"I don't even know where to start."
"We have all day, so you start where ever you think is best," Sheriff Stilinski says, trying to seem friendly. Scott's dad sits next to him, across from me, looking much more intimidating, but no less interested. I keep moving my sweaty hands from my shaking knees to the top of the cold metal table, leaving steam handprints.
Melissa had to work today, and since nobody is sure who my actual guardian is supposed to be, Derek's sitting in legally for the day. They brought him in a chair, but he leaned against the wall in the corner instead.
"When my mom died maybe? I was really too little to remember much, but I know that's when my dad started being… different. He wasn't unbearable or anything, I just remember being at friends' houses and thinking that their dads were just different from mine. Dad wasn't at home a lot. He spent a lot of time at the cemetery leaving me and my older brother Camden at home, which was all right. Most of my favorite memories of Camden were being with him at the house by ourselves for days at a time, eating whatever we could find in the house. Sometimes it was cookies and cereal, other times we had to do with canned soup and bread. That was my life until I turned about 14. Up until then, Camden never had a big problem with dad. An occasional comment about child neglect or useless bastard, but I had never known any different, so I didn't think anything of it. Camden decided to start having a lot of problems then. He'd leave me alone at the house saying I was old enough not to be babysat now. He'd stay out all night, even past when dad got home.
"Isaac?" Dad asked me one night. I looked up from my homework and pulled out my ear buds. A quick glance at the clock told me it was somewhere around 11. "Where's Camden?"
"Um, I don't know," I reply, not wanting to get in the middle of one of their now regular occurring fights.
"Well when did he leave, son?"
"I don't know…" I look back down, hoping to look preoccupied and get overlooked, just like I was used to.
"Well, why don't you know, son?" He moves down on one knee next to the dinning room chair I'm in, so that he's so close to me, focused only on me.
"I wasn't paying attention." He doesn't like my answer. He pulls his glasses off and rubs between his eyes just like he does at the beginning of every fight with Camden.
"Jesus, Isaac. I leave you two at home for a night, thinking that maybe you're old enough to look after each other. Instead I come home to find out I was wrong." He stands up so fast that I flinch. "I can admit when I'm wrong Isaac. I've never been dishonest with you boys, and I'm not about to start now. Here's a life lesson, men admit when you're wrong. Boys try to blame everyone else and don't take responsibility for their own actions. So here, I admit that I was wrong for trusting you and your brother. I should never have had the idea in my head that you cared enough about each other to actually look out for one another." He's crossed to the opposite side of the table and slams his hands on the table, eyes blazing holes in my own. "I shouldn't have assumed things like that. I won't assume anymore. It just makes an ass out of you and me, right?"
I nod because I think that's what he wants from me. I can hear my own heart pounding, feel it throb in my trembling fingertips. I love Camden more than anybody in the world. I look up to him because he's always been so calm and collected about everything and always has a plan. Camden's never wrong. But I don't say any of these things to my father, just let him punch the wall as he leaves towards the living room.
"I remember this as when my father started paying attention to me. Before that day I couldn't tell you when I remembered looking him in the eyes and him actually looking back for longer than a few seconds. But the only thing he ever wanted to talk about was Camden, and he was never happy with Camden." I look up at the people who are watching me, all with burrowed eyebrows. I hope they don't think any different of me after this is over. My fingers curl around the bottom of the chair, as if holding myself in place. "Something happened that day, I don't know what. Maybe Camden found out, or maybe that's when he started. I don't know, but he acted different after that.
The fighting between them kept on. It was an everyday thing, either in the mornings when Camden got home, or at night before they both left, pretty much any time they were both at the house at the same time. I started spending a lot more time in my room.
I feel really bad about thinking this, but the best time, other than when I was little and it was just my brother and I at home alone all the time, the next best time in my life was when he was gone. I'd thought this whole time that my father was the problem in our house and that if Camden were gone I'd be screwed, but when he left, Dad was a little better. Since Camden was gone, he didn't talk about him. Almost pretended that he never existed. Dad started asking me about school and talking about joining sports since I'd be in high school the next year. We were almost normal. Awkward due to it being so new for both of us, but better than we had been by far. Dad still spent most of his time gone, which was fine for me. I was used to being alone outside of school.
Dad changed into what he died as in one week. It could've been one of two things, or both since they happened so close together. First was on a Sunday afternoon.
I was draped across the armchair watching T.V. when he barged in.
"Isaac!" I whipped my head around to see what the panic in his voice was about. Sweat was already gathered on his forehead and he was moving around to be in front of me faster than I'd ever seen him move. My father was never one to show this kind of panic. He was calm, always, even when he was angry. "Get up! Do you care about this family?"
"Yes! I don't-"
"Can I trust you?"
"Of course. Dad, what's going on?"
"You have to help me get everything inside. Let me do all the explaining. Don't ask questions and don't say a word to anyone else, do you hear me?" He was back to his calm voice, but his eyes were darting all over me like he expected me to pull a knife on him or something.
"Alright, I promise."
We pulled out box after box from the car. They jingled with sounds of metal, but I'd promised not to ask, so I didn't. Some I could tell had chains in them by the sounds of the high-pitched clanking. I turned my brain off to all the terrible ideas running through my head. I shouldn't have; I should have run when I had the chance.
"Take everything down to the basement," Dad ordered calmly, as though we were loading furniture or something mundane and ordinary like that. "Then meet me back up here, I need your help for one more thing."
I hadn't been in the basement for years. It wasn't scary or anything, it was actually pretty well lit, but it was cold and we never used it for anything but storage. I tried fitting all the little boxes on top of our old freezer, like a risky game of Tetris and Jenga. Just when I thought I'd found the most ergonomic means of storage, one of the top boxes tipped and fell on my arm. I'm sure my flailing attempt to catch it was beautiful, but I still failed and watched to fall open to the terrifying reality I'd been avoiding this whole time. Atop a pile of clean looking silver chains was a hook, thick and dull, brown with dried blood, the links just above it smeared with thin lines of blood, just about the size of fingers.
"Isaac?" My dads voice asked from the top of the stairs. "Are you going to come help me with this last one or not?"
"It was a body." I lay it out, my dirty laundry for everyone to see. "She'd been dead for a couple of weeks and I guess you'd been looking for her. That's why he had to hide her at the house. Rachel T.. something."
"Rachel Tamerlain. I do remember her. First time we ever had your dad on a suspect list," Sheriff Stilinski sighs. "I'm so sorry Isaac. This has been going on that long?"
"Before that. That was just when I found out about it. There was a whole system. The reason he hadn't been able to get rid of the body yet was because no one else had died." I'm met with several puzzled glances. "Let me explain."
"You tell no one. You hear me? No one."
"Dad! You killed her! She'd dead because you killed her! Why did you kill a person? What'd she do?" I was panicking, looking back and forth from the body bag on the ground to my father who was moving all the boxes off of the fridge.
"Isaac, I don't expect you to understand, but I do expect you to have some damn loyalty to this family! Trust me, I know what I'm doing. This wasn't supposed to happen and it's much more civil that me murdering women for fun."
It wasn't.
We argued for some time. I watched him put the woman in the fridge as he explained it was only for a couple of days until the cops couldn't find anything on him and would move on. I threatened to run away, to tell the cops. I said I wouldn't stand by and watch this happen. I know if I just would've listened and gone with it I'd have been fine, but I was about to ruin everything.
"You're upset over nothing, Isaac. If you'd just calm down-"
"Calm down! There is a dead woman right there!"
"Shut the hell up!" I hadn't heard him yell like this since Camden moved out. "Shut the hell up!" He grabbed my shirt collar right before I started protesting and punched me right in the face. I don't remember the whole struggle, but I knew I had to leave. I was doing anything I could to crawl up the stairs screaming, but he was bigger that I was. His last resort was shoving me in the freezer with the dead woman while he got everything else sorted out. The smell never stopped bothering me.
"He was right, it only took a day for them to search the cemetery and funeral home to decide that my dad was innocent. When he finally let me out, I didn't talk a lot. I just listened. The system he had worked out was flawless. Dead bodies bring no attention among other dead bodies, so when dad would kill someone, they stayed in the funeral home fridges until somebody else died. Then, when he dug the grave, he dug it just a foot deeper than he needed to. That's where you'll find most of your bodies," I explain, pointing at the large stack of 'unsolved' cases on the table. The sheriff looks horrified, Agent McCall looks surprised, but Derek looks angry. I mean, he looks like he always looks, but right now I think he's angry with me.
"Isaac, if I let you look through these files, do you think you could identify some of the bodies or tell me if they were your father's victims?" Sheriff Stilinski asks.
"I can try. I only saw the ones that I helped with after Rachel… Temer…?"
"Tamerlain." Agent McCall states. I nod, trying not to glance at Derek. He knows I know he's upset and I don't want to show any more weakness than I'm already having to by being here. We go through the stack, looking through pictures and reading the case notes. Half way through and I've only picked out 6, only 2 of which I'm positive I know where their bodies are.
"We treated them just like any other bodies. I washed and embalmed them. These 2 I remember because of… extensive post mortem wounds that had to be cleaned up." My whole focus is on Derek now because he looks disgusted. I wish I could go back and not have volunteered for this. I could've kept this a secret forever.
"Alright, are you alright to keep going?" Agent McCall asks.
"Yeah, sure," I mutter. No, I'm not okay with this, but I've already started and I just want it to be over. The sheriff opens the next folder and turns it around where I can see it.
"Kenneth Sawyer, worked as the mortician along with your dad, and you apparently, until last year when he went missing out of the blue. You knew this guy? Isaac?" I don't answer. I feel dizzy as memories I'd tried to bury all come rushing back, flying against the walls of my head making it feel like it could burst any second.
"You okay, kid?" Agent McCall asks.
"Something's wrong," Derek says and suddenly he's next to me knelt down, one hand on the table in front of me, one on the back of my chair. "Isaac?"
"I don't want to do this anymore. I'll help you dig up the bodies but I don't want to do this anymore," I manage, running out of air too quickly. I have to close my eyes, but I don't know why.
"Alright, we can be done here for a while," Sheriff Stilinski says.
"No, wait, you knew Sawyer before he died?" Agent McCall asks. I nod and hear the beginnings of a growl in Derek's chest. "Did your father kill him because he found out what was going on?" I shake my head from side to side. I don't want to be here and I don't want to answer any more questions. "You liked Sawyer? Did you father kill him because you were friends?"
"No." I growl, opening my eyes, not nervous but angry. "We weren't friends. Sawyer was the most disgusting, pathetic monster I've ever seen. He deserved what he got." The room was silent and I could see Derek looking worried out of the corner of my eye. I stared at McCall so he could know how serious I was. "Kenneth Sawyer and I were not friends."
"Who killed him?"
"I'm done, I don't want to be here anymore."
"Isaac, did your dad kill this man?"
"I'll show you where the body is, that's it."
"That's not a closed case, Isaac. You're here to help close these cases, not exhume bodies for furth-"
"That's enough!" Derek growls and stands up. "We're done here. Call me when you're ready to go to the cemetery and dig up all these bodies. I'll come with Isaac for that too. Until then, we're finished here." Derek motions with a tilt of his head for me to get up and leave in front of him. As happy as I am to leave, I'm almost just as terrified. Derek looked angry with me, and now I know he's going to want answers that I don't want to give him. If I tell him everything, I know he'll hate me.
We're silent until we get half way to Scott's house.
"Did you ever kill anyone?" I don't answer. He knows I helped hide the bodies. He knows I could go to jail for that since I didn't hold up my end of the deal.
"Just one."
"Kenneth Sawyer." He isn't asking.
"I walked in on him having sex with the dead bodies in the funeral home. More than once," I admit. Derek sighs and I hope that I told him enough. One person can only be so bad, right? Maybe he'll leave it at that, believing that Sawyer was only a necrophiliac. I wish.
"Isaac, if they want to put you in jail, they can. And if I could figure this out by the way you acted back there you know they did too," Derek explains, keeping his dark eyes on the road. I look down at my hands and start scratching my knuckles. "I understand why you didn't tell anyone about your dad, but why didn't you tell anyone about him? Why was killing him a better idea?"
I can't feel my body or will it to move. My eyes are locked on something no one ever should see in their whole life. I want to run away. I want to grab the back of Sawyers head and pull him off the silver slab. I want to be anywhere but here.
An involuntary whimper from somewhere deep in my chest makes my presence known, my last shred of innocence preparing to leave my body I suppose.
"Aw shit!" Sawyer is off the table and sprinting my way before I can even take a step backwards. Self preservation kicks in and I'm feeling my way out, tripping over my feet and my eyes not registering anything, still seeing the abomination from seconds before. A hand grabs my hair from behind and the next second I'm grabbing at anything, several bottles fall down with me.
The stench of spilt embalming fluid sticks to my clothes. His inhuman hands grab my hair and pull me to my knees. He whispers, his voice sounding like it was slithering across a slit tongue and pointed teeth saying, "If you tell anyone about me, you'll have to tell them about this too."
I shake my head, not wanting to think about what had happened ever again. I'd gotten away from him and his humiliation this long; I wasn't about to let him win almost a year after he'd been dead.
"Like father like son, I guess," is what I eventually say.
I see Derek switch from being worried, back to his normal brooding self. He turns the car down Scott's neighborhood.
"This is a big deal Isaac. The man died after I turned you. Having that kind of power doesn't make it okay to kill people just because you decide they don't get to live anymore," Derek says, finally looking at me as we pull into the driveway. One hand puts the car in park and he turns to look only at me. I think of my father. "I'm trying to protect you Isaac. A werewolf in jail is bad for everybody involved."
I stare out the window for longer than I should and still refuse to look at him when I speak. "Kenneth always talked about how he liked all sorts of dead people and it was a shame that I wasn't dead yet. He knew how my dad treated me. He said he couldn't wait till the day my dad killed me because he'd have so much fun with my body. A couple of times he threatened to kill me just because he was tired of waiting. Is that enough? Can we be done yet?"
"What about when you killed him?"
"He was trying to… He'd done stuff to me before and he was trying to do it again. I didn't have to take it anymore, so I didn't. I fought back, and he didn't stop. He wouldn't stop talking and saying all these horrible things about me and the bodies in the back… I'm sorry Derek. I don't want to be like my dad, I don't," I plead and shake my head. I'd never confessed that to anyone and now that I was saying it out loud, I knew I was no better than my terrible father.
"You aren't, Isaac. You're nothing like your father," Derek sighs. I don't feel like getting any more sentimental, especially not with Derek, so I nod and open my door.
"Thanks for the ride."
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