Return ↠ Argent [2]

20. Hide and Seek

I had made sure to be extra careful around Allison the next couple of days. Her neck was more than sore from getting that claw removed, and it was pretty hard to cover it up and hide it from her father. We didn't tell him what had actually happened, but instead we lied and told him that she had strained it after sleeping on the bus. Somehow, he believed us, but I had a feeling he knew something else was going on.

Deaton had explained the whole claw thing to us better the next day, which made a lot more sense after he did. He said that according to what he had read, if a werewolf's claw gets stuck below the skin in a human, it will give them werewolf qualities to start off with, and then it will just progress and get worse. Exactly like what happened to Allison, he said that they'll start having seizures, throwing up black blood, or anything else along those lines. He had just gotten the claw out in time too; if he wouldn't have, she would be dead right now.

After what happened, every time I saw her, I couldn't help but imagine as if I was seeing her again for the first time. She had almost slipped through my fingers, so I felt that I needed to thank God for her every single day, or else I might actually lose her for real. It was just little things I did; like study her face when she wasn't looking and how I carefully observed how she walked and how much creamer she poured in her coffee. I tried to memorize everything that reminded me of her.

So, that's basically all I did for those next few days. It was the same repetitive process...at least until things went bad again. Doctors started turning up missing last night, and Danny was in the hospital. We're pretty sure it's more sacrifices, which wasn't good when it came to Scott's mom, since she was a nurse. If things couldn't get more worse than that, Deaton had called Scott earlier in class and was then taken himself. It was like a mad dash now to find him.

He saved Allison's life, and now it was our turn to save his.

"Corey," Allison says suddenly, snapping me from my little daze. My eyes go back into focus as I stare at her wide eyes, filled with frustration. "Are you listening to me?"

I nod my head, but I was lying. "Yeah, I was listening."

Allison rolls her eyes slightly, knowing that I wasn't. "Well, this is a picture of the map I was talking about just now. Look at this-"

She holds her phone out towards me as I scan the screen, seeing a dull looking map of Beacon Hills lying down on a table. I remembered seeing it every now and again when I walked into Chris' office looking for a pair of scissors, but I didn't notice anything special about it.

"I don't see what you're wanting me to see," I say, furrowing my eyebrows as I squinted, hoping that a solution would just show up on the screen.

Allison's eyes gaze up to me. "That's because you can't."

I don't get to ask before she's swiping her finger to the left, showing me a picture of the same map, but this time, there were blue markings on it. Some were circles, some were squares, and some were X's. I wasn't sure what this was supposed to mean, but I knew that it must mean something important with how Allison was talking about it.

"He's been mapping this whole sacrifice thing out, Corey," Allison says, lowering her phone. "And he hasn't been telling me what he knows."

I noticed her aggravation, but I counter fire. "You haven't exactly been honest either."

Allison scowls at me. "That's different and you know that. My father has been keeping track of the sacrifices, might know where Deaton is, and is keeping the information from us. I'm pretty sure my little scratch on the back of my neck is a lot less important than Deaton's life."

I knew that she was wrong, because her life meant everything, but I didn't say anything. "What do each of the markings mean?"

"Some mean where people are being taken from, others are where they died, but then there's this..." she fades out, pointing to a few of the markings on the screen. "There's only been six sacrifices, but there's twelve markings on here."