Hoping for Heroes

Chapter 34

Harley finds herself back at school late at night, pulling her car up alongside Stiles' jeep. She jumps out and faces Stiles and Scott. 

"Where is she?" Stiles asks.

"Over here," Lydia calls, walking over with Allison. 

"Lydia?"

"It's the same thing. Same thing as the pool. I got into the car, heading somewhere totally different, and ended up here. And you told me to call you if there's a dead body."

"You found a dead body?"

"Not yet."

"'Not yet?' What do you mean 'not yet?' Lydia, you're supposed to call us after you find the dead body."

"Oh, no, I'm not doing that again. You find the dead body from now on." As the two continue to bicker, Harley steps around Scott and looks behind Allison. She nudges Scott and tilts her head where she was looking.

"Guys," Scott sighs.

"I found the dead body," Harley says. She looks away from the gruesome sight, and Scott reaches out a hand to comfort her. Before he can, she backs away out of his grasp. When he looks at her, confused, she just smiles. She hasn't told anyone about her talk with Deaton yet, especially not Scott. She's not sure how she's supposed to tell the boy that they're destined to be in each other's lives. She doesn't even fully believe it, but she feels awkward around him anyway. Besides, she knows there are far more important things to be worried about.

The next day at school, Harley, Scott, and Stiles have managed to corner Ethan. 

"Why are you even talking to me?" Ethan asks. "I helped kill your friend. How do you know I'm not gonna kill another one?"

"Is he looking at me?" Stiles gasps. "Are you threatening me? You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna break off an extra large branch of mountain ash, wrap it in Wolfsbane, roll it in Mistletoe, and shove it up your freaking-" Harley grabs Stiles by the shoulder and yanks him back. She rolls her eyes as he squawks in protest. 

"We know you didn't wanna kill Boyd," Harley tells Ethan. "I saw it on your face. No matter the tough guy act, you wanna do the right thing. I know that. I see that."

"We think that if something like that happened now, you wouldn't do it again," Scott elaborates.

"You don't know what we owe them," Ethan sighs, "Especially Deucalion. We weren't like Kali and Ennis when we met them. We weren't alphas."

"What were you?"

"Omegas. In actual wolf packs, omegas are the scapegoat. The last to eat, the one who has to take the abuse from the rest of the pack."

"So you and your brother were, like, the bitches of the pack?" Stiles asks.

"Dude," Harley hisses, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Something like that," Ethan says.

"What happened?" Scott asks. 

"They were killers. I mean, people talk about us as monsters. Well, they were the ones who gave us the reputation. And our alpha was the worst of them."

"Why didn't you guys just fight back?" Stiles suggests. "Form Voltron Wolf, you know? Kick everyone's asses?"

"We couldn't! We didn't know how to control it back then." 

"Deucalion taught you," Scott realizes.

"And then we fought. We took down the whole pack, one-by-one. And by the time we got to our alpha, he was begging for his life. And we tore him apart. Literally."