Lipless Thomas

His father, Tamora has discovered, is an FBI Director. Scott recently helped him bring down some of the assassins--professional assassins--that had for some reason targeted a small public high school in the middle of nowhere. Rafael McCall is impossible to get a hold of, but maybe Scott heard something from him.

Tamora makes a bit of small talk, noting Scott's eagerness to make a good impression, and then asks carefully, "Any idea what those assassins wanted?"

"Uh..." Scott scratches his head. "Money, right?"

"But whose money? Why would anyone be paying them to come out here? Who in Beacon Hills could possibly be worth that much dead?"

Scott gives her a classic teenage boy shrug. "Beats me."

His indifference irritates her. "No one has theories?"

"Nope."

"Not even..." This crosses the line, but Tamora has to know, "the FBI?"

Scott looks uncomfortable. "I haven't really asked."

Tamora's violating a thousand professional boundaries here but she just can't understand why no one cares. Children have died. "Why not?"

Scott shrinks in his seat. "Honestly, I'm just trying to make it through high school."

He looks abashed, almost guilty. Underneath is something shadowed--grief. A close friend, her records indicate, had died last semester, another of Beacon Hills' freak accidents.

Tamora knows what that's like. "Right. Of course."

Interrogating him had been stupid. Tamora struggles with going overboard, crossing lines. She's lost jobs over it, friends. Only Laura had never really seemed to mind. She said it reminded her of her family. Tamora had liked that. She doesn't have much contact with her own.

She smiles. "Let's see what we're working with."

The issue with Scott's grades stem from attendance. He wouldn't be the first student to miss class after the death of a friend. Scott's a bright kid, dreams of veterinary science at UC Davis and already has a job with the local vet. AP Bio stands between him and the applications for the scholarships that would allow him to even think about going, and Mrs. Finch, the biology teacher, won't even think about letting him take the class without a note from the guidance counselor.

It's an easy note to write. This class might be Scott's ticket out. She doesn't want the grave of Beacon Hills to bury anyone else.

Scott takes the note like it's a golden ticket. "Thank you. Seriously, Ms. Monroe, you're a lifesaver."

"It's nothing."

Scott stands to leave, but at the door, he pauses. Hesitates. Turns back. "Ms. Monroe, um... is it true you knew Laura Hale?"

Tamora freezes, totally unprepared for the question. How would Scott know that? Tamora asked a few people about Laura when she first came to town, but only a few, and all adults. Why would this random teenager know about it? "Who told you that?"

Scott tugs nervously on his backpack straps. "I know her brother."

The brother Tamora still half-suspects of being behind Laura's death. Wouldn't bite marks be easy enough to fake? Definitely enough to fool small-town police. The only knot in her theory is that whatever this is, it's clearly bigger than Laura. She's one victim of many. Would Derek Hale kill all these people?

Laura had loved her brother. Why would her own family kill her? Had Derek been responsible for the fire too?

Is he a serial killer? she struggles not to blurt out. The effort to check it paralyzes her. She has so many questions no one will answer.

"I was the one who found her body," Scott admits into the silence.

Tamora can't stop herself. "Do you really think it was an animal attack?"

It's crazy, she knows that, but doesn't anyone else wonder? The woods are so silent, dark in the day, no sign of life except for the howls in the distance. Tamora can't make sense of them. There are no wolves in California.

Scott fidgets with his backpack. "There were bite marks on the body, right?"

"Those could be faked." Can't anyone see that? Do they not care? Is the sheriff too stupid to realize? Is he behind it? Was he bought off by Derek Hale? The Hales are rich enough to buy this whole town ten times over.

"Looked pretty real to me." Scott won't meet her eyes.

Did Derek get to him too? Scott would be easy to buy, a poor kid desperate for a scholarship.

A kid, it hits Tamora abruptly. He doesn't know anything. He's seventeen years old. He saw a dead body in the woods.

Oh god, Laura's body. Tamora hasn't been able to make herself think about it. Laura--sarcastic, sulky, bright-eyed Laura--was torn apart by something's teeth.

Tamora can feel her eyes go hot. She wipes them, sniffling pathetically, and by the time she looks up, Scott has politely disappeared, quiet as a deer.

That should be the end of it. Her best friend, her only friend, was torn apart by an animal in the woods. Nothing more insidious, nothing less awful. Her brother buried her mutilated remains next to his burned out home, but that doesn't make him a murderer. Don't people do crazy things when they see death? Tamora did. Beacon Hills is just like a million other towns in America, a fucked up place where people die. Laura had tried to warn her. Tamora had blown up her life rather than accept it. She's always struggled with ugly truths.

If there's something going on in Beacon Hills, it's an ugly truth. Drugs, most likely. This is meth country, after all. Maybe the Hales dealt something. Maybe their murder was about that, maybe there's been an on-going power struggle since.

Maybe it's something weirder than meth. The psychiatric facility on the edge of town is riddled with horrible rumors.

There Tamora goes again, inventing wild theories. She tries to be done with it, tries to let the truth sink into her body and settle there. Her friend is dead. She wanted to solve the mystery of her family's murder, and a mountain lion tore her in half before she ever got any answers. That's life. Tamora needs to face it.

Except, wouldn't finding answers help her do that? Laura wanted answers. Tamora can find them for her. It's for Laura.

Besides, it's not like she has a life to go back to anyway, or a job market she's eager to re-enter. Beacon Hills High School is strapped for staff, willing to overlook a few bumps in the road of her resume. Tamora doesn't need to blow this life up too.

She spends her nights searching. Local files aren't that hard to get a hold of, as if the town compensates for its tight grip on some secrets with a loose one on others. Tamora dives deep.

One name keeps coming up: Scott McCall.

He found Laura's body not once but twice.

He's been present for a remarkable number of deaths, in fact. Animal deaths.

A friend of his died under mysterious circumstances. Another spent time in that psychiatric facility. His co-captain on the lacrosse team filed a restraining order against him before leaving the country. The teacher that disciplined him the most often was murdered.

His father is an FBI agent, with all of their access. He’s killed four people on record. History of domestic violence.

Scott's mother is a nurse--access to the morgue, to drugs, to the files of all the people who died in the hospital under mysterious circumstances. Last semester, the files claim, an animal snuck into the hospital and tore apart a dozen people. That's life.

Scott's close friends with the son of the sheriff, a bumbling man who claims nothing's wrong with the town. He sings Scott's praises. "Most trustworthy kid I know."

What does the sheriff know? All these deaths on his watch. There was even an investigation into his failure to close cases.

It was run by Scott's father. It was abruptly shut down.

To protect Scott?

Scott works at the veterinary clinic. He must have seen animal bites. He knows what they look like. He knows how to handle bodies.

Those assassins went to his school. They were in his locker room.

Trying to kill him?

He snuck out of her office so silently. Like an animal.

Tamora is being crazy. It's impossible. Scott's a teenage jock.

It's just that everywhere Tamora digs, every rock she turns up, there's Scott underneath it. The connection is always him. It's like his face is the mask over whatever's really going on.

And there is something going on. Tamora's sure of it. It's like a bone bruise, the kind that pains you before the blood ever rises to the skin. It's like a fault line waiting to erupt. Tamora doesn't want blood or earthquakes. She just wants to know what's underneath the surface of this town. For Laura.

It's all she thinks about. The job is so boring. Beacon Hills is a town where everything happens but nothing changes. The students are exhausting. Tamora has never worked this much with kids.

Her only consolation is that it's the same high school Laura went to. Tamora can practically picture her in the halls. Would they have been friends if they'd been here together? Tamora's whole life might have been different. They would have hated this place together, dug out of its grave together.

That's what she's thinking about, the night the animal attacks.

Tamora lies in the pile of bodies, paralyzed by terror, suffocating under the weight of these corpses, the only shield between her and death. It buries you.

What is it? She saw a shadow, like the night itself had killed all these people, like the dark had leapt out of the forest.

She looks around, and that's when she sees him. It's Scott but not Scott, a monster wearing his face. Teeth, claws, demonic red eyes. There are wolves in California and they're demons. Beacon Hells. He's the animal, the blood, the earthquake.

That's life, she thinks hysterically, that's life.

She's numb by the time the sheriff drags her out of the pile, gun holstered and excuses loaded.

"It was a bear," he says.

Tamora feels far from her body.

That had been death she'd seen, staring out into the darkness with those glowing eyes, seeing its secrets. Silent as the grave.

That was what got Laura.

Tamora washes the blood off, but she can't scrub off the smell of the corpses. It's like it's in her now. Death got her. She and Laura are finally here together. She lets that sink into her body.

For Laura, Tamora thinks, as she aims a gun at a demon wearing a child's face. This is for Laura.