Chloe's POV

Tess put the back of her hand on my forehead, "Are you sure you should be out of bed?"

We were sitting in Ashe's living room waiting for the boys to return.

"I'm alright I promise," I said. And I wasn't lying, I felt tired and achy and a little nauseous but not that bad.

"You don't seem concerned about the guys at all," Emma said to Tess.

"I'm not," Tess shrugged. "They've got one maybe two 'intruders' in the woods and a dozen or more werewolves. What's the chances of the boys getting hurt? The most that's going to happen is one of them tripping and scraping their knees on a log. EJ overreacts."

I wanted to do my ghostly projecting thing and send myself out to the woods to keep an eye on them just in case, but I know they'll never let me do it. Maybe I could say I wanted to take a nap? That would let me get away with it. Maybe I was overreacting now too though, thinking that the guys needed supervision to grab Jeremy and come back.

I listened to Tess and Emma chat in the living room for probably ten minutes or so before the boys finally returned. I looked them over as they walked in and kicked their shoes off, everyone looked just fine except for their muddy shoes and irritated expressions.

"Are you alright?" Tess asked Jeremy as he plopped down on the couch beside Emma.

Jeremy mumbled something under his breath about never getting to have any fun, Tess ignored it and started talking to Elijah. I looked at Derek who was leaning against the wall and gestured to the open space beside me. He came over and sat down.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing," he said. "I'm just worried about you still. You're looking better though."

"I'm feeling a bit better," I nodded. "Just aches right now."

Derek pulled me closer to him. He looked over at Elijah as Tess asked what had happened.

"We got to him before he caught up to the trouble," Elijah said. "They were turning into wolves so they could chase the intruder and Jeremy was left behind."

Jeremy mumbled something again but I didn't catch it. I bet it was a comment about not being able to turn with ease like these experienced werewolves. He'd only done it what like once or twice?

"Why did you want to go on the hunt?" I asked Jeremy.

He shrugged, "I wasn't really listening to what Ashe said she was leaving to do, I just heard that there was something interesting going on and wanted to see it."

Derek looked at him a little skeptical but I believed him. Honestly feeling good that I wasn't the only one going a little stir crazy.

We sat around chatting for a little while longer before Elijah decided to go see if things had settled down outside. He left and came back within a few minutes and said they were still out in the woods but sounded further away now, we would be able to head back without running into any of the chaos. I wondered if there was something that these werewolves did that Elijah didn't want us to see. I assumed that they just chased the trespasser away or maybe killed them? But maybe they brought the trespasser back and tortured them or something? I tried to tune out those thoughts, not wanting to picture Elijah being associated with such awfulness.

I followed as we gathered our things and walked back across town to the hospital. My mind tuned out the sounds of excited howls and shouts in the woods and instead focused on wondering why we were still staying in the hospital. My hand was healed, Jeremy's back was almost healed, Tess was fine, Emma was in a cast but healing, why were we still staying there? Was there really no place they had for guests to stay?

"Chloe," Derek pulled me from my thoughts. Everyone else had stepped inside but us.

"Hm?" I said as he stepped away from the door for privacy. I followed.

"What's going on in that head?" He asked. "You've been off all day since Elijah told you what he thinks is going on."

"I was wondering why we're still staying at a hospital," I answered honestly. "Like why don't they have any place for guests? Do they really hate outsiders that much?"

Derek rolled his eyes with a small smirk, "This is what I'm talking about. You're not reacting to what Elijah said, you're distracting yourself."

I shrugged, "I don't know Derek, distractions well distract me from feeling sick. I feel okay right now cause I'm not really thinking about that."

"You should think about it Chloe, it's a big deal if you got infected again. It could kill you."

"I'm not dying," I said.

As the words came out of my mouth and I saw the look in his eyes, I think it finally connected why Derek had been worried. He was worried about me dying, he was worried about losing me if things went wrong.

"Derek," I said softly. "We've been through so many crazy unbelievable situations, there is nothing that could stop us from coming out the other side. Please try to relax, it'll be okay."

Before he could answer I gave him a quick kiss and said, "You know what you need? You need Simon, you guys have never been apart this long before."

"I need you to be ok," he said.

"I am, I promise," I said and we walked inside.

Elijah insisted that we all stayed inside for the rest of the day so we wouldn't risk getting caught up in anything going on. It really started to feel like he was hiding whatever they do to the trespassers but we all listened and stayed put for the rest of the day and one by one went to sleep that evening.

I laid down while Derek was in the shower and tried to drift off to sleep but now that there was no distractions, my stomach ache returned.

"EJ what's wrong?" Tess asked Elijah quietly as they sat at the table, they must've thought we were all already asleep.

Elijah responded keeping his voice low too, "It's nothing... it's just something someone said to me earlier."

"What was it?"

"They asked why we got to visit my family but not yours," he sighed.

There was silence for a second.

"Who asked?" Tess asked.

"Doesn't matter," Elijah's chair creaked as he leaned back in it.

I could almost hear the smirk in Tess' voice, "It was Chloe then I bet. What did you tell her?"

He sighed again, not responding to the first thing she said, "I told them I hadn't thought about visiting your family. We hadn't planned on being here more than a day or so originally anyway. I'm not trying to be selfish."

"You could've told her the truth EJ you know the whole story."

"I didn't say it was her," Elijah growled softly. Why didn't he want to say he was talking about? Was he being irrational again in his protecting like Tess said he was earlier? "How am I supposed to casually say that we can't go visit your family because they all died in a house fire when you were 21 and you got blamed and arrested for it and that just so happened to be when you started experiencing changing so you escaped the prison and ended up in a supernatural safe house which is why you choose to run them now to help others."

Tess cleared her throat but didn't answer for a moment, finally she said, "Well you wouldn't casually say all of that, you'd just say that they died."

Elijah snorted a frustrated laugh, "Tess you know how persistent these kids get when information is withheld. They would want to know the whole story not just oh sorry no they're dead."

The bathroom door sung open as Derek exited it, Tess and Elijah stopped talking as he walked by. I could smell the soap that Tess had stocked the bathroom with today as he got into bed behind me. It was lavender with a hint of honey. Derek reached over and felt my forehead before stealing some of the blanket and getting settled.

So I'm struggling a little with where to go with this story once everyone gets back together. Realistically they could finish their diplomas, live a relatively normaler life. But like to me that doesn't sound interesting to read about them going to school and doing homework and all that over and over. I mean if that actually does sound interesting then I can do it no problem but to me it sounds like it would get boring after a few chapters.