Chapter 7: Venomous

Hola, readers! I'm back from the dead. What killed me? Uh, school, work, social interaction. Oh, also I moved. Plus Teen Wolf by default, but I'm back and that's all that matters! Here's the next installment of Royals and I hope you guys enjoy it :)

Okay, this whole not-having-a-phone thing needs to come to an end soon. I woke very up late (but somewhat well-rested despite the ominous cold I was catching) and was forced to walk to school in silence. I wasn't sure if this was Matt's way of cutting me a break or giving me the silent treatment. By the time I got there, my first two classes had come and gone and I knew I was going to have to do some serious groveling to get an extension on homework. Would the teachers accept a near drowning as a valid excuse?

I groggily rubbed my still very red eyes and continued walking down the hallways toward my next class. I can't even tell you if there were people in the halls or not because I'm too busy blinding myself. "Hey, Charlie," Matt greeted softly. I stopped in my tracks to find the body that called my name.

Crap. I really shouldn't rub my eyes to where I can see every color there ever was. I blinked rapidly until I could see and once I spotted my twin standing in front of set of lockers, I sent him a small smile. "Can I talk to you for a sec?"

"Sure," I shrugged, pointing to the general direction of my next class. "I was just heading to class."

"Right," he nodded, looking down at his shoes briefly. "I just wanted to apologize for jumping down your throat the other night."

I cringed softly. Yes, this confirmed that Matt was just trying to cut me a break by letting me sleep in. And as much as I wanted to skip school and sleep in, my grades wouldn't be as appreciative. "It's fi..."

"No, it's not," he argued. "Idiot number two apologized earlier this morning so I figured I owed you."

I huffed softly to myself after smiling up at Matt. Admittedly, the apology was half assed, but I'll give him credit this time. Besides, I was way too tired to even argue with him at the moment. "Thanks, Matt."

"See you at home, sis," he grinned before swooping in for a quick hug. Once the bell rang, Matt had disappeared around the corner and more students began trickling into the halls.

"Hey," someone greeted. Well, it was more of a hostile greeting like I'm-saying-hey-because-I'm-obligated-to way. Kinda like the way Derek says it. Once I realized it was Jackson, I took note that he looked thoroughly annoyed.

"Someone's chipper this morning."

"That's because you're standing in front of my locker," he retorted. Okay, he had a point. I'm usually pretty I'm peeved when someone is standing in front of my locker like they have nowhere else to be. But I had an excuse. Unfortunately, he had walked away seconds ago.

"Sorry," I apologized, side-stepping out of his way. I rocked back and forth on my feet silently while he began fiddling with the lock on his locker. "So, how's your new werewolfdom?"

Werewolfdom is always a great conversation ice breaker, right?

Jackson paused his lock turning and furrowed his eyebrows. "Do you know how long it's supposed to take before y..." He began quietly. I leaned in and waited for him to continue. "Never mind," he scoffed.

"You look flustered," I commented.

"Maybe it's 'cause your freak werewolf boyfriend made me talk to the cops to take back what I said about him and his insane dad so he could go back to school here," he quipped, rolling his eyes. Once he got his locker open, he began shuffling through it. "Who the hell would wanna come back here?"

Ignoring his comment, I stepped closer to him. "What are you talking about?"

Jackson opened his mouth to respond, but cut himself off when Danny walked up. "Hey, man. Charlie," he greeted. I nodded once with a small wave in response. Danny sent Jackson a not so subtle look in my direction. "Marley's cool," Jackson reassured. He eyed me from head to toe—not once, but twice and added, "Sorta." I sighed and didn't even bother to correct the kid.

"It took forever, but I found a program that can recover your video. I'll run it…"

Danny's voice began to fade when I saw Erica and Isaac walk by. Isaac sent me a wink in my direction while Erica simply smirked. I mumbled goodbyes to Danny and Jackson. I could deal with the video situation later by confronting Matt about it. He owed me anyway.

I followed Isaac into our class and took a seat in the empty desk behind him. "Do you wanna explain why Jackson Whittemore told me that the reason he was flustered was because my quote freak werewolf boyfriend unquote made him talk to the cops?" I couldn't keep the smile off my face from the ridiculousness of my question. And also because the idea of Isaac being my freak werewolf boyfriend.

Turning around in his desk, Isaac scoffed and rolled his eyes. "He's just jealous that nothing's happened to him yet," he explained. "Or so he says."

"What does that mean? Actually—do I wanna know?"

"No," he smirked. Our conversation was cut short when Scott slid into the seat behind me. Isaac turned around to face the board in his seat and began scribbling on a sheet of paper that he borrowed (stole) from my notebook.

"What's he doing here?" Scott asked as he leaned up to whisper in my general direction.

I looked up at Isaac silently and shrugged. I turned and rested my elbow on Scott's desk to entertain him. "To learn?" I blinked.

"Yeah, but how? And why?"

I shrugged again when I Isaac turned around to very obviously hand me a folded piece of paper with the words: freak nonwerewolf girlfriend. He was already back around in his seat before I could glare at him." Maybe he took the bus?" I offered, quickly covering up the folded note that Scott had already seen.

"What is tha—?" The frustration from Scott's scoff was almost comical. So almost comical that it made me feel a little guilty. "You know this is bad, right?"

"You know he can hear us, right?"

Scott sent me another unamused look as the first bell rang. Stiles came rushing in shortly after only to relay news the both of us already knew. Once the late bell had sung, everyone had faced the front and the glares disappeared from Stiles and Scott's face. While the teacher was taking role, I opened up the note from Isaac.

Jackson isn't the one you need to be worried about.

Ahem!

Ignoring the throat clearing from behind me, I scribbled a response with a frown on my face and passed the note into Isaac's waiting hand.

Then who?

The blonde.

Ahem!

Erica?

No, Lydia.

A-hem!

"Mr. Stilinski, is there a problem?" Our teacher asked, clearly irritated. I didn't even bother to glare at Stiles to know what was about to happen next.

"Yes, some of us are trying to pay attention, but I'm having a hard time concentrating because of the shenanigans taking place."

God, it's like kindergarten all over again.

"Agreed," Scott piped up. "Super, super distracting."

"I agree. Miss. Daehler, I know it must be difficult for you to contain yourself around Mr. Lahey now that he has rejoined us, but please keep your budding romance under wraps during school hours."

I'm totally dropping this class.

As a few members of the class turned toward Isaac and me, I crumpled the note into a tiny paper ball as the blush grew on my face. "Thank you," he droned, turning back to write more notes on the board. Behind me I heard the sound of a high-five take place and it doesn't take a genius to figure which two idiots were high-fiving.

In my next class, I was sitting behind Stiles going over the notes for our upcoming test and I'm pretty sure Finstock is talking out of his ass because these notes I took make absolutely no sense. Granted, it would help if I paid more attention to class and you know, actually came.

"Hey, testicle left and right."

Okay, I'll give Jackson credit for that one.

"What the hell is a Kanima?"

The three of us looked at each other and turned around in perfect sync only to be interrupted by Coach Finstock.

"All right, listen up. A quick warning before we begin our review," he began loudly. "Some of you, like McCall, might want to start their own study groups; because tomorrow's midterm is so profoundly difficult. I'm not even too sure I could pass it," he chuckled, looking impressed with himself. "Okay, I need a volunteer at the board to answer the first question."

"Paralyzed from the neck down," Jackson finished in a low voice. "Do you have any idea what that feels like?"

"I'm familiar with the sensation," Stiles quipped knowingly.

"Well, I'm not paralyzed, but I seem to be struck by you," I sang softly with a grin. In response, I got nothing but stares and I think Scott maybe recognized the song. But other than that, I got nothing.

Defeated, I turned back to my notes. I took the notebook off of my neighbor's desk who was currently working at the board. I needed better notes and clearly she had them if she was jumping at the chance to work a problem in front of the entire class.

"Wait why would Derek test you? Why would he think that it's you?"

"How should I know?"

"Because he thinks you're a snake?" I added, scribbling notes down. Whoops, that wasn't supposed to come out.

"I'm not a snake," Jackson defended with an unamused expression.

"We know that now," I confirmed, not looking up from my notebook.

"Wait, do they think it's Lydia?"

"I don't know, all I heard was her name and something about Chemistry."

"Jackson!" Coach interrupted.

God, he's so loud.

"Do you have something you want to share with the rest of the class?"

"Um, just an undying admiration for my coach."

"That's really kind of you. Now shut up!"

As soon as Coach's back was turned, the three of them huddled back together and continued their conversation without missing a beat.

"How do we know it's not her?"

"Because I looked into the eyes of that thing, okay? And what I saw was pure evil. When I look into Lydia's eyes I don't see evil," Stiles defended. "There's like 50 percent, 60 at the most. You know, but no more than 40 on a good day."

I couldn't help but to butt in again and give him a look. "Stiles, you can't keep using "because it's Lydia Martin" as an excuse," I mocked. "It's invalid."

"Okay, fine. Then tell me if you see evil when you look into her eyes," he challenged. I raised both my eyebrows and turned around to stare at Lydia.

Whenever I look into her eyes, I see that they're green. Which reminds me of olives. Which in turn reminds me of pizza. "I want some pizza," I mumbled once I turned back around. Stiles gestured to me silently toward the other two. I practically felt the eye roll from the other two.

"See, Lydia's fine," he assured. "It can't be her, alright?"

"Okay then," Coach Finstock piped up, causing Scott and Stiles to face the front again. "Anybody else want to try answering? This time in English?"

I frowned and looked up at the board to see what all the gasping was all about. "What is that, Greek?"

Dude, have you ever seen Greek?

Stiles fiddled with something on his phone for a moment. "No, actually, I think it is English," he said showing us the backwards and then forward writing on the board.

Oh.

"Einstein once said, two things are infinite: The universe and human stupidity; And I'm not sure about the universe. I myself have encountered infinite stupidity."

"Yeah, that makes two of us," I mumbled. At least I think I mumbled since Harris is glaring at me like I stole his glasses and flushed them down the toilet.

"Watch it, Miss. Daehler," he warned. Yeah, yeah. Harris is nothing but a big bully with a teaching degree, to be honest. With an eyebrow lift in response to Harris, he finished giving the objectives for today's assignment which was essentially musical chairs featuring chemistry.

I was not in the mood for this. I just wanted to catch up on my school work that I missed and a peaceful night of sleeping. Apparently that was too much to ask for. With my luck, I'll probably end up blowing up the school.

On second thought, I should totally play musical chemistry chairs.

"Your time starts...Now!"

A buzzer went off and I began skimming the directions. I looked next to me to see my partner. Generally, he was a quiet kid who sat in the back of the class. To be honest, I didn't even know his name. "So," I began. "Do you wanna start or should I?"

"Eh."

Eh. That wasn't even a word. It was just a sound. A grunt if you will. I can't tell if I have shitty social skills or if this guy just does not give a fuck. Either way this experiment has got to be done whether he wants to grunt through it or not.

Clearing my throat, I tried again. "Uh, the assignment to make these edible crystals..."

"Ugh."

Okay, I'll give him credit since this was more of a groan. The buzzer finally rang and modern day Frankenstein over here got up to do absolutely nothing with his next partner. I muttered under my breath in hopes for a better, more responsive partner and, in turn, got Isaac. "You know this whole thing is insane, right?" I asked referring to my empty beaker.

"You remember what I told you last night?"

"Yeah," I answered distractedly, reading over the assignment. "I don't really know what that has to deal with the expe-"

"Good. Now do you remember the part where I told you to stay out of the way?"

"No," I replied quizzically, not confident in my own answer at all. Honestly, he's lucky if I remembered what I ate for breakfast this morning.

"Well, stay out of my way," he reinstated. He slid the instructions out of the way and began mixing two chemicals together without reading what they actually were. "I don't want you to get hurt. Derek's more than sure that she's the Kanima and he wants to kill her more than I do," he concluded as the bell rang.

Even though that was my queue to switch seats, I sat idle as the concoction began foaming over in the beaker.

Well, shit. Thanks a lot Isaac for dropping that metaphorical bomb on me and leaving me to fix your mistake.

Lydia sat beside me and I already knew she had something to say. "Isaac did it," I claimed, beating her to the punch.

"Right..." she droned. She pushed away the assignment papers and began pouring the correct chemicals in the beaker to fix the mess Isaac had left. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat knowing what was in Lydia's future. Stiles's argument seemed a little more than valid since Lydia was covering my ass for me by doing all the work. I sat in silence as she continued to work. Really that was the only thing I could do knowing her impending doom. That's all I was really good for anyway.

"What?" Lydia asked in an annoyed voice, bringing me out of my thoughts. I shook my head silently and glanced over to Scott who was eyeing us worriedly. Lydia caught the look Scott was giving and frowned. "Have you've been feeling okay, lately?" A risky and loaded question undoubtedly. Lydia and I weren't close so I didn't expect her to answer truthfully. Instead she looked thoughtful, lost, confused, and then snapped back into reality. Which felt worse than a white lie about her true feelings. "What is wrong with everyone today?" She asked whipping her head around the room. I opened my mouth to bullshit some excuse, but was thankfully cut off by the buzzer. I laughed it off nervously before she headed to Isaac's open desk.

The rest of my experiment managed to go on without any more accidents and my partner and I were actually left with crystals. Unfortunately, I was too busy craning my neck around Allison to get a view of Lydia and Isaac. I saw Lydia take a bite of the glistening crystal and watched Isaac's face which showed that he was pretty damn proud of himself. I didn't catch all of what happened, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Lydia didn't past Derek's "test" and now we were screwed.

Did I want to get involved with this plan? Yes and no. Lydia didn't deserve to die at Derek's intuition. No one did. But if we're being fair, I nearly died trying to help. Wasn't it someone else's turn?

It was the last class of the day and we managed to come up with a semi-solid plan to keep Derek at bay before he did anything stupidly permanent. Me, Stiles, Scott, Jackson, Allison, and Lydia all met at the designated place and began heading down the hallway to the parking lot.

"If we're forming a study group, why don't they just meet us in the library?"

"That would have been a good idea," Stiles began thoughtfully. "Too late now."

"But how come-"

"Lydia, just shut up and walk," Jackson interrupted, cutting in between Stiles and Lydia.

"Geez," I mumbled, "who knew it was that easy?" Needless to say, Stiles shushed me. I rolled my eyes after he roughly nudged me. In response, I let the door shut behind me in his face. With a mumbled yelp, I smirked as I made my way to our car where Matt was waiting. Rubbing his head, an exasperated Stiles was jogging up behind me. "Whoa, whoa. I thought you were going to Scott's?"

I craned my neck to look back at Matt who seemed like he wasn't listening. "I'm gonna have to pass," I said quietly once I faced Stiles again.

"Is it because of your brother, because I thought we were past that? Friends even."

Leaning against the trunk, I squinted my eyes skeptically at Stiles.

"Okay, acquaintances."

Queue the eyebrow lift.

"Fine, cordial strangers at best."

"Close enough," I sighed. "And no, it's not because of him."

"It's Isaac, isn't it?"

I shrugged silently.

Stiles threw his arms up and let them fall by his sides as he huffed in frustration. "Look Stiles, Derek made his mind up and I'd rather not be there when everything goes down."

"What if we need you?" He asked. I let out a scoff and rolled my eyes. "You remember when you and I were at the police station and Isaac almost attacked us?"

I bit my lip in thought as I thought back to Derek and his awful idea of splitting up. Something I'll never get over.

"Whatever eye voodoo you did calmed him down long enough for Derek to come save our asses. So maybe you could do that again and save us some time to convince Derek she's not the Kanima," he finished.

I looked back to Matt who was engrossed with his camera. Huh, I guess he really wasn't listening.

"Hey, Stilinski! Marley!" Jackson yelled impatiently. Stiles and I looked at him to see an annoyed look on his face. "Let's go!"

"Who the hell is Marley?"

"Rhymes with Charlie," I shrugged.

"Right," he nodded. "So..?"

Practically this shouldn't take more than a few hours for us to convince Derek. I'll be home by 7 and in bed by 8. How bad could it be? "Alright, fine I'll go," I caved. "Just let me say bye to my brother."

Stiles sent a look before walking off into the direction of his Jeep. I took a deep breath and walked over to Matt. "Hey, I'm gonna study at Allison's for a while."

"Okay," Matt said, tossing his camera in the front seat.

"Okay?" Wow, that was a lot easier than I anticipated.

"As long as your home before dad. And I'm not really worried about Allison leaving you for dead in eight feet of water," he explained in a casual tone.

Couldn't argue with that.

Once we got to Scott's, Stiles had locked each and every lock and added a chair for good measure. I was too busy stretching my legs out after being cramped in the back with Lydia. I tossed my bag next to the door as I listened to Stiles spew an excuse as to why he was going all "Homeland Security" on us.

After a beat of awkward silence, Jackson and Lydia disappeared to go talk. I was only informed of the minor details of the plan and would have copped out if I knew it involved splitting the fuck up. Irritated, I peeked out the from the window beside the door to be face with four brooding werewolves wearing matching jackets. "So, are the leather jackets like a thing in Derek's pack, or..?" I asked curiously.

"Probably," Stiles shrugged. "Wait, what're you talking about?" He asked quickly. I gestured him and Allison to join me.

"I hope so. Isaac looks kinda cute in his," I rambled. There's that word vomit again. "They all do, actually." And again. Oh, god someone else say something please.

Allison must have caught my silent pleading and piped up. "Maybe I should call my dad."

Okay, what she said was way worse than what I said.

I stepped away from the window to examine the area we were in as the other two talked amongst themselves. Putting myself on talking timeout is probably for the best right now. Allison calling her dad as a good way to get everyone in leather jackets killed. Obviously, that wasn't the goal but I was having a hard time remembering what the main goal is. I was about to head to Scott's room to snoop, but stopped when I heard something coming from the stairs.

"Charlie, where's Isaac?" Stiles asked with a hint of panic in his voice. I frowned before looking past him out the window. "I don't know. I thought he was out standing with the rest of-"

I was rudely interrupted by Isaac storming down the stairs I was standing on. He wasted no time heading toward the three of us with glowing, yellow eyes. He roughly brushed past me and continued on his stride toward Allison and Stiles.

Well, shit I guess this is where I come in. Admittedly, I would be a lot more helpful in the other room trying to protect the girl they were here for in the first place. "Hey!" I called out. I was simply ignored by Isaac who was gung-ho on attacking Stiles.

I stepped up behind Isaac and roughly grabbed him by the shoulder to turn him around to face me. I knew he could hear my heart frantically beating out of my chest as I grabbed him by the collar of his stupid leather jacket. I pulled him down and with his sharp teeth and all; I pulled him in for a kiss. The room grew silent until the sounds of descending footsteps were heard. It took a moment, but Isaac eventually kissed me back until he remembered the task at hand. He pulled away and looked down at me with normal eyes. "You proud of yourself?" He asked.

Come to think of it, I was. I just stopped him (well, sort of but not really) from attacking my friends and put a stall in Derek's ridiculous plan. "A little," I said, letting go of his jacket and taking a step away from him. Isaac kept giving me this indifferent stare that I made the pang of rejection jab into my stomach. "What?"

Before he could respond, Scott came crashing in as dramatically with Allison bringing up the rear. Allison darted away from Scott and headed toward the stairs. But not before taking my hand and dragging me with her. I huffed with an annoyed expression on my face and jumped when I heard commotion coming from Scott's room. A flash of blond hair was all that I saw before Erica reached out to me with a closed fist. Luckily, I had eaten my Wheaties this morning and managed to duck just in time.

"Stay down!" Allison shouted from the hallway. Just to be safe I stayed low and held onto Erica's ankles just in case she was feeling froggy today. Immediately after, I heard a click and whoosh and glanced up at Erica who was now holding a venom covered arrow.

Allison stood triumphantly with her crossbow from the hallway. Soon after, Erica dropped like a log.

"Dude that was totally bad ass! You gotta teach me some of that stuff."

"I know," she smirked again. "My dad is driving me crazy, but it's worth it." Before I could comment on her training, Allison picked up Erica's legs. I bent to scoop Erica up from under her arms. This wasn't so bad after all. We actually had a leg up on Derek for once.

Once we made it down the stairs and out the house, we was met with a disgruntled Stiles who was rubbing his back. "Sorry," I said sheepishly. "Should have moved a little faster, yeah?"

"Don't worry. It's not totally your fault," he assured, pointedly looking at a knocked-out Isaac who was out on the lawn. I couldn't help but feel bad for him. As gently as we could, we laid a paralyzed Erica next to Isaac with soft thump on the ground.

"I finally see why you keep refusing me, Scott."

Wow, okay. Double meaning.

"It's because you already an Alpha to your own pack," Derek finished. "But we all know you can't beat me." Before anyone could say anything, sirens began going off in the distance. A familiar screech came from the roof of Scott's house. I followed everyone's line of vision and saw the Kanima hiss and take off, but not before it stared at me with its ridiculously familiar eyes. "Where's Jackson?"

"Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?" Lydia huffed as she stormed out of the house and stood next to me. She looked at me for an explanation and I could do was literally stare at her because I was caught in between telling her ex is a lizard-snake psycho.

There ya have it! And again I'm terribly sorry about the surprise hiatus I took on this story, but I'm here for a little while longer so no worries. Review, maybe?