AN: I do not own Teen Wolf or the Bourne movies. Warning! This chapter contains a brief reference to domestic abuse.

Stiles awoke to vicious nausea and the painful sensation of his arms tied behind his back. He took several deep breaths, trying to stave off vomiting. He blinked a few times, but there was no light at all in the hard, cramped space he was crammed into. A few choice words from his father floated behind his eyes.

"Here's what you want to do if you're stuck in the trunk of a car. You want to feel for the brake light. You feel it, it's right over here. You would kick it out."

He felt around with his feet. Eventually he toed something with his sneakers and tried to kick out, but another debilitating wave of nausea hit him like a truck. Stiles rolled onto his stomach, breathing in the heady fumes of exhaust through the thin fabric in the trunk. "Fuck," he whispered painfully. The bright stars flashing beneath his closed eyelids weren't helping with the nausea either.

Stiles was aware that he was slowing down. He was tossed backwards and landed painfully on his face as the car stopped abruptly. The world opened above him and he blinked again. Falling snow and moonlight haloed Derek's murderer.

"Come on," he grunted. He grabbed Stiles around the waist and pulled him unceremoniously from the trunk of the car. Stiles couldn't stop himself from vomiting then into the frosted grass as he was supported from an iron grip on the back of his neck. He heaved until his throat burned and sagged to his knees. Tears, unrelated to his retching, were leaking down his cheeks.

Stiles was lifted again and thrown into the backseat instead of the trunk. He bit back a scream as he landed on his injured shoulder. The bandage was old, he thought dully. He should have asked Derek to change it when he had a chance. The thought made him bite his tongue. Instead of crying out again, he pressed his face into the seat fabric and whined quietly.

The other man grunted again. "You need me to look at that?" Stiles was sure he was referencing his shoulder.

"Fuck you," Stiles whispered. "Just kill me already, okay?" He was pulled into a sitting position instead. The other man had a blue first aid kit opened and bandages ready. He was surprisingly gentle, barely pulling on Stiles' skin as he took the old bandage off. Stiles couldn't look at him, only growled low in his chest the way Derek would when he was unhappy.

"You're not a werewolf yet, man." A cool new bandage and antiseptic cream were pressed to his shoulder. "But nice try."

Stiles glared at him. Without warning he lunged forward and cracked his head against the other's face. He could feel the blood from the hopefully broken nose staining his forehead, but he didn't care. Stiles stumbled past the werewolf, who was roaring in pain, and fell to his knees on the asphalt. He struggled to his feet again and began to ran as fast as he could. He could hear his father in his head again, telling him to run in a zigzag to confuse his pursuers.

Even without the zigzags thrown in, Stiles was tired, hurt, cold, and sick from the chloroform. He could barely move more than a quick stumble. Soon he was caught around the middle again and swung around. Stiles felt something in his wrist twinge painfully as he was thrown onto his back on the frozen ground. "Stupid, man," grunted the werewolf as Stiles bit out a shout. Though his face had blood on it, his nose looked straight again. He threw Stiles back into the car, face down, and grabbed his wrist. With quick, efficient movements, he had it wrapped in another bandage. Stiles found himself sitting up this time in the backseat.

The car started up again and they continued on.

Stiles cleared his throat and swallowed the awful taste in his mouth. It was blood. He asked through it, "Who are you?" But he had an inkling already.

"Boyd," he said after a few minutes. "I work for Peter."

"Part of his pack, you mean," Stiles bit out. He leaned forward, wanting to lash out again, but the werewolf had wisely put his seatbelt on. The bastard.

"It's easier if you think of him as a boss you don't ever want to disappoint."

Stiles growled again. "Then you work for the CIA too?"

Boyd surprised him with a barking laugh. "No," he said quietly. "I work for Peter. Not the government."

Confusion and curiosity clouded Stiles' anger briefly. "Aren't we - I... being targeted by the government?"

Boyd nodded once. "You are. And Peter works for them. They sign his paychecks, anyway. But Peter is too invested in gaining power to ever give up authority to anyone else. Even the most powerful branch of the most powerful government in the world."

"He's a psychopath," Stiles spit out venomously.

"I'm not disagreeing with you," Boyd conceded with murmur.

Stiles gaped at him, anger threatening to overflow in his veins. "And you're working with that son of a bitch? Are you for real, dude?"

Boyd glanced back at him. "He gave me the greatest gift anyone ever gave me."

"Yay for super strength and some serious nip/tuck fodder. You should really get that face looked at. I mean, with the wrinkles and the hair." Stiles' voice was thick with sarcasm.

"No. He gave me a family."

Stiles leaned forward, confused again.

"That's what pack is," Boyd continued. "He's pretty crazy, sure. And he's dangerous. He's probably broken every bone in my body -"

"You know," Stiles interrupted, still sarcastic, "they have shelters for that kind of thing. And secret underground railroad things in the middle of the night and stuff."

Boyd growled and his eyes flashed yellow. "You don't understand. You've always had someone to love you and protect you."

"So?" Stiles leaned forward again, though his shoulder and wrist protested. "Your new daddy is going to kill my father and best friend, and you," his voice broke, "you murdered Derek."

The car filled with silence. Stiles began to ponder the aching in his chest. Is this what heartbreak is? He remembered the look on Ryan's face the only time he'd visited in the hospital, all those years ago. He remembered the way his own face had crumpled after learning Lydia had died in that car crash. He and Allison and Scott had held each other for over an hour, sobbing their hearts out. Those feelings didn't quite compare to what he felt in his gut now. It felt as though at some point his heart had shattered, and before it could even reach the pit of his stomach, it had frozen over and crystallized into something more diamond than human. As they drove on through the dark, he felt only a dull burning, a double edged drive: protect my family. Avenge Derek. He wanted nothing more.

"Derek might not be dead, you know."

Stiles blinked once. Twice. "What?"

Boyd shrugged. "He might still be alive. Maybe. I mean, he could heal from that."

"Don't fucking do that to me!" Stiles yelled and strained against the seatbelt. The child lock activated and he was reeled back into the seat.

Boyd could only shrug again. "Peter told me not to kill him, but if he died in the course of fighting, that was alright. My only objective was to get you and bring you back to Beacon Hills. If Derek is alive, he'll follow us."

Stiles leaned his head back against the headrest and blinked tears out of his eyes. He couldn't think about Derek still being alive. Either he was or he wasn't, and his last images of Derek were of a pale, staring body on a still-warm bed. To keep from crying, he looked out the windows. The scenery wasn't much different from what he and Derek had seen before they got to the bar. There were more barbed wire fences with cattle and horses, and low mountains just visible on the horizon. "Where are we?" He asked quietly.

Boyd checked his own GPS. Stiles was surprised to see they were still in Wyoming – barely seventy miles from the motel.

Where Derek had to be dead.

He swallowed that down.

"You were only unconscious for about half an hour, maybe a little more." Boyd remarked. "Chloroform doesn't knock people out for hours. That's just a movie myth."

"I know that, asshole," Stiles barked. "I'm a med student."

"Good for you, man." He even sounded proud of him. Stiles wanted to break his nose again. And again. And again. "Where do you go to school?"

Stiles grumbled, unwilling to answer, to bond with his kidnapper. "George Washington University."

"Nice." Boyd nodded appreciatively. "I go to the University of Washington. Mechanical engineering."

"Are you fucking kidding me? I've been kidnapped by an engineer?"

Boyd chuckled. "Don't worry. No one's going to hold that against you. Least of all me."

"Why?"

"You're human." Boyd checked the GPS again. "We still have about fourteen hours of driving. You should sleep."

Stiles fell silent for over a half hour. His mind raced ahead, however, plotting and planning. After the silence became unbearable, he asked Boyd, "What does Peter want with me?"

Boyd sighed. He glanced back at Stiles. "If Alpha 1 is still alive, you're bait."

Stiles narrowed his eyes. "If you killed him?"

"Then you're not much of anything."

Derek had to stop, finally, after running solidly for four hours. He stumbled to a halt in a ditch alongside the road and panted viciously. He was exhausted. Unable to control himself, he transformed back into a man. The cold, packed dirt felt deliciously cool against his overheated skin.

Vaguely he heard other wolves, regular ones, howling for each other. Werewolf howling and gray wolf howling were as different from each other as Icelandic and English: there were common roots, and some borrowing here and there, but after being separated for so long, a speaker of one could not necessarily understand the other. Derek understood, though. He didn't need words to feel that loss and anxiety. He felt it, too.

He knew Stiles was the easy target. It made sense. It's what Derek would have done, at least, if it had been his job. Take the easy target, divide and conquer. If the stronger came after the smaller to protect him, he'd be emotionally compromised and physically weakened. And if he didn't, the smaller could be easily dealt with. A simple brilliance. A dark chuckle escaped him. If Peter really thought Stiles was the weaker of the two of them, he had another thing coming.

Derek cracked his neck and changed back into the wolf. His muscles twitched and his stomach growled, but he ignored both sensations. He still had nearly seven hundred miles to cover to Beacon Hills. With a snarl he set off again, paws ghostly silent on the asphalt.

In the early hours of the morning, Boyd pulled into a small roadside gas station. Stiles was fidgety. He had to pee like a racehorse and he couldn't feel anything in his arms below his elbows.

Boyd opened the backseat and pulled him out. He gave Stiles a hard look as he undid the ropes tying his wrists. "If you run, I will catch you. You know it, and I know it. Don't even try, okay?"

Stiles wanted desperately to run away, to escape, but they were in the flat nothing of Utah and Boyd was right; he'd be caught instantaneously. Instead Boyd led him into the dirty bathroom behind the pumps. He locked the door and busied himself at the toilet. When he was finished he washed his hands and looked pointedly at Stiles.

"I know you have to go, man."

Stiles groaned and muttered about lack of privacy. He closed his eyes and went, trying to think about being anywhere but exactly where he was.

When they were both finished Boyd led him into the gas station. He picked out a few candy bars and motioned for Stiles to pick something to eat. Stiles toyed with the notion of talking to the clerk, getting him to call the police or someone, but he could feel Boyd's eyes trained on him the entire time. He eventually came to the granola bar section and found the Clif bars. They even had the macadamia nut kind.

He shook his head viciously and picked a few up.

Please, he thought, please let him just be dead.

And if he's not, please don't let him come after me. Protect him.

He joined Boyd at the register and Boyd paid. Before they left, Boyd tied his wrists together in front of him. Stiles was grudgingly impressed at the impossible knots he used.

"Is this really necessary?" But Boyd just stared at him. They took off again as the sun just started to rise.

The daylight came slowly, in pink and orange streaks. Derek's tongue lolled from his mouth as he limped towards a small truck stop with a diner somewhere on the border of Utah and Nevada. He had cut one of his pads sometime during his run, and the hard pace he'd set in the desert hadn't allowed it to heal. Despite the early hour, the smell of bacon and pumping gasoline filled the air.

He crept in the dawn shadows around the diner; somehow, he didn't think the truckers and waitresses would take too kindly to a massive, ravenous wolf in their midst. As it was, he could smell no less than seventeen different sources of gunpowder from the parking lot. Around the back he found a dumpster. It was full of greasy diner fare, greasy cardboard boxes, and greasy broken utensils. Derek happily climbed inside and went to work on a half eaten hamburger and some cold french fries.

He ate quickly, swallowing anything that would give him energy and fill his stomach. With a full stomach, he didn't have to think. All he had to do was run.

Or, possibly hitch a ride.

He crouched low in the dumpster as a flatbed truck full of construction machinery rumbled past and came to a groaning halt in a parking space. As the driver stepped gingerly out of his cab, he muttered, "Never gonna get to Redding today if the road freezes again..."

The only Redding within five hundred miles was in California. About an hour from Beacon Hills.

Derek leaped out of the dumpster, a few greasy pieces of paper clinging wetly to his fur. He shook them off and in the dusky light transformed back into a man. He looked around nervously and undid the latch on the truck. Then he crawled in between the metallic frames and found a small hidden space where he could rest and the driver wouldn't see him. He'd barely become the wolf again and curled up to sleep when the driver returned, a steaming cup of coffee clutched in his hand. He was still muttering to himself as he started the truck and grumbled out of the parking lot back onto the highway.

If a werewolf could sigh in relief, Derek did. He could feel his pad close up already, and the food he'd eaten went straight to his tired and torn muscles. The wind whistled past him as the truck sped up over sixty miles per hour – far faster than he had been running as a wolf. If the truck kept going all day, they would be in California by the afternoon.

As he relaxed, he started thinking about Stiles.

Derek missed him. Apart from the worry, and the helplessness, not having Stiles next to him just felt wrong. They had been together for five solid days. At every waking moment he knew someone was next to him whom he could trust. He knew that there was always someone there who would fight him every step, make him question his CIA trained instincts, make him feel human and alive. And now, though it had barely started, he knew there was someone out there who wanted to love him.

An involuntary whine cut through him. Derek buried his head and tried to get some sleep. He dreamed of two things: killing his uncle, and kissing Stiles.

Stiles blearily recognized the burnt out husk of a house they pulled up to. Boyd stiffly got out of the car and pulled open the door to the backseat. He accidentally pulled Stiles too hard though, and sent him sprawling into the leaves.

"Now now, Boyd," came a drawling voice from the wraparound porch, "be careful with our guest."

Stiles struggled to his feet. His face was murderous. Boyd held onto his shoulders, an immovable statue of calm.

Peter sauntered down the burned stairs and approached him. "Jarogniew Stilinski," he remarked. "I've been wanting to meet you for some time now."

"I'll give you kudos for pronouncing my name even slightly correctly, but you can still go directly to hell." Stiles struggled against Boyd, not backing down even when the other began to growl softly at him. "But you don't get to call me that. You can call me Stiles."

Peter cocked his head to the side, smiling softly. "Does my nephew get to call you Jarogniew?"

Stiles only glared at him. If he had been a wolf, Peter was sure he would have torn him apart. Even without supernatural powers, he wasn't sure Stiles wouldn't do it anyway.

"Your father is safe, by the way." Peter motioned with his hand and Boyd dragged Stiles after him up into the house. It stank of mildew and desolation. "And so are the McCalls. I'll keep my word. You got here before Wednesday, so they'll be unharmed."

A tiny bloom of relief blossomed in Stiles' chest. At least his father would be alive to mourn his death. Boyd set him down in a chair in the middle of what Stiles thought had been the living room. At least, there was still a couch and a lamp in it. The couch was ruined but the lamp looked new. Stiles flexed against the bonds around his wrists, almost relishing the flash of pain as his sprained wrist protested. It proved he was still alive.

"Well?" He demanded as Peter and Boyd simply hovered over him. "Are you guys going to get on with it or what?" Fear made him angry.

Peter gave him a wolfish smile. "Get on with what?"

"Torturing me," Stiles growled, his eyes narrowed. "Or whatever you two have planned."

"I told you," Boyd said quietly to Peter, "he'd be a good addition. But he'll never submit to you."

Stiles whipped his head up so hard the chair creaked backwards a few inches. He said furiously, "If you two are talking about turning me into a werewolf, you can both fucking forget it." He pushed back on the chair, succeeding only in toppling over. As he staggered up he cried, "I'm not going to work for you or join your shitty pack!"

Peter picked him up with a sigh and thrust him back in the chair. He leaned closer and wrapped his hand around Stiles' neck. Stiles could feel the claws prickling his skin. "Oh, Mr. Stilinski," he whispered dangerously, fangs extended, "you don't have a choice."