𝟑𝟑 , 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒂𝒏𝒌

✯☾✯

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒕 𝒅𝒐𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑩𝒓𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒔𝒆𝒉𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒌𝒆𝒅 delightedly at the sight of Lizzie returning home.

"Be quick! We're gonna be late!"

Lizzie smiled at Stiles' shout, skipping through the aging frame and into her house.

After staying over at her best friend's house, the girl had come to realise as they were getting in Stiles' jeep, that she'd left every single piece of her school supplies in her room.

The house, like always, was bustling with people and beaming with love.

The early morning chatter filled the air, Lizzie slotting right into it as she neared the source of sound.

There were four other people milling around the kitchen besides the Brown family, the morning regulars if you wish.

The first were Taylor and Tyreese Stirling. The mother and son had moved opposite the Browns a number of years ago. The street in which they lived on was known throughout Beacon Hills for being tight for money. The Stirling's had not escaped that curse. Taylor worked nights in the ER to provide for her son and baby on the way, meaning Lizzie often found herself babysitting and scraping together cash from under her bed to help the two.

Taylor smiled at the pixie as she entered the room, nudging her son seated next to Davis at the table.

"Hi, Lizzie!" Tyreese stuck his hand in the air and waved it manically.

"Hey, T." Lizzie grinned back, catching his erratically moving arm.

"You look exhausted, Liz, what's up? That school got you working too hard?" Taylor called from the cushioned stool positioned beside the counter. She had a coffee in her hand. Routinely in her own 'Hot Mama' mug that she brought round most mornings.

Lizzie felt the familiar sense of warmth and liveliness in the midst of the organized chaos, as she had entered her own comforting world once again.

"I didn't sleep much. I was trying to find out how a bank was robbed so we can break into it." Lizzie shrugged her shoulders, arm darting put to catch the bacon sandwich her elderly neighbour, whom they all called Nana Jean, had dropped.

"I worry about you, baby." Taylor hopped off her stool and rushed over to take the spilling glass of orange juice from Nana Jean's other hand.

Nana Jean. She'd lived two doors down from the Brown's since before they'd even moved there. Lizzie remembered her dad telling them that just an hour after they'd arrived at their new home, Nana Jean was knocking at the door with her strange flavoured flan.

"Your friend's been here since you're dad left for work, honey. She's a persistent girl."

Lizzie froze. Friend? What friend?

"Lizzie!" Like magic, a voice echoed from behind her, "Shit, you took your time."

Annie stood, scorching hair flowing down her back and brushing her shoulders with her arms crossed and a valaient, toothy grins on her face.

"Woah." Was all Lizzie could react with. She seriously needed to improve her social tendencies.

"Hope you don't mind. Just wanted to drop the art work off," Annie pointed to a pile of sheets dumped in the middle of the kitchen table. "You missed some school, right?"

Lizzie nodded, "Thank you so much."

Annie shook her head, a humble look on her face moulding into something of narrowed eyes and thin lips. "Were you sick?"

"What?" Lizzie's eyes snapped up in surprise.

"Doctors appointment? Family member die?"

Lizzie's mouth opened and closed silently, rendering her as some sort of resemblance to a fish.

"I was abducted. Pesky aliens."

Annie scoffed, "Right. Well, i'll see you at school today?"

"I'll have to ask the aliens." Lizzie stuck her thumbs up.

Annie gazed at the pixie quizzically, making Lizzie feel as if she were a puzzle before spinning in her heel and sashaying through the hallway and out the door.

Lizzie stood glued to the spot for a moment as she processed, well, life really.

An obnoxious horn blared through the open window, stunning the dwellers of the kitchen into jumpy messes.

"Liz, honey, is that your lift to school?" Taylor pushed a strand of hair behind the teen girl's ear.

The soft touch seemed to jump start her focus.

"What?" And just like that, her priority's fell into perspective, "Oh...oh!"

Her muscles began to move at a fast pace, gathering together her stationary and shoving it all into her backpack which she found under the table.

"Hey, Liz," Taylor quickly regained her attention. "Does your ride have room for two little ones?"

Lizzie stopped her hurting to glance at her 13 year old brother and his friend. Davis and Tyreese, hardly small, grinned cheekily.

Lizzie thought nothing of it, grabbing the arms of both the middle schoolers, not before tossing a set of keys towards Taylor.

"Would you mind locking up and seeing if you can get Bobby out of bed. Love you!" She called over her shoulder as she pushed the boys down the hallway.

"Ty, tell your mom you love her," Lizzie coaxed.

Tyreese rolled his eyes, shrugging the pixie's hand off his shoulder and mumbling incoherent words that vaguely resembled those three special words.

The door swung open with great ease, the weight of two pre-pubescent boys almost knocking it off it's hinges.

Lizzie hurried quickly after them along her short driveway.

"Lizzie, what the hell?" Stiles shouted, leaning out of his car window and squinting his eyes at the spectacle.

"Can we stop at the middle school on the way?" Lizzie asked, wrenching the jeep door open and sliding out the way.

"Who the hell are these kids?" Scott questioned, a baffled look on his face.

The pixie smiled in return, "This is my brother Davis. You've met Davis, i swear you have. Unless that was another fever dream. You know, i was sick last week and i dreamt that Allison's dad and Danny-"

"Lizzie! The other kid?" Scott attempted to pull the girl back on track.

"Oh yeah, this is Davis' friend Ty." Lizzie spoke as she ushered the boys into the vehicle before clambering in herself and slamming the door shut.

The vehicle set off at a realitivly normal pace, but slowed significantly near the end of the road.

Stiles sighed and shook his head, turning around to glare at Lizzie. "Why? Why are you still wearing my pyjamas."

Lizzie's mouth formed into an 'O' as she glanced guilty down at her bodice.

Funnily enough, 'May the Force be with you' stared right back at her smugly.

"I am so sorry."

Scott, not wanting to turn around and start again which would make them later than they already were, briskly made the decision to yank his navy blue hoody over his head and chuck it towards the girl.

Lizzie grinned, catching the article of clothing with one hand, and leaned forward through the gap between the two front car seats to peck Scott on his cheek.

"I love you."

✯☾✯

Lizzie remained clad in Millennium Falcon pyjama bottoms and Scott's hoodie throughout the day and even still as she sat in Derek's fancy new loft.

"Okay!" Stiles almost tore open the large sheet of paper and flattened it out among the other sheets on the table.

"You see this?" he tapped his own, grasping Derek's attention. "This is how they got in. It's a roof-top air conditioning vent, leads down inside onto a wall of the vault, which is here..."

Stiles uncapped his red marker and scribbled a rough circle around, what Lizzie had labeled in pink, glittery gel pen, the word Vent.

"One of the robber was lowered into this shaft," Stiles continued, his explanation morphing him into something very similar to his dad,

"Now, that space is small, it took him about twelve hours to drill into that wall, which is stone, by the way. Then throughout the rest of the night, they siphoned the cash up to the guys back in the roof through that one little shaft in the wall."

Stiles dotted the last destination forcefully, "Boom!"

"You're getting really good at this, Sti," Lizzie commented, licking the icing off of the cupcake she was nibbling away at.

"Why, thank you, Elizabeth," Stiles turned to smile down at her.

"Can we fit in there?" Scott asked from beside Lizzie.

"Yes, we can," Stiles assured him, "but very, very barely. And, they also patched the wall, obviously, so we're gonna need a drill of some kind. I'm thinking maybe diamond-bit-"

"Look, forgot the drill."

The trinity turned quickly to look at Derek questionably.

"Sorry?"

"If I go in first, how much space do i have?" Derek asked, his brow furrowed.

Stiles dropped his head forward, flabbergasted by both what Derek was insinuating but, also at the audacity to interrupt Stiles' plan run down.

"What do you... What do you think you're gonna do, Derek? You gonna punch through the wall?"

Derek scoffed as Stiles stood up straight, "Yes, Stiles. I'm gonna punch through the wall."

Stiles shook his head in disbelief, "Okay. Okay, big guy, let's see it! Let's see that fist. Big old fist. Make it, come on! Get it out there! Don't be scared, big bad wolf!"

Reluctantly, and with a face like thunder, Derek held up is arm in front of his chest and clenched his fist.

"Yeah, look at that!" Stiles commented sarcastically, practically giggling.

He then held up his palm close to Derek's fist, "Okay, see this? That's maybe three inches of room to gather enough force to punch through solid co-"

Derek pushed his fist forward into Stiles' awaiting palm with such force, he sent the boy stumbling backwards, yelping out whimpers of pain, into Lizzie who was stood behind him and the pair fell crashing to the floor.

"He could do it." Stiles groaned, rolling off of Lizzie and cradling his hand.

Derek sighed, "I'll get through the wall. Who's following me?"

His first glance was towards his uncle, Peter, who had been sitting quietly in the corner of the room devouring the rest of Lizzie's cupcakes.

"Don't look at me!" He scoffed, "I'm not up to fighting speed, yet. And honestly. with Isaac out of commission, you're not looking at very good odds for yourself."

"So, i'm supposed to just let them die?"

"One of them is already dead." Peter pointed out, his compassionless mindset truly showing.

"We don't know that!" Derek quickly shut him down.

Lizzie shifted on the floor, deciding it was quite pathetic just to lay they're limply. She pulled Stiles up with her and once they were both standing, she took his palm to try and heal it.

Stiles batted her away which only caused her to try and grasp his arm again. This led to a childish squabble of persistent slaps and struggles.

Scott rolled his eyes, whacking the both of them on the back of their heads in order to get them to focus.

"Do i have to remind you what we're up against here?" Peter lectured. "A pack of Alphas, all of them killers. And, if that's not enough for scare your tits off and testicles back into your stomach, try to remember that two of them combine bodies to form one giant Alpha."

There was silence as every process what Peter had reminded them.

"I'm sure Erica and Boyd were sweet kids. They're gonna be missed." Peter murmured under his breath.

"Can we please get Devil Incarnate out of here?" Lizzie requested, appalled.

Peter ignored the pixie, "Derek, seriously? Not worth the risk."

It was as if Peter hadn't spoken as Derek tuned his attention to the trinity, "What about you guys?"

"Yeah if you want us to come.." Stiles spluttered, gesturing between himself and Scott.

"No you." Derek denied hun irritably, pointing at the wolf and the pixie instead.

"I don't know about Erica," Scott began, "But, if Boyd's alive, we have to do something. We have to try."

Lizzie nodded, rising up on the tips of her toes and back down again, "He's a kid, Der. They both are. They deserve our help."

"But?" Derek senses Scott had more to say.

"Who's the other girl? The one locked in there with Boyd?"

✯☾✯

The moon shed few white strips of light upon the alleyway, illuminating the trash and discarded materials tossed off to the side.

The two werewolves and the pixie walked it side by side, pausing every now and then to survey they're surroundings.

Scott's brow furrowed, something plaguing flittering around in his mind.

"What?" Derek asked as he noticed Scott drifting far away.

"There's just something I can't get out of my head..." Scott replied.

Derek brushed him off impatiently, "The moon's rising, Scott. What is it?"

Scott shifted his wait onto to his left foot, "Risk or Reward."

Lizzie glanced up from the rock she was rolling with her foot against the gravel on the floor, "Like from Coach's class?"

"Yeah," Scott nodded. "We're not measuring the risk with enough information. We don't know enough."

What the teen wolf had learnt in class and had now applied to the situation was incredibly smart as were many of Scott McCall's insights but, apparently not smart enough for Derek.

"We know time's running out!"

Scott pushed onwards, verbalising his theory, "Yeah, but think about it... they put the triskele on your door four months ago. What have they been doing all this time? Why wait until now?"

The alphas had had so much time to plan, correct and make sure everything was in place. Time was dangerous. And so were they.

Derek seemed to think he knew better. His only plan being to save his pack members. "We don't have time to figure out very little detail-"

"Okay, but what if this is the detail- the reason why they waited- is it the most important one?"

'Then we do nothing, and Boyd and Erica are dead." Derek snapped, pointing out the consequences of not acting right at this second.

The man sighed, "I know what I'm risking- my life for theirs."

Scott had put up a good argument but, it had had no short term effect on Derek as he sprung upwards, latching his hands on the rungs of a ladder sticking out the side of a building.

"Holy jesus, mary and joseph." Lizzie gasped, startled.

Before scaling the rest of the ladder he cranes his neck back towards Scott and Lizzie, "And I won't blame you if you don't follow me."

His words lingered in the air, dancing around in the breeze.

Of course they were going to follow him.

✯☾✯

Beacon Hills National Bank looked relatively well kept and looked after especially since it had recently been broken into.

Derek had used the full force of his body to break through the wall to a specific vault, and had left rather large whole for Scott and Lizzie to climb through more gracefully.

The room was dark. The moonlight bouncing of the shelves of metal.

A shadow of a broad figure stood at the other end of the room to the three.

Lizzie recognised it immediately, "Boyd?", she whispered into the silence.

The full moon had clearly taken advantage of the boy as a low growling edged around the room.

"Boyd," Derek drew his arm out to calm the wolf, "It's me. It's Derek. And Lizzie."

A short lived ring tone interrupted the somber tone of the surroundings as Scott fished his phone out his pockets and answered the call.

"Stiles, now is not the best time."

Whilst Scott and Stiles conversed, Lizzie and Derek focused on Boyd, attempting to bring him to back to them.

"We're here to get you out, okay...?" Derek kept his voice low.

"You're safe now Boyd. We're gonna keep you safe," Lizzie's voice cracked in the back of her throat as she spoke. She hadn't seen him in so long. Too long.

Boyd continued to growl quietly and stare, as if he were figuring out who they were.

"Guys, we got a problem. A really big problem."

Scott's voice drifted into Lizzie's mind but, her focus was solely on Boyd.

The soft footsteps distracted her, a second figure joined Boyd in the shadows. She was smaller. Feminine.

As the beams of moonlight flickered over the unknown girls face, Derek's expression changed,

"Cora?"

"Who?"

"Cora?" Derek repeated, slowly, tentatively.

The girl had long, chestnut hair and brown eyes. Sweat dripped thickly down her pale face, evidence of her struggles.

"Derek...get out," The girl ordered animalisticly, "Get out now!"

The vault door opened, causing Scott to spin around just to see a woman he vaguely recognised complete a circle of a mountain ash.

They were trapped. Trapped in a vault with two ruthless killers that had no restraint, no will power, no nothing. Completely turned animals.

The clash of claws and fists echoed with a mix of grunts and snarls as a fight unfolded amidst scattered debris. Boyd and Cora were ruthless.

They leaped and lunged with primal instincts, testing the coordinated efforts of the trio, creating a chaotic mass of a fight.

Lizzie gained her power from the moon, taking to temporarily blinding the rabid werewolves and making it easier for the boys to fend them off.

The trio pressed themselves a wall, gasping for air in the few seconds they had to rest.

"You know her?" Scott questioned incredulously.

"She's my sister, my younger sister!" Derek informed them.

"What the shit!" Lizzie exclaimed breathlessly.

"What the hell is she doing here?"

"Like i have a clue, i thought she was dead!" Derek sassed.

"Ali!"

Lizzie's shout interrupted Scott and Derek's badly timed squabble.

What the Argent hunter was doing here, no one had any idea but, there she stood at the vault door looking frightened as ever.

"Look out!" Allison yelled as Boyd threw himself at Derek, tossing him and Scott aside.

Lizzie gasped, throwing herself out of the way.

Boyd brandished his sharp canines at the pixie. He made a smooth effort to pounce on her but was stopped in his tracks, screamingly bright light flooding his vision.

Boyd spun away, covering his face and turning his attention to Scott. He dived down and rammed his claws into the McCall boy's stomach.

"No!" Lizzie shouted, despairingly looking around for some sort of weapon. Light could only help so much.

Her twitching eyes rested on a sharp, pointed piece of fallen rock.

She swiped it up fast and charged at the large werewolf.

The knife like end of the rock sunk into Boyd's back and he howled in pain. Lizzie winced at the sound, it echoed through her ears and reverberated against the walls of her brain.

All the while, Allison was bent down over a strip of mountain ash, her shaky fingers nearing towards it.

"No, don't break the seal!" Derek bellowed out, struggling to hold back Cora.

Allison ignored him, desperation taking over.

"Boyd!" She called for the boy as she swiped her hand across the ash, knocking down the invisible wall that had kept the two tortured wolves from leaving.

Both Boyd and Cora ran towards the exit immediately, they're movements frantic like they were submerged beneath water and begging to come up for air.

This was their escape. Their freedom.

Derek sprinted after him, his sister and beta quickly escaping his grasps.

His fists clenched, nails digging into his palms as a surge of hot anger coursed through him. His jaw tightened, eyes narrowing in Allison's direction. In that tense moment, every breath felt like an effort to contain the roaring tempest within.

He clutched her arm and pulled her towards him, almost spitting in her face as he asked her what she was thinking.

"That I had to do something!" Allison justified, trying to pull herself from Derek.

Lizzie picked herself up from where she had been sat looking after Scott and followed the boy towards the exit of the vault.

"She saved our lives." Scott added, blood spilling down his chin and dripping onto his sweater.

"Yeah, and what do you think they're gonna do out there? Do you have any idea what we just set free?" Derek ran a calloused hand through his tousled hair.

"You want to blame me?" Allison fumed, "Well, i am not the one turning teenagers into killers."

The hunger began to walk away, only halting at Derek's next words.

"No. No, that's just the rest of your family."

Amidst the heated argument, Lizzie had pulled Scott a little further away. Her gentle touch was focused on tending to her friend's wounds. With her eyes closed and concentration steady, she worked methodically to speed up Scott's personal healing process with her own, her movements calm and deliberate.

The room buzzed with raised voices, but Lizzie's attention remained steadfast on patching up Scott, offering a silent refuge from the storm of discord that raged.

"I made mistakes. Gerard is not my fault."

"And what about your mother?" Derek shook his head.

Allison was taken aback, "What do you mean?"

The air was thick with pent up guilt and blinding rage.

"Tell her, Scott." Derek instructed the boy.

Scott breathed out heavily, looking away from the situation.

"What does he mean, Scott?" Allison demanded, her stomach twisted into tight knots.

"What does he mean?"

╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╮
heyy!!
thank you all for your patience.
here is your well deserved chapter!!
thank you for reading!!