Chapter Text
"And you’re sure your uncle won't mind all of us staying at his house for two weeks?" Scott asked, still dubious even after the dozens of times both Stiles and Sheriff Stilinski reassured him.
Stiles rolled his eyes and tightened his grip on the wheel of his jeep. "Yes, Scott. Now chill. Uncle Butch knows how many of us are coming, and he has a big enough house to hold everybody, especially since my older cousins moved out a few years ago."
"I still don't feel comfortable about this," the alpha replied and sunk into the passenger seat, "I mean, after everything with Monroe, I don't know if it's such a good idea to leave Liam and the rest of the pup—I mean pack—alone in Beacon Hills."
"You were gonna call them 'pups,' weren't you?" Lydia snarked from the backseat, her lip curling upward in a knowing smile that bordered on condescending.
"That's what they are," Malia confirmed bluntly, her head swiveling from Scott to Lydia.
Lydia rolled her eyes in turn. She loved Scott like a brother, but sometimes he could be a bit of a worrier when it came to his younger betas.
"Come on, Scott. This is exactly what Liam and the kids need," Stiles continued to reason, "With Monroe out of the way, that means things back home will be cooled down for a while. You know that whole 'balancing of the universe' spiel Deaton told us about. After everything that happened this year, I think we can breathe easy."
"And what if something does happen?"
Stiles groaned. "Scott. I'm the worrier in this pack. You're supposed to be the hopelessly optimistic one. Our parents and Mr. Argent are in Beacon Hills. Parrish is there. Liam, Mason, and Corey are there. We can't seem to get rid of Theo, no matter what we do."
"My dad's there," Malia piped up.
"Not sure that's helping any, but good try," Lydia stage-whispered and patted Malia's arm.
Stiles side-eyed the girls in the backseat. "Point is the town is safe. And," he added before Scott could interrupt, "if it doesn't stay that way, we have plenty of people there to hold the fort until we get back."
"We're almost there anyways," Malia helpfully added as she leaned back in her seat to get more comfortable, "Little late to second guess, and I need a vacation."
"Is Derek still meeting us there?" Lydia asked before the furry couple of the year could dissolve into another argument about defending territory.
"Yep, he and Braeden are renting a beach house a few blocks away and from my uncle's place."
"We couldn't we just stay with them?" Scott asked.
"Because," Stiles drawled, "I promised my dad and Uncle Butch that I'd stay at his place, and there's no way I'm doing that alone. Now, you're supposed to be my navigator. Where's our next turn?"
Scott's brow furrowed as he studied the screen. "Uh, we just passed it."
Stiles jerked the wheel, and it was only from several years of running with (and from) the supernatural that he didn't wreck the jeep. Honks and beeps echoed around them as Stiles narrowly skidded on to the correct road right before a Ford truck could wipe out the trunk.
"I will put you in the back seat, Scott," Stiles reprimanded.
"Sorry!"
"Here's to hoping these are the only types of things we get into," Lydia grumbled as she and Malia recovered from being thrown to the side from jeep's momentum.
Stiles groaned out loud. "Thanks, now you've jinxed us."
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The Next Morning
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Shawn's head pounded, and he had to squint to study the body he was standing over. Yeah, SBPD was right to call him in on this one, but even with his hyper-perceptive focus, this case threw him for a loop.
Some hikers had found a body in the woods on the outskirts of town, just barely within the SBPD's jurisdiction. At first glance, the deceased woman appeared to be a twenty-something-year-old hiker who'd been mauled to death by some kind of animal. But then again, Shawn always had a knack for looking beyond the typical first glance.
The "claw marks" were spaced out evenly, five neat lines at a time with one on the end slightly shorter than the others. Shawn knelt down next to the body and hovered his hand just above the marks.
These weren't made by any animal. These are human shaped.
Well, if a human had fingernails that were way too long, maybe. Perhaps the killer used a glove enhanced with something sharp enough to leave the wounds?
He narrowed his eyes and tried to picture why a college-aged girl would be out in the woods on her own. As always, his mind snagged on a minute detail everyone else had messed.
"Uh, what happened to her shoes?"
Lassiter rolled his eyes. "What are you on about now, Spencer?"
"Her shoes are missing. And there are way too many rocks on this path for it to be comfortable to walk barefoot."
Not only were her shoes missing, but her feet didn't have much dirt on them, suggesting she hadn't run through the woods without them. So then, why would the killer steal her shoes?
And if she was a hiker, where was her backpack? Did he take that too, or was something else at play here? This didn't feel random.
The headache that had been silently building up to this point decides to spike, and he closed his eyes tightly.
She was running from something—someone. He managed to grab her arm, leaving the gashes, particularly the ones that swooped down and circled her wrist.
She struck back, but not with a fist? Not really the best time for just a slap.
He let her go, but she didn't run. She turned around and—
"Shawn?"
Shawn jolted at the hand on his shoulder. His knees cracked from squatting over the body too long, and he tried to ignore the worried look on Gus's face.
"Well, I've seen enough," he announced loudly, "I'll get back to you once I've solved the case."
Juliet rolled her eyes fondly, but Lassiter glared.
"What? Did you accidentally put the spirits on mute today or something?"
"You and I both know that's not how this works, Lassie. The spirits will point me in the right direction at the right time, and not a moment too soon."
The detective huffed and looked like he had a few things to say, but Gus's hand on Shawn's arm pulled him away from the verbal sparring match he usually enjoyed. And for once, he was grateful. His normally quick wit had decided to trade places with a migraine, and he needed them to switch back.
"You good, man?" his best friend asked as they walked back to their car. The body had been found a decent ways down the hiking trail, so it would take them a few minutes to make it back to the road.
"Yeah! Totally! Just didn't get enough sleep last night," he answered a little too quickly, even if it was partially true.
The last couple of nights, he'd struggled to get any kind of sleep, and what little he did get was plagued by nightmares of running through the woods as something with glowing blue eyes chased after him.
He didn't want to tell Gus that he'd always wake up with a scream caught in his throat every time he dreamed.