• Grace Stilinski •

„If one's an incident,
two's a coincidence
and three's a pattern,
what's four?"

Grace never got around to asking her brother what was supposed to be so dangerous, because at that moment several cars rolled into the driveway playing loud music, "Who all did the kid invite?", Stiles tried to yell against the noise as the Asian girl stepped out the door visibly distraught, hands clenching unhappily, "I guess everyone."

Grace long ago failed to understand all the commotion, wasn't this supposed to be a party? If this was how high school parties usually went, then she didn't seem to have missed anything her entire young life. She gave her brother an irritated look, but he had already rushed back into the house with the girl, while Lydia stood lost in front of the parked cars, not at all happy about the turn of events.

Among the exiting celebrating students, Grace recognized some with whom she was taking the same classes, others she knew merely from fleeting eye contact in the hallways. Mason seemed to be leading the group, for it was he who stepped in front of the redhead, "Are we in the right place?"

"For the party?" added Garrett with an irritated sideways glance at Grace, who was watching the proceedings with her arms folded in at least equal confusion.

Lydia wrestled a smile from herself and tightened her posture before leading the horde of ninth graders into the huge house, "Absolutely."

Sighing, Grace followed the cheering mob, and it wasn't until that moment that the suspicion began to rose inside her that the so-called party wasn't actually supposed to happen. Even as she stepped through the door, she noticed that Liam, her brother, and his friends had disappeared without a trace. Only the owner of the house had stayed behind, but she seemed more like a babysitter than a hostess. So much for Lydia Martin's legendary parties.

The brunette looked around, puzzled, because she had thought that the new student and Stiles would not get along very well. And now they were disappearing together from their own party?

A little lost, Grace stood next to a gray couch, wishing once again that she had taken an example from Faye, "Hey, have you seen Liam?" asked Mason as he joined her along with his blonde friend.

But she too could only shrug her shoulders helplessly, while suddenly loud electric music, which had been merely blaring from the cars before, flooded the house like a wave, "He was here a minute ago!" she yelled into Mason's ear, trying to drown out the loud bass.

"I don't get it," he said shaking his head more to himself than to the others, "Yesterday he supposedly got his leg broken and today he's running three miles to school? Then he invites us to this party and he's not even here himself!"

Astonished, Grace looked up at him and inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. She was glad that it wasn't just her who had noticed Liam's questionable behavior. Maybe it wasn't her fault after all? She could only hope that Stiles would behave himself this time and not embarrass her again. Mason now turned to his blonde friend, also bellowing, "And where did Violet go?"

A fleeting grin appeared on Garrett's thin lips, "She should be right back!" he replied as Grace impassively eyed the three boys who had also joined them. Instead, she looked at her phone and realized with a pang in her chest that Coralie had read her message but had not responded.

"There you are!" announced Garrett happily a little later at the sight of his girlfriend, smiling broadly as she walked through the door and greeted her with a kiss. With bright eyes, Violet looked around the group before her gaze lingered on Grace, "Nice dress!"

A little taken off guard, the brunette stared at her as she was abruptly pulled out of her thoughts of her best friend. Her mouth was open for a few seconds like that of a fish gasping for air, for she had not expected a compliment from the somewhat conceited girl, "Thank you," she finally replied and forced herself to smile before hurriedly eyeing Violet, but before she could return a compliment about her long and rather extraordinary necklace, she had already turned away again.

Staring once again at the unread text message, Grace could see exactly that Coralie was online right now! Apologizing to her classmates, she finally squeezed through the celebrating crowd toward the exit. Fortunately, almost only ninth graders seemed to have accepted the invitation to the party, so it wasn't too crowded.

Still, Grace didn't reach the exit without nearly getting a cup poured over her or being pushed at least once. Faye was right, partying people were indeed quite annoying. As soon as the door slammed shut behind her, she felt as if someone had turned off the sound.

After the noise in the house, the muted electric music mixed with the chirping of the crickets seemed much more pleasant. Deeply Grace sucked in the cool night air and shivered on her bare legs. Her eyes were still fixed on the screen of her cell phone, whose bright light completely blocked out the environment. The full moon in the sky alone would probably have rivaled it.

Grace's thumb hung over the green button next to Coralie's name for a few seconds. She wanted to stay in touch with her, didn't want their friendship to end like the one with Tracy. After all, she wanted to learn from her mistakes. It chimed. Once. Twice. Three times. And then very quickly one after the other. Did her call just got rejected...?

Frustrated, the brunette had looked up and slowly even her bright eyes got used to the darkness she had barely noticed before. But now she recognized details and she screamed so loud that she was sure to drown out the loud music and that the whole neighborhood must have heard her. Her hands shook like aspen leaves while the bass continued to escape from the walls of the house like a heartbeat.

In front of the numerous cars parked along the street, a lifeless body lay on the ground in a puddle. Grace felt her knees buckle as she slowly approached the street. The man was lying in the puddle of his own blood. If only it were, because the middle-aged man's head was no longer sitting on his shoulders, but was several feet away from where it was supposed to be.

It was the first time Grace had ever looked directly into the face of a corpse. For some reason, she had always assumed dead people looked like they were sleeping. At least, that's what she had imagined her mother to look like when she had gazed at the heavy coffin at her funeral. But this man, apart from his severed head, did not look like he was merely sleeping. Pale skin stretched across his fleshy face, his lower jaw hung limply, and his bloodshot eyes were filled with pure horror.

Nausea rose in her and she seemed unable to move. Desperately, she looked back at the house. Someone must have heard her! Whimpering sounds escaped her lips as she tried to get her breathing under control. Hectically, she now stumbled backwards. With trembling fingers, she unlocked her phone again, which she had almost dropped. She turned away from the corpse, otherwise she would have to throw up. In fact, she was about to faint! Possibly it was finally the shock that kept her from doing so.

She staggered a few more steps back into the driveway and had to hold on to a blue car to keep from falling over. For the black dots dancing before her eyes told her there wasn't much more to it.

Hastily, Grace pressed her palm against her mouth and inhaled deeply through her nose, because the tacos from lunch were calling back. I wonder if the owner of the car would be pissed if she threw up on his back window. She didn't know how long she leaned against the car in the crouched position before she calmed down a bit and became comfortable with the idea that a murder had taken place mere feet away from her. She had to call the police. She had to call her dad!

Her fingers flew straight across the display, accidentally tapping the wrong name over and over again with excitement. Tears of desperation ran down her face when no one answered the phone on that line either. Grace swallowed the lump of dilemma in her throat and tried to logically plan her next move. In doing so, she tried not to take another look at the scene of the accident, but this was harder than she thought. Because again and again she thought she had to make sure that a decapitated man was indeed vegetating there.

Breathing shallowly, the sheriff's daughter finally dialed the police number, for it was all of no use. In fact, this time she was going to get an answer. A wave of relief flooded through her when someone answered, "Beacon Hills Police Department, you're speaking with Jordan Parrish."

"H-here is Grace... Grazyna Stilinski," she choked out as the words stuck in her throat. Still trying in vain to control her breathing so she could speak reasonably, "Could I speak to my d-dad, the sheriff, please?"

"The sheriff isn't in the house right now, would you like me to take a message?" the deputy asked kindly, but his voice sounded wary, as if he had long since noticed that something was wrong. Audibly Grace exhaled, it was no use after all, she had to place a report. She gripped the technical device at her ear tighter with her hand as she tried to recall the W-questions her father always encouraged her to ask, "I-I'm at the waterfront property i-in the Lancaster Road right now, and i-I found a B-body."