ANCHOR ° S. STILINSKI

THE BITE ☙

Why was I awake this late? Sophomore year starts tomorrow and I needed to rest. It was silent in the house, my mom being at work and my brother, Scott in his room, most likely asleep. Suddenly, there was a loud noise. I don't know exactly what it was but it was loud enough to summon me out of my room. Before I exited I slid on a pair of black boots in case I needed to run out of my house.

"Scott?" My older brother walked out of his room and had a bat in his hand. "Jayla." I glanced over the bat before rolling my eyes at him. "Seriously? A baseball bat? Of all things?" He shrugged and nodded as we walked down the steps. It wasn't scary, yet my heart was racing. It must have been the suspense of the situation.

There was a bang on the front porch, Scott turned to me, holding his finger to his mouth before he opened the door, leading us out onto the front porch. Something fell from the top of the porch roof and Scott went to swing his bat but I grabbed it. "It's Stiles."

My eyes had caught a glance at a shaven head seconds before he had been able to swing the make shift weapon. Stiles, Scott and I's best friend since Kindergarten was hanging over the ledge of our porch.

"Stiles? What the hell are you doing?" Scott's voice rose and Stiles glanced between us. "Neither of you were answering your phones. Why do you have a bat?" As he spoke I looked at my phone and sure enough 5 missed calls. "I thought you were a predator." Scott exclaimed.

Stiles' face loosened and his body slightly twitched as he slid off the porch, nearly face planting in the dirt. "A pre - I - wha - look, I know it's late, but you gotta hear this. I saw my dad leave 20 minutes ago. Dispatch called. They're bringing in every officer from the Beacon Department, and even State Police."

I stepped closer to him and my mouth dropped. "For what?" I asked and he smirked, "Two joggers found a body in the middle of the woods."

"Wait like a dead body?"Scott asked and I huffed. "No a body of water yes a dead body." Stiles replied, Scott scoffed as I crossed my arms. "You mean like murdered?" He nodded at me and Scott put his bat down. "Wait if they found the body what are we doing?" I asked.

Stiles placed a hand on my shoulder and started walking me towards the jeep. No doubt with Scott behind us. "That's the best part. They only found half of the body. So we're going." He drove us to the reserve and I glanced at the sign. 'no entering after dark'. I wonder how many times that rule was broken.

I froze before entering and glanced at the boys. "We're seriously doing this?" I questioned, something I usually do when the three of us are about to do something stupid. "Hey, Scott's the one always complaining that nothing ever happens in this town." Stiles started as we went past the rusty chain.

It was the only thing keeping us out, but like always we didn't listen to it. "I was trying to get a good night's sleep before practice tomorrow." Scott sighed and Stiles, who was a good measure ahead, sighed.

"Yeah cause sitting on the bench is grueling work." Stiles joked as Scott shoved his hands into his sweatshirt pockets and I shivered slightly. I should've grabbed a sweatshirt. "Actually I'm gonna play this year. First line in fact." Scott stated.

Stiles laughed at Scott's words before glancing back at us. "That's the spirit. Everybody deserves to have a dream, even pathetically unrealistic ones." I shook my head, "Hey, leave him be. He's been training all summer. He has a chance."

Scott smiled at me and nodded. "Thanks Jay. And Stiles. Just out of curiosity. Which half of the body are we looking for?" Stiles turned and looked at us. "Huh! I didn't even think about that." Stiles admitted. As I stood next to Scott, I stopped. "And um, what if whoever killed the body is still out here?" I added.