Stand Still // [tw/spn/sh/twl]

Chapter 11

STILINSKI RESIDENCE, SATURDAY, 7:10 P.M.

Stiles jumped when someone knocked on his bedroom door, having been in deep thought beforehand. He muttered a quick, "come in," as he covered the notepad he had been writing information on with a nearby book. He spun around in his chair as the door opened and Lydia walked in, the bestiary clutched in her hands. 

"Your dad let me in," the banshee said, walking over to the boy and setting the large book down on his desk. "As you requested," she added.

"Thanks, Lyds," Stiles replied, sliding the bestiary closer to him as he spun back around.

"So.." Lydia began slowly, "why'd you need it anyway?"

"Uh, essay for English class," Stiles managed to lie quickly. "Yeah, we have to pick a piece of mythology or folklore and write about how it may be believable and how it's not."

Lydia hummed, looking around the boys room as she walked around. Stiles eyed her suspiciously before opening the bestiary and scanning page after page.

"Mind if I hang out for a while?" Lydia asked, and Stiles paused to process her question before he continued flipping through the book.

"Yeah, sure," he said, not wanting to seem suspicious.

Lydia tossed her purse on the boys bed before sitting on the edge of the mattress. Her eyes eventually settled on Stiles, and she watched as he rapidly flipped through the pages.

"So what're you writing your essay about?" Lydia questioned.

"Sirens," Stiles lied again, slowing the pace of the page turns as he neared the "S" section of the book.

The boy let out a frustrated sigh as he searched through the whole section, but there was no page on Sparks. If he was correctly thinking, the page or pages should be between Soul Eaters and Specters, if there was any to begin with, but he found nothing.

He was poised to shut the book, but then he saw something, something odd in between the last page on Soul Eaters, and the first page on Specters. There were small specs of paper buried deep within the inside of the spine and in between the two pages. It seemed as if there use to be a page or multiple pages there, but they had fallen out or more like they had been ripped out.

"I gotta go," Stiles abruptly said, confusing Lydia as he slammed the bestiary shut and gathered the book in his arms before heading for the door.

"Wait-where are you going?!" Lydia yelled to him, but she received no response as he was already running down the stairs and out the front door of his house, leaving the banshee alone.

[EDITED]