CULMINATION 🪐 STILES STILINSKI {3}

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

     Venus' body keels over, her horror stricken gasp interrupting the deafening silence the pack was shrouded in. Isaac doesn't spare a single second before grabbing onto her, her body collapsing back into him as he did so. The girl grasps at her chest, feeling an odd pain, as if something had went straight through the skin.

"Venus, you gotta block it out." Isaac instructs, holding onto her shaking body. "Vee, I need you to listen to me. You're okay!"

A loud gasp escapes her throat as her body twists and she starts coughing heavily, the sudden intake of air shocking her system. She closes her eyes, trying to focus on the energies all around her to figure out what in the world was happening but to no avail.

"What just happened?" Malia exclaims, standing over the siblings worriedly.

"Someone's dying." the girl reveals, resting her back against the island she had been previously leaning on. "I can't tell who, or where exactly it's coming from. My head's too loud."

Scott crouches down next to her and hands her a glass of water, which she gratefully takes. "What do you mean it's too loud?"

"The trees. It's almost like...like they're confused. Scared, even. I think whatever we let out of the Hunt, it's tipping the scales a whole lot."

Lydias head falls into her palm with a sigh, her mind going haywire with the many events that had taken place in the mere span of twenty four hours. A loud ringing noice interrupts all their running thoughts, Venus fumbling with her pocket to silence it.

"Oh no." she breathes, looking up at Scott and tilting the phone towards him.

Stiles<3 would like to facetime...

"I told him we'd call when we reached Palo Alto."

Scott's eyes widen. "You have to pick up."

"He's gonna recognize your house." Lydia states incredulously, not believing how the boy hadn't thought of that.

"Go outside, tell him you're taking a walk in the city or something." Isaac says like its the simplest thing.

Malia snorts at the statement, rolling her eyes at the werewolf. "Yeah because Scott's street looks like a Stanford neighborhood."

Even though Malia was right, Scott helps Venus off the ground and pulls her out through his back door and tells her to pick up. Venus puts on her best smile, moving closer to Scott to both block the view behind them as best as they can and to lean on him for stability after her fit, before she swipes across her screen and accepts the call.

"Hey, Stiles!" she greets merrily, the two of them smiling at the camera happily.

"Ah, my two favorite people in the world!" the boy smiles back, slumping further into his desk chair.

Scott laughs at the sight of his best friend. "Yeah, I won't tell your dad."

"Shouldn't you be at UC Davis?"

The werewolf clears his throat awkwardly. "It's only a two hour drive, thought I'd help Vee move in, get a hotel and leave in the morning."

"Did you meet any of your roommates? How's the campus?"

"Uh...yeah, yeah. Everything's great here. It's everything I could've dreamed of."

"That sounds great, Vee." he smiles at her lovingly. "What are you guys doing?"

"We were just taking a walk around campus." Venus lies quickly, hating how easily this was all coming to her. "Shouldn't you be studying or something?"