❝Okay, but let's just think this through. Alright? Before there's maiming, or beheading, let's just take a second to remember who you're assuming turns into a sadistic lizard when the sun goes down. This is Selene Whittemore we're talking about, her...
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CHAPTER ONE RED NIGHT
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"Have you been drinking, Miss Whittemore?"
The brunette narrowed her eyes. Stilinski, the silver-gleaming rectangle on his breast pocket read. The name sounded familiar. If only she knew his first . . .
He cleared his throat. She was aware of him glancing above her complicated updo, past the plaits, the now-wilted Golden Celebrations, the ringlets that had fallen as a tribute to the rhythm of that chaotic night. She knew without checking that he was staring at Lydia Martin, bloodied and beaten and frayed-at-the-seams Lydia Martin, the person she cared most for in the universe Lydia Martin. "Miss Whittemore?"
Sheriff. That's his name. Strange. She blinked once or twice and then said, "That would depend on your definition of the word."
He laughed, but the sound delivered was exhausted, dry. Maybe he'd gotten that line before. "I define it as 'indulging in alcoholic beverages'. How do you define it?"
Selene bent at the waist and reached for the bottle a nurse had dropped off earlier. An act of courtesy, perhaps, but spring water wasn't going to heal Lydia. She looked Sheriff in the eye and swallowed a few sips. "Dictionary approved," she said, and then fought back a horrid bout of nausea.
Stilinski gave her a hopeless little nod, and then turned back to his crew. Selene slumped into the chair, bent awkwardly over the metal armrests, and decided that she wanted to cry. Sob, even, loud and ugly. Or maybe punch her brother in the jaw. Or maybe just crawl into Lydia's hospital bed and stroke the strawberry blonde's sinfully perfect hair until she woke up and called Selene a romantic.
To be honest (and partially intoxicated), the natural world was one that Selene just barely understood. Hell, she'd slept her way through her first semester of Biology classes, and it hadn't really dawned on her that the information she would have learned if she'd been awake would benefit her later on. Seriously, weren't these school things supposed to be relevant for, like, a month of her life? Two?
Anyway. Natural was natural. It was real. She knew that bees pollinated flowers and that hummingbirds did, too. She knew that cells made up tissues and if more than one of those hooked up for a date, they'd create an organ. Add middle-aged men with fangs? Claws? Abnormally red eyes? No, thank you. Selene will take a hard pass, for the record, and probably four shots.
Again she saw the eyes. The horribly manicured fingernails. The teeth. She saw them tear into Lydia. She saw someone make a phone call. She saw the dirt on her hands, the jarring lights of the lacrosse field, Jackson's terribly ill-timed self run onto the field. She saw red. Even when she closed her eyes.
