warning- Our fav couple is going to be with Isaac, Boyd and Derek for this entire chapter/episode, so it'll probably be extremely boring since neither of them are with Lydia, Cora and my bae Stiles who are actually doing the fun things.
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Waking up next to Austin wasn't something Ryder expected.
She wasn't mad at it, of course, but she was definitely grateful she woke up before him and had her moment to internally freak out.
Not only did Austin spend the night because he was still extremely paranoid to leave her alone since the night at the hotel, but they had recently found out that the Darach was now going after people that practically saved lives.
Aka...doctors.
Scott and Isaac had taken protection over Melissa McCall and Ryder, Ramona, Austin and Josie would be 'watching over' Aaron.
Rolling over, she grunted softly as she made contact with Austin's bare chest.
Her eyes grew wide as she lifted the blanket, sighing in relief to see they were both clothed. Why her first thought was that they did something sexual? She didn't know, but she had only seen her boyfriend shirtless twice since they've gotten together, and neither were on purpose, so you could understand her panic.
Ryder sighed softly as she tried to get out of her bed, eventually giving up as she noticed the tight grip Austin had on her waist.
"Austin."
She hesitated in touching his bare skin, shaking him slightly to try and wake him up.
"Get up."
"No."
She scoffed in disbelief, "We have school and you have to go home to get ready."
He rolled over on his back, taking her with him as his hands never left her waist.
"What if I want to get ready with you?"
"Then you'd better hope you can fit my dads clothes because you have nothing here."
He hummed, eyes closed as he rubbed his nose against her neck with a sigh.
"Austin." She called in a soft voice.
The teen in question jolted awake in response, "Yes, Ryder?"
"It's time to wake up."
"I'm up." He spoke in a raspy voice, the sound immediately sending waves to her heart. Austin sat up, keeping his head on her chest.
The girl straddling his lap ran her fingers through his hair, "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure. I can do laps around the kitchen to prove it to you."
"We're not going to do that." She chuckled, getting off of him, "You have to go home and get dressed and ready for school and i'll see you there."
The George teen raised his brows at her as he put on his shirt, "You're kicking me out?"
"I am. But i'll see you in less than an hour, so I think we're good."
His dimples were clear on his face as he gave her a closed lip smile, the girl having not seen due to her back facing him, "I would kiss you goodbye but I know how you are about morning breath, so I'll settle with a see you later."
She pulled a shirt from her closet, "I'll see you later, Austin."
"I love you, Ry."
She closed her eyes, hearing him open her door, before it shut a few seconds later.
Looking up, she began blinking away the tears in her eyes, she snatched up her clothes and walked towards her bathroom.
•••
"Good morning. As you all know, Mr. Harris is still missing... I mean, sick. Anyway, I'm filling in while we all hope and pray for a more qualified substitute to take my place. Okay, so let's get started, shall we?"
Ryder looked at the teacher with a weird expression, her leg began shaking the more she stared.
"Hey, my dad said that the E.R. attending wasn't strangled but did die from asphyxiation. They just don't know how." Stiles whispered.
"What's—?"
"Lack of oxygen."
Scott leaned over, "Do you think the on-call doctor could still be alive?"
"I don't know... But, guys, there's got to be at least 20 other doctors in that hospital... at least, you know? Any one of them could be next."
"Okay, maybe don't say things like that?" Austin nodded his head in the direction of the blonde in front of him.
Stiles winced, clearly forgetting that Aaron was a doctor.
"Sorry." He mouthed.
Austin looked down at the feeling of his phone buzzing. Squinted at his screen, he took note of the text he got from Isaac.
Why doesn't your girlfriend answer her texts?
We need help.
Just you and Ryder. Meet us outside, we need a ride to Derek's loft.
•••
"Go back to school."
"No." Ryder rolled her eyes, "I got an out, you think i'm going back to that place? Please."
Isaac followed up, "Ryder doesn't want to go back to school and Austin follows after everything she does."
"Are you always so docile around her?" Derek looks at the teen.
Austin frowned at the Hale, "What do you mean?"
"Do you do everything she tells you?"
He looked genuinely confused, "You don't?"
The green eyed man shook his head with a sigh, gesturing between his two betas, "And you two?"
Isaac cleared his throat, "Uh...Boyd and I are incredibly and unbelievably sick."
"With what, brain damage?"
"Well, I have a migraine, and, uh, Boyd here has explosive diarrhea." The look Boyd gave him was enough to have Ryder laughing slightly, leaning against the wall behind her.
"We're here to protect you."
"You're here to protect me? Well, I'm in trouble then."
"Excuse you." Ryder crossed her arms over her chest, feeling the need to defend her best friend, "Your track record for fighting isn't the best, dear cousin, so you'd better be grateful with whatever protection you could get."
Isaac stepped forward, "Actually, Boyd here came up with a plan."
"Yeah, I thought about the time Gerard had me and Erica locked up, tied up with electrical wires pushing current through us. I was wondering how we could do something like that... But on a bigger scale."
Austin nodded in approval, "You're so smart, dude."
•••
"In a pool of electrified water, it can take up to 50 milliamps to kill a normal human, less than the power it takes to turn on a light bulb." Boyd explained.
"That's comforting."
Boyd continued speaking, "If we disable the circuit interrupter in the building's electrical room, the current will keep coming, and anyone who steps foot in here, they'll get a pretty shocking surprise."
"Especially someone who's barefoot."
Austin involuntarily shuddered at the memory of the woman that stopped him in the grocery store parking lot.
"God, her toes haunt me to this day."
•••
Austin sat beside Ryder, keeping himself out of the water that was practically flooding the floor.
"Isn't the light on that supposed to be on?"
"Yeah." Derek's back straightened up.
Austin looked up, "What does it mean if it's not?"
"Someone cut the auxiliary power."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"What about the main—" Boyd's question is cut off by the lights shutting off completely.
Ryder groaned, standing up, pushing Austin behind her as quick as she could.
The teens watch as Derek took the chance of stepping into the water, nothing happening as he faced the door.
"Derek... What do we do now?"
"We fight."
The clanging of metal let them know that they weren't alone. Ryder took the time it took the alpha's to open the door as a chance to push Austin behind a pilar, silently demanding that he stayed put.
"Gonna be honest, Derek. When Ennis died, I thought to myself I'd just go for it. Find you and kill you, wherever you stood. Then I remembered how you surround yourself with these teenagers, hiding behind them, and I thought, "what's a girl got to do to get you alone?" You and me Derek, or they tear her apart. What do you say? You think you can beat me one on one?"
Derek growled at her, "I'm gonna rip your throat out with my teeth."
Ryder gasped as she felt herself her tugged away by Isaac as Kali and Derek fought, it seemed to go one forever until Boyd got dragged in.
She felt her heartbeat accelerate at the sight of Kali forcing Derek's claws into Boyd's stomach.
"No."
Her brown eyes looked away from them, instead glancing at Isaac who kept both her and Jennifer Blake out of harms reach. She then looked to where Austin stayed hidden, focusing in on his heart, his fast pace beating was enough to tell her that he had saw what happened.
"Take him! I'm giving you till the next full moon, Derek. Make the smart choice. Join the pack... Or next time I'm killing all of you."
Their heads were bowed down as the alpha pack left the loft, the twins looking down at Boyd's body in what seemed to be sympathy.
"It's okay." Boyd's voice cracked with emotion as he looked at Derek with tearful eyes.
"No, no. No, it's not. It's not."
"It's all okay, Derek."
Derek shook his head, "I'm... l'm sorry."
"The full moon. That feeling... That was worth it. There's a lunar eclipse. I always wondered what... What that felt like for one of us. For one of us..."
The sound of footsteps running in alerted the group, but none of them looked away from Boyd.
Ryder released a shaky breath as Cora approached them, tears streaming down the youngest Hale's face.
"Ry..."
That was all it took for the girl to pull her into a hug, doing what she could to comfort her. Ryder knew that their time on the vault had given Boyd and Cora enough time to bond, so she completely understood why her friend was so heartbroken over his death.
Ryder didn't know Boyd personally, but she was well aware of how sweet and understanding he was.
And now, she no longer had the opportunity to get to know him outside of being Derek's beta.
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A/N: 100k reads?! wtf, i literally adore you guys 😭🫶🏾