"Oh my god," Lydia cried into Jackson's shoulder.
The doors into the classroom were rattling insanely, and the top chairs from our stack were crashing violently to the ground. The beast was going to break in eventually, and I didn't want to be there when it did.
"What do we do," I breathed, inaudible to the majority of the group but clear to Stiles. His hand still held the side of my body protectively, and I could hear his heavy breathing behind me.
"The kitchen," he said quickly. "The door out of the kitchen leads to the stairwell."
"Which only goes up," Scott complained from the side. I turned my head to notice Allison was clinging onto him, burying her face in his jacket. The couple was standing next to Lydia and Jackson, who were also gripping each other for comfort. That's when I noticed that Stiles and I fit the same mold, looking like a romantic duo the way I was glued to his side.
"Up is better than here," Stiles stated.
The moment his words sunk in, we were all turning frantically to the kitchen doors at the back of the room. Stiles' hand left my waist in the disarray, but he looked back frequently to make sure I was keeping up.
I thanked the years of athletic conditioning for archery and gymnastics that had melded my strong legs, as well as the choice I made earlier that morning to wear sneakers, because all of our sprinting was taking a toll on the group and even I was gasping for breath.
My feet pounded up the cement stairwell, as Allison grabbed at my hand frantically, not wanting to lose me in the commotion. Meanwhile, I reached back to take Lydia's hand with my free one, pulling her along with me as she did her best to run in her skirt and heeled boots. She squeezed my hand back, gratefully, and picked up the pace.
Stiles led the pack, as the group of us burst through doorways and down the dark corridor, trying to find an available hideaway.
Once we made it, red faced and panting, into an open classroom, Scott slammed the door shut and jammed a stool under the handle. I tugged Lydia and my sister closer to me while glancing at our new surroundings. I recognized the high tables, the towering shelves and miscellaneous lab material as the inside to the Chemistry classroom.
Our heavy breathing filled the room, as I focused on my timing like how Stiles was leading me earlier. None of us dared to speak for a second, waiting for the worst to come bursting through the door at any moment.
A terrifying growling sound seeped into the classroom, causing Allison to whimper beside me, Lydia clapping her hand over her mouth in fear. The image of a shadowed silhouette followed, revealing itself in the small window on the door. I clenched my eyes shut, lying to myself that everything was okay, that the small stool Scott had propped up was enough protection and the beast couldn't hurt us.
Allison's grip on my hand loosened slightly and I opened my eyes again to see everyone visually deflate. To our disbelief, the shadow had passed by the door without trying to come inside, and it appeared as though our hiding place was safe for now.
"Jackson, how many people can fit in your car?" Scott whispered quickly.
Jackson's eyes widened and he began nodding rapidly, as though his minuscule sports car was a transit bus.
"Five, if someone squeezes on someone's lap."
"Five? Are you kidding?" Allison hissed in disbelief.
I rolled my eyes at Jackson's fantasy. "I was already practically on Allison's lap in the back with just the two of us."
"It doesn't matter," Stiles said firmly. "There's no getting out without drawing attention."
Jackson's look faltered, as Scott ran over to the door at the back of the room.
"What about this?" he asked desperately. "This leads to the roof. We can go down the fire escape to the parking lot in like, seconds."
"That's a deadbolt," Stiles pointed out. Scott remained silent and it seemed as if our chances of escaping were flying out the window. I was struggling to remain calm, while Scott licked his lips and spoke up again, this time in a hushed whisper to Stiles in the corner.
"I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die," Lydia chanted as she paced across the room, inspecting the cabinets and desks.
Scott pushed past Stiles and approached the door. "I'm getting the key."
Allison glanced between the door and the messy haired boy who was drawing nearer to it. She broke from my side and stepped in his way, furrowing her eyebrows. "Are you serious?"
"Well, it's the best plan," Scott reasoned. "Someone has to get the key if we wanna get out of here."
"You can't go out there unarmed," my sister insisted through gritted teeth, biting back her emotions. Scott sighed and reached behind him, grabbing the closest thing he could find, which happened to be a skinny pointer finger the teachers used to guide the class in notes on the board. Even if it was a purple Care Bear wandering the halls out there, Scott's choice weapon wouldn't have helped anything and he knew that. However, this didn't stop him from waving it around confidently.
"It's better than nothing," he shrugged.
Stiles groaned. "There's gotta be something else."
"There is," Lydia piped up from the side, and motioned towards the bookshelf stocked full of beakers and sealed chemicals.
"What are we gonna do, throw acid on 'em?" Stiles spat.
"No," she rolled her eyes. "Like a fire bomb. In there is everything you need to make a self-igniting Molotov cocktail."
"A self-igniting..."
"Molotov cocktail," Lydia batted her eyelashes, but spoke through her teeth. "What? I read it somewhere."
"We don't have a key for that either," Stiles sighed glumly. This caused Jackson to huff before slamming his elbow into the glass, opening the access to the cabinet's contents while shattered glass covered the floor around it. Stiles cocked his head. "Alright, nevermind."
A few minutes later, we were surrounding Lydia; watching in awe as she concocted a weapon with chemistry materials. I admired the passion in her eyes, and the way her posture stayed perfectly straight, her purse tucked under her arm, as she focused intensely on her pouring and recipe memorization.
"Jackson, hand me the sulfuric acid," she commanded and he obeyed, grabbing a container from the table and handing it to her; Lydia's eyes not leaving her beaker as she swirled it.
She exhaled shortly and corked the flask tightly before handing it to Scott. He glanced down at the unassuming liquid and bit his lip, rolling his shoulders back, and marching towards the door.
"No, no, this is insane," Allison choked out, her emotions rising again. "You cannot go out there."
Scott stared at her earnestly. "We can't just sit here waiting for Stiles' dad to check his messages."
"You could die. Don't you get that? He's killed three people."
"And we're next. Somebody has to do something."
Allison couldn't keep her tears from flowing now, her voice coming out hoarse like it did every time she was emotional. It broke my heart into pieces.
"Do you remember-do you remember when you told me you knew whether or not I was lying? That I had a tell?" Allison cried. My mind flew to the images of Allison's eyebrow that quirked every time she lied; when she promised she didn't take my compact mirror without asking, when she told my parents that she had finished all her reading assignments, when she acted strong for me when I knew it was hard for her too. It was her Pinocchio nose. "So do you-"
Scott's face fell as he gulped.
"-And you've been lying all night," Allison breathed. "Just-please don't go. Please don't leave us. Please."
Allison gripped onto Scott's arms with dread while he remained silent, extinguishing any hope that he was going to, in fact, stay.
"Lock it behind me," he spoke gruffly. He started for the door, only to be pulled back by my sister who smashed her lips onto his in a good luck kiss. I averted my eyes to the lab table for a moment before Scott walked out of the room and I inched over to my sister.
I locked eyes with hers, my twin's dark brown eyes glistening with tears as I tried to communicate with her all that I could silently. I struggled to put my feelings into words, so I wrapped my arms around her instead, snuggling into Allison's neck. We stayed there for a few moments, and I listened to her heartbeat become steady and her choked cries to ease away.
"He'll be okay," I whispered against her wavy hair. "We'll be okay."
I prayed that she couldn't hear the unsteady warble in my voice.
When I broke from our hug my eyes fluttered up to meet Stiles' from across the room, his gaze already on me. I looked deep into them for some kind of sign, but all I found was worry.
After a few minutes of tense silence, Scott still hadn't appeared, and the group was beginning to get fidgety.
"I don't get this, I don't get why he's out there, and why he left us," Allison warbled. "And I can't-I can't stop my hands from shaking."
My sister proceeded to hold out her hands and I was about to reach for them when Jackson did the same. He took both her palms in his and spoke to her calmly, making it hard for me to prevent the judgmental glare that blazed from my irises onto his sly grin.
"It's okay," he soothed. "It's okay, it's okay."
I glanced over at Lydia and Stiles, and they both seemed as uncomfortable with this interaction as I was. Lydia wouldn't even look at anyone. Instead, she glanced around the room in avoidance, her focus eventually landing on the table of chemicals where we had concocted our fire bomb.
Her eyes widened. "Jackson, you handed me the sulfuric acid, right? It has to be sulfuric acid, it won't ignite if it's not."
"I gave you exactly what you asked for," he snapped back harshly and Lydia recoiled.
"Yeah," she squeaked, but her voice trailed off with worry and I deduced what she expected. I only wished Allison wasn't following her thoughts, as that would send her into a tailspin of terror. "Yeah, I'm sure you did."
Suddenly, a roar echoed through the school and into the classroom, and it definitely did not sound like Derek Hale.
Jackson gasped sharply, his hands flying to the back of his neck, as we all rubbed our heads from the noise. The lacrosse captain seemed even more affected by the sound though, as he fell to his knees, groaning and clutching his neck in agony.
Lydia's eyes widened and she bent down to help him up. Standing to his feet, Jackson huffed and shook her hands off his shoulder, roughly. "I'm fine."
The four of us gaped at him, and he rubbed his neck self consciously.
"Seriously, I'm okay." he assured us.
"That didn't sound okay," I pointed out.
Stiles' eyes narrowed on Jackson's hand. "Hey, what's on the back of your neck?"
Jackson quickly turned, slapping down Stiles' outstretched hand and snapping at him. "I said I'm fine!"
"It's been there for days," Lydia spoke. "He won't tell me what happened."
"As if you actually care!"
"Alright!" Stiles cut off the bickering couple. "Can we not argue for, like, half a second here?"
Lydia and Jackson both just stared at each other intensely, and I bit my lip with anxiety. Meanwhile, Allison began pacing back and forth, running her hand through her hair impatiently.
"Where's Scott?" she worried. "He should be back by now."
The group's nerves were cut off by a loud snapping sound coming from the doorway. We all turned our heads instantly, to find a blurry outline of a Scott-looking figure outside the window.
"Scott!" my sister called, rushing to the door. We all hurried behind her as she continued to shout his name. However, when she tried the handle it didn't budge.
"He locked us in?" I asked incredulously, my stomach tightening at the thought of us being trapped yet again. Scott's silhouette disappeared from sight.
"Where's he going?" Lydia whimpered.
My sister continued to bang on the door and yell for her boyfriend frantically, yanking the locked handle back and forth. "Scott! SCOTT!"
"Stop!" I shouted, placing my hand on Allison's shoulder, and Lydia joined in. She must have heard what I did. In the distance, it was a faint sound, but recognizable: the metallic sound of police sirens. My heard pounded as I realized the sheriff must have received Stiles' message, and he was there to save us.
"STOP!" Lydia screeched louder, and Allison eventually paused. "Do you hear that?"
"Sirens." I whispered, and Stiles' eyes widened at my words.
The group of us nearly tripped over each other, rushing to the windows on the other side of the classroom that gave us a view outside. The police sirens were growing louder now, and it only took a moment before a car with flashing lights came into view.
I let out a long, shaky breath of relief.
We were safe.
Half an hour later, police cars and emergency vehicles had crowded the scene. A group had torn throughout the entire school and came out with nothing, not even a dead janitor. The whole thing sent an eerie shiver down my spine as I walked along the school's sidewalk with Allison, taking a break from the police questioning, and awaiting the arrival of our dad who was coming to pick us up.
Both he and our mom were furious with us for technically sneaking out to the school after hours. The amount of danger we were in had been extreme and I could feel the rage building on the other end of the phone through my mom's voice. However, I doubted we were going to face any punishment for a few days, since for now all our parents could feel was thankful that we were okay.
We were both shaken, but Allison seemed even more emotional about Scott and the way he wasn't telling her everything, or anything really.
"Why isn't he telling the truth, Eleanor?" she shook her head. "I'm s-so stupid. I just-I just put so much trust into him right of the gate, I let my guard down and now-"
She took a deep breath and I rubbed her back.
"-I just don't know if I can trust him after all this," she choked out.
"You're not stupid," I said firmly. "You just need a break from him. Give him some time to figure himself out and make it up to you, and in the meantime take a step back."
"Allison!" a voice called from behind us. I turned my head around to see that it was Scott who was running towards us.
"It's him," I mumbled to my twin sister and she nodded, blinking back tears and flaring her nostrils; trying to pull herself together.
"Just wait by the cars," she instructed. "I have to talk to him alone."
She shot me a reassuring glance as Scott came up beside us, and I glared at the boy in warning before shuffling away back to the crowd.
Leaning against a pole, observing his dad on the job, was Stiles. I altered my path and walked over to him slowly.
"Hey," I mumbled in greeting, and he turned around while dropping his hand that was previously rubbing his forehead and raising it in a weak wave.
"Hey," he repeated and stuck his hands in his pockets. The silence fell over us and I struggled to formulate the words that would be adequate, following the night we had just experienced.
"Sorry," I spoke. "For being so clingy and frantic in there, I didn't mean to cause such a scene. It was hard enough on you as it was."
He shook his head fiercely. "No, you have nothing to be sorry about. I'm the one who's sorry. It's partly my fault that you got roped into all this."
I dropped my gaze to my feet and leaned against the other side of the pole. He mirrored me and licked his lips once, as though he was deciding whether or not to speak.
"So, uh, I wanted to ask you something, but I don't wanna come across as insensitive," he said softly. He took the way I flashed my eyes up at him and remained silent as a sign to continue. "Back in Lydia's room, her cell phone video-"
At those words I clammed up, averting my gaze.
"I know you feel uneasy about something, and I'm sorry for asking, but I want to help," he whispered, reaching his hand out to touch my arm.
I shook my head nervously and straightened up again. "It's nothing, really, don't worry about me-"
"Eleanor..." Stiles sent me a pleading look and I bit my lip.
I fixed my gaze on the blades of grass beneath me as I continued. "At first I thought the monster in the video was similar to one in my, uh, dreams. And then, I thought I saw it again chasing us down in the halls. That's what caused me to break down all of a sudden."
When I looked up, Stiles' eyes were focused intensely on me, listening to every word I said in great detail.
"Um, I-I guess I was just imagining things though," I stammered. "If it was Derek in there."
Now, it was Stiles' turn to look away. His uneasiness confirmed my suspicions.
Before he could come up with something to say, a consolation or maybe an explanation, I heard my sister calling me from the parking lot. Both of us turned to see her waving me over, about to step into my dad's truck.
"Look, forget about it," I said quietly, as I began to walk away from him. His look was strained once more like he was trying to find words.
"Sorry, again," I mumbled, before turning around and walking towards my awaiting sister and family, knowing that as much as I treated it as if it was nothing, what happened tonight was something. Something out of the ordinary.
Something unforgettable.
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a/n: ohmygoooodness this episode is so scary and intense man
i just wanted to thank everyone so much for reading and voting and commenting, each notification brightens up my day :)
ps: idk how many more updates i will be able to write before christmas so have a merry one if you celebrate! xx