Chapter 75: The Storm I
They will choose Erica. Because she's less experienced than Cora, weaker and more prone to lose control.
One thing was certain, shooting Derek had been a lot more cathartic than talking with him. Or to him, based on how he had clammed up during her rambling at the end there.
Something didn't quite add up, Joe thought as she turned her pillow around to get the cold side. He was hard to read, but she almost got the impression he had been sad. Which was weird because why was he sad? Didn't he understand she was doing him a favor? That he would get to be happy without Joe making a scene or stirring up a lot of somewhat justified drama?
He deserved a choice, and he had made a choice — with the worst timing in history, but in Beacon Hills, that was a given — so why was he sad when she gave back the stupid jacket?
It could be a case — and this was probably the more likely case — of him responding to her strong emotions. So he was sad because she was sad.
And she had been downright miserable.
Grumbling under her breath, Joe tossed around in the bed again. Part of the process, she reminded herself. It gets worse before it gets better. It would take time for the open, dripping hole in her chest where her heart used to be to close up and heal. Did heartbreak count as wounds from an Alpha? Or would it just take longer time because it was Derek frickin' Hale and she could not imagine ever feeling the same way about anyone else ever again?
"Part of the process," she whispered to herself, squirmed around in her bed and tried to empty her mind so she could get some sleep. The ceiling offered a blank slate to rest her eyes. "Part of the process, part of the process..."
It would have been easier if he'd yelled at her so she could yell back and get all this shit off her chest. He hadn't even been properly angry about the shooting. A little snappish at best. And at the loft, he hadn't fought back. He'd opened his arms completely when she pulled a gun at him. Guilt? Possibly.
Nothing added up. Jimmy's injuries matched neither of their testimonies — even if Jimmy mentioned Paige, even if Jimmy threw the first punch, even if Joe had howled her heart out — it made little sense. Derek was violent, maybe, but not like that.
Deeming her time to be up — it felt like she had spent hours tossing around when in reality it turned out to be just past thirty minutes — Joe shuffled out of bed and down the hall to Jimmy's room.
Her knuckles rapped the doorframe. "Jimmy? Are you awake?"
The muffled and slightly annoyed response came instantly: "I am now."
Nightvision activating, she could see the outline of Jimmy's form moving over, creating space for her to occupy the warm spot he vacated. Staying conscious of her limbs — he was not the one for unprompted physical contact — she eased herself into the bed.
"I miss Erica," she eventually said, not lulled to sleep by the sound of Jimmy's breathing as she'd hoped. When he didn't respond, but she could sense he was awake, Joe sighed. "Can you at least tell me where she is? In case something happens."
"Joe," he murmured and sounded more awake by the second. "You know I can't. You know why I can't. You're making progress and I'm proud of you," Joe smiled, "but it's still too risky." Her smile fell, and she heard him turn in the bed, laying on his side with his back to her. "Since I can smell the disappointment on you, I'll elaborate. From what we know, Isaac is certain he saw Erica's dead body in the bank prior to the full moon. We know for a fact the Alphas manipulated his memory as it was part of the trap set up for Derek. For some reason, they must have planted the memory of Erica's body too."
"Why? What reason?"
"To make sure everyone else thought Erica was dead even before you were supposed to kill her."
Joe wrinkled her brows and stared up at Jimmy's ceiling. "Why?"
"That's what I don't know yet. It could be to ensure you wouldn't have the 'excuse' of a full moon for her death," Jimmy suggested, and the covers shifted as he presumably shrugged, "or it has something to do with how you kept forgetting she was alive."
"That might just have been a coping mechanism from my side."
"Maybe, but I've mapped out the distance from where you guys fought to here. With her injuries, she must have had help. Someone besides us knows she's alive. And until we can figure out the motives of this someone, I'll do what I can to keep both of you safe."
The hum of the silent apartment enveloped them while Joe tried to think this through. She laid on her back with both hands folded on top of the covers, staring into the darkness. "You're worried Erica's still a pawn in the Alphas' plans?"
"There's always layers and layers to Deucalion's plots. I'm just saying we can't be too careful."
Another long silence. "So, no Erica?"
"No Erica," Jimmy confirmed in a tired voice, sounding like he was nestling further into the pillow. "You'll have to settle for me."
Joe hesitated. "You know I care about you, right? Like-"
"I am not cuddling with you, Delgado."
"I wasn't ask-"
"And I am all out of material to distract from your heartsickness. Call your aunt if you need coddling."
"That's not-"
"Then either shut up or get out."
Biting her lips together, Joe tried to heed his request. From what she knew, he had spent the entire day following up some lead on the sacrifices. Something about expanding that script he had created before the summer to find Erica's and Boyd's most likely location. Like then, he had not wanted to share many details before he had it figured out and she knew better than to pry. He got testy when he was in the middle of that kind of project, brain working overtime even while he rested to piece things together.
"I just," Joe started and Jimmy groaned, "have one more question. When Derek came here after I, uh, howled, what did he smell like?"
"A self-righteous ass."
"Jim..."
"Ugh," Jimmy groaned again and slowly rolled around to lie on his stomach. "Panic. Anxiety. Anger. A lot of everything really, it was pretty clear even if he tried to mask his scent. That's what you wanted to hear? Look, I already said I am partially to blame for what happened and again, I don't need you to neither defend me nor excuse his behavior."
"I'm not trying to-" Joe gestured weakly, not observed by anyone but his ceiling and his nightstand. "It just seems a bit," she searched for a word, "excessive? Even for him, I mean. And he said you threw the first punch."
Her bedmate grunted in confirmation. "I did. The smack-talk went both ways." The pillow muffled Jimmy's drawn-out sigh. "Now that you mention it, I suppose it was a bit out of character for him. It was almost like he wanted me to hit him. And after I did, he still goaded me on and because I fight better with my words than my fists, it escalated from there."
The memory flashed in and out of Joe's mind and she shuddered even in the proximity of Jimmy's warm body. "He could have killed you."
"You're right," Jimmy agreed easily. "He could have. And he didn't. I guess there's some truth in born werewolves having better control than us bitten ones. He did what I couldn't do and stopped himself in time."
Another memory made Joe shudder. "That's not comparable, Jim. You'd been trapped for weeks, forced to fight, forced to survive."
"I know what happened, Joe, I was there. However detached from my human self. Now will you please try to get some sleep? Or at least allow me some?"
"Okay." Joe settled into the mattress, hands interlocked over her stomach and closed her eyes. For about five seconds. Scooting herself out of the bed, she made sure to put the covers back in place. "Or not. I'm gonna try to do some work."
His reply came instantly: "No screens after ten pm."
Joe stared into the bulky shadow that was Jimmy. "Okay. Uh, can I go for a walk? Clear my head?"
"Sure. Just be careful," Jimmy mumbled, already sounding half-asleep again. "Howl if you need me."
"Ha ha. If I'm not back before morning, assume someone has kidnapped me."
Jimmy sighed into his pillow and murmured: "Of course."
By the time she exited the room, his breathing slowed into a steady cadence, signaling sleep. Foregoing shoes, she pulled on a pair of leggings and tucked the pistol back in the waistband like always. No matter how disconcerting, it was easier knowing that the Alphas had let her and Jimmy get away from the vault. That meant they had no plans of recapturing them and she felt safe walking the nighttime streets of Beacon Hills.
Night walks supposedly had positive psychological effects on insomniacs. Increased heart rate, fresh air, the thrill of staying alert in case some creep got the wrong idea — everything designed to make her more relaxed when getting back into bed.
Except it was boring as hell and felt like a complete waste of time.
The dew covering the sidewalk cooled the bare soles of her feet where she stuck to the poorly lit side-streets. Something that would have been unthinkable a few months ago without her stun-gun ready and prepared. A small town like Beacon Hills did not have a large population of homeless and no one bothered her where she strolled along. The occasional stone jabbed into her, but the pain was fleeting and quickly forgotten.
Pain. It all came down to pain. And pleasure, apparently, a fact she had given little thought before it happened. Now she wished she hadn't been so crudely reminded. Now she would have preferred going her entire life only receiving Derek's pain. She realized she had not taken mountain ash today, but since Derek had said he never intended for her to feel that, she could at least hope he would, uh, take precautions to avoid it. It would be an awkward conversation to agree how they would handle that in the future.
Okay, thinking about Derek was not relaxing at all. Work then. Distraction. According to Jimmy they had less than a week until the lunar eclipse. It sucked that this Darach sacrificed innocent people to achieve their goals, otherwise they would have been on the same side regarding the Alphas.
Deucalion wanted Scott. The thought nearly made her sick. It was like Deucalion collected rare Alphas. Twin Alphas, Alpha Mates, True Alpha... Who knew what Kali's specialty was? Or what Ennis had been? Something at least, they both had different red eyes than any other Alpha she had seen. They were a duller, darker red with a thick black ring around the outside of the iris.
Considering Kali's and Ennis's relationship, it couldn't be genetic. At least Joe hoped it wasn't. That would be gross.
Really gross.
Somehow in Joe's efforts of not ending up at the loft, she found herself on the same street as the Sheriff's station. There weren't many places in Beacon Hills that were open twenty-four seven, so the Sheriff's station stood out on the otherwise dark street. A figure paced outside the main doors, his familiar silhouette regularly disappearing behind a cloud of cigarette smoke.
"Gotta clock out sometime," Joe said when she got close enough. Her dad turned mid-puff and for several seconds only stared like he did not fully remember who she was. Compartmentalizing, she thought. Eventually it clicked and he raised his eyebrows after checking his wristwatch.
"Jesus, kid, it's almost two in the mornin'."
"And you're working," she pointed out and placed herself on the wall next to him.
"No, I'm havin' a smoke," he said and held up the lit cigarette as proof. "And the corner store don't carry my Garcia y vegas, so I got these instead and they're menthol and quite frankly disgustin', but beggars can't be choosers, eh?"
Not thinking too much about it, Joe held her hand out for the cigarette. She shrugged when her dad raised an eyebrow, a move that highlighted the deep bags under his eyes.
"Trouble sleepin' again, huh?" he asked and she nodded, as if there was any other reason she would be out walking in the middle of the night. Her dad snorted and relented the cigarette to her. Amid lighting up a new cigarette for himself, he grinned at her surprised expression. "Not like I'm winnin' any father of the year-awards anyway."
It had been a while since Joe last smoked anything, but muscle-memory kicked in and she took a pull of the cigarette, felt the heat in her mouth and inhaled again to take it down to her lungs. The lightheadedness hit instantly, a brief pleasant feeling of calm and lazy. Unwittingly, she held the smoke in her lungs longer than she thought possible and let it out in a long string through pursed lips.
"And here's me thinkin' you didn't smoke," her dad commented drily. "Not sure if I should be impressed or worried or both."
"I've been to prison, Dad."
"You've been to juvie, kid. That's not the same."
"They still sold cigs in commissary."
"Get outta here! They did not."
"They did!" Joe said and huffed out some smoke through the side of her mouth. "Not on the record obviously, and not for the youngsters, but you could get a pack for twenty bucks — easy. Come on, we were hormonal assholes, half of us had anger issues, ya think they wanted to risk a riot based on nicotine addiction?"
"Off the record?" Dad repeated, looking disgusted. "Off the record meaning the CO's smuggled it in to exploit juvenile offenders as a nice little side hustle?"
"What can I tell ya?" Joe sucked on the menthol cigarette, feeling the odd sensation of cooling and burning at the same time. "The US prison system is whack. I'll have Jimmy send you an article."
Her Dad just nodded in agreement. "Guess I should be happy it's just cigarettes."
"Why? You got something stronger?"
"Don't push it, kid."
Truth was, Joe didn't really smoke anymore. She used to have the occasional cigarette at the parties Alex dragged her along to and briefly experimented with some cannabis the last time she struggled with insomnia, but that was about it. With her new healing factor, she wasn't too sure if the mini-high she got now was anything but a placebo. Just the activity helped take her mind off things though and she and her dad delved into a comfortable silence.
Cigarette gone, she crushed the tip between her fingers and flicked it into the metal ashtray conveniently located outside the doors of the station. Her dad still smoked in silence — by the way he stared at the empty streets this was as much about the meditative activity as the nicotine.
"Dad?"
Something in her tone made him turn to her with attentiveness. "Hm?"
She bit her lip, wondering how to phrase it. Looking at her dad now, all five-nine cookie-cutter FBI-agent in a rumpled suit, the things the Alphas had told her didn't make sense. He did not look like a guy who knew that werewolves even existed.
"Would you-" Joe hesitated and spoke slowly. "I mean, if I was- uh, if I was different, right, would you still, you know, love me?"
Her dad made a face. "How differen't are we talkin'?"
Apparently she must have looked shocked as he burst out laughing right away.
"Jesus, kid, what kind of question is that? Of course I'd still love ya. If ya had two heads stickin' out of your neck, I'd buy you two hats." He bumped her shoulder with his. "If you started makin' candles out of earwax to sell on eBay, I'd give you five star reviews. If you want to walk around at night with no shoes on for some new-age health reasons, I'd be ready with antiseptic if you cut yourself. Come on, what's this about?"
Joe wiggled her bare toes — she'd forgotten how that wasn't normal. "I just, if I was different, would you want to do something to, uh, make me not different? Or, like, if you thought I would become different and you knew how to stop it, would you?"
Both remained silent and her dad deciphered her ill-phrased questions.
"Joe, I... I love you regardless. What's goin' on? You don't think I'm supportive enough?" her dad ventured, the taunting edge in his voice long-gone. "Is that it?"
"No, it's not..." Joe paused as her dad was digging into his wallet, obviously looking for something. Of everything she had expected, it had not been the small pin with a familiar trio of colors in his palm.
"I can't wear it when I'm workin'," her dad explained and showed it to her, "but I keep it with me. It's the right one? I talked to one of our sensitivity trainers and he said the rainbow might not be your thing, so..."
Joe just stared at the tiny flag with the magenta, lavender, and blue stripes — she had never seen it outside the college-setting before.
"I want you to know that it's not that I don't care what you are, I'm proud of you. I wouldn't change you in any way, Joe. You're my girl no matter what. Unless you want to not be a girl, then you'd be my kid no matter what."
An overwhelming rush of emotions buried every question Joe had intended to ask and she reached out to hug him instead. He smelled mostly of cigarettes, but she did not mind and only sank into his embrace, doing her best not to cry. Just loving her dad so much and being so terrified of the Alphas coming after him. Unlike Derek or Scott, he didn't heal. He did not have super strength. No claws, no fangs, no heightened senses — just like her.
"Mija," her dad sighed against her curls. "Mija, mija, mija... I can't help you if you don't talk to me."
"I just..." really need you to leave town. "I can't..." lose you too. "I don't..." know what to do, how to fix this, how to win.
She lost every attempt at explaining against the fabric of his suit jacket.
Dad tightened his arms around her, probably feeling her instinctual reaction at pulling away. "I want you to know, I don't care who you're with as long as you're happy, okay?" The deja vu nearly took Joe's breath away. "If it's a girl or a boy or something else, I'm happy if you're happy, okay?"
This was hopeless. Joe nodded, forced the tears back and pulled away from the hug. "Okay. Dad, can I help? With the case? Or, uh, anything?"
He smiled at her, looking as tired as she felt. "I'm lenient with rules, kid, but I can't bring you onto a federal murder investigation. My SSA is breathin' down my neck about a strict need-to-know protocol. All it takes is one wrong leak to the media and you'll see my rotten mug on the late-night special."
Blowing air out of her mouth, she nodded again.
Her dad took pity on her and wrapped one arm around her shoulder, steering her towards the station. "If you want some distraction in the meantime, I got those cold case-files we talked about inside. How's that sound?"
It did not actually sound too bad.
They know putting you in the vault with them means you're dead, so they'll take her out. That's when you have to run and make her follow, make it look natural.
"Please tell me you slept more than two hours last night."
"Good morning to you too," Joe muttered when Jimmy came trudging into the living room the following morning. She did not look up from her reading. "I slept for three, actually."
"I suppose that's something. What do you have here?" Jimmy peered over her shoulder at the photocopied documents courtesy of Joe's dad. "Did you break into the sheriff's station during your late night wander? This is a missing person's case from 1988. I know math isn't your strongest suit, but I thought we wanted to look into what happened seven years ago, not twenty-three."
"I know, this is personal," Joe murmured. "Thought it might be something." She folded up the folder listing the disappearance of one José Manuel Lima García around twenty-three years ago. As her dad had said, they never even found a body. "Ready to leave in twenty?"
"Leave?" Jimmy raised an eyebrow from where he was pouring granola into a bowl. "Where?"
Now her brows furrowed. "Didn't you say you wanted to go back to Berkeley today?"
"I'm going to Berkeley, yes, but you are not."
"What? Why not?"
"Because I am trying to put together something that might be impossible and the fewer distractions the better. And you, my dear, are the definition of distracting."
"Well, uh, I was thinking of seeing Walker again. If this Darach has something to do with one of the slain packs, she could help. Maybe she knows what happened to Kali's Emissary."
"Doubtful. They usually keep the Emissaries secret from everyone but the Alpha and second-in-command. There was a reason Derek never knew about Deaton. I can imagine the same applies to Sarah."
Sarah, Joe noted, but didn't comment. "We won't know until we ask."
"Fine, I will ask then. And no, you don't need to join me. I thought I was your little pet, not the other way around." His purple eyes glinted in half-mirth, half-bitterness. "Wasn't you supposed to ask your aunt about the medical records?" Of course Jimmy, who knew her better than most, correctly interpreted her tense silence. "Why have you not asked your aunt about the medical records, Joe?"
"Because," Joe groaned and spun around on her office chair, "I haven't seen her since the big talk and she's super worried about me and if I see her I'm gonna have to tell her what happened with Derek and I'm just," she blew air out of her mouth, "not ready to talk about all that."
He gave her a pointed look over his granola-bowl. "People are dying, Joe."
"I know."
"Don't you want to get your dad out of town too?"
"I do."
"And isn't the fastest way to make sure the murders end?"
"Well, we could always orchestrate some worse murders in another state to make sure he gets called away," Joe suggested, but faltered at Jimmy's unimpressed look. "Fine, I'll go talk to Aunt Mel."
"There's a good Alpha," Jimmy cooed and grinned at the double middle-fingers Joe sent him.
"I want Erica back," Joe called at him when he went back to his room, presumably to get dressed. "You're getting insufferable."
"Ride or die, Delgado."
"Ride or die, asshole."
A few hours later, Joe had mustered enough courage and willpower to go to the Beacon Hills Memorial. Since Jimmy took the car to Berkeley, she had gone on foot and found the walk just as excruciatingly boring as last night. To make matters worse, the nurse at the front desk told her that Aunt Mel was unavailable.
"Can you call her away for just two minutes?" Joe pleaded, almost hanging over the counter. "It's really important and it'll be super fast."
"Melissa's assisting in an open-heart surgery," the nurse said with a frown. "So no, I can't just call her away, no matter how important."
It was hard to compete with open-heart surgery and Joe slunk back to one of the chairs in the hallway, prepared to wait it out. That massive pile-up from a few days ago had put a strain on the capacity and the hospital felt packed with both patients and staff alike. After waiting and consequently draining the battery on her phone, Joe sidled back up to the nurse's station and asked how much longer it would be.
Six hours.
"I'll come back later," Joe said, and the nurse nodded without an inch of sympathy.
Back at the apartment, Joe paced around, hit with the absurd feeling of being bored for the first time in months. Scott and Stiles were busy studying for some test, because apparently grades did not stop mattering even if people were dying. Trying not to distract Jimmy, she only sent him a text message to call her when possible. Aunt Mel still hadn't called her back from the text-message Joe had sent her. Her dad didn't want her help with the case. Cora and Boyd were safer away from her. Derek was... better off without her.
All alone, she had no idea what to do with herself.
She tried to watch TV in her room, but found it hard to engage in the trivial problems blown out of proportion by the characters on the screen. Researching the Darach did not lead her anywhere new. The case files her dad gave her were inconclusive at best and searching the name of the missing man only lead her to genealogy websites from the Era de Francia-days of the Dominican Republic.
After a shower, Aunt Mel finally called her, but just to let her know she had already left the hospital. She could dig up the medical records tomorrow, but now she just needed sleep. At least it spared Joe the awkward conversation, but it felt like a bust.
Joe spent the evening refreshing the Beacon Post website for any report of new murders, but came up empty. Jimmy still hadn't returned. He got like that when he was onto something so she wasn't worried yet. Maybe he had gone to see Erica? Maybe he preferred her company to Joe's, which wasn't that inconceivable if she thought about it.
At ten, Joe attempted to get back into a good sleeping schedule and went to bed.
Twenty-seven minutes later she was still wide awake.
Twenty-seven minutes of lying in bed trying every relaxation technique she could think of to fall asleep. Mind kept wandering. First to Derek, but she could not allow herself to dwell on that. Then to all those training sessions with Kali, all those times she got her bones snapped and skin slashed so she could heal and trigger whatever dormant gene was in her, so Erica could attend to her, bonding them closer together. It was sophisticated cruelty, but not purposeless. That was not relaxing.
Joe turned to glance at her phone laying on the nightstand. Twenty-nine minutes. She was not supposed to stay in bed for over thirty minutes trying to fall asleep. Something about sleep hygiene. If she wasn't asleep by thirty minutes, she was supposed to get up and do something boring until she felt tired and tried again. Boring. This whole day had been boring.
At thirty minutes on the dot, she heard the apartment door locks click open in rapid succession. She jumped out of bed and snatched her bra with her from the floor, putting it on as she walked into the living room.
"Where've you been? I was getting worried."
Still wearing sunglasses even at night, he pulled them off, and she saw how slick with sweat he was.
"I was right!" he exclaimed and turned on all the lights Joe had for once turned off before going to bed. He wrenched off his shirt as if any constrictions were too distracting at the moment and threw the discarded clothing item in one of the armchairs. All his focus was on the board. "I was right. The math never lies."
As he snatched up a marker to begin writing equations straight onto the map, Joe picked up his shirt. Stained with blood and large splotches of water.
"Jimmy?"
"She got another one," he said absentmindedly with the marker cap in his mouth. He must have smelled or otherwise sensed her trepidation and turned around. "There was nothing I could do, I mean, I got the location right, but not down to the exact spot. I came too late."
"This is blood from the newest sacrifice?" Joe asked, holding up his shirt where blood had seeped through so it now stained her hand. She should freak out more, she thought. Should be more concerned with how an actual person had just died, and she was holding a piece of fabric with their still warm blood on it. "What-"
The purple in Jimmy's eyes was intense as he spun around. "I told you about the telluric currents, right? That it was just a fancy term for energy? Which is correct and inconclusive at the same time." He pulled her over to the map, Joe still clutching his shirt. Blood smears on his chest as well, she noted now. "But it's not just energy, Joe. Because what is the thing with currents? It flows, Joe, it flows! It's moving!"
He went back to writing on the map; the equations containing more letters and symbols than numbers.
"There's a rhythm to it, a way to predict where the currents ebb and flow. She's using the power to first abduct," he marked a spot on the map, using a Greek letter to indicate the variable, "then sacrifice," another spot, "and then place the body."
"Jimmy, you gotta slow down," Joe said, fingers digging into the blood-soaked fabric.
"Don't you get it?" Jimmy announced and gestured to the equation written in red marker all over their map of Beacon Hills. "Using simple math, we can predict not only where but also when this takes place!"
"Simple math?" she asked with a raised eyebrow at the formula that went on for several lines. "Hang on, predict as in getting there before, not after?"
Jimmy, usually not one for big gestures, grabbed her shoulders with both hands. "Yes! I had limited time, so I wasn't able to get it exact, but I was able to pinpoint it down to the high school today at somewhere between seven and ten."
"So you stalked out the school? Without me?"
"I stalked out the school," Jimmy confirmed and the sweat droplets on his face shifted as he smiled again. "There were a lot of people there, for some reason, band rehearsal I think. Then at just a few minutes past eight, one of the sheriff deputies arrive. I think I've missed the sacrifice, that someone found a body, and waited around for the ambulances as to not draw attention to myself."
He stopped, seeming in need to catch his breath. "And as time dragged on, the ambulances never came. So I followed the deputy and lo-and-behold, she was the sacrifice."
A numbness spread into Joe. "The Darach killed one of the deputies?"
"Yes, in the locker rooms," Jimmy said and tried to make a smaller dot on the map. "That's where I found her, but she was already dead. No reception in the basement, so I go upstairs to call the police, but when I come back, she's gone. I follow the scent of her blood and she's placed on the school sign." He marked another dot, wild-eyed still. "I must have disturbed the Darach, because she should have been moved further, see, here, along this line to be sacrificed and then even further to be found."
Half of her wanted to scream at him for being so reckless regarding his own safety. The other half really wanted to know if that would affect the ritual. She asked about the latter.
"Yes, it weakens the sacrifice. Either diminishes or eradicates whatever was hoped to be gained. Do you get this, Joe? We solve the next equation, we find out where the next victim will be taken." To her surprise, he went over to the kitchen to start the coffee machine. "It's gonna be a long night, Delgado." He grinned. "We got this bitch."
Apparently, despite his enthusiasm, solving these equations was not as straightforward as it seemed. There were a lot of variables and assumptions related to the telluric currents. Some of it available online, some of it available through ancient diagrams. And Joe had not had Calculus since high school, not counting when she helped Scott with his Algebra. Luckily Jimmy seemed to have a knack for it, but they were running out of room on the board.
They looked at each other and in synch, lifted the entire board down to reveal the pristine white wall underneath. Jimmy pulled up a chair and got up while Joe started cracking to find the missing variables and constants.
Her phone rang right when she was getting the immediate electric field variation measured in mV per kilometer of the closest observatory that happened to be in Stanford. Jimmy had to first interpolate it to consider the altitude difference to Beacon Hills.
"Hi, it's me," Scott sounded tired over the phone. "We found another one. Or, uh, Lydia found her."
"I know, Jimmy found her first," Joe said and waved her hand at Jimmy who was demanding the necessary constant to get ahead in solving the equation. "Listen, we got a lead we're working on, but it's kind of time cruci-" She held the phone away from her ear to glare at Jimmy. "Jim, I'm literally just telling him I'll call him later. Okay. Okay!"
"Listen, Scott, we're working on it," she said into the phone as she held it in place with her shoulder. She zoomed in on the computer screen so Jimmy could see the number he was after with all its eight decimals. "Do you know who she was? A deputy, right?"
"Yeah, yeah, a deputy, Tara Graeme."
"Oh shit." That was Sheriff Stilinski's second-in-command after Matt did a number on the station. Both the cops and feds would be out for blood now. "Shit, okay, I'm sorry, Scott, I'll call you when we have something!"
"Okay, b-"
She hung up, as Jimmy was working with record speed trying to create a list of likely flow patterns for the next twenty-four hours. With the botched first sacrifice, it was likely the Darach would speed up the timeline and try to get a new victim before long.
"Why the deputy?" Joe asked as she used a reference list to fill in numbers Jimmy had left blank in some parts. "What class are we looking at here?"
"Can't establish a pattern out of a single data point," Jimmy murmured, deep furrow between his brows as he tried to fix the numbers in a matrix to do some light linear differential equation solving. "Was she just a cop or could she also be something else? A mother, a bard, a herbalist, a scholar? Let's focus more on the when and where instead of the why."
The coffee machine and tea kettle were in constant use during the night. As the sun rose above the horizon, the apartment started looking chaotic. The walls in the living room were covered in different colored writing; not color-coded to Jimmy's chagrin, but exchanged whenever a marker ran dry.
"It's the high school," Jimmy said eventually as the sunlight hit his naked torso through the windows. They had stepped back from the walls, comparing the numbers with the map of the telluric currents. "It's the high school again, I'm sure of it, but that's too imprecise. It's not enough to stop the Darach..."
Joe was on her sixth cup of coffee, a fact she would never admit to Aunt Mel, and tried to reach the same conclusions he did. Her mind buzzed, as much with the excitement as the lack of sleep. When he did the numbers yesterday, he had made several lucky assumptions based on that the high school always seemed to the center of weird things happening. Now they had confirmed it.
"Okay, high school, but when?"
"We need to plot the telluric current over time and compare it with real-time data to find a viable match." Jimmy frowned at the formula. "It's not possible to do by hand, but I think I can write a script that will give us the statistical probabilities." He looked at her. "You need to go to the high school and measure where the magnetic field are the strongest."
Her brows lifted as he made his way to his computer, keyboard hidden under several stacks of paper. "You want me to what? I can't go to the school, Jimmy, I-" She faltered at his disappointed expression and went to put on her jacket, shaking out her curls hoping to look halfway human at least. "Personal's not the same as important, right, I got you. Fine, but how exactly am I supposed to measure the magnetic field strength? Is there an app for that?"
Already on his computer, typing furiously, he scoffed. "It's a high school, Joe. The science lab has gaussmeters. Now please hurry when we still have the chance of getting ahead."
"Shit, fine, okay," was all she could say as she headed out, car keys in hand. The school would be in session pretty soon, so maybe she could just blend in with the general student body and hopefully not be forced to face Miss Blake, the pretty brunette English teacher in a pencil skirt.
Already when pulling up in the parking lot, for once not next to a red Toyota Prius, she could see how blending in might be difficult. A large portion of the area in front of the school had been sealed off with police tape — crime scene technicians moved around slowly in their plastic suits, careful not to disturb evidence. And policemen, as well as FBI-agents, seemed to be littered around all the entrances, probably searching and questioning anyone who tried to enter the building. With all the deaths lately, it was no wonder the county had ramped up its security regarding the school.
Unfortunately, she knew they would ask her why she was entering. As youthful as she looked, she could not pass for a sixteen-year-old, especially not when she hadn't slept in — she did the mental math — twenty-eight hours.
Twenty-eight hours and counting.
Joe looked at her hands and saw the tremors. Flexing them, she scanned the school building again. If she asked for Scott, they would just call him up instead of letting her in. Shit. This was turning into more work than she hoped for. Trying to save lives here, so she had little choice.
"Long time, no see, kid."
She walked up to her dad where he stood nearby a cluster of agents and what looked like state troopers outside the main entrance of the school. With the crewcut, FBI-jacket and aviator sunglasses, he fit the mold of the generic agent shipped out from the academy. As he took off his sunglasses, she saw the heavy lines under his eyes that seemed to draw all the way down to his mouth. Guess there were two of them who hadn't slept last night. "What ya doin' here?"
"I heard about, uh..." She just nodded towards the still-active crime scene out on the lawn.
"This prick's got some nerve comin' after one of us," her dad commented drily and lit a cigarette in a fluid motion, gesturing for her to step out of the way for the incoming students. First period was probably about to start. "You knew her? Deputy Tara Graeme?"
"Not really. Saw her around," Joe said and hugged herself, thinking of the blood-soaked shirt she had held in her hands. Now she knew it was Tara Graeme's blood. She eyed the number of FBI-jackets visible from just where she stood. "You got people in from the local office?"
Her dad let out cigarette smoke in a low hiss, offering the cig to her without comment and she accepted.
"This guy's something else. Usually we see a cooldown period, at least in the beginning, but not this sub. He's mowing through bodies left and right. With Tara, that makes ten murders in the last month alone. My boss's not sure all the murders are related and she's gotta point, too many inconsistencies. No pattern, ya know? Age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion — nothin'. And now he came after one of us. Taunting us. Let me tell ya one thing, kid, he's not gettin' away with it."
Joe let out a puff of smoke and he snatched the cigarette back, sucking it down to the filter and squashed it underneath his boot. "Sorry, kid, I'm a little burned out. Didn't mean to lay all that on ya."
"It's okay," she said and reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, a cheap attempt at comfort. "Uh, Dad, this is gonna sound weird, but I need a favor." He indicated she should go on, in a manner that did not commit him to actually following through on anything. "I need access to the school."
He regarded her with a policeman's scrutiny. "Why?"
"I, uh, need to check on something."
"That guidance counselor? Miss Morrell?" her dad guessed and misinterpreted her dumbfounded expression. "Look, I can connect the dots, all right. You two were lookin' cozy outside the vet clinic when her brother went missing and I knew I interrupted somethin' at that coffee shop."
"Uh, that was not what it looked like," she said in a slow voice, but he wasn't listening. "Either time."
"Come on, kid, I found you cryin' in her office. Only love can make you cry like that, can hurt like that." He sighed and put his hands in his belt, looking at her where she slowly realized what was going on. "Is it enough if I go see if she's okay? No?" Her dad nodded in understanding. "You need to see it for yourself. All right, I get it."
He looked a lot older than she remembered him when he glanced at her with a wistful smile. "She's special, huh?"
Joe swallowed and tried to sound sincere when answering: "Yes?"
"All right, kid, come on." He put a hand on her back and led her towards the main entrance. Her dad gave the uniformed deputy there a nod that apparently was all the confirmation needed for Joe to be allowed inside. "Hey, uh, kid."
Joe turned on her heel, already well on her way through the doors with the rest of the student mass. "Yeah?"
"We need to talk," her dad said with a tired smile, a sense of finality in his voice. "You know that, right? About more than murder and cold cases. I get that you never called, that's fine, you know. You needed time. I get that."
Three months where he had waited for a call from her that never came. Three months of silence was the only reward for finally being honest with her. She hesitated, knowing she was here on a time-crucial mission. So much to say, and so little time.
It was too much for Joe to deal with, so she compartmentalized everything for later, but whispered: "Yeah. Uh, be careful, Dad."
He looked a bit perplexed, but nodded. "You too, kid."
After some failed attempts, Joe finally found a room that looked like a science lab. The hallways were empty after everyone had sidled into different classrooms, but Joe cast a quick glance over her shoulder before pushing the door so hard the lock crashed through the frame. One good thing about high school science labs was that all they marked the equipment, otherwise she would probably not have known what a gaussmeter looked like. She had to call Jimmy anyway to ask how to use it and she could hear him pounding the keyboard of his computer even as he explained.
His plan was to use the real-time measurements around the school at specific coordinates as reference points. That way they could interpolate to find the next exact location the Darach would strike and, more importantly, when. Working as quickly as she could, Joe used the GPS on her phone to find the coordinates and moved around the empty school hallways, locker rooms and classrooms to measure the magnetic field strength. She sent the numbers to Jimmy as she went.
Even as quickly as she worked, she still had a lot more ground to cover when the doors suddenly started opening and the hallways filled with noise and people. First period must be over. Joe used the opportunity to dart inside the classrooms, moving fast to see if there were any hotspots that would mean a higher probability of a telluric current influx — or something like that, Jimmy was more concerned in doing the calculations than explaining them to her.
"I need more from the eastern part of school," Jimmy said as he'd called her when she sent the last coordinates and measurement. "Around the locker rooms. We're getting close."
"Fine, got it," Joe said and hung up. At least she knew somewhat where the locker rooms were — this year she'd spent more time at this high school than she was strictly comfortable with. With one eye on the gaussmeter, in case the measurement spiked, she wove through the high school students exchanging books in their lockers or just standing around talking.
It was like a whisper in the air, a slight prickling in the back of her neck that made Joe look up.
It shouldn't have surprised her anymore to see Miss Blake, as her name was, standing on the other side of the hallway. Immaculate as ever, dressed in a nice red blouse and a dainty pencil skirt. Big eyes a bit widened when looking at Joe, lips parted as if she wanted to say something — or scream.
For a few seconds, they just stared at each other and Joe wondered if she should say something. Anything. Considering the last time they'd seen each other had been when Joe showed up in a frenzy to shoot Derek, maybe it would be better not to.
There was a glint in her eye, something akin to disgust. Again, she had watched Joe shoot Derek. Not that hard to understand the disgust.
Turning to look away, Joe kept moving down the hallway. Even when focusing on the gaussmeter, she felt the eyes of the teacher following her.
Near the locker rooms now, she couldn't catch any spikes in the measurement. He'd wanted readings from this part of the school, so she took the coordinates and typed in the long number to send him.
"Shit."
She kept missing the keys on her phone, fingers trembling too much. Flexing them, as if that ever helped, she tried again.
"Shit, shit, shit!"
People are dying, Joe, and you can't even type in a goddamn number? Shit. What's the problem? Seeing 'Miss Blake', the pretty teacher with the silky brown hair and large doe eyes and gentle smile? Soft and beautiful and everything Derek wanted? Shit. Practice what you preach, Delgado. You told Derek you wanted him to do what he wanted. Now he did. He's doing who he wants. And it ain't you.
"Shit!" Joe swore loudly and finally got the number right, hitting 'send' angrily. It sent and just then, an angry shout tore through the corridors.
"You want a fight, Derek? Come and get me!"
The sound that followed she would recognize anywhere. Werewolves fighting. Growling under her breath, Joe stuffed her phone and the gaussmeter back in the pocket of her jacket and started moving towards the noise. This better be important.
The snarls and roars came from the boys' locker rooms and Joe pushed herself inside. It took her a second to recognize what was going on: Lydia Martin stood terrified to the side while Cora and Boyd were beating the living crap out of one of the twins. Aiden, who they had pinned up against the side of a locker.
Two on one, it was still a tied match as Aiden was an Alpha, even without his brother.
Cora, roaring like an enraged tiger, slashed over Aiden's chest leaving a trail of bloodied skin. In retaliation, he knocked her aside so she flew to the ground. That left room for Boyd to strike — Aiden dodged so Boyd's fist went through the metal of the locker like it was wrapping paper instead of his face.
"Aiden, stop!" Lydia shrieked, fists clenched by her side.
Aiden's fist was not clenched, his entire hand open with splayed claws and he tore down slash open Boyd's face. Already up from the ground, Cora dashed forwards to attack from the side.
"Hey!" Joe shouted, hoping to overpower the furious snarls. "I don't have time for this bullshit! Cut it out!"
Of course, no one listened to her. She'd realized that what werewolves really understood was body language.
"Goddamn bullshit," she muttered and threw herself into the mix. First instinct was to get Aiden to back off.
Joe leaped up, using a move favored by Kali, and span around with a hard kick to Aiden's chest. He skidded over the floor, hitting a sink on the tiled back wall so the porcelain cracked.
Cora took the opportunity to rain down on him, but Joe was not having it right now. She grabbed Cora around the arm and flung her over, slamming her back against the locker. With one arm over Cora's chest, she tried to hold her there. "Cora, stop!"
Instead of answering, Cora only snarled loudly in her face and Joe gritted her teeth, laying more force in her voice. "Cora!"
Breathing hard, Cora stopped struggling, her face clearing back to human, although still livid. Bright brown eyes stared back at Joe, but shifted to something behind her and Joe remembered Boyd was still fit for fight. He roared at Aiden and they bashed into each other.
"Damn it!" Joe swore, dropped Cora and flipped back.
Something clattered to the floor, but Joe was more focused on getting between the two large werewolves locked in a power struggle. One-on-one, Aiden was a lot stronger than Boyd and Joe flinched when Aiden used a weightlifting plate to knock Boyd to the side. It left Aiden open and Joe pushed off from the floor, foot already coming out and front-kicked Aiden in the chest.
"Back off!" Joe yelled, mostly at Aiden, but also Boyd who was struggling to get back up, blood smeared on his temple.
Aiden recovered first and flew at Joe. Her body moved on its own — spinning around, she snatched the weight plate off the floor, using the momentum to smash it into Aiden's chin. A trail of blood burst from his lip.
His teeth as red as his eyes when he grinned at her. A challenge.
"I said," Joe grabbed Aiden's arm, flipped him around to his knees and kicked her heel into his elbow so it snapped with a loud crack, "back off!"
The locker room vibrated at his painful howl. Curling her lip in disgust, she shoved him away, and took a step back. Her blood boiled, she wanted to hurt him; she wanted to kill him. Behind her, she heard Boyd growl, and it pissed her off.
Her eyes switched as she turned to roar: "BACK OFF!"
Yellow eyes, claws out, Boyd tried to fight it. His jaw moved as he bared his fangs, snarling and growling, equally much at her as the wounded Aiden behind her. The hatred glowed in his eyes and it triggered something inside of her, something that wanted to put him back in his place and she inhaled deeply again.
"Aiden!"
Scott and Ethan tore through the locker room before she could do anything; Scott went for Boyd, helping him up and holding him back where he swayed gently. Joe faltered at the sight, eyes dimming back to brown. Helping. That's what she should have done. Another glance at her hands, now speckled in Aiden's blood.
Ethan dashed over to Aiden. "You can't do this!"
Aiden, eyes still red and mouth still full of large teeth cradled his broken arm. "They came at me!"
"It doesn't matter!" Ethan insisted and physically pushed his brother back. "Kali gave Derek until the next full moon. You can't touch any of them!"
Aiden did not look like he approved of this message as he practically hissed and spat toward Cora and Boyd, neither of who looked remotely done with the fight. With a grin at Joe, he snapped his elbow back in place.
"What the hell are you guys doing?" Joe demanded of all of them when she regained control of her voice; Stiles had also arrived and was helping Cora get up — she'd slumped when Joe dropped her.
Boyd, only held back by Scott who seemed to struggle a bit, roared: "Where is he?" The question was directed as much to her as the twins, who all looked at each other. "Where's Derek?"
"You think we know?" Aiden shouted and now Ethan's biceps bulged from pushing him back. "Ask his Alpha bitc-"
"You wanna go there, Aiden? I'll break both of your arms, no problem." Joe glared at him, but his shit-eating grin only widened. Taking a deep breath, because she did not have the time and patience for a fight now, she tried to get her anger in check. Turning to Boyd and Cora instead, she said: "What do you mean 'Where's Derek'? He hasn't come back yet? I found him in the woods two days ago."
"You found him? To finish the job?" Boyd asked, anger steaming off of him and she saw the hard glint in his eyes. If Scott hadn't physically held him back, he would have come right at her already. Now she worried Scott wouldn't be able to hold him back as Boyd struggled to get loose. "To kill him like you killed Erica?"
Erica. Just hearing the name was like a punch in the stomach. She hated this. Hated it hated it hated it. Which was worst? The feeling in her heart or the look on Scott's face? The look of shock and confusion and betrayal? It was mirrored in Stiles' open mouth down by Cora and even Lydia had let out a soft gasp.
Breathe, just breathe. Joe slowly folded her arms, realizing that she and the twins were standing on one side of the benches with everyone else on the opposite side. Battle lines drawn. And she was on the wrong side.
Aware of the twins behind her, Deucalion's literal lapdogs, she kept an even tone and bit out: "I never wanted to do that."
She hated this. Hated how they looked at her. Hated how Scott's eyes were still wide in confusion and not hatred. He should hate her. Joe focused on Boyd and Cora.
"But I didn't kill Derek. If he hasn't come back yet, that's on him."
"We haven't touched him," Ethan clarified, as most of them had shifted their suspicious eyes to them instead. "Like I said, he has until the full moon."
"I don't believe you," Boyd growled at Joe. "Why should we believe anything coming out of your mouth when you did everything they said for two months?!"
Her voice was barely over a whisper, mind already back at the vault, in the dust and darkness. "What was I supposed to do?"
"Resist!"
The lump in her throat made it hard to breathe, hard to talk. "I tried, I swear-"
He snorted, a guttural noise of disgust. "You didn't try hard enough."
"Boyd, I-" Her eyes watered over, she did not even see the others in the locker room, only him. "They were starving you."
"Then you should have let us starve!"
No.
"That's why you're angry?" Joe trembled all over, but tried to stand her ground. "Because I ended your little hunger strike? Because I forced you to eat?" On the floor, Cora looked away. It had not been pretty. Boyd's nostrils flared, but Joe pushed on through the tears forming in her eyes. "Because they," she gestured to the twins, "never told me to do that. You know who did?" She hated this. Hated it, hated it, hated it. "Erica."
Boyd shook his head, looking sick. "You're lying."
"Listen to my heartbeat, Verne, and tell me I'm lying. She begged me to stop you. Begged me to make you eat."
"Boyd, please, calm down," Scott said gently, but it had the opposite effect.
With a harsh shrug, Boyd pushed Scott away. His chest heaved and even Joe could hear the growl with every breath and for a long second, she thought he would just go for it. Just attack her.
Unconsciously, she shifted her stance, getting ready for a fight.
Showing some remarkable restraint, Boyd lifted his lip in contempt one last time before he turned and walked out of the locker rooms, head still bleeding.
Joe didn't move, kept her arms folded over her chest and just tried to breathe. Just breathe. Reaching some sort of silent agreement, Scott and Ethan nodded to each other, and the latter grabbed hold of his brother and dragged him out of the locker rooms as well, going the opposite way of Boyd.
"Hey, guys, I think she's pretty hurt," Stiles said and now Joe saw blood on Cora's face as well. Must have happened when Aiden first knocked her aside. Groaning, Cora pushed away Stiles' attempt of helping her up, typical Hale behavior.
Joe had not expected the same reaction when she reached for her. Cora recoiled from her touch, clutching one hand to her temple as she hissed: "Don't touch me."
She hated her. And Joe deserved it. Shoulders slumping, she tried anyway. "Cora, you-"
"I'm fine!" Cora insisted and through sheer willpower, got off the floor. She swayed over to the sinks, ripping paper from the dispenser. "Get out! Leave, like everyone else. Like Laura, like Derek, like Boyd!"
Joe took a deep groaning breath at the thought of Derek. Stupid asshole was probably still brooding somewhere in the woods. Still, Cora was hurt and not responding too kindly to Stiles and Lydia's attempt to help her. Somehow, she looked like she was the one who'd been hit with the weightlifting plate. He'd knocked her about pretty hard, but she was covered in sweat.
"You okay?" Joe asked, wanting to reach over and touch her forehead. She looked like she was burning up. Knowing Cora would only strike back, Joe kept her arms folded.
"Like you care?" Cora asked, proving again that she was only seventeen years old, no matter how grown-up she acted. "I'll heal."
"Okay, you know what? I don't have time for this," Joe said with her arms up in surrender. She swooped down to pick the gauss meter out of Stiles' hands — it had fallen out of her pocket during the fight. "People are dying."
"Like Erica?"
To her surprise, it was Lydia who posed the question, voice tight and head tilted to the side in a challenge. It was hard to look at any of them, hard to see their judgemental faces. Stiles looked resigned, almost as if he'd expected this, and Scott just looked like someone told him his goldfish had died.
"Like you care?" Joe asked eventually, enjoying the stricken expression on Lydia's face. With a last look towards Cora, who focused on dabbing blood off her face, Joe left the locker rooms.
No sign of Boyd, he was probably long gone by now. At least that meant he was safe from her.
Only ten steps down the hall and Scott caught up with her.
"Don't." She tried to brush off his hand that he put on her shoulder, but he persisted. "Scott-"
"It's okay," he whispered, the confusion replaced with worry in his eyes. He held her in place, forcing her to look at him. "Joe, it's okay." It really wasn't, but it was easy to believe it could be when coming from Scott. He glanced down at the gaussmeter in her trembling hands. "What're you doing?"
"Jimmy was able to pinpoint when and where the sacrifice took place last night. We're trying to predict the next one too," Joe explained, because it was easier to focus on that than everything else. With Erica dead, Cora hating her and Boyd gone, she felt more alone than ever. Stupid pack bonds. The only bright side was she had no more betas left to kill. "He thinks the sacrifice got messed up because he interrupted, so next one's probably gonna be soon."
"Okay," said Scott with a sigh, almost reminding her of Derek in his ability to focus on what needed to be done, disregarding other uncomfortable facts for the time being. "Okay, how can I help?"
"Make sure that murderous Baby Hale in there is okay." Joe did not even need to think about that one. Sometimes she could just let her instincts do the talking. Besides, Scott would be a better replacement than both her and Derek. "I'll deal with the murders."
"Okay." Scott sounded unsure, and she got the impression he was trying to measure where on the crazy-scale she landed at the moment. "Okay?"
"Dude, just go," she said with a sad smile and shrugged him off her. "Be careful."
"You too." Scott turned to leave, but then span around quickly and planted a kiss on the side of her temple. It happened so fast and she wasn't sure if she felt like she was seven or ninety-seven years old. He smiled with closed lips and brows drawn together. "Please. Be careful. Remember, we love you, no matter what."
As she did not have the emotional capacity to deal with that, she just watched him leave in a daze before shaking her head to snap out of it. Murders and mayhem happening here.
Walking down the corridor, she focused on reading the magnetic field instead of acknowledging her own thoughts and worries. Where was Derek? He had been in a weird mood when she found him — or he found her if you worried about accuracy — but not hurt.
It was not until she tried to send the new text message to Jimmy that she remembered the reception was bad down here. Annoyed, she kept trying to send, but it wouldn't go through until she was up the short set of stairs to the ground floor. Her phone immediately rang when the first bar indicating service popped in.
"Hi, sorry, I was down in th-"
"Now! Joe, it's happening RIGHT NOW!"
It's the beginning of the end. Fair warning, there's gonna be cliffhangers for a while.
Sorry for the pseudoscience, it hurts my engineering heart.
Also, cigarettes are not cool, kids. Don't believe everything you read.
Soo, anyone got theories on Erica? Who is this missing José? Should Joe have broken both of Aiden's arms?
Anyway, sorry for the long chapter, but thank you for reading it anyway 😊 Please let me know what you think, and then I'll see you on Thursday ❤ Stay safe, guys!
(Also, Sara, definitely make a profile! You'll get an e-mail whenever a new chapter's posted 😊)