Watershed.
Laura's in AP Chem when it happens.
It's a push at first, a force nudging against her mind and then her body, into her, and it's when she feels her eyes glowing and the plastic of the desk ripping under her claws that she recognizes it:
Power.
Then her brain catches up to her racing heart, and she chokes on the air.
"Dad..." she gasps, and when she realizes, no, Mom was next in line, she nearly collapses out of her seat.
The chalk in Mr. Harris' hand screeches to a deafening halt in the middle of a hydrocarbon. "Miss Hale - " he starts, just an echo of sound against the pencils and papers and seconds of the classroom clock, but Laura can already feel the bile rising in her throat, and she shoves away from her desk, hand over her mouth, and stumbles out the door into the hall.
It's empty.
"Miss Hale," Harris calls, following after her. "If you're sick, you need a hall pass." He looks as concerned as he ever gets, and it takes every ounce of control Laura's ever learned to not fling him back into the classroom.
Instead, Laura bares her teeth and runs.
His yells die down as she rounds the corner, faster than him, faster than anybody.
She has no damn idea what class Derek's in right now, but his smell is stronger than ever - a beta smell, she realizes, her beta, and she bites back both a scream and the sickening sense of new power.
The stench of fear hits her full-force in front of sophomore English where Derek's already bolting, looking confused and scared.
"Laura!" he cries, because he would have felt it, the transfer, the way they both did when Grandma Louise died last year. "What - ?"
"I don't know," Laura says, hand back over her mouth like it's some kind of protection, for herself or for the floor. "I can't sense anything - I think it's too far."
She hopes it's too far.
Derek's unsteady on his feet, bracing himself against the wall as he tries to speak. "We have to go," he manages. "We have to go home, we have to find out-"
"No," Laura stops him. "We can't. We wait here for news and we don't leave campus."
"Why?"
Because life is blending, and they're already on the radar for leaving class. Because Laura had two flats this morning, so they ran to school. Because whatever's happened, they're here, away from it and safe.
"Because I said so," Laura answers, and they both shudder when they realize it's an order.
It's five more minutes before the intercom calls Laura and Derek Hale to the principal's office, and Laura leads him by the wrist as the winding halls close in around them.
Sheriff Nuñez and Deputy Stilinski are already inside, stone-faced.
Homeowner's insurance covers the big stuff. It might cover more, but one putrid whiff of the insurance adjustor is all it takes for Laura to deny them an inventory check.
She'd say she doesn't trust him as far as she can throw him, but she can throw pretty damn far.
"Since Derek is still a minor," the probate lawyer tells Laura, sitting comfortably behind his desk and some of the only legal documents their parents ever bothered with, "control of his apportionment defers to you until his eighteenth birthday." The lawyer turns to him. "Do you understand, son?"
Derek nods in a quick jerk, not making eye contact. He's barely spoken since they saw the house, when his pulse flared in pure panic before settling into something more deliberate, like badly-controlled rage.
He's not okay, but they've got bigger things to worry about right now.
The lawyer continues. "Peter and Rebecca Hale are still non-responsive, so - "
"Becka won't live," Laura says. "She's four. She won't make it."
Silence suffocates the room as she and the attorney stare at each other and Derek picks at a fingernail. "...Whatever happens," he says carefully - Laura hears the fear in his heartbeat and smells the pity in his sweat. It's pathetic. "Since you're executrix, we'll have to schedule another meeting to discuss estate taxes and payout."
"Of course," Laura says, and when Derek stands without a word and leaves the office, she barely holds in her own growl.
They stay at the local Days Inn for a while. The estate's still in escrow, Laura's pretty sure, but the fire didn't touch the money under the big redwood.
"I'm going for a run," Derek says suddenly, claws already out and abandoning his economics textbook.
Laura looks up from her own work. "No," she replies firmly.
Derek flares his lip like he used to when he was pouting, when Mom would drag him by the scruff back to homework or Grandpa would sit him down for shifting checkups instead of letting him go out with Uncle Peter. His eyes, though... they're not the same anymore.
Laura's so in over her head.
"Derek," she says, lower this time. "We talked about this: school, food, hospital, hotel. It's not safe anywhere else, not with the Argents still out."
Derek just glares at her and makes for the door anyway, but Laura's there before he can leave, darting in front of him with her new speed and slamming it closed.
"No."
All the color drains from Derek's face and he staggers back from her, collapsing on the bed and looking anywhere but at her.
"Oh, god," Laura murmurs as she forces her suddenly jelly legs to do their damn job and keep her standing, and Derek just buries his face in his hands.
It's taken Laura until now to realize her eyes aren't the same anymore, either.
a/n: i got bored on a road trip. thanks to misslonelyhearts for making sure it wasn't complete crap.