┏━━━━⋆°.☾⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆━━━━┓

BLUEST OF EYES

THE HOUSE WAS IN WORSE SHAPE THAN IT HAD BEEN LAST TIME.

There was so much debris everywhere, signs of an obvious struggle that has taken place a mere few hours ago. The police had been there, based on the caution tape that surrounded the perimeter of the area, but they'd turned in for the evening with just a lone car posted up down the street.

Emerson snuck in through the back door, stepping over a puddle of dark but dried liquid that stained the floor. Bile rose to her throat that she had to choke down as she stood in the centre of the home.

Back in Rochester, she didn't have the pleasure of seeing the destruction left in the bad man's wake. She was shipped off the minute her guardian was pronounced dead at the hospital by the woman's son who'd been eighteen at the time. She wondered how he was doing, left to deal with the wake of Deucalion's wrath while she could only keep moving.

Emerson glanced around the room before her hand was migrating to her wrist, fiddling with the silver chain that she'd had since she was six.

He'd come back to the house eventually, she was sure of it, but she needed something concrete that would ensure he'd be making an appearance tonight.

It was quite literally now or never.

With her tongue between her teeth, she wrapped her fingers around the chain and pulled.

The sound of it hitting the floor reverberated around in her ears before she felt a wave of dizziness shoot through her skull. Emerson had gone more than a decade without her sense of smell, and there she was, disobeying the very command her grandmother had given her, all for a chance to confront Deucalion. 

Instantly, she was reverted back to when she was a kid, standing in the garden as she smelt the flowers before the sense was taken from her. She inhaled sharply, catching hints of emotion in the home that she swore she could almost taste on her tongue. Panic. Rage. Hurt.

She gagged on it, her hand going to her nose as she looked around. Too busy taking it all in, as though for the first time, she didn't notice the way the bracelet dissolved into a pile of grey ash by her feet.

There was a twinge of nervousness in the air, and it took her a moment to recognize that it was coming from her.

Rolling her shoulders back, willing herself to calm her racing heart, she took a seat on the kitchen island just a few steps away from the bloodied floor.

She could play the waiting game just as well.

ೃ࿔*:⋆

This time around, she could smell the intruder before she could see them.

Two hours after the fact, not that she'd been counting, someone was outside the home.

The scent was unrecognizable, most were given her years of not needing to catalogue them, but the tapping of a cane against the pavement outside was something that lingered in her nightmares.

His figure was stood in the doorway, the only heartbeat around, meaning he'd come alone. She hopped down from the counter, the sound of her feet hitting the floor made his head snap in her direction.

He inhaled, almost nodding to himself.

"It's much easier to find you when you have a scent," the man drawled in greeting, taking leisurely steps into the home. His cane retracted, holding it in his hand. "It's one that I'm sure I'd never forget. Hello, Emerson."

"Deucalion," she grit out in response, watching the corner of his mouth quirk upward. "You've gotten old."

He chuckled. "So have you," he remarked casually. "You've evaded me for four years... your luck was bound to run out eventually."

"You gonna give me a medal?" she deadpanned.

He shrugged, pushing away a stray piece of wood away from his foot and entering the kitchen space. "I'm sorry about the mess," he apologized, though she knew it was halfhearted. "Your little human didn't go down without a fight, it seems."

She barred her teeth instinctually. "Hannah's not just some little human, you prick," she snarled. "She's—"

"She was a means to an end, and you know it," he waved off dismissively, and Emerson found herself stilling at the familiar choice of wording. "Besides, you're going to be nineteen soon. You've no need for a guardian."

"That didn't stop you from killing Loretta!" the blonde growled, claws digging into her palms. "Hannah's family! I should k—"

An ugly sneer crossed onto his face. "You don't even know what family is!" Emerson recoiled against the countertop. "You're so much like your grandmother. All family and moral code and blah blah blah."

Anger flared within her again. "You have no right to talk about her, not when you were the one who killed her!" she yelled. "Why do you keep taking people from me? Tell me!"

"Are you really that oblivious?" he questioned like he was in disbelief. "You're a smart girl, Emerson. Think about it."

"I know you want me to join your pack, that's been pretty fucking apparent," she started with a glare, "and now you want Derek, too. I'm not special, and neither is that walking snooze fest, so I don't get why he's even on your radar, b—"

A chuckle cut off her plan of downplaying Derek's own powers, hoping he would take the hint and leave him be. "Your grandmother left out some important details, I take it."

He didn't fall for it.

"Nope, she was pretty damn clear over the years," Emerson quipped in return.

"I knew your mother a long time ago," he began with a tsk, and the assured glare wiped off of the girl's face completely. "Margaret and I were much closer than friends before she ran off, before she ran away from my pack. I'm sure that something she didn't include in those bedtime stories, though."

Margaret. It had taken eighteen years to find out her mother's name, and she wanted to test it out on her tongue, but she couldn't because he was right; this was the first time she was hearing of his involvement with her late mother. "She was in your pack?" she asked instead as something felt like it was lodged in her throat.

The idea of that seemed foreign to her, because Deucalion was like the boogeyman to her and to those he wreaked havoc against. Her mother was adored by all, and there was no way she'd willingly be in a pack with such a psychopath. Seriously, he was giving Peter a run for his damn money.

"My most valuable member, too," he huffed, and Emerson's resolve could've crumbled just then if she hadn't been holding onto the counter beside her. "Imagine my surprise when I tracked her down six years later, only to find you instead. You, this little girl with her power and the bluest eyes."

Her eyebrows furrowed. "What does that have to do with anything?" she pressed, unsure of why he was so keen on getting that last detail in.

"Your mother's eyes were brown," he recalled, almost a little wistfully, "and I wasn't always a blind man."

Emerson was looking at him like he was stupid, trying to piece together his cryptic response when her jaw slackened. He was insinuating that—

No. No—

"Your scent is so easy to track because it's Margaret's," he continued, like she hadn't already figured it out by the horror-filled gaze she was now looking at him with.

"But it's also mine."

⋆°.☾⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

[ wyn's note ]

YES, I did just 'luke, I am ur father'-ed you guys and I am NOT SORRY

"you were a means to an end" vs "she was a means to an end".... like father like daughter ig... and it rlly isn't a bronwyn book if the oc doesn't have at least one shitty parent LMAOAO

all my love !!!