_
The nearly full moon was hanging high over the town of Beacon Hills as the Stilinski siblings were at home. Stiles, as usual, was in his bedroom looking for mischief to get into. He was always the first one to suggest a little bit of mischief.
His older brother had already given him several loving reminders that he was, in fact, an idiot for listening to a police scanner all night. A scanner that was tampered with to the extent of it picking up all 911 calls in Beacon County. Their father, who just so happened to be the sheriff, had no idea Stiles had done this. But there was no doubt that he would be far from thrilled if he were to find out.
The younger boy's response was no less sarcastic than usual, but it still elicited an eye roll from Parker. Asher, on the other hand, sat at the foot of her twin's bed and shook her head. The taste of trouble was addicting, creating an insatiable appetite that the oldest Stilinski sibling never understood. Maybe he never would, or maybe Asher and Stiles would one day have their brother just as wrapped up in the chaos that often followed in their wake.
She could feel her cell phone vibrating back to back in her back pocket, but she chose to ignore it. Part of her was wondering if listening to rationality would be a good idea, or if it was too late to change her mind. She knew that it was one of her friends calling, a friend that would likely try to talk her out of going with Stiles.
"You're not gonna answer it?" A voice questioned, earning an eye roll from the girl as she crossed one leg over the other.
"No."
"What if it was Isaac? I haven't heard much from him tonight."
Asher looked over at her best friend, who was seated next to her on her brother's bed as they all listened to the radio.
"His dad has him working late tonight, I think." she shrugged.
Harley shook his head, looking down at his lap sympathetically.
"One of these days he's gonna have your ass for doing stuff like this," Harley pointed out, quickly changing the subject as Stiles cranked up the volume. Parker nodded in agreement, hoping his younger brother would change his mind. For a moment, he thought about calling them all, along with himself, out. It wasn't uncommon for the three of them to stick their noses into things they had no business with when it came to their father. Most of the time Stiles was at the head of it all. Harley was just along for the ride, so much that he may as well have been a fourth sibling.
"Well, he hasn't found out yet—"
"Yet, Stiles, yet." she replied, a smirk befalling her glossy lips as she looked at her brother. Her phone vibrated again. Still, she left it alone.
"You say that like you're not involved, Harley." Stiles scoffed.
"I don't deny my involvement, the spying is just always your idea."
Stiles opened his mouth to speak when the static from his jerry-rigged police scanner cut him off.
"Beacon County Sheriff's Department, have a report of a body in the woods. Beacon Hills Preserve. Caller advised it looks to be a female in her mid to late twenties, caller also advised that only half of the body was found. Send out all available units. Time out seven fifty-eight."
The four of them all looked at one another, eyes wide with both terror and curiosity. Asher felt a quick sting in her fingers, as though she had been shocked by static electricity. She looked down at her hands and shook her head.
Weird, she thought.
It wasn't the first time.
The feeling lingered longer than she liked, though it filled her with a strange sense of familiarity and unease all at once. She looked at Stiles, and the look on his face told her that he had noticed her energy shift. She could tell that he felt it too.
She could recall this exact thing happening two other times earlier in the day, and several times throughout recent weeks. She figured that it was probably excess static from laundry, but she wasn't sure how something so mundane could go on this long and this frequent.
The dreams were getting bad, too.
She hadn't had nightmares since she was thirteen, since the passing of their mother when the twins were ten.
The dreams weren't memories like they used to be, she no longer saw her mother lying there in her final days over and over. These new dreams were of red eyes, unsettling growls, teeth sharper than anything she'd ever seen. She thought only children had dreams about monsters. Maybe the monsters she used to run from in her dreams had finally caught up her, taunting her and expecting her to run once more.
She was good at a few things, one of which being the act of pushing away unwanted thoughts. She didn't want to deal with potential causes, she wanted to ignore the problem until it eventually got bored of her and left.
So she ignored it, shaking off the thought and looking back at her twin as though nothing had happened.
Stiles shook his head and quickly returned to his normal self. He looked at his brother and sister with pure excitement in his eyes and ran a hand frantically over his buzzed hair and began to pace around the room.
"Call Scott, we have to go check this out!"
"Stiles, we have school tomorrow he's probably asleep." Parker pointed out, naively hoping he would let it go. They all knew Scott wasn't asleep, it was only eight and none of them were ever asleep before eleven.
The whole thing gave her a very weird feeling, one she couldn't place. Five minutes ago, she did not feel whatever it was she was now feeling. Whatever this new feeling was, it felt neither good or bad, that thought alone filled her with uneasy indifference. They had been planning to go out into the woods anyway—why was this new information suddenly making all of the hairs on the back of her neck stand up? They had shown up to plenty of crime scenes before the body bags were even zipped up. This was not new, nor was the morbid curiosity the twins and Harley had about nearly everything.
"At eight o'clock? He's definitely not asleep." Harley shook his head, jumping slightly when Asher said nothing, only resting her head on his shoulder.
She jumped when Harley tapped his index finger against her knee, a signal between the two of them. She was biting her lip again, so hard she'd drawn blood. And she hadn't even noticed. It was often a sign that she'd forgotten her medicine that morning.
"This is important—"
"Stiles," Parker warned, giving him a look that he knew all too well. If their father caught them they were in big trouble, not just for going out into the woods to look for half of a murder victim, but for listening to to a frequency they weren't meant to hear and for going out there alone.
Parker tried his hardest to keep Stiles and Asher from doing anything too crazy, but it wasn't easy and didn't always work out that way. Throwing himself into danger was never his first choice, it always ame down to hauling the twins away from danger.
He wa sure that his siblings just enjoyed the rush of doing the things they did, but it never made sense to him. He always assumed he was just wired differently than the twins, that everything they had gone through had just affected them in opposite ways.
Stiles shook his head, looking back at his sister pleadingly.
Parker couldn't tell what she was thinking, something that often scared him when it came to the twins. He hoped she would have the sense that Stiles did not in that moment. He knew better, though.
The girl shook her head, "I think you're insane, Mischief. But I'm in."
"What? No—"
"You idiots can't have a good feeling about this."
"Who does have a good feeling about looking for a dead body? We'd be heroes—"
"Jesus fucking Christ you've all lost it." Parker mumbled, "You won't be heroes—she's already dead!"
"We'll be fine," Stiles rolled his eyes.
"No! We don't know what killed this girl. A little bit of trouble is one thing. But this is a whole different ballpark. This could get you killed." Parker stated, looking at his siblings worriedly.
"The cops are out there, chances are whatever got her got the hell outta dodge quick. Probably dumped the body and ran." Harley shrugged.
Asher could tell that to him, it seemed like any other call about a dead body. Of course she was still going, but it didn't change the facts that were spelled out so clearly before them. It was California, people were killed over simple things and left for the cops to find all the time. In some cities, murder was a weekly occurrence. But Beacon Hills was not a big city like Los Angeles with a sky high crime rate. Beacon Hills was a small town that was only on the map for a handful of reasons, tucked away up north as though it was meant to be hidden.
That strange tingling came back as Asher let her brother's words sink in. He was right, this was obviously dangerous. It could have been an animal, which was very likely, but it also could have been a person. People aren't fast enough to vacate the preserve right after, unless she wasn't killed there. And animals don't usually rip someone in half and leave it there. Either way, person or animal, the killer could still be out there.
But she wasn't going to let the boys have all the fun.
"What could go wrong?" Parker's comment was sarcastic in every way possible, but Stiles took it and ran with it.
"Yeah, what could go wrong?" Stiles looked at his twin with his hands on his hips in a manner of pure sass, which seemed to be his usual state. Her curiosity now hid behind unease, but she couldn't deny that it was still there. She knew better, but she figured they would be alright. They always were. The police were out searching, surely a killer wouldn't stick around knowing they were already being hunted. And as much as it was a stupid idea, she wasn't going to let her twin go out there without her. They did nearly everything together, he had her there.
"A lot could go wrong, but it'll be fun."
Asher shot Harley a glare as she got up from her place on the bed and headed for the door.
"Ash," Stiles whined.
"Stiles," she whined back, shaking her head as she stopped and faced her twin. She pointed her finger at him, "Don't whine. I'm just gonna change out of my sweatpants."
She twirled her finger lightly as she fought the urge to laugh at the expression on his face, and as she did so, she felt that odd tingle again and his pile of books fell from his desk.
The boys looked at it curiously but looked back as though it hadn't happened, brushing it off as a draft.
Asher did not brush it off, but she also didn't have a better explanation for what had just occurred.
Only three days before, an entire drawer had fallen from her dresser. Before hat, she'd watched a glass crack while bickering with Stiles over his lack of athletic ability.
She wasn't sure what was going on.
Stiles grinned, "Yeah, yeah. Now let's go!"
She rolled her eyes as she crossed the hall to grab her shoes. She couldn't ignore the bad feeling she had about this, but she thought it was best to not speak on it.
Her phone buzzed again, but she still continued to ignore it.
Parker shook his head, planting his hands firmly on his hips as he stared down the three younger teens;
"You call me the second anything goes wrong. Are we clear?"
The three of them exchanged a look before looking back at the older boy.
"Don't give me that look. I'd rather you call me to come get your asses then have Dad catch you. Am I understood?" Parker watched as the three of them nodded quickly, all eager to drop the conversation.
Asher knew better than to go, she really did. Stiles and Harley were nothing if not the source of many awful ideas, yet she couldn't keep herself away. The three of them were always at the scene together—no matter what. She wasn't about to let her boys do this without her.
_
"The fact that you rigged up that scanner—"
"I get bored!" Stiles exclaimed defensively, one hand flying off the steering wheel and accidentally slapping himself in the face.
"That's what video games are for, Stiles. Most people have those scanners to listen for, like, fire department calls." she chimed in from the passenger seat, leaning her head against the window as they got closer to the McCall house.
"Video games are fun, Little Bit, but not as fun as being nosy." Harley grinned from the backseat.
The jeep slowed to a stop but not in Scott's driveway.
"This could be a really stupid idea."
Stiles only shrugged, "We're already out."
Asher looked over at her brother, an eyebrow raised inquisitively. She really wanted to argue, but she saw his point and she figured, why the hell not? They were already out, what was the worst that could happen? She knew there were a lot of worsts that could happen, and Stiles knew it too, but he didn't seem to care.
"We should scare him," the boy suggested, his eyes gleaming with pure mischief.
As much as Asher liked to pride herself on being the more level-headed twin, she loved a good thrill. Trouble seemed to follow her, things falling and things happening at the most inopportune times. She couldn't explain it. She felt different, though she figured it was just those jitters people get before a new semester. The same feeling often accompanied these occurrences, and she ignored it most of the time. For whatever reason, this time she could not ignore it. And the closer they got to their destination, the more the sting in her fingertips began to grow.
Harley was quick to urge her out of the Jeep, grinning like an idiot as Stiles looked inward towards the McCall home.
She shook her head, but still followed after her brother.
_
The moon and her stars were partially covered by the clouds as an eerie, almost ethereal glow.
Asher carefully balanced herself on the branch between Stiles and Harley, both grinning and snickering amongst themselves. Her converse did not appear to be nearly as appropriate as Harley's boots, though she was far more graceful than both boys combined. Despite her not-so appropriate choice in footwear, she was holding her own just fine while both boys wobbled a bit and struggled to hold themselves still.
When they heard the soft click of the door opening, Stiles quickly flashed his companions a thumbs up, signaling them that it was time.
Their bodies dropped down out of what seemed like nowhere, all hanging upside down.
Scott let out a scream and raised the bat, eliciting a scream out of one of the bodies that had appeared.
The bodies belonged to the Stilinski twins and Harley Lennox, Scott's usual company.
It had been Stiles that screamed.
"What the hell are you guys doing?" Scott screamed, the bat still raised.
"You weren't answering your phone!" Stiles told his best friend, as if his words were going to make three people hanging upside down from a tree branch in front of Scott's house seem like a normal occurrence.
"Why do you have a bat? Beacon doesn't even have a baseball team!" Asher asked before getting herself down from the branch in one quick maneuver. She'd gotten the grace, Stiles had not.
"I thought you were a predator!"
Asher had to hold back a laugh as she fixed her hair, using her reflection in Scott's front door to do so.
"A pred—" Stiles coughed, "Look, I know it's late but you gotta hear this. I saw our dad leave twenty minutes ago, dispatch called and they're bringing in every officer from the Beacon department and even state police."
"For what?" Scott asked cautiously. He knew better than to not be careful, their father was the sheriff and there was no telling what the three of them had overheard.
"Two joggers found a body in the woods." Stiles announced as he dropped down from the branch and tried to recollect his wits.
"A dead body?" Scott asked.
"No, a body of water. Yes, dumbass a dead body!" Stiles exclaimed, looking up at his friend impatiently.
"You mean like, murdered?"
"Nobody knows yet, just that it was a girl, probably in her twenties." Stiles explained, one hand on his hip as if it was a perfectly normal conversation to be having in the middle of the night.
"Wait, hold on if they found the body then what are they looking for?" Scott asked, shaking his head slightly.
The young girl rolled her eyes and looked at Scott, her eyes sparkling with moonlight and mischief as her twin's overall positive energy began to calm her unease. But it was Harley that spoke;
"That's the interesting part, Scotty. They only found half of the body."
Scott's eyes widened.
"We're goin'," Stiles stated smugly.
Scott couldn't believe he was going to do this.
Harley was grinning from ear to ear, as was the girl and Scott could only shake his head. These three caused him so much trouble on a regular basis, so much so he wondered how he still had any hair left. He wasn't sure how their other friends managed.
_
Stiles gripped the flashlight in his hand as though it was a lifeline as he led the charge through the woods, all keeping their eyes peeled. Harley adjusted the headlamp as he kept his pace steady next to Asher and Scott.
Heat burned her fingertips again, despite the chill in the air biting at her barely-covered arms.
She was sure that Southern California had to be much warmer this time of year, but January's icy grip remained tight on the northern part of the state—especially after dark. A tank top with only one of her brother's flannels was not the wisest clothing choice.
Scott's arm lightly brushed against hers, barely enough to even count as a touch. Static coursed through her skin suddenly, seemingly brought on by the sudden, light contact. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but this time it felt different. For some reason, she always felt static whenever someone touched her. This time didn't feel right, it felt like there was supposed to be something more that just hadn't come yet. Asher tried to shake off the weird feeling as they continued, but the feeling only seemed to be growing in intensity.
A sharp gasp from the girl stopped the boys dead in their tracks.
The twins both stumbled back, gripping their stomachs as though something had smacked into them with full force. Asher threw her arms out, searching for her brother as the invisible force hit yet again. It did not feel external, but rather internal. Like it had come from within herself.
They reached for each other, desperately trying to keep their bodies upright as everything began to spin around them.
Her vision blurred as Stiles tightened his grip, trying to hold her up as he struggled to keep his own wits about himself. He failed miserably as darkness consumed his vision as it had hers.
But when they could see again, it wasn't what was right in front of them. They could not see Harley and Scott, only a pair of eyes the color of fresh blood staring down at them.
But those eyes weren't entirely unfamiliar, no, Asher had seen them before. In fact, she had been seeing those eyes following her through the woods in her dreams for weeks.
It was over in seconds, the force that had seized them released its grip leaving the twins gasping for air and stumbling over their feet as a worried Scott and Harley grabbed for the twins to keep them from falling into the mud.
Asher could barely organize her thoughts as the sound of her heartbeat echoed like a kick drum in her ears, but they were all telling her the same thing;
Get the hell out of the woods.
Scott and Harley looked at the twins with worry painted on their dimly lit features.
"Guys...what the fuck was that?" Harley gasped, carefully adjusting his body as Asher stared up at him.
Them, it wants them.
Scott looked at Stiles, his eyes asking the same question.
"Seriously, are you alright?" Harley's tone dropped from afraid to calm and gentle as Asher pushed her body away from his.
She shook her head, feeling less dizzy and more like herself again, "I'm good, I'm good...just got a little dizzy is all. Must be the excitement, I guess."
Harley shook his head in disbelief, "That was not excitement. I don't know what it was, but that was not—"
"Drop it Harley!" Stiles snapped, shaking his head as he looked over at his sister. Seriousness was not something Stiles utilized often, but the rare occasions when he was—no one questioned it.
Scott and Harley dropped it, though their worry for the twins was still evident as the woods seemed to darken even more around them.
"We're good, we're good." Stiles sighed, hoping that his voice was convincing.
"Are you sure?" Scott asked.
The twins nodded.
"Do we need to leave?" Scott asked, eyeing the twins.
Stiles shrugged, "Probably but we made it this far."
Asher didn't like how enthusiastic he was despite what had just happened, something was very wrong. She could feel it. She knew that he could too.
Her phone buzzed yet again, but this time she looked at it. Her friends had sent her several texts over the last hour, none of which were showing up with her lack of signal. All she could see was their names. Asher figured it was just them wondering what she was doing.
Eli is probably bored, she thought.
_
They had been walking for what felt like hours, though it had only been twenty minutes give or take. It didn't take long for them to stumble upon the search for the other half of the girl.
The four teens had dropped to their bellies in the leaves as they watched the police, including the twins' father, search the woods.
If they got caught they were dead, their asses were toast.
But Stiles had other plans, he made a break for it leaving his sister and best friends calling after him.
"Stiles!"
There was no way they could catch up to him, not when Asher wasn't going to leave the severe asthmatic behind, nor was Harley going to leave Asher behind.
It all happened so fast, too fast. Stiles had gotten himself caught. Asher could only roll her eyes as she looked at the other two boys, hoping to avoid being caught themselves.
Harley grabbed Asher and pulled her behind a tree with him, holding her body against his chest so that they were both out of sight. Scott pushed himself behind a neighboring tree, doing the same to keep hidden.
"What about your usual partners in crime, huh? Ash, Harley, Scott? Or what about Eli or Rory? Isaac?"
Their father's voice carried through the silent woods as if he'd been speaking through a megaphone. Asher felt Harley suck in a sharp breath, holding it in to keep himself silent as flashlights shined directly between the trees covering the three teens.
Asher held her breath as she heard her father calling their names once more to see if they had accompanied Stiles since the boy was scarcely seen without his sister.
"Nope, just me. Alone. In the woods." Stiles drawled, hoping his father would believe him.
"Just you?" Sheriff Stilinski questioned.
"Yep. They're all being boring tonight since school starts back tomorrow. Ya know, a good night's sleep and all."
Asher rolled her eyes. Eli was probably asleep, or sitting up with her nose buried deep in a book. Isaac was working, as he often was, for his father at the cemetery. Rory had not spoken to her friends all day, so Asher had no idea what she could have been up to.
Asher began to wish that she stayed home, it probably would have brought forth a lot less trouble. But trouble may as well have been the twins' and Harley's middle name. Before, it had been all fun and games. Now it felt like a much darker game, one where they had unintentionally become prey for an invisible predator.
They remained still as Stiles once again assured his father that his siblings and friends were at home where they should have been.
Sheriff Stilinski escorted his son back to the jeep, leaving the other three teenagers out in the woods alone.
And as though the universe had decided it wasn't bad enough that they were out, it started to rain.
Asher immediately regretted leaving her jacket at home.
Scott saw her drenched shirt and knew she had to be cold so he took off his hoodie and held it out for her to take.
She shook her head, "Scott you need it—"
"And you're already soaked, just take it. I don't want you to be cold." Scott said quickly, raindrops catching on his eyelashes.
"If you don't take his I'll make you take mine, Ash." Harley sighed, pushing his wet blonde hair away from his eyes as he looked between Scott and Asher.
Scott McCall was truly one of the most beautiful people she had ever met, both inside and out. It was a shame Scott didn't see his own worth like his best friends did. Asher knew that only her friends would take the clothes off their backs for her with no hesitation, Scott usually being the first. He was a kind soul, one like none she had ever seen before. There were plenty of times she could recall his kindness going overlooked, unappreciated. She hoped Scott knew that she saw it all, and appreciated every shred of kindness he showed her.
She took the jacket and mumbled a thank you to the boy as she zipped it up. It swallowed her small body whole, but it was warmer than her own wet clothes.
Suddenly a massive stampede of deer came out of the woods headed right for the three teens, sending them falling down into the leaves. The two boys threw themselves on top of her as the deer thundered around and over top of them.
The air around them seemed to thicken with unease, the atmosphere ripe with fear as the three of them awaited the unknown.
Her heart was pounding in her chest, so was Scott's. She could practically feel it though his t-shirt. Harley was holding on to her and Scott for dear life, their bodies the only things he could recognize as fear consumed them.
Asher felt that same tingling again, but she knew it was more than an adrenaline rush the girl was feeling. Something told her that the little episode she'd endured earlier wasn't her imagination or a violent daydream. There was something in these woods, those deer were afraid. Terrified. And it was coming.
The tingling turned to a dull burn as the deer continued to surge past them, the very last ones stopping in front of the girl as she sat up. Its eyes were level with her own as the frightened animal sniffed at her face before running away all together.
Those deer weren't spooked for no reason. She could feel the right fear still, even with the deer now being out of sight. They were running from something.
And it was close.
They scrambled to their feet, and Scott immediately began to search for his inhaler. He must have dropped it in the chaos.
She ignored her brain screaming to get the hell out as her eyes darted around the new, dark area they found themselves in.
It would be on them any second, she could feel it.
The burning grew stronger as she stood next to the boys, her eyes searching the darkness for whatever was headed their way.
She heard a branch snap ahead, only mere feet from where they stood.
No time. It's here.
She looked at her friends with wide eyes, her voice barely above a whisper as she said;
"It's here."
But Scott was not looking at her, instead he was crouched over looking in the leaves. Then he screamed, telling her that it was not his inhaler that he'd found.
He went tumbling down a little hill and she took off after him, not giving the top half of a dead girl a second thought as she ran for her friend. Harley took off right behind her, calling out their names as he tried not to lose sight of them.
By the time they reached Scott he was back on his feet.
That was when she heard it.
It's following us, she realized. It had been circling, watching.
Something was growling.
The low, guttural sound seemed to penetrate her bones the closer it got.
It was familiar, so agonizingly familiar that it made her feel sick.
Even from behind Scott she could see its red eyes, the same eyes she'd seen earlier and the same eyes she'd been dreaming about for weeks now.
Harley's chest ached at the sight of it. It was unlike anything he'd ever seen before, and as he looked to his best friend he realized that she'd seen it before. It was all over her face. It was fear, it was recognition, it was uncertainty.
"Asher run!" Scott screamed, not looking away from the thing as it stared them down.
"I'll run if you run." she said, her voice shaking and hardly above a whisper. Asher may have been terrified, but her loyalty and her stubbornness were winning that battle. She wasn't leaving Scott or Harley, never.
"Asher I said—"
"And I don't give a shit, if I go you're going with me." she snapped back, not taking her eyes off of the monster looming ahead of them.
It was hunched on all fours, it looked like a wolf, but the kind of wolf twisted by nightmares. It was in every way a monster and certainly not the native wildlife found in northern California.
It growled again, and this time they could have sworn they heard it say something.
Harley yanked his friends back and tried to get them to start running.
Then it launched itself at them, making them scream in pure terror as they tried to run. But it was fast, dangerously fast.
It grabbed Scott, snatching him to his feet and dragging him.
Asher screamed for him, her face hot and slick with tears and she cried out for help that wouldn't come.
It bit into his side, making Asher cry out again. Its focus shifted from Scott to Harley, who was staring up in horror as the creature approached him.
"No!" The girl cried, watching as it grabbed Harley in the same way it had Scott—taking a bite of him in the same spot.
"Get away from him!" she cried, her voice shaking with fear and rage, making for a volatile combination. Asher lunged forward, ignoring the boys' cries for her to stay back. The beast looked at her, its eyes narrowing with intense focus as he tried to take a step forward. She threw her hands out for Scott and Harley, watching in disbelief as the creature was thrown back by something they could not see, nor did they care to see. Asher grabbed their hands and pulled them both to their feet, not taking their eyes off the monster that had attacked them.
It let out another loud growl, its words being more clear this time than the first.
Asher looked away, its voice echoing in the back of her mind as she shoved the boys in the opposite direction and urged them to start running.
Asher didn't want to look back at it, she didn't have to see it to know it was looking at her.
And they ran. They ran until they found their way out of the woods and onto the road, where an SUV nearly hit the three of them. It swerved and missed them, leaving them panting and cold in the rain, still riddled with terror and confusion.
Asher looked down at her now blood-stained clothes, the blood that was not her own, and back at the car as it drove off.
The three of them turned back to face the woods, finding no sign of the monster that had just attacked them Asher knew better than to think they had simply outrun it. It had just chosen to let them go.
None of them said a word, but they shared the same thought;
What the hell just happened?
Asher fumbled to pull her phone out of her pocket, shocked that it hadn't fallen out and gotten lost, and saw clear as day the twelve texts from Rory all saying the same thing;
Don't go out tonight. It's not safe.
She looked up to see her brother's Jeep coming to a stop in front of them, fear present in Stiles's eyes as he took in the sight of them.
"I came as fast as I could."
_
Asher and Harley remained silent as they entered the house, both beginning to feel the ache and fatigue that was surely plaguing Scott as well.
Harley stayed silent as Asher gathered the first aid supplies kept in her bathroom, quickly busying herself with tending to the bite on the boy's side.
He winced as she cleaned it, but did not stop her.
They said nothing to each other as he retreated to the guest room for the night, where he usually slept when his mother worked overnight at the hospital.
Asher made sure her window was locked before shutting her bedroom door. She shrugged off Scott's wet blood soaked jacket and dropped it onto the floor next to her bed. She turned to the mirror, taking in the mere sight of herself.
She clawed at the wet, muddy clothes sticking to her body, staining the skin underneath with her friends' blood.
The maroon stains on her bare skin made her feel sick to her stomach. She tore her gaze away from her reflection in the mirror, ignoring the creature's voice still echoing in her mind, and stepped into her bathroom.
She turned the hot water on, watching as steam filled the room and letting the humidity cover her skin like a blanket.
She shook her head, her damp hair clinging to her neck and face as she stepped into the tub. She sat down, drawing her knees into her chest.
Her entire world had changed in a single night, she could feel it. It was hanging over her like a dark cloud—nothing would ever be the same again.
_