Tether ⌲ Stiles Stilinski [2]

ten

"Do you believe any of it?"

"Some of it." Allison leaned her head back against her seat and closed her eyes. The sun was setting now on the way back from the care home, painting her pale skin a beautiful golden colour. "I mean, we may not have built-in lie detectors like Scott does, but I don't know if the entire thing was a lie."

I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. We had to be careful when it came to him and remind ourselves that there was a reason for what came out of the old man's mouth, a truth we had known since we had met him. That main reason would always be to make Gerard himself look good. To make his actions seem justifiable.

"You're right," I agreed. "The shell of it could be the truth, you know, about Talia Hale and the other packs. But whether or not Deucalion truly wanted peace back then, it doesn't matter all that much. I mean, we can't trust what he wants now and at least we finally know one of his weaknesses."

"And about what connection the druids have to sacrifices."

Before leaving to head home on his dirt bike, Scott had even made the connection between emissaries and the Darach. He suggested that if druids were emissaries to the alphas, then the one making sacrifices now - the druid who went dark - could have once been an emissary to one of the alphas. Even to Deucalion.

"You know, I get that all of that Celtic lore and druid information is related to the world of the supernatural. But I'm surprised how much Dad knew about it all," I shook my head. "Even back then, before it seemed like sacrifices were happening each day like they are now, he knew so much about the sacrificial rites and the Nemeton."

Allison nodded, keeping her eyes resting closed. "I'm gonna do some more snooping in his office. There has to be more there."

We went quiet for a moment and the sky grew dark, Allison attempting sleep in the passenger seat beside me. I glanced over at her at every other red light. Dark pieces of her bangs feathered over her face and I smiled, thinking she was genuinely asleep until she broke the silence.

"Ellie?" she spoke softly, like a whisper fading in with the sounds of the moving vehicle.

"Hmm?"

"What about the rest of it? The things he said about his mother, about his uncle," her voice was gentle as if testing the waters of my temperament. "About what's written in the journal."

I paused for a moment, tensing my grip on the wheel.

"I don't know."

"Okay."

"Well," I countered. "Maybe some of it is true."

Allison's eyes were open and looking back at me now, the colour of her irises dark like the night sky. I realized she was waiting for me to continue. Letting out a breath, I did my best to explain what I had read so far from my great-grandmother's entries. After I was finished, Allison bit her lip.

"Alright," she weighed her words thoughtfully. "But Gerard seemed to think that her sickness and sudden death had something to do with a bite. Just like her brother's disappearance."

"Yeah."

"Do you think they were bitten?"

I shrugged. "That's what he wants me to believe. That they both were bitten but his uncle chose to live and disappeared, while his mother lived by the code and took her own life."

"Did she mention making that choice in her last entries? If she was anything like Mom she would've taken pride in it, or at least planned it out."

"It didn't seem like she planned it, though. Her last pages seemed paranoid. She was worried about her brother and she -" I stopped, realizing I had yet to admit it out loud. The idea had been stuck in my head ever since I wrote out the page in French in front of Cora, Lydia, and Stiles. I knew the old man hadn't been lying. Not about that. "She was hearing things."