The alarms in the station flailed, the emergency generator casting beams of light throughout the building.
"What is this? What's going on?" Matt sharply asked as he stood up from the desk he leaned on.
"Matt, Matt," Winnie grabbed his arm, "you said you took my drawings. How many?" She spoke over the alarms, needing his attention. "Matt, this is important. How many drawings did you take?"
"A notebook," Matt replied as he quickly looked around. "It was a full sketchbook."
"Full? Matt!" Winnie tightened her grip on him, "Did you look through it? Did you see what I drew? Did you see what happens next?"
"I - I didn't look-"
Gun shots rang out, shattering the station windows with graceful machine guns.
"Get down!" Winnie shouted, knowing all too well who was on the other side shooting.
The teens dropped to the floor, ducking under desks for cover as glass sprayed in like rain and semi-auto rounds deafened them.
Trophies and photos were ripped by gunfire and all the security cameras were rendered inoperable.
But all at once, the bullets ceased.
Winnie stayed where she was, exchanging looks with Scott as silence coated the room. In the pit of her stomach, the sick feeling she got when Gerard was near grew.
Matt laid on his back, slowly lowering his hands from shielding his eyes. He heard a ping in the air, his eyes widening as a small black object flew over them.
Smoke pummeled out of their present, coating the floor within moments.
"We need to get out of here," Winnie coughed as the coolness of the smoke slinked along her arms. She moved onto her knees, able to see Scott follow her lead.
"Run!" Scott yelled, grabbing Winnie's hand and pulling her up from the ground.
Winnie took Scott's hand, darting out of the room with him. "They're here for Derek," she heavily said before the two collided into Jackson.
The half-present kanima shoved them out of the way, running into the office for Matt. He could feel it inside; his master in trouble.
Winnie ran into Stilinski's office, she and Scott letting go of each other as they came across Stiles and Derek still paralyzed.
"Take him," Derek ordered. "Now!"
Winnie reached down to the alpha, helping him up off the ground. "I'll get you out of here." She nodded to Scott, who had a limp Stiles leaning on him. "Get him somewhere safe."
Scott didn't have to be told twice, hauling Stiles out of the room.
"I don't know why you're helping me," Derek said as he balanced himself despite stiff legs. "You've seen all I've done."
"And I know it's not all that bad," Winnie replied before checking over her shoulder. "You need to leave now. Right now, because they're only coming for you. Matt and Jackson were just bonus."
"It's because of Victoria."
Winnie didn't even hesitate, "I know. I also know she wasn't exactly innocent." She started to pull him, the alpha's eyes sparking red as a monstrous shriek shrouded the building. "Jackson will kill all of you if I leave."
"Everyone else will kill you if you don't," she snapped in response. She met his eyes, knowing the look in them. "You're not going to leave, are you? Ah, shit," she sighed, removing her gun - recovered before going to talk to Matt - and turned off the safety. "Then don't get killed."
"You too."
Winnie went out the office door, listening as she stepped into the hall.
Roars crashed within the holding cell, Derek taking on the kanima as well as its master.
The brunette took a different route, searching for more than a fight. She came across the garage, both Chris and Allison a little battered as they cleaned up the evidence of their presence. "It wasn't supposed to happen like this."
"I just want Derek," Allison sharply said as she reracked her arrows in her quiver.
"That's your problem, Allison," Winnie announced in an annoyed voice, able to see the shift in the hunter's emotions since the death of her mother.
Allison had been taken over by revenge and anger.
"You're being blinded by your hate so much so that your rationality is somewhere off in the Pacific Ocean waiting for you to go find it."
Chris, however, didn't stop Winnie from confronting his daughter. Even he didn't like how Allison had been acting.
Gerard had gotten in her head and he knew it.
"When you experience a close family member dying, then you come find me-"
"Guess again," Winnie loudly said over Allison's cocky voice. "Don't assume anything. Don't act like it's a get out of jail free card. Life is too hard and too long already for you to be a careless asshole." Winnie began to back up, glancing to Argent, "You okay, Chris?"
Argent lightly nodded in agreement, putting his gun into the back waistband of his jeans. "You?"
Winnie repeated his action, nodding before leaving the department garage. Her arm was grabbed the moment she turned a corner, being pulled out of sight.
Derek held a hand over her mouth, giving her a warning look. He put a finger against his lips, letting go of her.
"I've done everything that you've asked of me," Scott quietly said in the hall over. "I'm part of Derek's pack, I've given you all the information that you wanted, I told you Matt was controlling Jackson..."
"And leave him to us."
Gerard's voice sent chills down Winnie's spine, the brunette listening carefully.
"Help your friends," the eldest Argent told Scott. "Leave Matt and Jackson to me. Deal with your mother. Go!"
There was a hesitation, a clink on the ground, causing both Derek and Winnie to lean closer.
"You dropped this," said Scott, some sort of exchange occuring.
"Go!" Argent urged.
Scott ran past Winnie and Derek without noticing them, the two glancing to each other.
It didn't settle well, to say the least.
¥ ¥ ¥
"You know when you're drowning, you don't actually inhale until right before you black out. It's called voluntary apnea. It's like no matter how much you're freaking out, the instinct to not let any water in is so strong that you won't open your mouth until you feel like your head's exploding."
Stiles sat in Ms. Morrell's office at the high school, lacing up his lacrosse stick with new netting while he spoke.
"But then when you finally do let it in, that's when it stops hurting. It's not scary anymore. It's...it's actually kind of peaceful."
"Are you saying you hope Matt felt some peace in his last moments?" questioned Morrell, behind her desk.
Stiles exhaled, looking up from his lacrosse stick, "I don't feel sorry for him."
"Can you feel sorry for the nine year old Matt who drowned?"
"Just because a bunch of dumbasses dragged him into a pool when he couldn't swim doesn't really give him the right to go off killing them one by one," defended Stiles. "And by the way, my dad told me that they found a bunch of pictures of Allison on Matt's computer. And not just of her though. I mean, he photoshopped himself into these pictures. Stuff like them holding hands and kissing. You know, like he had built this whole fake relationship. So yeah, maybe drowning when he was only nine years old was what set him off the rails, but the dude was definitely riding the crazy train."
Morrell nodded with the lightest smile, "One positive thing came out of this, though. Right?"
Stiles thought of his father receiving his badge back, "Yeah. Yeah, but I still feel like there's something wrong between us. I don't know. It's just, like, tension when we talk." He lightly shook his head. "Same thing with Scott."
"Have you talked to him since that night?" Morrell asked.
"No," Stiles replied while not looking at his counselor, "not really. I mean, he's got his own problems to deal with, though. I don't think he's talking to Allison, either. But that might be more her choice, you know. Her mom dying his her pretty hard. But I guess it brought her and her dad closer.
"Jackson? Jackson hasn't really been himself lately. Actually, the funny thing is, as of right now, Lydia is the one who seems the most normal. Even Winnie's been a little off, buried in her sketchbook. She got a lot quieter once her brother and friends left. I think they keep her sane - Beacon hasn't been doing her much good lately."
"And what about you, Stiles?" Morrell sat with her chin rested on her knuckles, "feeling some anxiety about the championship game tomorrow night?"
With the netting in his mouth to knot the ends, Stiles looked up to Morrell, "Why would you ask me that?" He pulled the string from his mouth once he realized, "Oh. Uh, no. I never actually play. But hey, since one of my teammates is dead and another one's missing, who knows, right?"
"You mean Isaac," said Morrell. "One of the three runaways. You haven't heard from any of them, have you?"
Stiles held off from saying that Winnie would most definitely know where Isaac was. He instead changed the subject. "How come you're not taking any notes on this?"
Morrell simply replied, "I do my notes after the session."
"Your memory's that good?" Stiles questioned doubtfully.
Marin wasn't going to fall for it. "How about we get back to you?" She waited patiently, the boy looking away. "Stiles?"
Stiles shook his head, "I'm fine. Yeah, aside from the not sleeping, the jumpiness, the constant, overwhelming, crushing fear that something terrible is about to happen."
"It's called hyper vigilance," Morrell told him, "that persistent feeling of being under threat."
"But it's not just a feeling, though," said Stiles. "It's like a panic attack. You know, like I can't even breathe."
"Like you're drowning?"
"Yeah," he softly replied.
Morrell leaned in on Stiles, "So if you're drowning, and you're trying to keep your mouth closed until that very last moment, what if you choose to not open your mouth? To not let the water in?"
"You do anyway," he said. "It's a reflex."
"But if you hold off until that reflex kicks in," Marin continued, "you have more time, right?"
Stiles wasn't catching on to what she was getting at. "Not much time."
"But more time to fight your way to the surface?"
"I guess."
"More time to be rescued?"
"More time to be in antagonizing pain," countered Stiles. "And did you forget about the part where you feel like your head's exploding?"
"If it's about survival," said Marin, "isn't a little agony worth it?"
"And what if it just gets worse?" Stiles asked with steady eyes and a nervous heart. "What if it's agony now, and then...then it's just hell later on?"
"Then think about something Winston Churchill once said."
If you're going through Hell, keep going.