INHERITANCE

chapter eighty-three ; sundowning
[ season six - episode three ]

Isaac Lahey walked toward the school with a furrowed brow.
He was in a strange mood. He had been since he had opened his eyes this morning. He couldn't help but feel like something was wrong, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He wasn't sure he was quite qualified to know whether something was off, that was a feeling he usually left up to Lydia and... well, just Lydia. Things had been a little up in the air for everyone lately. They all still felt like someone was missing from their lives, someone they had begun referring to by the name of Stiles. It didn't even sound like a name, but for some reason, it was what they were all convinced this ghost was called. It had been showing up everywhere. More so for the others than it had for him.

He didn't feel as connected to this ghost as everyone else seemed to be. He felt like he knew him that was for sure, but unlike Scott, he didn't think that this ghost was his best friend. Nor did he believe he used to love him like Lydia felt like she did. Nor had he been caused to wolf out, or in Malia's case, coyote out, as she had been since this whole "Who is Stiles?" thing began. When he thought about this Stiles, he felt a pang of hatred, maybe even jealousy. Though he wasn't sure why he would ever be jealous of whoever this guy was. What could Stiles have ever had that he'd want for himself?

So, over the past few days, it hadn't felt like too much of a loss for him. At least not until he woke up this morning. Then, he felt like he had woken up grieving a loved one. He turned over in bed, expecting to see someone beside him, but of course, the bed was empty. As it always had been. It didn't make sense why he would ever expect anyone to be there.

But he had. He felt this huge sense of loss. He could hardly breathe. It was like someone stole the very breath from his lungs. Like someone had taken a limb from him. He felt estranged. Or even abandoned. 
Isaac was self-aware, he knew he had issues. Ones that he was still trying to understand and try to work on, but even that seemed different to him. He could remember feeling relieved after his father's death. The man had caused him nothing but pain. The same for Parrish, a man who felt a need to run away and change everything about him, forgetting all about the past he once had with an abusive father. That revelation felt like so long ago, Isaac could hardly remember how it all came out, but it had, and the two of them had been better for it. Of course, Liam never had to experience that, and hell were the two older brothers glad about it, if it wasn't for... however the two of them found out about Liam, who knew how long they could have gone on looking out for the young beta, unaware of just how much he meant to their lives.

It was strange, how all of this information just suddenly appeared. He had never sought out his brothers. Hell, one of them he didn't even know he had. And for the life of him he couldn't think how he had come to find out. He could have sworn someone had helped him. Helped him with a lot of things, including his issues. Someone used to make him feel like he was worth something, even when he questioned it. He just couldn't remember who. 
Maybe that was him pushing his trauma to the back of his mind like Parrish had. His first thought was Argent, the man had helped him with a lot, he had given him a job while he was gone, a roof over his head when he returned, but even so, it didn't feel right. Isaac didn't look at the man and instantly feel better about himself and his issues.
That was another thing he couldn't quite understand when he thought about it deeper. Why did Argent do all of those things for him? 

It was like a piece of the puzzle was missing, and it was the centerpiece. It was a piece that made everything else fit.

Shaking his head, he walked into the library, finding Scott and Lydia sitting on their own. By the confused looks on their faces, their search for Stiles continued. They were convinced he was real, that he had been a huge part of their lives, but if so, how could they forget him? Where was he? People didn't just disappear. It wasn't possible. 

His ass had barely touched the seat beside Scott before the werewolf leaned in with the kind of revelation that was much too big to take in so early of a morning. "Lydia thinks Stiles isn't the only person who has just disappeared." Scott abruptly told him, causing the other werewolf to choke on his swig of water. Isaac's wide eyes turned to the redhead whose cheeks had flushed red with embarrassment, he made her sound insane, even if she might be slightly insane. "We were at the animal clinic last night, Deaton made her try..." he paused, forgetting the name.

"Automatic writing." she finished for him. "You enter a trance-like state and let your hand do all of the work," she explained further as she pulled the sheet of paper from her bag, gliding it over the table to the werewolf. He looked at the large word of "mischief" written on the paper, then, at the smaller name written in it. Isaac looked up, slightly confused, the idea of this boy named Stiles wasn't new, so who was the other missing person? "When I snapped out of this trance, it felt like someone was missing. Someone who had been sitting right beside me, but the chair was empty."

"Nobody was sat in the chair," Scott told her again, still in disbelief that they had all managed to forget two people. 

"Then why would Deaton have put two chairs there?" Lydia questioned him, for perhaps the 9th time since they had started their conversation. "Someone was sat in that chair, I swear it." Lydia urged, turning to Isaac again. "I even remember a name." she insisted. Of course, Isaac leaned in with interest, waiting to hear the name. "Kinsey."

Isaac's eyes widened. "Does that name mean something to you?" Scott asked, now not so sure if Lydia had just made it all up.

He quickly pulled out his phone, looking back at his call log. He put his phone down on the table as he pointed to the last call he received last night at around 10 pm. An unknown number. "Last night, someone called me. They knew my name, and they sounded surprised that I didn't know theirs," he explained. "Her name was Kinsey."

"Did you try calling it back?" Lydia asked as she picked up the phone, already trying herself. The boy shook his head, he had been so creeped out by it he never thought to try and think further into it. He had never considered that this might be some creepy supernatural thing and not just some stalker. He had just put it down to someone from school having a crush, someone who he so clearly didn't remember. The redhead placed it on speaker, immediately reaching the strange caller's answering machine. A dead end. With a sigh, she handed the phone back to the wolf as she sank in her chair. "How do we forget two people? How do two people get completely erased from existence? Where do we go from here?"

"Did you find anything on Stiles yet?" Isaac asked them.
Scott shook his head, pointing at a book they had been looking at before he arrived. The closest they had gotten to anything near Stiles was a definition for Stile; an arrangement of steps that allows people but not animals to climb over a fence, which definitely wasn't what they were all looking for. "We could ask Argent? Maybe he knows something that Deaton doesn't?"
Scott and Lydia looked at each other, shrugging in agreement, they didn't have any other choice, they had to explore every option.

The three of them stood silently in the elevator that led to the apartment. The moment that they had stepped into this claustrophobic box, it felt like a wave of cold had washed over them. Like a ghost was amongst them. Someone else should have been here with them. It felt like there was a part of them missing. This journey didn't feel the same. Once again, the werewolf struggled to put his finger on it. He tried to convince himself that it was Allison, it made sense that way, but he nor the other two in the elevator could do it, they all knew that wasn't the answer, as much as they all missed Allison, this hole they felt wasn't the same.

He began second-guessing himself as he watched the numbers climb to the third floor. Maybe it wasn't his best idea to question Argent about whoever "Kinsey" could be. Maybe if he did know her, it would be a soft spot, something that could cause him to lose his temper and return to his days of hating him and Scott, prepared to kill them on the spot.
He couldn't mess things up with the man, he owed his life to him. Chris had taken him in, he had given him the job at Argent Arms while he needed time away from Beacon Hills. He still didn't quite remember how the two of them had gotten to this point of a bond, but he was grateful for it nonetheless. It was a strange sensation, living with a werewolf hunter. Argent was one of the good ones. He had a change of heart somewhere along the line, but the details of that seemed foggy too.

They walked into the apartment, calling Chris' name until they found him in his office. While the two boys piled into the room, Lydia stopped for a moment, lingering in the hallway. Her eyes set upon a room down the hallway beside Allison's old bedroom. A churning rose in her stomach as her eyes narrowed on it. The white door was shut tightly. She could never remember seeing the door open in all of the times she had been here, but she had a newfound urge to open it now.
As she stared at it, she noticed a light beneath the gap of the door, Lydia gripped her ears as the sound of a sudden loud announcement sounded through the apartment, she wasn't sure where it was coming from, but it was deafening. The following stops have been canceled. She turned to Argent's office where he stood talking to Scott and Isaac, none of them seeming to hear it. Then, as she turned back to the door, a train horn blared, the sound of the wheels on the tracks and a series of flashing lights as though it was driving straight past the apartment windows.

She winced at the loud sound, walking closer to the closed door where it seemed to be coming from. Her hand wrapped around the door handle, bracing herself to see what was inside. Lydia finally twisted it, only to find that the door was locked. All at once, everything went quiet. There was no sign of a train. No lights. No announcements. Nothing.

The girl was bewildered, standing in the cold hallway of the apartment at a complete loss. It all felt so real. Something about this apartment seemed so strange to her. It didn't feel like it used to. With a shake of her head, she joined the three men in the office, hearing the first mention of what Chris believed to know of this "Kinsey". 

"Are you sure it wasn't Kinsley?" Chris asked, leaning on his desk. "I've never heard of a Kinsey, but a Kinsley I have." Lydia nodded, it was definitely Kinsey, she had no doubt in her mind that that was her name, and Isaac agreed, the girl who had called him last night was Kinsey. Argent hummed. "Then I'm not sure I can help you."
"Who's Kinsley?" Scott asked out of curiosity.
Argent fumbled through one of his desk drawers, finding an image that he placed on the desk. They each examined it, and for the first time since the idea of someone else being missing had been brought up, he finally felt it. This girl in the photo, he could have swore he knew her. Her face was familiar. The soft doe-eyed girl with brown hair and a dazzling smile. It all seemed so familiar to him. Almost as familiar as the idea of Stiles did. "This is her. This has to be her." The wolf insisted as he pointed at the girl.

Chris laughed, taking the three teenagers by surprise. "No. This isn't who you're looking for," he reassured them. "She was dead before any of you could even walk. Allison was only a baby when she died," he explained, only confusing them more. "This is mine and Kate's mother."

"But she looks so familiar," Lydia mumbled. "There's nobody else in your family? Nobody with a similar name? Who might have resembled your mother?"
"I think I would know if my mother had some kind of doppelganger." Chris laughed as he put the image back in his desk. "I'm sorry I couldn't be more help, but I have no idea who Kinsey Argent is." he said as he stood up from his chair, glancing out of his window with his back to them.
The three teenagers all looked at one another, all noticing the same thing. A detail none of them had mentioned before, because none of them had known it themselves. "What?" Isaac asked.
Chris turned back to them. "I said I'm sorry I couldn't be more help." he repeated himself with a hint of skepticism in his tone, wondering what was so unclear about what he said, and why they were looking at him that way. 
"You said Kinsey Argent." Scott told him. "We never said she was an Argent, we only said that her name was Kinsey. Are you sure you don't know her?"

The man shook his head, telling them once again that he didn't know her, he didn't even know why he referred to her as an Argent. He must have gotten confused. He rubbed his head, a little out of sorts after their short conversation, but he reassured them that he didn't know who they were looking for. There were no Argents left beside him, his father and Kate. Their certainly were no teenage girls. Allison had been the last. He knew that. He told them that, and yet when it had left his mouth, it felt incorrect. As though he didn't know his own family.
He sat back down at his desk, burying his head for a moment as the three of them watched him, hoping that with a moment of thought, it would come to him, that he would be able to give the answers they sought. But he couldn't. He had a few questions of his own now too. "Do you have anything else about this girl? Any other clues?"
Isaac shook his head. Nothing. All he knew was that when he got here, it felt like she should have been here too.

Finding themselves back at square one, the three teenagers returned to school to spend the last of their free period searching every book the library had for anything relating to the words Stiles or Kinsey. At least that was their intention, but none of them had made it that far. The moment their feet touched the parking lot cement they heard the howl of a coyote echo through the halls of the school. They each looked at each other with wide eyes. It appeared Malia's redo of her test wasn't going as well as they'd hoped.

Scott shook his head, jogging ahead to search for the coyote. Once again, the coyote was unable to control her temper or her transitions. She had taken three steps back in her progress. They all knew that the past couple of weeks, months, maybe even years, had been stressful, but it didn't make sense of why she had resorted to lashing out again.

Scott quickly found Malia in the school basement, alongside Sheriff Stilinski who had happened to see the fully-fledged coyote trotting through the school halls. The Alpha kept the man behind him as he slowly moved through the basement, hearing the low growls of the coyote who hid in the darkness. With a flash of blue in the corner of his eyes, he found the girl hiding behind one of the cabinets. He held out his hand, reassuring the girl that she was safe as she slowly emerged.

The Alpha repeated himself, trying to remain calm and in control, watching as the coyote started to become calmer herself, her growling slowly coming to a stop. Though Stilinski still looked like he was completely terrified of the girl as he suggested that the Alpha growl back at her. "Scott, you're the Alpha. Can you just make a little more docile?"
"She's not the problem," Lydia told them. "We are. This is her territory." she said, gesturing at the space around them. "We need to get out of here." Scott and Isaac nodded in agreement, starting to escort Stilinski and Natalie who had since appeared at the door, back out of the basement, far from the growling coyote who became worse with everyone who came down here. "Malia came here to get through the full moons. Then we got to the lake house."
"I thought you said a wild animal got in the lake house." her mother said with a furrowed brow. Lydia nodded, she meant what she said. "Just be happy for the things I don't tell you."

They turned their attention back to Malia as she walked toward them, slowly transforming into her human form, causing Noah to quickly turn his head away, shielding himself from the sight. Malia held her hands up, assuring them that she was okay now, much to Natalie's pleasure as she sighed with relief, handing the girl back the clothes that had been dumped in her office amid the girl's transformation.

As the girl changed, Stilinski turned back to the other three teenagers. "Any idea what made her shift?"
"She's under a lot of pressure." Scott shrugged, glancing at Lydia and Isaac. "School. Life after we graduate."
"Her mom trying to kill her." Lydia muttered under her breath. Scott shook his head, what Malia went through with her mother shouldn't be the cause of her sudden shifting, he didn't know the reason why she had reverted from all the progress she had made. That was when Isaac spoke up with the idea of it being part of this recurring theme they had been experiencing. Stiles. What if it was connected to him? Or even Kinsey? Lydia looked unsure, they didn't even know what Stiles was, they had only assumed that it was a person, the same with Kinsey, they didn't know much about either of them to be able to tell. 
"It's a he," Stilinski told them, taking them each by surprise as they looked at him. "Stiles. It's a family nickname. I never used it, but... my father did."

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Following Sheriff Stilinski, the three teenagers entered the man's home as he called out for his wife Claudia. Nervously, they each stood in the foyer, watching as the woman came down with a smile, holding a box in her hand that her husband had asked her to retrieve. The teenagers had never seen much of Mrs. Stilinski, they were a private family, they kept to themselves, enjoying a blissful life without teenagers like them running around and causing trouble and hell did it make them feel relieved. 

As promised, Stilinski was prepared to talk to them about his father who went by the nickname of Stiles. He gathered them in the living room, taking a seat beside his wife as he opened up the box of memorabilia. He took out a photo, handing it to Scott to pass around. His father was once an army engineer, he ended the war one bridge at a time. He passed the photo to Lydia, who was already wearing a strange look on her face as Isaac asked again if his father went by Stiles. 

Noah leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees as he asked them about the Wild Hunt. Even he had heard stories, they were legends, but he didn't know why the three of them would need to talk about them, as though they had experienced them.

Cautiously, Scott looked between Lydia and Isaac, silently questioning whether they should tell the man about the Ghost Riders, both of them looking at him with the indication that whatever he chose, they would agree with. With their approval, he turned back to the man, proposing the idea that someone had taken something away from them. Growing with interest, he furrowed a brow, asking who might have stolen it.

The Alpha swallowed largely before breaking the news about the Ghost Riders stealing some of their memories from them. Convenient, Stilinski sighed. "We found a clue." Lydia told the man. "Two clues, actually." Isaac corrected. "One of them being 'Stiles'." 
Claudia nodded, beginning to understand why they would want to talk to her husband's father. Scott turned to the couple with a determined expression, expressing his hope that Elias would be able to help them figure it out, perhaps he would know who they were looking for, or at least one of the people they were looking for. 

Stilinski danced around the idea of an introduction between them and his father, instead, Noah continued to ask questions. "Is this person your age?"
Scott nodded, both of them, he believed. He believed that they were his friends. His best friends even. Noah had heard the three of them talk about these missing people on the entire ride back to his house, he had listened to them describe the feelings of loss, the way there seemed to be a gap in some of their memories, some of them failing to make sense. He ached for these children and if they were real, the people they believed had been taken by the Wild Hunt. But that didn't change the facts. "I guarantee my father can't help you."

Scott handed back the photo of the man's father, watching him safely put it back in the memory box before he tried to reason with the man. "Can we try?"
Noah sighed. "Scott, he lives in a care home three towns over. He hasn't had visits for years."

As Isaac and Scott worked on convincing the man, Lydia's attention was drawn by an old woman who walked through the living room, right between the conversation they were having with the Stilinskis. Only nobody else seemed to notice the woman but her. The redhead's eyes followed the woman until she stopped at the archway leading to the foyer, turning on her heel until Lydia and she were making eye contact. "The following stops have been canceled," she announced as the sound of a train filled the room, for the second time today she had heard a train, and again, she was the only one who could hear it.

Lydia cleared her throat, pausing the conversation for a moment as she turned to Claudia. "Can I go to the bathroom?" she abruptly asked. Claudia smiled, giving her directions, but Lydia began to follow some directions of her own as she followed the old woman through their home. Slowly, she walked behind the woman, keeping a safe space between them.
The old woman came to an abrupt stop at the end of a hallway where she stood staring at a wall, a blank wall. "Why are you here?" the Banshee asked in a whisper, only to be ignored as the old woman continued to stare in silence. "Is there something you wanted to tell me? What stop has been canceled?"

As the redhead reached out for the woman, Claudia appeared from behind, calling her name as the Banshee turned toward her. Did you find it? The woman asked, redirecting her to the door on her left. With a smile, Lydia nodded, sliding into the bathroom to take a breather, wondering why the woman had come to her, and what the pattern with the trains was.

Stilinski's voice grew sterner as he tried to talk to the teenage boys. "You're not hearing me." the man told them. "Trust me... you don't wanna talk to him." Scott continued to plead, asking for a few minutes with the man. "Scott. My father can't help you."
"Just a few questions. Five minutes!" Isaac tried to help the Alpha's case.
The Sheriff's exasperation reached its peak as his tone became sharper. "It's not possible for you to just talk to this guy! Okay?" he shouted, quickly taking up a softer, apologetic tone of voice as the message finally sunk into the boys. "Just... find another way."
"But what if this is the only way?" Scott asked him, hopeful about what Elias Stilinski could give them if only they had a chance to talk to the man.
Just then, Claudia walked back into the room. "Scott. You have your answer." the woman said in an equally sharp tone, but the werewolf looked back at Noah, pleading once more. "Scott!" she repeated, reiterating her point. The answer was no.

As Lydia reappeared at the door with an expression as frustrated as the boys, she proposed that it was time for them to leave. Both Isaac and Scott agreed, standing up from their seats while the Sheriff looked at them guiltily. 

For hours the three teenagers contemplated their options, struggling to choose between right and wrong. Ultimately, there seemed only one choice. It was the only thing they could do to get the answers they had been waiting for. It was the closest they had come. They couldn't pass up an opportunity like that. 
Even Malia, perhaps the most impulsive of the group couldn't quite agree with the idea of what they were about to do. Not because she was above it, but because there were many things that she would do that they would disapprove of, but it seemed pointless. Even so, she stood here, outside of the nursing home where Elias Stilinski lived, hoping for some kind of answer from the man.

Scott shook his head as he stared at the sign for the nursing home, unable to break into one. He couldn't help but feel like they had hit an all-time low. Malia brushed it off, after the orderlies at Eichen House, she was pretty sure they could handle some nurses. While the other three nodded in agreement, the coyote took the lead as she waltzed into the nursing home, finding one of the nurses on a call at the desk. Seeing her approach, he quickly put the phone down, opening his mouth to help her, barely able to spit out a sentence before she grabbed his head and slammed it down onto the desk, rendering him unconscious as he slid off of his chair.

With wide eyes, Isaac, Lydia, and Scott stood at the door, unsure that was what they meant when they said they needed to find a way in without being detected by the nurses. But nonetheless, it worked. Malia walked around the desk, recruiting Isaac for help to hide him in the storage closet while Scott and Lydia found Elias' room.

Soon, the four of them walked into a dark room with old trumpet music playing lowly. By one of the large windows, an old man sat hunched over in his chair, his back to them as he nodded with the music, his fingers tapping to the tune. They all softened their approach, choosing not to be as hostile as Malia had been with the head nurse, they needed answers from this man, and after all, he was a senior in a nursing home. They were animals, most of them at least, but that didn't mean they had to act that way.

As Scott walked closer to the man, he finally noticed them, turning in his seat to ask whether it was time for his medicine. Malia shook her head, they didn't have his medicine. With a sigh, he turned back around in his seat.

"Are you Elias Stilinski?" Lydia asked softly as she knelt beside the old man's chair. I am, Elias croaked. "I'm Lydia Martin. Do you know who I am?" she asked.
"Should I?" he asked with concern.
Scott stepped forward to talk to the man. "Hi, Mr. Stilinski, we're looking for someone who might be named Stiles, and you went by the name in the army, right?" he asked, the man confirming as he recalled them as the best years of his life.
"Do you know any of us?" Isaac asked.
"Of course I do." Elias said confidently. "How could I forget my own son?"

Together, Scott, Lydia, and Malia looked at Isaac with furrowed brows, then back to Elias. "Your son?" the Alpha questioned. Clearly, the man was confused. Lydia turned to the man, asking him what year it was. 1976, he told them. It was his son's birthday next week, he added as he nodded at Isaac who bore no resemblance to his son, but he had claimed him as such anyway.
"He has dementia," Lydia told them, perhaps the reason why Noah claimed that his father would be of no help to them and their search. Not because he was an unhelpful man. Not because they had pushed the Sheriff so much that he didn't want to help. But for an actual, true reason that at the time, none of them had considered when thinking about an old man in a nursing home. 

Again, Elias asked for his medicine, proving just how bad his memory was. He would be any help to them. But still, they tried, asking again if Elias knew who they were, or if he knew of the other Stiles they were looking for. Elia repeated Scott's name, giving the Alpha hope for a moment, but it quickly faded as he called Scott his son, growing aggravated with the questions as he began to raise his voice.

"Keep it down, old guy." Malia snapped impatiently. "You'll wake up the other old people." She mumbled before shoving a handful of peas from his dinner plate into his mouth while the others looked at her with confusion, and Elias uncomfortably. 
"I don't like her." he deadpanned with a curled-up lip of disgust.

Changing the subject from Malia and the behavior they were still working on, Lydia sat next to the man, trying to help him with his memory problems. "Your son is the Sheriff of Beacon Hills."
"Sheriff?" he repeated with confusion. "No, no, no. I was in the army."
"Use your claws, Scott." Malia urged, hoping to speed up the process. Scott looked at the coyote with wide eyes of disapproval, reminding her that it could kill him. While she knew that, the four of them were running out of time. Still, the Alpha disagreed.

The coyote flicked out her own claws, prepared to perform the ritual herself as she lunged for the old man, quickly stopped by Isaac who grabbed her wrist, warning her not to. Elias looked at the sharp claws that were just inches from him, he looked terrified, and rightly so. It couldn't be often, or ever, that he saw a girl with claws that size lunge at him. Or eat the leftover peas from a plate that had been there for a questionable amount of time.

"We're not hurting him." Isaac said, releasing her from his grip while the coyote stared at the old man with a snide expression.
"Young lady, you need to clip those nails." Elias scoffed.
Surprisingly, Malia remained calm despite his comment as she kept close to Isaac's side, under close supervision from the werewolf. Unlike her, Elias was becoming more and more stressed out from their presence in his usually quiet, lonely room. "You shouldn't be here." He told them in a threatening tone. "If you don't leave, I have to report you."

Scott opens his mouth in worry that they are all about to get arrested. Then, he paused, looking at Lydia with an inquiring look. "What's wrong with him?"
Lydia looked from the man who, a moment ago, had a glimpse of sunlight across his wrinkly skin that had suddenly disappeared. She turned to the window behind them where the sun had now set, a sky of dark, navy blue now stretching over the town. "The sun went down," she told them, though none of them saw the importance of that. "He's sundowning," she added, still her friends remained clueless as to what she was talking about. "It's when patients with dementia lose their faculties after the sun goes down."
"I don't wanna talk to you anymore!" Elias shouted as he began to throw newspapers at them in fury. 

"What do we do?" Malia asked. Lydia told her that they had to wait until the sun came back up, a suggestion that Malia wasn't open to. They had waited long enough to find a clue on Stiles. They had found their first lead, and now they had to wait again. They couldn't do it. Scott agreed with her, proposing that there had to be something they could do to keep the man quiet, but now, he was crying, pleading for them to leave him alone. "I can calm him down." Malia proposed. After she attempted trying to use memory manipulation on him, all three of them came to an agreed, strong disagreement.

Lydia suddenly pulled out a sheet of math equations, placing them on the table, asking the man to read them. "It's binomial of probability. What's "P?" she asked the man. Elias, suddenly quiet again, looked at the paper, telling her that it was the probability of success. Lydia nodded with a smile, then asked him more questions until the man came to an answer while the others looked at them in surprise that maths was calming him down. "It helps with their concentration," Lydia told them, referring back to the questions as she made him answer more until he was calm.

For a moment, Elias' concentration turned to the young wolf who stood beside him. "Elias-" the redhead tried to call him back.
With a look of disgust, he turned back to her. "That's Mr. Stilinski. Just who the hell do you think you are?"
The man was back to himself. Though they weren't sure whether that was a good thing or not as the man continued to look down on them like they were dirt. Lydia's tone remained calm as she began questioning him again. "You know Scott isn't your son?"
"Of course I know that. The brains are getting smaller with the skirts."
Malia began growling under her breath, slowly losing control as the man continued to make his comments. Isaac pulled her back slightly, managing to keep her calm and away from Elias while Lydia and Scott handled him.
As Scott reassured Malia that it was fine, Elias drew his attention back to him, a look of curiosity and familiarity on his face. "So... you're that McCall kid." Scott knelt to the man again. You know me? he asked the man. "I know your dad. He couldn't hold his liquor, and certainly couldn't keep that wedding ring on his finger. A beautiful lady walking by and poof, that ring just disappeared like magic."

Scott was stunned for a moment, never hearing that side of the story from either of his parents. Malia's growls became louder as Isaac moved her further from the man again, allowing Lydia to continue interrogating the man. "And you know all of us?" she asked.
"Hey. You're Natalie Martin's daughter. Am I right? You look like her. She was pretty once too." Malia's eyes turned blue as the anger took over, her voice deep with fury as she warned the old man to stop talking. Scott and Isaac both stopped the girl from getting any closer to him, both trying to talk her down, which was becoming harder with every bad comment that Elias made. "She also liked to talk like she was the smartest person in her room." 
Malia finally lost her patience, flicking out her claws as she lunged toward the man, the wolves were barely able to catch her before another voice bellowed through the room.

"Enough!"
The room shook beneath Stilinski's voice, leaving the four teenagers speechless as they looked at the man standing in the doorway of his father's room. Beside him, the head nurse that Malia had so brutally knocked out and locked in a closet. 
Scott quickly tried to regain his composure, about to try and justify his and Malia's actions, but the man already couldn't look more disappointed in the four of them.
"I explicitly told you not to come here. And who attacked a staff member?"

"That's her." The male nurse gladly told her as he pointed at the short-haired brunette who still growled under her breath no matter how much she tried to hide it or remain calm. Even she felt surprised by her levels of anger, her losing control never usually lasted this long. There used to be a way she would snap out of it, someone who could talk her down, now she had the fear that it was one of the people they were missing, and while they were gone, so was her control.

"What were you thinking?"
"Noah, we were just having a nice conversation." The man's father spoke up. Noah glanced at his father for a moment before ignoring him, focusing only on the four teenagers whom he'd felt the need to father.
"The four of you, out. Now." he insisted as the four of them followed his orders, slowly leaving as they refused to make eye contact with the two men that they passed.
"Noah..." Elias called out for his son. Noah continued to ignore him, guiding the teenagers out of the room so he could take them down to the station. "That's right! Act like I'm not even here. Go crawling back to your dead wife and your loser son!"

With a confused, angry look, Noah turned back to his father. "What did you say?"
Instantly, the man returned to his confused state. "Is it... time... for my medicine?"

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Melissa McCall shuffled down the staircase with a basket full of laundry on her hip, humming to herself as she tidied up before her shift. As she reached the second half of the staircase, Melissa came to a stop, her humming coming to a sharp halt as she heard the sound of rattling from her kitchen. Drawers and cupboards were being open and closed. Glasses were clinging. She slowly walked further down the staircase, placing the basket at the bottom of she pressed herself to the hallway wall, listening to what sounded like someone robbing her home in broad daylight. 

She slipped around the corner into her living room, slowly walking through it as she grabbed her candle holder to defend herself from who or whatever was in her home. She gripped it tightly as she held it close to her chest, dreading what could be in the other room. With the things that she had experienced in her lifetime, she couldn't even begin to guess.

One thing she certainly wouldn't have guessed was a man in her kitchen making a coffee. Argent to be specific. He turned to her with a smile, as though his unannounced visit was normal for the two of them, or anyone for that matter. "Morning." he greeted her.
The nurse looked down at the two cups of coffee he stirred, slightly vexed at him for invading her home. She lowered the candle holder, placing it on the counter as she calmed down. "You know normal people knock?" Argent handed her one of the cups of coffee, avoiding her comment. She knew he knew that. He knew she knew that. But as they both also knew, he wasn't one to do the normal thing, and if he was going to invade someone's house, he was going to do it without the person knowing. Melissa had no idea how long he had been in here, how long he had heard her singing upstairs. "Something tells me you're not here just to make me coffee." She said while she cautiously sipped the surprisingly delicious coffee. 

"I need your help," he admitted. "There's a body in the morgue that needs to be examined."
"And you snuck into my kitchen?"
The man cleared his throat, clearly embarrassed to ask for help, and more so, for what came out of his mouth next. "Actually, I wanted your expertise about something." the hunter said as a rosy color flushed his face.

He was a proud man. He always had been. In his field, he was the expert. It wasn't easy to admit at times that he may need help from someone else. He was used to people coming to find him to help. As the woman's son had just this morning. Now, he was returning the favor to his mother.

Curious about what the hunter was talking about, she quickly sipped away at the remainder of her coffee, forgetting all about her household chores as she hopped in the man's SUV to sneak him into the morgue. For Melissa, it wasn't unusual to sneak people into the morgue, frankly, it was another one of her areas of expertise by now. Whether it was her son, his friends, or people like Argent who helped them with the supernatural world, there weren't many people that she hadn't snuck into the morgue.

After successfully sneaking the hunter in, she searched for the body in question, removing the corpse from the freezer to allow the hunter to examine it, or as he wished, watch her examine it with her expertise. With strength, he removed the stretcher from the body, grabbing it's head as he turned it upside down to show her the damage.
"I'm gonna go with head trauma as cause of death." Melissa deadpanned.
"The skull wasn't just broken. Look here," he told her as the nurse looked closer, noticing a bite wound on the head of the victim. "These are teeth marks."
"A werewolf?"
"A werewolf with an unusually powerful set of jaws." he corrected. The nurse stared in awe. She could help but feel perplexed by it, interested both as a nurse, and someone who had become a lot deeper embedded in the world of werewolves than she would have ever imagined.
"Can it bite through a human skull?"
"Skulls." he corrected again. "This wasn't the first victim."

The hunter scrolled through his phone, showing her photos of another victim from the werewolf with a powerful set of jaws. Denise Novack. The woman was found at a campsite with the back of her head cracked open. Melissa zoomed into the image, noticing that the bite marks were the exact same as the other body. It was clear to them both that whoever had killed Denise Novack had killed the man in front of them. Odd, even for Beacon Hills.
"Why biting off the back of someone's head and not take anything?" the woman questioned.
"But that someone took something from Denise, her pineal gland."
"Her pineal gland?" she repeated. "That's right in the center of the brain." she told the man. He questioned whether the same piece was missing from the other victims brain. Melissa grabbed the chart, flicking through the details, coming up with nothing. Though she did know a way for them to find out. Without a flicker of consideration, she was pulling out a pair of gloves and her scalpel to examine the brain herself.

As she searched for it, the nurse continued to question why someone would take it. "It's the size of a pea. Why kill for it?" she asked. According to the man, the pineal gland is believed to be the seat of the soul. A conduit to express their souls through physical actions. Growing both curious and worried, Melissa delved further. "So someone or something is biting open heads to steal the souls of people?"

 "It looks that way. But the real question is... why?" the man hummed. His mind wandered for a moment, thinking back to this morning and the conversation that he'd had with her son and the other teenagers. Forgetting someone. Someone that could be deep within your soul. All day, he had wandered about this "Kinsey" person and who she could be. The girl who supposedly bore a resemblance to his mother. The girl whom he instinctively named as an Argent despite having no information about her, or knowing whether she truly existed. What if they were right? What if she was real? What if he knew her too? What if he had forgotten her? What if she was an Argent? If so, how could he have forgotten his own family?

Melissa noticed the man's stare, how she had suddenly lost his attention as he gazed off into the nothingness. It was unusual for him, even she knew that, and after they had delved into a brain together, she didn't feel that the two were in a position where they couldn't question what was going on with the two of them. "Everything okay?" she asked, causing him to turn back to her. "I lost you for a minute there." she chuckled lightly.

The man paused for a moment, considering if he was overstepping a boundary. Ultimately, he'd decided to bite the bullet. "Do you think you could forget someone you loved?""There's a few people I wish I could forget." Melissa joked, assuming that he too was referring to an old flame, but the lack of laughter coming from the man caused her to turn serious. "Maybe." the woman shrugged, thinking about it deeper. "Why? Is there someone you want to forget?"
"No." Chris shook his head. "I think I already did."