Chapter 53
Peter Hale, stood before me, grinning deviously down at me as he spoked his haunting voice from my nightmares, "Well, hello there, Princess. You've been quite a bad girl, haven't you?"
"You're not real..." I breathed out, closing my eyes in order to block out my brain pulling tricks on me.
Peter let out a dark chuckle as he stated, "Not yet, but I'll be back... very soon."
"You're dead..." I said a bit more firm, "You're not real."
"That's right, Princess," I shivered at the sound of his voice so near my ear, and to make things worse is that I swore I was able to feel his breath on the back of my neck as he continued, "I'm dead, but I won't be for long. And you know what I will do as soon as I get out of the ratty hole my dear nephew placed me in? I'm sure you know very well."
"Stop..." I stuttered, "You're dead... You can't do anything to me."
"Dead or not, Juliette," his voice became darker, losing his cheery tone he was mocking me with, "I'll get what I want. I always do. I'll start by removing those that are preventing you from opening your eyes to your true potential. The perfect Alpha."
"You lay a single finger on my friend," I finally growled, snapping under my growing rage, "I will make sure you stay dead."
"I can see the Alpha inside you," he continued, ignoring my threat, "It's a majestic one, and that's all thanks to me. I gave you this potential."
"I don't want it," I hissed venom on every word, "I just want to live a normal life with Stiles..."
"Stiles..." Peter growled, "I'll make sure you never see him ever again. He's corrupted your mind far too much."
When I opened my eyes, angry at his statement. I turned around, ready to rip him a new one, but I paused at the sight of Peter holding Stiles' throat in his clawed hand. My eyes widen but my rage still held strong as I growled.
"DON'T YOU TOUCH HIM!" I hissed my class, starting to come out.
"I wonder if you would finally snap into your power once I kill him," he smirked like a mad man.
With that, he slit Stiles' throat before my eyes, I went to lung at him as I exclaimed, "NO!"
One moment I was starring down my father, ready to kill him for what he had done to Stiles, but then I was faced by an empty stairway with a few party-goers glancing over to you. I cleared my throat, trying to play off what I had done, but rushed down the stairs as fast as I could to look for Stiles and Scott. As she went through the first floor in search of them, my heart began to quicken. My brain was panicking at the overwhelming feeling of fear.
"Stiles..." I breathed out as I took a hold of that small string linking me to him.
It didn't take long for me to find him by one of the pillars clearly blacked out from the drink. Something was happening in his mind which was the cause for his fear. I took hold of him as I began to shake him awake. As I tried my best to get a hold of Stiles, I heard my phone going off in my purse. Cursing, I pulled it out and answered it without caring to check who was calling me.
"Hello?" I said, rushing whoever was calling to make it quick.
"I need your help..."
I knew the voice right away, but I just shook my head as I replied with, "Sorry, Derek. I have my hands tied up here... Call Scott."
"I'm trying but he's not answering," he through in before I was able to hang up.
I sighed, "Derek... I can't help you. I need to keep an eye on Jackson. Besides, you decided to make Betas out of teens. Take responsibility for what you did... Sorry."
With that, I hung up the call as I went back to trying to shake Stiles up.
"Juliette!"
I turned around to look at Scott as he rushed over to me, "Some thing's wrong!"
"I kind of got that after I saw my father threatening to kill Stiles and killing him," I replied, "Now help me wake Stiles up!"
He handed me bottled water as I took it from him and began to take the cap off it.
"Come on, babe," I said with worry, "Look at me, Stiles. Drink the water, babe."
Scott knelt beside me as he tried to help me without a drunk friend, "Stiles, drink it."
"Some thing's happening," I panicked, "I need you to sober up right now. Come on, Stiles."
"What do you think you are doing?" a female cam up to us as she looked down at what we were doing to wake Stiles up with and only gave us attitude as she continued, "You want to sober him up fast, that's not the way to do it."
"And you know better than this?" I threw her attitude back as I raised an eyebrow at her.
"Girl," she laughed, "I can do best."
With that, I watched her take Stiles from the back of his neck and dunked him into the pool beside him. Like magic, Stiles gasped awake as she pulled him back out from the water.
"Whoo!" he gasped.
"How do you feel?" the girl asked him, no trace of sincerity in her tone.
Stiles glance behind him before he replied with his own sass, "Like I might have to revisit my policy on hitting a girl."
"He's Sober," the girl smirked before walking off.
All three of us watched the girl walk away but I was the first to pull Stiles into a hug as I let out a sigh of relief.
"I was so worried," I breathed out causing Stiles to hug me back, "All I was feeling was your fear and I thought something was going to happen..."
"I'm okay," he offered, "I must have had a nightmare."
"I think the drink Lydia gave us caused it..." Scott offered.
I pulled away from Stiles to look over to Scott and nodded, "We need to look for Lydia. I need to figure out what is going on with her. I have been hearing those voices in my brain again and they always lead me to Lydia."
"Let's split up," Stiles nodded as well as we both stood up from the floor.
After a short ten minutes of rushing about the house, we all met up back to the backyard. I knew right away that we all have come up empty-handed.
"I can't find her," I stated over the music as soon as we got close to each other.
"And," Stiles turned to Scott, "Dude, anyone who drank that crap, they're freaking out."
"I can see that," Scott sighed as his brain began to turn the gears to think of a plan.
"No dude!" I heard someone call out, "Don't, don't, don't!"
"What are we gonna do?" Stiles asked Scott back as I tried to look for who was calling out for help.
"I don't know," Scott shook his head in thought, "But we gotta..."
Before Scott could finish his thought, we all hear the distress of someone calling out to the party-goers, "I can't swim! No, no, no, no, stop, guys! I can't swim! I can't swim! I can't-"
At that moment Matt was tossed into the pool. I was frozen in my spot from sheer shock. Once I was able to snap out of it, I was about to rush to the pool to get him out. He might have been a dick to me earlier and a creep, I wasn't going to let another person die over something so stupid. Before I could even get closer to the pool, someone beat me to it.
Jackson didn't blink an eye before he jumped after Matt. The sight made me pause. So many thoughts rushed to my head as I watched Jackson help Matt out of the pool. I just continued to watch them both as I began to piece everything together. Matt must be the master. Jackson would never save someone, he's too much of a tool to even help another person if it didn't benefit him at the end of the day.
"What are you looking at?" Matt snapped at me before he walked off.
I stepped back to the stand between Scott and Stiles as I breathed out, "It's Matt..."
The boys nodded just as sirens began to wail in the distance, coming toward the house.
"The cops are here!" someone called out, "Party's over! Run!"
Stiles took my hand and began to rush toward his car. Scott followed right at our heels as we got into the car as fast as we could. Scott hopped to the back as fast as he could before I followed behind him. As soon as we were all settled in the car, Stiles made a beeline to his house. He made it in record time as we all rushed out of the car and into the house to find Mr. Stilinski sitting at the dining table as he read through the newspaper.
"DAD!" Stiles called out as we all rushed into the house.
"What?" Noah asked as he looked up at us as if we just grew a second head, "What's wrong now?"
"We know who is behind the murders!" Stiles announced.
"Okay," Noah sighed, "Let's hear this theory you have..."
"It's Matt!" I told him, wanting him to believe us, "You have to trust us!"
Stiles rushed to his room and brought over a yearbook as opened it to where the picture of Matt was shown, "Him! He's the one behind the murders."
"So this kid's the real killer?" Noah looked at us, still holding his suspicions behind it being true.
Stiles held his ground as he replied, "Yeah."
"No," Noah sighed back.
"Yes!' Stiles exclaimed firmly.
"No," Noah replied back as calm as he did before.
"Dad, come on." Stiles rubbed his face before looking at his father, "Everybody knows that the police look for ways to connect victims in a murder, okay? So all he had to do is, like, look through their transcripts and figure out which class they all had in common."
"Yeah," Noah played with the thought, but was still not paying it, "Except for the fact that the rave promoter Kara wasn't in Harris' class."
"Alright, okay," stiles began to think of a new approach, "You're right, sorry. Then I guess they dropped the charges against him?"
"No, you know what?" Noah crossed his arms, "They're not dropping the charges. But that doesn't prove anything."
Stiles was about to say something when Noah stopped him by turning to both Scott and I, "Do you guy believe this?"
Scott nodded as he replied, "It's really hard to explain how we know this, but you just gotta trust us. We know it's Matt."
Noah nodded, trying to see if anything seemed off from Scott, only to find nothing. Once he made his judgment, he glanced over to me as I just crossed my arms as well, scrunching my eyebrows to show how serious I am about all of this.
I nodded firmly as I replied as serious as I could, "Yes, 100%. I'm sure of this. Not to mention the guys a creep."
"Yeah," Stiles jumped in, "He took Harris' car, okay? Look, he knew that if a cop found tire tracks at one of the murders, and that if enough of the victims were in Harris' class, that they'd arrest him."
Noah sighed, clearly not wanting to be apart of another goose chase where his son is is involved but he replied with a firm, "All right, fine. 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? Our Swim team sucks!" Stiles threw out as I glared at him as if he's insane, "They haven't won in, like, six years. Okay, we don't have a motive yet. I mean, come on, does Harris?"
"Stiles," I hit his shoulder, "Shut the hell up for once. He has a vendetta toward the swim team. My thoughts are that they must have put some kind of trauma on him. Tonight he was thrown in the pool as he was yelling at everyone that he didn't know how to swim. Whatever they did, it mush have fueled his need to kill them."
"That's is more believable," Noah pointed over to me, before looking over to his son, "What do you want me to do?"
Scott stepped up as he announced, "We need to look at the evidence."
"Yeah," Noah agreed before he shook his head, "That would be in the station, where I no longer work."
"Trust me they'll let you in," Stiles stated.
"Trust you?" Noah exclaimed as he looked at his son with disbelief.
"Trust-" Stiles paused as he looked at everyone in the room before continuing, "Trust Scott and Juliette?"
"Scott I sometimes trust," Noah replied, causing Scott to shyly smile but then turned to me and replied, "Juliette I would trust with my life."
"Good choice, Sheriff," I grinned over to him, "Let's go to the station!"
We all climbed out of Noah's car as we all headed over to the station. Stiles was holding my hand as we walked behind his dad. Scott kept behind us as we all entered the station. A single woman was stationed there, the same deputy that Derek had flirted with. When the deputy looked up to see us walking in, she gave a pained look like she didn't want to ask her former sheriff to leave.
"It's 2 in the morning..." she sighed.
"Believe me," Noah sighed back as he replied, "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't extremely important."
The deputy looked deep into his eyes before nodding and motioning them through to the back.
As I walked past her, I offered her a smile, as Stiles pulled me in to whispered to me and Scott, "We look at the hospital stuff first, okay?"
"Why?" Scott asked.
"Because all the murders were committed by Jackson," Stiles began as I finished of him once I got what his plan was, "Except for one. The pregnant girl, Jessica."
"Yeah," Stiles nodded, "Since Matt had to kill her himself, somebody from the hospital could've seen him."
Once he entered the office Noah turned to us as he thanked us, "Thank you, guys."
I smiled back as I answered, "Anything for you Sheriff."
We got to work as soon as Noah handed us all of the evidence they have on the case. I was seated beside Stiles as we looked through the surveillance footage of the hospital. It was a lot and my eyes were starting to hurt. I haven't told Noah that Matt had gone to my room the same night, but if we don't find anything, I might have to tell them that.
Noah leaned over our shoulder and spoke up, "I don't know, guys. I mean, look at this. There was a six-car pileup that night, the hospital was jammed."
"Alright," Stiles sighed before saying, "Just keep going. Look, he had to have passed one of the cameras on that floor to get to Jessica, okay? He's gotta be on the footage somewhere."
"Oh!" I exclaimed, "Hold on, stop! Did you see that? Scroll back."
Stiles did as asked before playing it again, that's when he saw it as well, "That's him! That's Matt!"
Noah leaned forward and closer tot he screen as he replied, "All I see is the back of someone's head."
"Matt's head, yeah," Stiles exclaimed, "I sit behind him in history. He's got a very distinct cranium, it's weird."
"Not to mention you have been glaring at him lately due to his sick obsession with me..." I commented under my breath.
"Are you two crazy?" Noah looked at us both in disbelief.
"Alright, fine," Stiles sighed in surrender before adding, "then look at his jacket, huh? How many people do you know who wear black leather jackets?"
"That point is invalid, babe," I sighed and shook my head, "I wear leather jackets. Especially, black ones."
"Exactly," Noah agreed with my statement, "Millions wear leather jackets, literally."
"Okay," Scott pulled our attention to him, "Can we scroll forward? There's gotta be short of him coming at one of the cameras."
I jumped to the controls to look for a better angle of the section of the hospital. Once I found a good angle, I played the footage around the same time we saw Matt come into the last footage.
"Right there!" Stiles exclaimed, "Stop, stop! See, there he is again."
"You mean there's the back of his head again?" Noah stated, already wanting to give up.
"Wait," I stopped them from going into their back and forth, "Look! He's talking to someone."
"He's talking to our moms," Scott announced.
"What the hell?" I breathed out.
"I need you two to call your mothers," Noah announced, "They are witnesses to the crime."