*A/N: OMG! 1k reads! Thank you so much, guys! We are almost done with
this book. We only have a few more chapters to go and once that is done,
I will be jumping straight to book two as I have started writing it to be ahead.
Tell me what your favorite part is or any questions you might have,
I will be answering them. Enjoy!*
Chapter 50
As we parked at a secluded area of the building the rave would be held, we all hopped out from the jeep. I was scanning the area as Scott and Stiles went to the back of the car. Once I felt like we were good, I headed over to them.
"Give me a hand with this," Stiles ordered toward Scott.
Scott didn't move toward the mountain ash as he announced, "I can't."
"He can't touch Mountain Ash, babe," I reminded Stiles.
"Right," Stiles huffed.
Scott soon left us at the back of the jeep. I watched as Stiles picked up a bag of Mountain Ash. I really couldn't do anything to help. So as Stiles began to work, I just followed behind him. That's when I had a thought. Deaton and my mother have told me plenty of times that I can pass for a human if I tune into that side of me. What happened if I come into contact with Mountain ash?
"Hey, Stiles?" I called out as we went to get the last bag of mountain ash, "Do you mind if I try to carry the bag?"
"What? Why?" He paused to look at me.
I shrugged, "Maybe, since I'm half Human and half-werewolf, I can hold the bag."
"Do we know what it can do to you?" he asked, growing worried.
"Mountain Ash is mainly used to for a barrier, so at best it would prevent me from touching it," I answered with a theory.
He took a moment to think but soon nodded, "Go for it."
I smiled as I reached out for the bag, making sure to keep my thoughts toward the human side. As I do, I came close to the bag and eventually touch the bag without any problems. Stiles laughed at the fact that it worked, but then I had another thought. I released the bag for a moment and closed my eyes. When I reopened them, they revealed the golden hues of my werewolf. This time when I attempted to reach out, my body just froze, as if it knows I wouldn't even be able to fully touch it like before.
Turning my eyes back to normal, I looked at Stiles, "Human me can touch it, werewolf me defiantly can't."
"That means you can walk through the barrier without a worry," he said in thought, "It could come in handy. I mean you can switch on your human and continue to get through, or better yet, use it to escape."
"My thoughts exactly," I smiled at his thinking, "Come on, let's finish this thing and head inside."
Stiles nodded and took the final bag.
As I followed behind Stiles, we were almost done with the barrier when I felt a stabbing feeling in my side. It was strange. It was like a slight pinch at my side, not much to make me cry out in pain but it was enough to know it was there. There was no connection associated with the pain so I ignored it. It wasn't enough to even care if it even had a connection as I talked to Stiles about the smallest of things.
"So," I smiled, "You seemed a bit off on the drive over, is something bothering you?"
"What?" Stiles looked over his shoulder at me, "What do you mean? I'm great!"
"You're lying..." my smile fell as I looked at him seriously, "What happened?"
"Nothing gets past you, does it baby?" he tried to laugh it off, "Its... it's just that my dad-"
"Is he okay!?" I exclaimed, worried that something must have happened to him.
Stiles shook his head as he continued to work on the barrier, "He told me that they took his badge away... he's no longer Sheriff..."
"What!?" I rushed to his side, "What do you mean by that? Why would they take his badge? He's the best Sheriff we've had in a long time!?"
Stiles sighed, "They didn't think that the sheriff's son should have a criminal record with theft of police equipment..."
"WHAT!" I hissed, "Did he tell you who did the order to do this?"
He shook his head once more, "No. He just brushed me off..."
"Stiles..." I took his hand, "I'm so sorry... If there's anything I can help with, just tell me."
Stiles looked over to me and smiled fondly, "Thanks, but I don't think it would be that simple..."
"I have my connections," I smiled, hopeful, "You'll see your dad will get his job back."
Stiles stopped walking as he began to panic, "Uh, no!"
"What?" I asked starting to panic myself, "What's wrong?"
"This is what's left of the ash," Stiles showed me his fisted hand.
I began to panic as well as I tried to think of what to do, when I remembered what Deaton said, "Stiles, remember what Deaton told you. You got to be the spark!"
"You mean," he looked at me with a grin, "Use the force?"
I rolled my eyes at his joke but laughed, "Yes, you dork."
Stiles nodded and took a moment to calm his mind. I took his hand as we began to walk the remainder of the way. As we walked, he allowed some of the ash to rain out of his fist. Once he opened his hand he looked up at me but then we both looked at the Mountain ash line to find that it was complete. Stiles let out a laugh as I air pumped the air in excitement.
"You did it, babe!" I exclaimed as I threw myself to him.
He had me around his arms as we laughed, "I did it!"
I gave him a long kiss on his lips and smiled, "Come on, let's go check up on the rest of the plan."
He nodded and took my hand before guiding us to the rave waiting for us inside. As we walk inside, I lost balance and fell to the ground. I knew right away that it was Scott.
"Are you okay?" Stiles asked, worry clearly present in his eyes.
I nodded, "Yeah, I think Scott's having some troubles, but it wasn't too bad. I'm sure he can handle himself."
Stiles nodded as we headed toward a back room. When we entered, Erica and Issac were ready to attack.
"Woah!" we both exclaimed, "It's just us!"
"Don't freak," Stiles added at the end.
I motioned toward the unconscious Jackson seated on an uncomfortable chair, "Is he okay?"
"Well," Issac presented his claws to us, "Let's find out."
As soon as he attempted to strike Jackson, Jackson's hand flew up to catch Issac's hand. The freaky part was that he wasn't even moving. His head still hung to the side, his arm was the only thing that moved. To make things worse, he was still out.
"God..." Issac hissed as he pried his hand out of Jackson's hold.
"Okay," I breathed out, "no one does anything like that again, okay?"
Everyone nodded as Stiles asked, "I thought the ketamine was supposed to put him out?"
"Yeah, well," Erica motioned to the relaxing body of Jackson, "Apparently this is all we're going to get."
"So," Stiles continued, "Let's just hope that whoever is controlling him just decided to show up tonight as well."
As soon as Stiles made his comment, Jackson's voice pulled our attention to him as he spoke up, "I'm here."
Everyone fell quiet.
I was about to ask a question when Jackson continued, "I'm right here with you. She's here as well."
Everyone looked at me as I began to cough.
"You good?" Stiles asked.
I just nodded, "Yeah, I think it was the shock..."
Once I regained my breath, Stiles took a step forward and asked, "Jackson, is that you?"
"Us," he replied, "We're all here."
"Are you the one killing people?" I asked next.
"We are the ones killing murderers," Jackson's body answered.
"So all the people you've killed so far deserved it?" I asked again, a bit mad now.
"We got a little rule book that says you only go after murderers," Stiles continued for me.
Jackson's body laughed a bit, giving me the creeps, "Any rule can break if enough pressure's applied."
"Right..." I sighed, "So, the people you've killed, are they murderers?"
"All," Jackson answered, "Each. Every one."
"That's not creepy at all..." Stiles whispered to me.
"Well," I rolled my eyes at my boyfriend's timing for his usual sarcasm, "Who did they murder?"
"Me," was all that Jackson said.
Shocked, Stiles stepped forward again and asked, "Wait, what? What do you mean?"
"They murdered me," Jackson replied, "They murdered me."
Stiles, Erica, and Issac continued to keep an eye on freaky Jackson. I was too focused on any theories I could think about, but it was starting to get hard with the constant coughing fit I was getting. It was starting to make hard to breathe, but I didn't want them to worry about me when we have a task to finish. The third coughing fit hit me, this time making me collapse to the ground. I felt dizzy and weak, but once I got my breathing back, I was able to get back up to my feet.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Stiles asked, but I just nodded and smiled up at him.
"Guys..." Issac called out to us and pointed over to the now moving but unconscious Jackson.
"Give him another dose of Ketamine!" I demanded, worried that Jackson might wake up, or well the Kanima would.
Issac presented us with an empty bottle and announced, "I don't have anymore."
I looked at the bottle and then glared at him, "You used it all! Scott specifically told you to give it to him in doses!"
"I'm not a doctor," Issac threw back.
"Everyone," Stiles began to pulled over to the door, "Everyone out! Out!"
When I glanced at what he was panicking for, my blood went cold at the sight of Jackson sifting to his Kanima form. All four of us rushed out of the door and leaned against the metal door, as we look around the room for something to hold the door closed, but that was soon lost when the Kanima just shot out from the metal wall beside the door.
"Nope," I announced, "I didn't sign up for this..."
"None of us did!" Stiles exclaimed.
"They sighed up for it," I pointed over to Erica and Issac, "Not my fault that Derek forgot to point out the fine print. I was born this way."
"Not the time, Babe," Stiles sighed, "We have to find Scott and warn him about Jackson."
I sighed and began to head out the building and out. As soon as we made it to the exterior of the rave, we found Derek running over to us as well. He looked pretty messed up, but I could do anything, I began to cough again. I thought that the coughing fit would end as quickly as the others did, but this time, my coughing began to render me breathless. Unable to listen to the conversation, I took a hold of Stiles' arm before I began to slowly collapse to the ground, this time no longer able to regain my breath.
"I can't breath..." I announced.
"What?" Stiles took hold of me, "What's happening!"
Before I could answer, Scott's voice filled my ears before my vision slowly sifted to see something entirely different. Along with the sight, I heard the last person I wanted to hear around Scott, especially when he was clearly alone. It was Victoria, Allison's mother. They were in a warehouse and I could smell the wolfbane in the air. Victoria's smug grin also showed that this was she planning to just kill Scott in a natural-looking away and no one would know, well other than me.
Out of anger, I yelled out to her, "You bitch! Stay away from him!"
To my surprise, Victoria looked down at Scott, clearly confused, "What did you say?"
"you're going to regret you ever went after Scott," I continued to growl out to her, but the more I did, the harder it was to breathe.
"Who are you?" she glared back.
I couldn't help laughing as I replied with a simple, "Wouldn't you like to know."
Before she could even try to say something, someone burst through the door behind her and my vision began to fade back to see Stiles. He looked terrified but I couldn't breathe to say a thing. He was carrying me to his car. Weakly, I took a hand full of his shirt and allowed myself to relax in his arms. His reassuring words, brought a smile to my face, even if I was gasping for air.
When he placed me in the passenger seat, I found enough air to tell him, "We should really stop doing this..."
"What do you mean?" he asked, panicking.
I took a deep gulp of air and replied, "Me having some sort of attack and making you worried..."
He laughed a bit, "Don't worry about it, just save your breath. I'm taking you home."
"You are my home, Stiles..." was all I breathed out when I allowed myself to sleep.
---
Spring break came by quickly.
I had been spending it as much as I could with Stiles and with Lydia. I had been avoiding Allison as much as I could. I didn't want to tell her about her mother and Scott made me keep it secret. I don't know why, but I don't want to step into that territory with him. This is his thing, even if our connection almost killed me in the end. I had as much right in this matter, but I know Scott has more to lose than I do.
So I have been at Stiles' place for most of my time, trying to busy the boys as much as I could. I wanted to distract them, and what better way to do that with boys, then making them help me clean the house. Yes, I made two grown boys clean their house, it was a task long-awaited for them to do. I've tried to do as much as I could whenever I was around but neither of them had anything better to do.
"Are you sure you will be okay?" I asked Stiles.
Stiles took a look over to his dad and then back to me, "Yeah! Why wouldn't we?"
"Because I know you still feel guilty," I told him, "Just... try not to do anything that would stress him more then he already is?"
"I promise," he sighed.
"Thank you," I smiled and placed a sweet kiss on his cheeks, "I'll be back soon, I just want to check in on Lydia... she's been acting weird since the night of the Rave."
"Weirder then before?" he asked.
I smacked his arm and replied, "Stiles!"
"Right," he raised his hands in surrender, "She's in this situation because of us."
"I'll be back..." I sighed as he nodded.
As I walked over to my car, my phone began to ring. I sighed, thinking it would be someone wanting me to go to them instead. When I saw it was Allison, I stopped. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know if I could answer or just ignored it. My finger moved before I could decide as it clicked on the accept button.
"Juliette?" Allison's voice rang through the receiver.
Taking a moment to regain myself, I replied, "Hey, Allison! What can I do for you? I'm about to go to Lydia's."
"Oh!" Allison paused, "Um, do you think you have a moment to talk? I have been sitting on this for a while but I think you should know about it."
I hopped into my car and sat in the driver's seat as I sighed, "If this is about you and Scott, I don't want to go over this."
"Actually it's about Matt," she interrupted.
That took me by surprise.
Allison continued, "After the rave I took a look at his camera and I found something."
"What did you find?" I asked, getting worried the longer she refrained from telling me about these things she found.
"At first, the picture seemed good-natured and fun but then I began to see pictured of you," she explained.
"Okay?" I internally sighed, thinking that it would have been worse than that, "He's a photographer, Allie, what else do you expect?"
"No," Allison exclaimed, "These pictures were of you in your room. Some even showed you while you got dressed, worse of all, there were some that have you and Stiles together..."
"What?" I breathed out, "What do you mean together?"
"I saw a picture of you and him in bed..." he explained, "You were both still dress but I couldn't continue to investigate when he came back to take his camera... I think he knows I saw the pictures..."
I was silent.
Matt had gone too far and I would have never expected this from him.
"Juliette?" Allison's voice snapped me out of my thoughts, "You okay?"
"Yeah..." I breathed out, "Thanks for the heads up... I-I got to go and meet up with Lydia... I'll... I'll see you at school."
"Call me if you need anything," she exclaimed before I hung up completely.
I sat in the car for a good while.
I felt numb. I never wanted this to ever happen, but here it was. The one guy I thought could be a friend turned out to be a creepy stalker and on top of that, I was starting to think that he was the Master. No one else seems to fit the description but I was trying to not fall prey to my thoughts before looking at all of the evidence. Now, was not the time to allow this to cloud my thoughts and point fingers. It was time to use my head before my emotions.