Chapter 8
"Holy water cannot help you now. See I've come to burn your kingdom down, and no rivers and no lakes can put the fire out."
"Harris seriously gave you detention for slapping Stiles on the back of the head?" Isaac asked incredulously, looking at Carmen. She nodded at him and he grumbled, leaning back in his chair at their lab table. He starting bouncing his knee up and down as he pushed his tongue into his cheek to try and think of a plan. He had barely gotten any time to spend with her and he needed to talk to her about what she actually was to him and vice-versa.
"Could you stop that?" She asked him, forcing her hand down on his knee. "It's distracting and I'm taking notes." He laughed and shook his head, paying more attention to how concentrated she was on the class rather than paying attention to the class itself. She kept her hand on his knee and he found it strangely comforting.
"Oh, so I distract you?" He asked suggestively, making her giggle softly when he leaned over and doodled smiley faces on her notes. "They needed a little pizazz. Chemistry bores me." He rolled his eyes.
"Chemistry 'what's' you, Mr. Lahey?" Harris turned around from writing notes down on the board so that he could stare Isaac down.
Got 'em. "I said that it bores me, Mr. Harris." He shrugged innocently, leaning backwards in his seat. "I honestly don't see the point. It's a useless subject. No practical applications." He stuck out his bottom lip, drinking in the furious look on his teacher's face. From the corner of his eye he saw Carmen gnawing down on her lip out of embarrassment. She was digging her fingers into his thigh but he pretended like he couldn't feel it.
"Well then, let's see how you feel about chemistry when you have to stay in the library until 3pm today! Detention, Mr. Lahey!" He sat down at his desk, writing out a slip with Isaac's name on it. "I swear, you teenagers are all getting worse. That's the eighth detention I've had to give today."
Eighth? He stared at Carmen and she stared back at him with wide eyes. She looked towards the front of the classroom and saw Stiles giving her a guilty shrug. "If he's in there it means that Scott's going to be there too." She mumbled under her breath, making Isaac grit his teeth and snap his pencil in half. She put her hand over his balled fist and flattened it out so that she could calm him down. "It's not a big deal. As long as we act like nothing's going on then he's not going to even bother paying attention."
The bell rang and Isaac couldn't get out of his seat fast enough. His jaw was taut and he almost shoved Stiles out of the way so that he could get out of the classroom. "He's a little touchy right now." Carmen apologized, smoothing Stiles's flannel shirt out before she ran out the door.
"Use protection!" Stiles called after her as he mumbled to himself, feeling the bruises from her earlier beating settling into his skin.
She found Isaac out by his locker, grumbling to himself as he put his books back in. "What the hell was up with you back there? You almost pushed Stiles into oncoming traffic." She laughed. He turned to look at her and she knew what Stiles meant when he said that Isaac brooded. He had anger building in his face. "What's wrong?"
"I hate it when you have to act like you don't even know me so you can please Scott. It's pissing me off." He grumbled, slamming the door shut. "Did you just kiss me because of how pathetic I sounded when I poured my heart out to you or did you do it because you just wanted the chance to rebel?" He scoffed, rolling his blue eyes.
"I kissed you because I wanted to." She stated plainly, feeling his broad figure tower over her. "Scott and Stiles...they need me right now. Making sure that more people don't get killed is kind of important." She put her hand on his face and his expression immediately softened.
"I just...I just don't want to keep running away from Scott." He put his hand on her waist and curled his lips upward when he felt the soft fabric of her shirt underneath his fingers. "I don't want to exactly keep running away from your brother, either." He mumbled under his breath. He was never allowed to come over unless she knew for certain that Troy would be out and it really bothered him that he had to work based on somebody else's schedule.
"I promise that once this whole kanima thing blows over you can come over for dinner." She laughed, seeing him crack a smile. She stroked his face with his thumb and nearly sent him into a tailspin. He didn't think that he'd ever get used to that feeling. "And then we don't have to sneak around anymore."
"Good," He grinned devilishly, putting his hand on the small of her back and pulling her into him. "Because I'm really looking forward to being able to do that in public." She saw Stiles walking into the library along with Scott, Jackson, Allison, Matt, and Erica and she smacked her forehead. "What is it?" He asked, looking over his shoulder. The hallway was pretty much empty now, as everyone had pretty much left for the day.
"Erica got detention too, I guess." She mumbled under her breath. He loved how jealous she got. "It's gonna be one big party." She moved to walk towards the library, but he still kept his arm on her and he smirked when she raised an eyebrow at him.
"Kiss me," He murmured, tipping her chin up with his finger. She didn't even need to answer because he had already put his open mouth onto hers. The hand she had on his face moved up so that she could run her fingers through his hair and a low growl came from his chest. She broke the kiss and started laughing at him. "What?" He asked, licking his lips.
"Did you just growl at me?" She couldn't stop laughing and his cheeks turned pink at the very thought of it. He scratched the back of his neck nervously and opened his mouth like he was going to respond, but he moved his eyebrows back and forth and decided to not embarrass himself any further.
"We should get going." He said, turning on his heels so that he could walk towards the library. She rolled her eyes and followed him down the hallway. He opened the library door for her and leaned on the doorframe as she walked by him, poking his tongue in his cheek as he looked down at her hips. When he looked back up, his eyes met Scott's and he just chuckled and smirked. He didn't have to let Scott know that he and Carmen were in a mutual relationship, but he did really love making it look one-sided to make him angry. "Sit in that one." He looked over at the seat diagonally across from him as they went to sit at an empty table together. She put her bag on the table and they both sat down at the same time.
She put her long legs up on the seat across from her and she opened up the book she had to read for English. The Lord of the Flies. She absolutely hated what happened in the book but she thought the way it was written was the most beautiful thing. Suddenly she felt Issac's hands around her ankles as he lifted her legs up and put them on his lap with a half-smile playing on his face. She looked back down at her book but she felt Isaac absentmindedly running his hand up and down her bare leg as he scribbled things down in his notebook. "Can I help you?" He looked up from what he was doing and shook his head, continuing his work. He kept his hand against her skin, sort of like it was just soothing him. Thank God she had decided to shave her legs that day.
"You two, over there." Harris said to Scott and Stiles, pointing to the empty table next to Carmen and Isaac. Quicker than he could even think about it she swung her legs off his lap and he rolled his eyes and shook his head.
Scott eyed Isaac suspiciously, and Carmen pretended not to notice. "Hey, do you think anything's going on between them?" He asked Stiles, sitting down at the table.
Stiles felt a little lightheaded but he didn't want to be caught in the middle of everything so he just shook his head. "Uh...no...why would you think that?" He asked, playing it as safely as possible. He didn't want to betray Carmen's trust in him and he was kind of proud of the fact that he was the only person she'd told about it. She didn't want to tell Allison because she knew that there was no keeping secrets from Scott and she knew that Lydia would have opened up her big mouth anyways.
"I don't know...I just feel like something's up. I've just seen them talking a lot, and Isaac keeps giving her all these creepy looks." He shuddered, rolling his shoulders back.
"Well, has it maybe occurred to you that Isaac's just giving her creepy looks because he's creepy?" Stiles offered, gulping and hiding his face when he saw Isaac turn around and pierce him with his blue eyes. "Right, right...super wolf hearing. Forgot about that."
"I just don't want Carmen to get hurt, you know? She's my friend and I have to protect her. Isaac's dangerous." He sighed, looking over at them again. He seemed preoccupied with whatever homework he was doing and she was paying close attention to her book. Everything seemed normal. They just looked like two people sitting at a table together. They weren't even sitting close together. Then the pen Isaac was twirling in between his fingers flipped up and landed on the table. He went to pick it back up, but so did Carmen. Their hands touched and they smiled at each other. Now he definitely knew. "You've gotta be kidding me."
"So are you sure that I can't come over after this is done?" He asked her, looking up from his French homework.
"Not unless Troy gets called in. He's off today." She felt bad that he was so disappointed, but her brother was just too protective of her after everything that had happened. She had to ease Isaac into the relationship that she and her brother had and it wasn't going to be very easy. "I'm sorry." She trailed off as she noticed Jackson over at the table with Allison and Matt. He was holding his head in agony and his whole body was shaking. She thought he was going to pass out.
"What's his problem?" Isaac mumbled, making her step down on his foot. He inhaled sharply, reaching down to rub his toes. When she tried to hurt him it didn't usually work but this time was different.
"He's panicking," She said quietly, looking over at Scott. "I can feel him panicking. His heart rate is going out of control, he can barely even breathe, he's sweating out of every single pore, and the pheromones he's secreting...it's fear." She read him like a book, making Isaac's jaw drop. All part of the ability.
"You can smell fear?" He asked her, leaning in on his elbows and raising an eyebrow. Mr. Harris left the room and Carmen took this as her cue to run over to Scott and Stiles. They were talking to Erica, but she decided that she'd suck it up.
"He's going to turn any minute." She said, grabbing onto Scott's arm. "I can just feel it. Something's not right." Isaac's temper flared up when he saw her touch Scott's arm. He couldn't believe he was getting this possessive. It was just an instinct that kicked in and he didn't know where it came from. Jackson and Harris came back into the room, and it was plain to see that something was very wrong with Jackson. Now the sweat was pouring off his face and even Scott, Erica, and Isaac could smell the pheromones coming off him. "What do we do?"
"Scott McCall to the principal's office. Scott McCall to the principal's office." Carmen had a really bad feeling about all of this timing.
When Harris put his bag together everybody thought this meant that they could leave, but instead he gestured to the carts of books and said that they couldn't leave until they were done with the re-shelving. Isaac bolted up from his seat and pulled Carmen and a cart of books with him. "The buddy system is more effective." Once he had her with him the feeling of jealousy subsided and he felt normal again. "What's the plan for when Jackson pulls a Green Goblin on us?" He leaned over the cart, staring at her with his huge blue eyes.
"How did you—"
"It wasn't a really big surprise that such a snake of a person could be an actual snake, you know?" He shrugged, picking up a book and fitting it on a shelf where it clearly didn't belong. "Anyways, what are we gonna do?"
"I don't know. Scott probably has a plan." She said truthfully, taking back the book he had put on the shelf. She looked at the spine and went to find where it was supposed to go. He watched her walk away and sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose. Of course Scott had a plan. "Shelley, Shelley, Shelley..." She murmured quietly under her breath, searching for the right place for her to put Frankenstein. She slid it in between another copy of the book and a bookend, satisfied with the fact that putting something in the right place didn't take very long.
All of a sudden, she heard a crash on the other side around the room. Just as a human instinct she tried to look for it but Isaac had his arms around her and had her down on the ground before she could even attempt to find out what was going on. "Just stay behind me." He held her hand tightly and she could see his eyes glowing gold.
"ISAAC! ERICA!" Scott roared out to them for help. Isaac's canines jutted out and he ran towards the sound, leaving Carmen to fend for herself. She heard Erica scream and she balled her fists tightly, hoping she wouldn't hear Isaac next. She saw tables being flipped over and lights being shattered, but she couldn't see Stiles or Allison anywhere. Then the most blood-curdling sound filled her ears. A combination between a hiss and a screech...she couldn't breathe...
"Troy, you know what to do with her. Take her into the saferoom. We'll try to get out but—" Troy didn't need to hear his father finish his sentence for him to pick his little sister up and bring her down into the basement where he moved a bookshelf out of the way and opened up the saferoom. She hid her face into his chest and shut her eyes tightly, trying to block out everything, but it was impossible.
The sound of a deafening screech and cries filled her ears. It sounded like an animal dying. Or a human being burned alive.
"No, no, no, no, no, no..." She rocked herself back and forth, covering her ears with her hands. She felt somebody's warm arms around her and a calming heartbeat. Isaac rocked back and forth with her, resting his face on top of her head.
"Shhh...it's okay, it's over..." He sweetly whispered into her ear, rubbing his hand up and down her back. "It's over, it's all over...I'm here, and I'm not going to leave..." She picked her face up from his chest and her eyes caught the clock. It was 3:15 when she went to put the book back. Now it was 5:38. How could nearly two and a half hours have passed like that?
This chapter's song was "Seven Devils" by Florence + the Machine.
I'm going on such a writing spree omfg. By the way, I had some free time on my hands and I made an Isaac fanmix that you can check out by going to my profile "ljkaram" on 8tracks. The fanmix is called "Spectrum" and it just basically deals with the different range of emotions that Isaac's had. He's a pretty complex character and I think that's why I love him so much. (And yes, I edited the cover picture myself too haha). Thanks for reading! :)
