Scott and Tessa made their way to Liam's to find him hiding under his covers, pretending to be sick.
"Liam," Scott said sternly.
He grunted and pretended to cough. "No, I'm... I'm sick."
"You're not sick."
Liam began to stammer. "Yeah, I'm like deathly ill. It's serious. I think..." He let out a fake cough. "I think it's the flu."
"It's not flu season."
"Uh, then I probably have pneumonia."
Tessa pulled off the covers. "Get up. You have school."
Liam pulled his covers back up. "I don't think I should go to school. Or outside. Or anywhere. Ever again."
Scott shook his head. "It doesn't matter what you think, okay? Because you gotta go. Now all you do is pretend like nothing happened."
Liam scoffed. "Pretend? I'm just supposed to pretend?"
Scott thought of a quick analogy. "Think of it like when Superman gets caught with his glasses off. You know, he doesn't give up. He puts them back on and says, "I'm still Clark Kent.""
"You want me to wear glasses?"
"No!" Scott cried, dragging Liam from the bed. "Tessa and I want you to go to school, okay? And be Liam Dunbar. Just like how Superman has to be Clark Kent, like Spiderman, and Captain America..."
"Captain America is just Steve Rogers," Liam answered from the floor. "Everybody already loves him. Unlike us, who everybody hates. They hate us for trying to save their lives."
Tessa nodded. "You're right. Whether they like it or not, we're trying to save their lives."
"Exactly," Scott agreed. "Which is why you're gonna get up and go to school and pretend like nothing ever happened. Because if you don't, more people could die."
"Because of me," Liam muttered.
Scott sighed. "Tessa and I didn't really know Brett or Lori. Well, not like you did. But we know you." Scott grabbed Liam's backpack and placed it on the covers. "And if you're afraid of seeing more of your friends die, you'll go."
Liam made his way to the school while Scott, Malia, Lydia and Tessa met with Argent to explain what had happened with Brett and Lori.
"They were murdered in cold blood," Tessa informed. "A new hunter has come into town."
Scott spoke. "You know, when he took out the Hellhound, we thought it was luck. That we were dealing with an amateur. But now we know that whoever this new hunter is, he has a new teacher."
"Or she."
"Gerard," Argent noted, giving a nod to Tessa and pursed his lips. "Which means this is my fault. I'm the one who let him go."
Lydia glanced at Scott. "You couldn't have done anything. You couldn't either, Tessa."
"They could've killed him," Malia said, earning a look from Lydia. "Just saying."
Lydia shook her head. "We're not executioners."
"You are when it comes to war."
Scott looked between them. "That's why we're going to make peace."
Tessa scoffed. "Make peace with Gerard? Yeah, right."
Scott turned to the strawberry blonde. "Lydia, you know what's coming. We all keep using the same word."
"War," Argent said.
Malia frowned. "So what stops a war from happening?"
"A peace summit."
Scott nodded. "Right. We meet face-to-face with Gerard. Find out what he wants and then we can stop all this before it gets any worse."
Lydia scoffed. "Last time Gerard was at a peace meet was with Deucalion. He blinded him and then killed everybody else, including his own men."
Tessa nodded. "I'm sure my uncle has a special place in the Underworld for him."
Argent stepped forward. "I'll go. Know he's not going to kill me."
"You sure about that?" Malia asked bluntly.
"Not really."
Scott was silent for a moment. "All we need is to find out what he wants. Then we can bargain."
Argent sighed. "Even if he does agree, his terms might be difficult to meet."
Tessa met his eyes. "That's why they call it a negotiation."
Scott nodded. "I don't expect to get anything without giving something up."
Argent looked between them. "Then you're gonna have to figure out just how much you're willing to give, and how far you're willing to go to stop a war."
Scott and Tessa headed to his place and both got a message from Liam. Scott said to his mom and Argent, "There doesn't have to be a fight."
"Do you and Tessa know something I don't?" Argent asked.
The demigoddess showed the message. "Someone... Tamora Monroe... is the new hunter."
Malia met up with them and they climbed down the stairs. She voiced Tessa's exact thoughts. "It's a trap."
"She said she would meet to talk," Scott said.
"Meeting alone in the middle of the tunnels with a werewolf hunter? It's a trap."
"That's exactly what Tessa said. What do you two want me to do?"
"Don't go," Malia and Tessa answered.
Scott sighed. "Gerard is recruiting new hunters, and he's murdering our friends. He's not gonna stop unless I convince him that we're not his enemy."
"What happens if you can't?" Malia asked. "You're gonna get yourself killed. We need you."
Scott began stuttering. "If I... If I didn't think you guys could do this without me..."
Malia shook her head. "That's not what I mean."
"Then what do you mean?"
"I mean... You know what I mean."
"I'm kind of getting confused."
"So am I."
Tessa rolled her eyes. "Get a room, you two."
Scott shot his cousin a look and sighed. "Malia, I have to do this. All I want to do is to get Monroe to trust us. She agreed to this peace summit. And I have to go. I'm going alone."
"Tessa's going with you," Malia told him.
Malia and Scott had a staring contest before Scott looked away and said, "Fine. Come on, Tessa."
Scott and Tessa made their way to the woods and she followed him through the tunnels. They were flanked by two armed hunters and a third hunter with a shock taser.
Scott frowned at Monroe. "I thought we were here to talk peace."
Monroe smirked. "I agreed to come. I never agreed on peace."
Scott narrowed his eyes. "If you brought them, I guess Gerard is here too, isn't he?"
Gerard appeared from the shadows. "Right here, Scott, Tessa."
Tessa drew her dagger. "You have no idea how long I've been waiting to use this on you."
Gerard smiled smugly. "Can't hurt me with that, Tessa."
The blonde smirked. "Shall we find out?"
Scott pulled Tessa back and looked at Monroe. "Whatever he's told you, there's another side of the story."
Monroe scoffed. "Isn't there always? What were you hoping for, Scott?"
"I was hoping to talk to someone reasonable. Trust me, he's not the kind of person that you want to follow. He's gonna lead you off a cliff."
Gerard raised an eyebrow. "Following me? No one here is following me, Scott. I'm merely an advisor."
Tessa gestured to the hunters. "This is thanks to you?"
"That's right."
"You're negotiating with me, Scott," Monroe reminded him.
Scott sighed. "Tell me how to settle this. What do you want?"
"I want to see a werewolf and a demigod beg for peace."
Tessa shook her head. "The demigod refuses."
Scott shot her a look and nodded. "Fine. Okay. I'll beg. She'll beg. We'll, we'll do whatever you want. Just tell us that we don't have to kill each other. That we can find a way to make peace."
Monroe frowned. "That wasn't quite what I was hoping for."
Tessa shouldered her dagger. "If you haven't noticed, people are dying."
"They've been dying. You only care now because it's your people."
"These creatures haven't done anything wrong."
Scott narrowed his eyes. "You have to want something other than seeing us all dead. What if we leave Beacon Hills? All of us."
"If you leave, we'll follow you," Monroe warned. "We'll hunt you down until every single one of you is gone."
Tessa narrowed her eyes. "Your threats don't scare me."
Scott shot her another look. "Some of us have actually been protecting you."
Gerard shook his head. "Don't listen to him. He wants you to be afraid."
Tessa stepped closer to Monroe and she stepped back. "We're not going to hurt you. Our job is to protect the citizens of Beacon Hills, like you, and you're making our job that much harder."
Monroe glared at her. "Like me? You don't know anything about me."
"So help us understand," Scott said. "Tell me what made you hate us so much."
Monroe ignored them and Gerard said, "I don't think you want to press that button, Scott."
Tessa studied Monroe's eyes. "Something bad happened, didn't it?"
"Bad doesn't even come close," Monroe told her. "There was a faculty meeting that ran late on night. We were complaining about the new course rubric. I thought that was the worst thing I'd have to deal with that year. I was wrong. We all heard it. This sound coming out of the shadows. "Probably an animal," they said. But not like anything I'd ever heard. When it moved, it moved faster than anything I'd ever seen. I saw teeth and claws... Fangs. And there was blood everywhere. I couldn't believe I was still alive."
"If one of us had been there..." Scott began.
Monroe cut him off. "You and Tessa were there, Scott. You two and the deputy. Don't you remember? Tessa was near the bus. If only she'd gone inside. Did you even think to check if anyone was still alive?"
Scott's head dropped. "I didn't know. She didn't know."
"You didn't care. How many people have to die so you can keep your secret? So you and your friends could carry on as if nothing ever happened? I was there. Lying under those bodies. Hiding and waiting for someone to finally find me. You two shouldn't have come alone."
Malia walked in with a shout. "They didn't."
Malia grabbed the taser stick from one of the hunters and took him out. She made her way to Lydia and Scott. Tessa used the hilt of her dagger to knock a guy out. She decided playing nice was overrated.
Scott kept trying to make peace with Monroe as more guns pointed at them. "Hey, hey, hey. We did not come here to fight."
"Well, then you came here to die."
Malia growled and Gerard glared at Tessa and Scott.
"We're trying to protect you," Malia told them.
"You might want to control your betas, Scott," Gerard warned. "They could get you killed."
Lydia shook her head. "We're not the enemy. There's something else going on. We don't know what it is, but we promise you, there's a bigger problem."
Monroe scoffed. "Something worse than supernatural cannibals? Yeah, I know everything now. Wendigos, Oni, werecoyotes. People being murdered as human sacrifices?"
Tessa glared at Monroe. "We're not supernatural cannibals. We're trying to stop those who are."
Monroe ignored the demigoddess and continued. "And how many people lost their lives while you were "trying"?"
"Too many," Scott replied.
"It was 12." She pointed to one of the hunters. "His son was one of them. His throat was cut and his head bashed in. His brother was a deputy. Gutted and torn apart. The official report read "Animal Attack"."
"It's amplifying their fear," Lydia realized.
"You've all lost somebody and you wanna get revenge," Scott said. "I get that. But just listen to me. Something escaped from the Wild Hunt."
"Scott, Tessa, Scott, Tessa, it's here. It's here right now."
"What?" Scott and Tessa asked.
The hunters spun around and started firing.
"Get down!" Scott yelled.
Monroe tried to control her men. "Hey, stop. Stop shooting!"
"That thing's making them panic," Scott realized.
Tessa saw Stiles and Annabeth dying. She had to choose to save one and couldn't. It was too difficult.
A flare appeared and Parrish jumped after it. A hunter opened fire on him, but was tossed into the tunnel wall. Parrish rushed towards a bloody lump and shoved the flare into it, consuming it.
The fireball passed and Scott ran over to Parrish and helped him stand. The hunters were gone.
Malia turned to Scott. "They didn't come here to negotiate. You did everything you could."
Scott shook his head. "No, not everything. Not yet."
When they got to Scott's, a girl looked up from her spot at the kitchen table. "Scott. Scott McCall."
Scott noticed her teetering and ran over to her. "Wait, hey, hey. Hey. Sit down." He helped her sit and turned to Malia. "She's a werewolf?"
"Who did this to you?" Tessa asked.
"A hunter?" Malia added.
"A deputy," the girl answered.
"They've got a deputy?" Lydia questioned.
Scott and Tessa exchanged a look, realizing how dangerous the situation was getting and said, "They've got everyone."