"WHAT?" STILES ASKED SCOTT CURIOUSLY as they walked down the street and toward the house of a girl named Heather who was apparently hosting a party that the Stilinski boy was forcing his friends to attend.

Scott furrowed his eyebrows. "What do you mean, 'What?'"

"'I mean 'What?', and you know what," the sheriff's son responded.

April, who was slightly confused and stuck walking between them to be the buffer for their arguing, muttered, "All right, someone tell me what 'What?' is."

"That look you were giving. There was a distinct look," Stiles answered, glancing to his werewolf friend. "The look that says the last thing you feel like doing right now is going to a party!"

"Maybe that because the last thing he feels like doing right now is going to a party," the blonde girl guessed sarcastically. She sensed that Scott wasn't really excited about socialzing after everything with Allison and the animals and the Alpha Pack.

The McCall boy just sighed exasperatedly. "It's not that. It just seems a little weird going to a different high school's party."

"What? Would yo—" Stiles cut himself off with a groan as he made an overdramatic gesture. "God, one drink, all right? You'll be fine! I went to nursery school with this girl, okay? She promised to introduce us to all of her friends. So, tonight, no Allison, no Lydia, no...whoever April is not dating. Tonight, we're moving on."

"You're right," Scott replied as April made a face at Stiles's comment about her. 

The Stilinski boy seemed a bit surprised that his friend admitted it. "You're right, I'm right. Onward and upward. That's what I'm talking about. No-look at me." They did some weird handshake that the Sharpe girl face palmed immediately as they began walking up the driveway.

"How's my breath smell?" the werewolf questioned, turning to both his friends.

The blonde girl shook her head aggressively while Stiles responded, "I'm not smelling your breath."

"Do you have any gum?" he asked, but all he got was an frustrated glare in reply. "Okay, can you at least tell us what kind of party this is?" That was a question that April would like to know.

It was answered almost as soon as they walked in the door, but for some reason, that brought up a whole other list of questions. The girl, who April assumed was Heather, greeted them — well, one of them. "Stiles! Hi!"

"Hey, there's the birthday gir—" he was interrupted mid-sentence by the blonde girl reaching over and kissing him straight on the mouth. Scott and April nearly had heart attacks from shock right there.

They stared at each other with incredulous looks, not believing their eyes, as Heather pulled away. Stiles seemed just as surprised as they were. "So glad you made it. Come downstairs with me and help me pick out a bottle of wine."

"Yes," he replied almost immediately, shooting his friends one final glance before his hand was taken by the girl, and she led him through the hallway and around a corner.

The two best friends were still flabbergasted. How the hell did Stiles of all people get pulled away to a dark corner as soon as they walked into the party? Scott muttered after a moment, "Did you see what I just saw?"

"I—I think so," she answered, and both of their eyes were still plastered on the spot that the two disappeared.

They still weren't convinced. "Maybe we were drugged again, like at Lydia's party, and this is all a crazy dream where we go to parties and Stiles has more game than us."

"How would we have been drugged?" she questioned curiously, still kind of in a trance. "We haven't even had a drink yet."

"What are we gonna do? The only person we know at this entire party just left us," he pointed out, gesturing to the entire room. That was something that were going to have to figure out.

April shrugged, suggesting, "We could talk to people."

"Or we could go get a drink and hide," the McCall boy offered, and the two finally pulled their eyes away from the hallway to look at each other, reading each other's expressions.

"I like that idea."

"Me too."

So, that's what they did. They found some of the little pink drinks that Heather was serving at her birthday party and sat in a corner of the room at a small table. April told him, "Okay, I have a joke."

"Oh, no," he groaned, rolling his eyes because usually her jokes sucked.

"No, no. I promise that it's good," she assured him, and she realized that maybe she had had a bit too much to drink. "So, I brought a pair of shoes from a drug dealer. I don't know what he laced them with, but I was tripping all day." They both burst out laughing, even though it wasn't even that funny. 

"Hey," came a voice from beside them, and when April looked up, she choked on her drink. She started coughing violently, but instead of being concerned, Scott just laughed even harder.

She kicked him under the table to make him quiet down before smiling up at the person next to them. She asked kind of passive aggressively for some reason, "Elijah, hi, what are you doing here?"

"Hello to you too. Uh, someone from school invited me," he informed her. She just nodded slowly, and Scott stared at her in confusion. She had never seen her be this weird about talking to someone.

"I'm sorry. She's weird," the McCall spoke up, breaking the silence. He reached over the table to shake Elijah's hand. The brunette boy took it hesitantly. "I'm Scott McCall."

The Blake boy nodded as they shook hands. "Nice to meet you."

"Well, I'm gonna go see if I can find Stiles," the werewolf informed them, and April knew he was lying because he wouldn't interrupt Stiles and Heather. So, she just glared at him, but it was kind of pleading because she really did not want him to leave her.

He left, and Elijah took that as an invitation for him to sit down. She shot him a welcoming smile before speaking up, "Hey, um, sorry I was so rude earlier. It's been a long day, and my friend dragged me here and ditched me."

"Scott?" he questioned because he had just witnessed him ditch her.

She shook her head quickly to show that she wasn't trying to say that Scott ditched her with him. "No. My other friend, Stiles, dragged both of us here and then went somewhere with a girl."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, the guy that invited me didn't even show up," he let her know, offering a small, comforting smile. Man, he made friends fast.

"Thanks," she replied. There was a pause before she remembered something about him. "So, uh, tell me about yourself. Where did you move here from?"

He answered, "Oh, it's just some small town in Wisconsin."

"That's a long ways away. Why'd you move to Beacon Hills?" she questioned because it was such a small and random town to move to unless you were looking for supernatural.

"I'm not sure, actually. We just needed a change after my parents died. It's a pretty boring story." He shrugged, but it seemed like he tensed up a bit at that. April did not seem to notice that, though. She offered an empathetic look. "What about you?"

She sighed and took another sip of her drink before replying. "Well, I've lived in Beacon Hills my entire life. It's just me and my aunt right now."

"No parents?" he quizzed.

She froze for a second, not knowing what to say. Even though pretty much the whole town knew what happened with her parents, she was never really sure what to say when people asked about it. "Oh, um..."

"You don't have to answer," he stopped her, his eyes widening when he realized what he was asking of her.

She rubbed the back of her neck nervously. "It's just a long story."

"No, I get it. That was a really personal question, especially for someone you just met," he told her, shaking his head. "I don't know what I was thinking. Sorry."

"It's fine," she assured him, waving him off. She just really did not like talking about her parent situation with people, no matter who it was. She could barely talk about it with Scott or Ashley.

Just then, some boy that April had seen a couple of times at school — she thinks he's on the lacrosse team — walked into the party. Elijah clapped his hands and stood up. "Oh, there's the guy who invited me. I'll, uh, see you later."

"Yeah, bye," she told him, waving as he walked away.

As soon as he left, Scott slid back into his seat smoothly, and his face held a smug smile. She just glared at him, knowing what he was about to say. "So, uh, who was that?"

"He's just a guy I met at school, English class. His name's Elijah," she informed him, refusing to look him in the eye, so she just took another sip of her pink drink that tasted really synthetic.

The McCall boy nodded, smirk still on his face. "Oh, Elijah."

"Don't say his name like that," she ordered because her friend had said it slowly and with a really weird voice, like he was implying something deeper. "He's Ms. Blake's brother."

"Flirting with the teacher's brother. Not the best way to get good grades," he commented through a chuckle.

"Will you shut up?"

《❀》

"I DON'T SEE ANYTHING," Derek said to the group skeptically as they all stared at the bruises on Lydia and Allison's forearms. Apparently, some woman gave them to them at the school by grabbing their wrists. That wasn't the weird part, though. The weird part was the marks were identical on both sides.

Scott ordered, "Look again."

"How is a bruise gonna tell me where Boyd and Erica are?" the Alpha questioned, and he had a good point. It was kind of random. Maybe the woman just grabbed the same place with the same hand placement.

The McCall boy pointed out, gesturing to the marks on his ex-girlfriend and her friend's wrists, "It's the same on both sides! Exactly the same." They were exactly the same.

"It's nothing."

"Pareidolia," Lydia told them, causing all of them to furrow their eyebrows at her. Sensing their confusion, she continued, "Seeing patterns that aren't there? It's a subset of apophenia."

"What?" April asked in question because she had no clue was her friend was talking about, but the strawberry blonde just waved her off, not wanting to explain any further.

Scott turned to the Hale man, shooting him a look. "They're trying to help."

"These two? This one, who used me to resurrect my psychotic uncle. Thank you," he told Lydia sarcastically before turning to Allison. "And this one, who shot about thirty arrows into me and my pack."

"Okay, all right. No one died, all right? Look, there may have been a little maiming, okay? A little mangling, but no death! And that's what I call an important distinction," Stiles told them, and April kicked him from under the table when she remembered something important that Allison was just about to point out.

The Argent girl looked bitterly at Derek as she said quietly, "My mother died."

"Your family's little honor code killed your mother. Not me," the Alpha countered because technically, no one had told the girl the entire story about what happened between her mother and Scott.

"That girl was looking for Scott," Allison reminded him, her glare that she was shooting him still as cold as ice. "I'm here to help him, not you."

Derek scoffed. "You wanna help? Find something real." Then, he began to walk out of the room. Scott grabbed his arm, though, stopping him, and the two had a quiet but heated conversation that no one else could here. That also ended with Derek storming out.

April sighed, taking her feet off the desk that they were resting on and standing up. She smoothed out her skirt as she commented, "Well, that went well."