Disclaimer: 'Teen Wolf' isn't mine. Shocking, right? But it's true. If there are any similarities in content or dialogue, it has probably originated with the show.
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Chapter Eight - Sunday Funday
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Two figures stood over her. One brunette, wide brown eyes staring into the depths of the engine with interest and maybe even a touch of awe. The other—her reddish locks shining like the most searing flames of hell—lacked any such investment in the task at hand. And more than that, she lacked the patience. The toe of her no doubt designer shoe tapped against the pavement with an almost absurd pace, the sound every so often accompanied by a bereft sigh.
"Can you hurry it up, please?"
Charlie stood stooped over the chrome guts of her Impala, up to her elbows in some noxious black mixture of oil and grease. The morning sun hit the back of her neck, causing beads of sweat to slide down the collar of her flannel shirt despite the crisp weather. The view of the inner workings was obscured by two shadows. As to how Charlie found her work being scrutinized by these two other girls, she was somewhat at a loss. Her plans for this particular Sunday had taken a sharp left turn with the 10:00 am ringing of her doorbell. Wiping the sleep out of her eyes, she had stumbled down those rickety stairs to the front door, still clad in sweatpants printed with small UFOs and more hair hanging loose from her bun than was left in it. And stood on the other side? Allison and Lydia, perfectly dressed and smiling more brightly than the morning sun. Allison at least had the decency to look confused by Charlie's complete unawareness of their 'breakfast plans'. Lydia on the other hand had simply strode through saying something about pancakes.
The post-game play-by-play. It was something of a tradition in the Oswin family household. Every morning after a big game, Charlie and her dad would munch on waffles and discuss its finer elements—deploring bad calls by the referees, complaining about plays blocked or shots missed, and reenacting various scenarios with the salt and pepper shakers. These days, though, the post game play-by-play had taken a bit of a different structure than those of days past.
This time around, the after-action report had nothing to do with sports whatsoever. The first of it came shortly after Charlie arrived home from the game. A phone call from Allison informed her of the extremely unsurprising news that the girl had kissed Scott in the boy's locker room. No details were spared, delving into how creepy the locker room was at night, how adorable and nervous Scott was, just how fun kissing Scott turned out to be. Allison firmly denied that he used too much tongue, and when discussing their plans later that week her tone even bordered on wistful. All the gushing led Charlie to wonder whether or not Papa Argent would be scheduling a second attempt to introduce Scott to the front bumper of his car.
The closest Charlie actually got to talking about the game itself was the subsequent call from Lydia, most of which was spent grumbling about Jackson having sulked his way through their victory party. Apparently Scott's end-of-game performance sent him into somewhat of a tizzy, and now he and his shellacked hair had slid neatly into the male posturing/overcompensation phase. This involved massive amounts of complaining, a renewal of accusations of steroid use, and obsessive viewings of old lacrosse game footage to 'regain his edge'. What edge he had to lose in the first place, Charlie really couldn't say.
As for the post-game breakfast, no salt and pepper shaker reenactments were held. Charlie zombie-walked her way through one-handedly making chocolate chip pancakes—unwilling to relinquish her mug of coffee for even a moment—as Allison and Lydia chatted idly. Three cups made their way down her throat before she flipped the pancakes onto a set of plates, setting them down next to a can of whipped cream. By the time she sat down the conversation had shifted to the post-game get together—no doubt to subtly emphasize just how much she had missed out on. But Charlie's fuzzy, caffeine-deprived brain had found itself distracted by something other than her misspent youth: the headlines of that morning's paper.
'Jane Doe Identified, Likely Killed in Animal Attack'
'Police to Prolong Curfew in Light of Recent Attacks'
'Kardashian Pregnancy Scare: Which One Is It This Time?'
Alright, so the last one hadn't been particularly appealing, but the animal attacks certainly had a way of capturing interest. She didn't manage to plow through much before Lydia wrenched it out of her hands and tossed it across the kitchen, scolding her for not paying enough attention. But not before Charlie seized onto one particular piece of information. The victim's name was Laura Hale. Hale as in Derek Hale. Derek freaking Hale. Derek Hale who kept going and making himself relevant. Usually at the most inconvenient of times.
The breakfast had ended about as abruptly as it began, accompanied by a strategic cough on Lydia's part. Pancakes and gossip came to a close with the redhead's executive decision that they would be spending the day at the mall. Again. Until, that is, Lydia found herself outnumbered—democracy at its finest. Charlie's small victory came with the light entering Allison's eyes as she mentioned her need to repair her car. This spark was accompanied by a statement of interest on the brunette's part. A wicked smile had twitched at the corners of Charlie's lips at the sight of Lydia's jaw clicking.
The crisp fall air swirled through the street, carrying with it fallen leaves. By all rights it could be considered a nice day. Quietly suburban. Positively picturesque. The type of day a child might even have been happy to mow the lawn, so accommodating was the weather. Until, that is, one of those fallen leaves had the audacity to get stuck in Lydia's hair. With a huff she ripped it out, crumpling it to bits before tossing it aside and glowering at her surroundings. Lydia's capacity for dissatisfaction was a thing to be admired or feared—possibly both. Nothing inspired more venom in her gaze, though, than the sight of Charlie's tools gleaming in the late morning sun. A source of aggravation to which Charlie remained most wilfully ignorant.
The screwdriver, torque wrench, plug socket, and plug starter lay next to the car on an oil-stained towel, scratched and worn with time and use, but clean and rust free. Charlie snatched up the screwdriver, one by one removing the screws holding the ignition coil housing in place. The small bits of metal were cold in her palm, a sign of just how long this car had been sitting lifeless in the driveway. Blowing off any dust, she carefully deposited them in a ziploc and put to the side for future use.
"Seriously, Charlie?" Lydia demanded. "How long is this going to take?
The heels of Lydia's shoes clacked against asphalt as she began to pace back and forth across the driveway. Each snap like a ticking clock, her annoyance continued to grow. Lydia looked good in most things, but impatience wasn't her color. "We were supposed to hang out today," she groused, throwing her hands in the air.
Charlie's head remained firmly stuck under the open hood of her car. "We are hanging out," she replied. "We, the three of us, are standing in proximity of each other during our leisure time. That is the actual definition of 'hanging out'."
"I'm sorry," Lydia shot back, "but when 'hanging out' there is a tacit agreement that fun is supposed to be had. Are you having fun? Because I'm not."
While Lydia maintained her distance, putting as much space as she could between herself and manual labor, Allison hovered so closely over the car, her hair threatened to dip into the reservoir of grease pooling in the engine's crevices. While Charlie hadn't expected any of Lydia's belligerence from her, the bright-eyed eagerness came as a surprise. With each note or comment Charlie offered, the girl gave a small nod of understanding, filing the new information away. "Come on, Lydia!" Allison protested, shooting a glance over her shoulder. "This is cool. I mean, don't you want to learn how to fix your car if it breaks down?"
Lydia's stiletto scraped loudly against the ground as she spun on her heel. "No," she scoffed. "That's what I pay other people to do. You know, professionals. Who fix cars in a professional capacity."
Charlie snorted at the idea. At this point a professional mechanic would likely have no idea what to do with her car, what with all the semi-functional parts that had been jerry-rigged into functionality with Saran wrap and chewing gum. Gertrude wouldn't run for anybody but her. "Why would I pay some crook of a mechanic $500 to do something that takes me an hour to do on my own?" she smirked into the belly of the car.
The mirth in her voice only served to irritate Lydia more. "Because that mechanic actually knows what he's doing," the redhead snapped.
"So does she," Allison defended. "I mean, we should all try to be self-sufficient."
"Please," Lydia drawled, her tone dripping with knowing sarcasm. "Self-sufficiency in this day and age is a myth. If you want to be self-sufficient, go live in the woods 1600s-style with your sharpened sticks and moose jerky. I, on the other hand, am perfectly satisfied with climate controlled buildings and Prada handbags. Both of which I can find at the mall. Where we should be."
"But next year's 2012," Allison pointed out, arching her eyebrows playfully. "If the Mayans and that John Cusack movie are right, she might be putting those automotive engineering skills to good use."
Lydia wrinkled her nose in distaste. "I'm going to RSVP 'no' to the apocalypse. I don't want to live in a world without frozen yogurt. But you guys can be each other's plus one for the gore and bloodshed. Have fun!"
Charlie wiped a few stray hairs out of her face and stood to her full height. She narrowed her eyes at Lydia, the stern glare compromised by the giant smear of grease that had no doubt taken up residence on her face. "You know, Lydia, if you wanted your Sunday Funday plans to go off without a hitch you probably should have let me know I was involved in the first place."
The girl exhaled in a loud harrumph. "Well I guess I forgot," she sniped. "Sorry that keeping you from being a hermit is a full-time job."
"Yeah, my apologies for not paying your salary," Charlie returned. "It's because I really don't care."
"Ugh, I hate you."
Allison looked back and forth between the two of them, her nose wrinkling in bemusement. "I'm not sure I'm ever going to understand this dynamic."
"Nor should you want to," Charlie sighed. "It's highly dysfunctional."
Lydia stuck out her lip in a determined pout, and Charlie rolled her eyes. When it came to Lydia, the path of least resistance always came with some concessions. And usually that path was the only one available, as all alternate routes had been sabotaged in one way or another. The girl had all manner of treacherous potential. Letting out a groan, Charlie rocked back on her heels. "Okay, look....if you agree to stand around while I finish up with my car—which will be like...an hour, tops—I will agree to a mani-pedi."
The transition from pouty to pondering was seamless. "One hour?" Lydia demanded, the arch in her eyebrow reaching dangerous levels of steep. She squinted at Charlie, mentally calculating the cost-to-benefit ratio of the exchange. "Fine," she concluded. "One hour, then we're off to mani-pedis."
Charlie swore loudly and turned back to the engine. The insides were a patchwork quilt of parts, taken from different sources at different times, spanning years and probably continents. It was kind of poetic as long as your eyes stayed shut. The setup wasn't pretty by any stretch of the imagination, stitched together out of dead cars like an automotive edition Frankenstein's monster, but that didn't matter under a plate of shining metal. She lived, she worked, she breathed. And with just the right parts, Gertrude could be freaking immortal. If she could drive to school on Monday, dealing with some overly friendly nail clippers would be worth it.
"So what's next?"
The enthusiastic chirp drew Charlie back to the task at hand. Allison stood over the engine, eyebrows raised with irrepressible curiosity. Using her wrist, Charlie shoved some sweaty hairs out of her face and nodded. "Okay, well now that the screws are out, we're gonna want to disconnect the ignition coil and remove the assembly covering the spark plugs."
Lydia wandered in and out of the apartment—her time outside used primarily to express her dissatisfaction—and Allison watched carefully, lips pinched together in concentration. Probably more concentration than was necessary—the process was simple enough. Step one, remove the assembly covering the spark plugs. Step two, unscrew the plugs with the torque wrench. Steps three through six, remove the plugs with the starter, swap them out, re-tighten, re-install the assembly, and done. Paint by numbers.
As she finished, Charlie carefully lowered the hood of the car. As it snapped into place, she breathed a sigh of relief. Gertrude looked whole again. Charlie hated the sight of her vulnerable—hood open so that any random bird could take a crap on her insides if it was so inclined. Closed was better. She circled around to the driver's side door and slipped in. A warm, familiar smell washed over her—some combination of french fries, leather, and pine air freshener. Not a particularly pleasing combination at first whiff, but with the familiarity a warmth bloomed in her chest. Her fingers ran over the cracks in the leather covering the steering wheel, gently reintroducing herself.
"Do you guys need a minute?" Allison asked, smiling fondly.
Charlie snorted and gripped the steering wheel, the material rough under her hands. "Just getting reacquainted."
Finally, she extracted her keys from the pocket of her ripped jeans and reached for the ignition. Moment of truth.
The car shuddered, giving of a pathetic, wheezing cough. Charlie's heart felt in freefall—that split second before plummeting to earth. But with that moment of panic, the engine gave off a roar. It echoed against the surrounding buildings, a full, strong sound, and carried down the street. Charlie's lips twitched into a satisfied smirk. "That's my girl."
No sooner did the engine rev to life, though, than Lydia, who had been firmly ensconced inside the house, appeared in the open window. "Well look at that," she declared loudly. Charlie jumped in her seat in surprise, letting out a strangled yelp, but Lydia barreled on unconcerned. "Noise pollution," she announced. "That's fantastic. Now time for mani-pedis. We're taking my car."
Without further comment, Lydia reached into the car, across Charlie, and yanked the keys out of the ignition. The engine sputtered pitifully into silence, and Charlie let out an offended scoff. "Be gentle with her!" she shouted. "She's just been through an ordeal."
"No," Lydia contradicted. "I've been through an ordeal. Now go inside and get cleaned up so we can go. I want to get to the mall before it closes."
"I think we'll be okay," Allison offered, hiding her amused smile behind her fingertips. "I mean it's noon, so there shouldn't be a problem. Unless your car breaks down. But then, hey, we'd have Charlie to fix it for you. All self-sufficient-like."
Lydia spared Allison a scathing glance, but said nothing. A silence most likely maintained through a great deal of effort. Her lips pressed together in such a tight seal they all but disappeared from her face, rendering her berrylicious lip gloss irrelevant. When she had composed herself enough to form words, they came through gritted teeth. "My car didn't roll off of Henry Ford's first ever assembly line. I think it can get us there."
Hands raised in submission, Charlie clambered out of the car. She took a few small steps backward, away from Gertrude and retreating towards her apartment to get cleaned up. On her bed she found a set of clothes laid out for her. Like she was a kindergartener. In a move of quiet and oddly productive passive-aggression, Lydia had gone through Charlie's closet, organized it by clothing type and color, and selected an outfit she had deemed suitable for the day's outing. Somehow Charlie's ripped, oil-stained jeans and sweaty plaid overshirt had been found wanting. And rather than waste any more of the day on useless back and forth, she relented. By the time she stepped through her front door, her hands had been scrubbed clean of grease, her hair was brushed, and she wore that printed high-waisted skirt and deep blue top.
Goddamn Sunday Fundays.
The Beacon Hills mall was more than just that. Charlie had seen the phenomenon before. The smaller the town, the more compact its recreation. Coming in from the northern gate found you in the movie theater, while the southern entry would direct you to the Macy's. Shopping, manicurists, movies, hell even a laser tag facility all took up residence under that one, gigantic roof, tied together by the friendly neighborhood Target where the dads congregated in the sports section to preserve their collective masculinity. This mashed up nexus of 'fun' was where the girls found themselves, in a manicure studio wedged between a 'J. Crew' and a 'Sbarro'.
Charlie's feet felt odd in her Converse as she shuffled out of the manicurists. After twenty minutes of waddling around in those cardboard flip flops, waiting for the nail polish to dry, she had expected to find comfort in the warm embrace of her fuzzy socks, but they slipped oddly against the cloth. While the experience of a mani-pedi hadn't been altogether unpleasant, the end result was odd. All those layers of skin stripped away by pumice stones and insistent scrubbing, she likely didn't have fingerprints anymore. One overly enthusiastic manicurist and she was set for a life of crime.
Charlie trailed after Lydia and Allison as they marched through the Macy's shoe department, a frown tugging at her lips. Her thumbs ran over her forefingers over and over again, slick and unfamiliar. They didn't feel like they belonged to her, some perverse inversion of phantom limb syndrome. "They removed all my callouses, Lydia," she whined. "They're all gone!"
Lydia didn't bother looking up from her new pair of green Marc Jacobs pumps. "Duh," she drawled. "That's what they're supposed to do. What did you think would happen?"
"I thought they'd paint my nails!"
Those hazel eyes flicked away from her newest prize just long enough to spare Charlie a judgemental look. "Have you never had a manicure before?"
"Lydia, I need those callouses to play guitar," Charlie grumbled, waggling her fingers in some particularly unenthusiastic jazz hands. "The strings hurt like hell without them."
"You mean that alleged guitar I have yet to see you play ever?" Lydia drawled.
Allison chose that moment to stick her head out from behind a rack of Steve Madden, eyebrows furrowed curiously. "You play guitar?"
"Aha!" Lydia cackled, pointing at Allison. "Thank you, Allison, for making my point."
Charlie let out a pathetic whine, bouncing up and down on her heels like a petulant child, and crossed her arms over her chest. The leather of her jacket felt rough against the freakishly soft skin of her palms. Allison, now sporting a pair of leather ankle boots, rounded the corner. "You can get the callouses back," she said. "It's just extra reason for you to practice. And for now your hands just feel like silk."
"They feel like raw chicken is what they feel like," Charlie grumbled.
Allison stared back with a blank expression, her mouth hanging open ever so slightly. "The only response to that I can think of to that is 'ew'."
Letting out another groan, Charlie played the asshole cat and knocked a few shoes from the display. They clattered to the ground, each sad and lonely without their partner. Lydia raised her eyebrows pointedly, both of those eyebrows criticizing her lack of maturity. With a huff, Charlie scooped up the shoes and neatly put them back in place, but not before she got a peek at the price stickers underneath. Triple digits. What the hell were these constructed from—the supple pelts of baby unicorns?
Charlie wandered idly through the aisles, picking up articles of clothing only to replace them just as quickly. Allison and Lydia, what with their steady allowances and stable family incomes, continued to snatch up shoes and drape colorfully patterned pieces of clothing over their arms. The mall presented itself as somewhat of a limbo. She stood in it with a wardrobe equally as stylish as either of theirs, but no way to add to it. The gaping maw of her closet door had been fed well and regularly by Mel's constant supply of clothing samples and new personal designs, but her wallet remained a different story. Though not starving by any means, it didn't hold much to dispense. Eventually she found herself pacing back and forth near the sales rack—the garish discards mocking her from beneath the 40% off sign—before finally trudging out of the Macy's.
Of all the places in the mall to visit, Target was where Charlie found herself. More specifically, the candy aisle as her belly was easier and less expensive the feed than her wardrobe. The wall of chocolate stood before her, reflective wrappers gleaming more brightly in her eyes than any jewelry. Each hand clutched a candy bar. One, fluffy and airy, sat too light on her palm. Chucking the Three Musketeers bar back into the pile, her fingers curled around the more substantial Snickers bar. An hour into shopping, and she had made her first definitive purchase.
Charlie spun on her heel, marching towards the cash register, but as soon as she stepped past the protective barrier of aisle twelve, she darted back behind that wall. A surprised hiss escaped her lips as she peeked back around the corner. Through those automatic doors strode none other than the five o'clock shadow all day long-having monument to the brooding stare. Derek Hale.
Context was a funny thing. There were probably a half dozen or so locations where Charlie wouldn't be shocked to find Derek Hale. The murder woods for one. Possibly a graveyard. Any high school sporting event seemed to be fair game. But the neighborhood Target? Shopping? Doing normal, everyday activities? During daylight hours? That was too much to wrap her brain around. Which meant she had only one option available. Follow him creepily around the store.
Shoving the Snickers bar in her jacket pocket, she ducked down, waiting until he meandered down the aisle a few yards over. As soon as he disappeared from sight, she bolted forwards, stalking aisle to aisle to find that ridiculously rigid figure. Two almost-collisions later—one small child and one elderly woman—Charlie peered carefully around the corner and found him. Those impossibly angular shoulders sat just as tense as ever under the corners of his leather jacket. The personification of doom and gloom in the brightest lit superstore in existence. Charlie's eyes flicked up to the sign dangling above her head and her heart seized.
Aisle 4. Sports & Outdoors.
Still mostly concealed by a flatscreen TV display, Charlie rooted around in her purse and dug out her phone. She hit speed dial three and pressed the phone to her ear. One, two, three rings, and a loud click echoed in her ear as someone picked up.
"Oh, Oz, thank God," Donald's voice echoed in her ear. "Okay, can you tell me what the hell is up with Twelfth Night? This play is bullshit—it's got every trope in the book. You got twins. You got mistaken identity. There's a goddamn shipwreck in here. And what is the bullshit with the yellow stockings? Malvolio, dude, nobody gives a shit what color stockings you wear—was Willy Shakes shrooming when he wrote this?"
Charlie crouched down lower to the ground, making herself smaller as her eyes stuck to Derek's back. "Just watch She's The Man and it'll all make sense," she murmured into the phone. "Plus it's got soccer in it—I'm actually shocked you haven't seen it already."
"Why would I watch some Amanda Bynes vehicle?" Donald scoffed. "This isn't 2007. Where's your head at?"
"Other than the fact that it breaks down the plot to the play currently annoying the shit out of you? Channing Tatum."
"You make a compelling point."
Derek wandered further down the aisle, his movements oddly reminiscent of Arnold Schwarzenegger's acting in the Terminator franchise. Still ducked low to the ground, she took careful, hesitant steps forward. "Look, I'd be happy to discuss Willy Shakes at a later date," Charlie hissed. "But I'm a bit preoccupied at the moment."
"Oz, why are you whispering?"
"I may or may not be stalking somebody."
She would have liked to say the pause that followed was a long one, but Donald's response was virtually immediate. "Makes sense. You were bound to crack sooner or letter. Who is it—William Shatner? The bassist from the Talking Heads?"
"I'm in a Target," she muttered in reply.
"Oh, so it's Dan Aykroyd."
Seeking out cover, Charlie ducked into the clothing section that flanked the sporting goods. The overstuffed racks of clothing stood like technicolor shrubbery, concealing her from view. Her head bobbed over the tops of the racks, raised just high enough for her eyes to track that leather jacket. The lion stalking the wildebeest. Swift. Silent. Deadly. Only in this particular case the lion would likely be the one getting its ass kicked.
"Houston calling Charlie," Donald called out. "You can't lead with something as juicy as 'I'm stalking someone' and then go radio silent. It's rude."
Charlie forced the words out through gritted teeth and pinched lips, somehow afraid the moping wonder could hear her half a store away. "Derek Hale."
The loud squawk that echoed from the other end of the line bordered on offended. "Derek Hale as in serial killer eyes-having, hanging out in the murder woods Derek Hale? The Derek Hale that crashes high school parties and lacrosse games like he's in an episode of 21 Jump Street? The Derek Hale that you keep rambling about all suspicious-like—you mean that Derek Hale?"
"The very same."
"You know, Oz, when you suspect someone of murder, the go-to move is usually to avoid said murderer. Not follow him around a damn superstore. Get your head on straight. Go buy some adult-size pajanimals like normal people."
At that moment, Derek turned, angling his head towards the flannel pajama sets among which she found herself. Her knees buckling beneath her, Charlie dropped to the floor. After about five seconds of awkwardly prolonged eye contact with a suspicious five-year-old whose mother was checking out some ducky pajamas, she slowly stood back up. Derek had his back to her once more and was retreating deeper into the recesses of the sporting goods section, veering into hardware. Hunched over like a Disney witch, Charlie scuttled after him.
"Dude!" Donald growled. "You have to talk to me or I'm gonna assume you've died."
Her hand darted out, grabbing a baseball cap off a nearby rack and yanking it on her head. She pulled the brim down low, just over her eyes, shadowing her face. Incog-freaking-nito. "I read the papers this morning," she hissed as she continued to creep forwards. "They identified the dead body in the woods. It was Derek's sister."
"Whoooaaaaaaa," Donald murmured in awe. "So if Derek is the killer, then this shit just became hella Shakespearean. And not the yellow stockings, Amanda Bynes type of Shakespeare—I'm talking the awesome tragedy kind of Shakespeare with mass death and dick jokes."
Suddenly, Charlie found herself at the edge of the clothing section. Her toes stopped where dingy grey carpet gave way to laminate tiles. Beyond lay the sparsely occupied aisles lined with various metal tools, none of which provided any type of cover. The open floor plan left her exposed and vulnerable. It did leave her with a good view, though. And the subject of said view? Derek Hale walking off with a gleaming new shovel tucked under his arm.
"Holy shit!" she swore into the receiver. "Holy fucking shit! He's getting a shovel. Donald, he is purchasing a shovel! Do you know what that means?"
"Yeah, he's incompetent," Donald returned with a hearty scoff. "The cops check recent purchases. Buying a shovel right after a murder? That's freaking amateur hour."
Curiosity now trampling all over her instinct for self-preservation, Charlie made the decision to follow. Pausing only to snatch up a pair of sunglasses from their display, she continued forth into the great unknown. Her disguise, while decent enough for celebrities walking amongst the normal folk, was rendered somewhat less effective by the roof over her head. And by the giant tag dangling between her eyes. "Donald, I'm going in."
"Jesus," Donald muttered, exasperation and concern warring for dominance in his tone. "Okay, well if you're going to do something as stupid as stalk a potential murderer around a freaking grocery store, you've got to at least be smart about it."
"Okay," Charlie agreed with a bob of her head. "And how do I do that? Mine the depths of your action movie knowledge, because I'd rather not die in a Target."
Donald let out a dismissive 'pfft' before continuing. "The only advice I have for tailing is automobile based."
"Lethal Weapon? Mad Max?"
"Stop pulling shit from the Mel Gibson roster. I'm talking Driving Miss Daisy."
"Right, only the hard core stuff."
"That's how Miss Daisy rolls. Both literally and figuratively."
Donald's rules were fairly easy to follow, though she did have to translate them from car-speak. The ability to tail someone is a function of that driver's route and their alertness. Try to best gauge both of these variables. Do not follow directly behind the vehicle being tailed. Stay two cars behind at all time. Do not mimic their movements in any way. Serpentine—always travel in a serpentine pattern.
Okay, that last bit he had definitely gotten from The In-Laws. And honestly meant literally nothing when put into context.
Charlie implemented Donald's rules as best she could. She was careful to keep a good stretch from Derek, two or three shoppers between them lest she need to do something drastic and duck behind them like a human shield. Hell, she even hijacked a stranger's abandoned shopping cart, pushing it along idly. Rule seven: drive an inconspicuous vehicle. Was it a dick move? Yes, most assuredly. But desperate times....
Derek slowly wound his way through the hardware aisle, every so often pausing to contemplate one item or another. At one point he picked up a hammer, feeling its weight in his palm, and Charlie damn near had a heart attack. But then he hung it right back on the wall. And then he did the same with a wrench, a screwdriver, some pruning shears—if it was blunt and/or sharp, Derek Hale stared at it for a good long time. And all the while Donald got a running narrative hissed at him over the phone. His play-by-play commentary was not helpful.
Finally Derek turned down the next aisle over, disappearing from view. Abandoning her the shopping cart, Charlie jogged after him to the end of aisle. She hung back a moment at the edge of hardware, not wanting to immediately jump departments with sourface, but peeked around the corner. "He's going into the 'Garden and Patio' section now."
"Okay," Donald instructed. "So you're gonna want to see if he goes for any of the classic murder cover-up tools. I'm talking lye. I'm talking tarps. Some types of mulch could totally facilitate body decomp."
"Whoa, slow down Murder, She Wrote," Charlie replied, ducking back around the corner. "This is Target, not a freaking murder emporium. They don't have lye. The closest thing they've got to murder material in 'Garden and Patio' is a well-cushioned lawn chair."
"You could totally murder someone with a lawn chair," Donald barrelled on. "I mean technically you could murder someone with anything. Lawn chairs. Sporks. Milk. There was this one movie where one dude killed another dude with this, uh, this novelty dentist pen. All it takes is commitment."
Charlie's fist instinctively slammed into her forehead. "Oh my God. I just—I don't have the time to do this with you right now. If I don't call you back in a half hour I've been gruesomely killed. Stay classy."
Grumbling to herself, Charlie shoved her phone in her jacket pocket and rounded the corner to find...nothing. Less than fifteen seconds and the dude had up and vanished. Like a whiff of Axe body spray in a wind tunnel—he was just gone. And she was left alone with a sad, empty deck display. Jaunty elevator music tinkled from the store speakers, as bright and cheerful as anything else in the store. But to Charlie it rang sinister and threatening, like the tinkling tune of a Jack-in-the-Box, and she was left waiting for her freakish clown surprise.
Slowly, Charlie spun in place. Her eyes scoured the landscape, seeking out that set of block-like shoulders under a sharp haircut. She made the 360 degree turn until she completed the full rotation, and suddenly found herself being stared down.
A strangled yelp escaped Charlie's lips as she vaulted herself a good foot in the air. But the eyes glowering at her were not dark brown and brooding, they were green and scolding. And they were set a good foot lower than where Derek's eyes should be. "Lydia, what the hell?" Charlie gasped, clutching her hand to her heart.
Forgoing society's conventional greetings, Lydia ripped the baseball cap from Charlie's head and snatched the sunglasses from her face, frowning at them before tossing them on a nearby shelf without question. "Um, you just stole my line," she sniped, brushing a curl of hair over her shoulder. "You just run out of Macy's without so much as a 'see ya later'? Tell me—are you allergic to fun? Does fun make you feel itchy?"
The rapid thumping of Charlie's heart gradually slowed, and as soon as the abject terror had worn off she was left with exasperation. "Why didn't you just call me?" Charlie demanded. "That's what phones are for."
Lydia smiled that serene, unknowable smile of hers. "I prefer to make a dramatic entrance."
"Well you managed that just fine," Charlie sniped. "Lots of flair. How the hell did you know where to find me?"
"Easy," Lydia snorted. "I just identified the closest location that sold Snickers in bulk." She reached forward for the pocket of Charlie's jacket, her expression seven types of smug as she drew her hand back with a candy bar clutched in her manicured talons. "Well would you look at that. It's a Snickers."
Charlie snatched the the candy bar back possessively. "Alright, fine. You got me. I have a weakness for peanuts and caramel. Sue me."
"Also I downloaded 'Find My Friends' to your phone."
"You what?!"
"Ah, ah, ah," Lydia trilled, grabbing the chocolate back once more. "Let's focus on what's important here. Allison's waiting for us at Pinkberry before we head home. And I told her to order you something with a lot of fruit in it."
"Who ruins perfectly good ice cream with fruit?!"
Lydia rolled her eyes and tossed the candy bar alongside the hat and sunglasses before linking her arm though Charlie's and yanking her along. An anticlimactic ending to Charlie's first foray in covert surveillance that, while unwelcome, honestly should have been expected.
No chocolate. Fruit ice cream. Goddamn Sunday Fundays.
And goddamn Derek Hale.
Derek Hale. Derek freaking Hale with the serial killer eyes, bad attitude, evasive behavior—including but not limited to the purchasing of shovels and superstore disappearances—and his stupid, stupid perpetual stubble. Somehow the weird shit going on always seemed to come back to him. Well, him and Scott. Their bizarre relationship was another mystery all of its own. They weren't friends, but they were obviously linked in some sort of way. And if she could figure out what the deal with Derek Hale was, then maybe Charlie could find out what the hell was going on with Scott, and in Beacon Hills in general. He was the piece of the puzzle that might allow everything else to fall in place. One of those annoying middle pieces that takes forever to find its place, but ends up being the tipping point.
Cue slightly obsessive internet stalking.
As soon as Charlie arrived home from the mall, she bolted up the stairs to her apartment and booted up her laptop. From what she could glean from the limited records available to the public, Derek Hale had led a pretty shitty life. There was actually a reason for that sour face and grumpy demeanor other than trying to establish himself as an international man of mystery. About six years previously, the majority of his family had died in a horrific house fire. After that he seemed to fall off the earth—he was a ghost. Then again, it was easy to disappear when you had virtually no human connections to keep you tethered. If it hadn't been for Mel, Charlie could have just as easily done the exact same thing.
Ultimately, her few hours of cyber-creepiness yielded absolutely zero results. It wasn't like the guy had a Twitter account where he posted every freaking thought that entered into his head, or if he did he used a pseudonym. He might be on instagram, posting depressing pictures of dead trees and that kind of crap—she could see that—but his theoretical hipster blog, even if it did exist, was irrelevant to her current purposes.
"Okay, so here's the sticking point," Donald's voice declared through the tinny echo of her computer. His face occupied the upper left hand corner of her laptop screen. He was back at his desk in Providence, notebook and pen in hand. A stack of textbooks sat next to him, hastily shoved to the side as he abandoned Twelfth Night and seized onto a subject he considered to be of greater interest than Malvolio's yellow stockings. The rest of the Charlie's monitor was a dizzying mosaic of websites and digitized archives of the local news. Her eyes darted from window to window, focusing on everything and nothing. Which was apparently an issue as she should have been listening to Donald. "Yo, Ozbert," he said, more forcefully this time.
Charlie ran her hands down her face, leaning back from the computer. Her nose had been so close to the screen, its glow likely would have given her a sunburn. "Yeah, sorry Donald," she murmured. A few clicks later the other windows disappeared and his face filled the screen. "What's up?"
"Like I was saying," Donald continued, his eyebrows raised expectantly, "we've got one sticking point. In this theoretical horror movie, is Derek Hale the psychotic villain or the moody hero?"
"Those are polar opposite positions in storytelling," Charlie replied.
Donald bobbed his head in agreement. "Yeah, but think of the backstory. The fire, the loss of his family at an early age. That could go one of two ways. Either he becomes a warrior for good, or he goes all end-of-days murder plot and lays waste to the world in the process. I mean, on one side there's Batman, and then you've got Loki with his messed up family situation. Plus their aesthetics are really freaking similar."
"Their aesthetics?" Charlie demanded, her eyebrows drawn together in confusion. "What the hell do you mean 'their aesthetics'?"
Donald's shoulders sagged forwards with something resembling disappointment. As he looked back up at her, it was quite evident a lecture was now in order. "Okay, let's go through the checklist. Does the dude wear a leather jacket?"
"Yes."
"Does he have a sharp, chiseled jaw line?"
"Yes."
"Awesome hair? Probably at least a little bit styled?"
"Yes."
"Does he have dark, romantic eyes eyes that you feel like you could just fall straight into and potentially drown in?"
"Gross. And yes."
Donald waved his hands about so frantically his chair tottered and threatened to tip over. "You see, this is what I'm talking about," he declared. "Like, think Angel from the Buffy. Depending on the episode he is both the good guy and the bad guy. But his look stays the same. The costume department must have saved so much cash."
"Mm hmm," Charlie mused, nodding to herself. "You are aware that this is real life, right?"
A loud thunk rang out as Donald's head hit the desk before him. Her Ikea furniture would likely have buckled under the force. He stayed collapsed forward for a few moments, making good use of his melodramatic streak, and when he wrenched his head back up his eyes were judgemental. "Come on, you gotta admit some level of horror tropism here. I mean I'd be live tweeting this shit right next to Blood Lake if that wasn't running the risk of getting you axe murdered."
"But the cops said Laura Hale was killed in an animal attack," Charlie countered. "So technically there was no murder to begin with."
A thunderous snap echoed from the computer, jolting Charlie into a different level of awareness. Donald had clapped his hands, loudly and right near the microphone. An admonishing finger was being jabbed directly at the camera. It almost seemed to reach through the screen, pointing directly between her eyes. "Oz," he declared, "you best not be going Drew Barrymore on me."
Charlie worked her jaw, trying eliminate the ringing that loud clap had incited. "Dude," she declared, her thumb pressed just below her ear, "even I can't keep up with all these movie references you're throwing out."
Donald leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest, wriggling in his seat as he settled into his sense of superiority. "Drew. Barrymore."
Always with the movies. Action movies, superhero movies, comedies, period dramas, thrillers, even the old vintage stuff—you name it, Donald watched it. All of them. Every last one. 'Research', he called it. Time well invested for when he was living out in Hollywood, writing kickass scripts for kickass movies. Film and television were his second language. Spanish his third. But to the plebeians were not in possession of that encyclopedic knowledge of all things cinema—apparently excluding the Amanda Bynes catalog—conversations often required a shitload of footnotes. Which was the cause of that expression on Donald's face—one Charlie knew well. It was a mixture of frustration and pity. Like he simultaneously wanted to scream to the heavens and hit her with a sad, patronizing 'oh, honey....'.
"Saying it slower isn't going to make me magically know what you're talking about," Charlie sighed. "What the hell does that mean?"
"The first Scream movie," Donald elaborated, groaning at her ignorance. "When that movie came out, Drew Barrymore was the biggest star in it—everyone thought she'd last the whole way through. But she bites it in the first scene. The first on screen death."
"I'm assuming there's a point to be made."
"So you're already making the classic mistakes. Never trust the papers. They're written by people too myopic to believe what's actually going on. You need to be the open-minded protagonist who looks at that carnage and is willing to say, 'this is NOT a boating accident.' By the way, that's Jaws."
"I know that's Jaws," Charlie forced out through gritted teeth.
"You're still suspicious enough about all this nonsense to stalk a guy around a store," Donald barreled on. "You gotta go with your gut—your gut will guide you."
As much as Charlie hated to admit it, Donald did have a point. As she skimmed through the article that morning, she found herself squinting at the print. Not because of the tiny text, but because of that niggling sensation of doubt that had curled in the pit of her stomach. It took one Discovery Channel documentary to see that animal attacks were messy. They're about food, not malicious intent. Ripping and tearing and mauling—that's what animal attacks looked like. A perfectly bisected body, intact limbs, and a face preserved enough for visual identification? It didn't quite reek of bullshit, but it sure as hell wasn't a floral scented candle.
Charlie blew out a long breath, deflating as she sank lower into her seat. Her eyebrows contracted into a 'v' as she began to gnaw on her nails. Donald perked up at her apparent despondency, leaning closer to his computer screen as she shrank back from hers. "Your gut is speaking to you," he whispered. "I can tell—you have 'grumpy old man' face....Or do you just have gas?"
Her hand falling from her face, Charlie let out an offended scoff. "I do not have gas!"
"Then spill."
Charlie opened her mouth only to close it again. Several times. Like the sadistic clown at the last hole in a game of goofy golf. "I don't know," she finally said, throwing her hands in the air. "I just...I feel like there's something else going on. There's just too much weird shit and random coincidences."
Donald pounded a fist against the desk and pointed at her with enthusiasm. "Now that's what I'm talking about. Paranoia—the best way to survive a horror movie."
"Thanks," Charlie deadpanned. "I love being told I'm paranoid."
"It's a compliment," Donald said with a pronounced roll of his eyes. "Now as much as I love murder talk, I've got an English test on Wednesday and soccer practice every day this week, so I've gotta be all responsible and shit. Our first big game is on Thursday."
"Fine, be that way," Charlie sighed. "You need any help with Willy Shakes?"
"Nah," he dismissed. "I downloaded She's The Man. Channing Tatum will be my tutor."
Charlie's lips twitched into an involuntary smile and she shot him a double thumbs up as he ended the chat. But any hint of mirth dropped from her face as soon as she closed Facetime. Behind it remained that tiled wall of research, each window a case study in human suffering.
The first article provided the most basic details of the fire—when the fire department got the call, how long it had taken to put it out, the names of eight victims. One of them, Cora Hale, would have been her own age. With the follow up article the fire was declared the result of an electrical malfunction, suspicion of arson, changing it from a tragedy to an atrocity. The pieces that followed that revelation were increasingly demoralizing.
August 4, 2005: No leads.
October 13, 2005: No leads.
January 7, 2006: No leads.
The January article was followed by five years of nothing. And just like that, the Hale fire had made that seamless transition from heart-wrenching catastrophe to urban legend.
Charlie brought her fingers to the keypad and began exiting the windows. They quickly fell from the screen, but as she reached that final article her hand stilled. It was an archive from the Beacon Hills Herald dated to the morning after the fire, digitized and preserved for posterity. The text was almost too small to read, smudged where some bored temp had fed it through the scanner. What was preserved almost perfectly, though, was the photo. Grainy though it might have been, its subject was clear as day. A great, stately house—two stories, a wrap around porch, and several balconies—surrounded grey smoke and shock white flames. And before it the silhouette of a boy—tall for a teenager—hands clasping the sides of his face as he watched it burn. The black and white print made it feel far away, timeless, historic, like one of those old newsreels from World War Two. It didn't have the look of something that could happen to somebody she knew. Or something that could have happened a twenty minute jog away.
Charlie knew she was being stupid as she yanked the sports bra over her head. She knew she was being stupid as she laced up her sneakers. She knew she was being really, really stupid as she locked the front door behind her and stepped onto that leaf-strewn path behind her apartment building. The sheer magnitude of her idiocy, however, was not to be revealed until 21 minutes and 57 seconds later.
What she had expected to find, Charlie didn't know. A long driveway leading to an empty lot? A cracked foundation at the center of a break in the forest ceiling? The last thing she had anticipated was to find charred skeleton of the Hale house still standing. Though the building's roof had been incinerated in the blaze the face remained, those majestic balconies still clinging on to life. But the wood had warped with the heat, curling inwards so small fissures formed in the planks. With all the sturdiness of a house of cards, one touch would likely bring it to the ground.
Light filtered through an overcast sky, grey but bright and not a shadow to be found. Nothing hidden and nowhere to hide. Chilly though the day was, a breeze colder than most ripped through the trees, shaking their dying leaves with an ominous hiss. Charlie wrapped her arms around her form and took a few small steps forward towards the house. She wasn't one to believe in ghosts, but if in some alternate dimension they happened to exist, she would look for them in a place much like this one.
Charlie rolled her eyes at herself for the shiver running down her spine, but the sensation that she was being watched couldn't be shaken. It had been stupid to come here. She had no reason to come here. And she had no reason not to go.
Charlie turned to leave, but the sudden snap of a breaking twig made her freeze in place.
"Hello?" Her voice, quiet though it was, echoed against the trees. She could hear anxiety in its tone as it returned to her ears. "Is anybody there?"
Charlie's eyes darted to each flicker of movement. A dead leaf fluttering to the ground. A bird taking flight. Her focus pinged back and forth across the clearing at a dizzying rate. Until, that is, they caught something that brought them to a screeching halt. Something completely stationary.
A few feet from the stairs, there was an interruption to that thick blanket of leaves covering the forest floor. The collage of varying tones of red, yellow, and brown gave way to a patch of darkness—a rough oval, stretching about four feet length. With a craned neck and squinting eyes, Charlie realized what she was looking at. Derek had bought himself a shovel, and here she found herself staring into the depths of a pit. Funny how it was about the size of half a body.
"Fuck," she breathed out. "I'm totally Drew Barrymore."
It had taken 21 minutes and 57 seconds to arrive at the Hale house from her apartment. She made the trip back in fifteen.
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A/N: To those of you who believe that Derek is totally trolling Charlie by picking up the hammer, wrench, etc...You are correct.
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Chapter 8 Soundtrack
Allison and Lydia show up at Charlie's door and they fix up the car.
-~-~-~-~-~Lake House - Pepper Rabbit
Shopping and wandering off.
-~-~-~-~-~Just Kids - FURS
The stalking of Derek Hale.
-~-~-~-~-~Riot! - The Coasts
Charlie sees the pit in front of the Hale house and takes off. End chapter.
-~-~-~-~-~Find Your Fame - Holy Fever