of you see him..."
"We'll call you," Isaac assured him kindly.
"He's probably just freaked out from all the attention or something," Scott tried to make Noah feel better. Anything was better than telling him a geriatric psychopath—in the words of her father—had kidnapped him. "We'll find him."
Noah nodded solemnly. "Yeah...I'll see you, okay?" he patted Gracie on the shoulder. "I'm sorry for your loss."
She managed a sad smile before he walked away. "Thank you."
Even though Jackson wasn't really her loss, she still felt bad. He was still someone's kid. He still meant something to someone. But she was still focused on his death –– specifically why?
She didn't know why, but she had this feeling that told her that Jackson wasn't as dead as they thought he was. It didn't make sense that Gerard would just kill off his best player so soon to the final battle because she knew that Jackson would never kill himself. It was Jackson, for crying out loud.
"McCall," Coach approached them now, hardly bothering with the fact that Gracie was in the locker room. "We need you on the team, okay? You know I can't put you on the field next season if you don't get your grades up."
There weren't the right words but Coach's tone told them that he was grieving Jackson just like his players were.
"I know, Coach."
"All right," Coach faltered for a second. "I mean, I know I yell a lot but it's not like I hate you guys...Well, I hate Greenberg, but, you know, that's different. It's Greenberg." He chuckled a little bit before sobering. "I'm just saying we—I need you on the team. Get your grades back up."
It was the sweetest thing that Gracie had ever heard Coach say before. It actually kind of shocked her.
Scott looked just as shocked as her. "I will."
"I know," Coach nodded and then patted Gracie on the shoulder. "Hale."
She gave him a polite smile and shook her head. As soon as Coach was shut away in his office, Scott turned to Gracie and Isaac. "Is that everyone?"
Gracie looked around while Isaac used his senses to make sure no one was left in the locker room but them. "I think so."
Scott ripped off the door of Stiles' locker, tossing the warped metal onto the floor.
"You're gonna find him by scent?"
"Yeah, we all are," Scott insisted as he held one of Stiles' shirts and tossed Isaac a shoe.
"But how come you get his shirt and I get a shoe?" Isaac complained.
"Stop whining," Gracie scolded him as Scott tensed up. She and Isaac followed his line of sight to see Derek walking into the locker room alone.
"We need to talk," he said seriously.
Gracie should have known that he wasn't alone. In his usual fashion, Peter dramatically stepped out of the shadows, revealing himself to Scott. "All of us."
Scott gaped at him, surprised at the sight of him since Gracie hadn't gotten a chance to tell him about her uncle's sudden resurrection.
"Holy shit!" His shock quickly faded and turned to anger. "What the hell is this?"
"Yeah, I forgot to tell you," Gracie winced. That was actually her bad. "Peter's alive."
Scott gave her an obvious look and then turned back to Derek. "And you're, what, working with him?"
Derek cocked his head calmly, though Gracie could see the irritation in his eyes. "You know, I thought the same thing when I saw you talking to Gerard at the sheriff's station."
Gracie whipped her head in Scott's direction. "What?!"
"Okay, hold on," Scott held his hands up defensively. "He—he threatened to kill my mom so I had to get close to him. What was I supposed to do?"
"Okay, he had a good point," Gracie admitted.
"I'm gonna go with Scott on this one," Peter interjected casually. "Have you seen his mom? She's gorgeous."
Gracie, Scott, and Derek glared at him, all three of them yelling, "Shut up!"
Peter rolled his eyes while Isaac ducked down to speak quietly in Gracie's ear, though they all heard him. "Who is he?"
"His name's Peter," Gracie informed him, all the while glaring at the man who had been revived only a few weeks ago. "He's my uncle, and he's the one who bit Scott and me. Then, he tried to kill everyone, so Stiles and Jackson set him on fire and Derek slit his throat. He was dead for a few months, but then Lydia somehow brought him back from the dead during the worm moon."
Peter waved at him. "Hi."
"That's good to know," Isaac whispered awkwardly. Gracie patted his arm.
"Yeah, how is he even alive?" Scott asked loudly.
"Look, short version is he knows how to stop Jackson," Derek declared. "...and maybe how to save him."
Gracie raised an eyebrow in surprise, giving Derek a questioning look. He nodded ever so slightly at her, causing her to inhale deeply.
Hope settled in her chest. If Jackson wasn't really dead like she thought, maybe they could stop him without killing him dead.
"Well, that's very helpful except Jackson's dead," Isaac told them the news.
Derek furrowed his eyebrows. "What?"
"Yeah, Jackson's dead," Scott confirmed. "It just happened on the field."
"Gerard wanted this to happen," Peter stated thoughtfully. "We need to figure out why. Something tells me the window of opportunity is quickly closing."
><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄:
So there's chapter thirty-three. Only two left of act two. What do you guys think? If you really liked it, please vote, comment, and share.