Sirens (Theo Raeken) [1]

Blackmail

"They're saying he just threw up all over him and Mason. It wasn't even vomit. It was blood," the girl in front of me tells her friend a little too excitedly for my liking.

Corey. I follow the current of students spilling through the door. I hear fragments of what had happened. As I come through the door, I'm disappointed that I can't see what's happening through the thick sea of people taller than me. I push my way through the hoard of students to the front of the crowd.

As I approach, I see Theo at the front with Scott. I pull up next to him. "Do you know what happened?" I scan the scene. Paramedics linger by a red ambulance with doors wide open.

He looks a bit taken aback. With good reason as well, I haven't talked to him in a week. "It's Corey. He has mercury poisoning."

I swallow the lump in my throat. I knew it was going too well the past few days. As if on cue, four paramedics turn the corner with Corey on the stretcher between them. The boy looks in immense pain and has a nasty splatter of mercury and black blood all down his chin to his white shirt. "You can't! They're going to kill me!" he yells.

Mason follows, his shirt also splattered with the concoction of blood and mercury. The distress is painted plainly across his face. "He just started bleeding everywhere," he says.

"Scott?" Theo asks. "We have to follow him. We have to protect him, right?" Scott doesn't seem to be processing anything of what Theo is saying. "Scott, come on. This is what you do."

He and Scott begin to take off in the direction of the parking lot. Theo pauses after a few steps and turns back. "Aren't you coming?" he asks.

I bite my lip and nod stiffly. I hurry after him. I fall into step beside him since Scott always seems to be a few steps in front of us. "What happened?" he asks.

"Nothing," I say quickly. "What makes you think something happened?"

"Your shoes," he mutters and when I look down I see that I've forgotten to wash a splatter of blood off of my boots.

I look up at him. "It was nothing."

He shakes his head, his lips twisting into a smile. "I know it wasn't nothing," he says. "But I'll wait for you to be ready to tell me."

It feels good to finally have Theo to talk to again. "You know what," I tell him. "I'll tell you as soon as we get the chance to speak alone."

A crease appears between his eyebrows. "Are you still angry at me?"

"I'm still angry at you," I declare, "but you're probably the only person I actually want to talk to at the moment."

"So, not angry?"

I sigh and tilt my head back. "Not angry."

I get stuck in the backseat while Scott and Theo are at the front. I never realised that they were as close as they are now and I feel an empty sort of loneliness at how the pack has grown over the past few days in my absence.

Some time into the car ride, Scott turns to Theo. "What did you want to talk to me about?" The alpha's eyes pass warily over me before his eyes fall on Theo.

"It can wait," Theo says quietly. "I'm not sure if this is the right place to start." Scott shoots me a look. "I don't mind if Arden hears," Theo tells him.

"You think I'm going to be angry?" Scott asks.

Theo raises his eyebrows. "Not at me."

"Theo, you can talk to me," Scott says.

Theo hesitates. "In the glove compartment." Scott reaches over and clicks it open. He draws his arm back with a wrench crusted with dry black blood clasped in his hand. "Belonging to Stiles," Theo explains. "He dropped it at the school."