On Fire

CHAPTER TEN

Once the sun had gone down, the temperature had plummeted, too. Allison had retrieved a heavier jacket from her car. But she was still shivering as the two of them retraced their steps through the forest. Their breaths were like huge ghosts floating around them. Scott hoped they would run into one of the campfires so she could warm up. Or they could just make their own, if it looked as if they were going to be stuck looking for a while.

He walked in front of her, alert, cautious. Even though she was working hard to keep up, he could tell she was getting tired. He didn’t know what to do.

“Scott.” She tugged on his wrist, and he turned quickly. She waggled his hand and caught her lower lip between her teeth. “I need to take a break,” she said. “I’m so cold.”

He put his arms around her and molded her against his chest. Shutting his eyes against the tide of pleasure that washed over him, he nestled her head beneath his chin. Her knitted cap was scratchy as she settled trustingly against him, and he ran his fingers through the strands of her hair. What was the worst that could happen if they just gave up? Maybe Lydia would lie for them, say that she and Allison had driven to the preserve to study, or pick up Jackson, or something. Sure, the Argents would be angry with her, but not half as angry if they knew that she’d lied to them so she could be with Scott.

Sighing, he was about to broach the subject when she leaned her head back and kissed his jawline. She cupped her hand around the side of his face, bringing his mouth toward hers. She kissed him long and slow, and he had the presence of mind to check his fingernails. So far.

So very, very good.

Stiles was gasping for breath by the time Derek finally stopped charging through the underbrush. He remembered when Scott had suffered from his terrible asthma attacks—that was all gone now, thanks to the Bite—and his own hideous panic attacks when his mom had died. Not being able to catch your breath really sucked.

But at least he could pant to death in the presence of warmth. Derek had halted at the base of a banked campfire. There was no fire, but the embers were still glowing, and as Stiles sprawled beside it, heaving, Derek sniffed at it for a while, grunted, and added some twigs to make the flames jump to life.

“So?” Stiles finally managed to gasp out. “Was the Alpha here?”

“I can’t tell.” Derek sounded as if he was embarrassed and angry in equal measures, which Stiles would have found ironic if he hadn’t been too busy wheezing. “But he was definitely at Allison’s car.”

Stiles closed his eyes against a bombardment of panic. He tried to remind himself that the Alpha had bitten Scott because he needed him. An Alpha derived strength from his pack members. So he wouldn’t kill Scott. Allison was another subject. Her father was a werewolf hunter. What if the Alpha attacked her out of revenge?

“I’m going to look for Scott,” Derek said.

“Hang on. I’ll go with—” Stiles couldn’t finish his sentence. He lay gasping. Then he raised a hand. “—you,” he said at last.

But Derek was already gone.

“Or I’ll just lie here and pass out,” Stiles muttered.

“Lydia, there’s someone to see you,” Lydia’s mother told her with a soft rap on her door.

Finally, Lydia thought. She had had enough of plucking her eyebrows and redoing her manicure and reading about the history of Fermat’s theorem while awaiting Jackson’s return from his rendezvous with Hunter Gramm. She was lying on her bed in China blue tap pants and a camisole and had just enough time to check her lip gloss—and for it to occur to her that that “someone” might be Allison’s supersnoopy Aunt Kate—before the door opened, revealing Danny, Jackson’s best friend, and a guy Danny’d been hanging out with—Damon somebody.

“Oh,” she said, disappointed. She sat up. “Hi.”

Dark-haired, with that cool Hawaiian vibe he had, Danny raised his hand in greeting. Damon did the same.

“Is Jackson here?” he asked.

“You could have called to find out that no, he isn’t,” she scolded him, closing her book and setting it on her nightstand.

“We were driving by anyway. And I don’t have your number. And he’s not answering his phone.”

Don’t I know it, she thought.

“Jackson was supposed to meet up for scrimmage this morning,” Danny said, “and he promised Damon that he’d burn him a playlist to give the DJ for his birthday party. Which is tomorrow, and we’re getting a bit concerned.”

Her first impulse was to lie to them both and make up some reason for why Jackson wasn’t there, but then it dawned on her that Jackson might have assumed that when he said “home soon” he meant his home. How could she have lain all alone in her room without that occurring to her? Surely he would have contacted her, though, when he got to his house and she hadn’t shown.

But why would he even bother? a little voice whispered in her suspicious ear. He didn’t bother to call you last night, did he?

“Here’s the thing,” she blurted, to shut the evil voice up. “I was just about to go over to his house. He got held up on his . . . appointment and so it’s . . . time for me to check to make sure everything’s fine. Since his parents are gone.”

“Like, water the plants?” Damon deadpanned.

“Yes,” Lydia huffed. “Jackson loves me to water his plants.”

Danny raised a brow. “But where’s he been? Why all the mystery?”

“If Jackson wants to share, he’ll share,” she said, hinting without actually saying it that she knew and he didn’t. Lydia knew the power of secrets. That was how she maintained control of her clique at school. You doled out information, letting some people have a little more than others. Teasing outsiders with the possibility of being in the inner sanctum. Excluding them when they misbehaved.

The way you maintained boyfriends, now that she thought of it.

He is so going to regret this stunt, she promised herself.

She slid off the bed and Danny looked even more taken aback.

“What?” she asked.

He gave her a completely nonsexual once-over. “Are you going in that?”

She tossed her hair disdainfully and walked to her closet. Her hand came down on a pair of designer jeans and she passed. She was not a blue jeans kind of girl, especially not tonight, when she was out to remind Jackson what he had been missing and could possibly continue to miss unless he begged for her forgiveness. Going in for the kill, she selected a short gray and berry plaid skirt with a matching cashmere sweater and flounced into her bathroom.

She took her time getting ready—she always made boys wait, even gay ones—and came out looking (she hoped) cool, collected, and not like some desperate girlfriend going in search of her AWOL boyfriend, on what could have been their second night of hookup bliss.

“You look nice,” Damon said, and she beamed at him.

“So do you,” she said, sliding her coat off its hanger. “You can follow me over,” she added. She’d need her car if she was going to stay, which she hadn’t decided yet. And if there was any reason to stay.

“Be right back,” she said to the guys.

There was the matter of protecting Allison from any more phone calls, of course. She quietly glided into her mother’s bedroom and lifted the landline off the hook, placing the handset behind her mother’s nightstand, and turning down the ringer so that the incessant buzz wouldn’t tip off her mom when she went to bed. Her mother would assume she’d knocked it off herself. She wasn’t a suspicious parent, and the fact that she and Lydia’s father had gotten divorced made her more lenient than other moms. A lot more lenient that Allison’s aunt.

God.

Next Lydia went into the little workout room her mom had put together in the spare room where her dad used to have his home office. That was where she’d put the treadmill. Dressed in tasteful sweats, her mom was striding off the pounds, watching something on the plasma with her earbuds in, and Lydia waved at her.

Ms. Martin pulled out a bud as she kept striding. “Yes, honey?”

“Allison,” was all Lydia said.

Her mom frowned slightly, looking a little unclear, but nodded anyway and put her earbud back in.

“Have fun,” she said, too loudly, and Lydia hid a little smile. Sometimes, when dealing with parents, less was more. Now, if Allison’s mom, dad, aunt, or some random long-distance friend in San Francisco called, her mom would accidentally fill in whatever blank they offered her. Why, yes, they did go to the library. Lydia mentioned something about that to me.

It wasn’t a perfect solution, and Lydia very much hoped Allison wouldn’t wind up in trouble, but sometimes you had to take risks in this life.

The Whittemores lived in one of the biggest and most expensive houses, if not the most, in Beacon Hills; an estate, really, well away from the street, in an almost countrylike setting. Lydia clicked in the security code and drove on in. Danny and Damon followed in Danny’s car.

When they reached the driveway and there was no familiar Porsche there, Lydia’s stomach did a little flip. He texted that he was on his way back. Sure, the woods were a ways away, but he’d had more than enough time to make the trip twice and still have time to go shopping for a nice piece of jewelry to accessorize his apology.

Still, a girl had her pride, and although she wasn’t sure if she should continue to honor Jackson’s privacy by not involving Danny, or even, at this point, Sheriff Stilinski, she keyed in the front door code, as well, and opened the door with a flourish.

As Jackson’s best friend, Danny had been to his extravagant home before, but the splendor was all new to Damon. Standing beneath the skylight in the living room, he looked at Danny with newfound respect, and Lydia concealed a grin. She was happy to help Danny with his romance, in her own small way.

They went upstairs to Jackson’s room and she flicked on the light switch. There, alas, was his empty bed, still rumpled from when she laid waiting for him the night before. She took off her coat and laid it on the bed, then went straight to the drawer where she’d found the note and casually moved some things around—athletic cup, eww—checking to see if she’d missed a vital piece of information about his whereabouts.

“Are you looking through his stuff?” Danny queried, and she gave him her best patronizing look.

“Please,” she said. “You must know that I have a drawer here.”

Damon looked even more impressed. Very few teenagers could claim the very adult perk of having a drawer containing their belongings at their boy- or girlfriend’s house. Not that many teenagers had the need. It spoke of changing clothes, spending the night. Adult stuff.

Sex.

In reality, there was nothing of hers in the drawer, except, oh, yes.

She showed them the packet of glow-in-the-dark condoms she had purchased Jackson for last Valentine’s Day. He had refused to use them. Tonight he would. She’d make sure of that.

“Have you ever tried these?” she asked, showing them to the guys. Damon guffawed, and Danny grinned. “Want a sample in case you decide to play the home version?”

“Pass,” Danny said, and Lydia supposed it would be some sort of violation of the man code to use your best friend’s condoms.

“So where is he?” Damon said, looking around at Jackson’s vast collection of sports trophies, plaques, and team photos. “Maybe the CD’s around here?”

“Could be,” she said, wishing she’d thought of that excuse before she’d pawed around in his drawer. She didn’t know why Jackson hadn’t just set up a shareable playlist for Damon, but he wasn’t here to explain. So she sat at his desk and flipped on his desktop.

His wallpaper was a picture of her—one she had picked out herself, and approved of—and she typed in “captain” when prompted for the password that would unlock the secrets of Jackson to her prying eyes.

If he ever did anything like this to me, I would dump him in a heartbeat, she thought. That’s where we’re so different.

She also opened a couple of the desk drawers. No more cryptic envelopes presented themselves.

“He usually keeps playlists in a folder,” she lied, running the cursor over Jackson’s private affairs. She was beginning to feel like she’d pushed this maneuver about as far as she could with witnesses present. Maybe inviting them over hadn’t been her cleverest move. She was beginning to feeling guilty about Allison, too.

“Do you think we’re ready for a drawer?” Damon murmured to Danny, and she smiled to herself again.

Then Danny said, “What was that?”

She made a half turn. “What was what?”

“I heard a noise,” he said. “It sounded like it was in the garage.”

She pictured the automatic garage door opening, Jackson’s Porsche gliding in, the door closing. Yes.

Smoothing back her hair, she said, “You wait here. I’ll let him know we have company.”

She turned off the computer and walked from the room. She crossed the distance of the enormous house to the garage, and was about to open the interior door that led to the garage when the knob turned.

“You’re in such trouble,” she said in a kittenish voice, to take the sting out of her genuine ire.

The door slammed open. Something hit her in the face and threw her to the floor. Stunned, she saw nothing but a huge black shape as she was dragged away. She tried to scream but she was so shocked all she could do was gasp.

“He said no one would be home,” a guy said in a low, gravelly voice. He sounded young, maybe early twenties. She blinked her eyes rapidly and looked up—

—into a ski mask and a pair of hazel eyes glaring down at her.

“Parents are in Europe. Bailey’s made contact with Jackson,” Ski Mask said. He sounded young, too.

“Then who’s she?” the gravelly voiced guy demanded.

Suddenly a gun was pointed in Lydia’s face. A real gun. A gun that could kill her. She could feel her eyes crossing as she stared at the barrel with the same gut-churning horror as if he were holding a rattlesnake. She didn’t know if she was still breathing. She didn’t know anything. She could barely remember how to think.

He was wearing Latex gloves. No fingerprints left behind. Nothing left behind, except, possibly, a dead girl.

“You make one sound,” Ski Mask warned her. “Understand?”

She tried to move her head, but she was paralyzed with fear. He touched the tip of the gun against her forehead. She went completely cold, head to toe, as if someone had just dumped her in a frozen river.

“Understand?”

All she could do was lie there.

“What the hell are we going to do with her?” Gravelly Voice said. He came into the room. He, too, was wearing a mask. And Latex gloves.

“Is there anyone else in the house?” Ski Mask asked her. “Tell me the truth or I’ll blow you away.”

Lydia lay petrified, still unable to speak.

After shedding himself of Stiles, Derek had made the shift and charged through the woods. He stayed well hidden, slinking through a copse of trees as he came within sight of some people partying at a fire ring. They were drinking and laughing, just a bunch of kids messing around, savoring the freedom of a Friday night. The pungent odors of sweat, smoke, and alcohol created a near-impenetrable layer of smells, and he scented no trace of either the Alpha or Scott.

Frustrated, he moved on, loping through the woods. He stayed low, racing along, until he smelled traces of Scott and the Alpha. His hackles rose, and he let out a growl that almost rose into a howl, but at the last instant, he suppressed it. Both sets of traces were old, and hadn’t mingled. At different times, each of them had been there. But neither tonight. Scott might find it bitterly ironic to know that he had crossed the Alpha’s path before the Alpha had changed his life forever.

And then Derek touched down on the spot where he had found his sister’s body. In fury, he showed his teeth and threw back his head, forcing down another howl, this one of rage. He bit down on his arm to stop himself, almost welcoming the deep pain he felt.

As the wound began to heal, he moved on, searching for Scott, following another smoke trail until he came to another fire. This one was unattended. He smelled humans very clearly. There had been two. One, he didn’t recognize, but the other was that surly lacrosse player, the one he’d dug his nails into when he’d been so sick and the kid had been so insulting.

Jackson.

In his anger, Derek shifted back to human form. He’d been dying of wolfsbane poisoning when he’d lashed out at Jackson, grabbing him by the back of the neck. He hadn’t meant to dig his nails into him. But now Jackson bore Derek’s mark, and the Alpha would know him by it. It had been such a stupid thing to do.

I couldn’t help it, he reminded himself as he walked the perimeter of the fire. He didn’t like the smell of the other man who had been there with Jackson. Jackson had been afraid of him. Derek could smell it.

There was something half burned in the fire, what looked like a photocopy of a newspaper article. Derek fished it out. It bore the smell of the stranger:

Most of the rest of the article was burned, which was fine with Derek, because it was boring. He was about to toss it back into the fire when he idly turned it over. There was what appeared to be an address, followed by a string of letters and numbers. It looked like some kind of code. Shrugging, he folded it up and stuck it into his jacket pocket. It might come in handy. He was keeping tabs on Jackson Whittemore.

He kicked dirt into the fire to put it out, at the same time digging around with a stick for more souvenirs from Jackson’s encounter with the young man, finding nothing. As the earth smothered the fire, he smelled more smoke.

This is getting ridiculous, he thought. He was beginning to suspect someone was deliberately setting fires to throw him off the scent. Images from his dream tumbled through his mind, and he raced back into the darkness.