ꜱᴏᴍᴇ ᴘᴇᴏᴘʟᴇ ꜱᴛᴀʏ ║ ꜱᴛɪʟᴇꜱ ꜱᴛɪʟɪɴꜱᴋɪ

01. Highway Accident Acquaintances

 IT ALL STARTED with the morgue and a pair of tweezers.

Charlie didn't really like the idea of hanging out with dead people, but her Tuesday night had been boring so far anyways. The elevator dinged as she stepped off, on her way to retrieve a pair of tweezers for her dad, a nurse. He probably only sent her to get them so that she'd stop following him around the Beacon Hills Memorial emergency room.

The hospital was cold and not quite empty enough at night, like everyone who'd died here wanted to come out and say hi. There's been more recent deaths than Charlie knew what to do with, and nobody seemed to notice how common it was.

Maybe it had been a gradual build during the time she'd spent at Eichen, and only she really could see how shocking it was. She brushed off the thought as soon as it came, shoving memories into the back of her mind as she walked.

The lights buzzed overhead as Charlie made her way down the bright sterile hallway, passing a dark haired female nurse she felt like she should recognize. Charlie pushed the door to the morgue open.

She noticed three things upon entrance- one, there was a body in the middle of the room, two, a brunette teenage boy was staring at it, a blonde girl, and three, he was muttering something about sacrifices. 

Charlie felt herself going through a second of shock, before opening her mouth, ready to let out a stream of swear words that would make even her mother turn in her grave.

"Okay, what the actual flyin-"

He startled up, blinking his hazel eyes like a deer in headlights.

"I've got clearance to be here, I swear to God- wait!"

The guy shouted all this out rapid fire, putting his hands out in front of him as Charlie stepped forwards. She grabbed the nearest object off of a table, some sort of injection apparatus.

"Fine, go ahead and explain then, Jeffery Dahmer." She said, glaring at him, and staying in between him and the door. 

"I can't do that."

"I'm so sorry, I didn't realize you were mute." She deadpanned.

He ran a hand through his dark hair, making it stick up funny. Charlie could see him visibly running through tactics in his head, before landing on one.

The tall brunette started to advance, his hand still reached out in front of him.

"You're not going to stop me from leaving. You don't want to hurt me," he said slowly, leaving the body behind. He sounded like he was trying to hypnotize her.

Charlie looked at the needle in her hands, then back at the flannel clad morgue intruder.

"Wanna bet?" She asked, fully serious. He seemed to think she was bluffing, because he kept getting closer.

"Go for it, It's not-" his tone was arrogant, like the five foot something blonde in front of him wasn't a real threat.

Turns out, she was.

Charlie dropped the needle and punched him, hard, before he could finish his sentence. And before she could really think about it. The guy collapsed, out cold. His arms flailed limply on his way down, knocking over coroners tools with a racket loud enough to wake every body in the room with them.

Charlie blinked, reveling in a moment of holy shit I'm actually so strong, I punched a guy- before rapidly changing her mental tune to I just knocked out a dude and all of Beacon Hills heard.

She barely had time to come to terms with this before another teenage boy rushed in and took a quick look at the scene in front of him. Charlie noted a tattoo peeking out from his sleeve and his slightly crooked jawline. His mom worked here, she realized, remembering him coming in from time to time. Stephen or Sam or something like that.