Lydia’s room wasn’t hard to find, at least not for Stiles who could probably navigate through those cursed halls with his eyes blindfolded. It was a little harder not to be seen, but by using the stairs Stiles managed to avoid the majority of the employee’s and made it to her room unrecognized. Once there, Stiles didn’t dare go in, instead looking at Lydia through the little window into the room. She looked pale, sickly so, and so strangely fragile. He’d never seen the girl look that vulnerable before and frankly, it scared the crap out of Stiles.
She had dark circles under her eyes and her strawberry blonde hair – the very one Stiles had admired a million times over – was full of dirt and glued to her face with sweat. Despite it all, she still managed to look beautiful and Stiles seriously began to wonder where his genetics had gone wrong and theirs (being Derek and Lydia, namely) had gone so very, very right. Luckily, Derek distracted him from said thoughts by appearing right behind him. “I see you freed yourself from the clutches of the cougar”, Stiles teased. “So…is she turning?”
Derek padded softly past Stiles, peering through the window into the room. The girl looked vaguely familiar, and it took a few seconds to click where he’d seen her –– in front of the movie rental store after the Alpha attack (Peter’s attack). She’d been shaken then but too smart for her own good, and Derek wondered if that had something to do with why Peter had targeted her now. The same way he’d spared Jackson that night.
Something else was still going on with Peter, some bigger play he couldn’t put his finger on yet, and that, like everything else these days it seemed like, made his gut twist sickly. This girl being attacked, that was his fault for letting Peter keep running unchecked. If she died here, that was on him too.
“No way to know from out here.” And he pushed open the door and went in, not looking to see if Stiles followed. All his attention was fixated on this pale girl. Like another pale girl, seven years ago with knowing dark eyes and pained whimpers.
He swallowed, and forced himself to circle closer.
The room smelled of medicine and sweat, chemicals threatening to burn his nostrils on each inhale. But she didn’t smell like Paige had. There was no black blood choking up.
“She’s not dying.” He felt sure of that. With Paige, it’d been almost immediate, and Lydia had been bitten last night. If the bite were killing her, she’d be dead by now. Or close to it.
But she didn’t look like she was turning either.
Derek reached out and felt her forehead. Feverish, clammy. Her pulse thrummed quick and thready in her veins, and her body was definitely fighting something. Or fighting towards something, maybe.
“The change...” He faltered, brows pinching. “It takes longer with some people. Sixteen hours is longest I’ve ever heard of.” Most people were closer to four or five hours, but... “That must be what this is.”
He wished he could sound surer, but as much as he’d studied and knew the lore and grown up around werewolves, he’d only ever actually seen four people take the bite. An aunt when he was young, an outsider who’d petitioned his mom for the bite when he was in middle school, Paige, and now Stiles.
What he was seeing with Lydia didn’t exactly seem to fit any of that, but there were only two options and he was sure Lydia wasn’t dying.