Chereads / Scar | Teen Wolf / Chapter 45 - Galvanize

Chapter 45 - Galvanize

Scarlett walks into school alongside Cora, Isaac, Scott, and Stiles. Before they enter the building the spot Ethan and Aiden waiting by the doors. "You're back in school?" Scott questions the twins.

"No, just to talk." Ethan replies.

"Oh. That's kind of a change of pace for you guys. Usually, you're just hurting, maiming, and killing." Stiles sarcastically says.

Ignoring him, Aiden speaks up, "You need a pack. We need an Alpha."

"No happening." Scarlett deadpans.

"Yeah, absolutely not." Stiles says at the same time. "Hilarious though."

"You came to us for help. We helped." Aiden argues.

"You beat his face into a bloody pulp. That's not helping. In my opinion, that's actually counter-productive."

Scott finally replies, "Why would I say yes?"

"We'd add strength. We'd make you more powerful. There's no reason to say no."

"I could think of a half a dozen reasons to say no." Cora rolls her eyes at the former Alpha.

"How about the two of you holding Derek's claws while Kali impaled Boyd for one." Isaac responds. "In fact, I don't know why we're not impaling them right now."

"You want to try?" Aiden sneers.

"Sorry, but they don't trust you. And neither do I." Scott replies. The group walks away, leaving the twins by the school entrance.

*_*_*_*_*_*

Cora and Scarlett enter chemistry together, they greet Mr. Reed and quickly make their way to their seats. Cora quickly writes in her notebook, showing the note to Scarlett, find anything out about him?

Scarlett shakes her head then writes back, did you? Cora also shakes her head. Since their first class with Mr. Reed both girls were curious about the werewolf. They weren't sure where he came from or why he was here. And despite things looking more clear because Scott, Stiles, and Allison were no longer seeing things, Scarlett still had a sense of dread looming over her. 

Class went by rather quickly and once the bell rang the girls stood to leave, "Have you heard from Derek?" Scarlett asks, collecting her books.

Cora shakes her head, "If I don't hear from him soon, I may go off to look for him."

Before Scarlett can reply, Mr. Reed calls out, "Miss McCall. Could you stay for a minute?"

"I can wait outside for you." Cora says.

"No need. I'll see you later." Scarlett replies. Cora nods, but a look of unease settles on her face. "What did you need?" She asks when she approaches the teacher.

"Well, I've been meaning to talk with you. I heard you and Miss Hale during our first class." He replies vaguely.

"During the first class?" 

He gently smiles at the teenager in front of him, "The fact that you girls are aware I'm a werewolf. I can only assume that means you're both ones as well." Scarlett shifts her weight from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable. "I just wanted to assure you, I mean no harm being here in Beacon Hills." 

"So why are you only telling me this?"

"In the short time I've known you both, you seem to be the more reasonable one."

"Why does that matter if you're telling the truth?"

"I guess it doesn't. But I also wouldn't want for Miss Hale to be questioning me nonstop because she's suspicious."

"So why are you here then? If you don't mind me asking, sir."

Mr. Reed smiles once more, "I don't mind. There was a pack in my last city. Mean bastards, excuse my language." He clears his throat, "I'm an Omega, and they drove me away. It wasn't safe for me any longer. So I wanted- needed to start fresh somewhere new."

Scarlett nods, "I get it. You can't blame us for being cautious." She smiles at her teacher.

"Of course not. In this life, I expect nothing less. I'm glad we had this chat."

Scarlett nods once more, "Me too. Have a good rest of your day Mr. Reed."

"You as well, Miss McCall." As Scarlett walks away she can't shake the feeling that something is amiss.

*_*_*_*_*_*

Later in the day, the cops were swarming the school. After finding out the William Barrow, a convicted felon, was running loose nearby, Stiles started speaking, "Wait a minute, wait a minute!" He says to his father, "The William Barrow? The Shrapnel Bomber? Spotted nearby?"

"Why do you sound so excited about that?" Scarlett asks.

"A little closer than nearby, actually." Sheriff Stilinski replies to his son.

In the distance, Agent McCall calls out, "How do we get down to the basement? I need to know where every entrance is. I don't want anybody coming in or out of the school."

"Dad, what's really going on here?" Stiles asks. Sheriff looks between Stiles and Scarlett before letting them know that Barrow went after kids with glowing eyes.

The two teens quickly found the rest of their usual group to relay what the Sheriff told them. "Barrow went after kids with glowing eyes? He said those exact words?" Isaac questions.

"Yeah. And no one knows how he woke up from anesthesia. Just that when they opened him up, they found a tumor full of live flies, which in any other circumstance would be all kinds of awesome." Stiles replies.

Scarlett scrunches up her face in disgust. "Did you say flies?" Lydia asks.

"Yes?" Scarlett questions, wondering why that's what stuck out the most.

"Lydia?" Allison asks.

"All day I have been hearing this sound. It's like this buzzing." Lydia replies.

"Like the sound of flies?"

"Exactly like the sound of flies."

*_*_*_*_*_*

After a panicked hour the police start clearing the grounds. "Hey, dude, where the hell have you been?" Stiles questions Scott, who just bumped into him.

"Why are the police leaving?" Lydia questions, watching the police get into their cars.

"The police?" Scott asks, not knowing why they were here in the first place.

"They must have cleared the building and grounds, which means he's not here." Stiles answers.

"Who? What are you guys-" Scott is cut off by Lydia.

"He has to be here. That sound, the buzzing I've been hearing? It's getting louder."

"Well that's not good." Scarlett says.

"How loud?" Stiles asks, then he calls out for his dad who is walking by, "Dad! Dad!"

"Yeah?" Sheriff Stilinski stops.

"You can't leave."

"We got an eyewitness that puts Barrow by the train station."

"Let's go Stilinski!" Agent McCall calls to the Sheriff.

Sheriff Stilinksi starts to walk away before Stiles stops him once more, "Whoa, whoa. Dad, please just Lydia said that he's still here."

"Did she see him?"

"Not exactly. No. Well, not at all actually. But she has a feeling. A supernatural feeling."

Sheriff's eyebrows knit together, "Lydia wasn't on the chessboard."

Scarlett cracks a smile remembering the way Stiles taught his dad about the supernatural, "She is now."

"Kanima?"

"Um, Banshee."

"Oh, God." Sheriff sighs, causing Scarlett to hold a hand up to her mouth to stop from laughing, "Scarlett's listening in isn't she?" Scarlett's smile widens, she removes the hand from her mouth to wave, Lydia does as well, though the strawberry blonde doesn't know what's being said.

"Yeah," Stiles sighs, "And I know how it sounds. But basically it means that she can sense when someone's close to death."

"Can she sense that I'm about to kill you?" Sheriff asks his son, they both glance in Lydia's direction once more.

"I don't know."

"All right, look, I'm not saying I don't believe, but right now, I'm going with eyewitness over Banshee. We're leaving a few deputies here. The school's on lockdown till 3:00. Nobody comes in, nobody goes out. Buddy, that's the best I've got right now. That's the best I can give you, Stiles."

"You're leaving me here, that is not..." He trails off as his dad walks away, "That is the worst."

*_*_*_*_*_*

The group gathers once more after the cops have cleared out. "Lydia thinks that he's still here even though the cops searched the whole school. But they didn't have one thing. Our sense of smell." Scott says.

"The Bestiary is literally a thousand pages long. If I'm going to find anything about flies coming out of people's bodies, it could take me all night." Allison sighs.

"And remember, the word in archaic Latin for fly is musca." Lydia replies, causing Allison to nod. "Where do we start?"

"Upstairs. We gotta go." Stiles says. Lydia, Scarlett, and him walking away. 

"You know, putting the majority of the werewolves together when the bad guy in this scenario goes after 'kids with glowing eyes' doesn't seem like the smartest plan." Scarlett speaks up after a few minutes of walking. 

"Scott and Isaac are in the basement?" Lydia asks to confirm.

Stiles nods, "And Ethan and Aiden. The plan is to meet in the middle, in the boiler room."

"Again, not the smartest plan. Who came up with that?" Scarlett questions, eyes narrowed.

"Oh my God." Stiles exclaims, thoughts running a mile a minute at Scarlett's words, "An engineer could use the boiler room to blow up the whole school."

"We have to get them out of there. And you Scar." Lydia says.

"We have to get everyone out." Stiles corrects.

"How do we do that?" Stiles looks around, his eyes landing on the fire alarm. He casually looks around, slowly walking up to the alarm.

Lydia and Scarlett stand back, watching as the alarm gets pulled and Coach grabs Stiles by the ear. "Wow. Pulling a fire alarm on Mischief Night is one thing. Doing it when there's a mass murderer spotted nearby is insane! If I was four years younger, I'd punch you."

"What? Coach, that doesn't make sense." Stiles says.

"Oh, well, it does to me!"

Coach walks away once their outside, the other werewolves finding the trio. "We didn't find anything." Aiden says.

"Not even a scent." Scott continues.

"It's 3:00, so school's over. If there was a bomb, wouldn't he have set it off by now?" Stiles asks.

"If his goal was killing kids with glowing eyes, probably. But there's also the chance of kids with glowing eyes staying after for clubs or detentions and we know of an adult with glowing that will probably be here awhile longer." Scarlett replies.

"So is everyone safe or not?" Cora asks.

"I don't know. I just don't know." Lydia replies, she looks defeated.

*_*_*_*_*_*

After school Scarlett sat on Stiles' bed, different colored strings surrounding her. She picks up a piece of yellow string, winding it around her finger, "So what are the meaning of the colors?"

"Oh, just different stages of the investigation." Stiles answers, looking at his crime board, "Green is solved, yellow is to be determined, blue's just pretty."

When he doesn't continue, Scarlett raises an eyebrow, "And red?"

"Unsolved."

Scarlett looks around the board, only seeing red. "Wow. You've gotten far in this investigation."

Stiles rolls his eyes, "Thank you for the sarcasm. I appreciate it."

Scarlett smirks, "I learned from the best." Stiles' mouth twitches, a small smile making its way to his lips, "Did you get detention for pulling the fire alarm?"

"Yep, Every day this week. It's okay though. We were onto something."

Scarlett sighs, "Lydia doesn't agree. She's beating herself up about it. Said she wanted to be alone."

"She's been right every time something like this has happened."

"That's what I told her."

Stiles sits next to Scarlett who's still playing with the string, "Did you feel anything?"

Scarlett bites her lip, "The issue with the danger sense is that it only tells me that something is wrong when it comes to someone in the pack. And it doesn't tell me what the danger is. It can be one thing or multiple. It can be one pack member or multiple..."

Stiles hesitates, "That doesn't really answer the question."

Scarlett looks into Stiles eyes, "I've been getting the danger sense ever since you three went into those ice baths. Some days it's not as strong. It wasn't that bad today. Like I believe Lydia, that Barrow was there, but I don't think he was coming after any of us."

"Who could he been going after?"

"Mr. Reed? Or maybe there's another supernatural in the school we don't know about."

There's a pause between the two teenagers, their eyes locked, trying to communicate without saying anything. "That's it get up."

"What? Why?"

Stiles starts pulling the yellow string out of her hand, "We're going to the school."

*_*_*_*_*_*

Scarlett called Lydia to meet at the school in hopes she would be able to help them find a clue. "So what are we looking for?" Scarlett asks, walking through the halls in the basement.

They see in open door, "That was supposed to be locked."

"Yeah. I know. Notice anything else?" Stiles asks.

"It smells like chemicals." Lydia says.

"It's all I can smell, no wonder the boys couldn't catch a scent." Scarlett adds, face scrunching up at the smell.

They find a pile of staples on the floor, "He was here, performing minor surgery on himself." Stiles says, "You were right, Lydia."

"Then why don't I feel good about this?"

"Probably because he was here to kill somebody."

"And not someone we're thinking of." Scarlett adds.

"Who then?" Lydia asks the question on everyone's mind.

"That's what we gotta figure out." The trio make their way to the chemistry classroom, "Lydia what are those?" Stiles asks when he sees numbers written on the board.

"Atomic numbers." 

"Is it a formula?

"Not really. 19's potassium. The first two make potassium iodide."

"Potassium is K?"

Scarlett nods as Lydia answers, "from kalium, the scientific neo-Latin name."

"Iodide is I." Scarlett continues.

"What's radium?" Stiles asks.

"R-A" Lydia answers. On the board Stiles has written Kira.

"Scott is with Kira." Scarlett says, looking between her two friends.

*_*_*_*_*_*

The trio rushes to Kira's house only to find Scott knocked out on the street. "Scott! Scott?" Scarlett and Stiles yell, waking the Alpha up.

"Barrow, he took Kira!" Scott replies.

"We know. He was after her the whole time." Stiles says.

Scott calls Isaac to ask if they found anything about flies in the bestiary, only to be disappointed that there was nothing. "We have to think of something. He's going to kill her." Scott says, once he's off the phone.

"I knew he was there. How did I know that?" Lydia asks.

"Because you heard the flies, right?" Stiles questions.

"What do you hear now?" Scott asks the Banshee.

"Nothing." Lydia sighs, frustrated. "I feel like I can do this. But I don't know what to do. It's like it's on the tip of my tongue, and I don't know how to trigger it. I just- I swear to God, it literally makes me want to scream."

Stiles and Scarlett share a look, "Then scream Lydia." Scarlett tells her best friend.

Lydia lets out an ear piercing scream, "It's not flies. It's electricity."

"Wait a second. Barrow was an electrical engineer. He worked at a power substation." Stiles says.

"What substation?" Scott asks.

One they pulled up to the substation the twins run out as fast as they can, Stiles follows but not before grabbing a bat and telling Lydia to stay put. Scott and Scarlett each try to stop Barrow but get shoved into the electrical fence. When Barrow focuses back on Kira, he takes electrical wires to electrocute the teenager. Without meaning to, Kira absorbs the electricity, the shock that would had killed a normal teenager has no effect on her.