Author's Note: I'd like to really quickly say thank you to the people who reviewed the last couple chapters. It means a lot and makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, so thanks!
Erica flopped into the chair next to Julian with a bored expression, leaning back to lazily study the library with half-lidded eyes.
"Oh, we can't be in detention together. I have a restraining order against these tools," Jackson proclaimed lazily, a smug smile on his face.
"Too bad the bite didn't kill him," Erica murmured, regarding the blonde boy with a disgusted expression.
Julian let out a noncommittal hum as he stared at the table across the room, a smile touching his lips at Harris' blatant shut down. Jackson looked like he'd been slapped in the face.
Just because Julian didn't support killing Jackson did not mean that he was going to be nice to the guy. There was a tiny part of him that understood that Jackson was in denial. He was probably scared and confused. Being forced to think of the missing hours and the late nights. And he couldn't believe it. Wouldn't let himself. So instead, he was lashing out at everyone who glanced his way. Who offered him help. Specifically the few people in town who didn't want to see his head on a pike.
At least not outside of their imaginations.
And in doing so, he was putting more people at risk.
Killing even more people all because he couldn't accept the fact that asking for the bite had in fact changed him in a way other than the one he'd wanted.
"I've been gone six years, and he's still an arrogant little prick," Julian grumbled, idly sketching out a line in his notebook.
Erica smirked. "Or overcompensating for having one," she replied.
Blinking for a moment at the unexpected joke, Julian wondered if he was going to have to reassess his opinion of Erica. His initial one had been somewhat skewed by her trying to kill Lydia, and the fact that he'd stabbed her through the hand with a pencil. Now that was no longer the case, she actually seemed to be, if not nice, not a terrible person who he wanted to stab through the hand with a pencil.
At least he wasn't stuck sitting with Isaac. The guy sort of struck Julian as an asshole with his stupid leather jacket and attitude. Plus, the two of them hadn't exactly gotten off on the right foot. Werewolf healing didn't make a hit to the kidney any less painful, and Julian wasn't exactly sorry. Isaac may have been pissing blood for a couple hours, but he'd heal. Lydia wouldn't have.
Erica's attention went from Jackson, seated with an affronted expression even now, to Julian; whose line was morphing into the outline of a face. "Derek said that you were coming over after school," the blonde girl said, narrowing her eyes and leaning forwards in her seat. "To help us with learning control."
"And?" Julian asked.
"You and your brother aren't exactly the picture of a loving sibling relationship."
"I don't suppose you'd believe me if I said I wanted to reconnect?"
Erica's eyebrows lifted, and she remained silent, an expectant look in her eyes.
Julian let out a huff of amusement. "Didn't think so," he muttered with a twist of his lips. Taking a moment to consider whether or not to be honest, he rather quickly decided that if Erica wanted to get involved in Derek's fight, he would do her the courtesy that Derek had not. He looked her dead in the eye and stated calmly: "You're going to fight, fine. Though I doubt you realise what that actually means. Because you seem to think that in a couple of weeks you will be able to fight better than people who have been killing werewolves all their lives. I'm not joining Derek's suicide mission, nor am I helping you because I think you have even a remote chance of winning," he said. "I'm helping you because Derek is my brother, and the least I can do is make sure that the Hale pack lasts more than two minutes in their dramatic last stand against the Argents." And maybe you'll realise what you've gotten yourselves involved in before it gets you killed.
Erica didn't flinch. Julian could hear her heartrate speed up slightly as he spoke though, and he could see the flash of discomfort in her expression before the false confidence settled back into place as she gave him a pout. "I think you're being a little bit unfair with your odds, there."
"Really? I thought I was being quite generous," Julian said conversationally. He wasn't trying to be mean. He was simply stating facts. And if she wanted to ignore them, that was fine. But at least he could say that he told her what Derek had refused to. "Allison, Scott, Stiles and I took care of you two," he reminded her. "Gerard and the others won't have much trouble."
The sound of a sharp intake of breath caused them to halt in their conversation, heads turning to identify the potential threat. At the table on the opposite side of the library, Jackson was sitting hunched over in his seat with his hand pressed to his temple. It was obvious that Jackson's gasp of pain wasn't feigned. The waves of pain rolling off of him were impossible to miss. As was the sheen of sweat on his pale face and the sound of his racing heart.
Julian couldn't help but feel that, given what had happened earlier, that was cause for concern. If Jackson turned in the library, they had a serious problem on their hands.
The kanima went after Stiles because he saw it, he reminded himself. The master wouldn't have him turn in front of people. It triggered the fog machine at the club, and while Gerard has made some 'improvements', that's not likely to be one of them.
Or it might just kill everyone here. There's no witnesses then either.
Sighing at his own pessimism- or realism as he preferred to think of it, Julian forced himself to work through the logic of it all.
Not now. All of the other kills were at night. He wouldn't break the pattern now. It's like earlier. He won't attack if we don't interfere. We provoked him earlier and he attacked, and that wasn't him. It was whoever was controlling him. It didn't kill us at the pool or the club and it didn't kill us in the bathroom. We're not murderers yet. It couldn't kill us before, that can't have changed now.
Worry about it if he attacks.
Maybe then he'll believe Scott and Stiles.
Next to Julian, Erica tensed up and her eyes glowed faintly, her nails elongating. Whether she'd figured it out on her own or Derek had told her, she was ready for a fight. A fight she wasn't going to win. Julian set a hand on hers to stop her and shook his head slightly. Not now. At least not yet.
She glowered at him and slowly lowered herself back into her seat, though she remained poised to fight if Jackson became an immediate threat. Julian was doing the same; the balls of his feet bouncing on the ground and his eyes scanning the environment looking for possible escape routes and improvised weapons. Jackson could shrug off a kick to the face. Hopefully a copier would slow him down a little longer.
Julian's gaze flicked over to where Scott and Stiles were seated. Scott was wearing a concerned expression and his body was tensed in preparation to go help. Stiles seemed to notice his friend's nervousness and he stared at Jackson uncertainly, his fingers drumming rapidly against the desk.
Jackson stumbled out of his seat and towards the exit. "I have to got to the bathroom," he muttered quickly, looking to the unaware as though he were simply about to vomit all over the floor.
As he fumbled frantically with the doorknob, Jackson's pale, ill form finally caught Mr. Harris' attention. "Are you alright?" the teacher asked. There was a concern in his voice that was not present when he spoke to other students. Maybe because usually when someone said they had to go to the bathroom, it was Stiles wearing a phony sick look or because Mr. Harris was kind of a dick who didn't like most of his students. "Hey, you don't look so good."
Shaking his head and forcing the door open, Jackson groaned out something about just needing some water.
Seemingly torn between going after Jackson and monitoring the group in the library, Mr. Harris waited for several seconds before he chose the school's donors over its students. "No one leaves their seats," he ordered, hurrying out after Jackson.
The library door hadn't even had time to fully close before Scott and Stiles raced over and hurried into the empty seats across from Erica and Julian.
Scott had taken the seat opposite Julian. "Stiles says you know how Jackson's parents died," he said, questioningly.
Leaning back casually, Erica studied her nails disinterestedly. "Maybe."
"Talk."
While she didn't entirely abandon her nonchalant demeanour, it quickly became clear that Erica was just as curious as the rest of them.
"It was a car accident," she revealed after milking a pause longer than Julian felt was really necessary. "My dad was the insurance investigator, and every time he sees Jackson drive by in his Porsche, he makes some comment about the huge settlement he'll be getting when he's eighteen."
Upon hearing the new information, Stiles began glowering at the door Jackson had walked out through. "So not only is Jackson rich now but he's getting even richer at eighteen?"
"Yep."
"There's something so deeply wrong with that."
Erica flipped open her laptop. "You know what, I could try to find the insurance report in my dad's inbox. He keeps everything," she said, her eyes free of the usual smugness that she wrapped herself in.
"Maybe there'll be something in the files," Stiles said eagerly, the chance of a new lead making him happier than he'd been all day.
Scott shuffled his feet, Julian kept drawing, and Stiles rapidly drummed his fingers against the table as the three of them waited for Erica to find the document in question on her dad's old laptop. As time passed, the speed of Stiles' drumming increased ever more. Five minutes later and Erica was smiling.
"Found it," she said.
Julian was switching spots with Stiles, who had been trying to see the screen by leaning over the table and reading upside down, when an announcement came over the intercom.
"Scott McCall please report to the principal's office." The tinny voice in of the announcement didn't make the message any less threatening or worrying. If anything, the flat voice made the message all the worse.
As Scott reluctantly got to his feet, Stiles and Julian shot him less than reassuring smiles and an inspiring send off.
"Don't worry, with the cameras he can't kill you at school," Stiles offered.
"They run the cameras," Julian argued before realising what he'd just said. "I don't think he's going to kill us yet. Probably wants to manipulate us into doing something first," he said, intending for the latter to be a reassurance only to have it come out as another thing to worry about.
"Or maybe he's decided that it's better to just get this over with. Take care of the evidence," Stiles said, mulling the thought over in his head.
Scott nervously rolled his eyes and shot them fond but exasperated looks before biting his lip and walking slowly towards the door, nerves streaming off of him as he walked towards the office. Towards Gerard.
He'll be fine, Julian attempted to reassure himself as his stomach twisted and a familiar cloud of dread hovered at the edges of his thoughts.
He wants to kill us.
Manipulate us into doing what he wants, then kill us.
Refusing to let the cloud in, Julian decided to focus on something else. Anything else. Anything to keep the familiar storm at bay. 'Follow the lighthouse through the storm,' Laura used to say. 'Find the thing that lets you see through the fog.' Turning his attention away from Stiles and Erica going into detective mode (Stiles was better equipped than he was to notice anything out of the ordinary with the report anyways) Julian grabbed his pencil and returned to his drawing, adding in sharp cheekbones and a slightly crooked smile that he knew like the back of his hand.
Tuning out the rest of the world, Julian focused on the familiar motions, the familiar face on the paper in front of him.
By the time he'd calmed himself, the fog retreating from his mind, he was just drawing again. Sitting in class with his friends, smiling as someone turned the pottery wheel on without securing the clay to it and sent the half-formed bowl flying across the room. Lying on the floor of the kitchen as his mother made spaghetti, his father asking about pack boundaries, blue eyes sparkling in the warm yellow light. He'd been drawing. The art box he and Cora had shared lying next to him. The crayons were missing half of their wrappers; the purple and green ones barely more than stubs by the time he finished the garden outside their house. His father had bought him a pencil crayons for his birthday later that year, and as time passed the fridge was soon covered in sketches of their family members and the forest around them. A full moon in a navy coloured sky. Possibly inspired by the print that hung in Julian's room when he was six.
His father had always loved Van Gogh. He used to hum Starry Starry Night to himself and eventually get the tune stuck in his pack's head. Julian had inherited the admiration for the artist. He had like Monet as well, but hadn't connected with the man's story or art in the same way. He'd written most of his essays on Van Gogh, and for his last project, he'd used The Church at Auvers. Laura hadn't ever really understood it, but she'd smiled and given her younger brother a pack of M&Ms when he started crying at the end of Vincent and the Doctor during their yearly Doctor Who marathon.
It was a reminder of a time when their family was still alive and his father was still human.
A man of vision rather than a monster.
Smiling sadly to himself, Julian continued to draw, briefly free of the crushing worry that Jackson presented and wrapped up in the memory of his sister and mother. The pain of Laura's death still hurt as opposed to the quiet ache of loss that accompanied the memories of Talia, but it wasn't the crushing pain it had been. Fading so that the happiness made the loss bearable.
Soon Mr. Harris had returned to the library with Jackson filing in behind him on unsteady legs, looking pale and shaky. Much to Julian's relief, he was still human though. He exchanged a quick, knowing glance with Stiles and Erica, who furtively positioned themselves in front of the screen without really noticing.
Jackson looked like himself though. The odd behaviour from the locker room wasn't there. That was a good sign.
Julian was beginning to think that his bar for 'good' was lowering exponentially with every day that passed since he'd come back home.
He had finished most of Laura's face and was working on her eyes when Scott returned looking skittish and uneasy.
"What did he say?" Julian asked, carefully shading Laura's eyes to the familiar foggy grey with his pencil. The familiar glint her eye was hard to translate onto the paper but he was happy with the outcome.
"What?!" Scott asked, his eyes darting over to Julian. His foot was rapidly tapping against the leg of the table, causing it to shake in time with every beat. "No, it wasn't Gerard…" he said with a gulp.
"Was it Voldemort?" Julian asked with a faint smile, hoping the joke would calm him down.
"No. It was V- Allison's mother -She…" Scott's dark eyes turned horrified and he tried to supress a shiver. "She had pencils…" he whispered half to himself.
"Alright…" Julian said uncertainly.
Before he could press Scott on what was bothering him, Stiles jabbed an excited finger at Erica's screen. "Wait! Look at the dates," he exclaimed. The lanky teen was practically standing as he eagerly looked to Scott and Julian with an expectant expression. Julian wondered if in all of his excitement that he'd forgotten that werewolf abilities didn't extend to x-ray vision and being able to see things that were facing the other way.
"Passengers arrived at the hospital DOA. The estimated time of death; 9:26pm, June 14th, 1995." Erica seemed to have realised that the others couldn't read the screen.
"Jackson's birthday is June 15th," Stiles explained, his expectant look turning triumphant as the others realised the weight of his words.
There was a pause as the four of them mulled over the words, considering the new information and new angle.
"So either he was taken out by C-section or the hospital put down the wrong birthday," Julian said, receiving a couple of raised eyebrows. "What? It happens. One of my cousins was legally a day younger than he actually was. Always go with the human explanation first, then worry about the supernatural." A philosophy that worked a lot better in Kansas than in Beacon Hills, he remembered after he had spoken.
"Seeing how he changes into a giant lizard monster, I'm going to guess that being pulled out of his mother's dead body is more likely than a paper error," Stiles replied. "And if they were murdered… The report says that it was all inconclusive."
Smiling tightly, Julian scowled. "With my experience with Beacon Hills' insurance investigations, it wouldn't be surprising if 'inconclusive' means 'murdered and we were paid off.'"
"Do you think that's why he-" Scott caught himself before he said kanima in front of Erica, who smirked.
"She knows," Stiles informed him with a faintly chagrined look.
Perhaps Derek hadn't told her after all. Julian wasn't quite sure what to make of that. He still wasn't entirely convinced that Derek wasn't just waiting for them to give up on saving Jackson so he could go in and kill them, yet he'd given Julian the time he'd asked for.
"No," Erica said sarcastically. "I still think you're asking me questions about his parent's death because… Is there a plausible lie for that?" she asked curiously, twirling a sarcastic finger in the air.
Opening and closing his mouth several times, it quickly became clear that Stiles could not think of a plausible lie. At least not before Mr. Harris began to pack up, prompting them to start packing up their things. Julian slowly closed the book, replacing Laura's smiling face with the cover of his book only to stop when he heard a laugh.
Mr. Harris walked over to two carts crammed with returned books that the librarian had yet to re-shelve. "Oh, no, I'm sorry…" he said with a smile that contradicted his words. "Yes, I am leaving, but none of you are."
Julian could smell the delight radiating off of Mr. Harris in waves. Sure, none of them were exactly his favourite students, but this felt excessive. And he was pretty sure it wasn't legal for him to leave them there without supervision. Not that he was going to point that out. He'd probably just make the janitor check in on them while they washed the windows and resorted the other returns.
"You may go when you're done with the re-shelving," the teacher said, patting the carts in front of him. "Enjoy the rest of your evening."
"I hate him," Erica muttered for the seventh time, forcibly shoving a book into place.
Nodding in agreement for the fourth time, Julian searched for the 'Tr' section of the shelf. "At least he doesn't turn into a lizard monster," he said.
She snorted. "Wouldn't surprise me. He looks like a vampire, and he certainly enjoys sucking the life out of everyone."
"Vampires aren't real," Julian said automatically.
"Of course not. That would be ridiculous."
Julian almost missed the sarcasm. "I keep forgetting that you're all new to this," he admitted. "How have you… been doing?"
"Well your darling brother is absolutely no fun," Erica commented with a pout. She abandoned the attempt at being casual though and answered bluntly. "He's got us running drills trying to attack him. So far I've had my arm broken six times and I've bruised more places than I thought were possible."
Brow furrowing at the mention of Derek's 'teaching' methods, Julian shot her an almost concerned look. "He shouldn't have hurt you guys. Teaching someone to defend themselves doesn't mean hurting them."
"If you're that worried, then why don't you join up?" Erica offered, her expression turning into a playful grin. "We have plenty of fun."
"Four people stuck in a railway depot all day running drills. How appealing," Julian replied, the faint smile taking the edge out of his sarcasm.
"Better than the way things were before," Erica responded darkly.
Remembering Derek mentioning Erica's seizures, Julian tilted his head to show that he understood the point. He did. The idea of all your pain and problems being solved by a bite… He could understand why she'd chosen this. He didn't think she knew what she'd gotten into, but he supposed that was as much Derek's fault as hers. Perhaps mostly Derek's. While he may have intended on offering her a gift in exchange for protection, he had offered vulnerable people a way out. A solution. And Julian knew all to well how much people were willing to give up for a solution to their problems. And he wasn't sure Derek would understand that. How desperate people were for a way out. Derek had always fought through it all. He attacked his problems. He beat them into submission. He didn't know just how much people would give up to make pain go away. Then Julian remembered after the fire, and wondered if maybe Derek did know what that was like after all.
Shelving the book in the appropriate place with a frown on his face, Julian was reminded of the promise he'd made his brother. And the betas he'd recruited to his pack. "Do you mind walking with me to the depot?" Julian asked Erica. "My sense of direction is next to nonexistent."
Erica gave him a slight nod, briefly appearing as a human with feelings. Someone who really was worried that she might lose control. Hurt someone. Be useless to Derek when he needed his pack most. Then she reverted back to her usual attitude and returned to cursing their chemistry teacher.
Smiling at the very creative barrage pouring out of Erica's mouth, Julian went to grab some more books off of the cart only to nearly crash into a frantic Scott.
"I have to tell him!" Scott exclaimed.
"Wait, what?" Julian asked, startled.
"The truth!" Scott said, hurrying past Julian only to freeze in his tracks as he came level with the aisle Jackson and Matt had been working in.
There were a pair of legs lying on the ground, the feet sticking out from behind the shelf like something out of a horror movie.
Julian extended his hearing, desperately hoping for a heartbeat. He couldn't smell blood but… There it was. He's just paralyzed. He'll live.
The relief that Matt wasn't dead soon evaporated.
It's here, Julian realised with a dawning sense of horror, taking a step back into a fighting stance as he searched for the kanima. The fog of dread had been replaced by a sense of panic.
It can't kill us, he told himself.
But it can definitely hurt us.
He tried to swallow but his mouth had gone totally dry. Trying to take in a calming breath, Julian twitched as he thought he heard something at the edge of the library.
Scott meanwhile came to his senses and immediately raced towards Matt's prone form. As he crouched down next to him something leapt over their heads, shattering the lights overhead and bringing pieces of debris from the ceiling down onto the floor below.
Reflexively ducking his head and covering it with his arms, Julian felt his eyes change and his vision sharpen as the fear caused him to involuntarily begin to shift. Something that he hadn't done for years. Shaking it off as a problem for later, he heard Erica's roar of fear and turned in time to see Jackson shoving Scott at him.
The two betas collided and stumbled back into the book cart, toppling it and slamming into the floor as Jackson leapt away again.
Cursing in pain as his mostly healed wrist hit the ground, Julian stayed down for several seconds momentarily dazed. Blinking several times, he found his breath and was suddenly conscious of the heavy weight on his legs where a downed Scott had crashed into him. Wincing as a dull ache spread through his back and legs from where he'd collided with the cart, Julian clasped his arm to his chest and rolled over, managing to free his lower body from Scott. Staying in a crouch, Julian desperately searched for the kanima; poised to defend himself and a still recovering Scott if it came at them again.
The sound of Jackson slowly stalking towards them through the library caused Julian's heartrate to spike even higher and he could see a familiar red haze beginning to blur at the edges of his vision. Not now. Not now, he thought to himself, anxiously staring at the shelves where the noise was coming from. His breaths were too shallow and his nails were digging into his palms, the nails cutting into the skin and digging through the bandages.
He started at the sudden grip on his shoulder, nearly punching Scott in the face before he realised who it was and stopped the strike, his hand hovering in between the two of them as he stared at Scott with wide yellow eyes. Reflexively going to apologise, Julian tried to speak but the words wouldn't come out. Scott didn't seem to notice, to preoccupied with dragging Julian over to the shelf where Stiles and Allison were hiding. Scott crouched defensively in front of the three of them, checking to make sure they were all uninjured before turning his attention to where his friend's horrified gazes led.
Jackson was standing at a chalkboard; the cold, slitted reptilian eyes and dark scales removing most traces of his humanity even half-transformed as he was. There were scales crawling up the side of his face and body and claws dripping venom onto the carpet. That wasn't the most unnerving part of it though. The worst was his posture, the unnatural lolling of his head as his unseeing eyes rolled around.
His arm shot out, perfectly straight and he began to write with jerky, unsettling movements.
It was like watching an inexperienced puppeteer trying to make a puppet move. The motions were wrong. Too uneven and jarring to ever be considered natural. The letters were just as off; shaky and stiff as opposed to the perfect script Jackson usually used on the board.
Deciding not to focus on whatever threat was going to end up written on the board, Julian forced himself to take advantage of Jackson being preoccupied with the board and slowly edged forwards and to the left, ignoring Scott's nervous gesturing and Allison's confused expression. His heart was somewhere in the back of his throat and his palms were clammy, clenched into fists as he crept forwards on legs that felt like they weighed nothing and his brain was screaming at him to just stop.
He couldn't though.
He could hear her breath coming in uneven, desperate gasps. Derek had said she got seizures…
He couldn't leave her lying there.
Alone. Can't breathe. They're right there. A few feet never felt so far away...
Keeping in a crouch, he sidled along the shelf and backed into the next aisle where Erica lay. Jackson didn't seem too concerned about attacking them at the moment, and provided that he didn't get too close, Julian was hoping that he'd focus on writing and that Erica was just panicking rather than having an epileptic fit.
Turning into the aisle, Julian saw Erica lying on the ground; her body rigid and twitching erratically on the floor, her breaths coming in shallow gasps.
Shit.
Abandoning his attempt at stealth, Julian stood and forced himself back to the memory of first aid training last summer.
Is the area safe for you to enter?
Is it safe for the person?
No fire, no wire, no gas or glass.
First aid training for camp counsellors hadn't exactly covered kanimas.
Focus. Do what you can.
Kicking several books away from Erica, Julian carefully moved the largest of the broken glass from the lights above them and tried to scrape the rest away from her. Remembering the lighting, Julian quickly checked that the broken lights and the sparking wires weren't in danger of falling on them or catching them, and then turned his attention back to Erica.
Protocol for seizures was to call an ambulance and not to touch the person in the mean time; lifting them or holding them down could seriously injure them, and given Erica's elongated claws and intermittently glowing eyes, she might hurt one of them too.
The distant sound of shattering glass told him that Jackson had gone out the window. Apparently trashing the library and writing threats on the board had been enough.
Stiles was the first to rush over.
Eyes going wide with alarm, Stiles went to help her before stopping himself, seeming to have remembered basic first aid. "What do we do?" he asked.
Julian hesitated for a moment, then his brain finally kicked in. "I need to call Deaton," he said, grabbing his phone out of his pocket.
"Derek… N-N-Need… Derek," Erica managed.
"You need an ambulance," Stiles corrected.
"This isn't anything they can help," Julian responded worriedly, listening to the phone ringing in his ear. "We need to get her to the clinic or to my brother."
"I think the hospital-" Scott started.
"They can't help her," Julian repeated with no room in his tone for further argument. "It's the kanima venom, not a normal seizure. With her medical records they'll assume she needs medication or something… It won't help."
"To Derek… Derek…" Erica muttered, her body convulsing.
"That's not good," Stiles muttered, shooting Julian an anxious look.
Julian grit his teeth. "We're not supposed to move her…" he muttered mostly to himself.
"Well we can't exactly leave her here for the Argents to find," Stiles pointed out.
"We need to get her to a car. Derek is the closest." Hopefully she'd heal from any injuries during transport. They were out of options and carrying her was the only way to get her to anyone who could help.
"We'll take the Jeep," Stiles said, rummaging for his keys.
"Erica, we have to move you. I'm sorry…" Julian said, hesitantly raising her head and shoulders off the ground, wincing as his arm flared in pain. "Scott, I need your help," he called over to where Scott was crouched with Allison next to an unconscious Matt. He couldn't take Erica on his own, not with an injured hand, and Stiles wouldn't be able to take her with the way her legs were moving.
Scott was crouched by the bookshelf talking to Allison who was checking on Matt. There was a torn expression on his face as he glanced between Stiles, Julian and Erica, and Allison and Matt. "This doesn't feel right," he said.
"It's okay," Allison insisted, gesturing for him to leave and giving him a shaky smile.
"It's not. It's not right."
"It doesn't… It doesn't mean anything."
"But if feels like it does."
"Oh for fuck's sake. Scott, I need you to pick her up!" Julian snapped.
That got Scott's attention.
"Scott, go," Allison said, leaving no room in her voice for argument. "I've got Matt."
Scott tore himself away from his girlfriend to find an aggravated Julian and thrashing Erica in the next aisle over.
"Sorry," Scott murmured as he heaved Erica up.
Julian nodded shortly and the two of them rushed her towards the Jeep.
"We're going to take you to Derek," Julian reassured the blonde.
Her fear-filled eyes flickered in relief before she convulsed again. "D-Derek..." she stuttered out. "To Derek."
Stiles was no better a driver now than he had been the last time they'd seen the kanima, and his Jeep's nonexistent suspension meant that every little bump sent the three occupants of the backseat crashing into one another.
Erica was still seizing; lying on the back seat. Scott and Julian were trying to keep her from falling on the floor while not restraining her, which was proving difficult and nerve-wracking.
"It's been five minutes," Julian told Deaton, wincing as his arm slammed into the side of the car thanks to Stiles taking a sharp turn. He nearly dropped the phone. "It's not passing."
"Alright," Deaton responded, voice distant through the phone. "You're going to have to trigger the healing process beyond a cut," he added seriously. There was reluctance in his tone. Neither of them had wanted it to come to this.
Nodding, Julian took a breath to steady himself. "Erica, this is going to hurt but…" Julian shut his eyes and grabbed Erica's still shaking arm, bracing himself against the roof of the car, setting his foot on her elbow.
The car swerved slightly as Stiles turned to look at the backseat. "What are you doing?!"
"Triggering the healing process," Scott realised, his tone uncomfortable.
Julian shut his eyes and pushed down with his foot.
Erica howled in pain as her elbow let out a series of pops followed by a loud crack, nearly drowned out by her screams.
"I'm sorry," Julian repeated softly, removing his foot and staring guiltily at Erica as she let out quiet cries of pain. Then he returned the phone to his ear. "She's still shaking… I don't…"
"Just breathe," Deaton said. "The injury should trigger the healing process. Derek can take the venom out, but it needs to be him. Only an Alpha can do it," Deaton explained. "Just try to keep her conscious until you get to Derek and ensure that she's still healing. It won't help much, but it will lessen the venom in her system."
"Okay," Julian responded, anxiously looking out the window. He recognised this part of town. The older downtown area that had been home to several larger more industrial buildings set behind the shops. The depot was only a few minutes away now. They were almost there.
"Julian, it will be fine," Deaton said in his ever calm tone.
After the phone went dead, Julian shoved it back into his pocket and returned his attention to Erica. Her eyes were a dull gold colour and her face was covered in sweat, plastering her hair to her face as she let out whimpers of pain. The seizure was draining the life out of her, and her pained gaze was beginning to be overwhelmed by pain and defeat.
"Stiles, hurry up," Scott said urgently, staring into the helpless beta's eyes.
"I am!" Stiles responded, shooting a glance back at the two of them. "But it's not going to help her much if we're all dead."
Brow furrowing, Scott sent a concerned look at Julian.
The dark haired teen didn't notice though, too preoccupied with the nasty purpling of Erica's arm and the pain in her eyes. The pain he'd caused her when he brought his foot down until he heard the bone give. The sickening sound of her arm popping and breaking as she screamed in agony because of what he'd done.
It means she's healing, he told himself.
It means you broke her arm.
There weren't any other options.
Not any that didn't cause her more pain?
Looking out the window once again, Julian couldn't shake the memory of the red haze at the edge of his vision. It was the stress, he supposed. The looming threat of Gerard hanging over his head. And now the haze that he'd barely managed to get rid of last time. He didn't need something else to worry about. Not now.
Shaking his head, Julian took in a deep breath and glanced out the window yet again. They were almost there.
The whine Erica let out brought his attention back to her weak form. The worst of the thrashing had subsided but she was still shaking violently, looking at them with helpless eyes.
Scott grabbed her hand and gave her a smile. "It's fine," he told her. "Derek can help," he repeated.
Looking at Erica's convulsing body and into her helpless eyes, Julian sincerely hoped that he was right.