The Alexandra Chronicles ¤ Derek Hale

Chapter 24

Allison spoke in a rush, her words so quick and urgent it was hard for me to keep up. She told me about some strange creature that's been killing people, and how Stiles got attacked by it while I was in the hospital before it killed a mechanic. Nobody knew what it was, which led to the reason Allison came to watch the lacrosse game with her grandfather. Apparently, Gerard had a book called the bestiary, which was full of different kinds of supernatural creatures. We needed it to find out what we were dealing with, and the plan for tonight was for Allison to somehow steal the keys to the principal's office so she and Stiles could look for it.
Immediately, I offered to help. Allison realized that she had already used the bathroom excuse to find a way to tell me what was going on, so she was afraid it wouldn't work if she tried it again - which left Stiles to look through the office by himself if I hadn't volunteered.
"There you are," Gerard said as Allison and I approached him once we left the bathroom and headed back out to the lacrosse field.
Allison smiled, and then shivered, going along with the plan. "You should have brought a better coat," I told her pointedly.
She sighed. "Yeah, I know."
"I might have a spare one in my car," I offered, taking a step back. "I can go check -"
"You're cold?" Gerard cut in, actually seeming concerned for his granddaughter. He shrugged his jacket off and said, "Here, take my coat. There's no need for Alex to take a trip all the way to her car."
"Are you sure?" Allison pretended to be hesitant to take it, even though this had been the plan all along.
"Oh, yeah," he assured her.
She thanked him politely, and when he wasn't looking she slid the key into my hand. I tucked my hands into the pockets of my coat and excused myself, explaining to both of them that I'd came here with my mom and she was probably wondering where I ran off to. Allison and I spoke for a few more minutes to ease any suspicions Gerard may have had about my sudden departure, and then just in case he was watching where I left to, I returned to where I'd ditched my mother at. Matt was still standing with her, taking pictures. When they saw me approaching, my mother said something to him with a smile; he blushed, and then disappeared in the crowd before I reached them. "What happened there?" I asked with a frown, confused as to why he'd ran off like that.
My mom's grin never left her face. "You know how he takes so many pictures, right?"
I nodded slowly. "Yeah... so?"
"Well, I asked if he was the yearbook photographer," she told me. "And he said no, he just takes pictures of whatever catches his eye. Then I noticed he took a close-up picture of you when you were standing with Allison." Mom squealed like a little girl. "That boy totally has a crush on you, Alex! It's cute."
She thought it was cute; I thought it was creepy. "That's actually kind of disturbing," I said, feeling weird all of a sudden.
My mother made a face at me. "I think it's romantic." With a scoff, I walked away. "Hey, wait, where are you going?" Mom called after me. "Come on, we're supposed to be hanging out!"
"I'll be back!" I called over my shoulder, feeling bad for ditching her again. She probably thought I just didn't think it was cool to hang out at the game with her since I was a senior and instead wanted to be with my friends, but honestly I wouldn't mind actually having time to spend with her every now and then. I hardly got to see her as it was, between school, work, and all things supernatural. It sucked.
However, there were more pressing issues at hand than my lack of mother-daughter time. Whipping my phone out, I texted Stiles to meet me in the school and explained that Allison gave me the key. He met me there in minutes, although it took him longer than expected; I didn't even bother questioning it as I unlocked the office and went inside. "You keep watch, I'll look around," I told him as I began to go through everything.
"Why do I always have to keep watch?" Stiles whined.
"Stiles, quit being a baby."
"But it's true!" He whisper-shouted. "I'm always the one that keeps -"
"Seriously, be quiet."
"Why can't you or Scott keep watch for once -"
"Oh, my God." I tuned him out as I searched the office, going through drawers and looking behind everything while trying to make sure I left everything exactly as it was. By the time I realized that there was no book even remotely like the one we were looking for in here, I realized that somewhere along the line Stiles had shut up. "There's nothing here." When there was no response, I frowned and walked out of the offie as I called out, "Stiles?"
"Hello, Alex," Erica's voice hissed. I whirled around and glared at her, seeing that she was holding Stiles tightly with one hand around his neck and the other covering his mouth.
I huffed. "You seriously suck at keeping watch," I couldn't refrain from telling Stiles. To Erica I snapped, "And my hatred for you is growing by the second."
Erica just smirked. "Likewise. But your hatred for me wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that Derek kissed me, would it?" She asked me. Her words hit me like a bludger to the chest -- Derek kissed her? Today? Literally just hours after he kissed me and said all of those things? I felt like I'd swallowed acid; just the idea of Derek being with someone else made me sick to my stomach... and that was when I knew my mother was right: I was in love with Derek Hale. The realization made me want to cry and scream at the same time.
The blonde bimbo saw my expression and knew that she'd finally found something that truly bothered me; my poker face had failed me, and she took more pleasure than she should have. "Oh, sweetie, he didn't tell you?" She laughed. "Guess he just wanted someone who could actually relate to him -- you didn't really fit the criteria."
My jaw clenched. "Are you seriously trying to have a mean-girl power struggle with me right now?" I scoffed. "We have more important things to worry about. Let Stiles go."
"Can't do that. Alpha's orders." She smirked. "Speaking of Alpha's orders..." Erica shoved Stiles into the wall beside her, and then she came at me so quickly I hardly had any time to react. Before I could even process what was happening, she had slammed my head against the lockers, and then everything went black.

+ + + + +

The first thing I thought of when I came to was how much I seriously wanted to kick Erica's ass. The second thing was that she'd taken Stiles, which caused me to jump to my feet rather quickly; too quickly, because the rapid movement caused my vision to blur as a momentary spell of dizziness took over me. I huffed in annoyance at the fact that getting concussions now seemed to be like a recurring event for me.
Just as I started down the hallway, my phone started to ring. I breathed out in relief when I saw that it was Stiles and answered it. "Stiles?" I asked worriedly. "Where are you?"
"Alex! Thank God you're okay!" Stiles's voice was frantic. "You need to get a hold of Scott, okay, and tell him it's an emergency -"
"What's going on?"
"That -- that thing is here at the --" His voice suddenly cut off, as if he'd dropped the phone, and then I heard a splash of water. It took me a moment to register what I was hearing, but then I realized what he'd been trying to tell me: whatever creature that has been going around killing people was here at the school. And if the splash of water was anything to go by, Stiles was at the pool.
Ignoring he pounding in my head, I took off sprinting toward the pool as I tried to call my brother. He answered it, but before I could even get a word in he said he couldn't talk and abruptly hung up the phone on me. Pissed, and frustrated that he didn't even hear me out, I pulled up my messaging and talked into my mic to send a rushed text to Scott explaining the situation. Hopefully he'd actually take the time to open my text and realize something was wrong.
"Stiles!" I exclaimed as I ran into the huge pool room.
The first thing I saw was Erica, slumped on the ground and unconscious. My eyes frantically scanned the place until I saw him in the middle of the pool, holding onto Derek. They both immediately looked at me with similar expressions of panic as Stiles yelled out, "Alex, get out of here!"
A hissing sound brought my attention away from them and I slowly looked over to see a large, reptile-like creature running at me. My eyes widened as I jumped out of its reach, hurriedly pressing the buttons of my sleeves to make the daggers pop out; I barely had enough time to get a good grip on them before the thing was coming at me again. It moved so fast I couldn't even follow; before I knew it, the thing had pounced on me and pinned me to the ground. "No!" Derek's frantic yell sounded far away as I struggled to push the thing off of me. It gripped my wrists so tightly that I had no choice but to release the daggers, leaving me defenseless. I squirmed uncomfortably and tried to lean as far away as I could, even though it was impossible, as the weird creature leaned its head down to me. I turned my face to the side, disgusted as it took a huge sniff of me and then licked the side of my face. That was it for me; I kicked him one last time as hard as I could, and he recoiled just enough for me to crawl out from underneath him and try to reach my daggers. It hissed at me again, sounding angrier than it did before. My hands frantically searched for anything to defend myself with as it lunged at me again -- I ended up grabbing a shard of a mirror that had gotten broken somehow.
I had been completely ready to stab the creature as hard as I could, but the strangest thing happened; when it saw its reflection in the mirror, it recoiled as if confused. A screech passed its lips and then it left me alone as it ran away. I tried to catch my breath as I laid there, unable to believe what just happened.
"Alex?" Scott's voice would have sounded like music to my ears, had he arrived fifteen minutes earlier. I propped myself up on my elbows as my brother ran into the room. "Stiles? Derek?" He frowned upon seeing them in the pool, and then even further when he saw me on the ground. "Al, you're bleeding!" He exclaimed, running over to me.
I looked down at the hand I'd been clutching the shard of mirror with and realied he was right; I had held it so tightly that it had started cutting into my palm. "I'm fine," I insisted, dropping the mirror and clenching my wounded hand into a fist. The movement stung; I clenched my teeth and fought back a hiss to try and hide the pain.
"No, you're not," Derek said as he climbed out of the pool. "You need to get that taken care of."
"Shouldn't you be over there checking on Erica?" I snapped at him, pushing his hands away as he tried to reach for me. I couldn't even look at him after what Erica told me earlier.
Derek recoiled as if I'd smacked him across the face. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Stiles snorted. "I'm assuming it has something to do with the fact that Erica said you kissed her --"
"Stay out of this, Stiles," I told him. The lanky boy held up his hands in surrender and shut his mouth.
"What?" Derek shook his head. "That's -- Alexandra, that's not true!"
"Guys!" Scott interrupted. "Can we talk about the more important issue right now? Like what the hell that thing is?"
"I'm leaving," I decided, clenching my bleeding hand even tighter. I addressed my brother over my shoulder as I stalked away, ignoring the burning gaze of Derek. "Scott, you can catch me up later, right?"
"Yeah, but -- you should stop by the clinic to see Deaton," he called after me. "Tell him what happened, he'll help you."
Knowing it was either that or actually going to the hospital, I took Scott's advice. Deaton had just been about to leave when I got there, but he took one look at my bleeding hand and told me to come in. He stitched it up, told me to be careful with it for a week and a half, and then come back so he could remove the stitches. I explained to him what happened, and he was disturbed when I told him how the creature had acted with me. Deaton said that this creature was created to do nothing other than kill; but the fact that he didn't actually attack me and instead licked my face suggested that it had a strange fascination with me.
As if I didn't have enough things to worry about.
When I got home, I was too tired to even go to Scott's room and ask him if they figured out what the creature was yet. Instead I decided to just take a shower and go straight to bed, making sure to lock my bedroom window in case a certain brooding werewolf decided to make an appearance. I really didn't want to deal with him tonight; nor did I want to do anything other than sleep.
All of my problems would have to wait until tomorrow.