Chapter 19: Werecoyotes Can't Read
"Remind me again why we're breaking into some guy's house?" I said as I tripped in the doorway we were currently walking through. I would have fallen and hit the floor with enough ruckus to ruin the whole operation had Scott and his reflexes not caught me in time.
"We're here to help my dad. It's the least we could do," Stiles whispered, tip toeing over to a bed with stuffed animals on it. We had undoubtedly come into Malia's room, and now Stiles was throwing animal after animal at Scott. Scott took each of them and shoved them in his face, inhaling deeply. I started looking around the room, when my eyes landed on the doorway into the rest of the house and I froze.
"All I'm getting is some kind of animal smell," Scott said.
"What kind of animal smell?" Stiles asked, rushing over to her dresser to see if there was anything else he could give to Scott.
"Rottweiler maybe?" I asked in a quiet and shaky voice. I could hear the two boys turn to me, and we all looked at the Rottweiler staring back at us from the doorway.
"Hi, puppy!" Stiles said quietly then added, "Get rid of it."
"Me?" Scott asked disbelievingly.
Unmoving, Stiles said, "Yes you. Glow your eyes at it or something. Be the alpha."
"I can't," I heard Scott say, and I shut my eyes. "I don't have control."
"Now would be a fantastic time to learn some, Scott. Just throwing that out there," I hissed.
"Okay buddy, well you are just gonna have to try something."
I saw Scott lean forward in front of me with his hands out, slowly saying, "Nice doggie."
Stiles and I collectively sighed, and the dog started barking.
I scoot back to the boys, and we all started panicking.
"Apollo!" We heard from down the hall, but the pup kept barking.
"Apollo, shut the hell up! Shut up!"
With that, Apollo stopped barking. He paused for a moment before turning around and leaving us alone.
We all let out a sigh of relief, and it was quiet for a moment.
"That was close," Scott said.
"I want one," I mused. I looked over to see both the boys staring at me strangely.
"What? I want a puppy. I've never had one before."
Stiles waved his hand and went back over to the dresser, still looking for clues. He handed a book up to Scott to smell, but Scott didn't even bother bringing to his face.
"Anything?" Stiles asked.
Scott shook his head, "All I'm getting is that dog," he said defeatedly. Stiles sighed, before looking back one last time. His eye was stuck on a picture of Malia with her little sister, and he snapped a picture of it with his phone. He then ushered us out of the house, and we made the walk back to his jeep down the street.
We met up with the sheriff not even ten minutes later. He had a forlorn look on his face, and immediately I felt bad that we couldn't find anything for him.
"I'm sorry," Scott started, "I tried as hard as I could. I mean if it wasn't so long ago, I might have been able to do it."
Stilinski sighed, "It's okay, it was a long shot. In fact it was a pretty terrible idea. I think I just ripped a wound open in that poor man. I never should have brought you guys here, I don't know what I was thinking." He opened the door to his police issued SUV. "Thanks for trying, alright? See you at home."
We watched the car drive off down the road. Stiles was looking pretty beat down, and Scott tried to make him feel better.
"Aren't there a lot of cases that go unsolved?" He asked.
Stiles shoved his hands into his pockets. "Yeah I just think that this is one he felt like he could have figured out right now."
"Why's it so important now?" I asked Stiles.
"Well he wants to be able to solve one more while he's still Sheriff," My eyes widened at his response.
"He's quitting his job?"
"God, no. He couldn't quit that job, June."
"Then what do you mean, 'still sheriff?'" Scott asked him.
Stiles told him how Agent McCall was in town to launch an investigation and a possible impeachment of Sheriff Stilinski. All the while, Scott's anger was just barely simmering under the surface.
"Well this is years of drama that I was not around for," I said awkwardly to myself.
I was well aware that it was well past any normal person's bedtime, but for some reason I could not sleep. All the events that happened today made me want to punch a wall or two. It was frustrating to not have any ability to help my friends with the predicament they were in.
I was a witch for God's sake, why couldn't I? It wasn't fair to them, I put them in that situation, and I couldn't accept that now I had to sit there and watch them endure the aftermath. I got up out of the warm recesses of my sheets, and turned on the lamp at my bedside table. I grabbed the eraser for my chalkboard and a couple pieces of fresh chalk. I cleared away anything and everything that had been written down on the wall before, and I started categorizing my abilities.
Pink was for the elements and what that entailed, yellow was for spell casting, green was for the empath ability, and purple was for the telekinesis. I put them in four separate corners on my wall and in the middle, I put 'Sight/Dream Entering' in red. I had no clue what that ability would turn itself into, so I used red to mark it as uncertain. I began listing all of what I could do in each category and with a blue piece of chalk, I started circling things that might help. Blue because - well - it was pretty.
So far I had about three things circled out of the twenty five or so things listed. I put potion crafting under spell casting, and circled that. Next to it, I wrote 'sleeping drought' for Stiles. Under the empathy category, I wrote in blue 'Send calming vibes to those possibly hallucinating.' Lastly, under the red category, I wrote 'Try to visit Stiles in dream maybe.'
I stepped back from my work, looking it over and over again. I was on my fourth time rereading it when I heard someone at my door.
"Knock knock," I heard Scott say as he opened my door.
"I love it when people say 'knock knock' when they've already knocked and come in," I spoke, not looking away from my wall.
"What's all this?" I heard Stiles, and I turned around to face the two boys.
"I'm just going through what I know about my magic to see if there's anything I can do to help you guys."
Stiles sighed, "June, for the last time, it's not your fault."
"I know," I nodded, "But that doesn't mean I can't try to help you guys. Now your turn. What are you two doing here at-" I glanced over to my alarm clock, "One in the morning?"
"We wanted your help." Scott said.
"With what?"
"Finding a body. A dead body." My eyes widened.
"Malia's body?" I asked, and they both nodded.
"Okay, just let me put on pants or something." As if it suddenly clicked that they were in fact teenage boys, both pairs of eyes dropped down to my bare legs.
"Guys?" I asked. Scott looked up at me, but Stiles seemed to be having trouble.
"Y - yeah?" Scott asked me, and I shook my head.
"Now would be the time where you give me the privacy I need so I can change my clothes."
I was given flashlight duty. Despite the Stanford crewneck and jeans I had thrown on, I was still shivering slightly. Although it did help that we were walking at a relatively brisk pace. Scott was holding out his phone with a map leading us to where we needed to go.
"You know if my dad's right about this, then there's another werewolf in town that we haven't met yet." Stiles mentioned.
"I know," Scott said, still leading us down the dark trail.
"If it turns out to be something like triplets, that form into like a three headed hound of hell I am seriously not up for that," I laughed at Stiles' remark.
"Your mind would go there," I snickered.
"Me either," Scott agreed with Stiles, "Especially since I can't control my own transformation anymore."
"But you will, Scott don't worry," I tried to cheer him up. We got to a steep hill, when all of the sudden we heard a coyote out in the distance. Stiles, being the ever-jumpy person as he always is, grabbed onto Scott in fear. He also successfully managed to knock the phone out of Scott's hand and send it tumbling down the hill into a puddle. There was a small pause, and then Scott looked back at Stiles with a look reading 'seriously?'"
"Sorry, buddy," Stiles said. "I hate coyotes, so much. They always sound like they're mauling some helpless tiny little animal." Scott jumped down the hill, and Stiles and I stumbled our way to the bottom. Stiles had recovered himself at the bottom, but unfortunately I had not. I practically rammed him with my shoulder, effectively knocking him to the ground. I was left standing, fortunately.
I extended my hand, "Sorry, Stiles." He took it and I hoisted him up. Scott grabbed his phone from the puddle and wiped the water away. He then showed us the still operating screen.
"Still works," He said happily.
"June, can I see the flashlight?" Stiles said, before taking the torch right out of my hands. He pointed it over to a place that was only a small distance away, and lead the group over. "I think we found it."
There was the car, dead leaves sitting on the underbelly of the now upside down vehicle. I could slightly make out the rust that had overcome the sides of the car, and the tires were no longer there, just rims.
"Why wouldn't they move it?" Scott asked, "Isn't it evidence?"
Probably too much of a pain in the ass to tow out," Stiles remarked, looking through the windows to see if anything was there. He stopped when the flashlight landed on long scratch marks.
"Look at this," He stated, getting closer to the car. "See those?"
Scott ran his hand along the scratches, almost fitting them perfectly.
"Coyote claws would be closer together," I stated, "A lot closer together."
"Then it was a werewolf," Scott concluded.
"So my dad was right," Stiles said, giving a small smile before crouching down to the windows of the car. He started peering through the windows with the flashlight before Scott pointed out what looked to be a very small hand.
Stiles reached into the car and stretched his hand towards whatever it was. He pulled out what was now undeniably a child's baby doll. We all stood up, me behind the two boys and we stared at the doll. Just to be extra creepy, the doll was dirty and it's limbs were all in disarray.
Suddenly, the doll spoke out, "I'm hungry."
Stiles and I screamed, and he jumped back into me, effectively knocking me down to the ground. He whirled around, and looked down at me, "Ah, June. I'm so sorry."
"Call it even," I grunted, and pushed myself back up to my feet.
"I think I just had a minor heart attack," Stiles said slightly out of breath. Just then we all heard a fairly distinct growling in the distance.
"Hey, Stiles," Scott reached out to him, beckoning him to come closer. "Please tell me you see that."
I walked over to where Scott was standing, and saw in the dark a pair of glowing eyes.
"Tapetum lucidum," I mentioned. Suddenly the animal ran off, Scott on its tail. Which left Stiles and I alone, in the dark, in the middle of the woods.
"Well, this just got better," I said sarcastically.
Stiles asked me to wait at the coyote den that we found, and he would go look for Scott. I berated him, told him it was a bad idea, but he ignored me and ran off. Now I was sitting outside, alone, waiting for two idiots to come get me. I heard rustling in the leaves and I readied myself for a fight. I settled down when I saw Stiles come back with Scott. He took him straight into the coyote den, and started explaining everything. I stayed outside and kept a lookout.
I overheard the last of their conversation, "If I can't get to Derek, then we're going to need someone else's help."
"This is a crime scene right?" I asked, peeping my head into the den. The boys turned around and looked at me.
"Yeah," Scott said.
"Well no offense to the man who can do everything, but I'm pretty sure this is out of your boss's league," I told him.
"More my dad's," Stiles said, catching on.
The crime scene last night turned into a shit show after Scott's dad turned up with Malia's father. Stiles' dad wasn't ready to believe us when we told him that Malia was in fact trapped in the body of a coyote. Seeing as we didn't have any other options when it comes to saving this girl, we were going to take matters into our own hands.
Before class the next morning, Scott, Stiles, and I turned to the experienced hunter that we knew. Allison peered over the iPad with us, looking at the map of the preserve.
"Here's where we found the den. It's right in the middle of the hiking trails."
"That could narrow it down," Allison nodded, "Coyotes travel on fixed trails. But, I think you're right about her not going back to the den. Coyotes don't like wolves."
"And they're really smart," I added on, "If they don't want to be heard they can actually walk on their toes."
"Coyotes tiptoe?" Stiles asked, and Allison rolled her eyes.
"They tiptoe." The bell rang overhead, and Allison took that as her cue to get to class.
"I gotta go, but send me that pin location."
"Okay." With that, we all sat down for class.
"Alright everyone, let's get started. We were just talking about internment camps and prisoners of war. 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?" Mr. Yukimura asked with a kind smile. When no one raised their hand, he looked over the class.
"Mr. Stilinski, how about you?" I froze in my seat. I wasn't sure if Stiles could read or not still, and when I looked over to his seat my suspicions were confirmed.
"Oh - um - maybe, maybe someone else could," Stiles suggested meekly.
"Everyone participates in my class, Mr. Stilinski."
My hand shot up in the air, "Actually, sir. I would really really like to read this passage." Stiles sent me a thankful glance, and I smiled at him.
"I appreciate the sudden enthusiasm, Miss Child, but maybe save it for next time. Stiles, come on up here." My hand sank down in defeat.
Stiles walked up to the podium and looked over the text. His eyes were going in and out of focus and he gripped the sides of the podium tightly. I tensed in my seat, ready to get up at a moment's notice. His eyes were almost rolling back into his head, and he looked up at the class. I stood up in my seat, and looked over to Scott. He glanced up from something on his desk and froze when he saw Stiles' state.
"Stiles," I asked tentatively, moving closer to him. "Stiles, are you okay?" He almost collapsed forward onto the podium, and Scott and I took that as our signal to move towards him.
I put his arm over my shoulder and slid my hand around his back. I looked over to Mr. Yukimura, "We're going to take him to the nurse," I said, and he nodded quickly.
"Where are we taking him?" Scott asked me when we got outside.
"The bathroom, the bathroom!" I told him. Stiles wriggled out of my grasp and made his way down the hall to where the boy's bathroom was.
He pried the door open and stumbled inside, Scott and I following closely behind him.
"Stiles look at me, man! Is this a panic attack?" Scott tried to get his attention as Stiles walked over to the sinks, gripping on the edges for dear life. His breathing was rapid, and he kept looking in the mirror.
"This is a dream," He muttered. "It's just a dream, this is just a dream!" Scott and I looked at each other, concerned.
"No it's not!" I said. "This is real, you're here! You're here with me, you're here with us!"
When that didn't work, Scott tried something next. "Okay - um - what do you do? I mean like how do you tell that this is - that you're awake or dreaming?"
Stiles motioned with his hand, "Fingers. You - you count your fingers. You have extra fingers in dreams."
Scott held up his hands, "How many do I have?"
When he didn't respond, I gently yelled out, "Hey! Hey, look at us. C'mon Stiles, count with us. How many fingers does Scott have?"
Stiles looked over and began to count each finger that Scott would hold up. Slowly but surely, his breathing grew slower and deeper, and when we reached ten, his panic stopped all together. Stiles slid to the floor, tears welling up in his eyes.
"What the hell is happening to me?" He asked as Scott and I crouched down in front of him.
"We'll figure it out," Scott assured.
"You're gonna be okay," I told him. His eyes snapped to mine.
"Am I?" I was slightly taken aback. Stiles looked over to Scott, "Are you? Scott you can't transform. Allison's being haunted by her dead aunt, and I'm straight up losing my mind. We can't do this. We can't - we can't help Malia. We can't help anyone."
Scott sat down, and looked over to him, "We can try. We can always try."
"Can we try somewhere that is not the boy's bathroom?" The two looked up at me, and I was awarded with small smiles. "I'm serious it is really gross in here."
Apparently when we had doubled back to Mr. Yukimura's classroom for our stuff, someone had already taken it. Scott ran off to see who it could have been, and about twenty minutes later we saw the police walk by with wild animal gear. Stiles and I went to go find the Sheriff to go see what was going on. When we found him, he was quick to fill us in.
"A couple of students said they saw it running across the field and back into the woods. Thank god nobody got hurt."
"What happens if she does hurt someone?" I asked. The sheriff sighed.
"Most likely they'll have to put it down."
"Put her down." Stiles argued. "Dad, try not to forget that there's a girl in there. One that you'll be killing!" When his father said nothing, Stiles went on. "C'mon, you're not back to not believing are you?"
"You know what? I believe that there are a lot of things I don't understand yet. But that doesn't mean that everything and anything imaginable is suddenly possible. Now are you one hundred percent sure that this is a girl and not an animal?"
We both nodded our heads, "Yes." Stiles said without a doubt. "Because Scott's sure." We looked down the hall and saw the boy in question.
I turned away so he couldn't read my lips, "Scott, have you been listening?" When I turned back around I could tell by the sheriff's gaze that Scott had acknowledged me.
"Alright, let's get this figured out."
Stiles and I backtracked to go get our things out of the locker room. While my bag was perfectly in tact, Stiles' bag not so much. It was clawed up considerably.
"Scott, I think I know what she was looking for." Stiles pulled out the doll from the car we found last night. I punched his arm in annoyance, and he looked at me in disbelief.
"Ow, what the hell June-?"
"Why did you take the doll, dumbass?"
"I thought Scott could use it, you know? For like her scent."
"That doll is not yours to take, Stiles. And frankly, it's a little morbid that you have it with you seeing as how the last person to use died in the same car you found it in."
"Where did you get that?" A new voice asked, and I looked over to see Malia's father walking over to us. "Where did you find this?" He ripped the doll out of Stiles' grasp.
"It belonged to my daughter," he said quietly. The sheriff put his hand on my shoulder pushing his way over to Mr. Tate.
"Mr. Tate, 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." He started guiding him back, when Tate froze. The sheriff lifted his jacket to reveal a holstered gun.
"I have a permit," Mr. Tate said angrily.
"California schools are gun free zones," Sheriff Stilinski corrected him. "Permit or no permit. You need to leave, Mr. Tate. Now." He beckoned forward another deputy to help him, when Malia's father shrugged him off. He huffed in frustration and looked the sheriff dead in the eye.
"You find that animal. You find that thing." That said, he stormed off.
"Xylazine," Deaton said, coming into the room with three small bottles. "It's a tranquilizer for horses. For a werecoyote it's expected to work in seconds. But I only have three, so whoever's shooting needs to be a damn good shot."
"Allison's a perfect shot," Scott told him.
"She used to be," Isaac said.
"Hey Negative Nancy, she can do it," I defended.
"If we manage to find the thing."
"Okay what is the point of him?" Stiles pointed an accusing finger at Isaac. "Seriously I mean what is his purpose? Aside from the persistent negativity and the scarf. What's up with the scarf, anyway? It's sixty five degrees out."
"Look, maybe I'm just asking the question that no one here wants to ask: How do we turn a coyote back into a girl, when she hasn't been a girl for eight years?"
"I can do it," Scott said.
"You can?" I asked him.
"You remember the night that Peter trapped us in the school?" Scott looked over to Stiles, who nodded.
"In the gym he was able to make me turn using just his voice. Deucalion did the same thing in the distillery."
"So because you're an alpha now, you're going to do the same thing?" Scott nodded at me.
"This is a werecoyote, Scott," Deaton argued. "Who knows if it'll even work if you can even find someone to teach you?"
"That's why you called Derek first," Stiles figured.
"I can try it on my own, but right now I am too scared to even change into just a werewolf."
"We need a real alpha," Stiles said, and Scott looked over at him slightly offended. "You know what I mean, an alpha who can do alpha things, you know? An alpha who can get it going, who can get it-"
"Up?" I said, and Stiles gestured to me.
"Great, I'm an alpha with performance issues." Scott sighed.
"And this just became uncomfortably sexual," I said. "So there's gotta be someone else besides Derek who can help us."
"I wouldn't trust Peter," Isaac said.
"Maybe the twins?" Stiles suggested.
"They're not alphas anymore." Deaton explained. "After what Jennifer did, after almost killing them? It broke that part of them."
"Alright, but what if they know how to do it?" I said. "You don't just unlearn that alpha stuff as soon as you lose your status."
"Nobody's seen them for weeks," Scott said.
"Well actually that's not totally true," Everybody in the room looked to Stiles.
The next afternoon, I was seated in the passenger's seat of Stiles' jeep. We told Lydia to go find and get help from the Sheriff while we tried to stop Malia from hurting herself in the woods. We had figured it was only a matter of time before Tate decided to try and take this matter into his own hands.
"So are we not going to talk about how colossal of a disaster last night was?" I mentioned, referring to how the twins handled the task.
"What you mean Scott and the twins?"
"I mean Scott getting the ever living shit literally beaten out of him. Violently. By trigger happy werewolves."
"Yeah it didn't go over so well."
"But what's worse is that Scott didn't give in. He didn't learn to control it, so we're just going to go in blind?"
"Not totally, we have a plan."
"Stiles," I argued, "The plan is to tranquilize a werecoyote. Then what do we do? Do we just keep her in someone's basement continually doped up until Scott fixes his performance issues?"
Stiles parked the jeep as we arrived to the preserve, "Okay, I see what you mean by uncomfortably sexual."
We hopped out and made our way over to Scott, Allison, and Isaac. "Does anyone else think we might be doing more harm than good?" I asked my friends.
"We're trying to keep a father from killing his own daughter," Scott reasoned.
"Actually we're trying to keep a guy from killing a coyote, who's actually his daughter, who we don't know how to change back from a coyote back to his daughter," Isaac corrected.
Stiles spread his arms, "And again, with the not helping."
Scott shut his eyes in annoyance, and then looked over to Allison. "Did you bring it?" She nodded and pulled out the tranquilizer gun from the trunk of her car. We were about to go over the plan once more when Scott and Isaac simultaneously turned around. Figuring they must have heard something, I asked them what it was.
"A gunshot," Scott said. This jolted him into action, and he hopped back onto his bike and sped off into the preserve. Isaac took off running not too far behind, and Allison trailed after him.
Stiles called his dad, and I texted Lydia to see if there was any progress whatsoever.
"It took the doll again, what the hell is so important about this doll?" He started listening to his dad, when a look of realization crossed his face. "It's the doll." He concluded before hanging up.
"It's the doll?" Stiles repeated a little disbelievingly.
"Great, Stiles. Wanna clue me in?" He ignored me and squatted on the ground to think. I started pacing.
"Alright but why would she go all the way to the school and all the way back to the house just for a doll? One that was in the car wreck in the first place, not in the coyote den."
"Maybe Malia secretly still loves playing with dolls. I don't know, Stiles! She just likes it."
"Yeah, she likes the doll a lot."
"Well what kind of doll is it again?"
"A Cabbage Patch Kid, June. I don't actually know. It's a doll, it's got little arms, a big baby head, dead soulless eyes... you remember, you were there."
"I was behind you, both times you showed it to me. I didn't really get a clear look at it."
"Actually," Stiles started digging his phone out, "I took a picture of it, here." He showed me the picture that I remember being on Malia's nightstand. Looking closer, I squinted.
"That's Malia, right?" I pointed to the girl in the blue coat.
"Yeah, that's the jacket and the scarf we found in the den."
"But Stiles," I said, "Malia's not holding the doll in this picture."
"That's Malia's younger sister. So it was her doll..." Stiles looked up at me in realization.
"What is it?"
"I know what she's doing. I know where she's going."
Stiles started walking a little farther down the trail. He was currently on his phone trying to call Scott and tell him what he apparently knew. My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out to see a text from Lydia.
Just got off the phone with the Sheriff. He told me that Tate's out in the woods with a rifle and there are tons of hidden traps all around the preserve. Be careful.
Hidden traps? Like what-?
Before I could even finish typing the sentence, I stepped on something and heard a terrifying click. I froze and slowly looked down at my shoe, only to see it in the middle of what I now knew to be a bear trap.
"It's like bringing flowers to a grave, okay? And we stole the flowers. So that's all she's trying to do, alright bring the doll back to the grave. The car wreck, that's where she's headed. The car wreck."
"Stiles?" I shakily called out to him, interrupting the message. Stiles hung up the phone and turned to me.
"Yeah?" He tensed when he saw my pale complexion and followed my gaze down to my foot that was about to be stuck in a trap.
"Stiles!" I repeated when the trap sprang up ever so slightly.
"June, don't move."
"Oh my god, brilliant advice, Stilinski," I said quickly. "Got anything else?"
"I don't know what to do. Can't you just magically move the trap down."
"Stiles, I'm having trouble breathing much less concentrating on my magic. I can't focus what - what do I do? Oh my god, oh my god," My hands were trembling and my breath was sweat was dotting my forehead. "Look - look for a warning label or something." I told him, trying to busy my mind.
"A warning label?"
"Instructions on how to disarm it."
"June, why the hell would they put instructions on the bottom of a trap?" Stiles was shaking as well, but I was past caring.
"Jesus, Stiles because animals are incapable of reading!" Several tears fell down my face, and I was too scared to move to even wipe them away.
Stiles noticed my tears and nodded at me. He slowly got down on the ground and looked over the trap for a label. His head cocked to the side and he got closer to what I'm guessing was the instructions. His breath started picking up again and he looked up at me.
"June, we've got a problem," I let out a squeak, and asked, "What?"
Stiles looked up at me, "I can't read either."
"Of course. God, I'm sorry. Totally forgot you can't."
"Why the hell are you sorry, you're the one with a leg on a bear trap!"
"Thank you for reminding me!" My legs were shaking horribly from being locked in the same position. I tried to think, tried to rationalize with something.
"Fuck it, Stiles. Don't read them."
"Are you crazy?"
"No, I'm June," I winced, "Now is so not the time for a dad joke. Look, Stiles. I just mean when is the last time you have ever used instructions, am I right?" He kept looking up at me. "You don't need them because you are way too smart to waste your time with them. Look at me," He did. "You can figure it out. Stiles, you're the one who always figures it out. So you can do this, figure. It. Out."
Stiles wiped the sweat off his lip and set to work. He cleared away some of the loose twigs and foliage behind me, and I stared off straight ahead.
"Okay here we go," I shut my eyes, hoping that I wasn't about to say goodbye to part of my leg. "Ready?" I took a few deep breaths.
"Here we go," Stiles grabbed my hand, pulling me right as I heard him move something on the trap. I hopped out of it and fell into Stiles. Looking back, I saw the trap had snapped shut. Panting, I looked up at Stiles, and he looked right back at me. Thankful, I rested my head on his, and he held me close.
We were like that for a few minutes more, him letting me catch my breath. When I was relaxed enough, he pulled away.
"We should go find Scott okay?" We turned, and in the distance we could hear a distinct roar. I grinned, and heard Stiles, "Now that's what I'm talking about."
In the backseat of the police cruiser, I watched behind Stiles as Malia was reunited with Mr. Tate. I watched Stiles closely when he started looking in the rearview mirror. I noticed the words saying that objects were closer than they appear, and it looks like Stiles did too. He smiled in relief, and I smiled with him.
"Thank you, by the way."
"For what?" Stiles asked me.
"For saving me from that trap."
"It was nothing."
"It's not nothing, Stiles. We were both under pressure and you figured it out. I stand by what I said, you always figure it out." He smiled at me.
"Thanks June."
"So, dinner on me?"
"Absolutely, you know I did just save your life."