The game was almost over, but Evelyn had not truly watched a single minute of it.
The field stretched out in front of her in a blur of movement — players running, whistles cutting through the air, the distant roar of the crowd rising and falling like waves — yet none of it reached her. Her mind was elsewhere entirely, caught in the same tightening spiral of thoughts that had been circling since Stiles and Derek had left for the hospital.
Melissa couldn't be the Alpha. The idea refused to make sense no matter how many times she turned it over in her head. Melissa McCall was a nurse, Scott's mother, someone who spent her nights trying to keep people alive. Nothing about it fit.
Come on, Stiles, answer the damn phone.
Her fingers tightened around the device as she tried calling again, pressing it to her ear, listening to the empty ringing that seemed to stretch longer every time.
Still nothing.
Was that a good sign?
Or a terrible one?
Probably terrible.
Evelyn lowered the phone slowly, her leg bouncing uncontrollably where she sat in the bleachers, the nervous motion sending small tremors through the wooden seat beneath her. Her teeth pressed down on her lower lip without her even noticing, while her eyes remained fixed on the field in front of her, staring blankly at a game she was not truly seeing.
It was almost over now.
And they still weren't back.
Her chest tightened as she let out a shaky breath.
Had something gone wrong?
Was that why Scarlett wasn't here?
Had she sensed something — felt Stiles' fear through their connection?
The final alarm signaling the end of the game blared suddenly across the field, sharp and metallic, and Evelyn flinched in her seat as if someone had shaken her awake.
Her hand moved instinctively to her chest, fingers pressing lightly against her racing heart as she tried to steady her breathing.
She didn't like this.
None of it.
There was something deeply wrong about everything that was happening, like pieces of a puzzle shifting just out of reach every time she tried to put them together.
As the players began filing off the field and making their way toward the locker rooms, Evelyn's gaze drifted across the stands — and that was when she noticed Allison standing up from her seat a few rows down, next to her father and Kate.
Kate Argent.
Even from a distance, she could feel that unsetteling feeling that she couldn't quite name before, but now she did.
Fear.
Evelyn still remembered the conversation they had shared in her mother's flower shop — the polite smile, the effortless charm, and the sharp, measuring way Kate's eyes had studied her, as if she were something to be carefully evaluated rather than simply spoken to. There had been something almost clinical in that gaze, something that had made Evelyn's skin prickle with quiet unease long after the woman had left.
And now, after everything Derek had told her…
It was almost impossible to reconcile the memory of that composed, smiling woman with the truth.
Kate Argent had burned the Hale family alive.
But why?
From what Deaton had told her, hunters did not go around killing every creature they encountered. They hunted the ones who were dangerous, the ones who had killed. That was the balance they claimed to protect.
But the Hales… according to Deaton, they had simply been a family. They had lived quietly in Beacon Hills for years, never harming anyone, never becoming a problem.
So why would Kate kill them?
Because she was crazy? Because she was cruel?
Or was there something else behind it?
All creatures have done something, her mother would have said. She had always said that. She had never trusted any of them.
Was she right?
But… Derek didn't seem like a bad person. He had helped Scott more than once. If anything, he seemed like someone carrying too much anger, too much solitude — someone who had lost everything and didn't quite know what to do with what remained.
There are people who stand on both sides of a line, and pretend the line isn't there.
What if Stiles was right? What if it was really Derek who was helping the Alpha?
And yet, even as the thought crossed her mind, it felt wrong. Completely wrong.
Maybe she had misunderstood everything. Maybe she had built theories around the words of a girl who wasn't even in her right mind.
Maybe…
And yet, even that explanation refused to settle inside her.
Something still felt off.
Evelyn took a long breath before standing up, the restless tension in her body finally pushing her to move.
The stands were already emptying around her. Students were pouring down the steps in loud, careless clusters, laughing, arguing about the game, shoving each other as they made their way toward the locker rooms and the parking lot. The ordinary noise of it all felt strangely distant, as if she were listening from underwater.
She had barely taken two steps when something in the corner of her vision made her stop.
Someone was running up the bleachers.
Fast.
At first she only saw movement — the hurried climb, the uneven rhythm of footsteps skipping over steps two at a time — but then the shape of the person came into focus.
"Stiles?" she said.
He looked like someone who had run the entire distance from the parking lot. His breathing was uneven, his jacket half-open like he had thrown it on without thinking.
But it was his face that made something cold tighten in Evelyn's chest.
His eyes were red. Red in the unmistakable way of someone who had cried and hadn't had the time — or the energy — to hide it.
"Stiles!"
He almost collided with her before realizing she was there.
He stopped so abruptly that for a moment it looked like his body didn't quite know what to do with the sudden stillness, his chest still rising and falling too quickly.
"Eve," he said.
Her name came out rough, like his voice had been dragged across something sharp.
Up close the signs were impossible to miss now. The redness in his eyes, the tightness in his jaw, the way he kept blinking like he was trying to force himself back into focus.
Something had happened.
Something bad.
"Hey, what happened?" she asked immediately, her voice dropping as she searched his face. "Did you find something at the hospital? Is Derek with you?"
For a second he didn't answer.
His gaze flickered away from her, scanning the field behind her shoulder — the players heading toward the locker rooms, the stands still crowded with people leaving — like he was trying to find someone in the moving crowd.
"Where's Scott?" he asked quickly.
The question came out too fast.
Evelyn frowned slightly, instinctively turning her head toward the field.
"He's down there, heading to the locker room with the team. Why—"
"I need to talk to him," Stiles said immediately, making a step to move, but she put herself before him. Her eyes studying his face again.
There was something else there beneath the urgency. Something heavy. Something that didn't belong to the situation he was describing.
"Stiles," she said more quietly. "What happened at the hospital?"
His eyes blinked rapidly, the shine in them suddenly too bright under the stadium lights. For a moment he didn't answer, and Evelyn saw his whole body tense as if he were forcing himself to remain still, trying to gather something inside himself before it broke apart completely. Then two silent tears slipped down his cheeks before he could stop them.
Evelyn felt her stomach drop.
What had happened at the hospital? Had they discovered something about Melissa? Had she really been the Alpha? And where was Derek?
"It was her," Stiles whispered at last.
The words were so quiet she almost thought she had imagined them.
Evelyn frowned, searching his face. "Who?"
"It was her the whole time, she knew who the Alpha was," he repeated, his voice rough and uneven, and he dragged the sleeve of his jacket across his face with a frustrated movement, as if the tears themselves were something he could simply wipe away. "She's been lying the whole time."
Her.
Lying...
The meaning settled slowly.
"Scarlett?" Evelyn asked carefully.
The moment the name left her lips, Stiles stiffened again. His jaw tightened, and for a second she thought he might say something else, something that would explain the look in his eyes, the exhaustion in his posture, the strange, hollow weight in the way he was standing there.
Instead he shook his head slightly, as if pushing the thought away.
"I— I gotta tell Scott," he said quickly, the words coming out almost breathless. "I have to tell him."
He tried to move past her.
"Stiles—"
But he was already stepping around her, already heading down the bleachers with hurried, uneven strides.
"Stiles!" she called after him.
He didn't stop.
He didn't even turn around.
Within seconds he had disappeared into the flow of players and students moving toward the locker rooms, leaving Evelyn standing halfway down the bleachers with the strange echo of his voice still ringing in her ears.
Scarlett had been lying.
Evelyn knew she probably should have felt more surprised by that revelation. Shocked, even. Yet what she felt instead was something far quieter, far heavier — a dull, bitter confirmation settling slowly in her chest.
I should have trusted my instincts.
The thought came with a sharp edge of self-reproach.
Vampires could not be trusted. Of all the creatures that roamed the world, they were the ones most often described as empty things, predators that learned to imitate emotion only well enough to get closer to their prey.
Lies came easily to them.
Stiles' face rose in her memory again — the redness of his eyes, the tremor in his voice, the way he had looked like someone struggling to hold himself together.
I've been stupid, she thought bitterly.
Slowly Evelyn sat back down on the bleachers.
She didn't follow him into the locker rooms; the noise coming from that direction had already grown into the chaotic roar of players celebrating the end of the game, metal lockers slamming, voices shouting over each other, the wild restless energy that always followed a match. Whatever had happened between Stiles and Scarlett, it was clear that he wasn't ready to speak about it in the middle of that storm.
So she waited.
The stadium emptied slowly around her as students drifted away in small groups, their laughter and conversation gradually fading into the cool evening air until the field lay almost silent beneath the tall floodlights. Evelyn remained seated on the wooden bench, leaning forward slightly with her elbows resting on her knees, her hands loosely clasped together as her thoughts circled restlessly through the same questions.
There are people who stand on both sides of a line, and pretend the line isn't there.
Irene's words surfaced in her mind again with quiet persistence.
Evelyn remained there for a while, watching the empty field without really seeing it, her thoughts circling endlessly around the same questions, until the quiet of the stadium was broken by the distant sound of footsteps echoing faintly across the concrete beneath the stands.
At first she barely registered it. The noise was soft, slow, almost hesitant, as if whoever was approaching was carrying more weight than they were used to. But something in the rhythm of it made her lift her head.
She turned slightly on the bench.
A tall figure was crossing the edge of the field, moving toward the bleachers through the pale wash of the stadium lights.
For a moment she didn't recognize him. The shadows stretched strangely across the grass, and the distance blurred the details of his face. Then the way he walked — that familiar, tense stiffness in his shoulders — made the realization settle in.
"Derek?"
She was already on her feet before she had fully decided to move, hurrying down the bleachers toward him.
Up close he looked exactly as he always did — composed, controlled, his expression unreadable in the half-light of the stadium. No blood. No visible injury. No sign of a fight.
Relief slipped through her chest before she could stop it.
"You're okay," she said, slowing in front of him, her eyes instinctively moving over him as if expecting to find some sign of injury. "I saw Stiles a few minutes ago and he was alone. I thought something might have happened to you."
"What are you doing here?" He said, Evelyn noticed how his jaw tensed.
"What do you mean?" she asked with a frown, "I'm waiting for Scott and Stiles. He wouldn't tell me anything. He looked... so destraught."
She hesitated before adding, more quietly, "He said Scarlett had been lying to us."
The name settled between them like something heavy.
Derek took a deep breath.
Evelyn studied him carefully, trying to understand what had happened at the hospital, trying to piece together the fragments Stiles had left behind. "What happened there?" she asked. "He wouldn't explain anything."
For a moment it looked as though Derek might answer.
But before he could speak, another voice drifted across the field behind them — smooth, calm, and faintly amused.
"Well," it said lightly, "Scarlett always did have a certain weakness for sweet boys. She enjoys play with them."
Evelyn turned immediately.
A man stepped out from the shadows near the entrance to the field as though he had been standing there the entire time, quietly observing them. Evelyn didn't know who he was.
His gaze slid briefly toward the direction of the locker rooms where Stiles had disappeared earlier, and a small, knowing smile curved his lips.
"He'll recover eventually," Peter added with a casual shrug.
Then his attention returned to Evelyn. For a moment he simply looked at her, his head tilting slightly as his sharp eyes studied her with open curiosity.
"And you," he said slowly, "who exactly are you?"
"She's no one," Derek replied immediately, his voice low and firm. "Leave her alone." Evelyn kept looking between Derek and the man, that let out a chuckle, that almost made her took a step back. Who was that man?
Peter's smile deepened just a fraction, though something colder flickered behind it.
Peter's smile deepened slightly, though something colder flickered behind it.
"Oh," he murmured softly, his voice carrying across the quiet field like something almost pleasant, "I doubt that. You're all over her, Derek. She must be important."
The words settled between them with a weight that seemed far heavier than their casual tone suggested.
Evelyn felt the tension shift beside her. Derek had not moved much — only a slight tightening of his shoulders, a small change in the angle of his stance — but it was enough to send a slow unease creeping up her spine. Her eyes moved quickly from him to the stranger again, studying the man who had stepped out of the shadows with such effortless confidence, as if he belonged exactly where he stood.
And something about him made the air feel wrong.
"Who is he?" she asked quietly, her gaze flicking back to Derek, but he didn't answer. For a moment he simply stood there, his eyes fixed on the man behind her, his expression tightening in a way that told Evelyn far more than silence ever could. It was not surprise she saw there, nor confusion.
It was recognition.
And something dangerously close to restraint.
The man behind them let out a low chuckle, as if he had just been handed a small amusement.
"Oh, Derek," he said mildly, "that's hardly polite. Leaving the poor girl guessing."
Evelyn turned again, more slowly this time.
Up close, the stranger looked almost ordinary — dark hair, sharp eyes, the faintest curve of a smile that never quite reached the rest of his face. Yet there was something unsettling in the stillness of him, something that made the quiet space of the stadium feel suddenly smaller.
"You know," he continued, tilting his head slightly as he looked at her, "I admire curiosity. It usually means someone is paying attention."
Evelyn felt a cold realization begin to stir in the back of her mind.
Her eyes flicked briefly to Derek. The way he acted around the man, the way he was looking at him, like he was been lead by him.
There are people who stand on both sides of a line, and pretend the line isn't there.
Evelyn stepped back.
The small glass vial swung lightly against the chain at her throat as she lifted it between them, the ashwood inside shifting in a pale swirl that caught the stadium lights. Her fingers closed around it instinctively, the way someone might reach for a charm or a shield without quite realizing they had done it.
But Derek had noticed. And for the briefest moment something passed through his expression, his shoulders tightened.
Her attention had already shifted away from him, her gaze fixed instead on the man standing across the field, the vial now resting against her palm as she took another step back.
The space between her and Derek widened by only a few inches.
"He's the Alpha, isn't he?" she said turning to look at Derek. "Did you know the whole time?" And his reaction surprised her. Because he shook his head.
Derek shook his head.
"No," he said quietly.
The answer came slowly, almost reluctantly, and something in the way he said it made Evelyn's chest tighten.
Behind her, Peter's laughter drifted softly across the empty field — low, amused, like someone watching a conversation unfold exactly as he had expected.
Evelyn didn't look at him.
Her eyes remained fixed on Derek.
"No?" she repeated, the word leaving her lips in a fragile whisper. "Then how—"
"He's my uncle."
For a moment the world seemed to tilt slightly out of place.
That meant that it was Peter Hale, the only known survivor of the fire, the man who had spent six long years lying motionless in a hospital bed while the rest of the world continued moving forward without him.
Evelyn felt something cold slip slowly through her chest.
Her eyes moved from Derek to the man standing a few yards away across the field — the man who was watching them with quiet amusement, as though this entire revelation were nothing more than a mildly entertaining conversation.
"Well then..." she said still trying to process everything as her gaze searched for Derek. "Then why don't you attack him?"
Again Derek did not answer.
The stadium lights hummed faintly above them, casting long pale shadows across the grass, and in that suspended silence Evelyn could feel something shift beside her — not movement exactly, but a tightening, the restrained coiling of something that had not yet decided whether to strike or remain still.
Peter let out another chuckle. "Why? We are family, of course."
Evelyn did not turn toward him, though she felt his presence there with uncomfortable clarity, the quiet confidence of someone who had no fear of what either of them might do.
"Derek," she called, observing him as he took a breath as he looked at her.
"He's not my enemy right now," he said slowly.
Evelyn bit her lips for a moment, "Who is your enemy, then?"
For a brief instant Derek did not answer. He stood there beneath the pale wash of the stadium lights, his expression hardening in that familiar way that seemed less like anger and more like the careful sealing of a door.
Then he looked at her.
The look was brief, but it carried something heavy inside it, something that made her chest tighten before she even understood why.
"This has nothing to do with you," he said quietly. "Go home, Evelyn. And stay out of this."
Before she could answer, he had already turned.
The movement was abrupt, almost deliberate in its finality, as though the conversation had ended somewhere inside his mind before the last words had even left his mouth. He began walking away across the empty field without another glance, his dark silhouette cutting through the pale grass toward the shadowed edge of the stadium.
"Derek!"
The name left her before she could stop it.
He paused.
Only for a moment.
Not long enough to turn around, but long enough that she knew he had heard her.
"Don't do this," she said, the words coming out softer now, almost pleading in a way she had not intended.
For a second the night held its breath.
But Derek did not answer.
After that brief hesitation he continued walking, the distance between them widening with every step until his figure disappeared into the darker stretch of the field beyond the lights.
Peter remained where he was for another heartbeat, watching her with that same faintly curious expression, as though she were an interesting detail in a story that had not yet fully unfolded.
"Such determination," he said lightly.
Evelyn did not look at him.
Her fingers were still closed tightly around the small glass vial, the ashwood inside catching the light each time the chain moved against her throat. And he seemed to notice.
"You should listen to him," Peter continued, his tone almost gentle. "This town has a way of swallowing people who ask too many questions."
Then, with the same quiet ease he had arrived with, he turned and followed the direction Derek had taken, his steps unhurried as he slipped gradually into the shadow beyond the reach of the stadium lights.
Within seconds he was gone.
The field fell silent again.
Evelyn remained standing where she was, the cool evening air brushing softly against her face as the faint hum of the floodlights filled the empty space around her.
For a moment she did not move.
The vial still rested in her hand, warm now from the pressure of her fingers, the pale fragment of ashwood shifting gently inside the glass like something caught between stillness and motion.
For a long moment Evelyn remained exactly where she was.
The stadium had grown almost completely silent now. The last clusters of students had disappeared through the gates, their laughter and careless voices fading into the distance until nothing remained but the low electrical hum of the floodlights and the faint whisper of wind moving across the empty field.
She exhaled slowly, though the tightness in her chest did not loosen.
She lowered the vial slightly, the chain sliding softly against her fingers, when the sound of footsteps broke through the stillness.
Two figures were crossing the edge of the field from the direction of the locker rooms, moving quickly beneath the pale lights. For a moment the distance blurred their faces, but the familiar shapes of them settled into recognition before they were even halfway across the grass.
Scott and Stiles.
They were talking as they walked, their voices too low to reach her yet, though something in the urgency of their movements made the unease in her chest tighten again. Scott was the first to notice her standing there near the bleachers. He slowed immediately, his brows pulling together in confusion as his eyes flicked briefly toward the empty stretch of field behind her.
"Evelyn?" he called, they both making their way towards her.
"The Alpha was here," Evelyn said quietly.
"I know that," Scott said with wide eyes, "How do you know?"
"Because he was here with Derek," she answered, her eyes moving form Scott to Stiles. "They had teamed up."
Scott didn't seem surprised, "They had come to look for me," he said sharing a look with Stiles. "He wants for me to join him."
"He wants to create his pack." Evelyn said. And surely they wanted to kill Kate Argent, but who were all the people that Peter had killed before. Why did he killed so many people?
"Derek told me that Peter is not the enemy now," Evelyn kept saying.
"Scarlett also said something about revenge," Stiles said. His voice sounded
hollow, as though the words had to pass through something heavy before they reached the air.
Evelyn's eyes moved toward him.
Stiles wasn't looking at either of them. His gaze had drifted somewhere across the empty bleachers, as if the quiet stadium were easier to face than the conversation unfolding between them.
For a moment Scott hesitated, then lifted a hand slowly toward his neck.
"There's something else," he said.
Evelyn's attention shifted back to him.
"He scratched me," Scott continued, touching the back of his neck. Evelyn frowned a little as she took a step forward so that she could see his neck. There were marks of Peter's claws, like he had plugged them in the flash. Deaton had told her about that. He had been wanting to share a memory.
"And..." Scott kept saying, "I saw things... flashes. Flashes of the fire. And the house burning."
For a moment the wind moved softly across the empty stadium, stirring the loose fabric of their clothes.
"There were flames everywhere," Scott continued slowly. "Smoke… people screaming and trying to get out." Evelyn closed her eyes as she heard those words. "I saw Peter and..." Scott stopped for a moment before glancing at Stiles. "I saw Scarlett too... she was in that fire."
For a brief moment no one spoke. And the silence was louder than any other sound she had heard even during the game.
Evelyn's eyes remained closed for a second longer, as if the image Scott had described had slipped too easily into her mind: flames climbing the walls of the Hale house, smoke choking the air, people trying to escape something that had already decided their fate.
Having such vision it must have been terrible for Scott. Seeing people suffer so, feeling their fear.
When she opened them again, her gaze moved instinctively toward Stiles.
He hadn't moved.
His posture had gone rigid, the way someone's does when a single sentence hits somewhere deeper than it should. For a brief moment something flickered across his face something sharp and unguarded that disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared.
He let out a breath.
"Well," he said. The word came out dry. "I won't feel sorry for her."
Scott looked at him.
Stiles dragged his sleeve roughly across his face again, wiping away the tears that had been rolling down again.
"I won't feel sorry for her," he repeated. The second time the sentence came out harder.
Angrier.
As if repeating it might make it more true.
Neither Scott nor Evelyn answered.
For a moment the three of them stood there together in the pale glow of the stadium lights, the silence stretching wider with every second.
Then Stiles shook his head once, abruptly, like someone forcing a thought out of his mind.
"This is great," he muttered under his breath. "This is just— fantastic."
Scott frowned slightly. "Stiles—"
"No," Stiles cut in quickly. "No, you know what? I'm good."
His voice was too light and too quick.
"Alpha wants to recruit you, Derek's apparently switching sides every ten minutes, vampires are secretly working with serial killer werewolves—" he gestured vaguely toward the dark edge of the field where Peter had disappeared. "Honestly, I feel like we're handling this remarkably well."
The sarcasm hung in the air, brittle and sharp.
Then he looked at Scott again, "I'm going home."
He turned and started walking toward the parking lot, his pace quick and restless, like someone who needed distance more than anything else.
Evelyn watched him go.
For a moment the only sound left was the faint crunch of his footsteps against the gravel path beyond the field.
"She had him attacked," Scott said suddenly, making Evelyn turn to him with wide eyes.
"What?" Scott nodded.
"She had it planned, so that she could feed him her blood." Evelyn closed her eyes breafly learning that. She remembered how Stiles had defended Scarlett. How he trusted her.
He must be suffering so much now, she thought as her gaze went to the boy walking away.
It was almost scary how vampires could be so decieving. She had seen how Scarlett looked at Stiles. How they stood close to each other, they way they gazed at each other. She had find it difficoult to go against Stiles when he told her why he believe that much in Scarlett.
Vampires are truely void, Evelyn thought shaking her head. Then she moved to looked at Scott. Scarlett was not thier only problem now.
"Scott," she said quietly.
He looked at her.
"You need to be very careful now," she continued. "And he won't leave you alone until he gets what he wants."
Scott's gaze drifted briefly toward the darkness where the Alpha had disappeared earlier.
"I know," he murmured.
Evelyn studied him for a moment longer, the uneasy weight in her chest refusing to loosen.
Somewhere in the distance a car engine started in the parking lot. The sound carried faintly across the empty stadium.
"And let's keep an eye on Stiles, Peter could use Scarlett against him and you," Evelyn kept saying. "We should have never trusted a vampire."
And for the first time that night, the realization settled fully in her mind:
Whatever had begun with the Hale fire all those years ago had not ended in those flames.
And it could only get worse.