By the time Isaac and Brittany had made their way down the main corridor and halted just outside of the always-noisy, and always-busy cafeteria, there were about five minutes until the dismissal bell rang shrilly through the air; a few people already walking along the halls in anticipation for lunch break. Topics of conversation between the two had wavered between the extracurricular activities that were available in school and around Beacon Hills, like the ballet studio she seemed very interested in when he mentioned it; his affinity for scarves, which the girl had pointed out when she noticed the one around his neck, and his asking her why she'd want to start school halfway through the year. "Uh... Coach wants the last word, always..." He was saying, focusing on advising the girl as much as he could before the bell rung and he had to wonder if he had to invite her to spend lunch with him to avoid awkwardness. "So, don't try your sass on him."
She nodded, hands gripping onto the strap of her bag a little tighter. "Noted." She said, and Isaac was thinking over what else to say – what other advice to offer the new girl – when a rather familiar scent reached him from behind; relaxing his senses quite automatically, and even bringing upon a grin across his features. "You did tell me about him before, when you—"
"Isaac?" The moment the new voice reached them, it broke off the little bubble of speech Brittany had been focused on; Isaac's slender arms had moved to slack in a cross against his chest as brims parted to release a small chuckle at the reminder of what he'd told the new girl about Coach in mock advice when he'd crashed against her, before a faint tap was dealt to his shoulder.
Allison.
Crooking a grin, Isaac stepped to the side so he could face the short haired brunette without turning his back towards Brittany. Seeing Allison present at school turned into a bigger relief that he'd thought it would be. A sense of familiarity came with seeing his huntress friend. "Hey," He said, watching a small smile adorn her features at his greeting. "Nice to see that you're here." Without really waiting for her to reply, Isaac's arms fell to his sides; one lifting to motion towards the long haired brunette whose blue eyes were dancing between the two friends. "Allison, this is Brittany. Brittany, my friend, Allison." It wasn't really Isaac's fault that he was a tad possessive and overly protective of his friends; they were all he had.
"Hey, nice to meet you." Allison greeted, grinning shortly. "You're new, right?" She asked, brown orbs searching her blues with forced curiosity for a few moments.
A polite grin had taken hold of Brittany's lips, and Isaac watched as her hand started lifting to extend in Allison's direction while she spoke. "Yeah, nice to meet you, Alli—" But the attention his friend had given the new girl hadn't lasted long; in fact, it had not even been there long enough for Brittany to properly reply before she'd sort of interrupted her to direct words toward him.
"Isaac, could I speak with you for a moment?" She wondered, turning urgently in his direction; words echoing as urgent as the gaze weighting on her features. "It's about Scott." She said, in hopes to make her friend aware of the importance of the information she clearly couldn't speak of in front of anyone else.
He watched Brittany's lips twist a little to the side and her eyes fall on him; but with a passing glance from her to Allison, Isaac bobbed his head in affirmation to his friend's request; letting the bag clutched in his arms to drop to his side, easing the weight of the strap around his shoulders. Not to be rude, but at that current point in time, anything Allison had to say about Scott was important. And it didn't exactly take a mind reader to understand that some students might need some time among friends; clearly the whole school had more important things to worry about than the new girl, with the whole death of a peer situation blooming over everyone's heads. So she clearly decided to take that cue. "Well, thank you for the tour, Isaac." She said, looking down at the hands that wrapped around the strap of her back before lifting them to look in his direction and Allison's. "I'll see you in class," he told him, "and very nice to meet you, Allison." With a nod of her head, Brittany didn't really wait any longer before taking a couple of steps back from both friends in case they thought of speaking.
"Catch ya around, Brittany!" He called, lifting two fingers in a wave, watching her frame turn around and walk away, toward the opposite side of the hallway. With her figure disappearing into the meld of the crowd that now filled the hallway, Isaac turned fully towards Allison with question and worry etched deeply across his features. He suddenly felt like he'd been living under a rock for the duration of a week and the world had imploded around him. With all hope, Isaac pleaded with himself that Allison would be able to fill him in and console the worry he had for all the pack. "You skipped out early this morning," he started with a smile, "didn't even get one of my awesome pieces of burnt toast." Grin crooked, Isaac let his eyes scan the hallway for eavesdroppers prior to nodding his head toward the cafeteria for Allison to lead the way to somewhere they could talk.
As she smiled, Allison's mind rewinded upon the previous night; a night she had spent with Scott in attempts to comfort him over his friend being in the hospital. "You heard me, huh?" She said, walking along with Isaac towards the inside of the cafeteria, attempting to fight the blush that threatened to colour her cheeks the moment Isaac nodded. "I would have stayed, but I didn't want to wake anyone up." She admitted. "Shame I missed out on the burnt toast, though." As per usual, she seemed to have words ready to roll off of her tongue without missing a single beat.
"Don't worry." Isaac teased. "Stick around and there will most definitely be more burnt toast, if you're lucky..." Ticking the corners of his mouth up into an entirely too innocent grin, he flapped an elbow out to gently nudge his friend's side. She surprised him with a smile even as a short air of debate planted itself across her features; and not even a couple of seconds later, Allison sauntered off, making a graceful and quick stride toward the furthest tables in the cafeteria. Without hesitation, Isaac followed after her with no other word; she was graceful and languid as she slipped right through the crowd to the table, and he was bumbling around and letting people pass. By the time he'd reached Allison, she was already sitting down; something which he promptly followed along to do on a chair at her side. "Why do so many people still go to this school?" Isaac wondered, setting his backpack down on the floor by his side prior to allowing his eyes to finally rest on his friend's features. "Doesn't it scream 'doom' yet?"
At least that made a short chuckle to escape from the girl's lips. "Well, it's not like they put a warning on the pamphlet when you enrol." She joked, placing her own bag on the table and moving her chair slightly closer to his so she didn't have to talk too loud over the slowly filling cafeteria's noise. "'Welcome to Beacon Hills high school, the school you should never want to stay alone at night in unless you have a death wish.'" She cited with a raise of her brows while she crossed her hands on top of the table the way Isaac had as his shoulders shook with silent chuckles over the pitched brochure line she had chanted. "Did you see Scott before you came to school?" She, then suddenly asked, changing the direction of the conversation completely.
Of course, it was suiting that Allison would be worried about Scott regardless of if they had gotten back together a week or two ago or not. He wasn't at school, they were close, Danny's death loomed over everyone's head like a horrible reminder that life wasn't eternal, and Stiles was in the hospital. Everyone in school was sad, but everyone in the pack was worried. "I saw him, yeah." He admitted, lifting a shoulder and giving a nod of his head. "He had to wait for Melissa to wake up, I was able to talk to him for a bit before coming to school." He informed her, allowing another grin to illuminate his features. "I think they both praised the heavens for you, though." He nudged her arm again. "Coffee; good move on your part."
"Thanks." She smiled; not even waiting longer than a beat before she spoke again. "Have you heard anything about how Stiles is?" It was clear simply by her scent that she was stalling whatever inquiry or topic she thought of bringing up before, and Isaac was curious, but he knew Allison; she'd speak whatever she needed to speak when she was ready. So, for the sake of his friend's sanity, Isaac took a breath and went along with her question.
"Not really, I—" He cleared his throat. "Scott hasn't contacted me since this morning, and the only thing Miss McCall told us was that Stiles wasn't in any danger, nor too broken." He told her, watching some of the concern wash away from Allison's features. "Scott's with him right now." Brushing the palm of his hand over the back of his neck, Isaac pressed his lips together with a faint shrug; just a simple rise and drop of his shoulders that was barely noticeable as he looked over at Allison.
"Oh, good." She said, the flicker of a smile curving her lips for a second. "Good." Her head bobbed in a nod, and then a silence followed; it was rather obvious that she had ran out of subjects to stall with, and Isaac was about to ask, but only seconds before he did her whole demeanour shifted as if with the flip of a switch, aware that she finally remembered she had broken him away from his new acquaintance with the promise of a talk; an important one. "I've got to ask you something," She finally said, eyes locked on his, "and it's probably going to make me sound insensitive, but... well, your answer could feed on a theory Scott and I have."
The boy frowned, setting his hands, crossed, against the table once again. "Okay." He refused to let his curious blues look away from his friend's questioning orbs. "Go ahead."
She nodded. "Alright..." But then her eyes narrowed, and not even a second later her head tilted shortly. "First of all, are you okay?" She wondered. "About... Danny, I mean."
Isaac almost instantly looked down, suddenly studying the table as if it had become many times more interesting than anything else. "Uh, yeah, I—" He frowned, grimacing for a second with a downward pull to his lips prior to shrugging a shoulder once again. "I guess." He finally looked up in Allison's direction; watching her carefulness, observant. "I mean, I guess it's like... you get used to playing with a guy on the team, know all of their quirks and moves and stuff, and now he's gone."
Suddenly her hand found his, making his posture straighten and a soft sigh to escape from parted brims as rather shocked orbs looked up in his friend's direction. "You know you can talk to me if you need anything, right?" She wondered, and even though Isaac could see the genuine reassurance in her eyes, he could still hear the little jump in her heart; nervousness.
"Yeah, I—thanks." He said, grinning a little more genuinely, completely aware that she didn't want to ask what she had planned. It only made Isaac the more curious. "So... what did you want to ask?" He prompted; not at all surprised when her hand moved away. He watched her frown, gulp and look away.
"Right, um..." Her throat cleared as her frown deepened slightly, eyes flicking from her suddenly laced hands to Isaac's eyes and back down again. "You knew Danny enough, right? I—" Allison's whole demeanour threatened to shift in a confident direction as she cleared her throat again, nodding and sitting a little straighter even as she leaned closer to her friend in order to speak her next words in a lower tone than her usual note. "Did you ever suspect he'd commit suicide?"
Isaac didn't even have to think twice about it; his head immediately shook. "No." It was something he'd heard some of Danny's closest friends discussing in the locker room earlier that day; they'd been angry, saying that the Sheriff hadn't searched for evidence well enough, that it was all completely impossible, that... "No way." Isaac repeated as he'd heard, because he agreed. "I mean, sure, he was quiet most times than not, but there's no way he—he'd do that. No way." His head continued shaking, and he suddenly felt bad; a feeling that evaporated almost as quickly as he'd smelt the change of mood in Allison: from guilty to worried and thoughtful in a matter of seconds. It's what made him remember her other words; as well as the ones he had exchanged with Scott that morning. "Why?" He asked. "What's the theory?"
"Well, Scott didn't think Danny would do something like that either." Allison confided, continuing the low tone of her words whilst moving her own chair a little closer to her curly haired friend. "Before we heard about Stiles, he and I spent most of the day yesterday going through the recent suicide victims, and..." Her head shook, lids blinking a couple of times as if that alone were to make her point clearer. "...well, only two of them suffered from depression. The rest, both adult and teenager alike, they were all happy. Hardworking, many friends, not bullied or anything that would want to make them want to end their lives; their suicides literally came out of nowhere."
At this, Isaac leaned closer; he listened, partly concerned, partly unhappy and partly confused. Almost somewhat guiltily hopeful, due to the fact that maybe Danny had been a victim instead of having been so out of hope to want to end his own life. "But..." He frowned. "Scott and I talked to Miss McCall. She told us the bodies had no sign of a struggle; nothing but the marks of what ended their life."
"Yeah, but there's something else." Allison's eyes fixated on Isaac's as she remained in her position. "Most of the bodies were found a day or two of their deaths, right?" Isaac nodded, encouraging her to go on. "Danny's wasn't." She informed him. "I went over to the hospital yesterday to talk to Melissa myself and she told me that it had only been a few hours since his death when Danny was brought in, and she found something weird she told me she was going to tell Scott about." And she was going to say more, but right as her lips were parting to speak, her phone vibrated on the table. Isaac didn't blame her for so urgently moving to check her notifications. "Oh, thank god." She sighed in relief, a smile that lit up her face for a few moments that adorned her features with a couple of tiny dimples on her cheeks. "Scott's on his way to school." She said. "He says Stiles is okay; just a couple of cuts and bruises, but he'll be discharged tomorrow morning."
"Oh, good." Isaac's head bobbed in a nod; suddenly feeling like all of his worries and concerns were dissipating one by one and bringing brand new ones to light.
Allison was nodding by the time he looked up. "Apparently Stiles is only staying overnight again for observation." She sighed once again. "To think I was so close to him and I didn't know he was even there." Allison's head shook. "I should tell Lydia." And then she was starting to stand up.
"Wait, Allison!" Isaac's whole body shifted in the chair before standing immediately as his hand quickly shoot up to take her arm in order to stop her in her tracks and step closer. "The thing." He said, making her head tilt to the side after looking at his hand on her arm. "You said there was something Miss McCall told you about that she was going to tell Scott." He reminded her. "What is it?" He sounded concerned; of course, he was relieved that his Alpha was finally coming to school, but the manner in which Allison had been talking to him made Isaac think that maybe what was happening around the town was something on their end of the rope, a.k.a. supernatural.
"Right, sorry." Thankfully, Allison nodded and sat down again, regardless of if her fingers moved on her phone in order to send her best friend a quick text; almost completely sure Scott would have already, before looking up at Isaac once again. "I guess I should apologise for his not telling you." She grimaced shortly. "I told Melissa I could stop by and let Scott know, and... well, I did stop by, but... you know."
Isaac simply nodded; regardless of his affection for his friends, he wasn't the most patient of people, and her noisy nightly activities with Scott were the least of his worries. "Yeah, I know." He simply urged. "What is it?" He asked again, leaning closer to her once again in outmost curiosity.
"It's, um..." She frowned, gulping once and blinking her lids repeatedly for a couple of beats before stopping her hues on his blues whilst returning to her initial almost-whispering tone. "She said she found a black gooey substance slowly drying from Danny's ear." Allison finally confided; not at all surprised to see Isaac slightly taken aback by the strange confession.
"Black gooey—" He echoed, blinking a couple of times before frowning as the facts slowly started clicking into place; and even if he'd tried to, he hadn't been able to stop himself from showing as much concern as hope. "Wait, so you're saying you think this is—" A few kids laughed obnoxiously loud behind Isaac, making his head shift in their direction as if he suddenly remembered where they were sitting; so he rolled his eyes, yet when he looked in Allison's direction again, his words left in a tone mirroring to her own whispered utterance. "You think this is our kind of thing?" Almost instantly Allison simply nodded, refusing to take her eyes away from her friend's. "What is it?" He wondered with the same curious tone.
"We don't know yet." She sorrowfully admitted, but as instantly as a small frown had appeared against her forehead it dissipated, changing for the smallest of smiles on her lips and a shrug of her shoulder. "But it's something, right?" She mused. "Maybe we can help stop all of this." It was almost as if she were voicing Isaac's thoughts' which only made him smile with a grin to mirror her own. She was right, and Isaac was going to express as such when her mood shifted in another strange direction; curiosity. And without even another word, the wolf knew that his friend had dropped the subject to possibly be talked over when the whole pack was present. "Hey, um..." She leaned closer, surprising Isaac with a smile so genuine that it dimpled her cheeks wholeheartedly. "...so you seemed to be pretty friendly with the new girl." She teased.
The subject had definitely been dropped. He had to sigh, canting his head shortly so she would see the light roll of his eyes. The leading joke through the pack was that he was the loner; which wasn't entirely false, but... well, he talked! To the pack, sure, but it counted. His lips pressed together, ignoring Allison's amused chuckle as he allowed a sigh to slip from his lips in a puff. "I... kind of plowed her over before first, ran into her in second, where she was ordered to sit with me, and then that skeeze of a literature teacher basically told me that since I was late I had to show her around during third." She informed his friend, happy to see her smiling even if it was at his expanse. So he allowed her to laugh a little as he was reminded of the manner in which he had neglected taking even the first note down. It caused his overly innocent smile. "Soooo..." He started, making her eyes already narrow with recognition. "...after you've endured the Romeo and Juliet lecture in Literature, think you could lend me your notes?"
He wasn't at all oblivious to the concern and sadness around the school, but at least, now, Isaac could attempt to find comfort on the fact that he could maybe fight off and destroy the reason behind his team mate's death.
-O-O-O-O-O-O-
~Many hours later, in Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital~
Click, click, shuffle, shuffle. Stiles Stilinski's eyes flew open the moment he heard those noises. At first he wondered where exactly he was, unable to remember anything whatsoever as his groggy state took over his tired mind completely. See, Stiles was not a light sleeper; it usually took the Sheriff knocking on his door and yelling to make the boy wake up; at least such was the reality before the whole black smoke ordeal.
Oh, right. He thought, remembering it all much faster than the last time he'd woken up alone. The hospital, the accident. He sighed. Click, click, shuffle, shuffle. There it was again, the noise that had so easily awaked him. He remembered his best friend, Scott, having been there with him, and as he looked around, Stiles realized he was curled up in a ball in the hospital sheets nearing a corner of the bed, almost about to fall off; the place where Scott had been was now empty, and, as the boy pressed a hand to the crumpled up sheets, he realized they were cold. Meaning his friend had left a while ago. Click, click, shuffle, shuffle. This time he blamed the noise on the bed as he shuffled on it until he could lay in the middle, carefully, with his unharmed hand as to not pull on the stitches, before allowing his eyes to scan the room.
Stiles Stilinski was many things, and one of them was not stupid. He'd blamed the noises on the bed, but they had been the same as before. Everything was calm, quiet, still. Except, of course, for the rain dripping against the window. Click, click. The window. Stiles nearly allowed a relieved sound to escape from his lips; the clicking sound was the window, it was open, and the wind outside pushed it back and forth in spacious rhythmic motions. Click, click, shuffle, shuffle. He groaned. Okay, so if the clicking is the window, then what the hell is that other sound? He thought, eyes shifting away from it in hopes to find another logical answer like the one the opening had provided.
The thing about that second sound was that it felt eerie, familiar, and strange all in one; and it made the hairs on Stiles' arms raise on end with worry and fear. What was it? His heart started beating a little faster, he could hear it beside his ears; that, and his breathing: it quickened because of it. Click, click, shuffle, shuffle. "Who's there?" He asked, feeling almost stupid for having spoken, but his eyes continued to wonder around the room in search of that other sound as, with his good hand, he pulled his frame into a sitting position, gulping down the fear that suddenly tensed his whole body. Fear; it had become Stiles' latest friend. Or, not friend, really, more like the annoying co-worker one meets with every single day but one can't ignore due to the fact that he's, well, one's co-worker. And he sneaked up all over the boy whenever this feeling was around: the awareness that something wasn't at all right. Click, click, shuffle, shuffle.
And then it hit him.
He'd heard that noise before; a while ago, weeks, probably, and he hadn't thought much about it because at the time he had thought it had been nothing but a nightmare, and then a hallucination. It had all been before it had chased Stiles into his near death on that accident in the Jeep. It was the smoke, letting the boy know that it was around the way it had once done before: by mimicking the sound of the dirt falling on top of his mother's coffin. "I know you're here." The boy said with a shaky tone. Click, click, shuffle, shuffle. He could feel his eyes stinging with the tears he refused to set free. "What do you want?" He asked with his forehead wrinkling with a concerned frown. "Why are you doing this?"
Silence.
Complete, and still silence. Not even the sound of the rain hitting against the window, regardless of if Stiles' eyes shifted to make sure it remained; not even the clicking of which source he had figured out moments prior, no white noise, not any other sort of sound that should be existent in a hospital. It was as if suddenly Stiles had been dropped into a sound-proof bubble; a sound-proof bubble where all he could hear were his shaky frightened breaths and the beat of his heart against his eardrums.
And then he saw it; sneaking down in smoky waves from the closest air vent: the smoke. That horrible, black, dreaded, annoying smoke. It was there for Stiles, and this time the boy was not going to be able to stop it; he wasn't going to be able to run, or even move. The only way out of there was through the window, or the door of the room he had been assigned; but then what? Run like he had done before? Run, and run, until… what? Until he dropped dead from exhaustion? He'd been supposed to be safe, he had been supposed to be resting in the safest place in town, yet… "WHAT DO YOU WANT!?" Stiles yelled in its direction, fear and anger streaking his words. Could anyone hear him? Was the unnatural silence something that affected everyone or just him?
Well, none of it had mattered. The smoke had moved; quick, quicker than ever before, and all the boy had been able to do was scream. And even then, such a sound didn't last long; his voice gurgled and cut with the sound of it forcing itself down Stiles' throat, and he felt it too. It was as if he had decided to take a dive inside a burning home and swallowed, breathed with his mouth until every single spot of smoke was down. The fire of nausea scorched his throat, his stomach, making him wish he could run; move and gag whatever it was that had gone down his throat; but once the smoke had completely gone, swallowed forcefully, and he willed his hands and feet to move, they didn't respond; not to him.
The force with which the smoke had attacked him had made Stiles' body slam against the bed, and moments later, his hands, controlled by some… force that definitely was not the boy's brain, moved in front of his face in a stretched motion, as if he were trying to make sure they properly worked. Stiles could think, he could perfectly well scream, but this time, nothing left his lips. What the hell is going on? He thought, breath shaking only inside his mind. What's happening to me?
That's when a horrible, throaty, devilish low laugh started escaping through his parted lips. "You're mine now, Stilinski." Stiles' voice said, but he hadn't wanted those words to leave his lips. The way his last name had been spoken echoing as if whatever had made his lips move had been testing the name for the first time.
What's going on? Stiles repeated, but, again, nothing left his lips. He was just an echo inside his own mind.
That laugh again; it made him sick. "No one can run from me, boy." It spoke through him. "No one." His voice sounded different too; deeper, rougher. "But you know what?" Stiles' own voice asked him, making the boy's fear overpower his bravery. "I'm going to make you pay for trying."
Stiles wanted to scream, but all that happened was that he was tearing at the walls of his own mind; like a prison. And the thing? The smoke that had taken over him? It just laughed that same throaty laugh. It echoed Victorious, it made the boy's whole body feel as if it were on fire, as if every inch of him scorched with flames he couldn't even move to put out.
In the distance, somewhere near the centre of Beacon Hills, a car with paint as shiny as if it were new was parked by the side of a road; wipers dancing from side to side like a quick-tempo'd metronome to rid the windshield from the rain. The hum of the engine nearly muted as the tempest echoed so loud that it almost became white noise against the pavement, even quieting the murmur of music that tooted at full volume from inside the car.
Music that made the echo of the wail a banshee by the name of Lydia Martin emitted, seem like nothing but a whisper in the middle of the night.
To Be Continued.