Just as a reminder to all of those who are reading: When the text is written in bold and italicized lettering "like this," that is the part of the conversation had in sign language.

Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf. I also have no claim on any pop culture references that I may use throughout my writings. I only own my OCs. Enjoy the read.

(o.o)

Chapter 2.08

The prank we had played on Coach had gone off without a hitch. He walked into the classroom even more paranoid than I'd ever seen him. So much so, he destroyed an actual present from another one of Scott and Stiles' teammates. Coach probably suspected Stiles, at least, but nothing came of it. Apparently, the man was used to being pranked on the day.

Soon it was lunch, and Scott, Stiles, and I left our class together, our destination being the courtyard. As Stiles stepped out of the classroom, he paused, furrowing his brow as he glanced to the end of the hallway.

I stopped in front of him, turning to look back. "Stiles? You okay?"

What's my dad doing here?" He asked, mainly to himself.

I followed Stiles' line of sight, spotting a couple of deputies behind the sheriff. "And the other deputies?" I wondered aloud.

Stiles ran off without saying anything else to Scott or me.

I laughed at him. "Uh, okay. I'll see you later, I guess?" I called after him. I looked up at Scott with a grin. "He does that to you, too, right?"

Scott nodded. "Oh yeah. All the time."

"Great. Oh, so I realized I forgot to give Mr. Yukimura one of my deaf papers in class. Wanna come? Maybe see if Kira is there?" I asked with an indicative look on my face.

Scott rolled his eyes. "Deaf papers?"

"That is a very poor term for them, and I realize that. One of the assignments I do to make up for not participating as much. It's hard sometimes."

"Oh, yeah, sure," Scott said, walking in the opposite direction of Stiles towards Mr. Yukimura's classroom.

I did a slow jog to catch up with Scott. "You never said anything about my Kira comment."

Scott shook his head. "I'm rolling my eyes again, does that count?"

"I'm just saying…." I joked. "Her dad did say that she liked you. And she told me that she thought you were cute."

"You talked to her?" He paused his steps, turning to face me.

I nodded, though I continued to talk past him. "Couple weeks ago with the whole Malia-Coyote thing." As I walked, Scott caught up to my side. "I'm serious when I tell you that I would be glad to talk to her for you."

"I don't know," Scott said before continuing the rest of the way in silence.

We arrived at the correct classroom, and I peeked in, spotting Kira inside with her dad. Before I went inside, I turned towards Scott. "Let me know, okay? We're friends, too," I said, gesturing between me and the alpha. "She's cute, and I think you'd make a great pair. She's a little awkward, but I'm pretty sure that's just 'cause she's new. It was weird for me being new here, too. Especially being at the center of everything without actually knowing anything."

Scott nodded slowly. "I'll think about it."

"THat's all I asked," I sighed and turned around, knocking on the doorway to get the attention of both Mr. Yukimura and Kira. Kira was eating her lunch at a desk in front of her father. I raised my hand in a small wave. "Hi, sorry for interrupting, but I completely forgot to give you that paper I promised you."

Mr. Yukimura quickly shook his head. "You're fine. Come on in."

I smiled and made my way over to his desk, using it as a table to dig through my bag for the paper. I handed it to him, and he looked over it for a minute. I turned to Kira. "Lunch detention with your dad?" I joked with a smile.

Kira returned the gesture and shook her head once. "Just hangin' out."

I nodded, turning my attention back to the teacher.

"This is great, CJ," He said. "Thanks. I'll get it back to you by the end of the week."

"Thanks!" I looked back at Kira. "See you later, Kira." I took my leave, gesturing for Scott to follow me. We had to find Stiles before he got too carried away with whatever his dad was doing at the school.

Scott stopped me with a hand on my arm. He was hugging the wall; his ear turned towards the door.

I raised a brow at him. "It's rude to eavesdrop, you know?"

Scott blushed. He cleared his throat. "She said she doesn't want a boyfriend," He said quietly, leaning his back against the lockers in defeat.

I passed him a sad smile. "That doesn't mean you can't still be her friend. We can all be her friends if she wants. That's what she needs, right? I mean, that's why I got you guys." From the corner of my eyes, I noticed that Lydia was running towards Scott and me. I furrowed my brow at her haste. "Lydia, are you okay?"

"The police are leaving. Why are they leaving?" Lydia asked, over my head.

I turned around to find Stiles was standing behind me. I took a step back to see everybody as they talked. "Why are they even here?" I questioned, sensing mine was a bit more pressing.

Stiles thought for a moment. "They must have cleared the building and grounds, which means he's not here."

"Who's not here?" I asked again, wanting answers. Scott was also confused, asking the same questions.

Lydia sighed. "He has to be here. That sound… The buzzing I've been hearing? It's getting louder."

Stiles sighed. "How loud?"

Lydia closed her eyes, probably searching for the noise.

I reached out, grabbing her arm before almost immediately pulling away and bringing that hand to my ear. "Ow."

Stiles stepped closer to me and turned me to look at him. "You okay?"

I nodded. "I heard it," I said, glancing back at Lydia and trying to shake the big chill that had run down my back.

Scott shook his head, trying to catch up. "You heard it?"

"Just like you heard Lydia scream the night of the memorial concert. I must be a part of their connection." Stiles explained.

"Back up a sec, huh?" I stressed. "Who do they think is here?"

"William Barrow. He's a psychopath who blew up a school bus with a shrapnel bomb a while back. He escaped from the hospital when he was there to get a tumor removed."

I looked at him blankly. "And he was here? Dude, a text would have been awesome."

"Yeah, probably. You know me, though." Stiles shrugged. "Look, we have to find my dad and make sure that he doesn't leave."

"And tell him what? That Lydia hears buzzing?" I challenged. "That doesn't exactly convince anyone that he's here." I turned to Lydia quickly. "Except us, we believe you, but why would the sheriff?"

Lydia nodded, understanding.

Stiles got my attention back with a hand on my arm. "We could tell him that you do, too."

I scoffed. "That'll sound real convincing coming from the deaf girl."

"Well, we have to do something."

I could sense his worry for all of us, especially Lydia, with how little we understood about what was going on with her. I looked over at my cousin. She was beyond worried. I got the feeling that if the deputies left, we would be in more trouble than we already were. "Okay, let's go find him." I insisted, turning to Scott. "Scotty, you should call your mom. He was getting surgery there, right? See if your mom can get anything of Barrow's so that you and Isaac, maybe the twins, can get a scent on what we're looking for."

Scott nodded, pulling out his phone.

"That's the only way we'll be able to tell if Barrow's here or not." I looked back to Stiles. "It'll be the quickest way for us to find him before he blows up the school."

Stiles nodded, looking impressed with my idea. "Good idea. Let's go find my dad." Stiles pulled me along again as he ran through the halls, ditching our class. We finally managed to catch up with his father as he and the other officers left the school.

"Sheriff Stilinski, hold on a second," I called after him.

The man stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked back at Stiles and me. "We got an eyewitness that puts Barrow by the train station."

My eyes caught the other officers, stopping to look back. Scott's dad yelled for him.

The sheriff moved to go with them. Stiles and I stopped him again, making him turn back. Stilinski looked confused.

Stiles looked down at me, shaking his head, and looked back at his dad. "Lydia said that he's here."

The sheriff took rushed steps back to the pair of us. "Did she see him?"

"Not exactly, no." Stiles stammered. "Well, not at all, actually."

I shook my head at Stiles. "She has a feeling," I said, butting into the conversation. "A supernatural feeling that Barrow is here."

Stilinski looked between Stiles and me before his eyes landed on something behind us. I turned quickly, finding Lydia. Where the hell had she come from? I rolled my eyes, fixing my attention back on Stiles' dad as he talked. "Lydia wasn't on the chessboard."

"Neither was I," I said quickly.

Stiles nodded at my statement. "Neither was she," he shrugged. "But they are now."

"Kanima?"

"Um, Banshee?"

The sheriff groaned, looking away in disbelief.

"I know! I know how it sounds. But, basically, it means that she can sense when someone's close to death."

"Can she sense that I'm about to kill you?"

The three of us looked back at Lydia, who smiled and waved at us. I placed my hand on Stiles' arm. "Well, I don't, so…."

"Are you a Banshee, too?"

"No, uh, my brother called it an Omen. Super similar to a Banshee, though, except my thing is a little bit more com-"

"The point is: he's still here."

"Right, yeah." I nodded. "He's still here."

The sheriff pursed his lips before sighing. "Alright, look. I'm not saying I don't believe. But right now, I'm going with 'eyewitness' over 'Banshee' and 'Omen.' We're leaving a few deputies here. The school's on lockdown until three o'clock. Nobody comes in; nobody comes out." Stilinski started to walk backward away from us. "Buddy, that's the best I've got right now."

"You're leaving us here?" Stiles asked, panicking.

"That's the best I can give you, Stiles."

Stiles let out a groan. "That's not - that's the worst."

I sighed once the man was out of earshot. "You didn't tell him about me."

"Yeah, you were right. It was a bit much."

I nodded, knowing that it was. "Okay, so we've got Isaac and Scott running around, trying to catch a scent. What do we do? What do we know?"

Stiles shrugged, scratching his hairline to think. "There really isn't a guidebook-" He stopped suddenly. "The Bestiary."

"Bestiary?"

"Allison has one." Stiles nodded, pulling out his phone from his pocket. "Because her family were hunters, they had a log of most of the supernatural creatures."

"Why am I just now hearing about this?" I asked. "What if there's something about Lydia and me in there?"

Stiles stopped to look up at me through his eyelashes. He looked like a deer in headlights. "I'll be honest. I didn't think about it until now."

I scoffed a laugh at him while shaking my head. "Of course not."

(o.o)

It wasn't long before Stiles, Lydia, and I found Allison and helped her sneak out of the school to head to her apartment and look through her bestiary. I was feeling pretty useless, not being able to tell whether or not Barrow was still in the school. What I could see seemed to work primarily by touch. If I couldn't touch them, I couldn't see their deaths. We couldn't even find Barrow, so what good was I. What I could do was so limited, and I couldn't help in the way that Lydia could do. I couldn't help the way the wolves did with their sense of smell.

Because I didn't want to burden Stiles with what I was feeling, when we split up to search the school for Barrow, I volunteered to take the school's main floor for myself. Stiles tried to argue with me about being by myself, but I glanced up at Lydia, and it seemed she knew exactly what I wanted. She pulled Stiles along with her up the stairs.

I checked each empty classroom of the math and science hallways before I got a text from Stiles telling me to meet him out on the school's courtyard. When I got outside, I saw that Scott and the other wolves were already disbanding from Stiles and Lydia. I approached Stiles. "Everything okay?"

Stiles shrugged. "They didn't find anything. And the school didn't blow up, so maybe he isn't here." He gestured back to the wolves. "They're going to try and find a scent outside the school."

I looked at Lydia. "But he's here."

"I don't know," she said, defeated. "We still don't know how it works. Not even a little bit."

I sighed. "So, what do we do now? He's out there, and if he's not blowing up our school, he's blowing up someone else's. That's still bad."

Stiles looked at me, dropping his shoulders. "Let's go to my house and try to fix some more things together, adding in Barrow. Maybe we can figure out where he might go if we do more research."

"Okay. Lydia, you wanna come?" I asked her, knowing that her face told me she felt the same way that I did: useless.

Lydia responded with a nod, her face blank and confused.

I wanted to hug her, but I gathered she was probably still hearing that buzzing. "Okay, you meet us there?" I asked, getting another nod before she walked away towards her car. I let out a large sigh.

Stiles grabbed my hand in his and gave my arm a soft tug to make our way towards his Jeep.

The ride started silently as I stared out the passenger window, trying to think of ways so that I may be of some help to find Barrow.

Stiles tapped my leg once to gain my attention. "Are you okay?"

I shrugged. "Yeah."

"Ceej?" He asked, again, wanting an honest answer.

I looked down at my hands in my lap for a moment. "I can't keep up," I admitted. "I spent half of the day not knowing there was a murderer in the school. I miss out on so much because I can't hear anything else going on. It's not helpful to you guys or me."

"I mean, the rest of the school didn't know about Barrow either. That was more of a safety issue. The only real downside is that you couldn't hear the fire alarm."

"The fire alarm went off?"

Stiles looked at me guiltily. "Yeah, I pulled it. Lydia and I thought about emptying the school before it blew up. I got a week's detention."

"And how long was it before you texted me to get out?"

Stiles gaped. "In my defense, I got caught by Coach, and he dragged me out by my ear."

I shook my head. "Well, it's a good thing the school didn't blow up." I leaned my head back against the headrest. Things were beginning to feel like I was nine years old all over again when I first lost my hearing.

Stiles grabbed my hand to make me look over at him. "If it makes you feel better, I feel useless almost daily."

"How? You're the one who comes up with the plans, remember?"

"You came up with today's plan. Scott calling his mom for something of Barrows." He reminded me. "But that's all I can do. Nothing more than that. Scott's a freakin' werewolf. Isaac, even the twins. You and Lydia have some weird connection with death that makes you helpful. I'm...just Stiles."

I furrowed my brow at him. "That actually makes me feel worse."

"What?" He laughed as we arrived at his house and put the Jeep in park. "I just took a dump on my own abilities."

"Yeah, exactly." I insisted. He obviously didn't understand what I was saying. "I don't think you're 'just Stiles.' You're the heart of the group." I shrugged and looked away from him, grabbing my backpack at my feet to go inside. "At least that's what
I think."

The pair of us piled out of the Jeep, but he stopped me at his front door. His hand went to the side of my face, and he pulled me to him, kissing me softly.

I pulled away, dazed. I shook my head, trying to come back to Earth. "I should say nice things about you more often if you're going to kiss me like that."

"I will," Stiles said with a wink before opening his front door and letting me inside.

(o.o)

Stiles and I spent the better part of the evening trying to make Lydia feel better alongside doing more research. She felt the most responsible for everyone running around the school, and I didn't blame her for feeling so bad. I sat in the chair at Stiles' desk, pulling up anything and everything I could about William Barrow to print it so Stiles could put it on his evidence wall.

Stiles caught my eye when he turned around to speak to Lydia. "Oh, just different stages of the investigation. So green is solved, yellow is to be determined, blue's just pretty."

Lydia was laid down on her stomach across Stiles' bed. "What does red mean?"

"Unsolved," I answered, glancing at the masterpiece Stiles was creating.

"You only have red on the board."

"Yes, I'm aware of that," Stiles said with a frustrating stance. "Thank you."

"Did you get detention for pulling the alarm?"

Stiles nodded. "Every day this week."

Lydia turned to me. "Sorry."

I shook my head, rolling Stiles' chair over to sit in front of my cousin. "No, Stiles explained everything. It made sense. Besides, I'm not the one who has to spend time with Coach."

Lydia looked back up at Stiles.

I furrowed my brow at her.

"He said we were on to something."

"We were." I insisted.

"Even though we couldn't find any proof of Barrow being there?"

I scoffed at her, looking down at her hands. "What are you doing?" I asked her, pulling at her hands to unwrap the yarn she'd wound through her fingers. "Listen, the point to all of this is that we listen to our guts. That's what has worked so far, right?"

Lydia barely nodded at me.

"Barrow was there. You knew it. You felt it. I felt it, too. The chill that I got down my back when I touched you was so intense. I was cold after that. Like I was when the three of you sacrificed yourselves." I said, looking back at Stiles.

Stiles gestured to me and made his way over, crouching next to me. "Look, if you wanted to, I'd go back to the school right now and search all night just to prove it." Stiles twirled his sharpie marker between his fingers close to his face. He furrowed his brow, looking at the marker. "Get up. We're going to the school."

"Stiles?" I questioned, standing from the chair.

"I'll explain when we get there. I need to be sure."

"Alright. Let's go."

Stiles drove the Jeep back to the school with all three of us in it. He was driving erratically but trying not to be obvious about it. It felt like Stiles power-walked through the school and to the Chemistry lab.

I shook my head. "I checked here," I told him as he entered the room. "There was nothing." I turned, spotting the same numbers that were on the board earlier in the day when I checked the room.

Stiles moved towards the chemistry closet and turned the knob.

Lydia looked down at it, pointing. "That was supposed to be locked."

"Yeah, I know." All three of us entered the small closet. Stiles and I pulled out our phones to turn on the flashlights. "Notice anything else?"

Lydia shrugged. "Just the smell of chemicals."

I looked over at Lydia, eyebrows raised. "The wolves wouldn't have been able to catch a scent. Not if he was in here."

Stiles nodded at me. "I realized when I couldn't smell you over the sharpie." He pulled the marker from his pocket.

"You couldn't smell me?" I questioned his curious statement.

"You smell like strawberries," Stiles responded, shrugging. "I like it."

I blushed, unable to find words.

Stiles crouched to the floor, pointing the light to the ground where he'd found something. "He was here, performing very minor surgery on himself. You were right." He said, looking up at Lydia.

"Then why don't I feel good about this?" Lydia asked.

"Probably because he was here to kill somebody."

"But who?"

My eyes widened, and I left the small room, passing by Lydia. I walked to the chalkboard. "Guys?"

Stiles came up behind me, looking at the numbers. "Nineteen, fifty-three, and eighty-eight. What are those?"

Lydia shrugged. "Maybe atomic numbers?"

"Is it a formula?"

"Not really," Lydia said, shaking her head. "Nineteen is Potassium. Fifty-three's Iodine. Eighty-eight is Radium. The first two make Potassium Iodide." She picked up a piece of chalk and wrote a 'K' next to the number '19.'

"Potassium is K?"

"From Kalium, the scientific Neo-Latin name." Lydia explained, writing an 'I' next to '15.'

"What's Radium?" Stiles asked.

I already knew the answer. The chill in my spine came back, and I shivered, wishing I had a heavier sweater. My hand went to the lip that held the chalk, trying to steady myself.

Stiles caught my elbow, making sure I wouldn't fall. "CJ?"

My eyes didn't leave the board as Lydia wrote 'Ra' next to the last number. "Now is probably a good time for me to mention that I think Kira is supernatural."

"Kira?" Stiles asked, glancing between the board and me.

"When I touched her arm the other day, she was warm to the touch. Like 'fire' warm." I said, nodding.

"So she could be in trouble?" Lydia asked, dropping the chalk.

"We probably shouldn't stick around here if we wanna find out."

(o.o)

I didn't want to know how Stiles managed to get Kira's address, but I was thankful that he did. I liked Kira and did not want her to die. We found Scott lying on the side of the road next to his bike.

Stiles rushed towards him, shaking him awake.

Scott recovered quickly, gasping for breath as he sat up. "Barrow! He took Kira!"

Stiles nodded. "We know. He was after her the whole time."

"He was hiding in the chemistry closet at the school," I shared with him. "You couldn't find him over the smell of the chemicals."

"And there was a code on the board saying Kira," Lydia finished.

Scott pulled out his phone after getting to his feet. "Maybe Isaac and Allison found something."

I thought for a moment, trying to recall the day and how everything played out. "Why would Barrow leave a message on the chalkboard about who he was going to take?"

"Maybe someone left the message for him," Stiles suggested.

"Sure, but who? That's just another piece to the puzzle that we don't have."

Scott hung up and turned back to the three of us. "We have to think of something." He insisted. "He's going to kill her."

"I knew he was there." Lydia reminded everyone. "How did I know that?"

"Because you heard the flies, right?" Stiles questioned.

"What do you hear now?" I asked her, trying to urge her on.

Lydia paused, listening to the world around her. She shook her head. "Nothing. I feel like I can do this, but I don't know what to do. It's like it's on the tip of my tongue, and I don't know how to trigger it. "I just -" Lydia walked away, raking her fingers through her hair, frustrated.

I stood back by Scott, not knowing what to do or how to help. I could see her words as she spoke.

Stiles stepped forward next, saying something to her.

Lydia paused for just a second.

Then there was a scream.

My hands flew up to my ears, trying to block out the overwhelming noise. I groaned in response. "Lydia!" I shouted, trying to get her to stop the scream. It felt like a lifetime before the ringing in my ears stopped. I took a deep breath, clearing out everything else. There was only a buzzing sound left. I looked up at Lydia.

Lydia turned around quickly. "It's not flies. It's electricity." She looked at me directly. "Are you okay?

"I'm okay," I said, hoping that I sounded more confident than I felt. I lowered my hands from my ears, seeing drops of blood pooled in my palms. I quickly wiped the blood on the back of my jeans. That would be a problem for another time.

"Wait a second - Barrow was an electrical engineer," Stiles remembered. "He worked at a power substation."

"What substation?" Scott asked.

"The one on the edge of town," I recalled, having read it in one of the articles.

Scott nodded at me. "That's where he took her."

"You sure?" Stiles wondered.

Scott didn't even hesitate. He got on his bike and started it, racing towards the edge of town. Stiles, Lydia, and I rushed to get back into the Jeep. He drove to the substation after sending a quick text to his father.

Scott had arrived first, running inside before Stiles could even turn off his vehicle.

I put my hand on the door handle to push it open, but Stiles grabbed my arm. "What?" I questioned why he was stopping me.

"You guys stay here." Stiles insisted.

"What?" I furrowed my brow, shaking my head. "No. I'm coming with you."

"You're staying," He reached behind me to pull a bat from behind the seat next to Lydia. "I only have one bat."

I scoffed but sat back in my seat, watching as he ran into the building after Scott. "He's joking, right?" I wondered, mainly to myself. I felt a tap on my shoulder.

Lydia had sat forward in her seat to peek between the passenger and driver's seats. "Are you okay?"

I nodded, though I wasn't entirely sure. I subconsciously rubbed my hands on my lap, hoping I got all the blood off of them.

"I saw what happened. The blood." Lydia clarified.

"Lydia, we don't have time to talk about it."

"Actually, we have plenty of time."

I shook my head and turned away from her. I wasn't ready for that conversation. The lights flickered in the building in front of us. That distracted her from continuing the conversation. "What the hell?" I opened the door to get a better look at the substation in front of me. "The lights flashed for another few moments before they went out completely. I turned around to see the rest of town completely dark. "Holy shit."