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In this story, Derek is still an alpha- Isaac is in his pack. (I just loved Derek with his pack so much on the show, and Derek as an alpha).

Chapter 8

Peter reclined his seat back slightly, settling in. He watched the glow coming from the apartment window. Great. She was going to raze the town, starting with her own apartment.

He slid his gaze over to the small car parked nearer the building, his own vehicle parked in the unlit corner of the parking lot. Peter listened to Lydia end her call with Stiles, their quiet conversation turning to their feelings about their unique gifts. He didn't bother holding back his eye roll. Listening to teen girls would be worse than just letting the town burn.

"Maybe we should get Peter a muzzle," Lydia was saying.

Peter scowled. He flipped his radio on and looked back up at the apartment window. It was dark now.

"Malia seems like she's doing better," Kira said, her voice carrying to Peter's ears beyond the music he had turned on.

"She's not doing bad," Lydia answered. "Her grades are finally…not failing."

Peter switched off the radio.

"She's sweet," Kira said. "In her own way."

"Well she certainly didn't get that from Peter," Lydia said.

Peter didn't think it was amusing enough to warrant the giggles that ensued.

"Stiles has been good for her," Lydia said. "In a strange way."

"I know, right?" Kira agreed. "He's sweet with her."

"He is," Lydia said. "She told me Stiles is actually a really good kisser—"

Peter flipped the radio back on, turning the volume up.

The apartment window above stayed dark and the music drowned out most of the conversation.

Peter settled in more comfortably.

The night passed slowly, but thankfully the girls finally quit their talking. Not before Peter was subjected to more details about every teenage boy in Beacon Hills than he ever wanted to know, but finally they sat in silence.

They must have been reassured by the lack of movement during the night, because sometime after sunrise, Lydia started her car and pulled out of the lot.

Peter was less than reassured. He stayed, waiting for some sign of movement, flames, mayhem, anything that would signify Henley was in her apartment and losing control.

Midmorning she finally emerged. Even without his abilities, he would have been able to see the dark circles under her eyes. Her chin length hair was half pulled back and nothing short of a mess.

She bypassed the parking lot and started down the sidewalk.

Stiles fell into step next to her.

Peter dropped his head back against his leather seat and heaved a sigh. Idiot. Did that kid plan to unintentionally rile up a phoenix until she was driven to unleash her full power?

He moved to open his door and saw Scott had joined Stiles.

"Great," he muttered. He got out of his car and crossed the parking lot at an angle, stepping in front of the trio to intercept them on the sidewalk past the building.

"Out for a morning stroll?" Peter asked.

Stiles whipped around to face him. Peter narrowed his eyes at him, remembering Lydia and Kira's late night gossip.

Stiles faltered and took a couple steps back.

Peter looked at Scott, then finally at Henley.

Her eyes were orange, light dancing under her skin.

"What do you two think you're doing?" Peter asked.

"We're doing what you should be doing," Stiles answered.

Scott broke in when Peter narrowed his eyes at Stiles. "We're just trying to help," Scott said. "Help her learn about her abilities, how to control them."

Henley growled under her breath and Peter caught a glimpse of fangs. Sweat beaded along her brow and her hands shook.

"I told you all to stay away from me," Henley growled through clenched teeth.

"Excellent advice," Peter said. He lifted his eyebrows at the Scott and Stiles.

"Ok, I hear what she's saying," Stiles said, "and leaving her alone, respecting her wishes, would be an awesome suggestion if we weren't, you know…kind of worried about the whole uncontrolled flames thing she has going on."

The light under Henley's skin turned to sparks tracing across her skin, then a burst of flames.

Peter felt a surge of annoyance with Stiles that burned hotter than it usually did. "Go," he ordered.

Scott looked like he was going to argue and Peter took a step closer to him, putting himself between the two of them and Henley. "Now," he clarified.

He didn't move until Stiles backed up a step and Scott reluctantly moved away from Henley.

Scott leaned in, speaking quietly to Henley. "If you need us—for anything—we'll be there."

The earnestness was more than a little sickening and Peter smiled in approval when Henley growled at him, backing the teen up a few steps.

Peter watched until they had gone to Stiles' eyesore of a vehicle and got in, before turning to Henley.

"Why won't they leave me alone?" she asked. "I don't need baby-sitters or chaperones or whatever they're trying to be!" She glared at Peter like she was including him in that statement.

"Boy scouts," Peter said sarcastically. "At least that's what they consider themselves."

Henley closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were gray again, though no less annoyed. Her hands were still shaking. She saw Peter looking at them and tucked them behind her.

"I need a coffee. That's all. I'm not going to torch anything. I'm fine. It's under control. I wouldn't have even had any issues if those two hadn't been here."

"Yes, they have that effect on people," Peter agreed.

She pressed a trembling hand against her forehead, her chest rising and falling rapidly. A shower of sparks fell from her hand to the ground.

Peter glanced around them, at the mid morning traffic driving down the street, and the couple of pedestrians walking their direction. He grabbed Henley by the arm, ignoring the heat that radiated from her. He propelled her between buildings.

"You need to get yourself under control," he said.

"What do you think I'm trying to do?" she asked.

Her skin was pale beneath the sheen of sweat, the only color the circles beneath her eyes. She looked worse than she had when he had first bit her.

"What did you do last night?" he asked.

She glared at him.

"Whatever you did clearly didn't do you any good," he commented.

"I called my dad," she said. And there was that hint of frailty, the same loneliness he had picked up on when he had taken her pain.

"I take it it didn't go well," he said, as if the answer didn't matter. And he told him it didn't. It didn't matter that this girl was tied to him instead of six feet under, where she belonged.

She gave him a look that told him exactly what she thought of his question. She bit down hard on her lower lip and the trembling intensified.

"Come on," Peter said decisively.

Henley was shaking too badly to argue. Peter hauled her towards his car and loaded her in.

He revved the engine and pulled out of the lot.

Next to him, Henley started shaking violently. Peter pressed down harder on the accelerator.

He made it to his building and bundled her out of the car. The heat that radiated from her was hot enough to make him catch his breath. He hurried her through the service entrance and up the stairwell.

In his penthouse, he got her in and let go of her, needing relief from the heat. He looked down at his arm, the reddened marks on his skin where she had been pressed against him.

She gasped for breath, then fell to her knees.

Peter heaved a sigh, then braced himself for the inevitable pain and got his arms around her again.

"You're ok," he said, even though it was clearly a lie.

Her fingers came around his arms and curled into his flesh. She clung to him like a lifeline.

"I'm—I'm trying to control it," she said.

Peter bit back the comment that she was clearly failing. Her nails broke his skin, but it was the heat that was the worst. He hated fire.

"Controlling it doesn't mean burying it," Peter said. "It means channeling it."

Henley swung her head to meet his eyes, her eyes flashing orange. "You want me to channel it?" she demanded. Her nails pierced his flesh, turning to claws. Peter gave her a warning growl.

"Channel everything my dad thinks about me?" Flames rose from her skin and Peter tried to hold her.

"Channel years of his comments and my brother's mocking?" The flames grew until her wings stretched out behind her.

"Or bury it," Peter said, his voice strained with pain.

Henley shoved him away and Peter absently pressed a hand to the blood flowing from his forearm, watching to see what her next move would be.

Her wings stretched nearly to the high ceiling and she flung a ball of flame away from her. It landed with an explosion, a brief flare of energy and fire before dying out, leaving a scorch on the hardwood floor.

Peter watched as she started to lose control, pure power in every move, even if it was unhinged and without direction.

For the first time, he started to see what a benefit a phoenix could be. Especially one with years of pent up hurt and rage against hunters.

#

Henley woke with a gasp.

She sat up in the unfamiliar bed. The room was dark, curtains open to show only a night sky above and the lights of Beacon Hills outside below. She was alone in the room.

She dropped her head into her hands and tried to make sense of what had happened. The powers had started dragging her under, making it hard to breath. Peter had been there.

She looked around like maybe he was still with her. He wasn't.

She shouldn't feel bereft. She needed to get out of there.

She swung her legs off the bed. She still had her shoes on, she was fully clothed, though her t-shirt now had holes scorched through it.

Ashes fell from her when she stood, marring the immaculate white sheets. She looked closer. Not immaculate. Pinpoint burn marks spread in the shape of her body over the sheets.

Uncertain about where she was, Henley moved toward the door, listening. In the distance she could hear the steady breathing of someone sleeping.

She listened carefully as she opened the door and stepped into a living room.

Something had happened there.

The charred embers were all that remained of a couch. A window was boarded up. Smoke patterns ran up the walls and across the ceiling. An abandoned fire extinguisher was tossed aside in one corner.

Henley tried to remember how she had got there, what had happened.

No matter how hard she focused, all she could see were flashes of memory—Peter, his eyes red, telling her to stop fighting. Him putting out flames around them as they grew out of control.

With a jerk, she looked down at her wrist. There was the faintest hint of claw marks, fading in front of her eyes. He had sunk his claws into her arm and it had finally drawn her to focus on him. The pain had centered her.

She needed to get out of here, away from Peter.

She made it to the door, listening for any change in the steady breathing coming from the other room.

Once out the door, she hurried toward the elevator at the end of the hall. She jabbed at buttons, needing to be out of there, and knowing that wouldn't take her away from her powers. No, not her powers. The powers. The ones that didn't seem to have anything to do with her. The ones that swept in and overwhelmed her no matter how hard she fought.

She needed to get away from everything that was threatening her.

#

Derek eyed the couch silently.

"It was custom made," Peter said, annoyance sharpening his words. "Imported Italian leather."

Derek slid a glance toward his uncle. "And she's your beta."

Peter looked at him in question. "Is that supposed to endear her to me more than my couch?"

Next to him, Derek could feel Isaac's annoyance with Peter growing. Derek made a barely perceptible move with his hand to keep Isaac from saying what they were both thinking. Isaac spoke anyway.

"It's a really nice family you've got, Derek," Isaac said. "The best thing about your family reunions is I always come away feeling better about the family I was stuck with."

Peter narrowed his eyes at Isaac, but spoke to Derek. "Yes, well, not all of us enjoy collecting misguided teens in our pack."

"Where did she go?" Derek asked, ignoring the dig.

"If I knew that, I wouldn't have called you, would I?" Peter asked.

"It's kind of sweet you're worried about her," Isaac said, clearly unable to keep from goading Peter more.

"Enough," Derek said to both of them. "Maybe we've been doing this wrong, trying to watch her. Maybe space is better for her."

"Thank you, Derek," Peter said, sarcasm in full force. "Why didn't I think of just letting an unhinged phoenix run around town with no supervison?"

"I'm just saying," Derek said, "that maybe being around us, having what we are—what she is—thrown in her face isn't helping."

"Fine," said Peter. "When the town is an ash heap and you are covered in burns, which I can personally tell you take much longer for us to heal from than any other injury, you can sit back and congratulate yourself for leaving her to her own devices."

Derek waited for his uncle to finish. He stared at him, unmoving until Peter finally sighed.

"Fine, we give the phoenix time to 'cool off'. But then I'm finding her."

Derek's eyes narrowed.

"What?" Peter asked.

Derek waited.

"She's my beta and apparently I'm an alpha again. I have a responsibility."

Isaac snorted and Derek finally spoke. "Yeah. Your commitment to duty is what I always think of when I think of Peter Hale."

"Unless you're going to help me clean this place up, you can go now."

Derek didn't mention that Peter was the one who had called him. He jerked his head for Isaac to follow.

They headed out of the penthouse and toward the elevator.

"So Henley's just on her own?" Isaac asked.

Derek knew Isaac hadn't seen the full force of Henley's powers, but had heard enough from him and from Scott's pack to know the full magnitude. He glanced back at Peter's closed door.

"I don't think she's on her own," he said. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing.

#