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xx. THE MURDER OF ONE
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IT WAS DARK, and very cold.
Her eyelids fluttered and opened and that took care of the darkness. As for the cold...she was bone-cold, freezing, chilled to the marrow. And no wonder; one of the windows beside her was open.
Somewhere, deep down, she knew it was more than that.
What had happened? She'd been at home, asleep—no, she'd been at someone's house, or, had she'd been at someone else's? She tried to place names to face but she couldn't remember them. Who were they? One had thick dark hair; which the wind would churn into a tumbled sea of waves. He was slightly taller than the other and had darker skin. The other had a shock of dark hair as well, but his was fine and straight, almost like the pelt of an animal. He was leaner and paler than the first.
It was too much to cope with; she couldn't think. Disembodied faces floated before her eyes, fragments of sentences sounded in her ears. She was very confused. She began assembling information about where she was, piece by piece. Somebody's attic from the looks of it. What was she doing here? Who had brought her here? Where was here? Who was she?
Rats or mice were scuffling somewhere among the piles of oilcloth-draped objects, but the sound didn't bother her. The faintest trace of pale light showed around the edges of the shuttered window—adjacent to the open one. She pushed her makeshift blanket off and got up to investigate.
It was definitely someone's attic, and not that of anyone she knew. She felt as if she had been sick for a long time and had just woken up from her illness. What day is it? she wondered. She could hear voices below her. Downstairs. Something told her to be careful and quiet. She felt afraid of making any kind of disturbance. She eased the attic door open without a sound and cautiously descended to the landing. Looking down, she could see a living room. She didn't recognize it.
And a man was down there; she could see the top of his sandy head. His voice puzzled her. "The man might be anywhere, even right under out noses. More likely outside town, though. Maybe in the woods."
"Why would he cause the accident just to pull her out of the car?" asked the other man. Is that Sheriff Stilinski? she thought. Who was he? What's he doing here? What am I doing here?
"No, I think it's more than that," the man was saying. Stilinski was listening to him with respect, even with deference. "Whoever pulled her out did it for their own purposes, but they certainly hadn't called the police after they did so, either. Maybe they're the one that caused the accident, or maybe not—we need to find out who pulled Carter out of the water and why they fled."
Is that who I am? she thought. Carter?
"Parrish, are you sure their intentions were more than just pulling her body from the wreckage?" Sheriff Stilinski said.
Jordan, a voice in her mind whispered and, for some unknown reason, she wanted to scream out to him—tell him that she was all right, but something kept telling her to stay hidden and quiet. She didn't want to be seen...she couldn't be seen.
"I'm sure," Jordan said briefly. "That water was below 60 degrees that night, whoever dove in to pull her out would've suffered from hypothermia."
Stilinski arched a brow at the young deputy, fingering through his theory with a fine-tooth comb. "Are you saying that you believe it was someone not entirely human?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying." Jordan said quietly and grimly. He shut the book he was holding and dropped it on the coffee table with a disturbingly conclusive sound.
The Sheriff glanced at his watch. "I'd better get moving; the service starts at ten o'clock. I presume you'll be there?" He paused on his way to the door and looked back, his manner irresolute. "Parrish, I hope you can handle this."
"I can take care of it, Sheriff. I told you; leave it to me. Would you rather have Beacon Hills in all the papers, not just as the scene of a tragedy but also as the town where a body was literally stolen from the morgue? A gathering place for werewolves? The town where the undead walk? Is that the kind of publicity you want?"
Sheriff Stilinski hesitated, chewing his lip, then nodded, still looking unhappy. "All right, Parrish. But make it quick and quiet. We do not want this getting out to the public—especially about Carter's body being missing. I'll see you at the church."
Jordan stood there for some time after the Sheriff left, apparently staring into space. At last he nodded once and went out the front door himself.
Carter slowly trailed back up the stairs. Now what had all that been about? She felt confused, as if she were floating loose in time and space. She needed to know what day it was, why she was here, and why she felt so frightened. Why she felt so intensely that no one must see her or hear her or notice her at all.
Looking around the attic, she saw nothing that would give her any help. Where she had been lying there were only the mattress and the oil-cloth and a little green book. She reached out, flipping open the front cover. On the pages were a male's handwriting; someone had written about her life and left it here for when she woke up—whoever brought her here wanted her to remember. It was as if they knew that when she awoke she wouldn't remember anything about her life; her friends; or who she even was...
When she finished reading, she was weak with fear and horror. Bright spots danced and shimmered before her eyes. There was so much pain in these pages. So many secrets, so much need, so much hatred, so much agony. It was the story of a girl who'd felt lost in her own hometown, who'd lost faith in her own family. Who'd been looking for...something, something she could never quite reach. But that wasn't what caused this throbbing panic in her chest that drained all the energy from her body. That wasn't why she felt as if she were falling even when she sat as still as she could get.
What caused the panic was that she remembered.
She remembered everything now.
The bridge, the rushing water. The terror as the air left her lungs and there was nothing but inky liquid to breathe. The way it had burned her chest—constricted throat and the way her head pounded at the lack of oxygen. The way her animalistic instincts tried to force her to fight against the water. And the final instant when it had stopped hurting, when her heart stopped pumping, when everything had stopped. When everything...stopped.
Oh, Scott—Stiles, I was so frightened, she thought. And the same fear was inside her now. A mere hour ago, how could she have forgotten them, everything they meant to her? What had made her act that way? Why hadn't she remembered them until she read about them in that journal?
But she knew. At the center of her consciousness, she knew. Nobody got up and walked away from a crash like that. Nobody busted out of a submerged car. Nobody survived a drowning like that. Nobody got up and walked away alive. Slowly, she rose and went to look at the shuttered window. The darkened pane of glass acted as a mirror, throwing her reflection back at her.
It was not the reflection she'd seen in her dream, where she had run down a hall of mirrors that seemed to have a life of their own. There was nothing sly or cruel about this face. Just the same, it was subtly different from what she was used to seeing. There was a pale glow to her skin and a telling hollowness about the eyes. Her face was paler than before but eerily beautiful, like fine porcelain lit from within. Her eyes were smudged with shadows, but there was a resolve in them. Carter touched fingertips to her neck, on either side. This was where Deucalion and Scott had sunk their fangs into her neck, but there were no remnants of the pain she used to feel whenever she touched the invisible wounds with a certain amount of pressure.
Was she like Raeven, now? She must've been. And now, for the rest of her like, for the rest of her existence, she would have to feed as Raeven did. She would have to...
She sank to her knees, pressing her forehead against the wood of a wall. I can't, she thought. Oh, please, be wrong. I can't be what she is; I can't.
She had never been very religious. But from that deep place inside, her terror was welling up, and every particle of her being joined in the cry for aid. Oh, please, she thought. Oh, please, please, help me. She didn't ask for anything specific; she couldn't gather her thoughts that far. Only: Oh, please, help me, oh, please, please...
She had to find Stiles and Scott. If there was any help for her, they would know of it. And if there wasn't...well, she needed them all the more. There was nowhere else she wanted to be except with them. She shut the door to the attic carefully behind her as she went out. Whoever lived in that house mustn't discover her hiding place. On the wall, she saw a calendar with the days up to March 28th crossed off. Four days since the accident. She'd slept for four days—or had she been dead for four days?
When she reached the front door, she cringed from the daylight outside. It hurt. Even though the sky was so overcast that rain looked imminent, it hurt her eyes. She had to force herself to leave the safety of the house, and then she felt a gnawing paranoia about being out in the open. She slunk along beside fences, staying close to trees, ready to melt into the shadows. She felt like a shadow herself—or a ghost. She would certainly frighten the wits out of anyone who saw her.
But all her circumspection seemed to be wasted. There was no one on the streets to see her; the town might have been abandoned. She went by seemingly deserted houses, forsaken yards, closed stores. Presently she saw parked cars lining the street, but they were empty, too.
And then she saw a shape against the sky that stopped her in her tracks. A steeple, white against the thick dark clouds. Carter's legs trembled as she made herself creep closer to the building. She'd known this church all her life; she'd seen the cross inscribed on that wall a thousand times before the fire. But now she edged toward it as if it were a caged animal that might break loose and bite her. She pressed one hand to the stone wall and slid it nearer and nearer to the carved symbol.
When her outspread fingers touched the arm of the cross, her eyes filled and her throat ached. She let her hand glide along it until it gently covered the engraving. Then she leaned against the wall and let the tears come. I'm not evil, she thought. I did things I shouldn't have. I cheated on my boyfriend with his best friend; I never thanked Derek for all he did for me over the years. I should have spent more time with Allison and been nicer to Malia. But I'm not evil. I'm not damned—I realize that now.
When she could see again, she looked up at the building. Sheriff Stilinski had said something about the church. Was it this one he meant? She avoided the front of the church and the main doorway. There was a side door that led to the choir loft, and she slipped up the stairs noiselessly and looked down from the gallery.
She saw at once why the streets had been so empty. It seemed as if everyone in Beacon Hills was here, every seat in every pew filled, and the back of the church packed solid with people standing. Staring at the front rows, Carter realized that she recognized every face; they were members of the junior class, and neighbors, and old family friends. Derek was there, too, wearing the black dress shirt she had bought him a few months back before he left with Braeden; before she died.
"...share our remembrances of this very special girl," he said, and he moved aside.
Carter watched what happened after with the unearthly feeling that she had a loge seat at a play. She was not at all involved in the events down there on stage; she was only a spectator, but it was her life she was watching.
Mr. Elliot came up and talked about her. The Elliots had known her since she was born, and he talked about the days she and their children had played in their front yard in the summer. He talked about the beautiful and strong young lady she had become. He got a frog in his throat and had to stop and take off his glasses.
Margaret Elliot went up. She and Carter hadn't been close friends since the fire, but they'd remained on good terms when she returned. "A lot of people weren't nice or welcoming to Carter when she returned to Beacon Hills after her family's death," she said, wiping her eyes and going on. "And I know that hurt her. But Carter was so strong. She never changed just to conform to what other people thought. And I respected her for that, so much..." Margaret's voice wobbled. "And I think she will always be remembered; and I think for years to come the girls who will go to our school might remember her and think about how she stuck by what she thought was right..." This time Margaret couldn't steady her voice and the reverend helped her back to her seat.
The girls in the junior class, even the ones that had been nastiest and most spiteful, were crying and holding hands. Girls Carter knew for a fact hated her were sniffling. Suddenly she was everybody's best friend. There were boys crying, too. Shocked, Carter huddled closer to the railing. She couldn't stop watching, even though it was the most horrible thing she had ever seen.
"She went out of her way to be nice to me..."
"I always admired her..."
"One of my favorite students..."
It was the same with each person who went up to the pulpit; no one could find enough words to praise Carter.
When Lydia rose, Carter's whole body stiffened. She didn't know if she could deal with this. But the strawberry-blonde girl was one of the few people in the church who wasn't crying, although her face had a grave, sad look.
"When I think about Carter, I think about the good times we had together," she said, speaking quietly and with her customary self-control. "Carter always had ideas, and she could make the most boring things into something fun. I never told her that, and now I wish I had. I wish that I could talk to her one more time, just so she would know. And if Carter could hear me now—" Lydia looked around the church and drew a long breath, apparently to calm herself "—if she could hear me now, I would tell her how much those good times meant to me, and how much I wish that we could still have them. Like the Thursday nights we used to sit together in her room, studying for AP Physics. I wish we could do that just once more like we used to." Lydia took another long breath and shook her head. "But I know we can't, and that hurts."
What are you talking about? Carter thought, her misery interrupted by bewilderment. We used to study for AP Physics on Wednesday nights, not Thursday. And it wasn't in my bedroom; it was in yours. And it was no fun at all; in fact, we ended up always quitting about half-way through the chapter...
Suddenly, watching Lydia's carefully composed face, so calm on the outside to conceal the tension within, Carter felt her heart begin to pound. Lydia Martin was sending a message, a message only Carter could be expected to understand. Which meant that Lydia half-expected Carter to be able to hear it—or, at least hoped she'd be able to hear it.
Lydia knew.
Did she have a Banshee feeling, or whatever? No, it didn't seem likely that Lydia would choose this way of getting a message to her if she had. Then Carter remembered the way Lydia had looked at her the night they had returned from Mexico the first time. She remembered those keen pale-green eyes studying her face more than once in the last months, and the way Lydia had seemed to grow quieter and more thoughtful each time Carter folded in on herself—losing herself in her thoughts and plans.
Lydia had guessed then. Carter wondered how much of the truth of her plan Lydia'd put together.
The Banshee tilted her head back to look at the ceiling, either to regain her poise or to get inspiration for more words. As she did, Carter saw something that no one else could see: she saw Lydia's face drain of color and of expression, not like somebody about to faint, but in a way that was all too familiar.
A chill crawled up Carter's backbone. Not here. Oh, God, of all times and places. Not here.
But it was already happening. Lydia's chin had lowered; she was looking at the congregation again. Except this time she didn't see them at all, and the voice that came from Lydia's throat was spine-chilling.
"At night she walks alone, she's close to getting what she wants. To ending it all." Then she just stood there, unmoving, staring straight ahead with blank eyes.
People began to shuffle and look at one another. There was a murmur of worry.
"At night she walks—night—close to ending it all..." Lydia swayed suddenly, and Sheriff Stilinski ran to her while another man hastened up from the other side. The second man had a bald head that was now shining with sweat. And there at the back of the church, striding up the nave, was Jordan Parrish. He reached Lydia just as she fainted, and Carter heard a step behind her on the stair.
Carter's thoughts went wild, trying to twist around to look and simultaneously press herself into the shadows. She was met with a face with features as fine as those on a Roman coin or medallion, and haunted green eyes. Time caught for a moment, and then Carter was in his arms.
"Oh, Malakai. Malakai..."
She felt his body go still with shock. He was holding her mechanically, lightly, as if she were a stranger who'd mistaken him for someone else.
"Mal," she said desperately, burrowing her face into his shoulder, trying to get some response. She couldn't bear it if he rejected her; with everything else that was happening, she didn't know if she could handle it. With a moan, she tried to get closer to him, wanting to merge with him completely, to disappear inside him.
"Caterina. Carter, it's all right; I've got you." He went on talking to her, repeating silly nonsense meant to soothe, stroking her hair. And she could feel the change as his arms tightened around her. He knew who he was holding now. For the first time since she'd awaken that day, she felt safe. Still, it was a long while before she could relax her grip on him even slightly. She wasn't crying; she was gasping in panic.
At last she felt the world start to settle into place around her. She didn't let go, though, not yet. She simply stood for endless minutes with her head on his shoulder, drinking in the comfort and security of his nearness. Then she raised her head to look into his eyes and she felt a strange despairing resignation flow through her.
"Wait, you're really here, aren't you?" She asked very softly. "I'm not dreaming or hallucinating you, am I?"
He didn't pretend to misunderstand. "No," he said, equally softly.
She looked back down to the townspeople below for a moment before meeting his eyes once more. "They all think I'm dead, Malakai. And earlier, when I woke up in that attic, I heard the Sheriff tell Jordan that someone had pulled my body out of the quarry." She said, but realization quickly dawned on her. "That was you, wasn't it?"
"Yeah," his voice shook. "I was the one that drug your body out of the water." She gave him a puzzled look. "Come on, Carter, you told me the details of your plan the moment you thought of them. If I hadn't pulled you out, then nobody would've ever known you were even down there."
"Why wouldn't they know I was down there?"
Malakai pulled her closer, "Because your car was completely submerged and the damage to the guardrail would've been blamed on the storm. If I hadn't done what I did, you would still be at the bottom of that quarry. And none of this—" he gestured to the congregation below "—would be taking place."
She swallowed thickly. "I can never come back here, can I?"
"I'm sorry, my little firecracker," Malakai whispered, kissing the top of her head. "The chances of people seeing you are too high, and we can't take that risk."
Carter moved to the railing, looking back down at the congregation. Her dark eyes searching for the faces of her friends. "I'm going to miss them."
"They'll bury you, mourn you—and move on."
Carter moved away from Malakai; she felt that she had to think, but her head was pounding. She reached the wall behind the last row of seats and put a hand against it, sliding down to sit on the floor. Things seemed all at once confused and frighteningly clear. Something strange and dangerous was coming to Beacon Hills. Looking down on the memorial service, she had begun to think perhaps she couldn't leave.
She felt somehow responsible for the town, in a way she had never felt before.
Her earlier sense of desolation and loneliness had been pushed aside for the moment. There was something more important than her own problems now. And she clung to that something, because the truth was that she really couldn't deal with her own situation, no, she really, really couldn't...
She turned to Malakai. "Don't you feel it? There's something else here in Beacon Hills. I mean, something chased me, forced my car off the bridge." Malakai raised a brow at her. "I know—I know driving off Dead Man's Bridge had been apart of my plan, but that night, it wasn't me. Some terrible force that's here. I know what it is, but my memories are still a little hazy, I can't put my finger on it—something evil..." her voice trailed off, and she looked over toward the interior of the church where she had seen Lydia lying. "Something evil..." she repeatedly softly. A cold wind seemed to blow inside her, and she huddled into herself, feeling vulnerable and alone.
"If you're looking for evil," Malakai said harshly, "you don't have to look far, because The Doctors are here in Beacon Hills. And if I'm hearing you correctly, four days ago they killed you."
Carter hadn't been able to help the shudder that tore through her when he said killed. I can't have been killed; I'm still here, she thought wildly, feeling panic swell up in her again.
"Mal, I don't think we can leave," she said. "Whatever they are, they're strong. I felt it when they were after me, and it seemed to fill the whole sky. I don't think any of my friends—or us—would stand a chance against them alone."
"So?"
"So..." Carter hadn't had time to gather her thoughts this far. She was running purely on instinct, on intuition. And intuition told her not to leave. "So...I think the two of us should stick together. I think we have a much better chance of finding them and dealing with it together rather than separately. And if it comes down to it, we tell Scott and the others—and maybe, just maybe, we can stop them before it hurts or-or kills anyone else."
A part of her was saying that the town did matter and because still another part was just terribly, terribly confused. So confused...she felt a trembling begin deep inside her, and then she found she couldn't make it stop. Emotional overload, she thought, and put her head in her hands.
Carter could see the reluctance on Malakai's face—he didn't want to risk her safety by staying in Beacon Hills—she understood that much. She reached for Malakai's hand, searching for some way to get through to him. She stared down at their joined hands, looking at the planes and curves and shadows. Neither of them spoke for a minute, and when she did it was very quietly.
"Malakai, tell me what you're thinking."
"Right now," He began. "I'm thinking that you always get your way. Because you always do, don't you, Carter?"
She looked into his eyes, noticing how the pupils were dilated, so that only a ring of green iris showed around the edge. There was no longer reluctance there, but the tiredness and sadness remained.
But I'm not just doing it for myself, she thought, thrusting out of her mind the sudden surge of self-doubt. I'll prove that to you, Malakai; you'll see.
"At night she walks alone, she's close to getting what she wants. To ending it all," Carter said.
"What?"
"That's what Lydia said during the memorial service. She had—uh, a Banshee moment, I guess. I think it might be important." She tried to put her thoughts in order.
"I think there are people in town that we ought to look out for. Like Raeven." Malakai told her, knowing that the doppelgänger wasn't all as she appeared to be. "She's not was she seems, Carter, but I don't know exactly what she is. I think we should watch her. And since you obviously can't appear in public, I'm going to have to do it—" Malakai broke off as Carter held up a hand swiftly.
"She's over five-hundred years old," Carter said. "You'll have to be extremely careful—she's easily rattled. You can't let her suspect you."
Down at the base of the stairs, a voice was calling. "Is someone up there?" And then, to someone else. "I thought I saw someone go up there."
"Go," Carter hissed almost inaudibly to Malakai. "You have to be as normal as possible so you can stay here in Beacon Hills. I'll be all right."
"But where will you go?"
"I-I don't know, just go on."
Malakai hesitated, and then started down the stairs, calling, "I'm coming."
Carter finally had time to think as she sat there in the deserted choir loft, while below the people left the church and outside the overcast skies slowly grew darker. She thought about Stiles, and about Scott, and she wondered if she had made the right choice.
When the sky outside was uniformly black, she ventured down the stairs. The church was empty and echoing. She hadn't thought about how she would get out, but fortunately the side door was bolted only from the inside. She slipped out into the night gratefully. She hadn't realized how good it was to be outside and in the dark. Being inside buildings made her feel trapped, and daylight hurt her eyes. Her own senses rejoiced at the lush world around her. With the air so still, scents hung in the air for a long time, and she could smell a whole plethora of nocturnal creatures.
She found it wasn't hard to get to Lydia's house undetected; people seemed to be staying inside. But once she got there, she stood looking up at the graceful mansion she, herself, used to party at. She couldn't just walk up to the front door and knock. Was Lydia really expecting her? Wouldn't she be waiting outside if she were?
Lydia was about to get a terrible shock if she weren't, Carter reflected, eyeing the distance to the roof of the porch. Lydia's bedroom window was above it and just around the corner. It would be a bit of a reach, but Carter thought she could make it.
Getting onto the roof was easy; her fingers and bare toes found holds between the stones and sent her sailing up. But leaning around the corner to look into Lydia's window was a strain. She blinked against the light that flooded out. Lydia was sitting on the edge of her bed, elbows on knees, staring at nothing. Every so often she ran a hand through her strawberry-blonde hair.
Carter tapped on the window glass with her fingernails.
Lydia jumped and looked the wrong way, toward the door. She stood up in a defensive crouch, clutching a throw pillow in one hand. When the door didn't open, she sidled a pace or two toward it, still in a defensive posture. "Who is it?" she said.
Carter tapped on the glass again.
Lydia spun to face the window, her breath coming fast.
"Lydia, let me in," Carter said. "Open the window."
Lydia, panting, looked around the room as if she expected someone to appear and help her. When no one did, she approached the window as if it were a dangerous animal. But she didn't open it.
"Let me in," Carter said again. Then she added impatiently, "If you didn't want me to come, why did you make an appointment with me? The memorial service? I know you were trying to contact me."
She saw the change as Lydia's shoulders relaxed slightly. Slowly, with fingers that were unusually clumsy, Lydia opened the window and stood back. When Carter, wincing, had boosted herself over the sill and was flexing her cramped fingers, Lydia added almost dazedly, "It's got to be you. Nobody else gives orders like that."
"It's me," Carter said, stopped wringing out the cramps and looked into the eyes of her best friend. "It really is me, Lydia."
Lydia nodded and swallowed visibly before throwing her arms around Carter's next. Lydia slammed into her so hard that the force would have hurled her to the ground if Carter's arms hadn't caught her and held her up. It knocked the breath out of both girls—their arms locked tightly around one another. Lydia inhaled deeply, breathing in Carter; studying it to make sure she was real.
"Sit down," Lydia said in an artificially calm voice as they separated, backing slowly away to sit on the bed again.
Carter pulled out the stool at Lydia's vanity and unthinkably took up the same position the Banshee had been in before, elbows on knees, head down. Then she looked up. "How did you know?"
"I..." Lydia just stared at her for a moment, then shook herself. "Well. You—your body went missing from the morgue, of course. That was strange. And then...I had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that you weren't really dead. I had hoped I was right, but, I didn't know. Not for sure. Not until now." She ended almost in a whisper.
"Well, it was a good guess," Carter replied. She was trying to behave normally, but what was normal in this situation? Lydia was acting as if she could scarcely bear to look at her. It made Carter feel more lonely, more alone, than she could ever remember being in her life.
And then, the doorbell rang.
"I asked Logan to come over at seven o'clock, if his mother would let him. It's probably him. I'll go see." Lydia seemed almost indecently eager to get away.
"Wait—does he know?"
"No...oh, you mean I should break it to him gently." Lydia looked around the room again uncertainly, and Carter snapped on the little reading light by the bed.
"Turn the room light off. It hurts my eyes anyway," she said quietly. When Lydia did, the bedroom was dim enough that she could conceal herself in the shadows.
Waiting for Lydia to return with Logan, she stood in a corner, hugging her elbows with her hands. Maybe it was a bad idea trying to get Lydia and Logan involved. If imperturbable Lydia couldn't handle the situation, what would Logan do?
Lydia heralded their arrival by muttering over and over, "Don't scream now; don't scream," as she bundled Logan across the threshold.
"What's wrong with you? What are you doing?" Logan was gasping in return. "Let go of me. Do you know what I had to do to get my mother to let me out of the house tonight?"
Lydia kicked the door shut. "Okay," she said to Logan. "Now, you're going to see something that will...well, it's going to be a shock. But you can't scream, do you understand me? I'll let go of you if you promise."
"It's too dark to see anything, and you're kinda freaking me out. What's wrong with you, Lydia? Oh, all right, I promise, but what are you talking—"
"Carter," Lydia called. Carter took it as an invitation and stepped forward.
Logan's reaction wasn't what she expected. He frowned and leaned forward, peering in the dim light. When he saw Carter's form, he gasped. But then, as he stared at Carter's face, he almost shouted in joy.
"I knew it! I knew they were wrong! I mean—I saw your body, but then it went miss. And somehow, I knew! Oh, Carter, I missed you!"
"Be quiet, Logan! Be quiet!" Lydia said urgently. "I told you not to scream. Listen, you idiot, do you think if Carter were really all right she'd be here in the middle of the night without anybody knowing about it?"
"But she is all right; look at her. She's standing there. It is you, isn't it, Carter? You're not Raeven posing as Carter, right? Because that would be a really fucked up thing to do." Logan started toward her, but Lydia grabbed him again.
"Yeah, it's me," Carter had the strange feeling she's wandered into a surreal comedy, only she didn't know her lines. She didn't know what to say to Logan, who was looking rapturous.
Logan yanked himself away from Lydia and precipitated himself into Carter's arm. The tears that wouldn't come when Carter had been with Malakai came now. She cried, holding on to Logan, feeling Lydia's arm go around both of them. They were all crying—Lydia silently, Logan nosily, and Carter herself with passionate intensity. She felt as if she were crying for everything that had happened to her, for everything she had lost, for all the loneliness and the fear and the pain.
Eventually, they all ended up sitting on the floor, knee to knee.
"You're so strong, Car," Logan said to Carter, rubbing the tears off the girl's cheeks with his thumbs. "I don't see how you can be so strong about everything that has happened to you."
"Your hands aren't cold, either," Lydia squeezed Carter's fingers. "Just sort of cool. I half expected them to be freezing—or, hot like they normally are."
"You guys know that you can't tell the others, right?"
Lydia and Logan looked at her, then looked at one another before nodding.
Carter felt as if she had taken some final step over an invisible line and that there was no returning.
SIX MONTHS LATER
The four boys were parked in the Preserve; sitting in the black with the quiet forest surrounding them. Scott and Stiles used to just sit idle in the forest—before everything went wrong—the way they did when it was just the two of them, just for enjoyment, just for the feel of the wind in their hair. It was the kind of thing that, during less anxious times, would have made them happy.
The powder-blue vehicle was parked just a few yards away from the look-out point that overviewed the entire town. The rattling of the chains that bound Liam to the thick tree echoed through the wide space now and then as he tugged against them. Scott turned back to look over at him; it took him a minute, because it was so dark with the moon partly hidden by clouds, but he realized that Stiles was still standing beside the young werewolf.
The Beacon Hills Preserve was the same place that him and Stiles had gone out to search for the dead-half-body at the beginning of their sophomore year. It was the same place that they had held the secrets of the Nemeton—a place that reminded him so much of her. It felt strange to be here again—as if this gathering wouldn't be complete until Carter joined them. But Carter Hale was never coming back. Ever since she had returned to Beacon Hills, the three of them had spent so much time together that it felt wrong to be there without her. That familiar pattern wouldn't be repeated. Maybe all the patterns were broken.
Yes, someone had broken out of their pattern. Carter had always seemed like a force of nature to him—like a tornado moving across the land—unpredictable, dangerous, but naturally alluring.
"Things can be just like they were before," Logan said warmly, reaching out to squeeze Scott's forearm, who was perched on the top of Stiles' Jeep.
But it wasn't true. Nothing could ever be the way it had been before Carter died. Nothing. And Scott had serious misgivings about the Senior Scribe they were all going to tonight. A vague nagging in the pit of his stomach told him that for some reason it was a very, very bad idea.
"We don't have to go," Scott pointed out. "It's not like we're missing anything important."
"Come on, Scott—just think how celebratory it will be."
Scott shook his head, his jaw muscles tensed at the idea while looking down at the hood of Stiles' Jeep in distress. "Look, Logan, the reason I don't feel like going to the Scribe is that I don't feel much like celebrating. It seems...disrespectful, somehow—"
"But that's wrong," Logan whispered in a low tone, glancing over at Stiles who was chatting with Liam, not wanting either of them to over hear their conversation. "Carter would want us to have a good time, you know she would. She loved to see us happy. And she'd hate to see us sitting around and crying over her six months after she's gone." Logan leaned forward, his normally deep blue eyes earnest and compelling. There was no artifice in them now, Scott could tell he really meant it.
Scott felt control of the situation slipping away from him. This is a bad idea, this is a very bad idea, he thought. But as Stiles made his way back over to them—him and Logan went on about their plans after high school and where they were going to live. Scott knew that they were using it as a distraction from the obvious, and he didn't have the heart to tell them that there wasn't any good days lying in their future.
He had a stirring feeling that people he loved were going to get hurt. Hurt because of him. Again. He wised his bad luck would focus a little more carefully. He felt like yelling up at the empty sky: It's me you want—over here! Just me! Leave my friends alone! He tried to think of a way that he could do exactly that—force his bad luck to focus on him. It wouldn't be easy. He would have to wait, bide his time...
The minutes passed quickly, to his surprise—over the past few months time seemed to be moving slowly, drawing out the tedious torture that was the task of moving on—and he was still alert and tense when Stiles slapped a map onto the hood of his Jeep. Scott frowned at it for a long moment, and then smiled as his eyes swept carefully across the words, circles, and lines Stiles had drawn on the map.
"All right, so I found some cool two bedrooms in the Mission District, but they're pretty expensive. A couple in Haight and Ashbury—also expensive."
Stiles listed off the various living options to Scott, running his fingers along the map of California. For the entirety of this summer, the boy had taken the task of occupying his mind by going over how to keep each and every one of his friends in his life after their senior year concluded. The entire thing was grueling, but if it meant he could keep his mind off Carter, it was worth it.
It felt like it had been so long since they had been merely sophomores—homicidal Peter and giant Kanima—felt like it had happened almost two lifetimes ago. Soon enough, Beacon Hills would be nothing more than an old memory; a blimp in their past and they would be off to college. In that lied only one problem. College meant separation, and after what happened to Carter, Stiles Stilinski was one hundred perfect not prepared to say goodbye to his friends.
Not even close to being prepared...not yet. He wasn't ready to say goodbye. Not after everything they'd all been through together. The thought of no longer seeing Scott, Lydia, Kira, Malia—even Liam and Logan—terrified him deeply. And if he was being honest, he didn't think any of them were ready to part ways either, especially after losing Carter, it petrified them all.
And the event that was waiting for them at midnight caused a sea of bats to swarm in his stomach. The Senior Scribe, for the past three years, always seemed like a thousand years into the future and now it was right in front of them. And no one who wasn't a senior entirely understood what the Scribe meant; only that they would be fully made aware of the details when they became seniors. As it turns out, it was something beyond symbolic: each of them were to leave their "mark" on the school; on the bookshelves in the library to be exact—they would get to leave behind their initials.
He, himself, never understood what was so significant about MS...
SM...
LM...
LD...
KY...
MT...
But what about CH, AA, VB, ER...how are they supposed to leave their mark to be remembered for years to come if they weren't alive to do it themselves?
"What about Berkley?" Logan questioned, glancing toward Stiles. "Don't a lot of students live around there?"
"Yeah, yeah," Stiles said, circling the location on the map with a red Sharpie. "We could try Nob Hill. But, the Jeep would probably burn through a lot of clutches."
"You're bringing the Jeep?" Scott asked, speaking for the first time since Stiles began the conversation.
Appalled by his words, Stiles defended: "You know the plan, okay? No one—no one gets left behind." Except for Carter, he thought but didn't dare to open his mouth, not wanting to upset Scott. "That's the plan. Lydia and Logan aren't gonna have a problem getting into Stanford. Kira's thinking USF. Malia's, uh, gonna—you know, she'll figure something out, okay? The plan is perfect."
Scott raised a brow, "Or we could wait until we actually get into college and then figure out where to live."
"I have a vision, dude. Okay? And it is a beautiful vision. Don't ruin the vision." Glancing back down at the map, Stiles continued: "Okay, we can check out the East Bay. Haven't looked at Oakland yet, you know." He said, but Scott was no longer paying attention, going off into his own world as his brown eyes locked on the moon. Thunder rumbled as lightning cracked across the sky while clouds began to drift across the moon. Stiles glanced up as well. "You guys all right? Are you starting to feel it?" he asked, looking between Scott and Logan.
Logan nibbled on his bottom lip for a moment, shaking his head. "Nope, not really."
"No," Scott agreed. "Just thinking."
"About what?" Stiles asked, setting the marker down.
"Senior year," Scott said, shrugging one shoulder.
Stiles stared. "Senior year, come on, that's—that's nothing. That's going to be easy."
For a moment Scott looked helplessly frustrated before he finally sighed. "It's more like something Deaton told me once. Have either of you ever heard of regression to the mean?"
"No, I don't think so."
"No, but I have a feeling you're about to tell us," Logan said grimly. He was unprepared for the saddened look on Scott's face or the darkness of his words.
"It's basically his way of saying that life can't ever be all bad or all good. You know, eventually things have to come back to the middle." Scott explained, the nagging feeling in his stomach returning. He had no doubts in his mind that this year was going to be different from the others—as if he almost knew what was coming. And he felt like Carter's death had something to do with it. "So, think about the last few months. Things have been—after Carter—things have been...okay, right? But not anywhere close to being amazing. I mean, we buried our best friend, Stiles."
"I know, Scott," Stiles blinked the tears away, feeling Logan's hand clamp on his shoulder in a gesture that said he was here for the both of them. "And no one's tried to kill us in six months either."
"Right," Scott said. "We've been pretty much in the middle for a while. Which means, at some point, the scale has to tip one way or the other. Things are gonna get really good again..."
"Or really bad."
And with that, a bolt of lightning split the sky.
→
not edited
welp, this is the official first chapter of season 5a. there isn't much of the season premiere in this chapter, but it shows what carter had went through when she woke up; and if any of you were confused at the beginning, here's an explanation of sorts: when she woke up, she had no memory of who she was or what happened to her--it wasn't until she read the journal on the bed did she remember everything.
and, plot twist, lydia and logan know that carter's alive *gasps* but ive been re-watching season 5 and im getting the plot line together. im still working out little kinks and such, but im pretty sure i have a sold idea of the plot-line for carter and malakai (im super duper excited for him to come into play)
well, i hope you enjoyed this chapter; let me know what you think! also, comment what your hopes are for this season for carter; which scenes would you like to see her in...
and, on a more final note, if i were to write another fanfic (not teen wolf related) what would you guys want it to be about? what type of fanfic would you guys like? let me know!