I never should have let myself fall asleep. But the week after the movie night had mentally drained me so much that for the first time in my life, I had found myself craving it.

I was laying on the mattress, my head under the duvet to hide myself from the morning sunlight streaming through the windows. My nightmare still rung in my mind, the horror of it resurfacing with my every intake of breath. The worst part was that the actually nightmare hadn't been bad – not compared to the shame and dismay I had felt when I had awoken. The memory was almost too painful to think about, but it wouldn't stop swirling in my head.

(the previous night)

His body lay motionless on the floor, the dark figure standing over him. There was no grief left in me, not tears left to shed. There was only rage, a red hot burning anger to see the man who had ruined my life and taken everything from me pay. Without thinking, I lunged for him, my weight colliding with his cold frame as we fell away from Derek's body. The first thing I noticed was the werewolf-like claws protruding from his fingers, only they weren't like any claws I had ever seen. They were long, like knives, and stained red from the blood of all the supernatural creatures he had killed and stolen abilities from. They dug into the skin of my arm, the flood running out of the wound before it closed up. The next thing I saw were the fangs, the fangs of a wendigo. They gnashed at me as he pushed me to the ground and I fought to keep them away from my face. The Scavenger's strength was unimaginable, but I somehow managed to flip him over, pinning him to the ground. I was on top of him, striking him over and over again with my fists. I was filled with so much hatred it scared me. It sent chills up my spine like fine needles, biting down to the bone.

'Alex.' The Scavenger said my name, his voice hoarse and menacing. I realised then and there that this was my chance. I had him pinned. He wasn't getting away easily. I wondered why he wasn't stronger, why he wouldn't fight back now that he was on the floor. I couldn't understand.

'Alex.' He said my name again, this time louder and somehow, clearer. Why wouldn't he fight back? It was frustrating me now. He had spent years searching for me, hunting me down, and now that I was in his grasp, why wasn't he fighting to take my ability?

'Alex,' he said once more. I couldn't stand hearing my name leave his lips any longer. I screamed at him, thrashing down but somehow I found I couldn't move. I screamed louder, shouting, yelling for him to tell me why he wouldn't fight. Asking him why he was hunting me. Asking him why he would even want my ability – my curse.

'Alex!' I heard his voice, the voice of my wolf, tearing through my chest as I opened my eyes. I was on top of him, his hands holding my wrists above his head. I looked at them. They were balled into fists and a stream of blood ran out from between my fingers. I opened them, my palm stinging as I pulled my fingernails from the skin. The wounds healed instantly but I didn't feel any better. Derek looked terrified – for me rather than for himself. My chest was heaving and beads of sweat ran off of my face – or where those tears? I wasn't sure. I watched as Derek's eyes changed back from their vibrant blue to their emerald pools. He didn't release me until he was sure I was awake and when he did I collapsed on the bed next to him, my face buried in the pillow as I sobbed.

He didn't say anything at first, simply wrapping me in his strong arms from behind and pulling me close to his chest, cradling me like a child. I didn't like him seeing me like this. I didn't like feeling vulnerable, even in front of the man I trusted the most.

'You're okay,' I could hear him whispering to me over and over and I wondered if he was trying to convince himself of it more that he was trying to convince me. I knew what it did to him when he saw me like this and that hurt me more than anything. Out of the corner of my eye I could see his jaw clenching, a thing he did when he was either in deep thought or deeply concerned about something. Or both.

I wasn't sure what he had experienced before I had woken up. Was it him I had been trying to hurt whilst in my nightmare? The thought made bile form in my throat and I swallowed it down, the bitter taste lingering in my mouth. I pulled out of his protective grasp and sat on the edge of the bed, facing away from him.

'I'm sorry,' I whispered, the words inaudible to any human. I was struggling to see. Although I had stopped sobbing, the tears still flowed down my cheeks, clouding my vision. I slowly stood up, making my way to the bathroom without looking back. Once there, I ran the water from the tap over my bloody hands. The water was cold, freezing actually. I wondered if we had forgotten to pay the gas bill again. Even so, I let it wash away the blood stains from between my fingers and across my palms.

I looked up in the mirror, Derek's muscular figure appearing behind me in it. He was leaning against the door frame, arms folded as he considered me. Although he appeared casual, I could see the tension in his shoulders and how he had positioned himself carefully as to not cross the threshold.

'Alex,' he said, his voice not a whisper anymore. It was clear. 'Is there anything-?'

'No,' I said, answering his question before it had fully formed on his tongue. 'I'll be in in a minute.' I stood stationary for a second, contemplating whether he should stay. But he knew me well, and knew I would want to be alone to pull myself together. He nodded once in the mirror before turning and heading back to bed.

I joined him some ten minutes later. He lay awake with me for a long time before the clutches of sleep took over and he drifted off. And just like that the window of opportunity had closed. It was one of our rules – when it came to my nightmares, events of the night could not be brought up the next day.


I picked at my nails under the duvet at the memory of the previous night. Derek hadn't said a word about it to me, simply acting like everything was okay like we had discussed. I could see something different in his eyes though, like he knew something had to change. I knew that he wasn't going to let this one go easily. I had scared him last night; physically terrified him to the bone. For now, he would act like everything was fine, but I knew at some point, despite out rules, that he would bring it up.

'So I've been wondering why you made such a big deal about your purse the other day,' Derek started as he walked out of the bathroom. I was glad he wasn't talking about the events of the previous night, though I wasn't too fond of this subject content either. I tensed under the duvet, my hands suddenly becoming clammy. I didn't want him knowing about the address in Seattle right now, not until I had made a decision on what I was going to do. 'And I thought,' he continued, 'what could possibly be in Alex's purse that she doesn't want me to see.' I turned over to face him and sat up, peeling back the covers and sitting on the edge of the bed.

He didn't look angry or pissed off. If anything he looked smug, as if he was pleased with himself. 'And then it hit me,' he said, his smug expression widening into a smirk. I watched in thinly veiled horror as he pulled something from the pocket of his sweatpants and held it up. It was small and rectangular. I held my breath.

'Driver's license.' I released the breath. 'Your birthday was back in June,' he said curiously, 'you haven't been nineteen in almost two months.' I sighed, standing up and walking over to him.

'Congratulations, Sherlock,' I drawled as I pulled the license out from between his fingers and shoved it into my pyjama shorts. Derek snorted.

'Why didn't you tell me, we would've done something –,' he started but I cut him off icily.

'Done what? Something to celebrate?' I asked, raising my voice at him. 'I don't want to celebrate my birthday. I hate my birthday!'

'Alex…' he said, trying to calm me down, but the words kept flowing from my acidic tongue.

'You wanna know why? Let me see,' I pretended to be thinking as I seethed, past pain resurfacing. 'I spent my sixteenth homeless in an alley after I ran away from home. I spent my seventeenth with my best friend who was then murdered, and then I spent my eighteenth and nineteenth alone as I tried to run from the people who spent seven months dissecting and torturing me. Oh and don't forget the guy who wants my ability so bad he would murder the whole fucking country to get it. So sorry if I don't want to remember or celebrate all the shit things that have happened over the last 4 years!' I stared at Derek as my chest heaved, my eyes stinging as I tried to hold back the tears.

'What about your twentieth?' he asked quietly and my heart sank. I instantly felt awful.

'I was here, with you,' I mumbled, suddenly unable to look him in the eye. I remembered the day vividly. The kitchen sink had a burst pipe and we spent hours on our hands and knees mopping up all the water on the floor. I remembered it so well because it was the first time I had felt normal in over four years. We spent the day dealing with domestic problems, rather than supernatural ones. It was probably one of the best days of my life. 'I didn't want to ruin it,' I said, trying to get him to understand. 'I don't want to think about the past four years anymore, okay?' He didn't say anything and I let my eyes fall to the carpet.

'I know,' he said finally, a thumb gently nudging my chin up to look at him. 'And you don't have to.' I looked up into his perfect green eyes to see him staring into mine. I wanted to believe his words, for them to be a reality, but I knew right then that they couldn't be, especially after the events of the previous night.

'Yes I do,' I said quietly. 'I can't move on whilst he's still out there.'


My fists collided with the punching bag one after the other, the impact in each blow releasing a knot of tension from my body. It wasn't necessarily anger I was feeling, but there was an element of frustration with in me. Although I didn't need to train to keep my fitness up, I found it helped me focus. That was why as soon as Derek had left to run a few errands I had stripped down to a sports bra and leggings, wrapped up my knuckles and was now beating the crap out of the punching bag that was suspended from the ceiling. Of course, I only did this after I had removed the address from my purse and stuffed it into the back of the draw on my bedside table. That morning it had been a close call and I doubted I would get that lucky again.

I punched the bag again. Why was this affecting me so much? I had had nightmares before. Why couldn't I shake this one like the others? I presumed it was because I had never woken on top of Derek before having tried to hurt him in my sleep. I that moment I had been grateful for the fact that he was a werewolf, so therefore he could hear and sense my advances before I had done any physical damage. The dream had felt so real, so vivid.

I punched the bag again. I needed to regain my focus. All this worrying and stressing over nightmares was getting me nowhere. If I was going to be affective in sorting out my problems I needed to focus on the present – what was happening at the moment. I considered all my worries, regarding the address and the primary one I needed to sort out. In my head I examined my thought processes. I had two options. I could either go to the address in Seattle and find out what was there or I could forget about it entirely. I also decided that not telling Derek about the address was not an option. He needed to know. I trusted him, right? And he trusted me. If he was in the same boat he would have told me straight away.

I punched the bag again. But the problem was that my nightmare had terrified both of us. We both were only starting to realise how deep we were involved, not only with each other but with the man who hunted me. I realised that in bringing Derek with me when I left Beacon Hills, I had put him in more danger than ever. The Scavenger was after me, but I knew that Derek would never let that happen. He would likely die trying to protect me, rather than protect himself, and I would never be able to live with myself if that happened.

I was about to lay into the punching bag again when the piercing ring of my cell echoed through the small loft. I raised an eyebrow at the name flashing across my screen as I glanced at it on the table. I pressed the accept button, putting the caller on speaker phone so I could continue with my work out.

'Lydia,' I greeted, 'to what do I owe the pleasure?' She scoffed a little at the sarcasm in my question, although she knew I didn't mean it.

'And I thought you might actually miss me,' she replied in a similar tone. I smiled to myself. I did miss her. It wasn't as if I hadn't spoken to the strawberry blonde since I had left but her calls were far rarer than Stiles'.

'So how are things back in Beacon Hills?' I asked, curious to how they were all surviving without me.

'Well no one's died yet,' she replied a little flatly. I stifled a laugh. Her use of the word 'yet' made it sound like she was expecting something bad to happen, and coming from a Banshee, a feeling wasn't something to ignore.

'That's good to know.' I thought for a moment as hit the bag a few more times. 'How's Stiles?' I asked. 'I haven't heard from him in a while.'

'Stressing as usual. About senior year mostly… and college… and graduation … and-.'

'Graduation?' I asked. 'That's not for like another nine months.'

'Yeah but it's Stiles,' she said and I nodded my head in understanding. 'What are you doing?' she asked suddenly her voice cutting. 'It sounds like your beating the crap out of someone.' I ceased my punching immediately, wiping the sweat from my forehead.

'Sorry, I was just working out,' I told her.

'Hmm,' I heard her mumble sceptically. 'How's Derek?' she asked carefully. Her tone was off. I knew she could already tell what the answer was but I decided to lie anyway.

'Good,' I said simply. 'Really good.'

'Right,' she replied sceptically. Lydia Martin was probably one of the only people I couldn't lie to successfully.

'I mean, sure, it's different,' I carried on pointlessly. I wasn't sure it was her I was still trying to convince. 'But not in a bad way.'

'But not in a good way?' she filled in. I frowned. I wasn't sure how to answer. I was certain that things between Derek and I had not become worse since Beacon Hills, but then again, we weren't really together that much in Beacon Hills. Our relationship had seemed to go from indifferent to caring in a matter of seconds. What was it that had changed to make us go from arguing enemies to living together? I concluded in my head that I must've never really hated him and ignored Lydia's question.

'When do you start senior year?' I asked. I could hear her sigh at my lack of response to her previous question before she replied.

'Next week,' she replied. 'Kira's getting back from New York tomorrow.'

'Was she there the whole summer?' I asked, a little jealous of the Kitsune. When I was thirteen I had run away from my foster parents house in the hopes of making it to New York. My plan had failed miserably when I used my foster mother's stolen cell phone to call a cab, never making it out of the town before the police caught up to me. I was grounded for three months and was made to write a letter of apology to the Sheriff's department for wasting their time.

'Pretty much,' she said. 'I spent most of my summer translating the bestiary. We still haven't figured out was Jordan is.'

'Jordan, huh?' I questioned with a smirk on my face. 'Since when were you two on first name basis?' She caught the suggestive undertones to my question, huffing down the phone.

'There's nothing going on between me and Parrish,' she said and I noticed how after calling her out on it, she had refrained from using his first name again.

'Right, just like how there was nothing going on between me and Derek,' I said and I imagined her rolling her eyes at me.

'I'm not going to humour you, Alex,' she said bluntly and a chuckled down the phone. The line fell silent for a moment and a question popped into my head that I had been meaning to ask since I answered the phone.

'Did you call just for a chat?' I asked, the tone of my voice indicating that I was expecting her call to have somewhat of a morbid agenda.

'Yes, Alex,' she said, putting emphasis on the 'yes'. 'I can call you even why there's no crisis.' The way she said the words made it sound like they were obvious. 'And I wanted to make sure you still get your girl time. Do you have any girl friends?' I rolled my eyes. She tended to mother me on occasion.

'Yes, Lydia,' I said, my mind floating to Marty who I calculated would be at an afternoon class at that time.

'Good,' she responded chirpily before excusing herself, saying goodbye and hanging up the phone.

I placed my phone back on the table once the line had gone dead, turning my attention back to the punching bag. I felt a little calmer knowing that everything was good and well in Beacon Hills – it had been for the safety of the residence that I had moved out of the town.

At the time, I felt a sense of relief wash over me as I regarded Beacon Hills as an aspect of my life that I needn't worry about. At that time, I didn't know how wrong would be.

'That wasn't fair!' I grumbled at the green eyed wolf as he pulled me up off of the floor.

'And you always play by the rules?' he asked sarcastically. We had been training for about half an hour ever since Derek had come back to the apartment and found me working out. I was still in my sports bra and leggings and Derek had taken off his leather jacket, his white t shirt straining over his muscular chest.

'No,' I said, my arms snaking around his neck. 'But I like it when I'm the one breaking them.' He raised an eyebrow at me, his signature smirk spreading across his face. I pressed my lips to his, hands pulling down a little on his neck to that I could reach. I pulled away before the kiss could progress into anything more heated.

I smiled up at the wolf in front of me and resumed my workout. However, when Derek didn't join me I turned my head back to him. I was met with a thoughtful gaze as he considered me. He had something he wanted, no, needed to say.

'Alex, there's something I need to talk to you about,' he said and his more forceful tone than usual jolted me a little. I sighed heavily.

Derek -,' I started, almost pleadingly.

'No Alex. I know you don't wanna talk about your nightmares, okay, and I get that,' he said almost sympathetically. 'But that, last night, that wasn't just a nightmare.'

'It was,' I argued but I didn't expect him to believe the words I spoke if I didn't believe them myself.

'You were bleeding,' he replied bluntly.

'I healed,' I shot back.

'You dug your fingernails a half inch into your palms and -!'

'Stop!' I yelled suddenly, before instantly regretting my outburst. He didn't flinch, only looked at me as if he expected it, which I found disturbing. He sighed.

'I know there's something going on here Alex,' he said. 'Something besides the nightmares.' Guilt twanged in my stomach. 'I've known for a while.' His last sentence made my breath hitch in my throat. When I didn't say anything he carried on. 'I won't make you tell me but I can't help you if you won't.' He spoke as if he were begging me for money. 'Please let me help.'

I shook my head slowly, trying to find the words. 'It's nothing,' I said. He didn't look convinced. 'Look, I'm just a bit stressed at the moment. Readjusting is weird,' I said gesturing to the apartment. Derek chuckled a little.

'Are you sure?' he asked.

'Yeah, I'm sure.' I plastered on a reassuring smile for him which I was pretty sure was convincing. He approached me, planting a kiss on my forehead before he excused himself to have a shower.

However, just after he left the room, the sound of his cell phone ringing echoed through the apartment. I called Derek back, pulling his phone from the discarded leather jacket from the floor. But, I was not expecting to see the name scrawled across his screen at I saw.

ARGENT

I panicked internally for a second before flinging the phone back to the jacket just as Derek was re-entering the room. He rushed over to the phone, though no element of surprise seemed to wash over him at the sight of the name on his phone.

'I gotta take this,' Derek said, starting to head for the door. I shrugged.

'Who is it?' I asked, the dread of his answer already consuming me

'It's just Cora,' he said, the lie smooth and clearly previously rehearsed. 'I'll be back in ten.' The door shut with a dull thud once he had left and just like that, I realised that Derek and I had a lot more in common than I had first thought: we could both break the rules.

AN: So sorry that this has taken so long to update. Hope you liked it anyhow.

Let me know what you thought, much love x