Yeah this one is a bit of a shorter chapter (900ish words) but you'll see why. I can't not end on the sweet moments. Is that a spoiler alert? lol.

Ever heard the song Let Her go by Passenger? My roommate just played that as I was proofreading this chapter. Weird timing... maybe you'll see what I mean.

By night, Matt had sobered up. He didn't want to but he had run out of whiskey. We sat around watching the Superman movies. I had been pressured to pick a movie so I picked what I hoped to be a crowd pleaser.

I swore a haze passed in front of me as I watched the screen, I blinked thinking it was my imagination.

"Chloe," Matt said to me.

"You saw that too?" I asked.

"It was a spell," Matt was pinching his nose trying to fight off a hangover headache. "I wanted to talk to you privately."

"So we're like in a soundproof bubble right now? They can't see that we're talking?"

Matt nodded, "Listen about earlier. You didn't tell the others did you?"

I shook my head, Kyle and I agreed that this information wasn't ours to spread.

"Thanks. I'm sorry, I never planned on you knowing about her. That sounds bad but I'm the authority figure, I shouldn't be dredging up my past."

"What're you going to do if we run into her?" I asked.

Matt looked at his empty whiskey bottle.

"That's why that bottles my best friend right now. I don't want to think about that. She's better off without me around. I should've never brought her into this life. I should've left her with her mom."

"Alcohol isn't going to fix it," I said to Matt. "You must want to find her at some subconscious level if you came here."

Matt chuckled weakly then flinched at the headache.

"She's in this nest isn't she?" I said softly. "There were no rangers, you just finally tracked her down."

Matt looked up at me, a tear in his eye. "You're too smart you know."

"Oh Matt," I sighed. "Oh no."

Matt's gaze returned to the empty bottle, trying to will it to refill.

"You can't just go walking into that nest," I said. "Let Emma and me go."

"Excuse me?" Matt didn't like the sound of that.

Without thinking it through first, I spoke.

"Emma and I have vampire in us that they can detect, we can get a lot closer than a famous vampire hunter."

"Emma what?" Matt shouted, he looked like he was going to be sick and I hoped that was from the hangover.

It was weird seeing no one react to shouting. They all watched the movie like nothing had happened.

"Sh-she w-was experimented on by the vampires. They f-figured out how to make her a hybrid."

Matt's parental side was returning.

"Chloe I'm going to kill you for not telling me this. Don't you think that's kind of important for me to know?!"

The shouting made Matt nearly throw up. His spell broke and he sped walked to the bathroom.

"Chloe? You alright?" Derek asked me wrapping an arm around me. "You're pale as a ghost."

I nodded, "Just ate too much today."

"Why don't we go walk it off?" Derek asked.

I nodded, "I'd like that."

He took my hand and told Simon we were going to go for a quick walk. We grabbed a key then stepped outside. Quietly, Derek lead me down the hall and out of the motel. We found a bench by the small park down the road and sat down.

"Ok what's up," I asked. "You've been awfully quiet."

He seemed a little nervous too.

"I just," he searched for the right words. "I haven't had a girlfriend before."

I nodded.

"So I don't really know how to do relationship birthday stuff," he continued.

"If this is about this morning, I appreciate your efforts to get them to tone it down."

Derek shook his head, "No… I uh got you something. I tried to keep it small since I didn't think you'd want gifts. But I'm not sure if its really what boyfriend gifts should be."

He pulled a small black box from his pocket.

"Sorry I couldn't wrap it either, it took forever to make and I ran out of time to wrap," he said placing it in my hand. He added, "Simon helped too."

My heart sped up. The box opened with a quick click. Inside laid a metal chain and a soft cloth surrounding it. With two fingers I picked up the chain and slowly lifted it from the cloth. Following the chain was a silver pendant, I lowered it into my hand and turned it over so I could see it. It was a detailed wolfs paw but not just any paw. It was Derek's paw. I don't know how I knew, I just knew. My breath was caught in my throat. It was beautiful. It didn't look handmade at all, there was so much detail.

"So?" Derek asked.

"Its perfect," I said.

I lunged into his arms, catching him by surprise. I hugged him with all of my strength and unsuccessfully tried fighting off happy tears. I physically couldn't express how much I loved it other than hugging him like he would disappear if I stopped.

"I love you," I said into his neck.