Abandoned Beacon Hills Rail Depot
Peter's POV
"Scott?" Boyd inquired, confused.
"In one of my desperate attempts to get Scott to join my pack, I showed him my most personal and painful memory," I replied. "He wasn't impressed. I realized too late that Allison was the key to Scott joining my pack."
"You already tried using Allison to get Scott to join your pack," Derek reminded me, like I didn't remember.
"I didn't do it the right way," I explained. "I shouldn't have threatened Allison or that gorgeous mother of Scott. Speaking of, she must be heartbroken and in need of..."
"Don't even think about it," Derek interrupted me, unamused. "Scott's mother is off limits."
"Then I hope seeing Scott and where he died isn't off limits," I responded. "Someone killed him, and they need to pay."
"And you want to be the one who makes them pay?" Derek asked with a scowl. "Why? He rejected you and helped me bring you down."
"I needed to be brought down, Derek," I replied, shocking him. "The moment I realized that I killed Laura, I knew I wasn't right in the head and I needed to be put down. Wolves don't kill one of their own, not even when they're sick. We nurse our sick back to good health.
One of the reasons I wanted Scott to join my pack was so that he would kill me when I was done with my vendetta against our family's murderers, and then have him and Lydia bring me back in the right state of mind. Why do you think I didn't make more Betas after Scott?
But the more he refused me and chose Allison over his own sire, the more the broken man I was took over whatever sanity I had left."
Silence reigned after my revelation.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Derek inquired in a tone I haven't heard in a long time, and when I looked at him, for a moment, I saw the Derek I knew from a lifetime ago, a much younger Derek.
"Do you want me to answer you with them here?" I asked as Isaac arrived.
Derek took a moment to think about that.
"Uh, Erica," Boyd began. "I think it's time we head home. It's getting late."
Erica moved to Boyd's side, before she motioned with her head for Isaac to follow them.
"It's alright, Derek," She said, Isaac joining them. "There are some things that we all have to do alone."
I saw the internal conflict within Derek, the younger, social and pack oriented Derek wanting his pack to be present and the older, antisocial Derek wanting to do this alone.
In the four days I've been back, I saw the latter Derek in the way he neglected to nurture his bond with his Betas and failed to encourage the Betas to bond with one another.
"Stay," Derek ended up saying, his fists clenched as he straightened up and looked at me. "Why didn't you tell me? Why did you choose Scott?"
I heard the unsaid 'over me'.
"When I turned Scott, I wasn't in the driver's seat, my instincts were," I began to explain, standing up. "And they chose Scott. Why? I don't know.
He would have rather been an asthmatic human than a healthy werewolf if given the choice, but I had already turned him and there was no going back. I didn't want to turn more people than was necessary, so I didn't.
I didn't fully recognize you until you came to see me with Scott, but I was mad at you for abandoning me in the very same town our family was murdered, and I was burned alive to the point my healing was practically non-existent, for years, and I was trapped inside my mind.
We don't abandon our own, Derek! Why did you and Laura abandon me when I needed you the most?! Why didn't you avenge our family, your mother, me, for six years?! Did you even look for Cora?!"
"C-Co-Cora?" Derek stuttered.
I turned my back on him, and then kicked the cage with all my might, taking out my fury on it, and strained my leg in the process, and fell.
I muffled my cry and focused on using my anger to fuel my recovery by contracting every muscle I could control to internalizing it physically.
I felt my eyes shift for the first time since my resurrection, but they flickered between human and werewolf, and my healing pickup speed, although not enough to fully heal me.
"Who is Cora?" Isaac inquired, curiosity clear in his voice.
I paid him no mind.
My focus was on recovering, it was why I came to Derek in the first place, and bothered to entertain everyone with my story.
I needed the symbiotic pack bond to help me recover, and this was the fastest way to get it.
"She's alive?" Derek asked me, a little hope in his voice, ignoring Isaac or not hearing him.
The question only served to infuriate me further, and I welcomed the anger and used it wisely, hence I ignored Derek.
"Is Cora alive, Peter?!" He came closer to the cage, now hanging between hope and not hope.
Unable to sustain internalizing the anger at the demanding tone Derek used, I released it with a growl that sounded more human than werewolf and used what was left to stand up.
"How the hell am I supposed to know that?!" I questioned with a sneer. "I couldn't get her out and immediately follow. And I spent six years trapped in my own mind, remember?! You and Laura were supposed to find her, but if you were killed too, she was supposed to contact Corinne."
"Who's Corinne?"
"Someone I hoped would help Cora avenge us," I answered. "Speaking of revenge, let me go, Derek. I have a Beta to see and avenge. I didn't come to you so you could lock me up and treat me like an animal."
"Why did you come to me?" Derek asked, finally ready to listen.
"Good question," I responded, but I wasn't going to make it easy. "I shouldn't have come to you. It's not like family is supposed to be there for you when you just lost the closest thing to a child, even if he was rebellious and helped kill you.
In case you forgot, Derek, the Bite is more than a gift, it's a rebirth. Scott wasn't just my Beta, he was my progeny, and he was killed. There's no way he couldn't have clawed his way out of the freezer or at least howled for help, he had you convinced that he was part of your pack, after all.
I didn't turn him to be killed, he was the future and someone ended his life. If you're not going to kill me again, let me go. Someone owes me a life."
An ashamed and conflicted Derek cast his eyes to the floor, unable to look me in the eye now that I called him out.
"Don't kill anyone who wasn't involved," He said after a moment. "And don't be careless and reckless this time. Gerard Argent is in town, and he came with re-enforcement, and they're looking high and low for us. Let him out, Isaac."
"I can't believe this is what we've been reduced to," I replied, disgusted. "Sheep in our own territory. But I predicted it. I predicted it all! I warned Talia about this, I told her this would happen if she continued to make us weak! You know what she did? The same thing you just did.
We're not sheep! We are the hunters, Derek! We are the apex predators that everyone should fear! We hunt sheep, and Gerard is one big fat sheep waiting to be hunted down and torn apart, and if you didn't take what wasn't yours to take, Scott would have led that hunt."
"What wasn't mine to take?" Derek questioned with a frown as I walked out of the cage. "You killed Laura to get it, what did you expect?! Did you expect me to let some idiot in love with a hunter to inherit her Alpha spark? Mom's Alpha spark?!"
"I didn't kill Laura because I wanted to!" How many times did I have to repeat that? "It just happened, Derek! The reason I lured her here was so that she would return, and I would get my answers.
I just lost it when she refused to avenge our family the right way and told me she's done nothing to rebuild our pack.
The Alpha spark wasn't mine to take, either. It belonged to Laura's eldest child, but of course, she didn't have children yet because she was too busy hiding..."
I suddenly found myself on the floor, a sharp pain exploding from cheek.
Looking up, I found an angry Alpha red-eyed Derek standing over me.
"You have no idea what we went through since that day!" He boomed, his fury on full display. "You think it was easy leaving you here? It wasn't! And we didn't know Cora escaped. By the time the fire was put out, nothing was left, but you, somehow, but you were barely alive, and barely alive is an understatement. The loss broke us..."
"Oh, I noticed," I interrupted, nursing my jaw. "The Laura I knew would have rebuilt our pack, sought out our allies and avenged us. The Laura I met was a shadow of herself, and so are you."
Derek cast his eyes on the floor once again.
"I know that," He murmured.
I felt a little sorry for him.
"But you did the right thing by killing me, instead of allowing Scott to," I admitted, to his surprise. "You did for Laura what you both failed to do for us, seek retribution and get it.
Those red eyes didn't belong to you, just as they didn't belong to me. The only good thing I did with them was avenging our family, do better with them, nephew. Be a better Alpha than I was."
With that, I picked myself up from the floor and headed for the exit, Gerard on my mind as the prime suspect for Scott's untimely death.
"Go with him," I heard Derek instruct.
Turning around, I saw Boyd come my way, and I internally smirked.
Why couldn't I get Scott to be more like Derek?
