Jackson watched as Stiles let his head fall back over the chair until he was staring up at the ceiling, counting the pockmarks in the tiles to himself. A vain attempt to keep himself awake, Jackson was pretty damn sure, since Stiles hadn't actually done anything to earn a spot in detention this time.

Wrong place, wrong time, wrong best friends. Story of Stiles Stilinski's life, unfortunately.

And poor, poor Scott McCall, with his punchable face, sitting catty-cornered from Stiles, still the picture of ease despite the fact that Jackson hadn't been able to rein himself in today. Honestly, all any of this had done was leave the rest of them in an incredibly frustrating position.

Jackson sighed heavily and scoffed, forcing everyone else to ignore his very existence so as not to make matters worse or run the risk of making him think they were interested in a conversation about the bullshit that had landed them all here. Too bad Jackson found himself borderline unstable lately ever since he'd learned Scott's dirty little secret, and their insistence it was over now didn't matter in the slightest.

Because it was Scott's dirty little supernatural secret that was the real culprit.

Hell, Jackson was getting on his own nerves lately, but he couldn't seem to stop himself either. All of it had been constantly bubbling directly below the surface with him, and seeing Scott waltz around school without a care in the world had simply been too much for him today. Jackson had finally, fucking finally, uncovered the truth, and both Scott and Stiles had wasted no time in trying to convince him he had imagined everything.

Yeah, his breaking point on all this was about a hundred or so miles in the rearview mirror.

"I'm going to go... outside," Mr. Harris said slowly into the otherwise silent space, pointing toward the double doors that opened into the hallway. "I'll, uh... be right back."

Even facing the ceiling, Stiles rolled his eyes hard, and what he was thinking was basically now written on his forehead. Of course, it also helped that they were all thinking it.

Mr. Harris' smoking habit hadn't been a secret for years, and they weren't little kids anymore, so the fact that he was trying to be coy just made the whole thing that much more obvious. And obnoxious.

"Behave!" he shouted over his shoulder as he darted into the darkness. "I'll be back in a minute."

As soon as the door closed behind him, the entire atmosphere changed. The electricity flowed freely now, crackling all around them, everyone turning to Jackson, wondering what he might do next.

Too bad even he didn't know.

To his credit, and probably Derek's a little too, Scott still didn't appear to be angry with Jackson. Resigned to his fate, yes, but not mad. In fact, the only reason any of this had resulted in a punishment was because Jackson had literally shoved Stiles into the nearest bank of lockers in hopes of getting a rise out of Scott. And, to some degree, it had worked. He'd stepped in, demanded Jackson pull his head out of his ass, all polite and shit, before exerting just enough power to force the fight to a natural end with his newfound strength.

But Jackson knew he was right, damnit. And he wasn't giving up. No matter how many times they ended up right here.

Stiles straightened up before laying his head on his hands, now spread out across the table and almost touching Issac as he sat directly across from him. He wasn't looking at his friend, though. His new friend. His suddenly best friend, besides Scott, who he spent almost as much time with lately. No, he was looking past Isaac and right at the two girls who had simply been in the hallway at the time of the incident.

"You have to tell them," Jackson blurted out, noticing Lydia and Allison were shooting daggers at him. "I'm not going to lie for you."

Scott took a deep breath and slowly turned in Jackson's direction. "No one asked you to lie, man," he retorted, boredom seeping into his words. "Just drop it."

"Why aren't you willing to admit it, Scott? If it's not a big deal, spit it the fuck out."

"Admit what exactly, Jackson?" Lydia interrupted. "You think he's running around murdering people as a giant dog? That's what this whole thing is about, right?"

It was a rhetorical question, but the cat—err, werewolf—was out of the bag now. And Jackson had stupidly made the decision to explain exactly what it was that he'd been holding in, and what it was that he was determined to get Scott to admit about himself. But no one believed him. And he wasn't sure it was their fault. It did sound crazy. He sounded crazy.

"Why are you still stuck on this? It's ridiculous. I mean, first you thought he was on 'roids or whatever. And now he's... what? A werewolf? Listen to yourself," Lydia demanded. "Stop this, Jackson. Please just... stop."

"You don't understand..."

"What? What don't I understand?" she said. "Spell it out for us. Because right now, and baby, I love you, you sound like a lunatic. At least my thing with Kate made sense. I went to her funeral. What proof do you have that any of this is even real? Much less that Scott has joined some freaky supernatural cult in Beacon Hills? Hmm?"

And just like that, Jackson deflated. He had no argument he was willing to give. He didn't want to actually utter the words he'd overheard in the bathroom a few days ago between Scott and some dude whose name he never did catch. Because if he handed over his only real evidence, Scott and Stiles, maybe even Isaac, would talk him out of it.

He'd learned to trust his instincts ages ago, though. And right now, those instincts were screaming that he was not only onto something, he was right on the money with this one. They could pry the werewolf shit out of his cold, dead hands for all he cared.

"Baby, I love you," Lydia repeated, starting again, but much softer this time. "But seriously, we all landed in detention because you've got a hard-on for being the only star on the lacrosse field, okay? It's tired."

Jackson's head shot back to her in disgust. He couldn't believe Lydia truly thought that's what this was about for him.

"What about the guy in the hospital?" Jackson insisted, ignoring Lydia.

"What about him?" Allison spat viciously at him. "He's got bites all over. So fucking what, Jackson?"

"He said it was a wolf as big as a man. That's what your mom told Stiles' dad, right?" Scott shrugged. He fucking shrugged. "And the bites. We're really just glossing over that? It's not weird at all that some dude just stumbled into the ER covered in bites claiming a wolf as big as a grown man bit him repeatedly?"

"Weird, sure," Isaac agreed half-heartedly. "Weird enough to believe in werewolves, though? No. Weird enough to think Scott McCall is suddenly a serial killer? Also, no."

"Exactly," Lydia piled on. "Thank you, Isaac."

Stiles' eyes ping-ponged between everyone in attendance, listening to them all talk without interjections. And Stiles not talking was a strange occurrence all by itself, Jackson now realized.

"You're being quiet," Jackson observed. Another shrug, this time from Stiles. "Nothing to say? You? Really? The Stiles Stilinski is just... quiet?"

"Well, Stiles was just thinking it's not weird since Beacon Hills has a very long history of animal attacks in varying levels of detail since the town's inception in..."

Lydia groaned loudly, cutting him off, as she ran a hand over her face. "Oh my God, Stiles, please no. Do not give us a list of all the animal attacks. We'll be here for days."

"My point exactly," Stiles mumbled.

"You know, I'll play devil's advocate. Let's say it's true," Allison offered. "Fine. But that means you picked a fight with a werewolf. How was that a good idea?" Isaac snorted his laughter as she barreled on. "And, to top it off, you got us all thrown in here with you. And said werewolf. All because you decided to pick a fight in the middle of the day right outside the principal's office. The same office your girlfriend saw a dead body in, remember? Way to be insensitive, you asshat."

Lydia's head bobbed along in agreement as she listened to her friend's rant, a very haughty look on her face, as if to say the logic behind it was beyond reproach.

Jackson stood up so quickly, pushing back so harshly, that his chair slammed against the floor. A little dramatic? Definitely. Did he care right now? Fuck no. He didn't have time to care, as far as he was concerned. He was too busy trying to walk out the door behind Mr. Harris instead of giving into his new instinct to slap the shit out of Scott, forcing a reaction no one would be able to deny. Because this shit right here, where none of his friends believed him, felt lonely as hell.

As soon as he did manage to make himself walk out, instead of escalating the situation further, he couldn't help but notice no one called out to him. No one tried to stop him. No one wanted him there.

But he shook his head to rid himself of that dark thought as fast as it had tried to invade while he let his eyes adjust to the darkness, making a beeline for the water fountain. He had to at least pretend he had a reason to leave the library so he wouldn't get in more trouble when Mr. Harris came back.

As he pressed his finger down on the button, though, a thick droplet of... something fell on his forehead and he clenched his jaw tightly in response, struggling not to scream in frustration. It would absolutely be his luck right now that a fucking pipe right above his head would leak disgusting sludge all over him when he was just trying to calm down.

Of course, when he looked up, what he saw took him several seconds to fully grasp. It wasn't sludge. It was blood. Because there, on top of the lockers next to the water fountains, was Mr. Harris. A very dead Mr. Harris. The same Mr. Harris who had been standing at the librarian's circulation desk not five minutes ago was now laying in a totally unnatural position, legs sprawled out creepily as if someone had broken them, blood trickling down the side of the lockers, both eyes gouged out with pencils.

Jackson blinked slowly and then backed up toward the doors he knew were behind him without turning around, praying that they would open.

Maybe it was a sick joke, he reasoned. Maybe Mr. Harris got his jollies off by scaring the shit out of unsuspecting students or something. Like he didn't think regular detention was enough.

"Uh, guys," Jackson croaked quietly when he was back inside.

No response. He backed into the light even more, guessing his legs were about to hit a desk or a chair soon. From here, he could still see Mr. Harris, but no one else seemed to have noticed.

"Guys," Jackson tried again, a little louder.

Nothing. Just more laughter, gentle teasing. Actually, they didn't even seem to notice he had rejoined them.

"Guys!" he yelled, his voice echoing off every surface.

Silence.

As he went to open his mouth to let them know what he found that was so urgent, the hum of the lights fell silent too and they were all instantly bathed in darkness. He turned to where he knew Scott was sitting, though he couldn't see him anymore, and whispered, "Mr. Harris is dead. We need to get out of here."