Monsters | Stiles Stilinski

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟖𝟗

STILES AND I went off the grid for the weekend after what happened the night we'd gotten home after explaining the dead pool to the Sheriff. Knowing that dream I'd had was actually real had affected me more than I thought it would've. I had woken up in absolute terror that night, screaming and unable to breathe after a nightmare about that night in Eichen House and the dead pool combined. I'd even woken the Sheriff up and we had all spent the better part of an hour just sitting in bed while I tried to recover.

Lydia, Kira and Malia stayed up at the lake house and Scott was figuring some things out with Derek about Liam. Stiles and I should've been there—helping out in some way—but neither of us got back to sleep and I was in no position to climb out of bed. Stiles simply sent out a message to the group chat letting our friends know we were staying home after a difficult night and we were turning our phones off for the day. They had been fine with it and no one came knocking at the door claiming there was an emergency.

It gave Stiles and I the time to really talk and we managed to get through it all—no matter how hard it was. There were tears involved, lots of them, and the headache I had at the end of the day was worse than the one I'd had the day prior during the full moon. But we were on the same page. We talked everything through, even everything that had happened between Aiden and I and as it turned out I was right, the Nogitsune had been trying to twist our relationship into something more to break Stiles down.

I settled Stiles's mind and in turn he settled mine, telling me about his and Malia's relationship. They were just friends and Malia saw it that way, too. They'd just formed a close friendship, that was all. There was nothing for me to worry about. Stiles harboured no romantic feelings for her and he was telling the whole truth. His heart was steady as he said it, nothing in his scent changed, and it really put me at ease.

But Monday rolled around and we had no choice but to return to the world that was waiting for us. Lydia was still searching for the second cipher key and we had a teenage assassin to try and find. The fall back into reality was harsh.

"Hey, are you ready?" Stiles asked me softly from the doorway, dressed and ready.

I looked at him through the mirror, putting the back on my earring as I nodded, "Yeah, I'm coming."

He nodded with a faint smile and walked into our room. I watched as his eyes locked on to the board he'd made yesterday to try and figure out the dead pool. It was mildly chilling sleeping in the same room where pictures of dead supernatural bodies were hung on an investigation board but I knew Stiles needed this. It would drive him crazy if it stayed in his head.

I tucked my hair behind my ear, leaving it down today, as I walked away from the mirror and over toward him as he looked at his board. He'd spent an hour pacing back and forth in font of it last night after he'd put it up, trying to put together some kind of connection but eventually I'd had to pull him to bed and distract him with other things to get him to stop. He was working non-stop to both find the assassin in school and the Benefactor themselves.

Red tape connected the photographs of the bodies to the Mute—the axe-wielder who Peter had killed—to each other and to the dead pool. So far there had been three different assassination styles. One was a tomahawk axe, the second a simple stabbing with an oddly shaped knife and the third a beheading with some kind of thermo-cut wire. Of the twelve names on the first third of the dead pool half were dead. Lydia, Scott, Derek, Kira and I were still alive and no one had made an active attempt to kill us yet.

Stiles had already crossed out those deceased with red marker pen, red tape connecting their names to their corpse at the scene it was found but he wasn't looking at any of that. He wasn't looking at the faceless Benefactor in the centre of the board. His eyes were glued to the dead pool itself, to the name seventh down on the list with the thirty-five million dollar reward next to it.