Rising Moon: Scavenge | Teen Wolf ( 4 )

Amplification Part One

The bell above the front door to the animal clinic sounded inordinately loud in the otherwise silent room, causing me to cringe to myself as I closed the door behind me and flicked the lock close before flipping the sign to 'closed'. I could sense the presence of three people in the back examination room, the familiar scent telling me it was my brother, Stiles and Deaton who had arrived before me. My footsteps echoed in the empty room as I headed towards them, aware that I was already running late to the impromptu meeting.

"Nice of you to join us." Stiles greeted me sarcastically as I closed the door behind me and I stuck my tongue out at him childishly as I joined the three of them where they were gathered around the examination table. It was clear by Scott's saddened expression that he had noticed me strategically placing myself in a position as far away from him as I could get without it being completely obvious. It took everything in me to ignore him as I sent Deaton a warm smile, glad that he was recovered from being held captive.

Deaton nodded back at me in greeting but his morose expression didn't waver and it made me frown in concern as he held up the manila envelope that I hadn't noticed he was holding tightly in his grip. My eyebrows furrowed with worry as my fingers curled around the edge of the table, using its solid presence as an anchor so that I wasn't overcome with paranoia or anxiety. I knew that whatever news that Deaton had dug up from the supernatural black market was not going to be good and so I took a deep breath to steel my nerves.

"What I'm about to show you isn't supposed to exist." Deaton stated solemnly as he opened the slip of the envelope and pulled out a large stack of numerous Polaroid photographs, some of which were starting to turn yellow or fade with age. A startled gasp escaped my parted lips before I could stop it when he laid down the first of the photos, the image of a deceased male with half of his skull missing and closely followed by another of a young woman who had black blood coating the bottom half of her face.

Deaton continued to lay down photos of the table as I stared in horror at the sight in front of me, tears stinging my eyes as I covered my mouth with one hand and my mentor met my eyes soberly as he informed us, "This is the only surviving evidence of Dr. Valack's time as Chief Medical Officer of Eichen House."

I could see the same expression of horror that most probably evident on my features mirrored on the boys as the three of us stared at the photos – all of us frozen at the sight of dozens of different supernatural creatures, all of whom had holes drilled into their skulls and appeared to be in excruciating pain or dead.

"To call it human experimentation would be... charitable." Deaton explained reluctantly with a disgusted grimace as he looked down at the victims sadly and I feel a stray tear escape the corner of my eye as I grazed my fingertip over one of the Polaroid photos. I felt a warm hand encompass mine, causing me to look over at my brother in shock but his attention was caught by one photo in particular and I watched through teary eyes as he picked it up to look at it closer. I followed his gaze to see a recently deceased woman with a hole drilled into her temple, who was clutching the sides of her head with her mouth open in a silent scream. Deaton noticed the sudden lack of movement on our behalf as he lifted his head from the table and seemed to become even grimmer when he saw the picture that had caught our attention as he said sadly, "A Banshee. She died screaming."

"So, he drilled holes into their heads? All of them?" Stiles asked incredulously with his mouth slightly agape as he blinked away the tears that had formed in his eyes, his thoughts obviously lingering on the strawberry blonde that they all cared about.

"That was the experimentation part. He did it to Werewolves, Banshees, and Wendigo's... Any creature he could get his hands on. And Valack found that trephination would initially heighten their powers, but to levels that couldn't be contained."