Much love and many, many thanks to familiar readers and reviewers Hurricane and Ashley on The Beast is in the Heart's first reviews! I love how excited you guys get, it gets me excited too!
I don't own Teen Wolf. Shock Horror.
I was busy thinking about the whispering I had heard at Eichen House when I was interrupted by a loud, high pitched whistle, right in my ear.
"Stilinski!" Coach screeched as he stood right next to my desk, his head spinning like he was possessed when I made a loud noise of complaint. "What?!"
"Inside voice, Coach," I whined, tugging on my ear lobe like it would help with the ringing.
"Oh," Coach said intelligently, taking a step backwards before turning back to Stiles, who was watching him with wide eyes. "I asked you a question."
"Uh, sorry, Coach," Stiles stammered, swallowing hard. He looked a little shellshocked. "What was it?"
"It was 'Stilinski, are you paying attention back there?'."
Stiles huffed a little laugh. "Oh. Well, I am now."
"Stilinski," Coach groaned, shaking his head in disappointment. "Stop reminding me why I drink. Every night."
"What is it with him and that whistle?" I asked Jackson, who sat on my left, barely restraining his laughter at the scene.
"Oh, hey, I forgot to tell you," Jackson said, finally overcoming the humour. "Danny's having a blacklight party for Halloween. He's renting out a club, and everything."
"Oh, that sounds amazing!" I said, excitement brewing. "But that don't mean you're going to get out of watching Psycho this year, Sonny."
"Goddamn it."
"Oh, my God, Stiles," I groaned, dropping my head onto the wooden table. "You can't say things like that."
"I really don't like the guy," he murmured back, low enough that my human ears could only just hear it, despite being sat next to him.
"Yeah, me neither," I said, in a similar tone, turning my head to look at him. "But you can't ask a guy if he's 'still milking' being abused his father. Even if he can be a bit of a jackass."
Not all the ears at the table were human, though.
"You guys know I can hear you, right?" Isaac said bitterly, scowling at Stiles as hard as he was scowling back.
"Hi," a cheerful voice said next to me, and I looked up, blinking in the light, to see that new girl from our history class. "Hi, sorry. I couldn't help overhearing what you guys were talking about."
"We really need to watch our volume in public places," I murmured out of the corner of my mouth, smiling innocently up at Kira. I heard Stiles hum a surprised agreement.
"And I think I actually might know what you're talking about." Kira was playing with her hands, twisting one inside the other. She was nervous, and I could almost feel Scott falling for her. "There's a Tibetan word for it. It's called Bardo. It literally means 'in-between state.' The state between life and death."
"And what do they call you?" Lydia asked, not nicely. I kicked her shin under the table.
"Kira," Scott answered quickly, before anyone else could. Lydia was too busy glaring at me to pay much attention, her eyes holding much promise for revenge. "She's in our history class."
"So, are you talking Bardo in Tibetan Buddhism or Indian?" Lydia inquired, seemingly innocently. Jackson shook his head at me from across the table, agreeing with my less-than-impressed sigh.
"Uh... either, I guess," Kira responded. I tipped my head at her, shoving Stiles a little further down the bench and leaving enough room on my other side for her to sit. "But all the stuff you guys were just saying? All that happens in Bardo. There are different progressive states where you can have hallucinations. Some you see, some you just hear." She was ranting now, probably from the nerves. Maybe just from a passion for the strange. Both were cute. "And you can be visited by peaceful and wrathful deities."
"Wait, what?" I asked, interrupting her before she could continue.
"Wrathful deities?" Isaac clarified, thinking along the same lines as me.
"Yeah," Kira said, shrugging a shoulder and smiling excitedly. "Like, demons."
A heard a quick sigh on my other side. "Demons," Stiles said, like it was exactly what he was expecting. "Why not?"
"Hold on," Allison cut in, holding up a hand. "If there are progressive states... then what's the last one?"
"Yeah, how does it end?" Jackson added. Then he seemed to think of a better question. "Does it end?"
"Well... sort of," Kira said, her voice raising in the end like she was unsure of herself now. "It... I mean, it ends with death. You die."
"Well, that's..." I turned to Allison, watching her nod slowly like she wasn't having a breakdown on the inside. "That's very interesting. Thank you, Kira, for that, uh... that information."
"You're welcome," Kira said, sounding more than a little unsure of herself. She frowned around the table, at all the seemingly strange reactions to what she would have thought was an innocent bite of information. After a few seconds of thoughtful silence from the rest of the table, she slowly got up, raised her hand in an aborted wave, and left, turning back to look at us all a few times. I watched her leave slowly, looking around the courtyard, for somewhere to go, I expected, when I caught sight of Josh approaching.
He greeted the group with a quick nod of the head, turning to straight to me. "I hate to ask you this, especially right now, but I need some advice," he said, looking incredibly put out. It confused me.
"Is everything okay?" I asked him, patting the seat that Kira had just vacated. He sighed as he took her spot, turning his head to look across the sea of students, eyes landing on a particular blonde.
"Do you see that?" he asked me, eyes never straying as his shoulder slumped. It only took a second before I saw the boy beside her, a junior much larger than Josh, sidling up and trying to keep her attention. She was smiling in a friendly way, nothing more, but Josh was the type to let any setback worry him. "I'm totally losing her."
"She ain't even yours, Josh," I pointed out, raising an eyebrow when he glared at me.
"She's right," Jackson agreed, nodding at my victorious smirk. "You need to lock that down. You've been dating for months now."
"That ain't entirely true," Josh admitted, pouting a little. "We haven't actually been out since we left for Nashville."
"Are you kidding me?" I demanded, my eyes widening. He shook his head. "You were doing so well, and then you just let it slide?" Josh nodded, shrinking in on himself. "How did you let that happen?"
"It just... when we got back, things were back in that awkward place that we were in before I asked her out, and I didn't really know what to do about it, and then Frankie started making a move, and now I don't know what to do, help me." He let his head fall onto the table with a thunk as he ended on a whine, Jackson shaking his head at him pityingly.
"You need to tell Frankie to back off," Jackson informed him. I scoffed.
"No, you need to help Melanie realise that Frankie is an uppity jackass," I corrected, holding up a hand in Jackson's face to block him out when he tried to cut in. "She likes you. For some reason. You just gotta remind her of that."
"But I don't know why she likes me," Josh moaned, rolling his head along the table to look at me, instead of picking it up.
"Me either," I shrugged, smiling at the responding tongue poking out of his mouth. "Mature."
"You should ask her to the Christmas Ball," Lydia suggested, which perked Josh up substantially as he thought about it, but I was quick to shut that one down.
"No," I said, my tone leaving no room for argument. "You are not attending another dance at this school ever again. None of us are."
Lydia scoffed. "Sure," she said, shaking her head. "Let's just forget about Senior Prom, right?"
"I was kind of looking forward to Junior Prom this year," Scott agreed, looking hopeful.
"Have y'all forgotten what happened at the last dance we went to?" I asked them, looking around the group. "Let me remind you; do y'all want to start with Kate trying to kill all of the werewolves, Peter trying to kill everyone, Derek ruining any chance Scott had of normality, or Lydia coming so close to death that Jackson cried?"
"You cried?" Allison cooed, leaning over Lydia to smile at Jackson as he cursed me under his breath.
"No more dances."
"That don't really help me much, Am," Josh groaned, dropping his head onto the table again.
"Why don't you ask her if she wants to go to the open mic night tonight?" I suggested, shrugging a shoulder. "Do a little serenading."
"Ew," Jackson groaned, just as Lydia and Allison smiled and awwed at the idea.
"I ain't serenading anyone," Josh said adamantly, sitting up just to fold his arms over his chest.
"Then just go and enjoy the atmosphere," I said, widening my eyes. "You love it, she'll love it. It'll be super cute."
He thought about it for a second, biting the inside of his cheek, something he always did when he was worried. Then he nodded. "Okay," he said, eyes flickering from side to side as he planned it in his head. "Yeah, I think she'll like that." Then he looked up at me, a finger pointing at my face. "But I swear to all that is holy, Am, if I turn around and see you spying on us from one of the booths-"
"That was one time," I whined, stamping a foot under the table. "And it was all Danny's idea."
Jackson scoffed. Loudly. "It definitely wasn't."
"What do you know?" I asked him, leaning across the table as I glared. "You were too busy loosing to McCall at bowling."
"We have already agreed that he had an unfair advantage," he bit out, his eyes hard.
"Why do we put up with this?" I heard Lydia ask Josh from over the death glares being sent between us. Josh huffed.
"They buy us stuff when they piss us off," Josh reminded her, to which we both smiled. It was true. "No spying, okay?"
"Okay, no spying," I promised, holding up my hands innocently when I sat us again. "Just don't screw it up. I don't like the idea of you ending up alone."
"Oh my lord, Am, for the last time," Josh groaned, rolling his eyes. "I ain't gonna end up like Norman Bates."
"You don't know!"
"I'm not a psychopath," he said, standing up and leaving me behind as I shouted at his back.
"Anything can happen, Josh!" I shook my head as he flipped me the bird over his shoulder, heading back towards his table. "So rude. But that reminds me, are y'all still coming to my house on Halloween?"
Jackson and Lydia nodded, the latter more enthusiastically than the other. "Wouldn't miss it," Lydia grinned excitedly, as Jackson just grunted.
"I thought Danny was having that party on Halloween," Allison said, frowning slightly.
Jackson groaned. "He is, but Amber has this... tradition."
"Oh," Stiles said, like he'd just realized something. "That Psycho thing."
I nodded, excited. "Horror movies cannot be truly appreciated until they are viewed on the scariest night of the year. You guys should come," I offered, liking Allison's excited smile as I spoke. She nodded immediately, turning to Isaac beside her with wide, expectant eyes. He shrugged, like he was up for whatever she was up for, and then she turned back to me and continued her nodding. She had, however, missed Scott's dejected little face while she was concentrated on Isaac, the way he dropped his chin into his hand and deliberately looked away.
Stiles caught it too, and I wasn't surprised when he turned to me with his eyes narrowed painfully. "We'll let you know," he said, and I nodded understandably as the bell rang and we all got up from our seats. As I took a step back, I bumped into a solid form, and I jumped forward again, spinning around and apologizing, breathing a quick sigh when I realized it was Kira.
"I'm so sorry," I said as she smiled, holding up a hand.
"It's fine, don't worry about it," she said, shaking off my apologies. "I'm a total klutz, so I'll probably be returning the favor in, like, an hour." I laughed a little, not missing the way her eyes flicking over my shoulder and then to the floor as Stiles and Scott passed by me.
"You're in our Sociology class, right?" I asked her, and she nodded quickly, looking a little taken aback. I smiled, nodding in the direction the boys had taken and leading the way to our mutual class. "So, do you have any plans for Halloween?"
"Uh," she answered, shrugging. "Not yet."
"Good. Don't make any." I watched as Scott's ears perked, smiling. "Everyone's coming over to mine for a horror movie fest. You should come."
"Oh. Really?"
I laughed. "Yes, really," I repeated, wandering into the room ahead of her. "It'll be fun, and you can get to know everybody properly." She nodded eagerly, smiling.
"Yeah, that sounds fun," she said, taking her seat beside the window a few rows back from where I was dropping my bag. "Looking forward to it."
I dropped into my seat, taking note of the faint blush in Scott's cheeks as he sat in the desk beside me. "You're welcome," I muttered, flicking my book to the right page and knowing he wouldn't miss it. Stiles turned in his seat and shook his head at me.
"I thought we agreed that I was his wingman," he muttered, put out.
"You gotta step up, Stilinski."
"Amberrrrrr."
"Josh, I'm sorry, but if you leave a girl with 'hey, your mom's pretty hot', you have no way back," I told him, shaking my head as he paced.
"I was nervous!" he defended, pulling at his hair. "I didn't mean it. I mean... She is, but I didn't mean it like that!"
"Too bad," I said, stroking Poe's back as she sat on my lap on my bed. "You're totally screwed."
"She laughed," he tried, shrugging a shoulder. "Does that help?"
"I mean, maybe," I thought aloud. "Maybe she knew you were nervous, and it just came out. But I highly-"
I stopped short when I heard a tap from my left, and both our heads whipped around to the sound. It had come from my window. We both turned to each other for a second, confused, before turning back again just in time to see a tiny grey ball launched at my window, tapping against the glass and falling away again.
"Romeo, oh Romeo..." Josh murmured, a hand to his chest before he wandered over to the window, his eyes narrowing for a second before he groaned. "Or not."
"What?" I asked, picking up Poe and getting to my feet to join him. As soon as I saw the Wonder Twins, I sighed, checking my watch and seeing how late it was. "What do you want?" I asked them when Josh pushed the window up, leaning out a little as Poe meowed.
"Hey, how nostalgic is this?" Scott said, laughing a little. I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, okay, I know it's late, but-"
"We're going to find a dead body," Stiles cheered quietly, rubbing his hands together. "Thought you might want to join us this time."
Josh groaned again, rolling his eyes. "Oh, you have-"
"Definitely," I decided, smiling. "The last time you boys went out into the woods in a search party on your own, you got bit by a werewolf and dragged us all into your mess." I stood upright, placed Poe back down onto the bed and grabbed my boots, pulling them on and lacing them up as Josh judged me silently. It wasn't until I got back to me feet and widened my eyes at him with a totally innocent smile that he sighed.
"Fine, I'll cover for you," he said, throwing his hands out as he walked to the door. "Just lock the door behind me, and I'll tell Dad you're practicing some black magic, or something."
"Funny," I deadpanned, locking the door after he left and immediately making my way back to the window, climbing out and walking over the roof, climbing down onto the porch railing from there and down onto solid ground.
"How are you so graceful doing that?" Scott asked me, looking down at me with slightly widened eyes as I brushed off the back of my shorts. I shrugged, pretending I didn't love the compliment.
"Several years of gymnastics and really not wanting to miss out on some pretty rad parties," I said with a smile. "A great combination for a rebellious teenager. Now, what was this about a dead body?"
"Jeez, Scotty," I said, wincing. "I'm incredibly glad you took after your mom."
He scoffed, shaking his head once. "Tell me about it," he murmured as he kept up the pace ahead of me and leading the way with the map on his phone, Stiles trailing along somewhere behind. "My mom's the best."
"He ain't gonna get anywhere with that investigation, right?" I asked them both, to no answer from either. "I mean, your dad does a pretty stand up job, all things considered."
"Yeah, but Scott's dad doesn't know about all those considered things, that's the problem," Stiles finally piped up, kicking his way through the dirt. "That's why he's so hellbent on solving any unresolved case he can, while he can. And if he's right, if this is supernatural, that means there's another werewolf in town that we haven't met yet."
"Well, that's comforting."
"And if it turns out to be something like triplets that form into, like, a three-headed hound of hell, I'm seriously not up for that."
"Yeah, me neither," Scott agreed fiercely, blowing out a long breath. "Especially if I can't even control my own transformation anymore."
"Okay, guys, there has got to be some sort of silver lining here somewhere." They both turned to me, dubious, and I shrugged, just as a loud howl echoed through the trees. Stiles jumped, knocking into Scott and throwing the phone from his hands, down into the ditch behind them. Scott sighed and turned to Stiles, unimpressed.
"Sorry, buddy," Stiles apologised, wincing as we all heard the plop as it landed in a puddle. "I hate coyotes, so much. They always sound like they're mauling some tiny, helpless little animal." I frowned, oddly defensive of the creature.
"I'm sure they're not that bad," I said quietly, earning an odd look from Stiles as Scott launched himself down the bank to his phone with ease. Stiles followed a little less gracefully, slipping and sliding his way down. I chuckled a little when he narrowly avoided landing on his ass, but pretended I hadn't seen a thing when he turned to me with a scowl. Instead, I grabbed a hold of one of the low branches of the tree beside me and jumped off of the large trunk, landing next to Sties with a pleased smile. The scowling didn't stop.
"It still works," Scott murmured, the phone in his hands lighting up his face.
"Your face really is a little uneven, ain't it?" I said, narrowing my eyes and getting up close as Scott laughed sarcastically.
"Let me see the flashlight," Stiles cut in before Scott could respond, holding his hand out for the object in question. As soon as it was handed over, Stiles had the flashlight up and was shining it into our path, taking a few steps closer to the mountain of metal in front of us. I swallowed.
"So, this is it?" I asked, already knowing, and hating, the answer. "This is the car wreck in which a mother and her two young daughters were killed?"
"Well, actually, only the one daughter died here," Scott corrected me, ignoring Stiles' warning scowl. "Doesn't your dad think the other was dragged away by..." Scott suddenly stopped, clearing his throat and wincing.
I snorted. "It's fine, Scotty," I said, patting a hand on his shoulder. "You are not the only thing in this town to remind me of the murder of my mother at the hands of 'wild animals'."
Scott nodded, still looking a little uncomfortable, but tried to put the slip up behind him. "Why wouldn't they move it?" Scott asked, probably directing the direction to Stiles. "Isn't this evidence?"
"Probably too much of a pain in the ass to tow out," Stiles said distractedly as he approached the wreck. I followed, peering over his shoulder as he shined the flashlight over the deep claw marks in the metal. Try as I might, and despite what I had told Scott, it was an awfully hard thing to see. So hard, in fact, that I could only stand it for a second or two before I had to back away and focus on the mud on my boots.
The boys continued on for a while, muttering between themselves lowly, like they knew I didn't want to overhear them theorizing. And then I heard the famous last words, 'what is that?', and lord, if I didn't know better, but I turned around and approached them anyway.
"What's what?" I asked cautiously, whining a little when I saw Stiles cock his head and reach into the car. Scott straightened up beside me, inching away a little to make room for me. As Stiles drew back his hand back, a pink doll clutched in his hand, I shivered. "Okay, remind me not to put on any movies involving children or dolls on halloween."
"Doesn't that rule out, like, eighty percent of horror movies?" Stiles murmured, standing up beside us with his face as creeped out as I'm sure mine was.
"I'm hungry," the doll told us, in a horrifically, robotically happy voice that had us all screeching and backing away as Stiles threw it harder than was probably necessary.
"I think I just had a minor heart attack," Stiles whimpered, hand clutched over said heart. I managed a laugh, pushing the hair out of my face as I slowed my rapid breathing, my heart rate picking back up again not a second later when my ears picked up the all too familiar sound of growling.
"Please tell me you see that," Scott said quietly, staring off into the darkness beyond the car wreck with his eyes wide.
"I see it," Stiles answered, swallowing loudly as we both watched the dark shadow among the trees growled again before taking off. Seconds later, Scott was gone too. Stiles tried to call him back, to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing, but it was too late.
"Did he seriously just run off into the dark woods and leave us alone at the sight of three horrid deaths?" I asked Stiles, still watching the spot at which Scott's form had disappeared.
Stiles' only attempt at a response was to huff.
It took all of an hour of Scott and Stiles deciding, 'hey, let's go find a dead body' before the police showed up. Even for them, that had to be a record.
"Why do you insist on letting them drag you down to their level?" the sheriff asked me as I leaned against his truck, my arms wrapped around me in the cold.
I shrugged. "I'm starting to wonder the same thing, Sheriff."
"You know we're right here, right?" Stiles asked us from his spot beside me, offended. "We can hear every word."
The sheriff sighed. "Are you sure it was her?" he asked the boys, looking between the two of them.
"I looked her right in the eyes," Scott said, adamant that he was right. "And they glowed. Just like mine."
"It makes sense, Dad," Stiles agreed, trying to convince his doubtful father.
"But it wasn't a girl," he argued, making sure to keep his voice low, so the deputies idling around behind him didn't overhear. "It was a four-legged coyote, right?"
"Well, okay," Stiles gave in, shrugging a shoulder. "But yeah, see, that's the point that we don't exactly have figured out yet."
"Okay, but if it was a full moon, and she did change while he mom was driving..." Scott trailed off, eyes wide and pleading with the sheriff. "Anything could've happened."
"Horrible things could have happened," Stiles continued. "Ripping, shredding, tearing... Sorry." I shook my head, waving off the quick apology, and swallowed.
"It's probably what caused the accident," Scott tried. The sheriff raised an eyebrow at me. I shrugged.
"Sure, it sounds crazy," I admitted, tipping my head. "But then, weren't you, only just last month, this close to being ritually sacrificed by a dark druid in order to bring down a pack of alpha werewolves, before your son, his werewolf best friend, and his werewolf hunting ex-girlfriend made themselves surrogate sacrifices in order to save your lives?"
Stiles nodded along, pointing to me. "Was that around the same time the dark druid figured out that you have magical powers and poisoned you with herbs so you couldn't get in her way to make sacrifices out of several innocent people around the town that is now a supernatural beacon?"
"Okay, I understand what the two of you are getting at," the sheriff sighed, rubbing a hand through his hair.
"Think about it, Dad," Stiles cut in again, tearing away at his dad's defenses while they were down. "They're driving. Maria starts to change, she goes out of control. The mom crashes, and everybody dies."
"Except for Malia," Scott adds, while Stiles nods.
"She blames herself, all right?" Stiles continues. "Goes off running into the woods and eventually becomes trapped inside the body of a coyote."
The sheriff sighed, but shrugged all the same. "That makes sense. In a Chinese folk tale. Boys, this is... This is insane!" I couldn't help the pit of disappointment in my stomach. Sure, yeah, that theory was insane. But so were so many other things that had happened to us. If Scott thought that coyote was Malia, then it was her. I believed him. But that just made the looks of defeat on both Scott and Stiles' faces that much harder to witness. "I need this kept quiet. Now a word, you understand?" He was pointing a finger in both of their faces now, moving it from one to the other and back again. "I don't want anyone hearing about this. I especially don't want Mr Tate hearing about this. Scott?"
I turned when the sheriff's tone changed, saw Scott's panicked face staring off over Stiles' shoulder.
"Scott!" the sheriff called again, shaking Scott from whatever trance he was in. He shook his head, asked the Sheriff to repeat himself, but my attention was on Stiles and the worried silent conversation we were having. "Oh, hell," the Sheriff breathed, the weight of his world on his shoulders. "Mr Tate."
We all turned to where the Sheriff's weary sigh were directed, to where Scott's dad and Mr Tate was approaching, the latter's eyes set on the sweater in the sheriff's hands. His dead daughter's sweater.
"it's hers," he managed, his hands tightening around the wool. Scott's dad nodded, patting a hand on the man's shoulders.
"Alright, wait here," he told him, taking a step back before Scott stopped him. His dad quickly shut that down, but my focus was solely on the array of emotions crossing over that poor man's face. It was heartbreaking.
"I'm sure it was her," Scott promised a little later, after his dad had returned and taken Mr Tate home, the sheriff following quickly, and angrily. "I'm sure of it."
I nodded. "I believe you," I told him honestly, smiling a little. "Now we just need to do something about it."
"Like what, exactly?" Stiles asked, shrugging his shoulders. "How do we help a nine year old girl in the body of a coyote?"
"Well, we need to find her first," Scott figured, sighing. "And we just invaded her home, so I don't think that's gonna be easy."
I waited a beat. "It, uh... It might be easier than you think. I think we might be... friends?"
"You're friends with a coyote?" Stiles asked me, narrowing his eyes.
"A nine year old in the body of a coyote, remember?" I corrected, raising my eyebrows. "She's been chasing me on my runs for two years now, and it had always freaked me out, but when I was out the other day, I realized she'd been playing. Like it was all a game of tag to her. A game a nine year old might play."
"So how does that help us?" Scott asked me, ignoring Stiles' gaping.
"When I got home... when we got home, she curled up under a bush by my house. Essentially, right under my window. Like she knew exactly where she wanted to be."
"Like she's been there before," Scott caught on. I nodded. "Like she'd go there again, especially if she didn't want to go back home."
"Exactly," I agreed. "But I don't know... you were there earlier on, and if she links that scent to the new one in her den, maybe she won't come back."
"It's better than anything else we've got right now," Scott decided. "Keep an eye out tonight, let us know if you see her." I nodded.
"We've got to help her, Scott," I said, almost pleading. Even when she was just a coyote, a wild animal, I'd felt bad about leaving her out in the cold. But now... "She's just a kid."
"We will," he promised, laying a hand over mine as it lay against the hood of the car. "We're going to help her."
"You're friends with a coyote?!"
"I think you're right about her not going back to the den," Allison agreed, nodding her head at the back of our history classroom the next day. "Coyote's don't like wolves. Are you sure she didn't show up at yours last night?" she asked me, eyebrows high. I nodded.
"I was up most of the night, and I didn't see or hear a thing."
Allison nodded again, her lips pursed. "Maybe she doesn't want to be found. Coyotes are really smart. If they don't want to be heard, they actually walk on their toes."
"Coyotes tiptoe?" Stiles asked, his eyes narrowed. I think he was a little impressed.
"They tiptoe," Allison related, her eye roll heavy. She looked up as the bell rang, widened her eyes at Stiles. "I gotta go, but send me the location," she told him, gesturing down to the tablet in his hand with a nod of her head. Stiles nodded, and she turned at left, headed for her art class. I took my seat beside Scott's, Stiles sliding into the one behind mine, and I spun in my seat to widen my eyes at him.
"We're heading out to the preserve tomorrow, right?"
Stiles nodded, rubbing a hand over his hair. "Just don't get too worried if we can't find her. The preserve is huge; it might take longer than one day."
"Scott will find her," I said, without a doubt in my mind. Sties didn't look so sure. "He has her scent now."
"Yeah, and that's not a lot of good to him unless he's in full form, something that's a little dangerous for him to do at the minute, remember?"
I thought about it for a second. He had a point, sure... But this was Scott. "He'll find her."
"You didn't have to do that," I heard Scott chuckle from beside me. I looked up from Stiles to see him smiling at Kira, the heart eyes out on full force once again.
"Do us all a favour and sort your boy out," I told Stiles, unable to stop the grin. "He's embarrassing me." A hand came out of nowhere and slapped my arm, stinging a little, but I let Scott get away with it for the time being. Fifteen years with a younger brother has taught me all I need to know about serving revenge as just the right moment.
"It only took a couple of hours," Kira informed him, rifling through her bag. Scott's eyes widened.
"Wow," he breathed, his smile growing impressed and totally smitten. "Then you really didn't have to do that."
"I swear I printed it out," Kira murmured, hands rustling through the papers in her bag and frowning. As soon as I saw her dad approaching her, I knew we were in for a wild ride.
"Kira," he called, grabbing her attention. She turned, a small smile on her face in greeting. "You forgot all that research you did for that boy you like."
"Oh, no," Stiles murmured as I covered my gaping mouth with my hand, clenching my nose with my thumb to keep the snort in. It didn't last long, and as soon as one chuckle burst through, I had to cover my entire face with my hands so the poor girl wouldn't see me giggling at her misfortune. Pretty sure I heard Stiles breathing out pretty heavily through his nose behind me, so at least I wasn't the only one struggling. We both apologised quietly once Scott took his seat, scowling at us all the way, that oh-so-precious research in hand.
"We were just talking about internment camps and prisoners of war," Mr Yukimura continued on with his lesson, like he had't just ruined his daughters life. "There's a passage in our reading that I'd like to go over in more detail. Who would like to come up and read aloud for us?" He looked around the classroom, at the empty spaces above our heads where I'm sure he thought all out hands would be. "Mr Stilinski? How about you?"
"Uh," Stiles started. My eyes widened. Reading a passage aloud would be pretty hard for someone who couldn't read. "Maybe someone else could."
"I'll do it," I offered, my hand shooting up. "Stiles' reading voice in really monotonous. Very dull. He'll just send everyone to sleep."
Mr Yukimura did not look impressed. "Everyone participates in my class." He raised his eyebrows at Stiles, who breathed out a heavy breath. "Mr Stilinski," he said again, gesturing to the stand with a smile. I opened my mouth again, but then I heard the sound of metal grating across the floor as Stiles stood up, giving a 'thanks for trying' pat on my shoulder as he passed. I turned around as he took his place, caught Scott too engrossed in the papers Kira had given him to even know what was going on. I hissed at him, and he looked up, eyes wide and questioning. I nodded my head to Stiles, his head bent over the book in front of him. Scott's mouth dropped open, and his eyes flicked back to mine for a second, frantic, before we both turned back to Stiles. His hands were already shaking.
"Stiles?" Scott said gently as he rose from his chair, slowly stepping closer. "You okay?" Stiles' only answer was to look back down at his book a second before his knees seemed to give way. Scott rushed forward and grabbed him. "I should take him to the nurse's office," he told Mr Yukimura, who simply nodded, not sure how else to respond.
"He don't do well with public reading," I told him as they left the classroom in a hurry, trying my best to smile like I wasn't aching to follow. "Stage fright, or whatever."
He nodded again, shrugging a shoulder. "I don't suppose anybody else would like to give it a try?" he asked the remaining students, to no avail. "No, I didn't think so."
"I'm fine," Stiles said immediately after he saw me march around the corner, a girl on a mission.
"You didn't look fine," I argued, my eyebrows high on my forehead. I had been impatiently watching the clock after they had left, waiting, and waiting, and the second the bell had gone, I was out of my seat and the classroom, too preoccupied to remember that the boys had left their bags behind until I had laid eyes on Stiles. "You looked like you were having a panic attack over the thought of reading in front of your fellow peers."
Stiles tipped his head in acknowledgement. "See, that's the thing. Reading front of your fellow peers gets a little disconcerting when you can't read."
"And that's 'fine' to you, is it?" I asked him, my eyes wide. His narrowed. "What did I say about telling me you're fine when you're so obviously not?"
"I'm fine now," he said, his eyes widening in honesty. I heaved a sigh, but otherwise left it alone.
"Where's Scott?" I asked, looking past him onto the otherwise empty hallway. I couldn't imagine a reason good enough to leave your best friend after an aggressive panic attack like that. Turns out, I was wrong.
"Malia's here," he told me, blowing a breath out past his lips, the doors leading outside bursting open, men and women wearing Animal Control uniforms piling in like they were proving his point. "Scott heard her growling, and some glass breaking. He went to check it out."
"She's inside the school?" I asked him, my large eyes moving from him to the corridors behind him, like I was expecting her to jump out from one of the lockers or something.
"Not anymore," the sheriff interrupted me, dropping a hand onto Stiles's shoulder after his silent approach. His tired face told us all we needed to know about how his day was going so far. "A couple of students said they saw it running across the field and back into the woods."
"Her," I corrected, eyeing the Sheriff's sigh at my response. "They saw her running away."
"The most important thing is that no one got hurt," the sheriff continued, raising his eyebrows at me. "Thank God."
"What happens if someone does get hurt?" Stiles asked his dad, eyes narrowed and worried.
The sheriff sighed again, shrugging a shoulder gently. Apologetically. "Most likely, they'll have to put it down."
"Put her down, Sheriff."
"Dad, there's a girl in there," Stiles joined in, the worry turning to something akin to anger. "One that you'll be killing." The sheriff ran a hand over his hair, down over his face. "Come on, you aren't back to not believing, are you?"
"You know what? I believe there are a lot of things that I don't understand yet," the Sheriff argued, turning on his son. "But that doesn't mean that everything and anything imaginable is suddenly possible."
"I didn't believe any of this was real at the beginning of the year, either," I recalled, biting my lip as the sheriff turned his stressed, but ultimately desperate, eyes on me. "I always believed that the stories of the supernatural were... myths, derived from our early ancestors' understanding of animals, and the weather, and anything else that they couldn't totally comprehend. And then Scott got lost in the woods one night while he and his dumbass best friend were looking for a dead body and turned my whole life upside down, and now I can bring plants back to life, and have actual conversations with my dead mother, and push people out of the way of oncoming cars because I saw it happen in my head moments before it really did."
"You have conversations with your mom?"
I groaned, pulling on my hair for a second. "Yes, I can, and not because I'm crazy. Because I'm magic. Because I believe in that magic. Because impossible things like that are actually possible. Everything and anything."
The sheriff stared at me for a moment, his resolve wavering, before he sighed and turned back to Stiles for a second. "Are you absolutely sure that this is a girl and not an animal?"
I'll admit; there may have been a victorious fist pump behind the sheriff's back.
"Yes," Stiles said with an adamant nod. "Because Scott's sure. Scott?" With Stiles' question, I frowned, looking over my shoulder where Stiles' gaze was, and noting Scott at the other end of the hallway, eyeing us warily. "You been listening?" Stiles repeated Scott's answering nod, turning back to his dad. The older man sighed.
"All right," he said, tipping his head in defeat and leading the way down the hall. "Let's get this figured out."
"That's super creepy, Stiles," I informed him, unimpressed with the contents of his bag, it's head in Stiles' hand. Dolls are creepy in their own right, but these circumstances definitely upped the creep-factor. "You stole a child's doll from the car wreck which she caused, killing her mother and younger sister, and kept it in your school bag?"
"Well, when you say it like that..." Stiles shrugged at Scott's equally disturbed face, rolling his eyes. "I thought you could use it for her scent."
"Where did you get that?" someone asked from behind me, and the three of us span to see Mr Tate in the doorway, his furious eyes on the doll as he pushed passed me and snatched it from Stiles' hands. "Where did you find this?" he demanded angrily, his face softening into a horrible despair as he looked down at the doll he probably hadn't seen in nearly a decade. "It belonged to my daughter."
"Mr Tate," the sheriff greeted, appearing in front of me as I took a small step back. He seemed like a pretty harmless man, don't get me wrong. But grief like that can do horrible things to good people. "I don't know how you heard about this, if you've got your own police scanner or what, but you can't be here." As the sheriff stepped forward to herd the man out, he stopped suddenly, his hand stilling over Mr Tate's jacket.
"I have a permit," Mr Tate said immediately, avoiding the sheriff's eyes.
"California schools are gun free zones, permit or no permit," the sheriff told him, shaking his head and nodding to one of the deputies in the hall, who stepped forward to take Mr Tate's arm He didn't appreciate the gesture. "You need to leave, Mr Tate. Now."
"You find that animal," Mr Tate pleaded as he backed away, his face twisting into that same look of utter anguish. "You find that... thing."
"So..." Stiles started as everyone in the locker room continued on their way like a crazed man hadn't just been marched out of the building. "That went perfectly."
"He has a gun," I pointed out, staring at the empty space where Mr Tate had been stood. Stiles snorted.
"Yeah, we saw that."
"No, Stiles," I stopped him, closing my eyes for a second and turning back to the pair. "There is a man with a gun. A man wracked with eight years of grief and a hole in his heart has a gun, and the animal that he thinks is to blame for killing his entire world is running around the woods with a price on her head."
"He's gonna kill her," Scott breathed, his eyes widening. I nodded. "He's gonna kill his own daughter."
Thanks for reading, guys. Stay fetch.