Return of the Hale || Stiles Stilinski

29.

The next day, Neriah sat at Stiles' desk, scrolling on his laptop as she looked up more on a book Malia found. Stiles paced in front of his board, flipping through pages printed out by Kira of the book.

"Has anyone actually read it yet?" Stiles questioned, halting in place.

"Just Malia," Neriah answered, looking over her shoulder at him. "And she didn't understand any of it which is why we should all read it." She faced back to the laptop, shaking her head. "I can't find anything on the author so it must be a pen name."

Stiles nodded, looking back through the pages. "'In a small New England town, teenagers are taken in the night and buried alive'," he read out loud, pausing to glance at her as she turned around in the chair. "'Days later they emerge transformed, wreaking havoc and spreading terror, commanded by an ancient order of parascientists known only as the Dread Doctors.' How does it end?"

"It doesn't," Neriah muttered, tapping her pen against her knee. "This is supposed to be volume one."

"I'm gonna take a wild guess that there is no volume two?" He raised a brow.

She thinned her lips. "I think we're living volume two."

"Then maybe the real question is...Is this a novel or someone's prediction?"

"Well, that's one of the things I'm trying to figure out," she admitted, standing up as she looked at his board. "I don't think the Dread Doctors are the ones stealing the bodies." She pointed at Tracy's photo. "Think about it. They killed Tracy and walked away. They killed Lucas and walked away." She crossed her arms over her chest, not mentioning Donovan. "Why would they leave and come back to take the bodies?"

"Someone else has to be taking them," Stiles insisted, writing things down on the board.

Neriah nodded. "But the bodies aren't just bodies. They're failures."

Stiles' eyes darted around the board, at the red string connecting information together. "So if the Chimeras are all failures, what's the success going to be?"

"Bad," she sighed. "Probably really bad."

"I thought we took the day off school to get a break," Stiles complained, sitting down on his bed while flipping through the pages again. But then he suddenly stopped on a page, furrowing his brows. "Look at this," he said, holding a page out to her. "Look at the acknowledgments page."

She didn't waste another second and took the page, reading it out loud, "'For providing scientific perspective and invaluable insight, this book is dedicated to Dr. Gabriel Valack." Her face dropped as she looked back at Stiles. "Call the others. I know where to find him."

♤♡♤♡

A few hours later, Neriah stood in Stiles' doorway with her arms crossed over her chest and an annoyed look on her face. Beside her, Lydia was quiet after the pair tried to convince Stiles not to join them tonight.

"I'm going with you," Stiles firmly stated for the second time in five minutes.

Lydia raised a brow. "I thought you said you were sick."

Stiles sucked on his teeth, glancing at Neriah who cringed. "I'm slightly under the weather."

"You don't have to come, Stiles," Neriah said, pushing off the doorway. "Malia's not coming either."

"Malia's not going because she knows that that place is a nightmare asylum of insanity and death, okay?" He pulled on his red jacket with a quiet wince, causing Neriah to raise a brow.

"What was that?" Lydia asked, noticing it as well.

Stiles started to do up his jacket, furrowing his brows. "What was what?"