CHAPTER EIGHT : meet me in detention

( restraint )

————

BILINSKI:
SO JACKSON GOT a restraining order on scott and i and then scott's mom banned him from hanging out me :(

COACH JR:
U guys are literally so dumb.

Can Shannon say she's all that surprised when Scott and Stiles' 'totally brilliant plan' fails miserably? What else did they expect would happen after kidnapping rich-boy Jackson and holding him hostage in a stolen prison transport van?

Now, it won't just be Allison having to sneak around to meet up with the boys. Shannon will have to join her to avoid the wrath of her dad, who'd now very much prefer that she didn't continue to associate with the boys who just kneecapped the lacrosse team. Stiles being unable to play on the team with Jackson isn't that big of a bummer to the coach, but Scott having to sit out too? Yeah, he is not happy at all about that.

The next day during their free period, the four friends steal away into the library's aisles, where Shannon has stealthily reorganised some books on a head-height shelf. Allison and Shannon gather on one side of the shelf, smack bang in the middle of the mythology section ( how apt ), Scott and Stiles in the other, mulling about the history books.

Allison slides an iPad through the gap in the shelf and into Scott's hands. He turns it on to see pictures of the Bestiary's pages, notated with the English translations on a yellow sticky note-like background. "It's everything Lydia can translate. And trust me, she was very confused."

"Yeah, what'd you tell her?" Scott asks as he skims through the notes on the screen.

Allison's face screws up a little. "That we were part of an online gaming community that battles mythical creatures."

Neither Scott nor Shannon can keep their snickers to themselves, both ducking their head to keep their cover. Stiles, however, stares unrelentingly at Allison. "I am part of an online gaming community that battles mythical creatures," he says earnestly.

"Hmm," Shannon hums, regaining her composure. She examines Stiles for a moment. "That tracks, actually."

     The face Stiles makes at her is one of pure betrayal. "Wait, what does that mean?"

     Scott waves a hand, cutting off the budding side conversation. They don't have an unlimited amount of time over here. "Does it say how to find out who's controlling him?"

     With a shake of her head, Allison replies, "Not really." She purses her lips. "But Stiles was right about the murderers."

     Stiles, who had been staring daggers at the two girls until this moment for insulting his gaming, finally snaps out of it. He excitedly pumps his fist in the air, uttering a very hushed, "Yes!" Shannon glares at him, telling him with her eyes to shut the fuck up, while Scott just nods approvingly at his friend.

     "It calls the Kanima a 'weapon of vengeance.' There's a story in there about this South American priest who uses the Kanima to execute murderers in his village," Allison says, checking over her shoulder to make sure nobody else has come into the aisle behind her.

     "All right, see?" Stiles interjects. "So, maybe it's not all that bad."

     Allison reaches up to grab a book on Norse mythology from the shelf above her head and starts to flip through the pages. "Until the bond grew strong enough that it killed whoever he wanted it to," she explains, her eyes darting up to look at the boys as she turns the pages.

     Alarmed, Stiles backtracks. "All bad. All very, very bad."

     "Here's the thing, though," Allison says, checking over her shoulder again. The librarian shuffles into the aisle, a stack of books in hand, and starts to stack them on the opposite shelf. Allison averts her gaze, turning to Shannon instead, still speaking loud enough that the boys can still hear her. "The Kanima's actually supposed to be a Werewolf, but it can't be until it resolved whatever happened in its past which manifested it." She acts like she's reading from the book, which would be a fine cover unless the librarian looked over her shoulder and saw that Allison was actually on the page about Fenrir.

     Shannon nods along, anyway. "Right. So, it's like a Werewolf in limbo?"

     "Yeah, pretty much," Allison says. She lowers her voice even more because she can't mask her next question behind reading from the book. "What if it has something to do with Jackson's parents?" She glances up to meet the boys' gaze. "His real parents."

     Something sparks in Scott's eyes. "Yeah, does anybody actually know what happened to them?"

     "Lydia might," Stiles says.

     The librarian leaves the aisle, allowing the girls to drop their act. Allison returns the mythology book to the shelf and Shannon goes back to brazenly looking through the hole in the stacks.

     "What if she doesn't know anything?" Scott asks.

     "Well, Jackson doesn't have a restraining order against us," she gestures at herself and Shannon, "so, we'll talk to him."

     Shannon blinks. "I did not sign up for that, but, okay."

     "What do I do?" Scott asks.

     "You have a make-up exam, remember?" Behind Scott, Stiles nods at him. Scott huffs and Allison reaches between the books on the shelf below their talking shelf, placing her hand over the top of his. He closes his fingers around hers, rubbing a thumb over the top of her knuckles. "Promise me."

     Scott hesitates for a moment. "If he does anything, you run the other way."

     "I can take care of myself," Allison says.

     Shannon nods in agreement. "She has a crossbow, remember. And I've got..." She pauses. She has no idea what she has. "I dunno, I'm something."

     "If you get hurt while I'm busy with some stupid test then someone's going to need to take care of me. If he does anything—"

     "—Like?"

     Scott huffs again. "Anything weird or bizarre. Anything."

     Stiles pushes past Scott, shoving his head through the talking hole. "Anything evil."

     "Ew, get away," Shannon mutters, stifling a laugh with the back of her hand as Allison presses her whole palm against Stiles's face to shove him back to his side. Stiles fumbles for his things as he regains his balance. "We're undercover, can you be normal?"

————

The day goes by quickly. In no time at all, it's lunch period and, with their group split in a million directions — Stiles hounding Lydia for answers about Jackson's family, Scott taking his make-up chemistry test, Allison trailing Jackson after insisting that she could talk to him alone — Shannon has taken to the corridor. It's her, a pair of headphones, and Spotify against the world. Her enhanced hearing has made school a nightmare, so until she learns to tune out every gross mouth noise in the cafeteria, she's eating her lunch in the halls, sitting against a block of lockers, book in hand.

She'd thought this arrangement would lead to no distractions, so when a pair of legs encroach on her space, she doesn't move. The legs' owner might just be getting something from their locker, or checking a message on their phone, or trying to remember what they were doing because their brain went blank. It happens all the time.

So, she doesn't look up, only relenting when the feet next to her still don't take off and walk away after a few seconds.

Isaac Lahey is there, hands tucked into the back pockets of his black jeans, looking down at her expectantly. Shannon pauses her music and takes one of her earbuds out.

"What do you want?" she asks.

Isaac winces, fake hurt. "To apologise." He says it like it's a question, almost like he's doubting if he should even attempt it.

Bull. Shannon shakes her head dismissively. "No, you don't," she says. He's got some ulterior motive here, she knows it.

The boy is actually a little offended. Is he really that bad? He stammers for words for a moment. "I know you healed, and everything, but I still hurt you, so, I'm apologising."

"Nobody ever apologises for hurting someone during a," she lowers her voice, "supernatural battle to the death."

Isaac sighs. "First, it wasn't a battle to the death, everyone's still alive and fine—"

"—Stiles damn near had a concussion."

"And, it wasn't even a fair fight because, y'know, I have claws and you don't. So, I'm sorry."

Shannon glances down at her hands, at her neatly manicured nails. He's not wrong. Whatever she is, she doesn't have claws or fangs. She just burns up in the water and hears really well — too well — now. The school corridor has never exactly been a calm place but her increasingly sensitive hearing makes it some sort of auditory hellscape even with the musical distraction. Still better than the cafeteria, though.

"I dunno. I still don't buy it."

Isaac groans. "Why not?"

"Because, I—"

She stops, brows knitting together, glancing back up at the taller boy. His expression mirrors hers. They've both heard the same thing — some loud crash further into the school, in the direction of the locker rooms. The pair jump into action immediately, Isaac reaching down to help Shannon to her feet, before they book it down the hall to find the origin of the sound.

They hurry through the corridor as fast as they can without drawing suspicion to themselves, both by their peers and the cameras watching their every move. Isaac still hasn't let go of Shannon's arm, pulling her along and weaving her around the hordes of students in their way. By the time they arrive in the hallway in front of the locker room, things are oddly silent, aside from the sound of spraying water — the shower, maybe? Erica and Stiles are there, too. Erica's talking, and Stiles isn't listening. His gaze is fixed on the puddle of water seeping out from under the door to the boys' locker room.

Was it a false alarm? Maybe someone just fell and knocked something over? Surely Erica would be hearing something. She's got the same enhanced senses that Shannon and Isaac have.

Right as Shannon allows her guard to lower, her heart rate slowing, the door to the locker room bursts open and Scott comes flying out, smacking the back of his skull on the linoleum flooring. Jackson steps out immediately after him, dripping wet and dressed only in a pair of gym shorts. He stands over Scott and bends down, grabbing him by his shirt, and pulls him up. Erica jumps to action, pulling Jackson off Scott, while Stiles instantly comes to Scott's side, helping him off the ground.

Scott slips on the puddle of water as he tries to stand, while a crowd forms to watch the scuffle. Three kids that Shannon has never seen before and Matt Daehler from the lacrosse team appear on the other end of the hallway, and Mr Harris shoves past them all to approach the fighting teenagers.

"What do you idiots think you're doing?" Harris shouts before directing his attention to the shirtless boy, still struggling in Erica's grasp. "Jackson! Calm down!"

Allison appears in the doorway to the locker room. What she was doing in there, Shannon doesn't want to know. The boys on the lacrosse team are desensitised to her presence there, but she's also always under the watchful eye of her dad, and only in there when the boys have finished changing. She doesn't want to see any more of them than she has to.

"Mr McCall, you wanna explain yourself?" he asks. Scott says nothing. "Stilinski?" Still nothing. "Finstock, what about you?"

Shannon gapes. "I was literally just standing here."

Isaac hasn't even let go of her arm yet.

"You dropped this," Matt says, drawing everyone's attention to him. He's standing behind Mr Harris, iPad in hand, holding it out for someone else to take. Harris snatches it before Scott has a chance to reach for it.

He uses it as a pointer. "You, and you," he says, flapping it in the direction of Jackson and Scott respectively. He wiggles it a little as he thinks. "Actually... all of you." He sweeps the iPad around the space, gesturing at everyone from Stiles to Isaac to Matt. "Detention. Three o'clock."

What the hell?

————

     Once the bell signalling the end of the school day rings, Shannon and the rest of the unfortunate hallway crew head to the library, where their detention is to take place, with their belongings. Harris is already there, standing smugly between the tables and chairs set up for the students to read or study at.

     Scott and Stiles lead the charge, pulling up seats at the closest table to the door, and when Erica swings in with them, Shannon makes a break for a different table altogether. She plops down at the table diagonally opposite them, dropping her bag on the chair next to her to stop anyone sitting there. Matt, Allison, and Jackson take the table next to Shannon's, opposite the boys and Erica.

     That just leaves Isaac, who has the choice of the last seat on either of those tables, the completely empty one opposite Shannon's, or—

     Isaac takes the seat opposite Shannon at her table. Shannon scowls and glares at him.

     Before Jackson is fully seated, he looks to Harris and gestures to Scott and Stiles. "Oh, uh, we can't be in detention together. I have a restraining order against these tools." Then, he takes his seat.

     "All of these tools?" Harris asks, completely disinterested.

     "No, just us tools," Stiles says tiredly, pointing between him and his friend.

     Harris nods. "Fine. You two," he points at the boys, "over there." He gestures to the empty table opposite Shannon and Isaac's. The boys get up and switch seats, ignoring the smug look on Erica's face.

     Shannon doesn't miss how baffled Jackson looks that his plan to escape detention failed. She flashes him a frowny face over Isaac's shoulder. Once the boys, and Harris, are seated, Matt pulls out a bag of potato chips and tears it open. Shannon winces at the sound of the packet crinkling and Matt's crunching.

     Isaac leans over the table a little. "You get used to it pretty quickly ⎯ the hearing thing," he says, his voice a hushed whisper, although almost everyone else in the room has the supernatural strength hearing to allow them to listen in.

     "I don't need your advice," Shannon whispers back, voice hissing like the snake they're trying to catch.

     "You still hate me?"

     Shannon shrugs, eyes widened, like well, obviously. "You were trying to kill my best friend."

     Isaac's head lolls back. "And now I'm not. That's called progress and growth."

     Shannon just stares at him for a while, long enough that Isaac almost thinks he's getting through to her. Her eyes drift over Isaac's shoulder again, watching Matt offer Jackson one of his chips. Jackson doesn't react and Shannon huffs out a small laugh as Matt brings the chip to his own mouth instead.

"Seriously, how do I get you to stop hating me? You don't have to like me just..." Isaac pauses and really looks at Shannon, "y'know, stop looking at me like I kicked your puppy."

To Isaac's credit, he's trying. And, now that he isn't trying to kill Lydia, she can't hold that against him anymore. They have a common enemy, sooner or later Derek and Scott are probably going to team up officially against Jackson, they'll need to present a united front.

She reluctantly releases a breath through her nose. "Buy me lunch every day for a week."

"I'm broke."

Shannon raises a brow. "Do you want me to keep hating you?"

Isaac huffs this time. "Lunch it is."

Shannon flashes a grin, happy to have won. Her eyes dart over Isaac's leather-clad shoulder to Jackson again. He's grabbing at his forehead, rubbing his temples with his thumb and middle fingers, quietly gasping in pain. He leans forward to pick up his backpack off the ground, using the momentum to stand up.

"You okay?" Matt asks.

Jackson ignores him and starts heading for the door. "I have to go to the bathroom," he tells Harris.

"Are you all right?" Harris asks. Upon seeing how Jackson has visibly paled, the way his eyes are screwing shut against the light, he rises to his feet. "Hey, you don't look so good."

     He keeps going for the door. "I just need to get some water."

     Everybody's eyes are glued to Jackson as he leaves the room. Harris steps away from his desk. "No one leaves their seats," he says, before he, too, leaves the room, following after Jackson to make sure he's alright.

     The second he's out of the room, Scott and Stiles jump up and head right back to the first table they'd sat at. Stiles flings around and hisses Shannon's name through gritted teeth even though there's no more need for whispering now that Harris is gone. He violently jerks his head to tell her, non-verbally, to get over here.

     "Oh, my God," Shannon grumbles, standing up to head across to their table. Isaac follows suit but she stops in place. She points at him, then at the chair. "Nuh-uh. You. Sit."

     Isaac sits, rolling his eyes.

     Scott has taken the seat opposite Erica, and Stiles takes the seat to her left. That leaves one open, next to Scott, but Shannon doesn't take it, opting instead to stand at the head of the table, arms crossed over her chest.

     "Stiles says you know how Jackson's parents died," Scott says.

     Erica looks up through her lashes, seeming much more interested in whatever she's writing in her notebook. "Maybe," she muses.

     "Talk."

     That's clearly enough for her as she closes her notebook and places it, and her pen, on top of her red laptop. "It was a car accident. My dad was the insurance investigator, and every time he sees Jackson drive by in his Porsche, he makes some comment about the huge settlement he'll be getting when he's eighteen."

     Stiles gawks. "So, not only is Jackson rich now, but he's getting even richer at eighteen?" he asks.

     "Yep," Erica replies.

     "There's something so deeply wrong with that."

     Shannon sighs. "You know what I got when my mom died?" she asks, not actually waiting for an answer. "Lifetime of trauma."

     Stiles nods with raised brows. "Same." His tone almost makes it sound like he'd go for a high-five if the discussion wasn't so serious. Welcome to the Dead Mom club. Population: Stiles and Shannon. ( And Isaac, but he's not one of the Cool Kids ).

     Erica ignores them and moves her notebook off of her laptop. "You know what?" she says, opening the lid of the computer. "I could try to find the insurance report on my Dad's inbox. He keeps everything." She starts typing in the details to log in to the email account.

     "Scott McCall, please report to the principal's office."

     Shannon glances at Scott. His eyes are wide, like a deer caught in headlights. He stands up to leave, offering only a shrug in response to everyone's looks.

     "Have fun," Shannon says, earning a glare in response. One that screams not now.

     He leaves the room and Shannon stays standing at the table for a few more moments before eventually returning to her spot opposite Isaac. Isaac looks up at her. "So are you a chicken sandwich or a hamburger girl?" he asks. He's got the menu for a local café opened on his phone. "Or, wait. Or a vegetarian, because they have veggie burgers too."

     Wow. He's taking it seriously. "I'll eat anything. Surprise me."

     Isaac nods and goes back to reading the menu as Jackson and Harris come back through the door. Jackson is visibly sweating now, looking more uncomfortable than when he'd left. He takes his seat and Shannon can't help but lean across the table to get marginally closer. "Jackson, you okay?" she hisses. Jackson looks at her out of the corner of his eye and nods but Shannon can tell that he's not.

     She can't lie. She's worried. Sure, she's never really liked the guy — he'd struck her as an asshole the moment they'd met on her first day of school — but she doesn't like seeing people suffer.

     She'd watched her mother suffer for years before—

     Harris, who'd returned to his desk upon reentering the room, zips up his satchel, having just packed his belongings into it. The seven remaining students in the room all take this as their cue to leave as well, all grabbing their belongings and getting to their feet. Harris just laughs at them. "Oh, no, I'm sorry. Uh, yes, I'm leaving, but none of you are."

     Stiles slowly sits back down, hesitantly.

     "You may go when you're done with the re-shelving," Harris says, patting the stacks of books on the trolleys on either side of him.

     Shannon sets her jaw defiantly. "This feels like something you could've had us doing for the past half hour."

     "It could have. But, it wasn't. Enjoy the rest of your evening."

     "This cannot be ethical," Shannon grumbles. Harris shrugs and promptly leaves the room before the teenagers can say anything else. "Seriously, I'll tell my dad or something."

     Matt gives Shannon a blank stare. "Is that your plan for everything? Tell your dad?"

     "It is when my dad is an employee of the school and would know what the rules are regarding a teacher, and legal guardian, leaving a bunch of minors unsupervised. Need I remind you that the last time a bunch of us, in this very room, were in this school without teachers, we nearly got murdered?" In her mind, she flashes back to the night that the Alpha — Peter Hale — had trapped her, Scott, Stiles, Jackson, Allison, and Lydia in the school for hours. He'd killed a janitor, nearly killed Derek, and left Shannon with a crippling new fear of the dark for a good week and a half, and Allison distrusting Scott enough to break contact with him for a while, too.

     Stiles pipes up, "Also, the other last time Shannon wasn't supervised here, she nearly got killed on the lacrosse field."

     A fun fact about that night is that, because Shannon couldn't exactly tell the doctors that a Werewolf had mauled her and Lydia, they'd been stuck trying to figure out exactly what happened. The bites and scratches were distinctly animal, but there'd been no animal fur found on their bodies, human skin had been found under Shannon's fingernails but there'd been no DNA match. Whoever it was hadn't been in the system. Shannon and Lydia's attack was going down as one of Beacon Hills' greatest unsolved mysteries.

     Matt raises his hands in surrender as Scott returns to the library. He glances around, not spotting Harris anywhere, then looks back at the other students. "He went home," Erica says bitterly.

     The eight of them all split up into smaller groups, Erica and Isaac as one, Matt and Jackson ( reluctantly ) as another, and Scott, Allison, Shannon, and Stiles as the last, finally using this excuse as their chance to talk freely.

     "Did Erica find anything?" Scott asks.

     Stiles nods. "Okay, so. Jackson's parents died in a car accident on the fourteenth of June. Jackson was born on the fifteenth. It means he was born after his mom died — by c-section. They had to pull him out of her dead body."

     Shannon winces. "That's gross." She catches sight of Erica walking past their aisle, back to where Isaac is busy at work a few shelves down. She's got a stack of new books in her hands.

     "So, was it an accident, or not?" Allison asks.

     Stiles shrugs. "The word all over the report is 'inconclusive', so."

     "Then his parents could have been murdered?" Scott asks, leaning forward, his forearms resting on the edge of the trolley.

     Stiles nods. Shannon winces again at the thought. "Well, if they were, then it falls in line with the Kanima myth, you know? It seeks out and kills murderers."

     "But, for Jackson?" Allison asks, "Or the person controlling him?"

     Scott sighs. "We have to talk to him. We have to tell him." He starts heading out of the aisle to find wherever Jackson and Matt have gone. Shannon follows him, trying to grab his arm to stop him from making such a brash decision in front of so many people, and cameras, but Scott instantly slows the second he makes it out of the stacks.

     There's a single book lying open on the ground in front of one of the aisles. They slowly approach it. It's something so simple, so innocuous, that it could be innocent. Maybe Erica dropped it on her way past just before. But, this is Beacon Hills, and Jackson is a murderous snake monster. There's no way it's that easy.

     They almost miss it with how tunnel-visioned they are on the book, but Scott checks down the neighbouring aisle just in time. Matt is there, lying face-down on the carpet, a thin line steadily dripping blood sliced into the back of his neck. Scott's eyes widen and he drops to his knees to check if he's still breathing, right as someone — Jackson, probably — bounds along the top of the bookshelves, splintering the wood and sending the books flying into the aisle. He busts a light fixture above them as he goes, raining shards of glass down upon them too, and Scott and Shannon both raise their arms to cover their heads from the attack. Scott leans forward, covering Matt's head with his torso, knowing there's nothing the boy can do to protect himself while he's like this.

     When Scott looks back up, his eyes glow amber and his fangs have grown in. He first looks to Shannon to make sure she's alright. What he sees makes him pause for a moment, but he snaps back into action when he hears Erica roar in fear in the next aisle over.

     Jackson crushes the shelves and a light above Stiles and Allison, sending books and glass shards tumbling down there too. Stiles grabs Allison around the waist and pulls her to the ground with him, shielding both of their heads with his arms.

     By the time Scott and Shannon make it out of their aisle, Jackson is back on the ground. His skin is half covered in green scales, his usually pretty eyes are now yellow slits, white teeth transformed into black fangs. He lurches forward and shoves Scott into a book trolley. It takes him a moment to recover, so while Jackson is distracted, Shannon slips into Erica's aisle with ease. Isaac isn't there — he'd probably tried to make a break for it — but Erica is. She's lying on her side, a red slit on the back of her neck, jerking back and forth uncontrollably.

     Shannon doesn't know much about how to help someone having a seizure, only what she'd learnt from the first time she'd seen Erica like this and the immediate Google search afterwards. She knows not to move Erica yet, not until the seizing has passed, so she shrugs off her sweater and rolls it into a pillow-like shape, slotting it under Erica's head so that she doesn't hit it too hard on the ground. When the seizure finishes, she'll roll Erica onto her side so that if she throws up, she won't choke, but that's all she knows. She needs a doctor, or at least someone who's educated in more than WebMD.

     This is exactly why they need a mature guardian around, Harris.

     While she waits for the fit to pass, Shannon looks up at where Jackson has come to rest. He's standing in front of the chalkboard, staring blankly at the wall. Like a puppet being controlled by a set of strings, his arm raises, a piece of white chalk gripped in his black claws. His head lolls back and to the side, like the way an unconscious person's would if you tried to sit them upright. He writes unnaturally. A human arm shouldn't bend that way.

STAY OUT OF MY WAY OR I'LL KILL ALL OF YOU

     After that, he bounds out of the high window on all fours. With the threat gone, Scott, Stiles, and Allison get up and approach the board to read the message up close.

     Shannon doesn't have the kind of time to do that. "Guys? Someone get over here!" she calls out. She's panicking now. Erica still hasn't gone still, and her breathing is becoming more and more rapid and shallow.

     Stiles is the first to look at what's going on. He hurries to Erica's side and lifts her upper body off the ground, despite Shannon advising him to do the exact opposite. The cuts that the broken glass may cause would heal up easily enough, who knows what happens if you move someone mid-seizure?

     "I think she's having a seizure," Stiles says.

     "No shit!" Shannon exclaims. She knows her frustration is just her panic bubbling to the surface. Scott comes to the girl's aid while Allison heads to the other aisle to check on Matt.

     "Check on Isaac," Scott tells Shannon.

     Shannon furrows her brows. "He's still here?"

     "Yeah," comes a weak voice from the far end of the shelving.

     Whoops. Shannon gets up shakily and goes to where the voice came from. Lo and behold, Isaac is there, lying on his side with a thin slice at the back of his neck. "Oh, there you are."

     "Here I am."

     "You good?" Shannon asks, crouching down to get closer to his level.

     Isaac glares at her. "Wonderful," he replies, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

     "He's wonderful!" Shannon calls out, projecting her voice so that the rest of the group can hear her.

     "He's alive," comes Allison's voice from the next aisle over, where she's checking on Matt.

     "We need to get her to a hospital," Stiles says, still holding Erica in his arms.

     Erica protests. "To Derek," she repeats, over and over.

     "When we get her to the hospital—" Scott begins, looking at Allison through a gap in the shelves separating them.

     Erica interrupts again. "To Derek."

     "Go," Allison says, still crouched over Matt's motionless body.

     Scott jumps up and leaves Stiles with Erica so that he can join Allison with Matt. Stiles calls out Scott's name but it falls on deaf ears. "I'm staying here with you," Scott says, gently rubbing Allison's forearm.

     "He can't take her alone, not like this. And Matt — I've got to call an ambulance for him. Just go," Allison protests.

     "This doesn't feel right!" Scott argues.

     Allison shakes her head. "It's okay."

     Shannon stands up, returning to her full height. "Guys, sorry to interrupt your moment, but what am I meant to do with this thing?" she asks, lightly kicking Isaac's limp arm.

     The muscles in Isaac's face still work, and he uses them to frown at Shannon. "That's mean."

     Scott sighs, finally relenting. "Uh, I guess we bring him to Derek, too."

     "Please don't make me carry him," Shannon says. "I'm not that strong."

     Isaac uses his working face muscles to smirk, now. "Are you calling me fat? That hurts, Shan."

     Shannon glares at him until the moment Scott appears next to her, ready to help Isaac to his feet to get him out of the school. He pauses, though, mere seconds before he bends down. "What?" Shannon asks, watching as Scott's face changes. He's got that look where he wants to ask something but doesn't know if he should.

     He takes a breath and his mouth moves but no words come out. All he manages, eventually, is, "your eyes."

     "What?" she asks. "Actually, no. Tell me about my beautiful eyes later, okay? We've got some sick and dying people here and I don't want their blood on my hands."

     She leaves Isaac in Scott's care, watching out of the corner of her special eyes as Scott hoists Isaac to his feet and slings one of his arms over his shoulder. Meanwhile, in the other aisle, Stiles lifts Erica bridal style to carry her to the car. All that's left is Allison and Matt. She stops by them, seeing the way Allison is gnawing at the nail of her thumb. This is her stressed in a way that Shannon rarely ever sees. "Do you want me to stay with you?" she asks.

     Allison hesitates. She hates feeling weak, Shannon knows this. And, to her, asking for help is a sign of weakness. Shannon hopes that one day, she'll realise it isn't. Her mom never figured that out.

     Eventually, Allison nods. "Yes, please."

     Scott and Stiles cart the Werewolves out of the library, leaving the girls to dial 911 by themselves. Scott hesitates at the door, wanting to try to tell Shannon again about what he'd seen, but Stiles hurries him along.

     It's just too weird, though. Every set of supernatural eyes that Scott has seen are almost like normal eyes only the iris is brightly and unnaturally coloured. Jackson's are different, in the sense that he has a slitted pupil and the whites are slightly yellower — almost jaundiced looking.

     Shannon's aren't like that. They were a pool of flickering pale amber — eclipsing everything but the tiny black dot of her pupils. There was no white, no blue. Just orange.

————

a/n
genuinely in love with the amount of times i've said "hopefully i'll have more frequent updates" and then go on to ignore the existence of the fic for months. my last update was in NOVEMBER

my punishment is the amount of times i'm going to have to write my sucky ex's name in this season (fuck u matt)

i still hate writing action sequences, big shocker, but i'm glad that i pushed through because i love this chapter so much. we really get to see a new side of isaac and shannon's dynamic, and we're getting closer to finding out what happened to shannon's mum, and what shannon is (though i do think it is pretty obvious to us, the readers, just not to them as characters)

thank you so so much for reading, it really means the world to me, especially if you've stuck around in the months it's taken me to update. so much love <3

published: june 11, 2024
word count: 5.8k