Don't Give Up on Me

18

Ania, needing to find Scott, went to look for him and found him in the forest with Allison and Stiles.

She sighed and said, "Dad is gonna be pissed."

Scott was first to speak. "If Jackson doesn't remember being the kanima, he's definitely not gonna remember stealing Danny's tablet."

"Why would he steal the thing if he doesn't even know what's on it?" Stiles wondered.

"What if someone else took it?" Allison guessed.

"Then somebody else knows what he is. Ania, please don't tell Dad."

"Uh, which could mean someone's protecting him," Scott determined.

Allison nodded. "Like the Besitary says, "the kanima seeks a friend", right?"

Scott frowned. "Okay, hold on. So, somebody watches Jackson make a video of himself turning into the kanima, and then just erases part of it so he wouldn't know? I mean, who would do that?"

Allison shrugged. "Somebody who wanted to protect him?"

Ania glanced at her. "There's something else. You said the only thing you found about the kanima is that it goes after murderers. What if that's actually true? Just this once, little brother."

Stiles shook his head. "No, it can't be. Tried to kill all of us, remember? I don't know about you three, but I haven't murdered anybody lately. Thanks, Ania."

"But I-I don't think that it was actually trying to kill us," Scott said. "Remember when we were at Isaac's the first time, it just went right by us, didn't it?"

Allison nodded. "You're right. It just ran off."

Scott looked at Stiles. "And it didn't kill you in the mechanic's garage."

"Well, yeah," Stiles admitted, "but it tried to kill me and Derek in the pool."

"Did it?"

"It would've. It was waiting for us to come out."

"What if it was trying to keep you in?"

Stiles shuddered. "Why do I feel so violated all of a sudden?"

"Because there's something else going on," Scott said. "We don't know what it is. We don't know anything about what's going on with Jackson, or why someone's protecting him."

""Know thy enemy,"" Allison stated. "Just something my grandfather said."

"All right, I got it. Kill Jackson. Problem solved," Stiles decided.

Ania frowned. "No murdering. I will tell Dad about this idea you do that."

Scott shook his head. "He risked his life for us. Against Peter, you remember that? It doesn't mean he's not worth saving."

"It's always something with him, though," Stiles grumbled.

"He doesn't know what he's doing."

"So what?"

"So, I didn't ether. You remember when I almost killed you and Jackson? I had someone to stop me. He has nobody."

"That's his own fault."

"Doesn't matter. If we can save him, we should try."

Stiles and Ania left shortly after and Stiles went to check on Lydia while Ania went to check on Derek.

She found him training. He stopped when he saw her.

"Any luck with Jackson?" he asked.

Ania shook her head. "No. Scott thinks it wasn't trying to kill anyone, but I doubt that. With the whole pool incident, Scott thinks it was trying to keep you in for some reason and they think someone is protecting him. That's about all I found out. So annoying to have so little. Any luck with you?"

He shook his head. "So someone's either protecting him or controlling him. I haven't figured out which. I'm still side that Jackson was trying to kill us."

"Mmm. I don't know. I need more."

Ania's phone buzzed with a text from Lydia saying she needed to talk. "Lydia needs to talk. Why to me I'm not sure."

Derek shrugged. "You are pretty amazing at giving advice. And you're a cop, so that's a plus, right?"

She smiled and let out a small laugh. "I guess."

Ania waved and made her way to Allison's and sat with Lydia.

Allison appeared and turned on the light before jumping. "You two scared the hell outta me."

"I've been sitting here for an hour, waiting for you," Lydia told her. "Ania for a few minutes."

Allison shook her head. "I can't hang out right now, Lydia."

"I don't need anyone to hang out with. I need someone to talk to."

"I-I understand that it's important, but if you can just wait... Besides; you have Ania."

Lydia frowned at Allison. "Why is everyone telling me to wait? Why can't anyone have "right now" available?"

"Because you can't have everything right now. You know what I need? I need someone to translate five pages of archaic Latin. Obviously that's not gonna happen anytime soon."

"I know archaic Latin."

Allison looked at her, surprised. "You know archaic Latin?"

Lydia shrugged. "I got bored with classical Latin."

"Just how smart are you?"

Lydia scoffed lightly. "Just show me the pages."

After Lydia and Ania had translated the page, Allison looked at it. "Are you sure? Ms. Morrell said that word means "friend." "The kanima seeks a friend.""

"She was wrong. It means "master.""

""The kanima seeks a master.""

"Why? Is that important?"

Ania nodded. "Yeah. Worse than I feared. Someone's not protecting him. Someone's controlling him."