inhuman [2] // teen wolf

36. too late?

The three teens and one adult all stayed in the clinic, anxiously waiting for them to wake up. Riley didn't know how long they would be unconscious for, but she hoped it wasn't for long. What if they died from the cold? Then they just basically killed themselves for nothing. Nothing.

This isn't working. Anxiously tapping the stainless steel table with her nail wasn't calming her down. The irregular beat just made her even more anxious. Her heartbeat was slower than the tapping, but that didn't make any difference as to how she felt. Her leg was bobbing up and down as well, something she hardly did, and even despised, but she now understood why people did it. Her eyes never left the tubs in the middle of the room. She blinked maybe twice a minute. She couldn't tear her eyes away, it was as if her eyes were glued to the tubs and she couldn't look anywhere else.

Her tapping on the table only ceased when Isaac's warm hand clasped around her own, but she didn't look at him. She couldn't.

"They're going to be fine, Riley. Trust me." He quietly said, not wanting to disrupt the silence in the room. Riley shook her head slowly, her leg still bobbing up and down.

"You don't know that. They could be dead right now and we wouldn't even know." She argued, but her voice was quiet and a little raspy from not talking for an hour.

"I can hear their steady heartbeats, it's okay. Riley, look at me." Isaac reassured, moving his hand up her arm and landing on her shoulder as he carefully forced her to face him. Her body turned but her head remained in the same place for a few seconds, before she finally looked at Isaac. He smiled at her dark face and pulled her in for a hug. She didn't hug him back, even though she liked the warmth he brought. She couldn't hug him, not when she knew something was going on between him and Allison. When he realized that she wasn't going to hug back, he let go of her with a concerned look on his face. "What's wrong?"

"What's going on with you and Allison?" She asked curiously, as her eyes drifted back to the unconscious girl lying in the ice water. Isaac looked over at her as well, then sighed quietly.

"I don't know, honestly. I mean, something is going on, but I shouldn't... Not with the circumstances." He replied, as he took his arms off of her shoulders. Riley looked back at him, into his golden brown eyes. He looked nervous, as if he actually does like her. Riley was a little upset that he didn't tell her sooner, but now wasn't the time to talk about his little crush, even though Riley wanted to hear every detail of when it started and how it started.

"Isaac, I'm sure Scott will be -- actually, no, I don't think that Scott will be okay with it, but he will adjust. If you two do end up... Dating, it will be a hard concept for him, but he'll get over it. I guess." Riley answered, but Scott wasn't the only who was going to have a hard time getting used to the idea of Isaac and Allison dating. God, Riley didn't even want to think about it. It wasn't even that bad, the logical side of her brain knew that, but the other didn't. The other didn't want Isaac to be close with someone else, for some unknown reason that Riley couldn't grasp.

"I guess." He repeated, and looked down at his shoes. "When do you think they'll wake up?"

"I don't know, but I really hope it's soon, or else it'll be too late."

A few more hours passed and Riley got through them by sleeping in the waiting room with her head on Lydia's lap while she read a magazine. Isaac played with the dogs in the other room while Deaton devised some weird plan to himself in the practice room where the others were. When Riley woke up in absolute pain from the uncomfortable chairs, she got up and went over to Deaton, stretching her back as she walked.

"What are you doing?" She asked him quietly, and he looked up from the jars in his hands that contained weird powders.

"Just checking to see if they're still okay to use." He replied, putting them back on the shelf. Before she could ask why he would want to use them (to be really honest, she didn't want to know answer), he asked her a question instead. "How's Emma?"

"Um, I guess she's okay. She hasn't really talked to me much lately though. I'm not sure why. I feel like she's keeping something from me." She answered, and contemplated on whether she should tell Deaton of the Bestiary. What's the worst that could happen? "She knows something about the Bestiary I found in my attic and she knows how I got it, but she won't tell me. I know it has something to do with the Argents."

Deaton looked at her funnily, wondering why her guardian would keep anything from her. Maybe Emma was more independent than Deaton thought?

"You know, we could try a similar thing here to you two. Have you drift into a state of unconsciousness and ultimately bring Emma out to talk, but it's just a matter of if she is willing to talk to us." Deaton explained, and Riley thought on the idea.

"You mean, I get to sit in an icy bath for an hour, unconscious, while you attempt to talk to someone that probably won't even come out? Sounds tempting." she replied sarcastically. God, Stiles has definitely rubbed off on her.

"I know it doesn't sound very appealing, but I think that is the best option we have to find out a lot more on your amazing ability." He said, and Riley shrugged. The only thing that bothered her is if Emma comes out and Riley is unconscious, what would she do?

A lot of hours went passed after that, and they were still unconscious. Riley was really starting to become terrified. What if they were too late? What if Jennifer had already killed the guardians? What if they were too late? 16 hours had passed since they were under, and in that time Riley sent three texts to her parents telling her that she was staying over at Lydia's house for the weekend. Sounds innocent enough, right?

Finally, after those excruciating, fearful and boring 16 hours of anxiously waiting and tapping, the three surrogates woke up in a panic. They all coughed out the water from their lungs and Lydia ran into the room. Riley picked up a towel from the stool in the corner of the room and wrapped it around Stiles, earning a dismissed look from Isaac.

"I saw it. I know where it is." Scott said hurriedly, wiping his nose from the water as he shivered from the cold. Deaton handed him and Allison towels and they wiped themselves as they got warmer.

"We passed it. There's-- There's a stump, this huge tree. Well, it's not huge anymore. It was cut down. But it's still big, though, very big." Stiles continued, looking desperately at everyone watching them.

"It was the night we were looking for the body." Scott replied, and Riley watched in confusion. Body? What body? Okay, she definitely needed someone to enlighten her on their adventures before she joined the group.

"Body?" She asked, and Stiles nodded.

"Derek's sister, Laura. Peter ripped her in half, long story." Stiles rushed, and turned back to Scott. "It was the same night you were bit by Peter."

"I was there too, in the car with my mother. We almost hit someone." Allison spoke up, quivering from the cold and her thin dress didn't help that fact.

"It was me. You almost hit me." Scott realized, flashing back to the night where he wandered onto the road and almost got hit by a car in the pouring rain. "We can find it."

Everyone stayed quiet, unsure if it was the best thing to tell them of the worrying news. The three were confused; they just told them that they found out where they're being held, so why is that bad news?

"What?" Allison finally asked, looking between four people in front of her.

"You guys were out a long time." Isaac stated vaguely, not bothering to give any more information or at least be specific about it.

"How long is a long time?" Stiles asked cautiously, looking at Riley next to him. She sighed, and bit her lip as she looked at him sadly.

"16 hours." She answered before anyone else could, and they all were shocked and almost looked heartbroken. Like all hope was lost because they took so long.

"We've been in the water for 16 hours?" Scott asked quietly, leaning on the tub as he realized the horrors. Deaton nodded at him, checking his watch on his wrist.

"And the full moon rises in less than four."