I don't own Darkest Powers.

For Mrs. fictionalcharater, who suggested I write this a while back. Good call, I just hope it lives up to your expectations.

*Please read the AN at the bottom, it'll just explain my thinking on the story. It's a little different from what I normally write, but overall I think… it turned out the way we all wanted it to.

FOR OTHER STORIES IN DEREK'S POV, CHECK MY PROFILE, I'VE GOT TONS.

I dumped the girl over the fence. I had to get her out of my line of sight or I was sure she'd get hurt. By me.

Behind me, Chloe seemed to be getting up as slowly as possibly. I grabbed her by the collar and pulled her up.

"Move!" I yelled at her, but instead, she bent down to grab something.

I was furious. She hadn't listened once this night and now she's stopping to smell the roses. I shoved her, urging her to move, then tore off in front of her to lead her away from the alley.

As we ran, the whole scene played out in my head again and again making me even madder. This all could have been prevented if Chloe had just listened. She had almost been cut by that girl, and that girl had almost been seriously injured had I thrown her. It all just lead back to the simple fact, that Chloe hadn't listened to me.

Furious, I spun around. I don't know what the expression on my face was, but it made Chloe flinch back, something she rarely did with me. It made it worse. I couldn't believe she was pulling this on me now after all of what happened was her fault.

I grabbed her arm, stilling her. "Did I tell you to stay put?"

"Yes, but—

So she knew what she did was wrong, but she did it anyways. "Did I tell you to stay put!" I said, louder this time.

She looked around. Did she really think I'd be stupid enough to pull her somewhere where people could hear us talking? I'd made sure to come in back of these stores, made sure to stop where no one was looking.

She looked back at me. "Yes, you did. But you also told me to watch out for Tori, and she took off."

And that's what it came down to. Chloe was always trying to do things for the greater good of others, always seeing their better sides. Every one thought Tori was a bitch, of course Chloe would go after her, because no one else would. But Tori left Chloe behind.

"I don't give a rat's ass about Tori. If she walks away, let her. If she steps in front of a bus, let her." I'm not sure if I actually meant it, but I wanted to get the point across.

Chloe looked up, but didn't say anything. She peeled my fingers off her arm. I'd forgotten I'd grabbed her, but now I realised my hand was cramping and I was wondering just how hard I was grabbing her. I clenched and unclenched it, working off the cramp, trying not to do anything else to hurt her.

"If she takes off, let her go. I don't care what happens to her." I made sure to lower my voice, trying to get her to understand without yelling anymore.

As always, she had her mind set and had no interest in changing it. "I do." She said.

I took a step away from her so I could rub my arm. I hadn't realized I had gotten so close and it was always unnerving to have to be the first to move away, most people weren't shy to stay as far away as possible.

When I looked up, she was watching me. I stopped, hoping she wouldn't bring it up. I was sure she would, so before she could say anything I emphasized the fact that it was a normal itch.

She jumped on it as a first chance to change the subject. "Have you had any other symptoms? Fever or—"

"No." I snapped. I had hoped she wouldn't do this, always putting others in front of herself, and always changing the subject when it went somewhere she couldn't handle it. "Don't change the subject. You need to be more careful, Chloe. Like earlier, with that body. You need to think about what happened."

It was a low blow, I knew she hadn't meant to raise that body. I just didn't know how else to get to her.

But she was already on top of it. "And what about you?" She pointed to my arm and I hadn't realized I'd started scratching again. "The werewolf who hasn't had his first Change yet, but knows he's developing fast. Yet when you started getting restless, feverish, itchy it never occurred to you that you might be Changing early? You let it slide until it starts on the night we're supposed to escape."

Not exactly the way it went but still. "I wasn't going with you guys—"

"But if I hadn't stayed to find you, Simon wouldn't have left. You could have botched the escape because you didn't know what was happening to you."

I was getting frustrated that the blame was turning on me. Of course, she had a point, I wasn't totally blind to what was happening to me. At this point, I couldn't tell her that. "I didn't."

"Like I didn't know I could raise the dead in my sleep. But did I chew you out? Did I even mention how close I came to getting caught because I stayed to help?"

I could see what she was getting at. She wanted me to lay off, give her some slack when she had stayed silent threw my mistakes. But I didn't care, I had to look away and clench my teeth to avoid yelling at her. Fighting with her was so different then it was with anyone else. People usually backed down, but she refused. It was like fighting to stay on top of the argument with her, just keep piling on the facts until one gives under the weight of the arguments.

"I tried to help you too. And I got this." I said pointing to the scratches on my face.

"Because I woke up with a guy pinning me to the floor! I know you were trying to keep me from seeing that zombie crawling on me. Good plan, poorly executed. Then you totally lost patience and kept barking orders." She said. That was exactly what happened, and I knew I deserved it, but the way she explained it made me sound like I was attacking her. I had woken her up and tried to explain, she just moved too fast and startled me. I had to stop her from seeing that thing crawling up her body. Then, instead of handling it better, I started yelling. It seemed that's all I was good at.

"I was trying to help." I said.

"And what if I'd done that to you? Yelled at you to finish Changing before we got caught?" She said. The expression on her face was so reasonable. Now she was trying to even this out.

I wanted to. "I…About that night. I haven't said…" There was no time for this. She had totally managed to change the subject on me and I had let her. "We need to get back. Simon will be worried about you."

We started walking. Bringing up Simon seemed to be the only way to get Chloe to cooperate. He'd been so upset when we came back to find Chloe and Tori missing. Can't Chloe see that he cares? She has no right to run off and do that. The longer the silence stretched out, the more I thought about the girl I was about to throw, the boy I had hurt. Chloe had almost made that happen.

I turned on her. "Next time when I tell you to stay, I mean stay."

She looked right back at me, face unreadable, voice even. "I'm not a dog, Derek."

My jaw tensed in anger. "Maybe not, but you obviously need someone to look after you, and I'm tired of doing it." Between the bodies crawling in the night and being chased and shot with tranquilizer darts, I had had enough of it. Then she looked at me funny when I got mad at her for not listening.

"Don't." She said.

"Don't what?"

"Didn't we agree to stop bickering?"

Bickering? She thought that's what we were doing? I'm trying to keep her safe—that's all I'm trying to do and she pulls this crap every time. "This isn't—"

"You're mad at yourself and you're taking it out on me."

She said it so—she had no right to say that—I was furious. Without thinking I took a few steps closer, yelling again. "I'm mad at you, Chloe. You took off. You got in trouble. I had to rescue you."

She had backed up, pressed up against the chain fence as far as it could go, shrinking away from me.

"And stop doing that. Backing away, giving me that look."

"Like you're scaring me? Maybe you are."

I wrenched myself backwards, so shocked by what she was saying, nearly tumbling down, something I never do. The one person who was never afraid of me, always sure I'd never hurt her even when I gave her every reason to think I would. If she was scared of me, there was no chance that anyone else wouldn't be. I didn't want her to be afraid of me. I never had, making sure she didn't find out I was a werewolf, always looking after her because if she wasn't around, there was no one else but Simon and Dad who actually liked having me around.

I pulled myself together in a second. "I'd never hurt you, Chloe. You should know—" I stopped. I didn't have to explain myself to her. She was the one getting into trouble. When I tried to help, she pushed me away, made me feel bad.

Instead, I turned around. "Next time? Handle it yourself. I'm done taking care of you."

I went in the general direction that would lead me to Simon, not caring if she followed. I didn't her footsteps, so she probably wasn't. I wanted to turn around, see if she was alright.

But I couldn't. I had just told her off and that would be like losing, helping her after I told her I wouldn't. So I kept going and soon enough, her quiet footsteps followed.

AN-Today my muse was—ironically—Muse-Supermassive Black Hole, and not so ironically, The Good Life-Three Days Grace. They're catchy.^^

Not the point. This is a part of the book when Derek gets mad at Chloe, even though he is doing it to protect her, it's hard to put those thoughts in. Because really, Derek isn't one to sit around and think, "Gee, I like Chloe and even though I mad at her, I'm going to think warm, fizzy thoughts about her." His thoughts have to lead up to what he's about to say so some are repetative because he doesn't let things go easily. I did try my hardest to make sure he still felt some consideration towards Chloe's health and well being. I'm sorry this story couldn't be more mushy, I honesty tried my best. With school coming up, I've spent my week trying to write this story while I still had my ideas down pat, get all my school stuff in order and keep my brothers in line. I hope you enjoyed this story, it's been awsome writting it.

I realize AN are annoying, but I really appretiate poeple who take the time out to read them. Please Review, this story made me a little nervouse towards the out come.

FOR OTHER STORIES IN DEREK'S POV, CHECK MY PROFILE, I'VE GOT TONS.