Cynical.

For once, both of my parents were home when I woke up for school, and as a result, I got out of taking the bus, something I was relieved about. I'd been trying to avoid Liam the best that I could; arriving at the bus stop at the last possible second, pretending to be immersed in my work during class. Our situations were substantially awkward, and avoiding him meant one less conversation that I had to have.

"How's school coming?" My dad asked as he drove toward Beacon Hills High. I'd seen less of him than I had of my mom. He worked a lot of doubles, and part of me thought he was using work as a distraction from the real issue, me.

"It's fine. I feel a little awkward around the upperclassmen." Ever since my fiasco in Trig, the majority of the students looked at me like I was a nutcase. I hadn't made any friends other than Scott, Kira, and Lydia, not that I really expected to. I wasn't sure what Stiles was to me. I couldn't say that we bonded, but he wasn't nasty to me anymore.

"Are they bullying you?" His tone was serious, and I quickly shook my head. I had a stint with bullies at my old school, and even if my father didn't like what was going on with me, he didn't approve of people messing with his only child.

"No. It's just weird. They either notice too much, or they don't notice me at all. I get the weird stares from certain people. Others just act like I don't exist. It's not a big deal." And it wasn't. I knew making friends was going to be a stretch. Despite it's size, Beacon Hills had everything a small town would; the sense of community, everyone practically knowing each other sense birth. If Stiles was against outsiders, despite his reasoning, I knew everyone else would be as well.

"Well you've made friends, right? Your mom said that Scott's been around a bit."

"Yeah, Scott's a friend." I stared out the window, hoping to change the subject. The red eyed werewolf wasn't on my list of conversation topics with my friends. Mainly because any male attention I got sent off red flags in my parents' heads.

"That's all he is, right?" Cue the eye roll. They were probably expecting me to marry him after he technically saved my life, but romantic thoughts of Scott were the absolute last thing on my mind.

"Yeah dad. He has a girlfriend." I watched his shoulders sag with relief and wondered how he was going to react when I actually did end up dating someone. He'd probably have a conniption and threaten them with a shotgun.

"Is there anyone that you are interested in?" He wasn't seriously trying to have that talk right now when we were fifty feet away from the school.

"Dad, we've been here for three weeks."

"I know, but you teenage girls seem to fall in love fast. I'm just making sure that I know what's going on." When he pulled into the parking lot, I could see Stiles waiting in the courtyard, and I could tell by the look on his face that he was waiting for me. Why did something always go wrong before school started? The universe couldn't wait until after 3 o'clock?

"I'm not looking for a boyfriend, but if I find one, you'll be the first to know." I grabbed my bag from the floor and swung it over my shoulder after unbuckling my seatbelt.

"Okay. Your mom should be home by the time you're out of school, so you guys can figure something out for dinner. I should be home about 8 or 9." Were we finally going to be able to actually sit down at the table and eat like a normal family? The sky must have been falling somewhere.

"Alright. Thanks for the ride. Love you, dad."

"Love you too, kiddo." I hopped out of the car and shut the door behind me, making my dad to Stiles. He was fidgeting, and I assumed that he had way too much Adderall in his system to be healthy.

"You look like you either have something really important to tell me, or you have to take a serious leak." Jokes weren't my strong suit. They came out dry and sarcastic, which would explain the dumb look on his face before he shook his head at me.

"You were right." It was vague, and it made me raise my eyebrows at him.

"O-kay. What exactly was I right about?"

"Demarco Montana. He died the night of the party. Decapitated." I gasped and slapped my hand over my mouth. Whoever found his body was probably traumatized, and I was curious to know how Stiles knew what happened.

"How'd you find out?"

"Sheriff's son, remember?" I learned quickly that almost everything Sheriff Stilinski knew, Stiles knew. He had the radio system tapped, and it came in handy, though I assumed it got Stiles into trouble a lot of the time.

"Okay, so I was right. What does that mean?" He looked like he was going to say something, but he stopped himself, sighing loudly.

"I don't know. They don't have any leads. No suspects. They don't even have the murder weapon. They just know what it is." Something that decapitated a human being had to be pretty powerful. They had to get through the spinal chord.

"What is it?"

"Thermal wire." It was an interesting choice of weapons, and I wasn't sure that could actually successfully chop off someone's head. The person had to be lethally strong, or there was something more to the wire itself.

"How could that completely cut off someones head?" I asked, trying to wrack my brain for a logical solution to this problem. I was coming up short, but then something clicked in my head.

"I don't know. I was hoping you might have an answer for that." My theory was a stretch, but with nothing else to go on, it was the only thing that made sense.

"In my history class, there's a couple. They're always talking. The girl, she has a necklace with some weird charm on it. She's always messing with it. I think the guy's name is Garrett? They're friends with Liam and Mason." The hushed whispers and glares gave them away. I would bet all the money in my wallet that the girl's necklace was made of thermal wire. Now the question was, how did she use it to kill Demarco Montana?

"Why are you just now saying something about those two?"

"I didn't think they mattered. I mean they seem suspicious, but they're just kids. I didn't think they were capable of killing anyone." And then something else clicked in my head. The deadpool. Demarco's name was on it, and so was Sean Walcott's. I hadn't told Scott or Stiles that Lydia and I had managed to crack the code, and I didn't know if Lydia had.

"Where's Scott?" We didn't have long before the bell was going to ring, and I needed to tell them what we found. We had a lot to figure out, like who was next on the list.

"He said he was on his way, but he's not here yet." That was inconvenient. I dialed Lydia, hoping that she'd answer and that she was nearby. She could help me explain the deadpool to Stiles. When her phone went to voicemail, I groaned and hit the end button, "What's going on?" Stiles looked confused, and I didn't blame him. I went from calm to frantic in a matter of seconds. He probably thought I was going to scream again.

"The night of the party, me and Lydia found something. It was on her computer. It just looked like a bunch of letters, and it didn't make sense, but there's this room in the lake house. It's sound proof, and when she closed the door, I heard the name Allison. The code on her computer needed a cypher key, so I told her to type it in. It's a deadpool, Stiles, and Demarco Montana's name was on it. So was Scott's and Lydia's." He seemed to process what I was saying, his eyes widening when he finally understood. Scott had been right when he said the person that killed Sean Walcott was an assassin, and so were Garrett and his girlfriend.

"So who's next?"

"I don't know, Stiles." I was going through the list of names in my head, trying to make an education guess on who they'd go for. Scott was worth the most money, so they'd probably save him for last. Lydia was right underneath him. I wasn't sure who the other people were.

"Can't you just listen and figure it out?"

"It doesn't work like that. I can't control when it happens, and this school thinks I'm enough of a freak as it is. I'm not going to start screaming just for the hell of it." He rolled his eyes, taking a step closer to me.

"That's not what I meant. Sometimes Lydia can just hear it. She doesn't always scream. Just listen." I was listening, but all I could hear were the loud conversations around me along with the sounds of skateboards and cars pulling into the parking lot.

"Stiles, I'm not going to be able to hear anything. I can't turn it on and off." We needed to find Scott and tell him what was going on. He'd probably be able to help us figure out who they were going to try to attack next.

"Concentrate, Alana." I sighed, closing my eyes and trying to focus. This was pointless. The noise of the school was still louder than everything else. I took a deep breath and tried so hard to focus that I thought my brain was going to explode, but then I heard silence followed by whispers, none of which I could really make out. There were too many voices speaking at one time.

"Please speak up. I can't hear you." I didn't know who I was talking to, and if anyone in the vicinity could hear me, they were probably calling Eichen House now.

the orphans

It was faint, but I could hear it, though I wasn't sure what it meant. Were the orphans the next ones to die? And if so, who exactly were they? I didn't know the people of Beacon Hills enough to know who was an orphan and who wasn't

"Did you hear anything?" I couldn't blame Stiles for being in a rush. This was serious, but I didn't have control over whatever power I had.

"The orphans." He squinted his eyes, and his eyebrows shot up towards his hairline. I sighed, throwing my hands in the air. I didn't know what he wanted from me.

"That's it."

"Yes, Stiles. That's it. I told you, I can't control it. That was the only thing I could hear clearly, and if you ask me to do that again, I'm going to punch you. I gave myself a headache." I placed my hands on my temples, trying to rub the tension from them. Where the hell was Scott?

"We have to go talk to my dad." I knew that wasn't going to get us anywhere.

"And tell him what? That we found the murderer? We don't have any proof. We can't just walk in there and start spitting things out. They're teenagers, and I don't want to wait for anyone else to die, but they're not trained. They're going to make a mistake, and when they do, we'll be there." It was just a question of when.