Chapter Eighteen
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"Great best friend bonding time." I scoffed as Lydia, Allison, and I stood outside of the High school.
The familiar blue jeep whipped into the parking lot, and came to a quick stop. "Where are they?" I heard Stiles ask as he hopped out.
"Over here." Allison replied as she pulled her folded arms closer to her chest.
Stiles rushed over to us, Scott following right behind. "Autumn? Lydia?"
"It's the same thing. Same thing as the pool. Except this time....Autumn was the one driving."
My eyes lifted off of the ground and landed right on Stiles who looked extremely worried. "We got into the car heading to get ice cream, and ended up here." I explained.
All I remember is walking out of my house with the girls, getting into the car...and then everything after that up until now is extremely hazy. As soon as the car parked it's like I snapped out of it, and realized where we were. Allison said she had been trying to ask me where I was going, but she couldn't get Lydia or myself to say a word.
"And you told us to call you if there's a dead body." Lydia added.
Stiles' eyes widened, "You found a dead body?!"
I shook my head, "No. Not yet, but someone is dead. I can feel it."
"Not yet? What do you mean not yet? Guys, you're supposed to call us after you find the dead body."
My sisters hand shot up, and she pointed a finger towards my boyfriend. "Oh, no, we're not doing that again. You find the dead body from now on." I completely agree with her. I would rather avoid seeing anymore dead bodies if possible, which the chances of that happening in this down are slim to none.
Stiles' jaw dropped and his eyes narrowed, "How are we supposed to find the dead body? You're always the one finding the dead body."
"Guys." Scott said as he turned his body away from the group, "I found the dead body."
You know that situation where you don't wanna see something at all but you just have to look anyways? Yup, that's me right now. I couldn't help but turn my attention in the direction where Scott was staring, and there laid the body of a deputy....A deputy I've known my whole life.
My heart sunk when I saw Tara's lifeless face staring directly at me.
When Stiles and I were younger I would spend a lot of time at the station with him while he waited for Sheriff so he wouldn't be alone. Tara would always come over and check up on us, bring us snacks, help us with homework. She was one of my favorites...and now I'm sitting here staring at her body. Once again we're too late. We're always too late.
Is this ever going to stop?
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"Idioms, analogies, metaphors, and similes, all tools the writer uses to tell their story." Ms. Blake said as she walked around the room, before pausing her walk next to my sisters desk. "Lydia, I wasn't aware you had so many hidden talents."
Lydia shrugged her shoulders and glanced up at Ms. Blake who was hovering over her desk, "You and every guy I've ever dated."
"Oh, um, well, that was an idiom, by the way." Ms. Blake replied before continuing her walk back to the front of the class. "Idioms are something of a secret to the people who know the language or the culture."
I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion and turned around in my desk to take a peek at whatever Lydia was doing. "What's up with you and trees lately, Lyds?" I whispered as I observed her drawing. "And was the comment about the guys really necessary?"
A small smirk formed on her lips as she continued to draw, "I'm good at drawling them, and yes...it was necessary."
"They're phrases that only make sense if you know key words." Ms. Blake continued, stopping in front of Scott now. "Saying 'Jump the gun' is meaningful only if you know about the starting gun in a race, or a phrase like 'Seeing the whole board.'"
Stiles gave his head a nod, "Like chess."
"That's right, Stiles. Do you play?"
"Uh, no. My father does."
Ms. Blake smiled widely towards Stiles before walking once again, "Now, when does an idiom become a cliche?"
"Did anyone else find that smile creepy or was it just me?" I whispered in the direction of Scott and Stiles.
Scott nodded in agreement, "Yeah, but we can talk about that later. I think I can get to Ethan. I'm pretty sure I can make him talk."
"What do you wanna do that for?" Stiles asked, sending Scott a look of confusion.
"The Druids are emissaries, right? So what if the Darach was an emissary to the alphas?"
Is it sad that, that sentence makes complete sense to me?
"Okay, first of all, I cannot believe that we've gotten to the point where a sentence like 'What if the Darach was an emissary to the alphas?' actually makes sense to me. Second of all, we're gonna have a huge problem getting to Ethan."
Scott furrowed his brow, "What's that?"
"Going through Aiden."
I nodded in agreement, "Yeah, that's gonna be a problem. Ever since he's been back to school, they're always together. I mean, joint at the hip, together. How are we going to get them apart?"
Both Stiles and Scott looked at me with raised eyebrows, and I could tell that they were both thinking of some idea at the same time, which always concerns me. I mean, let's be real, it never ends up well for any of us when they come up with an idea together. "What? Why are you looking at me–" Before I could finish my question they were both flinging their heads towards Lydia who was sitting directly behind me. Yeah, this is gonna be a horrible idea.
I let out a groan and turned around to face my sister just like they were. She let out a heavy sigh, "What now?"
****
"No, I don't like the idea of my sister being alone with Aiden. It's not happening." I said as I paced around the hallway.
Stiles flung his head back in frustration, "Autumn, she's been alone with him multiple times and he hasn't done anything but suck her face, okay? I really think she'll be okay just this one time. This is the only chance we have."
"Autumn, I'll be fine. Seriously." Lydia said clearly annoyed, "He won't lay a finger on–Well....I can't say that."
I let out a heavy sigh as I ran my fingers through my hair, "Sorry that I'm concerned about my sister going into a room alone with someone who just killed Boyd, and almost killed me." Everyone fell silent as I brought up the memory from the night of Heathers party. "Sorry, I just–"
"Autumn, they didn't know you were in the car that night. They just–"
My jaw dropped in shock, "Are you defending him?! I can't believe you would defend him after everything–"
"Okay, okay, okay....Let's all just calm down, alright." Stiles interrupted, "We don't need to bring that up." He turned towards me, and placed his hand on my chin making me look at him. "Autumn, we have to talk to Ethan. She's gonna be okay. You have to trust us. Trust me."
I tried to remove my eyes from his but the grasp they had was too strong, "Fine." I mumbled, "But I wanna be somewhere where I can see what's going on."
Lydia shook her head, "No, that'll be too obvious. Go with Stiles and Scott, I can take care of myself. You know deep down he won't hurt me, Autumn."
"No. No, I don't." I sassed. "Let's just get this thing over with." I muttered as I began to make my way down the hall.
"Autumn!" Lydia called out, the clicking of her heels echoing all around. "Stop!"
My body flung around right as Lydia was catching up to me, "Go find Aiden."
"Not until you let me talk."
I nodded my head towards her, "Go ahead. Defend the enemy some more, Lydia."
"I wasn't defending him, I was just trying to make you feel better about the whole situation, okay? But, he swears up and down they had no idea it was you. And I don't know if I believe him, and I don't know if I believe that it was Kali's idea to kill Boyd, but you guys need to talk with Ethan and if there's something I can do to help, then I'm gonna do it. But I hope you know that I would drop everything with Aiden for you no matter what, Autumn. You're my sister...my best friend."
My eyes began to gloss over, and I gave my head a small nod. "Okay, just please be careful around him, Lydia. I can't have you getting hurt."
"I'll be fine." She assured me as she whipped out her lip glass from her purse, "Now, let's get this plan started."
****
"Why are you even talking to me?" Ethan asked, "I helped kill your friend. How do you know I'm not gonna kill another one?"
His eyes were right on me as he asked the second question, "I'd like to know why you looked at me while you asked that second question, Ethan? I think you trying to kill me once was enough, are you trying to scare me?"
"Are you threatening my girlfriend?" Stiles asked, his eyes blinking rapidly as he stepped closer to Ethan. "You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna break off an extra large branch of Mountain Ash, wrap it in Wolfsbane, roll it in Mistletoe, and shove it up your freaking–"
"Stiles!" Scott yelled, as my hand flew up to my boyfriends mouth. If I didn't think that Ethan and Aiden were so dangerous, I would have let him keep going. "We get it..." Scott said with a smirk towards Stiles before turning back towards Ethan. "We're talking to you because I know that you didn't want to kill Boyd. And I think that if something like that happened now, you wouldn't do it again."
Ethan shook his head, "You don't know what we owe them, especially Deucalion. We weren't like Kali and Ennis when we met him. We weren't Alphas."
"Then what were you?" I asked, folding my arms tightly across my chest.
"Omegas."
My brow rose, "Omegas?"
He nodded, "In actual wolf packs, omegas are the scapegoat, the last to eat, the one who has to take the abuse from the rest of the pack."
"So what happened?" Stiles asked as his body rested against the wall behind him.
Ethan took a deep breath, "They were killers. I mean, people talk about us as monsters. Well, they were the ones who gave us the reputation. And our Alpha was the worst of them."
"Why didn't you guys just fight back?" Stiles asked, "Form Voltron wolf, you know?"
"Yeah, Voltron wolf is pretty intimidating if you ask me."
Anger began to cover Ethan's face, "We couldn't, we didn't know how to control it back then."
Scott nodded in understanding, "Deucalion taught you."
"And then we fought. We took down the whole pack, one-bye-one. And by the time we got to our Alpha, he was begging for his life. And we tore him apart. Literally." At this point Ethan was shouting, which probably isn't a good thing because if someone hears this conversation they're gonna be pretty confused. He was shaking in anger, it wouldn't surprise me if he wolfed out on us at any second.
"What about your Emissary?" Scott asked, which only resulted in Ethan shaking his head in response. "They're all dead? Kali and Ennis' too?"
Ethan nodded, "All of them except for Deucalion."
Stiles shifted in place, "You mean Morrell?"
All the sudden right as Ethan was about to answer the question he started gasping in pain, while looking down at his chest. "What's wrong? Are you hurt or something?" I asked, pushing myself against the wall next to Stiles just in case.
Ethan's hand fell onto his chest where his eyes were focused, "Not me...my brother."
My eyes widened and I could literally feel my heart skip a beat, "What?! Aiden's hurt?! Lydia's with him! See, I knew this was a bad idea!" I yelled, sprinting down the stairs towards the boys locker room where coach's office was located.
Even though I was running as fast as I could Ethan and Scott both passed me up, busting into the locker room. Stiles and followed behind and the first thing that came into view was Cora injured on the floor. Stiles dropped down onto the floor by her side, and I started looking around the room for my sister. When she finally came into view a huge breath of relief escaped from my lips, and I dropped down onto my knees next to Cora alongside Stiles.
Scott and Ethan were holding both of Aiden's arms as he still tried to lash out in anger. "You can't do this!"
"She came at me!" Aiden yelled back, his fangs brushing against his lips as he spoke.
"It doesn't matter! Kali gave Derek until the next full moon. You can't touch him or her!" He said, taking a glance at Cora who was still on the ground groaning in pain.
After silence filled the room, Ethan finally grabbed Aiden and pushed him out into the hallway. I looked back down at Cora as blood trickled down her face, he must have hit her pretty hard. Usually werewolves can take a hit and jump back up, she definitely didn't look like she would be fighting any time soon.
"Hey, guys, I think she's pretty hurt."
She slowly sat herself up, wincing the whole way. "I'm fine. Just help me up."
We all hesitantly got back onto our feet, "Are you sure you wanna get up, Cora?"
"Yes."
Lydia glanced at me and I shrugged my shoulders before lending her both of my hands to help her up. The moment her feet touched the ground, she stabilized herself on one of the sinks and began wiping the blood off of her head.
"Are you okay?" Stiles asked as we all stood behind her just in case she were to pass out or something.
Lydia let out a sigh, "She doesn't look okay."
Cora looked at us all through the mirror, "I'll heal." As she began to turn around she stumbled backwards and the boys rushed to help her. "I said I'm fine." She sassed as she finally turned all the way around.
"Do you realize how suicidally crazy that was? What were you thinking going after them?" Stiles asked.
"I did it for Boyd! None of you were doing anything."
Scott just stood there staring at her, "We're trying–"
"And you're failing! You're just a bunch of stupid teenagers running around, thinking that you can stop people from getting killed. But all you do is show up late. All you really do is find the bodies."
She was right....especially about Lydia and I. All we do is find the bodies, the only people we've ever made it to in time would be the boys at the Glen Capri Motel. I don't like the feeling of my abilities dealing with death...I would rather be a werewolf or something and actually have abilities I can use to help people. I can't help people by just finding their body.
"She's definitely a Hale." Stiles muttered before turning towards me, "Come on. Let's make sure she gets home."
****
"Philosophers?" Stiles asked Allison who had just called my cellphone. She had decided not to come to school today, and apparently on her day off she found out some more information from her dads office.
"And guardians, which after last night has to mean something like law enforcement, right?" Allison asked from the other end of the phone, "Stiles, you have to tell your dad. Tell him whatever you need but you have to get him to believe. Tell your dad. Warn him."
Stiles' grip on the steering wheel tightened a little bit, "Okay, okay, okay, I know."
"What are you gonna do?" Cora asked from the backseat.
Stiles glanced at her through the rearview mirror, "I'm gonna tell him the truth. And I'm gonna need your help."
I let out a groan, and slid down deeper into the seat. "Oh, God. This is gonna be interesting."
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Guys....the next chapter is a big one....ommmg. I think you could probably guess what's going to happen....or what you all are finally gonna find out.......dfjljashdfjkashdfadsjkfh trying not to spoil anything hahaha.
Hopefully you all enjoyed this chapter! :) Thanks sm for reading!