CHAPTER THREE:
oops! sacrifice gone wrong, part one.

Heather had no idea what day it was anymore. Despite all of her mother's protests, the blonde did nothing to move from her spot at the bay window. Her brown-eyes, swollen from crying, carefully watch raindrops race down her window. She cuddles the Build-A-Bear her and Gwen made three years ago closer to her chest. She heaves in a deep breath, her body wanting to cry out the pain once again but her eyes just can't seem to produce anymore tears.

She takes in a shaky breath. "God," she whispers to herself. She wanted the pain to end so badly. She wanted to scream and shout; she wanted to turn back time, but most importantly, she wanted to talk to someone-- but the only person she wanted to talk to was dead.

A knock on the door takes her away from her thoughts. "Hey," a soft and familiar voice echoes through the room.

Heather adjusts her sitting position, pulling her knees under her. "Hey," she replied sadly.

Stiles takes that as a queue to enter her room. He slowly walks forward and takes a seat opposite of her. The two teens bask in the silence that surrounds them.

Stiles fidgets with his fingers. "How are you?"

Heather gives him a dry look.

"Yeah, stupid question."

Heather shakes her head, letting the silence envelope them again. "I can't believe it's real," she whispers.

Stiles looks up, meeting her eyes. He gives her a slight nod to continue.

"I can't believe she's gone. I mean... I don't know what to do. I don't know how to... everyone is like 'losing a best friend is hard' but it..." She takes in a breath trying to stop herself from sobbing again. "It doesn't feel like I lost a best friend. It feels like I lost a piece of me, like a part of me is empty and gone and I am never getting it back," her voice breaks.

Stiles ushers the sobbing girl into his chest. He pulls her in tight and slowly brushes her hair. Stiles squeezes his eyes shut, despite the fact that he was hurting he just couldn't seem to conjure any tears. It worried him, he wasn't sure if the supernatural was desensitising him or if he just forgot how to process emotions because he never has time to anymore. Ever since Scott had been bitten it was one thing after the other and neither him nor his best friend ever got time to truly mourn not just all the lives lost, but their own.

"Hey," Stiles' soft voice tries to lull the girl's attention away. "What if we-- what if we have one of our movie nights? Just like how we used to."

Heather shakes her head rapidly. Movie night was something the three used to do as kids and if one couldn't ever make it then they would wait until next week. That was one of their biggest unspoken rules, all or nothing. "It wouldn't be the same."

"Yeah," Stiles whispers. "Yeah you're right, it was a stupid suggestion," the brunet regrets bringing it up.

He knew Heather was right, it wouldn't be the same; without Gwen there would be no brash commentary that couldn't help but make you snort and there would be nobody to argue with him.

"Do you remember when we were like 13 and Gwen convinced her mom to let us watch that scary movie?"

Heather furrows her eyebrows. "The one with the kid?"

Stiles nodded a reminiscent smile on his face. "Yeah and you were scared out of your mind!"

Heather scoffs. "Speak for yourself! I distinctly remember you shaking and hiding under the covers," the blonde defends making Stiles laugh.

Heather smiles. "Gwen wasn't scared," she whispers softly.

"Yeah," Stiles agrees. "Nothing ever seemed to scare her. She has... was always brave."

"Do you think she was scared when..."

Stiles hesitates to answer. If he was being honest, he didn't know how to answer that. He hoped she wasn't scared, he hoped whoever did that to her did it quick and painless but Stiles also knew better. He knew just how cruel this world could be and just what monsters roam free around it.

His brown eyes scan the girl in front of him before finally answering. "No," he shakes his head. "I think she put up a good fight and probably did more damage to the other person."

Heather nods. "Yeah, yeah I think so too," Heather plays along.

You know what they say, ignorance is bliss.

"Do you think you could stay the night?" Heather asks.

"Yeah," Stiles immediately agrees. "Yeah of cours-'' his sentence gets cut off by the ringing of his phone. His eyebrows furrow at the caller ID.

Mama McCall
ACCEPT | DECLINE

"Uh, I have to take this," Stiles stutters out, quickly exiting her room. "Hello?"

"Stiles," Melissa's voice travels through the speaker. "I need you to come down to the hospital, I think I've found something."

Stiles looks back at the door leading to Heather's room. "Do you think it can wait? I'm..." he rubs the back of his head. "I kind of have something going on."

"No," Melissa says before hanging up.

Stiles' jaw drops looking down at his phone. He throws his head back with a groan.

"Hey," he says with an awkward smile as he re-enters Heather's room.

"Let me guess," Heather speaks dryly, a frown prominent on her tear stained face. "Scott needs you."

Stiles sighs, guilt pelting his chest like bullets. "Yeah."

Heather nods, turning her back towards a boy who she used to be able to count on. "Just go."

"I can come back, it will be quick," he offers.

"Don't bother."

Stiles sighs as he pulls into the parking lot of Beacon Hills Hospital. He begrudgingly gets out of his car, the guilt almost crippling him as he walks into the hospital. He's a shit friend and he knew it, Heather and Gwen had been there with him through everything and he couldn't even manage to be there for Heather during this hard time.

Stiles immediately walls over to Melissa who is flipping through paper work at the desk. They greet each other before she grabs his arm and drags him to the morgue.

"If you tell anyone that I showed you this, I swear to God, I will kill you painfully and slowly," she threatens.

"What are you showing me exactly?" His eyes widened at the sight of a dead body on a metal table.

Melissa pulls the cover off the body. "See this around his neck," she gestures to a line going across the victim's neck. "That's a ligature mark, that means that he was strangled with something, like a cord, rope..."

"Ah okay, wait a second," Stiles interrupts. "What kind of werewolf strangles someone? You know, that's not very werewolf-y."

Melissa nods in agreement. "My thoughts exactly," she moves over to gently tilt the victim's head "And then there's this."

Stiles flinches, turning his head away. "Oh ah God man, what is that? Is that brain matter? Yeah, it's brain matter Of course."

"See the indentation?" Melissa ignores the young brunet's discomfort. "He was hit in the back of the head, hard enough to kill him. In fact, any one of these things could have killed him. I mean someone seriously wanted this poor kid dead."

"All right, so then this couldn't have been Boyd or Cora," Stiles concludes. "They wouldn't have done all that, so maybe this is just one murder. I mean, maybe it's jusy a random coincidence."

Melissa sighs. "It wasn't."

"What do you mean?"

"The girl, the one found at the house party," she nods her head towards the metal cabinets that line the walls. "She's got the exact same injuries. There's also another one, her girlfriend said they were out camping. Something about being her first time."

Stiles looks over at the cabinet, the name Aquino, G #1181 scribbled onto a name plate in front of it. Stiles takes in a shaky breath.

"What's the matter? Stiles?"

"I think I know what's happening," Stiles whispers, pulling out his phone to call Scott. He rushes out the morgue waiting for his best friend to pick up.

"Stiles," Scott greets.

"Listen, I need you to meet me at the hospital. There's something I need to show--" Stiles cuts off, getting distracted by an officer yelling at a nurse.

"Where's the body?" Haigh yells at the nursing assistant in front of him.

The young kid cowers, clutching onto the clipboard in his hands. "I don't know," he says quietly, searching through the papers in front of him.

Melissa notices the interaction and steps in. "What's going on here, Officer?"

Haigh rubs his hand over his face. "I got the mother of the deceased in the waiting room here to identify the body and this fool says the body isn't here," he shouts pointing at the red-head in front of him.

Melissa's kind eyes meet the nursing assistants, she gently puts her hand out for the clipboard. "May I see it?"

The red-head nods, practically throwing the clipboard at her. "#1181," he informs her. "The girl found at the house party."

Melissa furrows her eyebrows, sharing a look with a confused Stiles.

"Wait," Stiles interrupts, his attention focusing on the assistant. "Are you saying there's a body missing from the morgue?"

The police officer cuts in with a disgruntled scoff. "Well he's not saying it got up and walked out."

NOTES.
god i cannot wait to start writing the next chapter!!
pls tell me what y'all think! comments really help motivate me :)
ty guys so for reading, i appreciate it so unbelievably much <3