The Absence of Truth | S. Stilinski

XIII. | anywhere

XIII. | anywhere

                  I WOKE UP to Stiles softly slapping my cheek. "Hey," he whispered, "We're still alive."

The groan that fell from my mouth was so raw that I felt it in my bones. I allowed Stiles to help me up, then looked around to see that I was still on the pool deck. I must have passed out after seeing Scott's entrance. Speaking of ...

"Where's Scott?" I asked, eyes scanning the pool deck. He was nowhere in sight, but neither were Derek or Erica. "What happened?"

The time between me passing out and me waking up must have been eventful, because a nearby mirror was shattered on the floor and a skylight above one of the pools was broken, stray pieces of glass floating in the crystal blue water. A chill fell through the air, and I wrapped my arms around my exposed skin, staring glumly into the pool where I could see my shoes and jacket sunken below.

"Uh," Stiles followed where I was looking, then shrugged off his soaked red track jacket. "Here."

"Oh, I can't," I said, holding up my hand when he offered it to me.

"Oh, but you should," Stiles said back. I stared at him quizzically until he motioned to my shirt. I looked down to see that the white tee shirt fabric had become nearly transparent from the pool water, leaving my not-so-sexy bra on display. I accepted the jacket and wrapped myself as quickly as I could, noticing how much Stiles tried to not look at me.

I let the remark I had about his straying gaze die in my throat and instead asked once again, "What happened?"

"Superhero Scott saved the day," Stiles said, walking over to the exit before looking back so I could follow him. We stepped over the broken mirror pieces as he continued. "He got thrown into the mirror and almost used a shard to protect himself against the monster, but it saw its reflection and jumped out of the skylight - super weird. He's getting the bestiary now. It wasn't in Argent's office, but on his keychain."

"USB drive," I said, catching on, "Of course."

"Yeah," Stiles agreed. "Should have seen it coming."

We made our way out to the parking lot where Scott was already waiting by a black, beaten up sedan. I guessed it was his own, but then I saw a hospital ID hanging from the rearview mirror, complete with the smile of a woman who looked similarly to Scott. Something made me happy knowing his mother worked at the hospital, but I didn't get the chance to explain why, because he was handing Stiles his backpack and rushing him to retrieve a laptop.

The two wasted no time in opening the files on the USB drive from Argent's key chain. I looked over their shoulders to get a view of the documents opened, squinting when the words looked too small to read. It didn't take long for me to realize that the bestiary was in a different language - something Scott, Stiles, and I had never seen before.

"Is that even a language?" Stiles asked wryly, rubbing his arms with his hands to keep warm. He'd had a black tee underneath his jacket, but the chill that fell over Beacon Hills was severe and surprising for California weather.

Scott was sighing, flipping through the document on Stiles's laptop at a quick rate. "How are we supposed to figure out what this thing is?" He all but growled under his breath, obviously peeved that the lizard-like monster from the pool was still roaming free. I wouldn't say anything, but I was peeved too. Standing in the school parking lot in the middle of the night, soaked to the bone, I'd never been so peeved.

Before I could open my mouth and try to calm Scott down, footsteps echoed off of the asphalt beneath our feet. The three of us tore our gazes away from the computer and to our left, where Derek and Erica made their way closer to us. I hadn't even thought about asking where they'd disappeared to, but now I didn't need to, because Derek was beginning to say something, and by the serious steeliness in his eyes, I could tell that it was important.