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It takes Nova Hale an entire month before she notices that her cousin, Derek, is missing.
There are two things you need to know about Derek Hale before you judge her: 1) Derek leaves all the time. This isn't new. However, he usually isn't gone this long—no more than a week at the longest, and if he is going to be gone longer than that he will tell her beforehand—and he always, always, comes back. That last part is important. Remember that. And, 2) Derek is the most technologically-challenged person she knows. He never checks his phone. In fact, Nova wouldn't be surprised if he has forgotten he even owns a phone.
It is for these reasons that when she does realise he is missing, she doesn't panic immediately. Instead, she forces herself to think back to when she saw him last... but, okay, um... she doesn't remember... And his car is still in the garage, he surely wouldn't have gone somewhere without it... And... oh, fuck, what if something is wrong...?
And suddenly it is like a switch has been flipped in the back of her mind and she drops the tray of freshly baked cookies she has been holding, letting it clatter to the floor. Her anxiety kicks in and she stands there in the kitchen foolishly, the pair of oven mitts covering her hands seeming more and more like a stupid decision because she cannot grasp onto her phone to save herself—or should she say... to save Derek?—and before she knows it, her phone is slipping from her hands and onto the floor, where it lands with a rueful crack.
Fucking hell.
Nova crouches down to pick it up, and that is when she sees it. There, across the room, the sunlight is streaming through the window, hitting a spot on the floor and illuminating an object she had not taken notice of before. Her footsteps are unsettlingly loud as she walks over, almost too loud against the silence within the loft. She bends down and reaches her hand out, her fingers grazing it: shell casings, bearing a stylised skull on them. Her stomach drops. There is only one family of hunters that use them, and that's the Calaveras.
