(Nathaniel Buzolic as Nicholas Hale)

Chapter Zero

The pain was torturous, but all he could do was pressing his hand to the bleeding wound and keep going. There was no time for a break or catching his breath. Running, he had to run. That was all he could do.

For each step he seemed to take, they took two. Everywhere were trees and more trees. He wasn't sure he ever had seen so many trees before!

He had to stop. He had to rest, or figure out a way to get away. He needed a plan, keep running wasn't a good one. Ten or twenty minutes, give or take, was all he might have left before his body would drop him.

'Dammit!' there were only trees. There were nowhere to hide! Nowhere to make a… trap! He needed a trap!

Trees, trees, and more trees. 'Come on, think!' He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry out loud. If he could, he would even have taken back everything he had promised himself and bond with a Banshee there and now if it meant he could survive.

"There, more blood!" a man's voice could be heard from behind. It made him press his hand tighter to the wound. The painful, torturing wound what left its trace. 'Up, I have to get up!'

Getting up wasn't much of a problem, there were trees everywhere and he took the closest one he could and start to climb. His hands didn't have nails anymore, it had claws and they were dug into the tree to pull him up. For one thing, he was happy he didn't have shoes on and could use his feet too.

'Stupid, meaningless… shit!' he had come up and settled himself down on a branch to lean against the tree. Their footsteps came closer and they were soon beneath him. He put a hand over his mouth to ease his breathing and the other was still pressed against his wound. His nails back to nails.

The man's voice from before yelled out again. Filled with angry and hat.

"Where is he!" It echoed through the forest and the night. The moonlight was bright, different from others night. Almost like magic, but it wouldn't help him any more than it helped the hunters. "Someone finds him!" the man number one ordered and they split up. Three men, they split up and this was the only chance he would get to beat them.

They hadn't noticed him jet, giving him the chance for the element of surprise too. He had the advantage now. This was his home field and if he was going to die, he would at least take the three with him to hell.

It was a pain, but he gritted his teeth and stood up. Making the jump to another tree and then to another and on. Following the hunter that had the gun. Once he and the hunter was a good distance from the two others, he took the moment and jumped down. His claws out again and dug them right into the hunter's throat before his feet even touch the ground.

'I hate hunters,' he took his claws out from the hunter's throat and run to hide behind the closest tree just before the two others came running over from where they had been.

"He's dead." the man number one said, probably checking his friends whiled opened wound.

This was the time for the second attack, as he ran out from behind the tree and hit the other hunter before he could rise his crossbow. Leaving the man number one, the obvious leader, a too open chance to shot, which he took. The bullet went right through his shoulder and when another hit his stomach and a third went right into his knee, making him fall down.

"Omegas, they are so weak." the hunter said and walked over to aim his gun right against the forehead.

"I thought hunters was intelligent?" Nicholas question the man number one. The one with a gun to his forehead, which he did not like. "Because you should know, I'm not an omega." Before even finish his line or give the hunter a chance to think, he attacked.

His teeth had grown like his nails had become claws before. Four, two up and two down, sharp teeth were dug into the hunter's neck and he was fighting to get free, he even shoot with the gun without knowing what he was hitting. But he wasn't released, Nicholas wasn't letting him go before he stop to move. Before the man's heart stop to beat and his breath was dead. That's when Nicholas let go and took some good steps back before falling down. He was pleased and smiled even if the pain was killing him more than it had before. Thinking he knew what pain was, it was nothing like what he experience now.

"It would be fine if you could help me now." He whispered up to the thin air.

New footsteps were heard and soon a hand took a grip around Nicholas' arm and put it around a man's shoulder.

"You sure took you time to get here." the man who helped him up said. A dark and serious tone as Nicholas remembered it. He let out a laugh but stopped once he understood it was a bad idea and instead, a painful low sound escape between his lips. "Come on."

The man helped him stand and walk as they made their way through the forest to a house. He explained the cups would found the hunters as they already were searching for another body. Nicholas' mother's body with he already had taken care off. They soon were out from the forest and stood in front of a house. An old house.

"It's a wreck!" Nicholas exclaimed when he saw the house. The house he had been born in. the house that still suffered from the fire that killed almost all of its resident.

"It has stood here for as long as the Hale family and been in a fire, remember?" his uncle said.

"We're not going to live here, are we?" Nicholas asked, looking at his uncle with a raised eyebrow and praying to God or however control the world, what he would say now and then take them to a five-star hotel or amazing house or apartment, but that didn't happen.

"It has a roof and isn't just some old cave in the middle of nowhere."

"It's a house that barely seems to stand and if I recall, we are out in the middle of a forest." Nicholas pointed out, crushing his uncles try to make it sound somewhat good.

"Let's just get you inside and looked over. You have school tomorrow." He started to take them over to the house, but at the word; school, Nicholas stopped.

"What do you mean with school?" Nicholas asked angrily. "I don't need school! I'm eighteen years old, for God's sake!" His uncle didn't let him stop them and pulled them inside. Nicholas sat down on a couch, or what would appear to be an old couch.

"Before I found you, there was a kid bitten. I want you to watch him for me."

"If you haven't forgotten, I came to help my mother kill a werewolf, not to train a newborn beta. Which reminds me, I won't stay. My mother is dead and Beacon Hills is way too dangerous for me to stay in." Nicholas informed.

"You are going to school," his uncle said and there was no chance he would take a no for an answer, "I have enrolled you and you are going without complaints. You will go as Nicholas Mark and-"

"Mark? Really?" Nicholas quested. His uncle walked over to him and start to treat his wounds. "Alright, we both know what you want, uncle Derek. You want the power the wolf took from my mother, but what do I get if I help you?"

"What about we make a deal," Derek said, "If you help me, I will help you after I have my pack. We will have the same enemies and we help one another."

"I have been running from them since I was ten, what do you think you can do?"

"Give you strength. So, what do you say?"

It wasn't a bad deal. Plus, he would be safe in Beacon Hills for a while, maybe long enough for Derek to actually become an Alpha and then maybe it all would end.

"Alright, we have a deal," Nicholas answered. "But I'm not your beta and I will only attend school in one condition."

"What?"

"I'm going as a Hale."