Chapter 24

Twenty minutes later, Skye and Stiles pulled up in front of June Wallis' house, the woman who the first stolen SUV had belonged to.

Skeptically, Stiles eyed the house while Skye tied her hair back into a ponytail. "Do you think she'll talk to us?" he asked. "I mean, she doesn't even know us. Why would she tell us about her stolen car?"

Skye snorted. "She'll talk to me." she said. "There's a bag under your seat. Give it to me." Stiles obeyed and reached under his seat, grabbing hold of a small black bag and handing it to her, but his heart skipped a beat when she opened it and he saw what was inside. The bag was filled with countless different IDs, all displaying Skye's photo, but there weren't just ordinary passports and driver's licenses. There were also badges from various government agencies – FBI, CIA, Homeland security, US marshals; anything he could think of.

She apparently noticed his shocked look, because she gave a dry chuckle and said: "This isn't the first time I'm doing this, kid. I had to get a lot of people to talk to me, and I really don't want to be forced to resort to torture all the time." Stiles was at least ninety percent sure she was joking, so he chose to ignore it and simply mumbled "This is so illegal, my dad's going to kill me" under his breath while she grabbed a badge that identified her as FBI supervisory special agent Cara Allerton.

"I'll be right back." she said. "Wait here." And then she was out of the car and walking towards the house, and Stiles could do nothing but stay behind and wait.

Through the window, he watched Skye ring the doorbell and show her fake badge to the woman that answered. She appeared sure of herself, professional, and it was obvious that this wasn't the first time she'd posed as a government agent. Stiles was pretty sure that he wouldn't have doubted her if she'd showed up at his door claiming to be FBI or CIA or whatever.

The two women didn't talk for long and when Skye headed back towards the car, Stiles could see from the look on her face that June Wallis hadn't told her anything she didn't already know. Still, he looked at her expectantly as soon as she'd dropped into the driver's seat. "And?" he asked.

She just snorted. "She parked her car in front of the house and it was gone in the morning. There are no surveillance cameras anywhere nearby, so we have no way of finding out who took it. Let's hope the others are a little more helpful." And with that, she started the car and pulled out of the street while Stiles couldn't help but imagine what was being done to Derek right now.

When Skye returned from her talk to the owner of the license plate, she let out a string of curses in a language Stiles didn't know and he immediately knew they still had nothing pointing them to whoever took Derek. He didn't dare ask what they would do next, because Skye appeared as if she was on the verge of breaking down. Instead, he tried to think of any other way they could track Derek down, but came up with nothing.

It appeared like they would have to do it Scott's way after all.

Derek couldn't move. He couldn't talk. He couldn't even breathe. He could only look at Laura, at the face he'd last seen filled with terror on her torn body and that was now smiling at him. Rationally, he knew this couldn't be real, this had to be a result of whatever Savannah had done to him, but it felt so real. He could feel the mattress under him, could smell Laura's familiar scent, could hear he heartbeat in her chest. How could they create a hallucination so complex?

Laura chuckled. "What's up, little brother?" she asked. "Cat got your tongue?"

Very slowly, Derek sat up, his eyes never leaving her face. "This isn't real." he said hoarsely, but he sounded less sure that he'd intended, as if he was trying to convince himself.

His sister's smile widened. "Of course it isn't, stupid." she said and a small spark of hope inside of him that he hadn't even realized was there died. "But that doesn't mean we can't talk, does it? I think we got a lot we should talk about."

He swallowed. There was something sharp about her voice, something glistening in her eyes that was so very unlike Laura. She had always been fierce, even a fighter at times, but she had always loved her family unconditionally, and what he was seeing in her eyes now was pure disgust. "Like what?" he asked, though he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

"Like the fact you got me killed." She was still smiling but her words stung like a knife and Derek flinched as if she'd slapped him.

"I didn't…" Laura interrupted his weak protest. "You did and I know you know it too. I asked you to come back with me to Beacon Hills when I learned about the werewolf activity there. Hell, I practically begged you. But you refused."

She leaned in closer, almost as if she was telling him a secret like she'd used to when they were kids. "If you had come with me, I wouldn't have been alone that night. I wouldn't have been torn in half. You got me killed, Derek. Just like the rest of our family."

This time, Derek didn't protest, because he knew she was right. He had told himself the same thing countless times. If he had just come with Laura when she asked him to, she would probably still be alive. And if he hadn't fallen for Kate, his family would still be alive. It was his fault, all of it. It was his fault they were all dead.

The pain and guilt that he usually managed to keep under control were spreading inside of him, burning through his veins and pushing the air from his lungs. He tried to speak, tried to tell Laura he was sorry, but deep inside he knew that it wouldn't matter anyway. His apology wouldn't bring them back.

Again, Laura chuckled. "See, Derek, it doesn't end there. If you hadn't bitten Boyd and Erica, they would also still be alive. Two more people you got killed. Two more lives that ended because of you."

She cocked her head and looked at him, her eyes piercing into him as if she could see right through him – the exact gaze his mother had always used when he'd misbehaved as a kid. "You know, I don't even think you're doing it on purpose. You just have a tendency for making decisions that get other people killed. Does that make you any less guilty though? I don't think so."

A cold, cruel grin danced across her lips. "How long do you think until you get Cora killed too, Derek? Or Scott, Stiles or Isaac? Or that pretty little girl you've fallen for? Her name's Skye, right? How do you think she would look burned to death or torn in half?"

Derek pressed his hands to his ears, tried to shut Laura's voice out, tried to make the steady flow of guilt and grief and pain stop. "It's not real." he whispered to himself. "It's not real. This is just a hallucination."

This time, Laura full out laughed. "Well, little brother, I might not be real, but your part in all of those deaths certainly is. Isn't it?"

He raised his head to see who she was talking to and flinched violently when he saw that they weren't the only persons in the room anymore. There were his mother and father, all of the family members that had died that day, Paige, Boyd and Erica. They were crowded around Laura who was no longer sitting on the floor but standing up and their accusing gazes were piercing into him.

"Why didn't you save me?" Paige asked, her dark eyes full of sadness. "You should've saved me. Instead, you took my life."

His mother started talking before Paige was even fully finished. "You got your own family killed, Derek, because you couldn't keep it in your pants. No wonder you fucked up as an Alpha too."

Then Erica's voice was there, as loud as if she was shouting into his ear. "I could've had a life, Derek. But you took that from me. You made me into a monster and then you couldn't even protect me. I just wanted to be happy."

Boyd's voice was very sad and quiet but all the more intense. "Your claws pierced through my heart, Derek. You felt it stop. You felt me die, my blood all over you."

In a desperate attempt to drown the voices out, Derek buried his head in his hands. "Make it stop." he whimpered. "Please, I'm sorry, please make it stop, I didn't mean for this to happen, make it stop, make it stop!"

He screamed until his world went black once again.