Taylor Aldridge sat in her room, music blasting through her headphones as she put the final touches on her sociology paper due Tuesday. She could just barely hear her phone ringing over the loud music, but caught it just in time.
"What do you want, Stilinski?"
"You better not be doing homework right now, you nerd. Come outside, I've got a surprise."
Taylor begrudgingly shut her laptop, wondering if she was that predictable to her best friend. She groaned at the fact that she'd have to change out of her flannel shorts into real pants. She tossed on a pair of jeans and had climbed out the window and down to the back porch in a matter of seconds. She spotted the blue Jeep Wrangler and inched towards it, not seeing Stiles in the driver's seat.
Her gasp broke the silence of the calm evening as someone grabbed her arms from behind. Taylor whipped her head around and immediately recognized the stranger as Stiles.
"Jesus, Stiles! Don't do that" she snapped as she punched her annoying friend in the arm.
"Okay, relax, relax." Stiles managed to say between his laughs. "Here's the surprise. We're going out tonight. I overheard my dad taking a phone call from the station. Someone found a body out in the woods. Or half a body, rather. There's a bunch of cops out there now looking for the other half."
"But we're going to find the other half first" Taylor said, slowly catching on to what Stiles was proposing. "Let's do it, I don't have anywhere to be tonight." She smiled as she raced Stiles to his Jeep.
About five minutes later the duo were pulling up to the house of their other best friend, Scott McCall. They quietly shut the car doors and began sneaking around the house.
"Wait here" Stiles told his friend as he began climbing up to the second floor balcony.
"Stiles you haven't climbed that since like fifth grade, you're gonna fucking break something" Taylor shot back.
It was no use, Stiles was already out of view and things grew quiet. Taylor heard muffled noises and footsteps as someone walked around on the porch, right around where Scott's room was. She quickly ducked next to the wooden railing of the porch and remained quiet. She began hearing creaking noises near her head and suddenly two girly screams rang out in the night. Taylor looked up to see that Stiles was hanging upside down from the balcony, as Scott was standing in front of him, ready to hit him with a baseball bat.
Taylor couldn't hear what was being whispered up above, but she didn't have time to focus on eavesdropping as Stiles fell and landed on top of her. She pushed Stiles off of her, causing him to fall a second time just as he'd managed to stand up. "Dork", Taylor grumbled beneath her breath as she watched him ungracefully try to stand up again.
She turned around to come face to face with Scott, and relayed the half-body in the woods story to him. Within a few minutes all three of the teens were in Stiles' wrangler, Taylor sitting shotgun and Scott in the back. They joked around for the ten minute drive to the woods, but things got quiet as they approached their destination and their Friday night plans began to sink in. Scott was obviously having second thoughts about what they were about to do, and so was Taylor-obviously. She wasn't a complete psycho like Stiles was, but she managed to keep her fears to herself as they slowly moved towards the trees.
Ten or fifteen minutes had passed and the three best friends weren't having any luck. Scott, having trouble breathing because of his asthma, had all but given up. Stiles trudged ahead with his flashlight as Taylor stuck with Scott.
All of a sudden there were lights flashing at them from what seemed like all directions, and the trio realized they'd been caught. Scott and Taylor jumped behind a tree as Stiles faced his dad, Sherriff Stilinski. Taylor and Scott almost got off without being caught, but Mr. Stilinski saw the toe of someone's shoe poking out from behind a tree near where he had caught his son. He called them out on it, knowing that Stiles didn't act alone. Taylor figured someone would have to turn themselves over, because the sheriff knew Stiles came here with at least one other person.
She came out from behind the tree, despite Scott trying to grab her and stop her from doing so. She bravely approached the sheriff, ignoring the guilty look Stiles shot at her.
"Miss Aldridge, let me ask you a question" The sheriff's loud voice startling Taylor. "Why do you continue to hang out with my son when he's always involving you in his stupid plans?"
"I ask myself that every day, sir." Taylor answered, almost being cut off as Stiles elbowed her in the ribs.
After a minute of the sheriff making sure Scott hadn't accompanied them to the woods, he grabbed Stiles by the collar of his shirt and dragged him back to the jeep, Taylor following quietly behind.
She felt bad leaving Scott behind, but there wasn't much she or Stiles could do. Leaving him to walk home by himself was better than getting him in trouble with Stiles' dad. Mr. Stilinski ordered Stiles to take Taylor home immediately, and then shortly left to continue the search for the body with his coworkers.
During the car ride home, Stiles and Taylor argued with each other about whether they should sneak back into the woods to try to find Scott. They ultimately decided that Scott had probably wandered off right away, making his way home. If they had gone back it would be unlikely that they would be able to find him. Taylor didn't necessarily agree with leaving Scott there, but she had to admit that Stiles' reasoning was logical.
Ten minutes later Stiles was walking with Taylor around her house to the back yard. The quiet, dark house showed no signs of her parents waking up while she was gone, and luckily the sheriff had let her off without calling her house. As Taylor reached up to get a good hold on the old wooden trellis along the side of the house, Stiles' hand caught her elbow. She turned to look at the brunette boy in the moonlight. He gazed at her with an unusually serious face, at least serious for Stiles. "Listen", he emphasized "I know you. Don't go back there looking for Scott tonight. He'll be fine. Okay?" He lowered his head as he looked closer into Taylor's eyes, begging for her to agree.
"Okay", she relented. "Relax. I promise I won't go get myself killed by a crazy murderer in the woods tonight. Now help me up, you freak." Taylor added sarcastically.
Stiles shook his head as he laughed, grabbing one of Taylor's feet, clad in her favorite worn out sneakers, and helped lift her.