The Wild Side | Stiles Stilinski | One

24 - Therapy Session(s)

The next few days were not as peaceful as they could have been.

For one, we had to deal with our parents.

Initially, Lydia wanted to tell our mothers the truth, everything from Scott's missed study date to the mysterious text message to the bone chilling howl we'd heard at the school. I'd argued that they didn't need to know the whole story, especially after the video store. If they thought we'd been specifically targeted by a serial killer, lured into death's clutches, then we'd never be allowed out of the house again. Lydia was appalled by that argument, especially after Scott had been lying to our faces all night. But in the end, she came around.

It was only their frenzy of concern that convinced her to stick with my story. Natalie and my mom had been beside themselves when Lydia and I finally got home. If they'd been overprotective after the video store, they were well past insanity now. They'd bombarded us with questions, refused to let us go to bed, and were ready to do a strip search to find any injuries we might have sustained. When Natalie broke out the heavy duty medication again, Lydia snapped.

"It was an accident, okay? Scarlett was supposed to be studying, we went to go find her, and that's it! We were at the wrong place at the wrong time and right now the only place I want to be is my bed!"

It'd been enough to earn us a reprieve for the night, but not enough to last the weekend. I wasn't sure if we'd ever be allowed out of the house again, but it didn't stop Lydia from trying.

Unfortunately, Lydia had nowhere to go. In the past, she'd always gone to Jackson when she wanted out of the house; at the moment, Jackson was ignoring her calls. She maintained that he just needed some space to deal with his trauma, and that everything would be fine come Monday morning, but I knew it was bothering her more than she let on. I spent all my time with her over the next two days, each of us trying to distract the other from the hellish experience we'd been through. But distractions only worked while we were awake.

My nightmares had lessened since Stiles had told me the truth about Beacon Hills, but they were back twofold now. In my dreams, I ran down long hallways to nowhere, being jostled by Scott and Stiles even though I couldn't see them. The Alpha was always right on our heels, snapping at the loose laces of my boots. Sometimes Scott would join him, chasing after Stiles and I with his own red eyes while we desperately ran for our lives. I was plagued by the sight of Derek's body, the sound of the janitor's screams. Now that I knew what death sounded like, my dreams felt that much worse.

And then there was Derek. There was still no sign of him, and the APB hadn't turned up any clues. He and his sports car had simply vanished off the face of the planet. I could only hope that was a good sign. What I wanted more than anything was to stop worrying about it, to let the situation unravel and believe that Derek would return in his own time, but it was virtually impossible to escape Derek now. It was all anyone was talking about, all over the news, all over social media, even back in Menlo Park. Briana had sent me a link to an article she'd found online, demanding to know if it was the same Beacon Hills that I'd moved to. I'd simply told her that I'd heard about it; I pretended not to know the kids who'd been locked in the school's death trap.

Every time someone brought it up, I felt nauseous. I kept replaying my last conversation with Derek, how he'd been so sure I was going to freak out and that it wasn't safe for me to be there. And then he'd gotten himself killed trying to push me out of harm's way. I couldn't help but wonder, if I'd stayed home the way Scott asked, would Derek ever have gotten hurt at all?

But none of that was the worst of it—not the house arrest, not the nightmares, not the all-consuming guilt. All of that paled in comparison to the real problem.