The humans in their lives continued to orbit planets they couldn't see.
Noah Stilinski saw a son who was a little quieter, a little more prone to late-night "walks," and a daughter who seemed to have swapped her sharp-edged social ambition for a kind of exhausted, watchful tension. He chalked it up to sophomore-year stress and the lingering ghost of Claudia in the halls of their home. He served them spaghetti and asked about their days, receiving mumbled answers about pop quizzes and boring classes.
Melissa McCall saw a son who was jumpy, who claimed a sudden, intense flu that left no fever, who stared at his food as if it might bite him back. She felt his forehead, frowned at his normal temperature, and prescribed rest and Gatorade, her nurse's intuition prickling with unease she couldn't name.
Clary's parents saw a daughter who was sketching more furiously than ever, her subjects shifting from landscapes to strange, haunting images of wolves and twisted forests. They saw her quiet worry over Scott and her confused hurt over Stiles, and offered hugs and open-ended invitations to talk, which she politely declined.
And Allison Argent's parents, from whatever distant location their "work" had taken them to, received cheerful texts about a nice new friend named Stiles and a challenging art history teacher. They knew nothing of the Preserve, of heartbeats heard from across a building, or of the way their daughter's pulse quickened when a certain sarcastic boy smiled at her.
The humans lived in the daylight world. Oblivious. Safe.
---
Stiles's Bedroom, 6:58 PM
Stiles stared at the text from Clary confirming their movie night. The purple Sour Patch Kid emoji was a relic of a simpler time. This wasn't a casual hangout. It was a fact-finding mission cloaked in nostalgia. She was digging, and he had to control what she found.
He arrived at 7:00 on the dot. Clary's basement den was a museum of their childhood—movie posters, beanbag chairs, the faint smell of popcorn and acrylic paint. She was in pajama shorts and an old band t-shirt, a bowl of popcorn between them on the couch.
They put on The Empire Strikes Back. The familiar dialogue filled the space where their own conversation used to live. The tension was a physical thing, a third presence on the couch.
Halfway through, his phone buzzed. A notification glowed on the screen between them.
Allison Argent: So, I survived my first day. No one dissolved in chemistry, thanks to your pen.
A slow, unconscious smile touched his lips as he typed back.
Clary, watching Han Solo being frozen, saw the smile. Her own smile tightened. "Who's that?" she asked, aiming for casual.
"Allison," he said, the name feeling foreign in this sacred space.
"The new girl." It wasn't a question. "You're texting her during our movie night."
"She texted me."
The unspoken and you're smiling hung in the air. The texts continued—light, funny, a world away from the heavy silence in the basement. Clary's popcorn grew cold in her lap.
Then, the question from Allison about Lydia's party. The invitation. His reply.
Clary saw the words on his screen as he typed them: Not currently. My usual plus-ones are otherwise engaged being emotionally unavailable or potentially feral. Why? Are you looking for a buffer against the popular-people onslaught?
Her breath hitched. Potentially feral. A joke to Allison. A knife to Clary.
The three dots bubbled. The reply came.
Allison Argent: Maybe. What if I asked you to be my buffer?
Stiles: Then I'd say yes. Consider me your official, sarcastic party shield.
Allison Argent: Perfect. It's a date. 😊
It's a date.
The words burned in the dim blue light of the paused movie. Han Solo was frozen in carbonite, a perfect metaphor.
Clary's control snapped. "You're going to the party with her." Her voice was flat, cold.
"After you asked me if I was going. You were scouting."
He didn't deny it. "She asked me."
"And you said yes." Clary shook her head, a bitter laugh escaping. "Is this some weird revenge, Stiles? For Scott? For me?"
The mention of their shared wounds ignited a cold spark. "This isn't about you, Clary."
"It feels like it's about me!" she shot back, her voice breaking. "Everything's been weird since last year! You've been weird! Scott's a terrified mess! And now you're just… moving on to the shiny new girl like none of it ever happened?"
He looked at her, the girl he'd loved since the sandbox, now sitting across a chasm of his own making. "Things change, Clary," he said, his voice flat, final. "People change."
He stood up, the movie forgotten. "I'll see you at the party."
He left her sitting in the frozen blue light, the echo of his words—It's a date—and the ghost of what they'd been hanging in the air between the empty bowl of popcorn and the paused screen.
Walking home through the familiar streets, Stiles looked at his phone, at Allison's last text. It's a date.
For the first time in a year, the endless hunger inside him was momentarily eclipsed by a different, terrifying, exhilarating feeling: hope. A date with sunlight. A dangerous, intoxicating gamble.
The humans were in the dark. Scott and Emmy were becoming monsters. And Stiles Stilinski was moving pieces on the board, preparing for a party, a date, and a storm he could feel gathering in the bones of the Preserve.