Chapter Text
There’s an old cabin in the woods outside of the preserve close to the freeway where the sign for Beacon Hills is located. It’s full of empty rooms, broken floorboards, cracked windows, and a front door held up by one of three hinges. It’s been abandoned for decades but the blood splatters, disturbances in the gathered leaves and dusts all pointing to signs of the cabin having been recently used tell him otherwise.
Someone died here.
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Chapter 1
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There is no such thing as a night-off, Stiles finds out as he drives his way into the preserve mindful of the fallen logs and large stumps that occasionally litter the forest floor. If the suspension on his car breaks again then it’ll be the second time in just 3 months. His frown deepens when he hears a horrible screech from his undercarriage while his car jostles about as he continues going forward at a sedate speed.
It’s late, he’s barely had more than a few hours of sleep after he’d finished his morning-afternoon shift at the station when his phone started ringing and his radio transmitter crackled to life alerting him of a possible 187 and a 415 in the woods. By the time he arrives at the scene on the outlook, the one teenagers are so fond of having midnight rendezvous in, his dad is crouched beside a body, 2 other deputies are busy setting up spotlights around the area due to the rapidly setting sun while another officer is standing beside a distraught looking woman and her border collie, gathering information on what was found.
Stiles parks his cruiser next to his dad’s, slips on a pair of latex gloves and collects a flashlight from under his passenger seat before heading out to join them. He clicks it on and watches where he steps, not wanting to accidentally trod on any piece of what may be crucial evidence for their new case. As soon as he’s about 10 feet away from his dad he wants to groan at the sight.
‘Where’s the other half of the body?’ He asks his dad and brings his flashlight to look across the forest floor but he can’t see it. He catches uneven blood splatters across the ground and turned over patches of leaves but he’s not sure if it’s Mother Nature’s work or if someone else was here before they were. Most likely the latter.
‘Rodgers and Elliot will head out to find it after they’re done with the spotlights. For now, you can cordon off this area. I want at least a hundred yard radius blocked off. Go see Jones after you’re done with that.’
‘Yes, Sheriff.’ He goes back the same way he came, picks up a roll of yellow tape from the boot of his car and starts mentally measuring out distances between his dad and the area of the crime scene. He unrolls the tape, ties it around the trunk of a tree and starts walking.
Working with his dad was at times difficult and often got in the way of their growing relationship, mostly because his dad didn’t entirely agree on him joining the police force when he had a multitude of other career choices for him to select from. His dad eventually learned to cope with it over the years. Stiles won’t openly admit it but he prefers it this way, prefers staying where he can see him.
He passes Rodgers and Elliot discussing the benefits of bringing Trevor out from the K-9 unit to help with their search but Stiles doesn’t stick around to hear the conclusion of it. The grip he has on his flashlight is steady as he walks until he’s more or less finished off in a lop-sided circle. The diameter of it is at least a couple hundred yards wide and he deems it sufficient enough before he starts making his way towards Jones.
The woman had been distraught when he arrived on scene but is now opening crying, the stress of stumbling across half a body having obviously taken its’ toll on her mental health. She’s trying to talk at the same time but between the hiccups and sniffles and outright sobs it’s difficult to piece together the words she’s attempting to string together to form a story. Jones is half-sympathetic and half-uncomfortable and Stiles makes a detour back to his car to grab the lady a box of tissues and throw the leftover yellow tape into the back seat.
While she blows into a handful of it Stiles and Jones stand a small ways away from the lady to discuss what information he managed to get from her before she broke down in tears.
‘Lisa Tovall, aged 27,’ Jones starts reading from his notebook as he tucks his pen behind his ear, scratching at the premature grey hairs of his sideburns before trailing down to his week-old beard as he talks, ‘said she was doing her daily jogging and came across the body when Esther, her dog, stopped following her and started going off in a different direction. She called it in as soon as she found it. Time was at 6.13pm.’
That was barely half an hour ago and the dark blue hues of the sky are already setting in, swallowing the reds and oranges of the disappearing sun.
‘Which one is worse? Finding the lower half of the body or knowing that there’s another part of the dead woman somewhere behind us?’ Stiles’ question is punctuated with the sound of Lisa running past them to heave into a dead bush.
Jones clenches his jaw in sympathy at the sound of her gagging and bends down to pick up the leash of the dog that Lisa dropped halfway. ‘She’s going to have nightmares for months, either way.’ He answers just as Esther whimpers beside them. ‘I can handle this part; you go see what else John wants you to do.’
It’s been 3 years since his graduation from the academy but the team at the police department still fondly thinks of him as the rookie, especially Jones who was his training officer for his first 2 years joining the force. Sometimes he feels like he’s just an errand boy with an above average pay grade.
Stiles only just passes Lisa when another car, a silver sedan, crawls to a stop at a terrible angle next to his own car. Three people emerge from it carrying various pieces of equipment and tools with them, all donning gloves before trailing after him towards the sheriff.
‘Do you want an update on Ms. Tovall or do you want me to go help Rodgers and Elliot find the rest of the body?’ He hears someone repeat the second half of his sentence with an outraged squeak but he ignores them and waits for his dad to tell him what to do next.
‘Go help the others – the sooner we find the other half of the body, the better.’
There’s a stiffness in his dad’s shoulders, tension in his body as he stands next to the corpse with his arms akimbo. His head is angled downwards but Stiles can see the deep shadows beneath his eyes, a deeper furrow between his eyebrows and the deepening frown lines on his face. Stiles feels his own face contorting to mimic his dad’s but he smoothes it out before it’s noticed.
‘Yes, Sheriff.’
He doesn’t like his dad working long hours; leaving early and coming home late. He doesn’t like his dad eating irregular meals, mostly diner takeaways or whatever food the others bring in for snacks. He especially doesn’t like it when his dad drinks heavily on some nights before bed because it’s going to mess with his sleep cycle. There are a lot of things Stiles doesn’t like and there are a lot of things he can’t control but with the things he can he does his best to keep.
Stiles catches up with Rodgers and Elliot and proceeds to coordinate a plan with them. They decide to split across three directions, each person taking up a span of fifty yards between them. The sun has just dipped over the horizon and the spotlights along with their flashlights only cover so much ground. The moon, just two more nights from being full, hasn’t yet made an appearance to assist them. They might not be able to collect every single piece of evidence tonight but as long as they find the second half of the body then there’s a better chance of them being able to solve the case.
He sees her hair first, long and brunette, clumped with dirt and leaves. She’s lying on her front facing away from him. Her clothes are torn and shredded in some places but he doesn’t move the body as he whistles to catch the others’ attention.
The face is mangled beyond recognition and she’s got several bite marks along her neck and shoulders and through what he can see from what’s left of her clothes. He counts at least 5 and hopes what he sees is what he gets.
‘Jesus,’ Rodgers mutters as soon as he’s caught up, running a hand through his ragged brown hair. Elliot isn’t far behind but he already looks pale, his dark hazel eyes far too focused on the entrails scattered on the ground where her stomach used to be.
‘I know we sometimes get mountain lion attacks up here but nothing this bad,’ Elliot brings up as he crouches besides Stiles even though it looks as if he’d rather be standing much, much further away.
‘Mountain lion attacks?’He asks, feeling skeptic.
‘It was maybe about a year before you joined us – killed quite a few people, caused a huge fuss.’
Stiles hums and makes a mental note to ask Derek about it later as he stands. ‘I’ll report to Sheriff Stilinski and get one of the people from CSU to come over as well.’
The ambulance arrived possibly during the time when he and the others were searching for the missing half of the dead woman. The paramedics are already carting off the first half in a body bag.
‘I heard your whistle,’ John calls out as soon as they’re both within hearing range of each other. ‘How does it look?’
‘Worse than the first half, if you’d believe me,’ he sees his dad muttering under his breath and waves the CSU team ahead of him. Stiles is about to head back and join the others but a hand on his shoulder holds him back. He turns slowly, tries to gauge what his dad is thinking but all he can see is the stress in every line of his dad’s body.
‘Sheriff—’
‘You okay, son?’
He pauses, well aware he’s looking like a deer caught in the headlights as he stares back at his dad. He clears his throat to answer, ‘Yeah, why?’
John inhales a deep breath. ‘We don’t usually encounter these kinds of murders in Beacon Hills,’ he says with a pointed look over Stiles’ shoulder where the cameras occasionally flash to catch the nightlife. ‘It’s mostly theft and the odd case of vandalism here and there but nothing this grotesque. You sure you’re alright?’
‘Yeah,’ he tries to smile reassuringly, feels glad that his dad is looking out for his mental well-being, feels glad that he has anybody to look out for him at all. ‘Yeah, I’ll be fine.’
His dad doesn’t look convinced but then again, his dad doesn’t know anything about what he’s been through when he was gone for 12 years; he’s seen worse – he’s done worse. ‘You can talk to me about it, if you want.’
‘Thanks, I will.’
As soon as the paramedics come their way with a second body bag it’s all back to business.
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The transition between hunter to police officer was both the easiest and hardest thing he’s had to do. The rules and regulations between both professions were similar but there was still the manner of legality to deal with. Police officers have to uphold the law and stand by it as a totem of honor and trust, to fight against those who have gone corrupt. Hunters follow their own set of rules, a Code to abide by. Unfortunately, unlike officers of the law who are trained to follow and keep the peace, hunters choose to do the opposite; whatever benefits them most.
When he’s holding a gun it’s easy to forget that he’s not a hunter – there’s a protocol he needs to keep to so he doesn’t suffer any legal whiplash. When he’s chasing down a criminal it’s difficult to realize that the person he’s after is just a human – a different kind of monster where not all of them have fangs and claws that can tear and rend to pieces.
Sometimes Stiles thinks he should’ve listened to his dad, should’ve picked another career to settle for the rest of his life. But then he remembers he was made for this.
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It’s nearing 3 in the morning and the preserve is eerily quiet. The light of the waxing moon is casting shadows of peculiar shapes in the area surrounding him and in-between the trees. He regularly counts the shadows on the ground where he stands within the perimeter of the spotlights and occasionally makes a quick sweep of the area beyond him with his flashlight. Nothing is amiss until he notices a silhouette that’s not in his own shape.
He knew he was being watched, had known for the past half an hour, but he’s surprised it took Derek this long to appear.
‘What do you know of the deceased?’ Derek asks as he eyes the bloodstained ground, his nostrils flaring as he exhales.
‘Female, mid 20’s,’ he replies succinctly as he hands Derek his phone. ‘No I.D on her persons so they’re ruling it as a robbery gone wrong. They think a mountain lion did the rest.’
‘What do you think?’
‘I could smell the wolfsbane on her,’ he finds it unfortunate that she came out here on her own. Most hunters travelled in groups of at least three – it’s rare that anybody would decide to go off on their own, himself not included. ‘How many werewolves?’
There were multiple prints on the ground, most of them smeared and some of them animal-like in appearance, further cementing the idea that a mountain lion happened upon the corpse. Except Stiles knows better – mountain lions don’t bite for fun and they most certainly don’t play with their food. They devour, even going as far as gnawing on the bone to get to the marrow.
‘There’s only one.’
‘One?’ He’d assumed there had been at least two. Two would explain the severity of the wounds, would explain how she’d been clawed and ripped into two separate pieces and flung into directions that are at least 300 yards apart. ‘Why so many bites?’ He’d counted five on his own without moving the body. The total number of bites after several pictures were taken came down to 11. And that was only the top half.
‘It’s feral; nothing it does is going to make sense at this point,’ Derek explains after he’s taken a look of the photos through Stiles’ phone, his frown deepening with each pass of his finger.
He shakes his head in disagreement. ‘No, no, there has to be a reason why.’
‘Don’t over think it,’ he tells him as he hands back his phone. ‘It’s just another Omega that’s gone off the deep end. We deal with it like we deal with the others.’
It’s not right, but no matter how many times Stiles looks at the photos he can’t quite figure out what’s wrong with the picture. He’s more than familiar with feral werewolves, having put down quite a few himself, but it doesn’t explain the brutality of the attack. It nags at him, seems like too big of a gesture but he supposes he won’t know for certain until they locate the stray werewolf. Preferably before it hurts and kills somebody else.
It’s going to be a long week.
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Hunters are trained to be skilled in a number of things. There’s stealth to consider, initiative and resourcefulness, to be ruthless and to have their wits about them. There’s teamwork, cohesion, organization and the expectation to rise above and beyond the standard. Hunters are trained to be many things but most importantly, they are trained to be killers.
If there’s one thing her father taught her to do it’s to be a leader.