Right Beside You | Stiles Stilinski | Two

25 - Catwoman's Got Claws

The next morning, Lydia and I were almost late for school. That was the price we paid for having fun. We'd stayed up past three in the morning—watching movies, baking cookies, swapping stories, and taking mindless personality quizzes until we passed out on the floor. Which meant neither of us were in our bedrooms to hear our alarms go off.

We weren't even Lydia-late—when you push a few speed limits and forgo coffee so you can still make it to school in time to make an entrance. We were properly skid-into-the-parking-lot-and-sllide-into-your-seat-just-after-the-bell late. A few people laughed as I toppled into my desk. I was prepared to shoot a reproachful glare at Stiles, but he wasn't even looking at me. Neither was Scott, nor Allison. All three of them were staring morosely down at their desks, oblivious to the world outside their troubles. Yesterday had just been that bad.

Thankfully, it seemed Mr. Neske had an easy day planned. He turned off the lights and rolled a television to the front of the room so we could wrap up our unit by watching the movie for Of Mice and Men. Not a cinematic masterpiece, but it gave the rest of us time to catch up.

Stiles wrote out a long note explaining what had happened at the police station. Like he'd mentioned the night before, Jackson and his father had been waiting with Sheriff Stilinski when Stiles and Scott showed up. According to Jackson, the boys had knocked him out and brought him out to the woods as some kind of prank. There had been no mention of our talk, no mention of our concerns. In fact, he hadn't mentioned me or Allison at all. Stiles thought I should count myself lucky, but I was having a hard time being grateful. It was always something with Jackson, and I doubted he'd left me out of it as a kindness.

It was objectively ridiculous to think that Stiles and Scott would go to such great lengths to prank Jackson, but there wasn't much to be done. No one felt confident enough in Sheriff Stilinski's patience to offer to bring him into the next room and show him how Scott could transform into a werewolf. So the boys had accepted their punishment without question. They were to come to school while trying to maintain a fifty foot distance from Jackson. Mrs. McCall had grounded Scott until the end of time, and he wasn't supposed to be seeing Stiles. Stiles hadn't mentioned any specifics about his punishment, but he didn't need to. Even if the sheriff hadn't placed any restrictions on him, I knew his father's disappointment must be hurting Stiles enough.

In turn, I wrote a note back to Stiles, whispering the story to Scott as I scribbled across the page. Allison and I hadn't told the Argents anything either. In a turn of events, which had nothing to do with me telling Lydia the truth, Lydia had shown up and offered to translate the bestiary. Allison had the full file on her tablet, but the long and short of it was that Jackson wasn't just out of control; he was being controlled. Until we figured out who really wanted all his victims dead, we couldn't risk turning him over to the hunters...as much as I was dying to turn him in for being a bitch.

When English ended, we all parted ways with somber looks. It was getting hard to see any kind of bright side these days. Scott and Allison couldn't talk to each other, and now Scott and Stiles weren't supposed to either. All of us were on thin ice with our parents, we were under constant surveillance at school, and the one person we were trying to protect was such an asshole that he was actively trying to destroy our lives while we saved his. Jackson's heartlessness never ceased to amaze me.

Of course, there was always room for things to get worse.

I walked into my math class with my head held high, a precautionary measure I'd learned to take to avoid dealing with Erica. She was always either sneering at me or snarling at me, and I hated giving her the satisfaction of a reaction, even to gloat about how Allison had taken her down at Scott's house. It was much more effective to not give her any attention at all.