How hard could it be? • LM / SS

Chapter 124

"We're not the same dear,
as we used to be,
the seasons have changed,
and so have we."

Jade turned onto her side, eyes blinking rapidly to get rid of the sleep. An arm was wrapped around her waist, holding her close and keeping her in the bed. She couldn't complain; she would just end up getting up and pacing the house for a few hours until she finally realised that her day had flown by without any actual purpose.

At least here she felt useful. Safe. Wanted. Both girls had fallen asleep halfway through a movie, overtaken by the tiredness from recent weeks. Being full-time badasses was exhausting, what could she say!

Jade propped herself up on an elbow when Lydia stirred, tracing a finger along her girlfriend's cheek in the hopes she could get a few more hours of sleep. The banshee had been spending ninety-nine per cent of her time in the lakehouse, trying to crack the third cipher key, and Jade could tell it was taking every ounce of energy out of her. It was proving harder to spend much time together, the closest thing to quality time being their nightly face time calls on what had happened during their day, ending with them drifting to sleep, the call still going.

There were dark circles under her eyes, ones that resembled those of an insomniac. If Jade could provide even the smallest amount of time to recharge her social battery, she wouldn't disturb her.

Lying back on the bed to prevent her shirt from sticking to the burns, she supposed there would be no harm in getting a rest herself. That had been the first night in months she had gotten a couple of undisturbed hours of sleep. No nightmares of Matt, or her mom, or her magic destroying everyone she loved, or Allison. It had been peaceful, rare but beautiful. Maybe she could recruit Lydia into staying over more often— she was sure her girlfriend would have no complaints.

Rubbing gentle circles on Lydia's arm, she cursed under her breath softly, padding to her door with her crocs on to see who was knocking. Despite Lilith's protests that the shoes were "an insult to fashion itself" and that "they were something King Louis of France would have worn when he was alive," the blonde never paid attention. There was no need to be prancing about in shoes she couldn't take a step in; Lily did that enough for the both of them. No, she would much rather be comfortable than be a fashion god.

"What?" Jade rolled her eyes, checking her watch to see what time it was. Oops. It was one o'clock in the morning, so she quite obviously had misinterpreted the darkness outside as the early hours of the morning instead of the nighttime. She held the door open ajar, body shielding her room so Scott couldn't see in.

She had no problem with him catching her girlfriend in her bed, but there was an issue that stood in the way. The first one was that Lydia wasn't ready to be public about their relationship yet, which she had made very clear and Jade refused to go against that boundary.

Now, if Melissa had been the one knocking, there was a high likelihood she would have slammed the door shut in a panic. Having the birds and the bees talk wouldn't exactly do them any good, and she wasn't interested in hearing it this late, either.

"Right, just hear me out. Parrish walked into the sheriff's office an hour ago, covered in soot and completely naked. He accidentally shot Noah— he's okay, on his way to the hospital with Stiles. Parrish may or may not be in our kitchen right now though, so I need you to take us to Derek's loft. We need to tell him about the supernatural world," Scott explained quickly. Annoying his cousin this early on would be a bad idea, especially given that she looked like she had just stumbled out of bed.

He dropped his voice to a whisper, making sure no one inside the room was awake. "I know Lydia's in there, just bring her down, no need to come up with an extravagant plan to sneak her out, it'll just waste time. Mom's working a night shift and Max has gone off to Erica's grave. I'll pretend I didn't know." It was a dead giveaway when the only person he knew who used honeycomb shampoo was the banshee of the friend group. He closed his eyes ever so slightly, waiting for the explosion to hit him.