I'm sorry it's taken me so long, but I've finally updated. (Can't really control the whole 'writer's block' thing.) Anyway, please VOTE. COMMENT. FAN. ENJOY. :D
Chapter Five
• Allison •
The next day, all anyone can talk about is the murder.
Whispers snake their way through the halls, lingering in the ears of wary travelers. A tale of gore told from an anxious tongue, echoed by half-hearted sympathy.
According to the Sheriff, the murder occurred before midnight― but it’s hard to be certain when you barely have a body on which to perform an autopsy.
I grasp at the rumors floating around me, piecing together what sounds like the truth. A woman was jogging through the woods earlier this morning when she stumbled across the shredded remains of a middle-aged bank teller. I didn’t know the victim personally― and when humans aren’t acquainted with one another, they tend not to think twice about someone’s passing, even if their skin was literally peeled from their bones. Six months ago, I might not have really cared about a murder. Heartless, but it’s true. I would have been more scared out of my mind, worried about my own personal safety― the usual teenage reaction. Me, me, me, oh there’s a dead guy that’s sad, me, me, me.
But that was six months ago.
Now, I know that this was not some random attack― and if it was, nine out of ten times the attacker wasn’t quite human. Murder doesn’t frighten me― not in the way that it used to― because I am no longer that teenager that thinks the world revolves around them. I don’t need my dad to reassure me, tell me that everything will be fine before popping in a copy of Dirty Dancing. No. I can take care of myself.
I scan the halls for Scott or Stiles or Lydia or anyone who knows anything about the supernatural. Some part of me, hopeful and lacking common sense, believed that Beacon Hills could finally be a safe place. With the death of Peter and the absence of both the alpha pack and the kanima, I figured things could return to normal. Well, as normal as things could ever be. At the very least, not having a murder every other day.
I guess that was just too much to ask for.
As words swarm around me, my brain fills with conspiracies and questions, already seeking solutions. There is just so much that I don’t understand. About last night’s murder: What attacked him? It wasn’t even a full moon. About Scott: Why does he keep avoiding me? What is going on with him? About Lydia: Why all of a sudden is she acting like a normal person again? About the alpha pack: Why would they come to Beacon Hills because of Aubrey, only to kill her? Where did they go?
About me.
The bell rings, signaling that first period would be starting in just a few minutes. Too overcome with the whispers and my poisonous thoughts, my mind wanders and my eyes glaze over. I don’t even notice where I’m going until I run into something solid and then I’m falling.
The whole concept of falling is strange. Everything seems so concrete one second, and the next it’s nothing. Just air. Everything seems to slow down, as if time itself is standing still, greedy eyes anticipating the inevitable drop. It’s a brief moment where breath seems tangible and there’s no pain.
But then you hit the ground.
Strong arms catch me, keeping me from slamming into the tile floor. I look up into the face of Isaac, his blue eyes wide with alarm. His fingers grip mine as if he’s seen a ghost.
Something is definitely wrong.
“Isaac?” I murmur, acutely aware of how empty the hallway is. The bell must have rung and I missed it; that has been happening more and more as of late. “What are you doing here? I thought Derek told you that you weren’t allowed to leave the house.”
The night after Peter Hale died― for good this time― Derek had called everyone over for a kind of pack meeting, explaining what had happened and making preparations for the future. How members of the alpha pack had broken into the Hale house at the same time as the attack on the clinic, and how they had abruptly slit Peter’s throat. How we should lay low for now, try to focus on distancing ourselves from everything with claws― especially those of us with non-animalistic abilities. And how the next day, he simply cut off all communication― disconnected his phone, put the house on lockdown, and carved spirals into the wood paneling of the walls.
Isaac meets my gaze, helping me to my feet. His grip tightens so that I start to lose feeling in my arm, but he looks so stricken that I’m not able to form words. He blurts out, “He is. I mean, no, I’m not supposed to leave the house, but this is just too big. Definitely an emergency. I had to come find you and Scott.”
“What is it?” My voice scrapes its way up my throat, rusting and creaking with every motion.
“This morning, I heard about the murder, and figured that it would probably be best if I went to the crime scene. Not that Stiles’ dad isn’t capable of piecing together the puzzle or anything, but I thought I might be able to catch something he missed. You know, wolf senses and all that. Anyway, so I went to the crime scene and found something weird. Now the weirdest thing we’ve ever encountered, but still, pretty weird.
“It was a combination of two things, really. The crime scene was bloody, of course, and repeated the same details from some of the other murders, but something was off. Some kind of smell. I tracked it to the center of the scene, where the body had been. Next to where the head would have been was a small stain, but it was covered with leaves so that I wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t been searching. When I looked closer, I recognized the scent― from the warehouse, when you and Gerard went crazy and decided to hack everyone to bits.” He offers a rueful grin, the faint line of scar tissue visible above his collarbone. Don’t remind me, I think. He continues, “Well, you know, the blackish blood that came out of him― it was that. And, honestly, I’ve never known anything besides a kanima to have black blood.”
At the mention of the kanima, my fingers unconsciously trail across my stomach. My mind flashes back to outside the clinic, the sharp pain of claws slicing through my flesh and Scott’s helpless face. The stitches were removed a few days ago, revealing angry, raised marks. It doesn’t hurt anymore― not if I don’t put pressure on it. But recently, I find myself digging my fingers into my skin. It reminds me that all of this is actually real.
Coming back into focus, my eyes snap up to Isaac’s, and the gears in my brain whirl. “So, wait, you think Gerard did this? He’s dead.”
Isaac shakes his head and releases his grip on me. “The one thing I’ve learned is in Beacon Hills, no one is dead until you see the body.” He rubs a hand down his face, a sigh emitting from closed lips. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but it’s definitely strange.”
Already, I can feel myself trying to connect the dots, solving the equation. I was never as good at problem-solving as Stiles, but he’s currently checked out. I would be, too, if I had to live with the notion that Scott was dead. I hear myself say, “Maybe this is Gerard; we don’t know. But the guy that was killed… he obviously wasn’t a shape-shifter or anything. He probably didn’t put up much of a fight― at least, not enough to hurt a kanima. So why would there be black blood?”
“Maybe Gerard got a paper cut.” Isaac chuckles to himself, waiting for me to join him, but it’s a failed attempt at humor. While I’m picking up the lack of problem-solving, he’s trying to pick up the wittiness. “Okay, never mind. I really have no idea. I’m a werewolf, not an Einstein.”
“Okay, so there’s black blood and a dead body…” I trail off, but it doesn’t add up. There’s something strange about this, but it’s something else too. The crime scene doesn’t seem strange enough. It’s almost like whatever did this wanted us to find the black blood.
“There’s another thing that I forgot to mention,” Isaac says, leaning against the wall. He tries to be nonchalant, but there is tension in the set of his shoulders. “There were markings on the trees surrounding the clearing― the same claw marks Derek found near the house. I think the same person that murdered the bank-teller has been hanging around the Hale house. There’s something connecting them.”
“Wait, there were marks outside of Derek’s house? Why would the thing be plotting out the house instead of attacking? If it is a kanima, they wouldn’t think twice before barging right in and killing everybody.”
“Not if the one controlling it ordered it to stake out the house.” He leans his head back, eyebrows raised and smirk in place.
“But… no, that’s not possible. It’s not the kanima because Aubrey was the last controller and she’s dead. She’s dead and that makes Gerard dead. This is some new abomination. It’s not the kanima.”
“Maybe it is.” Isaac stretches forward, fingers grasping at my shoulders painfully. I didn’t realize that I had been biting my lip and backing away until he held me still, the metallic taste of blood pooling in my mouth. “Is Aubrey really dead? We never saw a body.”
I shake my head, feeling tears prick at my vision. I don’t want to cry. Not here, not now, not in front of Isaac. I’m stronger than this, I am― “I would know if Aubrey was alive. Stiles would know, I… she’s dead. Gerard’s dead.”
Isaac searches my face, drawing back from the finality in my voice. He looks stricken, shocked, and I feel my hands ball into fists. After a long pause, he finally breaks the silence. It’s a whisper, but it seems too loud. “I don’t believe it, and you shouldn’t either. We have to hope, Allison, and my hope is that Bree is still alive. I really think she is, I do. There’s good reason to believe that the alpha pack is still in Beacon Hills, and if they are, so is Bree.”
Absently, I trace patterns down my arm, still accustomed to the leather bracelet that used to encircle my wrist. I catch a flash of violet eyes and messy handwriting, a paper passed back and forth in silence. I close my eyes and think of a needle piercing my skin, inked birds flying across my flesh; there are four of them now. When I speak, I don’t recognize my voice. “She’s dead.”
Fingers rest against my chin, tilting my face up to meet Isaac’s blue eyes. They’re so clear it’s like looking into glass. His tone is quiet, drifting to the ground like snow. “Like I said, in Beacon Hills, no one is dead until you see the body.” And he winks, retreating down the hallway, surrounded by the reverberation of his own heartbeat.
I don’t know how long I stand there, motionless. There is darkness in the air, a shadow over the sun. Something is changing shifting transforming, and I’m going to figure out how to make everything light again.
There are bigger, more dangerous things out there than a girl with a lot of dead relatives and demons.
But I have a shotgun.
And there’s nothing more dangerous than a girl with nothing left to lose.