Chapter Sixty Four:
( Atomic Number Coding )
Anna was at the Stilinski household after school that very same day, Stiles was working on his crime board a few feet away whilst she was laying on the edge of his bed. She was hanging there upside down toying with the yarn that he had sprawled all over the floor. Her fingers were tangled in the soft string as she watched her boyfriend stick his multiple colorful push pins into the bulletin board of photos on his wall.
"You know, I don't think you've ever told me what the different colors of string represents." Anna marveled, catching the chocolate-brown brunette's attention.
"Oh," Stiles cranes his neck, "It's just different stages of the investigation. So green is solved, yellow is to be determined, and blue is just... pretty." He shrugged, with a marker in hand as he faces the wall again.
"I'm assuming Red would mean... unsolved." She makes a brief glance at his wall, "And it looks like you mostly only have red string on the wall."
Stiles looks back, his lips pursed. "Yes, I am aware, babe. Thank you."
Anna sighed heavily, afterwards she sunk to the floor in a flip as she used her hands to land before sitting against the edge of the bed on the carpet. And after grabbing the red string once more that she was tying around her finger, she drops her head back against his mattress. "Hey, Stiles?"
"Yeah?" He asked, absentmindedly as he focused on the board in front of him, the gears in his mind turning as he ponders about the information that he found on William Barrow.
"I'm sorry for getting you detention for pulling the alarm." She said quietly, her guilt eating at her from the inside out. She knew that the plan was her idea, she should've been the one to get in trouble for it, not Stiles.
"Don't worry about it, Anna." He tried to assure her, "We were onto something, I know we were."
Her gaze remained on her fingers that were tangled in the red string, "But we have nothing to show for it. All you have is detention because of me." Her voice faltered at the end, making the teen a few feet away glance back at her, a frown placing itself on his lips.
"Hey." He says softly, walking over to the girl who's sitting on the floor. He crouches down infront of her and took ahold of her hands, ceasing her finger tangling she was doing with the yarn. "We all thought that Barrow was in the school, okay? And we all thought that our friends and the entire school was in danger. And I made the final decision to pull that alarm, okay?"
Anna frowned, still feeling bad. "But it was my idea, Stiles."
"Your idea, that could've saved our friends and everyone in our school." He reassured her, untangling the yarn from her fingers. "Nothing may have happened, but you still had good intentions, so stop blaming yourself for being a hero, okay?"
Anna nodded slowly, the corner of her lips quirking up momentarily. "Okay."
Stiles offers her a small smile. "I know that he was there. I mean, if I could I'd go back to the school right now and search all night, just to prove that he was up to something dangerous." Anna nods again, reaching her hand out and running her finger through the boy's silky dark hair as he uncaps a green marker in his grip, then his features twist into a look of slowly forming recognition.
Annabeth frowns in confusion, still running her fingers gently though the strands of his hair. "Babe, what's wrong?"
Stiles caps the marker, "Get up." He tells her, offering his hand which she takes allowing him to pull her up to her feet as she drops the yarn ball that once resided in her lap.
"Where are we going?"
"Back to the school." He replied with haste, pulling on his jacket while she covers herself in her cardigan. "Come on, there's something that we missed."
And with that remark, the both of them were headed out of the Stilinski household, climbing into Stiles' Jeep, and making their journey back to the high school. Eventually, after a short drive considering Stiles' place isn't far from the school, he parks in the lot and they both climb out, making their way into the building.
Anna doesn't exactly know where they're going, but it seems that Stiles does as he leads her through the foyer with his fingers tangled in hers. After their trek through the school hallways, she watched as his eyes glowed a hue of purple as he unlocked the door to the chemistry classroom door, then he turned the handle and pushed it open.
"Stiles, what are we looking for?" She asked him as she trailed behind him while he walked to to the back closet door of the room. When he jiggled the doorknob like he did before with the other door, it opened right up, which she thought was odd. "I feel like that should've been locked."
"Yeah, me too." Stiles murmured, "You notice anything else?" He asked her, walking further into the closet.
Anna's nose crinkled, "Well, it reeks of chemicals in here. That's for sure." Stiles crouched down with his phone's flashlight on as he looked for clues, and while he was doing that, the cogs in the hazel eyed girl's brain began to turn as her gaze widens. "If it smelled like chemicals in here, then there would've been no scent for the others to catch. It would've distracted all of their senses!"
"Exactly." Stiles mumbled, crouching down to the ground with his phone's light brightening the ground. She had noticed as she looked down herself that there were droplets of blood and a small trail of staples covering the linoleum flooring. "He was here, and it looks like he was performing very minor surgery on himself." Afterwards he glanced up at her, "Lydia was right, you were right."
Annabeth pursed her lips, "I may have been right, but I don't have a good feeling about any of this." She wraps her arms around herself as she scans the room with her eyes, "And for some odd reason I feel like I've been in here before even though I have never even stepped foot in this room."
"Yeah, tell me about it." Stiles uttered, "I have the same feeling." He sighs heavily, "I think Barrow was here to kill someone."
"But who? Because I had the idea of pulling the alarm thinking he was gonna blow the school up to kill someone, so who else could he be after if not other werewolves?"
"I don't know." Stiles responded, lightly shaking his head. "That's what we gotta figure out." He stands to his feet and walks out of the closet, "We could spread out, start looking for... Anything."
Anna nods as Stiles begins to look through the lab desks, checking the drawers while she walks to the very front of the classroom. As she slowly goes forward, she noticed something scrawled on the chalkboard. With her brows furrowed she walks over to it, she then realizes that on the board are numbers.
"Anna, what are those?" Stiles asked, walking over to stand alongside her.
"Atomic numbers."
Though Annabeth was no genius, she always found the elements and atomic numbers intriguing. So she had the entire chart memorized, with Lydia's help of course. She definitely wasn't Lydia Martin smart, but she did what she could to get to the next grade.
"Well, is it an equation or a formula?" He questioned her.
A look of concentration covers her features, "No, I don't think it is." She tilts her head, walking closer. "19's potassium. 53's iodine. 88's radium. The first two ones make potassium iodine..." She looks down at the chalk rack and picks up a piece, scrawling the letter K next to the number 19.
"Potassium is K?" Stiles asked, his face twisted in puzzlement.
"It's something Lydia helped me understand while tutoring me. It's from kalium, the scientific neo-Latin name." She continues writing, placing the letter I next to the number 53.
"What's radium?" Stiles questioned, as she wrote down the letter R next to the number 88. The both of them share a panicked glance before she looked down at the last number, her lips parted when she realized the next letter she would have to write down is the letter A next to the R.
"Anna... is the next letter—" He trails off with big and wide honey brown eyes as she scrawled down a lowercase letter A next to the R.
Which made Ra, and together all of the letters on the board spelled out one single name.
"Kira."
After finding out the disturbing news about Barrow and his plan to go after Kira, they took a quick pitstop to get Lydia from her place. Considering Anna had texted her about what they found out, and the strawberry blonde girl threatened to murder both Anna and Stiles with her bare hands if they didn't bring her along.
So, with time to spare and somehow avoiding getting a speeding ticket, they made it to Kira's house. But when they had arrived and got out of the Jeep... they found something extremely alarming.
Scott was laying the middle of the road infront of the Yukimura's house, his motorcycle was crashed next to him and he had a gash on his temple. The three of them quickly rushed over to his unconscious frame, standing above him as they shouted his name and shook him.
Eventually he began to stir and he slowly shot up, he took a moment to look around at his own surroundings, wondering how he had gotten there in the first place. Then his eyes widened in horror as he released a trembled breath, "Barrow, he took Kira!" He informed them all frantically.
"We know." Stiles confirmed, getting a nod of agreement from Annabeth and Lydia who stood beside him.
"It turns out that he was actually after her the whole time."
"But why." Scott questioned as Stiles helped him to his feet.
Lydia shakes her head, her arms wrapped around herself. "We don't know."
With a heavy sigh, Scott dug into his jeans pockets and pulled out his phone. And after a quick call to Isaac he thanked the teen on the other line and ended the phone call, then he pocketed his cell and walked over to the three of them hastily. "We have to think of something. He's going to kill her."
"I knew he was there." Lydia clarified, "How did I know that?"
"Cause you heard the flies, right?" Stiles asked her.
"Yeah, you said you had been hearing flies all day."
"What do you hear now?" Scott demanded, stepping closer.
"Nothing." Lydia glanced down, "I feel I can do this. But I don't know what to do." She confessed, looking like she was waging a battle in her own head. "It's like it's on the tip of my tongue, and I don't know to trigger it. I just..." She trails off, running her hands through her strawberry blonde locks in frustration as she walks forward. "I swear to God, it literally makes me wanna scream."
"Okay, then scream." Stiles stated, nodding his head in encouragement.
"You're a Banshee, screaming is quite literally what you do. So... let it rip."
And boy, did she ever.
The strawberry blonde girl definitely had some lungs on her, Anna was pretty sure that the people from just blocks away could hear that girl wail. And once Lydia had finished up she was pushing her finger against her ear, trying to get rid of the ringing that the scream left behind.
After moments of silence and waiting, Lydia eventually turns back to them, she also manages to make both Stiles and Scott jump back from her. Anna rolls her eyes at the two scaredy-cats alongside her.
"It's not flies." Lydia confirmed to them, not noticing her affect on the two boys. "It's electricity."
Anna frowned, "Electricity?"
"Wait a second, Barrow was an electrical engineer." Stiles recalled, "He worked at a power substation."
Scott glanced at him, his gaze sharp. "What substation."
After a bit of googling about the article that was written William Barrow, they found the exact location where he had once worked before being becoming a mass murderer. And after a long drive to said location, Stiles parked the jeep and Scott parked his bike right infront of the backdoor entrance.
As Anna glanced at the building, she happened to remember that she had been there before... it was the same place that she had found her dad with Isaac and Allison just a few weeks ago.
"Okay. Lydia, wait here, all right?" Stiles ordered the girl in the backseat whilst she and Stiles had unbuckled themselves and climbed out the Jeep. "Just wait for the cops to come."
"Me?" Lydia questioned, "Wait, why can't I come?"
"Because you're the only one who can't necessarily defend themselves, Lyds." Anna explained to her through the front door window as Lydia leaned forward between the front seats.
"Also, I only have one bat." Stiles added, making Lydia purse her lips before disappearing to the back where she resided. "All right," Stiles said, glancing at Anna. "Let's go." She quickly nodded in reply, then
the both of them were rushing off inside of the building.
As the two of them ran inside the huge substation they both halted at the sound of screams and struggle, then they pushed themselves to get there faster as their worry for their best friend and the new girl motivated the both of them.
As they got there they were both thrown back by a bright light and an unknown force of extreme power. Anna found herself being tossed into a metal gate, then her body slumped to the ground as she released a groan of pain. She blinked slowly as she laid on her stomach, the light getting brighter and brighter until it just... stopped.
Once the blinding glow faded, she was able to see what was actually going on around her. A few feet away laid her boyfriend on his back, she quickly got to her knees and crawled over go him.
"Stiles, baby?" She asked him, her words panic-stricken. Then she sighed in relief when he groaned in response.
"Anna?" He questioned, his features contorted in pain. "Ah, shit. That hurt." He complained as she helped him sit up, "What happened?"
She shakes her head, "I don't know, I—" Her words die on her tongue as her eyes widen, her gaze locked on the unbelievable sight infront of her.
"Babe, what is it?" He asked her, then he looked over and saw what she was starring at, then his eyes widened and his lips parted in disbelief.
Right before their eyes was Kira Yukimura standing in all of her glory, her hands held out to her side, palms open, and her body seemingly consuming all of the sparks of electricity of the substation.
And soon... the electricity of the entire town of Beacon Hills county.
YO !
Did I make Annabeth a little bit of a smarty pants with the atomic numbers? Yes, yes I did. Since I graduated early I never got a chance to really learn much about atomic numbers and the table of elements, but I always thought it was really interesting in class when I saw the poster on the wall or something.
So yeah, Annabeth has it memorized. Also,, did you notice how both Anna and Stiles feel like they've been in that chemistry closet before even though they themselves have not??? Hehehe. Yeah, my storyline with Shado and Void is really playing out nicely and I am geeked about it!
Anyway, I hope you guys liked this chapter and I will you see again very soon!
—Mic