Teen Vamp

Chapter 10 - Meaner Than A Junkyard Dog

***DEREK***

"You think you can scare me?" Thomas Renard asks as I walk up to my own front porch.

Stopping just short of the first step up, I cross my arms and tell him, "Sun's out, guns out. Or do they not say that in your country?"

"Not where I live, no. Brighton Beach, maybe."

"I thought you lived in this country."

"Part-time!" Hunter calls out his window. When did he open it? I thought I took the keys out of the...I pat my pockets and realize I don't have the keys. Yeah, actually, it's better that way. Give Hunter, Skylar, and Stiles a chance to escape if need be. And that need will be, of that I'm sure. It's a question of when.

"My traitorous offspring isn't wrong," Renard says. "I summer back home, normally. But I've had to spend more time in this country of late, and it's rather aggravating having to put up with more of this California sun."

"No need for that," I say. Then I take one step back, just to give myself more sun. Under my hair, my arms are just pale enough that they could almost reflect the sun right back on this old bastard. I've turned into too much of a homebody "of late," as Renard might say. As a kid, I used to get hella tan during the summer. I even used to have blond streaks in my hair from the sun. There should still be at least one picture to prove it in storage somewhere.

"No need for what?" asks Renard.

"You, putting up with our sun. All you gotta do is get the fuck outta here. We'll let you go, no problem." I smirk at him, hoping my teeth reflect the sun back at him too. I'd like to think I'm taking better care of my teeth now that Skylar and I are together. Single life makes this guy tend to neglect himself sometimes, I'm ashamed to say. "As long as you don't come back. You surrender all Beacon Hills privileges. Deal?"

"I've seen that movie too," Renard says, deadpan.

"Of course you have," I growl. "So has everyone."

"Not me," says Deucalion as he steps out from behind Renard, cane and all.

"Sorry," I say. "The same offer extends to you, though. Get out and don't come back, and we'll consider you no longer our problem."

"And what if I get myself tangled in a scheme to open the sixty-six seals of the Apocalypse?" Deucalion actually looks a hell of a lot like Renard as he grins under his sunglasses. Their shades even look identical, but then my eye isn't trained in the fashion industry.

"Don't even."

"Don't even what?" Deucalion taunts me. "Threaten to call you back to heroic duty again?"

"Also on the 'don't even' list?" I snark back. "Don't even tempt me to break out my British accent. Hunter and Skylar can tell you it bloody sucks."

"Oh, you think that'll offend us?" Renard asks.

I roll my eyes at them, even though that means I won't actually get to see them just long enough to make myself super vulnerable. "I gotta get under your skins somehow, don't I?"

"When was the last time you had to make that much effort to do so?" Renard asks.

"I don't recall." Seriously, I don't. "It tends to come naturally to me, actually. Just ask Stiles."

"Who now?"

I don't turn around because I'd rather not see Stiles lean out the window and risk sunburn to challenge Renard's feigned ignorance. I hear no sign of him doing that, but then again, this is Stiles we're talking about. Even as a human, he could be a sneaky bastard when he wanted to be, and oh, how often he wanted.

Someone stop me before I turn into a villain myself. Seriously, I'm already salty like a sea dog as it is.

"Seriously," I say out loud to Deucalion and Renard, "just get the hell out of town. Now. We need you around like you old farts need hemorrhoids."

"No call for that kind of crudity," Deucalion growls.

"Still trying to get under your skin." Wow, I made that sound so singsong. That's more than a bit out of character for me, but that's okay. I'd like to think I don't have one character that never changes, you know what I'm saying?

"I feel like he's trying to distract us," Renard says before whipping his head back and forth. "Who are you trying to smuggle into this cabin?"

"There's nobody coming to sneak up on you," I say with all the sincerity I can. And it's true, as far as I know. Nobody's coming, and if they are (cough SCOTT MCCALL cough), I've made sure nobody's told me so. Because who the hell knows if these assbutts squatting in my house can read my mind? Deucalion's senses are so well-attuned, he probably could. As for Renard, well, Hunter had to get his telepathy from someone, am I right?

It's a werelynx thing, Hunter thinks to me out his window. I promise.

Good to know, kitty face.

Oi! Only Stiles gets to call me that.

"Am I hearing my son?" Renard asks out loud.

"No, you're hearing a boy who looks like your son and talks like Grant Gustin doing an Estuary accent!" Hunter cries out the window. I have no idea what he's talking about, exactly, but it's enough to make Renard look even more pissed off than before, if anything.

As for Deucalion, he looks up and off to one side, his head cocked.

Holy shit, please tell me Scott did not-

Fire roars out of my front door. Fire, but all attached to one person in particular.

"Parrish?" I jump back, gasping at the sight of him burning away all his clothes except his birthday suit.

Even Renard avoids him, risking the sunlight to stay out of Parrish's reach. Actually a wise move, given how Parrish opens his mouth and bellows Renard's name.

I should've guessed that Parrish wasn't an ordinary human. Still, it's not like I smelled it on him. That must mean he's a type I've never encountered before-

"No!" I cry when I realize that Parrish is so focused on his buddy's killer that he completely, utterly fails to catch Deucalion advancing on him from behind, the poison-spiked tip of his cane ready to strike.

I run up to try and stop him, but I'm not the only one with that idea in mind.

And, probably because I'm bigger and have to move a lot more muscle mass, I can't haul ass like Scott.

Scott, who grabs hold of Deucalion's cane and, impossibly, wrests it from his hand.

But not without getting himself impaled on the business end first. Right in the spleen.

Just like Ethan a few weeks ago, Scott hits the ground. Unlike Ethan, though, Scott doesn't die right away. It takes him time, but by the time I reach him, even three seconds later, I smell the life already more than halfway out of him. And I see the gold flash in his eyes for the last time before it all fades away.

The only other thing I see isn't Parrish burning, or even Deucalion looming large, no doubt ready to take his cane back.

No, it's Stiles rushing Deucalion and laying waste to his ass.

Stiles, surprisingly, not burning in the sun.

Stiles morphing into a golden-eyed werewolf himself. Or...is he a werewolf? No, his features look a little different. But still, there's no mistaking that golden glow in his eyes.

His transformation is complete.

But as I lay Scott's body down to get up and join Stiles, I still find myself wishing it hadn't taken this death to make it happen.