Hi! Just couldn't wait! It's a shorter chapter, but hopefully you enjoy it. Please try to see past any editing stuff, I'll keep doing my best to avoid them.

Thanks on we go!

Chapter Two – Setback

"…Got different neighborhoods

And different rules to abide by

Stay on the sidelines

If you want to slide by…"

– The Constellations

'No sign of crazy guy anywhere.' Maddy had spent the past couple of hours driving around a town she barely knew, looking for a guy she didn't know at all. She gone to the hospital that day, under the pretense of grabbing something from her locker, but really checking to see if any GSWs had come in since her last shift.

Considering how determined he had been last night she was pretty sure he wouldn't have gone on his own, but if he was unconscious somewhere she had hoped someone might have brought him in.

She got why he wouldn't want to go to the E. R. with a bullet wound, the police would have to question him, but really she didn't care. It annoyed her, there was such a simple solution, he didn't have to lose his arm. Who cared if he was questioned by the cops?

'Apparently he does.' Maddy bitterly thought to herself.

Once she had gotten up from her uncomfortable sleep that morning she had tried to make herself not care about him. She made herself shower, but it ended up being the fastest one of her life, she could not get him out of her mind. Lying in an alleyway, possibly dying and this time with no one to help him.

With her hair clean, but still wet she threw on some clothes and left to see if she could find him '… find him to kill him myself.'

"Where do dark, brooding types go?" she asked herself aloud, tapping her fingers on her steering wheel. Licking her lips, she racked her brain, looking out her car's windshield for ideas. She was about ready to give up, but something about that felt so wrong to her. She couldn't just do that to someone, even if they were a stranger. But she was running out of options. It was getting late now, the sun was about to set and she had to get to dinner soon.

Then, as if the universe could tell she was getting desperate, Maddy looked up to see through the passenger side window of the blue jeep waiting next to her at a red light.

She gasped, there he was, his forehead leaning against the glass he looked even paler then the night before. Trying to think of what to do to get his attention, she rolled down her window to shout, but before she could say anything, his eyes flicked up to look at her.

Maddy felt her ability to use words disappear again. It look her a second to grasp that the jeep was moving, but when she did, she made note of the very nervous looking boy driving the car.

"Not again…" she muttered, before following the jeep. She wondered if she should be chasing them. If the guy had been into something dangerous, wouldn't that mean his acquaintances were dangerous too? But as she pictured the nervous boy, Maddy had a hard time imagining him being a threat.

So she trailed them, she swore that they were just about to turn into the parking lot of a veterinarian's office, when suddenly they swerved into traffic and sped off.

Maddy followed them, for as long as she could, but lost them as the streets filled with 5 o'clock traffic.

Where are you? She had gotten a few texts from Allie and phone calls from Uncle Chris.

Finally, Maddy was about ready to respond to the texts and let go of her chase after the guys in the jeep. She clicked her tongue against her teeth and began heading in the direction of Allie's home, pulling out her phone to call on the way.

But her father's voice suddenly stopped her. All of those hunting trips, of those lessons flooded her mind, 'When they lead you away, it means their leading you away for a reason… stumbling across their shelter makes them panic. But they're not like humans Maddy, even if they think it's worked animals won't go back. Humans will...'

A car honked behind her, startling her, as she retraced her journey and pulled into the vet's empty parking lot. Stopping by the front entrance, she briefly thought of where else they could have parked. Getting out of her car she saw that the offices were closed, she made her way to the back of the building, and was rewarded with the sight of the easily distinguishable blue jeep.

As she approached the car, a bar of thin yellow light caught her eye. It was coming from a door that hadn't been closed properly, or what was more likely, had been recently forced open.

Holding her breath, she wrapped her fingers around the edge of the door, and slowly pulled it open with a creak.

Tentatively she entered the building, making her way down a long hall, she heard the sound of two voices. One was high and panicked, other was low and gruff.

"… or I'll cut off your head." She recognized the low voice as the man from last night.

"I'm so not buying your threats anymore…" there was the sound of a slam that caused her to stop just outside the doors leading to the room that the guys were in "Whoa! Ok! Yeah, yeah, I'll do it."

The sound of breathing coming from the room was so heavy that even out in the hall Maddy could hear it. However, all at once the sound was interrupted by the noise of a sudden splatter. Given the way the splash sounded as it hit the ground Maddy could guess that it was probably something that she had grown very accustomed to seeing and smelling while working in a hospital.

"Oh my god, what the hell is that?" the high pitched voice asked.

Maddy frowned 'Vomit looks like vomit… what else could he have thrown up?' she blanched. 'If he's throwing up blood this isn't good at all.' She was about to step in but the man's next comment stumped her so much, she stopped mid-step.

"My body's trying to heal itself… you've gotta do it now…"

"Ok, I'll do it. I'll do it!"

'Do what?' Maddy finally came out of her hiding spot and rounded the doorway. She saw that the injured man had taken off his shirt and she could see the infection had reached up to his bicep, apparently her leggings hadn't worked as well as she had hoped. He had tied off the infection with a real tourniquet, but she could tell it was too tight and close to the infected area. He was laying his upper body on a surgery table where the nervous boy was holding a…

"Christ! Stop!" She ran in grabbing the boy's trembling arm and wrenching the saw out his slippery hand.

The man growled at her, rage in his greyish eyes "You don't know what you're doing!"

"And you do?" she asked aghast, waving the electrical bone saw at him. She took in his sickly appearance, her eyes fixing on his mouth "Is that blac…"

"STILES!" a new voice shouted from the back door. Suddenly another lanky boy appeared, he looked between the three of them, obviously puzzled at the scene.

"Did you get it?" The infected man asked, his breathing was more laboured now.

"Ah, yeah" the tan skinned boy looked shiftily at Maddy, before producing a bullet out of the pocket of his jeans.

"What are you gonna do with it?" the boy still standing next to a confounded Maddy asked the man when he took the bullet.

"I'm gonna… I'm gonna…" she could see the man wavering, the light was beginning to go out in his eyes.

The bone saw fell with a clatter out of her hand, as she moved even before he had dropped the bullet to the ground. She tried, fairly unsuccessfully, to break his fall. The wind was out knocked out of her, she had tumbled to the floor under his weight.

"Oh god."

As her vision cleared she could see the tan one had run to the corner of the room and other boy was kneeling over her and the man that was passed out on top of her right arm. "Derek!" the boy began slapping the man's face. "Come on, Derek wake up! Scott what the hell are we gonna do?"

Struggling to free her arm, she tried to speak but ended up coughing instead.

"I don't know" the boy called Scott, shouted out in a strained voice. "I can't reach it."

"He's not waking up. I think he's dying. I think he's dead." The nervous boy's distressed fear had overtaken his voice.

Finally pulling her arm out from under the man she now knew as Derek, Maddy shoved the terrified boy away.

"Derek?" she questioned, quickly checking his vitals. He was pale and clammy, she leaned her ear over his mouth and nose, she couldn't hear anything and she could see that his chest wasn't moving. "Call 911" she instructed the boy cowering close by, before tilting Derek's head back and starting CPR.

She pinched his nose, gave two breaths then 15 pushes to his chest. Nothing. "Come on Derek" she breathed, giving him another two breaths and more pushes to his chest, she kept going.

"Got it!" she heard from somewhere in the room. Her vision was going hazy, her arms were getting tired, she was fit but he was big, each chest compression required a lot of strength and each breath that he needed required more air than she had in her lungs.

"Please don't die." She begged, bringing her mouth to his again but jerking back when she felt the tip of his investigative tongue move up and brush her lips. His eyes had popped open, he sat up so fast he was practically a blur.

She tried to stand, but something was off. The adrenaline from a few moments ago was wearing away, she noticed a fresh pain on the back of her head.

'Ow…' she winced. Reaching her hand behind her head, she felt something wet. She didn't need to see her hand to know what it was.

A scream above her made Maddy look up. She saw three hunched backs. Suddenly the bare one, the one that belonged to Derek, fell over and started writhing on the floor.

Her thoughts were becoming fuzzy, as she imagined she heard an animalistic growl from where he'd fallen.

Eventually he stood up.

'Where'd the blood go?' she squinted at the miraculously healed man, but it was getting harder and harder to see straight.

The three boys started talking, but she couldn't quite hear them. They sounded so far away, like their voices were on another planet and taking a long time to get to her. Pressing her palm against the cold floor, Maddy realized that she had laid herself down and that she was resting her head on one of her arms. 'This feels nice.'

Her eyelids were getting heavy.

"What about…"

"Oh crap!"

"Hey!" someone was shaking her shoulders, but she didn't want to open her eyes just yet.

'Not when I'm so comfy.'

"Wake up" the hands gripping her shoulders tightened, she felt something sharp prod her back.

"Ah!" she tore open her eyes, her vision was swimming.

She could see Derek's head floating above her. The other two were higher up, and staring down at her as well.

Maddy vision went in and out focus, which was really annoying especially while she was trying to count the green flecks in Derek bright blue eyes.

"What's wrong with you girlfriend?" the anxious boy asked.

"I don't know." Derek replied, his worried eyes scanning her face, before she saw black again "Hey! Ah...You!" he was shaking her awake once more "You stay awake!"

"You don't know her name?" the nervous boy scrutinized.

She watched utterly entertained as man above her snarled at the boy standing over his shoulder.

"You snarled…" she commented giddily, with a droopy smile. Though the concern never left his face, the dark haired man gave her a strange look.

"Um, you guys…" Scott spoke. It looked like his brown eyes might have been directed to the space above her head "I think she's bleeding."

"That's what I to meant say…" Maddy managed before slipping off into darkness.

For the second time that day Maddy felt like she was confused about where she was waking up. But she was also confused about why.

'Why am waking up for the second time?' eyes still closed, she tried to recall what had happened that morning 'This morning…', but it was foggy. 'I just got out of bed, didn't I?' She tried to make herself believe it, but she couldn't for some reason.

She could hear beeping and the sound of an angry voice "Listen, I don't care what your visiting hours are. That girl in there is my responsibility, so you can be damn sure I'm not leaving her side."

"Uncle Chris?" Maddy croaked against the dryness of her throat.

"Madelyn, honey?" she heard excited footsteps nearing her, cracking her light brown eyes open she could see her Uncle's grey-haired head looming above her, she felt his hand wrap around her limp one.

"What happened?" She coughed, squinting against the soft lamp light in the room. She made to sit up, but her Uncle stopped her movements. Sitting down beside her, he clicked something that caused the bed to move so that she was sitting up. Recognizing her setting she asked "Why am I in the hospital?"

"You hit your head sweetheart."

"My head?" Maddy raised her hand to check the back of her head. She couldn't feel anything but a small bump.

"There's no bleeding, either external or internal. Thank god." He sighed a breath of relief.

Despite her situation, she had to smile. She was so glad that she had made sure to put him down as her emergency contact, otherwise who knows what hell the office administration would have been going through. He probably would have torn the place apart to see her.

While Chris Argent wasn't a blood relative he was part of the only family she had ever known. Though people like his sister Kate had gone to great lengths to point out that she didn't belong to a family, while others like Victoria Argent were nice but continued to look at her as an outsider.

Nonetheless Maddy didn't mind that coldness from some of the family. Chris had been her father's best friend. He was her real Uncle and Allie was her real cousin as far Maddy would ever be concerned.

"Maddy, do you remember anything about what happened to you?" He asked gently, giving her hand an encouraging squeeze.

"No." She frowned "Why? Didn't I just fall over or something?"

A sad expression came over her Uncle's face "We don't know. Someone called about a car on the side of the road, when the police came they found you inside. There was some damage to the car, but it wouldn't have been enough to knock you out... not like that. Do you know if you've had any attacks lately?"

She chewed on her lips, it had been year since she had gone through a full blown panic attack. Maddy used to get them when she was younger, and then again when her dad had died, she still had some tough minor spells like on her first day at the hospital but other than that nothing major. She had been coping pretty well for a while now "No, I don't think so."

Trying to wrap her head around what he had said had happened, Maddy could only ask "Where would I have been going?"

"You don't remember?" his brows knit together in question.

She went to shake her head, but stopped when she felt some dizziness run through her "I don't even remember leaving the house today."

"You were meant to have dinner at our house tonight." The stated, watching her closely for a reaction.

"I was?" Maddy swallowed thickly.

'How far back have I lost?' Her mind raced back, desperately trying to remember anything she could about her day.

"Yes, but you didn't show up. We tried calling but there was no answer."

Blinking a few times, she took in a deep breath, looking away as she asked "Was… was there anything else that happened to…"

"Oh honey," her Uncle cupped her cheek, sympathy clear in his voice, as he moved in order to give her a hug "Nothing else happened."

Biting her lips, she nodded into his shoulder, hugging him back tightly. She could feel tears beginning to prick her eyes.

'Unbalanced emotions… side effect of a concussion…' she tried to brush it off. But in truth she felt so exposed and vulnerable. Not only had she lost time, but she had no idea how or why.

'Uh, oh. Another side effect coming up…' she pushed her Uncle away as a wave nausea hit her, ballooning her cheeks she tried to climb out bed, but her legs wobbled under her.

Her Uncle grabbed her and helped to the bathroom, he turned on the light, held back her hair and rubbed her back as she vomited into the toilet bowl.

"You ok sweetheart?"

"I- I think so." She rested her head against the wall next the toilet bowl. Her Uncle still holding up her hair in case, his hand still soothing her back. "I think I'm ok now." She breathed easier, turning head to see her Uncle Chris' concerned blue eyes sombrely looking at the back of her head… or was it lower?

But before she could really register it, he had a warm smile on his face. "Let's get you back into bed then."

She nodded wearily, too drained right now to worry about what he saw or didn't see.

Hope you like it. Not sure when the next post will be but I'll try to be good about.

Again sorry about editing.

Please let me know what you think.