Leon pulled up in front of the Argent house a few minutes early and sat in the car for a second before getting out, mostly because he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to knock or just wait at the curb like some kind of getaway driver.
He went with knocking.
The door opened before his hand made it there a second time.
Allison, hair down, in something that wasn’t quite what she wore to school.
She glanced back over her shoulder.
“Mom, he’s here.”
“Bring him in for a second,” a voice called from inside.
“I want to actually see who you’ve been talking about.”
“Mom!” Allison made a face — not quite embarrassed — and waved him up the steps.
Victoria Argent was drying her hands on a dish towel when she came to the door, and she looked at Leon the way a woman looks at something she’s deciding whether to worry about.
“You must be Leon.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m Leon Lockhart.” He held out a hand.
Her grip was firmer than he expected.
“Nice to meet you, Mrs.
Argent.”
“Likewise.” She didn’t let go right away.
“Did you say Lockhart?” She said it lightly, but there was something underneath it, some private math she was doing.
Then, as if she’d realized something, her eyes went gentler, and her demeanor loosened a bit.
“Yes, ma’am.” Leon smiled, noticing the change.
“Have fun tonight,” she said, stepping back to let them go.
“Home by twelve, Allison.”
“It’s not even a school night.”
“Twelve.”
“Fine.
Okay.” Allison rolled her eyes at Leon once her mother had turned around, and he grinned, and neither of them said anything until they were most of the way down the driveway.
“That went well,” Leon said.
“She likes you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she didn’t question you too much.” Allison climbed into the car.
“She questioned Lydia, so I’m a little confused why she didn’t ask you anything.”
“That’s a good thing, no?”
“I guess so.”
Leon smiled and pulled out of the driveway.
Lydia’s house had a line of cars up both sides of the street by the time they got there, and music loud enough to hear from the sidewalk.
Allison hesitated for half a second at the door, the way she did most places, and Leon didn’t say anything about it, just let her walk in first.
Lydia saw the two of them walk in together, smiled and walked up to them.
“You made it.” She looked Allison up and down, approving, then flicked her eyes to Leon for exactly as long as it took to make a point of not lingering.
“Drinks are in the kitchen.
Don’t let anyone give you the red cup by the sink, someone spat his drink back in it.”
“Noted,” Leon said.
Lydia was already turning away, already halfway back into whatever conversation she’d left, and it was only because Leon happened to be looking that he caught the extra half-second her eyes spent on him before she went.
Jackson had an arm around her a minute later, loud about something, and Lydia laughed at it in a way that didn’t quite reach anywhere real.
Leon didn’t say anything about that either.
Wasn’t the night for it.
They ended up outside a while later, away from the speakers, sitting on the edge of Lydia’s pool furniture.
“You look very nice,” Leon said.
“You too.” She winked at him playfully, then pulled her knees up.
“I have a question.”
“Go ahead.”
She was quiet for a moment.
“What is your end game with me?” Allison said
“What do you mean?” Leon looked at her, confused.
“You flirted with me, even asked me to the party, but I also noticed you flirting with other girls too, including Lydia.” Allison looked him in the eyes.
“Although she’s pretending like she doesn’t care, I know she does, and she even started pulling away from Jackson — I saw her pull away when he tried to kiss her.
So are you a playboy?
Are you gonna have your fun with me and move on to the next?”
Leon looked at her, and couldn’t help but compare her to Allison from the show — who usually appeared confident and charming with a strong personality — but here, she was acting slightly clingy.
‘I keep forgetting this isn’t the show.’ He glanced at the kids dancing, at Lydia and Jackson laughing somewhere in the crowd, at Allison waiting for him to say something.
‘Everyone here just feels like background noise sometimes.
That’s on me.’
He looked back at her.
‘My old life was not so good, I never got to experience many things, whether due to financial issues or lack of confidence, which forced me to miss on many things– I won’t make the same mistake in this life.’
“I can’t answer your question right now since I don’t know what I want, but I can tell you one thing for sure — if you’re willing, I won’t wrong you.” Leon said, leaning in and tapping her forehead with his own.
They sat there for a minute not saying anything.
Leon noticed her thinking about something, taking random glances at him, and then her eyes cleared, and she sat there with him and started leaning, resting her head on his arm.
“I’m glad,” Leon said, then grabbed her chin and kissed her before she could think too hard about it, which seemed like the better option than saying anything himself.
She kissed him back, one hand curling into his shirt, and when they broke apart she just looked at him like she wasn’t sure what to do with her face.
“Okay,” she said eventually.
“Okay,” he agreed, and that seemed to cover it.
***********
He drove her home a little after eleven.
She kept the radio on low the whole way and didn’t really talk, just kept glancing over like she was checking.
At her home door she said goodnight twice, the second time mostly with her mouth against his, and he waited until she was inside before heading back to the car.
Halfway down the block his headlights caught Stiles’s Jeep parked badly against the curb, Stiles slouched down in the driver’s seat in a way that fooled nobody.
Leon didn’t stop.
He just laughed and kept driving.
***********
Stiles had gotten Scott chained to the bed frame a little after sundown, both wrists cuffed, the chain looped twice for good measure.
“Do you feel anything yet?”
“I feel like an idiot.” Scott tugged at the cuffs.
“Sitting here on a Friday night while Leon’s at a party.”
“Leon is stupid, and might kill someone tonight.
Stop thinking about it, control your emotions.” Stiles checked the chain one more time, then grabbed his keys.
“I’m gonna swing by Lydia’s party real quick, make sure Leon’s not growling at people.
Back in twenty.”
“You’re gonna leave me here — alone?
What if I turn?”
“You’ll be fine, you’re chained to a bed.
That’s the whole point of the chain.”
“What if your dad comes home and sees me like this?”
“Then tell him you’re kinky and practicing.” Stiles laughed over Scott’s angry growl and left.
Air seeped through the cracked window.
The blinds lifted and settled, revealing a silhouette in the distance, eyes glowing a beautiful blue.
Twenty minutes turned into more like forty-five once Stiles actually parked outside Lydia’s and settled in to wait for nothing in particular.
When Leon’s car finally passed him without slowing down, he let out a breath and started the engine, more relieved than he wanted to admit.
He didn’t think anything was wrong until he got back and looked up at his own window.
It was open all the way.
He was up the stairs before he’d finished processing.
The chain was in two pieces on the floor, one link twisted apart, both cuffs still closed around nothing.
“Scott?” His voice came out wrong.
“Scott!”
Nothing – just the curtains moving in the wind, something that might have been a howl echoed in the distance.
He didn’t remember dialing.
He just had the phone up to his ear, waiting for Leon to pick up.
“He’s gone.” Stiles didn’t wait for hello.
“The chain’s broken, the window’s open, I left for like forty-five minutes and he’s just gone—”
“Where are you?”
“My house.”
“On my way.” Leon was already turning the car around.
Derek had been standing across the street for the better part of an hour when the window broke outward.
He didn’t move right away.
He watched Scott hit the ground on all fours and take off toward the tree line with a speed barely perceptible to a normal person.
Derek shook his head, then followed.
Scott didn’t know what he was chasing.
He just knew he needed to run, needed to be anything other than a kid chained to a bed while everyone else’s night kept going without him.
He didn’t see the tripwire.
The flash-bang went off close enough to blind him.
Before his eyes cleared, an arrow caught him through the forearm and pinned him to a tree.
“AH—”
Three men stepped out of the dark, crossbows up.
The one in front had the look of someone who’d done this more than once.
“Take him.”
Derek came out of nowhere, dropped two of them before they’d even turned, and yanked the arrow free from Scott’s arm on his way past.
Scott screamed.
“Move.”
They didn’t stop until the flashlights were long gone.
Scott sat down hard once they did, the shift snapping back to human as the pain hit, the wound already closing.
“Who were they?”
“Hunters.” Derek said it like it barely needed explaining.
“They’ve been doing this a long time.”
“You did this to me.”
“You can hear things, see things, move faster than anyone your age should.
Most people would kill for that.”
“I don’t want it.”
“You will.” Derek’s hand landed on his shoulder.
“You’re gonna need me if you want to survive it.
You and me, we’re in this together now.”
He walked off without waiting for a response.
Stiles’s headlights found Scott a few minutes later, walking the shoulder of the road in torn jeans, arm cradled against his chest like it still hurt even though it shouldn’t have.
Stiles was out of the Jeep before it fully stopped.
“Scott — are you okay, what happened—”
“I’m fine.
I’ll explain.”
Leon got him into the back seat and didn’t say much.
“Wait.” Scott looked over at him once they were moving.
“Did anything happen to you?
At the party?”
“No, nothing.
Not even a slight discomfort.”
“Oh.” Scott said, a hint of confusion in his eyes.
Stiles caught Leon’s calm eyes in the mirror for half a second, then went back to driving.
***********
Leon walked out to the parking lot that afternoon with Allison at his side.
They weren’t official, but she was walking just close enough for their shoulders to brush — a quiet shift from where they’d been when he first arrived.
“So,” Leon said, cutting a glance her way.
“How are you feeling?”
Allison looked at him and shook her head.
“You’re a playboy.
Want to guess how I’m feeling?”
“I know.” Leon reached and held her hand.
“But as long as you’re next to me, I’m not letting you go.”
“I must be crazy to even humor that crap.
But hurt me, and I’ll bite your lip off.”
Leon chuckled as he started to lean in.
Across the lot, Scott and Stiles were leaning against the blue Jeep.
Stiles was whispering furiously, his hands gesturing wildly in the air, he even pointed at Leon a couple times, while Scott just stared blankly at the pavement.
They weren’t even trying to pretend they weren’t watching Leon and Allison.
A sharp car horn cut through the afternoon chatter and stopped Leon and Allison as their lips were about to meet.
Allison looked over, her smile shifting into something a bit more reserved as she spotted a burgundy SUV idling by the curb.
“That’s my dad,” she said, a sudden hint of urgency in her voice.
She quickly squeezed his arm, her touch warm through his sleeve.
“I better go.”
“Yeah.
See you tomorrow.”
Leon watched Allison get into the SUV as she gave him another smile.
Next to him, the air suddenly grew cold.
Leon caught the movement out of the corner of his eye — Scott had frozen mid-stride.
His head snapped toward the driveway, his jaw locking so tight the muscle twitched.
Scott’s eyes dilated, fixed entirely on the man who had just closed Allison’s door and was walking around to the driver’s seat.
It was the same face from the woods.
The man who had shot him through the dark with a crossbow.
“Scott?” Stiles asked, his head whipping between his best friend and the car.
“What’s wrong?
You look like you’re gonna puke.”
The SUV pulled away from the curb, merging smoothly into traffic, leaving Scott staring at the empty street like he was looking at a ghost.