Losing my Mind

Chapter 14: Fireflies

The Yukimura family turned out to be okay, which was great for Stiles' conscience. But he didn't tell anyone what he had done, even while they had their suspensions. It had been a few days after that, that the thing with Barrow happened. The day after the blackout party, Stiles drove to school intending to tell Scott that he thought the thing with Barrow was his fault. Even though that didn’t sound like his smartest idea.

He found Scott at his locker, the twins nearly hovering over him in a slightly protective manner.

" Scott.. can we- can we talk?" He asked hesitantly.

"Yeah" Scott answered before instructing the twins about privacy. After walking away, Stiles immediately started talking about the party and all the stuff that happened with Barrow as he dragged Scott all the way to the Chemistry classroom.

" .... and the key having chemicals on it right? And so that made me think of the Chemistry closet and the fact that someone had to let Barrow in..." Stiles said frantically as they walked into the classroom but once he turned around and looked at the board he stopped dead in his tracks.

That couldn't be... The writing wasn't there... it had disappeared.

"It's gone... okay, okay it doesn't matter though, doesn't matter cause I still got the key" Stiles proclaimed as he took out his keys and walked over to the closet.

He was just about to put the key in the keyhole when he realised it too had disappeared...

"What the hell?" He muttered as he looked at all of his keys "I... I had it here, I had it here this-this morning. I swear to god I had it this morning" Stiles anxiously babbled, frantically flipping through his keys.

"The key you were talking about last night? " Scott asked curiously.

" Yeah, I showed it to you, right? Didn't I show it to you? " Stiles asked, looking up at Scott hopefully.

" No, you just told me about it, I never actually saw it" Scott frowned.

Stiles looked at Scott and started breathing heavily, dread washed over him as he thought over his sanity. Was he crazy? Did he just imagine all those things? Was this his subconscious' way of slapping him in the face? Humiliating him? He looked at the board once again and advanced towards it.

" I-I was here a couple hours ago... and the message left to Barrow, spelling Kira's name was right there on the board in my handwriting... and I had the key to the Chemistry closet" Stiles said stiffly, almost willing them to be true, better to save his sanity instead of his innocents. He looked at the floor thoughtfully.

"So... you unlocked the Chemistry closet, so Barrow could hide in it from the cops and then... you wrote him a message to kill Kira?"

"No, I know-I know how it sounds but..." Desperation was clear in his voice.

Stiles dug in his pocket, refusing to look at Scott, refusing to see either the belief or disbelief in his eyes, both were horrible for Stiles' stability at the moment.

He managed to grab the folded piece of paper from inside his pocket "Look at this, it's the news report that came out about Barrow when they caught him, okay? About the shrapnel bomb that he used" Stiles paused " See this? See what he did? He put nuts, bolts and screws ... and then he hid the bomb and the detonator in a box that he wrapped as a birthday present. What does that sound like to you?"

Scott looked at Stiles, realization clear on his face.

" Coach ... the joke we played on coach" Scott said.

" That was my idea, you remember? That was my idea... that's no coincidence it can't be"

Scott was speechless for a moment "I don't want to sound like I'm trying to tell you that you're wrong but I don't think you're trying to kill people either"