Try (Book Four, Teen Wolf)

Ch. 9: Perishable

Deputy Parrish had nearly been killed by an assassin because he was on the dead pool and worth 5 million. The assassin had been another deputy named Haigh. 

Actually, Parrish was supposed to be dead. 

Deputy Haigh had set him on fire. He had burned alive.

And now he was standing in front of Lydia, Derek, Scott and me in the loft without so much as a scratch. 

Derek had both of his hands, flipping them over for an examination. "He covered you in gasoline?" 

Parrish nodded. 

"It's the hair and nails, isn't it?" Lydia asked. "The parts of the body that are essentially dead." 

"Well, they should be gone," Derek said.

"I was set on fire," Parrish said. "All of me should be gone." 

"Not if you're like us," Scott told him.

"Like you?" Parrish repeated.

"I don't think he's like us," I said.

Lydia looked at Parrish. "Then what is he?" 

"Sorry, but I have no idea," I said. I looked to my brother to the right. "Derek?" 

Derek shook his head.

"But you both knew about Jackson and Kira," Scott told us.

I tilted my head at him, pretending to be mad at him still. "This is a little out of our experience." 

Scott looked at me. I looked away.

Derek looked between us in confusion, but like he knew something was going on. He looked at Scott. "There might be something in the bestiary. Did you try Argent?" 

"I don't know where he is," Scott said

"Okay, hold on," Parrish said. "What's a bestiary?  Actually, that's not even my first question." Parrish sighed, looking at us. "Just . . . Just tell us one thing. Are all of you like Lydia? Are you all psychic?"

"Psychic?" Derek repeated.

"Yeah,"  Parrish said.

"Not exactly," Scott told him.

"Okay," Parrish said. "Then what are you?"

Scott looked at me.. I tilted  my head and raised my eyebrows.

Scott closed his eyes, looking at Parrish, opening them, his eyes glowing red.

*

We had tried to tell him everything, but we barely scratched the surface. 

 Parrish was now sitting down on the couch. "What's a Kanima?"

Lydia raised her eyebrows, tilting her head.

Scott looked from Lydia, Derek and me  to Parrish. "We'll get back to that." He walked closer to him, sitting on the arm of the couch. "Just know that everyone like us, everyone with some kind of supernatural ability is on the dead pool."

"But we don't even know what we are," Parrish said. 

"I'm pretty sure they don't care," Derek told him.

"How many professional assassins are we talking about?" Parrish asked.

"We're starting to lose count," Lydia told him 

"But is it still just professionals?" I asked.

"I don't think Haigh's ever tried anything like this," Parrish told us. "I think he was taking a chance."