He made it a priority to keep his attention on Kate, hoping that by doing so, he would be able to identify the moment she'd begin to direct her retaliation on the girl situated to his left. Riley fidgeted uneasily among the floor, her legs aching to stretch, but her cuffed hands could not untethered themselves. And despite seeing the soft purple shadow form along her temple, a bruise left behind from the man working with the devil herself, he began to feel antsy.
His fingers itching for the moment he could wrap them around the guys throat. He wanted to do more than that, because any man that put their hands on a woman deserved it. A part of him silently wondered why she'd come alone, why she'd seeked out him out without a proper plan or form of defense. Did she really think that this was a safe idea? And another part of him wanted to thank her. He felt compelled, like he'd owe her his life if he made it out of this.
And Kate sat before him, leaning back within her chair with a concentrated look upon her face. She'd been at this for days now, using her own twisted form of torture in hopes of getting Derek to talk. The hunter needed answers, because not only was there an Alpha on the prowl, still unaware of who it was, she knew definitively that there was a second Beta. Scott McCall never would have crossed her mind, and Derek would not be the one to deliver the news.
Despite Scott's resistance to this new Werewolf life, Derek saw something in him. Something he recognized within himself when he was once his age. Scott had the mind and heart of a leader. He was resilient in his adverse way of silencing the beast inside of himself and decided to use his power to help others. He did not want him to fall victim to Kate, especially while he was still invested in the hunters niece.
Tearing his eyes away from Kate for just a moment, he looked to Riley instead. Her gaze was pleading, silently questioning how much power Kate really had over them. Her features softened, her head tilting in hopes of a logical response. It was Derek who gave a small shake of his head, hoping she could read the fear laced within his own eyes, that hies hands were tied, both physically and metaphorically.
Unaware to Derek, Kate had noticed their small and silent, yet significant, exchange. She sat up straighter within her chair, her wide eyes rapidly shuffling from one to the other. "I get the feeling you two know each other." She exhaled excitedly. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Derek," she teased, "but I think your knight in shining armor is now a damsel in distress." Her laugh was hearty, pleased by her ability to pinpoint details. "Sounds like the start to a budding romance."
Kate stood then, lurking forward as she cupped Derek's chin, squeezing slightly to form a pout upon his tangerine lips. "You know I'm a sucker for romance." Kate hummed, and Riley watched with hateful eyes as she touched him so freely. The same hands that induced his pain, also seemed to caress him softly, almost the way a lover would. A low rumble burrowed itself in Derek's chest as Kate took a step back, assessing the situation with new eyes. "And here I'd thought I'd ruined you, Derek. I gotta admit," she sarcastically warranted as she thrust a thumb over her shoulder in Riley's direction, "she doesn't seem like your type. Like at all."
Watching his expression sink into something so incredibly distorted, Riley felt a heat swell behind her eyes. He did look broken . . . He looked more than broken. How else was something suppose to look when faced before the woman that murdered their family? "Shut up." He warned her, but his voice cracked just the slightest.
"Oh." Kate hummed. "A touchy subject, I see?" She crossed her arms over her chest, tilting her head in understanding. "It's fine," she commented, "I'll just ask her about it." She shifted her eyes in Riley's direction, swiveling her body in a swift movement as her boots clicked against the cement floor. She paused before the girl she'd chained up, raking her eyes over the formal dress she was wearing. Had she come from the formal tonight? The same dance that her niece, Allison, had been attending? She realized then with mock enthusiasm that this girl before her was still a teenager. "God, Derek," Kate huffed, "I thought you liked older women."
Riley glared up at her from beneath her full lashes. "Fuck you." She finally spit.
Raising a brow in surprise, Kate seemed to enjoy the girls pleasantries. "She speaks!" Her lean frame bent down to her level, her steel grey eyes narrowed and hard. "What's your name?" She asked, her voice softening despite the menace in her stare. Riley ground her teeth together, not daring to give a psychopath like her that kind of satisfaction. She waited a few more seconds, finding the stilled silence an interesting tactic coming from someone in Riley's position. "Well," she breathed, "Sweetheart, let me tell you a little something about Derek Hale."
She looked to the Beta chained beyond the far wall, his anger fueled eyes seemed depleted and strained on the floor. Almost as if he knew what was coming. "Beneath all of that pent up angst and brooding eyes," she relayed knowingly, "is someone so profoundly kind, like, will help your grandmother cross the road kind of kind. Sure, he puts up this front, 'My names Derek'," she imitated him with a hard and turned up face, "'And I hate everyone, blah,blah,blah'." Riley felt her blood thicken, her spine tingle at just the sheer mockery behind Kate's tone. "Ever wonder what made him like that? What him so cold?"
Riley's eyes glanced back to Derek, who adverted his eyes after gauging her reaction for a small moment. It was her turn to study him, seeing him recoil at her voice and how it affected him in a way Riley had never seen. Clearing her throat, and keep her eyes carefully set on the hemline of her dress, she spoke, "I'm guessing it has something to do with you?" Riley turned her head then, finally glancing at Kate with a forceful and accusing stare.
Watching from the sidelines, unable to find his own voice, Derek could feel himself begin to choke on his words. He wanted to speak up for himself, defend what little amount of dignity he had left. But his chest seemed to deflate, his breaths coming in whisper-like heaves as he tried to find something else to focus on. What Kate was saying didn't seem to be a lie for once. And that scared him. It scared him because somehow the truth seemed more damaging than any lie Kate could spew.
And her audience of choice was Riley. Why did it cause him so much internal conflict to see her sit on the receiving end of the news? Why did her opinion of him matter so much? Why did it make him so uncomfortable when her eyes landed on him? Was he afraid she'd judge him? Was he afraid she'd tell someone? For Derek, it didn't seem to be any of those things. It was the cruel notion of knowing that Riley could hear all of what Kate had to say and it might change her perception of him.
Because he knew a part of her saw him the way no one else had. A way no one else ever could. "I had everything to do with it." Kate corrected her in a way that signified she still remained delighted about that fact to this day. "You see," Kate insinuated, brushing a stray lock of hair out of Riley's face. She flinched, feeling her ears burn from the amount of fire that ebbed beneath her skin. "Derek has always had a thing for pretty, innocent girls. All someone has to do is play their cards right and they can twist their way around that beautiful body of his."
She grinned, eyeing Derek's frame with a look that suggested she was once familiar with it. "Now," she summarized, "I know what you're thinking. A werewolf and a hunter sounds a lot like forbidden love." Riley swallowed that truth like a razor blade, because it confirmed the idea that Kate had targeted Derek at a young and vulnerable stage in his life. "And with a love like that, someone's always bound to get burned."
Riley nodded ever so slightly, fearing that the riptide of anger bubbling up would soon become uncontainable. "Sounds like you enjoy playing with fire." Riley commented bravely, feeling a sudden rush of adrenaline fuel her comeback. "Being an arsonist is right up your alley."
Her glare did not falter, nor did she stutter. It was all about provoking her now.
Kate paused for a second, taking a moment to reflect on the fact that this young girl had some fight in her. Was she brave or just stupid? Kate hadn't figured that part out yet. "Oh, that." Kate recollected, standing up from her perch beside Riley, hovering over her now with glowering eyes. "Just doing the Lord's work." She insisted.
Perhaps this girl wasn't dumb, Kate thought. Despite covering her tracks, Riley was still entirely certain that she had something to do with the Hale fire. She turned then, feeling as if she had the last word as she turned to look at Derek. His head was hung low, as if to shield himself from the direction their conversation had turned. "Whatever you tell yourself," Riley muttered from behind her, "to help you sleep at night." Still facing away from her, Kate shook her head, unable to fathom the amount of balls this girl seemed to have. "Does it help with the guilt?" Riley continued, her eyes stinging and watered down, but her face remained hard and stoic. Her voice was almost an octave lower, deep and guttural and full of accusation. "Considering you murdered eight innocent people?"
She would not allow Kate to live down that kind of guilt.
Rolling her eyes, Kate looked to Derek before jutting her thumb over her shoulder. "How do you put up with her?" She asked, heading back toward the table with the dial machine. Derek did not answer, nor did he even glance her way. He kept his eyes down, feeling his body flex on its own accord the closer she got to the dial. Her hand reached out, turning it suddenly all the way to the right as the buzzing sound returned.
Watching with flooded eyes, Derek's head snapped back as his body tremored frantically. The patch of wires taped just beneath his ribs sent electric currents throughout his body. The pain felt almost unbearable, feeling like a stripped wire of electricity had been submerged into his bloodstream. And even over his gutted cry of agony, he could hear Riley begging Kate to stop. And the hunter did, for a brief second. "I'm sorry, Sweetie, I couldn't hear you! What did you say?"
"Please-" Riley began to say again, but just as the word left her mouth, Kate cranked the dial back to the right, and watched Derek's body convulse with excited eyes. And despite how painful it must have been for Derek to feel it, it almost seemed more so to watch it happen. And for a second, Riley caught herself wishing it were her instead of him. Of course, the current would have killed her, but it would have saved him the suffering. "Stop!" She bellowed again over the heightened buzzing, her own body shivering unfathomably.
"All he has to do is tell me who the second Beta is." Kate shrugged before finally dialing the knob back down to zero. Derek's body was rigidly chained to the beam behind him, his breathing labored and spewing in sharp gasps and he collected what was left of himself. Despite Kate's attempts, Derek was not going to mention Scott McCall. A huff of annoyance blew from Kate's lips, "Unfortunately, Derek, if you're not going to talk, then I'm just going to have to kill you." Her hand reached for the dial again with every intention of letting the current run until his heart gave out. "Say hi to your sister for me."
It was a low blow, considering Laura's death was just as recent as Riley's mothers.
"You did tell her about me, didn't you?" Kate chided with a furrowed brow. "The truth about the fire? Anything?" She tilted her head, searching his eyes as if his green orbs could speak more freely than his mouth. But within them, all she saw was the overwhelming glimmer of regret. He hadn't told his sister. He hadn't told anyone. He didn't want anyone to know that it was him who had lead the hunter to their door. "Oh, Sweetie," Kate hummed, taking a few slow steps to stand before him, "That's a lot of guilt to keep buried. It's not your fault," She promised him with pursed lips, "you got tricked by a pretty face." Her sympathetic features were now upturned into a smirk. "It happens!" Her voice croaked. "Handsome, young werewolf," pointing in Derek's direction, "mistakenly falls in love with a super-hot girl who comes from a family that kills wolves. Isn't that ironic?" She ticked.
Derek's chin was tucked into his bare chest, hiding the only vulnerable part about himself. It was his eyes, because they were always harder to mask. To keep the wetness buried seemed impossible at times. "Or is it just a little bit of history repeating?" Kate trailed off, her eyes wandering for a second as she tasted the bitter relay of her words. "History repeating." She mentioned again, deep in thought as the truth finally hit her. "It's not Jackson, is it?" She questioned, now doubting her earlier accusations about the teenager. "Oh, no, no, no, he's got a little scratch on the back of his neck, but he's not in love with a hunter." Her eyes hardened, the truth abundantly clear as a short flicker of desperation clouded Derek's features. "Not like Scott."
She compared both her and Derek's past to Scott and Allison's present. How history had repeated itself through the young lovers. "I think I just found our second Beta."
Riley wanted to speak up, to mention to Kate that she was wrong. But she feared that if she did, her voice would crack. That it would be undeniable to assume that the second Beta had been her niece's boyfriend. Kate sunk into the darkness, exiting the basement of the Hale house with a new vendetta for Scott McCall. She would seek him out with any means necessary, and from there, do with him what hunters did best.
A heavy silence hung within the air now, feeling a wave of panic begin to settle within her stomach. Her friend was in trouble. How could she protect him now? Her hands shook violently, rattling the cuffs linked around her wrists in an attempt to loosen them. The metal clanked together noisily, recklessly trying to free herself in time. And even if she had, Riley did not know what her next move would be. Would she go after Kate? What was her defense against a skilled and trained hunter? How could someone like her stop someone like Kate?
A grunt formed on her lips, tugging relentlessly on her hands as the metal dug into her flesh.
And even with as much force as she could muster up, it was not enough. Riley was not strong enough to protect herself, let alone someone else. "They're not going to loosen." Derek's voice filtered through, a lower pitch than the guttural sounds clawing from her throat. She ignored him, continuing to tug against the cuffs as if she were certain he was lying. Watching her body rake with anxiety, seeing the revelation ignite her eyes, it was all too real. He could see that she was not going to give up. "Ry." He said in a calmer and more tender voice.
Hearing that made her pause, not having heard anyone call her by that nickname since her mother passed away. It was one she hadn't expected to hear again, especially coming from Derek Hale's mouth. For a second, her hands felt heavy. Every part of her just felt so unbelievably heavy. As if she were shouldering the weight in a bodysuit of stone. "He needs our help." Was all she managed to say, her tone defeated and low.
"We need help." Derek clarified, rattling the shackles entrapped around his own wrists as if to prove it. "But," he replied with a small sense of hope, "If my plan works, someone will come for us eventually."
Riley rose an intrigued brow, bringing both of her knees to her side as she leaned forward to look at him carefully. "What plan?" She demanded, wondering if his elaborate mind could warrant such a thing.
"The other night," Derek remembered, "when Kate shot down my door, I told Scott to run." He kept his eyes low, hooded beneath the shadows casted along his face. "I took his phone. If he looks for it, the GPS will lead him here." It was the only plan he had to fall back on. The only thing that he'd been relying on now for the past few days. "I'm hoping he's smart enough to try an track it."
Riley frowned, the crease between her brows deepening with displeasure. "That's the plan?" She hissed, her voice a small and piercing echo inside his head. "We're suppose to just sit here and hope someones smart enough to check the Hale house again?" It made her angry, because putting her own safety into the hands of a plan that had many flaws did not seem logical.
"You were." Derek timidly noted. She had been smart, yet somehow, both stupid and reckless enough to search the house for clues. "You came back." And he didn't know who to thank for that exactly. Because to him, that showed willingness to find the truth, despite how scary and twisted it really was.
He looked at her then, studying her with appraising eyes, because somehow this one girl had made a difference. In the six long years following the fire, Derek Hale had put little faith into anyone or anything. He did not expect to trust anyone after that, but here he was, putting every ounce of it into the person seated across from him. Not because he wanted to, but because he felt obligated to. Because she was the only one willing to piece enough of his disappearance together to find him.
And if Riley hadn't known any better either, she had a feeling that having him be open like this was a terrible vulnerability of his. It was something he feared. He was afraid of basic human decency and any form of contact because he knew letting the wrong people in could be damaging . . . That was something he learned from Kate. Despite even learning about the intentional way that the hunter had broken him, Riley did not see the shattered pieces Derek thought was viewable. She saw wholeness. She saw humbleness.
Because in the years after the fire, Derek had taken all of that grief and put it into forming his armor. It created a shell of who he'd use to be, and it terrified Derek to see the armor slowly strip away in Riley's presence. He felt comfortable, as if doing so would not leave him empty handed again. "Well," Riley snorted both sarcastically and helplessly, "here I am." She wiggled her wrist's to showcase her cuffs, reminding him that she was no hero. When she looked to him this time, his eyes were lowered to the floor at his feet, his bare torso still rising and falling with each heavy breath he breathed. "And just so you know," allowing her voice to soften into a reassuring murmur, "it doesn't matter to me . . . What Kate said," she elaborated further, "it doesn't matter."
He wanted to correct her, because in his mind it did. In his mind it was all that mattered. It was the details of both he and Kate's relationship, one that formed when he was only sixteen years old. She'd used him. She'd manipulated her way into making him believe that he was worth something to her . . . But it wasn't enough to protect his family. It wasn't enough to keep the secret of what his family was hidden, and when Kate had pieced it together, that's when she orchestrated the fire.
But hearing those words come from Riley, it managed to ease the hollowness within his chest for a moment. It felt easier to breathe then. To not be scrutinized by someone for their mistakes was all he'd ever wanted. To have someone know the dirty truth about what he'd done and still accept him and the flaw of who he was felt foreign. He was unfamiliar with the concept of forgiveness. He did not respond, and despite his silence Riley could recognize the acceptance flicker within his eyes. He didn't have to believe anything she said, but as long as she said it, she knew it would resonate with him.
It was something she could see now, beneath the toughened werewolf exterior, was a human itching to find itself again. It seemed unreal to be caught in the middle of the supernatural world. Still trying to wrap her head around the fact that mythical monsters did, in fact, exist. But he didn't look like a monster. His green eyes, despite being tempered, were often times soft when idling on her. He did not roar like a beast, nor did he howl frantically at the moon.
Riley shook her head at that thought, until it replayed over and over within her head.
Her expression must have changed, focusing on a brewing thoughts as a concentrated look crossed her features. "What is it?" Derek noticed, easily able to identify the shift of her thoughts from reading her stiffened body.
"I was just thinking," she cleared her throat and shook her head mechanically, "about a research paper I wrote my Sophomore year." Derek furrowed a brow, unsure of how that had anything to do with their current predicament. "It was about the wolf population in Yellowstone Park." She remembered tentatively. "About how they was depleting and all of the parks natural resources began to fall through because of it." She thought for a moment later, trying to remember the specifics. "There was something in there about echo location?" She recalled with an unsure squint of her eyes.
Derek nodded, "Wolves howl to signal their location to the rest of the pack."
"Does that work for Werewolves too?" She wondered expectantly.
He could see where she was going with this, his head shaking for a brief second. "If Scott's at the school," he mentioned with a defeated tone, "I doubt he'll hear it." It hadn't crossed his mind before, because wolves howled to communicate with their pack. Derek did not have one, he had been on his own now for quite some time.
Riley pursed her lip, her dainty shoulder rising into a shrug. "Maybe it won't." She agreed. "But, maybe . . . Maybe it will." Their eyes met, keeping them firm and assuring as she urged him to take a chance. "Just try." She pressed.
With her stare so incredibly insistent, Derek could not disobey. His gaze was the first to break away, treading them on the cement beneath his feet as he caved in. It was always a feeling of relief that gathered in his bones on the rare occasion he let the animal inside out. As if the beast created an abundant amount of pressure within his lungs, and breathing narrowly allowed it to claw its way up from the cavity of his chest. It was caged and confined for so long, but letting it free was just as easy as he remembered.
His body radiated in a few small spasms, his neck twitching once he allowed the shift to control him. Riley felt a wave of nervous energy hover between them, eyes widening once the bridge of his nose connected to form a short muzzled appearance between the center of Derek's features. His face shifted into something unrecognizable, though his eyes remained a tempered, yet soft, shade of green.
There was a whole hell of a lot of vulnerability that went into letting himself be seen this way. It was a monster very few had seen, yet Riley did not cower away from it like he'd thought. Still situated and cuffed just a mere few feet from him, she seemed attentive and encouraging. It was as if she believed that something like this could work.
Derek concentrated enough to keep the animal inside at bay, only allowing it to simmer just beneath his skin. His claws elongated from his nail beds, his hands enclosed into a fist as they embedded themselves into his palms. He could feel his teeth sharpen, salivating for freedom he didn't dare offer up. His shoulders rose as a deep breath collected in his lungs, holding it for a duration of time that felt prolonged and uneasy.
And when he opened his mouth, a howl tore it's way up his throat.
The muscles within his stomach clenched, burrowing the echo of his roar into the deepest crevices of his own body. It rumbled within his chest, finding a release after having been coiled up inside of him for so long. The sound ricochetted off the stone walls, a deep a guttural wave of noise pulsating within Riley's ears. She wished to cover them, to shield their sensitivity away from the baying snarl slipping from between Derek's teeth.
But it fascinated her more, her eyes fixated on the way his muscles flexed and they way his head was thrown back as if to bay at the moon. Perhaps this was the first time Riley really understood what it meant to be a Werewolf and how it affected different people. She wanted to be afraid of him in this moment, to have a reason to pinpoint an unexplainable fear that did not stem from being this close to a monster.
The creature that howled before her was a vicious thing. In the absence of forgiveness, she knew its bite would swallow her whole . . . But this monster was not Derek Hale. They were different beasts of the same man. The only similarity was that they shared the same flesh and bone.
The echo of his call died down, fading into a breathless gasp of air as Derek tried to even his breathing. And as long as it took for Riley to blink, his features had shifted back into that of a handsome man, with a sharp jaw, narrowed nose and restless eyes. His bare chest fluctuated feverishly, trying to catch the breath he'd lost. It took him a second to regain the human side of him, but his body still remained sore and beaten down. "Do you-" he huffed heavily, "Do you think it worked?"
The hope within his voice wasn't prominent, because there already seemed to be a part of him that felt doubtful. But maybe if Riley believed in it, he could too. Her arms began to feel achingly stiff now as they idled in the cuffs above her head. She nodded numbly, almost so sure of herself but she could not bring her voice to agree.
His skin began to sweat now, the heat of his chances lowering minute after minute that they were basked in silence. His onyx colored hair clung to his forehead, and for a second he looked like a child. Despite the budding stubble along his cheeks, he looked small and unsure. His features looked pained as if he were holding back some form of desperation that threatened to spill out.
Or maybe it had more to do with the way that the basement still had a lingering smell of smoke.
He'd lived in this house for months since he'd returned back from New York in search of his sister, but not once had he traveled down there. If he listened hard enough, he could still hear the screams of his family, sharp and helpless, as they burned alive. Derek shook his head, trying to rid himself of the memory. Placing all of his focus into matching his distorted breathing to hers, hearing her pulse shift beneath her skin, he looked at her from beneath his hooded lids.
She wore this expression of acceptance, as if it were her own way of assuring him that there was no room for dissension between the two of them. And the look within her eyes somehow left him struck, feeling the vulnerability absolve entirely. Because he felt comfortable with her enough to know her judgment did not exist, it was like a weight being lifted from his ever burdened shoulders.
In his twenty-one years of life, he'd never met anyone like that. Someone so entirely accepting of his flaws, that it terrified him. It terrified him, because he did not know how to accept it himself. How was he suppose to react? His mouth moved on it's own accord, opening as if to thank her, only to have his lips press back into a thin line.
Perhaps a thank you would not be enough.
Out of all the people he'd grown to know since returning to Beacon Hills, it was her, this wide eyed girl with no real comprehension of what darkness this town offered, that came for him. She'd left her formal dance, a reasonable right of passage for any high school student, to look for him. Riley did not owe him anything, yet she'd given him something by simply proving that his life was worth saving.
That his life was worth more than he'd ever even known.
Derek opened his mouth again, this time wanting for force the words out, but before they could, his ears rang with the sound of a distant and forceful howl. He paused, eyes narrowing in concentration as he strained his hearing. It was the sound of hope, carrying on the breeze from miles away. Scott McCall bellowed back in acknowledgement, ensuring from the throaty growl expanding from his throat, that he was on his way.
His howl had swam across the brisk night, falling into a faint echo as it breezed past the Hale house. "What is it?" Riley questioned, noticing him become visibly still.
Perking up just a bit straighter, his fisted hands tugged on his shackles firmly for just a second, testing it's weakness as if he feared Scott would not make it. "Reinforcements." Derek murmured.
"He heard you?" She huffed out with a relieved breath. Not having heard Scott's faint and died out roar, she could only assume from the sudden change in Derek Hale's body language. "That means Kate didn't get to him." She concluded. Knowing the Hunter had left nearly an hour ago now in search of the second Beta, she was grateful to learn that her friend, Scott McCall, had evaded her for now. But upon further study, she recognized an undesirable flicker of emotion cross over Derek's features. "You don't look too happy?"
Having her point it out reminded him to keep his emotion in check. He'd learned the hard way, that Riley Haven was extremely observant. Shaking his head in the slightest, "If Scott could hear me from over seven miles away," he trailed off for a moment, looking to her consequently with worry struck eyes, "I'm wondering who else may have too."
That hadn't been a worry within Riley's mind until now. Until he'd brought up the assumption that more hunters could be flocking their way, or even worse, Peter Hale.
The idea of seeing the psychotic Alpha again left her skin peppered with chills. Peter Hale seemed ruthless and unforgiving in the short amount of time she'd known him, nothing like his nephew Derek. It made Riley wonder about his life before the fire. How he'd grown up with his mother, father, two sisters and uncle as a supernatural being. Assuming it had been hard on him, it left her curious to know if the man cuffed to the steel beams before her was anything like the child he'd once been.
Or had Kate siphoned it from him?
Had she taken the innocence burrowed within Derek Hale the same way she'd taken his family? Forcefully? Mercilessly? Glancing to him briefly, she could see the flicker of understanding cross over his face. It was her turn to ask, "What is it?", as he looked to her with a careful expression. It was as if he'd been trying to string together a coherent enough idea for ages now, until it all made sense.
"Kate's going to finish what she started." He mentioned with narrowed eyes. "This isn't about me or you," he declared firmly, "At first, it was about finding the Alpha," his bared torso flexed with each deep breath he took, "But now that she know's Scott's the second Beta . . . "
"She's going to kill two Werewolve's with one stone." Riley gathered as she voiced her poorly worded analogy. Looking to Derek from beneath her lashes, she found herself gnashing her teeth together, "Three." She concluded assuringly, looking to the wolf across from her with knowing eyes. "Drawing Scott here," Riley muttered with a shaking voice, "Will inevitably lure in Peter too."
"It's a trap." Derek agreed. "Everything's going exactly how Kate want's it too."
"Not exactly." A heavy and windblown voice corrected. Riley's eyes widened, twisting her head over her shoulder to see a figure lingering in the doorway. It was clouded in darkness, taking slow and precise steps forward until their features were illuminated by the soft glow of the overhead light above. "No one's dying tonight." He promised.
Scott McCall's shaggy brown hair was wild, as if he'd ran the distance between the school and the Hale house as fast as he could. His breathing was steady and controlled as he glanced down to Riley at his side, reaching his hand forward until it wrapped around the metal link binding the two cuffs to the pipe above her, and tugged it in one swift strike as the metal chain pulled apart within his palm. "Thank God." Riley huffed with an exaggerated sigh.
Her arms fell into her lap, numb and heavy as her fingers fiddled with the broken cuffs until they slipped from her wounded wrists. "Couldn't stay out of trouble for an hour, could you?" Scott remarked as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders to help her to her feet. Riley stumbled for a second, feeling a haze capture her vision as a painful pulse throbbed behind her lids.
Her feet ached as she balanced her weight back into the heels enclosed around her feet. "I don't think now is the best time to be lecturing me," she dubbed sarcastically. "Especially since a rogue hunter and psychotic werewolf are probably both on their way here to throw-down like some kind of supernatural thunder-dome." Her hands slid down the length of her dress as she straightened it out, looking to Derek who still remained bound to the beam over his head. "C'mon," Riley nudged Scott, "Help me get him down-"
"No." The amount of certainty within Scott's voice made her stop dead in her tracks.
Riley stumbled to a sudden halt as her head whipped over her shoulder in surprise. "No?" She mocked in a strained voice. "We're not just going to leave him here." She analyzed her friends features, the squared notion of his crooked jaw suggested he was questioning why he'd come in the first place. "Scott." Riley seethed, gaining his attention as his eyes drifted from the chained werewolf before them and to her.
"Not until he tells me how to stop Peter." Scott bravely kept his stance.
"You really want to talk about this now?" Riley demanded, her sense of panic starting to finally swell inside her lungs the longer they idled there.
"He's going after Allison." Scott reminded her, eyeing her accusingly as if she'd forgotten. "And shortly after you disappeared from the dance," he relayed, "He went after Lydia."
Riley felt her breath of air sink into the pit of her stomach, trying to format a proper way to understand what he meant. "He bit her?" Derek demanded from behind Riley, feeling a chill pass along her spine at his blatant conclusion. But Scott nodded with the smallest gesture, his brown eyes brimming with anxiety and anger.
Why would Peter Hale go after Lydia Martin? What tactic was he playing at?
Derek ground his teeth together, trying to identify the reasoning behind his uncle's lack in morality. What purpose would Lydia serve as a Beta? Why bite someone who lacked the strength and mentality to carry a pack? "Is she-is she okay?" Riley's voice carried into his ears, numbing the tension surfacing between the three of them as Derek watched her from behind.
Her voice was shaken, filled with so much concern that he could visibly seen her shoulders begin to quake. Scott did not look back at her, but kept his narrowed eyes locked on Derek Hale. "No one knows yet." Scott kept a firm eye on the Beta before him, taking a step forward as he lined himself up beside Riley. "I won't let him hurt anyone else," Scott announced slowly. "So, tell me how to stop him." Riley turned to glance back at Derek, who kept his lips pressed into a firm and thin line. She met his gaze, her hazel eyes softening to pleading with him silently. "What's it going to take to make you cooperate?" Scott demanded harshly. "Someone else getting bit? Someone dying?" His voice rose an octave higher, a side of him Riley had never seen before. "Who'll be next?" His features squinted together to show his disbelief. "Allison?" He pegged. "Stiles? Jackson?" He looked to the girl beside him, hearing the slight increase of Derek's pulse as he eyed his friend, "Riley?"
Derek felt his throat swell up, clearing it as a guttural snarl, low and deep, vibrated from his chest. This kind of reaction was not what he expected from himself, but he felt his bones rattle at the thought. He heard her voice then, like a tunnel of echoing chimes filtering through his head as Riley asked in a soft a calming voice how to stop Peter. "You can't." He finally snapped, the tension in his body finally subsiding as he looked between her and Scott with rapid eyes. "You can't stop him, okay? Now get me out of here!"
It was the panic beginning to bubble inside his veins, his heart rate doubling as his enclosed fists tugged against the cuffs with no avail. "Promise you'll help me." Scott did not ask, but rather suggested doing so would be in Derek's favor.
The werewolf bound before Riley's eyes breathed heavily, his lips curling into a nasty expression as his eyes darkened as if to intimidate the Beta. "You want me to risk my life for your girlfriend?" Derek hissed. "For your stupid little teenage crush that means absolutely nothing!" The shrill darkness of Derek's tone caused Riley's limbs to lock in fear as he continued. "I'm not risking my life for any of the Argent's!"
He assumed Scott could determine why, since it was Kate who had demolished everything good that once was within Derek's life. Riley felt the need to step forward, to use her own body as a shield as if to protect Scott McCall from the brutality Derek was spewing. And once he saw her stumble forward, placing herself in between two anger fueled werewolves, did Derek's hostile rant fade into heavy breathes of air. He hadn't wanted anyone, let alone her, to see him this way.
Riley felt incredibly brave to step between them, as if she could someone stop them from tearing each-other apart with their words. But somehow it had worked, because despite the quiver of her bones and the fear lingering within her eyes, Derek's argument had subsided. "Maybe you're right," Scott murmured from behind her, taking a small step to his left to see Derek still visibly fueled with rage. "But I know something you don't." He assured, pulling a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket as he unraveled it's crinkled edges to hold up for Derek to see. "Peter said he didn't know what he was doing when he killed your sister, Laura, remember? He said he was out of his mind." Scott held up the paper just a tad higher as Derek analyzed it, a picture of the corpse of a deer with a red and bloody spiral carved into it's side. "This is what brought your sister back to Beacon Hills in the first place, right?"
Derek did not agree, but by the narrowed glare within his eyes, Scott was sure he'd captured the wolf's attention. "My boss, Deaton, told me that three months ago, someone came into the clinic asking about this picture . . . Any guess as to who it was?" Scott crumpled the paper back up and tossed it at Derek's feet. "Peter's nurse." He relayed. "It's was Peter's plan from the beginning. He lured your sister here so that he could kill her and become the Alpha!"
He spoke with such assurance, as if the revelation would put Derek in his corner. Truthfully, even as much as he trusted Scott, he didn't want to believe that. But he knew his uncle almost better than he knew himself. Having grown up as a witness to the manipulative and abusive surgancy Peter was capable of. And because of it, his sister had died at his hands. And a vengeful riptide seeped from the pits of his stomach, his anger now pinpointed to the uncle he never saw eye to eye with. With all the anger flooding his bones, fueling the hostility he wished to unleash, Derek yanked against the chains that bound him . . . And this time they bent against the force of his strike and released him.
"I'll help you." He promised.
