The next day when Stiles woke up, the first thing he did was test how sore his leg was. They had lacrosse practice today and even though he might be sitting on the bench the rest of the season, Coach would yell at him if he wasn't able to keep up with the rest of the team. Not to mention if he started limping, his dad would start asking questions and he hasn't come up with a plausible lie just yet.

He flexed it this way and that and was surprised to find that he wasn't as sore as he expected. The area around the wound still ached a little bit but not enough that it would be too obvious when he walked. Maybe the thing didn't bite him as hard as he thought.

He got dressed, grabbed his school things, and headed downstairs to have a quick breakfast with his dad. He was almost out of his room when he smelled freshly baked muffins, vanilla muffins to be exact.

"Dad where'd you get muffins?" He asked his dad as he sat on the kitchen table

"What are you talking about? I don't have any muffins."

Stiles frowned, he could've sworn he smelled muffins. In fact, he could still smell it. Maybe it was his mind playing tricks on him, he did like muffins, especially the ones his mother used to make.

"I'll get it." Stiles said when the doorbell rang.

As he got closer to the door, he couldn't help but notice that the smell of vanilla muffins got stronger. Shaking his head, he opened the door and couldn't help the way his jaw partially dropped. Right in front of him was Mrs. Lee with a plate of freshly baked muffins.

"Good morning Stiles," Greeted the thirty-five-year-old woman, "I was up early this morning and made some extra muffins. Claudia was the one who taught me the recipe so I saved some for you and your dad."

"Thank you Mrs. Lee they look delicious." He accepted the plate and invited Mrs. Lee inside.

"No thank you dear I still have to get to work. Enjoy the muffins."

"We will, vanilla muffins are our favourite." He smiled while a part of him was hoping that she corrected him on the flavour of the muffins.

Mrs. Lee looked confused but she smiled and said, "That's right. Their vanilla flavoured. How did you know?"

Stiles tried to hide the way his smile tightened at that confirmation, "I guess I just have a good sense of smell."

Mrs. Lee laughed lightly as she walked away saying how Stiles was so funny, but Stiles stood there on the doorstep for a long time just staring at the plate of muffins. Did he really smell these muffins all the way from his room? How was that even possible?

All the way to school, Stiles puzzled over the muffins and how he was able to immediately tell what flavour it was. He tried to think of a possible solution but he couldn't come up with anything. Mrs. Lee lived across the street and even if she had her windows open while baking, there was no way he would have been able to smell it from his room.

Seeing Scott at the front of the school, he pushed thoughts of those muffins to the back of his head. There were more important things to discuss than breakfast foods.

"How's your bite?" Asked Scott

Stiles lifted up his pant sleeve and showed the bandaged skin to Scott, "It's not as sore as I thought it would be but it still aches a bit."

"Do you think you could still go to practice today?"

"I think so, it's not like sitting on the bench is such a gruelling effort anyway." He said sarcastically

"By the way, I think I know what bit you." Scott said adjusting his bag as they started to walk into the school blending in with the students coming from the bus.

"It might have been a wolf."

Stiles raised his eyebrows, "A wolf bit me?"

"Uh huh."

"No. Not a chance." Stiles scoffed

"I heard a wolf howling." Scott supplied fully convinced that a wolf bit his best friend.

"No you didn't." Stiles was starting to get irritated at Scott's insistence that a wolf bit him. How would he know when he wasn't even the one who got bit. Besides Stiles saw how big that thing was, there was no way it was a wolf. He didn't even hear a wolf howling the previous night, maybe Scott heard a coyote or something.

"What do you mean 'no, I didn't'? How do you know what I heard?"

Stiles continued, "Cause California doesn't have wolves. Not in like sixty years."

"Really?"

"Yes really! There are no wolves in California." Stiles was starting to get really annoyed now.

"Whatever, we're still going after practice, right?"

The previous night Scott dropped his inhaler when the deer ran him over. Since he couldn't afford to buy another one, after Lacrosse practice, the two boys will go back to the woods to find it. Also so Stiles could see the dead body himself.

"Of course! Finding that body is seriously the best thing that happened to this town since…" He trailed off when he saw a goddess walking behind Scott.

"Since the birth of Lydia Martin. Hey Lydia, you look –" He flashed her a brilliant smile but deflated when she just walked past him, "Like you're gonna ignore me."

Stiles has been in love with Lydia since the dawn of time and it constantly sucked each time she ignored him. He was starting to think that he would have to set himself on fire and dance the Macarena in front of her so she would even notice him.

He caught his best friend smirking at him and he scowled, "You're the cause of this you know? Dragging me down to your nerd depths. I'm a nerd by association. I've been scarlet nerded by you."

Scott just smiled because he knew that Stiles was just joking. They were brothers, and even if it meant getting a date with Lydia, Stiles would never abandon him.

Scott wouldn't either. No girl could ever come between them.

OoOoO

Their first class for the day was English with Mr. Clifford, luckily it was one of the classes that Scott and Stiles had together. Mr. Clifford started the class by telling them about the dead body found in the woods, it wasn't news to the two boys, but that the police have a suspect in custody was. How could they have found a suspect so quickly? Did a witness come forward?

Stiles didn't know and he was itching to go down to the Sheriff's station and ask his dad about it. But he restrained himself knowing that doing so would not only get him detention, but it would also let his dad know that he was listening in on his phone calls. He was taking notes when he suddenly got blasted by the sound of Jessie Jay's Price Tag. Someone was playing music in the classroom and whoever it was didn't seem all that worried that Mr. Clifford would hear them.

He looked around the classroom looking for whoever was playing the song so he could tell them to turn it down a bit. But it didn't seem like anybody else was even bothered by the sound. All he saw was Johnny Myers wearing ear buds.

What was happening to him?

He shook his head and lightly slapped his cheeks. Maybe it was like one of those mind over matter things. He thought he smelled the muffins from a great distance so now his brain was convincing him that he could hear nonexistent music.

Scott noticed his behaviour and shot him a concerned look, "Dude you okay?"

Stiles just nodded and gave him a thumbs up. Scott looked like he was about to ask again when the Vice Principal came in and introduced the new girl, Allison Argent.

That was when he started hearing the drums. Fast, evenly paced drums.

Again, he slapped himself in the face, this time a bit harder. The song thing sort of made sense, but drums? Why drums? He wasn't even sure the school had drums and there certainly wasn't a parade going on.

The drums got even louder and faster when the new girl tapped on Scott's shoulder and asked if she could borrow a pen. The idiot was all smiles as he gave her his spare pen.

Would you look at that? It seems like Scotty boy's got a crush.

As soon as class ended, Stiles went into the bathroom and splashed some water on his face. He didn't understand what was going on with him. First the weird smell thing and now he was hearing things. Maybe it was all the Adderall, the doctor did say that one of the possible side effects was hallucinations, maybe that was it.

He was going to lay off it immediately. He didn't exactly feel like being one of those people who saw things that weren't there and constantly doubted their sanity.

OoOoO

Sheriff Noah Stilinski was having a very busy morning. With the discovery of the body in the woods and the still missing half, Noah had spent the first part of the morning issuing orders to most of his deputies to continue the search in the woods. If they were unable to find the body, the deputies were supposed to find and bring back anything that might have belonged to the victim. He was also due to meet the M.E. around noon after the man has examined the body.

They still haven't been able to identify the victim and there have been no one reported missing in town so she had to have been an outsider. The only identifying mark they found on her was a small tattoo on her left ankle. Three spirals coming out of one epicenter.

Animal attacks were not unusual in Beacon Hills. Even before he was on the force, Noah had seen and heard about horrific animal attacks in the woods and sometimes bodies even showed up within the town proper. In fact, one of his first cases as a deputy involved a couple that was found mauled to death on the outskirts of the woods. But there hasn't been an animal attack in years!

Officially, the woods were closed to the public but the truth was the locals just came and went whenever they felt like it. His own son, to his frustration, has gone past the NO ENTRY sign to go into the woods multiple times. The sheriff's department just did not have enough in the budget to hire more officers to patrol the woods.

When it was time for him to meet with the M.E., the deputies still hadn't found either the missing half of the body or anything that might tell them who the girl was.

"Hey doc." He greeted, "Please say you have something for me."

Dr. Jeffrey Rollins was a nice enough man, if a bit too jolly for a man who worked with dead bodies all day.

"Sheriff, right on time. Want some tea, coffee, blood? Surely this old gal can wait a couple of minutes. She's definitely not going anywhere."

Rollins laughed at his own joke and Noah frowned. This was why he hated talking to the other man.

"No thanks doc. You got anything for me?"

"Yup. An old Filipino myth about women who severed their bodies at sunset and flew over town while their lower half stayed on the ground. Think that's what we're dealing with?"

"Rollins." Noah warned.

"Right-o then, straight to business." Dr. Rollins paused to show the woman's severed waist, "Well she was definitely not severed using any human tools that I know of. My scissors definitely can't cut this well or this bad."

"What do you mean?"

"Look at how the skin is cut."

Noah, holding his breath, moved closer to see what Rollins was pointing out.

"It doesn't look even."

"Bingo! And we have a winner!" Rollins cheered, "Would you like to retrieve your prize now or later?"

"Rollins"

"Later it is then. Because the cut is so uneven, I can say that it wasn't made with any sharp weapon I can think of."

"Do you think it's possible this was made by an animal?"

Rollins thought about it, "It's possible, I did find hair on the body. I just sent it to the forensics lab in LA for analysis. But before you continue down that route you should check the rest of the body."

Rollins moved the white sheet to show the girl's legs while still keeping her decency.

Noah looked at the legs, looking for whatever Rollins was talking about. Her legs have lost some of its color after her death but it was evident that she lived an active lifestyle. She had calluses on her feet and her legs were toned suggesting that she spent a lot of time on her feet.

"She was found in the woods, right?" Rollins said, "Smack dab in the middle of animal territory?"

"Yeah, that's part of why I'm leaning towards animal attack."

"Well, riddle me this. What kind of animal leaves no bite or scratch on its victims? The only bite mark I could find was by the waist where she was severed. She's clear everywhere else."

Stunned, Noah checked the body again. There had to be something. Even if he considered that the girl wasn't killed in an animal attack, the animals in the woods should have picked at her body after she died. It's what animals did, right?

But there was nothing, no bite, scratch, or cut.

"What the hell happened out there?"

AN: How does everyone like Dr. Rollins? Vanilla muffins for anyone who knows what creature he was talking about.

Updated: May 18, 2021