Chapter Twenty-One

Autumn's POV

It wasn't too hard to follow Stiles and Erica. However, bumping into a few walls here and there made me fall behind. Eventually, I was able to follow them to the pool. Hearing voices, I crouched next to the door and listened to the muffled voices as best as possible. "Look, I don't know what's going on between you and Scott, but now really isn't the time for you two to be butting heads!" Stiles practically yelled.

"Stiles, tell me what you saw at the mechanics garage." came Derek's voice and I pressed closer to door to hear better. Derek wasn't supposed to be here. If he was, something must be wrong.

"Uh, several EPA violations that I'm seriously considering reporting. Holy god!" Stiles answered and Derek must've grabbed the younger teen by the collar threateningly.

"Let's try that again." Derek said, his voice oddly calm.

"All right, the thing was pretty slick looking. Um, skin was dark. Kind of patterned. Uh, I think I actually saw scales. Is that enough? Okay, because I've somebody I really need to get back to-" Stiles began to explain, but Derek must've done something to let him know he wanted more information. "All right, fine, eyes. Eyes are, um, yellowish. And slitted. Um, has a lot of teeth. Oh. And it's got a tail, too. It looked like some kinda reptile thing. Are we good? What? Wait, have you seen it? You have this look on your faces like you know exactly what I am talking about."

There was a long pause and there was a loud crash, causing me to jump. "Run!" I heard Derek yell. Now I was beginning to panic. What the hell was going on? Now I really resented being blind. But I had to do something. Anything.

"Derek, your neck! Hey, come on. Where is it? Can you see it?"

"I can smell it. Please hurry. Call Scott! Stiles, ah-"

I couldn't take it anymore! I couldn't just sit there, doing nothing, while Derek and Stiles, possible Erica as well, get killed!

Now admittedly, doing the very first thing that popped into my head probably wasn't the best idea, but Derek was in danger and something inside of me told me that logic wasn't the most important thing right now. Derek's safety was. So, quickly pushing the metal doors open, I rushed inside. I had absolutely no clue what I was going to do, but I something had to be done. Once I was inside, I could smell the familiar scent of almond and coconut, but it was strongly overpowered by the scent of...swamp water? Whatever was in the room had to be the reptile creature. It was somewhere in this room. And that wasn't good. At all.

I wasn't in the room more than ten seconds before I heard Stiles yelling at me. "Autumn! Get out of here! That thing is running around!" In the back of my mind, I knew I should turn around and run out of the room, but my body didn't seem to want to listen to my brain. I seemed to be frozen where I stood. I wanted to move, I really did. I enjoyed living!

Not even a second after Stiles tried to warn me, I felt a blinding white pain go through my back and into my chest. The pain was so much that I almost couldn't hear Derek and Stiles yelling. After what felt like forever, the pain eventually subsided and started to throb. The downside, I could feel myself falling and losing feeling throughout most of my body. And to top it all off, I was getting really really sleepy and there was nothing I could do to keep my eyes open.

I could hear Derek and Stiles still shouting, but it was far too muffled to make anything out. Then the tiredness became too much and I couldn't keep my eyes open. Eventually, my mind was completely taken over by darkness.

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Third Person POV

Derek was ready to explode. He couldn't take his eyes off of Autumn's seemingly lifeless body. She was bleeding profusely, but he could still hear her heartbeat and that kept him somewhat calm. "Dude, you need to calm down somewhat! Your eyes are all flashy!" Stiles struggled to say as he continued to try and hold the werewolf up in the pool. Derek only growled in response. Stiles had already let go of him once, so in his book, the human didn't have any room to talk.

All the two could do now was wait for Derek to get his feeling back. Then he could get Stiles, Erica, and Autumn out of here and somewhere safe. The only downside to that plan was that they didn't know how long he'd be paralyzed. It could be hours before he could move again. Stiles had tried calling Scott, but the blockhead had hung up on them!

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There was one in a million chance that Scott had shown up when he had. A couple more minutes and that thing would've gotten them.

Once Derek was able to move again, he wasted no time in getting to Autumn. When he got to her though, he was stunned to see that the wound that went through her back and into her chest had completely healed and was now only a scar. "How is that even possible?" Stiles asked, just as shocked as Derek.

"It has to be something to do with her being half vampire." Derek answered, running his fingers lightly over the newly formed scars. She was completely out cold and her heart was beating just as strongly as it normally did, maybe even a bit faster than normal. If he hadn't seen a pair of claws sticking out her chest, he never would've believed she'd been attacked.

The hardest part would be explaining to Carson why he was bringing his daughter home unconscious and scarred.

A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. I actually had a lot of fun writing it. So, there's going to be a bit of a surprise in the next chapter and I hope you guys like it! Don't forget to review!