His Hands Were Red

The night was cold and heavy with fog, curling around Beacon Hills like a breath held too long. The town was quiet — too quiet — and she knew something was wrong the second she stepped through the door of her home.

It was subtle at first. A shift in the air. A draft that shouldn’t have been there. A sense that someone had been inside long before her.

Then she saw him.

He stood in the shadows of the hallway, backlit by the dull glow of a flickering light. His head was tilted slightly, eyes unreadable. The faint glint in them wasn’t Stiles — it was something ancient, calculating. Something that watched her like a predator might a wounded thing.

He looked like Stiles. He moved like Stiles.

But it wasn’t him.

Void Stiles stepped forward, the blood on his hands still fresh and dark. He rubbed it absently against his forearm, smearing it into the fabric of his shirt like it didn’t matter. Like none of it mattered.

Except her.

She didn’t say a word. She didn’t scream or cry. She simply stood there, eyes wide but steady, her chest rising and falling too fast.

He closed the space between them in three strides, one hand reaching up — not to hurt her, not to strike — but to gently tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. His fingers were warm and damp. The blood left a faint mark against her cheek.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, his voice low and gravel-edged, like it had been dragged through broken glass. “I did it for you.”