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-NINE:
The End of The Beginning
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"You can't be serious."
The duffel bag slipped from James Hale's grasp, hitting the pavement with a dull thud—the kind that echoed a little too loudly in the still, early-evening air.
But Jay didn't really notice it, anyway.
Not even when it sounded vaguely like a gunshot and made both Derek and Isaac jump a foot in the air like startled idiots, immediately searching for cover like they were in the middle of a warzone.
Any other day, Jay would've laughed at them for it. Loudly and obnoxiously. Maybe pointed and doubled over for extra effect—the kind of laugh that would've earned him a solid smack upside the head. Probably from Derek, who was always dying for a moment to inflict pain on others.
But not this time.
Not when he was too busy staring—with wide, glittery, awe-struck eyes—at the building in front of him.
So much awe, in fact, that he probably looked more in love with the building than he was with Stiles. It was definitely the kind of thing that would bruise Stiles' ego. Which was, of course, exactly the kind of content Isaac lived for. He already had his phone out, snapping a picture at an angle that purposely excluded the building, so it just looked like Jay was making heart-eyes at something off-camera.
(Stiles replied within seconds of the text going through. A screenshot followed. It was a step-by-step guide on how to make a voodoo doll...)
Isaac snorted but, wisely, didn't antagonize further.
Jay, for his part, didn't even notice. He just kept staring.
Because the thing was—objectively—it was just any old building at the end of the day. Brick, steel, concrete bones. Flat gray and oddly skeletal, like something out of a shady movie scene backdrop. It stood on a mostly empty street, tucked between a boarded-up laundromat and a dying tree, like even nature was giving up around here. Hell, a tumbleweed could roll past them and nobody would bat an eye.
And yet, despite all of that...
It felt perfect.
Jay blinked—slow, deliberate, maybe a little theatrical—as he stared up at the place like it might flinch under the scrutiny. Like it would get shy and shed its mask, morphing into something else if he looked long and hard enough. Something truer.
But it didn't. It stayed right there, cold and hulking, with windows dusted over like they hadn't been opened in years and thick, load-bearing columns that gave it the vibe of an abandoned warehouse.
