WREN CARTER WAS FAST ASLEEP LIKE MOST TEENAGERS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. However, unlike most teenagers, she had idiot friends that did not care about her beauty sleep and overall well being. That was why she was woken up at midnight by the sound of rapping on her window. She groaned out loud and rolled out of bed, trudging over to the window. She already knew who it was, and she was not in the mood.
She needed to sleep. She had been awake for almost twenty-four hours straight because she had been extremely restless for the past couple of days. The two boys knew that, but as she opened her window, she still saw Scott sitting on Stiles' shoulders so that he could hit a stick against the glass. She leaned out and glared down at them. "What are you idiots doing here?"
"We're going to find a dead body," Scott replied. If Wren was being honest, that was not the craziest thing that she had heard come out of his mouth, not by a long shot. He and Stiles were the weirdest people that she had ever met, and they said some really out of pocket things sometimes.
She was glad that they at least had a good and interesting reason to interrupt her sleep. So, she just sighed and glanced back into the house, making sure that they had not woken her mother up. "Let me put some clothes on."
"See, that's what I'm talking about. Scott was asking all these questionsâ" the Stilinski boy was cut off when she slammed her window shut and walked away. The two boys glanced at each other, and Wren was heading to her closet when she heard a crash and some groans. She laughed when she realized that their little human tower had fallen over.
She pulled on a sweatshirt over her tank top and scribbled a note to her mom on the whiteboard outside her room. She regularly went out in the middle of the night for walks when she could not sleep. Her mom knew that, but they had a system where she wrote on the board when she was out so that the older Carter woman did not worry.
They all got into the blue jeep that belonged to Stiles and headed out to the Beacon Hills Preserve, which was basically just the middle of the forest. They climbed out, and they were limited to one flashlight that the Stilinski boy was holding. "You know, I have not slept in twenty four hours, and we have a quiz tomorrow. I'm screwed."
"We have a quiz tomorrow?" Scott asked, and both of his best friends stared at him in disbelief because he was so behind. Harris had been talking about the chemistry quiz for the past week and how if they did not prepare for it, they were going to fail, and he was going to want to bang their heads against a wall. Scott just shrugged. "I was trying to get a good night's sleep before practice tomorrow."
"Right, 'cause sitting on the bench is such a grueling effort," Wren responded sarcastically. The two guys glared at her even though what she said was true. She did not mean to be mean â actually...â but she was so extremely exhausted, and she really just wanted to find this body and then go back to bed.
Scott rolled his eyes at her because he had been training all year for the season to start so that he could actually get to play. In some ways, sitting on the bench the whole season was more embarrassing than just not making the team in general. The McCall boy insisted, "No, because I'm playing this year. In fact, I'm making first line."
"Hey, that's the spirit!" Stiles cheered, but it was obvious that he was not being serious. Wren laughed as their friend looked at them like they wanted to punch both of them square in the nose. "Everyone should have a dream, even a pathetically unrealistic one."
"Just out of curiosity, which half of the body are we looking for? And, uh... what if whoever killed the body is still out here?" Scott asked in response to his friend's sarcasm. He looked at the boy smugly, knowing that there was no way that he had a good answer to that. Stiles was not the most 'plan out everything carefully' kind of person.
They slowly began to climb up the hill, and the sheriff's son pursed his lips. "Well, those are both things that I did not think about"
"It's comforting to know you've planned this out with your usual attention to detail," Scott sighed. All of sudden, his breathing started to become rapid, shallow, and wheezy as they continued up the hill. He was clearly struggling to keep up with their pace. Wren slowed down a little bit to make him more comfortable. "Maybe the severe asthmatic should be the one holding the flashlight, huh?"
"You good?" the Carter girl asked, checking up on her friend as he paused to lean against a tree. He nodded slightly, pulling his inhaler out of his pocket. However, when Stiles kept pushing on, Scott just sighed before allowing Wren to pull him along and help him make his way up the hill after him.
Wren's heart dropped when they made it to the top of the hill and saw a dozen or so people shining their own flashlights. Her eyes widened when she realized that it was the police. Stiles acted fast, and he grabbed both of them and dragged them into a bush and turned off the flashlight. Unfortunately for them all, Stiles got inpatient. He stood up despite the fact that the cops were still out there. Scott tried to grab his hand, but it was too late. "Stiles!"
"I got him," Wren told Scott, and she stood up. The McCall boy tried to protest, but she was already gone.
She jogged after him, but she was never much of a runner. She finally was about to give up when a huge dog jumped on top of her. She shrieked and tumbled over, and she groaned when she realized that she had been caught. She breathed out a sigh of relief, however, when she heard the voice of Noah Stilinski. "Hey, get him off. I know her."
"Geez, Wren. You had one job," Stiles told her as the dog was pulled off of her. She propped herself up on her elbows and stared up at the flashlights shining down on her. She could not see anyone's face, but she knew that she was in a lot of trouble.
ãâã
WREN HAD GOTTEN A CRAZY TEXT FROM SCOTT THE NEXT MORNING. That meant that despite how exhausted she was, she got in her car and headed to school. She met up with the boys in front of the school before class started, trudging over to them with her eyes half closed. She did not know how they were up all night and were not falling asleep.
She was in such an awful mood. She got almost no sleep the previous night even after she made it back home, and she really did not see the point in doing anything that day. She was too tired to do anything well, so why even go at all? Once she reached when, Stiles clapped his hand together and turned to Scott.
"Okay, let's see this thing," the Stilinski boy requested excitedly. Scott had told them that he had gotten bitten by something the previous night, but Wren's eyes still widened when he lifted up his shirt to show them his bite wound, which was covered with gauze and tape and a small amount of blood leaking through.
They stood there in shock for a moment since they had both been expecting some snake or spider bite. This was obviously something much bigger. Wren reached over and poked the bandage, which caused Scott to flinch in pain and stare at her like he was wondering what the hell she was thinking. She grimaced, "Ew."
"Yeah... It was too dark to see much, but I'm pretty sure it was a wolf," Scott informed them, pulling his shirt back down as they began walking toward the school very slowly. Wren ran a hand through her hair because she honestly probably looked hungover. Her days were like that sometimes. She either looked really good or really bad. There was no in between.
"A wolf bit you?" Stiles scoffed, and he shook his head. He was looking at his friend like he was being stupid, but Wren was also confused. It could've been a wolf. They were in the woods, weren't they? That's where wolves live unless she was so tired that she was being delusional and making things up. "No, not a chance."
Scott nodded like it would counteract the shaking of Stiles' head. Wren just stood there and stared at them, waiting for the argument to resolve so that she could take a nap. Scott insisted, "I heard a wolf howling."
"No, you didn't," Stiles answered, and Wren was so freaking confused. She was with Stiles from the moment they got caught to when he and his angry father drove her home. They had not heard a wolf howling, but that did not mean that it was impossible.
The McCall boy was getting frustrated because the Stilinski boy was not there with him. He did not know everything that Scott did or did not experience. "What do you mean, 'No, I didn't?' How do you know what I heard?"
"Because California doesn't have wolves, okay? Not in, like, sixty years." Both Wren and Scott were shocked by this news. Stiles stood on the stairs and spun around to face them with a serious expression. "There are no wolves in California."
"All right. Well, if you don't believe me about the wolf, then you're definitely not gonna believe me when I tell you I found the body," Scott sighed with a shake of his head. Wren's jaw dropped, and Stiles' whole demeanor changed at that.
There was no way that Wren had lost her chance to see a body and Scott get bitten by a wolf because Stiles was an impatient dumbass. That had woken her up for a moment. She exclaimed, "There's no way. Are you kidding me?"
"Oh, god, that is freakin' awesome. I mean, this is seriously gonna be the best thing that's happened to this town sinceâ" Stiles stopped talking all of a sudden, and Wren was confused until she turned around and saw Lydia Martin walking toward them. The Stilinski boy had been in love with that girl for as long as Wren could remember, even before she was friends with him. "âsince the birth of Lydia Martin. Hey, Lydia! You look..." The strawberry blonde â she got very offended when you called her a redhead â continued to walk right past them without a second glance. She did that a lot. It used to bother Wren because they had been such good friends in middle school, but the blonde had gotten used to it. "...like you're gonna ignore me."
Stiles turned back to both of his friends. You're the cause of this, you know. Dragging' me down to your nerd depths. I'm a nerd by association. I've been Scarlet-nerded by you. And Wren's crazy, so she just scares the girls away."
"Oh, please. I'm hot, a genius, and I have an amazing personality. It's you two that are dragging me down," Wren scoffed, pretending like Stiles' 'crazy' comment didn't hurt a little more than it should have. She flipped her hair and grinned at them as they all began walking toward the school again.
"What's your grade in AP World again?" Scott asked her, and she just glared at him because she was about to fail AP World History. She had been seriously studying for the upcoming test, though, and he knew that.
However, at least she was taking an AP. He had a worse grade in regular-level World History than she did in the AP. She just smiled at him sarcastically and replied, "What's your grade in regular World again?"
"Children, no fighting," Stiles interrupted, and they both shot him a look because he was never the adult in the friendship. He was almost always the person arguing over something stupid or proving his point with some random fact that he pulled out of his ass.
They split up to go to their separate classes for the period, but not even five-minute transition times could keep them apart. Wren met up with them at their lockers before second period, and she noticed that they were both staring at some beautiful girl that she had never seen before. She tilted her head in curiosity as she joined them in leaning against the lockers and watching her. "Who's that?"
"New girl," Stiles explained shortly. "Scott's in love with her."
"Hm. She's cute," Wren replied, and she pursed her lips as she glanced at Scott to see him staring dreamily at the brunette. Who was this girl? Did she think she could just come in and ruin the whole friend dynamic? It would start with holding hands and saying hi in the hallway, but in the blink of an eye, it would turn into him ditching his friends and hanging out with people like Lydia and Jackson.
Wren had to calm down. She did that too much. She started thinking about something, and her brain spiraled and thought about everything bad that could happen. She just did not want to lose Scott.