Tether ⌲ Stiles Stilinski [2]

nineteen

"You're meeting her parents already?" Lydia smirked.

"It's not like that! She's not even the one who invited me, Mr. Yukimura did. I heard Kira say herself that she wasn't looking to date anyone right now. I'm just going over for a nice dinner as a new friend."

"Mm-hmm," I nodded. "Whatever you say."

Scott rolled his eyes. "You know what, I've gotta go anyway."

"Hey," I laughed. "We're only teasing, come on, you don't have to leave."

"Just let him go, El," Stiles nudged me. "He has to go if he wants a full two hours to get ready, you know."

Lydia smiled. "Of course, plenty of time to bathe in yet another bottle of cologne."

Scott was ignoring us, packing up his things. "Bye guys."

"Have fun, Scott!" Stiles called out after him. "Remember, you are the hot girl!"

His best friend simply waved him off and hurried out of the room.

I laughed. "He's the what now?"

"No, don't explain," Lydia held up a hand and used the other to pinch her nose bridge. "I don't wanna know."

"You would think if the scent was strong enough to bother you, it would bother the boy with supernatural smelling abilities," I said.

"I know, right? But I guess all boys are blind when it comes to that stuff," she joked. "I'm still reeling from the amount of Axe body spray that was on the bus on the way to the track meet last month. Wolfsbane might have been the number one thing that poisoned the air that day, but I think that that garbage would have to count as a close second."

I laughed again, but Stiles had gone quiet beside us.

"Hey." I bumped his elbow with mine. "We aren't talking about you, don't worry. You always smell good."

He shook his head. "What if Barrow had used something to mask his scent? What if that's why the guys couldn't track him down using what Melissa brought them from the hospital?"

Lydia's expression turned sour. "I thought we went over this. Clearly, he wasn't here. And you can't seriously believe that a mass murderer simply threw on some cologne meant for teenagers and went completely undetected. We made a mistake, it's fine. Just drop it."

"Lydia, I don't think it was a mistake," I murmured. "I think we both know what we heard."

She hesitated for a second and chewed on her bottom lip. "That doesn't make Stiles' theory any more sound."

"I don't know, I'm not saying he would necessarily use perfume or something I just...wait a minute," Stiles had stopped with his sharpie marker in mid-air. Quickly, he brought the tip of it right to his nose and inhaled deeply.

"Stiles, what are you-"

"What does this smell like to you?" he asked abruptly, sticking the marker in my face.

"Uh, chemicals?"

"Right? Like chemical fumes." Stiles nodded.

Lydia had furrowed her eyebrows, lacing together the thoughts in her head. "The scent of body spray is technically made up of various chemical fumes too. If someone had access to the right kinds of chemicals, they could use them just as well to cover their scent."

"Exactly," Stiles smiled, proud of his idea.

"So Barrow might not have been in the chemistry room to make Molotov cocktails like we thought, but he could've been in there for some kind of camouflage," I put my hand to my forehead. "Oh my God, so we could've been right all along? We should've kept going and checked the chemistry classrooms when we wanted to yesterday."