CHAPTER THREE : gonna be a jailbreak

( shape shifted, part ii )

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DEREK HAS NO QUALMS about leaving Scott in the basement alone. He leads Shannon back up the stairs and into the Lahey's kitchen, where evidence of a previous struggle is still strewn around the place. Pieces of a shattered glass vase lay in the corner, while smashed ceramic dishes litter the ground by the dining table and the kitchen cabinets. Whatever happened here, it wasn't good. Shannon finds herself staring at the carnage in a sort of daze.

"So," Derek begins, snapping Shannon out of her thoughts.

She looks at him, waiting for him to continue, but he doesn't. "So..." she prompts him.

Derek hums under his breath. "Are you turning tonight?"

He's way too calm about the idea.

Shannon shrugs. "I don't know. I don't feel like I am," she says, eyes darting to the wooden ground.

The Alpha considers her words for a long moment, gaze locked on her as he essentially examines her for any signs of lycanthropy. "How are the bites?" he asks.

Shannon lifts a hand to one of the many bandages littering her body and grabs the edge of it — the one on her left forearm that nears the bend of her elbow — and peels it halfway off. The bite mark is still distinct, four large deep holes made by Peter's canines, and other smaller carvings made by his elongated, pointed incisors. The wound is stitched up, scabbed over, and surrounded by a gnarly, purple and yellow bruise. Shannon's just happy that there's no obvious sign of infection — the antibiotics that the doctors had put her on were clearly doing their job. Back in Washington, her mother had suffered a rather nasty scratch from a stray cat that had turned the veins in her arm black and sent her to the hospital for a professional, surgical clean. Shannon did not want to experience that.

Derek examines the bite, then nods, essentially giving the girl permission to cover the wound back up. Just as she re-sticks the adhesive to her skin, the loud, distinct honk of Stiles' Jeep's horn blares through the quiet of the night. Derek and Shannon exchange a look before setting off to join him on their mission to break Isaac out of his imprisonment.

From the moment the pair get into the car, it is silent ( aside from Stiles unashamedly playing music from Taylor Swift's 'Fearless' album, which Derek makes him turn nearly the whole way down ). The only words exchanged the entire time are between Stiles and Shannon when he gets out of the driver's seat to help Shannon into the back seat like he had done on their mission to track down Lydia the other day. It's not until the Jeep arrives at the Beacon County Sheriff's Station that anyone says anything.

Stiles and Derek have their eyes trained on one of the windows, where a young woman — the station's night guard — is wandering around inside.

"Okay. Now, the keys to every cell are in a password-protected lockbox in my father's office. The problem is getting past the front desk," Stiles says. He's acting like he's in the break-down scene of a heist movie.

"I'll distract her," Derek states, preparing to open the car door.

Stiles scrambles in his seat for a second and slaps a hand on the older man's shoulder to stop him in his tracks. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! You? You're not going in there," he says, a hint of panic present in his voice. Derek glances down at the hand gripping the sleeve of his leather jacket, then looks back up at Stiles. Stiles pulls his hand away. "I'm taking my hand off."

It's quiet for a moment as Stiles breaks eye contact with the Werewolf. "I was exonerated," Derek states.

Stiles looks back. "You're still a person of interest," he says.

"An innocent person," Derek argues.

Shannon gives the leather-clad man a tight-lipped smile. "Yeah, you look it," she says sarcastically. Derek shoots her a look that proves her point and makes her slightly back away from him.

Stiles sighs. "Okay, fine. What's your plan?" he asks.

Derek averts his gaze and furrows his brows. "To distract her," he says while nodding as if he's been over this a million times.

"Uh-huh. How?" Stiles questions. He gives a shrug for emphasis. "By punching her in the face?" he suggests.

The Werewolf gives a dry, sarcastic laugh. "By talking to her."

Shannon gives him a slow, exaggerated nod. "Yeah, okay, big boy." Derek shoots her another pointed look, and she quickly scoots to the side of the back seat furthest from his seat.

"All right. Give us a sample. What are you gonna open with?" Stiles requests.

Derek looks away and draws in a breath.

And he says—

Nothing.

Stiles sighs deeply. "Dead silence. That should work beautifully. Any other ideas?"

Derek considers it for a moment. "I'm thinking about punching you two in the face," Derek comments snidely. Shannon shrinks back again in case he means it, even though she knows he wouldn't really do something like that. Not to her, at least. Stiles' jaw drops open as he stares back at the Werewolf, who, now that he's hearing no objections, opens the door of the car and slides out, sauntering towards the front door of the station.

"What just happened?" Shannon questions. Stiles just shrugs and opens his own door, getting half out before offering her a hand to help her out of the back.

The two teenagers sneakily follow Derek to the doors, hiding out in the small nook between the open door and the wall jutting out next to it. Derek approached the front desk and runs his fingers along the top of it.

The night guard walks through a door from behind the desk, her eyes trained on a file in her hands. Stiles peers in through the doorway. "Good evening, how can I help—" she looks up at his face and stops in her tracks, "—you?"

Derek smiles awkwardly at the young woman. "Hi," he says.

The guard, whose name tag reads 'BUNGALON', and who Stiles doesn't know enough about to supply a first name for, leans forward on the desk. "Hi."

Stiles rolls his head back with a silent groan.

"Um, I had a question... Um, sorry, I'm a little — a little thrown. I wasn't really expecting someone—" Derek begins to nervously ramble. Shannon honestly can't tell if it's an act or if he genuinely doesn't know how to talk to pretty women. Stiles starts sneaking into the foyer, hugging the wall closely as he goes. Shannon follows him, trying not to draw any attention by walking as normally as she can, but the stitches holding her inner thigh together is not making it an easy feat.

"—Like me?" Bungalon offers with a light chuckle.

Derek sheepishly chuckles back at her. "Oh, I was gonna say 'so incredibly beautiful,' but, yeah... I guess that'd be the same thing..."

Once Shannon and Stiles make it to the hallway behind the foyer, she leans in close to him. "How the hell is that working?" she asks. Stiles just shrugs his shoulders and opens the door to his father's office, hurrying over to the back wall where a tiny keypad resides. He punches in the code and goes to retrieve the key inside but freezes upon realising that it's already missing.

"Oh no," he mutters.

"What now?" Shannon groans. Stiles hurries past her, going back to the hallway, and she follows him — not wanting to be left alone. They manoeuvre the halls as casually as possible in order to not draw any suspicion until Stiles rounds a corner and nearly collides with a deputy.

"Oh, uh, I was just looking, um..." Stiles stammers out. His and Shannon's eyes quickly find a broken-off arrow stuck deep in the deputy's leg, and the 'deputy' himself glances down at his injury, then looks back at the teenagers menacingly. Shannon raises her hands in surrender, purely out of fear, and takes a step away from the older man. "Oh, sh—" Stiles starts. He turns and tries to run away but the fake deputy grabs the back of his flannel shirt and hooks his arms under Stiles' armpits in order to drag him away down the hall.

It's now that Shannon realises that the man is holding a syringe filled with some kind of liquid, though she doesn't think Stiles is in any danger of being stuck with it — the man is deliberately holding it away from Stiles' body as best he can, although the boy's flailing doesn't make it easy. Therefore — whatever is in the needle has to be for Isaac — meaning that this man is a hunter sent by the Argents.

"This is so stupid, this is so stupid," Shannon mutters to herself. She charges at the hunter, wincing every time her full weight lands on her bad leg, and throws a punch at him. Her fist collides with the hunter's nose at the exact moment that Stiles pulls the fire alarm on the wall. Pain shoots from her knuckles all the way to the middle of her forearm, and she pulls her fist back to cradle it in her other hand. "Son of a bitch!" she hisses. The deputy drops Stiles to the ground and lifts a hand to stem the bleeding from one of his nostrils. After he has had a second to recuperate, he storms toward Shannon and hits her back just as harshly, not caring that she's only a teenager. Shannon just about flies backwards into the nearest wall, the impact of which pulls on the stitches in her waist.

Stiles starts to scramble to his feet but he stops in his tracks, still on the floor, when he sees that the door to the holding cell that Isaac is meant to be inside of is wide open. The hunter follows Stiles' eye-line and similarity freezes in place, a look of terror washing over him.

Before anyone has a chance to process what happened, Isaac emerges from a dark corner of the room and tackles the hunter onto the top of a desk, then throws him against the wall opposite to it. The hunter screams in fear and pain while Isaac growls and roars in his face. Stiles scrambles to the other side of the room to hide, while Shannon, still by the door leading to the hallway, ducks out. She has a hand tightly pressed to her side to stop the stitches from pulling or ripping any more than they already have.

The hunter goes to stab Isaac with the syringe but Isaac catches him by his forearm and stops him mid-motion. stops him by grabbing his forearm and roaring in his face. He bends the hunter's arm back until a deafening crack resounds through the room, making Shannon cringe in disgust. The girl feels a presence behind her, and out of her peripherals, she can see Derek's leather jacket appearing. Isaac grabs the hunter's head and slams it back into the wall, while Derek quietly and calmly enters the room after giving Shannon a very quick once-over to make sure she's mostly okay.

His boot slams down on the discarded syringe, shattering it under his weight, which catches Isaac's attention. Isaac spins around to face his Alpha, but when Stiles shifts upwards, the Werewolf sets his sights on him instead. He goes to charge at him but only stops when Derek roars in his face — his fangs extended and eyes glowing a bright, ruby red. Isaac backs up and cowers to the ground against the wall, the unconscious hunter by his side. He hides his face in the crook of his bent arm, small whimpers escaping his mouth. 

Tentatively, Shannon steps into the room and approaches Isaac, her newly agitated wound making her already annoying limp just that more obvious. She cautiously extends an arm towards the Beta Werewolf, and he slowly looks up, now transformed back to his regular human self. He looks at Derek first, his features still plagued with fear, then turns his attention to Shannon.

"Are you okay?" she asks softly.

Isaac nods silently, still trembling from a mix of adrenaline and fright.

"How did you do that?" Stiles asks, still trying to catch his breath from the shock of nearly being ripped apart.

Derek turns around to face the younger boy. A smirk grows on his face. "I'm the Alpha."

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published : november 3, 2022
word count : 2.1k