Light The Fire || Stilinski || Book Two

Twenty-Two

WHEN THE PAIR ARRIVED AT THE POLICE STATION, they walked inside with their fingers intertwined. It was as busy as ever; the phones were ringing constantly while detectives and deputies moved around to put together new leads on their cases or incidents. Noah's office was just as messy as the lobby. Boxes were stacked upon his desk with every spare inch covered in open case files, including the floor.

Stiles placed the bouquet in his free hand among the organized chaos as Sierra looked around the area with slightly widened eyes. "You know the last time we brought one of these to her grave it was stolen the same day. Hundred bucks down the drain," Stiles commented, adjusting the flowers. He waited for his father to respond, but was met with silence. Together, Sierra and Stiles leaned over the sheriff's desk to see him on the floor in the middle of writing something down on a folder. "Hey, Dad? Hi, what are you doing down there?"

Noah sheepishly looked up at the teenagers, and paused what he was doing. "Working," he answered his son, and resumed his previous action while they walked around to the side he was on. "And hey, if somebody wants the flowers that badly, they can have them. It's the gesture."

Sierra scanned the room, her curiosity still there from seeing all of the boxes filled to the brim with police reports. "Noah, what is all this? If you don't mind me asking."

"I've been looking over some old cases from a more illuminated perspective," he answered her, referring to the supernatural world, "if you know what I mean."

Stiles read off from a paper he picked up that was attached to a clipboard, "Strange sighting of bipedal lizard man sprinting across freeway."

"Kanima Pile."

"Giant wolf demon with red eyes attacks video store," Sierra recited another, recognizing it to be from Lydia when Jackson and Sierra were attacked by Peter. "Oh lord."

"And that is the Peter Hale pile," Noah confirmed with a heavy breath. "You can see how big the stack is for that guy."

"I really wish he was still dead," Stiles spoke up.

"Boy, I think everyone does," Sierra retorted with a roll of her eyes, but then remember what she had been thinking about. "I hope you're not going through all of these because they might be supernatural."

"That is exactly what I am doing," Noah replied. "I admit the recent opening of my eyes to the greater mysteries of the universe has got me reassessing."

Stile crouched down to the floor to be eye-level with his father while Sierra stood beside him. "Dad-"

However, Noah continued, thinking deeply. "There's at least one hundred cases here where I look at the details and I can ask myself, "If I knew then what I know now..."

Stiles interjected again worriedly, "Right, but are you sure you want to go down that path?"

Noah looked at him seriously. "Do I have a choice?"

"Okay, so let us help you," Sierra calmly stated, seeing one file in his hands. "What's that one about?"

"It's one I haven't been able to get out of my head," Noah sighed, standing to his feet with the information in his hands. "Eight years ago, I was elected Sheriff of County, my first official duty was to tell a man that not only had his wife and two kids died in a car accident, but, as best we could tell, the body of his nine year-old daughter had been dragged from the wreck by coyotes."

He handed the file to his son, watching Sierra and him skim through the details. Sierra slowly picked up the photograph of the girl whose body was never found, tilting her head from seeing her mile. "She looks familiar," she mumbled under her breath, catching her boyfriend's attention.