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Lydia stared down at her cell. "I think my phone is broken." She shook it, held it up at different angles, as if trying to get a signal, and walked around in circles with it.
"I don't know if there's a tower within range out here," the Sheriff replied, staring up at the trees.
Lydia shook her head. "We usually get a signal out here without any problems; Derek's house is out here, after all.”
"Hmm," the Sheriff muttered as he pulled his own phone out. He looked at his own bars, indicating the signal strength, and frowned as they jumped up and down.
He shoved the phone away and dug his compass out of his pocket, catching Lydia's raised eyebrow. "I was a boy scout," he said, almost defensively.
"I didn't say anything," she replied but she was smiling. "Tracking with a compass was part of the physical fitness curriculum quite a few years ago but then everything went digital and no one thought to teach us that the compass app was based on an actual thing."
"With any luck we'll be out of here in twenty minutes or so," the Sheriff replied, circling until he found north.
Or so he thought.
He pointed in the direction of their vehicles and they started walking but then the compass began to spin wildly, reorienting itself in the opposite direction.
Lydia looked up at the Sheriff and sighed, but there was an undercurrent of panic to her body language.
"It'll be okay, Lydia," the Sheriff assured her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.
"We can't be trapped out here after dark with the nematon active," she said lowly, taking comfort in his arm around her for the briefest of moments.
"Why did we volunteer to be the ones to come out here, again?" he asked, trying for a light tone. Lydia smiled back wanly and looked over her shoulder, the unease growing thicker between them.
"We can't call out, can't seem to find out way out. I could try to build a fire and maybe the smoke could attract some attention?" the Sheriff suggested.
Lydia opened her mouth to bring up what she knew about the best leaves to make smoke, then rolled her eyes and pressed the palm of her hand against her forehead.
"Of course!" she exclaimed.
"What?"
"Sheriff, you might want to stand back," Lydia said as she backed up a few feet. She reached down deep, opening the door inside herself she tried to keep locked up as much as possible.
The sheriff looked at her strangely, confused, and then she opened her mouth and screamed.
***
An hour later Lydia and the Sheriff were being escorted out of the woods by Scott and Stiles who asked Deaton for help with a spell for the druid equivalent of dropping breadcrumbs to get back out.
"Guess it's back to the drawing board on how to figure out this one," Stiles said, already frowning and trying to work through potential culprits of the disorientation the preserve was causing. The werewolves were most affected so by sending Lydia and the Sheriff it seemed they might have the best luck figuring out what was causing it, since Lydia now knew where the nematon was.
Try, try again.
"So that's what you do?" the Sheriff asked Lydia as they followed Scott and Stiles.
Lydia shrugged. "Sometimes there are dead bodies involved."
The Sheriff coughed. "Happy it wasn't one of those times."
"Me too," Lydia replied genuinely, then laughed.
And the Sheriff, well. He couldn't help but smile back.