Issac gave a heavy sigh and looked away from Laura as he released her hand. "It was just something I thought I needed at the time. That's all." Isaac started to turn over, but Laura grabbed his shoulder. "You made me stay, now talk." Isaac has never been entirely comfortable with talking about why he accepted the bite, but something about Laura made him feel safe enough to talk about it. "Isaac?"
"I guess, to really explain it all..I should tell you the whole story. My dad," Isaac paused, "Well, see, he's not the nicest guy. He's actually kind of a dick." Laura leaned back in her seat as she listened intently. "He wasn't always like that though. He used to be the best dad you could want. My family, it used to be me, my mom and dad, and my older brother; now it's just me and my dad." "What happened?"
Isaac seemed visibly uncomfortable with the subject and Laura felt bad for asking. "If you don't want to talk about it we don't have to," she reached out and gave Isaac's arm a slight squeeze. "No, it's okay," he sat up and faced Laura. "See, my mom, she got really sick, and she held on as long as she could, but she didn't make it." "I'm so sorry." "Thanks. It was pretty hard for us, but it kinda brought us closer together, my dad and my brother and I. Of course, it also put strain on him to raise 2 kids alone, he got a little more strict with stuff like our grades, but he wasn't too bad. When my brother was 18 he joined the military, dad was really proud of him for it, I was too. My brother ended up dying in combat though." Wow, this poor kid.
"My brother dying was kind of the breaking point for my dad. He just couldn't be the happy guy I knew when I was little anymore. He started getting really mean. I always tried to please him, I knew how hard it was for him to deal with losing his wife and his son, I had lost them too, but dad had been with them more. That's when the drill sergeant in him kicked in. I couldn't get anything lower than a B in school, I had to play lacrosse, I had to do everything around the house.. I couldn't be a kid anymore. I still remember the first time like it was yesterday.." Isaac trailed off. "First time for what?" "The first time he locked me in the freezer."
What? Laura couldn't believe what she had just heard. "Wha-" "Just let me finish, I'll explain." Isaac sighed and crossed his legs in front of him on the couch. "Dad and I were down in the basement, he was working on our deep freezer and he was making me help. 'Hand me the 7/16th wrench.' I wasn't sure, I didn't know, I didn't know anything about tools or fixing things, I just picked up what I thought it was. 'What the hell? This is the 9/16th you moron.' It was an accident." Isaac looked like he was in a trance as he told Laura this story. His face was blank and he seemed to just be talking, not to her in particular, but just recalling the event. "You know what the difference between a seven and a nine is, dumb-ass?" "It's a stripped bolt," Isaac's voice cracked. "I didn't know, I said I was sorry, I didn't know, what did he want me to do? What do you want me to do? 'I want you to shut up.' He just kept yelling, he was so angry. 'I can't even keep it closed. Grab the chains.' What? 'Grab the chains. Get in.' I didn't understand. 'Are you not hearing me son? Get in the damn freezer. Get in!' It was so dark. I was so scared, I-" "Isaac?" He barely took the time to breathe as he spit the words out and Laura could hear his heartbeat rising furiously. "Isaac," she grabbed his hands and held them, breaking Isaac's blank stare. "I'm sorry, I-" "Are you okay?" "Yeah, yeah, it's just, hard to talk about without feeling scared again." Laura bit her lip, "Did it happen a lot?" Isaac dropped his head to look at their hands then shook it yes.
"Is that why you said yes to Derek?" "Derek has this habit of preying on the kids who feel pretty bad about themselves." Erica walked in and threw a bag of candy at Isaac. "Sorry to interrupt, but I heard you were hurt today." The girl's entrance made Laura let go of Isaac's hands and scramble to her feet. "It's okay," he said, "You can both stay." Laura scooted over on the table and Erica sat beside her. "But yeah, I don't know how he knew, but Derek came to me one night when I was working in the cemetery. He told me how it could make things better. He also told me about being hunted, but at the time, anything was better than my dad locking me in a freezer every night."
Isaac was looking at his hands again and Erica and Laura gave each other a concerned look. "I was happy at first. I loved it. I became good at lacrosse so I actually started to like it, I stopped feeling scared all the time, I was finally able to protect myself." Isaac looked up at the girls and smiled, "I also had a new family, one that I knew I could count on." "But then all this stuff with the alpha pack started happening. Derek's objectives changed. He stopped trying to protect everyone and instead started spying and trying to gain more power."
"Laura, can you come help us? Boyd's getting harder to hold down." Talia entered the room and smiled to Isaac and Erica. "Sure, thing." Laura stood up and turned to leave, then turned back to Isaac and gave him a kiss on his forehead. "You still have a family that cares about you, Isaac. Even if Derek doesn't." Laura left the room and Erica looked at Isaac, "That was cute," she smiled. "Shut up," Isaac laughed.
"Hey I-" Derek stopped and quickly backed out of the room as he saw Erica and Isaac together. The two seemed to have not noticed Derek walking in and honestly he'd prefer it that way; they looked pretty comfortable together and he couldn't deal with having all of his pack angry with him at the same time. Erica and Isaac seemed to be getting along really well, considering, to Derek's knowledge, this was the first time they had met.
"So why were you and Laura talking about Derek turning you?" Erica tore open the bag of candy she had brought to Isaac and pulled a piece out. "We were just talking about stuff, nothing really." Isaac pulled a piece of the candy out and started chewing on it. Erica raised an eyebrow and slapped Isaac with her Twizzler, "Don't be so vague, Lahey." Isaac laughed, "She was just asking me why I let him do it." "Why did you let him do it?" Derek stood outside the door and listened to Isaac tell Erica about his father and all the things he did. "Wow, that's awful, Isaac. I'm sorry-" "It's okay. It's better now. Not ideal, but better." This made Erica laugh. "Derek's not the ideal 'family man', is he?" Isaac laughed and shook his head no. "I'm thankful he saved me from my abusive father, but like I told Laura, I don't like what he's doing. He just doesn't care about us anymore. Well, he doesn't care about Boyd and I. You seem to be his main objective right now."
Though he hadn't meant for it to happen, those words came out with a bitterness to them, causing Erica to give an uneasy shift in posture and bite her lip. "He's good at that, you know? Saving people?" Isaac was glad Erica hadn't noticed his tone and asked her what she meant. "Did Derek tell you anything about me?" "No, but I kind of knew you. Well, I knew who you were." Erica seemed confused. Isaac sighed heavily, "I..saw the video." Erica's face turned bright red as she heard this, "Oh, I see." Erica stood to leave but Isaac quickly grabbed her and pulled her back down to her seat.
"I know you may not believe me, but I never laughed about it, it was cruel." "What video?" Derek said confused and aloud to himself. "The one of her seizing." Cora Hale walked into the hall and stood next to him, peering into the next room and watching Isaac and Erica comfort each other. "You know, she's a good person, Derek. As long as you don't do to her what you did to Isaac and Boyd, she'll continue to be a good addition to your pack." Cora turned to leave, but paused and faced her brother again. "And your life." Cora walked away, Derek took one last look at his betas and followed his sister back to Boyd, who was finally just resting after the day's horrible bone rebreaking.
