Thanks for all of the reviews everyone! I do not own anything in this chapter, besides Maddie, everything else belongs to their rightful owners.

Chapter 25

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A few days had gone by since the full moon. Isaac was now hiding out, and also permanently staying, with Derek down in the subway train. He was getting in some extra training hours while he was there too, just like Derek did with Maddie when he could get her. Her dad hadn't been happy with her when she finally came home. To say that he had been mad, would have been a big understatement. If it wasn't for her new healing powers, she knew that she would have still been covered in bruises right now. He checked in on her room in the middle of the night now, and not because he was looking out for her. Of course he wasn't doing it because there was a new killer out there. No, because that would be a fatherly thing of him to do, but because he wanted to make sure that she was still locked up tight.

Derek had to grab her when he could, and that was mostly during the late afternoons inside of her room while her dad was at work since there was nowhere else, and no other time, that he could get to her. She had her emotions under control, for the most part, now. She could also control her shifting too. If only she could test the other new tricks that she had learned somewhere outside of her house. Even while doing a project for school, she couldn't even get out of this stupid house. Her partner, Matt, had insisted that they go to her house to work on the new project that they had been partnered up for. "So what's your phobia?" Matt asked her, returning her from her thoughts. She blinked back to reality and gave him a puzzled expression, not knowing what he had just asked her. "What are you afraid of, I mean. Like spiders, water, homework, that kind of stuff." he repeated with a chuckle at his own little attempt at a joke.

She gave him a small forced smile and really thought about his question. What was she afraid of? Hunters. Being killed by a hunter by being cut in two. Being alone. All of those things would count, but she didn't want to tell him any of those. She had to tell him something, though, and it had to be good. She needed a good grade on this. She bit her lip, trying to think of something else that she could tell him. "Love. I'm afraid of love." she finally told him. Now it was his turn to be confused. She sighed, knowing that she would have to explain. "I'm afraid of love because it only hurts me in the end. Books and movies make it seem like it's this wonderful and magically thing that'll solve everything, but it won't. It makes you weak and it only gets you hurt. When you're in love, you're blind to everything else, and when you loose that love? You're gone right with it. You loose sense of reality, and you hurt the ones that you're suppose to love too. So why should I like love at all? It only hurts." she went on to explain to him her fear.

Silence fell over them for a few minutes then. Maddie wiped her eyes, not realizing that it would have affected her like that. She got reseated on the far end of the couch and hugged her knees to her chest, resting her chin on top of them. "I'm deathly afraid of water." he blurted out to her, hoping that he could make things a little less awkward for her. "Had a bad experience as a little kid, and now the only water I go near is in the shower. I won't even take tubs, only showers." he confessed to her, now hoping to at least get a smile out of her. She looked over at him with a surprised look.

"Seriously?" she asked him.

He nodded his head, repeating her with a 'seriously' of his own. She cracked a small smile, even managing a small giggle. She knew that it shouldn't have been funny, but she couldn't help herself. Just the idea of someone not being able to take a tub because they were too afraid of the water made her laugh. He cracked a smile with her before twisting around to grab something. He caught her off guard when he suddenly took a picture of her. "There, now I can say I have proof that I got Maddie Carson to laugh." he said out as he lowered his camera and rested it on his lap now.

Maddie looked at him puzzled now, but she still let a small little laugh leave her lips. There was something off about Matt, but she couldn't tell if it was good or bad yet. Their laughter was cut off from the sound of the front door shutting. Her eyes widened as she went stiff in her spot on the couch. She twisted around to see her dad walking into the room. He was still dressed in his deputy's uniform, she noticed. She tried to act normal, like she was suppose to when she had guest over when her dad was home. "Hi, daddy. This is Matt, we got partnered up on a project together for school. We're wrapping up in a few minutes. We just have to finish up some notes first." she explained to him.

She didn't notice that she wasn't the only one to react weirdly to her father's presence. Her dad didn't even seem to acknowledge her. He wouldn't have even said anything to either of them if he hadn't looked up to see who she was talking about. He felt his body freeze in what he was doing when he saw the boy on the couch with Maddie. Something about him was familiar to him, but he couldn't put place the face with the time. "Do I know you?" he asked out to Matt. He was certain that he knew this kid from somewhere, but it wasn't coming to him right now. Maddie looked confused between them, but Matt just shrugged his shoulders in return, seeming to not have had a clue as to what he meant by that.

She got up from the couch, and, like the good little daughter that she was, she went over to her dad and gave him a sweet forced smile as she took his jacket from him. "Matt's new to the school this year, daddy. I'll go put your things away for you and order some take out for dinner. Matt and I can finish up the notes over the phone later. Right, Matt?" she said back to the other boy, hoping that he didn't fight her on it. Matt seemed to catch onto the fact that she wanted him to leave, and he nodded his head as he started to pack up his things. He gave her a quick 'see you tomorrow' before leaving. Before her dad could come back from his thoughts, she hurried off to go do as she said she would by putting away his things and ordering take out for them.

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The next day, Maddie was finally allowed out of the house. She told her dad that she had a shift at the hospital, and he believed her and he had let her go. If only he knew that she was really going down to the subway train to train with Isaac, Derek, and supposedly a new wolf that Derek had given the bite to while she was on lock down because of her dad. Derek was just having Erica, the newly bitten wolf, observe while Maddie and Isaac sparred together. He wanted to see how they did together as well since they've been both getting separate training sessions with him.

Maddie swung at Isaac, trying to hit him, but he managed to dodge it. When that failed, she jumped up, spinning as she tried to land a round house kick. He only managed to catch her leg and pull her other leg out from under her. She hit the ground hardly with a groan of pain. She was still healing from the broken ribs that her dad had given her the other night. Not that Isaac or Derek knew about them, but it didn't change that they were there. Isaac stalked forward and lifted her up from the floor by her arms. She didn't know how it had happened, but she was suddenly back inside of her house. Isaac was no longer there, but her dad was instead. He was yelling at her, shaking her, telling her how she should know better then to make him out to be the idiot. She screamed out, screaming for him to stop. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, just wanting it to be over. "Let me go! Get off!" she screamed out as she suddenly started pushing against the man that was holding her.

All she could see was her dad's angry expression glaring back down at her, telling her that she was nothing. She cried out when their grip tightened on her arms. She begged for them to just stop, to just let her go and that she'll be good. Isaac looked over at Derek as Maddie continued to fight him. Derek didn't know what to do, though. Isaac could see that and he sighed as he returned his attention down to the girl pushing against him. "Maddie! Maddie, stop! It's Isaac! Maddie, it's just me." he told her, hoping that he could get through to her. She just kept screaming, begging for him to let her go. If he did that, though, he knew that she would only end up hurting herself by falling or something. He should have known that something was wrong by how jumpy she was before they started today.

She finally opened her eyes and saw through teary eyes that it was just Isaac, that her dad was no longer there. "Isaac?" she breathed out to him. He gave her a small nod of his head just seconds before she fell into his arms. She gripped onto his shirt tightly, clinging to him as he wrapped his arms around her waist. Her knees gave out and the two of them had then began to slowly drop to the floor together as she cried out. He gently began rocking her back and forth as he rubbed circles into her back. "Shhh, it's okay, Maddie. You're safe. No one's going to hurt you anymore. I've got you. You're not there anymore, you're here. You're home." he whispered into her hair as he brushed it back from her face.

He looked up from her as her cries quieted down slightly and then met Derek's eyes. He was looking at them with sad eyes. He had given her the bite so she wouldn't have to be hurt anymore, but she was still scared and being hurt in that home. There was nothing he could do to get her out of there either, and that killed both him and Isaac even more. He had sent Erica into the train to go grab a water out of the little cooler they had in there to give to Maddie. He knew that Maddie's situation was different from Erica's and even Isaac's. She still had to go home to the monster that had been slowly killing her. Erica's illness was now gone thanks to him, and because of that new creature out there, Isaac's father was out of the picture as well. They both had gotten away from their problems, but Maddie still had to live with her's. She couldn't leave, and they couldn't help her do it. That was what killed him inside the most. He couldn't help her.

He couldn't save her.