::Chapter 17::
Emily walked into her house ready to just go to sleep. After the ice rink, she took it upon herself to take Lydia home who told her that she didn't want to talk about happened. She refused to talk about how she randomly started screaming and Emily reluctantly dropped the subject.
She glanced down at her phone seeing a message from a number she didn't recognize and before she could read it she heard the floor creaking. Immediately she went on alert and glanced around to see if she could get a scent.
Someone vamp sped past her and she quickly chased after them. She managed to grab them and slam them on the ground while hissing threateningly in their face only to receive a chuckle from the person she was straddling.
"What the hell are you doing here, Eli?" Emily blinked in surprise, standing up and keeping a few feet between them. She hadn't seen him since the 1920's. She couldn't quite remember since she had her humanity off back then.
Eli stood up, giving her a faex hurt look. "I see you have your humanity on." He mused, walking around while checking her out. "That's a surprise."
She crossed her arms over her chest and frowned at him. "I didn't exactly have a choice in that matter. But that's beside the point." She gave him a questioning look. "What are you doing here, Eli?"
"I missed you, Em." He said leaning down as he picked up a strand of her hair and gave her a soft expression. "And I thought we could have some fun like old times." His hands cupped her face and stared into her hazel eyes.
She stared at him slowly reaching up and whispering into his ear. "No thanks." She swiftly turned around and strutted out of the room as she called out to him. As long as he stayed cleared away from her plans then he could do whatever he wanted. "You're welcome to stay in the guest room as long as you don't eat anybody." She didn't need any attention on them.
He watched her, his lips twitched upward into a small smirk. "Too late." He muttered, not hurt by her rejection as he went back into the living room to continue drinking.
-
"I'm so sorry about the other day." Stiles said, staring at his best friend as they sat on the stairwell. "I'm trying. We'll get through this. Uh, I know, because I love you. I love you more then--" He made a face. "--oh, my God. I can't - You and Allison just have to find a better way to communicate."
Scott sighed. "Come on, you're the only one that we can trust. Is she coming to the game tonight?"
"Yes! Okay, message complete." Stiles muttered, letting out a tired sigh. "Now, tell me about your boss?"
Scott pursed his lips. "He thinks that Allison's family keeps some kind of, uh, records of all the things that they've hunted. Like a book."
"He probably means a bestiary."
The teen wolf blinked. "What?"
"A bestiary." He repeated.
"I think you mean bestiality." Scott chuckled in amusement.
Stiles gave him a deadpan look, wondering what the heck was going on through his best friends head. "Nope, pretty sure I don't." He deadpanned. "It's like an encyclopedia of mythical creatures."
"How am I the only one who doesn't know anything about this stuff." Scott exclaimed, he didn't even know what wolfsbane was before until Stiles told him.
"Okay, you're my best friend, you're a creature of the night, it's kind of like a priority of mine." He said, also thinking about a certain vampire who he hadn't seen since the night at the ice rink.
"Okay." Scott uttered. "If we can find it, and it can tell us what this thing is -"
Stiles nodded. "And who."
"We need that book!" The two said in unison which surprised them for a moment and they got up and went to class.
-
Emily parked her car, feeling a pang of annoyance at the person in the passenger seat who busy slurping from the blood bag. She twisted in her seat to look at him properly. "Did you really have to come?"
"Of course!" Eli said, licking his lips of any blood that might have slipped. "I told you that I wanted to hang out and since you're playing high schooler I haven't been able to see you." He watched as she rolled her eyes before opening her door and getting out. He followed in suit. "And besides I can't remember the last time I actually sat down to watch a game."
"That's because you're usually eating the players." She muttered. The brunette couldn't help but sigh. "Alright, fine you can stay but remember you're not allowed to eat anyone." She paused, hearing the faint sound of someone crying and quickly recognized the sniffles that belonged to Lydia. She pursed her lips and glanced back at Eli who gave her an innocent smile. "You go on ahead. I need to do something first."
He stared at her for a moment. "Okay." He shrugged and turned around and left to the field to watch the game.
Emily quickly turned around and walked over to the car that her crying best friend inside. The moment she stepped into view she could already see Lydia trying to cover up the fact that she had been crying. "What's wrong?" She asked.
Lydia sniffled, shaking her head. "Nothing's wrong." She said. "I'm fine."
"There's obviously something wrong. You wouldn't be crying in the school parking lot in your car if you were fine." She gave her a pointed look and her tone softened. "So tell me what's wrong."
"You're gonna think I'm crazy." Lydia muttered, wiping her tears away.
"Trust me, there's nothing that will make me think that you're crazy Lydia." Emily promised, thinking back on everything that Lydia has gone through since the night Peter had bitten her. "Does this have anything to do with what happened at the ice rink?"
Lydia hesitated before nodding. "I-I don't know how to explain it but I keep seeing things that aren't there and i-it's always him. I'm scared Emily. I think something's really wrong with me."
Emily stared at her, the feeling of anger welling up in her veins. The anger wasn't at Lydia but at Peter because he had been the one to bite her that night. This was obviously happening because of the bite. She didn't know how he did it but he got into her head somehow.
She stilled when she heard the loud hissing coming from inside the school, it was definitely the creature that had killed Isaac's father. Which honestly didn't seem like a bad thing since she found out from Derek that Isaac's father used to abuse him. The older man deserved it and she felt no remorse for him.
However, she had yet to see what it looked like so she didn't know what it was. She did her best to hide how unnerved she was by it since she didn't know what it could do.
"Nothing's wrong with you, Lydia." She said quietly and cleared her throat. "Look how about this, tonight you and I have a sleepover. We'll watch the Notebook if you want and we'll stuff our faces with ice cream." She honestly could use the break away from the things going on at the moment.
"Just you and me?" Lydia asked, she didn't really want to invite Allison over since the other brunette was busy in la la land with her boyfriend.
"Yeah." Emily confirmed, pausing slightly as she glanced at the school. "So I'll come by tonight to your house and I'll bring the ice cream."
Lydia gave her best friend a grateful smile, feeling a pang of excitement. "Okay."
"Alright, look I have take care of something but I'll see you later, okay?"
When she saw her nod, she quickly rushed off towards the school. She followed the sound of hissing and water splashing.
-
Stiles coughed up the water as he struggled to keep Derek and him from drowning. He gave Derek a look of annoyance. "This is your fault."
"My fault?" The older man gave him a look of disbelief.
"Yeah! If you hadn't decided to intimidate me here then we probably could have avoided all this." Stiles exclaimed, coughing again. "Because now I have to keep you from drowning and I can barely feel my arms!"
"And who do you think is gonna be able to fight that thing? Me or you?" Derek retorted, ignoring the first thing that Stiles said.
"Whatever." Stiles muttered tiredly, glancing back at the lizard thing that stared at the water with what looked like distaste and hate. "We should just be glad that it can't swim."
Derek furrowed his brows, glancing towards the entrance when he caught the familiar sweet scent that belonged to only one person. "Emily?" He breathed almost in sounding relieved.
Stiles' eyes widened as he quickly looked around for her. "Where?" Faintly he was able to catch the blur of brunette hair as it passed by and startled the lizard creature.
"Hey!" She called out, kicking the lizard creature away before vamp speeding away.
The thing hissed, it's tail flickering in a threatening manner. It glanced around, searching for the person that kicked it. Feeling someone behind, it grabbed them with their tail and flung them at the wall.
"Emily!" Stiles cried out in worry as he watched her crash into the wall.
"She's fine as long as it doesn't scratch her." Derek said, ignoring the look he got from the human as he watched the vampire getting up.
"Stupid overgrown lizard." She bared her fangs at the overgrown lizard, the adrenaline was pumping her veins and she quickly rushed at it and used all her force as she kicked it in the stomach, avoiding the tail as she sent it crashing into the mirror. The lizard shook its head before it's eyes fell on the glass shards on the ground. They watched as it tilted its head before quickly rushing off, leaving them behind in confusion. "Well that was fun." She muttered sarcastically.
"I-It's finally g-gone." Stiles said tiredly, his grip on Derek weakening and he suddenly felt himself losing consciousness as he fell underwater while trying to fight himself to not pass out.
"No! S-Stiles!" Derek exclaimed before he tried to hold his breath so he wouldn't drown.
Emily's eyes widened momentarily when she saw the two slipping into the water and unmoving. She bit her bottom lip. "Dammit." She cursed under her breath, slipping off her leather jacket before jumping into the pool.
Her hazel eyes flickered around before landing on Derek who was the closest and saw that Stiles was still struggling underwater, she grabbed Derek by the back of the neck and pulled him up. When they reached the top she threw him onto the side of the pool before diving back down to get Stiles.
Stiles could barely feel his body from trying to stay afloat for the last hour which to him felt like forever. The more he tried to swim to the top, the harder it became and he tried to not inhale because that would definitely make it worse. His vision blurred and could barely make out the approaching figure that he realized was Emily. For a moment there he thought he saw a look of worry on her face before he felt himself finally lose consciousness.
-
He could faintly hear voices calling out to him and remembered that he had passed out in the pool. The last person he saw was Emily. Had she saved him? He was definitely right about her caring.
But wait who was calling his name? He could hear a few different voices and could feel himself able to move.
"Stiles?"
"Is he alive?"
"He's breathing."
His eyes fluttered open, he saw Emily and Scott both standing over him and turned his head to see that Derek was finally able to move. He let out a small cough. "Wha-?" He mumbled, looking at them.
"I told you he wasn't dead, Scooby." Emily sassed Scott, glancing down at Stiles with an unreadable look on her face.
"How are you feeling?" Scott asked him in concern. He felt guilty that he hadn't been able to be here but Gerard had practically ambushed him into going to dinner at the Argent home.
"Alive." Stiles muttered under his breath, groaning as he sat up. "When did you get here?"
"A few minutes ago." Scott answered, helping him stand up. "They said that the-" His brown eyes flickered over to the two with confusion. "--what was it that you called it again?"
"A Kanima." Emily said, running a hand through her wet hair before reaching down and picking up her leather jacket. "I didn't realize that the Kanima was the one going around killing people."
"You knew what it was?" Derek asked her, standing up on his own with Erica by his side after she finally woke up from being knocked out.
She crossed her arms over her chest. "I knew that there was something going around killing people but I didn't know it was a Kanima. And besides, this is the first time I've ever seen one up close. I've only ever heard stories about them."
Derek sighed. "Me too. I only realized it was a Kanima when it saw it's reflection."
"It kinda looked confused when it did." Stiles noted, he wanted to go home and change out his wet clothes.
"It doesn't know what it is." Scott muttered.
"Or who." Derek said.
"Is it like us?" Scott asked Derek before looking at Emily. "Or you?"
She raised a brow. "No." She paused. "But it is a shape shifter."
"She's right." Derek said, hesitating for a moment. "But it's also- um- it's -it's not right. It's like a -"
"An abomination." Stiles finished, taking notice of how hard the older man was struggling to come up with a word for it.
Scott looked at both Emily and Derek with a serious expression. "We need to work together on this. Maybe even tell the Argents."
The brunette made a face at the horrible idea the young teen wolf had and glanced at Derek. "Is he serious?" She knew that with Gerard in town that things were worse for the werewolves especially since he didn't seem to care about who he killed. But deep down also worried that he would come after her since she was sure that he knew she was in town.
The older man scoffed, glaring at Scott. "You trust them?"
"Nobody trusts anyone! That's the problem. While we're here, arguing about who's on what side, there's something scarier, stronger and faster than any of us, and it's killing people and we still don't even know anything about it." Scott exclaimed, releasing a small breath.
Derek stared at him for a moment, his gaze hardened. "I know one thing, when I find it? I'm gonna kill it!"
Both he and Erica walked away. Scott and Stiles looked at Emily who gave them a shrug. "I'm not interested." She said, checking her phone and saw the time and the message from Eli. He had left the game to go to a club instead which would mean that he'd probably be back by tomorrow morning. "And I have to get going anyway."
The two best friends could only watch as the vampire left just as quickly as Derek had, leaving them to stew in their worry about what more dangers that the Kanima could possibly bring to them.