I do NOT own Teen Wolf, only my OCs.

Emma's POV

"Hey, Lyds," I said answering my phone, "Now's not really a good time."

"Emma please. I need your help," her voice sounded distant and shaken.

"Wait," I said, getting up to walk away from Peter and Stiles, "What's wrong?"

"I – I don't," she stuttered, "I don't know how – I just found."

"Lyds, talk to me. Where are you?" I asked, getting worried.

"The p-pool," she stuttered out.

"I'll be there in ten," I said, "Will you be okay until I get there?"

I heard her whimper, "Yeah."

"I'll be there soon, Lyds," I said going to grab my bag from the living room area, "I promise it'll be okay."

She hung up on me. I looked up at Peter and Stiles who were staring at me with concerned looks.

"Can I borrow the Jeep?" I asked Stiles.

He nodded, "I'll drive you."

I didn't even try to argue. I didn't want to. Lydia had sounded so scared on the phone. It made me feel terrified.

Stiles and I ran down to the parking lot of the lofts and got into the Jeep. The drive was relatively quiet for the majority of the time. I was lost in my thoughts about why Lydia was at the public pool and why she was so scared.

"Em," Stiles said softly, "I don't know where I'm going."

"Right," I said with a sigh, "The pool."

He nodded. His grip on the steering wheel tightened. He looked at me and then back to the road. His anxiety rolled off of him in waves.

"I don't know what happened," I said, answering his unspoken question, "She just sounded shaken up and I know something is wrong."

"It's none of my business," he said.

"Of course it's your business," I said, giving him a look, "Anything that happens in this pack is your business."

He shook his head, "This pack?"

"That's what we are," I said with a shrug.

"I guess," he said with a sigh as he turned into the parking lot of the pool.

I got out of the car before he had completely parked it.

"Lydia?" I cried, running onto the pool deck, "Lydia?" She came into view and she looked completely rattled. Her hair was wild, she had tears running down her face, and she had her arms wrapped around her body. "Lydia, are you okay?"

"I'm okay," she breathed out, "That, over there, not okay."

Stiles and I both turned to look at the lifeguard stand. There was a body sitting in the chair on top of the platform. A dead body. I looked at Stiles. I felt the color drain from my face. I didn't know how to handle this. Blood was dripping from the neck, all the way down to the pool deck. It looked like a fucking horror movie.

"Yeah, all right. I'm going to call my dad," he said pulling out his phone.

"I already called 911," Lydia said frantically.

"You called the police before you called us?" Stiles asked.

"Technically, I called the police and Seth before I called Emma," Lydia said annoyed. Stiles and I exchanged a look, "Was I supposed to call you first when I find a dead body?"

"Yes," Stiles said flailing his arms.

I rolled my eyes. Pulling my phone out, I quickly called Scott.

"I figured that Seth already informed you, but Lydia found a body at the pool. Stiles and I are with her now," I said before Scott could even say hello.

"Do you think it was them?" Scott asked.

"Yeah," I said, putting the phone on speakerphone so Stiles could answer too.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yep," I said, "throat ripped out, blood everywhere.

"It's like the freaking Shining over here. If two little twin girls come out of the woods, start asking me to play with them forever and ever, I'm not gonna be surprised," Stiles ranted.

"Can you get a little closer to make sure it was them?" Scott asked us.

I grimaced and looked at Stiles. I silently pleaded with him to be the one to look. "Make sure it was them?" I asked.

"Scott, who else is going around ripping throats out?" Stiles asked sarcastically.

"Please just do it," Scott's voice said exasperated.

Stiles mouthed 'no' to me but I crossed my arms and shook my head. He threw his arms up over his head in annoyance but moved over to the body. He paused, and glared at the hand of the victim.

"Emma," he said, pointing.

I followed the direction that his finger was pointed in. There was a purity ring on the victim's finger. Blood dripped around the clean metal of the ring. I looked at Stiles, confused. What did this have to do with the girl and Boyd?

The cops started to arrive. They separated Stiles, Lydia, and I into different ambulances to check us out and question what had happened. We told them the truth. That Lydia had been driving by and saw something suspicious and called the police. She got scared so she called us. Naturally, we got there before the police could. When I was finally told that I could go home, I went to go find Stiles.

"Hey," I said softly, "I've been cleared."

"Me too," he said, scratching the back of his neck.

"I'm gonna make sure Lyds gets home safe," I explained, running my hand through my hair.

He nodded, "I'll come with you."

We walked over to where Lydia was with an officer. She told us that the officer was going to escort her home. Stiles and I went to the Jeep. Without communicating with each other, Stiles started following Lydia home, just like I had secretly wanted to do. I know she had a police escort but I still wanted to see for my own eyes that she was okay and safe in her own home. When we pulled up to Lydia's house, Stiles and I got out to follow her in. She looked at us and rolled her eyes but didn't argue, leading us up the stairs and to her room. I took a deep breath, starting to remember the last time that I was in Lydia's room. I looked at Stiles and either he didn't remember or he had a very good poker face.

"You didn't have to follow me home," Lydia said, breaking the silence.

"We wanted to make sure you got in okay," I said softly.

"I had a police escort," Lydia pointed out.

"I know the inner workings of that force, all right?" Stiles snapped, "They're not nearly as reliable as people think."

Lydia thought for a moment, "Well, you also didn't have to follow me into my room."

Stiles and I looked at each other. She had us there. We had no excuse. We just wanted to make sure she was truly okay. Plus I had a few questions to ask her.

"Uh, yeah I don't have an answer for that," I said, looking at my feet.

"We can leave," Stiles said, putting his hand on my elbow.

"Are you really gonna go without asking me the question that you've been dying to ask me?" Lydia said with a soft snort.

"Well, I'm not…I haven't been dying to ask anything," Stiles stuttered, "No questions here for Stiles."

I sat next to Lydia on her bed, "No questions, unless you want to tell us something?"

She sighed, "I can see it on his face."

I looked at Stiles. He looked flustered. He flailed his arms around the room like he was shocked that she would say that about him.

"Maybe my face just has, like, a naturally interrogatory expression?" he suggested.

"Well, your interrogatory expression is getting on my nerves," Lydia hissed.

I chuckled, "Yeah, same."

A serious look crossed Lydia's face, "The answer is, I have no clue how I ended up finding that body. I didn't even know where I was until I got out of the car."

I put my hand on Lydia's shoulder, "Hey, it happened to me before too. We'll figure it out."

"Yeah," Stiles interjected, "But the last time something like this happened…"

"I know," Lydia said with a scared look, "Derek's uncle."

"Peter," Stiles and I said at the same time.

Lydia shook her head, "Look, I don't want to talk about this anymore. I just want to go to bed."

"Right," Stiles said, moving towards the door, "We'll get going."

I looked at Stiles, "Can you give us a second?"

He paused in the doorway but nodded. Then he exited Lydia's bedroom, going down the stairs and out the door. I turned to face Lydia.

"What?" she asked, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"What's going on between you and Seth?" I asked, getting to the point.

A small smile spread across her face, "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you called him first tonight when you found a dead body," I pointed out.

"I called the police first," she argued.

"And don't think that I haven't noticed the longing gazes you guys give each other," I pressed on.

She blushed, "Fine. I like him but he doesn't seem interested in me. Besides, you said it yourself, he has a girlfriend."

I rolled my eyes, "I just said that so you would get off my case. Are you sure he doesn't feel the same?"

"Whatever the case may be, he went to that party last night to meet another girl. I know why he was there. I overheard him talking to Scott about it. And it's fine cause I don't want a boyfriend. I want a distraction. I think he's the longtime commitment type," Lydia explained.

I sighed, "Just don't count him out completely, okay?"

She nodded, "Isn't this a weird topic for you?"

"Why? Cause we used to date?" I asked, "It's fine. Seth and I are not interested in each other like that anymore. I promise you."

"Fine," she sighed, "I just hope he doesn't expect me to wait for him to make a move. I will move on and find someone else if I have to."

"You're Lydia Martin. Lydia Martin waits around for no man," I said with a smile.

She smirked, "I like the sound of that."

Stiles' POV

I was driving Emma home after the longest night of my life. She was riding in the passenger seat of the Jeep like nothing had changed. Her long legs were folded up underneath herself and she played with her fingers. She was nervous.

"Are you okay?" I asked her.

She looked up at me with wide eyes. Then, realizing that I was just checking on her, not mad or anything, her face softened.

"Yeah, I'm just thinking," she said softly.

"About?" I asked, silently wondering if I was crossing some kind of invisible line.

She shook her head, "I should have felt all of the things that were going to go wrong today."

"Don't say that," I said looking over at her, "You tried your best."

"Did I though?" she asked rhetorically, "I mean I should have known that Lydia wasn't okay. I should have known about the walls of the vault. I should have known that Derek, Scott, and Seth were going to be attacked."

I put my hand on her knee, "You tried your best."

She looked at my hand on her knee and then brought her eyes up to my face slowly. She opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by a ringtone. Snapping her eyes away from mine, she grabbed my phone out of the middle console.

"It's Melissa," she said, handing me the phone.

I took it from her, bringing it up to my ear, "Hi Melissa."

"Stiles," she breathed into the phone, "I need you to come down to the hospital. There's something you need to see about the body you guys found tonight."

"Roger that," I said, turning in the opposite direction of Emma's house. "Be there soon."

I hung up the phone and dropped it back in between Emma and me. I looked over at her to see if she had heard the phone call or not. She was playing with her fingers again. That nervous habit made my heart leap in a way that it hadn't all summer. I missed seeing her like this.

"Hospital?" Emma said softly.

"Yeah," I said looking back at the road, "Melissa wants to show us something." She nodded. "But you probably already knew that."

She chuckled, "Yeah, I was listening in."

I nodded but didn't say anything. We drove the rest of the way to the hospital in silence. Parking the Jeep, I looked over at her. She got out of the car without meeting my eyes and started to walk towards the hospital. I sighed and followed after her. We walked up to Melissa as soon as we entered the building.

"Hey," I said softly.

"Hey," she said, backing away from the nurses' station, "Over here. And if you tell anyone that I showed you this, I swear to God, I will kill you painfully and slowly."

"Why do you want to show me a body I've already seen?" I asked, struggling against her grip on my arm.

"Because you haven't seen everything," Melissa said softly.

She took us into the morgue. Emma's face was the most pale I had ever seen it. I grabbed her hand, without thinking. She looked at me with wide eyes but didn't let go. Melissa led us to a table with a body on it. She lifted the sheet and both Emma and I flinched backwards. Emma buried her head in my arm.

"See this around his neck?" Melissa asked, oblivious to Emma's freak out, "That's a ligature mark. That means that he was strangled with something like cord, rope…"

"Ah, okay, wait a second," I said. Emma pulled her head away from my arm and began to inspect the body from a distance. "What kind of werewolf strangles someone?"

"That's not very werewolf-y," Emma said softly.

Melissa nodded at her, "My thoughts exactly. And then there's this."

She led us to the head of the body. Emma let go of my hand and went to look over Melissa's shoulder. I missed the feeling of her hand in mine but I pushed it out of my mind. Melissa tilted the head and Emma gagged.

"Is that brain matter?" she asked, looking away, "Yeah, it's brain matter, of course."

"See the indentation?" Melissa asked me, "He was hit in the back of the head, hard enough to kill him. In fact, any one of these things could have killed him. I mean someone seriously wanted this poor kid dead."

"All right, so then this couldn't have been Boyd or Cora, you know?" I concluded, "They wouldn't have done all that. So maybe this is just one murder? I mean, maybe it's just a random coincidence."

"I don't think it was just one," Melissa said ominously.

"How come?" Emma asked softly.

"Because that girl over there," Melissa nodded her head toward another body on another table, "She's got the exact same injuries."

We looked over at the other body. Emma moved over to it first, looking at Melissa with wide eyes. Melissa moved to the head of the body, moving the sheet back. I felt my heart leap into my throat. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I felt tears in my eyes. Emma's hand slowly wrapped around mine and squeezed tightly.

"The ME said this one wasn't just strangled. Whoever did it used a garrote, which is a stick that you put through the rope, and you just kind of keep twisting," Melissa said, looking at the body of a girl I had known my entire life.

"Melissa," Emma said softly. She moved closer to me. Melissa looked up at us and realized I wasn't okay.

"Stiles," she said softly, "Oh my god, did you know her?"

I nodded, unable to find my voice. I couldn't speak. I couldn't breathe. The only thought going through my mind was that I was the last one that Heather saw. I could have saved her from this.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't even think," Melissa said, grabbing the sheet to cover up Heather's body.

"I was," I said, my voice cracking. The tears were slowly rolling down my face, "I was at her party. It was her birthday. Her name was Heather."

I lifted my arm that wasn't attached to Emma's to wipe the tears off of my face. I can't believe she's actually dead.

"Okay," Melissa said, now in mom mood, "We need to call your father, because you're a witness."

A thought dawned on me then. I was a witness because Heather was trying to lose her virginity to me. I thought back to the guy that we had found. He had a purity ring. The two had to be connected somehow.

"Stiles?" Emma said pulling me out of my thoughts, "What are you thinking?"

I looked at Melissa, "Has anyone else been through here tonight? Any other bodies, or even anybody missing?"

"Uh, no, no bodies," Melissa said confused and concerned at the same time, "But, um, two girls. They brought the first one in, Caitlin, for a tox screen, and then I overheard that her girlfriend, Emily, just disappeared. I mean, they were out in the woods and…"

"Nobody's found her yet?" I asked, frantic.

"I don't know," Melissa said slowly.

"Okay, first one," I said.

"Caitlin," Melissa repeated.

"Is she here?" I asked, "Is she here right now?"

"I think so," Melissa said softly.

"Okay, where?" I said, pushing past her.

Melissa tried to stop me, "Okay, okay, wait. Just wait a minute."

"I have to talk to her," I explained.

"Why?" Melissa asked.

"Because I think I know what's happening," I said.

Emma nodded, "Then we need to find her."

She squeezed my hand reassuringly and then let go. She started toward the exit of the morgue. Melissa followed her out, catching up to her to tell her where the girl's room was. We found it quickly. We filed in. Melissa stood watch at the door to make sure that the police didn't come back to talk to Caitlin. Emma and I stood next to the girl's bed.

"We weren't doing anything that bad," she explained, "I mean, I've camped out there plenty of times."

"Right, but why tonight?" I pressed, wanting her to prove my theory.

"We wanted to be alone for one night," Caitlin said slightly embarrassed, "Emily lives with her mom, and I have three roommates. Not exactly romantic settings, you know?"

"How long have you two been together?" Emma asked softly.

"Three months," Caitlin said.

"And you wanted to make it romantic," I repeated.

"Yeah, you know, because…," she shrugged and trailed off.

"Because it was her first time," Emma finished for her with a small smile.

Caitlin closed her eyes tightly to stop from crying. She looked at Emma who gave her a reassuring smile and put her hand on her shoulder.

"They're going to find her. Aren't they?" she asked us.

Neither of us answered. I looked down at my shoes. Emma took a deep breath. I knew she knew something but wasn't saying it. She wrapped her arms around herself. Caitlin sighed, and nodded solemnly.

We left the room shortly after. Scott met us at the hospital. We took him to the morgue to show him what his mom had showed us. We explained what the injuries were. Emma still seemed a little freaked out but not gagging this time.

"So Boyd and Cora might not have killed anyone?" Scott asked.

"You're gonna wish they did," I said as I pulled the sheet back over Heather's head.

"Why?" Scott asked, oblivious.

"We're not exactly sure yet," I started, looking at Emma to back me up.

"The other girl who was out in the woods, Emily, eventually they are going to find her. She's one of them. Emily, Heather, the guy Lydia found at the pool, all three were virgins. And they're all going to have the same three injuries," Emma said, not looking at me or Scott.

"Strangled, throat slashed, head bashed in. It's called the threefold death," I finished for her.

"So if these aren't random killings, then what are they?" Scott asked.

"Sacrifices," Emma and I said in unison.

"Human sacrifices," I added.

We left the morgue. Emma felt less tense as she stood next to me. Scott went to go find his mom, telling us that he would see us at school. It was then that I realized that Heather was actually dead. Heather was dead and I was the last person who saw her alive. I felt the weight of that on my shoulders.

"Are you okay?" Emma asked softly. I turned to look at her. Her face was clouded with concern. I shook my head. "Maybe I should drive?"

I nodded, not knowing what to say. She took the keys from me and led me out of the hospital and to the Jeep. We got in, this time me in the passenger seat. She drove us to my house but then I realized she would have to walk home and that didn't sit right with me.

"How will you get home?" I asked softly.

She shrugged, "I'll walk. Or call Seth."

"Do you want to come in for a bit?" I asked, looking away from her.

"Do you want me to?" she asked so softly that I almost didn't hear it.

I nodded, "I don't want to be alone right now."

She swallowed. Then got out of the Jeep. I followed after her up to the house. I unlocked the front door, opening it wide enough to let both of us in. I started going up to my room, knowing that she was following me. We got to my room and we both sat on the edge of my bed, not saying anything.

"She was your friend," Emma said, more like she was stating a fact rather than asking a question.

I nodded, "Our moms were best friends."

"I'm so sorry, Stiles," she said putting her hand on my shoulder.

I turned my head to look at her. She looked so effortlessly beautiful in that moment. I wanted to remember it for the rest of my life. I glanced down at her lips. Before she could stop me, I closed the gap that was between us. I crashed my lips on hers. I moved my hand to cradle her neck and get tangled in her hair. She squeaked in surprise when my lips touched hers but quickly recovered and was kissing me back deeply. I nudged her mouth open with my tongue, tilting her head to have better access to her mouth. I let my tongue explore her mouth in a way that I hadn't done in months. Slowly, she pulled away. I opened my eyes to see her blue ones slightly watery. I moved in to continue our make-out session but she abruptly stood up before I could reach her.

"Stiles," she said, breathless, "What was that?"

"The best kiss of my life," I said, breathing hard myself.

She ran her hand through her hair, "Why?"

"Why what?" I asked, confused.

"Why did you kiss me?" she asked softly.

"Because I wanted to," I explained.

"But," she started. She shook her head, "We shouldn't do this."

"Why?" I asked, standing up.

"Because," she said softly, "you're upset about your friend."

I shook my head, "That's not why I kissed you."

"But, it means your vulnerable," she said softly, "I'm not in the habit of taking advantage of the vulnerable."

I laughed, "You act like I'm drunk and can't consent right now. I kissed you, remember?"

She smirked, "I should head home."

"You don't have to," I could practically hear the begging in my voice.

"I do," she said, running her hand through her hair again, "Today, with you and I getting along and working together, it was great. I don't want to ruin it by staying and doing something that neither of us are ready for yet."

"You trying to say you can't resist me, Baker?" I joked for the first time all night.

She laughed a genuine laugh, "That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Maybe you're right," I said with a small smile, "We don't want to do anything we might regret."

She nodded, "Thanks for understanding, Stiles."

"Of course," I said, "We're on the same page."

I had kissed her because I wanted to get back together, not because I was upset. It took everything in me to not fight her about leaving. Fuck regrets. I have spent the past three months sewing my wild oats so to speak and everything still ends up being about Emma. I can't get her out of my mind. That has to mean something. All of my anger towards her has completely faded away. I don't know why but I think it has something to do with the fact that she is trying so hard to act like she's okay and like everything is normal. If she can do that, the least I can do is try to forgive her.