Imagination is more important than knowledge

Winnie's head thrummed with words that slammed into her head out of nowhere.

Her car swerved on the street, the sophomore quickly pulling back into her lane. She clutched her head with one hand and steered with the other, wincing violently.

It felt like gunshots, obliterating her nerve receptors as she drove home from the fiasco at Scott's house.

Winnie shoved her car into park as she reached her driveway, doubling over in slowly subsiding pain. She swore as she rested her head down on the steering wheel, something inside making her reach for her sketch pad.

She was drawing directions, a map of travel that caused her to reach for her phone and call Stiles. The moment it picked up, she passed saying hello. "Are you following Jackson?"

"We've been trying to follow Derek-"

"Where are you?" she asked over Stiles' ramble.

"On 23rd around downtown," Stiles replied. "Winnie, what is it?"

"Just trust me." Winnie stayed in her car, tracing a finger along the hand drawn map. "Take a left, right now."

Roscoe squealed a little, taking a sharp turn.

"Holy- it's Derek!" Stiles exclaimed.

Although Winnie wasn't there, she had a pretty good idea of what was happening.

"-And he just jumped a fence."

"Watch out for the spikes," warned Winnie as her finger moved along her map.

Both Scott and Stiles nearly missed it, the Jeep coming to a stop not far from sharp, unfriendly looking tire spikes.

"What do we do now-" Stiles' voice cut off, Scott already out of the car. "Jesus, are you kidding me?" he grumbled as he kept Winnie's call to his ear.

"Just, it'll be okay. Derek and the kanima are fighting under the old subsidary in the loading bay. That's where Scott's headed - oh f-" A glint flashed across her eyes, panic arising.

"Winnie? Winnie talk to me."

"Uh, sorry just go to Jungle, okay?" Winnie rubbed her temples, closing her eyes. "The club Jungle. Scott'll be there. It's on 80th and 9th, that's it."

"You're a lifesaver," said Stiles as he forced Roscoe into a 3 point turn.

"No, that's your job." Winnie hung up the phone, climbing out of her car with her bag and sketch book. A fuse seemed to be lit in her, and her threshold of anger only seemed to grow as she went into the house.

Winnie dropped her things on the bench by the stairs, only taking her phone with her as she walked out to the back porch.

Aaron looked up, on the phone. He quickly ended the call, putting his attention on his daughter. "I was wondering when you'd be home."

"No you weren't," she snapped as she took out a bobby pin from her hair and opened the sim port of her cell.

"Winnie-"

"Don't," interrupted Winnie. "Stop acting like you have nothing to do with this." She pulled a small, webbed device out of the sim port but left the sim. "Don't bug my phone. I know you were listening because how the hell else did the Argents know exactly where to find the kanima."

Aaron picked up the cellular bug off the table where Winnie had set it. "This would all be so much easier if you weren't involved."

"Yeah, well maybe you should've thought about that before you forced me to come here, so tough shit." Winnie retreated back into the house, steam practically coming out of her ears as she went up to her bedroom and slammed the door shut.

The only thing she wanted right then was to be home in Colorado.

¥ ¥ ¥

Lydia, trying to ignore everything she'd seen that night, walked into her backyard with Prada in her arms. Setting the small dog down she said, "Go," for Prada to get a move on so she could get back inside. Shivering, she called out, "Let's go, Prada. You're all of six pounds. There can't be that much to come out of you." But still, nothing. "Prada, let's go!"

There was distant rustling but no sign of the pup.

"Prada?" Lydia asked with a new tone as she held her arms close for warmth. Barefooted, she slowly started to walk around the pool towards the gate. "Prada. Prada?" Her heart thundered in her chest, a shadow unlike her dog's starting to emerge.

The blue eyed boy from Morrell's office walked up, carrying Prada. "Lose something?"

Yeah, she had.

Her mind.

¥ ¥ ¥

After meeting Scott and Stiles at Jungle once the kanima had struck, Winnie spent the rest of her night crammed in the back of the Jeep with Jackson's unconscious naked body.

Then to make it worse, they stole a police vehicle.

Winnie stood outside of it with Scott and Stiles as the sun rose, all three of them exhausted and in yesterday's clothes.

"What a wonderful idea, boys." Winnie spoke sarcastically, leaning against the same tree as Stiles. "Steal an armored police transport vehicle and stick an unconcious, lethal mythical monster in it."

"Stiles! McCall! I'm gonna kill you!"

Winnie cleared her throat, hearing Jackson's voice from the van. "Not so unconcious lethal mythical monster." She checked her watch, letting out a soft sigh. "I have homeroom in thirty. I should go."

"Cover for us," requested Scott as she started to pull out her car keys.

"No problem. I'll be back after school." Winnie started to head to her car, glancing back to the boys as she opened the driver's side door of the Malibu. "And try not to do anything stupid." She halfly motioned to the van, "At least, nothing else stupid."

An hour later, Winnie stood outside of the principal's office door, motioning next to her.

Allison's eyebrows slightly furrowed, seeing security cameras being installed. She looked back into the office, finding her grandfather smiling.

"Go ahead," Gerard told her.

Winnie quickly joined Allison, the two heading out of the receptionists office.

Gerard cleared his throat, "Miss Jones?"

Winnie's blood seemed to run cold, the brunette hesitantly looking back.

"Tell your father I say hello, won't you?"

Without a reply, Winnie left the front office.

"He's just trying to scare you," assured Allison as the two walked back towards class.

"Well, it's working." Winnie, having told her teacher she needed to use the bathroom so she could go with Allison to Gerard, was nearing 10 minutes of being gone.

Allison watched where the wall met the ceiling as they walked, cameras popping up everywhere. "He's scaring me too," she said softly.

Winnie stopped by her class, looking to Allison. "This place is turning into a prison."

"At least prisoners don't have to deal with werewolves."

Winnie only smiled, slipping back into her class for the last five minutes. She took her seat, a movie about oceanography playing.

Next to her, Matt Daehler glanced over from his notes to Winnie. "Everything okay? You seemed kinda tense." He kept his voice low, whispering over to her as he flipped a pen between his fingers.

Winnie forced herself to nod, giving a believable smile "Yeah, everything's fine."

¥ ¥ ¥

Winnie parked her car by the entrance of the Preserve, both Allison and she bundled against the chilled weather.

"I can't believe you guys stole a police vehicle," remarked Allison as she locked her own car that wasn't far from Winnie's Chevy.

"We were desperate," said Winnie with a sigh as she put her hands in the pockets of her Army green coat.

Not too far off, they could see Stiles leaning against the van, tapping away on Jackson's cell phone.

With the forest floor damp, the on edge girls quickly made it to Stiles in silence.

Turning towards them, Stiles screamed and fell back onto the transport van. "Oh my god-"

"They know," Allison said over him.

Stiles' eyebrows lifted, "What?"

"They know Jackson's missing!" Allison nearly shouted.

"No, they can't. I've been texting his parents since last night. They don't have a clue," defended Stiles.

"My grandfather told me his parents went to the police," she said. "They know."

Stiles whimpered, suddenly holding Jackson's phone like it was covered in something he didn't want to be remotely near. "Oh..." he handed off the phone to Winnie, "chuck that." He ripped open the door of the transport van, quickly clicking on the radio dispatch.

"All available units proceed to Beacon Hills Preserve as instructed. Proceed with caution until Sheriff Stilinski's arrival. Repeat, proceed with caution."

"Motherfuc-" Winnie quickly looked down to the phone in her gloved hand and pulled up the dial pad. "We need to go somewhere very far away from this. Get in the van, now."

Stiles rushed to the driver's side, the three of them crowding in the front.

Winnie called the Whittemore house before chucking the phone out the window as Stiles put on the gas.

"Here, Allison answer this." Stiles handed over his phone as it rang, driving the van through the Preserve.

In the middle seat, Allison took the phone and put it to her ear. "Scott?"

"Where are you guys?"

"Tell him to go to the Lookout Point," Stiles said aloud, on his way to the eastern most point in Beacon Hills.

"We had to move the van," Allison told Scott. "Go to the Lookout Point. The police, they're gonna be searching, so be careful."

"Okay, okay I will. I'll see you in a minute."

Allison's heart was racing, their entire situation out of proportion. "This is insane," she said as the call ended and held out Stiles' phone to him.

"When are our lives not insane?" Stiles asked as he parked the van between a thrush of trees.

Winnie climbed out, sighing as she ran a hand through her hair.

Scott rode up to the trio, leaving his bike by the van. "Does anyone else think this has gone horribly wrong? The tablet's gone - it had some video of Jackson on it. It's what he was after."

"No shit!" yelled Jackson.

Walking towards the edge of the Lookout Point, the four all seemed to be at a minor loss for words.

Winnie thought she might as well go first, "Stiles, you texted me saying he didn't know about what he's been doing, right?" She continued when Stilinski gave a nod. "If Jackson doesn't remember being the kanima, he's definitely not gonna remember stealing Danny's tablet."

"Why would he steal the thing if he doesn't even know what's on it?" asked Stiles.

Allison arched an eyebrow, "What if someone else took it?"

"Then somebody else knows what he is," Winnie offered out

"Which could mean someone's protecting him," said Scott.

Allison lightly nodded, "Like the beastiary says, 'the kanima seeks a friend,' right?"

"Okay," said Stiles, "hold on. So, somebody watches Jackson make a video in himself turning into the kanima and then just erases part of it so he wouldn't know? I mean, who would do that?"

"Somebody who wanted to protect him?" Allison said questionably as she looked to her friends.

"There's something else," said Scott. He looked to Stiles, "You said the only thing you found online about the kanima is that it goes after murderers. What if that's actually true?"

"Well, no," Winnie said, "it can't be. It tried to kill all of us, remember? I'm not so sure about you three, but I know I haven't murdered anyone lately."

"But," put in Scott, "I don't think that it was actually trying to kill us." He looked over to Allison, "Remember when we were at Isaac's the first time, it just went right by us, didn't it?"

Allison lightly nodded, "You're right, it just ran off."

Scott looked to Stiles, "And it didn't kill you in the mechanic's garage."

"Well yeah," Stiles motioned to Winnie next to him, "but it tried to kill the two of us and Derek in the pool the other night."

"Did it?" asked Scott in return.

"It would've," said Stiles. "It was waiting for us to come out."

Winnie looked out towards the city below, "What if it was trying to keep us in?"

Stiles shuddered, "Wh-why do I feel so violated all of a sudden?"

"Because," said Scott, "there's something else going on. We don't know what it is. We don't know anything about what's going on with Jackson or why someone's protecting him."

But they would soon.