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The rest of her first day of junior year trudged along, full of syllabus reviews and 'what did you do over the summer?' Her answer to this question was always, "I worked and hung out with my friends." It was the truth. She'd gotten a job at the Beacon Hills bowling alley, and when she wasn't working, she'd hung out with the rest of the pack. The summer had been mellow and now, looking back, she realized she had taken it for granted. When compared to the summer before, however... It was definitely an improvement.
Shortly after the final bell had ended, Darcy was getting ready to walk home when a familiar blue Jeep sidled up to the curb in front of her. Her mouth tilted into a half-smile at seeing Liam's head sticking out the back window like a dog.
"Hey," he said. "Wanna come stalk Theo Raeken with us?"
Darcy's only reaction was to raise a single eyebrow in questioning.
She heard Stiles say from the driver's seat, "It's not stalking, just... observing from a distance."
"Well, when you put it that way," Darcy said without thinking and opened the passenger door. Before her butt even touched the seat, Stiles was pulling away from the sidewalk. She fell back with a huff, shoving her backpack between her feet on the floor.
"Where's everyone else?" Darcy asked as Stiles shoved some papers in her vague direction. She took them from him and skimmed the text, confused.
"Busy," was all the senior said before explaining what the papers in her hands meant.
-
"I told you guys he was up to something," Stiles said to Darcy's right.
She looked at him, annoyance making her lips purse.
Up until this point, Theo had done a grand total of nothing. They'd watched him play video games and do homework from the bushes outside his house for a while. It'd grown boring about an hour in, but after a while, he had finally done something interesting. He had grabbed a brown, strangely-shaped package off his desk before getting into his car and driving out to the preserve, unbeknownst to them following him.
Now, they watched him pull out the same package and then start making his way further into the woods.
Liam suddenly broke the silence that had fallen over the three of them by saying, "We just spent three hours watching this dude play video games in his bedroom."
"Stiles, I've talked to him. He's not at all suspicious," Darcy said, not wanting to take her eyes off Theo but looking over to see Stiles's reaction anyway. At first, it'd been funny, stalking Theo when she figured it would just prove Stiles's weird suspicion wrong, but now it felt almost intrusive.
"You-" The senior gave her an evil eye, which included furrowed eyebrows and flared nostrils. "I knew we shouldn't have brought you. You're biased."
Darcy's face warmed at the accusation, but she shot back in a hushed whisper, "You asked me to come, and you're the one who always assumes the worst in people!"
