12. Paralysm - Stiles
Percy swims around the pool with Annabeth, looking completely at home in the water and neglecting what they came here to do easily. Which is fine, Stiles didn't want to swim more than he had too.
Annabeth isn't what he expected. She's like Lydia, looks crazy pretty but is also secretly smarter than everyone. She's got scars on her body like Percy and walks with a slight limp. The two act like they've known each other for years, and when I think about it, Percy did mention being on call with her in the rain once.
Does she know what he is? Or is she the same?
Annabeth doesn't swim as efficiently as Percy, I guess no one can, and she doesn't stay underwater for that little extra second. Unlike Percy, she's distinctly human judging from her actions. But I've only known her for a day, and it took a lot longer to realise something was up with Percy.
How human? I wonder. There are other things she can be, and again my mind goes to the similarities between her and Lydia. A banshee doesn't feel right, but some of those scars look like claw marks. But again, so did Percy's. They're both weirdly similar, and it must mean something.
With my eyes, I connect a red string between Percy and Annabeth's pinki fingers.
My watch starts beeping and I click it off in time to see Chris come into the pool rooms with a bucket and mop.
I look at Lydia, "ready?"
"No, I hate this." She grumbles. She climbs up the ladder to sit with only her feet in the pool. "It better work."
I climb out beside her and lay down on the cold tiles. The last time I came into contact with this kind of venom, it was more painful when I hit the ground. It didn't help that I half-landed on Derek Hale, who's literally a bag of bricks.
A dart hits my rib and my body goes numb. I can't do anything —Can't see, speak or move. Even my brain is sluggish from the toxin, and I urge it to work. In the peripheral vision of my eye, Lydia lands beside me, her hair fanning out around us.
This part of our plan seems way too inconvenient for anything I would agree with normally, but it's the only way for Percy not to immediately see us as the enemy and come after us for revenge. This way, he thinks we're innocent bystanders—
"Did you get heavier, Stiles?" Is that Derek? I swear to God, I should've known Chris would tell his new best buddy about this.
He drags us up against the wall, and my head droops against my shoulder awkwardly. I glare at Derek, but it obviously doesn't work if he's laughing. He walks off, still chuckling like some insane hag, and brings back Annabeth.
Half her blonde curls are obscuring her face and water is still dropping from her water-wrinkled fingers. Her body is rested against Lydia's. I almost feel bad, but it's the kind of feeling you had to scrape off the walls of your heart because there's very little of it. She doesn't know what's happening or why, but if Percy is what we expect then it's a good thing they're both clueless.
Derek moves in front of my eyeline, he mouths, you better be right, before walking back to the pool edge.
Immediately, he jumps away and Chris has a real, silver-bullet filled gun pointed at where Percy has been tied to the ladder with only his head above the surface. Water overlaps the pool's edge, spilling onto the tiles.
The smell of ozone fills my nose.
Something's wrong, so irrevocably wrong.
"Annabeth?" The voice comes out strangled, like their mouth isn't moving as fast as their mind. Again, water splashes over the sides, but now it's building up into small waves, like it's trying to escape.
Ropes snap and they slap the water as they fall away from Percy, and he lifts himself out of the pool in one push. He's completely dry, fluffy air falling at his ears, clothes hanging loosely off his body.
He's normal. There's no scales running down his arms, or claws ripping through skin, or blue glowing eyes. He's just immune ...to Kanima venom. Who else was immune? Jackson and Lydia, who both turned out to be supernaturals.
Lydia said he has an aura of death around him. What if he's a Banshee like her, and deals with all the same issues. The first being he didn't know he's a banshee until he had the overwhelming need to scream —Banshee screams are deathly, the most dangerous ability. What if he couldn't hold back and that's how he killed so many people?
And if he's a Kanima, then he's being used. All those people, monsters, that he killed were done outside of his control. He wouldn't have been in his right mind or even awake to know what was happening.
We can help Percy, if we can figure out which supernatural he is. Help him control the screaming, or find out who is controlling his strings.
I need Chris and Derek to leave, for them to understand that Percy might not be as dangerous as we —I thought. We need him to join our friend group like we initially planned, then watch him over the next few weeks.
"L –leave," I struggle to get it out, but Derek immediately looks over anyway, his hearing picking up my voice. "Kanima. We can help."
I pray to any and all Gods that Annabeth doesn't realise what I'm saying, and if she does, then she thinks I'm asking for them to leave like some helpless victim.
"Who can you help, Stiles?" Percy asks, and it's too late that I realise that his hearing is just as good.
Water beads down the side of my face, "no, no help us."
My voice is slurred and it must be enough for Percy to think I can't speak properly and he might just be hearing the wrong thing come out of my mouth. He walks towards the tree of us, still lined up against the wall like dolls. There's a slim moment of hesitation from Derek and Chris, but it's clear that they want to see what Percy is aiming to do.
He kneels beside Annabeth first, and places a steady hand against her arm, after that everything is out of my view. I can't see what happens to her or Lydia, only that he kneels beside them both.
Then he's in front of me, putting a hand against my ribcage where the dart pierces my skin. I barely notice how Annabeth is tugging Percy's arm, silently begging him to stop what he's doing. My mind is failing to catch up and all I can do is watch.
It feels like what I'd expect having a vampire drink your blood would feel like.
Inside every vein spread out across my body I can feel the poison, not my blood, moving like shards of glass towards Percy's hand. It makes my heart beat harder, and a muscle in my arm spasms uncontrolably. It feels weird, and unearthly, like my whole attention should be focused on every fibre of my being. But instead, I can't look away from Percy.
His face is barely thirty centimetres away, and I can see every flick of his eyes as he watches me. I can count every eyelash, and he has many. Thick, dark lashes that help his green eyes stand out like emeralds in the sand. The roots of his white strand are now dark, a hard contrast from the snowy strands. There's freckles dancing across the bridge of his nose and—
Air forces itself into my lungs and I nearly jump off the wall, filled with a sudden energy. The last time I came back from Kanima venom, it was slow and aggravating. But this is like having too much adrenaline. I could run a mile with how crasy I feel, and come back completely unbothered.
"How..?" I breathe, staring at Percy. There is no question of what if, anymore, Percy is no doubt a Supernatural and the air around him holds this heavier sense of gravity, that's pulling me in.
"I don't know." Percy admits, but he doesn't meet my eyes. I drag a hand against the wall beside me and lift myself up, trying to ignore the shaking in my legs.
Lydia clutches my hand, "let's go now, they don't look like they'll do anything."
No one speaks as we rush out the doors, leaving our clothes behind to grab on monday. I look back once, to see Derek and Chris still standing in the same places, staring at us. If I didn't know why they were here, I would've been running a heck of a lot faster because God, they give me the heebie jeebies.
We all high tail it to my car and jump in. It's not long before we're speeding down the road back into town.
The trip is silent, and we all stare out the windows, shivering and overwhelmed with thoughts. Though I expect we all have our own things to think about. I look up in the rearview mirror, Annabeth and Percy are sharing a deep conversation through raised eyebrows and mouthed words.
Then Annabeth meets my eyes in the mirror. Her grey eyes are piercing, like broken pieces of glass. There's something about that girl, that screams danger, and the way her nails look like they're digging into Percy's hand from how hard she's holding it ...lets just say, if Percy is a Kanima, Annabeth is at the top of the list of suspects for who's controlling him.
I face the road.
----
Percy joins us at lunch on monday, his hood up and earbuds in. He snatches an apple off my plate before going back to the book he's reading. I stare at him for a second. I didn't have to invite him over or anything, it's like he's claimed our group.
Lydia catches my eye when I look up, her grin belongs to the devil.
"How were your morning classes?" Scott asks, tapping Percy's shoulder to get his attention.
Percy shrugs. "Boring."
"Ok, whatever, doesn't matter right now." I say giddily, slapping a yellow folder onto the table for everyone to see. "We have a murder mystery to solve."
Scott and Lydia have already gotten a full rundown of all the deaths, but only so I could get them to agree with forcing Percy to do stakeouts with us at night. Which is the best time to keep an eye on him, since that's when most supernatural monstrosities happen.
We told Scott everything that involved Percy, he's a little (very) annoyed that we didn't mention it earlier so he could help but I told him that I never planned to tell him anyway, he should be grateful. And It didn't help.
"The deaths have been happening for the past few months, but they've been under the radar. That was until Michael Stan was drowned and mauled at the Noxi River."
Lydia frowns, "two's a coincidence, three's a pattern."
"Yeah, exactly." I open the folder, "There are no witnesses or videos to see when the deaths happened, but the police believe it all happened at night like everything else around here."
"What about the guys that paralysed us last friday? Are they a part of it?" Percy asks.
Liam says, "you were paralysed?"
"No and not important." I pat Liam's head, he's like a child. A very angry child. "Each victim was drowned and vandalised in some way. The first, Victoria Hellsmith, a junior, no longer has eyes or teeth. The second, Zack Martin, a kid in Liam's old school, was very viciously shaved bold to the skull and Michael was mauled."
It's all gruesome and I've purposely left the photos behind in my room because it physically hurts my eyes to look at them. I mean, all the kids are close to my age –younger. I've seen it before, dealt with worse, but it doesn't make it easier.
"Each death happened twenty days apart, and since Michael's death it has been seventeen days. Thursday will be the twentieth day, I want to stake out every water source around town." I grin, "who's in?"
Blank stares meet mine.
"You want me to do it on my own? And possibly get caught by the killer?" I huff exaggeratedly, "and you call yourselves my friends—"
"I'll help," Percy says, tucking his earbuds in his pockets. "I'm pretty good with knives or a baseball bat, we can use them as weapons."
"What about a gun?"
"My aim is cursed, I swear to the gods, you do not want me using a gun, or a bow and arrow." Percy chuckles. He drags the folder towards him and pushes his glasses up his nose.
Liam says, "I'll do it too, and I know Hayden will."
"I'm in, but I'm not going anywhere with Percy." Malia says. Those who know her, know it's because she wants the freedom of transforming without being seen by a human.
Mason agrees too, then Lydia and Scott. Now it's about who goes where and if there's anyone else we can recruit. We already have Parrish and my Dad driving about town with their unit. Isaac and Derek are keeping close to the Noxi river.
Four of us will keep to the lake, two at the school pool and two at the public pools.
I look at Lydia, who's dragging a single finger through a drop of water on the table. It's only for a second, but she yanks her hand back quickly before looking up to see if anyone noticed.
I've already looked away.
On Thursday night, I plan on focusing on Percy. It's the night that the killer will be out, and if Chris is right, and it is Percy, then I want him nearby. In sight, and maybe even tied up. If what Lydia is seeing in the little puddle is important then she can tell me, but until then I'm setting my sights on our priority.
Lydia thinks that we should tell him the truth now, explain things to him so it doesn't cause issues later. Except, Percy doesn't seem the type to believe in forgotten myths, and he's not a werewolf. Doing the same to him like we did to Liam ...wouldn't work as well (not that it did the first time). It's a gut feeling.
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