• Grace Stilinski •

"Maybe I've always been
more comfortable in chaos."

With a slightly uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, Grace finally strode behind Theo through the gloomy forest. Inwardly, she still cursed Stiles for taking the fall. After all, he was the one who was adamant that something was wrong with the boy.

Grace didn't take her eyes off him. But Theo trotted casually along beside her, as if he couldn't hold back a drop of water. Wasn't this impression always deceptive? Wasn't it usually the charismatic ones who turned out to be serial killers? Sighing, she tried to come up with another thought. Even if he wanted to kill her, she probably couldn't do much now. As a werewolf, he was both stronger and faster than she was.

"What are you doing here anyway?" asked Theo finally in his velvet voice. Grace clenched her teeth. What was she supposed to say to him in response? That they had been stalking him? "We... um... so Liam... He's still having a little trouble with the uh.... Transformation... He needed some... um outlet. Yes... he was angry and needed to transform."

"And so he takes the only two humans from his pack, of all people?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. Grace felt her heart stumble and shortly thereafter resume a pace far too fast for the werewolf not to have long known she was lying. "That sounds pretty dangerous."

Grace averted her eyes in shame. Yes, now he would kill her. Most definitely. He grabbed her forearm and pulled her back, making her stop. Full of fear, she squinted her sea-blue eyes, hoping for a quick end. She could feel his hot breath tickling her face. Would he rip out her throat with his fangs or rather her heart? At least Stiles would know who had murdered her and he would finally have his long-awaited proof.

"Are you okay?"

Carefully, Grace opened one of her eyes and finally blinked both of them at Theo. Completely concerned, he stared at her. "Yes, why?" she chirped in an unusually high-pitched voice, feeling the blush creep up her face.

"Your heart just stopped for a second."

Grace felt the blood that had rushed to her cheeks now as intense as the San Diego sun. "Yeah, uh don't worry about it," she hastily countered, turning away from him to continue alibi-walking through the thicket. This was nothing unusual with her. Her heart often stopped or got out of time. Sometimes it even beat twice in direct succession. Her doctor, however, always assured her that this was no cause for concern.

Fortunately, Theo had barely caught up with her when Grace finally spotted Stiles and Liam running toward her. While she knew her brother was a good actor, he deserved an Oscar for his relief at seeing her. "There you are! We've been looking all over for you."

"You don't say," Grace slipped out dryly. Liam, meanwhile, smiled apologetically at her. Stiles looked past her to her companion. "I'm glad you found her. We need to get home now, too."

But before he could pull Grace in the direction where he had parked Roscoe, Theo stepped forward. "No problem, I'll walk with you for now."

"Thanks, but I think we can make it the rest of the way without your help," Stiles replied pointedly. Theo furrowed his brows and frowned. But he didn't seem to have missed his dismissive attitude. "Stiles, we were sports buddies back then. Why are you so suspicious?"

"Because of this." Sighing, Stiles pulled out the two papers he was still carrying from his pocket. "The speeding ticket from a few years ago has your dad's signature on it. But on the Beacon High retraining card, they're different."

"Yeah, they look a little different," Theo agreed with him, but didn't seem to care much. Grace glanced from one to the other. Despite the new boy's calm demeanor, the tension between them was nonetheless charged. Sparks sparked between their pairs of eyes. But not in a romantic way. He was probably just plain tired of Stiles constantly accusing him.

"They're completely different!" he improved on him. "It's like they were signed by two different people."

"So my dad isn't my dad?" inquired Theo, confused, "like he's an imposter?"

"Something like that," Liam now confirmed, who had quietly crept over to Grace's brother's side. And she herself stood haphazardly in between.

"Who do you think I am?" sighed Theo.

"We don't know yet."

"You want a DNA sample or something?" he joked, but Stiles seemed deadly serious and shook his head bitterly. "No. I don't have anything from fourth grade to match it to."

"Listen, Stiles," Theo began matter-of-factly. "You know, Stiles, I came back here for Scott... But I also came back for you. Someone like you. Someone who's willing to walk into the woods in the middle of the night to protect his friends. I don't have anyone like that, but Scott does. You all do. I know I'm in the right place. I'm meant to be here. I'm meant to be part of this pack."

"Do you believe that crap he said?" asked Grace her brother late that evening. She squatted on Stiles' bed in his room while he wrote something intently on his whiteboard. He turned to her. "The one about the pack?"

She nodded. "Sounded kind of overly dramatic, the way he put it."

"Like he had it memorized," Stiles agreed with her. With a white pen, he wrote Theo Raeken on the board. Grace knew what that meant. Her brother wouldn't give up. Especially not now. Then he turned back to her. The pen he kept slapping thoughtfully in his left hand. "We should start with his parents."

Grace raised her eyebrows in surprise. "We?"

Stiles nodded. "You could try asking him for tutoring and insist on studying at his house. He'd be less suspicious with you and probably just think you're into him or something."

Her mouth opened in bewilderment and she flipped him the bird. "Are you crazy?" she hissed, "If his parents are dangerous, I'm not going to his house!"

"Come on," he groaned. "I promise I'll wait outside in case there's something. But he wouldn't dare hurt you. Because then his cover would be blown."

Grace buried her face in her hands. It was already burning with shame at the thought of asking Theo to help her study. "I don't want to," she said in a tearful voice. "Can't Liam do it?"

"The gipper's just messing it up again," her brother replied dryly. "Besides, you wanted to do it all along."

"Oh no," Grace groaned, waving her index finger around. She wasn't going to let that get to her. "I just wanted to know what was going on."

"Same thing."

Defiantly, she crossed her arms in front of her chest and jutted her chin. "Fine, I'll do it for one hundred bucks."

Bewilderment graced Stiles' face before it contorted grimly. "Since when do you negotiate for money?

"Since you prostituted me."

Frustrated, he expelled the air from his lungs and shook his head with a scowl. Visibly dissatisfied with the way the situation was going, he put the lid on the pen he had used earlier to scrawl Theo's name on his tablet before pointing it accusingly at Grace. "Fine, but in return I expect answers."

Grace jutted her chin. "You'll get them," she promised him in a firm voice, though she hadn't assumed her brother would actually agree. Now she was in for it. At least she would be a hundred dollars richer. She bit her lower lip thoughtfully. Or would it be too dangerous to go home with Theo? She would be alone with him and his parents, who were obviously hiding something.

Jesus, she was starting to sound like Stiles. They were probably wrong in the end and Theo had been telling the truth. That someone was a little dramatic didn't make them a serial killer, after all. Maybe she should tell Faye about the whole thing? After all, she knew about such things.

"Usually, we wait until they do something wrong before we declare them guilty," her father's voice suddenly sounded from the doorway. He was leaning there in the frame, nodding in the direction of Stiles' tablet.

"Well, he's guilty of something," he replied, eliciting a sigh from the sheriff. "Leave it Stiles, go to sleep. And you too, Grace. Don't let your brother drag you into this."

"Unlike you, Grace believes me," Stiles defiantly objected, smugly folding his arms in front of his chest. Outraged, his sister opened her mouth. "I never said that!"

Her father sighed, at which point Stiles suddenly jumped up as if bitten by a werewolf. "Hey, Dad! I said there was something different about you. I know what it is now."

"I'm listening," he replied, unimpressed, raising his graying eyebrows expectantly. Stiles hesitated and gave Grace a brief furtive glance before replying, "You're not wearing your wedding ring anymore."

"This boy is guilty, surely?"

"Absolutely."

"Then all you gotta do is wait – if they're really guilty, eventually, they make a mistake. They always make a mistake."

"You're distracting from the subject, Dad," Grace remarked in a trembling voice. "How can you... Don't you love Mom anymore?"

Her father sighed. "I will always love your mom. But after all these years, don't you think I deserve some happiness too?"

Ashamed, Grace pressed her lips together. Of course she wanted her father to be happy again. But at the same time, it felt like he was betraying her mother. As if a new wife at his side would be the final admission that her mom would never return.