Filler Episode - Chapter 3

Allison watched Derek Hale as he filled his car at the pump. She had followed him here. The plan to talk to him faded once she got out of her car. What would she say? Would he even talk to her? Her aunt. No. Kate had killed his family. She wasn't her aunt anymore. That psycho didn't get that title.

"Allison."

She jumped at the sound. Derek Hale stood at the front of her car. He looked at her with a somewhat amused glare.

"You've been following me," he said in an approximation of a patient tone.

"No," she smiled awkwardly. "We just go to the same gas station."

"And the same dry cleaner," he added.

"Yeah," she put the key in her door. "No," she steeled herself and turned to look at him again. "My aunt is a horrible person. I am so sorry for what she has done to your family and what she did to you. I understand if you don't want to talk to me, or see me ever again, but you're one of the only people that can answer the questions I have."

Derek didn't move but somehow seemed closer, "such as?"

"She had a journal," Allison bobbed her head. 'It tracked everyone she killed. Not just your family. There were others. I don't even know how many. I couldn't read anymore once I figured it out. She wrote is in some kind of code. Alpha for some, beta for the others, and then she tracked animal sightings. I'm trying to figure this out, but I don't see how they're connected."

Derek waited.

"The fire and the 'mountain lion' lately are connect," she leaned against her car and laughed. "I sound crazy, but it's the only thing that makes sense. What is it? What am I missing?"

"Why are you talking to me?" His voice actually softened.

"I don't think my dad will tell me the truth," she hated the tears gathering in her eyes. "Please."

He studied her for a long moment, "we can't talk here," Derek stalked back to his car and started it. "Follow me."

Allison hopped behind the wheel. She pulled out of the lot right behind the black muscle car. A block later she realized that she was following a strange man to an undisclosed location, and no one knew about it. She pulled out her cell and hit redial.

"Hello?" Scott answered. "Allison?"

"Scott," she forced strength into her voice. "I'm meeting with Derek Hale. I don't know where, but I wanted you to know."
"Derek?" His voice got loud really fast. "Why? Where are you? Do you need me to be there?"

"No, no I'm not hurt," she smiled despite the situation. "I'm following him now. We just turned onto the road out of town. It looks like he's taking me to the preserve."

"I'll meet you there," Scott hung up.

She laughed. That was sweet of him. Scott was sweet, but he couldn't ride his bike fast enough to get to the preserve for any real support. This was going to be between her and Derek. Her hand slipped into the pocket of her coat. She gripped the bullet. Her father should be answering her questions. He should have told the truth, whatever that was, but he hadn't. He didn't trust her, and so she didn't trust him. Funny how that worked.

Derek led her onto a dirt driveway. It went all the way to the back of the burned ruins. She parked her car as far from them as she could. The sight of the charred house made her ill. Peter Hale had described, in detail, what had happened that night. Something moved along the edge of the house. Scott burst into view. He stood between her car and Derek.

"Scott?"

"Are you okay?" Scott glared at Derek.

"Yes. No," she scrunched her forehead as she spoke. "I wanted to talk to him."

"She's been following me," Derek added. Very helpful.

"It's true," Allison said. "I need to talk to him."

Scott relaxed slightly. "I'm staying."

"Scott," Allison sighed. "I need to talk to him alone. It's about my aunt."

Scott froze. A myriad of expressions played across his face. He turned to look at Derek, then back at her, and finally to his shoes. His brown eyes melted the tiny resolve she had. Allison held out a hand. Scott took it and was by her side in a heartbeat.

"You can stay," she kissed him on the cheek. "Can we talk now?"
Derek nodded.

"What is the connection?"

"Your aunt, your entire family, are hunters," Derek said.

Allison titled her head in thought, "How does that explain anything?"

"Werewolf hunters," Derek didn't sound like he was joking. "My family were werewolves. You aunt and the others set fire to this house to kill my pack. My uncle was the only one to survive."

Allison stared at Mister Eyebrows. She could feel her face growing hot with anger.

"This isn't funny," she yelled. "I came to you for answers. You could have just told me to go away."

"Allison," Scott whispered. "He's telling the truth."

"What?"

"He's a werewolf," Scott shrugged.

She pulled her hand away, "this is crazy."

"Allison," Derek sounded different.

She looked back at him. His ears had points, thick sideburns marked the side of his face, claws extended from his fingertips, and fangs flashed in his mouth. A small part of her brain noticed that somewhere along the way his eyebrows had vanished.

"Scott, run," she grabbed his shoulder and tried to push him toward her car.

"Allison," Scott held his ground. "It's okay."

"How can it be okay, Scott?" She tried to pull him back to the car. "He's a freaking werewolf."

"I know," Scott took a deep breath. He turned to face her. "So am I."

His face shifted to take on lupine angles. Yellow eyes overtook the brown. Shaggy sideburns stretched along the side of his face. Luckily, he kept his eyebrows. Allison looked at where her hands grasped his shoulder. He was solid. This wasn't a dream. She looked back at him. His brown eyes had returned. That same scared, shy look that she knew so well stared out from the face of a monster.

Allison ran a hand through his hair. Her fingers bumped his pointed ears. She smiled and scratched behind them. His eyes rolled back in his head. She chuckled as he practically went limp. Allison could see him now as a dog, a mutt. Tripping on floppy ears, too big to be a lapdog, but still insisting on cuddles. Her dad didn't like dogs. She had never known why until now. Werewolf hunters. How could anyone hunt someone like Scott? With his big brown puppy eyes. 

She looked back to Derek, "tell me all of it."

~

Gerard watched his granddaughter through his binoculars. He had such high hopes for her. She had followed the werewolf to a secluded place. All she had to do was kill it or at least show some form of aggression. His men would step in once he gave the command. Instead, her boyfriend, who turned out to be one as well, showed up.

"Orders, sir?" Martin asked.

The wiry man was stretched out on the ground with a rifle braced against his shoulder. Martin was a professional, the wolves would go down if he took the shot. Gerard couldn't issue the order without writing his granddaughter off completely. His son may have latched on to 'the code', but there was a chance he could sway Allison to his cause. It would take a subtle hand.

"Pack up," Gerard ordered. "We need a new plan."

~

Stiles paced around Scott's room. He was talking, but his sentences stopped after a couple of words. Scott got the general impression that his friend was unhappy. He hadn't seen Stiles this worked up since someone had told him that the new Star Trek timeline was far superior to the old, which was odd because Stiles preferred Star Wars. He sat on Scott's bed. Finally. After five solid minutes of pacing and ranting.

"You just went wolf in front of her?" Stiles bounced back to his feet.

"Yeah," Scott nodded.

"And?"

"She wanted to know more," Scott shrugged. "Derek told her everything, and I filled in my parts."

"Just like that?"

"Yeah?"

"Just like that?"

"Yes, Stiles," Scott groaned and rolled his eyes. "It was the only thing I could think of."

"You could have let her run away."

"How would that help?"

"Her family hunts werewolves," Stiles yelled.

"And now she knows that I'm a werewolf," Scott finished. "I get it, Stiles. I couldn't lie to her. She needed to know."

"She's a great girl, Scott," Stiles tossed his hands in the air as he began to pace again. "I'll think fondly of you two together when I visit your grave. Do they bury werewolves? You should ask her dad the next time you see him."

"Stiles," he looked at his friend. "Just drop it. She knows. It's better that it came from me."

Stiles sat back down on the bed.
"Did I tell you she scratched behind my ears?" Scott smiled.

"You may have mentioned that."

"I think I purred," his eyes went distant. "I didn't know I could do that."

Stiles sighed. This was not how he saw this year going. Of course, his projections had him and Lydia dating by homecoming, but that was beside the point. Werewolves, hunters, and a string of murders didn't factor into any of the hours he spent late at night during summer.

Danny had never answered if he was attractive to gay guys. What other gay guys were there at school? Tommy? Maybe, or he could just really like scarves.

~

Allison nibbled on the last of her grilled green beans. Her mom had dusted them with a mixture of spices that was kept as a closely guarded secret. Green beans weren't on her favorite food list, but these were still good.

"How are you doing, Allison?" Her father, Chris asked.

She turned a bright smile to him, "good as I can. What about you?"

He gave a small shrug that translated to something of a smile, "as good as I can."

She wondered when he was going to tell her. Or if he was going to even mention the werewolf thing to her. Did he think he was protecting her? Was she supposed to be grateful to be wandering unaware in this crazy world? At least the gymnastics, archery, and martial arts made sense. Not to mention all of the moving. And the guns. She felt like Lois Lane once she looked at her life again. How had she not realized something was going on?

"Allison?" The tone told her that her mother had said her name at least once before.

"I was thinking about my homework. Yes?"

"Have the press been making things hard for you?" Her mother studied her with those cold eyes.

People overlooked her mother. Chris Argent cut such an imposing figure that they didn't realize his wife was even scarier until they were in a room alone with her. Allison wondered how much of her life was a lie. How did her parents really meet? How many people had they killed?

"No," Allison blinked the gathering moisture in her eyes away. "My daily routine is pretty dull. There were only two photographers following me today. The reporters have moved on already. What about you?"

"Our lawyers have put an end to their questions about the company," her father took a drink. He nodded appreciatively to his wife. "Something else will catch their attention soon enough. The one thing you can count on in this world is tragedy."

"That's wonderful," her mother shifted her gaze.

"What about you, mom?"

"I'm a housewife," her mother didn't look at her. "There are only so many times they can follow me down the produce aisle before they get bored."

Allison went back to her meal. Housewife. Her dad liked crossbows, which was funny considering the sheer amount of firepower in their garage. Kate liked guns, that was no secret. What did her mom prefer? Allison mulled the thought over as she steadily ate her dinner.

Her mother was good in the kitchen. That meant she was familiar with knives. Getting that close to a werewolf did not lend itself to a long life. Spice mixtures could translate over to poison. There needed to be a delivery system, though. A drugged chunk of meat would only work so many times. Tranquilizer darts? Tag werewolf with a mixture of crushed red pepper, hemlock, and wolfsbane. Why crushed red pepper? Because screw you, that's why.  They probably didn't actually use pepper. Hemlock was a nasty poison, mixing it with wolfsbane would wreck whoever it hit. Derek had told her that was what Kate had shot him with. A wolfsbane bullet. How did it not burn when the gunpowder ignited?

Allison smiled to herself. What the hell was she doing? She could just tell them she knew. Stand up, let them know, and watch them stutter. There would be questions that would potentially expose Scott. She wasn't going to let that happen.

"I need to get to my homework," Allison picked up her plate. "Thank you for dinner, mom. It was delicious."

"What do you think you're doing?" Her father watched her stand.

"I'm going to my room to do homework."

Her father stared at her for a long, silent moment.

"It's your turn to do the dishes."

Allison sighed, "you caught me."