Maybe I Was Wrong (Teen Wolf: Stiles Stilinski)

Chapter 45

The beast stares at Scott, focused on the shard in his hand, and after a tense silence, it runs off, crawling up the wall, and breaks through the glass window on the ceiling, disappearing again.

Scott stares at us, still lying on the wet floor, and I finally realise I should probably get off of Stiles.

***

Once we've gone outside and calmed down somewhat, Scott gets out his laptop and inserts the USB stick attached to Gerard's keys - or the Bestiary - into it, loading the digital book on the screen. Scott's Bestiary realisation made him come here immediately, and that might've just saved our lives. But it doesn't take away that the loading takes so long I'm starting to think we could just all go home and come back here in the morning, and then it would probably be ready for us to read.

"You're shaking," Scott says, coming closer to me and rubbing my back to try and keep me warm. Stiles had a change of clothes here at school, but I didn't, so I'm still freezing away in my drenched outfit, and Stiles never offered to lend me anything. Not even a sweater or something. I mean, not that I should expect that of him.

Whatever.

"It's done," Stiles says, and we all focus on the words on the screen, but... uh... "Is that even a language?"

"This is... like, Latin, or something," I say, studying the scriptures.

"Do you know Latin?" Stiles asks.

"No," I answer.

"Well, then it's useless, isn't it?" Stiles snaps.

It's useless... or I'm useless? Ouch.

"Je parle le français, ferme ta bouche," I mutter, looking away.

"What was that? Was that French?" Stiles asks, glaring at me. "Are you insulting me in French?"

"If I was insulting you, I'd want you to understand what I was saying," I reply, trying to keep my eyes on the laptop.

"French isn't Latin, Grace," Stiles tells me, and I'm this close to exploding in anger.

"Oh, thanks for letting me know, Stiles," I say sarcastically.

"See, it's not that hard letting people know when you should really tell them something important, huh?" Stiles sneers, and my stomach drops as I think about when Stiles found out about me and Derek, and I told him 'I was gonna tell you.'

"What the hell is going on with you two?" Scott asks, frowning, and it dawns on me we completely forgot he's here.

Stiles and I don't have an answer for Scott.

"Okay, look, it doesn't matter right now, what matters is figuring out what this thing is," Scott says, pointing at the scribbles on his laptop. "Which we don't know how to actually do."

"It's called a kanima," Derek's voice sounds from a distance, and there he comes, making a dramatic entry as always.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Stiles mutters. "You knew the whole time!"

"No," Derek shaked his head. "Only when it was confused by its own reflection."

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

"Or who," Derek adds.

"What else do you know?" Stiles asks him.

"Just stories, rumours," Derek says.

"But it's like... you?" I ask.

"A shape shifter, yes, but it's- it's not right. It's like a..."