The police still hadn't tracked down Barrow. One could assume that he was hiding out somewhere, trying to heal his surgical wounds before launching another attack. Considering the fact that one of his potential targets had been the high school, it was unsurprising that a massive amount of the student body had stayed home from school the next day. Even a lot of teachers had skipped out. It left the few students who had come without enough support to attend our usual classes. Instead, the majority of us were huddled in the library as we had been all afternoon, treating the day like one long free period.
It was Halloween, and I could hear Danny's conversation at another table about him hosting a party later tonight. I wasn't sure yet if I would be making the effort to attend. After last night, I was still shaken by the look on Isaac's face when he had been attacked by some unknown force.
In exchange for keeping quiet, Chris allowed him to stay at our place overnight. Allison had stayed home with him today as well, seemingly to comfort him or keep him company. She had assured my father that they would be studying. Part of me wondered if she would instead be combing through the bestiary once more, looking for some kind of creature who wore a mask like Isaac had described. Another part of me wondered if they'd be getting any kind of work done at all. Normally, I would've expected Chris to protest the idea of them getting more alone time because of the compromising scene he had previously walked in on. But he was so consumed with the fear of being the actual target of whatever attacked Isaac, that he didn't seem to have the time nor energy to fight it.
Meanwhile, I sat across from Lydia at our table, pretending to pour over my history notes. I wasn't sure how to bring up what had happened the day before. My biggest fear was that the embarrassment of our mistake, and Lydia's subsequent denial, would cause a rift between us.
I nudged her leg gently with my foot. She looked up at me with big blue eyes. "We're okay, right?"
"Why wouldn't we be?" Lydia said, pursing her lips.
I simply shook my head and she turned back to her work. Beside me, Stiles wasn't doing any school work. Instead, he was studying a case file about William Barrow and circling certain passages and words as if on the hunt for clues to add to the walls of his room. Scott also seemed like his mind was elsewhere. I noticed how he stayed on the same page of his textbook for twenty minutes.
After a while, Lydia huffed and reached into her bag. Rummaging for a moment, she took out a small bottle of pain relief pills and swallowed one. I was tempted to ask her to hand me one too.
"Headache?" I asked.
She met my eyes once more. For a moment, they flickered something to me. Something of recognition, or fear of being caught out. No matter how much she vocally denied it, I knew she could still hear the noise like I could. The same incessant buzzing as yesterday. She had to understand that we had been onto something when we had thought Barrow was at the school. But in a blink, that look evaporated from her eyes.
Lydia shrugged. "Yeah. I'm pretty sure Scott's cologne has now permanently burned itself into my nostrils."
Stiles let out a snort of laughter while Scott fidgeted and tried to sniff his own shirt collar.
"Is it that obvious?" he shifted nervously.
"Who exactly are you trying to impress?" Lydia hummed. "Trying to gather the courage to ask someone to the party tonight?"
"I've got a dinner. With Kira."
"A dinner?" I leaned forward, intrigued. "Like a date kind of dinner?"
"Like a meet the parents kind of dinner," Stiles mumbled from beside me.
Lydia and I gasped, abandoning our notes and narrowing in on Scott's increasingly red face.
"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."
"Or maybe we shouldn't have. William Barrow could've been in there waiting for us."
"You don't think he's there now, do you?" Lydia gripped the edge of her books tightly.
"No, someone would've found him," I shook my head. "Right?"
"Let's hope so," Stiles said. "Come on."
Because of the lack of population at the school, the upper floors were nearly deserted. And when we approached the chemistry lab at the end of the hall, the classroom door was closed and the lights were all off inside. The teacher hadn't come into work today. Fortunately, the door hadn't been left locked.
"That's supposed to be locked too," Lydia whispered once inside, pointing to the door of the supply room which had been left ajar.
The three of us crept into the classroom slowly, approaching the other door in the corner. After only a few steps inside, however, a strong scent filled my nostrils and I pulled up the collar of my shirt to cover my mouth and nose. "Smells like chemicals, alright."
Stiles nodded and continued on into the room. He kicked the supply room door, making me jump at the sound of it slamming open against the wall. But there was no one there. Barrow had left.
"God, this is strong," Lydia was covering her face too. "Definitely enough to cover up his scent."
"He was hiding in here," Stiles mumbled, crouching down and pointing his phone's flashlight at something on the floor. The light caught on the reflective edges of loose staples, littering the ground along with dots of blood. I felt nauseous from the fumes and the realization. "Performing minor surgery on himself, it looks like. You were right. I knew you were right."
"I don't feel good," Lydia stepped back from the supply room.
"Me either. And not just because of the smell."
Stiles looked at both of us. "I think that's because he wanted to kill someone. Your gut feeling, it was leading you here for a reason. Death already followed Barrow because of what he did to those kids on the bus, but he was nowhere near finished with it."
"But if he wanted to kill any of the werewolves with glowing eyes, why would he have stayed up here when they were all walking right into a boiler room trap?" Lydia asked.
"Maybe he had a different target."
"Like who?"
"I don't know. Let's look around, there's got to be some kind of clue somewhere."
Stiles remained inside the supply room, studying what chemicals Barrow had spilled and photographing the surgery evidence on the ground. Lydia started at the back of the room and swept forward, rummaging around each desk for some kind of hint among the beakers and left behind notebooks.
I started at the front of the room, combing through the papers on the teacher's desk. I was hoping to find something like we had found before, back when a stack of oddly graded test papers had spelled out our clue for the Darach. But there was nothing useful, just a scattering of textbook photocopies and lesson plans.
"Anything?" Stiles called out to us.
Lydia stood up from a lab table. "Nothing."
"Nothing here either," I stepped back from the teacher's desk and turned around to face the chalkboard. Narrowing my eyes, I focused in on the only chalk marks that had not been erased from its surface. "Wait, hang on, guys come here."
"What are those?" Stiles asked, staring at the same marks I had noticed. It didn't initially read as much of a message. Just three numbers: 19, 53, 88.
"They're atomic numbers," Lydia stepped forward towards the board and picked up a piece of chalk. "19's Potassium, the first two make Potassium iodide."
As Lydia wrote out a letter 'K' beside 19 and moved on to write the letter 'I' beneath it, Stiles scratched the back of his head in confusion. "Potassium is K?"
"From Kalium, the scientific neo-Latin name."
"Ah right, yes, of course."
She rolled her eyes and continued. "And then 88 is Radium, so that one is..."
Lydia went silent as we all watched her connect the last letters on the board. Radium wasn't just 'R', it was 'Ra'.
"Oh my god," I murmured, reading all of the letters together. Barrow's next target was very clear.
Kira.
"We have to go."
We didn't have any time to hesitate. The three of us sped away from school in Stiles' jeep, ignoring some traffic safety limits on our way to the Yukimura household.
"We're not too late, right?" Lydia asked.
"I should be asking you two that," Stiles shook his head. "But no, Scott would've texted me if she wasn't there when he showed up for dinner. I'm sure of it."
Wheeling around the corner onto Kira's street, the sun had begun to set and the lamplights illuminated the pavement with an eerie spotlight glow.
"What the hell is that?" I asked, pointing to a dark shadow interrupting the light's path on the road.
"Jesus," Stiles muttered, and threw the vehicle into park.
The three of us sprinted towards the figure on the ground. It was Scott, his motorbike still parked by the sidewalk.
"Scott!" Stiles bent down and shook his best friend's shoulders. "Scott? Scott!"
Bending down, I took a page from my father's book and slapped the unconscious boy right across the face. The teen wolf's eyes flickered open, and he shot up with a start.
"Barrow." Scott clutched his chest, panting heavily. "Barrow took Kira."
Stiles nodded. "We know. That's why we came here. He was after her the whole time, she's his target."
"He's gonna kill her."
"Not if we figure out a way to stop him."
"Yeah but to do that we need to find him first," Scott ran a hand through his hair in frustration. He looked over at Lydia and me. "You guys heard him before when he actually was at the school like you thought. Whatever you heard was leading you to him, what do you hear now?"
"I don't know," Lydia crossed her arms. "The same buzzing noise."
"The flies," I agreed.
"Did Allison find anything useful in the bestiary about flies?"
"No, nothing really, just irrelevant stuff about flies and the dead."
"But you're sure it's flies?"
"I have no idea!" I stood up. "That's what it sounds like. It's just a buzzing, okay? I don't know."
"What else could it be?" Stiles placed an encouraging hand on my shoulder. "Try and think-"
"What do you think we've been doing for the past two days?" Lydia argued, her voice shrill. "God, I am trying, I am thinking. I hate this it's like it's on the tip of my tongue but I don't...I just don't know. It sounds the same."
"You can do this," Stiles tried to be reassuring to us. "You can figure this out."
"I don't know if we can, I have no idea how to trigger it."
Suddenly, an idea came over me that made my heart pound. I turned to the stressed-out girl beside me. "I do, Lydia. We have to scream."
"What?"
"We have to scream," I repeated. "Look, I don't know how it is for you but whenever I feel like something's coming, it's the noise that makes me want to scream. And it's not until I scream and release it all that there's a moment of quiet. A little glimpse of clarity. We could do it now, together. Stiles is right, we could figure it out."
"But Ellie-"
"You and I both know we're not crazy. You feel it too. We have something inside of us, okay? We have the answers somewhere behind the noise, we just have to let go and find them. We have to trust each other. That's what got us to the Nemeton before, and it's what can get us to save Kira now."
"It doesn't work like that, does it? To save people. We scream about death. The only time I've had to scream was about people who were beyond saving."
"When Jennifer Blake was about to kill you, we both screamed together, remember? It shattered the glass. It stopped her and saved you."
"That wasn't about me, though, it was about that teacher she killed. The pianist. I thought we were screaming for her."
"I was screaming for you, Lydia."
She blinked at me. Reaching out, I took hold of each of her hands and grasped them tightly in mine.
"Please," I whispered. "There's no reason not to try. Don't you want the noise to stop, too? At least for a second?"
After a moment of letting her blue eyes scan across my face, she let out a long sigh and finally nodded.
"Okay," I said, squeezing her hands and turning to the boys standing watch. "You guys might want to cover your ears for this."
They complied and stepped back from us slightly with their hands up at their heads.
"Ready?"
Lydia looked at me and squeezed my hands back. "Ready."
I focused all of my attention on the buzzing. I didn't push it down, I didn't wait for it to stop, I let it build. The noise grew louder and louder until it was almost unbearable. I thought about Kira, a nasty wave of panic pressing down on my chest. Finally, when the sound reached its peak, I let myself scream. Lydia screamed too. I knew because I heard her. I knew she hadn't been speaking out loud but it was almost as if I could hear her thoughts like they were my own.
When we stopped, my ears were ringing. The dusk air rippled and crackled with static.
Something about the buzzing had changed. It was quieter now as if at a lower frequency. The low hum of it did not feel as frantic as the angry flapping wings of a swarm of flies. Tilting my head back, I felt the glow of the streetlight on my face. I listened to the sound of the bulb, pulsing as if it were alive.
"It's not flies," Lydia whispered from beside me.
I looked down to meet her gaze and nodded. "It's electricity."
"Wait a second," Stiles said. The boys had stepped forward again, having stumbled back from the sound of our loud cries. "Barrow was an electrical engineer. He worked at a power substation."
"That's where he's keeping Kira," Lydia confirmed.
Scott looked between us with urgency. "Okay, but what substation?"
"I know where he is. It's a substation on the telluric current line," I explained. "I've been there once before when Jennifer Blake killed Mr. Westover. I know how to get there."
"Then let's go!"
I had the location seared in my mind from when I had last driven myself to the power substation at the edge of town. I remembered the moonlit corridors inside, and the foreboding view of the building's towering concrete structure from the street.
As soon as we pulled up by the entrance, Scott on his bike and the rest of us in the Jeep, the teen wolf ripped off his helmet and went sprinting into the building.
"Okay," Stiles quickly killed the engine. "El, call my dad. You guys wait here for the cops to show up."
With that, he pushed open his driver's side door and slammed it behind him. Lydia and I both sat up in our seats. "Wait why?"
"Yeah," Lydia protested. "Why do we have to stay here?"
"Because," Stiles held up the weapon in his hands. "I only have one bat."
It was the same aluminum one that he had used weeks previously to keep the root cellar from completely caving in on our heads. Stiles was skilled with it, but I was beginning to consider investing in some kind of ankle strap to keep a weapon on me at all times. I felt useless.
In the backseat, Lydia scoffed and threw her hands up.
I let out a huffed sigh and glared at my boyfriend. "Fine. We'll wait. But you better not get yourself killed."
He walked backwards, shooting me a short nod and wink as he went. "Wasn't planning on it."
It wasn't long before Sheriff Stilinski and an army of police vehicles pulled up to the substation with their sirens blaring. I pushed open the car door and Lydia stumbled out after me. Running across the pavement, I waved down the Sheriff who was rushing out of his own car with his hand at his shoulder, speaking something into his walkie-talkie.
"Eleanor?" He called out to me, approaching the two of us. He looked around us frantically, and I caught a glimpse of Stiles' mannerisms in the way he moved his head. "Good god, I feel like I'm always asking you this, but where the hell is my son?"
"Inside."
"Barrow?"
"Inside."
"Jesus," the Sheriff cursed and grabbed the gun from his belt. "Who else is in there?"
"Scott too. Barrow abducted Kira Yukimura and brought her here."
"We think," Lydia voiced out from beside me.
I met her eyes. "Right, we think. The guys went in to try to find her. Their status at the moment is...uh, unknown."
"When did they go in?"
"Just when I called you, we haven't seen them since they -"
A loud boom echoed through the air, enough to make the ground shake. Sheriff held out an arm in front of us, and I clutched on to Lydia. Out of the once desolate station, blinding lights flashed from the windows as if a lightning storm had just brewed inside. When the flares finally stopped, the entire station fell into darkness. The streetlight above us flickered once then died.
"Was that some kind of bomb?" Lydia mumbled.
"Stay here." Sheriff Stilinski ordered us. Turning over his shoulder to the rest of the troops, he yelled, "Let's move!"
"I didn't feel anything, did you?" I asked Lydia as they went running in. She shook her head. "Then they're okay, right? They're okay."
The sudden power surge hadn't been an explosion in any of the usual ways. It wasn't from a bomb Barrow had crafted. Instead, it had been one giant shock like someone had poked an electrical fuse. The lights from inside were sparks of electric light, zapping from the end of the live wire Barrow had planned to use to kill Kira. However, his plan had backfired.
Somehow inside the station, the electricity had turned against him, and he was currently in an unconscious state of electrocution which allowed the police to once again detain him. I wasn't exactly sure how the boys and Kira had managed it. But no one else had been hurt. The only aftermath of the explosion inside had been a county-wide power drain.
The electric shock that took out Barrow had somehow lit up all of the dormant energy of the power substation, and in doing so had completely zapped the life out of Beacon Hills' power grid. We had experienced a power outage before last month when the Darach's fury caused a harsh storm. But this was different, it seemed like the electricity wasn't just out or not working - it was gone.
Mass confusion filled the halls of the police station, as deputies bustled about and organized themselves to be dispatched into the city. From what I could hear from their conversations, everyone was reeling from the blackout, and everyone needed help.
Agent McCall pushed through the madness irritably, as if the fact that a group of teenagers including his own son had just located and stopped the area's most wanted man was some giant inconvenience. Sheriff Stilinski seemed less perturbed. As we were all shuffled into the Sheriff's office by both men for some kind of interrogation, I could tell by the smug look on the Sheriff's face that he was somewhat enjoying this.
I could say that we were trying our best to be helpful. But that would be an absolute lie. We were already well into our story explanation, bouncing speaking points between each of us, and even I was beginning to get confused.
"So," Agent McCall sighed. Scott, Stiles, Kira, Lydia, and I were all seated in a row of chairs in front of the Sheriff's desk, but the FBI agent chose to stand before us instead for some kind of power play. I tried not to roll my eyes as he puffed out his chest and looked at us with his sharpest glare of intimidation. "When did you get there?"
"At the same time," Stiles answered simply.
"At the same time as who?"
"At the same time as me," Scott nodded.
"And me," I said. "And Lydia."
"By coincidence?"
I tilted my head at him in confusion. "We were in the same car. What do you mean coincidence?"
"That's what I'm asking you. The four of you arrived at the same time in two vehicles. Was that coincidence?"
"Are you asking me?" Scott asked.
Stiles shook his head and nudged his friend. "I think he's asking me."
The back and forth made Lydia roll her eyes. Crossing her arms over her chest, she said, "I think he's asking both of you."
"Wait," I fed into the chaos. "What is he asking?"
"Okay!" Agent McCall was growing increasingly infuriated by our response. I understood he was just trying to do his job, but we were giving him all the necessary information. The only parts we were leaving out of our story were either supernatural or risked incriminating us. The man rubbed his temples in annoyance and held up a hand. "Just... let me answer the questions."
Sheriff Stilinski had to cough and clear his throat to cover up the laugh written all over his face.
"Let me ask the questions," Agent McCall corrected, his tone pointed. "Just so I have this absolutely clear. Barrow was hiding in the chemistry supply closet at school. Someone left him a coded message on the blackboard telling him to kill Kira. Then Barrow took Kira to a power substation and tied her up with the intent of electrocuting her, which blacked out the entire town."
"Sounds about right." Stiles grinned.
"How did you know he'd take her to a power station?"
Without missing a beat, the boy shrugged. "Well, 'cause he was an electrical engineer. So where else would he take her?"
"That's one hell of a deduction there, Stiles."
"Yeah, what can I say? I take after my pops," Stiles still didn't lose the obnoxious grin on his face. He pointed two finger guns past Agent McCall, indicating towards his father sitting behind the desk. "He's in law enforcement."
At this, the Sheriff failed to contain his laughter. He let out his amusement in a snort, then tried to make up for it with a coughing fit. After a glare from Agent McCall, Sheriff Stilinski clasped his hands together on his desk. "Stiles, just, uh...Just answer the man."
"We made a good guess."
Agent McCall made the wise choice not to pester any further, getting nowhere with that line of questioning. Instead, he turned to his own son and motioned between him and the dark-haired girl who had stayed incredibly silent throughout our interrogation. "What were the two of you doing before this happened?"
Simultaneously, they both answered with different abrupt answers.
"Eating pizza."
"Eating sushi."
Kira and Scott quickly turned to each other and traded their replies, trying and failing to match.
"Eating sushi."
"Eating pizza."
I bit back a laugh and went to itch my cheek as a diversion. Agent McCall looked like a rope stretched to a breaking point. The man turned around to face the only other adult in the room, hoping for some kind of support against the row of defiant teenagers. "You believe this?"
"To be honest, I haven't believed a word Stiles has said since he learned how to speak," Sheriff Stilinski shrugged. At this, Stiles nodded as if he agreed with his father completely. The Sheriff stood up from his chair and placed his hands at his hips. "But I think these kids found themselves in the right place at the right time and that girl sitting there is very lucky for it."
Agent McCall seemed to be put off by the Sheriff's dismissal but relented anyway. He turned to the girl we were all here for. "Kira, is that how you remember it?"
The group of us looked across at her. She took a moment to look at her hands, examining them as if they held some kind of answer. After a minute, she looked up, her jaw set in certainty. "Yes. Could I get my phone back now?"
"Sorry, but no," Agent McCall shook his head. I doubted if he actually felt any remorse at all. "Kira, a deputy can take you home if you need them, but we'll need you guys to fill out some paperwork first."
"By candlelight?" I suggested, motioning around to the increasingly dark office. I didn't even think there would be a spare deputy in the station to give Kira a ride. The power outage was draining all of the manpower in the building, and it was becoming more difficult to see.
The FBI agent didn't laugh or even make a comment. Gruffly, he left the room, calling Scott out with him. And we didn't see him again until he came back with report forms for each of us to write out our own statement. Soon enough, both adults had left us again to organize more dispatch groups.
"What was that about?" Stiles asked his best friend when Agent McCall was out of earshot.
"Just him trying to be something he isn't," Scott shook his head dismissively. "But he thinks everything we're saying is complete bullshit. This whole time they've been tracking Barrow as a murderer working alone. The logical conclusion to that note left on the chalkboard is that Barrow is being controlled by someone, and I don't think he wants the case to amount to that."
"Well it's the truth," Lydia scoffed. "Whatever, I'm writing out the bare minimum. I shouldn't even be here anymore, I have a party to get to."
"I-I'm sorry," Kira spoke up quietly.
"No! No, I didn't mean it like that," Lydia shook her head. "It's not your fault. Trust me, I've been in your shoes before. Actually, Eleanor and I have both been abducted before by a known killer."
"So was Stiles," I said.
"Your grandfather eventually let me go, though," Stiles shrugged. "That wasn't too bad."
"My point is, we know how you feel. And if you ever wanna talk to us about it, just know that we'll understand," Lydia said. "But I've had a very long day and I think what I need right now is a drink and a dance."
"With Aiden?" I asked.
"If he's lucky."
Lydia quickly finished scrawling down her report, and bid us all goodbye before leaving. Soon enough, we had all finished up our reports too. I noticed when Stiles collected all of our papers and put them in a file on his father's desk, that the paper he had added to the pile wasn't blank. I realized that like when he was going over Barrow's case in the library earlier, he had found a way to read again. I wondered if it meant he was making more progress with closing that door in his mind.
"What's up?" Scott asked Kira, who was still unsettled.
"Oh, nothing, it's just..." She was looking at the three of us nervously. "I need my phone back."
"Why?"
"There are pictures on there."
"What kind of pictures?"
She shifted her weight as if unsure of what to tell us. "Pictures I don't want anyone else to see."
For a moment, the two boys looked at each other in confusion. But I read her expression plainly. Stepping forward, I rested a hand on her shoulder. "Okay. We'll get your phone back. Boys? We're getting her phone back."
Kira gave me a grateful nod.
"Okay, uh, where is it?" Scott asked.
"It'll be in the evidence room. Which, hang on," Stiles reached a hand into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He pulled a small white card out of one of its sleeves. "This will get you through the door."
I raised my eyebrows at him. "You have a key to the department's evidence room?"
"Well... Yes. I do."
"Wait, they didn't give you one did they."
"No, they did not."
Scott grabbed the card out of Stiles' hands and turned it around, examining it. "You stole a keycard?"
"No, actually," Stiles shook his head. In response to our shared looks of suspicion, he explained, "I cloned one with an RFID emulator."
Scott seemed to be weighing the morality of his decision to use it. "So, it's worse than stealing?"
"It's smarter."
"Right," Scott sighed. "Okay, Kira and I can get into the room but you guys will have to keep watch."
Stiles put his wallet away. "Alright. I'll lead you there. Now, almost everybody's out dealing with the blackout. But there's still gonna be a couple of people around. Eleanor and I will stay put at the end of the hallway as you're inside, and we will warn you if anyone's coming. But, Scott, if you get caught, I can't help you. My dad's under investigation for impeachment because of your dad, so, if anything happens I will run and leave you both for dead.
Scott nodded. "Got it. Thanks. Seriously, dude."
"I'd ask my dad for the favour, but you know..."
"No, I know. I get it."
"All right, just, uh, hurry up." Stiles turned to Kira and I. "These photos better be important."
"They are," Kira nodded. "Trust me."
"Okay. Follow me."
As expected, the station was nearly empty. With the room in darkness, and most deputies filing out of the building completely, it was easy enough to navigate back to the hallway that lead to the evidence room. Scott and Kira snuck off, as Stiles and I waited at the entrance. No one had noticed us. Not yet at least. By the way Stiles kept shifting his weight and looking over his shoulder, I could tell he was fearing that we'd be caught sooner rather than later.
"They'll be fine," I tried to assure him.
"Yeah, yeah I know."
"Are you okay?" I asked, eyeing his demeanour. He normally struggled to settle, and I had noticed in the past few days that he had become more and more hyperactive. This time, as we stood trying to look natural and innocent, he couldn't stand at the front of the hallway without constantly fidgeting.
"Yeah," he let out a short breath. "I'm just...she makes me nervous."
I quirked an eyebrow at him. "Kira?"
He first started to shrug, but then nodded. I was partly confused. Nothing struck me about the new girl that seemed alarming or off-putting. She was mysterious, sure, but I wasn't exactly certain of where Stiles was coming from.
"What happened back there?" I asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean the full story," I continued. "What made Barrow go after Kira if she's not actually one of the kids with glowing eyes? Whether or not barrow made the decision himself or was told to do it by someone who left the chalkboard message, I still don't get why she was his target. Or what about her makes you nervous too."
"She's different, Eleanor."
"Meaning?"
"She caused the power outage." At my alarmed expression, Stiles explained, leaning down to me to speak with a hushed tone. "Barrow was coming at her with an exposed wire, he was gonna kill her. And then all of a sudden I don't know what happened, but the wire bounced off of her and that's when the electricity in the entire place seemed to explode. It was like it was in the air. And Kira absorbed it."
"Absorbed it?"
"It, like, went into her. I don't know, okay? I don't really get it. But she's something else."
I tried to process his words. I had no idea what kind of creature absorbed electricity, but it didn't surprise me that in the exact time frame Deaton had told us supernatural beings would be drawn to Beacon Hills, the Yukimura's moved to town. But she didn't strike me as an evil being. "Well, I trust her. I was with her in that locker room when Malia came after us, or after your backpack. If she had some sort of power to use against us she chose not to."
"It's not that I don't trust her," Stiles said. "It's just... We're dealing with so much and it's already a lot to handle."
There were a lot of thoughts running behind his eyes, so I placed a hand on his arm and tried to comfort him. "You were really brave today, you know. And smart. Like, really smart. It might be cheesy but I don't think I tell you enough."
Stiles nodded, directing his attention to his shoes. Something tugged at my heart. I wanted to tell him about what happened to Isaac, it felt wrong keeping things from him. But I had made a promise to my father and it seemed like Stiles was dealing with enough anyway. I knew he had told me about his panic attacks, and we could share our hallucinations with each other, but that didn't mean I understood exactly what he was going through. It seemed to be particularly hard for him.
"Do you want to go to the party tonight?" Stiles asked after a moment.
"Maybe," I shrugged. If I was completely honest with myself, I knew there was more behind my hesitation than simple exhaustion. I had been looking for excuses to stay up for a while. But the thought of going to a student's party immediately made me think of Lydia's birthday party last March. The night my mother died. It made anxiety kick up in my stomach, even though I knew it was irrational to let something that would never happen again affect how I felt about a completely different experience. It's not like I was going to go the rest of my life without attending another party. "I don't really, um, have the greatest memories of the last party I went to. Lydia's birthday last year is the night my mom died."
The night my mother and father took part in some gruesome suicide oath.
"Oh my god, El," Stiles snapped his head up to meet my eyes. "I'm sorry, I forgot, my mind just isn't how it should be right now."
"Don't worry. Actually, a party might be pretty fun right now. We certainly need to relax after a day like this. Seriously, it's not like every party is related to that. To her. I just immediately jump to it, you know." The station had cleared out. The room was dark, and silent, leaving a gentle silence hanging between the two of us. My voice came out low, "I don't think I ever told you. I saw my mother that night. Before I knew what the nightmares meant I still knew that it was real somehow. I saw her like I did everyone else when they died, like my other visions of Kanima victims at the time. It was like I was in the room when she... when she..."
Stiles caught the crack in my voice and pulled me into a tight hug.
It hadn't even been a full year, and yet my mother's death still felt like a lifetime away. My relationship with the loss was complicated, just like my relationship with my mother had been all my life. I processed it the best I could in France, to the point where I could now live on and get out of bed in the morning. But part of that was because I wasn't only sad. I was traumatized, I was angry. And I wasn't sure if I would ever not be angry with her for what happened. With my father, too, considering he sat next to her on that bed with the knife to her chest. But I have to live with it.
"I'm sorry we never talk about it," Stiles murmured against my hair.
I leaned back from him, looking into his whiskey coloured eyes. "We never talk about your mom either. We can, you know. If you wanted to. I'd love to hear about her sometime."
"Sometime," he nodded. The corner of his lips quirked for a moment as if to smile, but his eyes were sad. "I was with her in her last moments too. I got to say goodbye, my dad didn't, and I know you know how that feels." Stiles' eyes began to water and he cleared his throat, shaking his head. "He wasn't, uh, he didn't have the easiest time after. My dad drank. When I was at Lydia's party last spring and that wolfsbane punch made me hallucinate, I saw him. He was angry and he blamed me for it... For my mom. The worst part of it is that it wasn't something I've never seen before."
I rubbed his arms, my heart breaking with his words. "Stiles -"
"We're okay now," he shook his head again. "Or we're better, I don't know if you ever feel okay after that. We actually went and brought flowers to her grave recently, it's what helped me think of it for the Malia Tate case. After he had been held in that root cellar, he wanted to go visit. We go a lot, but not enough probably. I'd like to take you one day. I know it sounds kind of stupid but I would want you to be there, so she could meet you."
"It doesn't sound stupid, Stiles. At all. I'd love to go with you." And I meant it with all sincerity possible. But his face was still fallen. "What's wrong?"
"I don't want my dad to have to go through something like that again. With me. I don't want to be the one to put him through that."
At that, I pulled him into a hug again. I could feel his heart beating steadily against my own and the shuddering sounds of his breath. In that moment, I knew it wasn't about whether or not I could tell him that it was okay. It wasn't okay after all. I just had to show him that even if it wasn't, I would be here. I would hold him like this. We would catch each other.
The longer we stood together, though, the more we remembered Scott and Kira on their mission in the evidence room and how we were beginning to push our time limit. Soon enough, our luck of an empty station ran out.
"Oh shit," Stiles cursed under his breath. From across the room, we could see Agent McCall. And he was headed right for us.
"Go, Stiles," I whispered. "You said you'd leave them for dead. I'll try and keep him away, you have to get out of here."
"I know I said that but I can't just abandon you or them." Stiles had his phone out and immediately sent the emergency text to his best friend. But after the message was delivered, we knew that there was no way the two would be able to exit the room without a distraction. "I'm so going to regret this. Come on."
I followed right behind my boyfriend as he ran up to the man. Agent McCall seemed surprised, but more so annoyed, at the sight of us.
"Hey!" Stiles called out, stepping right into the agent's path. "Hey, wow! Thank God you are here. Oh, boy! Thank the lord."
Stiles was laughing nervously, but Agent McCall was entirely unamused.
"Stiles and I were just looking for you!" I lied, nudging the man in the arm and immediately regretting it.
He glared down at me. "You were?"
"We were!" I nodded, darting my eyes over to my boyfriend. "Because, um, we just had to tell you something. Right?"
Stiles clapped his arms together. "Yeah! We were thinking about the case. We were thinking we should clue you in on our thinking."
"Yes, we thought you would want to know about our thinking."
Agent McCall blinked at us with a blank expression. We simply blinked back, making the man scoff and cross his arms over his chest. "And what is it that you're thinking?"
"Oh, uh, it's about Barrow."
"Yeah, I kind of figured that much, thanks."
"We were thinking," Stiles ignored the man's attitude and continued to patch up a cover. "We were thinking that Barrow received information about who to kill at the school, right, you know that? So, maybe the person who gave him that information, check this out, might actually be someone at the school."
"Good idea!" I smiled. "I mean, I thought it was a good idea. What we were just thinking about."
"Hmm," Agent McCall grunted at us. I wasn't sure what to do with his silence. I was just clinging to the hope that Scott and Kira were currently making their escape out of the room as we spoke. After a moment, the man shrugged. "You're right."
Stiles mouth opened and closed in surprise. "We are?"
"Yep. We've started to look for links between Barrow, faculty, and students."
"So you already know that stuff?"
"Mm-hmm."
"You already thought of that."
"Your dad did, actually," Agent McCall nodded to Stiles, whose lips were spreading into a proud grin. Unfortunately, Agent McCall bristled at the sight and immediately went to knock the Sheriff down with a snide remark. "His one useful suggestion."
For a moment, Agent McCall stepped to move around us in the direction of the evidence room. But Stiles stopped him, moving right into his path. Glaring up at the agent with his eyebrows knotted together, Stiles stood his ground.
"You know, this attitude that you have toward my dad? You can dress it up to all the professional disapproval that you want. But I know the real reason why you don't like him."
Agent McCall chuckled softly. "Is that so?"
"Yeah. Because he knows something that you don't want him to know," Stiles muttered. He stepped forward, leaning in to whisper right into the man's face. "And guess what? I know it, too."
I wasn't sure what Stiles was talking about but it seemed like Agent McCall did. He actually faltered back, attempting and failing to hide how much the comment hit him. He acted as if turning his head to the side to look around the room wasn't a move to cower away from the teenage boy in front of him.
Agent McCall cleared his throat and cracked his neck. "Go home, Stiles. Both of you. You shouldn't be here anymore."
Stiles' nostrils were flaring out as he glared angrily at the man towering over him. When I reached over to grab my boyfriend's arm, all of his muscles were pulled tight.
"Stiles," I gave him a small tug. "Let's go."
Once we had found our way outside and out of earshot, I turned on Stiles and asked, "What was that about?"
"It's nothing. Well, it's not nothing. But you'll have to hear it from Scott sometime. It's not my story to tell. Just know that that guy is the biggest asshole I've ever known and that's saying something because I've met Peter Hale."
"Yeah, I can tell." I decided to change the subject away from the agent and towards his son. "Do you think they got out?"
"I don't know, but they better have."
Stiles and I waited, leaning against the side of his Jeep for another ten minutes. I was beginning to think it would be safest to flee the scene when Scott and Kira came running to us through the dark from one of the back entrances to the station.
"You didn't get caught!" I gasped, slapping my hand to my chest in relief. "Your dad was seconds away from finding you guys."
"We know," Scott was smiling triumphantly. "But we did it. All the pics are deleted."
Beside him, Kira was positively beaming. "That was so awesome! I mean, terrifying. Completely terrifying... But kind of awesome. I've never done anything like that before. Have you?"
The three of us exchanged a nervous glance.
"Uh, yeah," Stiles shrugged. "Once or twice."
"Well, what now? I feel like I'm all adrenaline."
"We were actually gonna head to a party," I said, grinning at Stiles.
"Oh that sounds fun," Kira mumbled, rocking back and forth on her toes.
"Yeah...it does," I drew out my words and tried to motion to Scott as subtly as possible. At first, his expression was scrunched in confusion at my meaning. I widened my eyes and slightly jerked my head towards Kira when she was looking down at her shoes.
Suddenly, he understood and his face brightened up. "Oh! Uh, Kira, would you maybe want to go to the party? I could take us."
"Sure!" Kira blurted out quickly. She blushed and tried to settle her enthusiasm. "I mean, yeah I'd like that."
"Sweet, we'll meet you guys there then," I smiled, but the two of them were completely dazed.
Stiles and I watched on as Scott led Kira over to his motorbike. He grabbed his helmet off of his handlebars and twisted around to help the girl strap it on. When she mounted the bike, her legs straddled Scott and her arms snaked around his waist for stability. I smirked at the pleased expression on the teen wolf's face.
"Hey," Stiles nudged me, staring at the pair. "Should I get a motorcycle?"
I chuckled. "No, no you should not."
"Oh come on, we'd look pretty cool though. You could ride on the back of it like that and - oh! We could get matching leather jackets and..."
"Stiles?"
"Yes?"
"I love Roscoe for many reasons, but do you wanna know one of my favourite things about him?"
"What?"
"He's got seats that lean all the way back," I said, patting Stiles once on the shoulder and walking over to get into the car.
"You're absolutely right. Nevermind, I will never speak ill of Roscoe again until the day I die."
I laughed at his lopsided grin. "Get in, idiot, we've got a party to get to."
Once we were on the road, I texted my sister to ask her about how she and Isaac were doing. As it turned out, they had both decided to go out to the party too. It was then that I found out that Ethan and Aiden had somehow set up power at Derek Hale's loft, so Danny's event had been relocated there.
When we walked into the space, the environment was drastically different than its usual tone. What was typically a dark, brooding, industrial space to match the dark, brooding man who owned it was now lit up like a rave. Fighting against the blackout, multiple portable stands of multicoloured UV light were scattered around and the DJ was working on a wireless setup. The loft was packed window to window with people dancing, grinding, and drinking covered in glowsticks and florescent body paint.
Everyone seemed to be wearing neon or something that lit up the dark. EDM music blared from speakers set around the room so loudly that the bass actually drowned out any noise in my head, and I relaxed. In the loft, I was able to escape my mind, and the endless thrall of bodies only identifiable by whatever glowed seemed like the perfect place to get lost in.
"Derek would probably kill someone if he found out about this," Stiles laughed.
"But for once we don't have anything to do with it," I said, smiling up at him.
"Hey you two!" Allison called out to us and walked over. Noticeably, Isaac was practically hanging off of her. She had discarded her shirt at some point, leaving her in her hot pink bralette and dark mini skirt. She had shapes painted across her chest, while Isaac had paint on his cheeks and lips. I smirked at the sight of the smudge marks on both of their skin. Allison held out two cups to Stiles and me, and said simply, "Drink."
"What is this?"
"It's not laced with wolfsbane, I promise. We've checked."
I trusted her judgement and she was far from a stranger offering me a drink at a party so with a deep breath I grabbed one of the cups from her and downed its contents. Stiles raised his eyebrows at me and did the same with the other.
Soon enough, Isaac pulled Allison back out onto the dance floor and I scanned the room. I felt weightless as I pulled Stiles through the crowd to where a woman in a neon bra was handing out paint samples and brushes. She wore her hair buzzed on one side, and fluorescent pink paint on her lips. Twisting brushstrokes of what resembled white flames wrapped up her bare torso and arms, illuminating her dark skin. The effect was mesmerizing.
She met my eyes and shouted over the music, "Want me to do you?"
"What?"
The woman held up a small container and a paintbrush. "I can do your face or body, this is the stuff that makes you glow."
"Actually, can I borrow this?"
She grinned and nodded, handing over the paint to me. With my spare hand, I grabbed a fistful of Stiles' t-shirt and pulled him over out of the way of people dancing.
"Lose the shirt, Stilinski," I ordered him. His eyes widened, his intense stare making my cheeks burn. I tugged on the fabric again, looking up at him through my eyelashes. "Please? I want to paint your body."
Stiles' adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. And in an instant, he was fumbling to pull off the piece of clothing.
I dipped the paintbrush into the glowing paint and brought up to touch it against Stiles' smooth skin. At the contact, he jumped.
"What?"
"It tickles," he said.
I laughed loudly and started to paint. "Just relax."
As I worked, covering Stiles' chest in colour, I could feel him watching me. Whenever I flickered my gaze up to meet his, I caught a dangerous glint in his eyes. With Stiles' bare skin as my canvas, I painted him with sunburst patterns and light rays. The muscles of his abdomen tensed as my brush travelled lower.
Suddenly, Stiles clasped a hand around my wrist, halting my movements.
"Alright," he breathed. "Your turn."
He made me put the paint down, and ran his hands up over my hips, letting them catch on the hem of my shirt. I let him push it off of me, and I found myself free from being insecure about it. I couldn't second guess myself now, not with the large crowd of people just as half-naked, not with the way Stiles was looking at me.
Stiles picked up the paint container and paused with the brush for a moment. "Oh, screw it," he said and dropped the brush entirely, dipping his fingers into the paint instead.
"Finger painting?" I smirked. "How old are you?"
"Shut up, I have the creative freedom here." He moved in closer, ready to work. "And I want to use my hands."
I tried not to shudder when his fingertip brushed gently against the exposed skin of my chest. He drew soft curved lines right at where a necklace might fall. I soon realized the shape he was going for, one giant heart at the centre of my chest. He dipped his fingers in the paint once more and added a curled letter 'S' in the middle of it.
"Cute," I grinned.
"Thanks, but I'm not done."
"I never knew you were such an artist."
"I learned from you."
He bent down further and began tracing flower shapes at the curve of my hip bones. I warmed at his touch. It was amusing to watch him as he began concentrating seriously on his work. His eyes narrowed and he pressed his tongue between his lips in focus. I giggled at his expression.
"Hey," Stiles scolded me, standing up straight to remain inches from my face. "Don't move or I'm gonna mess up."
"Sorry, Sir, it won't happen again," I teased.
He tensed at my words and held a finger up to my lips. I felt the coolness of the paint transfer onto my skin like lipstick. When he spoke, his voice came out hoarse. "Stop. Talking."
Slowly, he removed his hand from my mouth and began lowering it back to my hips.
I smirked. "Make me."
Stiles immediately followed my orders and smashed his lips into mine. I smiled into our kiss and immediately disregarded the drying paint on his skin, dragging my hands up his abdomen and chest. His hands roamed my sides and back, leaving glowing handprints wherever they moved. I knew immediately that I would be having to sneak inside our apartment later, considering the obvious evidence on the back of my jeans.
He moaned against my lips as I pressed our bodies together.
"El?" He spoke, breaking our kiss.
I took the opportunity to pepper neon lip marks all over his neck and face. I hummed against his jawline. "Hmm?"
"You're driving me crazy," Stiles let out a laugh. "We're in public."
"I know," I chuckled. "Sorry, I can stop."
"Dance with me. Please."
We spent the next half an hour swaying against each other on the dance floor in the muddled crowd of happy, sweaty bodies. I let my worries fade away. I forgot about the mysterious creatures of the dark, I forgot about the noise, I forgot about my exhaustion. Everything fell away, everything except for Stiles.
After a while, the tempo of the party picked up higher and we broke apart to jump around and dance when Allison and Isaac came to join us on the floor. My cheeks hurt from laughing at Stiles' own special brand of awkward-looking, spastic party moves. He absolutely killed the sprinkler.
We even shared a few songs dancing with Scott and Kira who hadn't seemed to drop the smiles from their faces the whole night.
Soon enough, we needed a break, and I went to find two unopened bottles of beer from a bucket of ice by the bodypaint station. Stiles was waiting for me by the spiral staircase that led up to Derek's second floor which Aiden and Ethan had very smartly blocked off.
"Perfect," Stiles smiled when he saw me.
"Got a bottle opener?"
"Yeah, hang on," Stiles dug into his jeans pocket for his car keys. He began shuffling through the keychain ring.
"You got paint on one of your keys," I observed.
"Huh?" Stiles glanced down to find the base of one of his keys glowing a neutral yellow. "How did that happen?"
I shrugged. "Well you just touched them, you have paint all over your hands so I'm not surprised."
"But we didn't use that colour."
"Oh, you're right, I guess we didn't." My eyebrows knotted together. "What key is that?"
"Not sure."
"It might not be the paint, you know. When we were at school earlier, you were in the chemistry supply closet taking a photo of all the chemicals Barrow used. If you got traces of one of them on your hands and then touched your keys, it could be luminescent and react to the UV light like the paint does."
"You think it's from the chemicals in the supply closet?"
"I don't know," I shrugged. "That's my best guess."
"Eleanor."
"Yeah?"
"I have to go."
"Oh, that's okay, we can leave now. I don't know if you should drive. We could call a cab or something..."
"No," he shook his head. "I mean I just have to leave now. You stay here."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "What do you mean? Where are you going?"
"Nothing, it's probably nothing, I just thought of something I wanted to check."
It was hard not to wear the disappointment on my face. "Okay..."
"I'm sorry, El, I really am. It's no big deal, I promise. And I'll tell you about it if I'm right I just don't want to worry you over nothing."
He had jumped to his feet already, and it seemed like there was not much I could do to get him to stay. Or get him to stop and explain. I sighed. "Okay, that's fine, Stiles. It's no problem. I should probably go home with Allison anyway so my dad doesn't have a fit."
He nodded briskly and turned to leave.
"Wait, Stiles!" I shouted out. He turned to face me again and I threw his discarded shirt to him. "This is yours."
"Thanks. Love you."
"Love you too," I called out, but my heart was sinking. Something was wrong and he was too afraid to tell me. I wasn't angry, and I was not about to hold it against him considering I was also keeping the details of Isaac's attack the night before from him. I was just worried. His manner had suddenly changed back into his paranoia, right when I thought we were having a good time pushing the darkness away. Suddenly, I understood what he meant about not wanting to make me worry. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. Everything felt strange.
Trying to brush off my confusion, I began wandering through the crowd in search of a familiar face. It wasn't long until I ran into Lydia, who had zero traces of glowing paint on her and was looking visibly annoyed.
When I waved and approached her, she glanced down at the handprints on my hips and rolled her eyes. "Heathens. All of you."
"Where's Aiden, then?" I asked, laughing.
"I don't know and I don't care. Last time I saw him he was enjoying himself being in the middle of two girls desperate to get their hands on him."
"Ok, so he's an ass."
"He's just trying to make me jealous after I told him that I wouldn't dance with him. Little does he know I'd never waste my time being so petty. He can dance with whoever he likes." She crossed her arms and pouted. "So, where's the lanky idiot who left those prints on you?"
I faltered. "I'm not sure. He just left."
"Without you?" she quirked an eyebrow at me. "That's odd."
"He had something to look into apparently," I shrugged, trying not to fall into the trap of panic and stress.
"Well, as much as I find this whole rave thing tacky, I won't leave you," she smiled. "I need another drink. Want one?"
"I have these beers," I offered. "You could have the one I got for Stiles?"
Lydia pursed her lips. "Thanks, but I'll pass. Just wait here, I'll come back with something else."
"Okay," I chuckled.
I stood where we had been chatting at the edge of the crowd, waiting for her to return after seeing the red colour of her hair disappear into the sea of UV paint. However, she didn't come back as promptly as I had expected. At first, I chalked it up to her running into Aiden or someone and being dragged into a conversation. Then, I realized she probably wouldn't want to be stuck talking to him anyway.
I set off into the crowd in search of my friend, planning to rescue her from any awkward situation. But I couldn't see her. She wasn't on the dance floor, she wasn't on the outskirts of the party, she wasn't at the drinks table. Instead, I was the one to run into a disgruntled looking Aiden.
"Hey, have you seen Lydia?" I asked.
"No, I haven't."
"Oh. It's just she was supposed to meet up with me again but I can't find her."
His jaw tensed. "How long has it been since you've seen her?"
"Maybe fifteen minutes. Why?"
"I can't find my brother either," Aiden shook his head. "I haven't seen him since the party started but I just thought he was around somewhere. But Danny just came to find me saying he's been gone for at least half an hour now."
"I'll help you find him if you help me find Lydia," I suggested. "Could you sniff for her scent or something?"
The boy glared at me. "I'm not a bloodhound."
"Fine," I put my hands up in surrender, rolling my eyes. "I'm gonna look around anyway, join me if you want."
Reluctantly, he followed after me around the loft. He explained rooms he had already searched for his brother, which ruled out Lydia's potential location too. As we walked, I couldn't help but feel a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Crossing through a group of teenagers painting each other's backs, I stopped abruptly as a sound caught my attention. It was almost like a cry, but it disappeared the second I thought I heard it. But it felt wrong, like a familiar voice calling out from somewhere far away. It felt like an alarm.
"Did you hear that?" I questioned Aiden.
"I can't hear anything over this freaking music," he complained.
I had to suppress my frustration once again. Either he had suffered an immense loss of skill since separating from him and his twin brother's form of the monster alpha, or he was being willingly unhelpful. I thought back to the night the twins had chased the distant echoes of my footsteps through the hospital just to run out into a rain of firepower from my father, and decided that I couldn't really blame him if it was the latter.
"Have you checked the balcony?" I asked.
Aiden simply shook his head, so I changed our direction and headed to the door that would lead us outside.
Cracking the door open, my stomach dropped at the sight of Lydia's body curled up on the stone.
"LYDIA!" I shouted, racing over to her side. I knew the look on her face, I knew the shakes consuming her whole body and the sweat dripping down her forehead. It was exactly how we had found Isaac last night.
But this time I couldn't hit her to prompt some supernatural healing shift. I didn't know how to help her, how to get her body to fight back against the cold.
"What happened to her?" Aiden asked, panic etching its way into his voice.
I shook my head. "We need to get her warm."
"There's a heater inside!"
"Ok, help me," I went to lift her, but Aiden stepped in front of me and leaned over her body. With swift ease, he hoisted her into his arms bridal style and began to carry her back inside. It reminded me of the time I had to try and carry her the same way on the night of the school dance when she was bitten by Peter Hale. Only then, it had not been so easy for me.
I rushed to the door and helped guide Aiden over to the heater. Lydia was starting to blink her eyes open, but she couldn't stop shivering.
"It's okay, Lydia, it's gonna be okay," I hushed. Turning to Aiden, I ordered him to go retrieve a blanket or something to raise her body temperature.
He returned faster than expected, and we both wrapped the girl up in a bundle of layers.
Finally, she spoke up in a pained whisper. "They came out of the dark."
A chill went down my spine. She had been attacked and left exactly like Isaac. I was losing faith in my father's theory that it had anything to do with him. Why would creatures come out of the shadows for an innocent girl at Derek Hale's loft when my father was alone at our apartment.
I wasn't given much time to think, however, when a loud crashing noise erupted from the centre of the room. The music abruptly cut off, the DJ table having been pushed violently to the floor, and was replaced with a thundering voice.
"GET! OUT!" Derek Hale screamed into the stunned silence. His sheer fury sent everyone into action, the crowd of neon partygoers scattering and flooding to the exits.
In the middle of the commotion, there were three groups working against the flow of the crowd. Aiden and I with Lydia, Allison and Isaac with Ethan who was hanging limply between the both of them, and Scott and Kira.
"It's them," Lydia murmured from beside me.
But she wasn't referring to our friends. She was referring to the dark figures in each corner of the room who had now joined the party. While innocent attendees completely emptied from the loft, looming creatures emerged from the shadows.
They took the form of men, of soldiers cloaked in shining black armour, but their bodies weren't completely solid. The edges of their forms billowed around them in a cloud of black, swirling smoke. Their faces were covered in intricate masks, just as Isaac had described, and their presence made the temperature of the loft drop drastically.
I held Lydia closer to me as the figures marched in unison, pivoting together to face where the three of us stood. Aiden stepped forward protectively, and their attention followed him.
"Guys," Aiden spoke out to the pack nervously. "They're all looking at me."
The shadow figures marched a step forward, closer to him.
"Why are they all looking at me?!"
They made another step.
"GUYS!"
At Aiden's frightened plea, Scott and Derek both jumped into action together, each lunging at one of the figures.
Derek leapt up into the air and landed in front of one of the masked beings, slashing a clawed hand at its body. The creature dodged quickly, leaving a billow of smoke in its wake. Scott swung at two more but each manoeuvred him with the same practiced agility.
The fury radiated from Derek's face and in one sharp motion of snarling teeth, he lunged forward at one and firmly twisted its neck. The crack of the vital bones breaking was deafening.
However, in a blink of an eye, the smoke that had surrounded the creature blew over its face. When it cleared, the mask was right side up and the neck had healed. It had come back from a mortal death like it was nothing.
Launching on everyone's stunned hesitation, one of the shadow figures kicked Derek from behind with such a supernatural force his body flew across the room. Another moved in on Scott, pushing him back until the teen wolf slumped against a wall.
While the two wolves writhed in pain, the creatures turned and assumed their organized position once more. They took another step closer to Aiden.
Leaving Ethan under Allison's care, Isaac bravely moved forward. The sharp slashing noise of the boy extending his claws caught the attention of one of the beings. It stared at Isaac for a moment, before reaching into its own chest and materializing a long Katana blade out of thin air. It swung the sword around at him in controlled motions, like a trained warrior. Isaac took this as a warning and backed off.
Finally, there was no one left in the way of the creatures and Aiden. I clutched onto Lydia and I felt her grip tighten on my arm. Allison stayed helping Ethan stay upright, and Kira pressed herself into a corner in utter terror.
Aiden was breathing heavily but he stood his ground as the creatures cornered him on all sides. One stood a foot away from him, its glowing greenish-yellow eyes boring into his soul. I watched in horror as it lifted a dark, gloved hand up to hold the side of Aiden's face. It held it there for one excruciating moment before letting go. When it took its hand away, Aiden fell to the ground. I knew he was in a hypothermic shock just like all of the victims so far. But I couldn't move to help him, I didn't know what we could do.
The shadow figures pivoted and looked upon Scott, who had managed to scramble to his feet. They approached him slowly, studying his glowing red eyes and snarling teeth.
But before they had taken more than one step, all of the creatures stopped in place and turned their masked faces towards the loft's vast window.
The earliest hint of sunlight was peeking through the glass, pouring into the loft and illuminating the darkness. When the sunbeams touched the figures, they began evaporating into billows of smoke. And just like that, they faded out as swiftly as they had arrived.
"What the hell were those things?" Scott asked.
A silence fell over the room. None of us had a clue.
Although, I knew someone who might. I looked across the room to my sister, who was already staring nervously right back at me.
"Dad's time is up. We need answers."