from ashes , isaac lahey (ON HOLD)

007 | house arrest

CHAPTER SEVEN : house arrest

( venomous, part ii )

————

     WHEN SHANNON DECIDED TO assemble her friends in her Dad's office to go over their game plan, she had no clue that Derek was already around. She can't necessarily say she's surprised — it's just like Derek to beat them to the punch. It's also just like Derek to loiter around on the high school's property despite being pretty well into his twenties

     They only have a few minutes to talk before they'll be expected to be in class or study hall, and Shannon strategically picked her dad's office for that exact reason — it's the closest private space to each of their next classrooms.

     Both doors — the one leading to the locker room and the one leading to the corridor — are locked. Shannon's stuck nervously pacing back and forth between the two doors, while Scott, Stiles, and Allison are all frozen in place with their worry.

     "Lydia can't be the Kanima," Stiles is insisting, has been insisting over and over. As much as Shannon really does want to believe that he's right, she knows that hope's chance in Beacon Hills is like a snowball's chance in hell. That is to say — none.

     Allison shakes her head. "It doesn't matter, because Derek thinks it's her," she says— stammers. "So, either we can convince him that he's wrong, or we've got to figure out a way to protect her."

     With a huff, Shannon gives up on her pacing and sits on the edge of her dad's desk, narrowly avoiding a small puddle of spilt coffee that would leave a stain on the back of her light-wash jeans.

     "Well, I really don't think he's gonna do anything here. Not at school," Scott says, managing to reason through the stress.

     "What about after school?" Allison asks. Scott just sighs and turns his head away from her, eliciting an eye roll from Shannon. Allison huffs, glances up at the ceiling, and then leans down in an attempt to get herself to think more clearly. "What if we can prove that Derek's wrong?"

     "By three o'clock?" Stiles questions, his voice ripe with scepticism.

     Shannon inhales through gritted teeth, and the air makes a whistling sound that only Scott can pick up. "It's a little unlikely," she says, her brows furrowing enough that she'll likely walk out of the room with newly formed wrinkles on her forehead.

     Allison flails her hands for a moment, a nervous tic that Shannon picked up on not too long ago. It was only right after Allison found out about the supernatural that the normally level-headed and rational girl would begin to flip out, but because of the way she was raised, she would only show it in those small gestures. A flail of the hand here, a jut of her jaw there. Anything that wouldn't catch the attention of her parents. "There could be something in the Bestiary," she suggests.