The world's in trouble; there's no communication
An' everyone can say what they want to say
It never gets better, anyway


Chapter 6: Obfuscate


Word was buzzing around school. The first official lacrosse game was looming up. Beacon Hills versus Devenford Prep, the same as the previous scrimmage.

Sherry didn't even ask her uncle if she could go. He hadn't been around lately, always staying out late and returning home scuffed up and exhausted. He claimed he'd taken on extra shifts.

She locked up her bike outside of the school. Already, students filed into the lacrosse stadium, decked out in maroon jerseys and Devenford green hoodies. she joined the mass of lacrosse fans, waiting in line to buy her ticket.

Once she passed inside, she made a beeline toward the snack bar. Her pockets stuffed with Skittles and M&M's packets, she strolled to the bleachers. Out on the field, the two teams warmed up and stretched.

She didn't know where to sit. Her spot up at the top was now filled with boisterous teens, none of whom she knew. On the first row of bleachers, Sheriff Stilinski chatted softly with Malia. Farther over, Mason sat alone. She picked up her pace, stopping next to the boy and plopping into the space next to him.

Mason started at her sudden entrance. "Hi!" he exclaimed, surprised. "I remember you."

She grinned. "Where is your friend Liam?"

He nodded toward the player's bench, where a Dunbar was conversing with a Stilinski.

"He's Dunbar?" she questioned. "The kid who got mauled at the scrimmage?"

Mason winced. "Yeah, that's him. I don't know why they stopped the game, though. He was perfectly fine."

"But," she spluttered, "It looked like he broke his arm! Everyone was so worried!"

He shrugged. "False alarm. Actually," he considered, momentarily stroking his clean-shaven chin, "They might've stopped the game because of the murder attempt."

"Murder? You mean those two teenage assassins?"

"Yeah." His voice became melancholy and bitter. "I felt kinda back-stabbed. You know, for a while, Garrett and Violet were actually my friends. Garrett had me convinced I could trust him."

She didn't quite know how to respond. "You never know, nowadays," she muttered. "Anyone could be keeping secrets."

Mason sighed and rubbed his hands together. "You got that right."

"Did they ever get caught? The assassins?"

"They got killed. A mountain lion attacked the police vehicle transporting Violet. Garrett was trying to rescue Violet from the cops, but the cougar got him, too."

"Did they deserve it?"

Mason's answer was point-blank. "Yeah. They did."

"I guess that's good, then."

A sharp whistle pierced across the field. The game had begun. Sherry focused raptly on the field, her puce brown eyes darting as the ball flew from Devenford player to Devenford player. One of them rammed into a Beacon Hills player, causing him to collapse on the ground. He stood up a moment later, looking almost triumphant that he'd survived. Stiles.

Again and again, Devenford made passes and scored goals. Stiles kept getting knocked over, whether it be from a ball to the helmet or a stick in the stomach. And Liam? While play surged around him, he looked stricken, frozen in place.

"What's he doing?" Sherry hissed. "Why isn't he moving?"

"I don't know!" There was a pang of worry in Mason's voice.

"Isn't Scott team captain?" she realized. "I haven't seen him all game."

"He said he'd be late."

"Late?" she scoffed. "The game is nearly over."

"For the love of God, Liam! Move!" Coach Finstock bellowed.

Sherry and Mason snapped back to the field. The Devenford team moved like a front. They sprinted like a wide green tsunami, headed toward the goal. Liam stood glued in place, just staring at them as they ran past.

He could have snatched the ball and prevented a goal. He could have bought a few more points for the Beacon Hills team. But he didn't snap out of his trance until the ball slammed into the netting of his team's goal. A whistle sounded. The Beacon Hills fans groaned, some people throwing up their hands in defeat. Liam had just lost the game for the school.

Sherry glanced at Mason. His face was blank and disbelieving, staring unblinkingly at Liam.


It was Saturday. Parrish was out again. Sherry had nothing to do all day and no good friends to hang out with. At her previous school in San Jose, her teachers assigned her boatloads of homework over the weekends, so much, in fact, that she had no time for anything but homework and cheer practice. Now, her teachers assigned her no more homework than was necessary. The closest cheer gym was an hour's drive away. For the first time in her life, Sherry had absolutely nothing to do.

She pulled out her laptop and stretched out on Parrish's scratchy sofa. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, the screen open to Google.

Calaveras.

The search yielded generic results. Calaveras County, California. A state park. The Calaveras Superior Court. The only things interesting on the page were a definition and a row of image results. A calavera is a representation of a human skull made from either sugar or clay, which is used in the Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead and the Roman Catholic holiday All Souls and Saints Day. So her father's murderer was part of a family named after skulls? She didn't know whether that was terrifying or pathetically hilarious.

Calaveras Family.

Still, she received zero results. Sighing, Sherry abandoned the search. She opened Netflix, which was still funded by her mother's credit card. After the disasters had stricken her family, the court had allowed her parent's money to still pay for her daily living, up until the existing expiration dates. She'd kept the debit card her mother had registered for her, even though it was tied to her mother's parent account. She had to wait until she was eighteen to inherit the rest of her parent's money.

Netflix opened a pop-up box. Your credit card is about to expire. Edit your payment settings? It seemed her period of financial buoyancy was coming to a close. She let out a slow breath and closed her computer. She stood up and went to check the refrigerator. Empty. It was time for a trip to the grocery store.


Late that night, Parrish arrived home, his nose buried deep in a pocket-sized tome. He barely acknowledged Sherry as he perused the pages, absentmindedly draping his jacket over a chair and lowering himself into it.

She glanced over her shoulder, distracted from the pan on the stove. Oil sizzled among a thinning pile of chopped celery, the green stalks browning slightly in the heat. "Whatcha reading?"

He didn't answer. She mixed up the celery with a wooden spatula, wincing as flecks of oil bit at her wrist. "Jordan?"

"Um," he muttered, as if that was a response.

Sherry poured the celery into an empty plate and drizzled more vegetable oil into the frying pan. With one hand balancing the cutting board, she pushed the clumps of chopped cabbage into the pan. Immediately, the oil popped like bubbles in champagne.

"Uncle Jordan?" she prompted, this time louder. Maybe he hadn't heard her over the frying and the whir of the fans. "Hey!" She looked at him again, trying to read the faded text on the cover of the book. Compiled Bestiary. Property of the Argent Family. "Bestiary?" she asked, intrigued.

That seemed to snap Parrish out of it. His head snapped up, suddenly aware of where he was, and shut the book. He slipped it into his lap. "Just some- some casual reading," he said, smiling. "What are you cooking?"

"Chao mian. Fried noodles." She emptied the frying pan again and dumped in a large bowl filled with thick noodles. She'd boiled them earlier and let them out to sit.

"Your dad taught you how to cook that, right?" he asked.

She chuckled, the mention not even jarring her. "Actually, my gramma taught both of us. My dad could be so chauvinistic at times. He avoided learning how to cook nearly his whole life."

"Speaking of your dad," Parrish piped up, "I've got news."

Sherry stiffened. Did they finally find the killer? She focused on her noodles, reminding herself not to get her hopes up. She pushed the noodles around the pan, throwing in the celery, cabbage, and cooked beef. "Yeah?"

"The SFPD have decided to put a hold on the investigation. The killer you described doesn't exist in their records. Your house is no longer a crime scene."

She felt like punching something. The killer didn't exist? She had seen his picture on Stiles' board the other day. But she couldn't exactly disclose that she'd been sneaking around in the Sheriff's house. "They're just going to let the case go?" She couldn't cover up the livid tremor in her voice.

"I'm sorry, Sherry. But the good news is you can get all your stuff from your house back. We can move your bed here. You can get back all your furniture and anything else you want."

"I don't care about all my stuff. I want justice for my dad! For both of my parents! My mom doesn't deserve the sentence she got, either!" Her wrist grazed the side of the frying pan. She drew back, hissing. A faint pink line was visible on her white skin.

"I'm sorry," he repeated plaintively. Parrish always had that characteristic about him that was comforting. Like he understood her, even though she knew he plainly didn't. "I'm trying to convince them to continue the case. To try harder for more evidence. But, Sherry, they don't have much to work with. The secret organization your mom aided? Legally, they don't exist."

"Calaveras," she blurted. In the next moment, she had to muster all her strength not to clap her hand over her mouth and form some excuse for what she'd just revealed. Parrish might not even believe her.

"What?" Parrish sounded shocked, almost accusatory. "Again?"

She inhaled, turning off the burner. "When I was at Stiles' house," she began, turning around to face her uncle, "He left early. I was alone in his house for a few hours so I... I got bored. I ended up in his room, because I saw something odd." She searched Parrish's eyes for a sign of disappointment or anger. "He has this detective board, where he tapes up all this evidence and links them together." Sherry closed her eyes briefly, recalling the image to her mind. "And in the corner, there was a picture of him. Of the man who killed my mother. And the group of pictures - they were labeled Calaveras."

His green eyes were trained on her, his fair face serious and determined. "Are you sure?"

"I'd recognize that bastard any time," she retorted.

Nodding slowly, he said, "Did you see anything else about him?"

"They had hunting gear." She shivered. "And the whole collection of people looked murderous. There was this lady in the middle; I think she was the boss. She had this just evil expression on her face."

"I'll look into it," Parrish promised, his eyes as open and honest as they always were. Yet, it seemed as if he wasn't telling her something. She decided not to push.

Sherry pulled two plates from the cupboard and dished out portions of noodles. Grabbing forks from a drawer, she set the plates on the kitchen table and pulled out the chair across from Parrish. "Remind me to get chopsticks from my house when we stop by for my stuff," she said lightheartedly.

Parrish laughed. "Of course."


"What?" Stiles yelped, staring at her as if she'd just burned him. Scott nudged him. "This is what I get for rushing off to help Lydia," he muttered in annoyance.

"It's not like I poked around in your underwear drawers or anything," Sherry explained. "I just saw the board."

Stiles glared at her. "Oh, yeah? I'll bet you expect me to believe that."

She blinked. "I do?"

"I believe you," Scott offered.

"Thanks," she said. "Because all I wanted to do was ask you one question."

Stiles wiggled his pencil between his fingers and stared out the window, frustrated. Scott ignored him. "Yeah?"

"Who are the Calaveras?"

Stiles choked, making a big show out of his new-found inability to breathe. Scott hesitated, glancing at Stiles as if his friend would supply him an answer. "They're an old, powerful hunting family," Scott finally said. "They're from Mexico."

Sherry folded her hands on the matte black lab bench. "One of them killed my dad."

"I'm sorry," Scott supplied.

She didn't need his sympathy. "And the whole organization, or family, or whatever - they blackmailed my mother for years. They forced her to give up classified government information and now she's in prison for espionage. That's a life sentence."

"Yeah, we get it," Stiles drawled. "They killed your father. Prepare to die."

Sherry raised an eyebrow threateningly.

He threw up his hands. "What do you want from us? To track them down? Why don't you ask your uncle, huh?"

"The first time I asked him, he said he had no clue. The second time, he said he'd look into it." The blank looks on the boys' faces let her know that they didn't understand her point. "He was lying. I could tell. Jordan - I mean, Parrish, is a terrible liar. It's been five days."

"We'll help you look for them," Scott promised. "Your parents will get justice. Don't worry." His puppy-like eyes looked so open and earnest. Just like Parrish. Stiles just mussed up his brown hair, venting his pent-up exasperated energy.

"Please do," Sherry said. But she knew that there was a ninety-nine percent chance he wouldn't keep up his end.

The clock's minute hand ticked to 12:22. The annoyingly dissonant bell buzzed over the loudspeaker. She swung her backpack over her shoulder and gave Scott and Stiles one last warning look. Then she was out of the classroom.

For her past few weeks at Beacon Hills, she'd avoided the cafeteria. Nobody in her classes had particularly taken a liking to her, so she was stuck without lunch mates. That fact hadn't really bothered her, though. It was far more peaceful to sit out under a tree than to be suffocated by the overwhelming noise and smells of the cafeteria.

Today was different. She needed answers. Scott's whole clique had something odd about them. They constantly missed classes, but for some reason still seemed very interested in school. They disappeared from the PSATs. Liam seemed to have broken his arm and halted a scrimmage, but turned out to be perfectly fine. Something wasn't adding up.

And then there was Mason. Aside from Scott, who seemed to have a generally polite demeanor, he was the only person at school who'd been the least bit friendly toward her. Yesterday, he waved at her, the one nice gesture she'd received her whole time at Beacon Hills. And he was friends with Liam, connected to the enigma of Scott and Stiles' clique.

She slid into a chair at his table, interrupting the apparently very serious conversation they were having about a video game. Liam stared at her, a dopey look on his face. Mason grinned. "Hey!"

"Hi," she chirped. "What game are you talking about?"

"Revenge of the Oni," Mason boasted. "It's got really intense Japanese graphics. I just got my copy in the mail."

"Oni? They're like demons or something, right?"

Mason nodded vigorously, launching into an excessively detailed tirade about the game and its various features. Beside him, Liam shrank in his seat, staring wide-eyed at his lunch tray. He clearly wasn't comfortable with Sherry encroaching upon his table.

"You should come play tonight!" Mason concluded, excited. "I bet Liam can't beat me on this game!"

"Sure!" She felt something strangely giddy rise up in her chest at the thought hanging out for the first time since her old life.

"Liam?"

The boy jumped at the sound of his name. "Huh?"

"You're coming to my house tonight, right?" Mason prompted, tilting his head expectantly.

Liam's eyes flickered to Scott's table. Sherry couldn't decide whether his irises were blue or green. "Uh, I don't know. I think I have to practice lacrosse."

"You said you were coming in biology!" Mason complained. "Remind me never to trust you with scheduling."

Distractedly, Liam picked up his tray, the food on it still half-eaten. "I'll meet you later." He shuffled off, never once making direct eye contact with Mason or Sherry.

"Is he still upset over what happened at the game?" Sherry questioned.

Mason shrugged, defeated. "I don't know what's up with him these days."