┌─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┐
chapter thirty!
KIDNAPPING KIRA
└─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┘
( galvanize, pt. ii )
∘₊✧──────✧₊∘
WHEN MAI WALKS into the kitchen, she discovers both Vera and Isaac sitting innocently at the kitchen table, their faces buried in their history books. Their frantic scrambling to those exact positions is undetectable. Vera had fixed Isaac's curls, which had been tousled by her fingers, and she'd strategically placed her hair over the slight pink mark on her neck. When she looks up at her mother, only Isaac knows of her anxiety because he can hear her thundering heartbeat.
"Hi, Mai," she greets as casually as possible.
"Hola, mija," Mai sighs as she sets her purse and a giant plastic bag with takeout boxes in it on top of the kitchen counter. Her black hair is slightly falling out of its sleek updo after a long day, her business-like nature dropping for a second. Her aura changes as soon as she glances at the table and sees Isaac seated across from Vera. Her lips stretch into a tired smile. "Oh, hello, Isaac. I didn't know you would be here."
"Hi, Mrs. Pérez," he greets, using the surname that Vera's mother only uses for social reasons. He begins to stand and closes his history textbook. "It's okay, I can get going."
"Don't be ridiculous. Sit back down," Mai orders. Isaac immediately complies with widened eyes, intimidated by Vera's mother like everyone always is. "If you think I'm letting you go anywhere when there's a mass murderer on the loose, you are crazy. Scott's mother called me about Barrow. You two are under house arrest."
Oh, no. Please no. Vera asks, "What?"
Mai walks to where Vera sits. "It means if you leave this house tonight, I will make you regret every decision you've ever made and take away the keys to that horrible motorcycle." As if she hadn't just threatened her, she bends down to press a kiss to the top of Vera's head. "You're free to stay, Isaac— we have an extra room that Dominic usually stays the night in."
The tone she uses suggests that it isn't a request, but a demand. Oh, my God. Vera is going to be trapped in this house with Isaac in the room next to hers all night? Her mother is trying to kill her, but she's oblivious to Vera's impending doom.
She and Isaac share a brief, alarmed glance, but soon his face becomes too much to look at without getting flashbacks of where his lips had been mere minutes ago, so she has to tear her eyes away.
"Are you sure I can't just drive him back to Scott's really quickly?" Vera asks, her voice slightly strained.
"Vera Nicolet!" her mother snaps. "Watch your mouth in front of our guest; you're acting like he isn't welcome. Neither of you is leaving this house." And just like that, once she's behind Isaac and out of his line of sight, a switch flicks and she winks. "Don't worry, I picked up enough leftovers for your blanquito to have some."
Vera buries her blushing face into her hands. After rubbing her eyes so hard she sees smudges of color in her vision, she opens them to see Isaac's confused expression.
"Your what?"
"Nothing," she replies way too quickly, wondering when the sweet release of death will save her from the sudden hellscape she's been thrown into. "Let's set the table."
Vera has never been more eager to finish a meal in her entire life. Mai had gotten takeout from a local burger joint — a sign it had been a rough day at work — and had even ordered an extra one for tomorrow's lunch, but she gives it to Isaac instead. The three of them eat in stifling silence for a few minutes before Mai decides to talk to them.
"So, aside from Barrow, is there anything I need to worry about?" she inquires as she dips a french fry into hot sauce.
"Nope, everything's fine," Vera answers.
Mai doesn't appear convinced. Lines become apparent on her forehead, wrinkling her brown skin. "I was gone for one month for a sales trip and came back to a shit hole. The man who killed my husband was in town, your English teacher was a — a —"
"Darach," Vera supplies.
"— Darach, Cora was alive but also dying at the same time, there were murders around town, the Sheriff was missing, Dominic was dead, and Santa María knows what else. And now it's been six weeks, and you expect me to believe nothing is going on? That it all just stopped?" Mai glances between the two teenagers who are focusing heavily on their food, then targets the one she can most easily scare into responding. "Isaac?"
The boy's head jerks up from his plate. His eyes are wide for a moment, briefly ghosting over Vera before settling on her mother's expectant expression. "Uh, I mean, I've got a Physics test coming up."
Mai sighs and appears to give up, but Vera knows better. She's probably going to hound her for information in the next few days. After Vera had kept secrets from her and then ended up with a kanima's claws in her stomach, her mother has been extra-vigilant. She'll sniff out strange happenings around town like a bloodhound.
After finishing their food and cleaning up, Vera drags Isaac upstairs with the excuse of needing to study, but in reality, she just wants to escape her mother. Mai shouts after them, "Door open!" to which Vera replies with an embarrassed cry of anguish.
They finally reach Vera's bedroom and she leaves the door open a crack. Hades, who had been dozing on her bed, jolts up and glares at them for disturbing his slumber again. She dumps her backpack at the foot of her bed, leaving Isaac to follow her lead, though much more carefully than she does. He also looks like he wants to sink into the floor.
Vera sinks into her desk chair and places her head in her hands. Isaac stands completely still as if he's afraid to touch anything. He glances at Hades, then trails his gaze over the many plants, string lights, and vines decorating the room. There are pictures tacked on the pastel green walls from all stages of her life — her and Dom on their first day of kindergarten, Hades as a kitten, a few days after Derek had returned to Beacon Hills last Christmas, and her, Lydia, and Allison with sheet face masks on their faces and cucumbers over their eyes — and it seems almost like the bedroom of a normal teenager, not a phantom.
His scan of the room stops on the portrait of Jesus (the brown one, not the blond-haired, blue-eyed monstrosity from Europe) beside her door. "I feel like he's staring into my soul."
"He is," Vera says, dropping her hands into her lap with a smack. "I think that's why my parents put that picture in here. But, oh my God, please do something with yourself other than standing there, it's driving me insane. You can sit on my bed. I'm not going to bang you while my mother is downstairs."
She regrets the words as soon as they come out of her mouth. They insinuate that if her mother hadn't been downstairs, then she would have banged him, and Lord, Vera needs to put tape over her mouth before she digs herself into a hole she can't escape from. Maybe her brain is malfunctioning after her first makeout session in months. Especially since her last one had been with Jackson Whittemore of all people, but that had only been to distract him while Isaac had tried to inject him with ketamine. It hadn't even worked and she'd almost gotten stabbed.
Isaac's face is also bright red as he finally plops onto her mattress. He fidgets, his nervous energy enough to make Vera want to throw him out the window or something. He finally speaks, musing, "So, a slumber party."
"If you're in my room after nine pm, my mother will drag you out by your earlobe," Vera informs him bluntly. "Also, I think Dom has some pajama pants that he left in the spare room. You can wear them if you want, but you might be better off sleeping in that."
"Yeah, they'd probably end at my calves."
Vera cracks a grin, and so does he, and then her nerves melt away. Acting like this is stupid. It's like they're middle school pre-teens, dancing around each other and blushing up a storm like they weren't just doing something that Vera's portrait of Jesus would probably disapprove of. She doesn't even know why she'd been so nervous. It's never been that way with Isaac. Even after he'd gotten the bite and turned all confident, she hadn't skirted around him like that.
She stands and then walks to her bed, where she climbs on and folds her legs beside Isaac. Her breath releases slowly before she wills herself to speak. "I like you. God knows how or why or when, but I do, and — shut up, I'm talking — and Mai is probably onto us. So you and I are probably going to have to spend this whole time in separate rooms or I'm going to combust."
Teenage hormones are the worst.
Isaac's mouth is half-open from when he'd tried to interrupt Vera, but soon it turns into a small, closed-lipped grin. "I like you too, and yeah, I agree, separate rooms is probably a good idea." His eyes flicker to the historically accurate Jesus picture on the wall. "Dude's watching us."
They share a smile before Vera leans in. As opposed to their previous kiss, this one is much more chaste and slow, almost sweet enough to cause a toothache. They don't even touch each other. Vera's fingers ache to find their way to his hair again, but they pull away when Hades tries to crawl into her lap. She breaks the kiss with a laugh when she feels the cat's paws on her legs and his furry body pressing against her midriff.
"Really?" she asks Hades. He meows and rams his head into her hand affectionately in response. She really can't be mad at that, so she scratches him behind the ears until her phone begins to buzz in her back pocket.
Incoming call from LYDS.
If Lydia is calling her, it must be important. She picks up on the second ring. "Hey, Lyds. What's up?"
"Barrow's after Kira," is her immediate reply.
Vera blinks. Isaac's brow furrows, having heard through the speaker, and they share a confused glance before Vera asks, "Kira? Like as in the new girl? Bardo girl? Why?"
"We don't know," Lydia says. "Someone left a coded message on one of the chalkboards that spelled out Kira's name in atomic numbers from the periodic table. Stiles and I found it. How soon can you meet at his house?"
"Um, well, I'm kind of under house arrest," Vera replies. "My mom doesn't want me going out with Barrow around. Also, Isaac's with me, so we're both trapped here."
Lydia heaves a sigh and says something to someone out of earshot. There's a scuffling noise, a muffled exclamation in Lydia's voice of "Stiles!" and then the boy's voice comes through the speaker. "Vera, can you or can you not sneak out of the house right now?"
Vera weighs her options. Her mother's nightly routine after comfort food for dinner involves running a bath, watching a telenovela, and then passing out as soon as possible. Who knows if that'll change since Isaac is over? For all she knows, Mai could decide to camp out in the hallway all night just to keep an eye on them.
"Not both of us," she says. "It's either me or the werewolf. And, honestly, I'd prefer it to be me because Isaac is less equipped to deal with my mother's wrath if one of us is caught. I can handle it, but can you pick me up?"
"Yeah. Be there in three."
Three minutes? Stiles lives about six minutes away, but she doesn't want to imagine how many traffic laws he'll be breaking on the way to her house, so she doesn't question it. Instead, she hangs up and glances at her cracked-open door.
Isaac's hand touches her knee. "Vera—"
"Here is what you are going to do," she mutters, turning to him and looking him in the eye so he's sure to pay attention to her every word. "You are going to go in the room next to mine and pretend to go to sleep. I don't care that it's only, like, seven pm. I'm going to text my mom that we had an argument and I'm mad at her for making you stay or whatever, and pretend to go to bed, too. Then I'm going to climb out my window."
"Can't you go through walls?" he asks. "Why use the window?"
"Do you want me to fall to my death? This is a two-story house. Honestly, Isaac. I thought you just said you liked me. Anyways, now we're going to get in a fight."
Vera removes Hades from her lap so he doesn't scratch her in fright when she starts yelling.
Isaac questions, "What?"
"I don't even know why you came here for help if you're going to act like this," she tells him, not quite shouting but keeping her voice just loud enough to be detected from downstairs. He continues staring at her in confusion — seriously, did his brain cells just flee the premises? — so she continues, "You are such an asshole!"
Vera widens her eyes in a silent signal that it's his turn.
"It's not my fault you won't listen to me!" he exclaims in response. Though his voice is tinted with anger, his expression questions if he's on the right track. Vera nods in approval. "You're always the same, Pérez. You always have to be right."
It feels like March again, with them both picking phrases from old arguments and sprinkling them into their fake one. Eventually, they're shouting loud enough that they're positive Mai will be able to hear every word. Isaac quietly tells her to be careful and to keep him in the loop before heading into the spare room. Vera releases Hades into the hallway and then slams her door.
She pulls up her messages to see she's already gotten a text from her mother.
MAI: Everything okay?
Perfect.
VERA: no. i'm stuck in a house with the biggest jerk in beacon hills for the whole night. don't blame me if he punches a hole in the wall. goodnight.
MAI: Not sorry, sweetie, if it's keeping you both safe. I'm about to run my bath. Goodnight xo
Vera turns the lights off and grabs her leather jacket before opening her window. When she was in her rebellious pre-teen years, she'd used this method to escape to Dominic's house many times. Her parents hadn't planted a tree in front of her window. Rather, over time, she'd worn away some spots in the brick to act as footholds.
She thanks her tiny stature as she squeezes out and balances precariously on the windowsill. After releasing a slow breath to prepare herself, she grips onto the edge and turns her back against the outdoors. Her boots seek purchase on the slight divots in the wall. It's a great thing she's been doing sports and training her entire life, or else her arms would be shaking a lot more than they are as she shifts her grip again. Then, she lowers herself down as much as she dares before kicking off of the brick and bracing herself for impact.
Stiles' Jeep screeches to a stop in front of the curb just as Vera lands on the grass, tucks into a roll, and pops back up again. Her ankle slightly gives as she breaks into a sprint across her front lawn. Ignoring the burst of pain up her leg, she yanks the back door open and throws herself inside the Jeep.
"Okay, for the record, that was badass," Stiles says. "Second, we're pretty sure Scott went to Kira's because he felt bad that she hasn't been making friends, so that's where we're going."
Vera's face pinches in confusion as she buckles her seatbelt. "You know Kira's address?"
"No, I just started forcing Scott to share his phone's location."
What a very Stiles thing to do.
Even with a belt securing her into her seat, Vera still grips onto the door handle for dear life as Stiles slams his foot on the gas and tears around the block. She winces when her head smacks into the window. And Stiles wonders why his car constantly breaks down. It's not like he's the worst driver she knows, or anything.
"There!" Lydia exclaims, pointing to a familiar dirt bike that's parked in front of a quaint house about seven minutes away. A flicker of hope ignites in Vera's chest when she sees it. Maybe Scott and Kira are safely inside.
But as Stiles parks across the street, the new vantage point gives them the perfect view of Scott's unconscious form on the ground. Vera's heart leaps in her chest at the sight. The three of them don't bother saying anything as they rush out of the Jeep to help their friend.
"Scott?" Stiles calls. As they get closer, Vera notices with dismay that there's a gash near Scott's temple and a trickle of blood running across his forehead. Stiles lays a hand on the boy's shoulder, lightly shaking him. "Scott!"
He slowly blinks his eyes open. They're unfocused, almost black in the dark of the night, the street light above them illuminating his face in a pale glow. He continues blinking until he appears to recognize them. Then, as if remembering what had caused his unconscious state, he shoots to a sitting position.
"Barrow. He — he took Kira!"
"We know," Stiles says. "He was after her the whole time."
"But why?" Vera questions, curling her fists at her sides in frustration. "He said he went after kids with glowing eyes. That's most of us. And, Scott, you'd be able to tell if Kira was a wolf, right?"
Scott nods, wincing as he lightly prods his still-healing injury. "Yeah, and she definitely isn't."
"So do you think she's something else?" Lydia asks.
"I'm not sure," Scott replies. Guilt begins to cloud his expression— a look that Vera knows all too well. Scott always feels like he has to protect everyone, so every time something happens, he places the blame on himself.
Vera reaches down and grabs his hand. With a firm tug, she hauls him to his feet, placing a hand on his arm to steady him when he sways a bit. He blinks hard to clear his swirling vision. She forces him to look down at her and holds his gaze.
"Call Allison," she instructs. "Ask if she's gotten anything from the bestiary."
Scott nods and pulls his phone from his pocket. As he steps away to dial Allison's number, Stiles catches Vera's gaze and gives her a nod of approval. Their entire friend group knows that in order to set Scott back on track, you have to make him feel useful. There's nothing he hates more than feeling useless, so if you give him a task, it'll help raise his spirits.
The phone call is brief, which can't be good. Only a few seconds pass before Scott walks back to where they stand in the middle of the street, shaking his head.
"We have to do something," he says. "He's gonna kill her."
"I knew he was there," Lydia pipes up. "How did I know that?"
"Because you heard the flies, right?" Stiles asks.
Scott steps toward her. "What do you hear now?"
Lydia's gaze drops to the ground for a moment as she listens. "Nothing." When Scott hangs his head in disappointment, she asserts, her face screwed in frustration, "I feel like I can do this, but I don't know what to do. It's like it's on the tip of my tongue, and I don't know how to trigger it. I just... I swear to God, it literally makes me want to scream!"
"Okay, then scream," Stiles tells her. "Lydia, scream."
Vera's hands fly up to cover her ears as Lydia shrieks, the amplified volume of her Banshee wail enough to rupture an unprotected eardrum. Her eyes squeeze shut at the stabbing pain to her head that the scream causes. Once it's over, Stiles looks back at Vera and Scott with widened eyes and puffed-out cheeks as if he hadn't expected a scream quite like that.
Lydia stands still, her back to the rest of them, and slowly looks at the street lamp above her head. After a moment, she says, "It's not flies." When she whirls around, the trio flinches, expecting another piercing shriek, only to be met with her smiling in relief at her eureka moment. "It's electricity."
"Wait a sec. Barrow was an electrical engineer," Stiles recalls. "He worked at a power substation."
Scott turns to him with widened eyes. "What substation?"
Thus follows another Jeep ride from Stiles that has Vera constantly preparing for imminent death. The power substation is on the outskirts of Beacon Hills, meaning it's a bit longer of a drive, but still only about twenty minutes since the town is small. For an electrical plant, it's dark, with only a few spare lights flickering through the windows, giving it a gloomy appearance.
Horror movie knowledge tells her that a desolate location like this can't bring anything good.
Stiles breaks hard in front of the main door, which is already ajar. The seat belt yanks Vera back into her seat with a hiss of, "Jesus fucking Christ."
He and Vera scramble out of the Jeep. Lydia moves to open her door as well, but Stiles stops her. "Wait here, alright? Just wait for the cops to come."
"Me?" Lydia questions, furrowing her brows. "Wait, why?"
Stiles raises his weapon of choice: his aluminum bat. "Oh, I only got one bat."
Lydia rolls her eyes and rests her chin in her hand. Vera gives her an apologetic shrug before tugging Stiles along by the sleeve of his t-shirt— Scott is already inside.
The interior of the substation is dreary, cold, and dusty, meaning it's probably been shut down for years. The main entrance leads to a vast room that had likely housed a plethora of machines once. Now, it's completely empty, with only shadows left to dance along the cracked floor from the windows lining one wall.
Vera and Stiles gradually make their way across the room. Scott is nowhere to be found, and the thought makes Vera's heart crawl into her throat when she thinks about who they're up against. A psychotic mass murderer who'd blown up a bunch of innocent children isn't her top choice of an antagonist.
They stop dead in their tracks at Kira's cry of, "Scott, no!" followed by an echoing bang! Then Vera explodes into action again, leaving Stiles scurrying to catch up as she races toward the sound, her sneakers sliding on the dusty floor.
The air reeks of what smells like burnt toast. Electricity surges and crackles from an exposed wire that Barrow has clasped in his hand. He's a tall, wiry, and old man, but something tells her that there's more to him than meets the eye. Kira is tied up against a metal gate that surrounds some kind of generator. She sobs as the man walks closer. From the thickness of the wire and the number of sparks raining from its open end, Vera is certain that too long of a touch could fry someone from the inside out.
"Don't!" Scott exclaims from where he lies on the ground. His body jerks at odd intervals; he'd been electrocuted. "She's ... she's not the one you want!"
Vera motions for Stiles to stay put and blinks out of sight. She stays certain to keep her footsteps as quiet as possible at first, then remembers to use her short burst of flight to reach Barrow quicker. Her hand wraps around the wire and jerks it toward Barrow instead. However, he releases an enraged wail of protest and slams his elbow backward, right into Vera's nose.
She staggers back, gasping at the hot burst of pain that travels all the way down to her toes and back up again, leaving her face burning as she becomes visible on instinct. Blood splatters onto the floor. When she jerks her head up again, she's hit with another wave of head-spinning agony that makes her eyes water and then widen once she realizes Barrow is about to electrocute Kira.
Scott grabs Vera and yanks her away just as a supernova occurs. First, Vera's body shudders from the electricity that transfers from Scott to herself. Then he uses his jacket to shield their eyes from the light that would have otherwise blinded them. It's so bright that even when Vera turns her face into Scott and stifles a sob at the pain it brings to her nose, she can still see flashes of white.
After a few agonizing moments, everything goes dark. Vera slowly turns to see Kira standing, her face pinched in confusion as the light is absorbed into her body. And then there's Barrow, lying on the floor, a hole burned through his chest.
_________
a/n:
askjjaksfjnewfg i am the WORST at formally making relationships canon so i'm sorry if that scene was super awkward. i have no romantic experience so i have no idea how these things work. plus i wanted to have some time for romantic!verisaac because,,,, duh.
also the idea of vera pretending to yell at isaac while he's just sitting there like ???? is so funny to me. them screaming angrily while their faces show none of that emotion would look HILARIOUS onscreen.
if you caught that reference to the last makeout session vera had (with jackson), that's one of the scenes i plan on including as an extra chapter! raving was such a good episode and the vera x erica moments will be off the CHARTS. stan verica for clear skin.
oh yeah i made this meme inspired by something i saw on tumblr
every friend group should have...
—kristyn
TRANSLATIONS:
Hola, mija: Hello, my daughter
Blanquito: White boy
Santa María: Holy Mary
( word count: 4.4k )