Notes: Wow, these chapters are way longer than I anticipated. Beta by Dusty, one of the few people who actually think I'm funny.
Chapter Two: "Where The Heart Is"
Cora's alarm clock went off at 7:00, because she'd forgotten to turn it off. Cora slapped blindly at the clock until it shut up. It was cold in the attic, and the schools were closed that day for some teacher thing, so she burrowed under her covers and went back to sleep.
She woke up again when she started coughing.
Cora's room was filled with smoke. She tried to sit up, but couldn't; her body wouldn't obey her instructions.
There was a noise from the nightstand. Cora struggled to turn her head and saw the antique wooden box shaking, the lid straining against the latch. Like something inside was trying to get out.
Cora tried to sit up again. It was like there was a tremendous weight holding her down. Her fingers twitched.
She focused on that sensation. First she curled her fingers, then rotated her wrist. It was exhausting, and it hurt, and Cora could barely breathe.
After what seemed like forever, she flung her arm out. It landed on the nightstand. She reached for the box, fingers brushing the latch, crying from the effort.
Her fingernails caught the edge of the latch. Cora flipped it open.
The box's lid sprang up and back, and the parchment inside blew up into the air, as if carried by a breeze. It meandered, back and forth, and landed over Cora's nose and mouth.
Annoyed, Cora sat up and pulled the parchment off her face. Then she froze.
She'd sat up.
Cora swung her legs off the bed and stood. Whatever had been holding her down was gone.
She ran to the door. She hissed in pain when she grabbed the handle, and yanked her hand back. The doorknob was scalding hot.
The smoke was getting thicker. From downstairs came the roar of something burning. The house was on fire.
Cora coughed and turned, looking around the attic. She didn't dare try the door again. The only other way out was through the window.
She tested the latch. The window was supposed to open, but the frame had been painted so many times that it had been effectively sealed shut. Cora scratched at the seal with her claws, coughing, vision blurring.
Then she gave up and broke the glass.
It cut her as she climbed through. Cora lost her grip on the outside ledge and fell.
She landed hard on dry grass, and felt her ribs crack all along one side.
Cora screamed and pulled herself up to her knees. She heard voices from the other side of the house; voices she didn't recognize.
She was supposed to run. Hide. Wait for the pack to come find her.
Cora stumbled to her feet and sprinted into the woods.
Hours later, she realized she was still clutching the sheet of parchment.
o
Cora's eyes snap open. She gasps, but the air is clean, reeking of antiseptic. It's dark. There's something in Cora's arm, something sharp; she reaches over and yanks the IV needle out.
A hand touches her arm, and Cora snarls, lashing out. Her wrist is caught and held. Cora struggles against it, lets her fangs drop.
"Cora, it's okay!"
Cora goes very still. She knows that voice.
The lamp next to her bed switches on, revealing a face. Derek's face. Derek, if he'd lived, if he'd grown up and grown into his long, lanky body.
Cora says, "I'm still dreaming, aren't I?"
Derek pinches her arm.
"Ow!" She pulls her wrist out of Derek's hand and rubs the sore spot. Then what just happened catches up with her, and she shoves him back. "Get away from me!"
"Cora—"
"Don't," Cora snaps. "Don't even try it, there's a dozen different things that impersonate dead people. You can't fool me. What are you? An eidolon? A fetch?"
"Cora," the thing with Derek's face says, "You used to make me watch The Goonies with you. We saw it over a dozen times and wore out Dad's old VHS copy. You knew every line off by heart."
Tears spring to Cora's eyes; she blinks them away. "Derek?"
"You wanted a fish tank but Mom said no, so Laura and I drove you to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for your eleventh birthday. You told me you were going to steal a baby shark and keep it in the bathtub."
"But you're dead," Cora says, voice shaking. "You're dead, everyone died, I'm the only one left—"
Derek edges forward. "Laura and I weren't home," he says, and he sounds like he's walking on broken glass, like it hurts to talk. "We had school that day. We weren't in the house."
"You didn't come find me!" Tears roll down Cora's face; she can't stop them anymore. "I did what I was supposed to, I hid, I waited, but nobody came to get me!"
Derek surges forward and wraps her up in a hug, squeezing so tight it almost hurts. "I'm sorry," he says. "Cora, I'm so sorry, I didn't know—"
Cora buries her face in his shoulder and, in a tiny, quiet voice, says, "Why didn't you come and get me?"
o
It's almost noon when Lydia opens the door to Cora's hospital room and says, "Hi."
"… Hi," Cora replies, sitting on the edge of the bed. She's dressed in the clothes she was wearing when they found her in the woods: jeans and a t-shirt. The shirt has a large, dark brown stain near the collar.
Lydia says, "You don't recognize me, do you?"
"… You're Lydia Martin, right? Derek said you saved my life."
Lydia approaches the bed and stands at its foot. "You're being discharged?"
"Yeah," Cora says. She watches Lydia carefully, but avoids eye contact. "There's nothing medically wrong with me, so…"
"Can I ask you a few questions, before you leave?"
Cora's eyebrows come down, but she says, "Sure, I guess."
Lydia nods. "You're aware that you're legally dead?"
"Derek told me," Cora says. "He said everyone thought I died in the fire." After a moment, she adds, "Why, though? I mean, my body wasn't—"
"Most of your family's bodies weren't intact," Lydia says. "The house partially collapsed as it burned, so the remains were scattered and damaged."
Cora doesn't flinch, or look at all unsettled. She's meeting Lydia's eyes now, genuinely interested in what she's saying.
Lydia continues, "In situations like that, sometimes the best the authorities can do is establish the minimum number of individuals present. In this case, eight. The body count was later updated to ten, when it looked like Peter Hale was the only survivor."
Cora's eyes narrow. "So they declared me dead because of… what? A guess?"
"An educated guess, based on who was known to have been in the house at the time."
"Well, they guessed wrong."
"Clearly," Lydia says. "What about the man who attacked you? Who was he?"
Cora shrugs. "A hunter."
It's a lie, or at least not the whole truth, but Lydia doesn't have the grounds to dispute it. The man she shot had no ID on him, his fingerprints and dental records turned up no results, and the guy whose face Derek broke managed to sneak away while Cora was being rushed to the hospital.
Lydia has a plane to catch. She'll have to worry about this later.
"Okay," Lydia says. "We're done. Thank you, Cora."
"Thanks," Cora says, as Lydia heads for the door. "For saving my life, I mean."
Lydia gives her a quick, close-lipped smile, says, "You're welcome," and leaves.
o
Derek pulls up outside his apartment building—it looks like a converted warehouse or factory or something—kills the engine, and then just… sits there, hands on the steering wheel. Cora undoes her seatbelt and waits.
Neither of them said anything the whole drive over. Cora doesn't really know where to start. 'How have you been' seems a little frivolous, under the circumstances.
"You can stay as long as you want," Derek finally says. "Right now there's just the couch, but if you want a bed, we can get one."
"Okay," Cora says, and isn't sure what to say next. "Thanks."
"Okay," Derek says. He nods like he's psyching himself up for something, undoes his seatbelt, and gets out of the car.
They ride the freight elevator up to the top floor, because it's the only elevator, and before Derek slides open the big metal door to his apartment, Cora catches the scent of another werewolf.
Scratch that; other werewolves. At least four. Derek has a pack.
Cora experiences a brief and confusing moment of anger, but it's gone before she can analyze it.
There's a guy sitting on the couch with a laptop, typing intently, and a kid—maybe sixteen or seventeen years old—in the kitchen, standing in front of the open fridge.
The guy says, "Isaac, quit doing that. The Food Fairy didn't visit in the five minutes since the last time you looked in the fridge." Then he looks up from the computer, sees Derek and Cora, and bounces up off the couch. "Hey. Hi."
"That's Stiles," Derek says, gesturing to the guy, and then nods at the kid in the kitchen. "And that's Isaac."
Isaac is taller than Derek, skinny, with tousled hair. He closes the fridge and says, "Can we order pizza?"
"Sure," Derek says. He turns to Cora. "Do you still hate mushrooms?"
"I'll eat anything," Cora says.
"Even spinach and feta?" Stiles says. "Because that's what Derek's getting. Because he's weird."
"Because it's delicious," Derek corrects. "And you're not in a position to judge. You still haven't shut up about that pirogi pizza you had in Canada."
"It was really good!"
Stiles appears to consist of at least 90% arms and legs. Cora sniffs; he's human. He seems harmless, but there's a look in his eyes that Cora doesn't like. She imagines it's what lab rats see when they look up at the man with the clipboard. Like Stiles is taking note of everything Cora says and does and filing it away for later.
Stiles says, "Derek, can I talk to you for a second?"
Derek nods, and Stiles meets him in the corner of the room, near the spiral staircase up to the second floor. Isaac fiddles with his phone, obviously eavesdropping, so Cora feels less guilty about doing the same.
"Do you think Cora would be more comfortable if me and Isaac weren't here?" Stiles says, voice low. "Because we can ditch if you need us to."
"It's fine," Derek says.
"Are you sure?"
Derek steps closer, reaches out to brush the fingers of one hand against Stiles' arm. "I want you to stay. Please."
"Okay."
Isaac says, "Stiles, are you gonna order?"
"Nope," Stiles says, walking around Derek to the kitchen. "Your idea, your phone call."
Stiles and Isaac start bickering, the kind of low-grade persistent bicker that has clearly been going on for a long time and always picks up exactly where it left off. Derek sits next to Cora on the couch.
It's familiar, but it isn't.
Derek says, "I've been trying to find a way to ask…"
"You want to know where I've been for the last seven years."
"Yeah," Derek says with a sigh. "I understand if you don't want to talk about it."
Cora stares at the floor, trying to sum it all up in a way that Derek will accept. "I've been… traveling. I never really stayed in one place for long."
o
Cora had no idea what to do.
Mom had told her to hide and wait for the pack to come get her. She hadn't told Cora what to do if the pack was gone. Maybe she would've, once Cora was older.
Cora ran east, then south. She avoided the roads and towns, although sometimes she had to sneak in close enough to steal food or clothes. The trees eventually petered out and disappeared, leaving nothing but rocks, grass, and sky. It got too cold to sleep out in the open at night.
Cora hid in the shadow of a rock and watched the barn carefully. It was a little too close to the house; if the animals inside made too much noise, she'd be found out. But it was getting late, and Cora had no idea how far it was to the next ranch.
The wind shifted, bringing with it the smell of cow. Cows were good. Some of them didn't like wolves very much, but most were too stupid to see her as a threat.
Cora crept across the field, keeping low to the ground. She found a gap between the barn's wall and floor just large enough to wriggle through, and the dark, musty warmth of the barn washed over her.
After a second, Cora's eyes adjusted to the dark. She cocked her head to the side. There was a bed in here, and a little nightstand with a lamp on it. The bed's occupant was slightly too big for it.
The bed-covers stirred. The shape of a head emerged, and large, wet eyes blinked slowly at Cora in the darkness. There was a snort, followed by an inhale.
The whatever-it-was sprang from the bed, landing on two feet. It was much, much bigger than Cora. A terrified bellow echoed through the barn.
Cora scrambled back to the hole in the wall, squeezed through, and ran. She didn't know what direction she was going in; all she knew was that she had to get away.
She tripped, fell, and looked up into the muzzle of a shotgun.
The woman on the other side of the gun snapped, "Don't move!"
"I'm sorry!" Cora blurted out, on reflex.
The woman fumbled in her pocket, retrieving a flashlight. Cora squinted in the blinding light.
"Jesus," the woman said, lowering the shotgun. "You're just a kid. What the hell are you doing out here?"
o
Cora opens her eyes and, for a few seconds, has no idea where she is. There's a rough pillow under her cheek. Cora leans up onto her elbow and looks down.
Derek's asleep on the floor next to the couch, another of the couch's throw pillows under his head. At some point, somebody draped a blanket over him.
From the kitchen, Cora hears Isaac say, "I don't think it's supposed to look like that."
Stiles stands in front of the stove, doing something with a frying pan, and Isaac leans against the counter a few feet away. Cora carefully steps over Derek and walks to the kitchen. "What are you doing?"
Stiles glances over his shoulder and says, "Experiments in food."
"It's supposed to be French toast," Isaac says.
"Experiment failed."
There's a dull thump, and the contents of the frying pan burst into flame.
Calmly, Stiles says, "Baking soda." Isaac hands it over, and Stiles dumps it onto the grease fire.
Isaac says, "I'll go take the battery out of the smoke detector. Again."
Cora hears a sharp intake of breath from behind her.
Derek's still asleep, but his brow is furrowed and his claws are out. His breathing speeds up.
Stiles says, "Crap," and walks around the kitchen island toward the couch. He kneels next to Derek, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Derek?"
Cora takes another look at Derek's claws. "Hey, maybe you shouldn't—"
Derek's eyes fly open. His hand closes around Stiles' arm, but the claws don't break skin. He blinks a few times and says, "Stiles?"
"Morning, big guy," Stiles says. "Can I have my arm back?"
Derek looks down at his hand, then back at Stiles' face. He lets go. "Sorry. I was dreaming."
"My fault," Stiles says. "I set the frying pan on fire."
"Again?"
Stiles rolls his eyes. "You're all so fucking critical. Yes, again. Fortune favors the bold."
"Fortune doesn't favor your cooking skills." Derek sits up, and he notices Cora standing by the island. "Hey."
"Hey," Cora says, and because she doesn't know what to say next: "Can I use your shower?"
"Yeah, of course," Derek says.
"I might also need to borrow some clothes."
"Erica keeps some of hers here," Isaac says. Then he looks at Cora, and adds, "Uh… they may not fit."
o
The conference room isn't big enough to comfortably seat all the Institute staff who wound up attending this briefing. Lydia arrived early and grabbed one of the comfy chairs at the table; when she checks over her shoulder, there are at least three people sitting in the alcove where they keep the coffee machine.
Rebecca Harlowe—she prefers 'Harley,' for reasons Lydia has never been able to fathom—stands up at the front of the room, next to the projector screen. She's considered the Institute's best field agent, although Harley would be the first to deny that.
Harley says, "Okay, let's get started before even more people show up." She hits a button on her remote, and a photo appears on the screen.
It's a wide shot of the interior of a church. The photographer had been standing up at the pulpit, facing the congregation, such as it was.
The pews are filled with dead bodies, seated upright, heads bowed.
"This was the first incident," Harley says. "A Baptist church in Mississippi. Over fifty victims, found in the morning when the minister arrived to get ready for Sunday service."
The next photo is of one of the victims sitting in the pews. His throat was slit, and his hands lie in his lap, holding a Bible.
"All of the bodies were positioned like this post-mortem. The victims were apparently selected at random from the town's populace. Half of them didn't even attend that church."
The next slide is a picture of a note, written on thick white card stock, in red-brown ink:
Insurrection is the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties.
"This was nailed to the front door," Harley says. "That's blood, by the way. It's written in human blood."
The next slide shows the back of the card. Written in looping, elegant cursive is a single name: 'Deucalion.'
"The rest are more of the same." Harley clicks through a series of photos: a meat locker hung with human corpses, a tree with mutilated bodies strapped to every bough, an enormous pyre made out of human bones. All ridiculously over-the-top set-pieces of blood and death. "There have been five, so far. At each site, another note was left."
"More Lafayette quotes?" Lydia guesses.
"Not quite," Harley says. "But each of them has something to do with revolution or rebellion."
From the back of the room, Kyle says, "This 'Deucalion' can't be just one guy. That's a lot of bodies to move around, for one thing."
Harley says, "Right now we're operating under the assumption that Deucalion is the mastermind, and he's got followers to do the heavy lifting."
Director Jason Heidingsfeld, the boss of everyone in this room, asks, "Why, though? If the victims are random, what's Deucalion's motive to kill them? And why arrange the bodies like this?"
Greenberg says, "I dunno, because that's what the voices in his head are telling him to do?"
Harley shakes her head. "I don't think anyone can be that unstable and still be functional enough to not get caught. All the crime scenes are spotless. No fingerprints, no DNA, fibers… nothing."
Lydia stares at the screen, index finger tapping against her lips. On it is a photo of the latest incident: dozens of bodies found in the Arizona desert, arranged side-by-side in concentric circles. There's a pale square at the center of the circle that's probably the note.
"It's theater," she says.
Harley says, "What?"
"The murders aren't the point," Lydia says. "They're just a way to draw attention to the notes."
"… Because elaborate, gruesome mass murder is the most effective way to get on the national news," Harley says.
"Exactly. Deucalion's trying to send a message. These killings are a call to arms."
o
The store is tiny. Cora can't help but feel a little claustrophobic.
And Erica… Erica is loud. Everything about her is loud. She's the perfect, platonic ideal of the blonde bombshell, to which all other blonde bombshells can only aspire. Cora can see why Erica's clothes wouldn't fit her. Especially in the hips. And chest.
"Just grab anything you like," Erica says, draping another top over her own arm. "Don't worry about the price tag. It's all going on Derek's credit card."
"I just need shirts and pants," Cora insists.
"There's no reason why they can't be nice shirts and pants."
"Okay, I get why you're helping me pick out clothes," Cora says, then points at the wannabe male model behind her. "But what's he doing here?"
"Because Jackson actually knows things about fashion," Erica says, "whereas my favorite color is leopard print."
"It's true," Jackson says. "Erica's outfits only look good because she's the one wearing them."
Erica grins. "Aww, thanks."
"That was supposed to be an insult."
"I'm taking it as a compliment and you can't stop me."
Cora recognizes both of them, in a manner of speaking; their scents were all over Derek's apartment. They're werewolves.
She spots Derek on the other side of the glass storefront, standing in the middle of the mall corridor, hands in his pockets.
Erica glances at Cora, then sees what she's looking at. "Oh, god damn it, Derek,"
Jackson says. "He's going to get arrested again."
Cora says, "Derek got arrested?"
"Twice," Erica says brightly, as if this is never, ever going to be dethroned as her favorite thing to tell people. She turns her attention back to Cora and says, "Bras! You'll need bras. What size are you?"
Cora hesitates for a moment. "… 32A? I think?"
Jackson and Erica both look at her face, then lower. Cora resists the urge to cross her arms over her chest.
"I don't think that's right," Jackson says.
"We'll get you fitted," says Erica. "Go try some of this stuff on, then we'll head over to the Macy's."
Cora glances out the window again. She doesn't really mind that Derek's out there. A part of her is still convinced he'll disappear if she looks away for too long.
o
The ranch belonged to a woman named Zoe, and her daughter's name was Hannah. Hannah was Cora's age, and she was a minotaur.
She was about a head taller than Zoe, who Cora guessed was just under six feet. Hannah's limbs were long and spindly, like a calf's; her horns weren't much more than stubs, and her ears were huge and a little floppy.
Zoe dropped a big cardboard box on the floor and opened it. "I've still got some of my daughters' clothes from when they were little," she said. Cora looked at Hannah, sitting at the end of the couch with her knees and ankles together, hands on her lap, trying to take up as little space as possible. Zoe amended, "My older daughters. They're human."
"Oh," Cora said.
"Here," said Zoe, extracting a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt and handing them to Cora. "Go change into these. Bathroom's down the hall."
The bathroom was small, with a claw-footed bathtub and colorful, mismatched towels. The toothbrush holder was shaped like a frog. Cora closed the bathroom door and stared at herself in the mirror.
Her hair was matted. Her face was covered in dirt, and there were dark circles under her eyes. She looked like someone else.
Cora's eyes burned. She sniffled and blinked the tears away.
There was a knock on the door. Cora jumped.
"Yeah?" she said.
"Mom wants to know if you can drink milk," Hannah said.
"Uh… yes?"
"Cool." The sound of hooves on hardwood receded.
Cora shrugged into the new clothes and didn't know what to do with her old ones, so she carried them in her arms as she walked back down the hall.
Zoe and Hannah were in the kitchen. Zoe placed a mug of hot chocolate on the table. "Here. The mix might be a little stale. I prefer tea, and Hannah can't have chocolate."
"I can take those," Hannah said, nodding to the clothes in Cora's arms. Cora handed them over, then reached back in to pull the sheet of parchment out of her hoodie's pocket. It was creased and a little tattered, but Cora got the feeling worse things had happened to it.
Hannah disappeared down the stairs. Cora, feeling a little lost, sat down at the table and stared at the mug of hot chocolate.
"You can stay here tonight," Zoe said. "We've got a spare room. Who should I call?"
Cora said, "What?"
"Who should I call to come get you?" Zoe clarified. "Your parents?"
"I… there's nobody to call," Cora said. "They're all gone."
It was the first time she said it out loud.
o
The restaurant is called 'Barb and Ernie's,' and looks like it should be made out of gingerbread. There's a wooden statue of a man wearing lederhosen next to the front door. Lydia enters warily, expecting to be assaulted with accordion music once she opens the door, but the radio's been set to an Oldies station. Thank god.
Lydia approaches the bar and badges the middle-aged woman behind it. "I need to talk to your friend in the cellar."
Nervously, the woman says, "You're not gonna upset him, are you? Because the last time he got upset, it took a week to clean everything up."
"I'm a friend of his," Lydia says. "It's fine."
The woman nods, although she still looks wary. "Down the hall, second door on the left."
Lydia descends into the beer cellar. It's dark and cool down here, and remarkably clean. Somebody just dusted, from the looks of it.
"Biersal?" she says.
A brown tabby cat leaps up onto a barrel, watching Lydia expectantly.
Lydia says, "Nice place."
The cat says, "It's a little on-the-nose, but I'll take what I can get."
"They paying you well?"
"One jug of beer a day," Biersal says proudly. "But you didn't come here to catch up."
"Nope," Lydia says. "Does the name 'Deucalion' ring any bells for you?"
Biersal's tail thrashes. The hair all along his back rises.
Lydia says, "I'll take that as a yes."
"You're here about those murders, aren't you?"
"We figure they're being used to send a message," Lydia says. "What I need to know is, who's receiving it?"
Biersal shifts uncomfortably. "The Queen is ill. They say she's dying. The Court is falling apart. And now there's rumors that this 'Deucalion' is building an army."
"What do you know about Deucalion?" Lydia asks. "Has anyone met him?"
Biersal shakes his head. "He's got supporters, but nobody knows who they are. It's all shadowy meetings and secret codes. Sorry."
"What's he building this army for?"
"Word is, he's going to overthrow the humans." Biersal unsheathes his claws, kneading the wood of the barrel. "Make everything like it was."
"'Like it was'?" Lydia says. "You mean the kidnappings? The Wild Hunts?"
"Not just that," Biersal says. "He doesn't just want to bring the Court back, he wants to bring everything back. All of us who hide in the dark. He says he's going to lead us back to our 'rightful place.'"
"Do you think he can do it?"
Biersal says, "I think if he tries, a lot of people are gonna die."
o
Cora's been stuck in this mall for hours now. The noise and crowds and shitty music are really starting to get on her nerves.
At least it's not as bad as Hong Kong. She is never going back to Hong Kong.
Cora spots Derek again, sitting on a bench with another werewolf. She abandons Erica and Jackson so she can weave through the crowd towards him.
As soon as she's close enough, Derek says, slightly worried, "Are you okay?"
"Hi," says the guy next to Derek, who seems to have been constructed on a slightly larger scale than everyone else. He's probably a teenager, but also probably doesn't get carded at bars. "I'm Boyd."
"Hi," Cora says, then turns back to Derek. "Are you avoiding me?"
From behind her, Erica says, "If he is, he sucks at it."
Boyd raises an eyebrow at Derek, who nods. Standing, Boyd says, "Come on, guys. Time to go."
He herds Jackson and Erica away, despite Erica's protests of, "But we've got all her stuff—!"
Once they're gone, Derek says, "I'm not avoiding you."
"You dumped me on your pack and lurked in dark corners all afternoon," Cora snaps. "What do you call that?"
"I'm—I don't want you to—I'm trying to give you space."
"I don't want space!"
A few feet away, a little kid starts whispering frantically to his mother. A few passersby give Derek and Cora considering looks and swerve to avoid them by a wide margin.
"I'm sorry," Derek says, so quiet Cora can barely hear him. "I don't know how this is supposed to work."
"Neither do I," Cora admits. She chews her lip. "… Can I see the house?"
o
What's left of the Hale house is ash-gray and black. The front of the house still stands, but the back is little more than a pile of broken wood. It sits atop the hill and seems to leech all color and life from the forest around it.
Cora stares at it through the windshield for a long time, then gets out of Derek's car and walks up the hill.
Derek follows her at a distance, hands in his jacket pockets. He doesn't say anything as Cora climbs up onto the porch and peers through the broken window.
Cora says, "Is it safe to go inside?"
"Not really," Derek says. "The living room and the dining room are stable, but nothing else."
Cora nudges the door open. The stairs up to the second floor are still intact, but she probably shouldn't risk climbing them.
"You said Peter survived?"
"He was in the basement," Derek says. "I think he was trying to reach the tunnels."
There's something in his voice that sounds like guilt. Cora can't quite figure it out.
"There was some kind of spell," Cora says. "It felt like something was holding me down."
Derek nods. "Stiles thinks Kate might have used a Hand of Glory. It's a—"
"The severed hand of a hanged man, made into a candle," Cora interrupts. "It unlocks all the doors in a house and paralyzes everyone inside." She backtracks through what Derek said. "Who's Kate?"
"Kate Argent," Derek says, like there's a hand around his throat.
Argents. Werewolf hunters. Mom and Grandma warned all the kids about them, but they always felt more like fairy tales than an actual threat.
"Peter was burned," Derek says. "Badly. He was catatonic after the fire. We had to put him in a nursing home."
"And then he killed Laura."
Derek swallows. "Yeah. Last year. And then I killed him."
"Did you want to?"
"I thought I did," Derek says. "Until I actually did it."
Cora should probably feel something, but she doesn't. She already grieved for Peter and Laura. Knowing they died a year ago, and not seven, doesn't change much.
Derek starts to say, "Did you—" and cuts himself off.
"What?"
"I know you said you never settled anywhere, but…" Derek meets her eyes. "Did you ever find another pack?"
o
Cora stayed with Zoe and Hannah for two weeks. Sometimes she couldn't sleep, so she snuck out to see Hannah.
"Why do you sleep in the barn?" she asked one night, as she and Hannah sat on the bed. "There's enough room in the house."
"Barely," Hannah replied. "And soon there won't be. I'm still growing. And I break stuff." Hannah's ears flicked back. She looked down at her hands. "I knocked Mom's favorite snow globe off a shelf last year. Dad gave it to her. Mom said it was okay, but…"
"But you could tell she wasn't," Cora said.
"Yeah. So I decided to stay out here. I still go in the house sometimes, but I have to be really careful."
Cora didn't know it was the last night she'd ever spend at the ranch, the night she snuck into the barn and whispered, "Hannah? You awake?"
"No," Hannah mumbled. Then she sat up and sighed, "Yes."
Cora crept to the bed and turned on the lamp. Hannah burrowed back under the covers and said, "Read to me?"
Hannah could read, but her eyes weren't very good. Book print was too small for her to see. Cora pawed around under the nightstand until she found the book, Hannah's favorite, then sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed.
"'All children, except one, grow up,'" she read. "'They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old—'"
Cora was interrupted by a long, mournful howl, coming from a long way off. After a moment came a second, answering howl.
Hannah sat up, ears flat against her head. "Wolves?"
"No," Cora said. "Werewolves."
Next: "Bête Noire"