CHAPTER 104

They looked warily at Gerard who leveled a gun at them with his usual grandfatherly smile still plastered on his face.

"I must say it's quite a surprise seeing all you youngsters here, makes me wonder who planned this terrible attempt at a rescue."

He looked at all of them and studied the look on their faces and when he turned to his granddaughter, he couldn't help but be unpleasantly surprised. "You did all this, child, why?" 

Allison was spooked, even though she tried to hide, as Gerard questioned her. The faint feeling of fear she was subjected to whenever she was in his presence was suddenly multiplied as she faced him. 

"Why did you torture them like that?" In the end she managed to squeeze out a question to Gerard and that gave her a bit of confidence. 

"I wouldn't move if I were you, Tristan. We wouldn't want to risk someone mistakenly dying during a civil conversation now, would we?" Though he kept his tone lighthearted, everyone could feel the blatant threat those words carried, and Tristan who had been readying himself for a pounce stopped. 

Sensing no other movements, Gerard smiled and returned back to Allison's question. "I thought I told you that we can't show any ounce of mercy to our enemies?"

This time around, Allison's voice was steady as she replied her grandfather. "But are they our enemies? They never killed any innocent person nor did they attack us for no reason? The code says-" 

"Do not speak to me about the code, child. I know what the code says and when it comes to this family, I alone decide when it's relevant to follow the code or not." Gerard shouted, his smile completely gone from his face. 

Allison shook from his sudden outburst and the veil over her eyes started having little visible tears from which she could finally see the supernatural world for what it really is without any filters. 

"But the both of them did nothing other than being Derek's betas." She stated. 

Gerard sneered at those words. "It doesn't matter. Not when they killed my daughter by ripping her throat open! My little girl died to their filthy hands, and for that they will all pay. That also now includes your friends here, Allison."

She already expected him to say something like this from the beginning and given everything he's said, she knew couldn't talk him out of it. 

She took a glance at friends she came with. 

While she could see panic and fear in Scott and Stiles' eyes, Tristan and Malia on the other hand were looking at both her and Gerard with a look she had come to know them for. 

They regarded the both of them with the same blank unfeeling face she's seen them out on almost everyday since the very first day she met them. But unlike before when she couldn't tell what they were thinking when they looked like that, she could understand the reason behind it in this situation. 

"As the future head of this family, it is your duty to show me how competent and resolute you are." Gerard started. "Take this as your final test in being a Hunter: Kill one of them." He then handed her a gun. 

A lump formed in her throat as her deepest fears were finally actualized. A scenario where she had to choose between the two. 

Family and duty or friends and morality.

It might have been a simple choice for anyone else but Allison's life didn't exactly fit with 'everyone else'. 

She took another glance hoping to see something but all she met was the same unfeeling cold eyes of her best friends. 

"Are you hesitating, Allison? Take the gun and show me you are ready?" 

Her hand stretched out on its own under Gerard's assertiveness and she only realized what she was doing when her hands held the cold metal. 

"Good. Now show me your resolve as the next Argent matriarch. Pick anyone of your choice, personally I'd suggest between Tristan and Malia here." He chuckled at his own words. 

Allison took a deep breath in that brief moment, everything she knew about her family and had come to know of the supernatural world from Tristan and Malia, played out. 

Her choice? 

"I will choose my friends and morality." She said as she leveled the gun at her own grandfather but Gerard completely ignored it. 

"Over your own family and duty? You ungrateful child!" He said with anger. 

"I also choose my family and my duty as an Argent, but not when it goes against my morals." Gerard sneered. "What do you know about morals?"

"I know that it's the lack of it that made Kate burn down the Hale family and never caring of the innocents she killed." The more she spoke, the more confident she sounded and the gun became steady in her hands. 

Was she surprised when Gerard suddenly redirected the muzzle of his gun from her friends to point it at her? Honestly she doesn't know. 

Was this the true nature of her family? So hell bent on killing werewolves regardless of if they were innocent that they would even kill innocents and threaten to kill their own child? 

It was such a sad thought and she fervently hoped that her parents were nothing like this, and that they truly loved her. 

"Lower your gun, Allison." Gerard commanded with a calm voice as if he couldn't stand the disrespect rather than feeling threatened by the gun pointed at him. 

"I won't."

"Then-"

"Gerard! Lower your gun, you've gone too far." The group looked at the new addition of Allison's father who had his gun pointed at his own father. 

Neither Tristan and Malia, nor Scott and Stiles who were with them fully understood the progression of the events that were playing out but they still refrain from moving as Gerard could just point his gun at them. 

Tristan could tank a few bullets, as long as they don't go through his head, and dodge a most of them given the distance between them but the problem was that Malia was holding Erica up and if he made any sudden movements, he had no assurance that Gerard wouldn't capitalize on that before he got to him and shoot at Malia who was basically a prime shooting target. 

"Do you see what you are doing? You are pointing a gun at your own granddaughter! Are you that far gone that you still can't understand the consequences of your actions?" Chris' eyes were red with fury as he stared at Gerard who felt like a total stranger to him at this moment. 

"It wouldn't have come to this if you had let me train her properly."

"Train her? I think you mean brainwashing her like you did to Kate, don't you?" Chris stared at his father with a dark look on his face. "Kate deserved the death she got for what she did, I won't deny that. And I will die before I let you make my daughter a repeat of her."

The two men had their weapons pointed at each other with totally calm faces and steady hands. 

"You really have fallen so low that you'd even point your weapon at your own children, Gerard?"

The three Argents turned to look at the source of the new voice and they saw an elderly Asian woman supporting a limping Derek. 

Gerard's reaction was the fastest as the moment he realized he was completely outnumbered with the presence the these two he reached out and grabbed Allison's outstretched hand as she was the closest one to him and before she could fight back the pull or pull back her hands from his, she found herself in his embrace. 

However unlike the normal tender embrace of a grandfather to his grandchild, hers was one where he joined the mouth of a gun to the side of her skull. 

"Satomi. I never thought I'd see you anywhere near me, definitely not like this." He said to Satomi who looked calm as she held one of Derek's arms over her shoulders. 

"I could say the same thing but with entirely different sentiments. How pitiful that one of the greatest Hunters of the last 100 years has turned rabid that he threatens to kill his own children." No one could actually tell how she felt from how calm her words sounded. 

"And what has that done for me? I am still dying. Thankfully, and as much as I hate to admit it, I recognize when I'm cornered. Let me go and you won't have to see me kill my own grandchild because it will hurt me more than anyone else." He said lightly with his normal grandfatherly smile. 

Chris frowned, and if not for his little girl in his psychopathic father's hands, he would have shot him without hesitation. 

He glanced at Satomi and saw that she just gave the way for Gerard to pass through with the same unperturbed look on her face. 

Derek might have wanted nothing more at this moment than to rip open Gerard's body and eat out his heart after seeing the state of his betas, but he trusted Satomi's choices and let her do what she desired without questioning it. 

Gerard looked between his son and the ancient wolf in front of him while silently gritting his teeth at losing his chance at becoming a werewolf and an Alpha at the same time. 

Slowly making his way past them, he continued like that until he felt he was a good distance away and pushed Allison away. 

Allison immediately increased the distance between them and ran into her father's embrace who hugged her tenderly. Regrettably, she was becoming a strong girl and strong girls don't cry. 

"Leave him be, Tristan. He is someone else's prey now." Satomi stopped Tristan from chasing after Gerard, knowing he'd bring back the old man's head in moments. She, more than anyone, knew the significance of a blood debt and until it's fully paid, it'll keep moving down the bloodline until it destroys both the debtor and the collector. 

Chris looked at Tristan and Malia, and then at Satomi and connected the dots. 

"I had no idea the betas of the Buddhist pack were this close to me all this while." He said. 

"It makes no difference if you had known, doesn't it?" She said coolly. Chris let out a chuckle and nodded his head. "You're right. It doesn't."

It was a tacit agreement and Chris wholly agreed. He'd rather not deal with the Buddhist pack if he could help it. 

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