chapter six
"a kanima"

"OKAY, OKAY, I DON'T THINK I can do this much longer."

Lynn groggily peeled open her ocean blue eyes, them fluttering for a second while she tried pulling her head up from the water so she could hear. The deep cuts on her leg weren't healing, and even if they were, her body was really taking its time repairing them — she wasn't sure if it was the water or what, but she was losing a lot more blood than what she first imagined.

"We just gotta stay afloat, Stiles," Lynn murmured out, wishing she still had that amusement written in her voice from a few hours ago, but that had all flooded her system when she realized she was only getting worse.

"No, no, no. Don't even think about it!" Derek yelled out, and Lynn jerked her head up to see what the two boys were complaining about, and her eyes landed on the way Stiles was staring at something off in the distance, then she realized what it was, it was his phone.

"Would you just trust me this once?" Stiles spluttered out with a mouth full of water, and Lynn could tell, he was losing just as much strength as well, they weren't going to be staying afloat much longer when all of Lynn's blood was dispersing into the chlorine water and Stiles is merely a human.

"No!" Shouted Derek, and Lynn managed to kick the man in the back of his shin for being so harsh, earning a sharp glare from Derek, but then she quickly paid her attention back to swimming.

"We're the ones keeping you alive, okay, have you noticed that?" Stiles retorted, his face cringing up as he seemingly swallowed some of the chlorine water.

"Yeah, and when the paralysis wears off, who is gonna be able to fight that thing, you or me?" Derek countered, and just as Lynn peeled open her mouth to interject, he continued. "And Evelynn's damn near about to bleed to death, she can't fight that thing."

"Okay, now I'm alright with drowning the wet dog," Lynn spoke up, but even as much as she wanted to deny the fact that she could still fight off that creature, Derek was right, she just didn't have the strength to do anything useful like fight off a shapeshifting snake right now.

"So, that's why I've been holding you the past two hours?" Stiles questioned, completely ignoring Lynn's comment about letting Derek drown.

"You guys don't trust me, I don't trust you. But you need me to survive, which is why you are not letting me go," Derek explained, but then Lynn's eyes went wide as she knew exactly what Stiles was about to do, and just as she was about to interject, it was already too late.

Stiles dropped Derek's body and started to swim towards his phone near the edge of the pool. Immediately, Lynn let out a loud groan as she suddenly had to lift all of Derek's weight herself, and with only one leg kicking, he was damn near about to drown the both of them.

"Don't let me go," Derek growled through the water, some of it spitting out as he spoke.

"I'm not trying to! I only have one fuc—" Lynn was interrupted as her head bobbed just under the surface, but she used another kick of strength to get her head above the water again. "I only have one stupid leg right now, I have no clue why I'm not healing."

      "It's the chemicals in the water, it's just healing extremely slow," Derek explained rather quickly, as if he wasn't sure if he was going to be above the water for much longer. Lynn let out several heavy deep breathes as her eyelids were fluttering, and she accidentally loosened her grip on Derek, but he yelled out again before he went completely under water. "Hey! Stay awake, keep talking."

"I am," Lynn snapped back, tightening her grip around the man's chest, does he work out a lot? He has to, how do you get muscles like that without working out? "Why the hell did you two just have to pick the pool that's eight feet deep?"

"Oh, yeah, because we just decided to take a nice dip in the deep end," Derek countered, and Lynn only deadpanned towards the Alpha, and he let out a chuckling breath. The two werewolves glanced over to Stiles as he started to swim back over towards them, phone in hand. "Tell me you got him."

Stiles only groaned out, and both Derek and Lynn let out soft sighs of disappointment.

The two teenagers continued carrying Derek just above the water for the next half hour or so, until Lynn felt like she was losing the last grasp of consciousness she had left. Her deep cuts by now had stopped bleeding so heavily, so she was losing less blood, but she still wasn't healing.

"Evelynn? Lynn, are you still awake?"

Lynn nodded in the direction of Stiles, who was the one who had originally asked the question, but she didn't have the strength to even peel open her mouth.

"I can't stay up any longer, I need something to hold on to," Stiles explained, and that was probably because he was not only carrying Derek at this point, but a bit of Lynn's weight too.

Stiles' grip on Derek tightened around his chest as he started to swim towards the diving boards — Lynn had to chalk it up to Stiles, it was a pretty good idea, if only they had thought about it earlier. Carefully treading behind Stiles, since she couldn't move as fast with just one leg, she tried her best to keep up.

Stiles reached up for the part of the diving board he could just barely touch, and his fingers wrapped around the metal for merely a second before they slipped — causing both him and Derek to go under.

"Stiles! Derek!" Lynn called out, and she was paddling much quicker now that she was forcing herself to use her injured leg, even though it felt like there were hundreds of nerves being pricked by needles.

Lynn dove under the water, wrapping one arm underneath Stiles' armpit and then one around Derek's chest, forcing all three of their bodies back up to the surface. And just as Lynn was about to give up and let all three of them drown together, she was suddenly relieved when she felt the weight of Stiles lifted off her.

Lynn glanced up and saw Scott, he had just dragged Stiles' body from the water and was now panting heavily on the cold cement ground. And just as Scott reached down to help her and Derek, he was thrown to the side when the snake-like creature appeared from no where.

"Shit," grumbled Lynn, and then using both of her arms, he heaved the upper part of Derek's paralyzed body onto the edge of the pool, where at least he wouldn't have a chance to drown.

Lynn reached her arm up to grip the railing of the diving board to hoist herself up, but her fingers slipped just as it did with Stiles a minute before. Her entire body fully submerged under the water, she threw her arms upwards and tried her best to kick with her last remaining strength.

But something had wrapped around Lynn's hand, pulling her up from the crushing water and onto the cool water covered ground. She coughed out a few times as she tried regaining her regular breathing, and she pressed her cheek against the ground as she laid on her stomach, not having the strength to move yet.

Just as she was about to thank Scott for getting her out of the water, her eyes fluttered open to not see the crooked jawline of the werewolf, but the scruffy bearded Alpha. She curiously furrowed her eyebrows, and then he wiggled his right arm around and Lynn understood — the paralysis was wearing off.

"Thanks," Lynn softly mumbled out, her tone of voice sounding a bit hoarse.

      Derek didn't respond to Lynn, only giving her a confirming nod, and his eyes scanned Lynn's entire stretched out body, where they eventually landed on her open wounded calf. "That doesn't look good."

"Good observation, Sherlock Holmes," Lynn fake smiled in his direction, a bit relieved that the seriousness was now over and she could return back to her sarcasm. Her eyes flickered down to her leg, and Derek was right, it did look entirely bad.

"Lynn, are you alright?"

Lynn tore her eyes from Derek's green ones and gazed up towards Scott, who was now kneeled down beside the girl, and she shrugged her shoulders lightly. She leaned forward to pull her calf closer to herself to inspect it, she was sure it would be healed in no time thanks to finally being out of the chemical filled water.

"I'm fine, really," Lynn waved off everyone's sudden attention on her, and then her eyes scanned the pool area. "Where'd that thing disappear to?"

"It saw its own reflection in the broken mirror," Scott explained, and his eyes switched over to where a mirror was once hanging up, but it was now shattered all over the ground now. "It ran off afterwards."

After getting out of the pool area and discovering that the book — the bestiary that Scott and Stiles were looking for, was on a flashdrive on the principals keys, they fished it out on a laptop. Lynn was given a nice and dry sweatshirt from Scott, but was still shivering a bit when a cold breeze would blow through her now drying off strands of brunette hair.

Derek had managed to get Erica, the one who was knocked unconscious for a few hours, and disappeared into the night. There was something fluttering at the bottom of Lynn's stomach every time she imagined Derek's face when he pulled her out of the water — it was like he was genuinely concerned, or worried, for her.

"Is that even a language?"

Lynn jerked herself back to present thoughts when she heard Scott and Stiles talking, who were both leaning so closely over the laptop she had yet to actually get a glimpse of the screen.

"How are we supposed to figure out what this thing is?" Scott questioned, and Lynn peaked over the boys shoulder to see what he was referring to, and she perked her eyebrows up when all she saw was pages of an unknown language.

"It's called a kanima."

The three teenagers resting by Scott's car all flinched when they heard the sudden voice, and they switched from staring at the laptop screen over towards the voice — which Lynn immediately recognized belonged to Derek.

"You knew the whole time," Stiles stated in disbelief, and Lynn switched from making eye contact over towards Erica, who flashed her a flirty smile.

"No," Derek replied. "Only when it was confused by its own reflection."

"It doesn't know what it is," Scott breathed out, almost as if he was just saying it to himself, but then everyone started to understand alongside him.

"Or who."

Lynn backed up a foot or so when she felt the pain in her calf double over, and she gritted her teeth even tighter than before. She ended up leaning against the car for support, not paying attention to the conversation as she peeled up her jeans — revealing her wound's blood was turning in the slightest bit black.

"You have an accident?"

Lynn gazed upwards towards Erica, who was now standing a few feet in front of her, and she smirked in her direction. Lynn tried straightening out her back in an attempt to appear taller than the blonde, but she nervously swallowed some spit when she took another step forward.

"I really don't have the patience for your idiocy tonight, think we can reschedule this another time?" Lynn retorted sarcastically, and she flashed Erica a very pathetic looking fake smile.

"Back off, Erica," Scott growled harshly, moving forward so that he would be in between the two female werewolves.

"C'mon, I just wanted to have a little girly fun," Erica smiled towards Scott, then switched back over to Lynn, taking another step forward towards the injured brunette girl.

"Erica!"

Lynn was a bit surprised when she heard the harsh and scolding tone that belonged to Derek, and he had a very annoyed glare towards his Beta. Regrettably, Erica stopped her advances and moved back over towards Derek, who was still sending her deadly daggers.

Lynn's eyes flickered over to Derek, and his green ones merely met with those of her blue ones for only a second before he pulled away, turning back towards Scott.

"I know one thing, when I find it? I'm going to kill it."