CHAPTER 40

Scott and Stiles were in an empty locker room after lacrosse practice on the phone with Derek, thinking of how Scott would live his life now that his veterinarian boss was now confirmed as the Alpha.

"Isn't this our best chance?" Stiles asked. 

"Best chance to do what?" 

"He's weak now right?" Stiles added. "We should be able to take him down since he's likely still healing from the wounds the Argents gave him."

~It's not an assured fact. We don't know how Alpha's heal, not even me. And besides, what's stopping him from burning it out like we did?~ Derek brought up a point that they had unknowingly glossed over. 

Who was to say the Alpha couldn't heal as fast, or faster, than a beta? 

"So what are we gonna do then? Need I remind you guys that Scott's boss likely knows where we all live which conversely means I'm in the most danger out of the three of us." Stiles stressed in a way that he hoped would pass on his desperation to his listeners. 

They all fell silent at Stiles' words because even they didn't know what to do. It was so sudden and with it being nighttime, not to mention the scuffle with the Alpha and the Hunters somehow numbed how they were supposed to feel. Now that they were Deon that high, they were once again faced with the grim reality. 

Just facing the Alpha was not enough, a fact Derek came to a realization with all too late. He knew within his heart that there was no way he could take on the Alpha by himself and that was why he had no choice but to ally with a naïve Scott McCall, hoping that the young beta could pick up his slack and oppose his Alpha. 

"How about we face him?" Scott suggested. 

"Huh?" x2

Both Stiles and Derek were dumbfounded by the simple yet idiotic opinion of Scott's. 

~And do what, huh?~ Came Derek's sarcastic reply. 

Hearing Derek's words and seeing the opposite effect he had hoped of his suggestion, Scott shrugged unsurely and tried to make them see his point. "We could ask him why he's doing what he's doing. You said it was for revenge right? Maybe there's a reason why he wants revenge against the Argents?"

"No, no, no… I'm sorry but I have to stop you from saying any more rubbish." Stiles waved his hands as he interrupted Scott's reason and stood in front of the teen. "It doesn't matter what reason he has Scott. That… thing will kill you if you go against him one more time."

"We don't know that." Scott objected. 

~Yes, we do, Scott. It was fully prepared to kill you then.~ Derek revealed. 

"See?" Stiles then turned towards the phones and asked." What are we going to do then? We'll have to face Scott's evil boss sooner or later." 

~I'll think of something~ Stiles snorted at that as if he just heard something funny but Derek ignored him. ~You both should just focus on being normal teenagers for the time being.~

… 

"Oh great!" Tristan groaned as his eyes caught sight of Bobby Finstock, the infamous coach of Beacon Hills Cyclones. Unfortunately for him, Coach had sighted him the moment their eyes met before he had a chance to dodge. 

"Hayes!" "Dammit!"

Coach made his way to Tristan who was looking fed up as the enigmatic had been bothering him for some days now. 

"Hayes."

"Coach." The two of them stared at each other while Coach took an appraising look at him before nodding. 

"So, champ. Decided yet?" He folded his arms with a clipboard under his armpit. 

"Yes." Tristan answered. 

"And?"

"No." Came his flat reply. While he wasn't that against playing a sport, the amount of dedication, and not to mention how irritating boys could be when it came to things like ego and pride, were enough to make him decline. 

He could already see how they would react if he started playing and bested most of them. Hell, McCall had been a member of the team for quite a while and they still gave him a heck of a hard time when he started getting good. 

Coach's shoulders slumped as he received the unchanging answer from a kid he just had a feeling for. The boy was good, so his instincts told him. "Are you sure there's nothing I can do to change your mind?"

Tristan shook his head in denial. 

"I could give you an A in Econs."

Tristan fell silent at that. Truth be told, school was harder than he thought and both he and Malia were already failing quite a few subjects, and so having an A in any subject would help his overall grade. Hell, he never even thought having an A throughout his high school career was possible in any way. 

"So what do you say?" Though Coach had never been that desperate for players as there was always a good squad for each year, he thought if he could polish this boy who had his spider senses tingling, he would for sure be making the most hardcore team since Beacon Hills history. 

He could already picture Jackson, McCall and Hayes at the forefront, tearing through any opponent's defense and wrecking them with absoluteness as they bring back trophy after trophy, year after year. 

Tristan weighed the pros and cons of him giving Coach a positive; pros being he would get a slack from being on the team, if he was an active member, and also an A, while the cons were the constant practice, peer pressure and the testosterone levels he would have to deal with on a constant basis, at least until he put them in place. And not to mention the unlikely scenario of if he lost control and mauled one of them. 

Juggling all these possibilities together, he shook his head as the answer was quite clear. "Sorry Coach, but no." Though the prospect of having an A was tantalizing, the things he'd have to deal with on a daily basis grossly overweighed it. 

Coach scoffed as he turned to walk away, but not before leaving a last word. "You can't deny me forever, Hayes. I always get what I want."

Tristan didn't know whether to be impressed or worried by Coach's persistence so he stopped himself from thinking about it too much. 

He turned around to walk away but was once again hit by a now familiar stench of death which could only belong to one person. 

"Move out of the way, chump." He was pushed aside by a grumpy and distracted Jackson. 

He could see the outline of what looked like claw wounds on his neck, despite the boy's effort to hide it and he knew that that was the reason why Jackson smelled the stench of death. Whatever caused those wounds were poisoning him slowly and his body was fiercely reacting to it. He ignored Jackson in favor of not following his raging killer instinct the boy always ignorantly dangled in his face every time he was near and instead of going to the cafeteria or the field like usual, he went to his next class since it should be empty at this time.

Opening the door, he felt the urge to curse once again as he came face to face with someone he'd classify as a pest that had been bugging around him quite recently. 

"Oh~. If it isn't Tristan~." Lydia smiled coquettishly as she saw Tristan enter the class she was about leaving. "Are you looking for me, maybe?" She sauntered over to his side and stood in front of him, a whole head shorter. 

"No." Tristan didn't care a bit for her seductive attempts and slightly shoved her to the side as he made his way to his seat.

"Hello? Rude." Lydia complained as she saw him ignoring her again. Even when he had said he'd be a friend, the only thing he'd done ever since was to avoid or outright dismiss her presence. 

"No Malia today?" She nevertheless continued undeterred. She had to admit he was one of the more good looking guys in school and he would stand to benefit more if only he lost the withdrawn attitude. Those ran out of style so long ago. 

Tristan sighed since he knew he was in for another round of pestering. "No." He answered. 

"So you're hanging out by yourself then?" She asked curiously. 

Tristan nodded as he pulled out two books, one a textbook while the other a notebook, and set them up on his desk. 

"Hmm, biology. Need any help?" She asked after sneaking a peek at the contents of the books 

Tristan paused his actions to look at her for a moment as he remembered once that Malia said she helped her out with English and she ended up getting an A on the test, the first A any of them had brought home. 

"Are you good with them?" 

His question made Lydia smile as she drew a seat closer to his side. "Well, let's start with this since I can see that you're… quite bad." She said before she started answering some of the questions he had, which honestly were quite few since he had no idea what to ask from the beginning. 

Confusion meant your knowledge about something was overridden or less than what was required for understanding, which unfortunately, wasn't Tristan's case. He just didn't know what it was all about, in other words, he was just plain ignorant. 

Lydia was kind enough to at least point out a few key points and areas of study to sharpen his knowledge. She was a bit like Boyd, going off when she got into her zone. Unfortunately she had to stop when her phone rung and all the amount of goodwill she had built in Tristan's mind went back to zero as she went back into her 'bitch mode', a term coined by Malia, and started her poorly veiled flirts before leaving in irritation as she saw how unresponsive Tristan was. 

Normally she would have thought he was gay with the way he didn't react to her at all, but that thought went out of the window ever since she saw them kissing in the hallway. 

"Bye, Tristan~." She cooed as she stood up to leave. "Don't miss me too much, okay?~"

"Trust me, I won't." He would admit she was smart, at least from what he knew, but that bitchy attitude of hers just made everything worse. 

He looked at the clock on the wall and he knew he'd spent quite some time reading with Lydia's aid so he packed up his books and left. 

… 

[Derek Hale POV] 

I drove my car to the place that made everything that happened recently so complicated – Beacon Hills Animal Clinic. 

Against my better instincts, I ignored what Stiles had suggested(what the hell did he even know?) and sought out the presumed Alpha all on my own. I wanted the truth and there was no way I would sit back when I knew who the Alpha was.

Pushing open the door to the clinic, my heart beat fast against my chest with cold sweat running down my back as I looked at the man, Alan Deaton, once again. 

"I knew you'd be coming sooner or later." The man said coolly as he stood behind the counter, unfazed about my appearance. And that was when I was hit with it again. 

That sense of incongruity that made me confused. Unlike how my instincts would spike up when I was in the presence of a natural predator, the way my instincts rose against him was as if he wasn't that dangerous to me in any way, but extreme caution was advised. 

"Who are you?" I asked. "Really."

"Me? Well I'm a veterinarian."

A truth. 

"… And I'm not the Alpha."

A truth. 

I knew he was lying when he sa-!! 

"What did you just say?" I couldn't help but ask again as if I misheard. 

"I said, I. Am. Not. The. Alpha." Nothing. 

No upbeats. No spikes. No dilations. No increase in blood flow. He really was not the Alpha. 

"Prove it."

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