Slightly Consequential (Slightly Awkward Series / Book Five / Teen Wolf)

chapter nineteen---THE BEAST OF BEACON HILLS

We had gotten Scott home because he was hurt badly and bleeding.

Kira was with him in his room, making sure that he was lying down for him to heal.

I walked in, looking at Kira.

Kira nodded.

I nodded, closing the door, walking toward where Malia, Braedan and Stiles were waiting down the hallway.

Stiles looked at Malia and Braedan. "What? What, what did I do?"

I walked closer in confusion.

Braedan looked at Malia. "Tell them."

Malia looked at Stiles. "You know how my mother wants to kill me?" Stiles nodded. "I think she might want to kill you, too."

"Okay, uh, that's disconcerting," I told them. "Why does the psychotic bitch want to kill my brother?"

"To get to me," Malia answered.

Stiles looked at me. "I should probably have a gun."

I shook my head. "I'm not giving you a gun."

"You have a crossbow," Stiles told me. "The Desert Wolf, who is trying to kill me, has a gun. I think I should probably have a gun. I know you have a gun with you. I saw you put it in your bag when we were leaving the school. Give me your gun."

I sighed, turning to my bag on the table, unzipping it, taking out the gun, handing it to Stiles.

Stiles fumbled with the gun, dropping it.

I caught the gun before it fell to the floor. "You should not have a gun."

             °     

The next morning, Stiles, Lydia, Kira, Malia, Liam and I were talking in Scott's kitchen.

"Our dad's got an APB out," I told them.

"For a 5'8" 16-year-old?" Kira asked.

"I recommended a nine-foot tall rampaging werewolf," I told them.

"It still not might be him," Liam told us. No one answered. "But, Hayden's at the school looking."

"I can keep checking the woods," Malia told us.

We heard Scott. "My mom can check all the hospitals in the county." Everyone looked at him. "We can find him."

Lydia sighed.

"What happens then?" Stiles asked.

"We figure out a way to save him," Scott answered.

Liam nodded.

"Okay," Lydia told us. "Where else can we look?"

"Let's ask Cory," Scott told us, reaching out to the cabinet next to him, grabbing something we couldn't see.

Cory came into view, revealing that Scott was holding him by his shirt.

Cory stammered nervously. "Wait. Wait. It's not my fault. They took him, and I couldn't do anything. They took him."

"Who?" I asked.

"The dread doctors," Cory answered.

We all looked at each other.

             °     

Scott and Liam were working with Theo to find Mason to try and save him.

Dad, Stiles and I were talking in Dad's office at the Sheriff's station.

"Still nothing from Scott and Liam," Stiles told us. "Are we really sure this is a good idea?"

"Uh, no," I answered. "No one thinks this is a good idea."

"But you're trusting Theo anyway?" Dad asked.

"We're not trusting him," I answered. "We're using him."

"What if he's using us?" Stiles asked.

"Yeah, well, that's probably a given," I told them. "But, look, we're just trying to cover every place Mason could show up. Malia and Braedan are at Scott's house."

Dad nodded. "Melissa's got the hospital."

"Hayden and Cory are at the school," Stiles told us.

"Somebody's got to find him," Dad told us.

I sighed heavily. "Let's hope they find Mason, and not the beast."

             °     

Stiles was on the phone with Melissa.

I was on the phone with Malia. "Anything on your end?"

"Not a thing. And I'm gonna lose my mind if I don't get out of this supernatural cage."

"The mountain ash is there to keep you safe."

"I should be keeping Stiles safe."

I looked toward where Stiles bumped into the wall. "He'll be fine. I'm with him."

"Stacie, you may have been taught how to use weapons from a werewolf hunter and you may have been taught how to fight by my cousin, a former alpha werewolf, but I don't think you would do well in a fight against my mother."

"And I don't like it when people underestimate me, you know. Call me if anything changes."

We hung up.

             °     

After dark, Stiles was sleeping on the couch in the main room of the station.

I walked out of Dad's office, hitting Stiles on the head to make him wake up.

Stiles gasped, sitting up. "Hmm? What? What happened? Who's dead?"

I rolled my eyes. "No one. At least not yet." I sat on the couch next to Stiles, looking at my phone. Stiles pulled out his phone, looking at it. We saw that no one knew anything new, sighing, putting our phones away. "You okay?"

Stiles nodded. "Yeah, I'm still thinking. Still trying to figure out, why Mason? I mean, he wasn't even on the genetic chimera list."

Melissa and Lydia walked toward us.

"He is now," Melissa told us. She showed us a file. "Mason was born with twin embolization syndrome."

Stiles and I stood, walking closer.

"She means fetal resorption," Lydia told us. "He had a vanishing twin in utero."

"Which accounts for two sets of DNA," Melissa told us.

"Can someone please say it with words that have less than three syllables?" I asked.

"He ate his twin," Melissa explained.

I was in shocked. "Oh, my God."

"But did it help?" Stiles asked.

"I don't know," Melissa told us. "But it's just bizarre enough to sound like it might be important, right?"

"It has to help," Lydia told us. "There has to be something."

We looked at the file.

We didn't know how this would help us save Mason, but there had to be a way.

Because Lydia said that the man of Gevaudan had been named Sebastian Valet. 

And if he took control of Mason's body, if he came to be...

Then we might have been on the verge of losing Mason forever.

And none of us could stand that if it happened.