Author's note: This picks up in the next episode, "Lunatic", the first time Derek is shown, as Scott attacks Allison and Jackson in the parking lot.

Same as last time, I've been writing this in miniature bits, so it probably flows like a rock. The whole thing is still susceptible to a rewrite at a later date, if I ever get around to it, but I still hope at least someone will enjoy reading it (…and maybe dropping a review? Maybe?)

Have fun folks!

…

Derek, for one infinitely small and satisfying moment, contemplates walking away. Just turning his back (still raw, the muscles taut and tender, the ghost of a hole in his midsection sending tremors through his frame) and letting the scene unfold. The wolf inside him rages and purrs at the fleeting thought before Derek grinds his teeth in frustration and swallows it down. The moon above is bright and big and his body craves movement, anything to wash away the memory of not being able to.

Scott lurches forward, not quite a dark blur from this distance, but close enough. Derek runs.

Inside the car, someone screams.

They become a tangled mass of movement the second their bodies clash over the silver roof. Derek doesn't hold back as much as he'd planed to as he leads the fight away from the parking lot, claws and teeth finding their target with little mercy to spare. He lets his anger and bitterness and the phantom terror fuel punches and guide each slice.

...

A cure.

The question leaves him feeling old all of a sudden, older than he has any right to be. He bites back a spiteful "no" before his tongue even has a chance to assume the position and instead turns, looking at the kid. Those goddamned eyes that see nothing but a girl, nothing past his own heartache. Derek's teeth chatter as cold settles somewhere deep within and the image of a body sliced in two floats momentarily in the darkness of the room.

"When they cuff me, Scott," and it comes out flat and dry, "will they ask me why I did it?" He doesn't let his gaze weaver, fights against clenching his fists. The entire moment feels like a sick joke someone, somewhere, should be finding funny. "Will they ask me why I cut my sister's body in half before or after they ask about the others?"

To compare the feeling that washes over him whenever he thinks of Laura to drowning seems oddly inaccurate. Because however far away it is, there is always a surface, a chance to break free and reach it. Somehow. Someday. This isn't like that. There is a fist closing around his lungs, fingers digging in, tearing. Crushing. There is no escape, nowhere to escape to, no shimmering surface somewhere up ahead. Laura will always be dead.

He doesn't realize he's moved until his face is inches away from Scott's wide eyes, fingers shifting and ripping through the jacket he uses to shake the boy once, twice, three times, until murder is no longer an inevitable outcome of his control slipping. Derek practically growls, "Will they show me pictures to remind me of what I've done?"

It feels like betrayal and it feels like a knife in the back, and yet Derek knows he has no right to feel either. It's been his self imposed mission to help Scott, help them all, and maybe get justice in the process. A thread of selfishness he can't afford to harbor guilt over. It's also why there are no strings attached further than help catching the Alpha, but it still feels like fire is crackling beneath his feet, around him, and somewhere in the distance in a house that's long burnt down, nothing left but ash and pieces of bone.

It's going to be his downfall, Derek knows. That treacherous bit of unyielding and unsupported hope that this time it's going to be different. Stupid, naïve Derek; always washing blood off his hands and trying to figure out which direction the blow came from while picking up his insides off the floor.

And now they will come for him, and the handcuffs will be cold dead fingers clasped around his wrists, dragging him down.