.

And so lying underneath those stormy skies
She'd say, "Oh, I know the sun must set to rise"
This could be paradise

Chapter 25: Intentions

Something was up with Parrish. More up than usual, that is. In fact, it was so far up that not only had he cleaned the front entryway, but he had even swept the stairs, and for the first time in months had ordered Sherry to clean, vacuum and dust her room upstairs. Even the chimney and roof had been awarded their first wipes in decades.

When she asked him what for, he only shook his head and shoved Windex at her.

Less than ten minutes later that Tuesday morning, when she saw Liam's dirty brown hair, she imagined dragging him like a statue into her house and watching as Parrish obliviously dumped Goo-Gone on his shoulders and polished him with wood finish. She couldn't help but laugh, which immediately drew the boy's attention.

Liam frowned at her from across the parking lot, and jogged toward her. "What's funny?" he asked.

His hair was dirtier close up, with little dandruff flakes and greased with sweat. "Just imagining how my uncle would react to you," she said, which made no sense to him.

His blue eyes stared at her for a moment. "Anyway, I see you're still in a good mood."

"I am!" she agreed, grinning. She'd put on lip gloss today, just because she'd felt like it, and had plaited a waterfall braid around the sides of her head. Her brown hair was soft and thick, and still pink at the ends, and she'd probably spent a good half hour this morning flitting about the mirror pinning each strand in place and snapping selfies she'd never post. "Today's gonna be a good day!"

Liam winced. "Don't jinx it!"

But she was right. She managed to get all her teachers to smile at her, including generally unimpressed Ms. Finch and Mr. Yukimura, who wasn't even her teacher.

Mr. Yukimura had stopped her in the hall to comment on her sudden change in attitude. "Success is 90% mental and 10% physical," he said, then invited her over for dinner again. "My wife is making sushi!"

At lunch, she managed to cajole Stiles into driving her over to Orange Tree for a carton of frozen yogurt, although he was still as gloomy as he'd been the past few days. When Sherry tried to buy him froyo as well, his eyes flashed with an unmistakeable look of guilt, and he turned her down without hesitation.

Still, that hardly dampened her day. She played Biology Trivia (a game she'd invented on the spot) with Theo and Scott, and tried to teach Hayden how to be a cheerleader.

The latter was a unique experience, and Sherry wasn't sure when she'd ever laughed harder.

The girls met on the grass after Hayden's soccer practice, when Hayden's white knee socks were specked with green and her ponytail was a messy, shark-finned knot. Sherry, almost as if she'd prepared for the occasion, had on loose black shorts and a faded red tank with the slogan "Other athletes lift weights. Cheerleaders lift athletes."

She recruited two other girls as well. Sherry didn't know them, but they were nice enough and Hayden knew them from soccer, so Sherry enthusiastically welcomed them. Amy was a tall Chinese girl with highlighted wavy hair, and her round face grew dimples whenever she spoke. Logan was a blonde, athletically built and quietly regal. Sherry could imagine her strutting down the runway of a plus-sized fashion show. Inwardly, she wondered why all the girls in Beacon Hills were so pretty, and felt a pang she forced herself to ignore.

She arranged the three girls into a stunt group, with Hayden and Logan as side bases and Amy as the back. Painstakingly, Sherry led them in a crash course of stunt etiquette, and immediately had them try to lift her up to a half. In the first trial, Amy heard a squeak as her hand moved against the dewy underside of Sherry's sneaker, and squealed, dropping her flyer. Trial two, Hayden nearly catapulted Sherry over the other girls' heads, and Sherry fell with an undignified "Oomph" onto the dirt. Trial three, they did pretty well, until Logan sneezed and Amy jumped and tripped and everyone fell into a giggling heap. Hayden lay on the ground a little too long, a dazed expression on her face, until Sherry peered at her in concern.

"You okay?" she worried, and then Hayden grinned and tackled her. Once they were both coated in shredded grass, Hayden whispered into Sherry's ear: "Syke."

After that, the girls exchanged numbers and Sherry went to Liam's house to play video games with him and Mason. That was fun, although Mason kept losing because he was too busy either snickering at them or teasing Liam with cheesy double-entendres. Sherry knew what he was doing, but unfortunately Liam didn't.

Then Sherry went off again to Kira's home, which smelled inside of savory soup and incense. As Mrs. Yukimura ordered her husband around the kitchen, Kira grabbed Sherry's arm and dragged her into her bedroom.

"Listen," Kira hissed, all serious, "Don't let my parents hear this, but..." She bit her lip. "I have no idea what's going on in Bio."

"You should join our study group," Sherry suggested. "And it's okay if you don't know what's going on. Bio's mostly memorization, so you can catch up at any time and you won't be that far behind. It's not like chem or physics in that it's not as cumulative."

Kira nodded slowly, her eyes wide. "Okay... but that doesn't change the fact that I am still drowning in the first week's lessons."

Sherry smiled supportively. "I gotchu." She pulled a stack of flashcards from her backpack and shuffled them. "Let me introduce: So You Think You Can Biology."

"That's a thing?"

"It is now! Here are the rules." She explained that each card was a prompt, and players had to spurt out as much information as they could about their cards within thirty seconds. Each bit information was a point, and the player with the most points won.

Kira was a bit apprehensive at first, but once they got going, they were almost reluctant to finally go eat dinner.

When Sherry finally went home, she was so worn out she nearly fell asleep on the doorstep. How many exciting things she did in a day, she realized, depended not on the day, but on the effort she put into it. This was a profound philosophy she'd discovered, but of course she forgot it all the moment her head hit the pillow.

Life was good. She was happy, her friends were happy, and the weather was nice. And then it was Thursday, and she started to notice that like the green leaves of summer, the good things in life began to wither.

Wednesday night, she noticed in the house a sort of pervading smell of perfume and sweat. The perfume was familiar, so regular to Sherry's senses that she almost didn't notice it floating in the air. The furniture in the living room had been cleared to the side as well, but Sherry was again to weary to care.

In the morning, on Thursday, she felt as invigorated as ever, and flounced into school with a smile etched onto her face. After school, she saw Scott and Theo together, walking about the front lawn and surveying the students around them like lords gazing over their kingdoms.

"So," Theo was saying, "Basically, we're looking for abnormal behavior?"

"Anyone acting a little off or a little weird," Scott affirmed.

Theo looked pointedly at Sherry. "Isn't everyone a little weird in high school?"

"Yeah, good point," Scott said obliviously, while at the same time Sherry blurted, "I'm not acting weird!"

"I didn't say that," Theo retorted.

"Yeah, but you implied it."

Theo grinned. "Anyway, you're made of too much fluff to be a murderous chimera."

Scott chuckled at that, then pulled out an old, tattered book from his backpack. It had a frayed cover illustrated with primary colors, looking like a retired thriller novel from the eighties.

Raising an eyebrow, Theo remarked, "You remember Tracy went on a killing spree after reading that?"

"You think it's a bad idea?"

"I think Malia almost getting run down by a car could've been bad."

Sherry blinked. "Huh?" It was slightly frustrating to know that even after all they'd been through, the pack still didn't bother to keep her in the loop.

"You don't know?" Theo said, voicing her concerns. "I thought someone would've told you by now."

Hastily, Scott gave a brief summary of recent events. "We found this book — The Dread Doctors — and we realized it was written by Dr. Valack. You've never met him, but he's a dangerous doctor with a third eye." He continued to explain, recounting the events of the momentous night she'd missed. That day, Sherry had been studying with Theo, but even he had some share of the fun when he went driving with Malia and she'd had a vision.

"Well," continued Theo, "That's why you guys haven't finished it, right?"

"We're going to," Scott answered confidently.

"Scott, I came here hoping to find a pack." He shook his head. "I wasn't planning on watching one fall apart."

"The book's all we've got."

"Then I'll read it too." Theo glanced at Sherry, who puffed up her chest.

"Me too."

"You sure?"

The concern in his voice ground at her patience. She'd been treated like a child enough. "Yes. I am."

"We're meeting at my place at seven," Scott went on. "Kira and I made enough copies for everyone."

"Until then," said Theo to Sherry, "We should hang out. I'll give you a ride."

By now, Sherry understood that "hang out," in Theo's terms, meant "have a meaningful conversation." But she didn't need a ride. She'd learned her lesson from the last time she'd been stranded. She wasn't going to leave her bike at school. "O-okay," she acquiesced. "I can transport myself, though."

Scott left, and Sherry went to retrieve her bicycle from the bike racks. Her phone buzzed, and from a distance she heard Theo revving up his motorcycle. "Meet at your house," Theo's text said.

Knowing she couldn't argue now, lest Theo crash from texting and driving, Sherry huffed and pedaled home.

He was there when she arrived, an extra helmet tucked under his arm. "You might want to put on jeans," he said, nodding at her short shorts. "Safety reasons. In case we crash and you scrape up your legs."

She pursed her lips. "If we crash, I'll have more to worry about than scraped legs. And I'll blame you." But she went inside to change anyway, because he wasn't right on at least some level, and she knew her mother would have chastised her for not wearing enough in the desolately frigid evenings of California summer.

So she hopped onto Theo's motorcycle five minutes later in skinny jeans and a jacket, and let him drive off.

Stiles, at this point, would have yelled at her with flailing arms. He still didn't trust Theo one bit, and continued to insist that something was off about him, something sinister. Sherry knew better, though, and trusted her friend not to cturn out to be some crazy psychopathic murderer. That was silly even to imagine.

He parked at a Starbucks, a rather surprising location that was both very Theo and very un-werewolf-like. Inside, he secured the two leather armchairs for them and ordered them both Frappuccinos.

"We have to talk about your mother," Theo said right off the bat. "I've been thinking, and I just can't accept the idea of leaving an innocent woman imprisoned for life."

"That's great," Sherry said, "But what can we do about it? There's literally no way she can defend herself. She pleaded guilty!" The sweet coffee in her mouth turned bitter, and she pushed the cup away. She hated talking about sad things that couldn't be fixed.

"That's where you're wrong." He smiled. "I have a philosophy, and it's called 'what if.' Think, what if you could do it? What if you did? Imagine you already did it, and then think back to how. Backtrack, and you'll start to notice the little loopholes that you can wiggle through. Nothing's impossible, Sherry. You just gotta figure out how."

She did not like this plan. She felt like she was doing something illegal just thinking about it. Then she felt guilty, for not wanting to save her mother. Sighing, Sherry asked, "What are you thinking?"

"Promise not to tell anyone first."

Her stomach churned, and she remembered Stiles' wariness. "Fine."

"This might get dangerous. Very dangerous."

The Stiles in her mind flipped out. "It's worth it." She glanced at his expression. "I think."

"Alright!" he grinned, rubbing his hands together. "Pack your bags, because on Saturday, we're going to Mexico!"

A/N: I'm now going to update every Wednesday. This gives me time to flesh out the next chapters and you readers time to catch up :) Sorry it took so long to finally get organized!

Please review, favorite, and follow! xx