—

"Try Maddy. It's got to be Maddy." Stiles told Lydia, looking down at the computer in front of her.

Lydia sighed, "Doesn't Maddy feel a little obvious as a cipher key?"

"I guarantee it's Maddy."

The Martin girl huffed, typing 'Maddy' into the computer and getting nothing.

"Okay, your name. She left the code for you, right? So it's got to be your name."

wrong.

"Your mom's name?"

nothing.

Stiles was growing annoyed, "Do you have any beloved family pets?"

"Okay!" Lydia waved his away, "This isn't working!"

"Clearly." He huffed, "What do we do?"

The pair grew quiet before the strawberry blonde slowly looked up, "I have an idea. But...it might be a long shot."

•••

"All right... Now I know the start of season bonfire, it's a big deal for you guys. I also know it gets out-of-hand sometimes. The alumni show up, there's other teams, and alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol."

The team cheers loudly at Finstock's words.

"All right. Shut up! Now, what I don't understand is why anybody would ever want to get stumbling down drunk in front of a massive open fire, I'm also resigned to not being able to stop you guys."

Austin leant his head against the wall, staring up at the ceiling, far too lost in his thoughts to listen to what the man was saying.

"I also remind you, your team captain, McCall, will be there. And I can count on him to narc on any and every one of these little bastards. Get back to class."

•••

"You know, school is a very important thing in my family, and i'm not too sure that my mother would appreciate you two calling me out of class."

Stiles and Lydia watched Ryder walk in, the Stilinski frowning, "Weren't you in chemistry?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Don't you hate chemistry?"

"I'm not too fond of it." She rolled her eyes, "Not a fan of you two either, but i feel like an apology is in order. So why not show up?"

"Look, we're sorry, okay?"

"No. Not okay." The future Anders teen scoffed, "It's really bold of you to assume that literally anyone would be okay with you keeping such a life changing secret from them."

"So you found out you have another sister, big deal." Stiles shrugged, he knew he wasn't right, he shouldn't have kept it away but there are worse things going on.

"Stiles, don't be an ass." Lydia snapped at him. Ryder was thoroughly surprised that the Martin girl stood up for her, but she wouldn't let them see that.

"Yeah, Stiles. How would you feel if your daddy deadest wasn't your actual father and everyone knew this but you?"

Stiles sighed, nodding with a hum, "You're mad for Malia."

"Yeah, i'm mad for Malia. Do I need to be? No, she's carrying enough annoyance for the both of us, honestly. But i figured i wouldn't be playing my role if i didn't make your life a little worse." Ryder chuckled, patting his shoulder, brushing off the groan he let out as she leant over to look at Lydia's computer.

"We're sorry. Genuinely. We just need your help." Lydia spoke softly.

Ryder rolled her eyes, "When don't you guys need my help?"

She held back a smile as they looked away from her. They could admit that there have been plenty of times where they've called for her and plenty of times where they regretted when they didn't.

"We need to get into this, but we don't know how."

"And you assume that I do?"

"You're a lot more useful than you think, Ryder."

"I'll take that as a compliment." She shrugged after thinking it over, "Now sit down, Stiles, your pacing is making me anxious."

•••

Austin walked down the steps of the school, frown evident on his face as he sent a text back to Ryder, the girl having informed him of her skipping school to help Lydia and Stiles.

He wasn't too thrilled to know that his girlfriend was helping people that had a tendency to lie to her, but he was more than convinced that she knew what she was doing.

He heard a low, ow, as he accidentally tripped over someone sitting on the stairs. He immediately apologized, looking down to see Liam sitting there with a stoic expression on his face.

"Hey, Liam." He greeted, "What's going on? Everything okay?"

The older teen looked around the halls, thinking that maybe he was waiting for someone, he was mistaken.

"Last night my printer went off by itself. I couldn't turn it off. I hit the cancel button. But it just kept printing." The Dunbar said, his eyes softening as he looked up at Austin.

"Printing what?"

Liam sighed, pulling a folded paper from his pocket and handing it to him. The George teen furrowed his brows, hardly having the chance to read it before shouting from Coach's office dragged the blue eyed teens from their conversation, "What the hell's this?!"

The boys got up, taking a quick glance down the hall to see Scott also running towards the sound. Neither of the lacrosse players said anything as they looked into Finstock's office, shocked to see his floor being flooded with the papers that had the same information on the sheet Liam had just handed Austin.

•••

"You recognize any of these?" Stiles asked Lydia.

Her eyes didn't leave her computer screen, "Just my grandmother."

Ryder stood up from Stiles' bed as his printer began to whir loudly. She had full intentions of ignoring it, but the confused look the Stilinski gave was enough to pull her curiosity.

"Huh." She could feel Stiles lean over her shoulder to see what she was looking at.

"Guys... We need to call Scott."

•••

"You see the difference?"

Scott's eyes flickered to Liam, "Derek's not on the list anymore."

"And I'm not worth three million. It's 18 now. $18 million."

•••

Deputy Parrish typed at his computer, "Well, it's not another dead pool. More like an already dead pool."

Lydia suggested that they stopped by Parrish so he could possibly do a background check on any one of the list.

Lydia looked shocked, "All of them? All dead?"

"Within the last 10 years. All suicides. And all at the same place."

"Eichen House."

"How convenient is that?" Ryder spoke from her spot at a random deputy's desk, cursing lowly to herself as her mother failed to respond to her texts.

She puffed the air out of her cheeks before turning her attention back to the current issue.

•••

The last place Austin wanted to be was at a bonfire. Especially when he wasn't completely sure that his girlfriend was okay. He had the idea to leave and meet up with Ryder, Stiles and Lydia, but that thought flew out the window the minute he saw Josie show up.

He figured he could leave Liam alone to be watched by Scott but didn't know if Scott's treatment for his 'pack' would lengthen out past Liam and Malia- who the McCall was currently speaking to.

He huffed thoughtfully, making his way to one of the tables that his fellow lacrosse members sat, fully unaware of the eyes that followed his every movement.

—
A/N: i always say how i'm gonna be consistent and then i end up forgetting i have books to update...