>•<
>•<
"Mmm." Mr. Stilinski takes a bite of his burger. "Did they forget my curly fries?"
"They better not have forgotten mine," I say, grabbing the bag out of Stiles' lap and rummaging through it. I sigh in relief when I find them, and hand the bag back up front.
Stiles, Mr. Stilinski, and I are sitting in the squad car in the parking lot, eating fast food for supper. Since I don't have any family, they always invite me along. It's become sort of a tradition for us.
"You're not supposed to eat fries, especially the curly ones," Stiles tells him, digging through the bag and pulling out more food.
"Can you believe this y/n? He won't let me have the curly fries!" Mr. Stilinski looks at me in the rear view mirror.
"Sorry, Mr. Stilinski, but I'm with Stiles on this one. You eat them a lot and they're not good for you," I say, shoving my own curly fries in my mouth because they are soooo good.
"Thank you, y/n," Stiles says.
"Well, I'm carrying a lethal weapon. If I want the curly fries, I will have the curly fries."
"If you think getting rid of contractions in all your sentences makes your argument any more legitimate, you are wrong."
"Unit one, do you copy?" A dispatcher's voice comes across the radio. Stiles reaches to answer it, but Mr. Stilinski slaps his hand away.
"Sorry," Stiles mumbles.
"Unit one, copy," Mr. Stilinski answers.
"Got a report of a possible one-eight-seven," The dispatcher says.
"A murder!?" Stiles and I shout in unison, curly fries falling out of his mouth.
A few minutes later, we pull up to the crime scene.
"Woah..." I whisper to myself.
"Stay here!" Mr. Stilinski instructs us and gets out of the squad car. When do Stiles and I ever obey, though.
"Oh, no way," Stiles mutters under his breath, and I look out the window and see what he was talking about.
There sits Lydia in the back of an ambulance, with Jackson standing next to her. Thankfully, she looks unharmed, and unfortunately, so does Jackson.
"Why the hell can't I just go home? I'm fine." Jackson irritably tells Mr. Stilinski. The two of them argue and Jackson keeps insulting the sheriff, but Mr. Stilinski ignores it.
I hate that boy so much. Nobody talks to my best friend's father that way. Especially Jackson. I begin getting out of the car, and Stiles follows.
"Oh, whoa! Is that a dead body?" Stiles points at a gurney that, in fact, has a dead body on it. Mr. Stilinski gives Stiles a look and he decides to get back in the car.
While Mr. Stilinski tries to get everyone to back away from the crime scene, I slip around the other side of the ambulance to talk to Lydia. As I walk around the front of it, I notice two figures on the roof of the building.
Scott and Derek.
If this was a normal murder, Scott and Derek wouldn't be here. It must have something to do with the Alpha. Maybe Lydia will know something.
"Lydia! Oh, my God, are you okay!?" I sit next to her and give her a side hug.
"Yeah... Just pretty shaken up."
"It's okay." I hold her hand to comfort her. We sit in silence for a moment before I speak up again. "Um, can you tell me what happened?"
She's quiet for a moment, but finally speaks up. "You're going to think I'm crazy like everyone else does."
"I can promise you, Lydia, there is nothing you can say to me that will make me think you're crazy." I give her hand a reassuring squeeze.
"It was big," she whispers, "really big... It broke through the window and ran by my car." She looks up at me, looking me in the eye.
"I-it's eyes were glowing red." Tears begin pooling in her eyes.
The Alpha.
"See, I told you I'd sound crazy." She looks down at the ground. "The police thought I was. They told me it was a mountain lion."
"No, you don't sound crazy. I believe you. I've seen some really weird things in my lifetime." I hug her again and go back to the squad car.
>•<
"Just a friendly reminder—parent-teacher conferences are tonight! Students below a C-average are required to attend. I won't name you, because the shame and self-disgust should be more than enough punishment." Mr. Harris walks around the classroom. "Has anyone seen Scott McCall?" He stops in front of Stiles, who is highlighting in his textbook and holding the cap in his mouth. He slowly looks up at the teacher standing in front of him.
"Hey, Jackson. If you need to leave early for any reason, you let me know," Mr. Harris tells Jackson in a soft tone, walking over to him and patting him on the shoulder.
"Everyone, start reading chapter nine." He walks to the front of the classroom. "Mr. Stilinski, try putting the highlighter down between paragraphs. It's chemistry, not a coloring book."
Stiles tilts his head back and blows the cap out of his mouth. Using my incredible reflexes, I snatch the cap out of the air before he can catch it. I raise my eyebrows and hold it up in victory in front of him, and he rolls his eyes and takes it from me.
"Hey, Danny?" Stiles leans forward in his seat, "Can I ask you a question?"
"No," Danny responds flatly.
"Well, I'm going to anyway. Um, did Lydia show up in your homeroom today?"
"No."
"Can I ask you another question?"
"Answer's still no." Danny sighs, getting annoyed.
"Does anyone know what happened to her and Jackson last night?"
I do, but I'll have to tell him later.
"He wouldn't tell me."
"But he's your best friend," Stiles says, sounding surprised. "One more question..."
"What?"
" ...Do you find me attractive?"
Danny looks like he's thinking for a moment, but never responds. Stiles leans forward in anticipation of an answer and falls out of his seat.
I make a loud sound that's somewhere between a snort and a laugh and cover my mouth real fast, but everyone still turns to look at me. "Sorry..." I mumble, and look back down at my textbook.
>•<
"She said it was big and had glowing red eyes," I explain to Stiles as we drive to Lydia's house. "That was all she said, she was really shaken up that night and I didn't want to upset her. It had to be the Alpha because Alpha werewolves have red glowing eyes."
We pull up to Lydia's house and ring the doorbell. Mrs. Martin answers the door.
"Hi, Mrs. Martin, we're here to check on Lydia," I say politely.
"Hello. Yes, of course. She's in her room." She lets us in. I have never been in her house before surprisingly. It's exactly how I would expect it, though. It's huge and beautiful. A large staircase stops in the foyer. Everything is so clean and nice. "Who is that?" Mrs. Martin asks me, looking back at Stiles as she leads the two of us to Lydia's room.
"This is Stiles, he's my best friend."
She nods her head and opens the door to Lydia's room. "Honey, there's a Stiles and a y/n here to see you."
Lydia is lying on her bed looking dazed and totally out of it. "Y/n!! My best frienddd!!" She slurs, almost sounding like she's drunk. She stops and looks off into space. "What the hell is a 'Stiles'?"
I can't help but laugh and Stiles glares at me.
"She took a little something to ease her nerves. You can go in," Mrs. Martin tells us.
I thank her and we walk in Lydia's room.
"What are you doing here?"
"We just wanted to make sure you were okay?" Stiles tells her, it sounding more like a question than an answer.
"Why?" She pats the bed, signaling us to sit down.
"Because we were worried about you today. How are you feeling?" I sit down at the foot of her bed with Stiles.
"I feeeeel... fantastic," She says in a flirty way and getting close Stiles' face. Very close.
Stiles reaches over and picks up the medicine from her nightstand and examines it. "I bet you can't say, uh, 'I saw Susie sitin' in a shoe-shine shop' ten times fast."
"I saw shuzy—" She starts off so confidently, "I shaw—" She says, but gets a distant look and goes deep into thought. "I saw..." she says in a more serious tone. She lies down on her bed on her stomach.
"What?" I lean over towards her. "Lydia, what did you see?"
"Something..."
"Something... like a mountain lion?" Stiles asks.
"A mountain lion..." Lydia says slowly.
"Are you sure you saw a mountain lion, or are you just saying that because that's what the police told you?" Stiles asks.
"A mountain lion..." She says in a daze.
"What's this?" I hold up a stuffed giraffe.
"A mountain lion..."
"Okay, you're so drunk..." Stiles says. She then passes out in Stiles' lap, causing him to freak out.
"Well, we're gonna... go... Uh, I'll let you get back to the whole post-traumatic-stress thing..." Stiles points at the door and starts walking towards it.
"Mmm... stay..." Lydia slurs.
"M-me? Stay? You want—" I look at him, reminding him I'm here too, "u-us to stay?"
"Yes, please... stay..." She says sleepily. "Please, Jackson..." She begins falling backwards onto her bed, passing out again.
"And... we're done here."
"You ready to go 'Jackson'?" I playfully punch him, getting up off her bed and starting towards the door.
"Ha, ha. Very funny, y/n."
Her phone dings from the nightstand just before we exit the room.
"You want me to get that?" Stiles reaches over and picks up her phone and looks at it. I walk over and look at it over his shoulder. "It's a text. I don't know how to—" he clicks on it, and the video starts playing. It shows what happened last night: the monster breaking through the glass, it's red glowing eyes... all of it.
"Holy shit," I whisper. Stiles sends the video to me and him so we'll have a copy before he deletes it.
We go back to Stiles' house to discuss what we just saw, but Scott won't freaking pick up his phone... The idiot. I'm pacing back and forth in Stiles' room, trying to text Allison to see if she knows where Scott is, but she won't answer either. Stiles is trying to call Scott, but he still won't answer.
"Hey, it's me again. Look, I found something, and I don't know what to do, okay? So, if you could turn your phone on right now, that'd be great! Or else, I'll kill you. Do you understand me? I'm gonna kill you. And I'm too upset to come up with a witty description about how exactly I'm gonna kill you, but I'm just gonna do it, okay? I'm gonna—ugh! Goodbye." He throws his phone on the bed and flops down in his desk chair. "God!"
"Allison won't text me back," I huff, and lie on my back on his bed, covering my eyes with my hands.
"Please tell me I'm gonna hear good news at this parent-teacher thing tonight." Mr. Stilinski stands in the doorway.
"Depends on how you define 'good news'," Stiles replies.
"I define it as you getting straight-A's with no behavioral issues."
"You might wanna rethink that definition."
"Enough said." Mr. Stilinski sighs, turning around and leaving.
"Come on, Scott. Where the hell are you?"
>•<
I pull up to the animal clinic to work my shift that I'm supposed to share with Scott, but he isn't here either. I walk through the door going to the back room, where I overhear Deaton trying to contact Scott.
"Hey, Scott. It's me again. I'm just calling to make sure that everything's okay. You were supposed to be here an hour ago. Maybe you forgot. Well, whatever it is, just give me a call and let me know that everything's okay. All right. Thanks." He puts his phone in his pocket and turns to me. "Do you know where Scott is?"
I shake my head no.
"Sheriff Stilinski..." Deaton turns to the Sheriff, who's standing in the doorway.
"Listen, I hate to bother you, but, uh, I'm having a bitch of a time getting a consensus on what this is we're dealing with."
"I'm really flattered you've come to me for help, but, like I said before, I'm no expert," Deaton responds nervously.
Him and Sheriff Stilinski talk about the photos and he shows Deaton and I some new photos of the Alpha and what happened that night.