"Where is he?" Laura asked. She was drowning in her fear in rage, but kept her voice tightly controlled. These things were creatures of emotion and fury. She would never be that, never come anywhere close to being like them.

The werewolf didn't even look at the wound in its arm. The bullet had passed through the muscle, a grazing shot that was only mean to frighten it. The thing couldn't have cared less. It just sat there, holding the bloody shirt, her brother's bloody shirt.

"Where is he?"

It didn't make a sound, not even a whimper of pain. The flesh finished knitting itself back together. Maybe the thing wasn't concerned by a normal bullet, but she had ways to make it concerned. She would force it to tell her what it had done to her brother.

She ejected the clip of her gun, caught it in her free hand. She dropped the clip of normal ammunition into her coat's pocket and pulled out a deadlier clip. One that was packed with aconitum laced bullets. Would it stay quiet with wolf's bane coursing in its veins?

It sat blinking at her, face covered in blood. Derek's blood. She was afraid to go towards the bathroom, to see what Derek's body looked like. He hadn't responded when she tried to call to check up on him, hadn't responded when she called out his name as she approached the partially opened door.

Fear ate away at her, her eyes beginning to sting. She was alone now, truly alone, and it was this thing's fault. She jammed the deadly clip into the gun, took a step forward and placed it against the monster's forehead, the same thing Derek had done the night before. She didn't have a lot of time; the police may have already been contacted after the first gunshot when off.

She would make it suffer though. When she heard it beg her to kill it, when she heard the voice of the thing that murdered the only person in the world she loved, she'd continue to let it suffer. Those empty brown eyes would show her real fear, real pain, and then she would finally kill it.

"He tried to help you…"

The werewolf didn't react at all, just folded its arms behind its back again, still clutching Derek's bloody shirt. Her blood boiled. She reached her free hand around behind him, got a hold on the shirt and tried to tear it out of the monster's grasp.

The thing's eyes lit with molten gold rage, its fangs extending as it soundlessly seethed. She yanked the shirt out its claws, the material ripping as it came free. It coiled in on itself quickly readying to lunge at her. She took a step back to ready herself.

Blazing amber eyes locked on the bloody material in her hands. She was repulsed by the thing, by the blood on it's face, the dark intensity in that gaze. It had all been an act, playing at being a wounded and lost puppy. Derek fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Killing it quickly was not an option, she would watch it writhe in pain, would hear it beg for death, and then she would bury the last thing in the world that still made her human, her brother.

She pointed the gun at the creature's stomach. She knew it would take time for the aconite poison to spread to its heart. She pulled the trigger.

The shot was deafening in the enclosed space, the acrid scent of gunpowder clear even to her human senses as it lingered in the air. In the moment the gun went off she saw Derek as a child, his smiling face looking up at her asking if she would play a game with him. This thing had taken Derek away from her.

The werewolf looked down at its belly, watched the blood spread onto the shirt it was wearing, a shirt she had bought for her brother. It didn't make any noises as its claws disappeared and the yellow light faded from its eyes, leaving only a deep brown. It brought one of its hands to its stomach, silently wiped it through the blood that was pouring out of the wound.

Laura smiled in satisfaction as the first tremor of pain wracked the thing's body. It would probably be hours before the infection spread to its heart, but the agony of a gut wound was unbearable. She had seen too many allies disemboweled over the years; she knew what that pain looked like.

Her smile died when the werewolf looked up at her. It wasn't pain and fear written on its face. It was gratitude. It was thanking her for putting it out of its misery. It was doing it in complete silence and she wanted to tear its head off from its shoulders so that it couldn't look at her as though it wanted to smile but didn't remember how.

"You're going to die," Laura told the werewolf, "you're going to die and I'm going to watch."

It didn't react to her at all, just watched as it knelt on the ground with one hand over its bleeding stomach. She wanted it to cry, wanted it to cry the way Derek had cried in her arms when they watched their house burn down. Laura wanted that satisfaction, wanted to feel it. She watched it silently and swallowed against her own pain. She wanted to feel something other than hatred, fear, and loss. She wanted something more from life than that. Now she'd never get the chance.

Laura had wanted to watch Derek marry someone he loved, wanted to see the look in his eyes as someone walked down the aisle towards him. She wanted to see him happy with a family. She wanted him to start over and have a real life apart from hunting these creatures. Now she never would because this thing had killed him for trying to show it a little kindness. Tears finally broke free, slipped down her face.

The look in the creature's eyes changed again. What she saw in those brown depths chilled her spine. It was empathy, like it knew that she had come to the realization that she had lost everything. She closed her eyes against the sight, not wanting to find any kinship in the worthless monster on the floor that had killed her brother.

"Oh god… Laura," Derek's voice was barely audible, "what have you done?"

Laura opened her eyes and turned to see Derek in the door, the gun she had used to fill the werewolf's body with agony slipped out of her hand and clattered to the ground. Derek was alive. Derek looked horrified at what he saw in the room. more tears streamed down her face, her breathingchoppy and forced.

"Stiles," Derek asked, "are you ok?"

Laura laughed, the sound hollow. He had given it a name, like it was some sort of stray he had found. She watched as his face registered that blood was still pouring out of the creature's stomach.

"I thought it killed you," Laura said, her voice barely above a whisper, still raw and shaking from the pain she had felt tearing her life apart, "I thought you were gone… I used an aconite bullet because I wanted it to suffer…"

"Oh god…" Derek said. They were looking at each other, but they both turned towards the werewolf when they heard it collapse to the floor.