The last thing James "Jay" Hale ever imagined was to begrudgingly return to Beacon Hills, find out his older sister was murdered, and then be forced to go on a wild goose chase after some fuck ass Alpha that seemed to have a particular interest in r...
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CHAPTER FORTY-SIX:
And The World Kept Spinning. . . Right Off It's Axis
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Jay slouched in the chair like he had somewhere better to be—which, to be fair, he did. Literally anywhere would be better than where he was right now, in a naturally lit office with walls painted that soul-sucking beige colour specifically designed to make people either spill their guts or go insane trying not to.
Usually, he could withstand such psychological warfare. He had tactics. Defences. A well-refined rebellious asshole routine.
But then, mid-slouch, his gaze landed on a poster pinned directly in front of him.
A cat, looking uncannily like Hellspawn with pale orange tufts of fur and sad brown eyes, dangling off a tree branch with the words 'Hang in There!' underneath in an obnoxiously cheerful font.
Jay's entire cold mask cracked in seconds. His hand twitched toward his phone, the urge to snap a picture and send it to Stiles borderline debilitating.
And then the worst possible thing happened.
His eyes—eyes Derek liked to claim held a constant spark of evilness in them—began to sting along the edges as he stared into the sad brown ones of the cat. Because this wasn't just some dumb motivational poster. It was a cry for help.
The cat was hanging on for dear life, and instead of saving it, some sociopath had taken a picture and framed it. And now it was sitting on a school guidance counsellor's wall like some kind of sick joke.
It was cruel. Cruel.
And despite what people—Derek, again—liked to believe, Jay wasn't heartless.
So yeah.
But, if he were really being honest right now, welling up over a motivational poster, he was a little emotionally compromised.
Only a little, though!
And unfortunately for him, as the boring beige walls attempted to brainwash him into self-reflection, he had a lot of guts to potentially spill in his compromised state. Probably more than anyone else forced into mandatory counselling after last weekend's catastrophe.
He wasn't sure if that made him special or just pathetic.
He weirdly felt like both.
The thing was, for once in his life, Jay actually knew things. A complete shift in pace, considering he was usually stuck on the sidelines with the nerds (Stiles and Scott), piecing together scraps of information like an insane person (Stiles) with a crime board full of red string.
(And no, let's not talk about his Cold War with Derek a couple months back over the betas. He still had stress nightmares about Derek going full power-hungry and biting half the student body just to spite him. It was disturbingly plausible.)
