Liquid Silver

Sixteen

"Chimeras" The sheriff pronounced the word slowly as if it were a different language, crossing a red X through a photo of Tracey. 

"Two dead chimeras" Stiles corrected him, she and Malia joining them in their dads office as he started putting together a case board. They had very little so far. 

"And eight new ones" Malia added.

"Ten in all"

"I'm thinking maybe eleven" Jem chewed the inside of her cheek as her dad pinned up a new photo, Donovan's face printed in black and white across the paper. She caught Stiles' eye, knowing he felt the same anxiety, but neither of them said a word as he looked back down at his feet. "Our station tech guys confirmed something" Her dad went on to explain how he thought Donovan had escaped the holding cell the night Tracey had attacked the department.

They detected electromagnetic pulses, and figured that's what could have caused the lock and cameras to malfunction. Jem sat herself up onto the desk, her legs dangling and her hands folded under her thighs to stop herself from fidgeting. Her dad would have known she was hiding something otherwise. 

"You said that uh- these guys-" he picked a book up off the table next to her, holding up the cover of the novel Valack had insisted they read.

"Dread doctors" Malia specified bluntly. 

"We're really calling them that?" the Sheriff winced shaking his head. 

"So they broke Donovan out?" Jem commented, distracting him.

"It's how they got into Eichen" her dad reasoned. "Isn't it?"

Malia nodded, making up her own mind. "Donovan's a chimera" Jem glanced at Stiles again. He had turned away, to look like he was thinking. She knew it was more of a hiding his deep anxiety and guilt expression but she didn't draw attention to him. 

Her dad nodded in agreement with Malia. "Yeah, but is he a failure like Lucas and Tracey?"

"If he is, he's probably dead right?" Jem offered up. This made sense. Someone was taking the bodies of all the chimeras, and that was after the dread doctors had their 'terminal' experiments exterminated. They could easily take the fall for Donovan's death, leaving Stiles free of any pointing fingers. 

Malia nodded, lifting the marker to rake an X across Donovan's photo to match the others. But her dad stopped Malia's hand before she had the chance. 

"Not until I've seen a body" 

"But someone's been stealing the bodies" Jem reminded him, sliding of the table again. "We don't know where they are"

"But they have to be somewhere" Her dad insisted, turning to face Stiles who was still staring in the other direction. "You're uncharacteristically quiet" 

Jem's heart was beating harder than usual, and she hoped Malia wouldn't pick up on it. He couldn't start slipping up now. "I'm just thinking" Stiles eventually mumbled, turning again and walking to the board. His hands were in fists, Jem knew it was stop him fidgeting the same as her. They had the same guilty tell. "These are all teenagers right?" His voice was dry, and she knew he had to be wracking his brain to come up with something to say. "So shouldn't we be trying to figure out why these teenagers?"

Jem tried to understand his train of thought, straining to follow the conversation. They might have been similar in a lot of ways as siblings, but not in relation to brains. His mind could jump from conclusion to conclusion so fast, running over every possibility in the same time it took her to process the smallest details. She'd always known he'd been smarter than her, always doing significantly better in school, but even when it wasn't academic, he consistently acted as the brains of every operation. She envied him for it.