Soul of the Night

Chapter 7 – The Sun's Coming Up

"Scott!" Isaac yelled as he reached the top of the stairwell leading down to the boiler room, "The sun's coming up!"

Scott grabbed onto the metal bar; slid it over to unlock the door then flung it open.

In reality, it probably hadn't been that long but Scott had been standing there listening to the sounds of skin being slashed open and bones cracking. Frenzied snarling and growling.

He'd been terrified the entire time that he was listening to the sounds of Derek and Sam being killed.

Isaac had been faintly hearing the same thing from where he'd been on the floor above and had a steadily rising fear in him that he was going to lose the last of his original pack in a single night.

The two teenagers ran inside of the boiler room, coming to a stop when they saw Boyd's motionless body laying on the floor and Derek was on his knees beside him.

Isaac could hear Boyd's heart beating; he was only passed out from exerting so much energy and then losing the power of the moon when the sun came up.

He breathed a sigh of relief, which was short-lived before he asked, "Where's Sam?"

Derek raised his head, still breathing heavily through the pain as his body tried to heal itself from the seemingly never-ending sets of slash marks from where he'd done everything he could to hold Boyd back.

"Here."
They heard Sam weakly answer the roll-call.

Looking over they saw her walking towards them, swaying from being so weak and injured -she was dragging Cora behind her on the ground by an arm.

Just like Boyd, when the sun had come up, Cora had passed out from exhaustion

Isaac rushed over to Sam, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," She nodded, gladly accepting the aid when Isaac picked up Cora's body and she could focus more on keeping herself upright, "I think I am."

As strange as it was considering the night they'd had, for a moment she was feeling like she was okay.

She'd been so scared that she would end up losing control of herself and hurting someone.

Somehow she'd managed to not only keep in control but also to hold Cora back from killing her and the teacher who'd been in the supply room the entire time.

Derek stood up, staggering some as he did.

They'd managed to fight and survive another day. They'd saved Boyd and Cora.

It was a victory but he couldn't shake the feeling that things were going to get much worse.

In a way, it felt like his entire pack was existing on borrowed time.

"We have to get them out of here," Derek nodded from where Boyd was on the floor to where Isaac was still holding Cora's limp body.

Looking between them all again, Derek pointed out, "There's a teacher in the supply room."

"I know her," Sam tucked her hair behind her ears and offered, "You guys get them out of here and I'll talk to her."

"And say what?" Derek's eyes scanned her as they stood there.

"Considering I was holding Cora off pretty much right in front of her-" She sighed as she moved her freshly healed shoulder that had been broken in the fight, "Some version of the truth."

Before he could say anything else, Sam promised, "It's okay. I've got this."

She waited until the other wolves were gone before she made her way over to where she'd seen one of her teachers in the gated-off part of the basement that doubled as storage for printer paper and other various supplies.

"Ms. Blake?"

Sam tried to keep her voice soft and calm.

The same tone she often used to comfort her little brother.

She could hear her teacher's racing heart and uneven breathing but she didn't verbally respond.

"It's okay," Sam tried to assure her as she slowly opened the gate and walked in, using her senses, she was easily able to pick out the shelf her teacher was hiding behind.

"You're safe now."

Sam slowly moved closer.

"Sam?" Ms. Blake asked poking her head out from around the edge of the free-standing metal shelf she'd been cowering behind, "What… what…"

She swallowed hard, "What's going on?"

Moving closer and kneeling down so she was at eye level, Samantha said, "The most important thing is that you're safe now. It's okay."

She offered her a smile, which might have had gotten across the comforting vibes she was trying to give off -if her face wasn't stained with blood and she still had open, but healing gashes across her right cheek.

~(The next day)~

Sam was knelt on the floor in her family's storage unit rummaging through a box when she heard approaching footsteps.

Her head jerked up and then she breathed out a sigh of relief when she saw it was only Boyd.

"Hey!" She called out as she tossed her hand up and waved.

She'd texted him a little over an hour ago asking if he would meet her there but when she hadn't gotten a response, she assumed he was probably too busy dealing with the police and his parents.

"Hi, Sam." He tried to smile but couldn't get the expression to hold.

Standing up, she wiped the dust off her bare legs and jean shorts. Frowning when she saw the look on his face.

She opened her mouth to ask if he was okay but then stopped herself; no way could he be okay after what he'd gone through the last few months.

"I'm so sorry." He apologized, catching her completely off guard.

"For what?" She asked.

He tiled his head to the side.

"Oh!" Her eyes widened, "For last night?"

"I could have killed you-"

"It's not your fault," She tried to assure him but he cut her off, "I wanted to kill you. All of you."

His memories of the prior night weren't fully intact, but he remembered enough.

Enough to know he'd hurt Sam badly and nearly killed Scott.

He also remembered chasing two little kids through the woods.

When he'd first woke up in Derek's loft that morning, he and Cora were told they'd killed someone at the public pool.

But a short time later Scott had gotten a call from Stiles saying he had another theory.

"I can't stay very long," He walked further into the storage unit as he explained he had to go in for more questioning with the police later that day.

It was Sam's turn to apologize this time as she revealed her true reason for asking him there.

"Boyd, I'm sorry… but I need you to tell me about when Erica was killed." Sam's voice was feeble as she spoke.

The loss of one of her best friend's still felt like an open wound.

"What do you mean?" His face contorted in pain.

That was something he'd been trying to forget and didn't want to rehash.

"I know it's hard-"

Anger flared in him.

"No, you don't," He argued, "You weren't there… you didn't have to see it. You weren't forced to sit there with the smell of her starting to decay, Sam. You have no idea what that was like."

"You're right," Tears stung her eyes, "But I have to ask you anyway."

He turned to leave. Not understanding why she would even be asking him that on his first day of freedom for months on end.

"What do you think will happen to us on the lunar eclipse? They last for hours, you know, because it's just the earth's shadow. I wonder what will happen to us. Maybe it'll make us stronger. I hope it'll make us stronger."

Sam said out loud the words she'd heard Erica say in the dream she'd had. The words she'd never forget because right after that was when she'd saw her be killed.

Boyd came to a dead stop. His shoulders raised, entire body tensed.

When he turned around he witnessed a tear roll down Sam's cheek.

"What did you just say?" the air forcefully left him like a punch to the chest, "How did you know that?"

"Because I saw it happen." Sam wiped the tear away, smudging the dust from her hands on her cheek, "Something is happening to me, Boyd. I had a nightmare months ago where I saw that happen."

Looking defeated she asked, "That's exactly what she said before she died, isn't it? Right before she tried to fight back and they killed her?"

Water had welled up in his own eyes, making them extra shiny under the fluorescent lighting in the storage unit.

"Yeah." He nodded, his voice was hoarse.

They stood in silence.

Sam wanted to ask exactly when Erica had been killed, if she could figure out how long between when she'd had the vision to when it actually happened, then maybe the next time she could do something about it.

That might have been the only useful point Peter had made in the woods the night before.

But before she could question him any further, Isaac showed up.

Walking right into the storage unit the other teens were in as if he'd been invited himself.

"What are you doing here?" Sam questioned.

"Looking for you." He answered a shrug before giving a nod in greeting to Boyd.

Isaac walked over to an antique table and started opening up an old family photo album.

Sam started to ask why but then her nose wrinkled and she went for another question first, "Did you track my scent here?"

Isaac laughed, "No, I enabled the tracking on your phone last week."

Sam's jaw dropped and she scrambled to pull her phone out of her back pocket.

"What?" Isaac glanced over at her, "It's easier than tracking a scent."

"Yeah?" Sam's brows raised, "And a total invasion of my privacy."

"You're the one going crazy." He mumbled under his breath, "I was just trying to think ahead in case you disappear on us."

She shot him a look and he could feel her eyes burning holes through his back.

"Did she tell you she's not sleeping?" Isaac turned his attention to Boyd who shook his head and looked between them.

"No…" Boyd answered, "She told me something is going on."

"She's standing right here!" Sam spoke up.

Picking up another picture album from the table and turning it around to display what he'd found, Isaac, joked, "She also shouldn't be allowed to handle scissors."

Boyd started laughing immediately at seeing a picture of a very young Samantha who'd decided to give herself a haircut and completely butchered her own hair.

"Isaac!" Sam squealed as she darted over to take the album away from him, she looked down at the picture of her uneven hair and jagged slanted bangs before she slammed it shut and tossed the book back on the table.

Her mom had thought it was funny at the time, promised to take her to a salon the next day to see what could be done to try and undo some of the damage she'd done.

But then her dad came home from work and decided her punishment for doing that to herself would be buzz-cut, that he did himself and then laughed when they were out in public and everyone assumed she was a boy.

Running her hands through her hair, she reasoned that was probably why she got anxiety even going for a trim nowadays; and why she kept her hair so long.

Picking up on the change in her mood, Isaac's expression went from playful to serious as he asked, "What?"

"Nothing." Sam offered a smile to sell the lie.

He nodded, he knew she was lying but he also had a pretty good idea that something in the photo album had triggered a bad memory -more than likely of her father.

Something he knew about all too well with his own abusive upbringing.

"You didn't come home," Isaac said.

When she looked at him confused he commented, "The reason I'm here."

"Oh!," Sam chuckled, "I've just been busy. I figured Derek would want to catch up with Cora. So after I left the school, I just stopped by my aunt's to shower and change for the day."

Isaac's brow arched at her response.

He guessed she'd been plotting that one out all day. It was too rehearsed.

"Doesn't have anything to do with you and Derek fighting?" He pushed.

Rolling her eyes, Sam looked at him and corrected, "We're not fighting."

"Not currently," He caved, "But he wasn't happy with you for showing up at the bank, and then you disappeared on us in the woods last night-"

"As I said," Her voice raised, "I'm just busy with something right now."

"She's avoiding Derek," Isaac informed Boyd, who held back a laugh at Sam's expense.

He'd missed so much about the outside world during the time he'd been held hostage.

For so long he didn't even know if he'd ever get out of that bank.

And being there with his pack-mates, made him realize how much he'd even missed their bickering.

"I am not avoiding Derek!" Sam was now defending herself to the both of them.

"She is." Isaac did a terrible job at hiding his argument in a cough to get on her nerves.

"Look," Sam eyed them both, "You don't get it. Things are different when it's me and Derek… when we don't get along… it's uncomfortable."

"Uncomfortable?" Isaac repeated back to her, seizing the opportunity to make her squirm, "Can't be any more uncomfortable than having to sleep with earbuds in when you and Derek are getting along."

Sam grabbed a book off a stack of boxes by her and chucked it at Isaac, who weaved to the side just in time to avoid being hit.

Boyd laughed, seeing Sam's cheeks darken from Isaac's comment.

"Okay, but I'm being serious-"

She tried to explain.

Isaac cut her off, "So am I."

"No!" Sam exclaimed, rubbing her hands over her face and muttering something neither of them could understand, "What I'm trying to say is that the dynamics are different."

"Derek is our alpha, so as his betas… we're supposed to listen to him and follow what he says." Sam continued.

"No, I think I get it." Boyd realized, "As his beta, you're supposed to follow orders -but as his girlfriend?"

"I'm like, he will not tell me what I can and can't do." Sam's sentence came out with a jolt of attitude she didn't intend on.

"I get it." Boyd offered with a smile at her.

"See?" Sam tossed an arm in Boyd's direction but spoke to Isaac as she said, "He gets it."

"Eh," Isaac dismissed with a head tilt, "Either way, I'm the one who suffers." He reasoned, "The fighting, worrying when you run off, then the making up-"

The end of his sentence was cut short with a pained noise when he hadn't been quick enough to dodge the other book she hurled in his direction.

~(Later that night)~

Clicking the button to turn the hairdryer off, Sam laid It down on the bathroom counter in the bathroom attached to what was supposed to be her room at her aunt's house, but she barely ever stayed there.

She ran a brush through her golden blonde hair before piling it up on the top of her head in a bun.

Getting some of her favorite moisturizer on her fingertips, she leaned in and inspected her face in the mirror.

Even after having the benefits of being a werewolf for quite some time now, she was still stunned at how injuries healed up without leaving a scar behind.

Cora had gotten her across the face with her claws in their struggle during the full moon but you'd never know that by looking at her now.

Her skin might have flawlessly healed up from that but even being a werewolf wasn't helping at all with the dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep.

After she finished applying the moisturizer to her skin, her hand went to her throat.

Yet another part of her body that should be permanently blemished.

Her eyes closed when her thoughts went back to when Gerard had tried to kill her. There might not have been any physical remnants left behind from that night but the scars were still there on the inside.

The feeling of the knife slicing through her skin, her blood spilling out of her like hot lava down onto her chest and soaking into her clothes.

Possibly worst of all was the look on Derek's face, the howl of anguish that had broken out from his core.

She didn't like to think about that night for obvious reasons; sometimes she even tried her best to forget about it, pretend it didn't happen.

Hating to think about how that level of cruelty existed in the world.

Gerard's plan all along had been to kill Derek; the only reason he had to kill her was to just make him suffer even more.

Derek had essentially watched her die, be killed right in front of him -and sometimes in her attempts to block out that night, she also forgot about that.

She wondered if that was why he'd admitted he loved her before they went to try and save Boyd and Cora.

There was a small smile on her lips as she picked up the lotion bottle off the counter and heard his voice in her head; I love you.

The thing was, she already knew and felt like it was something that didn't even need to be said between them because they both knew. But hearing him say it out loud meant more than she'd expected.

She'd just finished rubbing some lotion on her arms when she heard a noise on the other side of the closed door.

Her head turned to the side. Ears tuned and alert to pick up any other sound or movement.

Any cause for concern immediately faded away when she breathed in and her nose caught a scent; Derek.

Sam reached for the handle of the door but there was a slight hesitation in her movement.

Pulling in a deep breath, she opened the door and walked out into the room.

Facing him, she wasn't sure what to say.

The first thing that came to mind was what she'd texted him about a little earlier in the night, "Did you bring them?"

Pulling the bottle of sleeping pills from his pocket, Derek's gaze fell to the bottle when he said, "I brought them, but I don't see the point. They've not been helping you."

Walking over to him, her steps were near-silent on hardwood flooring beneath them, she took the bottle from his hand.

When their eyes met, Sam had an apologetic look on her face and an admission at the ready.

"I never took them."

His brows lowered.

The first night he'd seen her take them.

And since then he'd been checking the bottle every morning and each day more the number of pills was going down.

She'd not only lied, to begin with, but continued to make an effort to keep up the facade.

"Why?" He asked.

"I'm sorry." She spilled the apology.

With a dismissive shake of his head, Derek repeated louder, "Why would you keep lying about this?"

"I don't know," Sam answered.

Avoiding his eyes as she walked over and set the bottle down on the small table beside the bed next to a bottle of water.

When she gathered the strength to look back up she could tell he wasn't buying it.

"I don't," she defended with a lazy shrug, "I guess… I don't know, I just didn't want to fight with you about it."

"So you thought the better option was to lie?" He pushed with a step closer to where she was standing.

"It's not like I like lying to you, Derek." Sam crossed her arms over her chest.

"Then don't!"

The answer sounded so simple and caused her to wonder at which point that she'd turned into someone who did lie.

Maybe around the same time, she turned into a person capable of killing their own father.

Closing her eyes, she shook her head.

"Sam?"

His voice was softer this time.

Not making eye contact she sat down on the side of the bed and hung her head.

She felt the mattress move as he sat down beside her.

The room was quiet until he finally said, "I don't understand. If those pills can help you sleep, why wouldn't you take them."

"Because I don't want to sleep." She opted for the truth this time. Raised her head and looked at him, "I'm scared to go to sleep."

Derek's heart sank at both what she'd said and at the lost expression on the soft features of her face.

He understood where she was coming from, that she didn't want to have nightmares.

In truth, he was afraid for her to sleep as well.

With the times her body temperature had dropped to what had to have been hypothermic levels and he had a hard time getting her to wake up.

But staying awake for days on end, pushing her body past those limits would only make things worse. Make everything much worse.

"There's a reason sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture." Derek pointed out.

"I know." Sam agreed.

"Then you realize that probably most of what is going on with you right now could be helped by sleeping?"

Derek knew a good night's rest wouldn't fix everything but he had a pretty strong feeling that it would at the very least help her feel and be more in control.

"Only one way to find out, right?" She breathed out with a hopeless-sounding laugh.

He watched as she took two of the pills and chased them down with a large drink from the bottle of water.

When she set both bottles down on the nightstand, she didn't look back up at him.

Derek reached out, gently taking her chin in his hand and tilting her face up.

Sam started to tell him that she really did take them this time but didn't get the change when he pressed his mouth against hers.

Softly smiling against his lips, she reached out, her hand landing on the back of his neck before she slid it down to his chest, feeling his heart rate pick up under her touch.

Breaking the kiss Derek looked at her, a look of both concern and determination on his face as he promised in a voice just over a whisper, "Everything's going to be okay. We'll figure this out."

They had an alpha-pack-sized problem they were still dealing with, in her opinion other far more important things they needed to focus their attention on, but he was there with her.

She didn't know if he believed everything would be okay in the end or if he was just trying to make her feel better, either way, just having him there made her feel a little better already.

She smiled, "I love you."

"And I love you," He smiled back at her, "Now get some sleep."

Sam chuckled as she reached over and shut the lamp off, "I will. I plan on going back to the loft tomorrow after-"

Derek cut her off when he realized she thought he was leaving and said, "I'm not going anywhere."

"You don't have to stay," Sam said as she got under the blanket and laid down, she wasn't sure if the medication was already hitting her or she was just finally giving in to the exhaustion but her eyelids were already getting heavy.

"I'm not leaving you," Derek repeated and Sam smiled as he got into the bed with her and pulled her against him.

He pressed another kiss to the back of her exposed shoulder before laying his head down and realizing how tired he actually was himself.

~( )~

Blinking her eyes open, Sam raised her head and looked around the dark room.

Looking over her shoulder she saw Derek was lying on his back sleeping.

Which struck her as a little odd and probably should have been the first sign that something wasn't right.

Since she'd started having bad nightmares and struggling more, he seemed to hold onto her tighter in his sleep than when they were awake.

Arms tensing and tightening around her to the point that it was nearly uncomfortable; trying to protect her even in his sleep.

Carefully, trying not to wake him up, Sam scooted to the edge of the bed and checked the time on her cellphone.

It seemed like the sleeping pills had helped her -for a few hours at least.

She picked the bottle of medication back up and wondered if she should try taking a couple more but trying to get back to sleep was the last thing on her mind when she heard a noise from the hallway.

Her stomach churned with a sick feeling.

Something was wrong. She could feel it in her core.

She stood up and walked over to the bedroom door, shivering as she moved closer with the feeling that her skin was crawling with thousands of little bugs. Tiny, prickly spider legs.

She grasped onto the door with one hand and extended her claws on her other hand, ready for a fight.

Jerking the door open she expected someone to be there.

One of the alphas or possibly an intruder who'd broken into the house.

But she couldn't see anything. Not even the walls of the hallway or the pictures her aunt hung.

They usually had a small nightlight at the end of the hall to illuminate the floor.

Maybe the bulb had burnt out?

Closing her eyes she tried to calm her racing heart and when she opened her eyes they were glowing blue. She tried to focus all of her senses on her surroundings as she took a few steps out of the bedroom.

Only instead of the wood flooring under her feet, she felt leaves and dirt.

Small pebbles and sticks pressed painfully against her bare soles.

"Derek!" Sam yelled out as she backed away from the seemingly infinite darkness, trying to get back into the bedroom to wake him up.

But her back slammed against something hard and rough.

Turning around, her eyes widened as she realized she'd backed into a tree.

She was somehow no longer in her aunt's house. She was in a thickly wooded area.

When she reached out to touch the tree she caught sight of her hands; they were covered in blood.

"Oh my god…" She breathed out in horror.

What had she done?

Who had she hurt?

Did she kill someone?

In the distance, she could someone saying something, but she couldn't comprehend what they were saying. Her other senses seemed to be failing as well when her vision rapidly became blurry before she lost all sight.

Blindly and clumsily, she did her best to wipe the blood off of her hands onto her clothes before harshly rubbing her eyes, hoping to somehow correct the vision loss.

When she finally opened her eyes again her heart sank at seeing she was still in the woods.

"Hello?" She called out.

Her voice trembled.

Was it just a dream… possibly a hallucination?

Trying to remain calm despite her circumstances, she tried to think logically.

She needed to find the road and get out of there but just as she tried to take a step, she fell with a hard thud to the ground.

Looking behind her to see what her foot had gotten caught on, she gasped. There was a dark, shadowed hand on her ankle.

What was even more frightening was that the shadow had belonged to a person-shaped shadow who was climbing out of the earth.

"Sam."

Her chest rose and fell rapidly at the sound of her name being whispered, but she couldn't find the source of the voice. A frigid gust of wind blew through the trees, along with the bitterness the air brought the sound of her name being yelled by several voices at once.

Managing to pull her ankle out of the shadowed hand she tried to run, but quickly tripped back over another solid shadow rising from the earth.

Fearfully, she scooted back away from the darkened mass, trying to tell herself that it wasn't real.

There was no possible way any of it was real.

When one of the shadows started to close in on her, she instinctively continued to try and scoot back farther but before she had the chance to do so, it felt like an invisible force had pushed her flat on her back.

She was paralyzed.

Tears streamed down the side of her face, she tried to move, tried with everything that was in her to scream out for help.

Sam tried to howl to alert her pack that she was in danger, but no sound would come out.

Her mouth hung open in pain when it started to feel like someone was breaking every bone in her rib cage. As if someone had their hands pushed through her chest.

Every second that passed in excruciating pain, left her weaker and colder. Until suddenly it stopped.

She gasped for a breath of air and her eyes flipped open, but she barely had time to respond before someone grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet –giving her no choice but to either run along with them or be dragged when they darted through the trees.

Normally she wouldn't have had any trouble keeping up with the stranger's pace, but she was severally debilitated.

They didn't stop running until they were in water up to their knees.

Her eyes drifted to the water's edge where she saw more and more shadowed figures gathering.

"What are those things?" Sam asked, turning to the person who had saved her.

But instead of an answer, she was met by another startling sight.

A man in dark jeans and a black hooded jacket, with the hood up casting a shadow over his face.

Taking a few steps back, she realized where she'd seen this figure before; outside of the burning building she'd killed her dad in.

"Who are you?" Her voice shook, both from the coldness that seemed to be emitting from her very soul and the idea that she wasn't sure if she wanted to know who this person was.

Her attention was then pulled back to the edge of the water where the shadow figures were at.

"We're safe in here. I don't know why, but they can't come into the water."

That voice.

She knew that voice.

Her lungs burned. She swallowed hard.

Having the same thought once again; this couldn't be real.

She watched as he slowly raised his hands and moved the hood that had shadowed his face -revealing his identity and confirming what Sam had already figured out when he'd spoken.

"Matt?" She breathed out while she backed away trying to put more space between herself and the dead teenage boy who'd spent the last several months of his life stalking her.

He looked at her from under his brows, his head tilted to the left, "Hi Sam."

A/N - Thanks for reading!
Please consider taking the time to leave a review and let me know if you're still reading and liking the story.
Any feedback is appreciated and keeps me inspired to keep posting.

xx