Author's note: set in 1x012.

Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Wolf. No financial gain is made from this. This is for entertainment purposes only.


The dungeons under the Argent's house had four entrances – or exits. The first one was through the Argent's house itself. The second one was in the middle of the forest. Number three was out of the city. Number four was through an unused big drainage pipe near a road.

Because of proximity I took choice four. I parked my bike and switched on my lantern. I shifted my backpack from one shoulder to the other and put my hood up. Drawing inspiration from the movies, I had dressed all in black.

Somewhere around I could hear running water, but it was quiet compared to the sound of my heart pulsating in my ears.

I had decided to come because staying at my home studying blue prints became at some point unbearable. I shivered when I could not see the light of the entrance anymore, only darkness all around me.

Now and then through the tunnels, I would be stepping in water, and I didn't dare to check if it was clean water or else. The smell was not very comforting.

Ten, fifteen, thirty minutes… Just when I started to feel lost, I heard noises. I decided to follow them, having discarded my ability to follow a map. I had not stumbled with anybody yet, and I was very thankful.

The voices grew stronger until I reached a heavy metallic door. Behind there was people. I wondered if to open it or wait somebody to come out of it. I danced on my tiptoes out of anxiety.

As a weapon of choice, I brought a kitchen knife with me, guessing that better to be safe than sorry. Knife in hand, I touched the metal door. It was cold, as it was expected. It didn't bulged if I pushed it, so the only choice left was to slide it. But I was too cowardly.

Steps approaching.

I forgot about the voices inside and I slipped in.

Hanging and shirtless on the back of the room, Derek Hale.

Looming over me, claws out, Scott McCall.

I have only flashes of what happened, but I know that I screamed, and Scott screamed and my knife was no longer in my hand.

"Imogene?" he asked, taking some steps back. He grunted when he pulled out the knife from his shoulder. Apparently you needed some strength to stab someone properly. Strength that luckily I didn't have. He healed as we spoke.

"What are you doing here?" Derek asked.

"I came to… save you?" I said, but I even wondered myself. I took back the knife from the floor. "See, I came prepared. Do you want me to get you out of there?"

He rolled his eyes. But I climbed up as best as I could – holding to the bars for dear life - and started forcing the bands around his hands.

"How did you get here?" Scott asked.

"Through the tunnels," I said, struggling.

"What were you going to do if they caught you?" Derek hissed.

"I brought a knife."

He chuckled. His hand came free and he curled his fingers. I tried to move to the other hand when Scott whispered, "Someone is coming!"

"Hide," Derek ordered.

I came down as best as I could and hid behind Derek's structure.

A man slid in through the door. He didn't look friendly at all and I tried not to tremble. He switched on a big light and Derek opened his eyes.

"Ready to have some more fun?" he said with a distinctive drawl. "To be honest, my knuckles are kind of hurting." He pulled out a baseball bat. "So I brought some help. But I need to warn you, I used to play in college."

He pulled back to hit, but Derek grabbed the bat with his free hand before the blow impacted. "I brought a little help too."

That's when the poor – or better said, the bastard – man noticed Scott behind him. He didn't see coming Derek's blow to his face, which sent him literally flying. I never got used to these displays of violence and half closed my eyes.

I rose to my feet. "Cool," I muttered. I walked to the man and poke him with the tip of my foot. He was still breathing.

"Imogene, do you mind to make guard. I need to speak with Derek," Scott said in an unlikely serious way for him.

I clutched my knife and walked out. "Please, be fast," I pleaded before closing the metal door behind my back.

Completely in the dark, I heard Scott and Derek screaming to each other. It would have been out of character for me not to eavesdrop. And it was not that hard when they were just screaming. I got scared someone might hear, but then I remembered we were well underground. Peter trying to kill the Argents was not new for me – or any of us, actually. Peter killing Laura Hale as means to reach Alpha status was new. And shocking. I didn't understand the whole of it, as Scott said something about a picture and a nurse I had never heard of before. But Derek didn't comment on it when Scott showed him, and I didn't either.

The door suddenly opened and I tried to regain my dignity and act as if I had not been with my ear stuck to the door for the whole of their conversation.

"We okay to go?" I said with a weak smile.

Derek took my wrist and dragged me along with them, down the tunnels. "Your acting skills are almost as bad as your deductive skills."

I hissed at the strength of his hand in my wrist. He was tense. Soon I started to pant. "We… we are going… too fast," I complained.

"You can go at your pace when we reach the middle of the way out," Derek said.

"You are going to leave me behind?" I asked, outraged.

"You are too slow, too noisy and you can't defend yourself," he said. "We will leave you in a safe place and then you'll get yourself to safety."

I shook my hand out of his grasp and he looked at our hands surprised of my outburst. "No."

"We don't have time."

"I have not come this far to go back home," I said and purposely walked faster until I was ahead of both of them.

Derek joined me easily, even although for me it felt like running. "And what are you going to do when the fight starts, uh? Hide?"

Good question.

"You have done everything you could, Imogene. Go back home."

"No!" I complained.

"I am with Derek in this one," Scott interrupted.

"I am sorry, Imogene, but you are only slowing us down," Derek said.

He patted my head in what was the most affectionate gesture I had ever seen him perform – equal parts awkward – and then both boys were off. Out of my side in a flash.

I casted my eyes down, feeling hurt.

Then, I controlled as best as I could my emotions and kept my trek out of the tunnels. At some point, they diverged in two paths and I took out my mobile to look at the blue prints. To my surprise, this was not the same path I had followed to go in. This was the second entry, and it led to one particular place: the forest surrounding the Hale manor.

I felt my pulse race and I went into messaging. I wrote: Hale's manor, and then I added three senders, the phone that contacted me that morning, Peter Hale, the phone of Chris Argent and the only friend, Stiles.

To this day, I don't know what took me to do so. The pressing danger? The powerlessness? Intuition?

Why would I gather enemies against my friends?

My aunt Clementine would call it 'the vision'. But I didn't care about its name, only that it turned out to be the right thing to do.


The rest of the trek went on a daze. When I heard the first noise, I started to run. When I saw the light of the exit, I sprinted.

The moonlight welcomed my eyes and I stumbled across the trees. I saw distant figures and the menacing silhouette of the burned down house. A root got my feet and I fell, scraping the palms of my hands. Being at the ground level also allowed me to discover a motionless body at some feet from me. I scrambled to it, almost crawling.

Derek's body was adorned with arrows and blood. I was no nurse, but I guessed quickly that those arrows should go out. With disgust and fear, I grabbed one of them and pulled. I was not strong enough to put it out completely and more blood poured out of the wound. My patient grunted in pain.

I muttered a polite sorry and pulled again, this time stronger. The arrow went out and Derek's eyes opened. Faster than him, I grabbed the other arrow at his leg and pulled. This time, it went out in one strike.

At the same time, the screams of a woman were heard. She was being dragged into the house.

"Stay here," he whispered, but as he tried to stand up he hissed in pain.

"You are still not healed," I said and pushed him down. "Where is Scott?"

His eyes joined mine trying to search for Scott. There were bodies lying around the entrance, and I hoped they were not corpses.

"Stay here," he said again and this time he fled before I could argue.

And I stayed. Because the growls inside the house were scary and it was true that I was defenseless. Because I was only human.

Scott flew through a window at the same time a honking sound made me roll to the side one second before a Porsche sped up over me.

Stiles and another teenager came out and threw some chemical concoction to the Alpha, who just appeared in full werewolf form. I prayed that Derek was still alive, inside. Stiles plan worked and the Alpha was engulfed by fire, turning Peter Hale, ironically, in the same image of himself six years ago.

Feeling still shaken by the urge of adrenaline, I took some tentative steps towards the house. Sensing my feet stable enough to carry me, I ran inside it.

Derek was inside, rubbing his head, I guess where he had hit it. He raised his eyebrows at my sight.

I felt awkward, "You are alive," I said, "high five?" I held out my hand.

He laughed. I was surprised by it, since it was not that common. He high fived me and went out. I followed after him, but stopped at the threshold of the house; from up there I could see all.

He walked to his uncle – or what was left of him.

"Wait!" Scott ran up to him. "You said the cure comes from the one who bite you… Derek, if you do this, I am dead… Her father, her family… what am I supposed to do?"

We all waited in silence for Derek to make his decision. He was struggling. Peter talked but I could not hear it. But whatever he said, put Derek out of his confusion, and with a firm strike, he ripped open Peter's throat, despite Scott's screams. I shuddered.

He rose from his kneeling position and his eyes glowed red in an ominous way. "I am the Alpha now."

Once out of our shock, people started leaving. First it was Chris Argent, who dragged his daughter along with him. I heard their SUV drive away. Then Stiles and the other young boy gave a ride to Scott in the Porsche, which slid away in the dark like a silver flash.

I saw all of them leave sitting down on the stairs to the porch of the Hales' house. My bike was miles away.

Derek Hale, who walked with a new rhythm now that he had crowned himself Alpha, sat beside me. His presence was unnerving for some reason, and I guessed it was just animal instinct when faced with a predator.

"Do you want me to drop you home?" he asked. "The cops will be here soon."

A breeze flew by and I shivered, but he did not offer his jacket. "How does it feel? To be the Alpha…"

He shrugged. "I feel… stronger," he said. He clenched and unclenched his fist. "I feel better."

"You know what my mother told Peter… about leaving town…"

"That was Peter," he shook his head. "I won't leave. This is my house."

I looked at our backs, where the looming building cracked, where a dead woman lied on the floor. How could someone name this home?

"I just want to live a normal werewolf life, I won't cause any trouble," he said. Oh, and how wrong he would prove to be later.

I nodded slowly. "You take me home?"

He sat up and held out his hand to me. "Come on."

We started a trek towards his car, which was hidden in the forest miraculously.

"I felt," I started. I bit my tongue. I spoke again, "I felt helpless," I confessed.

He was taken aback. He frowned. "I know."

We reached the car. He grinned widely. As a kid given back his favorite toy. "I missed you," he muttered to his car. Maybe the only one to hear those words from him in a long time.

He started driving out of the forest, careful with the trees in the dark.

"You know, I wonder how all of us gathered at the same place in the end," he suddenly said. "How everyone knew where to find us."

My eyes widened and I laughed nervously. "Well, I guess sometimes we underestimate the detective skills of others."

"You are still a shitty detective," he chuckled.

"Hey, I found you, didn't I?" I defended myself.

"Yeah, by the way, how?"

I smiled and I started my retelling, details included.


"So… I guess that's it," I said. We had just parked in front of my house. "Will I see you again?"

"I still live in Beacon Hills, don't I?" he smirked.

"You know what I mean…"

He looked ahead, to the deserted street. "Only if you get into trouble."

We laughed.

"Well, you know me, so I guess I will make this a 'see you later'," I said.

"See you later, then."

There was a brief moment, a fraction of a second, in which we both contemplated some kind of gesture. His hand rose a few centimeters to reach my face or pat my head; I leaned forward to embrace him. But none happened.

With no other words, I climbed out of the car, slammed the door a bit too harsh for his liking and I disappeared behind the door of my house, not looking back.


Woman tied to six year-old arson case behind Beacon Hills Murders?

The cut off headline of the newspaper was sloppily glued to the thin page of the notebook. Its cover read 'Hale's fire'. As if done purposely, its cover was flaming red. A detail I just noticed once I left it in the porch of the Hale's house.

Small before the looming mansion, it was a tiny dot of color against the blacks, greys and browns of the house.

Case closed.