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Track 01 - Signs by Bloc Party
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{Monday: Evening - Beacon Garden Community}
"Turn here," Scott didn't explain why but added, "please" before Allison could ask for a destination.
Micromanaged through the mirrors of the vehicle Allison monitored where everyone sat and what they were doing and how long they had been doing it. The reason why evaded her. Their secrets weren't remotely as stifling as expected in the confined space of Allison's Mazda. The momentum the ride drummed out the sound of pulsating blood and racing thoughts.
Minutes earlier, pandemonium had sent their lacrosse game into the likes of a shattered ant farm. Assistant Coach Helisek had a better understanding of sports medicine than Coach Finstock and was better at calming the masses. In the 2-minute interim it took to get him, things went from manic to manageable, but a few key players had disappeared off of the playing field. 2 of which appeared as if from nowhere in the parking lot just as Allison got to her car.
When Allison couldn't find Scott, she grew frightened for him, then she remembered herself and headed for her car. More rightly her fully stocked with arms trunk. She dropped from the bleacher-seats and dodged through panicked people. Just as she clasped her compound bow a voice called out to her, which brought her to an even middle, not to high wire tension, not exactly a calm.
"Scott!" she locked her trunk and spun around only to find herself in Isaac's looming shadow. She was startled momentarily but Isaac calmed her with a gesture, pointing toward Scott's drawing nearness. There were no questions, not verbally anyway when Scott caught sight of the both of them.
Just a deep sigh of relief, a glance at the dwindling mayhem around them followed by the instructions "we've got to go."
Through 3.3 miles and 10 minutes of silence, they drove into a neighborhood Allison was aware of by reputation only, but it was enough to stay on alert. Scott raced up the steps before she had turned off the car's engine. Allison crossed her arms over the steering wheel and propped her chin atop. Isaac sank into the back seat, and they stayed in a stupor of absence, absence of Scott, absence of answers and absence of nerves while they looked at one another through the rearview mirror.
"Do you know whose house this is?" Isaac said in a voice just above a whisper.
Allison stared at him for a moment, she tilted her head and wondered exactly why he tagged along. Followed up with a wonder of why she hadn't interrogated him earlier.
"I have a good idea," she buried her head further into her arms for a second before gathering up the courage to leave the car. "This is the Sheriff's house."
Isaac followed in suit although he closed the car door softly unlike her indelicate slam. "We are breaking into the Sheriff's house!"
"What breaking? The door was open, plus-" she gestured off to the side of the house, by the garage adjacent where Lydia's VW Beetle was parked. Isaac huffed out a breath more of exasperation than surprise."-we're not the only ones."
{The Sheriff's House, 2nd Floor, Stiles' Bedroom}
"Stiles is alive," Lydia didn't stutter or mince her words. It came very easily for her considering it was a name she not only avoided saying but she practically pretended it hadn't existed.
Yet they stood in the Stilinski home among Stilinski things looking at their childhood friend Stiles' stuffs saying Stiles hopeful things they hadn't even dared to speak aloud when the search party had still combed the wreckage for him 6 years ago.
It angered Scott.
"Stop it," Scott heard his tone turn hard in his ears. It wasn't something outside of his control and he was thankful to that.
Lydia stepped toward him. Her eyes looked wild, even her gestures were fast and manic, but her voice sounded determined.
"Hear me out."
Less than 48 hours ago, Scott had struggled to hear her when she pleaded "leave me out of it", when she rejected him as a Werewolf, but he had accepted it. When another impossible thing presented itself, another thing that made his nerves endings run amuck, if he had to be honest it was easier to choke down rejection than to hold onto hope.
"Give it a rest. He's dead," whatever happened to their unspoken rule to never say that name?
For a second it looked as though she lost the ability to connect words to thought. She shook her head and wavered, not metaphorically. She shifted from side-to-side gripping into the polyester fabric of the backpack as if it were a safety line.
Scott considered her waking nightmares and worried once more about keeping her safe. If he had been 100% honest Scott would have considered his wounded pride and the juxtaposition, he suffered between Lydia's rejection yesterday and his desperation today.
"You barely talk to me except to reject me-" Scott gaining some balance in his bitterness. (She scoffed a little, as though he were unique in being rejected by Lydia Martin.) "-and then you call me in the middle of the night to meet you in Stiles' old room."
There. Scott had said it. A spell had broken. A little wall collapsed inside of him. Lydia had won, again. Her eyes were alight with recognition of it.
"Scott. I found his backpack," she passed it over. It seemed once Lydia had found her voice and ability to speak Scott had lost his. She closed his fingers around the backpack straps.
Worn but recently used, it had the hand-stitch in the collar hook that labeled it Stilinski' just as Stiles' Mom did it. The very same ratty dated lacrosse Maverik brand backpack which, at the time had been oversized but Stiles had still desperately wanted it. It was wholly recognizable as what Stiles would pack his world into it and he carried it everywhere, even on their sleepovers.
When Scott looked up again Lydia's mouth twitched between biting her lower lip and smiling in want of confirmation. Her eyes were over bright with excitement and though she had her hair tied off to the side it was streaked with dirt, and he could only imagine where she discovered it. And how Scott wished he had been there her at that moment of discovery.
With sudden interest Isaac spoke and asked what was going on and it was as though a bucket of ice had been thrown over the scene.
Although he thought it as well, Lydia said it aloud "why are you here anyway?" Alright maybe Scott wouldn't have said it as viciously.
At which point, from the other side of the doorway Allison politely pulled Isaac away and wisely advised they should probably give Lydia and Scott a private moment.
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Track 02 - Read My Mind (The Killers Cover) by Leif Vollebekk
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{Also – The Sheriff's House, 1st Floor, Hall and Kitchen}
When Isaac came to the top of the stairwell, he noticed Allison lagged.
"You're worried too."
She turned to face him, and her eyes narrowed, not in scorn but in thoughtfulness. When she stepped toward him again, she brushed her arm against his in a signal to follow.
"Why are you here?" Allison asked, only she made it sound conversational instead of like an accusation.
Isaac studied her face while they retreated through the downstairs hall and he thought he could easily dispel her deflection with a smirk "Allison, what is going on here?"
When they reached the bottom Allison hesitated. She smiled a little, very little and when she did the definition of the word 'sly' came to mind.
"Isaac, what happened at the game?"
When Isaac shrugged and moved away Allison followed as if drawn in by his wake.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah," he stopped to reassure her. He felt a little surprised that concern was her direction. At his height he had to incline his head to keep her the center of attention.
"I saw you go down pretty hard. Everyone else seemed to just go to pieces. I've never seen anything like it," Allison shook her head while she remembered, disturbed by the vision of it.
"I'm okay," he repeated. After thinking better, he added "Scott's okay, too." This time when Allison smiled her features sincerely softened.
"Why did something like that happen?" when she asked the question she walked on. There was a pressure she put on him in the way she did it, she put pressured him with the responsibility of justification. And of all places, it was under the Sheriff's roof.
"Who knows?"
"Don't you?"
Isaac tried not to respond but saying nothing was agony and so he finally muttered "why would I know anything?"
Allison stopped short by an archway, briefly distracted by what she took in around the bend.
"I don't know, you just get a look sometimes like you know more than you're saying," she muttered as she dug out her phone from her pocket. For a moment he thought she meant to call someone, but no, she pulled it up to take photos. He cautiously came up behind her and looked to see what caught her fascination so utterly.
"Like a conspiracy," he supplied the word she might have been looking for. She was too busy documenting the Sheriff's crime board to answer.
The colored web connecting twine from brutal death to vicious cycles of places to attacks and circumstance to files that he could not begin to process. Yet Allison looked starved for it.
Staring at the photo of the Sheriff's wife hugging her son, she hadn't understood the context until she recognized the people in the photo pinned just beneath it. The birthday party looked the same instead the boy was with 2 other children that, despite the age of the photo, bore the undisputed likeness of Lydia and Scott. The 2 boys obviously danced, awkwardly with limbs and fists thrust in the air. The girl caught between them, with eyes screwed shut, grin hidden behind a sheet of long bright hair. A handwritten note beside the photo read "Juvenile. Unreliable Witnesses. Post-Traumatic."
Isaac swore quietly and Allison's free hand went to her mouth. A very large question regarding the connection between her boyfriend and best-friend had finally been answered but it only served up another mystery. Allison stepped backward, instinct made her want to go to them, to comfort and help them instead she backed up into Isaac.
"I'm sorry," she spun around and fell further into him. Allison gripped his coat to keep from falling. Her mind reeled at the idea of her friends' hurting, years of pain down to a pattern Hunters should have picked up on earlier. "sorry," she could have caught it quicker, seen it earlier had she been transparent with her ambition and less juvenile.
-so young, to have suffered a violent loss with no way to process, without a means to keep them safe, with no protection-
"Allison, are you okay?"
"I'm so sorry," she apologized again. Wait. She heard her voice from very far away. How many times had she apologized?
"It's okay." Isaac rubbed her arm, as if it were warmth she sought, "It's going to be okay. I'm pretty sure all of this is what Scott and Lydia are talking about right now."
Allison nodded but inside something shriveled up. They had no idea what was really going on, no idea what was really being investigated.
"Let's go see if they're alright," Isaac suggested. She nodded again like a bobble head and held onto him part of the way until she felt her thoughts were her own again and not 'Argent Business' only.
"First the field" she brought up again, "now this. It's like Scott is never going to get a break."
"He'll be fine," Isaac insisted.
"How do you know?"
"Because I know."
"But how do you know?"
Isaac stopped along the way, he sensed Allison's heart rate and the way it changed from the panic by the kitchen to something altogether different. The look she gave him in the dark, her eyes were tender and penetrating.
"What he did in the field, it took strength," he assured her.
Isaac tried neither to relive nor reveal too much of what had happened earlier that night. How could he describe the sense of threat through his nerves that had gotten him hot and bothered? It unlocked something in him, not power like the way his Alpha that would make him alter forms or need to submit. But this sensation, it threatened like a wind had caught fire and it resonated through him. Others felt it to even throughout the stands, Scott too. It caused pandemonium.
For a while there the field was bloody mess at best; at one point, Jackson nearly took Goldberg's head off if Scott hadn't tackled him and got him benched. The energy seemed chaotic and growing, everyone seemed to be attacking anyone.
Then with a scream everything had gone dark.
When Isaac awoke Scott stood over him, a hand offered to pull him up before scampering off to help staff collect the other injured. Scott handled all that without breaking a sweat.
"Allison, I think Scott has got this figured out better than the best of us."
It must have been the right thing to say because she stopped looking at him as a suspect. As she ducked her head turning to go back upstairs, her smile was hesitant, and eyes were soft in gratitude.
Isaac cast the pin-board another look, longer and harder than the first. Locations seemed both familiar and unfamiliar burned against the back of his mind and worried at him. He had a lifetime of experience at being a little behind the others and having to work at trying to catch up. Still, he didn't need to understand it as clearly as it seemed Allison had to know a threat when he saw it.
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Track 03 - Fear and Loathing by Marina and the Diamonds
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{The Sheriff's House, 2nd Floor, Stiles' Bedroom}
"What do you mean you found a dead body?"
Lydia sighed wearily; if he couldn't handle the term "A dead BODY" she couldn't imagine how he would process "SEVERAL dead BODIES." Her exasperation read clearly, and Scott recanted. He clenched his hand and placed it over his mouth in thought, as if he could hold in the breath of genius through his fingers. Lydia pitied his suffocating airways.
"Where did you find a dead body?"
"In the woods," she repeated, purposely unrushed. Lydia kept eye contact as she tacked on the important bit, "about 20 yards from where I found the backpack hidden."
Scott shook his head again. This time he clenched the straps of the bookbag. It offered him as much comfort as it had her, which was enough to keep him grounded to the present, which is to say barely enough.
"Why did you go out there?" Scott stopped mid-pace and spun to face her, but Lydia looked unphased with each demand. "Did you go alone?" she nodded. He looked saddened instead of angered. "Why didn't you at least call Allison?"
"I didn't feel afraid," she rolled her eyes as if it were the most obvious answer in existence, "I don't want to freak her out with this stuff?"
Unused to the consequences of his actions falling on shoulders other than his own, Scott felt the crush of guilt shock him into silence. If he hadn't asked for Allison to keep his secrets, even from Lydia, would she have ventured off alone into the Preserve in the middle of the night? When he reverted to pacing Lydia caught his arm, dragged him to the bed and brought him to sit.
The mattress gave a woosh under their weight; where Scott struggled to not cross the invisible barrier between real-life Stiles and real-dead Stiles Lydia didn't seem to have that problem.
"You are gonna think I am crazy," her brows pinched together, and she groaned.
He briefly recalled the very first time (of many) he woke up naked in the middle of the woods and had to walk home. Scott almost laughed, "Lydia, if you trust me on anything, you can trust me on this. There's nothing that you can say to me that'll make you sound crazy."
As Lydia started to shake her head Scott's one brow shot up on a playfully, "Literally, nothing!"
When Lydia breathed in sharply to refocus her thoughts, the polyester of the backpack made stretching noise rubbing under where their knees met. It was the only sound in the world and it urged her on.
"I was parked by the side of the road, and I heard children," she chuckled apprehensively, her reluctance to move forward made her urge to laugh grow. "That's crazy, in the Preserve in the middle if the night, right? I used my phone as a light and tried to follow. Part of me knew they weren't really there. But they led me to what looked like a hideaway fort. Exactly the way we used to make it when we went camping, that's where I spotted his backpack. I forgot about the children and when I did, I stopped hearing them. I didn't even question it once I saw the bag. I wanted to examine it back at the car, so I grabbed it and ran. I didn't see the body until I tripped over it," she broke for a breath to catch up. Scott looked to be on the edge of his seat but there was more concern in his face than anticipation.
"I felt so...," Lydia wouldn't use the word frightened, that wasn't in her verbose vocabulary. She pressed her lips together and her voice came out quieter as she spoke "I just had to scream."
"I know," he replied. "I know!" he repeated more animatedly when he realized from the docile way, she nodded she hadn't understood him at all. "I heard you at the school."
Lydia looked more pleased than surprised. But her only dimmed as she braved onward.
"It wasn't him," she wasn't angry, but her voice held conviction. "I had to check, you understand." Scott nodded, he understood. "Whoever that was, it wasn't Stiles. I would've known," she wrung her hands despite her certainty.
As her eyes fluttered close, and she relived it in a moment, watching the autumnal leaves scattered underfoot and over his misshapen face. Like a rabbit she had scurried away after tripping, she screamed and screamed and rushed backward far enough and fast enough to practically clamber up a tree. But seeing the backpack on the ground between her and the man, it brought a dire perspective to light. She backpedaled till she could get the bag looped in her arms as her touchstone, while she kneeled beside the carcass in the wooded dark. She brought the light of her phone close to his face and tried to decipher years added to a friend by coming close enough to come away with dirt on her face. Sure, she would examine impartially because she might have been startled but she felt unafraid.
"Did you know homo-sapien isn't descendent from cro-magnon man? The pronounced ridges on the forehead broader faces make for a bit more muscle and a slightly larger brain. They're actually cousins."
"You lost me?"
"The body in the woods, I was meant to find him."
Scott looked baffled, even more than usual, "Lydia, what does any of that mean?"
"It means when I found him, I understood what I saw because he changed like your face in Chem," Lydia talked deliberately slower, almost dragging him along her train of thought. Her pauses were long, not only from worry of losing him but from fear of losing nerve. "He didn't stay that way for long, Scott. Right in front of my eyes, his facial structure reset." The word 'strange' was avoided because that term didn't exist in science, not that Scott considered that. But a longstanding faith in Lydia felt justified, he shouldn't have smiled a little, but he did. Lydia gave him a warning glare, "If that's a postmortem reflex he would have only just been killed. And he was killed, Scott." Scott's sense of relief was short lived.
Once detached from the bed, from the backpack, from Scott, Lydia collected her thoughts and put everything impossible into a systematic narrative. She described the signs of a struggle around the body, as well as obvious signs someone had poorly tried to obscure evidence, likely in a hurry. On instinct she had called the police, but her screams would have attracted the attention of anything living for at least a ½ mile around, maybe more. No one would have returned to the scene of the crime after that.
Left alone with the scene she doubled back to the hideaway, which lay within 20 yards. But the hideaway, the much LIVED in hideaway, was sophisticated. It remained camouflaged to perfection and unaffected by events.
"Lydia, just because Stiles backpack was found there doesn't mean he was involved," Scott comforted. They were admittedly biased in their hopes and denials, but it couldn't be helped. They were labeled as 'Juvenile' and 'Unreliable' and 'Traumatized' after all.
Fearful it meant Stiles could have killed the man in self-defense, Lydia withheld the backpack as evidence when officers arrived on the scene. It was a cruel and audacious move to withhold the only evidence that would have given the Sheriff hope his son might live but she accepted the responsibility of it.
When the Sheriff's department asked how she ended up there Lydia had the prepared excuse of "my GPS must have been out of whack. I got out to get a phone signal and stumbled onto this." Lydia seemed to make the officers uneasy as of late, in eagerness to dismiss her, the Sheriff asked her if she wanted wait at the Station for her Mom. Fat lot of good, since after dinner her Mom left town for a seminar. She would be back late but late meant the next morning. When the Sheriff offered up kindly any other place, relative, grown-up she could stay with he hadn't expected her to jump at the opportunity to ask to stay at his home.
"I just know I'd feel safe there" she didn't even need to ham it up too much. Lydia knew it was one of a handful of places her Mom would likely say 'yes, my daughter can be kept safe there' and the Sheriff was likely to feel the same. That was actually really sweet on their part, naïve but sweet. More than that, Lydia wanted to be at the Sheriff's house afterward knowing he would be too busy at the crime scene. If Scott were to shoot her down, if Scott were going to hear her out Lydia wanted to be surrounded by all-things-Stiles.
It should have been more off-putting, surrounded by items he hadn't seen in 6 years but felt like he'd played with just 6 minutes ago. He chuckled softly, closed his eyes and gave the bed a test bounce just to feel the realness under his weight. Swept up in emotion, his eyes colored mildly, and he felt amused that it felt very comfortable.
"The bizarre is becoming pretty standard in this town," Scott returned the smile.
"Scott, you let him go then," she crossed the few steps divide and lingered near him. Her fingers dangled above where he gripped the straps. "You've never forgiven yourself for it." She wasn't upset but she pressed her lips together in that way Lydia often she did before she gathered together for a big delivery. Her voice was small instead, intimate. "How are you going to forgive yourself if you let him go again?"
Admittedly Scott wasn't really good at the whole scenting something out yet. He wasn't even sure it was something he could do but the backpack had a strong hold to it, he recognized that same Stiles-likeness clung to the room. He wondered if Lydia conspired to ambush him when she came to the Sheriff's home. No, the Stilinski home. Scott wasn't sure how long he had been staring at her hand. It had only been a few hours since he conceded in letting go. Where he kept the nightmare in mind and decided Lydia deserved to grow away from him, to be safe.
"Lydia," Scott started. He had no idea how to continue. Scott wasn't clear on how he came to be holding her hand once more, but he stared at where their fingers wrapped. It looked tight but felt good and firm and comfortable, not crushing at all. She must have snatched him back again.
"Help me look for him, please Scott?" Lydia asked Scott for help.
"Lydia," his tone was very different. Stiles' backpack settled, between them. He didn't offer an answer aloud but shook his head side to side, with a crooked smirk, not in negation but in defeat. "Where do we start?"
Relieved, Lydia sank beside him on the bed again and held his hand in both of hers as if to keep hold of him, to prevent him from retreating.
"We start by going back to Stiles' Fort," answered Lydia with confident and slow drawn smile.
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Track 04 - Dirty Paws by Of Monsters and Men
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{Meanwhile – Deucalion's Property, The Hills}
There were certain ways to handle things during times of tribulations because of that Kali aimed to come to Deucalion's alone. In accordance, she arrived practically alone since during time of tribulation you also kept your family close and annoying younger cousins still constituted family. Barely healed up and sporting a few new scars along her neck-base and left arm, Lark hung back on the outskirts of the property to watch out for the so-called neighbors.
As Kali neared the homestead and she sensed the friction among its people. It was no satisfaction their pack was in as much disharmony, and it was no surprise when Deucalion met her before she stepped foot onto the porch instead of at the door. They walked the grounds as they spoke, an even keel despite the infrequent sound of someone crying out from inside of the house.
"Another murdered. This time an Alpha just like the Twins said," from beside him, her eyes and feet were steady on. Despite bare foot and with claws extended she barely left a mark on the ground, like all true predators.
"Can you be an Alpha without a pack?" his voice was thick with a roguish cynicism. He ignored her concerns and planted implications.
"The better question is how long you can be a pack?" she inclined her head at the sound of another yell. They waited for the echo to subside. The fight had ended, and their packs were still at the threat of death, why else would she have agreed to meet him?
"Longer than you think," when he started to walk again, she followed.
"I have a refugee on my border," it was another moment whereas an Alpha, Kali was proud. It meant she was strong as a provider but as a principled person felt virtually inhuman to be a jailer.
"A refugee? Don't you mean a captive victim of Stockholm syndrome?"
"I have a reserve of wealth," she stopped following, "and what do you have?"
"I've the same. Only I call them loyalist," he smirked. "And Kali, I always have room in my ranks for more."
The night's events played in her mind's eyes. More so the events of last few weeks; the slow decline of trust, of friends and loved ones while violence rose. Loyalty was a complicated word. With her second in command, Marsten, likely counted among dead she was left feeling abandoned. With Quint, the youngest in Ennis' pack, likely added to the list of dead with the blame on her head. No one would let her live that down anytime soon. Their packs commonality vanished in the hysterics of a few youths, and they were a hare's breath away from all-out war. Exposing her neck to Deucalion, submitting, aligning packs would be sign of acceleration.
Another cry rang out across the landscape. Kali quickly looked from the house to the border and caught sight of where her little cousin stood with eye's that glowed blue and anxious for her Alpha's signal. And Lark didn't even much like her. Straightened to her full height, with down cast eyes it created a dark humor in Kali's expression to rival even Deucalion's.
"Such a very gracious offer. I can only think to extend the same."
After a calculated pause, Deucalion chuckled and started toward the house, "I'd invite you inside..."
"...except I'd rather run myself through with a rusty pipe," smiled Kali as she ambled back along the path.
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Track 05 - It's Out of My Hands Now by Dave Mathews Band
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{Across Town – The Sheriff's House, 2nd Floor, Sheriff's Bedroom}
Allison considered what to respond after her phone lit up the second time. There was urgency to the text but was no alarm in her face.
The first was from her Father:
· Were you at the game?
Her family was bound to hear about that, they had connections in the Sheriff's office after all. And they were right to suspect she had been in attendance. At an average school event, turned investigation scene.
Of course, she hadn't anticipated a follow up of, 'Are you okay?' Gee, thanks Father. Uncertain as to whether that was faith in her or neglect on his part, either way she wouldn't reply. There wasn't a good reply. If she said 'Yes' a report would be expected. If she said 'No' she would still be expected to report as to why.
The second text was from Tyhurst:
· Report. Where are you?
Tyhurst was worse than her Father in a million different ways. Especially in regard to timely reporting despite the fact that he reported to her Father.
Allison had run out of time playing around with her friends. No, not playing. Protecting. They needed her but of course so did the family. More so now that she saw the direction of the Sheriff's private investigation.
Isaac hovered over her shoulder, "what are you going to say?"
"Nothing," she flipped over her phone, turned it off and took out the sim card.
Isaac had a particular expression she had begun to recognize, those cool clear eyes, partnered with the sharp rise of just one brow. That intrigue she normally only saw him aim toward Lydia he now aimed at her. It said, 'you lead the way, I'll definitely follow'.
They inched along the hall that led back to the bedroom where they left Scott and Lydia, this time they examined the surroundings closer. As if subconscious they turned their heads toward looking for childhood clues. There were none.
"Did you know they were close as kids?" Isaac whispered.
Allison nodded, after a moment she tossed over her shoulder, "are you jealous?"
When they arrived at the bedroom door it was obvious the conversation between their friends had gotten intense. Their position intimate, sat together on the bed, bodies turned toward one another, hands clapsed, heads together and sharing whispers. Allison balked. This time around Isaac pulled her further along by the arm. They ended up in a bedroom that obviously belonged to the Sheriff.
It wasn't a second before Allison continued to snoop. Isaac sat on the corner of the bed and watched her.
"Why aren't you jealous?"
She shrugged and answered "jealousy comes from a place of ownership. I don't own Scott or Lydia." She found a photo and lifted it. It was a wedding photo. The couple looked loving in the way that all wedding photos do. She had never seen the Sheriff smile like that. When she thought about it, she had never seen her Parent's have a wedding photo.
Isaac asked, "Don't you feel like you want to belong?"
Allison carefully placed the photo in exactly the same dust slots they were at on the bedside table, "owning and belonging aren't the same thing." She stood straight and walked around the bed to stand beside him. With him seated, Allison stood maybe an inch above his height, two when he slouched. And he did slouch when he felt bad for himself. Which was fairly often.
"Sure, I want to feel a 'belonging'. It wasn't too long ago I was the 'New Girl' in town. Right away, Lydia gave me a sense of belonging and I loved her for it. Everyday Scott gives me a new sense of belonging and I'm-" she paused and struggled to find the right word. Her face closed off while she relived a time that brought her peace "-grateful to him for that too."
Isaac watched, captivated and smiled, nearing her. They bumped shoulders and she encouraged him to lengthen his grin. Both their eyes caught a school photo across the way, among the children lined up smiling at the camera were three friends.
"Somewhere long ago, a friend of theirs gave Scott and Lydia a great sense of belonging. A part of them still belong to him," Allison sounded tender.
"Even when it hurts," Isaac pointed out, "even when there is loss, you would still want to belong to that? Look where it got them today."
"Yes," Allison agreed and smiled softly at the photo as she came nearer to it. "Look where it got them today."
Isaac followed. They stared at dusty picture of a girl with a photogenic grin, sandwiched by two boys practicing their best fish faces.
This time Allison left the photo alone on the dresser, where it stayed dusted over and ignored for years discarded behind socks, t-shirts, colognes bottles, combs and a half full bottle of sleeping pills.
"I have a best-friend and a boyfriend who will always, even when they hate each other which they mostly do, belong with me. Even when it's hard," her dimples shown.
"It's time to go," Lydia's voice sounded raw with exhaustion but her expression was strong, her chin held high. She stood in the doorway and left no room to argue. Despite having led the entourage into the Sheriff's home it seemed she strongly felt they outstayed their welcome. Scott stood at her back, his face was the epitome of concern but his energy wreaked anxiety that mirrored Lydia's.
Throughout the conversation Isaac couldn't shake a feeling that, although he had never stood in the Sheriff Stilinski's home before, he felt a sense of familiarity. He tried to remember something close to the surface, but Allison tilted her head in a gesture that meant 'follow' and when she moved toward the door Isaac knew inarguably to do so.
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Track 06 - Drive You Home by Garbage
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{Just outside of the Spaulding District, Aires West}
Although less people, the car built up three times as much tension while Isaac accompanied Lydia. After her Mom called panicky, Lydia hurried home and it was as though her unease swallowed the air.
The route from the Sheriff's home in the walled community onto the main road then back off it, took ridiculously long considering the construction on the highway. Taking the back roads had a difference of 5 minutes give or take. Fortunately, it provided enough time to work up the courage to ask, "You didn't have to go alone into the woods. I'dve come if you called."
"I bet," she sounded moody. Her demeanor hadn't changed from the house into the car only with the occupation of driving she had an excuse not to make eye contact. Without having to say it aloud Lydia couldn't have made her feelings clearer; Isaac had wedged himself where he wasn't welcome.
"I don't know who messed with your head," Isaac started, which obviously had been the wrong thing to say. Despite her tiredness, heat fueled her, and she glared at him. Yet that heat drew him in, "Lydia but I'm not like that. You can rely on me."
"You're right, you're not like that," her voice turned bitter-sweet. "You're not a boyfriend, you were a distraction."
"Ouch," Isaac mumbled.
"But now you're becoming more than that," she pulled the car curbside but didn't switch it off. She turned toward him, leaned in and brought their faces close, close enough to prevent him from taking in air.
"Yeah?" Isaac tried not to get too hopeful.
"Yeah," bright eyes looked up from beneath long lashes, vulnerable for a second before armor slid into place. "Now you're becoming a pain."
"I think I should walk home."
"I think you should," Lydia reached across his lap, unlocked the door and pushed it open.
"Lydia," the night air was a relief certainly. But he had fought his way into Lydia's car more than once and for what he felt was good reason.
"What?"
Braving the hazard Isaac kissed her on the cheek, "I meant what I said. Call and I'll be there for you. Okay?"
Lydia's eyes narrowed and her mouthed pulled into a smirk that translated into her patented 'that would be [expletive deleted] ill-advised' Isaac pulled back and felt miles away.
When he climbed out of the car, he realized she had, in fact, left him miles away from where he now secretly stayed which was probably for the better. Maybe Lydia was right, and it only took one kind gesture to leave you fully exposed.
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Track 07 - Love Will Come Through by Travis
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{Leaving The Sheriff's House, Beacon Garden Community}
Deliberately slow, Scott and Allison cleared evidence of their presence from the Sheriff's house. A task made harder by Scott's need to touch particular items and try to collect impressions. Allison had better visual memory than most, not to mention she had traced their movements since they had entered the home.
Starved for information, Scott touched a skateboard, some photos, trophies, action figures but he grabbed up a baseball. He rotated it against his palm and considered not letting it go. Allison observed and didn't judge. After a moment he returned it to its spot on Stiles' headboard. When he looked up, his breath came through in thin shudder. She rushed over and wrapped her arms through his. Scott buried his face in her neck, his hands slid from the small of her back, along her spine until they locked at the V between her shoulder blades.
After a moment, with smile and an abrupt sniff, Scott broke away to straighten the bed sheets. While the 2 worked to spread the blankets flat and leave them seemingly untouched, they communicated epic exchanges with brief looks.
"If it's not enough to keep sensing things you can talk to me Scott," she said, as she handed over a backpack. Allison recognized it belonged with Scott; it stood out among the personal effects, ragged and worn as opposed timeless and well-preserved.
"I want to tell you everything," Scott's smile never reached his eyes. He carried the backpack without putting it on when he turned to walk downstairs. Unsurprisingly he lost momentum when he moved toward the front because every item along the way distracted him.
"okay..." Allison pulled him through the open door and made certain to prop the coats in the same haphazard order she remembered them before they dropped to the floor upon their rushed entrance.
"Maybe later," mumbled Scott.
"oh," Allison missed a step on the way down. It was Scott's response and not the terrain to blame. When Scott caught her, she gave a thin-lipped smile as he helped set her right.
They walked silently to the car; at the passenger side door Scott shuffled the weight of the backpack, to assess the contents without viewing as if figuring how it would dictate his future. On the drivers' side of the car Allison did the same as she reassembled her cellphone.
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Track 08 - Sad Dream by Sky Ferreira
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{Martin's House – Aires East}
"Jackson," her voice was sharp, although more annoyed than angry "please give up my spare house key since we are no longer dating."
The sense of familiarity kicked her in the heart before her brain caught up with her. There were times when she felt validated to come home from shopping with Mom or staying at Madison's or studying with Sydney to find a strapping lacrosse player at the foot of her bed. But there were also times where she felt validated, she owned a Mace pepper spray keychain in pink.
"I-" he jumped to his feet, startled she had arrived at all. Despite it not being his home Jackson looked as though he was the one being intruded on, hands up in compliancy and blue eyes wide in surprise, he stuttered, "-I was worried about you."
Too tired for another altercation with another guy who was just not willing to listen when she spoke, Lydia ignored him. She dumped her purse and jacket on her bed and moved onto detangling her hair. Her Mom being in the shower prevented her from getting cleaned up right away but afforded her a good 2 minutes to quietly eject this unwanted visitor.
"I'm happy to see you're safe-"
"If you're satisfied with your invasive investigation than-" she spun around to see him holding her jacket, clutching it in his hands. She called out to him, but he only wrung it tighter. In an attempt to rescue her clothes, she walked over and peeled it from his grip. At her touch his tense stance eased, and Jackson began to come back to himself. He stared at her as if he just noticed her appearance in the room.
"You're here," he said quietly.
"Yes," she sighed. "I'm here. You're here, in my room." She pitied him, he didn't seem himself, but it wasn't her place to care for him anymore, he wasn't hers to love. "And one of those things has to go," she said softer still as she pats his arm.
"I know," Jackson yanked his hand back as he shook off a lingering thought, "I just had a feeling something terrible might have happened."
"That seems to be a popular statement," Lydia smirked. She stepped back and noticed where his jacket hung on the back of her chair. She grabbed it and pushed it into his hands while she pushed him through her bedroom door and down the steps toward her front door. She reminded him "Jackson, you can't just come to here like this anymore."
"A popular statement?" he muttered as he passed the threshold.
"What?" she paused and listened.
"You are pretty popularly lately, Lydia." Jackson felt the words form in his mouth, like the grainy liquid before it coagulated into cement. As much as he wanted to prevent the flow, it spilled over and would build a wall, "First you stink of McCall, then Lahey now some new asshole."
Unafraid against the flood Lydia raised her chin, "you checked out of our relationship long before I called it quits." Her glare was cutting as she hissed, "I don't owe you an explanation for who I smell of."
"Even if you smell like a slut," with one step he towered over her.
"At least I don't smell like pepper spray," she retorted.
With the muscle memory toward Monsters, her hand came up before he came into step. She had even pressed the button before she finished her sentence. Jackson's quick reflexes had him backward and down the steps in flash but not before a portion of Mace had gone down his mouth and in his eyes.
While Jackson stumbled to the curb, coughing, unable to cry out for help, Lydia bolted into the house. Minutes later she returned with milk of magnesia in her hands. Two feet between them, Lydia sat on the curb. She watched him grunt and struggle with the cap for a few long seconds and it didn't make her feel any better to see him miserable and in pain. He hadn't meant to scare her, she recalled. Jackson tried to show concern just in a horrible way. Lydia snatched back the bottle and urged him to tilt his head back. As she poured the fluid over his eyes, she noticed when they blinked clear they were serpentine and yellow. It didn't scare her. Nothing scared her these days. She gave thin-lipped smile, "thank you for checking up on me but next time, Jackson just text."
"Yeah," he choked a weak reply. Jackson took back the bottle and downed some to breathe and speak clearer. Despite the act itself, not once did he take angrily to Lydia for Macing him in the face.
After moment of calm while he waited for his vision to clear and listened for his voice to come through, Lydia tried to communicate one fact; "I do remember when you were a good guy, but this isn't okay."
He grunted in reply.
"Just try sometimes to recognize it, there is a good guy in there, too."
Jackson wished his sight had healed up enough to see her, just to be certain of her welfare, just to see her face one last time as she spoke before leaving him curbside. In reality if he had seen her face, it would have been the last thing he wanted because there was nothing Jackson Whittemore hated than people feeling sorry for him.
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Track 09 - Time of My Life (Patrick Wolf Cover) by MSMR
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{Outside the McCall's House – Lakewood Neighborhood}
"Pull over pull over pull over pull over here!" Scott protested.
Allison had already started to with the first demand but there was something jarring and amusing in the swirling gestures of Scott practically swimming through the air.
"Your Mom?" she mused.
"My Mom," he gave her a strained look across the aisle, a plead not to laugh.
With the engine off they waited for his Melissa McCall to wander up the steps and make it into the house. At her leisurely pace it would seem. If she went straight upstairs and to bed, she would walk pass his bedroom before he had a chance to sneak into it. If she stopped to eat or check up on mail than he had a few moments to clear the porch overhang and into his window without her noticing his absence. That was unless she called out and asked if he were home. Of course, there was the unlikely probability she wouldn't bother calling for him out loud.
"Hey Mom," he answered after the first ring.
"You're not home," she sounded that professional combination between sweet and tired that wasn't exactly either. It was a tone that meant 'you are THIS far down on my crap list and rising'.
"I'm on my way home Mom. I promise."
"Scott, I don't like you riding your bike this late."
Relieved that had been her worst stress, "I'm not Mom, Allison's driving me."
Allison's eyes went wide. She waved her hands back and forth, she gestured wildly to be no part of this sinking ship. Scott shrugged in apology and then pressed the speakerphone option.
"Hi, Mrs. McCall," Allison continued, flailing and waved at the phone. When Scott laughed, she hit him in the arm.
"Hello Allison. How are you tonight? Are you keeping safe?"
"Safe?" Allison barely kept the squeak out of her voice, but her brows shot high enough to reach her hair line. Meanwhile Scott somehow managed to slip and fall further into the passenger seat.
"I heard things got rough at the game. I even treated a few people from the bleachers."
"Yeah. We were out of there without a scratch but uhm, we lost though. So, we went out for fast food."
"Thanks for watching out for the knuckle-head but it's getting kind of late, do you think you can get him home soon?"
Allison hit the horn twice "we're right on the corner. Just saying goodnight."
It was Scott's turn to answer in a bit of flailing to the likes of 'what are you doing?' Allison shrugged haplessly to which Scott hung his head in miserable defeat.
"Wonderful. Could you send him back in 10 minutes? I think I'd like to say goodnight to my son before he gets to bed. It is a schoolnight," her tone promised more than the words 'Good' and 'Night.'
"Absolutely Mrs. McCall,"
"ohkaymom," added Scott in a tiny voice, before he slid in the words "iloveyou," and hung up.
"Scott, she was going to ask for you to come home no matter what," Allison rubbed his arm in comfort. Then after a thought she slipped across the divide and slung his arm over her shoulders.
The childish anxiety washed away, Scott smiled and curled her tightly against him. His eyes caught on the backpack on seat beside him, pressed underneath her and crushed against his thigh. There were worse worries on the horizons, and he wanted Allison just like this, to hold onto, to trust, to value. And time seemed to always chip away at what they had together.
"You seem anxious," he started instead.
"I'm worried. I want to help you. I don't know how," she shifted to spread herself along the flat of his chest, to hear his heart closer than he heard hers.
"Let me tell you about my friend Stiles," he started after a drawn out pause.
"You don't have to," she stopped him gently.
"I want to. I think I've wanted to for a long while," he nuzzled the side of her head and when her phone lit up, he looked at the time although he tried not to.
"Ignore it," she struggled against his impulse to politely offer to reach for it. "It won't make a difference to my Dad if I get back to him now or in 10 minutes. Let me stay here, please?"
"Okay. Okay," he pulled at the lever under the seat and eased it back so they would lay easier, so that they could stay safe for a little longer. "What's a word, like one word for saying 'joint at the hip'?"
"Entangled?"
"Entangled. That's what we were; me and Stiles and Lydia. We practically lived in each other's houses. Lydia's house had the pool. Stiles' house had all the toys. My house had the best places to make forts and secret hiding places. Our Mom's gave each other breaks so no one went too nuts from dealing with us."
Scott waited. Or he paused. Uncertain whether it was for her to respond or whether he had gotten caught up in the memory, either way Allison squeezed him gently as if she needed to keep hold of him. Scott held on tight to Allison before he dared to continue.
"We were maybe eight or nine and Stiles' Mom had been driving us to Lydia's family Lake House. And then there was this animal that ran into the road, like right at the car. Mrs. Stilinski swerved to avoid it, but it didn't matter because we hit this sharp ridge. There are a lot of those by the cliff side and Stiles had to have us drive the Cliffside, because it was scenic, and you could not argue with Stiles. I mean, you just-you just- never mind." Scott seemed for the most part happy, unburdened to retell the story. Dark in parts but not exactly sad, not until he concluded, "The car bounced off a few ridges before hitting the side face and sliding to rock bottom. We woke up on the second ledge, Lydia and I we were able to climb out because it like wavered for a maybe minute. But Stiles' Mom must have died right when we went over the lip of the cliff. Some part of all of us knows it… none of us should have survived."
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Track 10 - Kids With Guns by Gorillaz
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{Tuesday: Early - Aires East}
After she collected her morning coffee Natalie Martin walked upstairs to check in on Lydia. Normally the girl would have already been buzzing along and dragged the rest of the house with her but the unexpected was expected these days.
When she knocked on her daughter's bedroom door, she was welcomed in but not with the uppity-ness anticipated for an after-game day.
"Does that have milk and sugar?" Lydia asked, dragging her fuzzy-slippered feet across the bedroom by the scent of caffeine.
Natalie nodded.
"Can I?" Lydia asked after she had already pulled the mug from her Mom's grasp. She took a number of long sips before she returned it. There was hardly enough left to still call it coffee.
Mrs. Martin placed the cup on the bookshelf nearest and followed after Lydia. The hour was getting late, and Lydia still wore pajama shorts, a layered camisole with a silk cardigan and hair moist from a morning shower. Natalie sat beside Lydia at the vanity and watched her daughter stare at the tabletop blankly.
When Lydia refocused, she noticed that her Mom settled beside her, smiled and said, "I didn't have another nightmare if that's what you want to ask."
"You didn't get any sleep either," Natalie touched her forehead lightly and drew a path along the hairline to the back of her ear, "you're never late. Does this have to do with the incident at your Dad's? You know if you need more time to recover-"
"No. But thanks," Lydia sighed.
"Do you want to talk about finding the body-last night?"
They had the practice of reinventing their family after the divorce. This would just be another new phase, Mrs. Martin told herself. The night before, when Lydia hadn't reached out but instead Sheriff Stilinski had, Natalie Martin anticipated a daughter in shambles and fear-stricken instead there was only a sleepless and mildly tardy one. That was hardly a shift in dynamics.
"I'm not scared of dead bodies, Mom," Lydia felt in part relieved and nervous. The fact that her Mom knew about the corpse in the woods was one thing. Somehow, she managed to keep her Mom blissfully ignorant of the other 2 and Lydia intended to keep it that way.
"No, of course you're not," Natalie smiled. She didn't doubt that. There were certainties about her daughter; grace under fire was one of them, flawless aesthetic armor was another. She straightened out Lydia's hair in preparation of the warring world. "But you were scared it was his?"
"No," Lydia closed her eyes let out a slow breath. Again, someone brings up 'Stiles' without mentioning the forbidden name. Her Mom touched too close to the truth without actually hitting upon it, "because then I'd have to think of him as dead."
"All these years, you're too stubborn for that," Natalie grinned, she sounded wistful and a little grateful even.
"-I'm stubborn?" Lydia hastened, clearly caught up in an argument her mind started without her. Her eyes caught her Mom's in the mirror. "He was so sure and someone that obnoxious, that annoying, just that-" she groaned but it felt lighthearted, "I still miss him, Mom."
"I know you do, sweetie," her Mom smiled softly. Even as Lydia touched up the last of her makeup and she pinned back her daughter's hair, nothing made the girl light up quite like talking of 'him'. A rare chink in the armor.
"I'll be 5 minutes," Lydia assured her Mom, in a rush to get fully dressed and passed the topic. Mrs. Martin made a show that she was nice enough to leave her daughter the rest of the coffee (not that there was much to part with). Before Lydia gained her bearings her cell alerted her of a text from Allison.
· "meet track competition; new afterschool club forming. Fort Explorers United!"
With that her unrest washed away.
Playlist Available: 8tracksDOTcom / bhanesidhe / 05-were-you-here
Playlist: has been transferred over to youtubeDOTcom / bhanesidhe / playlist