.001; IN THE WOODS... ALONE.
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Trekking through the woods in the middle of the night looking for a dead body was not what Thalia had imagined herself doing the night before Sophomore year. She spent the entire summer changing herself; the way she dressed, the way she spoke, the way she laughed. But everything was thrown away the second Stiles Stilinski barged through her window and forced both her and her brother into the reserve to find a severed body.

It was cold, and because it had been raining the entire day prior, the girls Converse were coated in mud within minutes. The jacket she was wearing wasn't thick enough, and the small flashlights the three teenagers were carrying did little to nothing to illuminate the dark woods.

"Just outta curiosity... which half of the body are we looking for?" Scott asks, pulling his inhaler from his pocket.

"Huh," Stiles pauses. "I didn't even think about that." He breathes out a laugh.

"What if whoever killed the body is still out here?" Scott added, raising his eyebrows at the boy.

"Also something I didn't think about."

"You're joking, right? " Thalia stared at the boy blankly, "Please tell me that you didn't drag me into the woods with a murderer." she continued to gape at Stiles before the boy threw his arms up and began to speak.

"Oh my god, Lia!" Stiles rolled his eyes and turned to face the girl, "Think about the positives," he said, placing his hands on her shoulders and leaning down so the two were at eye level.

"I'm finding it very hard to find any positives, Stiles."

"There's plenty of positives," he turned forward once again, beginning to scale the steep hill, "like finding the body," he said in exasperation.

"I don't want to find a dead body, you psycho!" Thalia yelled as she reached the top of the hill.

"It's comforting to know you've planned this out with your usual attention to detail." Scott huffs out, "Maybe the severe asthmatic should be the one holding the flashlight, huh?" He wheezes, resting against a tree while taking a puff of his inhaler.

Skidding to a stop behind a small log, the three watch as flashlights beam through the trees in every possible direction. Stiles laughs lightly before standing up and taking off in a sprint.

"Hey. Come on! Stiles!" Scott struggles to catch up, still wheezing and struggling to breathe, while Thalia draws closer to Stiles as they run, unintentionally leaving Scott behind.

"Stiles!" Scott gasps, "Thalia! Wait!" Scott's voice faded into the background, and after a few minutes of running, both Thalia and Stiles stopped, looking for Scott.

Their search was soon interrupted by a furious Sheriff Stilinski and a loud dog standing right beside them. "Hang on! Hang on." Stilinski yelled.

"This little delinquent belongs to me," he says pointedly at Stiles who somehow ended up on the ground. His eyes shifted to the McCall girl stood only a few feet back, staring wide-eyed at the group of cops in front of her.

"This one doesn't, but I know who she belongs to." he sighs, and Thalia flashes a tight-lipped smile.

"Hey Dad, how ya doing?"

"So do you, uh, listen in to all of my phone calls?" the sheriff asks, raising his brows at his son.

"No..." Stiles pants, shrugging before continuing, "Not the boring ones."

"And how did you get roped into this?" His attention falls onto the girl, her mouth pops open, her words failing her as they've done countless times.

"It's my fault dad, I made her come." Stiles interjects, "Don't get mad at her, she didn't want to come, I swear." Thalia stared at the back of his head, eyes unblinking as he spoke.

"Now, where's the other partner in crime?" he begins to scan the surrounding area, shining his flashlight in a different spot every few seconds.

"Who Scott?" Stiles asks, "Scott's home," he waves his arm, puffing out a few breaths before adding: "He said he wanted to get a good night's sleep for the first day back at school tomorrow."

He drops his head with a sigh, "It's just us... in the woods... alone." Stiles sighs reluctantly.

"Scott you out there!?" Stilinski yells, "Scott?" he tracks his flashlight over the trees surrounding them, and Thalia's sure she sees Scott duck his head behind one at the last moment.

The sheriff heaves a heavy sigh before dropping his flashlight, "Well young man, I'm gonna walk you back to your car," the older man grabs his son by the neck, "And you and I are gonna have a conversation about something called invasion of privacy." he paused and shifted his eyes to Thalia, then back to Stiles.

"And then, you're going to drive your little partner in crime all the way home, and explain to Melissa why her teenage daughter was out in the woods, alone, with you, in the middle of the night." He clapped his son on the shoulder, "Sound good?" his eyes widened.

"Great— sounds... great." the sheriff smiled sarcastically, dragging both teenagers to the edge of the reserve and to Stiles' jeep, berating his son the entire way. Once the two were tucked away in the vehicle, Sheriff Stilinski watched as the boy silently pulled out and started down the desolate road.

It wasn't until the two were completely out of the sheriff's sight that Thalia began to hit Stiles, "It's just us in the woods alone!?" she gaped at him "God, you make me sound like some kind of whore!" she hit him one more time, just for good measure.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she shook her head, staring straight forward at the empty road.

"Well I didn't kn—"

"It was a rhetorical question, dumbass." she sighs exasperatedly, "Just stop talking."

"Right— yeah, okay."

✃

"This idiot barges into my room like an hour after you dropped me off ranting about how a wolf bit him." Thalia rolls her eyes, "I tried to tell him that there's no wolves in California, but he just won't listen." she shrugs.

"Okay, let's see this thing." Stiles bounces impatiently, "Ooh!" he tries to touch the pristine white bandage over the wound only for his hand to be promptly swatted away by Thalia.

"It was too dark to see much, but I'm pretty sure it was a wolf," Scott grabbed his backpack from the bench and the three started to walk towards the school.

"A wolf bit you?" Stiles asks and Scott hums an agreement, "No, not a chance." he shakes his head.

"I heard a wolf howling," Scott adds.

"No, you didn't." Stiles and Thalia reply at the same time, glancing at each other for a moment before focusing back on Scott.

"California doesn't have wolves, okay?" Stiles states, "Not in like 60 years." He turns, now facing both twins.

"Really?" Scott asks.

"Yes, really!" Stiles nods, "There are no wolves in California." he says obviously.

"This is what I've been saying all night," Thalia shrugs.

"All right, well, if you don't believe me about the wolf, then you're definitely not gonna believe me when I tell you I found the body." He shrugs, smiling towards Stiles.

"Are you kidding me!?" Stiles asks excitedly.

"No, man, I wish." Scott mutters while shaking his head, "I'm gonna have nightmares for a month." he sighs.

"Oh, God, that is freaking awesome." he laughs, "I mean, this is seriously gonna be the best thing that's happened to this town since..." he trails off, shifting his eyes away from the twins and focusing on someone walking up the path to the front entrance.

"Since the birth of Lydia Martin, hey Lydia!" he follows the girl with his eyes as she walks right past the group, "You look... like you're gonna igno—"

The copper-haired girl stopped and turned slowly, facing the small group of people, "Are you coming? Or am I expected to wait all day?" Her eyebrows raised, scanning the girl and the boys at her side.

"Yeah— uh, yeah sorry." Thalia squeezes past an open-mouthed Stiles to silently trail behind Lydia, and with a small turn and a tiny wave to her brother and Stiles, Thalia enters the school.

"Since when does your sister hang out with Lydia Martin?" Stiles asks as he turns to face Scott.

"Yeah, that's new, like last week new," Scott says with a sigh.

"Lydia freaking Martin?"

✃

"Can someone tell me how new girl is here all of five minutes, and she's already hanging out with Lydia's clique?" Harley says, pulling Scott and Stiles' attention, "And why does Lydia's clique suddenly include your sister?" she adds, shifting her focus to Scott.

"Because they're hot," Stiles mumbles, not taking his eyes away from the small group of people across the hall. "Beautiful people herd together." he shrugs.

"Did you just call my sister hot?" he asks with furrowed brows.

"Football's a joke in Beacon," Jackson scoffs, "The sport here is lacrosse, we've won the state championship for the past three years," he smirks as Lydia interjects.

"Because of a certain team captain," she smiles up at him.

"Well, we have practice in a few minutes." he shrugs, "That is if you don't have anywhere else–"

"Well, I was going to...uh"

"Perfect. You're coming." Lydia interrupts, Thalia silently walks behind the others, staying completely silent the entire way to the lacrosse field.

✃

"Who is that?" Thalia's head snaps to the side, finding Allison and Lydia staring towards the field.

"Him?" Lydia asks with a small tilt of her head, "I'm not sure who that is..." she trails off, thinking to herself for a moment before turning towards Thalia, "That's one of the guys you were talking to this morning, right?"

Thalia's mouth pops open as she looks to the field, "Oh... yeah that's Scott, my brother." she replies as she shakes her head. The two girls beside her continue to talk, but Thalia focuses on Scott.

She had been to every game or practice the boy had ever had, whether he was on the bench or embarrassing himself on the field, Thalia was there to cheer him on. So when she watched him take a lacrosse ball to the head in the goal, she assumed this season would be no different.

She watched as her brother stood, shaking out his shoulders as everyone around him laughed; and then, she watched as her brother caught ball after ball, like it was the easiest thing he'd ever done.

"He seems like he's pretty good," Allison remarks, smiling as she watched him.

"Yeah, very good," Lydia agrees, "Why didn't you tell me your brother was that good?" she asks, her eyes never straying from Scott.

"'Cause he's not..." Thalia says with furrowed brows. She watched while Jackson stepped ahead of the rest of the line, and the mood of the crowd shifted significantly. Even Scott seemed to be nervous, but when Jackson threw the ball and Scott caught it just like the previous twenty, everyone in the surrounding area erupted in cheers.

✃

"I don't know what it was, it was like I had all the time in the world to catch the ball," Scott says as he walks through the small stream, Stiles and Thalia following behind him. "And that's not the only weird thing, I can hear stuff I shouldn't be able to hear, smell things." he ducks under a low-hanging tree branch, turning to face the other two.

"Smell things?" Stiles asks, "Like what?" Stiles stops abruptly, causing Thalia to run right into him.

"Like the strawberry lip balm in Lia's pocket," Scott replies without missing a beat.

"I haven't used strawberry lip balm since like the sixth grade--" the girl cuts herself off as she pulls the familiar pink tube of lip balm from the pocket of her jacket, holding it up in front of her. "Okay, which one of you put this in my pocket?" Scott shakes his head and continues walking.

"So all this started with the bite?" Stiles questions.

"What if it's like an infection, like my body's flooding with adrenaline before I go into shock or something?" he says, turning occasionally as he speaks.

"You know what? I actually think I've heard of this." Stiles replies, and Scott halts to a stop. "It's a specific kind of infection." he adds with his hands on his hips.

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah," Stiles says in a huff.

"Of course he's not serious, don't be stupid." Thalia rolls her eyes.

"No, no, I am serious, I think it's called... Lycanthropy." Thalia hits him in his chest, rolling her eyes at the boy once more as he begins to laugh.

"God, you are such an idiot, Stiles!"

"What is that? Is that bad?" Scott asks, his eyes flicking between the two.

"Oh, yeah, it's the worst. But only once a month." Stiles answers through laughter, adding a howl only to make himself laugh harder.

"There's something seriously wrong with your brain, Stiles." Thalia mutters as she pushes past the two boys.

"Oh come on! That was funny!" he laughs, "Scott's the one who said he saw a wolf." Stiles jokes.

"Again, there's something seriously wrong with your brain." she responds with a sarcastic smile. "Now can we please hurry up, I have plans." Thalia proceeds to stomp her way through the unkempt brush of the woods.

"Plans with Lydia?" Stiles asks bitterly.

"Yeah, why?" She replies, barely acknowledging him as she walks.

"I mean two months ago you hated her, and now you're like best friends," he adds, "It's just weird, that's all."

"Well, I can't exactly follow you around for the rest of my life, can I?"

"That's not what I meant, Lia–" the girl sped up, pushing herself to the top of the steep hill from the previous night until she was no longer visible to either boy. "Lia! Come on!"

"Just leave it, man." Scott interrupts, "You know how she gets."

ミ★
Hey everyone!! I hate this so much but it's wtv, ANYWAYS I'm so excited for this book and chapter two should be out either late tonight or early tomorrow morning, I wanted to get both out at the same time but it just didn't work out like that. I love you all SOOOO much and I hope you had a good Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever holiday you celebrate!!

Don't forget to comment, and vote!

-Sadie