Disclaimer: I don't own teen wolf.
An: Hey there friendships. Part of me wants to draw this Kanima mess out...but I can't get to Stiles & Lydia moving forward without the Kanima out of the picture. So without further ado...here it is! If you didn't watch Mondays episode, turn back now! (And go check out my new fic Eleven Days, huh? Isaac and Lydia. Whaddya say?)
Also, check this site out: tv dot com/news/teen-wolf-crazy-good-and-crazy-good-photo-recap-28809/?ref=tweet_button Its hysterical.
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Lydia heard the gunshot. It cracked loud through the air with this startling sense of finality. Of death. Endings.
When they'd arrived at the station her car hadn't been in the parking lot so she had stayed in the car, content to wait for Ms. McCall to finish doing...whatever it was Scott needed her to do at two in the morning. Unbelievable. They were supposed to be moving Derek, keeping themselves out of the Argent's eye. Being safe. She'd assumed her car would be here. That Melissa would take the boys home.
But she really didn't feel up to thinking game plans. She'd had a rolling in her stomach since they'd pulled up. A sick pitch to it like she was on unsteady ground. A small boat in a giant hurricane. It was dizzying, an ill sense of foreboding nipping at her heels. Something was going to happen. Something bad. Awful. Horrible. The moon hung heavy in the sky like a watchful eye. Derek Hale's Camaro was in the lot, two empty spaces over. She was just thinking about how strange that was. How dangerous that was. How unbelievably stupid the boys were...when she heard the crack of the gunshot. A cloud passed over the moon and the imagery made her ill.
The gun had fired, loud in the silent night. Harsh. Painful. Too loud. Too loud. She froze like a deer in headlights, her breathing a shakey exhale. Terrified. Paused. Still. Melissa...but Scott was in there. He'd survive, right? But Scott...Scott meant Stiles. If Stiles had been shot...
Her legs were moving before she even realized that she'd left the car, barefoot against the blackened parking lot. Ignoring the rocks. Ignoring the insanity of running to the gunshot. Oh God. Gun shot.
She hit the door to the sound of the Sheriff shouting the boys' name. Shouting loud. There was blood bright on the bench, there was blood in the air. The smell of gun fire. Fire and smoke. Burned air. She tried not to scream. She tried so hard not to scream. She couldn't scream. She had to find Stiles. He had to be alright. Please God let him be alright.
Christ, what was she doing?! Running around barefoot in a party dress, looking for a guy with a gun. Creeping around. There was blood on the floor. On the walls. The exit sign at the end of the hall had it blocking the 'x', heating it. Making it pop in the near silence. She could hear voices. Faint. Someone was shouting. Something was hissing. A low, harsh, hateful noise. Hissing.
She turned slow, careful of her movements. Her heart beating hard in her chest. Too fast. Oh God she didn't want to turn around. She didn't want to see what was behind her. What was making that noise. There was the slow step of shoes with it. A steady gait. Loud, intimidating. Terrifying. Her whole body hurt with the urge to run. Her mind was screaming stay still. Slow. But her body was demanding her to run. To take off as fast as she could. She couldn't. She had to stay. Stiles...she'd came to help him, but now she wanted his help. She bit her lip hard enough to bleed, turning around just as those footsteps stopped.
Jackson.
No. What stood at the hall wasn't Jackson, not anymore. Not ever again. His skin was mottled with grey blue scales, claws on his hands. He was looking at her like he didn't know who she was. The claws flexed and they looked like sharp glass. Ready to slice her open, poison dripping from their deadly tips. She swallowed thickly, her eyes watering. He took a step forward. "Jackson...Jackson please..." She backed up slowly, carefully, her hands held in front of her like an ineffectual shield. She didn't stand a chance. The blood was cold beneath her toes. Freezing. Congealed. Thick. Oh God. She was sobbing, her breath hitching and making her light headed. Dizzy. Everything was spinning. "Please Jackson. Please." She was begging, backing up, shaking her head. She needed him to understand. To recognize her. It was a lost cause though. Those eyes...they didn't see her. Not really. She slipped, something rolling under her foot. She landed on her back in enough blood for it to splatter like a puddle. Coating her arms, her back, soaking into her hair. A finger...she'd slipped on a finger. "Oh God." She sobbed, shaking her head. Blood. It was everywhere. So much blood. It was like a nightmare. Her nightmares come to life. Only it wasn't Peter Hale stalking her through the hall as she crawled backwards in cold puddles of blood. It was Jackson. Crouched low like some beast.
The Kanima, no longer Jackson with those animal eyes, hissed. He crouched to pounce with his muscles tense and his hands out at his side, those claws open. He snarled and she saw his teeth, hateful teeth, and she screamed, her voice a pitiful wail. "Genim!"
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...
Stiles stilled at the sound. "Lydia." She'd been with Melissa...she'd come to the station. Of course she had, he was so stupid. He knew they were together he just hadn't connected the dots. He couldn't. His mind hadn't let him. Oh God she was there. She was hurt or in danger and he couldn't do anything. He was helpless, paralyzed. He turned to Derek, fear in his eyes. The Alpha was looking back at him, confused by the voice. The name. His real name, one he hadn't been called in so long...she'd remembered. Stiles clenched his jaw, "Press harder." He said lowly, Derek nodded.
"Been awhile since I heard that name, huh Genim?" Footsteps sounded and he turned to look up to Matt. The boy had his gun, pointed down at him. The barrel trained between his eyes. He was smirking and Stiles felt his stomach sour. Derek went still behind him, a quiet rustle signaling that he'd pulled his claws out. Matt had a look on his face that Stiles wanted to beating "How long has it been?" The boy asked, waving his gun as if thinking. "Since Mommy died, right?"
"Shut up." Stiles grit out, his teeth gritting hard.
Matt continued, ignoring him. "Sounds like Jackson found his little girlfriend." He bent over, watching the boy's face. Stiles wanted to kill him. In that moment, he wished he would have accepted the bite from Peter just so he could rip the boy's throat out with his teeth. "Did she go running back to him? Figures. Bitches."
"Shut up."
Matt continued drawing it out. Watching Stiles squirm in anger. "He's going to kill her. Rip her to shreds." Matt laughed, shaking his head. The gun hung lax in his head and Stiles knew if he could only move... "You know that right? That nothing you do can help her?" He stood, backing out of the room slowly. Smirking still. "Bet you wish you were more that a snowman now, huh?"
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Lydia looked up at the ceiling, dazed. She could feel the blood crust on her skin. Feel it dry against her flesh, harden like a shell. It was the alarm that startled her to move. The lights flickering and the emergency alarm screaming. She had to move. She had to get up. She had to go. She had to.
Her hands slid in the blood beneath her, sticking in the slick feel. Her stomach protested the movement and she stilled, her stomach. She placed a blood coated hand across her ribs, the rips in the fabric rough on her palm. The tears in her skin painful. She had to go before It came back. She had to go. To find Stiles and get the image of his face pale with death out of her mind.
Her legs were wobbly and she leaned against the wall for support, hee hands dragging trails behind her and marking her trail. She didn't care. The dried blood scratched her skin as she moved, stiff. She wanted to scream at the thought of it. She couldn't tell herself this wasn't real.
This was real. This wasn't a dream.
She had to keep moving. Her side hurt and she could feel the blood soaking into her dress, the warmth of new blood meeting the chill of the old. There was something else there too, liquid and burning. The kanima posion. It beaded like water on a waxed car, unable to seep into her flesh. Maybe she was immune. She knew the poison could paralyze her, she shuddered at the thought of laying in that blood soaked hallway. Unable to move. Stuck waiting to be saved.
She was tired of waiting.
She found Derek first, laying on his back in a mess of an office. She thought he was dead at first. His pale eyes staring at up the ceiling, blood soaking his leg. He was still as death. Unmoving. For a second she didn't even think he was breathing. She moved slowly, carefully into the room. Watchful for any sign of anyone else in the room. No one. Just Derek Hale's still body.
When she stepped close enough for him to see her, she got
a reaction from the still werewolf. He went rigid, sucking in a quick, harsh breath. His eyes got impossibly wide, his mouth parting in sharp shock. She had to wonder how bad she looked, self consciously rubbing the back of her neck. Obviously bad enough to scare a werewolf. Her high maintenance inner self causing her to try to smooth down her skirt with bloodied hands. It was stiff and she looked away with a blush to her cheeks.
Derek couldn't look away. "Lydia..." He breathed. She was a horrifying sight. Her pale skin painted in blood, her hair stuck flat against her shoulders with it. Flaking. The red substance streaked her face along with the black of her mascara, cutting tear tracks down her reddened cheeks. Her dress was ripped across her stomach exposing white skin and four long cruel scratches. Blood dyed her hair brown, her dress black. She looked like a horror movie heroine, her eyes wide as she knelt beside him. Her knees barely pressing against him. She smelled like death and clotted blood. The smell filling the air and choking him. "You're hurt." He frowned, tracing her for any other wounds. The blood wasn't just hers. There was too much. So much.
Lydia shook her head, brushing her hair out of her face. The blood helped it stay back and she cringed. Talk about your all natural hair gel. "N-not all mine." She told him, ignoring the ill feeling that truth gave her. She was covered in blood and she didn't even know who's it was. Disgusting. "Where is everyone?" She asked, her wide eyes looking around. He was the only one there. Oh...oh God, he was the only one there. No one else. Where were they? Had Matt taken them? Hurt them?
Derek didn't ask why she was there. Lydia always seemed to be in the mix somehow. Always there to get hurt. It was the chain. He tried to protect Scott, who tried to protect Stiles and Stiles tried to protect Lydia. It seemed he wasn't doing a good enough job. A child protecting a child from the monsters. Derek frowned at the thought, wondering when one of these kids would get hurt or worse. The danger of being a human in this world. "Scott took Stiles out after the lights dropped and the gunfire started, they went left." He jerked his head towards the door, digging his fingers in deeper into his thigh. It was taking too long. And it hurt.
Lydia stared down at him, looking at his finger digging into his skin. She cringed, her mouth pulling down. Gross. Not the point, she shook her head. "What about you?" She doubted she could drag him anywhere, he looked heavy. Very heavy. She rubbed her hands against her knees, trying to think. She couldn't leave him there. It wouldn't be right. But he wasn't her main concern.
Derek shook his head, he didn't need her help. He needed to dig deeper. He flexed his fingers. "I need to trigger the heeling process." He told her, watching her advert her wide eyes. For a girl covered in blood, she sure was squimish. "I need to get the poison out." He couldn't move his other arm or he'd do the same on the other side.
"So you need to hurt something." Lydia said quietly, studying his face with a blank expression on her own. She seemed lost for a second, thinking. She reached out quickly and grabbed something out of his line of sight, a jerky movement that caused her blood covered arm to brush his nose. The smell was horrid. Dead and rotting and mixed with her sugary perfume.
Derek roared as he felt the sharp point of the letter opener she palmed spear through his outter thigh. Just below his hand. Deep and destructive. Painful. Lydia showed him no mercy as his body bowed off the hard floor in pain, yanking it out and giving him two more sharp stabs. Quick. Again and again. No pause. No notice. Uncaring. Doing what needed to be done.
Before her make shift weapon got him again Derek struck out and grabbed her raised arm. "Thanks." The werewolf growled, his eyes bleeding red. He tightened his grip and Lydia shrugged her bloodied and bared shoulders, easily dropping the letter opener. It clanged hard to the floor and he let her arm drop to her side. It suddenly struck him how different Lydia was from Stiles. The boy who had cringed at the thought of cutting his arm off was in love with a girl who showed up coated in blood and stabbed him repeatedly without so much of a bat of her perfect lashes. He leaned up, slowly staggering to his feet. Lydia did what was necessary. She did what she thought she had to. No matter the cost. Now he had to do the same. He didn't offer her his hand, clawed as it was it would carve her to ribbons. His red eyes looked down at her, feeling his skin knit together. His lip drew back in a snarl. "Now run."
Lydia took orders much better than the rest of them.
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She found herself wandering the halls. The twisting, dark halls. She heard shouts, a loud bang. A roar. Derek...Scott. Stiles. She turned to the sound, finding herself face to face with the point of an arrow. A crossbow. Allison's face shining in the pitch black. The girl's expression was hard. Cold.
Lydia pressed a hand to her hammering heart, shaking. She'd thought it was Jackson. But the girl's face brought no comfort. "Allison you stupid idiot." She hissed, leaning against the wall. "Put that thing down." The Argent's were here. Dammit. Who knew what they'd do. They must have been the ones to cut the power, to shoot up the main room. She looked up sharply, wishing she'd given Allison a stronger dose. She didn't need the extra danger.
Allison took in her friend, noticing the scratches across her body. The blood. "The Monsters do this to you?" She asked meanly, letting the bow drop to her side. She was sneering, an ugly look on her pretty face. She was trying to be tough, strong. It wasn't working.
Lydia rolled her eyes to the black ceiling. She didn't have time for this. She didn't have the patience for it. She had to keep moving. "You need to leave Allison." Lydia said, whisper quiet. She kept her eyes peeled for the Kanima. Listening to the noise at the back of the hall. A fight. Between the shifters. She had to go. She turned her head. "Take your family with you." She hissed, trying to move.
Allison snatched out, grabbing the girl's arm. She had a pleading look on her face, broken. Foolish. "You don't understand." She said, shaking her head. "They killed my mother." She whispered. "I want revenge. I deserve it." The brunettes voice had hardened, her grip hard. "I deserve to kill them. To stop this so they can't hurt anyone else. Its what the Argents do. You can't understand."
Her mother always said that she could suffer anything but fools. And Allison was being a very big fool. Lydia tore her arm away, the blood slicking the girl's grip. She grabbed her by the front of her shirt, pushing her hard against the wall. How stupid could one person be? How blind?
She didn't have time for this. She didnt have the mind state for it. She'd been attacked by her ex-boyfriend, who'd been covered in scales. She herself was covered in blood. She'd just stabbed Derek Hale with a letter opener and now she had to find two boys who would have been better off if they'd just listened to her. Everyone would be better off if they just . Then she wouldn't have to stalk the halls, bloodied and terrified. "NO!" She shouted, her grip tight. Allison was the straw that broke her. The final bit. It had all been too much and she couldn't take the girl any longer. This shit was her family's fault. If they hadn't come along..."You don't understand!" Lydia gave her a shake, meeting her eyes dead on with a harsh look. "They didn't kill your mother, your mother killed herself because of her ideals. Because these stupid little rules your cult of a family has put forth and brainwashed you to believe. And you're just too fucking stupid to realize that you're letting them ruin you with them." She shook her head, stepping back. Allison stayed against the wall, wide eyed Lydia's voice was quiet. Low and mean. "You're too stupid to learn from these mistakes. Derek didn't kill your Mother. Derek attacked her to save Scott. The boy you claim to love. The boy your Mother tried to kill, unprovoked even though he hasn't drawn a single drop of blood. That goes against these rules your little family loves so much. Or are they just there until they aren't? You're mother killed herself because she was weak. To weak to stand on her own. Too weak to be anything other than a psychopathic controlling Argent." Lydia shook her head, running a bloodied hand through her hair. Allison looked so pitiful it made her stomach churn. But she had no pity left in her. "You're Mother killed herself because she was pathetic. And you're falling into the same trap because you are just as pitiful."
She drug her fingers hard against her scratches, feeling the slime of the posion on the tips of her nails. She snatched Allison's jaw, opening it and shoving her fingers in the girl's mouth. She was too slow to reac
t, watching with
tears in her eyes. Lydia felt bad for a second, but she soon lost that as the memory of what had all happened hit her again. She let her friend drop to the floor, unmoving. "Butch up babe. The humans are worse than the monsters in this game."
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Stiles counted the tiles in the ceiling, trying to struggle against the poison. He could still only move his toes. Goddamn it! Lydia was out there, his Dad was and Scott's mom. Derek too. Matt had a gun and he'd heard gunshots. And all he could do is lay there and count the tiles.
They could all be dying and her couldn't do anything. Lydia was hurt. He'd heard her scream...she'd screamed his name. Genim. His real name. A name he hadn't heard in so long. She was hurt and he knew it. The others were just possibilities. She was a definite. Lying bloody in a hallway somewhere. Maybe dying. He fought hard against the posion, feeling his arms tingle. Maybe he could crawl...
"Stiles. Oh...oh thank God." The door slammed behind her and for a second he thought she was a ghost. She was drenched in blood, covered. His heart stopped. She rushed closer, straightening him in the chair, checking him. Poking and prodding. Looking for wounds.
Stiles grabbed her hands, his grip weak. He was just glad he could grab her. Prove that she was real. She was hurt, her dress ripped. God, there was so much blood. It couldn't be all hers. Who's was it? How did she get so much on her? "How did you-Jackson..." He frowned, finally seeing the scratches. They weren't deep. They wouldn't even scar. But they hurt, he could tell by the way she favored her right side. Leaned away from the wounds. That's why she'd screamed. Because Jackson had attacked.
She'd seen the Kanima.
Lydia leaned back, away. But she kept the grip on his hands. She didn't want to let go. To drop the hold. Her hands shook in his. "Its just a scratch." She muttered, twisting to feel the sharp tug of the wound. She hissed, feeling the sting of the poison on the rent flesh. "Immunity." Her face fell and so did she, sitting on her ass on the floor. Stiles struggled to look down at her, watching as her face drew blank. Shocked. "I...I thought he was going to kill me." She whispered, her eyes far away.
Stiles frowned, gripping her hands tighter. "I thought he had." He'd been so afraid. So scared. When he'd heard her scream...He'd almost gouged Derek himself. Anything to help her. God, he'd thought he'd lost her. Not that he even had her now. Lydia looked up at him with those big dinner plate eyes.
"Are you okay?" She asked, moving to kneel by the chair. She tugged her hands out of his grasp, still trying to find a wound. Jackson had to have scratched him. To get the venom in. She had to make sure they weren't too deep.
"Its just a scratch." He parroted her words back to her, shrugging her hands away. It was just a scratch but he didn't want her to worry. Not about him. He just didn't want her to worry. "After a couple hours I'll be fine." His face fell, suddenly remembering something. "Derek! He's still in the office." He started, wiggling to sit up straighter. Trying to stand with numb legs. He couldn't.
Lydia pushed him back, standing up and sitting on the table. She pointedly ignored the mirror, avoiding her reflection. If it had given Derek a scare, she loathed to see what it would do to her. "No he's not." She answered, grabbed the edge of the cold metal table beneath her. Her grip was tight, hard. She frowned, "I stabbed him. With a letter opener. He's fine." She shrugged at Stile's shocked look. It needed to be done. Derek's little pinches obviously hadn't been helping, and it seemed no one else was going back for him. No need to get squimish or guilty. She hadn't even hurt him, bad... "Healing process. Maybe a little anger. This blood is his." She was rambling, frantic. Terrified. She pointed to the fresh bit of blood on her forearm, dragging her fingers across it.
Stiles shook his head. "You're covered." He muttered, his eyes taking stock of her again. So much blood. And she seemed fine with it. Not comfortable, but accepting. She'd moved on. Shrugging her shoulders again.
"'s not mine."
Stiles clenched his jaw, looking off to the side. The air suddenly felt heavy. "Before..." he started, trailing off slowly as he remembered. "Before, you called me by my real name." He remembered hearing it. Hearing Her scream. How scared she'd sounded. He'd never forget it.
Lydia played stupid. Unsure why. She kept her eyes wide, innocent. "Did I?" She asked quietly, trailing her bare toes against the floor. They barely touched.
Stiles smiled softly, she was so short. And he knew she was playing innocent. "Yeah. I hadn't heard it in so long." He muttered. Genim. He didn't know how she remembered it though. Sometime he forgot it himself. "I didn't know anyone remembered it." He looked up and she looked like a deer caught in head lights, fidgeting nervously.
Lydia shook her head, "We'll talk later. Come on." They'd talk...when she had time to think about her answers. Calculate what to say. Plan it out. She didn't even know why she knew Stiles name herself. Genim. It had just...slipped out. Some memory. "Where is everyone?" She asked, looking around. Desperate for a change in topic. She'd talk about cats right now.
Stiles struggled forward, stubbornly pushing. He had to talk now. He had to tell her. "Lydia, I-I don't know what might happen tonight. I want you to know that-"
Lydia went wide eyed. She didn't know what he had to say but she knew she couldn't hear it. Not now. Not like this. She leaned forward suddenly, standing and pulling him with her. His arm thrown across her shoulders. He was heavy and it was a struggle, but it shut him up. "Come on! Move!" She hustled, moving him out the door. She knew they were out at the end of the the hall. The cells. He stumbled along, barely moving. A dead man's shuffle.
They moved at a silent pace.
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...
"Allison...you're covered in blood." Chris found his daughter slumped, her eyes staring ahead. She'd been crying. Paralyzed. The Kanima.
Allison wanted to move away from her Father, wanted to turn away. But she couldn't. Her eyes stared blankly ahead. She was going to cry again. She knew was. She didn't want to. She thought she was strong. She thought she could be strong... "Lydia. Its all from Lydia." She whispered. She wasn't strong. She was weak.
Chris paused, looking away from his daughter to search the hall. "She's here? She's hurt?" He asked. She was a human. A concern. He didn't see her anywhere. He hadn't seen her when he'd searched the halls.
Allison shook her head tightly, "Just a scratch. She's immune." She said coldly. Immunity. "The rest of the blood isn't hers." She remembered the way the redhead had looked. Like a monster. Just like them.
"Allison, what happened?"
Her Father sounded so worried. Allison felt her stomach turn. "N-nothing." She stuttered. How could he tell him? Tell him what Lydia said? Ask if it were true? "I want to go home." She whispered, her voice broken.
Chris grit his teeth. "You shouldn't have come tonight. We should have taken care of this ourselves." He said, looking away from his child. "Derek and his pack..."
"I just want to go home, Dad."
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...
They found his Father knocked out, Scott's Mother hidden in the back of the cell. Lydia let Stiles slip onto the bench by his Father, kneeling down by the man. He had a slight wound on his head, his eyes groggy when they slid open. "There's an iguana in here." The Sheriff muttered, sliding back down. Lydia pulled a pin from her hair, finding the hammer in the lock and tripping it loose.
"Nifty trick." Stiles muttered from the bench, watching as she let his Dad's hands go. He could feel his calves. Barely. Lydia tossed him a look over her shoulder, a smile that was more of a reflex than a feeling. He doubted she'd be smiling for awhile.
Lydia moved over to the cell, tapping a nail against the lock pad. She didn't understand this one. She may have to pull the pins from the hinges. "Ms. McCall?" She asked the dark space. She hadn't heard anything, she could just barely make out Melissa sitting on the cell bunk. Her head in her hands. "We're gonna get you out." She said, hitting her lip.
Melissa shook her head, slowly. Constant. "Scott...he was shot."
Lydia threw a look over her shoulder and Stiles nodded, "He's okay Ms. McCall." He said, "It just uh, grazed him." Lydia frowned. He was lying. Scott had been the shot she'd heard.
When she turned back, Melissa was at the bars. Her eyes wide, her hands white knuckles on the bars. Lydia could see the white of the woman's eyes like a scared horse. Terrified. Lydia gasped. Oh God...she'd seen. "Monsters." Melissa breathed, her breath shuddering. Her mouth worked in jerky movements, no sound coming out. "My son, my baby, oh my baby. His face..." The woman was sobbing, her face pressed against the bars. Lydia stepped back.
Stiles gave her a
confused looked. Lydia backed out slowly. "I've got to...I'll be back." She said, shaking her head. Melissa's terrified look burned in her eyes. She knew that face. She recognized it too well. Stiles struggled to move, but he couldn't. "Stay here." She'd seen it in her mirror.
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...
She had to get out of that room. She need air. Just one breath. She'd go back. She'd pull the pins of the door. Get Melissa out. Convince her she was in shock, hallucinating. There were no monsters. None at all. There was no Kanima. No werewolves. No monsters.
When she found Jackson her heart stalled. Standing in the blood spattered hall he was staring at his hand, his whole body shaking. When stuttered her name he turned and she knew it was him. Not the Kanima. Jackson, the boy she'd dated for a year. Claimed to love. Claimed to hate. The boy she'd lost her virginity to. He was looking at her in fear and she knew she was frightening. She smirked. This was even ground. This she knew.
"Lydia." Jackson's voice cracked, holding his hands out. Looking from them to her with something broken in his eyes. "What happened? Where am I? How did I get here?" He was so lost. So confused. Lydia's smirk widened and she took a step closer. It seemed today she was playing the bad guy. Telling the hard truths that no one else would. This was her field. Manipulation.
She was comfortable here.
"So many questions Jackson." She laughed without any humor shaking her head. Lydia touched her open wound, feeling that slime. Jackson gaped at her and she knew he wanted tlmo back away. To run. She took another step forward, coming face to face with the boy. He looked terrified and she trailed her fingers down his face, smiling at his painful flinch. "I'll answer them. But first you're going to do a little something for me."
Kanima. Human. They both fell at the same rate. Feather and a bowling ball.
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...
They were state police that came. They rushed in, finding them all in the cell room. Scott and Derek had found her in the hall, on her way back. They had Jackson. Traumatized and silent over Derek's shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
They'd let Lydia shower before they questioned her. Let her wash the blood off her body. Even the police had look shocked. Horrified. She didn't feel clean enough, she couldn't. Not yet. She had to lie about the scratch marks, they all did. Derek and Stiles had claimed a blow to the back of the head left them out. Unable to see what happened. She sighed. How the hell were they going to get this story straight?
Scott had told them that Matt had taken him hostage, shouting about Orestes and furies. He'd had a gun but he hadn't shot him. He'd ran, gone somewhere after the machine guns fired.
The Sheriff was safe, all he'd seen was Matt with a gun. The four of them that knew the real truth could all claim nerves, that they couldn't answer questions because they were so shaken up. Jackson was still frozen in place and she'd had the foresight to delete the video footage from the feed. She'd also just gone ahead and 'accidentally' dumped a full glass of water on the CC hardware. Whoops.
It was Melissa they had to worry about. She was silent in shock. When the police had shown up she'd refused to leave the cell. She'd been terrified. Her back against the wall. She was in shock. Lydia couldn't look at her. A mixture of emotions.
Scott and Stiles were waiting for her in the break room that the shower room was off of. Lydia dressed in a thankfully clean pair of gym shorts that Scott had in his trunk and a too big teeshirt from an anti-drug fundraiser three years back. 'Get Baked Goods, Not Baked Good.' It read. Scott leaned heavily against the wall, looking worse for wear in that awful blue shirt. She didn't know how he'd explained away the blood on it. The gunshot. She couldn't think about that now. About how terrified she'd been.
"They're not going to question you tonight." Scott said, his voice blank. Lydia understood. hadn't reacted well. It was hard. He shoved his hands in his pockets, his shoulders tight. "Sheriff Stilinski won't allow it."
Lydia ran the towel through her hair, looking over at Stiles. He leaned against the shut door, watching her with that strange look on his face. She blushed under his gaze. "So its Sheriff again?" She asked quietly, leaning into towel. She kept expecting to find blood on its white surface but there was nothing there. Just water. She sighed, her chest heavy.
The boy nodded, rolling his shoulders. The cut on his neck hurt. His whole body hurt. "It will be, after the publicity this gets." He said, folding his behind him. He licked his lips in a nervous gesture. "Jackson dropped the restraining order. He was pretty clear about that." He looked at Lydia with a brow raised and she just shrugged, sitting down at the little break table. Even if he asked her she wouldn't admit to doing something, but Jackson had been poisoned. The blood cleaned from his hands. Lydia had been gone for awhile. Long enough.
Scott slid down the wall, siting on the floor. His eyes were wide, staring blankly ahead. Lydia frowned down at him. "They took my Mom to the hospital. She's in shock." He said quietly, his voice wavering. "She saw me. And Derek. She was so scared of me." He was broken and the rest of them were just as bad off.
Lydia bit her lip, looking away from them. Her on a picture. A group photo with the smiling black female officer. She was dead now. "I saw Allison." She said, looking at the woman in the photo. Young. She looked so young. Not their age but not old enough to die. But then again, what was old enough to die? "I told her about her Mother."
Scott, ever the white night, looked up. She assumed he would have stood if he wasn't so tired. Maybe even raised his voice. But he was tired. They were all tired. "Why would you do that?" He muttered looking back to the floor. He was honestly too tired to think. He remembered Allison's face in the hallway. Her determination.
Lydia shrugged. "She needed to know." She answered simply, her eyes narrowing. "And Derek...does he know you're betraying him to Gerard?" She'd heard them in the hall, the two of them. She knew Derek had heard too. She'd met his eyes across the hall. He felt betrayed.
"He was going to kill my Mom!" Scot defended.
Lydia stood, shaking her head as she walked over to the door. Stiles stepped to the left, moving out of his way. She grabbed his arm. "Explain it when you catch a ride with him." She said, looking down to meet Scott's eyes. She turned the knob, tugging on Stiles's arm. "Now bring me home, Genim."
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An: So its six in the morning. I've been writing since midnight to get this chapter out for yall. And I don't even think its that good. Angel is on and I've got stuff to do today. But I'm so not getting it done. I was supposed to go dress shopping. Fortunately I keep my feathers numbered for just such an occasion. (My dresses too.)