"What the hell do you need me for this time?" Sarah grumbled as she struggled to get dressed. Stiles and Scott had their backs turned respectively as she threw on a shirt and some appropriate pants.
"We may have kidnapped someone." Sarah rolled her sleepy eyes. It had been a long week. Hell, a long night and she had taken some meds to put her to sleep for a few hours and she was still lethargic.
"Does that someone have a long tail and poisonous claws?"
"Yes!" Stiles exclaimed happily.
"Are you going to send him to Derek?"
"No!" Stiles responded quickly.
"Ok. Then I'm in." The boys turned around to see her in a graphic tee, thick leggings and combat boots. She was twisting her hair into a French braid as she spoke, ready for what the night had to offer. "The whole thing is simple, really. We're going to need a van."
"Stiles, you have to get to school." Sarah spoke up.
"Then who's going to watch Jackson?" The eldest Stilinski child raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, but we go to school together-."
"You do realize I'm a senior. I've also technically already graduated."
"Oh, come on! Don't make me go to school!" Stiles whined.
"Get going. I'll fill Jackson in." Stiles reluctantly left with Scott and Sarah took watch over Jackson. They got to talking about Sarah was trying to convince Jackson what he was and what exactly he was doing.
"Scales? Like a fish?"
"No, more like a reptile." She pursed her lips. "And your claws have this liquid poison that paralyzes people. And you have a tail."
"I have a tail?"
"Yeah." She giggled softly. "That's kind of the best part." She paused and furrowed her eyebrows. "I think that's the only good part. Since you keep killing people."
"Does it do anything?"
"I don't think so. It might just be used for balance, like tails on any animal are for." Jackson's nostrils flared and he tensed up.
"Can I use it to strangle you?" Sarah didn't flinch.
"God, you still don't believe me. Ok, the night of the semi-final game. What did you do?"
"I went home."
"Are you sure about that?" Jackson nodded. "Well, because I vaguely remember you attacking Derek and me at the school and you trapped us in the pool. You also killed a mechanic as well as Anthony Carnevale and apparently you tried to kill Danny last night."
"Why would I want to kill my best friend?"
"That's what Scott and Stiles are trying to figure out right now."
"And why would I kill the guy who stood you up?" Sarah had to pause because Jackson realized who Anthony Carnevale was.
"Because he's one of Argent's hunters." There was a moment of silence.
"Well, maybe your little friends should try to find a lawyer when I prosecute your asses all the way to jail!"
"All right, then tell me what happened on the night of your first full moon."
"Nothing." Jackson relented, leaning back against the van wall. "Nothing happened."
"But see, I don't need werewolf senses to know that that's not true." Neither of them said anything after that. Sarah was busy texting Jackson's father when Allison and Stiles showed up.
"They know." Stiles told his sister.
"What are you talking about?"
"They know that Jackson didn't know up today. My grandfather told me that the police and his parents were talking." Sarah's eyes went wide at that miscalculation. She held the phone away from her as if it were a bomb about to go off and then rushed inside the van to listen to the radio.
"Proceed to Beacon Hills Preserve. Go with Caution." The three teenagers panicked and made ready to leave.
"Where are we going?" Stiles wanted to know.
"Somewhere very far from this." Sarah dialed a number and threw it to the forest ground before driving off.
"Why would he steal the thing if he doesn't know what's on it?" Stiles asked Scott when he'd arrived on bike after looking in Danny's car for the Tablet.
"Maybe someone else took it." Sarah suggested.
"Then someone else knows who he is." Stiles responded.
"Then someone else could be protecting him." Scott added.
"Well, it's like the Bestiary says, the Kanima needs a friend, right?" Allison interjected. Sarah had an uneasy feeling about that and so she went to check on Jackson. She opened the van doors and sat across from the lacrosse player. She found him avidly listening to what the three were saying about the Kanima.
"Why don't you believe us?" Sarah asked. "The bite had to do something to you since it didn't kill you. You honestly don't think those two hours of missing footage held anything?" Jackson looked utterly defeated. He honestly didn't know what to believe.
"You said that the Kanima only goes after murderers, right?" That was Scott.
"Well, it can't be true because he tried to go after all of us, remember?" And there was Stiles. His words gave Jackson something to think about. His eyes were wide and he shared a look with Sarah, who only nodded. "I don't know about you two or Sarah, but I haven't murdered anybody lately."
"Well, it didn't really." Scott was telling his friend. "When Allison and I were at Isaac's house, it went right by us. And it didn't kill you at the mechanic's."
"No, but it tried to kill Sarah and Derek in the pool."
"But did it?" Jackson looked over at Sarah again, whose brows were furrowed as she tried to think about the whole situation that night.
"What if you were trying to keep us in?" Sarah muttered. "Why do I feel so violated all of a sudden?"
"All right, I got it. Kill Jackson, problem solved." Sarah rolled her eyes at her brother's choice.
"He saved us from Peter, do you remember that?" The brunette gave Jackson a smile at Scott's words, but Jackson didn't return the sentiment. "He doesn't know what he's doing."
"Jackson, stop listening to them."
"They're right, though. Aren't they?" His voice was gruff, like Derek's when he was irritated or…sad.
"He has nobody."
"That's his own fault." Sarah sat at Jackson's feet with a soft expression on her face.
"If we can save him, we should try." Scott had the kindest heart Sarah had ever known. And Jackson could obviously see that, based on his watery eyes at the words Scott and Stiles were arguing over.
"We're going to do all that we can to make sure you're safe." Sarah agreed with Scott. She clutched his hand before sitting back down on the bench opposite of Jackson. The lacrosse player felt a single surge through his hand and looked down to see the scales that Sarah had told him about only an hour earlier.
"What-?" Jackson glanced down at his hands and then his arms as the scales travelled up. Sarah looked up from the text Stiles had sent her and saw Jackson beginning to transform.
"Jackson, calm down." She told him, placing her hands on his shoulders. "Don't let it control you. You can do this, you can keep your control. Focus on something. Find your anchor." Jackson shoved her away, but not by his own doing. No, this was the Kanima raging inside. It took a few moments for Sarah to sort herself out, as she had been forced quite firmly into the van wall. She tried again and was pushed aside as Jackson's newfound strength broke through the cuffs. She was about to scream to get Scott and Allison's attention, but then her world went black.
Scott and Stiles found Sarah unconscious in the van. Stiles gently shook her awake and all four teenagers made their way dejectedly to the police station where Scott would explain to Sheriff Stilinski what this whole ordeal was about. But when they saw Jackson in his human form sitting in the office with his father as well as the sheriff, they knew they were in for it; no form of explanation would get them out of this one.
As Sheriff Stilinski went over the restraining order guidelines, Sarah sat quietly and listened closely, trying to make herself as small as possible.
"What about school?" Stiles asked.
"You'll attend classes while trying to maintain a fifty-foot distance." The sheriff answered.
"What if we have to use the bathroom at the same time?" Sarah huffed at her brother and everyone else in attendance shifted in annoyance. Stiles saw the look on his father's face and stopped being a smartass. "I'll just hold it."
"Do I need to remind you how lucky we are that they're not pressing charges?" The sheriff dragged his children out of the room. "Especially you, Sarah, you're an adult now." The brunette couldn't bring herself to speak.
"It was just a joke." Stiles tried to cover.
"A joke?" The sheriff asked incredulously.
"Yes, I didn't think it would be taken that seriously. Dad, humor is very subjective. I mean, we're talking levels of interpretation."
"Uh-huh? How am I supposed to interpret the stolen prison transport van?"
"We filled the tank!"
"You're lucky Jackson likes you, Sarah. I don't know what happened between you and him, but the restraining order is only on the boys." One of Sarah's brows rose in confusion.
"What is going on with you?" Melissa McCall wanted to know. "Is this about Allison?" Sarah heard the sadness in her voice. She heard the stress of being a single mother with a son she didn't know anymore.
"Do you really want to know?" Sarah nodded her head behind Mrs. McCall's head while her brother shook his own. She punched him in the arm and continued nodding.
"Yeah, I do." Melissa stated. "Is this about your father?" Sarah shook her head. "It is, isn't it? Ok, we'll talk about this at home."
"I'm the worst son ever." Scott muttered when his mother went to go and get the car. The Stilinski siblings sighed.
"Well, we're not exactly winning any prizes either." Sarah responded, leaning against her brother, who was leaning against the door frame, watching Mr. Whittemore shout at the sheriff. Stiles felt his big sister shake with rage at the sight. He knew she wanted nothing more than to shout back at the lawyer about how it wasn't the sheriff's fault and that Jackson was perfectly fine and there was nothing more to it. But Stiles wrapped an arm around Sarah to keep her still. She didn't sleep that night.