amateur detective ━━ stiles stilinski¹

xvii; coldest night of the year

     JULIETTE WOKE TO HER PHONE RINGING. Utterly confused, she slowly got up and looked out the window for a second. It was still pitch black outside, and as cold as ice. Juliette had slept in her sweater, had all the heaters in the room on, and still shivered from the cold. She then remembered her dad texting her yesterday, warning her that it would be the coldest night of the year. "Stiles? Are you awake?" Juliette got up and looked to his bed.

But his bed was empty. Juliette didn't panic at first, she assumed he was in the bathroom or downstairs watching a movie. "Hello?" Juliette finally answered the phone.

"Juliette?" Isaac's panicked voice spoke. "Where are you?"

Juliette rubbed her eyes, dizzy. "Still staying over at Stiles' place, remember?" She yawned, surprised to be so sleepy when she had just woken up. "Isaac, it's the middle of the night, what's wrong?"

"Stiles is missing."

If she wasn't fully awake before, she was now. "What— What are you talking about? He's probably just downstairs."

"We're on our way to check, but we're not so sure. He called Scott, telling him his phone's almost dying and that he needs to find him. He said he's in some sort of basement, and that it's really cold." Isaac explained. "Scott says that he sleepwalks sometimes, so he wants you to check if he's under the bed and just hallucinating or something."

Juliette opened the lights, and let out a small gasp. "What, what is it?" Scott asked from the other end of the line.

It was a chain of red strings, spreading out to every corner of the room. "He hooked a bunch of red strings to a chain, and attached them to the wall and ceiling." She said, and she could tell how confused he must be. "This must've taken him at least an hour and he couldn't have done it in the dark— I don't get it, I don't get how I didn't wake up."

"We're on our way."

Before they arrived, Juliette looked all over the house, checking every hiding space, every closet. When she examined the whole house, she started walking through her neighbourhood in nothing but pyjama pants and a sweater, shivering in the cold but wanting to make sure he wasn't out in the open, or in his car. When she got back to the house, she found Aiden, Lydia, Scott and Isaac in his room.

"What the hell..." Lydia mumbled as she stepped into the room, looking at the red strings.

Juliette took his blue hoodie off the floor, and put it on, trying to find warmth in the cold. "It's the red strings he uses in his board." Juliette explained to them. "Red is for unsolved cases."

"Maybe he thinks he's an unsolved case." Aiden shrugged.

"Wait a minute, you didn't find him yet?" Juliette couldn't help but raise her voice in worry. "Nobody knows where he is yet?"

"He says he's in an industrial basement somewhere." Isaac said. "We came here to get a better scent."

Juliette sat on his bad, burying her face in her hands. "What else did he say?" Lydia asked.

"Something's wrong with his leg. It's bleeding, and he's freezing."

"It's the coldest night in the year!" Aidan exclaimed. "It's going to drop in the 20's."

She started pacing around the room, examining the strings, looking for any hints. "What about his dad? He's not in the house, is he out there trying to find him?"

"We kind of didn't tell him yet..." Scott sighed when he saw Juliette's revolted expression. "We can find him by his scent. If he was sleepwalking, he couldn't have gotten far, right?"