Chapter 13

Derek stared at nothing in particular, the sound of Ave Maria playing in the background. Ever since Talia had told them about the other packs coming, his mind had been plagued with memories of Paige dying in his arms. He knew he should focus on the summit and find a way to prevent Gerard's betrayal of Deucalion, but he only knew the little Peter had found out back then and it wasn't much. When he thought about it, he always ended up with the same conclusion: he couldn't do it on his own. His line of thoughts was going back to Paige's tragic death for the fourth time that day when the music stopped suddenly.

"Could you please stop thinking so loudly? You're distracting me!" Paige said.

"I thought you had a laser-sharp focus?"

"Don't try to change the subject. What's going on? You've been like this for 2 days!"

"Nothing." Nothing I can talk to you about anyway.

"We need to talk."

"… Hello to you to dear nephew, I'm fine thanks for asking."

Derek had gone straight to Peter's room after school, he knew he couldn't wait anymore, especially since he had no idea when Gerard would act… or even when he'd come to Beacon Hills, since the Argents were not part of the local hunters they had a pact with.

"It's important Peter, please."

"Fine, but no lame movie this time, I don't think I can take anymore witless action hero winning over a blond bimbo with useless explosions…"

"Fine, we'll go to the park or something." Derek agreed, already walking out of the room without waiting to see if his uncle was following.

"And it better be important!"

"Fuck."

"And that's all the information I got! I don't know why the Argents came, why one off Ennis' beta killed one off them… And I can't remember when exactly it all happened! Even the events I was part off…"

"But… do you really have to stop it?"

"Of course I have to! People are going to die Peter… And not just because off Gerard, if Deucalion becomes … whatever he was when I met him, dozens of people will die."

"Well, if you want to do something about it, I can only see one way…"

"I was hoping I'd never have to do this…"

The very next day, the Argents arrived in town. The local hunters where not very happy about it but they decided not to do anything, the Argents were royalty after all. The bad news was that Derek was too late to stop Ennis' beta from killing one of them, apparently it happened before the pack had arrived for the summit, a few towns over Beacon Hills. This time though, the beta was caught and killed without Derek and Peter being chased down in the forest and trapped in the root cellar. Derek could feel the tension between the packs and the Argents all over town, he felt on edge all the time, as if his wolf knew something bad was going to happen.

The abandoned distillery was bathing in sunlight. Deucalion and a few of his betas faced Gerard and his hunters. They all appeared unarmed but the look in Gerard's eyes was anything but friendly. The older man was walking in circles in front of the alpha.

"I think it's quite fitting that we are meeting in a distillery. You know, the process of distillation is the separating of two substances by pushing them into their different volatile states."

"Volatile is exactly the state I was hoping to avoid." Deucalion answered, keeping his voice as neutral as possible.

"Ooh." Gerard walked towards a red valve. "Then this is going to come as quite a big disappointment!" He said dramatically before rapidly turning the valve. The werewolves took a few steps back and took a defensive pose… but nothing happened. Gerard looked around at the pipes with crazy eyes, he was about to yell something at his men when the cracks of weapons being loaded sounded all-around them. At first, the werewolves thought it was other Argents pointing guns at them but seconds later, a dozen men entered the distillery with their weapons pointed at Gerard and his men.

"What is the meaning of this?" Gerard asked. One of the armed men stepped forward.

"Beacon Hills is our territory Sir, and I don't care what your last name is, here, everyone goes by the code."

Deaton was cleaning up a bit in the clinic, Talia and Deucalion having just left after they had finished debriefing about the failed meeting with the Argents.

"Everything went well in the end." He said to what appeared to be an empty room. "You know, you could have told me sooner about your… well, your past." Derek kept to the shadows, refusing to talk anymore that he already had to. He did his job, no one else died and, with some luck, the alpha pack will never exist. But he knew he'd need Deaton's help again, and soon. After all, now that the Argents were seriously pissed off, Kate would probably get here in no time.