"That looked cozy," Erica smirks as she circles the pillar to lean seductively beside him.
Isaac tries and fails not to show that her sudden appearance has caught him unawares. His hand fumbles with the syringe as he mentally shakes himself from the stupor Scott's words had left him in.
"Ooh, shiny," her eyes latch on to the device and she snags it from his hands. "So what's the plan?"
"We take this," he emphasizes the 'take' and 'this' by reclaiming the syringe from her before she can uncap the needle, "and stick it in Jackson."
"Just like that?" her carefully shaped left eyebrow arches with the same skepticism dripping from her words.
"More or less," he shrugs his shoulders and turns to look out over the crowd for their target. "We just have to get close enough to make sure it all goes in intravenously."
His searching eyes move in her direction to find her staring at him with a questioning look that makes him sigh inwardly.
"That means in the vein," he explains; thinking this must be how Scott had felt just moments before as he relayed the plan to Isaac. "We need to get close enough to put it in the bloodstream fast, so the easiest target will be his neck."
"'We?'" her eyebrow mocks him as she subtly eases shifts back as if to distance herself from the plan. "I wasn't invited to your little pow wow with the Wonder Wolf," she flicks a stray clump of hair back over her shoulder in silent declaration that she hadn't wanted to be a part of that huddle. "Sounds like you have a fun night ahead."
"You think Derek won't nail your ass to the wall beside mine if I can't do this?" he tries to match the condescending arch of her eyebrow but doubts he could achieve the same expression even if he waxed his brow like she did. "If we don't get the Kanima tonight, more people are going to die."
"Aww," she gives an exaggerated moue of concern and reaches up to stroke his cheek. "You almost sound like you care."
"Jackson has kicked both our asses and if we keep trying to stop him, we could be the next to die," Isaac flicks her hand away in disgust at her short sightedness. "Even if he doesn't turn on us, another death will bring the Argent's and the police down even heavier on this town and that puts the pack at risk. Don't you listen to anything Derek says?"
"Honestly? Not a word," she gives a genuine smile and eases her posture to recline comfortably against the pillar. "You can't blame a girl for being distracted by other things when he's all worked up and lecturing. Have you seen how his muscles go all taut and flexy and his eyes get so sharp and focused and he's so damned serious it's all I can do not to tear off my clothes and jump him."
She's clearly getting lost in a favored fantasy and Isaac can only stare at her as the words start to fade with the visual.
He's already seen her throw herself at their Alpha for a lip lock that went utterly wasted on the man, but if Derek is anywhere near as male as Isaac then Erica's tearing off her clothes first could just do the trick to get a response if she ever decides to have another go at the guy. He has half a mind to tell her to try the fantasy out on him and see how it works.
His side twitches under the weight of an intense stare locked in on him and he immediately yanks away from those thoughts to scan the warehouse for the source of the look.
Scott.
He should have known who it was just from how his body felt from a mere stare.
From across the distance he can sense the other boy telling him to focus, asking if he's seen Jackson and reminding Isaac to be careful all with a single glance. Not even Derek's stares are that effective; mostly because his Alpha is nowhere near as emotive as McCall.
Gulping at a sudden knot of tension in his chest, Isaac gives a nod of understanding to all of Scott's silent communications as he straightens to full height to scan the warehouse.
At six foot one he's far from the tallest kid in town, but he does have a fair advantage in this crowd that averaged below six feet in height. He does another scan of the wildly dancing bodies; moving slow and sweeping thoroughly for any sign of Jackson's frosted blonde head or buff body. When his search once again comes up empty he seeks out Scott to relay to the other boy that their target remains absent.
He can practically feel McCall's disappointment across the crowd and Isaac takes the weight of it into himself like a personal failure. He knows he has no control over whether Jackson even shows up tonight, but so much hinges on this plan working for Scott that Isaac actually does care about at least one thing.
"You're wishing on Venus there," Erica says to remind him of her presence at his side.
Again, she manages to startle him thank to the way that Scott is distracting his senses tonight and it takes him a second to recover himself enough to process her words.
His mind replays the words and he shakes his head to rewind the tape and try another listen through for comprehension.
"What?" he's forced to ask as the sentence just doesn't click on any logical level.
"Wishing on Venus," she repeats with a glance from him to Scott then back again. "Every girl grows up wishes on stars; especially the first star in the sky because we're told that it's the one that wishes are granted on, but then we grow up and we find out that that star we've been gazing at and wishing on all along isn't a star at all. It's Venus. So if wishing on stars ever really does work, your wishes have all been screwed because you've been wasting them all on a frickin' planet."
To her it makes sense; Isaac knows it makes sense because she's so relaxed and comfortable with the explanation, but to him? He tilts his head to the side and stares at her with all the befuddlement of a puppy trying to comprehend why a person is standing over it with a nice, meaty treat in their hand but isn't giving said treat to the cute little puppy.
"Neither of us have a chance, doofus," Erica simplifies; sighs at the puppy dog expression and stares past him towards where Scott had been.
Had been, Isaac knows because he had actually felt the other boy leave the area; taking some kind of basic and calming energy with him that Isaac immediately missed.
"Yeah," he sighs, slouching back against the pillar as the absence of Jackson gives them some time to talk. "Allison has him all wrapped around her little finger."
"I wish it were that simple," she leans closer; commiserating in such a way that Isaac doesn't even question himself for failing to deflect the notion that he has any interest in Scott McCall. "The whole high school sweethearts thing passes over time. Their added Romeo and Juliet complex is drawing it out, but it'll get old soon enough."
Her expression is thoughtful as she scans the crowd; eyes lingering on some of the 'happy' couples writhing on the impromptu dance floor.
"It's just a phase; it'll pass," she continues, but he wonders at the subject she's referencing before her attention returns to him. "We're Derek's pack."
He frowns at that oddly placed notion and gives her a variation of the confused puppy stare since it worked earlier to get her to translate from girltalk to something his brain could follow.
"We picked the wrong pony to win this one," she tucks her hands into the front pockets of her jeans and goes back to aimlessly looking over the crowd. "McCall's a sucker. He thinks all of this; the being a werewolf, is a curse. Derek was born this way, but we chose it. Without a way to undo it all; if we even wanted to; we're pretty much automatic on the outs with the goody goody."
She seems to have come to grips with the idea, though resentfully; indicating that she's given it more thought than Isaac has had time to and he heeds the warning.
Isaac gets what she's saying all too easily.
It doesn't matter that Scott is with the pack to capture the Kanima. Derek still planned to kill Jackson to insure that the threat is eliminated; no matter that the Kanima within Whittemore is being controlled and used like a weapon by someone else who posed a greater danger to them all. Scott's objective is vastly different from the Alpha's and, forgiving as McCall may appear to be, Isaac knows that Derek's endgame would drive an insurmountable wedge between them.
If Jackson dies because of the pack then Isaac will be delegated to the 'bad guy' while Scott remained the goodest of the good. Like any guy, he's not vehemently opposed to the notion of becoming a badass, but something in him balks at the idea of killing someone; even an asshole like Jackson Whittemore chose to be.
Perhaps Isaac and Scott are meant to fill the roles of opposing forces for the way things have come to be, but a small voice grows strength in the back of his head to remind that there are some pretty big 'if's there.
If they can succeed in capturing Jackson.
If the pack even has a chance of doing anything about the Kanima before the Argents crash in.
Mostly, there is the if of whether Isaac will obey Derek.
The hard edges of the syringe imprint an odd pattern on the palm of his hand as his fingers tighten around the device. Having been given this assignment; entrusted with this duty, also gives Isaac the realization that he doesn't have to play the villain.
Maybe one of Scott's plans will actually work and, while not necessarily the 'hero,' maybe Isaac can finally do something right.
Maybe Isaac has a choice now. A choice that he could make without hurt and anger clouding his judgement like it had been when Derek approached with the offer to be bitten; to be given the strength and power to no longer suffer at his father's hands.
If Erica's allegory has any merit then maybe now that Isaac knows that he's been dealing with Venus he can redirect his focus to the actual star and make a new wish to see if it comes true.
As if Isaac Lahey would ever again make the mistake of trying something as useless making a wish.