Nine:
Parrishable

Entering the Sheriff's office again was something Magenta never knew would happen again. But it was the same as last, to talk with someone.

"It's not just that she could still be alive." Stiles told his father before the three teens turned around.

"It's that she would've had to fake her death." Lydia informed the Sheriff.

"And I can't reach out to her. Either she doesn't want to talk or she's alive." Magenta added in.

"Your grandmother, Lorraine Martin, faked her death?" the Sheriff asked.

"Definitely." Stiles replied.

"Yes." Magenta told the Sheriff.

"Maybe." Lydia answered.

"More than likely yes." Stiles corrected himself.

"Second that." Magenta agreed. Stiles arm brushed against Magenta's arm, causing little specks of green to appear in her brown eyes. This allowed her to see color for a temporary time.

"Oh, I'm guessing you got a story to back this up?" The Sheriff asked.

"She might be helping the Benefactor." Lydia answered.

"Or is The Benefactor." Stiles added in.

"Hopefully the neither." Magenta backed up.

"That sounds like a story worth hearing." The Sheriff  said before closing the door. They soon stared to talk before the Sheriff realized something.

"Anybody seen Parrish?" The Sheriff asked, sticking his head out.

"I have a hasty feeling." Magenta told her friend and crush.

"I have that feeling all the time." Stiles told Magenta. The Sheriff entered back into the room. Magenta fell on the floor when she heard glass breaking. The Sheriff immediately left the room to stop what was happening outside. There was a gun fire that hit the Sheriff. Magenta immediately got up and rushed to his aid. Stiles also had the same instinct, but they looked up to see a burned Parrish. He didn't seemed parrishable.

"I can't heal him." Magenta told Stiles after examining the Sheriff's shoulder.

"What do you mean you can't heal him?" Stiles asked Magenta. She looked up at the boy.

"I can heal the skin but that won't take out the bullet. Sorry Stiles. The best I can do is take away some of the pain." Magenta placed a hand over where the Sheriff was shot and took pain away.

↹↹↹

Magenta stood next to Lydia as Derek examined Parrish.

"He covered you in gasoline?" Derek asked. Parrish nodded.

"It's the hair and nails, isn't it?" Lydia asked. "The parts of the body that are essentially dead."

"Well, they should be gone." Derek told Lydia.

"Key word. Should." Magenta commented.

"I was set on fire. All of me should be gone." Parrish told the four other people.

"Not if you're like us." Scott told Parrish.

"Like you?" Parrish asked, confused.

"I don't think he's like us." Derek told Scott.

"Then what is he?" Lydia asked.

"Sorry, but I have no idea." Derek told them.

"But you knew about Jackson and Kira." Scott told Derek.

"This is a little out of my experience. She might know." Derek said, pointing towards Magenta.

"Me?" Magenta asked confused before she remembered what she was. "Right."

She turned around from the group and looked down at her arm. Her arm was a grayish color in her eyes with color appearing in it. She scanned each and every one to see they were mostly wolves. Magenta made her markings disappear before she turned around.

"I can't know unless he knows." Magenta told them.

"There might be something in the bestiary." Derek said. He knew what it was like not knowing something. "Did you try Argent?"

"I don't know where he is." Scott told Derek.

"Okay, hold on. What's a bestiary? Actually that's not even my first question. Just . . . Just tell me one thing. Are all of you like Lydia?" Parrish asked. Magenta raised an eyebrow at the question. "Are you all psychic?"

"Psychic?" Derek asked in disbelief. He has been called many things, sour wolf, big bad wolf, Wolfman but never psychic.

"I don't even know what he is." Magenta's mom told her daughter. Magenta couldn't even get help from her mom.

"Yeah." Parrish answered.

"Not exactly." Scott added in.

"Okay. Then what are you?" Parrish asked. Magenta glanced at Scott and Derek. Derek nodded at the two supernatural creatures that could show their eyes. Magenta closed her eyes before she opened them to see an overlay of a magenta color. She looked at Scott to see his alpha eyes. Parrish looked at Scott then at Magenta.

↹↹↹

"What's a Kanima?" Parrish asked. That was the same question Magenta asked herself.

"We'll get back to that." Scott replied. "Just know that everyone like us, everyone with some kind of supernatural ability is on the dead pool." Scott told Parrish.

"But I don't even know what I am." Parrish replied.

"I'm sure they don't care." Said Derek.

"How many professional assassins are we talking about?" Parrish asked.

"We're starting to lose count." Lydia answered.

"But by the way we're going, I say the whole town." Magenta added in. Scott then realized something important from that statement.

"But is it still just professionals?" Scott asked.

"I don't think Haigh's ever tried anything like this. I think he was taking a chance." Parrish told them.

"That means anyone with the dead pool can take a chance." Derek stated.

"But if Haigh had it, then who else does?" Parrish asked the Oscar winning question. "How easy is it to get this thing now?"

↹↹↹

"Meredith was only at my grandmother's lake house once. But I think once was enough." Lydia told the story of her grandmother and Meredith.

"How did your grandmother know her?" Derek asked.

"She didn't" Lydia answered. "She found her. Because of another woman named Maddy. The woman she loved." Lydia let out a sigh before she got up to show a picture. "I never met her but I saw her name everywhere."

Magenta looked at the picture of beside Scott to see the picture. But it was in black and white thanks to her born abilities.

"She used to be part of a yacht racing team. There were plaques and trophies in the lake house from all the regattas she'd won." Lydia told them.

"How did she die?" Parrish asked.

"How's not the story. It's what happened right before. My grandmother, Lorraine, used to work in San Francisco for IBM. She was there for a weekend, catching up on work. She started hearing this sound . . . Like rain. But when she looked out the windows . . . All she saw was blue sky." Lydia told the story.

"But she kept hearing the rain?" Scott asked.

"Banshee." Magenta mumbled.

"And it just kept getting louder. Rain and thunder crackling like gunshots in her head. So loud. She finally just screamed." Lydia told the small group.

"Like a banshee." Derek said, finally getting what Magenta mumbled.

"She called Maddy, who was planning on taking one of the boats out on the lake. But Maddy said that the sun was shining there too. So Lorraine didn't say anything." Lydia narrated.

"There was an accident?" Parrish questioned.

"It took them four days to find Maddy's body. And then it took decades to figure out how Lorraine knew. She started with parapsychologists, like the PhD in their name made it more scientific. They built the study in the lake house according to every pseudoscientific theory they could find. None of it worked. Then she started getting into more extreme occult. Things like mediums and psychics. All of them were failures. Until Meredith. They found her in Eichen House. This fragile girl who didn't understand the things she heard. They brought her to the study. And they almost killed her. She was hospitalized for over a year. She never really recovered. My grandmother drive her insane. And I drove her to suicide. And all she ever wanted to do was help. My grandmother created the code for the dead pool. They think she's the Banshee who put the names out in the first place. She left me this message in the same code." Lydia finished off.

"But she didn't leave a cipher key, did she?" Scott asked. Lydia shook her head, no. Parrish, Lydia and Magenta then started to depart. Magenta was going to go with Lydia to go to Stiles house to add the new piece of information on the board. Or as Magenta calls it, Mystery Board of Fame.

"Allison doesn't blame you for her death." Magenta told Lydia on their way to Stiles house.

"How do you know?" Lydia asked Magneta.

"I guess they didn't fill you in on the who death thing." Magenta started off. "I died. I was at a table with three people, Allison Argent, Ezra Garza, and Rosemary Regina."

"What was Allison doing there?" Lydia asked confused.

"To pass a message. Part of it, she said that she doesn't blame you for her death." Magenta told Lydia.

"Tell her that I love her. That I miss her." Allison's voice rang through Magenta's head.

"She loves you, and she misses you." Magenta told Lydia. The Banshee smiled at Magenta's words.

"I love her too."

↹↹↹

"Try Maddy. It's got to be Maddy." Stiles declare.

"No." Magenta told the boy.

"Doesn't Maddy feel a little obvious as a cipher key?" Lydia questioned.

"I guarantee it's Maddy." Stiles determinedly told the two girls. Lydia either way tried it.

"Okay, your name." Stiles suggested. "She left the code for you, right? So it's got to be your name."

Lydia tried again to get an error.

"Your mom's name?" Lydia tried. Error.

"Maybe it has to do with your personal life." Magenta suggested.

"Do you have any beloved family pets?" Stiles asked, backing up what Magenta suggested.

Magenta was laying on Stiles bed while Stiles and Lydia continued to figure out the cipher key.

"The ashes were left for you. The code was left for you. You're supposed to be able to figure this out." Stiles spoke out loud.

"But no one else is." Lydia said. "Which is why she made it hard."

The beeping sound was getting towards Magenta but she left that to Stiles whole she continued to have a conversation with Allison.

"Is he always like this?" Magenta asked Allison in her head.

"Yes." Allison answered.

"Well." was all Magenta was able to say.

"Do you like him?" Allison asked Magenta.

"What?"

"Do you like Stiles?" Allison asked again.

"Yes." Magenta replied.

"You . . . 'No one else.' No one else but you. 'Maybe it has to do with your personal life.'" Stiles thought out loud. Magenta told Allison bye before she sat up.

"What?" Lydia asked.

"Our guesses. They're all about Lorraine. Right. We keep trying to guess a word that has something to do with her. Like Magenta said, we should be trying to guess one that's about you." Stiles told Lydia.

"Me? What about me?" Lydia asked.

"Favorite song? Artist? Movie?" Magenta listed off.

"What do you remember doing with your grandmother? You know, what was you guys', like, special thing? Did you guys . . . Did you guys go to the beach? You know, did you like ice cream or . . ." Stiles helped list things off.

"We read." Lydia told the two.

"Okay. What did you read?" Stiles asked.

"The Little Mermaid." Lydia answered.

"That's a good book." Magenta commented. She remembered that she used to read Peter Pan with her mom.

"You read that movie?" Stiles asked.

"It was a book first." Lydia told Stiles, but was grateful Magenta knew. "Hans Christian Anderson."

"Type it in. "Little Mermaid."" Stiles told Lydia. Magenta got off the bed and stood up.

"We read it every night." Lydia told them after getting two errors. "I got so obsessed with it, for three months I wouldn't responded to anything but Ariel. It drove my parents crazy, but . . . Grandma thought it was adorable."

Magenta watched as Lydia typed in Ariel to get another set of names.

"Do you know any of these names?" Magenta asked Lydia.

"Just my grandmother." Lydia answered.

"Lydia. . . Magenta." Stiles called out. Magenta turned around to look at Stiles.

"We need to call Scott." Stiles told them.

↹↹↹

"Well, it's not another dead pool. More like an already dead pool." Parrish told the three teens.

"All of them?" Lydia asked. "All dead?"

"Within the last 10 years. All suicides. And all at the same place." Parrish told them.

"Eichen House." Stiles concluded.

"With what I felt there. I would too." Magenta admited.

↹↹↹

"Eichen House isn't a libary." Stiles told the two girls. "You need a warrant to get files from there."

"My grandmother left me a list of 10 suicides, including her own. There's got to be a reason why. Is there anyone there who's willing to help us?" Lydia asked.

"No. But there might be someone willing to take a bribe." Stiles answered.

"I don't think I'm going to like the answer. Or the place we're going." Magenta finally said.

↹↹↹

"A thousand." The Evil man told the three teenagers.

"A thousand dollars? To use one little key to open up one little file room?" Stiles asked. "Are you out of your mind?"

"When you get the keys, you make the price." The man that Magenta was currently hating said.

"Right." the boy that Magenta had a crush on replied. "You actually think we have that kind of money?"

"I know you don't. If you did, Daddy Sheriff would've laid the bill by now. That's why I'm talking to those two."

Magenta rolled her eyes before she started to dig in her back pocket. She took out her Captain America wallet and started to dig through it. She was able to find 500 dollars, it was half of what her father last send her.

"I have $500." Lydia announced.

"I have the other half." Magenta added before she out away her wallet. Both Lydia and Magenta threw in the money.

"No more books, movies and comics until next month." Magenta mumbled.  The Evil guy stopped his music and took out his mix tape before flipping it over. The three glanced at each other. The music started to play again before Meany Mac mean started to smell the money.

"Follow me." He said. They stood there for a bit before they followed the jerk.

They entered the record room that Mr. Mean opened.

"Good?" He asked.

"Yeah. We can help ourselves." Stiles replied. "Uh, Lydia, you got the list?"

Lydia took out the list, but Magenta thought she heard something.

"Lydia, why did you write another name on here?" Stiles asked. Magenta was confused by that.

"I didn't write anything." Lydia denied.

"This is your handwriting." Stiles told Lydia.

"Why would I write another name?" Lydia asked.

"Why would you write mine?" Stiles asked. The mention of Stiles name on the list, send a chill down Magenta's spine.

"It was the tapes, wasn't it?" Evil man asked. He pulled out his taser and used it on Stiles. Lydia and Magenta backed away who laughed. An evil laugh. He cracked his neck before turning towards the two girls.

"Your turn, sweethearts." He pressed the button on his taser.

"How about no?" Magenta asked. She out herself in front of Lydia, it was an instinct. She got into a fighting stance before she started to send kicks and punches towards the Evil man. Magenta was able to kick him before he used the taser on her.

↹↹↹

"Someone, help!" Lydia yelled.  Her yells were what woke Magenta up.

"Lydia, there's a lot of people screaming for hell in a place like this." Stiles told the screaming girl. "I don't think anyone's listening."

"Well, I'm open to better ideas. Because if you didn't notice, all of those suicides were murders." Lydia told Stiles. Magenta tried to get up, but failed when she noticed that she was tied.

"I'm not going to enjoy my stay here then." Magenta announced her presence.

"That's why she left you the message." Stiles told the two girls.

"She predicted her own death." A door opened. "She knew I would figure it out."

"Once you were able to predict your own." Brunski told the three teens. He slammed the door, making Magenta struggle against the pole. "But they weren't murders. I'm not some serial killer like Teb Bundy going around cutting up college girls."

"No, you're just an Angel of Death." Stiles remarked.

"You could be Scream." Magenta added on.

"I don't think you understand my level of commitment to my work here, Stiles. There are people here who don't simply need treatment. They need release. I helped them. I helped Lorraine." Brunski whispered.

"You killed her." Lydia whispered back.

"I helped her. And now you can help me. Because there is something about it that's always bothered me." Magenta now didn't want to open her mouth and talk. He pressed play to a mix tape.  Magenta tried to block everything out from the other pole. She heard Stiles yelling, she turned her head to see Brunski punch Stiles.

"Stop! You little fucking bastard!" Magenta cursed at the man.

"Then, both of you listen." Brunski told them, he even got a hold of Lydia by the neck. "I need your help with this, Lydia. "

"Please don't  . . ."

"Here it is." Brunski told them. "This is the part I never understood. Listen."

"Please don't hurt her." A woman's voice spoke.

"Don't hurt who?"

"Ariel." Magenta right away knew that Lorraine was referring towards Lydia. Magenta then heard the sound of death.

"He can't hurt her." a voice told Magenta. The tape stopped.

"We get alot of teenagers trying to break into our drug cabinets. Most of the time they don't succeed. But you three look pretty clever to me.

"Don't hurt them!" Magenta yelled. She strangled against what was tied her down. Her fingers couldn't reach her markings to let her transform and Magenta's true form didn't have fangs or claws. Brunski ignored the girl.

"I'll admit, Stiles, I don't have any unusual talents like Lydia, or Magenta, but, somehow, I just knew we were gonna get a chance to do this again." Brunski admited. He was inching towards the two who were tied to the other pole.

"No! Do me first you coward!" Magenta yelled. "You fucking coward! Inject me first!"

Brunski stopped and turned around and incerted the needle into Magenta's neck. There was yelling from Lydia and Stiles before Parrish came in.

"Drop it! Take your thumb off that needle and slowly withdraw it from her neck." Deputy Parrish told Brunski.

"Young Deputy." The Evil man said out loud. "You're just and kid. I bet you've never ever fired a . . ." Magenta felt the needle and drug go into her neck before Parrish fired the gun. Parrish kept the gun on the body before he rushed towards Lydia and freed her.

"He . . . He killed my grandmother. He was controlling Meredith." Lydia told Parrish before rushing over towards Magenta.

"He used her to create the dead pool." Stiles added in. He moved towards Magenta and undid the handcuffs.

"And killed her when she tried to help us." Lydia explained. Magenta sat up straight and was embraced by Stiles. He let go of her when Brunski started to cough up blood, but Stiles kept his arm around Magenta. She was able to see the red blood on Brunski's colored face.

"You ... you think it was me? That I was controlling her? Idiots . . . She was controlling me." With those being his last words, Brunski was dead. Magenta felt his soul leave his body.

"Oh, god." Lydia said."It's not him. He's not the Benefactor."

"No." Said a female voice. Stiles grip around Magenta tighten when they turned around. "And . . . he wasn't on my list. But he was a bad person."

It was Meredith.

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