Chapter Text
She remembers her apologies to Scott. Her regret at taking things too far. The screams of Boyd and Erica. Isaac crumpling to the ground. And she’s horrified by all those things, she really is, but sitting in her bedroom she can’t help but thinking she was right about one thing.
Derek still deserves to die for what happened to her mother.
Derek still deserves to die because Allison and her father are alone and broken and maybe she can’t blame all the werewolves in the world but she can still blame him.
So one night, when her father is finally asleep (it’s past four; he’s had trouble falling asleep lately), she gets a cross bow and wolfsbane-tipped arrows from the garage. They are locked in this big cabinet now, and only her dad is supposed to know the combination, since he isn’t sure he can trust Allison with weapons again just yet. Of course, she took it upon herself to find a way to crack the lock—in case of emergencies. She doesn’t exactly live the safest life these days.
She knows Derek and the pack have been moving around a lot lately—or at least that’s what her father tells her. She thinks he says it to deter her. He must suspect that she’s still up for it—the mission that keeps floating in the back of her mind.
That’s why she’s looked at all the notes, all the maps. Why she’s thought things through. Why she’s asked herself where she would go in Beacon Hills if she was trying to avoid a threat.
She’s ready to find him.
--
It’s the eighth place on her list and the sun is coming up behind her and she really thinks this is the most improbable location. Still, there were photos of it on file so she may as well give it a shot.
She breaks into some side door of the Beacon Hills mall, for employees only, and goes down into the basement which is dark and dank. She winds her way through some narrow hallways until she thinks she finds it—just another closet, but with a dent in its door matching the one in the photograph. She puts her ear to the door and swears she hears the low rumble of sleeping werewolves on the other side (though this might be a delusion produced wishful thinking, little sleep, and hours of searching.) She turns the knob. The door is locked as expected. She backs up a little, puts an arrow into her crossbow, and shoots. The arrow burns a hole in the door. Allison hears Derek swearing inside. Then Peter Hale’s voice, amused: “I think we have a visitor.”
Peter Hale’s voice unnerves her, even though Scott had told her he was back from the dead.
Derek groans and opens the door. Just like that. And it throws Allison off because you aren’t just supposed to open the door for impending doom. For the person who’s about to kill you. She tries to shake off the feeling of not being taken seriously and menacingly wields her cross bow.
Derek steps out into the hall and closes the door behind him, even though Peter and Isaac are clearly trying to watch the show.
“Allison,” he says dryly.
“Jackson might not be a kanima anymore, and Gerard might’ve been in the wrong, but…but you are still the reason my mom is dead.”
He just stares at her.
“My mom is dead because of you,” Allison says, as if that will help it sink in.
“Your mom is dead by her own choice. Because of your hunter’s code.”
“You bit her,” Allison says, “and I’m not letting you live.”
“I get that you think killing will make it feel better. I won’t lie to you. It might. But it doesn’t-”
“Bring my mother back? I know that. Scott told me all about how you talked down to him, Derek, but I’m not taking any of that. I’m not a child.”
“I agree. But I would rather talk down to you than the alternative.”
Allison cocks her head to the side. “Which would be?”
“Fighting you.” His eyes flash red.
“Well, that’s what I pick,” she says, with unflinching resolve, jaw clenched. Yet she’s not making a move. Not about to shoot an arrow. Not reaching towards the dagger tucked in her belt. Not grabbing at the taser in her pocket.
And he’s not making a move either.
Which annoys her. Because she is a threat. And from what she knows about Derek Hale, he’s all about eliminating threats.
It also annoys her that she has a clear idea of how Derek should be reacting, yet doesn’t know, really, what she should be doing herself. She doesn’t know what she’s capable of anymore. She wouldn’t have thought she could’ve kept shooting at Boyd like that, but she had. And she thought killing Derek Hale was what she wanted, but he’s just standing there, staring at her, and though she hates him, though she wants him dead, she doesn’t particularly want to kill him right now.
“Go home, Allison,” he says, then turns back towards the door.
Then she’s tasing him, and her hand is steady, and he crumples, falls to the ground. And she keeps tasing, and he’s writhing, and she knows she could do it. Kill him. But instead she finds herself barking at him, as if it had been her plan all along: “You’re going to tell me.”
There’s fear in his eyes. She wants to think that’s better than when he was looking at her so indifferently, but it really isn’t.
She drops the hand holding the taser to her side.
“Tell me why.”
He gasps for breath. “You—Allison, you don’t want to know.”
“I’ll do it,” she says. “I’ll kill you. Now tell me why you would bite her.”
The fear is gone from his eyes, and now he’s glaring at her. “She was going to kill Scott.”
That takes the breath right out of her. She’s been doing such a good job at misremembering her mother—at glossing over the cold, impenetrable side, those moments where she absolutely terrified her. It takes the breath from her because she loves Scott and she’s furious that her mother would try anything like that and she doesn’t want to be furious with her.
“No, she wouldn’t.”
“I can hear you,” Derek says. “Lying to yourself.”
“Don’t!” Allison snaps. “Don’t do that to me.” It’s one thing for Scott to read her emotions like that—and even then she doesn’t like it. But it just feels like a violation for Derek to do it, of all people. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.
Then she opens them and continues: “You could’ve protected Scott and done something else. You’re an Alpha, aren’t you?”
“When one of your own is in danger-”
“Scott isn’t one of yours,” Allison says, practically spitting. “He never was.”
Derek looks genuinely hurt by that but he continues: “When one of your own is in danger, you don’t think. You act. On instinct.”
“You knew they’d kill her if she was bitten. You knew that.”
“I did,” he says, matter-of-factly. “But that’s not why I bit her. I was trying my best to protect Scott.” The effects of the taser have worn off, and Derek is now sitting up against the door. There’s strength to his voice again. “And I’m not going to apologize.”
Allison remembers Kate’s breathy apology to Peter Hale. She imagines, ever so briefly, exacting that type of apology from Derek. But she knows it wouldn’t mean anything. And she doesn’t want it.
She isn’t sure what she wants.
“I’m not going to kill you,” she states, sort of dully.
“Good,” Derek says.
“You didn’t just say that about my mother killing Scott so I’d let you live, did you?” Allison scratches at the back of her neck with one hand.
“No.”
“Okay then.”
Allison decides she might as well walk away now since nothing happened how she planned it and she doesn’t see anything else coming from this, but Derek says her name before she can get too far.
She turns back. He’s on his feet again, looking all strong and Alpha-like.
“I lost my family.”
Allison sharply sucks in a breath. She doesn’t want to hear about this. She doesn’t want to hear about what Kate did. She knows about it. She knows what her aunt did. She knows it, and it terrifies her, and she wants to condemn her for it but she loves her so much still, and, really, who knows anymore? After the past few weeks…Maybe Allison could do the same thing herself, if she was in the right frame of mind.
But then Derek doesn’t say anything to rip her to shreds.
He just says, “I know that it sucks,” and his voice is surprisingly soft.
Then he walks back to that little supplies closet that is apparently his new hide-out (though she’s guessing that’s going to change now that she’s found it), leaving her standing there, blinking and unsure about what just happened.