Wisdom's Daughter

28

Tessa saw a guy tied to a tree and stared blankly, almost in shock.

Stiles immediately ran over to her. "Tessa? Are you hurt? Are you okay?"

Tessa nodded slowly. "Yeah, I'm okay. That guy over there isn't. Call your dad."

Stiles took her hand and called his dad. Tessa chose not to pull away as it offered a sense of comfort.

A girl ran up to the boy and started screaming hysterically. Tessa smiled at her apologetically.

The sheriff appeared and said, "Hey, get out of the way. Get back. Get this area cordoned off before they trample every piece of evidence. Tessa, Stiles says you were worrying him. Are you okay?"

Tessa nodded. "Uh, I'm okay."

He turned to Coach. "Get these kids out of here!" He turned to his son. "Do me a favor. Go back to school, make sure your friend is okay. Coach, can you give us a hand here?"

Coach nodded and said to the other students, "You heard the man. Nothing to see here. Probably just some homeless tweaker."

"Coach," Scott said. "The guy was a senior."

Tessa frowned, studying the guy, trying to see if she recognized him, but she didn't.

Isaac walked up to them and asked, "You see the way the twins looked at him?"

"Yeah, you mean like they had no idea what happened?" Stiles replied.

Isaac shook his head. "No, no, they knew."

Stiles and Tessa shared a look and he frowned. "The kid was strangled with a garrote, all right? Am I the only one recognizing the lack of "werewolfitude" in these murders?"

Isaac scoffed. "Oh, you think it's a coincidence they turn up and then people start dying?"

"Well, no, but I still don't think it's them. Tess?"

"No, I think something else is going on," Tessa said. "Scott?"

"How 'bout you?" Isaac added.

He let out a sigh and shook his head. "I don't know."

"You don't know yet?" Stiles asked hopefully.

Scott glanced to Isaac. "Well, he's got a point. Seriously, dude, human sacrifices?"

Stiles shot him a look. "Scott, your eyes turn into yellow glow sticks, okay? Hair literally grows from your cheeks and then will immediately disappear, and if Tessa or I were to stab you right now, it would just magically heal, but you're telling me that you're having trouble grasping human sacrifices?"

Scott sighed. "That's a good point too."

Isaac narrowed his eyes. "I don't care. They killed that kid, they killed the girl that saved me. I'm gonna kill them too."

Tessa shot him a look. "No killing, Isaac. We need to figure out who's behind this, or we'll end up killing the wrong person."

He glared at her. "Whoever this is has killed three people. We need to stop them before they kill us."

"Okay, genius. Who is it?"

"I... don't know."

"Exactly. Which is why we should wait and figure it out before we shoot first and ask questions later."

"Are you seriously quoting Supernatural to me?"

"Yes, because you're not listening to me!"

Isaac growled at her and Tessa gripped her dagger.