BEACON HILLS HIGH SCHOOL - GIRLS LOCKER ROOM
Scottie was leaning with her back against her locker, only half-dressed in her lacrosse practice gear, with a T-shirt on, staring at nothing with a dazed expression on her face as she processed the fact that Alec's mother, Chrissy Argent, was one of the Hunters who attacked her and Danica during the full moon over the weekend. Stiles, having just finished getting ready for practice, was walking across the room when she saw Scottie and stopped to talk to her.
"Did you apologize to Alec?" Stiles asked and Scottie, still in shock, nodded weakly.
"Yeah," Scottie replied in a dazed tone.
Stiles wasn't satisfied by the short answer and looked at her with a slightly exasperated expression. "Is he giving you a second chance, or...?"
Still dazed, Scottie nodded again. "Yeah."
Stiles was excited on Scottie's behalf at the news and tried to encourage Scottie to feel the same. "Yeah? All right! So, everything's good?"
Scottie shook her head weakly. "No."
Stiles frowned in confusion. "No...?"
Scottie started to come out of her overwhelmed haze and tried to explain what she learned, still unable to make eye contact with Stiles. "Remember... the Hunters? His mom is one of 'em."
Stiles gaped at Scottie in shock. "His mom-?
Scottie ignored Stiles' words and continued to speak. "-shot me-"
Stiles cut Scottie off to ask for clarification. "Alec's mother-?"
Scottie continued to ignore Stiles' interruptions and finished her sentence. "-with a crossbow."
Stiles, flabbergasted by the news, repeated herself dramatically now that Scottie had finally stopped speaking. "Alec's mother?"
Scottie, now officially snapped out of her daze by this conversation, yelped at Stiles impatiently. "Yes! His mother!" Seeing that Stiles was just as shocked as she was, Scottie began to actively panic again. "Oh, my God-"
Stiles wasted no time trying to get Scottie to stop freaking out by comforting her. "No, Scott. Snap back!"
After a moment, Scottie finally snapped out of it and looked Stiles in the eyes, though she was still frowning with concern.
"You okay?" Stiles asked. Scottie nodded and Stiles sighed in relief.
"Hey, all right? She didn't recognize you, right?"
Scottie thought for a moment before slowly responding. "No... N-no, I don't think so..."
Stiles nodded patiently and continued. "Does he know about her?"
Scottie's eyes widened when she realized she had no idea if Alec knew about his family's status as Werewolf Hunters and began to panic again. "Oh, yeah, I don't know! What if he does? This is gonna kill me-"
Stiles forced Scottie to look at her and spoke to her in a reassuring voice as she cut off her trail of thought. "Okay, just focus on lacrosse. Okay?" She picked up the rest of her lacrosse gear and thrusted it into Scottie's hands. "Here, Scott. Take this. Take this, and focus on lacrosse for now, okay? That's all you gotta do, yeah?"
Scottie took a deep breath and reluctantly nodded in agreement. "Lacrosse."
Stiles nodded in encouragement and firmly patted Scottie on the sides of her arms with her hands as she punctuated her next words. "Here. We. Go!"
Scottie and Stiles turned to leave the locker room, with Stiles accidentally tripping on her own feet and nearly falling to the floor in the process.
LACROSSE FIELD
Scottie and Stiles reached the lacrosse field just as Coach Finstock had begun announcing their first task.
"Let's go! One-on-one from up top!" Coach instructed, turning to look at Jaxon, who was running onto the field. "Jaxon -- take a long stick today."
[Jackson nods and drops the stick he was holding in favor of the longer one that Coach instructed him to take before running back onto the field. "Atta girl!"
Jaxon took her place on the field, and when Coach blew her whistle, she scooped up a ball and the team started the play. The players ran around the field, passing the ball to each other and shoulder - checking their opponents as they try to score a goal, with Coach watching with a focused expression as she followed their movements from the sidelines.
"That's how you do it, Jaxon!" Coach said. "That's how you do it!"
Jaxon hit one of the players in the back with the blunt end of her stick so she could steal the ball.
Coach shot an annoyed look at one of the other players, #31 and yelled, "Greenberg, take a lap!"
Greenberg set off to run around the field as Coach turned her attention to the lined-up players ready to start their round of one-on-ones. Scottie was at the front of the line and got prepared to start.
"Let's go! Faster, Greenberg! Let's go."
Scottie, looking distracted, was brought back to reality when Coach shouted at her.
"McCall, what are you waiting for? Let's go!"
Coach pointed at Jaxon, who was waiting for her with her long stick in hand, ready to show her up. However, when Scottie clenched her jaw and ran toward her, she was easily tackled by the larger young woman and was tossed flat on her back onto the grassy field. Coach wasted no time in starting to mock her as Scottie grimaced, both in pain and in embarrassment.
"Hey, McCall!"
Over at the line, Stiles winced sympathetically at Scottie's bad play, especially once she saw Coach walking over to where Scottie was still laying on the ground.
"Hey, McCall!"
Scottie lifted her head to see Jaxon smirking above her, looking very satisfied by her successful tackle.
"You sure you still want to be first line, McCall?" Jaxon asked.
Coach finally made it over to Scottie just as Jaxon walked away, and Scottie quickly jumped to her feet, fixing her gloves and pads as Coach began berating her for her poor performance.
Coach stammered, "My-my grandmother can move faster than that -- and she's dead! You think you can move faster than the lifeless corpse of my dead grandmother?"
Scottie's anger and frustration had him doubled over, which began to worry Stiles, who continued to watch from mid-field. Scottie clenched her jaw as she responded in a tight voice to Coach Finstock.
"Yes, Coach," Scottie replied.
Coach, still trying to goad Scottie into a more competitive mindset, continued to mock her, "I can't hear you!"
Fortunately for Scottie, she wasn't looking Coach in the eyes, because her irises flashed gold as she gritted her teeth and repeated herself in an irritated tone of voice.
"Yes. Coach."
Coach, also irritated, moved so her mouth was just inches from Scottie's right ear as she muttered her orders. "Then do it again!"
Scottie clenched her jaw again as she sighed and ran back to position while Coach shouted mockingly toward the rest of the players, "McCall's gonna do it again! McCall's gonna do it again!"
Jaxon got back to her position in mid-field as Scottie returns to the front of the line-up for one-on-ones; though her eyes were no longer glowing gold, she still looked angry yet determined. After a moment, Coach blew her whistle to have them start.
"Let's go!" Coach said.
Scottie ran full-speed at Jaxon, gripping her lacrosse stick hard as she collided with Jaxon, her right shoulder hitting Jaxon right in the collarbone on the same side. Jaxon fell backwards, landing flat on her back in the grass just as Scottie had just done earlier, and clutched her right shoulder in pain.
Stiles, panicked, ran over to Scottie to check on her while everyone else was distracted by Jaxon. Scottie's fangs had come out, and her eyes were glowing bright gold again as she desperately tried to keep herself from fully turning.
"Scottie?" Stiles called. "Scottie, you okay?"
Stiles threw her right arm around Scottie's shoulders and used her left hand to clutch Scottie's left arm. Meanwhile, the rest of the players had rushed to check on Jaxon, but Coach, kneeling next to the injured player, held out her hands to instruct them to back up and give Jaxon space.
"Yeah, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" Coach said.
Off to the side, Scottie, panting heavily, whispered to Stiles in a panicked tone, "I can't control it, Stiles! It's happening!"
Stiles' eyes widened when she realized that Scottie was in the middle of a transformation into her Werewolf form and yelped quietly, "What? Right here? Now?"
Stiles looked around, saw that everyone else was distracted by Jaxon's injuries, and grabbed Scottie by the shoulders as she said, "Come on, get up."
She pulled Scottie to her feet and, still keeping an arm around Scottie's shoulders, dragged her back to the locker room. "Come on. Come on."
Scottie and Stiles passed the bleachers, but were too preoccupied with Scottie's current dilemma to notice that Danica was standing behind the stands and off to the side, watching them with a focused expression.
BEACON HILLS HIGH SCHOOL - GIRLS LOCKER ROOM
Stiles pushed Scottie through the door as she said, "Come on, here we go."
Scottie fell to her knees next to one of the sinks, and Stiles followed her.
"Sit down. You okay?" Stiles instructed as she moved to crouch down in front of Scottie to look her in the eyes. "Scott, you okay?"
Scottie, now completely overwhelmed, finally looked up and screamed at the top of her lungs in a desperate panic, her eyes bright gold, "GET AWAY FROM ME!"
The shock from Scottie's roaring voice caused Stiles to fall back onto her heels, and she eventually was forced to crawl backwards away from Scottie as the Werewolf started stalking her. Stiles managed to get to her feet and flung herself back behind a row of lockers, only for Scottie to easily leap on top of them in a single bound.
Scottie looked down at Stiles from the top of the lockers, and her vision was tinted red from the rage that triggered her transformation in the first place. She visually tracked Stiles as the latter once again fell back onto her butt and was quickly forced to push herself back up onto her feet as she turned the corner, not taking her eyes off of Scottie as the Werewolf crawled to the end of the row of lockers.
She pulled herself up onto the heating vents up around the top of the ceiling and used them to crawl around and track Stiles, who had circled around the locker room and had just made it back to the entrance, where she bumped into the fire extinguisher as she flailed around desperately. She got an idea and grabbed the fire extinguisher, waiting until Scottie had jumped back down onto the floor before spraying it at her. This surprised and disoriented Scottie, who covered her face with her hands to try to avoid the spray. Once Stiles stopped, she took cover just outside the door to the locker room and waited to see what happened next, clutching the fire extinguisher tightly and preparing herself to possibly have to do it again.
Inside the locker room, Scottie, dazed from the rush of what had just happened, sat on one of the benches and slowly pulled off her helmet before calling out in a quiet voice, "Stiles...?"
Stiles relaxed somewhat, but willed herself not to run in until she knew what she was getting herself into. She slowly peeked her head around the doorframe and saw Scottie, covered in sweat and squinting at her on the bench.
"What happened?" Scottie asked in a weak tone.
Stiles, still panting for breath from the exertion of being chased around by Scottie just moments ago, sighed deeply as she came out from behind the door and walked inside. She looked at Scottie with an exhausted and exasperated expression as she dropped the fire extinguisher on the ground with a loud clattering sound and started to take off her gloves, which she forcefully threw onto the floor to emphasize her seriousness about the situation.
"You tried to kill me," Stiles said.
Scottie sighed and looked guilty as Stiles walked over to her and crouched in front of her so she could look her in the eyes. Her expression was grim as she reminded Scottie of what she had researched last weekend.
"It's like I told you before -- it's the anger, it's your pulse rising," Stiles told her. "It's a trigger."
Scottie huffed a quiet, exhausted laugh. "But that's lacrosse. It's a pretty violent game, if you hadn't noticed..."
Stiles' voice was firm when she responded to make it clear to Scottie that this was a problem they needed to deal with and take seriously. "Well, it's gonna be a lot more violent if you end up killing someone on the field." She sighed deeply and looked Scottie in the eyes. "You can't play Saturday. You're gonna have to get out of the game."
Scott immediately tried to protest against this, but Stiles cut her off. "I'm first line-"
"Not anymore."
MCCALL HOUSE - SCOTTIE'S BEDROOM
Night had fallen, and Scottie had just returned home to her bedroom. She dropped her backpack onto the floor in the corner and belly-flopped sideways onto her bed without changing her clothes. After a moment, her father, Michael, knocked on her door and quickly came in without waiting for an answer. He was wearing his nurse's scrubs and talked to Scottie without really paying attention to her.
"Hey -- late shift again for me," Michael said. "But, I am taking Saturday off to see your first game!"
Scottie, clearly still unhappy about the fact that she couldn't play, especially since she couldn't really tell anyone why that was, wasted no time trying to argue with him in a grumpy voice. "No, Dad, you can't-"
Michael scoffed at the fact that Scottie thought she could tell him what to do. "Oh, no, I can and will." He walked toward her as she dramatically dropped her head back onto the bed with a slight bounce. "Come on, one shift isn't gonna break us..." He thought about it for a moment before frowning at the thought of the hours he'd be missing out on at work and looked away from her. "...Not completely..."
Michael looked back at his daughter and frowned in concern. "Hey, what's with your eyes?"
Alarmed, Scottie raised herself up onto her elbows, afraid that her irises may be glowing gold, but that wasn't what Michael was talking about.
"You look like you haven't slept in days," Michael said.
Trying to hide her relief that he was still in the dark about her transformation into a Werewolf, Scottie quickly lied to cover up her secret. "Oh, uh, it's nothing. I'm just... stressed..."
Michael, not totally convinced, continued to question her. "Just stress? Nothing else?"
"Homework..."
"I mean, it's not like you're on drugs or anything, right?" He laughed awkwardly, but Scottie's expression was one of confusion.
"...Right now?"
Michael wasn't satisfied with this answer and scoffed loudly before he started questioning him even harder. "Right now? I'm sorry, what do you mean, "right now?" Have you ever taken drugs?"
Scottie, too tired to have this argument, kept her expression blank aside from raising an eyebrow at him. "Have you?"
Michael gaped at her in irritation and exasperation for a long moment before finally just clicking his tongue, sighing, and walking to the door. "Get some sleep."
He gave her one last look and left to go to work. Once he was gone, Scottie groaned and flopped her head back down onto the bed until the sound of her computer's video-chat application ringing in the background got her attention.
As Scottie sat at her desk, Stiles was on the other side the screen turning around and shooting at the monitor with a plastic toy gun that shot red light. Too exhausted to want to play games, Scottie got to the point of the call.
"What'd you find out?" Scottie asked.
"Well, it's bad," Stiles replied. "Jaxon's got a separated shoulder."
Scottie immediately started to feel guilty. "Because of me?"
Stiles scoffed. "Because she's a tool. Another word would suit her better, but I'm not gonna call her that."
"But, is she gonna play?"
"Well, they don't know yet. Now, they're just counting on you for Saturday."
Scottie sighed deeply, conflicted on what to do -- she wanted to be the star lacrosse player she'd dreamed of being but also didn't want to risk hurting anyone. On screen, Stiles leaned forward as though she was trying to get a closer look at something on Scottie's screen, causing Scottie to frown.
"What?"
On screen, Stiles' eyes widened in fear and alarm; however, the computer connection started to get glitchy and the screen froze, preventing Scottie from being able to see or hear anything else Stiles said. Once it became clear to Stiles, she switched to typing, sending a message that reads -- "It looks like--", causing Scottie to become even more confused.
"It looks like what?"
Scott watched the screen of her laptop -- the video chat app was frozen on Stiles' horrified expression, and the small rainbow circle spun in the middle to communicate that the text aspect of the application was buffering, causing Scottie to become even more frustrated. She eventually sighed and started typing something on her keyboard in hopes of triggering it to start working, but when it did nothing, she groaned in frustration.
"Come on, damnit!"
Finally, Stiles' text came through, which read "Someone's behind you." Even more confused, Scott stared at the screen with a frown and whispered under his breath, "What?"
Scottie opened her own video screen and zoomed in to see a woman standing behind her and staring at her intently, causing Scottie to quickly push herself backwards in her rolling chair to turn around to see who it was.
It was Danica, who immediately grabbed her by the back of her hoodie and pulled her to her feet before shoving her face-first against the nearby wall and holding her there as she growled at her angrily.
"I saw you on the field!" Danica said.
Scottie, caught off-guard, stammered as she responded, "Wha-what are you talking about?"
Danica's tone was angry. "You shifted in front of them! If they find out what you are, they find out about me -- about all of us. And then it's not just the Hunters after us, it's everyone."
Scottie was so anxious that she was practically hyperventilating. "They didn't see anything! I s-swear, I-"
Danica said firmly, "And they won't. Because if you even try to play in that game on Saturday, I'm gonna kill you myself."
Danica shoved Scottie harder against the wall before letting go of her, leaving Scottie panting for breath. By the time she'd pulled herself together enough to look around, Danica had completely vanished. Scottie turned and leaned back against the wall to catch her breath, and noticed her window was wide open, indicating that Danica got in and out of her bedroom through it. She slammed her hand against her knee, aggravated that she was being forced to sit out of the game.
BEACON HILLS HIGH SCHOOL - COACH FINSTOCK'S OFFICE - NEXT DAY
Scottie and Coach Finstock were talking as they walked through the girl's locker room and into Coach's office. Coach was completely confused and exasperated by what Scottie had just told her.
"What do you mean, you can't play the game tomorrow night?" Coach asked.
Scottie stood there awkwardly, knowing she had no real good reason for backing out that wouldn't sound stupid to the Coach, and repeats herself. "I mean... I can't play the game tomorrow night..."
Coach Finstock refused to accept that answer and sat on the edge of her desk with her arms crossed over her chest. "You can't wait to play the game tomorrow night!"
Scottie, frustrated and unhappy to have to do this in the first place, once again repeated herself. "No, Coach -- I can't play the game tomorrow night."
Coach stared at her, dumbfounded. "...I'm not following."
Scottie hesitated as she tried to think of a good reason to explain herself before she spoke. "I'm having some... personal issues."
"Is it a girl?"
"No."
"Is it a guy?" Scottie, realizing this wouldn't going to be an easy task, rolled her eyes. "You know, our goalie, Dani, is gay..."
Scottie sighed impatiently and tried to make her point. "Yeah, I know, Coach, but that's not it."
Coach tried to dissuade Scottie from backing out of the game by distracting him. "You don't think Dani's a good-looking girl?"
Scottie got a little flustered by the question. "I... think she's good-looking. But, I -- I-I like guys." She realized that Coach had successfully gotten them both off topic and became frustrated as she tried to steer it back to the point, raising her voice a little in the process. "And that's not it, anyway. I-I-"
Coach continued to try to mess with Scottie. "What, is it drugs? Are you doing meth? Because I had a sister that was addicted to meth. You should have seen what it did to her teeth! They were all cracked and rotted. It was -- it was disgusting."
Scottie, once again distracted, got sucked into the story. "My God -- what happened to him?"
Coach said exasperatedly, "She got veneers!" The conversation seemed to spark an idea in Coach about why Scottie could possibly want to get out of the game. "Is-is that what this is about? Are you afraid of getting hurt, McCall?"
Scottie once again hesitated before she answered. "No... I'm... having some issues dealing with aggression..."
"Well, here's the good news! That's why you play lacrosse! Problem solved."
Scottie sighed. "Coach, I can't play the game tomorrow night."
Coach, just as frustrated by the conversation as Scottie was, became serious and looked Scottie sternly in the eye. "Listen, McCall, part of playing first line is taking on the responsibility of being first line. Now, if you can't shoulder that responsibility, then you're back on the bench until you're ready."
Scottie gasped. "If I don't play the game, you're taking me off first line?"
Coach, seeing that Scottie truly did want to be on first line, sighed and reiterated her point in hopes of getting her to maintain her commitment to the team. "McCall... play the game."
BEACON HILLS HIGH SCHOOL - HALLWAY
Scottie left Coach's office, looking overwhelmed and conflicted about the game. Her phone rang, and she looked at it to see that her dad had just sent her a text message, which read "Got the night off! Coming to see you play! So excited!!" Scottie raised her eyebrows, but before she could react further, she looked up to see Alec coming down the staircase and was immediately distracted when he approaches her.
"Hey," Alec greeted.
Scott smiled widely. "Hey."
Alec took note of the fact that she was holding her phone in her hand. "Busy?"
When Scottie looked confused, he pointed at her phone, and she nervously stammered out a response. "No, no, it's just, uh, my dad. He's nothing."
Alec frowned, and Scottie, realizing she misspoke in a way that sounded really mean, tried to backpedal to make up for it, which came out even more awkward.
"I mean, it's nothing," Scottie said. "Uh, I'm never busy for you."
Despite Scottie's obvious anxiety, Alec smiled at her and replied, "I like the sound of that." Scottie smiled, and Alec chuckled before he continued. "I have to run to French class, but I wanted you to know that I'm coming to see you play tomorrow."
Scottie's eyes widen in surprise and mild alarm. "You are?"
Scottie was so taken aback that she couldn't make herself do anything but blink as Alec quickly ran down their plan. "And we're all going out afterwards -- you, me, Lyndon, Jaxon... It's gonna be great. Tell Stiles to come, too." Before Scottie could react, Alec brushed past her as he said goodbye. "Uh, save me a seat at lunch. I gotta go!"
Scottie stared at him, wide-eyed, as he walked away, before she finally came back to herself and realized what a sticky situation she'd gotten herself into. She groaned and muttered under her breath as she turned to walk the opposite way from Alec, "Oh, God..."
The bell rang, and Alec quickly rushed to his locker, spinning the combination lock until he could open it to grab his stuff for his next class. However, he immediately frowned at the sight of something in his locker and reached out to grab it.
It was the jacket he wore to Lyndon's party, which Danica had surreptitiously stolen when she gave him a ride home so she could use the scent of it to lure Scottie into the woods. Hidden around the corner, a Werewolf seemed to be watching him, her vision stained red like Scottie's was during her transformation the day before. Alec was unnerved by the appearance of the jacket he had misplaced, which could not have been left by him in his locker, and he anxiously looked around to see if anyone was watching him, though he didn't see anyone.
Just then, the late bell rang, scaring him so badly that he jumped and clutched his chest with the same hand holding the jacket. He sighed when he realized that it was nothing to be afraid of and sighed as he returned his jacket to the locker and grabbed his notebook.
BEACON HILLS HIGH SCHOOL - MATH CLASSROOM
Scottie had been chosen to stand at the blackboard to work out a math problem. Lyndon, too, was chosen to do the same thing and was standing next to her when he suddenly spoke to her in a quiet voice while he rapidly wrote his math equation.
"Why is there a rumor going around that you're not playing tomorrow?" Lyndon asked.
Scottie, clearly tired of debating this with everyone, sighed in frustration and was barely writing anything. "'Cause I'm sort of not."
Lyndon continued to frown in irritation as he quickly wrote more of his math work onto the board with his left hand. "I think you sort of are -- especially when you brutally injure my girlfriend by ramming into her."
Scottie, visibly appalled, made a face as she turned to look at Lyndon. "She brutally injured himself ramming into me."
Lyndon ignored him as he continued to make his point. "Jaxon's gonna play tomorrow... But, she's not gonna be at his peak... and, I prefer my girlfriend... at peak performance."
Scottie raised an eyebrow, not understanding what this had to do with anything. "Okay..."
"I date the captain of the winning lacrosse team. And, if they start off the season losing, I date the captain of the losing team. I don't date losers."
Scottie's tone turned to one of frustration. "Losing one game isn't gonna kill anyone. You like Stiles. Do you consider her a loser?" Lyndon, not liking that answer, returned to his work on the blackboard, and Scottie's voice became softer and more quiet. "In fact, it might even save someone..."
Lyndon realized that debating him wasn't a successful tactic and decided to switch to threats instead, his tone becoming even more rude. "Fine. Don't play. We'll probably win anyway. Then, we'll go out after, like we were planning, and I'll introduce Alec to all the hot players on the team... and Scottie McCall can stay home, surfing the 'net for porn." He finished his math problem with a flourish and gave her a significant look before smirking lightly, wiping the chalk dust off of his hands, and walking back to his seat.
Meanwhile, the math teacher simply looked at Scottie with an unimpressed expression as she skimmed over Scottie's work. "Miss McCall, you're not even close to solving your problem..."
Scottie sighed, though she could appreciate the irony of the double-meaning in these words as she muttered under her breath, "Tell me about it."
BEACON HILLS HIGH SCHOOL - HALLWAY
Scottie shut her locker and was in the process of closing the combination lock on it when Stiles suddenly appeared, grabbing her by the shoulders and pulled her away.
"Hey, come here," Stiles said.
Scottie allowed Stiles to continue to manhandle her while frowning in confusion as she asked, "What?"
Stiles spoke in an urgent tone. "Come here!" She pulled Scottie over to the bottom of a short stairway before pointing up the stairs to where her mother, Sheriff Stilinski, was standing and speaking to the principal with one of her deputies. "Tell me what they're saying." Scottie looked around until she found where Stiles was pointing and focused her hearing on their location. "Can you hear 'em?"
"Shhh!"
Scottie continued to focus until Sheriff Stilinski's voice could be heard as clearly as if she was speaking to them directly. "I want everyone under the age of eighteen to be in their home by 9:30PM. We'd like to institute the curfew, effective immediately."
"Look, we don't-" the principal began.
Scottie, having heard enough, turned back to face Stiles with a grim expression. "Curfew because of the body."
Stiles scoffed in exasperation and smacked Scottie on the arm to emphasize her point. "Unbelievable. My mom's out looking for a rabid animal, while the jerk-off who actually killed the guy is just hangin' out, doing whatever she wants."
"Well, you can't exactly tell your mom the truth about Danica..."
Stiles nodded purposefully. "I can do something."
Scottie looked at her with a skeptical expression. "Like what?"
Stiles' expression was determined when she answered. "Like, find the other half of the body."
Stiles turned and walked off without another word. When the gravity of what Stiles had just said hit Scottie, she scoffed incredulously and said, "Are you kidding?"
Scottie went to follow after Stiles when she was suddenly distracted by the sound of Lyndon's voice and turned to find the source.
"This is Alec," Lyndon said.
He was down the hallway to Scottie's left, where he was introducing Alec to a good-looking female student with a lacrosse-stick in her bookbag, indicating that Lyndon was making good on his threat and was purposely doing this while Scottie was nearby as a message that she better play in the upcoming game. The lacrosse player reached out her right hand to shake Alec's, and the two smiled at each other.
"Hi," the lacrosse player said. "Nice to meet you."
"He's the new guy," Lyndon replied. "He just moved here."
"Oh, how do you like it?"
"I like it," Alec answered.
Scottie, clearly jealous, walked over to them, and when Alec saw her coming, he wrapped up their conversation.
"It was nice meeting you," Alec said. "See you soon. I'll be at the game." He broke away from Lyndon and the nameless lacrosse player went to see Scottie. Lyndon and his friend walked away as Alec turned to Scottie, who tried to hide just how jealous she was.
"So, Lyndon's introducing you to everyone?" Scottie asked.
Alec smiled, completely oblivious to Lyndon's ulterior motives. "He's being so unbelievably nice to me."
Scottie muttered under her breath, "I wonder why."
"Maybe he gets how much being the new guy can suck."
Scottie looked down and noticed that Alec was holding the jacket he was wearing at the party and briefly flashed back to Friday night, when she saw where Danica had hung the stolen jacket on a tree limb to lure her to the woods. Back in the present, Scottie looked shocked and was unable to conceal it from him.
"...Where did you get that?" Scottie questioned.
Alec was once again oblivious to Scottie's suspicious line of questioning and shrugged. "My jacket? It was in my locker. I think Lyndon brought it back from the party, he has my combination-"
Scottie, now worried and remembering Danica's interest in Alec when offering him a ride home, continued to question him with an urgent tone of voice. "Did he say he brought it back, or did somebody give him the jacket?"
Alec asked in a confused tone, "...Like who?"
"Like Danica?"
Alec frowned in confusion. "Your friend?"
"She's not my friend. How much did you talk to her when she drove you home?"
Alec continued to frown, confused and not liking Scottie's tone but trying to keep it civil. "Mmm, not much at all."
"What did you say?"
Alec, weirded out by how suspicious Scottie was acting, excused himself from the conversation. "I... gotta get to class."
Scottie said in an urgent tone, "Alec-"
"No, I really have to go..."
Alec rushed away without another word, and Scottie, looking furious, clenched her jaw, her entire body tense, as she decided to give Danica a visit.
HALE HOUSE
Scottie rode her bike through the woods, furiously pushing the pedals so she could go as fast as she could. Once she'd made it to the Hale House ruins, she jumped off her bike and threw it to the ground before she raced over to the front porch. She tossed off her helmet and her bookbag, throwing them forcefully to the ground as well as she screamed for Danica.
"Danica! DANICA!" Scottie yelled.
Catching her breath, Scottie looked around for a moment, taking note of a recently-dug patch of earth to the left of the house and narrowed her eyes suspiciously. She suddenly sensed the presence of another person and turned to find to her surprise that Danica was standing on the porch, staring at her. Scottie, startled, jerked reflexively before remembering why she was there and made her point.
"Stay away from him!" Scottie said. "He doesn't know anything!"
Danica took a few steps before hopping off of the porch and strode over to where Scottie was standing. "Yeah? What if he does?" She stopped walking when she was about six feet away from Scottie and gave her an incredulous look. "You think your little friend Stiles can just Google "Werewolves," and now you got all the answers? Is that it?"
Scottie, still furious, stayed silent as she tried to catch her breath, so Danica continued as she slowly walked closer to Scottie to make her point. "You don't get it yet, Scottie, but I'm looking out for you. Think about what could happen. You're on the field... the aggression takes over... and you shift in front of everyone."
Scottie, not wanting to believe this, glared at Danica, who decided a practical lesson was in order. She bent down and picked up Scottie's lacrosse stick from her abandoned backpack. "Your dad, all your friends... and when they see you..." Danica took the lacrosse stick and pushed the end with the net into Scottie's chest, causing the younger Werewolf to swat it away, visibly irritated. Danica pulled up the stick and flicked out her claws, using them to shred the net in the end of the lacrosse stick and caused Scottie to gasp. "Everything falls apart."
Danica casually tossed the stick up into the air, and in the moment of distraction it took Scottie to catch it, Danica ran away at super-speed, leaving a furious Scottie behind.
MCCALL HOUSE
Stiles had just arrived at Scottie's house, where she let herself in the front door without knocking and wasted no time running up the steps as fast as she can, her limbs flailing the whole way up. She finally made it to Scottie's room, where she found Scottie restringing the net on her lacrosse stick after it was ripped by Danica. Stiles breathlessly and manically began asking Scottie question after question.
"What did you find?" Stiles asked. "How did you find it? Where did you find it?" Scottie, who had been sitting calmly, looked up at Stiles curiously, leading Stiles to answer her un-asked question, her eyes blinking furiously. "...And, yes, I've had a lot of Adderall, so..."
"I found something at Danica Hale's."
Stiles gasped. "Are you kidding? What?"
"There's something buried out there. I could smell blood."
"That's awesome!" She reconsidered her words and tried again. "...I mean, that's terrible. Whose blood?"
Scottie stood so she can look at Stiles eye-to-eye. "I don't know... But, when we do, your mom nails Danica for the murder. And then, you help me figure out how to play lacrosse without changing, because there's no way I'm not playing that game." She held up her lacrosse stick for emphasis before tossing it onto her bed as she and Stiles left.
BEACON HILLS MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
Scottie and Stiles were unsure of where to go to get the information they needed. After a moment, Stiles saw a sign on the wall to point them in the right direction, which read "ER/Admissions->, Laboratory ->, Morgue ^", and gestured toward it.
"Hey," Stiles said.
"Okay," Scottie replied as she took one last look around before slowly backing into the door towards the morgue, leaving Stiles behind as a look-out.
"Good luck, I guess..."
Stiles went back toward the lobby so it didn't look too obvious, where she saw Lyndon waiting in one of the seats. She immediately got both nervous and annoyed to be in close proximity with the boy who liked her and had to turn around and lean against the nearby reception desk to pull herself together.
Stiles groaned. "Oh, my God..."
She tried to surreptitiously look back at Lyndon once again, and after a long moment, she decided it was better to talk to him.
Stiles said nervously, "Hey, Lyndon... I know you remember me. Um, I sit behind you in biology." Lyndon made a confused face but didn't say anything, so Stiles kept talking. "Uh, anyway, I always thought that we just had this kind of connection." She silently groaned at her words.
Lyndon made a face as though this surprised him, which gave Stiles the motivation to keep talking despite that she also wanted sit down somewhere. "Unspoken, of course. Maybe it'd be kind of cool to... get to know each other a little better..."
Lyndon, who'd been on a phone call using a Bluetooth headset, said, "Hold on, give me a second." He hit the hold button on his headset and took it out of his ear before turning to speak to Stiles directly. "Sorry, I didn't get any of what you just said. Is it worth repeating? That sounded rude. Sorry. Oh, uh, tell Scottie to not hold what I said too harshly."
Stiles, visibly embarrassed and feeling awkward, tried to get out of this situation by chuckling nervously and going to sit down elsewhere. "No. Sorry, I'll just sit..."
She sat in the chair around the corner from him and muttered under her breath, "I don't care..."
Meanwhile, Scottie was in the hallway on her way to the morgue, where she was nervously looking around, trying to figure out where she was going while also avoiding any staff members. One doctor came out of a nearby room and looked over at Scottie, who turned around to face the wall until the woman went back to what she was doing, allowing Scottie to slip right into the door to the morgue on the right.
Inside the morgue, the lights were shut off, and Scottie slowly looked around until she made it to the wall of metal cubbies where the bodies were kept. She passed over a drawer labeled "Semret Fesseha" and looked down to find the next drawer was labeled "John Doe, partial," which was exactly what she was looking for. She slowly opened the drawer and gently removed the sheet; however, the sight of the lower half of the drawer grossed her out so much that she quickly shoved the drawer closed as soon as she got the scent and rushed away.
Back in the lobby, Jaxon had just come out of one of the doctor's offices, where she was wincing as she rubbed her right shoulder.
Lyndon stood and eagerly started to question her. "Okay. Did she do it?"
Jaxon shrugged. "She said not to make a habit of it, but one cortisone shot won't kill me."
"You should get one right before the game, too." Jaxon gave him a look as though to say, "What did I just say?", but Lyndon was undeterred. "The pros do it all the time. You want to be a little high school amateur?" His voice lowered and became more husky. "Or..." He grabbed Jaxon by the front of the shirt and pulled her toward him. "Do you want to go..." He pulled her closer until their lips were just inches apart. "Pro...?"
Lyndon and Jaxon began kissing right in the middle of the lobby, much to the dismay of Stiles, who decided reading a pamphlet titled "Menstrual Cycle" would be a good way to go undercover in the lobby. Once Lyndon and Jaxon were gone, Stiles was distracted by Scott, who ripped the pamphlet out of her hands, scaring her so much she jumped in her seat.
Stiles yelped, "Holy God!"
Scottie was so disturbed by what she'd just learned that she didn't even try to sugarcoat it. "The scent was the same."
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
"So, she did bury the other half of the body on her property?"
"Which means we have proof she killed the guy."
"I say we use it." She started to walk away, and Scottie, looking confused, followed her.
"How?"
Stiles sighed and stopped, turning to face Scottie to make sure of what they're about to do. "Tell me something first -- are you doing this because you want to stop Danica, or because you want to play in the game and she said you couldn't?"
Though it was clear by the look on Scottie's face that both of the offered options were true, she went with the first one to appease Stiles. "There are bite marks on the legs, Stiles -- bite marks."
Stiles nodded in agreement. "Okay. Then we're gonna need a shovel." She smacked Scottie playfully on the shoulder before leading her out of the hospital.
HALE HOUSE / BEACON HILLS PRESERVE
Night has fallen, and Danica walked out of the Hale House ruins toward her Camaro. She opened the door and got in, starting the engine and drove away, not knowing that Scottie and Stiles were watching her from a distance in Stiles' Jeep. Once Danica was a fair distance away from the house, Stiles drove the Jeep closer to the property, parking it so that she and Scottie could get out with their shovels in hand. Scottie looked around for a moment until Stiles joined her at the front of the Jeep, leading Scottie to hand her a flashlight before the two headed off toward the side of the house where the recently-overturned patch of earth was located.
After a moment, Scottie spoke up, sounding concerned, though she didn't stop walking toward the house with Stiles. "Wait... Something's different."
Stiles' voice sounded uneasy when she responded. "Different how?"
"I don't know..." The two finally reached the suspected gravesite, and Scottie aimed her shovel toward it with a shrug. "Let's just get this over with."
Scottie jammed her shovel into the ground, stomping the spade-end with her foot to push it in further before scooping up some dirt and throwing it aside.
The two worked in silence for several minutes as they dug up the grave until Scottie, sounding anxious, wiped her brow with her sleeve before she finally spoke up again. "This is taking way too long."
Stiles rolled her eyes, but didn't stop digging. "Just keep going."
Scottie said exasperatedly, "What if she comes back?"
Stiles shrugged nonchalantly and continued to dig, as did Scottie. "Then we get the hell out of here."
"What if she catches us?"
"I have a plan for that."
"...Which is?"
Stiles stopped digging, leading Scottie to do the same so they could look at each other. "You run one way. I run the other. Whoever she catches first? Too bad." She shrugged again as though it was no big deal and got back to digging.
Scottie sighed in exasperation before getting back to work as well. "I hate that plan."
Scottie dumped another scoop of dirt to the side and was about to dig in again when Stiles' shovel hit something solid, causing Stiles to raise her left hand and hold it out in front of Scottie to keep her from moving.
"Oh, stop, stop, stop," Stiles said.
When they both looked down, they saw several twine rope strings poking out of the earth, and the two knelt down so they could brush the dirt away with their bare hands. They eventually uncovered what looked like a bundle of a rough fabric, like burlap, which had been tied closed with the twine rope. Stiles started to try to untie the bindings, and Scottie, still on edge with fear that Danica was going to come back and catch them, impatiently urged Stiles on.
"Hurry!" Scottie told her friend.
Stiles, frustrated by Scottie's anxiety, responded in an irritated tone of voice. "I'm trying. Did she have to tie the thing in, like, nine hundred knots?"
"I'll do it."
Stiles continued to untie one end of the bundle, while Scottie bent down further to start untying the other. After a long moment, the two managed to get it all unknotted, and they opened the bundle to find what looked like a severed head of a black wolf. This scared the girls so badly that they both screamed loudly and leapt out of the grave, both landing on their bottoms as they scurried away from the half of the wolf corpse. In the foreground, a flowering plant with purple petals was present, but neither Scottie nor Stiles noticed as Stiles finally questioned what they'd just uncovered.
"...What the hell is that?" Stiles wondered.
"It's a wolf," Scottie replied.
Stiles shot back in a sarcastic tone, "Yeah, I can see that. I thought you said you smelled blood, as in human blood?"
Scottie shrugged before throwing her hands up, not knowing what else to say. "I told you something was different..."
Stiles, completely dumbfounded, threw her own hands up incredulously. "This doesn't make sense."
"We gotta get out of here."
Stiles nodded in agreement and moved up onto her feet in a crouching position that matched Scottie's. "Yeah. Okay, help me cover this up."
Stiles moved to start pushing the dirt back into the grave with her hands, Scottie moving to do the same, when suddenly Stiles saw the purple flower in the foreground and stopped what she was doing. Scottie took notice of Stiles' change in demeanor and questioned her on it.
"What's wrong?" Scottie asked.
"You see that flower?" Stiles questioned.
Scottie frowned in confusion, not understanding the relevance. "What about it?"
"I think it's wolfsbane."
Scottie, still confused, frowned even more. "What's that?"
Stiles couldn't help but scoff incredulously at Scottie's ignorance. "Uh... haven't you ever seen The Wolf Man?"
Scottie shook her head. "No?"
"Lon Chaney, Junior? Claude Rains?" Scottie shook her head again, more impatiently, and Stiles became even more exasperated. "The original, classic Werewolf movie?"
Scottie, believing they were wasting time, sighed and impatiently reiterated her previous answer. "No!" Stiles made a face at her, and Scottie lost her patience. "What?"
Stiles shook her head, completely appalled by Scottie's ignorance regarding cinematic classics. "You are so unprepared for this."
Stiles pushed herself to her feet and ran over to the flower, pulling the entire plant up by the roots and gaping in surprise when she realized that the base of the plant had more twine rope tied around it, which was also buried underground. She gently pulled up the rope, which had randomly placed wolfsbane petals attached at various points along the length of it, only to find it was connected to the bundle of burlap around the wolf's head, the long length of it buried around the grave in a spiral pattern which glowed red as Stiles unraveled it.
Scottie looked at Stiles with a skeptical expression, confused as to why they were wasting their time with this, when suddenly, she looked down and was startled back onto her feet by what she found in the grave.
"Stiles..." Scottie called.
Stiles looked up and saw Scottie staring in the grave with a shocked expression, so she walked over to where Scottie was standing so she could see it from Scottie's vantage point. When she followed Scottie's line of sight, she yelped and jumped back a step, grabbing Scottie's shoulder with her left hand to steady herself.
"Oh!" Stiles exclaimed.
In the grave, where the upper half of the human male body that Scottie had originally seen in the woods the night she was bitten, stared blankly up at them. Stiles gasped in shock.