SYMMETRY ➽ D. HALE [1]

24 ; blood, chance, or choice

24 ➽ BLOOD, CHANCE, OR CHOICE

"You can't be serious." Derek frowned, tightening his grip on the brunette as she began to slip.

"Do I look like I'm joking?" Elise retorted.

"I don't know. If you haven't noticed, I'm a little busy keeping us both from drowning," Derek said, his frustrated tone mirroring hers.

"Hey, if making sure I don't drown is too much of an inconvenience to you, feel free to leave," Elise snapped. Derek was positive that if the girl weren't paralyzed, she wouldn't have hesitated to slap him into tomorrow.

"That's not what I-" Derek began to protest, but Elise cut him off.

"I know that's not what you meant. Just go get the phone!"

"How do you know that I'm not just going to leave you?" he asked.

"I trust you." Her words came almost immediately, and Derek could tell that she hadn't meant for them to slip out. "I mean, wouldn't leaving me to drown really just defeat the purpose of jumping into the pool in the first place?" Elise added hurriedly.

After a moment of debate, Derek seemed to agree that calling for help was virtually their only option. "Hold your breath," he warned.

Elise took a deep breath, feeling the water slowly close around her as Derek loosened his grip. She closed her eyes, trying to block out the harsh chemicals of the pool. Her heart rate began to quicken as her lungs ached for more air. Just as Elise was beginning to worry, she felt the water pulling past her face as Derek pulled her back to the surface.

Once again, the brunette broke the surface of the water, coughing and sputtering like a mad woman as she gasped for air. Without control, her head dipped back onto Derek's shoulder as her breathing returned.

"Any luck?" she asked.

"No one answered," Derek explained.

Elise sighed, squeezing her eyes shut momentarily to blink away the excess pool water that remained on her face. "Of course."

A silence slowly settled around them, broken only by the occasional click of the reptilian's claws on the tile ground. Derek found it more and more difficult to ignore the brunette's rapid heartbeat against his chest.

Finally, much to Derek's relief, Elise soon broke the silence. "Can I ask you something?"

He gave a grunt of affirmation, prompting the brunette to continue.

She hesitated for a moment before doing so, "Yesterday, at the ice rink... you weren't- I mean, were you... what would you have done if I hadn't shown up?"

"I don't know."

Derek's short answer left Elise with only more questions. She could tell that he didn't want to talk about it, but she needed to know what he was planning and if she could really trust him.

"Would you have killed Scott?"

"No."

➽

Elise's neck ached and throbbed from where the beast had clawed her. Her limbs were shaky and still a little numb, as she'd only recently recovered from the effects of being scratched by the monster in the pools.

Just as Derek had begun to grow too tired to continue supporting the two of them, Scott and Stiles had found them. While Scott was fighting with the beast, it had seen its reflection and been scared off, leaving the four of them alone in the pools.