Artifice ♛ Scott McCall

Chaos

Stiles was gone. When the lights went out at the hospital, they came back on and Stiles was gone. His clothes out of his room, his Jeep keys, and his Jeep were all gone. Somehow, he just up and vanished out of the hospital without anyone seeing him. That was two days ago. Not one person has seen him since. Dad and I did end up getting a text from him. He said he was fine and to not look for him which he know damn well isn't going to happen. Practically every person in Beacon Hills is looking for him, but there hasn't been any sightings yet.

On another note, a lot of shit went down that night at the hospital. One of the ambulances hit a fire hydrant causing water to spread all over the parking lot. That might have not been so bad if the electrical wire didn't end up in the water. Kira did end up stopping that electric wire, but not before a few people ended up getting hurt. Isaac was one of them. Allison was about to step in the electrified water when Isaac pushed her out of the way. That caused him to get electrocuted. He's in the hospital now. From what Scott told me, he wasn't healing yet, and he was in a lot of pain. He went to go see him before school.

I, on the other hand, wanted to talk to Kira to learn more about the evil fox who's possessing my brother. Her and I were making our way down the school hallway. She's already apologized three times for doing this to Stiles. And I have told her three times to shut the hell up because this is not her fault.

"The thing is, in all of the stories, kitsune are tricksters." Kira explains. "They're mischievous. They don't really get caught up in right or wrong or even understand it."

I stop and look at her. "Does that mean this thing is causing all of this chaos just for the hell of it?"

She shook her head. "No, there was something else I found. If you somehow offend a nogitsune, it can react pretty badly."

"How the hell do you offend a nogitsune?" I ask her.

"I don't know." Kira shrugged. "But if it's doing something this bad, then someone really, really offended it."

×××

I make my way down the empty hallway. I turn down the corridor that leads to the basement. I slowly open the door trying not to make any noise before heading down the flight of stairs. I look down at my phone again rereading the message I just received from Stiles.

Basement.

I have so many questions that I don't know if I want the answers to. My biggest one is what if this isn't Stiles I'm about to see but the nogitsune? I can barely fight a werewolf. That's why I chose to stay out of fights. There's no way in hell I can fight the Oni. How can I fight a powerful, evil spirit? Especially when it has the face of my brother.

As soon as I reach the bottom of the stairs, I turn to my left. At the end of the hallway standing with his back facing me is Stiles. I also see that he has a turned on emitter in his hand. He slowly turns to face me as he hears my boots click along the floor. He looks paler than normal, and he has light purple bags under his eyes. I'm assuming that's from being possessed by this fox. He let's out a small smile, but it falters a little when I stop in the doorway. I wanted to keep my distance. I wanted to feel happy that my brother was okay, but I couldn't. I couldn't help but feel on edge around him. The look in his eyes weren't helping. I felt like they wanted to show Stiles' emotions, but they weren't. Maybe that's just me being paranoid.

"Evan I know you probably don't believe, but it's me." He speaks up. "I swear to God it's me."

"How am I supposed to know?" I ask.

"Do you trust me?" He asks me.

I let out a sigh. "I don't trust that thing that's inside of you."