Chapter Two: Wolves

Monday morning found her sitting on the floor of her cubicle packing up the bankers' boxes Judge Morehouse's aides had dropped off for her. She had purposefully come to work early so that she had a little time to go through the boxes before her boss arrived. She knew it was time to give up the story, but there was a voice at the back of her head that whispered that she was missing something.

She had just made it through the second box, moving on from lunch menus and Amazon orders to his datebook, all his important meetings redacted. The only things she could discern were his dentist appointments, his manicures, and a regular monthly meeting with someone, or something, named Karg.

A quick google search had turned up with nothing useful. There was an eye doctor named Karg in Ohio (she doubted he was traveling to California to meet with Judge Morehouse), a blackmetal band from Austria (they had never played any shows in America), and a group of fictional people from some book series called Earthsea (the first book had been written in the 60's and unless Morehouse was part of some fantasy book club he probably wasn't having meetings about them).

"Useless," Darcy muttered to herself as she began to load everything back into the box. She had just put the lid on it when she heard someone knock against the wall of her cubicle. She glanced up to see her boss, Sam Braun, standing just outside her cubicle. A quick glance around her messy cubicle had her standing, her hands clenching into nervous fists before she forced them to relax. "Sam," she greeted her boss, her gaze moving back to the bankers' boxes. "Good morning."

"Morning Stilinski," Sam greeted her with a nod. His own gaze moved toward the boxes as well. "You're cleaning those up?" he asked, nodding to a box. "Getting rid of them?"

Darcy nodded.

Sam nodded too, "Good," he told her. "I never should have let you pursue that lead. We need Judge Morehouse on our side and pissing him off wasn't going to help us cultivate sources inside the courthouse."

"I don't think I pissed him off," Darcy assured him. "He dropped the trespassing charges from Saturday ni -" she cut herself off when she noticed Sam's eyebrows lift, she had assumed that her boss knew that she had been picked up for trespassing over the weekend. Apparently he didn't.

"Trespassing?" Sam echoed.

Darcy swallowed, "You told me I had to give up the story this morning if I didn't find anything over the weekend," she told him, defending herself. "I looked into it further over the weekend, but I didn't find anything. So I'm giving it up."

"And by looked further into it you mean you -"

"Trespassed on government property and dug through a dumpster on Saturday night," Darcy told him honestly. She shifted slightly on her feet, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "But like I said, Morehouse dropped the charges as long as I agreed to drop my investigation." She gestured around the floor at the packed boxes, "Which I am. Obviously."

Sam chuckled, shaking his head, "You spent Saturday night digging through a dumpster?" he asked, he didn't believe her.

Darcy shrugged, "Anything to get out of reporting the high school lacrosse game," she told him honestly.

Sam laughed out loud this time, no longer a polite chuckle. "I knew your reputation before I hired you," he told her, shaking his head. "I knew that I was going to have my hands full with you. But I didn't think it was going to be this bad."

Darcy opened her mouth to defend herself, but Sam waved her off. "I didn't say that it was a bad thing," he assured her. "And if anything, I appreciate your dedication. So to reward you, I won't put you on next week's lacrosse game. I've got a different story for you."

Darcy nodded, turning slightly to lean over her desk to grab a pad of paper and a pen. The top three sheets were covered with scribbled notes and theories about Judge Morehouse. She ripped them off and crumpled them up, throwing them into her trash can, sinking one shot after another before she turned back to Sam, waiting for her next assignment.

"Laura Hale," Sam told her with a nod. "Word from the Sheriff's Office is that they now have both halves of her body. The bottom half was found in the woods and the top half -"

"Was found buried near the Hale House by two local boys," Darcy cut him off with a nod. She lowered the pad of paper and the pen, she wouldn't need to take notes to remember this assignment. Because Scott and Stiles were minors their involvement would have been kept from the report, Sam wouldn't know that her brother had helped find the body.

Sam nodded, if he was surprised that she already knew about the body he didn't let on. "Yes," he agreed. "Last I heard they had taken her younger brother, Derek Hale in for questioning."

Darcy shook her head, "They released him on Friday night," she told him. "Found some evidence that exonerated him."

"Alright know-it-all," Sam told her with a laugh. "If you know the whole story, why haven't you written it yet?"

"I don't know the whole story," Darcy defended herself with a shrug. "He was released when I was -"

She cut herself off.

"Getting booked for trespassing?" Sam asked, his eyebrows raised.

Darcy nodded, "Yeah," she agreed with a smile. "Though I was never actually booked."

"Pays to have the Sheriff for a father," Sam suggested.

Darcy glanced at him sharply, "Pays to have a reporter who's related to the Sheriff," she pointed out.

Sam nodded, "It really does," he told her. Darcy was confident enough in her writing and investigative skills not to worry that the only reason she had been hired for the Beacon County Register was because of her connection to the Sheriff's department. She was a good writer and both she and Sam knew it.

Sam nodded to the bankers' boxes on the floor between them. "Get all of this shredded and start on the Laura Hale story," he told her. "It's been a while since the name Hale has been in the papers here, make sure to give us some background."

"Background?" Darcy asked, arching a brow.

Sam nodded, "Yeah, research the fire. Interview anyone who was friends with Laura and Derek Hale in high school. I think their uncle's still alive - he's not in the best shape, he's the hospital's LTAC, but interview his nurse or something. Find out why Derek Hale was released this weekend. Interview him if you can."

Darcy's jaw clenched. This is what she hated most about small town newspapers - The New York Times articles she had written had always been about current events, politics, big ideas. But here at the Beacon County Register her articles were pretty much local gossip and hearsay, because that was what the readers cared about.

Stories like this sold the paper.

But that didn't mean that Darcy would enjoy writing it.

"Are people really going to want to be reminded of all that?" Darcy asked, raising her eyebrows.

Sam nodded, "Of course they will," he told her. "The Hale House fire was such a big deal when it happened. You were a kid, you wouldn't remember. But the Hales were always an oddity in town. They had so much money …"

He said it as if it was a crime that the family was rich. Though if Darcy could remember the family was more than rich. Old money, her mother had always called them. They didn't flaunt their wealth, but there was always something that had separated them from the rest of Beacon Hills. Something that made them other.

Sam continued, "And the two brothers who shared that large house and raised their kids together. That was weird. There was something cultish about it all. Like, you half-expected they would homeschool the kids to ensure they didn't … mix with the poor kids."

Darcy's jaw clenched again and she reached up to brush her hair out of her eyes. Beacon Hills wasn't necessarily a poor town. There was a healthy mix of wealth spread out over the city - rich families and those getting by paycheck to paycheck, but the Hale's had always been above all that. And there was a certain resentment that people always had about wealthy people who, at least in their opinion, hadn't done anything to deserve that wealth.

It set her teeth on edge.

"Please don't make me write that story, Sam," she whispered softly.

Sam was only a few years older than her. She liked to think that they were friends, but there had always been a line separating them. A line between friend and boss. Sam drew that line now. The smile slipped off his face as his gaze moved from Darcy's face to the boxes on the floor and back in a pointed loop, "I humored your Judge Morehouse rabbit hole for the last month, Stilinski," he reminded her. "I'm your boss and I want this story. And unless you're ready to start covering high school lacrosse games then you better start writing this one."

Darcy nodded. She still didn't want to write the story, but she knew that she would anyway. If she didn't write it then Sam would just give it to someone else. And at least if she wrote it she could ensure that there was some substance to it and that it wouldn't just be a gossip piece about a local family who had seen way too much heartbreak over the years.

If she wrote it she could protect the story.

She could protect him.

It wasn't until Sam had left the cubicle and she had bent to pick up one of the bankers' boxes that Darcy realized that the biggest reason she had agreed to take on the story was because of him - the man she had seen in the Sheriff's station.

His green eyes flashed in her head.

Her brows furrowed, she didn't know much about him, but she was certain of one thing.

Derek Hale did not need her protection.

…..

It took her the entire work day to shred the documents she had gotten from Morehouse. She would have to start the Hale story the next day. That didn't seem to bother Sam, there was a loose deadline on the story for next week. In a town the size of Beacon Hills, his concern wasn't beating the rumor mill - he had his crime reporter Molly Morris for that. The point of Darcy's story was to add the human interest, to take the facts that everyone already knew and weave them into a - in Sam's words - hopefully heart wrenching story of the pain the Hale family, and Beacon Hills, had been through over the last few years.

The thought made Darcy sick to her stomach.

But she needed the job. So she'd do it.

Both her father and Stiles were home when she got home from work. Her father had been grocery shopping on his way home, but it looked like neither of them had made a move to put the majority of the groceries away or start on dinner.

At least they had put the perishable items away. That was a step up from the last time they had gone shopping without Darcy. She sighed, she knew that her father was capable of taking care of Stiles, he had done it since their mother died when she was a pre-teen, but he had relied heavily on Darcy when she was in high school and seemed to be doing it again now that she had come home.

Her father had come home, but it was clear that he was still working. There were files spread out over the kitchen table. Darcy moved past him, trying not to be nosey and look at the files, despite how much she wanted to. She dropped her hand on her father's shoulder and squeezed it gently as she passed him. "You want me to make dinner?" she asked as she moved toward the still-bagged groceries.

Her father glanced up from his files and smiled, "You're a lifesaver, Doodle" he told her, not all ironically.

"You're the lifesaver, Dad," Darcy told him, shaking her head as she opened a cupboard to put away a box of cereal. "I'm just the housekeeper, live-in chef, and nanny."

Stiles had been stretched out on the couch, channel surfing when she got home. He sat up quickly, turning to watch her through the doorway. "Dinner?" he asked, wide-eyed. "Did I hear you say you were going to make dinner, Dee?"

Darcy nodded, "Yeah," she told him as she opened the fridge to get a better assessment of what they had bought. She frowned, her lips tugging down at the corners, there was too much red meat in the fridge for her liking, her father was supposed to be working on eating healthier. And while home-cooked meals were healthier than a burger from a fast-food joint, there was still too much of it - ground beef for homemade burgers, three steaks, ribs.

Leaving the fridge door open she glanced over her shoulder so that she could watch both her father and Stiles, "How about I make some jerk chicken tacos?" she asked them. "With a pineapple salsa and some homemade guac?"

Her father nodded, "Whatever you feel like making, kid."

Stiles was a little more receptive. "Tacos?" he asked with a grin and a nod. "It's not even Tuesday!" Darcy shook her head and turned back to the fridge so that she could begin pulling the ingredients out. She hadn't been the best or most creative cook in high school, but she and one of her college roommates had taken a cooking class together their freshmen year for an easy A and they were really good at it.

Stiles had jumped off the couch and walked into the kitchen. She didn't notice him until he had wrapped his arms around her shoulders from behind, squeezing tightly. "You're my half-sister, but I whole love you!" he cheered in her ear.

Darcy winced at his statement, but forced a smile onto her lips as she turned to look at him. She was thirteen when she found out that she wasn't Noah Stilinski's real daughter. It had been a low-point in her life when she learned that her parents had lied to her her entire life, but with therapy she and Noah had gotten through it. As far as he was concerned, she was his daughter and that was the end of the story, for his sake Darcy had let that be the end of the story for her as well. She never went looking for her real father.

Stiles had been eight when they found out. And he hadn't understood why it would make any difference. He still didn't. And Darcy loved him for it. But she could do without the casual reminders.

She should have known, that was the first thought that had gone through her head the moment she found out. She should have known - she didn't look anything like Noah Stilinski. Her dark, shoulder-length brown hair had come from her mother, so had the freckles that dotted across her nose and cheeks. She had always assumed her blue eyes came from Noah, but they weren't light enough to be his. They were darker, too blue. Her pale skin, almost impossible to tan, didn't match either parent. She didn't belong to the man she considered her father, at least not genetically, but he raised her like she was his own. He loved her like she was his own.

And that was something she would be grateful for for the rest of her life.

Stiles still had his arms wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her back to the present.

Her brows furrowed and she shook her head, "Is that quote from The Wedding Date?" she asked, her hair whipping around her face as she turned to look at the high schooler.

Stiles shrugged, "So?" he asked with a grin. "I'm comfortable enough with my masculinity to admit that I have watched a chick flick or two."

Darcy shook her head and grabbed the dish towel off the oven handle so that she could swat at the younger boy with it. "Alright, Mr. Comfortable with his masculinity, grab a knife and help me." She nodded toward the chicken she had taken out of the fridge, "I need that cubed."

Stiles nodded, grabbing a butcher's knife out of the knife block on the counter, "Cubed?" he asked, gesturing toward the meat with the large blade.

"On second thought," Darcy said slowly, gently pulling the knife out of his hand, "How about I use the knife and you make the jerk seasoning."

"That's probably safer," their father agreed from the kitchen table.

"It'll save us a trip to the emergency room at least," Darcy told him as she started cubing the chicken. She glanced up at her father as she worked, "Still working on the Laura Hale case?" she asked him, nodding toward the files on the table when he looked up at her in surprise.

"How did you know it was Laura Hale?" he asked.

Darcy shrugged. The knife slipped in her hand and nicked the outside edge of her thumb, "Fuck," she whispered, tears springing reflexively to her eyes as she lifted her thumb to her mouth to suck on. It wasn't the most hygenic way to deal with the blood, but it kept it off the chicken. "Sam said the body had been identified as Laura Hale," she told him, mumbling around her thumb. "If you're trying to keep it out of the public, it's already out there."

"What else is out there?" her father asked as Darcy turned toward the sink so that she could rinse out the cut. They didn't keep bandaids in the kitchen, but she found some electrical tape in the junk drawer and used that to tape a paper towel to the cut.

"That you arrested Derek Hale for her murder," Darcy told him as she turned back to the chicken with a new knife. She glanced up, watching her father for a second before her gaze lowered to the meat and she kept her eyes on the knife as she started to cut again. "And that you let him go. Though that might be less than public." She shrugged, "I saw him getting released on Saturday night."

Her dad nodded, "Yeah," he told her, his gaze cutting to Stiles. Her brother suddenly looked very interested in getting the exact measurements of the spices Darcy had given him to make the seasoning. "We had to let him go."

"Did he have an alibi?" Darcy asked, trying not to sound too interested.

"Not one that could be proven," he told her. "But in the end he didn't need one."

Darcy's brows furrowed, that didn't make sense unless someone else had admitted to committing the crime. She didn't have to ask though, her father sighed, "This will all be in your paper tomorrow so I guess I don't need to keep it a secret from you. There were hairs on the body that didn't match."

"They didn't match Derek?" Darcy asked, her eyes still on the knife in her hand.

"They didn't match any human," her father told her. "They were animal. Wolf according to the crime lab in San Fran."

Stiles made a strange strangled noise at the back of his throat and quickly poured all the spices into a mixing bowl, giving the entire bowl a quick, sloppy shake to mix them. Half the seasoning landed on the counter. "I just remembered that I have homework," he announced, slamming the bowl down on the counter. "I should go do that. Enjoy dinner, I worked hard, I'll -"

Darcy shook her head as she reached out for the mixing bowl. She'd have to throw it all out and mix the spices again. "Go Stiles," she ordered him. She shot him a look as he started to back out of the kitchen, "And be sure to tell Scott I say hi when you text him."

…..

Grey wolves are native to California, but disappeared in the 1920s. Most were likely killed through hunting or to control predation on other animals.

The words glared at Darcy from her laptop screen.

She was proud of herself, she had waited until after they had eaten and she and Stiles had cleaned up the dinner plates before she went to her room to research wolves.

Her search had started with a simple google search to see if wolves were even known to attack humans.

The short answer was a resounding no.

Wolf attacks on humans were the rarest of all large predator attacks and were often the result of a habituated or sick wolf. The idea of a wolf attacking Laura Hale was even stranger because according to the internet, there weren't any grey wolves in California.

They had all been killed or chased away.

Earlier that year, a single grey wolf with a radio collar, OR-7, had crossed the border from Oregon, but the wolf had already returned home to its pack. OR-7 was the first wolf in the state since 1924 according to the Fish and Wildlife department. (And yes, Darcy had called them to ask.)

According to Fish and Wildlife, the Klamath-Siskiyou and Modoc Plateau regions could support up to 470 wolves, but the majority of them seemed to be staying in Southwestern Oregon. According to Google, wolves would often follow in the paw-prints of other wolves and so now that OR-7 had crossed the border other wolves might follow.

Fish and Wildlife thought that unlikely, as there were far more paw-prints leading away from California rather than into it.

Still, Darcy had asked them for a quote regarding the likelihood of a wolf attacking Laura Hale for her article. And then she asked a follow-up, wincing at how stupid she imagined the man on the other end of the line would think she was when he heard it. "So while improbable, it is possible that a wolf could have attacked the victim?" she asked.

"Yes," the man answered, trying to remain patient. "It is possible that an uncollared, sick or injured wolf crossed into California and attacked the victim in the woods. Unlikely, but possible."

Darcy nodded, though the biologist wouldn't be able to see her nod. "And would it be considered strange that the sick or injured wolf did not eat her, but did split her in half at the naval region?"

There was a weighted silence on the other end of the line.

A pause.

And then -

"Excuse me?" the man asked. "Did you say 'split her in half'?"

Darcy nodded again. She hadn't seen the body, but she had bribed Stiles into telling her what he had seen with a week's worth of gas money for the jeep. "Clean line, right around her belly button, through her spine."

"Ma'am," the biologist told her after another long pause. "I don't know who told you this was a wolf attack, but that is impossible. Even if wolves did that to their prey, a sick or injured one would not have the strength to. It would take -"

"It takes approximately 2,200 pounds of force to rip off a human arm," Darcy cut in. Her jaw clenched, she didn't like that she knew that. "The only animal known to have that kind of strength is a gorilla. And that's an arm, not the trunk of the body and the spine."

"Ex - exactly," the biologist agreed. "A sick or injured wolf would not - they couldn't - a clean line?" She could just imagine the confusion on the biologist's face, she could hear it in his voice. "When hunting small prey, wolves will bite their back to incapacitate them. Larger prey they usually will go for their throat or snout. The point is to cripple the prey, as their teeth are not long enough to deliver a killing bite to larger prey. They cripple it, and either wait until it dies or eat it alive. They wouldn't leave the body - they don't usually leave many remains."

Darcy nodded, she now knew way more about grey wolves' hunting and feeding habits than she wanted to. She thanked the biologist and hung up, quickly typing up her notes from the call. The wolf hairs on Laura Hale's body were obviously a dead end.

Tomorrow she'd have to go to the Hale House.

Author's Note:

And we're back with another chapter. This is probably the only update you will see this week and I am so sorry that there is no Derek in it.
But we are gearing ourselves up for a whole lot of Derek in the next chapter!
I promise!
Regardless, I hope that you liked this chapter and that you are looking forward to the next update.
(If you are you should totally review!)
Thank you to the three people who reviewed the last chapter. This update is all because of you! \
To my friend Three123: There is a little hint of what Darcy looks like in this chapter. But you will see a better description of her in chapter three and a half (the half signifying that the chapter will be in Derek's POV ... I'm very excited about it.) As for whether or not she's going to be human ... she is to start with ... maybe.
Anyway, thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed it!
Until next time,

Chloe Jane