Scott McCall's Arc

Chapter 12 of 30

Scott's phone buzzed before they could leave the library. Sheriff Stilinski. Fresh body across town. Jackal marks. He wanted Scott and Stiles there before his deputies trampled anything supernatural. They took the small blue jeep. Stiles drove too fast, knuckles white on the wheel. "If Malik did this tonight, the game timeline is wrong," he said. "Or we're wrong about what he's hunting." Scott didn't answer. He watched the streetlights skip across the dash. Yellow tape sagged between two posts at the edge of the lot. The sheriff lifted it for them himself, waving off a deputy. "Two minutes," he said. "Then I have to let the real world in." The victim lay on his side. Scott crouched. Pressed into the dirt beside the body were prints — clawed, but four wide toes, deep. Wolf-shaped. Not jackal. Scott's stomach turned. On the man's bare shoulder, burned faint and gold, was a paw mark. His paw mark. Sized to an alpha. "Scott." Stiles' voice went quiet. "That's not Malik's signature. That's yours." Scott stood up too fast. The sheriff was watching him now, reading his face the way he read suspects. Scott shook his head once. He had nothing to give him. They ducked back under the tape. Stiles started the jeep but didn't drive. "He's not hunting what's inside us," Scott said. The words came out flat. "He's framing it. Whatever's in me — Malik wants the town to see it kill first." The game was tomorrow night. And now the sheriff had Scott's print in his evidence bag.