The teens had gathered at the sheriff's station as Lydia needed to tell her friend what she'd found out information about her grandmother.
Stiles turned to his dad. "It's not just that she could still be alive."
Lydia nodded. "It's that she would've had to fake her death."
The sheriff shot her a look. "Your grandmother, Lorraine Martin, faked her death?"
"Definitely," Stiles said with certainty.
"Maybe," Lydia replied.
"More than likely, yes."
"Oh, I'm guessing you got a story to back this up?" Sheriff Stilinski questioned, turning to the witch. "Tabitha, what do you think about this? Do you believe it?"
Tabitha shrugged. "It's certainly possible, but I don't think it's likely. Lorraine could be helping the Benefactor. And we still don't know who that is."
Stiles frowned. "Or is the Benefactor."
The sheriff shot each of them a look. "That sounds like a story worth hearing."
As soon as Parrish returned, Lydia and Tabitha took him to Derek's loft. Parrish explained what happened to him and Derek frowned. "He covered you in gasoline?"
"It's the hair and nails, isn't it," Lydia noted. "The parts of the body that are essentially dead."
"Well, they should be gone."
Parrish looked at the two of them. "I was set on fire. All of me should be gone."
Scott shook his head. "Not if you're like us."
"Like you?"
Derek shook his head. "I don't think he's like us."
"Then what is he?" Lydia questioned.
"Sorry, but I have no idea."
Tabitha looked at Derek and said, "You knew about Jackson and Kira."
He shot her a look. "This is a little out of my experience. There might be something in the bestiary. Did you try Argent?"
Scott glanced down. "I don't know where he is."
Parrish said, "Okay, hold on. What's a bestiary? Actually, that's not even my first question. Just... Just tell me one thing. Are all of you like Lydia? Are you all psychic?"
"Psychic?" Derek asked in disbelief.
"Yeah. Not exactly," Scott replied.
Parrish frowned. "Okay. Then what are you?"
They started explaining what supernatural creatures they were and explained the deadpool. Parrish asked, "What's a kanima?"
"We'll get back to that," Scott said, brushing it off. "Just know that everyone like us, everyone with some kind of supernatural ability is on the deadpool."
"But I don't even know what I am," Parrish protested.
Derek shrugged slightly. "I'm pretty sure they don't care."
"How many professional assassins are we talking about?"
"We're starting to lose count," Lydia admitted after a brief moment.
"But is it still just professionals?" Scott wondered.
Parrish shook his head. "I don't think Haigh's ever tried anything like this. I think he was taking a chance."
Derek's lips pursed. "That means anyone with the deadpool could take a chance."
"But if Haigh had it, then who else does? How easy is it to get this thing now?"
Lydia sighed. "Meredith was only at my grandmother's lake house once. But I think once was enough."
Derek turned to her. "How did your grandmother know her?"
Lydia shook her head. "She didn't. She found her. Because of another woman named Maddy. The woman she loved." She let out a sigh and continued. "I never met her, but I saw her name everywhere. She used to be part of a yacht racing team. There were plaques and trophies in the lake house from all the regattas she'd won."
"How did she die?" Parrish questioned.
"How's not the story. It's what happened right before. My grandmother, Lorraine, used to work in San Francisco for IBM. She was there on a weekend, catching up on work. She started hearing this sound... Like rain. But when she looked out the windows... All she saw was blue sky."
Tabitha frowned. "But she kept hearing the rain. Didn't she."
Lydia nodded. "And it just kept getting louder. Rain and thunder cracking like gunshots in her head. So loud. She finally screamed."
"Like a Banshee," Derek realized.
"She called Maddy who was planning on taking one of the boats out on the lake. But Maddy said that the sun was shining there too. So Lorraine didn't say anything."
"There was an accident?" Parrish wondered.
"It took them four days to find Maddy's body. And then it took decades to figure out how Lorraine knew. She started with parapsychologists, like the PhD in their name made it more scientific. They built the study in the lake house according to every pseudoscientific theory they could find. None of it worked. So then she started going to a more extreme occult. Things like mediums and psychics. All of them were failures. Until she found Meredith. They found her in Eichen House. This fragile girl who didn't understand the things she heard. They brought her to the study. And they almost killed her. She was hospitalized for over a year. She... she never really recovered. My grandmother drove her insane. I drove her to suicide. All she ever wanted to do was help. My grandmother created the code for the deadpool. They think she's the Banshee who put the names out in the first place. She left me this message in the same code."
They glanced at the code while Scott asked, "But she didn't leave a cipher key, did she?"
At Stiles' house, Lydia, Stiles and Tabitha were talking in his room trying to figure out the cipher key. Stiles' printer kept beeping, letting them know it was out of paper. Tabitha glared at it, then at her boyfriend. "If you don't shut that thing off, I'm gonna unplug it."
Stiles frowned at her. "No dismantling my printer, please."
Tabitha huffed and turned to Lydia. "Maybe Maddy is the key. Try that."
Lydia narrowed her eyes at the redhead. "Doesn't Maddy feel a little obvious as a cipher key?"
Stiles nodded and stood next to Tabitha. "I guarantee it's Maddy."
Lydia typed in MADDY and it didn't work. Stiles took a moment to think. "Okay, your name. She left the code for you, right? So it's got to be your name."
She typed in her name. Didn't work. "Your mom's name?" Stiles wondered. No.
"Do you have any beloved family pets?" Stiles asked.
"Mmm," Lydia hummed.
Tabitha frowned and crossed her arms. "It's all for you, Lydia. The ashes, the code, everything. She wanted you to figure this out."
She met her eyes. "But no one else is. Which is why she made it hard."
"Whoa!" Stiles cried. "Okay?"
Tabitha met her friend's eyes. "It's you. No one else but you."
"What?" Lydia asked.
Stiles' eyes widened. "Tabi! You're a genius! Our guesses. They're all about Lorraine. Right? We keep trying to guess a word that has something to do with her. So, maybe we should be trying to guess one that's about you."
"Me? What about me?"
Tabitha uncrossed her arms. "Do you remember anything special with your grandmother? Something you two did together? Maybe the beach? Or ice cream or..."
"We read," Lydia cut in.
Stiles nodded. "Okay. What did you read?"
"The Little Mermaid."
"You read that movie?"
Tabitha glanced at Stiles. "It was a book first."
"Hans Christian Andersen," Lydia said.
"Type it in. Little Mermaid," Stiles told her, sighing when it didn't work.
"We read it every night. I got so obsessed with it, for three months I wouldn't respond to anything but Ariel. It drove my parents crazy, but... Grandma thought it was adorable." She typed in MERMAID, but once again, it failed.
Tabitha got an idea and said, "Type in Ariel."
She did as the witch suggested and a list appeared on the screen. "Do you recognize any of these?" Tabitha asked.
"Just my grandmother," Lydia replied.
Stiles studied the list and looked between them. "Lydia, Tabi... We need to call Scott."
They headed to the sheriff's station and asked Parrish to run the names. He did so and turned to them. "Well, it's not another deadpool. More like an already dead deadpool."
"All of them?" Lydia asked, frowning. "All dead?"
Parrish looked up at her and nodded. "Within the last ten years. All suicides. And all at the same place."
Tabitha let out a sigh. "Eichen House. Right?"
Lydia started trying to find information furiously. Stiles said to her, "Lydia, Eichen House isn't a library. You need a warrant to get files from there."
She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. "My grandmother left me a list of ten suicides, including her own. There's got to be a reason why. Is there anyone there who's willing to help us?"
Stiles shook his head. "No. But there might be someone willing to take a bribe."
"Who?" Tabitha wondered.
Stiles didn't answer. Instead, they make their way to Eichen House and Brunski stared down at them. "A thousand."
Stiles scoffed. "A thousand dollars? To use one little key to open up one little file room? Are you out of your mind?"
Brunski shrugged at his words. "When you get the keys, you make the price."
"Right. You actually think we have that kind of money?"
Brunski smiled rudely. "I know you don't. If you did, Daddy Sheriff would've paid the bill by now. That's why I'm talking to her."
He zoned in on Lydia and she pulled out a wad of cash. It was supposed to be used to clean the carpets in the soundproof room at her lake house. "I have $500."
She set the money on the desk. Brunksi turned his back to them and pressed the eject button on his boombox before flipping it over and playing it again. It was very similar to the one the Benefactor had. He picked up the money and sniffed it before grabbing his keys and saying, "Follow me."
They silently followed him down the halls to the file room. As soon as they arrived, Brunski questioned, "Good?"
Stiles nodded. "Yeah. We can help ourselves. Uh, Lydia, you got the list?"
Something on the list caught Tabitha's attention. "Lydia? Why is there an extra name?"
She frowned. "I didn't write anything."
Stiles looked at where Tabitha's finger was pointed. "This is your handwriting."
"Why would I write another name?" Lydia questioned.
"Why would you write mine?"
Before Tabitha could say anything, Brunski appeared, smiling sadistically. "It was the tapes, wasn't it?"
He pressed a taser to Stiles' body and knocked him down. Tabitha felt electricity pulsing through her body. She let out a pained groan as she fell next to Stiles.
Brunski turned to Lydia. "Your turn, sweetheart."
"Don't touch her!" Tabitha cried.
"Help us! Help us!" Lydia exclaimed. "Someone, help!"
"Lydia, there's a lot of people screaming for help in a place like this. I don't think anyone's listening," Stiles told the strawberry blonde.
"Well, I'm open to better ideas. Because if you didn't notice, all of those suicides were murders."
"That's why she left you the message."
"She predicted her own death. She knew I'd figure it out."
"Once you were able to predict your own," Brunski said.
"You hurt her and I hurt you!" Tabitha yelled.
Lydia whimpered as Brunski continued. "But they weren't murders. I'm not some serial killer like Ted Bundy going around cutting up college girls."
"No, you're just an Angel of Death," Stiles retorted angrily.
"I don't think you understand my level of commitment to my work here, Stiles. There are people who don't simply need treatment. They need release. I helped them. I helped Lorraine."
Brunski continued. "I helped her. And now you can help me. Because there is something about it that's always bothered me."
A woman said on the tape, "Please don't hurt her."
Brunski's voice on the tape answered, "Don't hurt who?"
"Ariel," the woman Tabitha guessed to be Lorraine answered.
The tape ran out and Brunski smirked. "We get a lot of teenagers trying to break into our drug cabinets. Most of the time, they don't succeed. But you three look pretty clever to me."
He filled a syringe with something and inched towards Stiles, then Lydia, and finally Tabitha. The redhead tried moving out of the way.
"No. No. No." Lydia begged. "Tabitha!"
"Don't touch her!" Stiles yelled.
The needle inched closer to Tabitha's neck and she closed her eyes, bracing for the prick.
A new voice ordered, "Drop it. Take your thumb off that needle and slowly withdraw it from her neck."
Brunski looked up at Parrish. "Young Deputy. You're just a kid. I bet you've never even fired a..."
His voice stopped as Parrish shot him in the leg. Parrish released Lydia's restraints and she said, "He... He killed my grandmother. He was controlling Meredith."
"He used her to create the deadpool," Stiles clarified.
Tabitha glanced up and said, "And killed her when she tried to help us."
Brunski started laughing and his voice was weak as he said, "You... You think it was me?" He started panting and his voice dropped. "That I was controlling her?" His laughing resumed. "Idiots... She was controlling me."
Lydia and Tabitha's eyes widened. "Oh, God. It's not him. He's not the Benefactor."
Meredith appeared and shook her head. "No. And... He wasn't on my list. But he was a bad person."