It didn't surprise me when I got a call from Lydia that Atlantia and her were on their way to pick me up. It did surprise me when they told me that they were picking me up because they needed to talk to Deputy Parrish because he may be a supernatural creature since his name was on the deadpool.
"My dad is going to flip when he hears that his deputy may also be a supernatural being." I say as I climb into Atlantia's car. I noticed as I climbed in that she was losing weight and not in a good way. There were like two bottles sitting in the cupholder that Atlantia was sipping from. One was a golden color and the other looked like it was a chocolate shake. "Are you pushing your body to the max? Is that why you are losing so much weight?"
Atlanta just shrugs, "I am handling it." She gestures to the golden bottle, "Nectar for energy and a shake made especially for my metabolism to try to prevent weight loss."
"Maybe you could prevent weight loss if you just stop keeping shields 24/7 over all of us." Lydia says looking at Atlantia pointendly. She just ignores her as she pulls into the sheriff's parking lot. Atlantia grabs both her drinks and walks into the building with Lydia right behind her and me scrambling after them. Parrish was shuffling through some paperwork when we entered the building but he lifts his head when he spots me.
"Your dad should be back within the house. You want to wait in his office?" Parrish asks gesturing to his office. Even though he was talking to me, I could see him looking at Atlantia with a weird look on his face but I felt like it might have been because she was dating Derek and he had arrested him so I brushed it off.
"Actually, we wanted to talk to you." I say looking at him.
"Privately." Lydia says. Parrish looked surprised at us before he gestures for us to follow him into the sheriff's office. He shuts the door before looking at us expectantly. Atlantia holds out a piece of paper with the hit list printed on it.
"This is a hit list." Parrish says looking at us confused.
"We call it a Deadpool." Atlantia explains, "Recognize any of the names."
"Yeah, the Sherriff had me run a bunch of these through the system last night but we couldn't find any of them." Parrish says.I guess he hadn't reached the end of the list.
"Show him the other thing." I say so Lydia leans forward and points to the bottom of the list.
"Okay," Parrish says a little worried when he saw his name on the list, "That's kind of terrifying." He then notices the number next to his name, "What's the number?"
"That's how much you're worth." Lydia explains.
"I'm worth two dollars?" Parrish says offended at that.
"Two million," Atlantia corrects.
"I only make forty thousand a year," Parrish says grimly before adding, "Maybe I should kill myself." That made me almost laugh but I held it in so I didn't seem like a jerk, "I don't get it. Why...Why am I on this?"
"Honestly, that might be a question for another day." I say since it was more important to find out who else is on this list then figure out why people were on the list, "Right now, there's still another third of the list we gotta crack."
"We need the third cipher key," Lydia begins, "But we need help getting it."
"From who?" Parrish questions.
"Meredith." Lydia says, nervously.
"The girl from Eichen? The last time you saw her, you almost gave her a nervous breakdown." Parrish exclaims.
"Uh, almost." Lydia scoffs like she shouldn't be blamed by that.
Parrish shakes his head before he says, "Are you sure you need her?"
"Yeah, we wouldn't be asking if we weren't sure," Lydia says. Parrish nods before he gestures for us to follow. The three of us follow Parrish to his patrol car and we all climb in. Atlantia took shotgun because we figured she would be able to sense any assassins if they decided to try to kill three targets in one hit. Luckily, no assassins were hunting us at the moment so we made it to the Eichen House with no one dying. However, as one of the orderlies were bringing us to Meredith after Parrish told him that a murder investigation required us to talk to her, my least favorite orderly came down the hall.
"Oh, no. Not this guy." I mumble making Atlantia turn to see Brunski coming down the hall.
"What the hell are we running here, a bed and breakfast?" Brunkski shouts at the other orderly, "We do not just open the door for anyone with a badge." The orderly just rolls his eyes before handing over the keys to Brunski and walking away.
"We need to talk to Meredith Walker. It involves a murder investigation." Parrish explains calmly.
"Well, you can talk to her all you want, but these three? Especially that one?" Brunski jerks his hand at Lydia, "They're outta here."
"They're crucial witnesses in an ongoing investigation. I wouldn't have brought them if it wasn't absolutely crucuial." Parrish says still in that calm tone.
"Okay, Deputy. How about you come back with a court order, then I'll listen." Brunski says getting in his face before he turns to me, "As for you, Mr. Stilinsk, how about you come back with payment in full?" I try to keep the hurt of how much my dad is struggling from the medical bills but I think I didn't do a good job, "That's right. Daddy may be the Sheriff but he's late on the bills. I guess those government jobs aren't as reliable as they used to be, huh?" I was struggling to keep my emotions in check but then Parrish saved me.
"But they do help when you need a favor," Parrish says, "Like, how a month ago, Canaan P.D. helped you get home after blowing a 0.1 on a breathalyzer."
"No," I say in amusement.
"All right. I'm not against a little quid pro quo." Brunski says holding out the keys to Parrish which he takes. He turns to leave but Atlantia stops him.
"And here's the Stilinski's payment so leave them alone," She says dropping a check into his hand. He looks at her in surprise but I think he could tell that he shouldn't say anything because he kept walking.
I first turn to Parrish and say, "You! You. I like you. I'm gonna keep you." before turning to Atlantia as Parrish snorts and unlocks the door. "Why did you do that?"
"Because you shouldn't suffer when I have unlimited money especially for something that is literally out of your control." Is Atlantia's response before she walks into the room. I didn't know what to say so I just followed her into the room. I guess Lydia had already explained to Meredith why they were there because Lydia was saying,
"Meredith, what do you mean, you can't tell us?" She sounded really annoyed and I didn't blame her since she was under a lot of pressure to be the one to crack the code.
"We just need the third key. You can give it to us in numbers, letters, hieroglyphs...whatever you want!" I say trying to persuade her. Parrish looked at me with a small smile on his face like he couldn't believe what I had just said.
"I can't." Meredith says.
"Then why did you give us the second key." Lydia says.
"I wanted to help. That's what I want to do. I want to help." Meredith says softly.
"Great!" Lydia says smiling, "So help us now. Okay? Give us the third cipher key."
"Things have changed. I...I can't." Meredith says.
"Why not?" I say a little angrier than I wanted it to sound.
"Guys, go easy on her." Parrish says once I rose my voice.
"I'm sorry. I can't. He...He doesn't want me to." Meredith says softly.
"He? Who's he?" I ask knowing that he could be the one behind the deadpool.
"Meredith, who doesn't want you to tell us the third cipher key?" Lydia says softly.
"The Benefactor." Meredith says cryptically.
"Who's the benefactor? What's his name? You could just tell us his name." Lydia says excitedly but Meredith just keeps shaking her head.
"Okay, you're shaking your head...What's that mean? Does that mean you don't know? Or youd don't want to help us?" I question.
"I can't...I can't help anymore." Meredith says. I could see her getting a little more anxious with each question I said so I fell silent.
"How do you know about him?" Lydia says ignoring the signs that Meredith was getting stressed.
"Guys, I think we better stop." I hear Atlantia says.
"Meredith, a lot of people are going to die if you don't tell us." Lydia continues. It was almost like she couldn't hear Atlantia.
"I don't...I don't know...I don't know." Meredith says very anxiously.
"Please, Meredith. It's okay. You're gonna be all right. Please." Lydia says finally noticing Meredith's anxiousness.
"I don't...I don't...I don't know." Meredith says even more anxious.
"Meredith..." Parrish says stepping in to try to calm her but Meredith just screams, "I said I don't know!" The last part was a banshee scream and I knew our meeting was over because she just laid down on the pillows. Parrish gently prompts Lydia to get up and follow him out the door. No one said a word till we were back at the station.
"I'm sorry Lydia." Parrish says before walks into the station. Atlantia gently nudges Lydia into her car and I climb in after them and I tell her to drive to my house. She does just that and Lydia had broken from her stupor to walk into my house. We went to my room and I sat her in front of my computer so we could figure out the last code.
"Okay, well...we know one thing. Both of the first two keys, Allison and Aiden, they're both names of those who are supposed to have died if Atlantia didn't save them." I say after Atlantia explained what she knew of the keys.
"But we've already tried every other name that we could think of that, Atlantia has saved." Lydia says, "And if you haven't noticed, there were a lot of tries."
"Yeah, I noticed," I say before noticing Lydia crying. "You okay?"
"The only other Banshee I've ever met...and I think I might have just drove her over the edge." Lydia says looking guilty.
"Lydia, it wasn't your fault. I was there, too. And you're probably not the only..." I trail off when I realize something, "Hold on. Banshees predict death, right? So, what if the key is someone who isn't dead..."
"...but will be." Lydia finishes. She hovers her hands over the keyboard and closes her eyes. She allowed for her fingers to hit the keys that they needed to click. The name that she typed made my heart stop. The name on the screen was Atlantia and the worst part was that the key worked.