𝐑𝐔𝐍𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐘 | stiles stilinski ³ ✔️

THIRTY-FIVE , BIGGER ISSUES

They reached forward, placing a test tube beneath her eyes, capturing salty tears as they streamed. The last thing the young girl saw was a Dread Doctor hovering over her, saying-

"Harry Valack next."

-before everything faded.

Harper woke up gasping for air. Hands immediately went to her shoulders, pulling her back down from where she was trying to get out of the person's grip. She realised she was still outside the animal clinic, but the jeep was no longer on fire. In fact, Theo was pushing it back so that it was on the right side.

  "Harper, Harper!" Stiles cried out. "It's me, it's me."

  The brunette turned and grabbed his hands, looking into his eyes. "I saw them! The Dread Doctors, I saw them. They thought I had just run away and hit my head and dreamt the whole thing, only my dad believed me. They took my blood, they took Harry's too, I think. My dad says they can't replicate Empaths, maybe they were trying, maybe-"

  "Harper, calm down," Stiles hushed her, his brows furrowed as he ran his hand down the side of her face. "You're going to make yourself panic."

  "Sorry," she swallowed, slumping back down on the ground and closing her eyes briefly. "I don't know how I forgot I... They don't know about Empaths. I think we confuse them."

"What does all of this mean?" Stiles licked his bottom lip, trying to process everything that she was saying.

  "My dad would know, we could-"

"No," Stiles cut her off, shaking his head. "We're not going to your dad, Harper. You only want to go because you think he can help you, but how do we know that it's not another trick? To lure you in so he can start experimenting on you like he did with Harry?"

  Harper released a shaky breath. "So what do we do?" She asked, turning to look at Theo who was also watching them, his hands shoved in the pocket of his hoodie. "Hope Empaths have nothing to do with Dread Doctors and that we'll find another way to get rid of them? Hope they don't come after me to finish what they started?"

  Stiles chewed down on his lip, not knowing what to say. He sure as hell wasn't going to let Harper go back to Eichen to visit Valack. He was dangerous and psychotic.

"We can find someone else to help," he insisted, "I'll do my research, anything. Just promise you won't go looking for your dad."

The teenage girl nodded hesitantly.

   "Right now we could focus on the body that's missing," Theo suggested, making Harper's eyes practically bulge out of their sockets.

"They took the body?"

  Theo nodded. "They flipped the car, took the body and left."

  Suddenly, Stiles' police radio began to crackle from inside the jeep. Harper was honestly surprised that it was still working after what it had just been through. Maybe she had imagined there was so much fire because she'd hit her head. However, judging by the smoky stench hanging in the air, it couldn't have been a tiny one.

"Suspect in 1-8-7 is in custody an en route to sheriff's station," a policeman announced over the radio. "Suspect's name is Yukimura, Kira."

Harper frowned. "What's a 1-8-7, Stiles?"

Stiles hesitated before he blinked. "Homicide."

...

  Sleep wasn't an option for the McCall pack. The attempt to keep Hayden safe last night had ended with her being taken by the Dread Doctors, including Liam. Not only that, but a dead body had shown up on the McCall's table, Kira's sword straight through the stomach. She had been taken in, accused of murder, but released when her dad covered for her. She said that she hadn't done it, but Harper knew Scott didn't know what to believe.