hold me closer

56

"Thought I might find you here." I looked up to see Lydia. "Scott said this was the first place you came to after the whole, um, Lucas situation."

"You're interrupting my quiet space," I told her.

"Looks like you could get out of your thoughts for a while," she responded. "Or perhaps, maybe share out some of those thoughts?"

"Nope," I said. "I'm just going to sit here, enjoy the field, and find my happy place."

"What's your happy place?" she asked.

"Not here?"

Lydia sighed. "Lulu, this is something we need to talk about. Yeah, you couldn't save Brett or Lori, but there are others we need to save."

"There is this constant fear, Lydia," I told her. "I'm starting to feel it everywhere now. I felt it on the road, I feel it at this school, the sheriff's station. These hunters are planning something big."

"And we'll figure out how to stop it," she assured, placing a hand on mine. "Lucy, we've all seen it. Scott told us what happened when you tried to find Theo."

"He's not dead," I told her. "But if he's not dead, then he's being tortured, which seems worse, actually."

"Theo knows how to get around problems," Lydia said. "He'll be fine and I'm not just saying this to make you feel better. Theo is smart. He'll survive one way or another."

"And what about us? How will we survive?" I questioned.

She sighed, looking to the field. She shrugged and said, "I don't know. Somehow, we just do. But in order to do that, we need a plan. Come on."

"Where are we going?" I asked, standing up.

"To Argent's."

:::

"They were murdered. Killed by the new hunter in Beacon Hills," said Scott. "You know, when he took out the Hellhound, we thought it was just luck. That we were dealing with an amateur. But now we know that whomever this new hunter is, she has a teacher."

"Gerard." Argent nodded. "Which means this is my fault. I'm the one who let him go."

"You couldn't have done anything," Lydia said.

"He could've killed him," Malia spoke, then shrugged. "Just saying... "

"We're not executioners," Lydia told her.

"You are when it comes to war," Malia countered.

"That's why we're gonna make peace," said Scott.

I scoffed, shaking my head "With Gerard?"

"Lucy, you know what's coming," he said. "We all keep using the same word- "

"War," Argent interjected.

"So what stops a war from happening?" asked Malia, looking around at us.

"A peace summit," Argent answered.

"Right," Scott said. "We meet face-to-face with Gerard, find out what he wants, and then we stop all this before it gets any worse."

"Last time Gerard was at a peace meeting was with Deucalion," Lydia reminded. "He blinded him and then killed everybody else, including his own men."

"I'll go," Argent volunteered. "We know he's not going to kill me."

"You sure about that?" Malia questioned.

"Yeah, he wasn't too thrilled that you turned on him last time," I said.

"All we need is to find out what he wants," Scott said with a more serious tone. "Then we can bargain."