Cross My Heart

This is my first Teen Wolf story, so I hope you like it. Reviews are appreciated. No flames please. Enjoy!

It was just after ten when Stiles phoned, rambling excitedly about a dead body -scratch that- half a dead body. Of course he didn't know which half it was, but that Alexandria Hilary Reiss was coming with him to go pick up Scott and investigate. Normally, she would have politely declined this offer, namely because tomorrow was the first day of school and she didn't want to be over tired for lacrosse practise, but Alex, who prefered to be addressed by her last name, Reiss, loved anything to do with crime. In fact, love might be an understatement. She was practically obsessed with it. Robberies, murders, kidnappings, theft, rape, arson, crime scenes, forensics, serial killers, you name it, she knew it. Ever since her mothers disappearance when she was a young she'd endorsed herself in the world of law and order and criminal investigation. Now, with Stiles only a few minutes away and the possibility of finding half of a body, Reiss totally forgot about a good nights sleep and proceeded to pull her sleeping bag from under her bed and tuck it under the covers, creating the illusion of a sleeping teen in case some nosy parents came asnooping. She heard the sound of Stiles' jeep pull up quietly and quickly turned out her lights before opening up the window and crawling out to meet him. Everything went smoothly until she was almost all the way down the drain pipe. A sharp edge caught on her old baggy sweats and swiftly cut through the thin fabric and sliced the side of her leg. She cursed loudly then cursed again for cursing as she knew her parents -father and evil stepmother-might hear her. She jumped down and landed nimbly on her converse clad feet before quickly racing to the side of the jeep and jumping into the passenger side.

"Go, go, go!" She whispered. Stiles quickly put his foot on the gas and swerved away from the house as quietly as he could. Reiss looked over her shoulder as they reached the road, watching for any signs of a follower. After a minute, she turned back to the front and let out a sigh of relief and grinned at the driver.

"That was close," she said.

"Yeah, it sucks that you can't just walk out the door like any normal teenager without being interrogated by your parents about where your going, who's going to be there, is there going to be drugs or alcohol there, etc, etc," Stiles said, making slight hand gestures while talking.

"Tell me about it," Reiss said exasperatedly, rolling her eyes. A peculiar sensation caught her attention and she leaned down to check it out. She pulled her leg up onto the seat and cursed. Blood had stained her sweats, trickled down her calf and started to soak her beloved converse. She huffed at the inconvenience and popped open the glove compartment and felt around for some bandages. Cursing again, she angrily flicked on one of the over head lights and continued her search.

"Hey, that's dangerous. I could get into an accident because that light is impairing my judgement."

"You get impaired judgement from drinking, genius," she replied, still searching through the mess of over due home work and school slips, receipts, garbage, napkins, and insurance information.

"Well, technically-"

"Watch out!" Reiss screamed as a dark blur ran across the road, right in front of the jeep.

Stiles slammed on the brakes, causing the vehicle to swerve in an almost perfect circle. Reiss's neck snapped back as the car came to a sudden halt but she still whipped around to look out the back to see if they avoided hitting whatever ran into the road. A long moment of shocked silence passed between the two, both of them physically shaken. Stiles grip on the steering wheel was so tight his knuckles were white and his forearm muscles were flexed. His jaw clenched tightly.

"Never, ever do that again," he breathed after a moment.

"Sorry," Reiss murmured quietly, still staring ahead at where the animal had been.

"What the hell was that?"

"Dunno. Kinda looked like a dog." They sat in silence for a few moments before Reiss felt the familiar prickle of blood again. With the light on, she could now see the contents of the glove compartment. She looked in disgust at the mess but smiled faintly when she finally found some bandaids. She put her leg up on the dashboard and tenderly rolled up her pants to the knee. She sighed deeply as she saw the gash.

"Whoa, that doesn't look good," Stiles said, eyes wide at the amount of blood that had accumulated around the wound.

"Just a flesh wound, that's why it's bleeding so much," she said shrugged. She grabbed a napkin and wiped away the blood then pressed it to the wound to stop the bleeding and help it clot before applying several bandages.

"C'mon, we better get moving. Did you phone Scott?"

"I tried," Stiles said.

"Does he know we're coming?"

"That's a negative."

"Always thinking ahead, aren't you, Ace?"

"Of course!"

"Remind me never to hire you as my wedding planner. You'd forget to invite all the family members, the botanist who arranges the flowers and the food caterers. Only thing you'd think of is Scott, yourself and the cake."

"Mmmm, cake...Wait a second, you? Getting married? PSSH, I don't think so."

"It totally could happen, okay?"

"Only if he has schizoaffective disorder with bipolar tendencies or some other mental disorder like that."

"You are so mean. I am totally gonna get married. I'll show you."

"So you're going to get married to spite me? I'm flattered, Reiss! Didn't know you cared about me that much! I feel bad for the stud though. Don't worry, I'll take him out for drinks to cheer him up."

"Are you pitting my hypothetical husband against me already?" Reiss inquired, raising a brow.

"Poooooossibly," Stiles replied.

"You're so evil. Just go run off with him to the Dominican Republic and start a fricken llamma farm why don't you!" Reiss huffed, crossing her arms dramatically.

"We'll send you a home made coat of llama fur," Stiles said, elbowing his friend light heartedly in the ribs 'till she giggled.

"Make sure it's orange," she grumbled playfully.

They pulled up to Scott's house, all the windows dark and Reiss whined to Stiles about the late hour.

"He'll be up, he always is."

"How're you gonna get him out without his mom catching you?" Reiss inquired.

"Watch and learn, sistah," Stiles said before getting out of the jeep and approaching the house. The night was cool and damp, making mist float among the trees ominously. Stiles grabbed the porch banister and nimbly climbed up the pillar leading to the roof ledge outside Scott's room. She saw him disappear among a jumble of vines the door leading onto the porch swung open. A dark figure armed with a baseball bat stepped cautiously onto the deck ready to batter up and swing at any given moment. Reiss sat up in her seat, now fully interested in how this was going to play out. As the figure approached the banister to look out across the yard, Stiles lot his grip on the roof and swung forward nearly hitting Scott, his legs caught among the vines. He screamed when he came face to face with the baseball bat which made Scott scream in return making Stiles scream making Scott scream. Reiss cackled wildly in the front seat.

"Stiles, what the hell are you doing?" Scott yelled angrily.

"You weren't answering your phone," Stiles said, arms wide open, his voice cracking. "Why do you have a bat?"

"I thought you were a predator!"

"A pred-" Stiles scoffed. "What? Look, I know it's late but you gotta hear this. I saw my dad leave 20 minutes ago. Dispatch called, they're bringing in every officer from the Beacon province, even state police."

"For what?"

"Two joggers found a body in the woods," Stiles said simply. He graciously -for once- manuevered him self from his perch, flipping backward and landing on his feet before approaching Scott.

"A dead body?"

Reiss jumped out of the car, holding her side, still giggling violently at the scream fest and walked up to the two guys, startling Scott.

"No, a body in the water. Yes, dumbass, a dead body!" Stiles said as he jumped over the banister.

"You mean like murdered?"

"Nobody knows yet. Just that it was a girl, probably in her 20's."

"Hold on, if they found the body then what are they looking for?"

Stiles suppressed an excited grin as Reiss leaned against the banister watching her two friends converse.

"That's the best part-"

"They only found half," Reiss interrupted excitedly in a sing song voice. Scott looked at both of them in shock.

"We're going," Stiles said with finallity.

"He brought you out too?" he asked as the jumped into the jeep. Reiss could only nod as she doubled over in a giggle fit as she thought about the past few minutes, namely the creaming contest. Stiles just looked at her.

"You didn't give her anything to drink did you? I thought we were going to start out this year sober?" Scott asked hesitantly.

"I'm sober as a judge!" Reiss cried out, still giggling. "And that was only one time that I got totally hammered and totally threw up all over your bathroom after running around screaming 'I am a beautiful unicorn!'"

"Actually it was 3 times, only the second time you claimed you were a buzzard and pretended to fly around the room while trying to eat out hair and the third time you claimed you were a mouldy frog and tried bathing and drinking air freshner, but hey, who's keeping track?"

"It still haunts me," Scott shuddered. Reiss snorted as she remembered her drunk antics then sat back against the seat and listened to her two best friends talk about how she scarred them for life. She giggled contently and listened to them during the drive, correcting them if they failed to get the facts straight.

When they pulled up, Reiss jumped into the front seat across Scott's lap and threw open the door, too excited to wait any longer.

"Are we seriously doing this?"

"You're the one who's always bitching that nothing ever happens in this town," Stiles said, clapping Scott on the arm as him and Reiss lead the way past the Beacon Hills Preserve sign. Scott fell back before saying, "I was trying to get a good night's sleep before practise tomorrow."

"Right, 'cause sitting on the bench is such a grueling effort."

"If it makes you feel better Scott, I had the same idea, until this nutjob convinced me to come with him. Actually no, he didn't convince me, he told me I was coming and there was nothing I could do about it. Kidnapped, OOOOOOOOOOOOOH!"

"Hey, you came by your own free will, don't even try to pin the blame on me!"

Scott laughed, but his smile faded as he turned serious. "No, because I'm playing this year. In fact, I'm making first line."

"Hey, that's the spirit, everyone should have a dream, even if it's a pathetically unrealistic one." Scott scoffed while Reiss glared at Stiles before elbowing him sharply in the ribs.

"Ouch! What was that for?" Stiles yelped, "Oh, I get it. I'm sorry I don't want him to get his hopes up only to be crushed by Coach cutting him and putting him on the bench all season. I'm sorry we're not his favourite players, other wise, if we were we would most likely be out there kicking ass," Stiles snapped. Reiss scoffed at the accusation.

"I am not his favourite. He just sees me as an opportunity to take advantage of. Being a girl, I'm fast, agile and-"

"-delicate, fragile, small?"

"-intuitive and that helps a lot with game strategies and practice, okay? In his eyes, I'm not exactly a valuable player but some one who...I don't even know," Reiss sighed. "He's crazy, okay? I have no idea why he picks on you and doesn't let you play, yet treats me like his niece and is forceful in making me play."

"Easy. You're his favourite," Stiles said simply.

"Fuck you, I am not," Reiss muttered. "I'm a girl, that's why he treats me differently, okay?"

"Whatever you say Buttercup," Stiles shrugged.

Ever since Reiss had come to Beacon Hills for the beginning of high school, she'd decided to go by her last name, as she was always teased about her girly first name at her old school. She had made fast friends with Scott and Stiles and most of the teachers on her first day but when she signed up for lacrosse, the coach had given her a doubtfully amused double take. He made several sexist jokes along with the rest of the team, but was quickly shut up when Reiss had scored 3 perfect goals after being charged at by the teams biggest players and caught 4 out of 5 balls when she was in goal. Most of the other try-outs hadn't even managed to get passed the first player, let alone catch one of the goals.

"You! Reeeeeeeeeis?" Coach said, butchering the pronounciation.

"Reiss, sir. Like a Reece cup?"

"Reece cup? I love those things," he said, looking down at the piece of paper on his clipboard, reading her file over carefully, thinking hard about her performance.

"All right, Buttercup. You're on. Practice tomorrow after school, don't make me regret this."

Ever since, Buttercup had stuck with her. All the guys on the team, Stiles, Scott and Coach included, addressed her namely as that and she loved it, although it did cause some friction between them, as she was on first line and the two boys were always on the bench.

"Just out of curiousity," Scott said, breaking the awkward moment. "Which half of the body are we looking for?"

Stiles was silent for a moment.

"Huh. I didn't even think about that." Reiss rolled her eyes in mock aggravation.

"And, uh, what if who ever killed the body is still out here?"

Stiles was silent for another moment.

"Also something I didn't think about," he said, as he started to climb up steep hill the steep hill that they'd come to.

"Just like you didn't think to invite my parents or grand parents to the wedding," Reiss said.

"It's comforting to know you've planned this out with your usual attention to detail," Scott said almost breahtlessly.

"Just like you knew you wanted the cake to be pink but forgot where the wedding was held exactly, so you and Scott show up with a cake at some jewish wedding instead."

"I know!"

"Maybe the severe asthmetic should be the one holding the flashlight," Scott said before he leaned against a tree for support as he pulled out his inhaler. Reiss stopped beside him worriedly, but he waved her off, signalling he was fine so he continued her climb up the hill behind Stiles. They hurried up the last few feet and dropped to the ground as it evened out. They could see flashlights and hear dogs barking, indicating that the police were already here and searching for the body. The three of them lay there for a few moments in silence, hoping that the light from the flashlight hadn't caught them.

"Alright. C'mon," Stiles said before taking off after the officers, Reiss right behind him.

"Stiles!" Scott called, quickly breathing in his inhaler before chasing after them. "Wait up! Stiles!"

"Quick!" Stiles hissed to Scott as him and Reiss dodged between trees, trying to keep away from the flashlights gaze. Scott blindly chased after them before yelling for them again.

"Stiles! Reiss!"

Stiles looked around for his friend, but couldn't tell due to the darkness. Suddenly, as he turned, a dog lunged at him, barking. Stiles and Reiss screamed as bright flashlight shined in their faces, the latter tripping over backwards in fear, bringing the former down with him. They both struggled away from the dog as the bright light blinded them.

"Hold it right there!" the police man yelled.

"Hang on, hang on!" A familiar voice said, approaching them. "This little deliquent and his side kick belong to me."

Reiss' heart melt a bit when she heard the voice claim her as his own. Stiles struggled up from the ground, blinking stupidly from the light and turned towards his fathers voice. Reiss quickly had an idea and threw her arms around Stile's neck and pulled herself close and pretended to blink blindly. Stiles gave her a quick sideglance, but wrapped his arms around her middle anyways and pretended to embrace her.

"Hi dad, how're you doing?"

"So, uh, do you listen in to all my phone calls?" Sherrif Stilinsky said, eyeing the two doubtfully.

Stiles was silent for a moment, wondering if he could keep up this facade.

"We wanted to...we were just...We were going to..." Stiles said as he looked between Reiss and his father. He licked his lips nervously and looked down at Reiss who had a guilty look on her face as she realised that the sherrif had already figured out Stiles' plan. Stiles looked at her incredously.

"This was your idea," he hissed quietly at her. She shrugged guiltily. Appparently their couple charade wasn't fooling anybody.

"Well, not the boring once," he said wincing, trying to soften to blow to his father. The sherrif repressed a sigh.

"Now where's your usual partner in crime?" he said looking around.

"Who, Scott? Sc-Scott's home. Said he wanted to get a good night's sleep for first day back at school tomorrow," Stiles lied breathlessly. "It's just us. In the woods. Alone."

The sherrif looked doubtfully at the two before raising his flashlight and passing it over the trees behind them.

"Scott, you out there? Scott?" The sherrif sighed then looked at the two teens in front of him who had let go of each other and were looking at one another nervously.

"Well young man, little lady," he said to the pair as he clapped them both on the shoulders and started to lead them to the Preserve trail. "I'm going to walk you back to your car then you're going to take Ms. Reiss home and then you and I are going to have a conversation about something called 'invasion of privacy'."

Stiles and Reiss grimaced at each other like a pair of children as the sherrif personally escorted to the jeep all the while trying to ignore the police man breathing down their necks.

"Beware the wrath of papa bear," Reiss grumbled to Stiles who just sneered at her comment.

"You two are lucky I know you and like you other wise you could be in big trouble. You guys could have been potentially contaminating a crime scene," said the sherrif, who felt Reiss' shoulders drop in shame and disappointment. "You're lucky I didn't arrest you guys. Maybe I should, to teach you a lesson. Probably should've done it the first time you snuck onto a crime scene and the half a dozen times after that..."

"No, we're good!" Reiss said hurridly, not wanting to be in jail on the first day of school. "Just...nothing ever happens in this town. It's so...quiet...Plus, I like to check out the crime scenes."

"Just wait till you're eighteen Reiss, then I'll take you, Stiles and Scott on a personal tour of a crime scene. But only if you stay out of trouble. I'm not phoning your parents this time. Just no more sneaking around or listening in on phone calls, okay? Otherwise I'll have no choice."

They finally got to the car and the sherrif let go of them and placed them on his hips and looked directly at his son.

"Take her right home, no detours or stops along the way. We'll talk when I get home." He turned to Reiss. "You. Stay home. No more sneaking out. I don't want to hear so much as a peep from neighbours or teachers saying that you've done something to upset them, got it?"

They both nodded quickly then hopped into the jeep.

"Bye dad."

"Bye Mr. Stilinksi."

"Stay out of trouble or I'll find you."

"Love you too dad."

By the time Stiles drove up to Reiss' house all the windows were dark, indicating that it was most likely safe to go in. On the way back, the two of them talked about all types of situations Scott could be in right now and how the body got there and who it was. Reiss was yawning the whole way back, Stiles' father had scared the energy out of her. Stiles cut the engine quietly as idoling would send vibrations through the ground and wake up any light sleepers and Reiss jumped out.

"Have fun facing papa bear when you get home," she said apologetically. Stiles grinned in spite of himself.

"Yeah...I'll just tell him it was all your idea."

Reiss scoffed. "You're nice. Some friend you are, shit bird. Anyways, thanks for the ride! See you at school tomorrow. Bio's our first class. DON'T FORGET."

"I'll try not to," he laughed.

"Phone Scott for me too."

"'Kay, bye."

"Later."

Stiles pulled onto the road as Reiss neared the top of the drain pipe and reached her window. She quickly and quietly slipped through and stood there for a second, listening to any sound of her father or step-mother. After several silent moments, Reiss relaxed. Everyone was asleep. She changed out of her bloody, muddy, ripped sweat pants and jumped onto her bed and reached under her pillow, grabbing her favourite pair of Simpsons boxers. She wriggled out of her dirty grey cardigan leaving her in her black tank top before she snuggled into her safe, warm, cozy bed, completely unaware that there was a danger out there that had just taken a bite out of her best friend.

So? What'd you think? Continue or scrap? Let me know with your reviews! Thanks!