"I brought you some water." Stiles said from the doorway, causing me to quickly look over my shoulder at my friend. I watched as his amber colored eyes assessed the situation, taking in my tense form and Scott's extremely pissed off one. So, instead of deciding to ask questions, he lifted up the red bowl with Scott's name written across it with a very smug smile that made me roll my eyes. Stiles then proceeded to hold the bowl in the air and pour the water into it, spilling some on the floor but he was too proud to care. Scott didn't say a word, simply staring up at Stiles. Tossing the bottle to the side, he leaned down a placed the bowl in front of Scott, making me take a step back.
As if Stiles knew things we're going to get bad, he grabbed my hand and tugged me towards the door. I turned with him reluctantly and followed him when suddenly water flew in all different directions from behind me. It splashed onto my back and the bowl nearly missed my head. "I'm gonna kill you!" Scott yelled ferociously and Stiles stopped his walk. He forcefully pulled me around to stand outside of the room as I began to remove my now wet hoodie.
"You kissed her, Scott, okay?" Stiles shouted back to the werewolf with the same amount of anger lacing his tone. I tossed my hoodie to the ground and nervously watched the situation, feeling somewhat awkward. I didn't need to be here for this but I was and I planned to keep my mouth shut. Stiles then made his way slowly into the room. "You kissed Lydia. That's, like, the one girl that I ev—and you know, the past three hours, I've been thinking, it's probably just the full moon, you know, he doesn't even know what he's doing, and tomorrow, he'll be totally back to normal. He probably won't even remember what a complete dumbass he's been—a son of a bitch, a freaking unbelievable piece of crap friend."
"She kissed me." Scott then muttered from the floor and this made me take a step farther into his bedroom, a crease in between my brow. I looked passed Stiles and down at Scott, a pit forming in the middle of my stomach just from the three words.
Stiles gawked, his mouth hanging open as he thought over the words. "What?" He squeaked out like a kicked puppy and I swallowed thickly, deciding if I should try and comfort him yet or not.
Scott lifted up more from his fetal position on the floor. Instead of looking angry, he looked cocky. His looks resembled something like Jackson and it made me furious. The corners of his lips turned up slightly in a smirk and he bobbed his eyebrows. "I didn't kiss her. She kissed me." Scott repeated and I inhaled deeply, running my tongue over my lips. I couldn't tell if he was lying or not. I wanted to believe he was lying.
"Scott, cut it out." I warned but it didn't matter to Stiles. He turned on his heel and stormed out of the bedroom, done with Scott's bullshit. I made a move to follow Stiles but stopped when Scott continued on.
"She would've done a lot more, too." He muttered, looking up at me with the smug look as Stiles turned the corner and slammed his back against the wall beside Scott's bedroom door. "You should have seen the way she had her hands all over me. She would have done anything I wanted. ANYTHING!"
"I'm sick of this." I grumbled and then stomped over to his desk. I opened every single drawer, digging through all of his things, looking for one thing in particular.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Scott protested, obviously getting irked by the fact that I was going through his things. I ignored him, too upset to even stop on his account. Finally, in the very bottom drawer, I found a silver roll of duct tape. His scissors were in a cup on the tabletop and I grabbed them, pulling out a long piece of tape. I knew this was pointless but it would make me feel better. I knelt down in front of him and held up the piece of tape. "I'm just gonna take it off."
"You probably will." I breathed out, bobbing my eyebrows. "But I just need to do it to make me feel better."
I slammed down the piece of tape on his mouth, somehow managing to carry enough strength to send him reeling backwards. I smoothed it out but for some reason, he didn't make a move to take off the duct tape. I watched with curiosity and he simply stared me in the eyes and I could almost see the smirk through the tape. Before he could do anything else, I got up from the floor and then walked out of the room, looking for Stiles once I did. I looked to my right and saw that he had slid down the wall and was sitting on the floor. With a deep breath, I moved to the wall opposite of him and mimicked his position.
"Hey," I murmured softly once Stiles made eye contact with me.
"Hey," He repeated back in greeting but his tone was more damaged than mine.
I exhaled and then chewed on the inside of my cheek. "I would say the cliché thing like "don't listen to him" or, my favorite "it's just the full moon" but…I know it won't help." I admitted, shrugging my shoulders. "So, I've decided to make a change in subject. Reminder, on any other occasion, I would make some sarcastic comment about opening up to you about my personal life but tonight is different. You need a distraction and I am here to provide as much."
Stiles, to my surprise, exhaled sharply and a small smile pulled at his lips. "Do I really wanna know this?"
I lampooned hurt, gasping and placing a hand over my chest. "That hurts my heart. I deprive you of knowledge about my personal life beyond sarcasm and werewolves and you act so ungrateful."
Stiles rose up an eyebrow, as if he wanted to argue, but then decided against it. He rolled his eyes and sighed, shaking his head. "Fine, go ahead. I wanna know."
"Please, please, there's plenty of time, no need to rush me." I chuckled cockily, placing my hands up in the air and crossing my legs beneath me. I flipped some brown locks out of my face and then peered up at Stiles. "So, when I was probably ten or eleven, my dad decided that I should join the swim team. I didn't really get a choice in the matter, honestly. He just came to me and was like "hey, you're first swim practice is Monday" and I was like, okay what the hell. So, I went and as it turns out, I ended up liking it. I proceeded to swim throughout middle school and then my freshmen year. I joined the track team in eighth grade and ran last year and I'm probably going to do it here because, why not? But, I always felt really guilty for playing sports because I felt that I was just draining money out of my parents' pockets considering they paid for Andre to do some sports and go to college. It was weird, though. It was like…we never ran out of money. Our balance would run low and then suddenly, it'd spike back up and we'd have a couple thousand dollars back into our account."
Expectantly, a confused expression crossed Stiles's face. "What? Were your parent's secret drug dealers or something?"
I snorted and then rolled my eyes, picking at a string on my jeans. "I'd actually prefer that instead of being in the dark and wondering how that happened."
"Maybe you got a loan from some family members." Stiles suggested but I shook my head, pressing my tongue to my cheek.
"No, the thing about that…I constantly heard my mother talk about how much shit her sisters and her parents talked about us—me in general. I didn't get it at first but as I got older, I started to realize that no one along our family lines liked me." I explained, swallowing thickly. "I tried not to let it bother me but that's just confusing too like, why wouldn't they like me? I'm their granddaughter, niece, cousin—what did I ever do so wrong to them?"
"It doesn't sound like anything." Stiles admitted, shrugging a shoulder and I was glad that I'd finally gotten his mind off of things.
"And just to make it even weirder, I've asked my mom to see pictures like when I was born in stuff because Andre has a whole folder dedicated to pictures of her as a baby including pictures from the hospital." I continued on. "But my mom always said that she was tired or they were piled under lots of things. So, I took it upon myself to look through all of the photo albums and folders in our house but I did not find a single picture of me.
"It's weird saying it out loud, now that I think about it. Of course, it never occurred to me that maybe something was wrong here."
"Tessa, you don't have to talk about this anymore." Stiles muttered, shaking his head. "I—I got enough."
"No, Stiles, don't you understand? Something is seriously not right here."
"Stiles, will you please let me out?"
Our conversation cut short when a voice emitted from Scott's bedroom. Instead of the smug, low voice I was used to, Scott sounded pained and somewhat emotional. It caught me by surprise but Stiles barely flinched. "It's the full moon, I swear." Scott begged from inside and he was panting. "You know I wouldn't do any of this on purpose." There was a beat of silence where I could hear the cuffs jingling against the radiator. "Please, Stiles let me out." Scott's voice was condescending and he was starting to sound more like had at the lacrosse fields. "It's starting to hurt. It's not like the first time. It's the full moon. It's Allison…breaking up with me. I know…that it's not just taking a break. She broke up with me." I could see a saddened look on Stiles's face and I was even starting to feel more pity for Scott. "And it's killing me. I feel completely hopeless. Just, please, let me out."
Stiles didn't move but I could see him debate with himself. As if asking me for my opinion, I slowly shook my head. "I can't." Stiles muttered but he knew Scott would be able to hear him.
Then, there was what sounded like a distant howl and I kept my gaze locked on the wall in front of me. "No, no, no," I could hear Scott whispered. "No, no, no!" He was struggling and the sound of metal colliding with metal filled the quiet house and Scott groaned with agony.
Making me jump with a surprise, a loud yell of distress echoed throughout the house. I clamped my hands over my ears, shuffling away from his bedroom door, my heart beating wildly. Stiles copied my actions, shutting his eyes and taking a deep breath. In an attempt to be somewhat helpful, I shuffled to sit beside Stiles. I took one of his hands off of his ears and held it in mine. I then proceeded to lace or fingers and he didn't fight me on it. Instead, he gave me a squeeze and kept his eyes shut as Scott's shouts assaulted our ear drums. Slowly, the screams were beginning to mix with what sounded like growls and it put me on edge. As the growls got more intense, Stiles's grip on my hand tightened but then suddenly, as fast as the screams had started, they abruptly ended. Knowing this wasn't normal, I exchanged a worried look with Stiles.
"Scott, are you okay?" Stiles called to his best friend but there was no answer. I instantly climbed to my feet, almost falling over my sneakers and hurried towards the bedroom door.
"Scott?" I called out and then turned the knob, shoving open the door. What I was met with was a sight that made my entire stomach drop to the floor and pool around my feet like a disgusting puddle. On the floor, beside the heater, were the handcuffs. Surrounding the handcuffs were small splotches of blood and my eyes went upwards to look through the open window. I sprinted forward and stuck half of my body out the window, looking around frantically. "No, no, no," I muttered, pushing myself back inside and placing my hands on the side of my head. "Oh my, God!"
"Okay, Tessa, we need to relax." Stiles said, coming to put his hands on my shoulders but I could barely meet his gaze. "Tessa, look at me. We need to go, right now or else things are going to get a lot worse."
I nodded, trying to take deep breaths. Stiles turned and then began to run out of the house, me following closely behind him. We tumbled down the stairs and then sprinted out the front door, racing towards the Jeep. I flung myself into the passenger side and Stiles ran around to the driver side. He climbed in and started the engine, his foot slamming down onto the gas pedal. With a loud squeal of the tires, we sped out of the neighborhood.
"Stiles, how do we know where to look?" I asked nervously, one hand placed on the ceiling as the arrow on the speedometer gradually rose up to illegal numbers.
"Uh, well, uh, we don't." Stiles stammered, his free leg shaking with the familiar jitter but panic flaked his tone and I didn't blame him.
"This—this isn't what I wanted to happen!" I shouted over the sound of the engine revving to maximum speed. "We—we don't know where he is. He could have killed someone already!"
"Tessa, he's been gone for like five minutes. You freaking out and making me freak out even more isn't going to help us whatsoever." Stiles pointed out, shaking his head wildly and turning random corners. Luckily, it was late enough at night that there weren't police officers out or other cars in the road. Stiles nervously tapped his thumb on the steering wheel, his tongue pressed to the inside of his cheek while his eyes constantly checked the rearview mirror.
After a few minutes of silent, worried driving, lights began to cut through the darkness violently. As we neared the lights, I realized that they were colored—red, white, and blue. With a terrified gasp, I lurched forward in my seat and I placed my palms flat on the dashboard as Stiles slowed down. We were nearing the Beacon Hills Preserve but it wasn't just wildlife we found. There were three or four sheriff vehicles flashing their lights and an ambulance with the doors opened in the back was parked in the middle of it all. Officers in dark green jackets occupied the preserve and I tried not to let the hopeless feeling of anxiety take over my entire being. Stiles pulled into the preserve pulling off to the side while muttering words I couldn't make out and officers turned to look in our direction but I could honestly care less at the moment. As Stiles got out of the Jeep first, I saw a gurney being wheeled towards the ambulance with a body covered by a white sheet on top. Without waiting for Stiles to open my door, I stumbled out, my eyes not daring to leave the scene and I clamped a hand over my mouth when I realized it was a dead body. Stiles came to stand by my side, grabbing my free hand and tugging me.
"Dad?" Stiles called out but there wasn't a single answer. I removed my hand from Stiles's and ran by his side as he turned another officer around. "Has anyone seen my-?" He was cut off by a hand placed on his shoulder.
"Mr. Stilinski?" I called out, breaking away from Stiles and frantically searching through the crowd of deputies. "Hello, where is he?" I called out with more urgency in my voice and a familiar feeling of dread filling me to the brim.
I waited for Stiles to call out again but when I looked over my shoulder, I saw that he was looking at the body. The hand was hanging out from underneath the sheet and it was charred, burned to a freaking crisp. Realization hit me like a truck and I felt like I suddenly couldn't breathe. Then, a voice broke through the hair.
"Stiles? Tessa?" I looked passed Stiles and saw the face we'd been looking for. Without a breath of relief, I hurried forward, pushing through deputies and watched as Stiles turned around with the same look of relief and instantly pulled his dad into a hug. They embraced each other and then broke away, letting me have my turn. Mr. Stilinski pulled me into a hug and I held onto him tightly, glad that he wasn't that body.
"I'm so glad you're okay." I whispered, shutting my eyes and relaxing into the man's touch. Soon, I pulled away and he looked between us curiously.
"What are you two doing here?" He asked but he didn't sound upset. He sounded more concerned and confused which was better than pissed off.
"We—we were coming back from a movie." I lied easily, glancing at Stiles who nodded in agreement. "And we saw this and—and we got worried."
"Isn't this the third crime scene you've shown up to?" Mr. Stilinski asked, cocking up an eyebrow and I grimaced, rubbing the back of my neck.
"Actually, fourth, sir." I corrected, holding up my other hand. "It's—it's really a habit I need to break." I chuckled nervously and Mr. Stilinski bobbed his eyebrows.
"Yeah, uh, what happened here?" Stiles asked, gesturing towards the ambulance and sheriff deputies covering every inch of the preserve. No wonder we hadn't seen any other cars on the road. They were all here.
"Stiles, you need to go home."
But we couldn't. We hadn't found Scott and we had no idea where he was. To Mr. Stilinski, it looked like another one of our antics but there were a million things on our plate at the moment. In a sense, Mr. Stilinski was right. We needed to leave. We were losing time on Scott and hopefully he hadn't decided to kill anyone yet unless the crime scene that we were standing at was his doing but it didn't make sense. Scott wouldn't burn the bodies, he'd just maul them to death and as creepy as it was thinking about it, it was true. I hoped Stiles knew that too and didn't plan on being here any longer. I hoped he'd just agree with his father so we could get back on the road and continue our wild goose chase for Scott because that's what it was. We were blindly running around look for a hormonal teenager that now had murderous tendencies.
"But Dad…"
"Stiles go."
"Ugh, fine." Stiles finally agreed with a childish groan, throwing his hand back and waving his arms. Nonetheless, he ushered me towards the car, placing his hand on the small of my back and I shoved him off, giving him an irritated look that he'd even tried to stay here. I tromped over to my side of the Jeep and climbed inside, buckling in as Stiles backed out of the preserve.
"Okay, showing up here was good. It means that Scott hasn't come here and as far as we're concerned, he hasn't killed anyone." I thought aloud, nodding my head along with my words as we drove back towards town.
"Yeah but that means someone else decided to have a barbeque and the main course were people." Stiles grimly stated and I shot him a distasteful look. "What?"
"That's disgusting and extremely cryptic like now is not the time." I stated firmly, holding out my hand as if I were going physically stop him. "Besides, who else has been killing people in this town?"
"The alpha." Stiles breathed out but then paused. "It doesn't make sense. Every time the alpha killed someone, it slashed their throats or—or mauled them. It never burned them alive."
"Does that mean we have another killer in town?" I asked but it seemed oddly illogical. As if Stiles was thinking the same thing, he shook his head. "Oh this is great."
"We'll figure it out later. We just need to find Scott."
The words finished leaving Stiles's lips and my phone instantly started ringing. It made the both of us jump and I scrambled to pull it out of my back pocket. When I flipped it over, I saw that it was a number I'd never seen before. I shot Stiles a confused look before answering.
"Hello?" I answered nervously, swallowing thickly and not missing the way Stiles tried to constantly keep his worried eyes on me.
"Tessa," the gruff voice was familiar and it made my eyes widen with both fear and panic. I couldn't let Stiles know that I was on the phone with Derek. He'd lose his mind or worse, call his father.
"Uh, why are you calling me?" I asked bluntly, trying not to let on to Stiles that it was Derek but Stiles was raising his eyebrows expectantly, as if wondering why I wasn't telling him who was calling.
"I found Scott." Derek answered and my breath caught in my throat. "I need you and Stiles to get down here now."
"Where are you?" I ordered, instead of being panicked, becoming serious.
"I'm at some archery shop." Derek answered in the same sort of calm and annoyed tone he always used. "He was coming after Allison and I stopped him."
"Well why didn't we think of that?" I muttered and shook my head. "We'll be there in a second. Stay out of sight and keep him safe."
I hung up the phone and shoved it into the front pocket of my pants seeing as I didn't have my hoodie anymore.
"Who was that?" Stiles asked and I almost debated not even answering but there was no point in that. He was already going to meet Derek there anyways.
"That was…Derek." I replied quietly and I'd never seen Stiles's eyes get to big in my entire life. There were a few seconds of silence where the boy digested the information.
"WHAT!" He shouted and the Jeep literally swerved as he yelled out angrily. I held onto the ceiling, swinging my legs awkwardly as Stiles straightened out the car. "What do you mean, that was Derek? You can just say that."
"I mean Derek is alive and Derek called me. He found Scott and he wants us to meet us at that literally archery shop next to the mall." I explained, trying to remain calm and not screaming at Stiles.
"H—wha—since when is Derek alive? Last I checked, werewolves couldn't rise from the dead." Stiles gaped and I rolled my eyes, relaxing in my seat.
"They can heal, dumbass." I pointed out and Stiles glared at me menacingly.
"He got claws shoved through his chest. How do healing powers take care of that, hm?" Stiles challenged raising his eyebrows.
"The claws missed his heart. Alpha wounds take longer to heal and can keep a beta like Derek down for a couple of hours—days even. So, he healed and he's alive." I further explained, giving Stiles a pointed look like he should know this already.
"Why are you not surprised by this? You should be crying with joy since you seem to like Derek so much." Stiles muttered, looking away from me and back at the road. I smacked my lips together.
"Okay, I like Derek just about as much as you do I just know proper etiquette, alright?" I argued, frowning and then I drew out a long breath. "And I'm not that surprised because…I already kind of knew he was…alive." I saw Stiles tense up and I lunged forward. "Before you decide to yell, can we not swerve the Jeep again? I'd like to make it to our friend in these jeans, not a body bag."
"How the hell did you already know he was alive?" Stiles asked but his tone was low and it sounded like he was trying to keep from screaming. I decided to quit lying to him and then rubbed my forehead with my first.
"He came to my house last night. He didn't have anywhere to go and he doesn't trust you two idiots to not turn him into the police." I bit out, glaring at the side of Stiles's head. "And if you wanna get mad at me, just remember that I wasn't the one who lied about the only person who was going to help us being a murderer."
"You—I—he—ugh!" Stiles threw one of his hands up in frustration before blowing out a long breath and then side-glancing me. "I guess I won't be mad at you."
"Shut up." I grumbled and then rolled eyes, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning against the window. "Just drive, Stiles."
He did as he was told and soon we were pulling into the parking lot of the archery store. What I found was not Derek or Scott but glowing eyes in the forest behind the place. I got out of the Jeep and then hurried over to the trees, finding Scott lying on the ground while Derek loomed over him. Stiles followed hurriedly behind me, somehow stay quiet and I stared down at Scott before looking at Derek.
"He's fine." Derek informed me before I got a chance to say anything.
"What happened? Why the hell did he go after Allison?" I demanded, Scott pushing himself up by his arms to look up at Stiles and I.
"I'm drawn to her." Scott answered his voice low and defeated. "I—I love her and when I turn, she's all I can think about."
"What so when you shift into a werewolf your heart gets sappy and look for her even though you know you're broken up?" I clarified, raising my eyebrows and Scott shrugged sheepishly in response. "Okay, well, what exactly happened?"
"I—I started seeing things." Scott muttered, looking away from me and down at the ground. "It looked like Allison and Jackson were—were making out in her car. So, I got on top and I almost killed them."
"Okay, wait, what?" Stiles stammered, skidding to a stop beside me and looking down at his best friend. "You tried to kill Allison and Jackson."
"Mostly Jackson." Scott murmured and I could hear a hint of guilt in his tone.
"It's the alpha." I said, shaking my head. "This—this is what it wants to happen. It wants you to kill them. It wants you to see things. And it's using Allison to it. It draws you to her and then you kill anyone in sight which just happens to be your friends."
"Since when did you become so knowledgeable in alpha werewolf killer tactics?" Stiles scoffed, shooting me a small glare and I rolled my eyes.
"It's called common sense, moron. Seriously, use your brain." I said shaking my head and then looking back at Derek. "What the hell made you Superman?"
Derek narrowed his eyes but didn't retort. "He was going to kill them."
"That didn't seem to matter last night." I said and I heard Scott make a noise of protest but Stiles shook his head, silently saying he'd tell him later. "You were willing to let us do this on our own but you decide to show up out of the blue." I slowly descended on Derek who didn't even blink. "We were doing just fine without you!"
"Really?" Derek scoffed, raising his eyebrows. "That's why Scott almost killed your best friend tonight?"
"We were looking for him." I argued but it was weak.
"And you weren't fast enough." Derek barked back and this made me blink, stopping my decent on him. "Face it, Tessa. You tried to do this by yourself but you can't. You can't always to things on your own."
"But I can damn well try. Besides, who else am I supposed to ask for help? You want me to walk up to the alpha and ask him a few survey questions to see if he's fit for the job?" I nodded my head along with my words. "Derek, you are the only help and he tried to give up on us—Scott. So don't give me the lecture about how I can't do this by myself because I don't have any other choice."
Derek and I had a stare off but his was more stable than mine. I felt like crying and screaming at the same time but I kept myself together. How embarrassing would that be? That'd really make me look pathetic then. That would make me look like some emotionally unstable girl who couldn't handle one full moon.
"I'm sorry."
The words sounded so foreign, they slurred together for a moment. My ears adjusted and then my brain caught up, repeating the two words in my head. I blinked, my lips parting slightly in shock before swallowing and then nodded.
"What the hell-?" I swung my hand back, expertly slapping Stiles in the stomach. He gasped and then doubled over, clutching onto his abdomen. I didn't take my eyes off of Derek before letting a relieved smile fall on my lips.
AN: This is all extremely confusing I know but I'm going to explain for those who actually read these. The last bit was all added on me, aside from the crime scene, and this chapter is shorter than usual. There is an AT&T Web series called: Search For A Cure and it's a short series that could qualify as a chapter. That series takes place an entirely different day before Episode 9 and it wouldn't make sense to put it in this chapter because it defienently needs its own. So, that's why this chapter is shorter and has the randomness added to the end.
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