A big security guard shoved the club door open. "Hey! You two, break it up!"
The two girls behind him were crying frantically, telling the other students who had gathered what had happened.
"They were just fighting, and then he just bit him. There was blood everywhere!"
The guard looked around the room.
It was empty.
Clean.
Spotless.
He turned back to the girls. "Are you messing with me?"
Everyone nearby looked between them, confused. The girls were shaking, still panicked, while the guard just looked annoyed.
He stepped aside and glanced back into the room again.
Nothing.
No blood. No damage.
Nothing at all.
The girls stared past him in shock.
"But… the blood…" one of them whispered. "What about Harley?"
"Enough," the guard snapped, already turning away. "Go home."
He marched off.
Eli jolted upright in his bed, his hands landing on his bag.
He stared at it.
"When did I get home?"
His head felt heavy. Foggy.
He reached into the bag and pulled out a syringe.
"The last thing I remember… the wendigo was following me."
From the moment he noticed it, he had filled one of the syringes with a solution of sleeping pills and a solvent he had upgraded.
The syringe was still mostly full.
So nothing strange had happened.
Right?
Then why was he home?
He heard something downstairs. A faint clinking sound.
"Oh, damn it."
Eli jumped out of bed and ran downstairs.
"Mom, sorry, I know you said I was supposed to wait, I just—"
She cut him off before he could finish.
"It's fine. You came home with Scott and Stiles, didn't you? It's good enough that you sent me a text."
Eli blinked.
A text?
He hadn't come home with Scott and Stiles.
His mother set her bag down on the counter, then sank into the couch, exhausted.
"Hey, Mom… do you want me to make some tea for you?"
No answer.
He stepped closer.
She had already fallen asleep.
Eli stood there for a moment, uneasy.
Then he turned and went back upstairs.
Something wasn't right.
He pulled his phone out of his bag.
The screen was already open.
A message thread.
To his mother.
Hey Mom, Scott and Stiles are giving me a ride home.
Eli stared at it.
Then threw the phone onto the bed.
"What the hell?"
He definitely hadn't sent that.
So who did.
Wednesday morning.
"Eli, are you ready?"
Eli jolted at his mother's voice. A small syringe slipped from the space above his hand and landed on the bed. His bloodshot eyes finally blinked away from the open window.
He shook his head, only then noticing the sunlight creeping over the horizon.
Morning already.
Eli yawned. He was exhausted. He hadn't slept.
He got up and pulled the brown case from under his bed, opening it to reveal two vials, one blue, one red.
Downstairs, he placed a single drop from each into two separate cups. His eyes stayed fixed on the door.
His mother came downstairs in her night gown.
"Eli, did you get some sleep?"
He glanced over at his mother. "Yeah, I got plenty," he said, before taking a sip of his tea.
She walked up to him and gently grabbed his face, tilting it toward the light.
"I could have sworn you had eye bags just now."
"Mom, let go," Eli said, pushing her hands away.
She stepped back, smiling. "I'm fine, I slept," he added quickly.
She looked at the extra cup on the table. "Did you make this for me?"
She picked it up and took a sip.
"Oh, I missed this."
Eli watched her, a small smile forming. "So this is the real reason you missed me."
She laughed.
At school, Eli walked down the corridor, his eyes hidden behind a pair of glasses.
His attention drifted from person to person.
What am I going to wear to Lydia's party?
A girl.
Should I ask her? Is she going to say no?
A boy.
I think I might have gotten a bit taller.
Another boy.
And he definitely hadn't.
No one could understand the extent to which Eli was unsettled.
He already had reasons not to sleep, but the message on his phone was something else entirely.
Where had it come from?
Hey, it's that weird kid. What the hell is he wearing?
Another thought.
"Damn. Damn."
Eli looked up.
"Did he see me?"
That thought was different.
Most of the others tasted like curiosity or just shallow and passing.
This one was not.
This one was filled with dread.
It was just another day for Lydia.
Being the uncrowned queen of Beacon Hills might have been difficult for someone else. She was, of course, different.
Today Jackson had wanted to come to school early for practice, which meant she had ended up coming with him. She would have preferred to arrive late. It was better for her image. Jackson was also better for her image, so she supposed she could compromise. Just as he had to compromise. There was no way she was going to stand out in the early morning cold watching him run drills — he would just have to be satisfied knowing she could see him from a classroom window.
Her phone buzzed.
Allison. I'm going to be a bit late.
That was fine. Good for her image, actually.
She might have been more concerned if Allison had posed the threat she initially thought she did. She was the perfect candidate to dismantle everything Lydia had built — new, pretty, and completely unaware of it, which somehow made it worse. All it really took was the right person noticing. All she would have needed was a jock to solidify her position and it might have been over.
Too bad she liked a weirdo.
She wouldn't pair well with Jackson. Jackson also didn't have the nerve to try anything with her. And Allison simply didn't seem to care about any of it, which was either deeply genuine or the most sophisticated social strategy Lydia had ever encountered. She hadn't decided which yet.
She was still thinking about it when she stopped.
Her head turned toward the door.
She didn't know why.
She just did.
A second later, a very thin boy ran past the small window,he looked scared like something was chasing him.
Lydia held her dead stare at the glass.
Then another figure passed, he was moving slower and in very dark glasses.
She snapped out of it.
What on earth was he wearing.
Henry forced himself through the library door as his keycard unlocked it, then immediately ran up the stairs.
He ducked behind a bookshelf and watched as the doors began to seal shut.
Just as they were about to close—
Cling.
The doors stopped.
Henry leaned out slightly.
A small scalpel was wedged between them, keeping them from closing.
Maybe he should have forced them shut before coming up here.
A second later, hands pushed the doors open. He watched as the scalpel slipped free and flew back into the person's bag on its own.
Then—
"It's a good thing you didn't," a voice said. "I don't think I've gotten my keycard yet."
Henry pressed himself further into the corner, trying to disappear.
That monster couldn't find him.
Monster? Why do you think I'm a monster? What the hell happened yesterday?
Henry froze.
Was this Bitch reading his thoughts?
"Correction," the voice continued, calm and precise. "It should be 'bull,' not 'bitch.' And yes, I am, in fact, reading your thoughts."
Eli stepped around the corner and looked directly at him.