wayward // d. hale

three

• ☽ • ☽ ︽ ☾ • ☾ •

Willa's first day at work is filled with worried thoughts about Scott. Deaton eventually picks up on her stress and thinks she's nervous about her new environment, and she has to give him credit that he tries to ease her anxiety to the best of his ability by assuring her she's doing a wonderful job with the animals that come in throughout the day.

Scott comes in around four-thirty nearly shaking with excitement as he tells Willa that not only did he make the lacrosse team, he even made first line.

Although she tells him how ecstatic she is for him, Willa can't help but feel a bit apprehensive either. If she's telling the truth, wellーScott sucks at lacrosse. She hadn't been joking when she told Derek she had tried to get him to quit last year, but now all of a sudden he's good enough to make first line?

As they're leaving the clinic for the day, Scott still can't believe it, "I guess all my extra practice actually worked, huh?"

Willa smiles tightly as the two climb into her car. When she sees the excited gleam in his eyes, she can't help but ruffle his hair lovingly. "Yeah, for sure. I'm proud of you, Scotty."

Stiles calls Scott on their way home and demands Scott's presence at his house, then Willa's as well when Scott tells him she'll drop him off. When the pair of cousins enter the Stilinski house, Scott leads them up the stairs and to his best friend's room.

Scott knocks softly and a moment later Stiles is yanking the door open with a roll of his eyes when he sees it's just them. He sighs heavily, "Get in. You gotta see this thing. I was up all night reading. Websites, books. All this information."

Willa glances around the room, her brows slowly raising the more she finds papers and books strewn around in places they definitely shouldn't be. Finally, her gaze lands on the messy desk where a notebook lies open with what looks like notes copied from a webpage with a terrible sketch of some kind of plant. She snorts, "What, did you run out of ink or something?"

Stiles follows her gaze to the notebook, then meets her gaze with a single, serious nod, "Yes."

Scott looks at his best friend in wonderment, "How much Adderall have you had today?"

"A lot," Stiles answers immediately, then shakes his head harshly. "Doesn't matter. Okay, just listen."

"Is this about the body? Did they find out who did it?" Scott asks, taking off his book bag and tossing it beside Willa as she makes herself comfortable on Stiles' bed. There's no telling how long this is going to take knowing Scott and Stiles.

Stiles runs a hand over his face in exasperation, "No, they're still questioning people, even Derek Hale."

That catches Willa's attention. "What!?"

"Oh, the guy in the woods that we saw yesterday!"

Stiles rolls his eyes, officially fed up with being interrupted, "Yeah! Yes. But that's not it, okay?"

"What, then?"

Willa can't remember a time she's ever seen the young Stilinski boy look so serious. "Remember the joke from the other day? Not a joke anymore. The wolf. The bite in the woods. I started doing all this reading. Do you even know why a wolf howls?"

"Should I?"

"To signal the rest of its pack," Willa answers without thinking. Scott sends her a small glare as Stiles points at her eagerly.

"Exactly! When a wolf's alone, it howls to signal its location to the rest of the pack. So if you heard a wolf howling, that means others could have been nearby. Maybe even a whole pack of them."