"Derek!" I cried out as I came barging into the lair, holding Erica in my arms. I saw him appear from the subway carriage before I'd even taken the first step down towards him. He took in the situation instantly, probably using his senses to do so, before he ran up the stairs to meet me at the halfway point.
"Give her to me," Derek ordered. I hesitated, my hold on Erica tightening. I trusted him, I knew I did…but this was my sister. Time was of the essence, I knew that, but rather than snap at me, Derek looked me in the eye, a promise forming. "I'll look after her," he said, and I believed him. Maybe it had something to do with the Alpha, Beta bond but I carefully handed over Erica before he lead us down the stairs as fast as he could go.
Scott and Stiles were right behind us, but Derek paid little mind to them, as did I. Erica was everyone's focus right now. "Derek, what's happening to her, you said she wouldn't have seizures anymore – how is this happening?" I asked frantically as we walked.
"I don't know, Dylan," was all he said before he went silent. I would have pestered him for an answer, but I doubted that would help him or more importantly Erica, so I kept my questions to myself for now.
He lead us into the subway carriage and knelt down, lowering Erica to the floor as we piled in behind him. "Hold her up," Derek instructed, looking to me. I moved but Stiles did too, taking her left side while I took her right.
"Is she dying?" Stiles asked, while Derek leaned back to inspect the situation, now seeing her in a better light. He must have been using his senses again. Either that or he was in as much shock and surprise as we all were. He'd promised this wouldn't happen, he'd said the bite would prevent this from ever happening again. He'd lied to me, and despite the trust I'd give him a few seconds prior, I found myself now hating my Alpha.
"She might," Derek answered in a daze.
"Derek, no!" I cried out in pure and utter fright. The thought of loosing my sister right now was too much to bare. "Please, you have to save her, please! She's all I've got, you can't let her die!"
Derek looked to me, his eyes in intense thought before he finally said, "All right." He adjusted his position, now leaning over Erica and taking her arm in his hands. "But this is gonna hurt." I didn't get the chance to ask what he was talking about, because the sound of bone breaking snapped me from my train of though, as Erica screamed in agony.
"You broke her arm!" Stiles shouted.
"Derek, what are you doing!" I cried out in horror, not seeing how causing Erica more pain would help in anyway.
"It'll trigger the healing process," Derek explained. "But I've still got to get the venom out. This is where it's really gonna hurt." I tightened my hold on Erica in preparation, doing all I could to comfort her while Stiles did the same from the other side. Then Derek tightened his grip on Erica's – now broken – arm. His claws formed, breaking her skin as he dug in. Blood seeping out of her arm as if it were blood bag, as she screamed even louder than before.
"It's okay, Erica! It's okay, I'm here. I've got you. You're going to be fine," I said over her screams, doing all I could to comfort and reassure her in this time of utter chaos. It hurt that this was all I could do, that I couldn't take her pain, couldn't go through this for her instead. I want to tell Derek to stop, but doing so wouldn't help Erica. She had to suffer, and it was killing both of us to see her go through this again.
The promise that we'd never suffer again, was well and truly broken at this point.
Finally Derek seemed to stop, Erica's screams subsiding for the time being. During this, Stiles lost his balance and slid onto his backside, which then made Erica fall towards him since he wasn't supporting her. I could have ripped his head off for that, had I not seen Erica curl up against him in between the spasms. "Stiles…" Erica breathed out, opening her eyes to look up at him. He looked down, and for the first time, I knew she was getting his undivided attention. "You make a good Batman."
Her head dropped back after that, drifting into unconsciousness from the pain. But I hadn't known that for sure, so I started shouting her name and Stiles did the same. It was only when Derek's voice cut through us both, that we stopped shouting. "Is she still breathing?" Derek asked over us.
I leaned towards her, focusing my hearing on the inhale and exhale, the beat of her heart. "Yes, she's still alive," I said in relief.
"Better she's unconscious then," Derek said as he started squeezing again, causing more blood to seep out. "I've still to get the rest of the venom out her system."
We all sat around while he finished doing that. Erica remained on Stiles lap because none of us dared to move her. I remained beside him, softly stroking Erica's hair and whispering reassuring words to her and myself. Scott was sat on one of the subway seats, watching the whole thing with his hands clasped together in front of his mouth. It was almost like he was praying.
Eventually, Derek was done. I asked him about the blood loss, but Derek pointed out her wounds had already healed over and that she should be awake in a few hours. We double checked she was still breathing and that was when I finally relaxed, even if it was just a little. I'd feel whole lot better once she woke up.
I would have remained by her side until then, but Derek wanted to talk. But when he asked me the first time, I didn't even look at him, my gaze remaining solely on Erica. "Dylan, she's going to live, I promise," Derek said, hunched over opposite me. "But you, me and Scott need to have a talk, right now." I decided it could wait, remaining with Erica. Let him talk to his precious Scott, while I look after the member of our Pack. Even when he sighed, I still didn't move, nor even when he stood up. In the end, it was actually Stiles, of all people, who got me to move.
"I'll stay with her," he said, looking me in the eye as he did. "I'll look after her until you get back." That was a promise, and I knew he'd keep to it. So I nodded, silently getting up as Derek lead the way out. I took one last look at Erica, to reassure myself that she was safe, still resting against Stiles who hadn't moved since she landed on him. Confident in him, I stepped out with Scott following me.
Once outside the subway carriage, we moved over to a nearby crate, which Derek leaned back against, turning to face me and Scott who were stood side by side. Before anyone else could say anything, I said, "Jackson's the Kanima." He took this in with relative ease, nodding slowly as a line passed over his forehead. I assumed he had more questions but was keeping them to himself because of Erica's situation. Or maybe he'd still been suspecting Jackson all along, and just hadn't bothered to tell any of us. I really couldn't tell with Derek anymore. Sometimes it felt like I knew him, that he trusted me, and other times, he was still just as mysterious as when I'd first met him. Not trusting anyone except himself and maybe Scott on occasion. He trusted an Omega, more than he did his own Pack. A fact that was starting to speak volumes to me.
Scott was the next one to speak, but it was a good few seconds before he did. "Are you going to kill him?"
"Tried that once," Derek said simply. "Didn't work. But everything is killable. I just need to find its weak spot."
Another silence, before Scott spoke again. "I'm gonna help you stop him… As part of your Pack." Both me and Derek turned to look at him, though he met neither of our surprised gazes. "If you want me in, fine. But we do it on one condition. We're going to catch him, not kill him."
Derek shared a look with me, before his eyes flicked back to Scott. "And?" he asked, knowing there would be something else.
"And we do it my way," Scott said, looking Derek straight in the eye.
Yet another silence, the two facing off with me at their sides. "All right," Derek said.
Shortly after agreeing to Scott's terms on joining the Pack – even if it was temporary – Derek asked him and Stiles to leave. This time Stiles was hesitant to leave Erica's side, until I took her from him. He understood, and I offered him a comforting smile before he then followed Scott out.
After that, Derek and I remained in the subway carriage, waiting for Erica to awake. Derek had pulled in a mattress that Erica was now resting on, while I sat on one of the subway seats beside her, eyes never leaving her. Always listening to her heart beat in case anything suddenly went wrong. Derek was stood at the head end of Erica, leaning against one of the poles that reached from the roof down to the floor. We didn't speak to each other while we waited, both more focused on other things.
"The first chance I get I'm going to kill Jackson," I said suddenly. I wasn't entirely sure whether I was saying it to Erica or Derek, but they both needed to hear it. It was a promise to Erica, but just a general heads up for Derek. I owed him that much, but after everything that had gone wrong, I was starting to think I didn't actually owe him that much more anymore.
I knew he was looking at me, but I didn't turn away from Erica, not even when he spoke up. "I understand. But I'm going to ask you not to, because it will jeopardise our deal with Scott." I snorted at that, rolling my eyes which I knew he could see. He didn't add anything. No warning, no growl. Which was probably why I said what I said next.
"You're not as good an Alpha as you think you are. If you really cared about this Pack, then you'd kill Jackson." I knew my words would sting, I'd intended them to. I heard him take in a deep breath, then waited for him to start shouting at me. But he didn't.
"I tried that, remember," Derek pointed out, although there was a little edge to his voice. "I sliced his throat with my own two hands and he walked away from it. Yes I'd like to kill him but it's clearly not as easy as that. So I'll settle for stopping it, which is what Scott wants to do." My God, I just realised how whipped Derek was by Scott. It might have been funny if it wasn't screwing everything up for our Pack. "I know you want him dead, but we have to focus on stopping him, even if that means letting him live."
"And how am I supposed to focus when my sister is like this?" I snapped, finally looking at him. "When she's scared, and terrified and having a frick'n seizure – that you said would never happen again!"
"It shouldn't have happened again, and I'm sorry that it did," Derek snapped back as he pushed off the pole, though his voice wasn't as loud as mine. "But that's exactly why I have to stop this thing, even if it means letting it live. Because I don't want her to be scared, I don't want any of you to be scared." His voice lowered to a more soft tone, or at least what was soft for Derek. "I understand, Dylan."
A snorted again. "No you don't," I muttered, turning back to Erica as I slouched into my seat. "You don't have any siblings."
There was a pause, a moment while Derek gathered himself, letting out the hot air that was inside of him. Then he moved, sitting down next to me, careful not to step on or wake Erica prematurely. Once sat, he gathered himself, adjusting his position and breathing until he felt he was ready, ready to tell me whatever it was he was about to. I'd ignore it all, watching Erica and pretending he wasn't there.
"You're right," Derek admitted. "I don't have any siblings…not any more." That caught my attention, my eyes widening a little as I turned to face him. His lips turned up ever so slight, in an almost sad yet victorious smile, seeing that he'd caught me.
"Before I became an Alpha, I was a Beta, like you. My Alpha, was my older sister, Laura. She was better at it than I am…" And then Derek proceeded to tell me all about what had happened between him and Laura when coming back, right up to the point he became Alpha and started to build his own Pack. He told me about how Laura's death had changed him, how he'd temporarily become an Omega. It sounded horrible, and I preyed it never happened to me. Preyed that I'd never lose Erica the way he lost Laura, or be left alone as an Omega, isolated with no one to talk to. It sounded like hell. And he'd gone through it.
"I'm sorry," I said once he finished. "I had no idea." But why would I, he never talked about himself, or anything that happened before we joined his Pack. He never opened up. And that was when I realised that us four as Betas had a better connection with each other, than any of us had with Derek. Though he was the leader of our Pack, he was also the most distant from it.
"She wasn't my only sister though," Derek suddenly continued. "I had a younger one. Cora. She was a year younger than you." The same age as Erica, I thought. He then told me about what happened to her, how she'd died in the house fire started by Kate Argent, who's death was the reason the Hunters had recently become so aggressive. If you asked me, she got what she deserved. Burning a house with innocent people inside of it, Werewolves or not, was horrid and satanic. The woman must have been an absolute psychopath. I was glad I was never going to meet her.
After telling me about how she died though, Derek moved onto what Cora had been like. She sounded a lot like him, though more happy than he was now. Although, he'd probably been happy back then too, before everything that came next. I was starting to understand why he struggled to trust people, or anyone, even his own Pack for that matter.
The whole time while he was talking about her though, he was looking to the empty seat opposite us, on the other side of Erica. As if he could see her right there, smiling along with him as he talked about her. I feel like I would have liked her, and for a moment I morned the girl I was never going to get a chance to meet.
"So you see, I do understand, Dylan," Derek said, looking away from the memory of his sisters and back at me. "And that's why I promise, I'll do my best to protect everyone in this Pack, and that includes Erica. It includes you. But I need you to trust me. I need you to be my Second and back me up, support me."
"I will," I found myself saying without another thought, smiling at him. He'd opened up to me, he'd trusted me, and I wanted to repay that trust, wanted to show him it was okay to open up to us, his Pack. He smiled a little back, before we both went back to watching Erica, our Pack sister.