"Derek! What's wrong? Where are you going?" I shouted at him, but simply ignored me. He looked determined, but on what? I decided the only way to find out was to follow him. As least if I did that and he got into some kind of trouble, I might be able to get him out of it.

I had to jog after him, since his long legs carried him much farther than mine did. I screeched at him a few more times to stop or slow down, but, yet again, he pretended not to hear me. It seemed like an eternity of trying to follow his curving path through the thick underbrush before he even began to slow down.

"What?" he demanded sharply, turning his head back so that he could see me through one eye.

"Where the heck do you think you're going?" I demanded as I caught up with him. I tried not to let him see me pant from the long jog. He didn't seem like he was out of breath at all.

"I don't know. I'm just ticked off right now, ok?" he said, walking a few steps before leaning backwards against an oak tree.

"And so you decided to run out into the woods? Wasn't that where the Edison Group caught us last time?" I yelled a little louder than I meant it to come out. Derek's only reaction was his head rolling back, his eyes staring into the branches of the tree. "Sorry, that was an outburst," I apologized "so what happened?"

"Well, to put it simply, Andrew thinks I'm some animal because of what I did to the truck, Simon got mad at him, and Tori was being…" his voice trailed off into the cool wind.

"The queen of darkness." I finished for him. He smirked slightly. "What did you do to the truck that was so bad?" I asked.

"I pushed it into a lake over in the next town." He said, "What else was I supposed to do?" I thought about it for a minute. That did seem like the way for him to do it, that way the Edison Group wouldn't have been looking in the town nearest us. "They all thought it was a bad idea. They thought that I should've waited for them to get up and find some other way. Yeah, right. When you're in danger, you have to act fast, not just wait around for someone else to come and do the work for you." His angry words seemed to echo through the trees.

"I think you did the right thing." I said. I really did. The Edison Group might've been surrounding the house by the time everybody else woke up.

"Thanks." He said, billowing out a gust of air as he did so. He reached up and pulled his fingers through his dark hair, and I realized that his forehead was drenched in sweat.

"Derek, do you have another fever?" I asked worriedly. I walked closer and felt his cheek with the fingers of my left hand. It felt like one of those straightening irons that were almost ready to use, and I could feel the heat radiating off of his body.

"I guess." He shrugged. With that, the tendons in his left arm convulsed, and he wrapped the fingers of his right hand around it to steady it until it stopped wriggling. When it finally subsided, I found myself with my hand still on his cheek. He looked down into my eyes and I longed to…I really didn't really know what I was so badly wanting to do. He touched my wrist gently, and I felt my whole body tingle.

Without warning, Derek let out an anguished groaned and I tried to catch him as he began to collapse, grunting in pain. I couldn't support his weight, but I did manage to help him get to his hands and knees.

"This shouldn't be happening…" he managed to utter through his clenched teeth.

"It's ok, it's ok. I'm still here. You don't know that this isn't all natural." I comforted, but it obviously didn't help his thoughts. I felt my heart pounding in my chest, but I knew I couldn't let him see that I was scared too.
"They did something, Chloe." He panted and then spewed out some of the contents of his stomach into a nearby bush. I attempted to keep my nose from wrinkling at the sickly smell. "It can't be natural to go through all this pain for no reason. I didn't even have much notice this time." He grunted, his spine beginning to jut like a cat's does when it hisses. I squatted down to his level and calmly put my small hand over his large one.

"I'm here." I repeated in a whisper, staring at his face as it twisted in pain. His eyes were shut tightly, and his teeth where gnashing together. Suddenly, his emerald eyes opened and a combined look of surprise, confusion, and relief filled them. We sat there a while like that, Derek's pupils locked on absolutely nothing at all, waiting for another episode.

"I—I think it's over." He coughed and gulped as he swept his hair away from his wet forehead.

"We can't be sure. All those times when I thought it was over in the forest, and--"

"Chloe, it's ok. It's over for now. I just know." He panted, flipping over on his back and laying his hand across his stomach. He stared up into the branches, and I saw his stare lock on a small squirrel as it leaped though the canopy. I didn't say anything as he ripped his soaked white t-shirt off. He needed to cool off after his extreme fever.

"What did they do to me?" he asked rhetorically. All I could do was shake my head. I tried lying down in the pine needles with him, but I guess his tough skin protected him more than mine did. I winced slightly at the sharp stings in my left side, but I stayed where I was, casually holding up my head with my left hand.

"I'm just…I don't know what I am anymore. Maybe that's why Andrew doesn't trust me… maybe he can sense how confused I am." He exhaled before turning his head towards me. "I'm sorry. I'm talking about my problems when you have plenty of your own. You're the one that's been doing all of the comforting. Thanks for that."

I felt my cheeks flush as he turned his whole body to face mine, holding his head the same way I was mine. I nervously fidgeted, putting my arm down and balancing on my elbow. I didn't even realize that I was leaning in to kiss him until it was too late for me to pull back.