The Absence of Truth | S. Stilinski

IV. | lydia

IV. | lydia

                    WE WEREN'T IN the car for long until I got a message from Presley on my phone. Where are you? He asked. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I was in the car with these two, so I tried to figure out an excuse that he wouldn't question: I forgot something at the school so I made my way there and I would walk home or I went looking for Lydia Martin again. The first one seemed best, so I sent it, and didn't look at the response when it came back.

I waited a few minutes, until I was certain that we wouldn't be able to turn around and go back to the funeral, then I popped up in the backseat. The cab was silent so I opened my mouth, "You should really start locking your doors," I stated.

Immediately, the car swerved off the road and came to a sudden stop. Stiles whirled around so fast I was afraid he would break his neck. "What are you doing in my car?" He yelled.

"What does 415 mean?" I asked, ignoring the question he posed.

"Disturbance in a car," McCall explained. "Stiles was just ... taking me home."

A scoff fell out of my mouth. "Okay, that's crap. I should let you both know that I'm super stubborn, and nothing you say will get me out of this car. I'm not kidding. I want to go see the disturbance in the car."

Stiles sighed and looked at McCall before shrugging and glancing back at me. "It's probably nothing - "

"Start driving." I leaned forward and stuck my head between them so I could see out of the windshield more clearly. Now that I was interested, there was nothing they could do to stop me. Another text from Presley buzzed in my pocket, and I ignored that one as well.

He pulled the car back onto the road and muttered, "Worth a shot."

When we pulled over again, it was dark outside and the woods looked terribly scary. In Miami, lights of the city kept the sky bright and the streets welcoming throughout the night. Here, with the early sunsets and nearly zero light pollution, we were stuck in an eternal horror movie. I jumped out of the car with help from McCall and started following them into the trees. "I swear if you guys murder me, my brother will kill you." They kept walking so I stayed in step. I didn't think that they would murder me, but I did think that I'd seen much more than they'd have wanted me to see. They would try to play this down and make me lose interest, but I would force myself to stay intrigued.

Up ahead, ambulance lights shined through the tree branches. Immediately, the boys crouched down as if they didn't want to be seen. I kept walking normally until Stiles yanked me down to their level by my sleeve and gave me a 'pay attention' look. As a unit, we moved closer to the scene until flattening out on the ground and watching from afar.

In the ambulance, there was a man strapped down onto a gurney. But instead of looking safe and on his way to the hospital, he was ripped open and covered in what looked like blood.

"Oh, God," I whispered.

This wasn't any normal 415, and by the frantic whispering between the boys, I could tell they were thinking the same thing. I'd seen enough cop television shows to somehow trick myself into believing this was all fake, but my subconscious kept reminding me of the cold hard truth. This was real. I was staring at a dead body. And the two teenage boys next to me didn't seem too fazed.

They whispered to each other for a little longer, then McCall got up and started to creep away. Stiles stayed where he was and looked at me like I should do the same, but I couldn't help but reach out and latch onto McCall's ankle. He looked down at me and I tried to smile. "Hey, dude, do you have a first name?"