"Hey, come here!" Stiles grabs Scott and takes him with us, through our school's corridor.
"What?" Scott has absolutely no idea what's going on, until he sees what we spotted earlier: a group of policemen, including the sheriff, having a conversation with the principal.
"Tell us what they're saying. Can you hear them?" Stiles asks frantically. Scott hushes him and starts listening.
"Curfew because of the body," he says after a while.
"Unbelievable! My dad is looking after a stupid animal whereas the real damn killer can just hang out and do whatever he wants," Stiles rants.
"You can't exactly tell your dad the truth about Derek," Scott says.
"He's got a point. Unless you want him to be in on it," I add.
"No, no way. I can do something though..." he trails off.
"Like what?" Scott asks.
"Find the other half of the body," Stiles says.
"Are you serious?!" I yell, when Scott says "Are you kidding?" at the exact same time.
"I knew we were gonna go hunt for bodies again, I freaking knew it!" I say.
***
I'm in my room, paging through my mom's old book of fairy tales, letting my fingers glide over the pages. Trying to choose a story to read is hard when you know them all nearly word by word. I stop and start reading "The Wolf and the Fox", my father's favourite. I know it was because I once asked my parents to each draw a little cross next to their favourite tale and he wrote in normal pencil, my mother used a green coloured one.
I'm expecting a call from Stiles or Scott when they want me to help them go find the body, but this is a good way to kill some time.
Basically, The Wolf and the Fox is about, you guessed it, a wolf and a fox. The wolf is a general asshole: he makes the fox get food and do all sorts of things for him. Until one day the fox's had enough and he breaks free from the wolf by using a clever plan. I've always wondered if this fairy tale was my dad's favourite because of the obvious connection to wolves or because of other reasons. And I still wonder about that, because I want to know and I'll never know.
My phone rings and I snap out of my daze.
"Scott told me he talked to Derek well Derek more like threatened him again but Scott said he found something else he's gonna tell us when we get there I'm picking you up in 5," Stiles rambles from the second I pick up the phone, then immediately ends the call when he's finished talking.
I have to run over everything he said again in my head so the words actually sink in. And then I'm still stunned.
"That... was impressive," I say to myself.
***
"Come on, Grace!" Stiles jumps out of the car and races to Scott's house, me struggling to keep up with him.
"Jesus, Stiles, do you have ADHD or something?" I ask, now following him up the stairs.
"According to my doctor, yes," he answers.
"Oh. That actually explains a lot," I say.
He busts through Scott's door.
"What did you find? How did you find it? When did you find it? And yes, I've had a lot of adderal, so.. "
"I found something at Derek's house," Scott answers.
Stiles wants to say something, but I interrupt him by placing a hand on his arm.
"Derek's house?" I ask.
"Yeah."
"Where's Derek's house?"
"In the forest, where we met. Didn't you know that?"
"No," I say, trying to keep my composure. On the first day I moved here, I went into these woods, way too close to the house where my father and probably my mother were killed. I feel sick.
"What did you find?" Stiles asks Scott, getting his attention now instead of me.
"There was something buried there. I could smell blood," Scott says, and I feel anxiety coming up because it's so unlikely but maybe, just maybe that thing that was buried there is my mom's body. The police never found her. But they didn't have werewolf smell.
No, Grace, it's the other half of the body, not your mother's, calm down.
"That's awesome! I mean, that's terrible! Whose blood?" Stiles asks.
"I don't know. But when we do, your dad will arrest Derek for the murder. And then you two will help me figure out how to play lacrosse without changing. Because there's no way I'm not playing that game," Scott says.
"I'm still not sure if Derek would kill someone like that," I say.
"Derek did it. Of course he did it. Have you seen him? He looks like a serial killer," Stiles says.
I look at him.
"But I don't see how, after- after losing your family."
"Maybe that's why he started killing."
"Maybe. I just don't know," I say.
"Uh. Can I ask you something?" Stiles asks after a moment of silence.
"Yes," I say reluctantly, hoping fiercely that he won't bring up my parents.
"Derek said, when he got into Scott's house during our video chat, he said you killed his family? Why did he say that?"
"He- he thinks my family is responsible for the fire," I say, looking down.
"Is he right?"
My gaze is strongly fixed on the floor.
"No. I don't know who did it, but it wasn't my family."
"Okay," he says.
"Guys, I have an idea," Scott tells us.
"I'm gonna give it a shot, but I hope your ideas are more reasonable than Stiles'," I say.
"I have so many reasonable ideas!" he shouts.
"Yeah, like searching for a corpse in the middle of the night," I retort.
"It was- that was one thing, okay? I've had so many amazing ideas but you weren't even there to hear them. But Scott knows-"
"Guys! Can you just shut up for a second?" Scott says.
"Go ahead, tell us," I say.
"I need to know for sure the half of the body next to Derek's house is from the same person as the other half they already found. So if we can just go to the morgue in the hospital, I can smell the body and-"
I hide my face in my hands.
"Grace?" Scott is really confused.
"I... I'm just gonna have to abandon all reason, right? If I want to survive hanging out with you two."
"Let's just go," he says.
***
We enter the hospital and say goodbye to Scott, because three teenagers in a morgue is much, much worse than one. We are not going in there with him.
"Good luck, I guess," Stiles says, speaking for the two of us.
We turn the corner and walk into the waiting hall.
"I just hope no one sees him," I say, but there's no reaction from him at all.
"Stiles?"
"Oh my god," he mutters, and then I see Lydia sitting on one of the chairs.
"Hey Lydia!" he shouts, and I can't take it anymore.
"Oh no, I'm out," I say, taking a few steps back so I'm around the corner, hiding from the second hand embarrassment. But I can't stop myself from listening to their conversation.
"You probably don't remember me. I sit behind you in biology. Anyway, uh, I always thought we had this kind of connection, unspoken of course..."
I am cringing.
"Maybe it would be kind of cool to get to know each other a little better..."
There's a moment of silence, and I'm just about to peak my head around the corner when Lydia speaks.
"Hold on, give me a second."
What?
"I didn't get any of what you just said, was it important?" she asks, and oh... she was calling someone oh my god.
"Uh, no... Sorry," he says, and I have to do something to make this stop
. Ah, yes. I can let her embarrass me.
I turn around the corner and walk forward. Surprisingly, Lydia spots me and she looks kind of glad to see me?
"Oh, hey Grace!"
"Hi Lydia. Waiting for Jackson, huh?" I ask.
She looks me up and down and frowns.
"Yes... Grace, why on earth would you combine that shirt with those pants? A black skirt would've made your outfit at least decent, now it's just... messy," she says and okay, I can't let her embarrass me without trying to do the same thing.
"Lydia, me in a skirt? I'd tell you to go to a hospital for a check up, but you're already here, so.." I smirk.
"Very funny, Grace," she says.
"We'd better go and leave you to your phone call. So, see you later, " I say, turning around and walking away, pulling Stiles with me.
"I guess..." she says.
"Oh, by the way, Lydia?" I say, looking at her behind my shoulder.
She lifts her eyebrows.
"There's some lipstick on your teeth," I lie.
"No, there's not," she says.
"You'll never know unless you check," I smile, walking again. Before I turn the corner, I take one quick last look at Lydia to see her looking at a pocket mirror. I chuckle.
Then Jackson meets Lydia and after having a short talk, they start kissing. I wouldn't have noticed if Stiles wasn't intently staring at them, looking quite miserable.
"Stiles... Stiles, come on," I turn him around and put my arm around his shoulder, guiding him forward.
Luckily, Scott is back from the morgue. This can get Stiles' mind off things. Scott looks at us weirdly and I remove my arm from Stiles' shoulder.
"The smell was the same," Scott says.
"Are you sure?" Stiles asks.
"Yes!"
"So he did bury the other half of the body on his property!" Stiles exclaims.
"Which means we can prove he killed the girl."
"I say we use it."
"How?" Scott asks.
"Guys, can you just think for a second? If he killed her, why would he bury the other half of her body next to his own house?! That's ridiculous! I'm sure he-"
"Grace, shhh. Shut up. Shut up," Stiles covers my mouth with his hand and I glare at him until he retracts it, wiping it dry on his pants.
"Tell me something first," Stiles says to Scott.
"Are you doing this because you want to stop Derek or because you want to play the game and he said you couldn't?"
"There were bite marks on the legs, Stiles! Bite marks!"
Oh. That means it must've been a werewolf...
"Okay! Then we're gonna need a shovel."
I am so not looking forward to this.