Unlike my brother, I was actually quite athletic.

My forte was running and I was one of the best in school.

Therefore, cross country was not optional for me.

Or Scott and Stiles for that matter.

Coach blew the whistle and everybody stated running.

"Pace yourselves! Come on!"

I hadn't been running for long when I heard the scream. I immediately sprinted off in the direction it came from.

I stopped by Stiles and my mouth dropped open in shock.

A man was tied up against a tree, his injuries showing the wounds of the threefold death.

"Hey, get out of the way. Get back" I heard dad yell to the big group of people. "Get this area cordoned off before they trample every piece of evidence"

"Back up! Everyone back!" Another officer yelled.

"Get these kids out of here!" dad instructed.

The group of horrified people started to disperse but Isaac, Scott, Stiles and I stayed put.

"Dad, just come here. Look, look. Look at it. It's the same as the others, you see?" Stiles said.

"Yeah, I see that. Do me a favor. Go back to school, yeah?" He replied. "Coach, can you give us a hand here?"

"You heard the man. Nothing to see here. Probably just some homeless kid" Coach yelled, waving everyone away.

"Coach" Scott said.

"Yeah?"

"He was a senior"

"Oh. He wasn't on the team, was he?"

"Kyle! Oh, God, Kyle! Oh, God!" A blonde girl shouted, running over.

"Go on. Go. Go" Dad shouted.

The four us moved away and started walking away from the scene.

"You see the way the twins looked at him?" Isaac said.

"Yeah, you mean like they had no idea what happened?" I asked.

"No, no, they knew"

"The kid was strangled with a garrote, all right? Am I the only one recognising the lack of werewolfitude in these murders?" I replied.

"Oh, you think it's a coincidence they turn up and then people start dying?" Isaac raised his eyebrows.

"Well, no, but I still don't think it's them" My brother said in my defence.

"Scott? How about you?" Isaac asked.

"I don't know yet"

I rolled my eyes. "You don't know yet?"

"Well, he's got a point" Scott looked towards Isaac. "Seriously, guys, human sacrifices?"

"Scott, your eyes turn into yellow glow sticks, okay? Hair literally grows from your cheeks and then will immediately disappear, and if I were to stab you right now, it would just magically heal, but you're telling me that you're having trouble grasping human sacrifices?" Stiles said.

Scott let out a long sigh. "That's a good point too"

"I don't care. They killed that kid, they killed the girl that saved me" Isaac looked back at the twins. "I'm gonna kill them too"

~

"Don't let it bother you. It's just lunchtime detention. If all they want right now is to piss you off, then don't give in. They're just trying to get to you" I heard Scott say to Isaac as I narrowed my eyes at Lydia and Aiden.

"It's not just me" Isaac nodded in the direction I was looking.

"What?" Scott asked.

Isaac smirked. "Now they're getting to you"

Scott bit his lip, looking over at me.

"Isaac's right. I don't trust them" I said. "And I certainly don't trust Aiden around Lydia"

"Then what are we going to do about it?" He asked.

I sighed. "We need to show them what we're capable of. Well, what you're capable of"

Scott frowned. "How do I do that?"

I smiled, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

"Oh, Scott. Sometimes I wonder what you'd do without me"

~

"You know that there's a temple in Calcutta where they used to sacrifice a child every day? That's every day a dead baby Lydia. Every day! Hey you want to know what today is? It's dead baby day. Oh no wait, that's every day because every day is dead baby day yay!" Stiles rambled as Lydia and I continued to walk ahead of him, both rolling our eyes.

"Why are you telling me this?" She asked.

"Because Scott's dealing with the Alpha twins"

Lydia frowned.

"You don't know about the twins? Alphas? Ethan and Aiden" I prompted.

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, I knew about them"

I wasn't convinced.

"Okay, okay, good. So look, here's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking that the murders maybe come in threes.
Ancient people love things in threes, right? So maybe first it's three virgins, and then, I don't know, maybe it's three people who own little dogs" Stiles explained.

"I own a little dog" Lydia pointed out. Then she sighed. "I am not getting rid of my dog!"

"Would you just think about getting rid of your little dog?"

She cocked her head to the side. "No. And by the way, you cannot discern a pattern by a single data point, so stop trying"

"Wha-okay, so what, I'm just supposed to wait around for someone else to die then? I'm just supposed to sit there and watch them die? Just wait for them to wither up and die right in front of me?" My brother said.

"Wither?" I questioned, pulling a face.

"You know what I mean. Die, in just a hideously awful, strangulating, head-bashing, throat-cutting kind of way"

"Maybe it's not your job. You said it yourself, they were strangled with a garrote. That's a human thing to do, so Maybe just leave the figuring it out part to someone human" Lydia suggested.

"You mean someone like my dad?" He asked.

"No, I mean your dad" she said sarcastically. "The sheriff!"

~

"All these symbols and things the triskeles, the bank logo, the Mountain ash all of it is from the Celtic druids.
And anyone who has ever looked up human sacrifice before knows that the druids had a pretty big hard-on when it came to giving one up to the gods. You ever hear of the lindow man? Two thousand year old body found in England? He was found strangled, head bashed in, throat cut.
Threefold death. They also found pollen grains in his stomach. Guess what favorite druid plant that was" Stiles rambled on to Deaton.

Deaton pulled out the plant from a jar. "Mistletoe" he said.

"I'm just telling you everything you already know, aren't I?" My brother sighed. "Then why aren't you telling us?"

"Maybe because we've spent every moment of the last ten years trying to push something away. Denying it.
Lying about it. Becomes a pretty powerful habit" Deaton said.

"All right so this guy, is he a druid?" I asked.

"No. It's someone copying a centuries-old practice of a people who should have known better. Do you know what the word 'druid' means in Gaelic?"

"No" Stiles and I mumbled.

"Wise oak. The Celtic druids were close to nature. They believed they kept it in balance. They were philosophers and scholars. They weren't serial killers" Deaton explained.

I looked up at him. "Yeah, well, this one is"

Stiles' phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket.

"Hey, I can't talk right now...Wait, what? Yeah, are you sure he's missing?"

~

"Can we get a copy of this?" Deaton asked when he gave the phone back to Lydia.

"Hey doc any help would be you know, helpful" Stiles said as he rifled through the draws.

"Each grouping of three would have its own purpose, its own type of power. Virgins, healers, philosophers, warriors-"

"Wait, wait, wait, wait. Warrior? Could that also be like a soldier?" My brother asked.

"Absolutely" Deaton said.

Stiles held up a photo. "Kyle was in R.O.T.C. With Boyd" Stiles said.

"That's got to be it. That's the pattern" I said.

"Where's Boyd?" Deaton asked.

"He's probably home by now. I'm gonna try and get him on the phone" Stiles said.

"Lydia? Something wrong?" Deaton asked.

"No, it was- I mean I just thought of someone else with a military connection" she said.

I turned to face her. "Who?"

~

"This is just one of many possibilities. He could have simply left for the day" Deaton said, indicating to Harris' clean desk.

"Yeah, well not without this" Stiles held up a briefcase.

I frowned, looking at a graded paper on the desk

"What?" Deaton asked.

"This test is graded R" I said.

"This one's an H" Lydia held another one up.

"Stiles, you remember I told you druid is the Gaelic word for wise oak?" Deaton said to my brother.

"Yeah?"

"If a druid went down the wrong path, the wise oak was sometimes said to have become a dark oak. There's a Gaelic word for that as well" He put the papers together in an order.

I looked at them and frowned at the word.

"Darach?"

~

A/N

"The wait for the next update won't be as long I promise"

Pffft okay @ me 10 days ago

Sorry guys I'm an awful person :(

I hope this was a decent enough chapter for you all anyway.

In other news I'm on season 5 of the walking dead and the one thing I'm going to say is

---SPOILERS COMING UP READ AT YOUR OWN RISK---

Beth Greene deserved better.