A week had passed since I had last slept and my plans had not moved forward particularly from staring at the list. One name stood out to me. Scott McCall. Not only because his name was matched with the highest price but also because my name too was matched with the same price. I didn't know what it meant, but I had a hunch, no a hope, that this meant we could be the same. Ever since I discovered my alarming abilities I had wondered if someone out there shared what I could do. And now I had my answer, well almost.
Later in the evening I sat at my desk, walls around me plastered by maps, photos, phone numbers and of course, the list.
After weeks of going through every car registration document, hospital admission and police report I could get my hands on with a tooth comb, I found his name in a school record. I wasn't sure what I imagined of him. Whether he would be an older man with a balding head, an attractive young doctor or a father with children cursed with the same gifts as himself. But all that didn't matter. So when I pulled his name from a school record I wasn't at all disappointed. Scott McCall, Junior at Beacon Hills High School.
This was great, I now had a lead. I restrained myself from grabbing my keys and bolting down to the school straight away, only to realise that it was late, and walking into a school at night looking for a teenage boy I didn't know would not be the best idea.
Instead, I made plans and thought about how I would approach the situation. Did he know about the list? Hell, did he even know about his abilities? I stopped myself there and thought about my own situation. I had known the majority of my life about my 'talent', there was no way he could have made it to Junior year without finding out.
I decided that I would just be straight with him. I'll show him the list and tell him everything. After that, well we would just have to see.
The next morning I got up early, eagerly anticipating my trip to the school. I grabbed my keys before opening the top draw of my desk. Pulling out the 9mm hand gun, I put the safety on and shoved it down the back of my jeans as a just in case. I mean, there were people trying to kill me.
It took me longer than usual the get onto the main road and after not long, I realised I was heading in the wrong direction. When I found myself driving past the Beacon Hills preserve sign and getting further into the woods I realised I had to stop and turn around.
I noticed I was approaching a fence line and pulled over, hoping there would be some kind of sign that would tell me where I was. It wasn't until I had hopped out of the car that I saw him. Behind the fence was a man. He was staring at the ruins of what looked like an old house. His back was to me and I couldn't tell if he knew I was there or not, so I decided to make myself known.
'Hey!' I called to him through the fence, as I approached. 'I'm looking for the school? Beacon Hills High. Do you know it?'
He straightened up, now aware of my presence, but still remained facing away, staring at the charred remains of the building. 'I must have come the wrong way,' I tried again, the situation growing more and more awkward for me by the second.
He turned his face towards me and met my gaze for a second before lowering it again. I could see now that he was only a teenager, probably no older than 16. His face was a mixture of fear and confusion and I swore his eyes were rimmed with tears. It was clear I wasn't getting anything out of him and I contemplated getting back I'm my car and driving away, but against my better judgment, I decided to stay.
'Hey, are you okay?' I asked, trying my best to sound concerned. Dealing with a teenager with problems wasn't exactly at the top of my agenda today. Well it was, just not this teenager. 'Do you need me to call someone for you?'
He didn't respond, only becoming more and more agitated and confused. He grabbed his head, fingers gripping at the dark hair as his knees shook. At first I thought he might just collapse to the ground, but he started to breathe heavily, as if trying to calm himself down.
At this I grabbed the metal of the fence and pulled myself up and over it, dropping to the ground. As I did I felt a sharp scratch on the palm of my hand, obviously having scraped it on a sharp piece of wire. I watched as the open wound closed itself up, the skin knitting itself back together at a shocking speed, leaving no trace of damage. I sighed, brushing myself off and turning towards the boy.
As I approached him I reached out a hand to pat his shoulder, trying to be comforting. At my touch he cowered away violently, making my heart thud in my chest. Just then another car pulled up beside mine and I cursed myself for sticking around when I saw it was a cop car.
Two deputies got out of the car and approached us. I tried to avoid eye contact and appear as if I hadn't noticed them, while the boy next to me didn't appear to have noticed them at all.
'Excuse me, Miss? Young man?' one of the cops said.
'You're calling him young man?' The other said, only to be met with a blunt, 'shut up, Haigh' that made me smirk.
'Sorry, but you two can't be here,' the first one said. 'Is that your car?' he asked, the question directed at me.
'Yeah its mine. I was trying to find the high school when I found him in here. Just stopped to ask for directions.' I said matter of factly. I had considered covering for him, only to dismiss the idea quickly. This kid hadn't exactly been the most helpful to me.
'High school? You're way off here in the preserve,' the shorter one, Haigh, said as he scoffed at me. I glared back at him.
'I'm new to town, don't know my way around yet,' I snapped back at him.
'Really? Where you from?'
'None of your business,' I said coldly, feeling a surge of confidence. I could see him seething, and wanting to say more but the other cop sent him a look, telling him to let it go.
Haigh gave a reluctant and angry sigh, turning towards the boy again. 'Hey dumbass. You ever hear of no trespassing?' he said in a condescending tone, putting my teeth on edge.
'This is my house,' the boy retorted back, looking even more fearful and confused now.
'Nobody's been here for years, kid. Now get the hell out of here.'
Now it was my turn to speak up again.
'Hey, stop that. Can't you see he's upset!' I shouted back at him, not liking how he was treating this kid. I cursed myself again for getting involved, this was really not what I needed.
'I don't need you telling me how to do my job, sweetheart,' he yelled back rudely. He'd only been here for 5 minutes and I already hated him. I could see his hand hovering over the hand cuffs clipped to his belt. He was itching to use them, and I concluded he was just a power hungry jackass, looking for an excuse to arrest someone. I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. He glared at me, waiting for a response, but I just met his eyes with an equally hard stare, standing my ground, but careful not to step over the line.
'Haigh, that's enough,' he warned his partner. Then he turned towards the boy. 'Are you alright?' He asked in a caring voice. 'We can help you if something's wrong.'
The boy looked up at him, a tear finally spilling over his eyelid and rolling down his cheek. 'What happened to my house? Where's my family?' he asked, getting more confused and angry with each unanswered question. 'Where's my mother?'
The deputy looked to him with concern and looked as if he was about to say something, before he was interrupted.
'All right, let's go. Now!' Haigh demanded, starting towards the boy, having already pulled out what looked like a Taser from his belt.
The other deputy, seeing his partner's intentions made to stop him. 'Hold on, just take it easy,' he said feebly, his efforts pathetic. Haigh, ignoring his co-worker, raised the Taser in front of him as he approached the agitated teen and I could see what he was about to do.
'What the hell is wrong with you? Are you crazy!' I yelled at him, running forward to try to stop him. Seeing my advances, the deputy raised his free hand to my shoulder and pushed me backwards. The force wasn't strong, but was enough to push me off balance and stumble onto the ground. I decided then to not push my luck any further. I might actually have gotten hurt and I didn't feel like explaining a miraculous healing of a wound to these two cops. The next thing I know there was a loud groaning noise and the teen was on the ground, electricity jolting through his body.
The other deputy, after helping me to my feet, gave Haigh a stern look and told him to stand down. He still however let him handcuff the defeated boy and shove him roughly into the back of the cop car. I felt bad for the kid, but I had other matters to attend to.
As I made my way over to my car the taller deputy called out to me. I turned to face him, annoyed at being held up even more. 'I'm sorry Miss, but you are gonna have to come down to the station with us to give a statement.'
'Yeah, whatever,' I said flatly. Right now I didn't care that he was a cop, I've been in the presence of much more intimidating people before and he didn't even come close.
I followed them in my truck back to the station, following them into a waiting room, before being left alone.
Good one Alex, I thought to myself. Barely been in this town 5 minutes and you're already at the police station. My plan of keeping a low profile while trying to figure out this hit list thing was not going well. Whoever was after anyone on that list would have to be an idiot not to be looking through police records like I had done, and having my name stamped across a witness statement would surely brighten the target on my back. Luckily though, I decided to use an alias I had become very accustomed to using in situations like these over the last few years. Sooner or later people would find out the name was fake, but I would much prefer it to be later. At least for now, the name on the police statement wouldn't correspond to the name on the list, and this made me feel safer, even if it was only for a little while.
After a while I was called to make the statement and sign a few forms before they told me I was free to go. As I was exiting the station I noticed the kid from earlier handcuffed to a chair. I couldn't help but feel bad for him, despite our encounter setting me back a good few steps in my plans to figure out the list.
Just as I was about to leave, something the deputies were saying caught my attention.
'Derek Hale?' I heard the taller deputy say.
'Did you say Hale?' Another, older man said. The sound of the all too familiar name made me jump before I was pushed through the doors to the outside.
Derek Hale. He was on the list too.