CHAPTER FIVE : the swimming pool

( abomination )

————

     THANKS TO ERICA'S MEDDLING, Stiles' Jeep was toast. Stiles begrudgingly had to call up a tow truck to the front of Boyd's house, and then call Shannon, ( who can drive, thank you very much, though she has to use her dad's car when she wants to ) who was already at home and in bed after returning from the ice rink, to get her to drive him to the mechanic. By the time the towing people arrived, it was after eleven o'clock — well after Boyd had returned home and given him a very strange look as he walked towards the front door.

     The mechanic has already started working on the Jeep by the time Shannon and Stiles arrive. Stiles hurries through to the workstation to talk to ( berate ) him, while Shannon disappears into the bathroom to splash her face with water to wake herself up a bit more. She hadn't fallen asleep by the time that Stiles rang her, but she had been close enough to it that she was really peeved off, even more so when Stiles asked her why she was in her pyjamas.

     Shannon exits the bathroom, drying her face off with a paper towel with one hand and tugging the waistband of her plaid pyjama pants further up on her hips with the other. Stiles is already returning to the main office, shaking something off his hand, while turning to call out, "Quality establishment you're running, here!" over his shoulder. He shuts the door behind him and leans against it as he wipes the stuff on his hand onto his jacket.

     Shannon winces. "Do I want to know?" she asks.

     Stiles shakes his head, still wiping away the clear goop stuck to his palm. "Nope." He wanders over to the windows facing into the garage and shakes out his hand again before reaching into his jacket pocket to grab his phone. Shannon crosses over to the unattended front desk to grab a tissue from the tissue box resting atop it. She grabs the zipper of Stiles' jacket and pulls the goopy side toward her, starting to work at cleaning it off for him. Stiles awkwardly chuckles. "What're you doing?" he asks.

     She doesn't look up from her task. "Helping." She says it like it's obvious. A drop of the viscous liquid drips onto her fingers and she cringes at the sensation, folding the tissue over to wipe it off. "Gross," she mutters under her breath.

     As Stiles tries to type a text message, he notices his fingers beginning to freeze up and his hands starting to shake violently. His phone falls to the floor and Shannon, not noticing the shortening of his breathing, crouches down to grab it for him, discarding the now sodden tissue to the side. When she tries to stand back up, she quickly discovers that her muscles are refusing to cooperate, keeping her stuck close to the ground. "What the hell?" she questions, her voice weak.

     Stiles grunts under his breath as he stares down at his quivering hands. He looks up into the garage through the wall of windows in front of him. "Hey," he tries to call out, though his voice comes out croaky and raw. "Hey!"

     "What is it? What's going on?" Shannon asks, still finding herself unable to stand to her full height.

     Stiles ignores her. "Hey!" He's louder than before but the mechanic still doesn't hear his warning. Stiles promptly collapses to the ground with a loud groan as his legs give out. He lands partially on Shannon's back, which sends her down to the floor in a crumpled heap with him, now both completely blind to the action going on inside the garage.

     Shannon manages to wiggle her body just enough to slide Stiles' phone out of her hands, though she misjudges the distance and it shoots across the carpeted floor closer to the glass door. Stiles finds enough strength to army-crawl his way to the door, shakily reaching toward it in order to dial 911.

     A loud 'hiss' sounds through the door as a reptilian creature appears, startling Stiles enough that even in his now totally paralysed state, he still has it in him to flinch backwards. Then, Stiles' call finally goes through.

     The paralysis has worn off by the time the cops arrive to take control of the scene. The time that Stiles and Shannon had spent on the floor, unable to move, was perfect for them to organise an everyday non-supernatural story to spin, both ending up totally prepared to lie their asses off to the poor officers who are having to make sense of the entire situation.

     It's only after that that they're allowed to leave, and Shannon starts the walk home, feeling far too shaken up to drive home herself. Although she faired better than Stiles, who had to watch as his very own Jeep crushed the mechanic — apparently named Tucker — she still had to see the aftermath once she was finally able to stand. The car lift had been completely lowered on top of Tucker — who had been lying underneath it, unable to move just like Stiles and Shannon were — splitting him nearly completely in half. While she couldn't see much from the distance, and with Stiles' car covering most of the damage, the amount of thick blood and squished guts spilling out and flowing underneath and around the side of Tucker's body that wasn't obscured was enough to send Shannon hurrying outside with a hand cupped over her mouth.

     She's got a story prepared for when she gets home too, but luckily, she doesn't even have to tell it. Her dad is passed out, loudly snoring in his downstairs bedroom, not stirring even when the door accidentally slams shut behind her. Shannon knows she'll have to tell him what happened — the falsified version — eventually, but now, all she wants is to sleep and pretend nothing happened.

————

     The next morning, after sleeping off the shock, Shannon arrives at school with her dad like any other day. Thankfully, the Sheriff hasn't yet left a message on his phone to let him know what happened at the garage, giving Shannon time to tell him on her own terms. But, for now, she's sitting at a picnic table on the front lawn of the school with Allison to her right, the two of them burying their faces in their biology textbooks.

     Stiles has been put on, what Shannon has decided to call, 'owl duty' — rushing back and forth between Allison and Scott to deliver messages from one to the other, as neither of them wants to brave speaking to each other while Allison's family is watching her like a hawk. He sprints up to the table, resting his hands on his knees for a moment to catch his breath as he arrives. Both girls look over at him while trying to hide their amusement "Okay, I'm not doing the first-person thing anymore because it's getting weird," he finally says.

     Shannon nods in understanding. "Fair enough," she says.

     "So, Scott's boss thinks that we can figure out what this thing that killed Tucker at his garage is," he tells them.

     Allison's brows furrowed as she leans in. "How?" she asks.

     "He thinks your family has this book — a Bestiary."

     The brunette giggles, one of her hands coming up to cover her mouth. "I think you mean—" she starts, but Stiles butts in before she has the chance to finish the sentence.

     "—No, I mean Bestiary," he says with an exasperated sigh. "And the two of you? I don't want to know what's going on in your heads."

     Shannon drops her neon yellow highlighter and raises her hands in surrender. "I said nothing," she states.

     Allison scratches her head for a moment. "Okay, um. Can you describe this thing?"

     "Uh, it's probably like a book — old, worn—"

     "—Like, bound in leather?" Allison interrupts.

     Stiles nods hesitantly. "Yeah, yeah, could be."

     "My grandfather. He has a book just like that," Allison tells him.

     The boy extends both of his arms, both index fingers pointed out as if to say 'hold that thought'. "Okay, okay, hold on," he says, spinning around to run back to the school building.

     "How much more of this back-and-forth do you think he's gonna do?" Shannon asks, leaning slightly closer to Allison as she does so. She picks her highlighter back up and twiddles it between her index and middle fingers. This is already Stiles' third round-trip and both girls know that he's nowhere near done yet.

     Allison chuckles softly. "I don't know, but it's kinda funny."

     Shannon nods in agreement before she and her brunette friend go back to their studies. While Allison mainly scribbles notes in the margins of her book and transfers lines directly to her notebook, Shannon spends most of her time highlighting various words and phrases scattered around the pages. It's a method many of Shannon's previous teachers had highly recommended — highlighting certain terms to focus on learning them, and although it had never worked for her in the past, she still did it just in case something would finally click for her. Her brain simply just will not cooperate when it comes to learning.

     Around five minutes later, Stiles comes sprinting back. He fails to stop running in time and collides roughly with the metal table. The impact makes the table jerk, and Shannon's highlighter soars over the page, drawing a long diagonal line from corner to corner. Shannon glares at her friend. "Really?"

     Stiles ignores her as he tries to catch his breath. "Where... does he... keep it?" he asks, repeating and paraphrasing the words that Scott had asked him to.

     Allison frowns. "Probably his office? I can't think of anywhere else secure enough."

     Stiles doesn't move, and when Shannon glances up from her book, she sees that he is staring at her. She widens her eyes at him and shoos him away. "You are no help!" Stiles grumbles as he sprints off once again.

     "I wasn't trying to help," Shannon says under her breath.

     Allison stifles a laugh with the palm of her hand. "I think he means with the 'relaying of messages' thing," she says.

     Shannon shrugs. "Yeah, well, actually trying to pass biology is more important." She thwacks the back of her highlighter against her open book. "Because I suck at it."

     Another few minutes later, Stiles returns. This time, he has one of Scott's old inhalers that the teenage Werewolf no longer uses since his transformation. Being a Werewolf means healing from all debilitating physical ailments — so Scott's asthma, Erica's epilepsy, and no doubt Shannon wouldn't have even needed stitches had Peter's bite actually worked the way it was meant to. As much as Scott complains about the lycanthropy curse — and Shannon's seen enough to confirm that it is, in fact, a curse — the rapid healing is surely a side effect that the blonde wouldn't mind having. Stiles takes a puff from the inhaler before he begins talking again.

     "You know, drug dealers have been using disposable cell phones pretty successfully for years—"

     Allison starts shaking her head before he can finish his sentence. "My parents check every call, email, and text message I get. Trust me — they'd find it."

     Stiles sighs under his breath. "All right, can you get the book?" he asks, once again paraphrasing one of Scott's, no doubt, long messages.

     Allison shakes her head. "Not without his keys."

     Shannon's left eyebrow raises. "Then get his keys," she says.

     "How?" Allison asks, flipping her braid over her shoulder. "Do you want me to cast a magic spell?"

     The blonde fails to register the humour in her friend's voice. "If it gets you the keys, sure."

     Stiles takes a step back from the two girls. "Yeah, I'm just gonna," he points towards the doors of the school, "go..." He turns on his heel and begins to sprint away.

     After a long moment, when Stiles has already disappeared back into the building, Shannon leans over to Allison. "You think he's realised that he could just text Scott from here and not have to keep running around?" she asks.

     The brunette bites the inside of her cheek as she thinks over the idea, then confesses, "I didn't even think of that."

————

     That night, Shannon sits on the bench by the side of the lacrosse field, bundled up in a big coat so that the chilly late-winter air can't bite at her skin. The lacrosse game is well underway, and out of the corner of her eye, she's closely monitoring Allison and her grandfather. Her attention is quickly brought back to the field, where Blake Addams — a Cyclones team member — is thrown through the air by a much, much larger player.

     Shannon grimaces at the impact. The coach blows his whistle as the crowd groans loudly. "Come on! Is that thing even a teenager?" he cries out. "I wanna see a birth certificate!" He turns around and sits on the bench between Stiles and Shannon. "Who or what is that genetic experiment gone wrong?" he asks nobody in particular.

     Stiles jumps in at the opportunity. "Eddie Abramowitz, Coach. They call him 'The Abomination'," he says, holding back a laugh at the player's nickname.

     The coach rolls his eyes. "Oh, that's cute."

     Shannon squints at the field. "He scares me," she says dryly.

     Jackson approaches Scott and the pair argue for a moment in the distance, though Shannon can't make out what they're saying. The argument is over before it really begins, and Shannon is able to bring her attention back to the pair of Argents behind her. The two of them get to their feet as Mr Argent shuffles his big coat off and passes it to his granddaughter, who, upon sitting back down, starts to rummage around in his pockets. She pulls out the keys, prompting Shannon to reach behind her dad's back to tap Stiles' shoulder. "I'm gonna go to the bathroom," Stiles says as he gets to his feet and climbs over to the other side of the bench to begin his part of the plan.

     "I don't need to know," the coach says, his eyes remaining glued to the field.

     Stiles hurries, as casually as he can, over to the space between both sets of bleachers to retrieve the keys from Allison. Meanwhile, on the field, Abramowitz shoulder-checks more players to the ground. Allison drops the keys into Stiles' hand, and two paramedics pick up one of the players, Patrick, from the ground to place him onto a stretcher. "I can't feel my legs!" Patrick cries, shouting loudly as he's carried away.

     Danny is also carted over to the bench by the side of the field, holding an ice pack up to his head. The coach stands up to crouch down by his side. He holds up two fingers. "How many fingers am I holding up?

     "Four?" Danny uncertainly replies.

     The coach shakes his head. "Say two," he hisses.

     Shannon blinks in disbelief. "Dad, really?"

     Danny blinks hard and stares more determinedly at Shannon's father's fingers. "Two?" He's still unsure, but the coach nods in confirmation.

     "Perfect! Get out there!" he exclaims, pulling Danny to up his feet. "Come on — get out there and have a stick!" He grabs Danny's discarded lacrosse stick and throws it at the most likely concussed boy. He shakily catches it and heads back to the field.

     "We're still short one player, Coach!" Ricky calls from further on the field.

     Shannon's father grunts loudly and spins around to face the bench. "Where's Stilinski?" he asks. Nobody replies so he repeats the question, more annoyed this time.

     "Bathroom!" Shannon replies, repeating Stiles' earlier lie.

     The coach grunts again and starts scanning through the bleachers. He sets his sights on Boyd and points at him, prompting Shannon to look over as well. "You! You! You play lacrosse?" he asks. Boyd goes to stand up but Erica, who is sitting in between him and Jules, stops him to whisper something. Clearly, Boyd doesn't care about what she has to say, as he stands up and whips off his jacket anyway. Shannon's father laughs delightedly. "Oh! We got ourselves a player!" he celebrates.

     The game starts back up again, with Boyd, who has never played a game of lacrosse in his life, managing to take Abramowitz down in one fell swoop. The crowd goes wild with excitement.

     "The bigger they are — the bigger they are!" Coach cries out. Shannon screws up her face at the statement but she doesn't question him.

     The blonde feels a tap on her shoulder, and she turns around, keeping her eyes on the game for as long as she physically can until she has to turn her head too. Jules has left the bleachers and is now standing before her, flashing her best friendly smile. "Oh, hey," Shannon says, finding it in her to smile back.

     "Hey, can you come with me for a second?" the brunette asks sweetly.

     Shannon's brows furrow momentarily. She glances back at the field. "Uh, can it wait?" she asks. "Watching the game, y'know?"

     Jules sighs softly, her smile not fading in the slightest. "It'll only be a second."

     Shannon hesitates but then nods. "Yeah, yeah, okay," she says. She turns to where her dad is standing by the side of the field. "I'll be right back," she tells him as she gets to her feet and follows Jules towards the school building.

     The brunette leads the blonde closer and closer towards the school pool, which only makes Shannon more and more nervous. She hasn't liked being around pools ever since her mother's passing — one of the main reasons she has avoided Lydia's backyard ever since the two of them became friends. She's praying as hard as she can that Jules will walk right past the building, but to her dismay, she doesn't, turning to walk through the front doors instead. Through the pool's other entrance, Shannon spots Erica leading Stiles in. He's grunting in pain, clearly not coming willingly.

     And then, Derek appears, holding a basketball in one hand. "Stiles," he begins. Erica and Jules finish walking their victims to their desired positions and then leave to stand at Derek's side.

     Stiles nods once in acknowledgement. "Derek."

     Derek turns his head to look at the girl. "Shannon." Shannon regards him with a hesitant smile and nothing more, trying to keep her eyes focused on him and not on the large body of water he's standing in front of. "What did you see at the mechanic's garage?" Derek asks.

     Stiles scratches the back of his neck and evasively breaks eye contact with the alpha. "Uh, several alarming EPA violations that I'm seriously considering reporting—" He trails off, not knowing how long to continue his response, so Shannon cuts in for him.

     "I just saw red when Stiles asked why I was wearing my pyjamas," she jokes. Luckily for her, her comment makes Erica and Jules chuckle until Derek shoots both of them a scarlet-toned glare that makes them both go quiet. The Alpha extends his claws and stabs the basketball he's holding, making it rapidly deflate in his grasp.

     "Holy God," Stiles whimpers.

     "Let's try that again," Derek says, an insincere smile appearing on his face.

     Shannon takes a tiny step away from the Werewolf. "For real, though, I actually didn't see anything," she quickly says.

     Stiles whips his head towards her, mouth gaping wide open. "Dude!"

     "He has claws!" she exclaims, shoulders raised defensively.

     Stiles groans, loudly. "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 talk to—"

     Shannon can't offer any information to corroborate Stiles' description but she nods along anyway. "Yeah, and I have a game and an increasingly overprotective dad — thanks to your uncle, actually — that I need to get back to so..." She tries to walk towards the exit, but when the Hale pack ( excluding Isaac ) continues to stare at her and her friend, she stops in her tracks.

     Exasperatedly, Stiles grunts. "All right, fine. Eyes. Eyes are, um, yellowish, and slitted. Um, has a lot of teeth... Oh, and it's got a tail, too!"

     Derek's eyes flit up to the landing above where the two humans are standing.

     "Are we good?" Stiles asks.

     Erica and Jules also begin to look above the pair.

     "What? Wait, have you seen it? You guys have this look on your faces like you know exactly what I am talking about."

     Reluctantly, Shannon turns around and looks up at the top of the staircase. Perched on the railing, right above Stiles, is the exact creature he's describing. Man-sized and covered head-to-toe, uh, tail, in scales, the creature uses its massive tail to counterbalance it so that it can lean — almost hover — in the air above the boy. Its long claws seem to be secreting some kind of clear, viscous liquid, which drips down onto the rails and the floor of the landing. It's whipping its head back and forth, rows of razor-sharp fangs becoming visible, and its slitted, reptilian eyes bore into Shannon's blue ones as she quickly backs up beside Jules.

     "Shannon? What are you doing?" Stiles asks. He, too, turns around and looks up, right as the creature lets out a deafening screech. Stiles joins the line by the side of the pool with an exclamation of shock.

     The creature jumps down from the landing so that it is on the same level as the Alpha and the four teenagers. Derek lets out a loud growl as the creature smacks Erica's quickly approaching body away. She hits the wall with a loud grunt and collapses in a heap.

     "Run!" Derek shouts. He doesn't even have a chance to move, himself, when the creature manoeuvres its tail to slice the back of his neck.

     "Derek, your neck!" Stiles calls out as if the Werewolf hadn't noticed the sensation of his skin being sliced open. Derek falls to the ground and Stiles just barely catches him, slotting the taller man's arm over his shoulders to keep him on his feet. Jules makes a break for the exit and gets out just in time, while Stiles and Shannon sprint the other way, Derek being dragged along with them. "Where is it? Can you see it?" Stiles asks.

     Shannon whips her head around in a frenzy as she scans the area for the reptilian creature, but she's unable to focus due to the sheer amount of water surrounding them.

     "I can smell it. Just hurry. Call Scott!" Derek replies, voice raised and panicked. Stiles grabs his out phone but drops it, and in his attempt to catch it in mid-air, Derek goes tumbling into the water. "Stiles!" he cries out.

     He goes splashing into the water, and Shannon, without a second thought, dives in after him. Her dislike for the water can wait until Derek's no longer paralysed and can swim to save himself. Once her full body is submerged, though, she notices something much worse than an impending trauma-induced anxiety attack.

     The water burns.

     It bites at her flesh. It weighs her down as she wrenches her eyes open to find the werewolf in the depths, and once she locates him and lifts him up so that both of their heads breach the surface, the discomfort doesn't dissipate. She shouts out in pain as Derek gasps for breath.

     Stiles, to the side of the pool, has grabbed his phone from the ground, already searching his contacts for Scott's name. He presses it but it rings out and goes to voicemail.

     Right... he's in the middle of a game.

     The creature quickly scurries across the ground towards Stiles, and with no choice remaining, he drops his phone back onto the concrete and dives into the water. Seeing how much Shannon appears to be struggling under the weight of Derek, Stiles swims towards the pair and transfers the Werewolf into his own arms.

     And then it's minutes upon minutes upon minutes of treading water.

     "Will you get me out of here before I drown?" Derek demands.

     Stiles raises his eyebrows and whips his head to face the man in his arms, who he's cradling like an infant after a temper tantrum in his crib. "You're worried about drowning? Did you notice the thing out there with multiple rows of razor-sharp teeth?" he asks incredulously.

     Derek irritably scowls. "Did you notice I'm paralysed from the neck down in eight feet of water?"

     Shannon huffs. "Yeah, and I feel like I'm burning alive so suck it up, princess," she snaps. At this point, the pain feels like it's started to stab through her bones, and the sensation on her skin is like when you accidentally singe a finger on the top of the stove but, for whatever reason, you can't pull your hand away from it.

     "Suck it up? Really?" Derek snarls.

     "Yeah, really," Shannon hisses back.

     Stiles, immediately wanting to stop the childish bickering before it really begins, looks around the large room. "I don't see it," he says. The Werewolf and the blonde stop speaking and also look around. The creature has disappeared, so Stiles starts splashing his way towards the edge of the pool.

     "Wait, wait, wait! Stop! Stop!" Derek calls out. The creature has crawled out of its hiding spot at the sudden noise, but it's not approaching the water. Not yet.

     "What's it waiting for?" Stiles asks.

     The creature crawls closer to the pool and reaches towards it, but the second it makes contact, it pulls away with a loud hiss, shaking its scaly hand dry. Stiles cocks his head. "Wait, did you see that?" he asks. "I don't think it can swim."

————

     It has been two hours of swimming in place and Shannon is in the worst pain of her life. Her fingertips have shrivelled up like prunes, and by the looks of it, Derek and Stiles are in the exact same boat as her. Stiles has already tried to call Scott again, going so far as to leave Derek to fend for himself so he could get to his phone quicker, forcing Shannon to, once again, dive under the water to save his ass. And, it was all for nothing, because Scott hung up in seconds without hearing Stiles out.

     "I can't do this anymore," Shannon finally says, her voice weak from exhaustion.

     Stiles groans loudly. The sound echoes throughout the empty room. "You have to," he urges her. The creature is still careening around the pool, rushing up and down the stairs, hurrying in and out of the doorways, and they can't risk making a break for the exit. Not when Derek still can't move.

     The blonde takes a long breath. "Stiles, it feels like my skin is melting. At this point, I'll take death by that thing over this."

     Without waiting for pushback, Shannon pushes through the agony and swims to the edge of the pool furthest from where the creature is currently crouched and pulls herself out. The second her body is no longer submerged in the water, the pain disappears. The creature starts running at her now, and without the burning sensation holding her back, she's able to sprint towards the outside exit. Her sodden shoes slip a little on the concrete, and her exhaustion from the two and a half hours of treading water makes it so that she isn't as fast as she could be, but she still soars outside without the creature catching up to her. Once she's out in the fresh air, the creature seems to give up on the chase and disappears to start patrolling the pool again.

     The cool, nighttime air chills Shannon through her wet clothes. Her woollen coat is heavy with chlorinated water, forcing her to pull it off and drop it to the ground, wrapping her arms around her front to conserve what body heat she still has. A blue Mazda pulls up in the parking lot and Scott jumps out, hurrying towards the soaked blonde. He whips his jacket off the second he notices the way she's shivering and hands it to her. The Mazda peels out of the lot behind the pair as Shannon slips her arms through the sleeves of the coat.

     "They're in the pool," Shannon says. She doesn't have to elaborate for Scott to understand that she means Stiles and whatever's keeping him ( and Derek ) there.

     Scott nods in acknowledgement. "Stay here," he instructs her. He makes a point of tugging the sides of the jacket together and zipping it up for the blonde, as her fingers are too frozen to work the zipper herself. He disappears into the pool as Shannon sits down on the curb with her knees pulled to her chest, her teeth chattering loudly as she desperately tries to warm herself up.

     Her friend is only gone for a minute or two, with barely any sounds indicating that a battle was occurring escaping the building before he returns outside with Stiles in tow. Scott's dangling Mr Argent's keys in his hand. He and Stiles walk towards Stiles' sky-blue Jeep, and the younger of the two boys grabs his laptop off the passenger seat. Shannon shakily gets to her feet and joins the two boys as Scott plugs a USB from the keychain into the side of Stiles' laptop. Together, they find the Bestiary and open it.

     They scroll through it for a moment before discovering an issue.

     It's not written in English.

     "Is that even a language?" Stiles asks.

     Scott sighs. "How are we supposed to figure out what this thing is?"

     "It's called a Kanima."

     The trio look away from the computer screen to the footpath, where Derek, flanked on either side by Erica and Jules, approaches them. Good to know he's got his mobility back.

     Stiles' mouth gapes open. "You knew the whole time?" he asks incredulously.

     "No. Only when it was confused by its own reflection," Derek replies.

     Scott glances away. "It doesn't know what it is," he realises.

     Derek nods in confirmation. "Or who."

     Stiles huffs, clearly annoyed by the Alpha and his evasiveness. "What else do you know?"

     "Just stories," Derek says with a shake of his head. "Rumours."

     "But it's like us?"

     Derek stammers for a moment. "A shapeshifter — yes. But, it's not right. It's like a—" he cuts himself off to think of a term that suits, but Stiles already has one to supply.

     "An abomination," he says.

     Shannon's eyebrows raise as she chews on the inside of her bottom lip. "Nice callback," she mutters, thinking back to the nickname given to the monstrous opposing lacrosse player. Derek nods grimly and he turns to walk away, his betas going to do the same.

     "Derek," Scott says, stopping the Alpha in his tracks. He turns back. "We need to work together on this. Maybe even tell the Argents."

     Shannon blinks in surprise. "Uh, what?" she asks.

     "You trust them?" Derek asks, appalled and disgusted just from the suggestion alone.

     Scott's stare bores right into Derek's. "Nobody trusts anyone," he states. "That's the problem. While we're here, arguing about who's on what side, there's something scarier, stronger, and faster than any of us, and it's killing people, and we still don't even know anything about it!"

     "I know one thing," Derek says with a scowl. "When I find it? I'm gonna kill it." He turns on his heel and starts to storm away, Erica and Jules quickly following his lead, but he stops in his tracks a mere few feet away. "Shannon."

     The blonde's eyebrows furrow. "Yeah?" she asks, trying her hardest to steady her jaw so that her teeth won't chatter too loudly.

     "Come here." He's not asking her to, he's telling her. She goes to take a step forward but hesitates and stays where she is. Derek sighs exasperatedly. "Just for a minute."

     Well, that's what Jules told her right before she got trapped in a pool for two hours.

     Against her better judgement, she begrudgingly moves to Derek's side. "Any time you notice something — a new strength, a new weakness — you tell me."

     Shannon's mouth opens and closes a few times before a word actually manifests. "What? Why?" she asks. If her brows could be physically furrowed any further, they would be.

     "I want to figure out what you are." Shannon just keeps staring at Derek, silently. He takes a deep breath and exhales sharply.

     "You're not human. Not anymore."

————

a/n:
yeah hi you have no idea how much i struggled writing this one but i'm happy with it! thank u for reading my luvs :)

published: november 16, 2022
word count: 5.5k