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After the panic and chaos had ended—well not so much chaos—Derek herded the pack back into the house, but not after having to almost wrestle with Scott and Isaac. Both whom were worried about Stiles.
Once that got settled, Stiles watched Derek return to the pool, water still dripping from his frame. He wasn't sure how to handle this. Wayward teenage werewolves were his thing, not—not mermaids. There might have been a few books about them in the house that he was able to scavenge, but that didn't mean he knew about how to deal with them.
Stiles remained silent, her front side plastered to the side of the pool, arms resting against the concrete that surrounded it. But she wasn't able to stay there long, because Derek was pulling her from the water, placing her on the ground and draping a towel over her waist. Almost like he didn't want to see her tail. She mentally shook her head. That couldn't be it.
“Surprise?” She said meekly.
“When were you going to tell us? Were you just going to avoid this whole thing for the rest of your life?”
She didn't like the tone his voice held. As if this was all her fault; that she was keeping it from them because she didn't trust them.
“Don't you try to make this out to be my fault, Derek,” Stiles growling, taking note of the small twitch under Derek's eye at that sound. “You think I didn't tell you because I didn't trust you? Really?” She idly rubbed the scales with the tail, trying to dry it.
“I didn't tell you or the pack because—because I was scared!” So maybe the loud voice was unneeded but it made her feel better. “Are you happy? You werewolves get to be strong and have all these senses ten fold, and you get respect. Me? I can breathe underwater and I have a tail. You wolf. Me fish. Can you not understand why I didn't want to say anything?”
She knew she was getting herself more worked up over this than what was probably necessary, but she couldn't help it. A tingling feeling went down her legs and when she looked, she wiggled her now human toes.
When Derek didn't respond, Stiles decided that it would just be best if she left. She told her father that she'd be back before dark anyways, so there was her excuse to leave just a bit early. Stiles was able to avoid the onset that was the pack when she gathered her things—thankfully putting on some pants and a shirt—and climbed into her jeep.
The fact that the Alpha didn't even try to stop her told her enough. It hurt a little—no, a lot actually, who was she kidding—but hey, she was expecting something like this to happen.
With the Hale house in her rearview mirror, Stiles headed home, the need to sleep suddenly drowning her. She didn't even pay attention to the truck that started following her when she was on the main roads.
+++
When Stiles arrived home, her brain was on auto-pilot, locking up her jeep even though there was nothing valuable in it, and slowly making her trek to the front door.
It took her a few minutes to react to the hand wrapping around her mouth, eyes wide as her arms shot out in front of her to grab onto something—anything!—as she was yanked back into a truck.
The last thing she saw was her house getting farther away, and the words of 'We got the Alpha's mate', before darkness came. She didn't even have time to tell them how wrong they were about that.
+++
Stiles wasn't sure how long she had been out for, but her mouth was absurdly dry. That definitely wasn't good.
The room she was in was dimmed, the only light source was at some stairs and a lamp that hung over her. She hates basements! With an experimental tug of her arms – oh yes! Of course she was tied up!
“What..” She grumbled, head rolling to the side as she looked around. There was no one around, just the thought unnerved her.
It didn't take long until the door to the basement opened up and three figures walked down the stairs in some freaky synchronized formation. Stiles squinted at them, trying to get a good look at their faces.
“Look, sleeping beauty is awake.” One of the men crowed.
“Ugh, I would get kidnapped by a couple of hunters,” she snorted, tipping her head back and rolling her eyes despite the headache that was slowly growing at the base of her skull.
“Wait, no.” Stiles corrected herself. “I'm not actually surprised. It was a matter of time, really.”
Before she could get out any other words, one of the hunters stepped forward and back handed her, causing her head to snap to the side.
A pitiful sound came from her as she rolled her head back to glare at the man, What a dick.
“What the hell is your problem? Is this what you do? Kidnap poor, defenseless girls and backhand them to assert your dominance?” Sorry, the role of asserting dominance has already been filled in her life, thank you very much.
Another backhand.
Stiles was getting tired of that real fast.
“You're not as defenseless as you let on,” one of the other men gruffed. “We know you've been around the local pack.”
Apparently that went over her head. “Oh, so you stalk poor, defenseless girls before kidnapping them? That doesn't make it any more okay –“
She flinched back some as the man who had hit her surged forward. It was natural to try and move away as to not get hit. It was normal, she tried to tell herself. But he didn't strike. Instead he grabbed the hair at the top of her head, gripping tightly and yanking her forward.
“See this is what's going to happen,” he started, lips pulled back in a nasty snarl. It wasn't the same as Derek's snarls, Derek's snarls were hot in their own way. This was just gross.
“You're going to tell us where the Alpha and his pack is.”
“Then what?” Stiles licked her lips, not able to stop herself from asking such a cliché question.
“Then we're going to kill you.” He replied, giving a sharp, rough tug of her hair before releasing it.
“Wow, yeah. That's great. Telling me you're going to kill me right after is not going to get me to tell you.” Really, she couldn't keep her mouth closed. “And, not only am I important to the pack, the one, defenseless human you decided to kidnap is the Sheriff's kid. Way to go. A plus for effort.”
This seems to make them all pause and look at her. The man-handler even took a step away from her.
“Yeah, didn't think this one through, huh?” Stiles leered at the men.
Little did she know, that really didn't matter to the hunters. Days passed, how many, Stiles couldn't even begin to tell you. After the first day of torture, she ached, but remained resilient, despite how hard the men were trying to break her. She was not going to give up on the pack. She was stronger than this. She was not a human, no matter how badly she was trying to pretend.
It was worse because she could feel her skin slowly start to dry up. There was no way of keeping herself hydrated. Not with the measly amount of water they gave her, and she tried not to look to desperate for the water. And it wasn't like she could just say 'Yeah, see, I need to swim around in some water before I shrivel up and die a painful death.'.
She's never went this long without something on her skin; water, moisturizer, anything. The discomfort was something she tried to avoid at all cost if given the chance.
At this point, Stiles is really only aware of the muffled voices around her and the constant, thudding pain in her head. She could feel each bruise that mottled her skin and everything hurt like a mother.
The next thing she knew, she felt warm hands caressing her cheeks. She wanted to pull away, thinking it was one of the hunters finally getting a little handsy with a tied up girl. Ugh!
She could only groan, a whine following after it. But what? That second sound didn't come from her. Stiles had more class than that.
“Stiles.”
Even in her semi-conscious haze, that was a voice that she's never been happier to hear.
“D'rek,” she murmured, head moving to the side. There was more talking, but not towards her, or she couldn't tell really. She wasn't in the right mind to be joining in on a civilized conversation. They should know this.
The world seemed to shift around her as she was lifted on into the air, her body instinctively curling into the body that was holding her.
“Stiles? Stiles!”
And there was a voice she knew her whole life. Oh, how she wanted to cry.
“She shouldn't be this pale. What's wrong with her?”
Tension and worry built up around her. They should know what was wrong with her. The pack saw what she was!
“Water,” she hissed out, hand lifting weakly to rub at her face, but a hand wrapped around her wrist to stop her. Now she let out a whine.
“She needs to be submerged in water. A bathtub is too small for her to move around comfortably.”
Thank you dad. At least someone was stepping up.
“I have a pool. She changed in it. Would that work?” Derek sounded so worried. It warmed Stiles up on the inside a little bit.
Then the tense feeling was returning, but it was from her dad. She hates that she couldn't do anything except be held close to a warm werewolf chest and groan out her displeasure.
“After this is finished and done with, we're going to have a long talk about all of this.”
Stiles didn't know about what, wait, no, she had an idea. And she had a feeling that she was going to have to be present for it.
“That would work any other time, but right now, the chlorine would slow down the recovery and might even infect the wounds.” The Sheriff continued. “So she needs something proper. It would take too long to get to the ocean, even if I drove with the lights on.”
That didn't sound good. She didn't know how long she could handle this, so to get them to speed up the talk, she groaned loudly—obnoxiously even—and pressed her palm against Derek's chest.
“I have a lake on Hale property. It's a good size,” the Alpha prompted.
“That should do. Look, you'll have to take her. I have to make sure none of this gets out. Now get out of here, and let me know how she does.”
“Yes sir. You'll be the first to know.”
Stiles knew that's what her dad wanted to here. Well well, Derek could be such the charmer, huh?
The black came and went until cool water surrounded her, and water filtered through the gills that slitted open on her neck and ribs. She's never felt this great before.