Paige sat at her desk while rubbing her arm, her thumb ran against her inner elbow or rather just a little below it. It kind of stung a little bit, like a bug bite or something. She was originally really giddy and happy because she got to rub in the fact that Derek wasn't actually the alpha and that she was right. And now her arm hurt. Must be karma.
But she knew she was right. Derek, no matter how terrifying he was, just didn't feel like he was the Alpha. It didn't help that he just didn't say anything to them. But it's not like she could blame him. Three teenagers poking their noses into everything, she probably wouldn't trust them either. The only problem was that Scott was in the middle of it so he should have at least told Scott. Unless he thought Scott was genuinely on the Alpha's side which wasn't even true.
Her attention broke away from her own thoughts when she noticed Stiles tap on Scott's shoulder, "If Derek isn't the Alpha, if he's not the one who bit you, then who did?"
"I don't know."
"Did the Alpha kill the bus driver?"
"I don't-"
"Wait-" Paige interjects in shock, "The bus driver died?"
"Yeah, last night." Stiles answers her, watching as she slowly sank in her seat, "What? Do you know something?"
"I-" She grabbed onto her arm again as the burning pain appeared again, "No, I don't. I'm just shocked."
"Wait-" Stiles gapes while poking at Scott again, "Does Allison's dad know about the Alpha?"
"I don't know!" Scott barks back at him just as their teacher drop their tests on their desks, "Jeez..."
Paige smiled at the A+ on her paper, nudging Stiles with a grin before noticing Scott's grade, "Oh, that's not good. You need to study more, Scott."
Stiles caught the dark look appearing on his face, "Hey, Scott, it's just one test. You're gonna make it up."
Paige tensed her arm up while leaning back in her chair, she wanted to chime in and ask if he needed help studying but her arm was hurting. She placed her hand over the area until the pain went away.
"Do you want help studying?"
"No." Scott sighs, "I'm studying with Allison after school today."
Stiles grinned and patted his back, "That's my boy."
Her eyes flickered between them, "What?"
Scott felt himself grow extremely warm, "We're just studying."
"Oh-" Paige felt the realization click in her and she groaned, "Ew."
"Uh, no, you're not."
Scott paused for a moment, "No, I'm not?"
"Not if I'm forced to live vicariously through you." Stiles countered while making Paige and Scott give him the same perplexed look of concern, "If you go to her house today and squander that colossal opportunity, I swear to God I'll have you de-balled."
"Okay!" Paige reached out as if her arms would stop him from speaking, "Enough of that. Let's just... Nope. No more."
"Got it." Stiles mumbles while sinking back in his own seat, "No more questions. No more talk about the Alpha or Derek. Especially Derek... who still scares me."
Paige could only nod in agreement, she rubbed her arm again and then raised her hand, "Could I use the bathroom?"
"There's a few more minutes until the end of the day, Ms. Mercier."
"I know, but uh-"
"Is it that time?" A sigh came from the teacher, "Take your bag and go."
"I-" Paige didn't even try to argue and got up from her seat.
She gripped at her arm for a couple more minutes while walking out of the classroom. She was probably having a muscle cramp, which sucked even more. That was when Paige completely stopped walking, she wasn't even thinking but she had kept going. And her arm wasn't really hurting anymore.
Paige furrowed her brows when the bell rang, meaning the day had ended. She exhaled loudly and released a cry of shock when someone grabbed onto her arm. Her eyes connected with Derek's and she wanted to scream again, but he covered her mouth with his palm.
"Don't-" Derek huffed, "Scream."
She tried to speak even with his palm pressed against her mouth, her words muffled against his skin. Paiged reached up and pulled his hand from her mouth, "You look like pure crap." Her eyes widen, "Sorry, that was rude-"
"Where is Scott?"
"Um-" Paige lazily pointed to the doors, "Probably heading home."
Derek stepped back from her, which allowed Paige to really see how badly he currently looked. Like he was honestly dying. He backed away and started to go towards the door without another word to her.
Of course, Paige skipped after him in a mix of concern and wonder. "Why are you looking for Scott? And why do you look like you've got the worst case of Influenza since the early nineteen-hundreds? Are you okay?" She waited for something from him so she quickly scurried to stand in front of him, "I'm being serious this time. Are you really okay?"
"I need to find Scott."
"I know that but are you-" Paige released a shocked yelp when he almost fell, she quickly reached out to catch him. She steadied him with her brows furrowed, a very concentrated look of concern overtaking her, "You're not okay. You can barely keep yourself up."
"Get out of my way."
"I can help, you know." Paige huffed while shifted around to wrap his arm around her shoulders to keep him upright. "Maybe if you didn't have such intense trust issues... You'd realize that. I mean, seriously, if you weren't the alpha this whole time you could have just said something. Save us all the time of wondering and accusing. We got you thrown in jail. Sorry, by the way, but we did find half a dead body on your old property. Oh, shoot, sorry, that was your sister. I'm being insensitive. Oh, look, Stiles' Jeep." She wasn't sure if she breathed during that but she was glad that it was basically over, "Stiles!"
Stiles slammed on his brakes at the sight of her helping Derek, when she suddenly dropped to the ground because Derek dropped all his weight on her. "You've got to be kidding me. This guy's everywhere."
"Okay, wait, you're a lot heavier than you look." Paige grunted while pulling herself out from under him, but noticed the blood on her hands, "Oh! Oh, my God! You're bleeding! Derek, there's blood."
"I know."
"What the hell?" Scott demands as he rushes over to them while cars pile up behind Stiles' jeep, "What are you doing here?"
"I was shot."
"Where?" Paige quickly asks while her eyes scanned over his body, "When I messed with you having influenza, it meant I thought you looked sick. Like cough cough sick, not I'm having excessive blood loss sick. Which-" She covered her mouth and gagged as she remembered the blood, "Oh, ew. I-I hate it. This is gross."
Stiles had even winced, "He's not looking so good, dude."
Paige used the back of her wrist to wipe the blood off her face, "Where were you shot?"
"Why aren't you healing?"
"I can't." Derek breathed out deeply, "It was-it was a different kind of bullet."
"Silver bullet?"
"No, you idiot."
"Okay, no need for hostilities-" Paige shut her mouth at the glare she received, "Never mind. Beat me verbally."
"Wait, wait-" Scott says almost hurriedly, "That's what she meant when she said you had forty-eight hours."
"What?" Derek's voice had shifted slightly, "Who-who said forty-eight hours?"
"The one who shot you."
Paige stared at his face as he completely tensed up and looked at the sky, his eyes reflecting the same color as the blue skies. "Whoa! Flashing eyes."
"What are you doing?" Scott cries out in shock and worry, "Stop that!"
"I'm trying to tell you, I can't!"
Scott looked back at Stiles and the jeep, "Derek, get up!" He looked up at Paige, "Help me put him in the car."
Paige grabbed Derek from under his armpits and struggled to heave him up until he used his own strength to assist her. She kept her hold of him until he was seated in the car. Paige shut the door and gave Stiles an apologetic look for the blood stain on the door from her hand.
"I need you to find out what kind of bullet they used."
"How the hell am I supposed to do that?"
"Cause she's an Argent." Derek urges, almost trying to mask the obvious pain he was going through, "She's with them."
"Why should I help you?"
Derek kept his eyes on Scott, "Because you need me."
"Fine... I'll try." Scott looked back over at Stiles, "Get him out of here."
"I hate you for this so much." Stiles grabbed Paige before she could walk away, "Yeah, no. If I'm stuck with him, you're stuck with me. Into the jeep."
"But here's the thing."
"Into the jeep!"
"Fine!" Paige bellowed back at him while throwing her bag into the back before crawling right in. She looked down at her hands, the blood was beginning to dry. Paige made a face before glancing behind her, catching sight of Allison approaching Scott just as they pulled out of the school's parking lot.
She rummaged through her backpack for her hand sanitizer, which would definitely help a little bit with all the blood. Paige squirted some in her hand, the sound loud since it was practically silent in the jeep. She glanced up and caught how Stiles was glaring at her through the mirror.
"What? I'm dirty." Paige mumbles before cleaning up as much of the blood as she could, using her jeans to get the excess off.
"Just-" Stiles groaned, "Call Scott."
"Got it." She quickly tried to call him but it went straight to voicemail which then made her just text him instead. She waited for a response when Derek's leather jacket landed beside her in the back. This made her eyes shoot up to him, so she tossed her phone to the side and squeezed in between him and Stiles partially. Paige looked at the blood dripping down his arm, "Mm, that's a lot of blood."
"Ugh-" Stiles groaned in irritation, especially after noticing himself, "Try not to bleed out on my seats, okay? We're almost there."
"Almost where?" He hadn't even moved or lifted his eyes up. Like he was focusing elsewhere, maybe as long as he was focusing on anything but his pain.
Paige tilted her head, "Your house."
"What?" Now he moved to look over at them, "No, you can't take me there."
Stiles had to repeat it back to him, "I can't take you to your own house?"
"Not when I can't protect myself."
Paige blew air from her mouth and clicked her tongue at the top of her mouth, "Okay, but that's actually a reasonable reason."
Stiles couldn't believe Paige, or Derek. So he pulled over and put his jeep in park, "All right. What happens if Scott doesn't find your little magic bullet? Hmm?"
"Holy crap... Are you dying?" Paige gapes over at him.
"Not yet." Derek answers, "I have a last resort."
"What do you mean? What last resort?"
"Yeah, you said you couldn't heal 'cause of the bullet wound." Paige thought out loud as she leaned further in the middle, "And honestly, you're not helping us at all cause we don't even know where the wound really is and how bad it really looks. And-" She watched as he pulled his sleeve up and revealed the bullet wound on his arm, just below his inner elbow. Which made Paige grab her own.
"Oh, my God. What is that?" Stiles gagged and leaned as far away as he could, "Oh, is that contagious? You know what, you should probably get out."
Paige leaned further forward, "That's really gross. Like really gross. I wish you hadn't shown us that. You know what. Just roll your sleeve back down, please. Cause I-" She covered her mouth, "I hate it."
"Start the car." Derek huffed, he didn't like these two at all. Their similarities only pissed him off further, "Now."
Stiles stared back at him in disbelief at his demand, "I don't think you should be barking orders with the way you look, okay? In fact, I think if I wanted to, I could probably drag your little werewolf ass out into the middle of the road and leave you for dead."
"Start the car, or I'm gonna rip your throat out-" Derek huffed out with a serious look in his eyes, "With my teeth."
Paige slowly sat back in her seat with a long nervous octave that left her mouth. Her brows were furrowed together as she stared at the side of Derek's head. "Stiles... You gonna start her up or not? Cause as much as I sometimes want to kill you... I'd rather not see Derek tear into you with his teeth."
"Yep, starting the jeep now."
"So..." Paige says slowly after Stiles got back on the road, she then lifted up a box of swiss rolls, "Anyone want a snack?"
Derek shut his eyes and was painfully slow to turn his gaze over to her. It was dark and irritated. Definitely those two emotions, as much as Paige could tell.
"No..." Paige placed them back down and sunk further into her seat, "Does anyone want to play twenty questions?"
"Paige!" Stiles groaned.
"Sorry. I'm nervous."