I'm a wanderess
I'm a one night stand
Don't belong to no city
Don't belong to no man
I'm the violence in the pouring rain
I'm a hurricane
Chapter 21: Illusioned
Sherry didn't believe that she was fine. The blood trickled down her fingers and Hayden winced as she held her arm.
"I'm gonna get you some paper towels," Sherry declared loudly. She dashed down the hall, to the nearest girls' restroom, and quite nearly kicked open the door. She cranked the towel dispenser several times, ripped off a sheet, and ran back outside to aid Hayden, who was halfway to the bathroom herself.
Sherry handed the length of paper towels to Hayden and frowned when the girl pressed them to her skin, but still kept walking. "Uh, the nurse's office is the other way," she pointed out.
Hayden shook her head, her dark brown curls bouncing. "It doesn't hurt anymore. I'll wash it off." She entered the restroom and Sherry trailed after her uncertainly.
Hayden dropped the blood-soaked paper towels into the trash. Her wrist, now mostly, dry, was still marred by a burgundy stain. She passed her forearm under running water, the high pressure cleansing her skin immediately.
Sherry hovered beside her. "How bad is it?" She would have hovered over Hayden's shoulder if she could, but unfortunately the girl was almost a head taller than she was.
"It's healed," Hayden breathed, an uncanny tone in her voice. "That's not possible."
Sherry gently lifted up Hayden's wrist herself and found that it was true. Where deep gouges should have been, clear, unharmed pale skin remained. Werewolf? But Sherry didn't bring up that subject. "Maybe she had needles on her fingernails. You just can't see the injury."
Hayden disagreed. "There aren't even puncture holes."
Sherry could hear her heart pounding in her ears. "I don't know, then. Has this happened before?"
"No," she said, then shook herself. "Whatever. I just healed really quickly."
How could Hayden have been bitten or scratched by an alpha and not realized it? Maybe it was just a fluke. Sherry nodded, making a note to tell Scott later. "At least you're fine now, right?" she asked. "And by the way," she beamed, "I'm Sherry."
"Hayden," the girl grinned.
Somewhere in Sherry's stomach, she felt happy butterflies. She loved making friends.
She rushed into English later hyped on coffee and dropped the now-empty cup in the trash bin as she breezed through the door. She could hardly sit still in her seat and almost visibly shook with caffeine when Liam and Mason appeared. When Liam sat down she pushed a packaged cookie onto his desk.
Liam stared at it suspiciously for a moment and sniffed at it. "Is this poisoned?"
"I accidentally got it from the vending machine when I was buying Izze." She lifted the skinny purple can from her desk and wiggled it. "Do you want the cookie?"
He inspected the wrapper. "It doesn't look opened."
Mason's brown eyes flickered between Sherry and Liam, finally resting on the girl warily. "It's possible to reseal opened packages. I saw it on the internet."
Liam paled and tossed the cookie back to Sherry. "You eat it."
She shook her head and gave it back. "I'm allergic to eggs."
"You're kidding!" Mason gasped.
She felt tired. Sleepy. Still, she forced a smile on her face. "So, do you want it or not?" Liam stared at it indecisively. "Mason?"
"It does look good," he allowed. He hesitated, then grabbed it from Liam's desk. "Sorry, bro, you waited too long."
As Mason bit into it, Liam watched apprehensively. Sherry giggled. "Do you really think I'd poison Mason?" The boy scowled and turned toward the front of the classroom.
"Hey," Sherry remembered, "Last night, Donovan was repeating a name. It turned out to be 'Tracy' but for some reason Stiles suspected he was saying 'Theo.' Who's Theo?"
"An omega," he replied, not looking at her. "He showed up during Senior Scribe and defeated some crazy dude. Now he wants to join the pack."
"Why doesn't Stiles trust him?"
Liam shrugged. "Thinks he's an impostor or something. Just overreacting. You know how he treats new people."
"Of course I know," she said. Liam turned around to give her a look of realization and her heart clenched. "I didn't mean it that way."
The sheriff's station was nearly empty at nine p.m. Parrish was out on some duty and the only people left in the building were Officer Clark, the sheriff (dressed in a variation of the same flannel blazer ensemble he'd had on yesterday), and his apparent date, Ms. Martin. Sherry wondered how Stiles' dad and the school counselor had managed to spark a romance.
She leaned back in her uncle's comfy office chair and watched the sheriff greet his date with small talk.
"Thanks for meeting me here," the sheriff said, looking out of place in his nice clothes and fresh haircut. "It's been a hectic day at the station."
"Well, I'm glad you didn't have to cancel again," Ms. Martin smiled shyly.
"Me, too."
Sherry squealed silently and rolled on the chair over to Clark to express how cute she thought the couple was. But Clark was slumped over in an uncharacteristically unofficial way, like she was sleeping on the job. "Hey!" Sherry yelped. "Clark? Are you okay?"
The sheriff heard her. "Clark? What the hell are you doing?"
"I can't move," Clark said, sounding strained. Her head rested on her desk at an awkward angle, her hair pooling around her. Sherry hastily brushed the ponytail to the side and carefully tilted Clark's head so that she lay on the side of her head instead of her nose and forehead.
The front doors banged open. Lydia and Kira burst in frantically, the strawberry blonde warning, "Mom, she's coming! Tracy's coming for you."
"What?" Ms. Martin, who, up to this point, Sherry had not realized was Lydia's mother, pressed. "What do you mean for me?"
A swishing, hissing sound came from the ceiling. Sherry looked up and felt her heart stop and her stomach plummet. Tracy, or some distorted form of her, clung to the rafters above her head, a long scaly tail protruding from her tailbone. Half of her skin, dividing her face and arms in a clear line, crawled with ominous black scales. Her eyes were yellow and slitted. Tracy didn't look even remotely human.
"Oh, God," Sherry squeaked. "What is she?"
"Kanima," the sheriff said, jumping in front of Ms. Martin to guard her. "Don't let her cut you with her tail!"
Tracy dropped down, flipping over in the air to land squarely on Parrish's desk. Papers flew into the air and syrupy drops of a clear liquid dripped from the end of her razor-sharp tail, spattering onto an unfortunate complaint form. The paper sizzled. She struck out at the sheriff. He tried to block his body with his arms, but the move still left his hands exposed. In an instant, Tracy had nicked the skin on the back of his hand and he collapsed, unable to move. Ms. Martin backed away, terrified.
"Kira, look out!" Sheriff Stilinski yelled from the floor. Tracy slashed out at the kitsune, dancing around her katana. While the kanima was distracted, Lydia cried, "Mom, run! Run!"
Kira whirled her sword around impressively, leaving a whipping sound in the air. Every time the tail sliced toward her, she had to jump back, until she was far away and Tracy was much too close to an unarmed Lydia.
"No!" Ms. Martin cried out, anguished. She tried to make her way over to her daughter, but Tracy towered in her way, looming closer. As Ms. Martin was cornered, far away from Lydia, she called out again. "Lydia! Lydia!" But then Tracy lunged and Ms. Martin had no choice but to run. She disappeared down the hallway. A second later, the stairwell doors clanged shut.
Lydia fell, stunned by the attack. Tracy's tail had gouged deep into her side and an ominous red stain devoured the girl's floral blouse with every second. Sherry sprinted to Lydia as soon as she could and caught her shoulder right before she hit the linoleum, padding the impact. She shrugged off her jacket and pressed the bulk of it onto her wound. The black fabric, a souvenir from a cheer competition a year ago, hungrily soaked up the blood.
Kira, enraged, stood upon a desk, her sword poised high in the air. A fiery aura luminesced around her. By her head, what almost looked like an outline of a fox's ears and eyes glowed in an uncannily defined shape. Almost in slow motion, the furious Kira slashed into Tracy's serpentine tail, effectively severing it.
The kanima shrieked and fled in the direction of the basement. Where Ms. Martin was. Yet Kira, or this spirit encasing her, just stood there, as though basking in her awesomeness. Then the moment passed, the aura fading, and Kira's head drooped forward.
Lydia just stared. Quickly, Kira recovered from her episode and moved to Lydia's side, taking over from Sherry. She kneeled over Lydia, her black hair mingling with Sherry's brown strands.
The door opened, and from this vantage point, Sherry couldn't see who had just entered.
"Careful," the sheriff said. Sherry guessed, then, that whoever it was must be a friend. Finally, the person came into view.
"Malia?" Lydia whispered.
"Lydia?" She responded, eyes widening.
"Okay, hey, it's not as bad as it looks," Kira said, trying to sound confident, although the scared expression on her face betrayed her real feelings.
"Malia," Lydia repeated, her voice constrained. "Listen. Tracy, she thinks she thinks she's asleep. She thinks she's dreaming. It's a night terror."
Malia shook her head. "I don't know what that-"
"She's not dreaming," Sherry said. "She's not asleep."
Lydia swallowed weakly. "Get her to understand." Still, Malia looked frozen and unsure.
"Malia," Sheriff Stilinski spoke up, "Basement. They're in the basement."
"They?"
"Tracy," Sherry said.
"And my mother."
Malia nodded, taking a deep breath, and took off, dodging between desks to get to the basement. Sherry stood up to follow, but Kira gave her a look. "What are you doing?"
"I'm going to help," Sherry explained, as if it were obvious. She snatched the sheriff's gun from where it had fallen to the floor and dashed to the basement.
"Hey!" he chided.
Sherry didn't listen. She wanted to make sure Ms. Martin was okay (partly because she was angry that such a cute date had gotten ruined) and needed, really, to help out the pack for once. The basement doors were scored with claw marks when she arrived, and swung wide open. Yellow, solid light shone in a wedge out the opening, and illuminated Tracy's grotesque silhouette when Sherry finally came around the corner, gun aimed firmly in front of her.
The kanima was poised, ready to attack. Her clawed, scaly hand drew away from Ms. Martin like an archer about to shoot. Lydia's mother was unconscious beneath her.
Malia growled and Sherry saw her claws extend from her fingertips. The girl looked up, glaring murderously, and shoved Ms. Martin to the side.
Sherry didn't even need a gun. Malia and Tracy flew at each other, claws flying. Within a moment, Malia had Tracy pinned to the floor, the girl's throat caught under her knee. Tracy choked.
"Tracy?" Sherry yelped, worried. "Tracy!"
Tracy's slitted eyes flooded with a layer of the same silver liquid that had dripped from her mouth like drool earlier, when she had fainted. Then the liquid cleared and Tracy's eyes were back to normal, looking human once again. She blinked, dazed, as if she were about to doze off.
"No, no, no," Malia added hastily, shaking her. "Look at me. You're not dreaming. This is real. All- all this is real. You get it?" she said, "You get that? You're not dreaming, Tracy."
"What- What's happening to me?" Tracy whispered, her voice cracking. Her eyes widened in panic as she stared around her, at an unconscious Ms. Martin and the slowly fading scale pattern on her own skin.
Static filled the air, piercing into Sherry's mind. Her head filled with a sudden buzzing as the lights flickered. Long shadows illuminated the doorway and a heavy metal hand slammed into Sherry's head, leaving her crying out in pain as she was propelled to the concrete floor. Her vision blurred with dancing yellow light.
The figures slowly came into view, three men in grimy metal suits that reminded Sherry of a factory or nineteenth-century train station. One of the men knocked a heavy metal arm into Malia, shoving her against the wall. He then took slow, clunking steps toward the center of the room - and thrust a sword into the awestruck Tracy. "Terminal."
A/N: Here is the second part! And the DREAD DOCTORS! I can't understand anything they say tbh. Also I so many feels planned you have no idea. What do you guys predict will happen with Layden/Shiam?
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