Hi there! Sorry for the long gap in updates... I did something that takes up A LOT of my time... I had a baby LOL Our happy little family is starting to get into a great routine and I finally feel like I can take an hour every so often to continue my work!

Anywhoooo, I'm posting this chapter again because I added a portion at the end. I needed a little more Chelsea/Derek interaction!

Happy reading!

Reviews welcomed and appreciated!

ELEVEN

"Hold her up!" Derek ordered Stiles while he carried a still seizing Erica into an old train car. I was too busy watching the girl to care that we were in a dirty abandoned subway station.

"Is she dying?" Stiles asked. He had taken position behind Erica, holding her head and shoulders up off the floor. I crouched beside him, helping to adjust her body.

"She might." Derek sounded out of breath and nervous, a strange combination that did not match the sight of the man. "Which is why this is gonna hurt." he said just before breaking her forearm with a sickening crack. Erica erupted in a pained scream and I flinched back at the sound.

"You broke her arm!" Stiles accused angrily as he struggled to keep her in place.

"It'll trigger the healing process." Derek explained. My brother covered his mouth, and I'm sure I wore a similar freaked out expression as he did. "I still gotta get the venom out." He pursed his lips. "This is where it's really gonna hurt."

I watched in horror as he started digging his claws into her forearm, squeezing until blood began to ooze out between his fingers. His hands continued to apply pressure and twist her skin as more and more blood poured onto the train's floor.

"You have to stop!" I cried when I saw her body go limp. I tried to reach past Stiles and push Derek away from the girl, sure he was killing her. His head snapped up, eyes glowing a brilliant shade of red and a low animalistic growl broke through his throat. Red was wrong. His eyes were supposed to be blue. That shining, stunning, heart stopping shade of blue.

My movements stilled.

God, he was a terrifying man.

"Derek." Scott's voice pulled the older man's attention away from me, as if that had been my brother's plan. My eyes fell back to Erica, who I was relieved to see was breathing. My brother and Derek both stood and walked out of the train. I stayed to help Stiles lay Erica in a more comfortable spot, making sure she had some type of pillow in case she had another seizure. I shrugged out of my jacket and balled it up under her head. Once I was content with her space, my feet began to march after Scott and Derek.

"We do it my way." Scott was saying as I walked up.

"What is wrong with you?" I sneered. Scott must have seen the rage in my eyes because he stepped in my path, stopping me from ramming right into Derek. "You did this to her. You put her in this situation." My voice was growing louder with each word.

"Jackson did this to her." His calm demeanor irritated me. He leaned his body back so he was nearly sitting on the table behind him while he cleaned the rest of Erica's blood from his hands. An old, already dirty rag, ran along each of his long fingers, whipping away the last remnants of the dark liquid. "I didn't…"

"You turned her into this!" I pushed Scott aside. "You pulled her into this world, just like you pulled Scott in."

"Chels…" Scott warned, pulling on the back of my shirt. Was he afraid I would hit Derek? I was angry, not stupid. I was furious, but I still recalled the deadly red glow I'd witnessed only minutes before.

"She wanted this." Derek pushed himself off the table. Standing close and at full height, I was reminded of how much he towered over me, of how big he truly was. "Her life was Hell before I turned her."

"As opposed to the fucking party it is now?" I countered with a scoff. The anger inside me overpowered whatever fear still lingered there. "She's a child! Her and Issac are children! How…"

"Children? Issac has survived more than most adults. They're stronger. Faster. Better." he took a step forward with each word, which I matched with one backwards. Scott pulled on my arm and stepped between us again. "Tell me," Derek went on over my brother's shoulder. "If I told you that in ten seconds, I could make you stronger than anyone around you, that you could protect yourself, that you could stop running from whoever the hell is chasing you, would you say no?" His words pierced through me, cementing me in place.

"I…" I trailed off, caught by surprise at the question. I had hoped that what my mother had let slip that day he was hiding in our bathroom would have gone unnoticed. That he'd been so weak and focused on not being discovered, that our conversation would have floated right over his head. Given the triumphant smirk on his lips, I was wrong.

"That first night you came home, the night you barged into Scott's room, I smelled the blood on you." He pushed Scott aside and continued his advance. I wondered briefly why my brother didn't try to stop him, but then it hit me. He wanted to hear my response too. Since coming home, I'd offered him no explanation of why I had suddenly returned to Beacon Hills. Derek stalked closer, forcing me further and further until my back was against the cool metal of the train car. "The blood, the cuts and bruises. The near panic attacks, flashbacks. You're not as good at hiding it as you think."

"You think you know anything about me?" I challenged, feeling desperate for this conversation to stop. "Do you think I owe you something? Do you think I owe something to the grown ass adult ruining teenager's lives?"

"I think you owe Scott answers." he replied bluntly. My eyes flicked to my brother standing behind him. "You know we can smell it right?" Derek took one more step towards me, leaving no more than an inch between our chests. I was overwhelmed with the need to move away, to put distance between us. But there was nowhere for me to go. Something I was sure he did on purpose. "We can smell fear. It rolls off of you in waves."

"Step back." I growled, letting the anger slowly take over. He was doing this on purpose. He was trying to get a rise out of me. And my brother was letting him.

"Something turned you into a skittish little puppy. Don't you think your family deserves to know who's living in their house?"

His words were sharp, like knives pinning against my chest.

The anger that had been bubbling inside me came to a rapid boil. I don't remember making the conscious decision to strike him, but nevertheless, it happened. My fingers curled in on their own accord, creating a solid fist. Next thing I know, that fist was connecting with his jaw.

"Chelsea!" Scott seemed to have woken up and finally used his body as a buffer between Derek and myself. "Stop! Everyone just stop." He was shouting, but his eyes were on Derek, not me.

"I guess even puppies have claws." Derek flashed a malicious grin while he rubbed at his jawline, which had me lunging forward again.

"Shut up!" Scott yelled at the older man while he ushered me back onto the train. Inside, Stiles still sat loyally beside the unconscious blonde. I stared at him while concentrating on controlling my wild breaths.

"Well, that was awesome." His buzzed head gave a quirky little jerk as he smiled up at me. He must have heard the punch. I couldn't help but smile back. It wasn't the first time I've thrown a punch, but it was the first time I've defended myself in quite some time. It gave me the same rush I'd felt after speaking to the Sheriff.

I was beginning to feel…like me.

"You're bleeding." Derek's voice startled me out of my trance an hour or so later. Ericka laid peacefully asleep on the floor of the train car, Stiles's flannel shirt laid over her like a blanket. The boys, being Scott and Stiles, had taken off a while ago. Issac was sulking around somewhere, though I couldn't see him. I had refused to leave the girl alone. It's not that I worried they would hurt her, I was worried they wouldn't pay her any attention and she would die in her sleep. Maybe I'm a bit paranoid. But to be fair, it was my first encounter with a teenage boy turned mutant lizard with a poisonous tail. I wasn't familiar with the effects.

Scott had assured me she would be fine once she woke up, and I trusted him on that. But I just needed to see it for myself. My back had started to ache about thirty minutes ago from sitting on the metal bench where I perched to keep an eye on the girl. The pain was an odd relief. It was something normal. Something familiar. Something I knew how to handle.

"What?" I blinked up at him, honestly not hearing what he had said. We had been avoiding each other since I slapped him. Given the chance, I would absolutely do it again. But without Scott beside me, I felt the need to be a bit more cautious. I no longer had someone in my corner should things get ugly.

"You're bleeding." Derek repeated. "I can smell it." My eyes shifted down to the floor of the subway car, where a puddle of Erica's blood was slowly drying up. None of us had bothered to clean it up. "It's not hers."

"That," I nodded down at the crimson pool, "is most definitely her's." Derek's eyes rolled back in annoyance.

"Yes, I'm aware. But I smell you too." he took a seat across from me, careful not to wake the sleeping blonde between us.

"How can you tell the difference?" I questioned, silently taking inventory of my body. Aside from my back, the only other prick of pain I felt was on my shoulder where the ceiling tile had hit back at the library. It must have scraped against my skin harder than I thought, but with my heavy sweater covering my upper body, I hadn't even realized.

But Derek had.

"It's just, different. I don't know how to explain it." he kept his eyes on me, making me feel the unexplainable urge to squirm like a bug under a magnifying glass.

"I… smell different?" Why was this conversation even happening?

"Everyone has their own scent. I can tell the difference between your blood and Erica's." she said it simply, but I knew there was more to the explanation.

"Oh." I said, accepting his answer regardless of how weird it all sounded. A long silence fell between us, which I used to think over how strange my life had become.

"Are you hurt?"

"What?" again he'd interrupted my thoughts and I hadn't heard his question. Instead of getting mad, which is what I had come to expect, he let out a soft laugh and hung his head before looking back up at me.

"You're bleeding. Are you hurt?" There was a small amused smirk on his face that I very badly wanted to slap off. But the irritation I felt fizzled out almost as soon as it had ignited. There was something different about him right now. Something softer. Gone was the sharp intense heat that his eyes usually held. The lips that I assumed had been permanently set in a straight line were curved upwards. His body, the solid mass of lean muscle, didn't seem to be as coiled as I had always seen it.

He was relaxed.

And it suited him.

"Yeah." I shook the thoughts from my mind and answered. "Part of the ceiling fell on us at the school. I didn't even feel it until now." He didn't seem completely satisfied with the answer, but to my relief, he didn't push the subject any further. Another silence consumed the space, and I was content to let it happen. But apparently, he was not.

"You know, I asked them first." this time, his eyes remained on Erica. I didn't respond right away. I allowed myself a moment to sit with his comment.

"They're kids." I too kept my gaze fixed on the girl. "Kids with shitty lives they'd do anything to get out of. They would have been stupid to say no."

"I know."

"You took advantage of them." I was surprised the words flew past my lips. I had been thinking it, but never meant to say it. My body stiffened, waiting for his angry response, ready to run at the first sign of aggression.

He lifted his eyes to me.

"I know." His voice was soft, not an ounce of the rage I'd anticipated. "I know it now. In the moment, I truly thought I was helping them."

My body relaxed at the admission. He wasn't going to attack me for calling him out. I realized belatedly that my inability to speak my mind without fear of retaliation was a trauma response, a term one of more helpful officers in Jersey had used.

Derek took my thoughtful silence as acceptance and moved the conversation along.

"You know we can help you, right?"

"By turning me into a werewolf?" I scoffed mockingly. He smiled again.

"No, I wouldn't do that." Before I had the time to decide if I should be insulted, he continued. "You're in some kind of trouble. Scott and I can help you."

"It's not… I'm…" I stammered as I rose from the bench. Conversation over. I was so NOT talking about this.

"Why bother denying it? I can tell when you're lying." He stood and followed me out of the subway car.

"Oh can you smell that too?" I called over my shoulder as I hurried towards the exit.

"No, your heartbeat." He corrected. "But I can smell the fear. The anxiety. I wasn't lying about that before."

"Bye Derek." I called loudly as I yanked the door open. I could just hear his next sentence before I trudged out into the street.

"You don't have to do it alone."