The Wild Side | Stiles Stilinski | One

21 - Alpha Bait

When I finally got home, I was sure I was going to be in big trouble. I'd never gotten detention before, ever in my life. I wasn't sure how Mom was going to react, but I was willing to bet it wouldn't be good. Reluctantly, I dropped my things in my room and then quietly made my way to my mom's office, where she was working diligently with her head down.

"Uh...hey, Mom..."

"Hey, sweetie," she greeted, only glancing up for a moment before returning to her relentless typing. "What's up?"

"Not much. I just got home."

"I noticed. What held you up?"

"I, um...had detention..."

The typing stopped.

"You had detention?"

"...yeah..."

She sat up in her chair, fixing me with her full attention and folding her arms over her chest. "What did you do?"

I chewed on my bottom lip, trying to think of a good excuse. I couldn't very well tell her that Stiles had keyed a car and framed Scott because they had a fight about Scott's werewolf powers, but it was tough to form a story without either of those details.

"Well...Scott and Stiles were...they were just fooling around, and Stiles knocked Scott into some senior's truck. I guess his backpack must have left a scratch or something, because the kid freaked out and he and his friends ganged up on Scott."

"Oh my God," she gasped. "Is he okay?"

"Yeah, he's fine," I assured her, speaking a little more confidently now. "Mr. Harris came out to break up the fight pretty quick, but all the seniors ran away, so Scott and Stiles got detention, and Mr. Harris said he wasn't going to try and find any of the seniors; he said they'd been punished enough. So I told him that was totally unfair, especially because Scott and Stiles hadn't done anything wrong, and then Mr. Harris got mad and gave me detention too."

I bit my lip, bracing myself for the storm.

"Oh, well that's fine," Mom dismissed, shrugging and returning to her work.

"F...fine?"

She paused again, looking at me over the tops of her reading glasses. "Sweetheart, I was no angel in school. Everyone I knew got detention at least once. I'm just happy to hear you got detention for doing what you thought was right, and not something stupid like skipping class or smoking in the parking lot."

"So...that's it?" I asked, still in awe at my luck.

"Oh, right, punishment," she sighed, crossing her arms. "Okay, let's see...how about...I get your share of dessert tonight, and you do the dishes after dinner?"

I smiled. "Deal."

"Okay then," she agreed, turning back to her computer. "Now, my little delinquent, go do your homework."

I gladly locked myself in my room for the rest of the night. I'd gotten a decent portion of my homework done during detention, so it only took me an hour or two to finish the rest. Then I was free to listen to music and mess around on the computer. I did end up doing the dishes after dinner, but Mom had caved during dessert and let me have my own share. Thank God, because I'd had a pretty stressful day between the boys' argument and werewolf training. I wasn't sure I would have survived the night without chocolate.

I went back to my room, ready to spend the rest of the night researching meditation techniques to control your heart rate, but was distracted when my phone went off in my purse. I furrowed my brow, but relaxed when I saw that the number belonged to Stiles.