Author's Note: Thank you for giving this a chance! If you stick with it, you might not even be disappointed - because speaking from personal experience, starting an OC fic in this fandom is always a gamble. But this one is a good bet. Because I'm going to do it differently.

If you're looking for a cookie cutter fic that steals plot straight from the show, this isn't for you. If you're looking for a Derek/OC romance where Derek is that tall, dark, dangerous stranger that immediately falls for some random teenage girl who happens to get mixed up in the supernatural bullcrap of Beacon Hills - this is not for you. This story will take time. I'm building Lainey's story.

Please, don't let this long note scare you off. I expect the first few chapters to be a slow start. Stick around at least to chapter five. Things WILL pick up, I promise. But Lainey is a completely independent character - she can't just fall into this world. There's got to be a REASON she ends up with Derek. I have plans for this fic. Give it a chance, and give me *constructive* feedback if you're unhappy for some reason. Otherwise, how will either of us enjoy this at all?

BLANKET DISCLAIMER FOR THE REST OF THE FIC: I do not claim Teen Wolf or any of its characters or plots as my own. I just borrowed them!

Final note... this story is - for now - rated T for accessibility, profanity and material that is probably not suitable to children. May get promoted to an M rating later on ;')

If you're a child, don't read this fic. Maybe go watch Spongebob. Or... eat some fruit snacks. Fruit snacks are great. You know what? Why do you have to choose? You don't have to choose, you're a child. Do both.

Okay. Enough digression. Get comfy! Savor the drama! And happy reading.

Prologue

Kelsey had a plan. She had a plan, she reminded me, as she had reminded me countless times before over the past few months. It was all set up, all ready to go. But something changed. Me. I was now included in this plan. She made me apart of it. She would fix me. She would fix my tumor. She would fix herself and we would be fixed, she said. Well, the influence of pills had to have some effect on her logic, didn't it?

Still, she made compelling points. She'd worked her ass off to get the name and the address right, the details and everything else as accurate as she dared. Word spread fast in Beacon Hills. Whatever this guy was into, it was serious. Like, beyond the authorities serious.

If you asked me, it had that sort of… I don't know… conspiracy-theory-after-taste to it. From what Kelsey described, people didn't know a whole lot about it. They knew a few key details and they'd drawn their own conclusions about this guy and whatever was going on with him. Kelsey had heard any number of versions, but they all had a few common details.

He was alone. He was living in an abandoned warehouse. He never came out at night, and never during a full moon. He had showed up to a few people's parties, like he was looking for someone or something, but he never stayed very long. And some people swore that they'd seen his eyes glow bright red, but that sounded like another ghost story.

Yeah. Like I said. This was most likely going to turn out to be bogus. I fully expect to come out of this visit a little poorer and a little more fucked up, since from what she'd heard, we could expect just about anything and not be disappointed… but either way, I know that it'll be an interesting story. And I only had so much time left, so what the hell? I was down for an adventure.

Kelsey seemed convinced there was more to him than just some glowing eyes and a Boo-Radley-esque lease on life, but I suspected that when we get in there we're gonna find some freak who's convinced he's in the final stages of morphing into a dragon and he needs pure virginal blood to give him enough strength to complete his transformation. Or, you know, anything else crazy and irrational like that.

The warehouse looked no different from the countless others in this part of the city. That's why, if you didn't know what to look for, you'd completely overlook it. The railroad depot was never really a well-used asset in the city, even when it was functional. That was years before now. Probably decades past, even.

Kelsey was pretty scarce on the details. She's visited here before, so she led the way. There have been a handful of other encounters she's had with this guy—and that's the only reason I'm following her into the shadows right now. That, and the pills I took about an hour ago after dinner are now melting my conscience, and warping my judgment.

The shadows seemed to watch us as we ascended the steps. She wasn't afraid. The city of Beacon Hills is generally a pretty quiet place at night, and that night was no exception. The moon was high, illuminating the black, cloudy sky with a crescent, the same shape that my nails made as they cut into the skin of my palms. I was nervous.

Call it a gut feeling. Call it basic survival instincts. Call it the basic use of sight, because it was obvious that a giant deserted warehouse in the middle of the warehouse district was not the safest place in Beacon Hills at half past two in the morning—even for a couple of girls like us. You couldn't count on the police to patrol around here, and I knew no one would be around for blocks. Total isolation, smack dab in the city.

I couldn't even see any pigeons camping out on the power lines or anything. It was just fucking creepy.

"Kelsey," I whispered, and she hushed me.

"Be quiet!" She admonished. "It's just a little further. Is your head okay?"

It wasn't. It was sore as hell, and the stairs weren't helping. I was starting to get woozy and my reflexes weren't as sharp as they usually were thanks to the cocktail of drugs I'd swallowed. How many flights did we have to climb? "This better be fucking worth it," is what I ended up saying.

She hushed me again. "It will be."

We didn't speak until we reached the top of the stairs. Luckily, we only had to climb up two flights. Coulda been worse. Coulda been better, too. The landing wasn't very big. It was cement with rusty metal rails, one corner of which had busted out, leaving a sizeable gap that was just waiting for you to fall through. If you hit the ground you probably wouldn't even die. It wasn't that high up, after all. You'd just break your neck—or worse.

Kelsey approached the door. It was large and industrial, with a small rectangular window. Judging by the looks of it, the inside of this place was even darker than the outside, if that was even possible.

"Here goes nothing," She muttered, which did not instill confidence in me.

For fear of painting the wrong picture, let me clarify by saying that Kelsey wasn't some totally fearless leader in all of this. She didn't seem ready to charge in roaring, fists pounding her chest and consequences be damned. I just couldn't shake the feeling that we were in the process of making a huge mistake—an instinct, by the way, which does not typically register with me—and the closest person I had to gauge reality on was trying to convince me to… what, exactly? She hadn't said.

It didn't matter, now. The door shut behind us, engulfing us in total darkness. "Kelsey!" Irritation singed my nerves and I fully expected her to shush me again, so I had a comeback locked and loaded. To my surprise, it never came. Her fingers sought out mine and wrapped tightly around my hand.

"Just… there should be some stairs. It's not normally this dark!"

"We didn't think to bring a flashlight?"

"It wasn't exactly at the top of my list, no!" Kelsey and I inched along the floor.

Whatever we were walking on, it felt like metal grating. It was pretty damn stable, too. There was no swaying, or creaking. In fact, there wasn't much sound coming from anywhere at all. There might have been some rustling or the occasional squeak from rats, but those noises are so normal to me that they hardly registered.

I was expecting some lighting, for sure. A fire some kind. Perhaps a burning trashcan; that seemed to be a favorite on the streets. The windows were big but they were way higher up than we were, and there weren't nearly enough to really make much of a difference.

The floor suddenly dropped. "Great. More stairs."

"Here, just don't let go," Kelsey said, tightening her grip on your hand. "They're pretty steep, but there's not as many as there were outside."

I tripped over the last two steps and Kelsey panicked when I nearly face planted. Clambering back to my knees, I took her hand and tried not to notice how she shook as she helped me up.

At the bottom of the stairs, she let go of my hand and grabbed my wrist. "This way." She tugged me to the left. Deeper we descended. The floor was a decline, and it felt like we were venturing further into someone's lair, like a couple of bugs about to crawl straight into the middle of a spider's web.

"Hello?" She called, after she stopped us. "Who's there? Derek?"

My eyes were wide as I searched blindly through the dark and strained my ringing ears for any sounds of movement. "I can't hear anything," I told her. "Do you see him?"

"Derek!" She yelled. "Come on! We had a deal!"

"Deal?" A deep voice from far off to the right retorted. It was such a sudden and unexpected response that I jumped about three feet in the air, cursing under my breath. "Is that what we're calling it?"

"Derek, thank God! How can you see a damn thing? Do you have to keep it so dark?"

"Sorry," He said flatly. The sound of footsteps echoed as he came closer to us. "I didn't realize I could control the sun now."

"Can you control a flashlight?" I bit back, and the footsteps quieted. Then, a hesitant step.

"You brought someone else?" He wasn't happy.

"This is Lainey!" Kelsey exclaimed, as if introducing a child or pet to their new friend. "She's got a brain tumor."

"Fuck's sake, Kelsey!" I scowled, smacking her arm.

"Oh, sorry," She murmured, as though she hadn't realized she was being rude. I could practically feel her shrug. "It's true, you know?"

"We didn't agree on two." Derek was close now. He couldn't be more than a few feet in front of us.

"What's the big deal?" Kelsey persisted. "She needs this!"

"I don't even know what 'this' is," I said. "Can someone explain what's happening?"

"You haven't explained?" Derek growled, his annoyance rivaling my own.

"I was getting there!" Kelsey exclaimed, defensively. She pulled me closer. "Can it really cure anything?" She asked, speaking to Derek now.

"Yes," He smoothly replied. "Anything."

"Even cancer?" She prodded.

"Even cancer."

"Okay," She sighed. "She'll do it."

"Wait a minute!" I pushed her away. "You can't decide for me!"

"Lainey, come on! Don't you want to be cured?"

"I told you it's not possible!" I exclaimed, becoming upset now.

"What if it was?" Derek quietly interjected. "Pretend for a second that it was possible. What would you be willing to risk?"

For a long moment I didn't respond. I didn't really want to, to be honest, but I found myself answering anyways, since I'd never really considered the possibility before. "Depends. What are the chances of success?"

"For a healthy person? Pretty good. For someone that's as sick as you?... Fifty-fifty."

I recoiled and Kelsey, as if sensing my hasty rejection, desperately gripped my shoulder. "Wait!" She cried. "Just wait a second, Lainey! Would you just think about it?"

"Fifty-fifty!" I shook my head. "No way! Not if I'm risking my life, those chances are shit!"

"As opposed to what?" Kelsey challenged. I grew quiet. "Fifty-fifty against no chance at all? Lainey, come on."

"This isn't even real!" I suddenly proclaimed, stumbling as I flung my hand out. "He can't actually cure me!"

"Then what do you have to lose?" Kelsey asserted.

"Look, if she's not brave enough then this wouldn't be the right fit for her anyways."

Slowly, I turned towards his voice. "…Excuse me?"

"It seems like you're not cut out for it. If you have no faith in yourself then you'd never make it."

"I have faith in myself—"

"Then what are you afraid of?"

I stared into the dark. Growling, I hissed, "I'm not afraid, you asshole."

"Really? Prove it."

Chapter One

Kelsey was never really a friend, per se. We knew each other, though, and we got along well enough. It's not like we had a ton of options. Mostly, we killed time together.

I've known for a while now. There were treatments for this sort of illness. Lots of them. Trust me. I researched it on the internet after I was diagnosed. The doctors didn't tell me a whole lot at the time, because I was only ten, so they focused on making sure dad understood.

None of the crap I found mattered to him. I went to the library and found three different clinical trials. He pointed out reasons that I wouldn't qualify. The surgeries that were offered were way too expensive, he said. And chemo was absolute hell. He told me I wouldn't survive one round of that shit, and I thought he may be right about that one.

I guess the only upside is that there were no real symptoms. It's a tumor, tucked up in my head somewhere. That much I know. I don't know how it works or what the nitty, gritty details are, but I know that as it gets closer to 'go time' for me, I'll start seizing a lot more and my body will grow weak. They say I still have at least two years before that happens. For now, it's a nearly relentless migraine.

All in all, I'm told that I'm lucky. A lot of people have it worse. I guess that's true. Anyways, as I got older and my hormones kicked in, something inside me changed. I'm not sure if the knowledge that I'm living on borrowed time rotted something inside me, but all I know is the only way for me to feel truly alive was to either (1) drink until I forgot my own name, (2) take pills until I was happy, or (3) find some petty way to fuck my dad over. That last one gets old after a while, though.

I don't stay home much anymore. Lots of people don't care if you crash at their place after a party, and there's always a party happening somewhere in Beacon Hills.

There were people I partied with, and people I knew from the shelter I'd occasionally stay at. It was called The Beacon (original, right?) and they didn't ever ask any personal questions, so it worked when I was feeling desperate and bitter and just wanted to be alone.

Last night had been one of those nights. Kelsey is a girl that I met here at the shelter a while ago. It was still early, and I was nursing a hangover. Besides the cramped rooms they'd stuffed with bunk beds and sleeper sofas, there was the huge, communal room that we all call the rec room. The rec room doubled as a dining room. It was probably about the size of a hospital waiting room and it had several round tables dotted throughout it. Kelsey and I shared the one by the bookshelves.

I had my feet kicked up, and was listening to her tell me about her cousin's new baby.

"She's barely, like, six pounds. They have to keep her in the hospital for another week or something like that. Can you imagine? Six pounds."

"Babies are money pits. Do you know how much it's going to cost her to keep that thing there for a week? They charge you just to get to hold it now. It's a scam."

Kelsey was looking at me like I just told her I thought Avatar was the best movie ever made. "What's wrong with you?" She said. "You know what—don't answer that. You'll just say something rude."

I promptly closed my mouth and returned to shuffling the cards in my hand.

She couldn't seem to let it be. "I mean, don't you want to have babies?"

My back stiffened and my hands froze. For a moment, I didn't speak. She stared at me expectantly until I finally said, "No, I'd die before it even turned three years old. I would never do that to my kid."

"What?" Kelsey frowned and shook her head. "What are you even talking about?"

Pursing my lips, I shrugged a shoulder. "I mean, I'm going to die in two years. So what's the point of having a baby?"

"Shut up," she scoffed, shaking her head again but more in annoyance this time. "You're such a fucking asshole. That's not even funny."

"I'm not joking," I scowled. "If I was joking I'd tell you I don't need one because I love other people's babies. That's just a flat out lie. I don't love other people's anything. Wouldn't you prefer the truth?"

"Oh, okay, so the truth is you think you're going to die in two years? From what? An overdose?"

"No," I made a bridge in the cards and they flicked noisily as they shuffled into place. "A low-grade astrocytoma."

"What the fuck is that?" She snapped, angry now, as she always was when she didn't understand something. "Cut it out!"

"It's a brain tumor." My blunt, matter of fact manner of speaking was only instigating her further. I watched as she stood from the table, her chair screeching across the worn wood and crashing to the floor.

"Stop! Would you just stop? It's not fucking funny!"

Surprised, I focused on her with my most sober expression I could muster, and looked her dead in the eye. "Kelsey, I'm not joking."

For a moment, nothing happened. She just stood there and looked at me. I watched as her expression melted from rage to hesitancy, and finally, fear. "Wait…" She said, her voice weaker. She stepped closer, her hand reaching for something I couldn't offer her. She was obviously confused. "Lainey?"

I looked down, clenching my jaw. This is why I hated having friends. Telling them sucked. "It's not a big deal," I lied with a shrug. "I've known about it for a long time."

"But… but what about, like, medicine?" She grabbed her chair and sat it upright. When she scooted closer to me, she reached out to take my hand, and I let her because she probably needed the comfort. "Isn't there surgery or radiation or something?"

"Forget it, Kelsey. It's not possible for me," I tonelessly told her, my eyes fixed on the card. Two of hearts.

"What are you talking about? Is it too bad?"

"No, I told you; it's low grade."

"Then what?" She shook her head and withdrew her hand, that telltale frustration coming back into her eyes. "Why can't you just get some treatment?"

"My dad," I finally said, shortly. "Everything's too expensive, okay?"

"But won't insurance cover it?"

"We don't have insurance, Kelsey!" I dropped the cards and leaned back in my chair, withdrawing my hand from hers to cross my arms. "God, I knew I shouldn't have told you! It's not a big deal, okay?"

We were quiet then, as Kelsey processed the news and thought about the fact that I couldn't get treatment. "That's fucking bullshit," She told me, and I stayed quiet and sighed. "There's gotta be some kind of program or, like, not-for-profit kinda deal—or some surgeon that would do it prome bone. Something!"

"Pro-bono," I corrected. "Prome bone isn't a thing."

"Fuck off!" She growled. "I know what pro-bono is. Would you just fucking listen? Can't we go to a hospital? I'll come with you! Let's go fill out some forms! Fuck this, you're not dying, Lainey, that's just fucking stupid!"

"I've tried, okay? I can't do shit without my birth certificate!"

"Well go get your fucking birth certificate, then!"

"It's not that easy! I can't!"

"Why not?" She exclaimed, like I was making things more complicated just for my own twisted enjoyment.

I paused, scowling, gritting my teeth and hating that I needed to divulge so much about exactly how fucked up my life was. "My dad sold it, okay?"

Kelsey was horrified. She gaped at me, her mouth hanging open as she tried to understand.

I looked away and hugged my arms to my stomach tighter. "He traded it to some illegal immigrants in exchange for a pound of coke."

She rocketed from her chair again. "Ray is doing coke now?!"

I shrugged irritably at her. "How should I know?!... I don't think so! I mean, I think he just sold the crap to pay someone off! You know how Ray is... He owes everyone in this city something." Bitterly, almost as an afterthought I admitted, "I'm just surprised he didn't try to sell me for real. At least it was just my identity."

"So some little foreign kid is bouncing around using your name?" Kelsey asked in morbid curiosity, and I shrugged. I was telling the truth about Ray; this piece of news would be hard to hear and it is low—even for Ray—but it wouldn't come as too big a shock considering... Well, it's Ray. "So you really can't do anything, can you? Not without an identity. Christ! You can't even get a GED! What the fuck are you going to do?"

"Nothing," I told her, leaning back in my chair to cross my feet and flip through the cards again. "Take another fistful of pills and stay as far away from any government agencies as I possibly can."

"Nope," She stood up and stormed towards the door. The woman who kept track of who stayed the night called after her when she passed by, waving her clipboard, and Kelsey pointed at me as I stood up. "I'm gonna figure this shit out!"

"There's nothing—" I started, and she disappeared through the door. The woman called after her again and I kicked the leg of the table. "Kelsey..." I sighed and looked around the room.

People weren't even worried about it. Not here. They kept their heads down and thought hard about their own miserable lives, and I was left to explain to Clipboard Gina why Kelsey left without checking out.

"Sign there," She told me, pointing at the line by Kelsey's name.

I raised an eyebrow at her. She wanted me to forge? Ordinarily, I wouldn't give a shit, but this place was one of the only sanctuaries I had left in town. I wasn't jumping to ruin that at this exact moment. Impatient, the woman shook the clipboard.

"Do I look like I give a shit?" She snapped, and I grabbed the pen to scribble a line down. "And there," She added, pointing at my own name.

"Oh, come on!" I threw my hands up. "I'm not even done eating yet!"

"You sign or I will!" She threatened. "Either way you're out of here as far as I'm concerned! Girl, there are two things I'm supposed to do in this job. Clean the bathrooms, and get signatures. I ain't havin' another brat leave without signing! I need this job, honey," she finished, unsympathetically.

Muttering a few choice words, I initialed by my name with a clear, bold F. U. and threw the pen down on the table so hard it bounced off and fell to the floor. I yanked my jacket on and stepped around her.

"You gonna pick that up?" She asked.

Bending down, I pocketed the pen and stood back up to present her with my middle finger as I backed away.

"Oh, you can forget comin' back here, you little shit!" She hollered. Lifting the clipboard up high, she made a huge show about stabbing her finger into the paper. "Banned! For LIFE!"

"You can't do that, Gina!" I dug through my pockets for either my cigarettes or my pill bottle, whichever I touched first. As I passed through the door, I think she might have yelled something to the effect of the hell I can't at me, but it's unclear since I was already outside.

It was cold out, and loud. The mid-morning sky was cloudy and the wind nipped at my body through my jacket and sang in my ears. I wrapped my jacket tighter and clenched my jaw. The pressure in my head was enough to make me physically sick. If you've ever had a migraine, you'll know what I mean.

Down the road, in front of a restaurant, a construction crew had torn up the sidewalk. The owner of the restaurant was in a screaming match with the one of the men wearing hard hats, his hands making obscene gestures to the huge mess blocking the entrance to his door. The jackhammers they used were so loud, they might as well have been drilling into my head.

It was just too much. I clutched at my ears and I blacked out for a second, so I can't be sure, but I think I might have cried out just before I fell over. When I came to, someone in a pantsuit was picking me up by my elbow.

I couldn't hear them. Their lips moved and they looked concerned as they helped me stand up straight, but I didn't comprehend a word they said. I shook my head at them and stumbled away. Their hand touched my back one more time before I swatted them off and made my way down the street, away from the noise.

Passing pedestrians dodged me and one car blared its horn at me when I walked straight in front of it, causing them to slam on their brakes. I was so disoriented, I hallucinated that the man in the front seat of the black car had red glowing eyes that glared at me from behind the tinted windshield.

I pushed on. After about a half a block, the ringing in my ears were reduced to the level of a far-off tugboat. The pads of my fingers gently massaged my eyes and I slowed to a stop right where I was, taking slow, trembling breaths.

My hands shook violently as I patted my pockets. Finding the bottle in my jacket, I popped off the lid and shook out some pills. I tossed them in my mouth and struggled not to choke as I swallowed them dry.

Someone grabbed my shoulder. I made the stupid, stupid mistake of stopping right in front of an alley. The traffic in the street didn't even pause to notice as someone pressed something sharply into my back.

I felt breath on my neck and the hand squeezed my shoulder tightly. My hearing was still wonky, so the only sound I could distinguish was a muffled voice, hissing in my ear, and the object at my back threatening to cut right through my jacket.

They guided me off of the street and into the alley. Somehow, tucked back out of sight and away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Beacon Hills, it wasn't so hard to hear.

Manholes were blowing up steam and a few of the windows in the buildings surrounding us were open, but no one poked their face out when I was shoved into the brick wall behind a dumpster.

"Give me your fucking pills!" A crazed man yelled as I struggled catch my balance, skinning my hands on the rough wall. His dirty grey hair was long and thin, and his hands were covered in dirt. He'd been on the street a really long time. It was clear just by looking at him. "Are you fucking retarded?! I said give me your pills, bitch!"

The blade in his hand flashed. It made me sick with anger, but I gripped the pill bottle that was still in my hand tightly. The yellow container rattled as I held it out to him, my other hand still held up defensively.

He took me by the shoulder and pressed me into the wall. Flipping the blade of the knife down, he snatched the bottle from my fingers. His eyes flicked over me. "You got any cash?"

I couldn't even form a coherent word, too physically sick and shaken to process a logical thought. He didn't wait for an answer—though, to be fair, it may have been rhetorical anyways. I flinched when his hand started patting my pockets. He groped at my sides, pressing the knife against my throat in warning when he stepped close enough to bury his fingers deep into the pockets of my jeans. I could feel his knees brush against my thighs and I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath, keeping my face turned away.

He stuffed what little cash I had down his pants and I tried to choke down the vomit that sat heavy in my throat. With a crazed glint in his eye, he undid his pants and eyed me hungrily. "You got short hair, but I think those are supposed to be tits. You a little girl?"

"Go to hell!" I spat on him and he backhanded me without a second's hesitation.

Stars burst in my eyes and I tried not to grunt when he spun me around and shoved me back against the wall, his hand feeling along my lower back and venturing even lower to my ass and between my legs. "Go ahead, little girl. Scream and fight if you want. I like it when they buck. Makes it fun."

His hands were around the front of me and I had no intention of feeding into his sick fantasy. I grabbed the pen from my pocket and tried to swipe at him with it, but he just pushed harder against me and put his hand to my back to press me into the wall until I couldn't breathe. I grunted when he felt around for the fastening of my belt.

Something glass shattered just behind my head and I yelped when the man went stiff. For half a breath, nothing happened. Then, I was yanked backwards as he fell to the side and his arms, locked around my waist, dragged me with him. My head bashed against his bony shoulder and I landed right on top of him. He was skin and bones and the smell of him alone made me sick.

Hysterically, I pried his hands off of me and batted his arms away, clambering to roll off of him. I gawked at his limp body, sprawled across the pavement with broken glass and liquor soaking his hair and the neck of his dirty shirt.

"Hey, kiddo!"

I jumped at the unexpected voice and my head snapped up. I looked straight into the eyes of my father. He still grasped the broken neck of a liquor bottle in his hand. "You owe me a bottle of Castillo."

My head throbbed painfully. This entire situation felt unreal. My father... what was my father doing here? I couldn't fully compute it, didn't want to think about it. Didn't want to think about him saving me. Didn't want to think about him doing something selfless for me, because that would suggest he wasn't a heartless bastard, and if there's anything in this world that I'm absolutely sure about, it's that my father is the worst person I know.

I'm okay. It's just a bad day. Just another really, really shitty, bad day.

Ray was watching me, like he was just as surprised and unsure of himself as I was. I pushed myself up and ignored him. Standing on uncertain legs, I brushed myself off and stepped around him, heading towards the light of day on the street.

"Hey! Wait a minute!" He whined, putting his hands out. "What kinda thanks is that?"

I turned back to glare at him in the dark alley. "What are you doing here, Ray?"

"Ray?" He mocked, stumbling to the side to catch his balance. "How's about a 'dad' every once in a while? I've earned that, don't you think?"

I started towards him and his eyes widened as he straightened up. Misreading the situation, he held his arms out as if to welcome a hug from me, and I placed my hand on his shoulder to shove him aside. He stumbled back with an indignant yell and I went to turn over the unconscious man lying in the alley.

He reeked of sweat, unwashed hair and cheap rum, the subtle metallic hint of blood wafting through. I knew that last part was thanks to my dad. The man's face was unshaven and now that I could get a good look at him I saw that he had a folded, black bandana wrapped around his forehead.

Lately I'd heard about a group of guys cropping up around town. They called themselves the Alibi Gang, named after the bar they frequented about five blocks east of here, and they apparently stole cars and raped women. Their whole shtick was that they always had an alibi, since they vouched for each other and paid off the whole bar to vouch for them too. I shuddered to think how close I'd truly come to… to...

The pill bottle was in his jacket pocket, along with his knife. I took that, too, just for good measure, thinking of other the other women he might have trapped before who might not have been so lucky, and the women who would cross his path after I walk away.

For a moment I held the knife in my hand and looked at him. What would he have done to me? When would he have stopped? Surely not when I started crying. Definitely not before he finished inside me. Would he have left me there, like a used wad of tissues? Or would he have used this knife to cut my throat?

His jeans were still undone, the zipper down and his underwear hanging dangerously low on his hips. I grew still and let a dark thought wash over me, the hilt of the knife hard in my hand. Who would know? It would serve him right, wouldn't it?...

"What's the matter?" Ray asked from behind me. "He's out cold, trust me. Getting hit with a bottle like that when its still got liquor inside is like getting smacked over the head with a brick."

My jaw ached from clenching my teeth. I loosened my grip on the knife and tucked it into the waist of my jeans. Then, retrieving my pill bottle again, I popped it open and shook out another. I lifted my palm and paused because Ray called out.

When I shot him a dirty look, he held his hand down to me and waggled his fingers greedily. "I will be accepting payments in the form of narcotics today."

I wanted nothing more than to grab the nearest blunt object and smack him in the head with it. But, looking down at the man that laid unconscious before me, I knew that I owed him one. So I dumped the pill into Ray's eager hand and sighed as I closed the bottle before he could ask for more. I needed to preserve what I had. It's not an endless well.

"My cash..." I said to Ray, who was now bent over behind the dumpster to collect a jacket and a shoe string. I don't even pretend to understand what he needed that stupid shoe string for, or how he ended up passed out where he did. I suppose it was lucky that I was attacked in the same alley my father had passed out in. He turned around and teetered on his legs slightly. "You're drunk," I noted.

"Did you say something about cash?" He ignored my accusation about his sobriety in favor of focusing on the prospect of free money.

I pointed down at the man below me. "He stuffed it down his pants," I said, shuddering. "I don't… I can't just…"

"Ah," He pleasantly chirped, pushing me to the side. "Get back. And look away. A girl shouldn't see her father's hands down a strange man's pants."

I snorted and rolled my eyes, but still climbed to my feet and turned my back because even though he was ridiculous, he was right. I didn't want to watch him stick his hands down that jerk off's undies.

"Lainey!" He whined a few short moments later. "What am I supposed to do with twenty bucks?"

I hissed as I sprung to snatch the bill from his sticky fingers. His mouth fell open in a pout and he tried lamely to reach for it, but I stuffed it down my bra before he could. "Nothing," I grumbled. "Absolutely nothing."

He sighed loudly and threw a hand up. "For Christ's sake, Lainey! Did I just feel this gentleman up for free?"

"Gentleman? No. You just groped a member of the Alibi Gang. If I were you, I'd wash my hands, Ray."

His reaction was visceral. As soon as the name of the gang crossed my lips, he went pale as a sheet and looked ready to scream. Ray couldn't even string together a sentence through his shock and panic, and I didn't stick around to find out what the fuss was about.

"Lainey!" He called, gesturing wildly at the man as I left. "Lainey, they're gonna kill me!" A thought struck him. He ran towards the end of the alley, to a chain link fence that led to the private courtyard of the apartment building beside us. "Lainey, go home, get in my stash under the sink, and flush it! I'm going to lay low—" And with that, he hopped the fence. "I'll see you next Friday!" He yelled, and I shook my head as I left the alley for good.

Late that night, I sat in a booth at my favorite diner. The food was hot and so was the fry-cook. His name was Antonio, and he had the most breath taking, knee weakening golden eyes, and I liked to fantasize that he and I had a torrid love affair. I dipped my toast into the eggs on my plate, busting the yolk.

The door jingled opened and when I looked up I saw Kelsey headed toward my table. I roughly swallowed the dry toast. My coffee mug was hot under my fingers when I picked it up and took a swig of the bitter caffeine. I'd used seven of my twenty dollars for this hot meal; I'm not about to let it get cold just because she looked like she was on a mission from God himself.

She plopped into the cracked leather booth across from me and smacked what looked like a torn corner of a Chinese restaurant menu on the tabletop, rattling the knife and plate of butter in the center. Kelsey shoved them aside to replace them with the paper and tapped it with her finger. "Your golden ticket, Charlie."

I raised an eyebrow at her and noticed she'd written an address across the scrap of paper. "Oh yeah? Did a chocolate factory open up that I didn't hear about?"

"Not a chocolate factory," She grinned. "An abandoned railroad depot. In the warehouse district."

I gave a theatrical shudder and shoveled some eggs into my mouth. "Sounds spooky."

"It is," She gravely nodded. "But this is the answer to all your problems. I've been planning this for weeks, and I was gonna go alone, but now… You're coming with."

She reached for the slice of bacon on my plate and I smacked her hand away. Kelsey pouted her bottom lip at me pathetically and I viciously bit into the bacon to rub it in her face. "What are you talking about, Kels?"

"Your astroglaucoma!" She said.

I scoffed. "Low-grade astrocytoma."

"Yeah, that! It's gonna be all better. I mean, it's not gonna be easy, and you might die, but hey, that's gonna happen soon anyways right? At least this way there's a chance you'll live past nineteen."

"What's this now?" I put my fork down to listen more closely. "Are you talking about a pill? Why do we have to go to Hell's Kitchen to get it? Is it not FDA approved or something?"

"Definitely not," She smirked. "It's…" Kelsey sighed and cast a look around the diner. Even though it wasn't busy, she eyed the waitress that was refilling someone's cup of coffee a few tables down and said, "You wanna finish eating? We should talk about this somewhere private."

"Whatever," I shrugged.

xxx

"My uncle knew him," Kelsey said. "Well, kind of. I think. Maybe not. Pass the bottle, hog!"

"No!" I said, taking another long swig of vodka. "I almost got raped today, did I mention that? He was really old too! And nasty. What did you do today?"

"I told you, I met up with Derek. Come on—share! That's my vodka!"

"Oh, all right," I relented, holding the drink out to her. The clear liquor sloshed and I giggled and smacked my lips, cringing at the taste. That cheap crap was like nail polish remover. "So start from the beginning, I guess." I leaned back and put my feet up on the bench.

"Okay, okay," She sighed. "Do you know what my uncle did?"

Eyeing her, I tried to read her face in search of an appropriate response. Did I know what her uncle did? To her? Yeah, I knew. But is that what she meant? "He was a piece of shit, Kelsey, what do you want me to say?"

She practically flinched. Her grey eyes darkened and she glared at me, her cheeks flushed from the alcohol. "Not that. I meant, for his job. What he did."

"Oh." I blinked and frowned as I thought back. "No?"

Kelsey sighed and swung her leg over her bench on the other side of the picnic table. We'd left the diner and took a short hike through downtown to the city park. Here, we had privacy. Anyone still around this part of town at night kept to themselves.

Plus, I slept here occasionally, and I stopped by my house to grab that stash my dad had talked about earlier. They were pills. Of what, I had no way of knowing. My dad and I had a similar taste for substance abuse. Uppers, downers, all-arounders—anything, as long as it was prescription, and alcohol for in between doses.

I was saving the pills for after story time. After all, I wanted to remember this part in the morning, didn't I?

Look, I'm a shitty person, and I will fully own up to that if anyone asks. But I don't want to misrepresent the situation. I didn't know much about Kelsey's uncle because I didn't ask about her uncle, and she didn't ask about my dad or my family, and we had a pretty shallow friendship, if I'm totally honest. I don't even know why I told her about my illness. I needed to tell someone, I guess. Some things just can't stay locked away. Especially if they're killing you.

Kelsey flicked the hairband on her wrist, lost in thought. She did that when she thought of her uncle, I noticed. But he died last year. Killed by a mountain lion on one of his famous hunting trips. He'd taken Kelsey with him, and she'd found him afterwards, but she didn't ever like to talk about that—not that I could blame her. Well, served him right, if you ask me.

"He was kind of a jack-of-all-trades, I guess. He did jobs for people." Kelsey's voice always turned cold when she spoke of him. "Pretended to be a valet at a nice restaurant that didn't really have valet, and then stole their car, and then sold it to a garage to flip. Beat up someone who owed someone else money. Sold drugs, and guns. But his specialty was… burning things down and making it look like an accident."

"Jesus," I breathed. I grabbed the bottle of vodka and took three long, deep gulps, and wiped my mouth with the back of my sleeve. I'd need it to listen to this, apparently. The drink warmed me up and I set it down and pushed it across the table to her. "Did he teach you any of that?"

She gave me a funny look. "No. He only wanted me for three things: cooking, cleaning, and… our 'special' time. Teaching me what to use to melt through drywall wasn't really a bonding moment for us."

I scoffed. "Typical. Like I said, he's a worthless piece of shit."

"Yeah," She dryly agreed, tapping her knuckle on the tabletop. "Anyways, I'll leave out all the boring stuff to tell you the important part. He and, like, two of his buddies helped burn down this guy's house."

"His house?"

"With his family still inside." My memory clicked then, and my eyes bulged.

"Yeah! I know what the Hale Fire is! Your uncle did that?"

"Not by himself!" She qualified, as if that made a bit of fucking difference. "There was a lot more to it than that. My uncle and his buddies were just… one small part of the scheme. It's complicated."

"And you expect this guy to just forget that he burned his family alive?"

"No! He doesn't know."

"Great!" I exclaimed with fake enthusiasm. "Well, he's gonna trust us for sure! He'll probably even ask us to tell our friends about him!"

"First of all, you don't have any friends. Second of all, if you want to be miserable for the rest of your short life, then get lost. But this guy is the Real Deal—capital R, D. And we only get one shot at this. So are you in or what?"

I stared her down, and a long silence ensued as I thought my options over. Later, I would blame it entirely on the alcohol and whatever pills I took before we left. But sometimes I wonder if I would have done the same thing stone cold sober.

She watched me scratch at my eyebrow and I could tell her offer was about to expire. Finally, after what must have felt like an eternity to her, I sighed. "Fine. I'm in. What's the plan?"

I don't know if you've ever gone on a bender, but take it from someone who's had years of experience… waking up is the worst part. I've never really seen myself as a weak girl. Or maybe that's just the self-righteous view I have of my own nature.

But that morning when I woke up, I knew I'd fucked up. Everything hurt. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to lie down. It hurt to sit up. And it definitely hurt to stand. I almost fell over. For a long moment, I didn't even recognize my own house.

Everything was tinged in black. "Fuck, Ray…" I muttered, cursing my dad for whatever pills he unknowingly provided me with last night. "A plague on your house."

Talking hurts, too.

I was in the bathroom. Pro tip… sleep near a toilet. Pain and sickness radiated from my stomach to my chest to my head to my throat, and I didn't even have time to get on my knees before I was throwing up.

I think my insides must have liquefied. I'm pretty sure if someone x-rayed me, I'd be empty. I would be convinced of that, in fact, if it wasn't for my heart throbbing in my head. Definitely not supposed to be there. Definitely not.

The linoleum was a fucking mess. My shoulder felt hot, and I realized when I reached up to push my bangs off my forehead that the flesh in the crook of my shoulder stung.

I tried to look down at it, my mouth twisting down in concentration. My vision spotted again and I took a shuddering breath and grabbed the zipper of my jacket, slowly tugging it down. I pushed away from the toilet to have more room, pressing my back against the tub as I peeled layer after layer of tops off.

Once I was down to my bra, I grabbed hold of the edge of the tub. It squeaked slightly when my sweaty hand slipped, and I gasped as I almost fell.

I leaned on the wall for support and continued to stand still until the room stopped twirling like a top. The floor still teetered, but I managed the few staggering steps that were necessary to reach the sink, and collapsed against it.

To say that I looked like death incarnate would be the understatement of the century. My skin was pallid and damp with sweat. My hair, which is ordinarily short and brown, looked slick with grease and was still sticking up on the top of my head where I'd pushed it back.

But that's not captured my attention. My eyes were fixed, rapt, on the festering wound at the top of my shoulder. I blinked rapidly, hard, trying to clear my vision, trying to calm my heart. I wasn't afraid. I was hurt, not afraid. I wasn't afraid. So why were breaths so short?

An image flashed in my mind. Shadows, moving. Cool breeze and clouds in the night sky covering a crescent moon. My voice, whispering…

"Kelsey?"

"Be quiet!" She urged. "It's just a little further. Is your head okay?"

It wasn't. It was sore as hell, and the stairs weren't helping. I was woozy and everything moved sluggishly and felt unnerving thanks to the cocktail of drugs I'd swallowed. How many flights did we have to climb? "This better be fucking worth it," was what I ended up saying.

She hushed me again. "It will be."

I gasped at the memory. Confusion and disorientation made it hard to think rationally. All I knew was my shoulder hurt and it was still bleeding, and I have the most sickening feeling about last night. My lip trembled as I touched the raw, angry flesh. Were those… teeth marks?

A crash came from outside the bathroom and I almost collapsed in fright. It was coming from the living room, I thought. I heard the sound of a cup being knocked over on the glass coffee table. Something else fell and there was a thud as someone moved around.

I opened the medicine cabinet and grabbed a pair of hair shears from the cup we kept inside. The sounds continued, and I grabbed the doorknob with a trembling grip.

Pushing the door open, I stepped into the hall. The sounds had stopped. It was quiet now, and I tried to stay as silent as possible as I crept along the hall and stayed close to the wall, my hands brushing over pictures and decorations as I went. I stopped at the end and peered into the mirror hanging on the wall. In it, you could see the far side of the living room, where the TV was.

The couch was nearby but you couldn't quite see the footrest on the end. Our TV was old, though, and it had a black glass screen. It was dusty but I thought I could see the shape of someone sitting on the couch.

Ray? I wondered. I tightened my grip on the shears and stepped out.

I gasped. "Kelsey!"

Her head snapped up from where she'd previously been cradling it, and I sighed in relief at the sight of her. She didn't look so bad. A little tired, perhaps, and she needed a shower, but she was outwardly fine.

"Lainey," She breathed. "We did it! We actually did it!"

"What are you talking about?" My voice was little more than a toneless, strained croak.

Kelsey waved me over. Her excitement grated my nerves. I was in no mood for whatever she had planned; I really just wanted to bury my nose in a cup of coffee and a plate of hash browns and not talk for the next half an hour, at least. I was about to say as much, when she lifted the bottom of her shirt to point excitedly at her hip. There was a fresh, bleeding wound, similar to the one on my shoulder. It was on her hip, though. She bounced slightly on the couch as she gestured to it.

"We did it!"

Author's Note: Please leave a Review!

Chapter song: Black Water by Reuben and the Dark (this isn't a songfic; some chapters will have a song or two I name at the end that fits the mood.)