VII.
When Lydia came to she awoke inside a familiar nightmare.
It was too dark to see and too loud to hear, but still she recognized that place; the same way an animal recognized a whip. Everything throbbed around her. The charred insides, the ramshackle fixtures, and the rotting boarded windows shook rickety and loose. A load bearing beam, not far from her body, wavered like a daunting pendulum in the unyielding tremor. The world outside was raging with an unabated fury.
Lydia struggled to sit upright from where she laid on the dirty floor. Disequilibrium brought on by sensory overload and a spreading migraine nearly sent her sprawling to the side. She had no recollection of how she'd gotten there; the same as the first time. Someone had to have put her there. A mere a foot from where she had leant up into a kiss that brought down the walls inside her mind.
Lydia heard the creaking of footfalls. It should have been impossible over the thrashing noise of constant rain. But Lydia knew someone was there; over loose floorboards, false footing, rusted nails. They were coming closer, coming nearer. She couldn't move. She had nowhere to run.
Muddied shoes stopped just before her.
Lightning cracked and light filled the house momentarily.
A shadow that was not hers was thrown across a wall, over the blackened wallpaper that was all curled up like scorched skin. Reminiscent of how he'd peeled her apart; strip by strip, like fruit in his hands. Digging in with his fingers, nails, claws. Smirking down at her because she was oh so delectable.
He was there; he'd brought her there again.
She'd always known he wasn't finished.
III.
He'd sensed it coming hours beforehand. Felt the pressure dropping in his eardrums. Felt the atmosphere stirring where two unseen forces met. The winds stilled soon after, settling the scents of everything everywhere. He knew humans were often lulled by the sudden calmness, but that was not so for his kind. They could perceive the swelling charge that ran beneath, building, more clear-cut in its promise. The wolf turned over inside him, nudging at him like he'd forgotten something: gather the pack, head back to the den.
Derek quelched down the instinct like he was holding back a sickness.
There was no pack.
Derek didn't dwell on the thoughts that led him there. He never did. He'd set out on foot, made his way through the backstreets and woodlands. The closer he got to the property, the faster the storm rushed in. When he arrived, the daylight was gone, and in it's place the sky was a thick, churning gray.
Derek stood on the edge of the front yard that was wild and overgrown like it had never been when his father was alive. He traced out the steps he took as a child; roaming and seeking, because his sister always got to hide. His steps wandered, and so did his mind. There, on the driveway, he'd been a lanky teenager, calling out to her before a similar storm. 'Find her, Derek,' their mother had said,'bring her in before she ruins her dress in all that mud.' Another step, another memory, closer to the house; there he'd been adult, abruptly, wretchedly, taking off to comb the entire woods looking for her, and finding her one last time.
Derek looked up at just the right moment. A flash of silver through the trees. And it was her; laughing in her white dress, one of the many their mother had made for her. The one she worn to the funerals.
There came an echoing crash and the moment was gone. All that remained was the fading sound of galloping, the growing winds, and an engine that was still running. Derek snorted, moved to turn around, ready to leave whomever to their own devices when the first raindrops began to fall and he heard it again:
'Find her, Derek.'
VIII.
The thing about fear was that it had an awful stench. It was an acidic odor, wet and oily. It bled out of the body as if from an open wound. A wolf could scent it out anywhere. The girl, Lydia, reeked of it. The wolf had taken notice. It stood to attention, baring teeth: Prey.
Derek didn't intend to, but the wolf peeked over the surface; their eyes turned a glowering red. The girl's soft cries turned into a shrieking fit, her pitch outmatching the storm. Derek called out to her, made a move to reach for her, but she'd tipped backwards from where she sat and tried to crawl away. "Get away get away get away get away-!" Her limbs still too weak to sustain her, but her frenzied desperation carried her until she backed into a wall. Derek took another step towards her, knowing that trying to talk her down would have been. The scared little human girl wouldn't hear him over the storm or her own panic. Derek crossed the room in a few easy strides. The girl sunk further into her terror. Her rapid heartbeat rushing in his ears, drowning out the thunder and rain and wind.
"What do you want?!" she screamed. Derek dropped down to his knees and Lydia, with nowhere to scramble to, raised her hands to swipe blindly at his face. "I don't know what you want from me!"
"I am not going to hurt you," he growled, irritation rising. He was close enough for her to hear, but she shook her head furiously, whipping her damp, red hair.
"No no no no no-!"
She clawed at his face once more, and in a single movement he caught both of her wrists in his grip. He held on tightly to get her attention, "Lydia, you were in an accident-"
And at that, the girl's head snapped up. She went so still that the vibrations through the house's foundation didn't seem to move her. Slowly she tilted her head up, and saw him. There were only tears in her eyes, and not the slightest trace of recognition.
II.
Statistically, most vehicular accidents occur close to home, and that was true in Lydia's case. Her neighborhood was the closest thing Beacon Hills had to a 'gated community,' so all of the roads leading to it had to be considered 'scenic.' There were heavily wooded plots on both sides of lane, with trenches dug out between the road and the forestation to irrigate seasonal flooding. The storm rolled in over the tops of the trees and turned the midday light to an impressive darkness. Lydia flipped on her headlights and then reached over to the radio presets, entirely unconcerned. When the gusting started and the deciduous trees all sagged in one direction, Lydia's vehicle was blown off course. It veered sharply to the right, but with a firm grip Lydia had expertly righted the car, hand over hand on the steering wheel. One more turn and it would have been a straight shot to her house.
But Lydia never made it around that corner.
At the bottom of a ditch, her foot was still heavy on the gas pedal, flooring the engine that could take her nowhere. She couldn't move her body. She couldn't get any air into her lungs. She couldn't think, except about what she could see, out there, in the broken reflection and in the haze and the darkness. She was going to die.
And then the rain came.
XI.
"-I brought you here for shelter." Her arms went limp in the grasp Derek still held, but other than that the girl gave no indication that she understood Derek. She simply continued to stare right through him and at something he couldn't begin to fathom. "Do you know who I am?" He asked slowly. "You can nod or just-"
"Hale," was all she whispered. Her brown eyes focused for all of a second, before her head bowed and her gaze fell to the floor.
"I told you before," Derek said, releasing Lydia's wrists. "I'm not going to hurt you." Freed from Derek, she retreated. Not in distance, because she was more or less cornered, but into herself. It was amazing how little space a body could take up.
"No," Lydia said all of a sudden. Derek, who was still knelt beside her, cocked his head to the side.
"No?"
"No." she repeated, then sat up, unbunching herself, looking unexpectedly unphased. Her eyes were sharper, clearer. Her pupils blown and open and Derek thought perhaps her vision had finally adjusted to the darkness. When she spoke her voice, despite being a little hoarse from her shouting, was curt and crisp: "I'm an excellent driver."
Thunder cracked somewhere above them.
"Are you- are you serious?" Derek asked, incredulous.
"I am." She turned her head to look at him sideways. "See, I retook my licensing test, after I had already passed, because they docked me a single point," she raised a finger pointedly, not an inch from the tip of his nose. "I've also explained to three different patrol officers on separate occasions that they were mistaken in pulling me over, because I was in fact driving in full accordance of the law. And, I drove the geology club to North Dakota, where we were hit with a freakish spring snowstorm. Have you driven over ice in the goddamn badlands? Hmm? No? Well then, back to my point; I am an excellent driver. I did not crash."
"Kid... I found you pinned in a car that was nose-down in a ditch."
"No." Lydia said again, in an incontestable tone, punctuated her words by jabbing her finger to his chest. Derek felt childish smacking away the finger she pointed at him. He could have sworn a minute ago she'd feared him, feared for her life. But her surging panic was gone and Lydia Martin had become the eye of the very storm that bore down around them.
"Well alright then." Derek said evenly. "You didn't crash."
"That's right," Lydia agreed with a smile. There was a cold calculation in her stare. "Because if I had, then where are all my injuries?"
IV.
Lydia was soaked. Her skin pulled tight into little white goosebumps wherever it wasn't red- red with blood? She was bleeding. There was glass in her lap. Rain was coming in through the car's shattered windshield. And that wasn't right. The glass was supposed to be laminated, shatterproof. But still there was rain and glass and she was cut and she hadn't the slightest idea where the bleeding was coming from.
The rain came down harder; its velocity stung her skin wherever it landed. Lydia did her best to pull away from the volley of rain, but the movement made glass dig deeper into her core. Oh, that was where she was cut. She couldn't move away from any of the pain.
Her head hurt like there wasn't enough room between her cranial bones. She was shivering, she felt cold, so cold. She had never been this tired in her life. She wondered if she drifted off, would she ever stop drifting or-?
"Lydia?"
The voice was swallowed up in the ire of thunder, but she hears it. Her name; they know her. They take hold of the car with one hand and the door was gone in an instant. And no, wasn't him. It's the other one. The werewolf; not Jackson, not Scott-
X.
Hale, because that was what she was calling him, said he couldn't explain it as well as he could demonstrate it. Lydia had, in no uncertain terms, informed him that that was unacceptable. "Just give me your hands again," he said reaching out to her. Lydia didn't budge, her hands remaining neatly folded in her lap.
"Tell me first."
Derek rolled his eyes impatiently. "It's not going to hurt you. It will help you."
"That doesn't matter to me," Lydia snapped, her tone inflecting with derision. "That is so incredibly irrelevant to me right now. If it hurts, if it helps, I do not care. I just need-" Lydia stopped and took a breath. She curled up her fist to cover her mouth, and prepared herself for a terrible admission. Lowering her voice she said, "I need to know what is happening. I just need to know."
Hale's brow remained furrowed, unmoved. He didn't get it. None of them did.
"Look, I don't even know how I got here!" she burst out. "Or how in the hell any of this happened. Me, in this house, of all places," she gestured wildly all around them, more disbelieving of the circumstances than when she had first woken up.
"Alright, I'll expl-"
"And with you. You, the other Hale. The other werewolf. And well, I suppose I know more werewolves than actual people these days," and Lydia started laughing uneasily because her life was ridiculous, "but that does not mean it will ever reach an acceptable level of 'normal.' And if-"
"Are you done?" Hale growled, exasperated, a tight smile over his face.
Lydia couldn't stop the chilling sensation that dropped down her spine or the recoil that followed. There was no menace in Hale's words, but that smile... The smile that wasn't truly a smile; superficial, patronizing, and dangerously deceptive. So much like the other. Like him.
And all over again, the Hale in front of her filled out the spaces in her nightmare.
He said her name a few times, and she tried to hone in on it. She covered her face and shook her head, trying to shake her own projections. Not him. Because the nephew was too tall and too dark and their faces were entirely dissimilar. They shared no features, none. Except that smile, and the fangs, and claws, and flare-red eyes. She could see them, even then, over the human fingers and shortened canines and coffee black eyes.
Lydia had seen the animal. Lydia had felt it when he slipped her on like a glove and punctured all the tight spaces that didn't fit with his jagged nails. Lydia had known the animal and it had known her. And there was no knowledge that could be unlearned.
"Kid, you need to-"
"You look like him when you smile like that," Lydia said, quickly, quietly, slumped down and ruining her posture. She fiddled with the ring on her right index finger, a birthday present Jackson that she still couldn't throw away, spun the white gold around and around. "Like you're just bidding your time, until-"
Hale looked confused for a moment, and then his features darkened. For the first time since they had been holed up from the storm, he looked truly angry. There was red in his eyes and tension in every muscle she could see, but that didn't scare her though, and Lydia was surprised. She was thankful he'd stopped smiling.
"I am not like him." Hale growled.
There was a story behind all of that vitriol. There had to be. And Lydia wondered about it; couldn't have helped it. Without meaning to, a stone was turned over and a memory came scuttling out; alien and verminous and revolting. Pale skin and long dark hair. Lovely, lithe and living; Laura? And something that was hers, his. Lydia was nauseated, reeling, on hands and knees crawling away. There were so many of them, flipping and flashing. She could hardly decipher them in the scurry. A seat in the bleachers. She retched and wheezed. A clearing in a forest. Hale's hand in her hair and at her brow, her body trying to expel the sickness.
Rushing, rushing out of the forest. Onto the road. Into the headlights.
"C'mon, easy, easy, you're fine, alright?" His voice was forceful, and if he had been trying for soothing all he managed was to sound agitated. He'd pulled Lydia close, huddled her against his chest. One last disorientating wave came over her; it dispersed against him like water to against a dam.
There had been nothing in her stomach to vomit. She wiped spit from her lips.
"You're fine," Hale repeated. He hadn't let go. "You were just-"
"-in a car crash." Lydia admitted hollowly. She looked up at him in utter disbelief, reciting things things she knew were true: "I crashed. You found me. And there's blood all over my clothes." Lydia looked to Derek as if he should refute her words but he did not. He just nodded. "So explain it to me."
VI.
Derek had always been a terrible healer. He possessed nowhere near the innate skill that his father had, or any of his discipline. There was a lot to consider when trying to heal. Like that fact that the higher something was up the food chain, the harder it was to heal. It had to do with the complexity of the creature. 'It calls for something a bit more spiritual,' his father used to say. 'Psychological,' his mother would counter if she'd been in earshot, tutting disapprovingly.
His father had been powerful enough to heal humans and other werewolves, even ones that were strangers. 'That's the hard part... trying to find something connective when you don't know anything about the life you're trying to save... but you'll have to try, Derek... overlook the pain... find something psycho-spiritual- oh, leave it be Talia... just focus on them, on anything about them... anything at all...'
Leaning into the wreckage of that tiny excuse of an automobile, he braced his hands against the unconscious girl's chest. She looked so pale, so still, so small. She was cold to the touch. If Derek hadn't the heightened sense to perceive it, he wouldn't have believed she was still drawing breath.
He closed his eyes, and thought Lydia, but nothing happened below his fingertips. He tried again. And then again. Under his palm Lydia's heart rate had either stopped or slowed to the point where it was imperceptible even to him. She could have already been dead. His fourth attempt amounted to nothing as well. Derek knew nothing about this girl. She was no one to him.
There was nothing, there was no one- except- A flash of his sister, frozen and white and broken in half, in the dirt she'd been discarded in- and then the girl, cowering, making feeble little sobs, so terrified, so lost and-
The skin over Lydia's stomach and hands were sealing. The glass shards lodged in her abdomen were pushed out like splinters. Derek felt a nick in one of her vertebrae as it knitted shut. Blood and platelets were flowing, and she was warming up as much as she could in the freezing rain.
Derek pulled the girl free of the car, wrapped her tight in his jacket. There was no describing his astonishment. He hadn't actually expected to save her. With a twist of prideful satisfaction, he turned toward shelter.
XI.
"Against my better judgment," Lydia began reluctantly, "and despite your botched explanation of what I've extrapolated to be some sort of Lycanthropic healing ability-" and Lydia scoffed because yes, those words had come out of her mouth, "...I want you to show me."
"Just tell me where it still hurts," Hale commanded. He held out her his hand to her. Lydia reached for it, but withdrew at the last second. Lydia took a deep, bracing breath. Hale rolled his eyes. "C'mon kid, you're the one who wanted to see it."
Lydia knew that he could tell she was scared. However, Hale didn't seem bothered by it in the least, nor of the inclination to try and pacify her fears. Lydia suspected that it had less to do with him being a werewolf, and more to do with him being a bastard. But if he'd had the consideration it would have taken to dissuade her uncertainty, it more than likely would not have worked.
"Kid?"
"Can I just have a second to prepare myself? I am about to submit to unscientific, werewolf sorcery."
Derek said something in reply that could not be heard over the echoes of thunder. Lydia sucked in a breath so ragged it probably sounded like it hurt as much as it did. She stared at his hand, and her gaze slowly crept up his arm, his bicep, shoulder, and finally to his face. She didn't see the look of impatience she expected. Instead his features had lessened, into something that wasn't pity, not exactly. And if it was, it wasn't for her.
A moment passed between them, in the span of a flash of lightning. They were eye to eye, animal to animal, stuck together in that house full of unswept ashes. Trapped by more than that storm and completely alone with each other, and with one another's ghosts.
Lydia placed her hand in Hale's.
"My name is Lydia Martin. I am sixteen years old. I am one-point-six meters in height and I abhor the English system of measurement. I have a 5.0 grade point average and a nearly eidetic memory. Yes, I am a natural redhead. I enjoy mathematics, internet make-up tutorials, and dressing my dog Prada in couture sweaters. My best friend is named Allison. My ex-boyfriend Jackson ran out of town and was never heard from again. And I was savaged and left for dead by a werewolf who haunted my dreams before resurrecting himself in a chain of events I still don't understand."
The Hale blinked.
"But you already knew about the last part... didn't you? What? You said it works better if you're familiar."
"Yeah. That's right. Let's just- it might not even work again-"
Her heart rate jumped at that first sensation. It felt like a calloused finger was running its way up underneath her skin, seeking out every forgotten nerve. Something between the automatic and the sympathetic parts of her mind converged. All of the dark spaces inside of her collapsed, sealed shut. The veins on Derek's arm blackened, and Lydia eased into it. Her body was singing.
Lydia unwrapped his much larger hand from around her own. Their eyes never broke away; his eyes just this side of smug, and hers, she hoped, similarly complacent. Not pleading the way her insides were pleading. She guided his hand up to her deltoid muscle. Derek, after quirking one of thick eyebrows, leaned in close. She felt his fingers splay over her shoulder, and also his breath over her skin. The still rational part of Lydia chalked up 'poor concept of personal space' onto his tally of bastard traits. But the other part, the irrational part that could accept shapeshifters and mystical healings, loved it, was amazed as she watched darkness flowing out of her circulatory system and into his.
Lydia had moved Derek's hand down to her clavicle and over her first and second ribs, when she asked, "How can you do this? How can you do any of this?"
Derek didn't say anything. He knew she meant more than the healing. Derek lifted his hand and made to move away. Lydia caught his wrist and despite his obvious ability to do so, the werewolf did not pull away. He simply looked at her, and she looked back. "How did he do what he did?" she implored in a voice so small she didn't recognize it.
Somewhere outside, the storm was breaking. Faint illumination could be seen through the boarded windows.
Derek pulled back abruptly, so much so that she nearly lost her balance when her hold on him was undone. "Kid... You need to forget about it."
And just like that, the thing that moved from her to him snapped. The nameless thing rebounded, and it reverberated dully in her chest.
Lydia couldn't believe what she had just heard. She did not know what she expected, or why she expected more. She'd gotten even less out of people who called her their friend.
"Forget it?" Lydia exclaimed. "Like you think I haven't tried that?" And she was angry. More furious then she realized or could even explain; like two unlabeled chemicals had met haphazardly. Burning bright, igniting oxygen, and spreading. Her exclamations were brushed off when Hale stood upright. He started across the room and did not look back when she yelled after him. "He haunted me! In my dreams! And-"
"And it wasn't real," Hale said darkly, "in the end, it was in your head." That was when he turned back around to face her. That same fury from before consumed his features. "You're lucky that's all it was."
The way Hale spoke made it sound significant, like it has more to do with the story she did not know. However, Lydia did not care in the slightest. Lydia pushed up to her feet and stepped in front of the man.
"It was real. You saw what he made me do- what he made me do to you." Lydia can taste the venom dripping into her own words. "And again, today, on the road," Lydia gestured wildly, pointing in a direction she didn't even know if it led to a road. "My accident? It was him, he was after me! He was going to kill me!"
"No he wasn't."
"Yes he was, yes he was, yes he was-!"
"No, Lydia!" Hale's voice boomed in the silence left by the fading storm. There was a layer to his tone, a sort of rumble that wasn't possible for a human. Hale towered over her, but Lydia was too angry to be afraid. She shoved at his chest and he took hold of both her arms again. They were right back where they started.
"Listen to me. Carefully."
"No." Lydia spat, struggling against his hold.
"There was no one there. Lydia, you were the only one on the road. Peter was not there."
"You're lying. You're all always lying! Always hiding it! He was there! He's real!
"Lydia, you imagined it."
Lydia had convinced herself the monster wasn't real once. That the man she saw, who followed her, who whispered in her ear when she was alone, wasn't really there. A simple figment brought on by nothing more than stress and over-exhaustion. She'd told herself he wasn't real. That nightmares couldn't be real. That nightmares couldn't come true. And Hale was still talking, still lying, "he took what he wanted from you-" and then, "-he's done with you, you don't need to-"
"No. No! NO! He's not done! He'll never be done!" She screaming so hard she can't see. Hale is still restraining her, because she wanted to hit him. Wanted to kill him. All of them. "He's out there! He's always out there, circling me! Don't you get it? He was there! He tried to kill me! I saw-!"
I.
Lydia was in her mother's smart car with the radio on, nearly home. She was rounding that last corner until, suddenly, she wasn't.
A giant, black, quadrupedal mass rushed out of the forest and stopped dead center in the road. It's eyes shined in the glow of her headlights.
Her extremities went entirely numb. Her heart rate screamed in her ears. Her mind blanked. Her hands unclenched. Everything in her was arrested in terror.
Wolf. Alpha. Him.
The car pitched off of the pavement. The collision crumpled the front of the car. Glass shattered, flying everywhere. Her seat belt went rigid. There was no air in her lungs.
Tremblingly, she gazed up into the cracked rear view mirror and saw-
XII.
The kid went from screaming to silent at the drop of a dime. Cautiously, Derek let go of her, and she backed away from him, slow and deliberate. She had a sort of horrified look on her face, her eyes wide and stricken. But it wasn't from fear. Not that time.
"What was it?" she asked in a whisper. "I saw it. I know I saw it, and it- and it wasn't him..." She closed her eyes tight, "but my mind won't let me believe it."
"It was a deer, so far as I could tell."
"A deer," Lydia repeated, "a deer... a deer..."
That's how he left her; standing in his old living room, muttering to herself. She could say it forever and she'd probably never believe it was true. He knew what that was like. Out on the porch his eyes scanned everything, automatic and unbidden. Searching the yard, the road in the distance, the sun in the west. It almost made him want to back in inside, grab the kid, and explain to her about the god awful part of human nature that fought to hold onto those things. About the fact that he could live to be a seasoned old wolf and he would always, always be looking for Laura.
But he didn't. She would learn it soon enough on her own.
In time, Lydia scuffled out onto the porch. In the light of day, whatever resemblance he'd imagined was is gone. She was tiny, wiry, red-haired, wearing tattered clothes dried with blood. Her expression was vacant, but with time that would fade. She'd live. Because he'd save her, because he'd actually been able to heal her. Any pride he'd felt over it was long gone, though. All he was left with was a bitter and muted feeling. He'd saved her like he had never been able to save anyone who mattered.
Lydia ran her hand over the railing of the porch, then looked back at the dilapidated home. "This place should have been condemned a long time ago."
"It was," he replied lowly.
Lydia's gazed moved next to him next. She regarded him for a minute. "You're angry," she said, her voice hollow. "Because you remember. I don't like remembering either."
Derek has no idea what the kid meant, but he didn't really care. He'd saved her, sheltered her, and set her straight on her delusions. All the while enduring her constant screaming. He'd done more than enough for one day. "It's time for you to leave. The road's that way." He pointed oh so helpfully down the driveway.
The kid didn't budge. There was still no expression on her face. No trace of panic or fear or even relief. "What did you think of to heal me the first time?" It seemed almost as if she was musing to herself more than she was asking him. He answered anyway.
"It doesn't matter."
"Yes it does," she said flatly. "Its the only thing that matters to you."
That set his teeth on edge. "You don't know anything."
"No. No, I do. I just didn't know that I did. It went both ways. So I know. Laura was the only thing that mattered to you."
"How do you know her name?" Derek snarled.
"You keep forgetting that she's gone, don't you? And it makes you angry, every time you remember. And now you resent me because I lived."
Derek hadn't realize it, but it was true. And still pointless all the same. "Get out of here. It's private property." He took her by the shoulder and gave her a push towards the stairs. She wobbled down on uneasy legs and was nearly to the driveway before she turned around.
"She was pretty. And smart. Skeptical about pretty much everything. She loved wearing white, because of how it got dirty with mud, grass, and pollen. She was named after your grandmother; his mother. And she never turned anyone, even though she was an alpha. Because she had you, and you were her best friend."
Derek was quaking. Felt so enraged it made his stomach hurt. It couldn't happen. It could not have happened. Healing did not work that way. The wolf snapped it jaws and reddened his eyes. Lydia saw, and did not care.
"The more you know, the easier it is," she continued. "Like healing, don't you think? Different, but... still easier when you kill them."
Derek advanced towards the girl. But the only one of them that was afraid there, was him. "How do you know any of that?"
"It went both ways." She tapped her temple.
And Derek can't deny the only plausible explanation: Peter.
"Do you want to know the best part?" Her voice inflects a little, like Lydia was waking up into herself.
"What?" Derek hadn't meant to whisper.
"There's more than one way to become an alpha. And Peter knows how. He always knew that he didn't have to kill her. He didn't have to kill Laura... but he did."
And Lydia just shrugged her shoulders. Derek felt like the dirt under his feet was crumpling.
"That's not-" Not true. Not possible. It could not be. "You're lying."
"We're all liars aren't we? All of us just waiting for each other to die in the dark." Lydia looked him up and down. A smile bloomed on her face. "There's a word for that look on your face. It's somewhere between... devastated... and destroyed. But don't worry, I'm sure it will come to me later..." Lydia seemed incredibly satisfied; coldblooded after all.
"Tell me what else you know." The plea sounds as raw as he feels.
When she smirked, he could have sworn he'd seen it on someone else's face before. "That's the worst part isn't it? The not knowing. Its the most dangerous part."
And then Lydia turned on her heels, digging her soles in the mud. She walked home through the sopping grass, and never once looked back.
V.
"Don't move."
Lydia processed the words, his words, and then her insides heaved painfully to make room for a laugh. Because that statement just felt so comically stupid that it tickled. "Wh- where would i go, exactly?"
His brow furrowed and he gave her a glowering look, as if to say: 'really?'.
"Don't- don't look at me like that." she said woozily and indignant. "I have poss- possible head trauma- and I can't estimate my blood loss... but I'm positive it's substantial."
"Yeah, sure," he said, never pausing, "How about you be quiet, and I pull you out of here?"
"No-" Lydia shakes her head. The idea was preposterous, and not in a funny way. "No! wh- what's wrong with you?" He ignored her, reaching over her to unclasp her seat belt. "This is-" she was slurring, "this is not how you conduct a s- search and rescue effort!" Still he said nothing to her, gave no indication of concern for anything except for pulling apart her mangled seat belt buckle. "You have to talk to me!" she insisted. Her voice was gaining, growing stronger. "Talk to me so I don't-"
"Lydia-"
"You're supposed to keep me lucid!" she cried. "Supposed to talk to me! I need to know what's going on! Tell me so- so i don't die! You have to talk to me or-"
"Calm down! Or you're gonna hurt yourself!"
"He'll kill me if you don't tell me what's going on!" Lydia thrashed and flailed. He held his hands against her, tried to keep her down. Her heart was racing on her last reserves of energy. And then everything went slack and then the darkest kind of black.
It was the one part of the storm Lydia would never remember.
XIII.
The dog's name was Prada. It was a tiny toy spaniel with a clean fluffed coat sticking out from under it's couture sweater. Derek felt ridiculous from simply knowing the fact. It was hopping around in the front yard yapping at him from where he'd pulled up in the drive.
"What are you doing here?" Lydia stepped out onto of her front door. "This is private property."
It had only been a day since her accident, and if Derek hadn't seen the wreckage or the aftermath, he wouldn't have believed it by looking at her. Her color had returned to her skin. She was dressed like she had somewhere to be, with her hair all coiffed up. She was even standing in heels with perfect balance. Not bad for a girl who'd almost bled out twenty four hours ago, followed by successive panic attacks. The only thing wrong was the gauze heavily wrapped around her forearm.
"What happened there?" Derek asked. He hadn't left a scratch on her. He was sure of it.
"They found the car. Needed a plausible explanation for all the blood."
Derek let out a huff of laughter. "Of course. What'd you use?"
"A bread knife. Serrated, so the cut wouldn't look too clean."
"You would have had to cut deep," he drags his eyes up from her bandage and leveled at her eyes. "For plausibility's sake."
"Of course." She returned his stare.
Derek smirked, impressed. "Probably didn't even flinch."
"I would never," she said, mockingly aghast.
That was how Derek Hale met Lydia Martin for the first time. Not the version of her curled up in a half-sized automobile, or cowering in the dark of his family's crypt. But with her standing opposite him, standing off, measured and steady. And with him sitting against the hood of his car, still wondering what in the hell he was going to do about this girl.
During their back and forth the dog wandered over to Derek. It pressed it's nose against his shoe, surprisingly approving. Lydia gave a sharp whistle and the pup went running to her. She bent down and gave it disapproving tut, plus a firm tap on the nose for its treachery.
"Grab the mutt. And hop in," Derek said coolly, gesturing to the Camaro.
"First, he's a purebred Papillion. He has a happy, friendly, and intelligent temperament. Which is more than can be said for most strays wandering around Beacon Hills," she said pointedly. Derek rolled his eyes.
"Second, why would I go anywhere with you?"
"Didn't turn out so bad last time, did it?"
"Oh, are you referring to how you kidnapped me?"
That Derek had not expected. "Kidnapped?"
"I didn't end up in that hellhole of my own accord, now did I?"
"What, did you miss the whole storm-of-the-century thing?" Lydia was unmoved. Derek wasn't used to having to explain himself. He hadn't had to since he was last under his sister's unaffected gaze. But if he'd learned anything about Lydia Martin, it would be the first of many concessions. "You needed shelter, and the downpour washed away the scent of anything that would lead me to where you lived."
"Ever heard of a hospital?"
Derek ground his molars. "Would have raised too many questions."
"Right, the whole notorious murder thing." She smiled sweetly at him.
"I was cleared of those charges."
"Then you had nothing to hide."
They were getting nowhere. Derek realized none of the plans he'd thought up wouldn't have a chance of convincing her. They were passed intimidation and passed outright lying. And Lydia knew that she had information that was valuable to him.
"I'm not going anywhere without the full story," she said suddenly, taking him by surprise. "That's how this works. And I won't be swayed otherwise. And I decide when I know enough."
"I don't have the full story." Lydia glared at him. He raised his hand as if to surrender. "I don't think any of us do; just parts of it. But where we're going, there might be some answers."
"So you're here on a hunch," she sounded quite unimpressed. "And I just have to trust you."
It wasn't a question.
"Yes, you have to trust me." And Derek felt something indecipherable, something he didn't want to dwell on. He overrode it, and inhaled deeply before saying, "And know that nothing will happen to you."
"Or Prada?" She nuzzled one of his ears.
Derek cringed, "or Prada."
Lydia sauntered over to him. "There's something else I need from you first. More than the promise of safety." Derek quirked his brow. He hasn't the slightest idea of what Lydia Martin could value that much.
"I need your word that we will end him."
Her demeanor was deadly serious, as was his when he replied: "Now that I guarantee."
Lydia smiled at him, quite pleased.
"Now come on," he tapped his hand against the car door. "You, me, and the mutt are taking a trip to the vet."