CULMINATION 🪐 STILES STILINSKI {3}

CHAPTER SEVEN

A sharp breath escapes her throat, her body shooting up off the sheets with a jolt. She had done her best to swallow the scream that threatened to leave her lips but a whimper had managed to make its way through, along with the tears that not stained her face. Strong arms wrapped around her from behind, pulling her closer and into their chest and their hands weave their way through her brown locks.

"It's okay." the voice whispers, definitely male. "You're safe, they can't hurt you. I've got you, Vee."

His voice was soft and soothing, it comforted her. It made her feel protected and genuinely safe. Venus wraps her arms around his waist, their holds on each other tightening as she chokes on another sob. Some nights it felt like that dark room down in the tunnels had become a permanent part of her, it's residency now in her mind for as long as she lives.

She knew the horrors she endured in those tunnels would never leave her, she had the physical scars to prove it, starting with the claw marks that still remained across her stomach. But as she sat there in his arms, she felt truly and completely safe. Then the thought occurred to her of who was in her bed?

Her body jolts yet again, this time it truly awoke. Blue eyes darted left and right across her entire room, nothing. No one was here but her. Yet that voice, it had seemed so real, he had seemed real and the tears now falling down her chin were definitely real too. And Venus knew as the word slipped through her lips that it was him.

A quiet whisper in an otherwise still house. 

"Stiles."

•••

     Lydia had tracked them all down the first thing in the morning, and dragged them off to the side of the hall. Venus had kept the dream to herself, not ready to share those intimate moments nestled in her memories with anyone else. She had tried to keep the fact that she had been crying all night to herself too but Isaac had heard her, though he made no move to confront her.

They could all see the despair on her features but no one had the heart to confront her. Not when they all had the idea Stiles was more important to her than anyone else. So she stood, her hair half up in a knot on the top of her head as she watched her friends converse.

"It's a relic." the strawberry blonde states, holding up the student ID card that Liam and Corey had found in the library.

"What's a relic?" Malia flowers, her gaze lingering on the card.

"An object with a fixed association to the past. Jakes ID was left behind after he was taken and Gwen found her sisters bracelet on her bedroom floor."

Isaac holds a hand out, his eyebrows furrowed. "Hang on, I don't get it. How can someone be erased and still leave something behind?"

"Life is energy." Venus mumbles, slightly startling her friends seeing as she hadn't spoken all day.

"She's right. It's a conservation of mass." Lydia continues, eyeing her arguably closest friend worriedly. "The total mass of any isolated system remains constant."

"So even the ghost riders have a weakness." Scott says, sounding almost relieved.

"It also means that Stiles must've left something no behind too." Venus speaks again, her shoulders easing a little at the prospect of them behind closer to finding him, to her remembering.

"And maybe we can bring him back."

•••

"You want to search my house?" Noah speaks incredulously, flipping over the student ID card in his fingers from behind his desk.