Thank you to AshleyMarieD for the lovely review. I'm glad you're liking the dynamic between Amber and Rebekah. I'm definitely having fun writing it, and I have plenty of plans for them in the future. And I love Stiles and Amber too! Thank you, lovely, for your review, I really appreciate it.

I don't own Teen Wolf. Shock Horror.


No magic.

Miss Blake, the woman, the thing, murdering all those people, had stolen my magic while I was unconscious. Rebekah had nearly had to resort to slapping me right in the face to get me moving after my realization. In the end, a good, hard shake had worked well enough, before she'd ordered me to jump on her back. It was awkward, and very, very weird, but we'd gotten into town much faster than we would have if I was on foot. One minute, we're in the middle of nowhere, and the next we're standing just outside Derek's building.

"Why here?" I asked her, my eyebrows low. "I told you, the school." Rebekah shook her head.

"I can hear them," she told me, staring up at the building before marching towards it. "Everyone we need is here." I groaned, wanting to throttle the woman and her superior ways, but I followed her anyway, rushing past her when she stopped suddenly at the door way.

"What?" I asked her, huffing and spinning around to face her. "Kind of in a rush here."

"I can't get in," she told me after rolling her eyes.

"You can't-" I cut myself off, shaking my head and leaving her there, sprinting up the stairs. I had to shake my head to rid myself of the feeling of deja-vu as I ran, reaching Derek's heavy door in no time, and heaving it open with a grunt. The first person my eyes landed on was Miss Blake, and I had to take a long, deep breath to keep myself from launching at her. I didn't have any magic, but I could certainly beat her into next week. I took a deep breath, calming myself, and nodding to Derek as I walked down the steps, ignoring everyone's wide eyes as they turned to me. "Derek, I need you to let Rebekah in."

He frowned at me almost angrily, shaking his head. "What?"

"Just-" I sucked in another breath. "Can you just say 'Rebekah, you can come in', please?"

Derek continued to glare at me, but did as I asked. "Rebekah, you can come in."

"Thank you," I murmured, widening my eyes impatiently and turning when I heard footsteps behind me a second later. Rebekah paused at the door for a second, pushing her hair back into place after her run. I rolled my eyes, scoffing.

"Really?" I murmured. She ignored me, opting instead to turn her attention to the kidnapper in the room.

"Amber," she greeted me, her eyes wide and innocent. "What are you doing here? I thought you were at the recital."

It took me a second, but I finally managed to scoff. "Are you kidding me?" Her eyebrows lowered, and she genuinely looked confused. She turned, frowning at Derek, stood beside her, as though asking if he knew what on earth I was talking about. "Have you got some darach personality disorder, or something?"

"Oh, not you too," Miss Blake groaned, spinning around and widening her eyes at Derek. "Derek, tell me you don't believe this." My mouth fell open as she pleaded with Derek, and I turned to Scott and Stiles on the other side of the room, trying to communicate my utter confusion with them. Only neither of them were looking at me, Scott too focused on glaring at Miss Blake, and Stiles too buy wiping at his eyes. He had been crying, and I think it was a pretty safe bet that it was because of something she had done. Then I started to get angry.

"Can I kill her yet?" Rebekah sighed, turning to me with her eyebrows raised. I didn't even need to think about it.

"Sure," I murmured, staring at Miss Blake as she finally turned her attention back to us, her eyes flicking nervously between me and the smirking blonde at my side. The smirk dropped, however, when Derek moved to step in front of Miss Blake, shielding her from whatever hell Rebekah was about to rain down on her. For a second, I thought that maybe Derek had found some misplaced sense of loyalty in the woman, until he widened his eyes at me, tipping his head at Stiles. So I was right. It was her doing. "What have you done?" I asked the brunette behind Derek, fear filling up my chest.

"I haven't done anything," she insisted, her voice raising in anger and frustration.

"You almost killed Lydia," Scott corrected her, and I can promise you that if I had any form of magic in that moment, the woman would be dead.

"Lydia Martin?" she exclaimed, wheeling around to glare at Scott. "I don't know anything about that!"

Rebekah groaned beside me, rolling her eyes. "I'm killing her now."

"Wait," I said, grabbing her arm before she could take more than a few steps towards her, spinning around so I stood between her and her target. "I need you to wait. Something's wrong."

"Yes," she agreed, shrugging. "The demon that is ruining our lives in still breathing."

"These kids, for whatever misguided reason, are filling your head with an absurd story," Miss Blake tried, pleading with Derek behind me. I rolled my eyes at the voice, turning to glare at her again. "And one they can't prove, by the way."

"What if we can?" Scott cut in, raising a challenging eyebrow as he raised a small vial of light brown powder. A small vial that I recognized with a smile.

"What is that?" Miss Blake asked, a little wary.

"My boss told me it's a poison and a cure," he told her, stepping closer and unscrewing the lid. "Which means you can use it, and it can be used against you."

"Mistletoe," Miss Blake murmured angrily, seconds before Scott whipped the vial towards her, the powder flying towards her as she covered her face in vain. The second the powder made contact with her skin, she screeched, a blood-curdling sound, and appeared to all of us, if the several sharp intakes of breath were anything to go by, as the deformed creature I had seen earlier this evening.

"I wouldn't blame you for wanting to stay in that hole after seeing that," I heard Rebekah murmur beside me. I couldn't help but snort softly in agreement. When I turned to Scott, his eyebrows were low over his eyes, miming the word 'hole' at me. I shrugged.

And then Miss Blake moved to run, run away, wherever she could, but Derek was quicker, and wrapped a hand around her throat before she could move very far.

"Derek, wait, wait!" she pleaded. I saw the claws extending from his other hand, and I panicked. "You need me."

"What are you?"

"The only person who can save your sister," she told him, breathing heavily through his tight grasp. "Call Peter. Call him!"

Derek did just that, keeping a hand around Miss Blake's throat as he pulled his phone out of pocket, calling his uncle and asking him how his younger sister was doing in the hospital. I took that moment to rush over to Stiles and Scott, to find out what had happened while I was out of it.

"What's going on?" I asked them quietly, as soon as I reached them. Rebekah was close behind me, glaring at Miss Blake as she went. "What happened with Lydia?"

"She was going to be the next sacrifice," Scott told me, casting a glance at Stiles, who was staring at his feet. "The next philosopher."

"But she's okay, right?" I said, panicked. Stiles had been crying, and Lydia nearly died. I didn't like how that added up in my head.

"Lydia's fine," Scott assured me, widening his eyes promisingly. "Allison and Jackson are with her now, she's okay. Stiles' dad got there in time." I breathed out a long sigh of relief, nodding. Lydia was okay. But Stiles still had tears in his eyes.

"I feel there's a'but' in there somewhere," I murmured, watching Stiles sniff as he moved to stare at the ceiling instead of his shoes.

"She took Stiles' dad," Scott said, confirming my suspicions that something dreadful had happened. My eyes closed for a moment.

"Maybe it's not that bad," I suggested, shrugging hopefully. "He's not a philosopher. Maybe he's not a sacrifice."

"No, the pianist was the last philosopher," Stiles cut in before Scott could answer me, no longer staring at the ceiling, but staring at Rebekah with his eyebrows low over his eyes. "So now we're on the last group of the sacrifices."

"The guardians," I murmured, my shoulders slumping as Stiles nodded.

"Derek, stop!" Scott shouted around me, stepping forward. I turned, saw Miss Blake choking as Derek squeezed her throat, tighter and tighter. "What about your sister? What about Stiles' dad?"

"We can figure it out without her," Derek grunted, his grip not loosening as he picked her up off her feet, Stiles stepping forward, his breathing heavy. "Amber can find Stiles' dad. She can help Cora."

My eyes fluttered shut on a sigh. She'd planned it all out. "No, I can't," I admitted, wrapping my arms around myself. "She took my magic."

"She what?" I heard Scott ask quietly behind me. I rolled my eyes.

"She took my magic, Scott," I told him, hating having to say it out loud more than absolutely necessary. "All of it. I have nothing, I can't do anything. I can't help." Derek growled quietly, threateningly, and after a second, dropped her to her knees. Miss Blake looked up at his menacing glare from the floor, but all she did was smile.

"That's right," she said, teeth glinting in the low light. "You need me. All of you. If I die, your sister, Stiles' dad, Amber's magic; it all dies with me."

We all stood silent for a moment, Miss Blake reveling in her victory.

"Well isn't that unfortunate," Rebekah sighed, her shoulders slumping. "I was really looking forward to snapping your neck."

"So unfortunate," Miss Blake repeated sarcastically, glowering at the blonde. Derek grabbed at her arm, yanking her to her feet before she could say anything else, and marching her to the door.

"Meet us at the hospital," he ordered over his shoulder, not saying goodbye before he disappeared out of sight.

"She stole your magic?" Scott asked me not a second later, his eyes wide. "I didn't even realize that was something she could do."

"Me neither," I agreed, taking a deep breath. "I don't really know how it works, but I know I can't do magic anymore."

"Well, how do we get it back?" he demanded, shaking his head. I shrugged, avoiding his eye as I felt the tears stinging my eyes again, not knowing the answer.

"She has to give it back," Rebekah responded for me. "Only the witch, or darach, or whatever, that took it can give it back, as far as I know. So killing her won't do us any good."

Scott was quiet for a second, narrowing his eyes and scrutinizing her. "Who are you?"

"Your the girl I almost hit last week," Stiles said slowly, his eyes narrowed too. "The one that was just... stood in the middle of the road."

"Mm," was all Rebekah said at first, smiling a little and nodding. "That was supposed to be a warning to get off my back, but it didn't seem to do much good, did it?" It took Stiles a second, but he finally gasped, his eyes widening as he pointed at her.

"This is the person that's been threatening you?"

"What?" Scott cut in, not understanding what was going on. "Threatening?"

"Oh, calm down, both of you," Rebekah ordered, rolling her eyes. "There may have been a few threats thrown about, but I have put all of that aside for the moment, due to the homicidal maniac sacrificing humans all around town."

"So you're scared of the sacrifices, but you'll get in the way of a speeding vehicle?" Stiles asked her, his eyes thin and confused. Rebekah rolled her eyes.

"Your precious Jeep wouldn't have done much damage to this body, let me assure you," she promised, turning on her heel and wandering away. "Now, aren't we needed at the hospital?"

I looked between Stiles and Scott awkwardly, watching them try to dissect her comment. Stiles got there first. "Oh my God," was all he said, his eyes the side of saucepans. "Is she... Were you... Seriously?"

I bit my lip for a second, before I huffed. "Yes, okay, she's the vampire that was threatening me. Can we go now?"

"Vampire?" Scott laughed. "Are we back on this again?" He turned to his best friend, expecting to see some form of humour on his face, but all he saw was Stiles' wide eyes. The amused smile dropped from Scott's face. "Seriously?" he asked meekly. Stiles just swallowed.


The ride to the hospital in the Jeep was quick and quiet, Rebekah rolling her eyes every minute or so as Stiles and Scott whispered about her in the front.

"You know she can hear you, right?" I told them as we pulled up in front of the hospital just behind Derek's car, raising my eyebrows at Scott. "Her hearing is better than yours." I waited for Stiles to jump out into the pouring rain, following soon after and watching Scott carefully avoiding Rebekah as she jumped out of his side. I snorted.

"Are you seriously teaming up with a vampire right now?" Stiles asked me after he slammed the door shut, glaring at me a little. "Are you crazy? She was threatening you."

"She was threatening every one but me, actually," I corrected him, which did not help the glare. He pushed past me, headed for the back, where he pulled out a baseball bat.

"What's that?" Scott called out over the loud rain, which was already soaking us through, watching Stiles carefully as he came back to the front of the Jeep.

"Well, you got claws," he pointed out, shrugging and swinging the bat into his free hand. "I got a bat."

I rolled my eyes, shaking my head at Rebekah as we followed the two boys into the hospital. "And I'm the crazy one."

Derek was marching Jennifer through the hallway when we caught up with them, past the front desk and around the corner, when we were stopped by a friendly voice calling for Scott.

"What are you doing here?" Ms McCall asked her son when we stopped and turned at her panicked voice. "The hospital is evacuating."

"We're here for Cora," he told her, her frazzled eyes wandering through the six of us in surprise. "What, all of you?" Then she tipped her head, narrowing her eyes at Stiles. "Why does Stiles have my bat?"

"Mom, just trust me on this. You need to get out of here." Scott's face must have told her something was wrong, because she stopped arguing. "Right now."

"The building is supposed to be clear in 30 minutes," she told him hurriedly, seriously. "We've got two ambulances that are coming back. One's 10 minutes out, the other's 20. Cora needs to be on one of those. They'll be picking up in the basement garage." Scott nodded, thanking her silently, before he spun around and ushered us all back on our path towards the elevators at the end of the hallway. The ride up to Cora's level was silent, save for Miss Blake's complaints about Derek's petulant hold on her. The rest of us were watching her every move carefully. For the time being, with her here, Stiles' dad was okay. If he wasn't already... No, he wasn't. He was okay. But if she got loose from Derek, if she escaped... I don't know how long we'd have to save him. At least having her here gave us a little more time.

As soon as the elevator doors pinged open, Derek was dragging Miss Blake out and down the hallway by the arm, the rest of us following just as quickly. The bright lights above us started to flicker as Derek slowed, the storm outside growing stronger, but it was the two doors ahead that drew my attention.

"Can you hear that?" I asked nobody in particular. Rebekah turned to me, her eyebrows low for a second, before they shot back up again, her eyes widening.

"We should definitely-"

She didn't get to finish her sentence, cut off by the doors as they swung open with a bang, Peter Hale tumbling out from the hallway and landing at our feet.

"We have a problem," he told us, lifting his head just enough to stare at the hulking mass of werewolf that was awaiting us at the end of the hallway. That was certainly a problem. "A big one."

Derek didn't spare a second, rushing at the werewolf with a loud roar and getting knocked back almost immediately. That's when Scott ran to Derek's aid, despite my loud protests.

"I swear, if that boy gets me killed because he's playing hero, I'm going to make his afterlife a living hell," I muttered through my teeth, running a distressed hand through my hair and tugging. "What do we do?"

"Cora," Stiles murmured, and I turned to him sharply, my eyes wide, following his line of sight to the unconscious girl on the floor, beyond the three-person werewolf fight. I looked back to Stiles, my heart jumping up into my throat at the calculating look in his eyes.

"No," I told him immediately, pointing a finger in his face and moving to stand between him and the girl, hoping if I broke his line of sight, he might forget all about joining the hero club. "No, you leave this to the big bad werewolves."

"I can't just-"

"Yes, you can," I corrected him. "You remember what you said to me, when we found out that little shit was the alpha in this very hospital?" I asked him, throwing a hand down to where Peter still lay on the floor, groaning. "Scott and Derek are big wolves; they can take of themselves. They've got Cora. And I don't care what happens to will heal. You will not."

"Cora isn't healing," Stiles reminded me, his eyes hard now. Set. "And I'm not leaving her there." I tried to grab at his arm as he ran past, but he slipped right through my fingers, Peter jumping up and following him quickly. They both, somehow, managed to slip past the unusually large werewolf as he held Scott up by the throat, and made it to Cora unharmed. So far. I breathed a quick sigh of relief, and spun around to grab Miss Blake and follow them, only, there was a problem. She wasn't there. She was walking backwards quickly, already steps from the elevator. I cursed under my breath, darting from my spot and chasing her, despite a few loud complaints behind me, and barely, just barely, making it through the doors as they slid shut behind me, hitting the back wall with a thud, the breath knocked out of me. I didn't even have a second to catch the breath back before I was being whirled around, a hand tight around my wrist, Miss Blake's bright eyes piercing mine.

"You couldn't just let me go, could you?" she bit out, glaring like she could kill me with the look alone. It almost felt like she could.

"Not while you have the Sheriff's life in your hands, no."

She stepped back quickly, shaking her head at me. "You don't want to get caught up in this, Amber. People like you and me... we don't survive this fight."

"We ain't alike," I promised her, sucking in a few deep breaths. "I don't sacrifice innocent people to gain power."

"Power I need to survive," she argued, her voice rising. "Power I need to take down those too dangerous to live."

"And who are you to judge who lives, and who dies?" I asked her, narrowing my eyes and stepping closer to her. "No one should have that kind of power. No one should die to give someone that kind of power."

"You should ask the alphas about your mother," Miss Blake surprised me by saying, her face not changing from the defiant, and the slightest bit guilty, expression it had held from the second we'd entered the hospital. "Maybe then you'd understand."

I continued to stare at her, careful to keep calm, unaffected by her comment, despite the anger boiling in my stomach. I'd had just about enough of being lectured about my mother's death by the lesser evils in my life, of being tormented, manipulated, by people I was supposed to trust. People who, as it always seems to turn out, weren't to be trusted. Why is it that everyone I seemed to meet in my life seemed to know more about my mother than I ever had?

I followed Miss Blake out when the elevator doors pinged open, but she stopped suddenly when something hit the wall near her head, barely missing her. I heard a growl, and turned to the sound, spotting two not so friendly looking faces. One I recognized. The other, a man wearing sunglasses inside, smirked.

"I recognize that scent," he murmured, just loud enough for me to hear him over the ding that sounded behind me. Miss Blake had ditched me with the Demon Wolf and Boyd's murderer. Great.

"Yeah," I breathed, forcing a smile. "I've heard I have a particularly distinct smell. Although I didn't think we'd ever officially met." I offered a hand out into the wide open space between us, shaking it in the air. I think Stiles was rubbing off on me a little too much. "I'm Amber."

"I know who you are," Deucalion told me, smiling. "And we haven't officially met. It's not your scent that I recognize, necessarily, but that of your blood."

"Mm," I hummed sarcastically, raising my eyebrows and smiling. "It's a lovely picture you're painting me, really."

"I smelt a lot of it the night I tore your mother to shreds."

The smile dropped from my face, and I blinked. What was it I was just saying about people using my mother's death to manipulate me? Oh, yeah. I didn't like it.

"So it was your pack that killed her," I managed to say, my voice barely keeping even, despite my best efforts. Deucalion shrugged.

"Slaughtered, really," he corrected me, tipping his head to the side a little. "But you know that. You've seen the pictures."

I nodded. "That I have," I confirmed, pursing my lips. I needed to get out of here. Like, pronto. "You guys did some great work."

"Why, thank you," he said, smirking again. "We take great pride in what we do. I suppose it helps that we enjoy tearing the skin from werewolves and people alike, reveling in their screams of agony, their pleading, their begging. Your mother was definitely one of my favourites; she made us work for it, but when she finally gave in..." Deucalion sucked in a breath, tipping his head back while his friend beside him grinned, letting her eyes fall shut on the memory. That's when I saw Rebekah slowly peek her head around the corner behind them, her movements so carefully silent that she went completely unnoticed. "She certainly made it all worthwhile." He continued to smile at me, cocky now. I nodded briefly.

"Riveting," I deadpanned, taking care not to watch Rebekah as she nodded at me slowly, disappearing around the corner again. "Maybe y'all could reenact it for me some time. But right now, I have better things to be doing with my time."

"Like helping your pack without your magic?" he asked me, his eyebrows raising up over the rim of his sunglasses. I pointed a finger at him, smiling.

"Exactly," I said triumphantly. "Well, that, and I just plain don't like being in either of y'all's presence." Deucalion's friend grinned a little, her eyes glowing red as she crouched, growling threateningly.

"Now, now, Kali," Deucalion warned. "Play nice. We don't want her dead." I had a terrible feeling that there was a 'yet' implied. Then he sucked in a breath, holding up a finger. "Oh, that's right. We do want you dead."

I nodded, suddenly figuring out what he was trying to say. "But you want Scott to do it." Deucalion smiled, and I knew I was right. "Just like you want Derek to kill his pack and join you, you want Scott to do the same."

"You're a clever one, aren't you?"

"But Scott's not an alpha," I said, frowning as he continued to smile.

"Not yet," he corrected me. "He certainly has the potential to become one, given the right... guidance."

I snorted. "And you intend on guiding him?" I blew out a breath, doing my best to sound doubtful. "Dude, you can't even guide yourself without a stick or an assistance dog." With that comment, the woman, Kali, roared, and made a move to pounce towards me. Lucky for me, my trusty vampire was waiting in the wings, and after a few seconds of blurred movement and loud screeching, Rebekah turned to me, blood smeared down her chin, the two werewolves groaning on the floor behind her, covered in red. I sucked in a deep breath; if that hadn't worked, I had no doubt that I'd be the one in the mess on the floor right now.

"That was kind of a low blow, don't you think?" she chastised, stalking over to me and pressing the button to open the elevator doors.

"Hey, it distracted them, didn't it?" I argued as the doors swung open. We stepped in without wait, pressing the button for Cora's floor and watching Kali drag herself to her feet with an angry whine as the doors slid shut again.

"Yes, it also royally pissed them off," Rebekah pointed out, leaning against the back wall and wiping a sleeve across her chin to get most of the blood. "If they didn't want to kill you before, they certainly do now."


We were marching through the eerily empty halls when the power flickered, before cutting out all together a few seconds later. I huffed; my lack of sight was definitely not helping my situation right now.

"The storms getting worse," Rebekah murmured, the power blinking back into life as the back-up generators kicked in. "I'm beginning to think it's not completely natural."

"You think it's her?" I asked her, thinking of Miss Blake. It would take a lot of power to summon up a storm like this, but the way she'd been collecting dead bodies over the last couple of weeks...

"I don't doubt she has the ability by now," Rebekah answered, stopping in her stride when we hit a crossroads in the hall. She tilted her head to the side for second, before making a left and marching off. "This way," she informed me belatedly. I growled low in my throat, pulling a face behind her back, but followed, running to keep up with her quick pace. It was only a few feet later that she made a right and threw a set of doors open, Scott and Derek crouched just behind with the fangs and claws extended. Rebekah held her hands up in surrender.

"Calm down, boys," she said, stepping forward when they slumped at the sight of us. "I don't bite. Well..."

"I don't think now is really the time for puns," I told her, shaking my head as I followed her into the room. "Do you?"

"Puns are always acceptable," I heard her mutter. I rolled my eyes, but otherwise ignored the comment.

"Where the hell have you been?" Derek demanded to know, his teeth gritted together tightly. I shrugged, holding my arms out for a second before letting them slap back against my thighs.

"I got a little held up," I told him impatiently, raising my eyebrows. "I went chasing after that evil druid that you were supposed to be keeping an eye on, and then when we ran into the Demon Wolf and his barefoot girlfriend, she ditched."

"Are you okay?" Scott asked me immediately, ignoring Derek's growling.

"Oh, I'm fine," I told him, only a little sarcastic. "Yeah, we had a nice little chat about how he and his pack tore my mom to shreds, before he told me all about his mastermind plan to have you kill each and everyone of us and become a crazy alpha, just like him."

"Let's not forget the little joke you made about his, uh..." Rebekah trailed off, gesturing to her eyes with a waving hand. "Visual impairment."

"You made a joke about his blindness?" Peter asked me, like I was the crazy one in the room.

"I think it might have been more of a pun, really," Rebekah wondered aloud, raising her eyebrows at me pointedly. "What do you think?"

"I think you need to stop talking," I told her honestly, shrugging when she glared.

"Would the both of you just shut up?" Stiles cut in, before Rebekah could retort. "Where's Miss Blake?"

"I told you," I sighed, tipping my head. "She ditched me with the alphas."

"Well, where did she go?"

I scoffed. "I don't know, Stiles," I told him, my eyes wide. "I kind of lost track of her whereabouts when I was left alone with werewolves that have a kill list longer than Jason freaking Voorhees!"

"Quiet!" Derek shouted at us, his scowl deeper than usual.

"Do not tell me to be quiet!" I shouted back, hardly caring about the pack of murderous alpha werewolves chasing after us by this point. I hadn't had the best evening. "I have been tossed into a hole in the ground, stripped of my magic - my identity - very nearly literally thrown to the wolves and been treated to an incredibly vivid description of how my mother was murdered, all in the last couple of hours, so I swear to all that is holy, if you say one more word to me, Derek Hale, you will regret it."

Derek stared at me for a long moment, seemingly contemplating giving me a good, solid slap in the face. Apparently, he decided against it, because he just growled and stalked away, over to his still-completely-out-of-it sister. I spun around, starting on a wide-eyed Stilinski.

"I am sorry that I lost the crazy woman who is probably planning on ritually sacrificing your father," I opened with, tipping my head in apology. "But, in all honesty, I was a little busy fearing for my life before Rebekah showed up." I blew out a quick breath and nodded. "So, I've managed to both lose our only lead on the sacrifice front and piss off two of the deadliest creatures I've ever met. Now what do we do?"

"There's nothing you can do," a voice said, one that both relieved and infuriated me. I turned to growl at the English teacher as the doors behind her swung closed. "Only I can help you now."

I scoffed. "Your nose is so high, you wanna watch you don't drown out in that rain," I laughed bitterly, shaking my head at her. She narrowed her eyes at me. I don't think she appreciated the comment. Peter certainly did.

"I can save Cora, and I can tell you where Sheriff Stilinski is," she promised, her eyes roaming from Derek, to Stiles, and back again. "But there is a pack of alphas in this hospital who want me dead, so I'll help you... but only when I'm out of here and safe."

"That deal seems rather unfairly biased," Rebekah remarked, folding her arms over her chest. "Especially considering you just tried to run away, and then offered up an innocent young girl to the bloodthirsty werewolves when your plan failed miserably."

"I was trying to keep from getting killed," she defended herself, ignoring my scoffing. "You can't blame me for that."

Rebekah thought about it for a second, humming as she did. "I think I can."

Stiles stepped forward, closer to Cora. "If you want to show you're one of the good guys, then heal her."

Miss Blake shook her head. "Not until I'm safe."

"I'd like to volunteer a different method of persuasion," Peter piped up, pursing his lips and shrugging. "Let's torture her."

"I'm in," I said immediately, raising a hand. Rebekah raised hers too, a sickly sweet smile on her face as she raised an eyebrow in Miss Blake's direction. A loud squeak sounded above us, and I looked up to the noise.

"Um, can I have your attention," a trembling voice said - Ms McCall's trembling voice - said over the intercom. "Mr Deucalion... Excuse me, just Deucalion... Requests you bring the woman calling herself Jennifer Blake to the E.R. reception. Do this, and everyone else can leave. You have ten minutes."

"He's not going to hurt her," Miss Blake insisted, even her voice a little shaky now.

"Shut up," Derek ordered, but she just shook her head.

"He won't!" she said again, sighing. "You're not the only one he wants in his pack, Derek. Deucalion doesn't just want an alpha pack, he wants perfection. That means adding the rarest of alphas to his ranks."

Peter gasped, a tiny, barely audible noise, as his eyes widened. "A true alpha."

"What the hell is a true alpha?" Rebekah demanded, her eyes narrowed.

"The kind that doesn't have to steal his power from another," Peter explained, a small smirk on his face while he stared at Scott. "One that can rise by his own force of will. Our little Scott."

"Wait," I cut in, holding my hands up. "Are you saying Scott's becoming an alpha? Like, on his own?" Peter raised an eyebrow at me as he nodded his head once, an oddly impressed look on his face.

"It doesn't matter," Scott said, shaking his head and turning back to Miss Blake. "We still need to get her out of here."

"Scott," Stiles butted in, stepping forward. "Your mom-"

"My mom said there's one more ambulance coming in twenty minutes, and I don't think we've been here that long." He looked at each of us in turn, before settling on Derek. "So if we can get down to the garage, get to the last ambulance, we can get out of here."

Peter scoffed. "The twins aren't gonna let us just walk out."

I thought about it for a second, before thing out there was the twins? How in hell did that even work?

"I'll distract them," Scott offered, an offered that made me groan.

"Please don't die," I begged, pouting a little. "I mean, not that I want you to die under any circumstances, but I don't know how having no magic is going to affect me if you get mortally wounded."

"I'll help you," Derek said, nodding at Scott before Miss Blake made a loud sound of objection.

"Sorry," she started, widening her eyes briefly. "But I'm not going anywhere without you, Derek."

"How romantic," Rebekah commented quietly, rolling her eyes.

"I'll do it," Peter decided, barreling on over Rebekah's snark. "But I'd prefer to be out there with an advantage."

I frowned, looking at everyone's equally confused expressions.

"An advantage like what?" Stiles finally asked, voicing all our thoughts. "You mean like a weapon." Peter smirked for a second.

"Something better than a baseball bat."

Everyone set to work, rifling through the cabinets lining the walls for something to use, something to help Scott and Peter fight the twins. Instead of helping, I bit my lip, spinning around on my heels to face Rebekah, who was pointedly checking her nails for dirt and avoiding my eyes.

"No," she said, not even looking up from her hand.

"You don't even know-"

"I'm not putting my life on the line for a couple of werewolves I don't even know," she cut in quickly, finally looking up at me.

"You can't die," I pointed out, raising my eyebrows. She tried to defend her logic for a second, before snapping her mouth shut when she realized she couldn't.

"I can still be subjected to an immense amount of pain," she argued, avoiding my eyes again.

I rolled my eyes. "Rebekah, please. I literally could not care any less than I already do about what happens to Peter, but Scott is a different story."

"Can't we just hand her over to the psychotic werewolves?" Rebekah pleaded like a child. "We can find another witch to find the Sheriff, and save the unconscious girl."

"They will both be long dead before we find another witch," I said honestly, ignoring the image I had in my head of Stiles' face as I said it. "She is our only shot."

"Maybe we can force her into giving you your magic back," she tried, shrugging a shoulder. "Then we kill her."

"Okay, you're missing the part where the alpha pack ain't just after Miss Blake," I told her, stepping forward and bringing out the good ol' puppy eyes. "They want Scott to join them, and to do that, Scott has to kill his pack. That means we all die."

"Surely that works in my favor," Rebekah pointed out, tipping her head as she thought. "They get rid of all the werewolves in town, one by one, and move on to whatever new shiny toy takes their fancy, and I am left enjoying my nice, peaceful life at my new home. A home completely void of snooping teenagers."

"Or," I tacked on the end, raising my eyebrows. "The alpha pack kill each and every one of us, because I know Scott ain't gonna do it, and you're left defending yourself from the seemingly never-ending supernatural pest problems in this town, completely alone and with no one to trust."

"It's not like they're going to kill me."

"But what is the point in being immortal and indestructible if everyone around you dies?" I watched her for a second, watched as something ticked in her jaw, before she huffed. I think I hit a nerve.

"Fine," she said loudly, raising her arms out to her side in surrender and turning to the rest of the group. "Fine, I'll help. I have found your advantage."

"I don't think we need it anymore," Scott said quietly, eyeing Peter and the syringe sticking out of his chest cautiously. I rolled my eyes.

"Seriously?" I asked the room. "I leave y'all for two seconds to have a quick conversation, and this is what happens?" Scott shrugged. I don't think he was entirely sure of what had happened either. "Go with them anyway," I said to Rebekah, who huffed again, but didn't argue. "I don't trust Peter alone with Scott."

"Oh, sure," Stiles agreed, sarcasm dripping from every pore. "You won't trust Peter, but you'll trust the vampire that you only met because she was threatening your family."

"You're right, Stiles." I nodded, smiling. "I do trust the immortal, indestructible creature who has threatened, but has yet to lay a finger on, my loved ones, to protect my alpha who, by the way, likes to share all his serious injuries with me, over the psychopathic werewolf who murdered several people, his own niece included, bit Lydia and left her to bleed out on the lacrosse field, before dying, using the girl he nearly killed to raise himself from the dead, and then impaling and killing my best friend." I shrugged. "Rebekah is, by far, the lesser of two evils here."

I saw Rebekah turn to smile at me, like it was a compliment. "Thank you."

"I..." I huffed, too exhausted to try to explain it to her. "You're welcome," I settled on instead.

"Come along then, boys," she sighed, strutting - yes, strutting - over to the doors where a hulking mess of alpha twins lay waiting for something to maul. "We've got work to do."


We finally made it to the garage through the creepily dark hallways, the lights flickering above us, and I don't know about anyone else, but I breathed an incredibly massive sigh of relief when we caught sight of the waiting ambulance. Stiles was first to it, throwing the doors to the back wide open and climbing in, allowing Derek plenty of room to haul Cora onto the gurney there.

"Derek," Miss Blake called, standing off to the side. "Over here."

Stiles frowned at me, trying to peer around the side of the ambulance. I took a step back from the vehicle, following Derek's path to Miss Blake's side, only to backtrack the second I saw the blood-soaked body laying on the floor.

"Tell me that ain't the ambulance driver," I pleaded with them. Derek winced.

"I don't think now is really the time to lie to you," he answered, my heart sinking with his words.

"So what do we do now?" I asked them, my hands slapping against my thighs in frustration. Derek opened his mouth, trying to find an answer, before it snapped shut in a grimace. He had no answer.

A terrifying sound came then, that of a soft, gentle voice calling the name 'Julia', almost like you would call a child. Or your prey.

"It is you," the voice continued to say, and from where I stood around of the back of the ambulance, I could see Miss Blake back away, her eyes wide as she turned to me, Derek crouching at the someone that I couldn't see. Miss Blake approached me quickly and quietly as Derek growled, loud and angry, and placed a hand on the side of my head.

"A gesture of goodwill," she said so quietly that I could barely hear it over Derek's threatening noises, raising her other hand and clasping it to the other side of my head, and suddenly I was filled with an unbearable pain between her hands. It felt like she was searing something onto my brain. The next thing I know, I can feel the earth moving from under my feet, and I land in the back of the ambulance with a whimper, Stiles crouched in front of me with a hand over my mouth and a finger over his own, his eyes wide. I nodded, blinking away the tears that had formed with what Jennifer had done, and he slowly moved his hand away, spinning around to pull the ambulance doors shut just as Derek sprints passed us. A few seconds later, after staring out through the small windows until he was sure the coast was clear, he turned back to me, blowing out a long breath.

"What the hell did she do to you?" he asked me, his eyebrows low as he watched me, his eyes flickering over my face. I let out a quick laugh, swallowed, and raised a hand, letting that tingle run through my arm until a warm light started to glow from my hand.

"She gave me my magic back."


Thanks for reading, guys. Stay fetch.