Maya's POV

"How do I look?" Scott stood in my door opening, evening out the creases in his shirt before looking up at me.

His stance was awkward and his breathing was bordering on hyperventilating. He was clearly anxious, but he had a boyish grin and there was this glint in his eye. A new spark of happiness in those dark eyes that made them shine brighter than they usually did.

Emma would've been right to call him a puppy if she saw him. A smile spread across my face.

His grin fell. "What? It's too casual, isn't it? I knew it. I'll change," he mutters under his breath and moves to rush back to his room.

"Nonono," I hold him back and keep my hands on his shoulders. "You look fine, that's not it. It's just-" I couldn't get a word out with the huge stupid smile on my face. "My baby brother's going on a date," I squealed silently.

Scott rolled his eyes goodnaturedly at the name as the smile returned to all his features, his dimples showing. "I like seeing you this happy."

'It's a nice change from our scary new reality,' I was about to say but thought better of it. By the look in his eyes he knew what I was getting at.

"Now, you're going to go out there and have a great night. I mean you messed up with the 'I'm a great bowler'-thing," we both cringe at the memory, "but you'll figure something out." The doorbell rang, signaling Emma's arrival.

"I should get going. Thanks for the pep talk, sis." He took his jacket and gave me a peck on the forehead and headed down the stairs.

"You got this, Scotty boy!" I yell after him.

I shake my head and close the notebook on my desk and place it back in his rightful place. I'd been theorizing in it when Scott came in. I tried to hide it without making it obvious that I was hiding it.

I get my fluffiest blankets from my closet and head downstairs. When I'm halfway down, Emma turns to me with a mischievous smirk growing on her face and holds the DVD's up next to it.

"Who's ready for a night of pie and Supernatural?"

—

Derek's POV

I drive into a gas station with upbeat music sounding far round. I park at one of the gas pumps and turn the music off, leaving an eerie silence behind.

Stepping out of my sleek, black camaro, I go about filling it up. As if on cue, a red car drives up in front of mine and a silver one shows up behind me, blocking me in.

He didn't even need to get out of the car for me to know who it was. As soon as he drove up, I knew exactly who I was dealing with.

He steps out of the red car and looks back at me with a smug smile. Chris Argent.

I continue to fill my car up with gas while keeping an eye on the two men getting out of the silver car. I try to stay calm and show that I'm not a threat.

The Argents live by a code. As long as I don't do anything rash I should be fine.

Once I'm done, I place the gas nozzle back and put the fuel cap back in its place.

"Nice ride!" Argent feigns civility as he approaches my car. "Black cars, though... Very hard to keep clean," he shakes his head.

He scrubs a blemish on the hood as he continues: "I would definitely suggest a little more maintenance. If you have something this nice, you want to take care of it, right?" He glances back up at me before going on to clean my windshield.

The hidden meaning behind his words didn't go unnoticed by me. I mentally prepared myself for what could follow.

"Personally... I'm very protective of the things I love. That's something I learned from my family," he trails off. I could feel my jaw clenching, already knowing where he was going. "And you don't have much of that these days... Do you?" Argent lastly turns to me again.

I kept a straight face but I could feel my composure slipping. I clench my hands into fists to release some of the anger bubbling under the surface.

My knuckles cracked and I knew they were turning white as I felt my nails biting into my palm. Argent peers down at my fists, his expression giving nothing away.

I mentally scold myself. Only an idiot would go after hunters without backup, especially if one of them's an Argent.

I slowly release my fists, letting the anger ebb away along with it.

Argent has a smug expression and nods once at me: "There we go." He places the brush he used, back where he took it from.

"You can actually look through your windshield now," he gestures to my windshield. "See how that makes everything so much clearer?" he says, turning to me with a sharp look and an edge to his tone.

He's walking back to his car when I remark: "You forgot to check the oil."

Argent stops in his tracks and stands there for a second. He turns around with a smile and nods to his guys still standing against the silver car: "Check the man's oil."

The smaller one of the two steps up to the driver's side window of my camaro before smashing it in with his rifle. Some glass shards tumble to the ground as he turns to Argent. "Looks good to me."

Argent turns back to me, still wearing that fake smile."Drive safely," he says and turns to get in his car before they both drive off into the night.

Maya's POV

"Do you mind if I use these? I still wanted to make something for Millie's birthday coming up," Emma holds out a jar of sliced peaches.

She'd been looking through our cupboards for some missing ingredients she forgot to buy. Seeing as this happens almost every time we do this, she already knew where to find everything.

"Yeah, sure. Actually, get two jars," I look up after cutting apples and tossing them with the rest. I reach for the lemon juice and sprinkle some over it.

"Okay." She returns to the kitchen island and puts the ingredients down. "Do you want some apples with your cinnamon?" Emma retorts and I just shoot her a glare.

She puts her hands up in surrender and gets back to it. "How is Mini Mi? Enjoying 4th grade?"

A smile grows on her face. "She's great. Apparently she has the teachers wrapped around her finger already. Her words, not mine," we laugh a little at that. "There's a new kid in her class whom she swears is her mortal enemy. I suspect she has a crush on him. Mrs. Anderson offered to look after her tonight 'till mom comes home"

When we fall back into silence I start back in a softer tone. "And your mom? How is she?

Emma stills and her smile falters for a second. "She says she's okay. She's been pretty quiet ever since dad... " she lets out a sigh and shakes off the memory.

"Throwing herself into work and when she isn't working, she's too tired to do much of anything. I try to help out as much as I can, but it's a lot sometimes with school and work. We try to keep a straight face around Millie but she knows something's up."

She shakes her head and puts on a smile. "But that's enough about me. What have you been up to? Any shenanigans I don't know of?"

I still at her words. I know that if she were to look up right now, she'd notice my panic stricken face, my eyes the size of saucers.

Well, I can't exactly tell her what's actually been going on. 'Nothing big. It's just that while me and the boys were out looking for half of a dead body, Scott got bitten by the werewolf who we assume killed her. Did I mention that Scott's a werewolf now? Then there was this whole thing where we had a guy arrested for the murder, but then he was let out of jail and she ended up being his sister. So that was awkward, but in hindsight he seems like an okay guy.'

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm alright at keeping secrets, as long as no one asks me about it directly, but I could never keep anything from Emma. Come to think of it, I've yet to meet anyone who could.

It's like she can smell the lie on you. It's weird. I asked her about it once and she just said it was 'a trait passed down to all Wards'. I guess that kinda explains the long line of people in her family working in the justice system.

"Uh, no. No, nothing... interesting going on here. Just the regular old stuff," I refrain from looking up and focus solely on preparing my pies to go in the oven. She gave me a look of confusion but didn't say anything about it.

When I turn around to put the pies in the oven I close my eyes in relief, slowly letting out a breath. "So there's nothing going on between you and a certain blue eyed lacrosse player?"

"I thought we already established I don't have a thing for Jackson," I turn back to her with a small smile playing on my lips. Emma gives me a pointed look.

"You know damn well I'm not talking about Jackass."

"Isaac?!" She just gave me a 'duh'-look. "What?! No! There's... nothing going on with Isaac and me. What made you think that?" I say with indignation in my voice.

"I don't know, perhaps it's because he follows you around like he's your lapdog and you smile at the mere mention of him." I roll my eyes, but can't suppress the smile that had steadily been growing on my face. "And, I mean... he is your type..." Emma said conspiratorially. "Unless you're still hung up on..."

"I'm not hung up on anybody and I don't have a type," I scoff, cutting her off. Okay, I might be a little hung up.

"Oh, really?" She raises her brows at me and starts naming the traits on her hand. "Tall, kinda lanky, dorky guys who look just strong enough to hold you back in a fight, but not strong enough to fully overpower you. A guy you can have a conversation with, understands the concept of sarcasm and-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it," I look down in defeat. "I hate you"

"No, you love me," Emma retorts smugly.

I let out a sigh. "I do."

—

"Say what you want about Ruby, but she's hot." We both nod in agreement. I hear the door unlocking behind me.

"Hey girls!" mom walks into the living room, you could hear the exhaustion in her voice.

"Hey Mrs. McCall!" Emma beamed from under her fluffy blanket. She was holed up on the armchair while I took the couch. "Thanks for letting me stay over."

"No problem, you know you're always welcome here. What have you been up to?" Her eyes travel from the tv to the coffee table with our plates and a mostly eaten pie.

Emma and I share a look. "Uh, nothing much. We caught up on the latest, baked some pies and now we're watching Supernatural," I summarize quickly, hoping she won't ask anymore questions. "Tea?" I offer with my most innocent smile.

She sighs and looks down at me. "How many?"

I look at Emma for help but she just looks away, sipping her tea. Thanks for the support, Em. "Uh... You might want to avoid the kitchen," I grimace apologetically.

Her eyes narrow at us as she walks on to the kitchen. I hurry to my feet and follow after her as she flips the light switch. She glances around the room before relaxing.

"This is it? Two pies cooling on the table? You had me worried there for a sec," she sighs and leaves her bag on the counter. "I think I'll just have a cold glass of water and retire for the night."

I rush to the fridge before she can reach the door. "It's just that... I didn't want you to see the kitchen like this. It's a mess."

She looked around. "What are you talking about? It looks fine," she turns back to me quizzically.

"No, the cabinets are cluttered and the floor is... I-I should clean the kitchen from head to toe," I nodded to myself.

"Sure, if it makes you feel better," she trails off and reaches for the fridge door.

I lean against it and continue talking. "You sure you don't want some tea instead? It's freshly made and I heard-"

"What are you hiding?"

"Me? I'm not-I'm not hiding anything," I looked around shaking my head.

"Uh-huh," she nods slowly. "Step away from the fridge, Maya." Hesitantly, I step aside as she opens the door. She looks down and lets out a long sigh.

There were three pies in the fridge with everything else strategically placed around them. It took us a while to fit everything in it but we got there in the end.

"Let me guess. There's two more in the oven?" She looks back at me. I gave her an innocent smile. She looks back at pies in the fridge. "Can I take one to work?"

"I don't- see why not? Wait, that's it?" I ask skeptically as she just goes on filling up her glass with water.

When she's done drinking she turns back to me. "Yeah," she nods curtly and heads for the door. Before she's totally out of the room, she turns abruptly. "Oh, and thanks for offering to clean the kitchen. You're a sweetheart. And you were right, the cabinets could use some reorganization." She winked at me and left.

I returned to my spot on the couch and I could feel Emma smiling at me. "Don't say it," I kept my eyes on the tv.

"I won't... But, I mean, I did warn you eighth was overkill." I narrowed my eyes at her. She laughed and I heard the front door open again.

"Hey, Scott. How'd it go?" I peek over the back of the couch. Just on time to change the subject.

"Yeah, how was it with 'Allison'?" Emma drawled out, her ears seemingly perked up.

"It went surprisingly-" Scott was cut off by screaming coming from upstairs. Scott and I rush up the stairs.

"Stiles, what the hell are you doing here?" We hear mom's annoyed voice from Scott's room. We slow down our pace. It was just Stiles.

"What am I doing?! God, do any of you even play baseball?!" Stiles exclaims exasperatedly.

"What?" Mom shakes her head looking utterly overwhelmed, as we walk into the room. She turns around when Scott switches on the light. Mom was holding her bat and Stiles sat on Scott's bed.

She sighs. "Can you please tell your friend to use the front door?"

"But we lock the front door. He wouldn't be able to get in," Scott states confused.

"Yeah, exactly," Mom replies pointedly. "And, by the way, do any of you care that there's a police-enforced curfew?" she turns to us accusingly.

"No," we answer simultaneously.

"No," she looks up at the ceiling, no doubt wondering how she ended up here.

"All right, then. Well, you know what? That's about enough parenting for me for one night," sighing, she tosses her bat next to Stiles on Scott's bed, "so good night." She salutes.

Scott looks after her as she leaves and turns back to me with a questioning frown. "Don't worry about it," I clap my hand on his shoulder and bring his attention back to Stiles.

He just shrugs. Stiles looks back at us obviously bothered by something. "What?" Scott draws out a chair and I sit on his desk.

"My dad left for the hospital fifteen minutes ago. It's the bus driver..." Stiles fidgets with his fingers and hesitates before continuing. "They said he succumbed to his wounds."

I feel the air get stuck in my throat, but Scott didn't seem to get it. "Succumbed?"

Stiles sighs. "Scott, he's dead."

Scott looks out in front of him, crestfallen. It stayed silent for a while. Stiles nor I knew what to do, both of us seemingly holding our breaths.

Then Scott seemed to perk up with determination and murmured: "Derek." Suddenly he stands up and strides out the door. Stiles and I share a quick glance before trailing after him.

"Scott?" Emma's confused voice comes from the living room before I hear the front door close. We stood at the bottom of the stairs, unsure if we should follow after him.

I knew Derek didn't go after the busdriver that night. The figure in the back of the bus was big and it's eyes glowed a deep crimson. Though I haven't seen Derek in his werewolf form, I'm pretty sure I s aw his eyes glow at the Hale house the other day. They were an icy blue.

Or maybe a part of me doesn't want to believe I put my trust in the wrong person. Again.

"Maya, where'd Scott run off to?" Emma asks as we enter the room. "Stiles," her eyebrows quirk up. "When did you get here?"

Stiles looks at me to answer. "Scott... lost something. He thinks he dropped it at the bowling alley," I try to feign nonchalance. Emma eyes me closely.

"Stiles just dropped by through Scott's window, scaring the hell out of my mom. Well done, by the way?" Emma's eyes shoot to Stiles.

"Um, excuse me, if I remember correctly, your mom was ready to beat me with a bat, which I'm still confused as to why you own it."

"Minor details," I shrug. He shot me an incredulous look. "Pie?"

~∞~∞~∞~∞~∞~∞~

Sorry for the late update.
And to make up for my tardiness I'm treating you to a longer chapter.

Thanks for reading. I hope you liked this chapter.
Please vote and comment.
Word count: 3070

Yours truly, DOBGirl99