Midnight Scarlet » Stilinski

Twenty-Seven

A/N: This is the last chapter! After, make sure to check out the Author's Note. Important stuff there!

P.S.~ The last stanza in the poem is from The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.

                                             Chapter Twenty-Seven

                                                       • Derek •

“Would you really kill your own family, Derek?” Peter asks below me, shirt in tatters and blood dribbling from his mouth. “Are you really that cold?”

            Cold. I’ve been cold since the fire― cold enough to kill my own family. Especially one that I’ve killed before.

            “Uncle Peter,” I snarl, my thoughts running with memories. Laura laughing, painting designs along her bedroom wall. Peter trapped in a burning house, watching his family catch fire. Laura comforting me after my first shift, rocking me back and forth until I fall asleep. Peter in that hospital room, faking being catatonic. Laura, searching for the hunters that murdered our family, attacked by the alpha. Peter, washing the blood from his hands. Laura, dead. Peter, dead. Once again, they will be the same. He doesn’t deserve to live in her place. “You raised me. Everything I learned I learned from you.”

            His eyes darken, a smirk passing across his face. “This is about Laura. It always has been, hasn’t it?”

            “Oh, it’s about more than her.” At first, when I found out that my uncle had killed my sister― and I had been blamed for it― my thoughts were clouded with revenge and retribution. And so I slit his throat. That made me alpha, and that made me wiser. Now, killing him isn’t just about Laura. It’s for Aubrey and humanity and me.

            When I was younger, Peter wasn’t always a ruthless killing machine― or maybe he was, but was just better at hiding it. Peter was always obsessed with beauty and how death made things prettier. He would purchase rare butterflies, from all over the world, and pin them up on the wall in glass boxes. He would sit in the red armchair by the fireplace and read a book, glancing up every so often to admire his winged treasures.

            After the fire, that look vanished, the butterflies going up in flames. That is, until I brought Aubrey back to the house, unconscious and bloody. He had sized her up with those calculating eyes of his, staring at the cursed violet-eyed beauty. When he made her that deal, he was just walking over her with pins, waiting for the right moment to stick them through her wings and put her in a display case.

            “Tell me,” I whisper. “You knew all along that no matter what she told you, you were going to kill her. Aubrey had no chance of survival. So why wait the week?”

            He laughs, coughing and choking on his own blood. “Roxanne has her plan, and she thinks that I’m playing along. I have a plan of my own that even she won’t see coming.”

            I press my face closer to his, enjoying the way he squirms beneath my grip. “Why drag Aubrey into all of this?”

            “She is the key to everything.” He raises his eyebrows, wheezing when I partially block off his windpipe. “Do you… really think I was going to… kill her? I-I knew that you would protect her, Derek… knew it all along.”

            “You have this whole thing planned out, just like you always do.” It isn’t a question; it’s a realization. Of course Peter has a plan. He is the master of deception and unexpected truths. “But this one won’t be carried out.” My mouth twists into a savage grin, mocking the words he whispered to Aubrey. “It looks like it’s a little too late to be saved. Time’s up.”