hold me closer

15

"Try Maddy," Stiles said confidently. "It's gotta be Maddy."

"Doesn't Maddy feel a little obvious to be a cipher key?" Lydia replied.

"I guarantee it's Maddy," he said.

Lydia typed it in, then it flashed ERROR.

"Okay, your name," Stiles suggested. "She left the code for you so it's got to be your name."

She tried her name. It flashed ERROR again.

"Your mom's name?"

She typed it in. It flashed ERROR again.

"Any beloved family pets?"

I sighed and stood up saying, "School starts soon."

"Are you really thinking of going to school rather than cracking the code?" Stiles questioned.

"Well, I can't keep skipping school," I told him. "Olivia will kill me."

"But this is the code," Stiles said, gesturing to the laptop. "Your grades are surprisingly perfect so you can afford to skip school. We can't exactly afford to let anyone else die. Come on."

I sighed, sitting beside Lydia. All of us were trying to think of the cipher keyword, which proved to be difficult. If I was Lydia's grandmother making up a keyword, I would want it to be something that only Lydia and I would know. Something that we connected to.

"The code was left for you," Stiles said. "You're supposed to be able to figure this out."

"But no one else is," she responded quietly. "Which is why she made it hard."

Stiles got up, annoyed by the printer beeping. He shoved the paper into the compartment and walked away irritably.

"This list was made for you, right?" I spoke, looking at the screen. "We've been making guesses that were about your grandmother when instead, maybe we should be making guesses about you."

"Me?" she questioned. "What about me?"

"What do you remember doing with your grandmother?" I asked. "What was a connection you made with her? For example, after training with my mother, we would always get ice cream and watch a movie. What was your special thing with your grandmother?"

"We read," she replied.

"Okay, what did you read?" Stiles asked.

"The Little Mermaid," Lydia said.

"You read that movie?" Stiles questioned in disbelief.

"It was a book first," Lydia told him defensively. "Hans Christian Andersen."

"Type it in," Stiles told her, impatient. "Little Mermaid."

She typed it in, but it flashed ERROR. She typed MERMAID, but it flashed ERROR.

"We read it every night," Lydia said, confused by why it didn't work. "I got so obsessed with it, for three months I wouldn't respond to anything but 'Ariel.' It drove my parents crazy, but... Grandma thought it was adorable."

She typed in ARIEL and more names were revealed.

"Do you recognize any of these names?" I asked Lydia.

"Just my grandmother," Lydia answered.

"Guys," Stiles alerted. "We need to call Scott."

:::

There was a slight problem for Scott. Somehow, the Deadpool changed. Liam was now worth more and Derek wasn't on it anymore. There was supposed to be a bonfire that the lacrosse team had to go to. I hoped that nothing would happen there.