**Disclaimer** Sighs heavily, I still don't own Teen Wolf.
"Hey, dude, we can't find her," said Stiles to Scott as we finally managed to meet back up. "And anyone who drank that crap, they're freaking out."
All around us people were yelling and going wild. People were jumping into the pool fully clothed, some guy was smelling the leaves of a tree, and one girl kept pulling out strands of her hair one by one. This can't just be the alcohol.
"I can see that," said Scott.
"What do we do?" I asked.
"I can't swim!" Someone yelled. The three of us looked over to see two guys holding Matt by his shoulders. "No, no, no! I can't swim! I can't swim!"
He landed in the pool with a large splash, fishing around for something to grab onto. His head kept bobbing over and under the water. The entire party stopped to watch what was happening. He fought to stay above the water and Scott, Stiles, and I each exchanged knowing looks.
Jackson then came over and helped pull Matt out of the water. He got to his feet, soaking wet, on the edge of the pool, spitting out water. "What're you looking at?" He growled at everyone around him.
He began walking away, but stopped in front of us. I swallowed hard as I look at him. It was him. He's the one controlling the kanima. Thinking about the time I walked with him in the halls sent a shiver up my spine. He had to have known. He had to have known that my brother was part of his hit list.
Stiles pushed me behind him as he and Scott created a gap for Matt to push through. I grabbed Stiles' wrist as I feeling of dizziness rushed over me. I was feeling light-headed and stumbled slightly, using my grip on Stiles to keep my balance. Police sirens echoed in the distance.
"Cops are here! Party's over!" Someone yelled. Everyone began screaming and running out of the house and backyard.
Stiles tugged me out as well, after Scott had ran out after Matt. I was having trouble keeping up, even though we weren't even moving that fast. I stumbled, Stiles practically having to drag me. When we reached the middle of the street, he finally stopped.
"Emma, are you okay?" He asked me.
My breath hitched in my throat and a metallic taste entered my mouth. I shook my head as the world began to spin. I fell to the ground, Stiles trying to hold me up as best he could.
"Emma?" He called again, but his voice was growing distant. "Emma?"
Then, everything went black.
~STILES POV~
It all happened so fast, I didn't know what to do. Emma fell to the ground, shaking and twisting. Her eyes were closed, but her mouth was hanging open. Her glasses fell off the bridge of her nose and cracked when they hit the cement of the street.
"Scott! Scott!" I called out. He came running over to where I was holding Emma on the pavement. He knelt down next to us, his eyes widening. "I think she's having a seizure,"
"What? What happened?" He asked.
I held her tighter to me, trying to make sure she didn't hit her head. "I don't know, she just sort of dropped and started shaking."
"Do you think something's happening?"
"Maybe," I said. "We have to get her out of here,"
Scott nodded, lifting her out of my arms since he would have more strength to carry her with as much as she's twitching. We hurried to my jeep, Scott holding her in the passenger seat. I tried not to think about it as I sped down the road to Emma's house. It terrified me that she wasn't making any noises. If this was a seizure, it was a silent one.
I pulled in next to her father's car in the driveway. I opened the front door for Scott as we burst into her house. The lights were all of, meaning that her dad must be in bed. I flicked on the hall lights and led Scott up the stairs into her bedroom. He laid her on the floor on her side just as Allison had done with Erica during her seizure after gym class.
"What's going on? I thought I heard - " Mr. Brisbane froze in the doorway as he watched Emma twitch and shake on the ground. He rushed over to her. "What happened?"
"I don't know," I said, rubbing Emma's shoulders. I looked up at Scott. "Seizures shouldn't last this long."
A normal seizure is only about a minute to a minute and a half long. Emma has been shaking like this for at least five. This was something entirely different. Suddenly, her body relaxed in my lap. We were all silent, only the sounds of our raged breathing filling the room. For the next thirty seconds, nothing happened. Even though all was quiet, the silence felt deafening.
Then, Emma filled her lungs with a large gasp of air, sitting straight up. She gazed around us with wide eyes. Her lips twitched upward into a smile. She covered her mouth with her hand, happy sobs escaping.
"Emma?" Her father asked.
"I - I remember," she said. She lowered her hand from her face and I swear I've never seen a brighter smile. "I remember everything,"
I couldn't believe it. Just like that, her memories were back? How's that even possible? There has to be more to this, I just know it. As happy as I am that Emma has her memory back, something just doesn't feel right.
"I...I can see again," she said. I realized that we'd left her broken glasses in the middle of the street. Then it hit me, if she can see again, does that mean her abilities are back too? She looked around her room, her brows knitting together. "How'd I get here?"
"We drove you from the party," said Scott. I was thankful that he spoke for me. I just couldn't seem to be able to form words at the moment.
"Did I black out?"
"Not...not exactly," said Scott with a sigh, looking down at me.
"Well, what happened?" Emma asked. She turned her head to look at me, her hand rubbing along my arm. "Stiles?"
Her navy blue eyes found mine and for a moment I felt the entire world around me go still. The last time she woke up in my arms, she had no idea who I was. Now, as I hold her, she knows everything. She remembers everything. The thing is, I just want her to be happy about it. I don't want to burden her with my worry that something else is wrong.
I let out a heavy sigh. "You were just shaking a lot, that's all. But you're fine now, you remember. That's all that matters," I said.
She smiled and squeezed my arm. I gave a weak smile back. I tried to focus on the fact that she has all of those memories of us again. I needed to keep that thought in my head instead of the theory that's been haunting the back of my mind ever since she and Lydia both freaked out at the ice rink.
"Guys, as wonderful as this is, we sort of have a problem," said Scott. "Matt's the one controlling the kanima."
"Wait, kanima?" Mr. Brisbane asked. "A kanima is the thing killing all those people?"
"You know what a kanima is?" I asked him in shock.
"My wife was obsessed with mythology, you pick up on a few things," he said.
"Well do you know how to stop it?" Scott asked.
"I do,"
I looked down at Emma as she spoke. She blinked a few times, the way she always does when she gets nervous. She sucked in a deep breath.
"But first we have to stop Matt," she said. She then looked down at what she was wearing. "Right after I change out of this awful dress,"
I smiled. "That's my Emma."
~EMMA POV~
I can't believe it. I remember. I remember everything, from first learning to ride a bike to dancing with Stiles at the Winter Formal. It all just hit me at once, as if the barrier holding them back from me just finally broke, letting all of my memories flood back in.
I had to keep focusing on the happy ones. The sad ones, like how I felt after Mom and Zoe died, felt heavy and I knew that if I thought about them I would break down. I spent too long not acknowledging the pain that it all built up and it was threatening to send everything crumbling again. I had to push them away, at least for the moment. Right now we have bigger issues to deal with, like the fact that Matt's the one controlling Jackson.
Dad and Scott were out talking in the hall while Stiles stayed with me as I changed clothes. "Turn around," I told him. He groaned and rolled his eyes, facing the wall none the less.
I kicked off the brown boots I was wearing before slipping my denim dress off over my head and tossing it into a pile on my floor. I stepped into a pair of black skinny jeans and noticed Stiles sneak a peak.
"I said don't look!"
But instead of quickly turning back around as I expected, he came over to me. "Wait, Emma," he said. "Your scar,"
I looked down at my stomach and gasped. "Oh my god." There, right on my lower right abdomen, was the bite mark I had worn for over three years. Just like that, it reappeared. I traced my hand over it, as if to make sure that it was indeed real. It was.
The fact that I was standing in front of Stiles without a shirt on was hardly a thought as we both stared at the mark on my stomach. How was this possible? All of the sudden I black out, remember everything, and get my scar back? There has to be something more.
"Eric said that you're connected to the wolf that bit you," said Stiles.
"But Peter's dead, remember? You and Jackson burned him alive and then Derek slashed his throat?" I said.
"Emma, this can't just be a coincidence," he said. His eyes shifted and he took a deep breath, pulling something out of his back pocket. When he held it in front of me I realized it was a pocket knife. "Do you trust me?"
"Why do you carry around a knife?"
"We live in a town with werewolves and kanimas and who knows what else, I have to be able to defend myself somehow." He did make a good point. "Do you trust me?"
I took a deep breath and nodded. He grabbed my wrist, holding out my arm. He opened up his pocket knife and held out the blade. His eyes made deep contact with mine as the knife neared my skin. I kept my breathing steady. I didn't like this, but I know we have to do it. We have to test me.
I winced and clenched my teeth as the blade dug into my forearm, but not too deep. Stiles took the knife away and we watched my skin with bated breath. Droplets of blood slid down my arm. It didn't sting as much as I expected. Yet, it wasn't healing.
"It didn't work," I said with disappointment. I hung my head and snatched my arm out of Stiles' grip. I still wasn't healing. I still don't have my abilities back.
"But your sight, you said you could see clearly again, without your glasses," said Stiles. Once again, he had a point.
Still, I shook my head. "It doesn't matter anyways."
I grabbed a maroon tank top and slipped it on over my head, noticing the look of disappointment on Stiles' face. I put on a pair of tan lace-up boots and grabbed a leather jacket that Lydia and I had bought. I slid my right arm in first, but stopped as I went to fill the left sleeve.
"Stiles, look,"
The cut on my forearm was gone and there were no traces of blood. It healed. A shocked laugh escaped my lips as I looked from my arm to Stiles. He was staring at it open-mouthed. I do have my abilities back. I can heal again.
I am no longer helpless.
☾
"So this kid's the real killer?" Sheriff Stilinski asked us.
Scott, Stiles, and I had all rushed over to Stiles' house to explain to his father that Matt is the one killing all of these people. A yearbook was laid out on Stiles' desk in front of him. Names were crossed out and Matt's photo was circled in red permanent marker.
"Yes," said Stiles.
"No," said the Sheriff, folding his arms.
"Dad, yes," said Stiles standing up. "Everyone knows that the police looks for ways to connect victims in a murder, okay? So all he had to do like look through their transcripts and figure out which class they all had in common."
"Yeah, except for the fact that the rave promoter, Cara, wasn't in Harris' class," said the Sheriff.
"Yeah, alright, okay sorry, you're right," said Stiles, rolling his eyes. "Then I guess they dropped the charges against him?"
Sheriff Stilinski pointed a finger. "You know what, no. They're not dropping the charges, but that doesn't prove anything."
Stiles gaped at his father, pushing to argue further.
"Scott, Emma, do you two believe this?" Sheriff Stilinski asked us.
Scott and I glanced at each other. I was thankful when Scott spoke for me. "It's really hard to explain how we know this, but you just gotta trust us. We know it's Matt,"
"Yeah, he took Harris' car," said Stiles. "Okay? Look, he knew that if the cops found tire tracks at one of the murders, and that if enough of the victims were in Harris' class, that they'd arrest him."
"Alright, I'll allow the remote possibility but give me a motive. I mean, why would this kid want most of the 2006 swim team and its coach dead?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Stiles stated. Oh, this should be good. "Our swim team sucks! They haven't won in like six years, okay we don't have a motive yet. I mean, come on, does Harris?"
I was beginning to wish Eric were back already. If he was on the swim team back then he might know something about why Matt would want to kill them all. He could give us an explanation as to why Matt sold his freaking soul to the kanima for this.
Sheriff Stilinski sighed. "Alright, what do you want me to do?"
Scott took a step forward. "We need to look at the evidence,"
"That would be in the station, where I no longer work," said the Sheriff, looking directly at Stiles.
"Trust me, they'll let you in," said Stiles.
"Trust you?" Sheriff Stilinski said, pointing a finger at his son.
Stiles stumbled around for a moment. "Trust...trust Emma and Scott?" He said, pointing back at the two of us.
"Those two I trust," he said, lowering his finger.
☾
Scott, Stiles, and I all followed behind Sheriff Stilinski into the police station. The dark-skinned deputy at the counter gave us all strange looks when we entered. Mr. Stilinski approached her at the front desk.
"It's two in the morning," she said.
"Believe me, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't extremely important," said the Sheriff.
Stiles turned to Scott and I as he father sweet talked the deputy. "We look at the hospital stuff first," he said.
Scott nodded. "Okay,"
"Why?" I asked.
"Because all the murders were committed by Jackson except for one, remember?" Stiles said.
"I do, actually," I said, batting my eyelashes.
"Cute," said Stiles. I smirked at him.
The deputy nodded at Sheriff Stilinski and her thanked her before calling us to follow after him. Stiles gave the deputy a small wave as we went into the back where all the evidence is kept. We pulled out the security footage from the hospital the night that the pregnant girl was killed to see if we could spot Matt.
"I don't know, guys," sighed the Sheriff. "I mean look at this, there was a six car pile up that night. The hospital was jammed,"
"Alright, just keep going," said Stiles. "He had to pass one of the cameras to get to that floor to get to Jessica, okay? He's got to be on the footage somewhere,"
I narrowed my eyes at the screen, trying to see if I could pick out Matt myself. I remembered him much clearer now and his face isn't so vague. Spotting him in a crowd like that after really only seeing him a couple of times would be much more difficult.
"Oh, stop! Look, did you see it?" Scott said, leaning over Stiles to point at the screen. "Scroll back,"
The Sheriff obeyed and rolled back the footage a few seconds. A tall figure dressed in black walked out from behind an elderly man in a robe. You couldn't see much of him, but I could tell that it was definitely Matt.
"That him, that's Matt!" Stiles exclaimed.
"All I see is the back of someone's head," said the Sheriff.
"Matt's head, yeah," said Stiles. "I sit behind him in History he has a very distinct cranium, it's weird,"
"Are you crazy?" The Sherrif said.
Stiles pointed back at the screen. "Alright then, look at his jacket. How many people do you know that wear black leather jackets?"
"Millions, literally,"
"Okay, scroll forward," said Scott. "There's got to be a shot of him coming at one of the cameras,"
Sheriff Stilinski obeyed once again, scrolling through the time line of the security footage. I saw the same figure as earlier walk around a corner, stopping to talk with a nurse.
"Wait, stop, there he is again," I said. Sheriff Stilinski paused the footage.
"It's the back of his head again,"
"He's talking to somebody," said Stiles.
Scott leaned in. "He's talking to my mom,"
After Scott hung up from a phone call with his mother about Matt, Sheriff Stilinski began digging through more evidence files. Melissa said that she stopped him from dragging mud in the halls, so if we can find a footprint from another one of the crime scenes we can pin Matt for all these murders and lock his psycho ass up.
We've already found him at the sites of four murders, the trailer where the footprints are, the hospital, the rave, and the garage where he used a credit card to pay for an oil change. There's no way he could get out of being sighted at four crime scenes.
Sheriff Stilinski ordered Scott to call his mom back to come down and get an official ID on Matt so he can get a search warrant. He told Stiles and I to go back out to the front desk to tell them to let Melissa in when she gets here. Stiles and I both rushed out, but when we got to the front desk, there was no one there.
I took another step closer and my breath hitched in the back of my throat when I saw the deputy lying on the ground. Her eyes were lifeless and her torso was bloody and slashed. "Um, Stiles?"
He stepped in behind me, getting a look at the body. "Oh god,"
I grabbed his wrist. But, when we turned around to go find Scott, we were met with the end of a lead barrel. I steadied my breathing as I looked Matt dead in the eyes, trying to ignore the fact that he was holding a gun to our heads.
It's not me that I'm worried about getting shot. I already know that I'll heal. Stiles, however, he won't. And there's no way in hell I'm losing him.
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Thanks so much for reading!
Well, Emma remembers! Did anyone pick up on the glasses metaphor I've been using throughout this whole book so far? No? Maybe?
Sorry if it's short. Is it short? I don't even know.
Thanks again and don't forget to comment, vote, and follow!
GIF not mine.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
-Alyssa