Author's note: Hey everyone! Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed! I wanted to get around to responding to everyone individually like I usually do, but I've been traveling so I've had like zero time to do anything. I'm pretty much settled in now though, so hopefully I'll be able to update more regularly. This chapter is a bit short, sorry! I hope you enjoy it just the same!

Chapter 3

Because of her grave "injury," Amy had found herself in a bizarre situation; despite the fact that she was now perfectly healthy, she was barred from returning to school for at least a month. It was necessary to keep up appearances, and if she returned to school a mere week after she had been brutally stabbed, it was pretty likely to arouse a good amount of suspicion. Not to mention, Gerard Argent was the principal. It would be more than an understatement to say that her predicament would be obvious the moment he laid eyes on her. She might as well have "werewolf" tattooed across her forehead.

That said, it was incredibly strange to be left in the apartment with only Derek for such long stretches of time. She felt like a real person, like she was part of a real couple. Minus everything, minus the inordinate amount of unreal crap that had infiltrated her life, and minus the fact that she was now very, very far from a "real" person, she felt like an adult. Sure, maybe she was a werewolf, but she also finally felt like a woman rather than a girl. But she didn't even have time to dwell on the corniness of her musings.

Sure enough, playing house with Derek was fun for a while, but they were both well aware of the fact that they had important matters to attend to. Matters that, on Wednesday night, led them straight to Jackson Whittemore's enormous mansion.

"Couldn't you have just called him?" Amy complained in a hiss as she and Derek trudged through the woods at the outskirts of his property.

"This way seemed more appropriate," Derek reasoned lamely, fully aware that this explanation was unsatisfactory. Amy was about 95 percent certain that she felt a tick burrow its way into the flesh at her ankle.

"Sometimes I don't know why I just follow you so blindly," she lamented, rolling her eyes. "Clearly you have no idea what you're doing."

"You follow me because you're a Beta and I'm the Alpha."

"Really? You're the Alpha?" she baited in a mocking tone. "Why didn't you say so – oh wait. You did. About a thousand times."

"Shut up," he growled. His unwilling smile was the only thing that betrayed his fondness for her; for someone so stern, he actually didn't seem to take himself too seriously, at least not that she could tell. She merely gave him a mischievous grin and looked as though she was about to press onwards, but instead whipped out her cell phone.

"Yo Jackson," she said loudly, effectively shattering the layer of silence they had previously been working to maintain, "we're in your yard right now, can you come out? Don't ask questions." Jackson was many things, and one of them was intelligent – Amy didn't doubt that he would be able to put two and two together without her spelling it out for him. Plus, the phrase "don't ask questions" was always something she had wanted to utter, and now seemed as good a time as any.

When she hung up the phone, Derek shot her an unamused glare. Her forcibly innocent expression revealed to him that she thought she was being cute. "What, I'm not going to let you drag me into your lurk-y habits," she insisted. "It's 2012 for god's sake, you can pick up a phone. There's no need to go all… all primal."

"You realize I'm about to turn someone into a werewolf, right?"

"Well, yeah, but we can at least try to be civilized about it."

"I'm literally going to bite him. With my teeth. There will be blood. There will be blood, in my mouth. I'm pretty sure any attempt at civility would be wasted."

Before Amy could make a remark about how kinky Derek's comment had been, Jackson interrupted their bickering. "What the hell is this? What are you doing here?"

"What do you think?" She had to actively stop herself from adding "dipshit" to the end of the sentence.

"You want to do this now?" he hissed lowly, his aquamarine eyes darting around to make sure they weren't being watched. As if, Amy mentally scoffed – they were in the middle of the woods on the edge of his property, who could possibly be around? But, she later realized, there was no such thing as being too careful when it came to these things. Especially with the Argents skulking around…

"I'm sorry," Derek drawled sarcastically, "is this not a good time for you?"

"Uh, no, not exactly," Jackson snapped prissily. "There's a big game on Friday, so I don't really have time to deal with any weird transition bullshit at the moment."

"It's now or never," Derek stated blankly. He had this uncanny ability of sounding incredibly threatening, even when his tone held no indication of anything malevolent.

"You can't just randomly show up here in the middle of the night and expect me to be okay with it," he continued to protest. It was strange, she thought, how drastically their two personalities clashed – it was even more apparent than either of them with Stiles, which, since they both often found themselves fighting the urge to beat Stiles to a pulp, was saying something. She wondered if making Jackson part of the pack was such a good idea after all.

"I don't know why you're not getting this," the other male started in agitation, "but I'm the one in a position of power here – you should be thanking me, not spouting off this nonsense about a freakin' lacrosse game." His tone had changed, and was now quite deadly, as if he shared Amy's misgivings. "If now's not a good time, we can easily find someone else."

Jackson's well-shaped eyebrows knitted together as he swallowed his pride and contemplated Derek's words. "Fine," he finally sighed. "Let's just get this over with." He held out his wrist, as if he were getting ready for a doctor to draw blood.

Derek's gaze flitted to Amy in hesitation, searching for something – perhaps for reassurance. She met his eyes with only regret, sorry that she too was unsure. "Just do it," she finally uttered.

And he did. Derek's teeth elongated, his eyes flashed red, and suddenly blood began to gush from Jackson's muscular forearm. His other hand shot to the afflicted area both in an expression of agony and attempt to slow the bleeding.

"Shit," he hissed in pain, wrenching away from his assailant.

Derek spat the coppery taste of Jackson's blood into the grass beside them and used the back of his hand to wipe his mouth. Amy briefly wondered what this – this process – felt like for him and whether or not it was as unpleasant as it looked. She imagined it couldn't be, otherwise no Alpha would do it. As far as she was aware, blood might even taste good. And for a fleeting moment she was absolutely terrified, because she knew that at some point in her life she would inevitably find out.

"How long does it take to work?" Amy asked. She asked for him and she asked for herself.

Again, like he knew what she was thinking, he replied, "For you it might be different, but for him the transformation really won't take hold until the next full moon."

"So we have a week, then," Amy said. "A week to make one more werewolf."

"You're making another one?" Jackson cut in, seemingly having recovered from the pain of his wound.

"Yeah," she answered. "We need another one to form a pack."

Some very strange and treacherous emotion passed over Jackson's features, but it was gone as swiftly as it had appeared. "Oh," was all he said. Derek and Amy were intuitively able to surmise that something was going through Jackson's mind, something that didn't bode well for the two of them.

"Well, if we're done here," he continued, "I'm gonna go. See ya." His tone, as it always did, held a specific sort of unwarranted contempt.

Derek and Amy watched him tread back to his house, his silhouette eventually fading into the bright lights glowing from his porch. He wasn't gone for more than a minute before their heightened hearing picked up a loud crash from across the street. Even without their "special abilities," they would have been able to hear it.

"What was that?" Amy hissed, her senses not yet fine-tuned enough to distinguish the cause of the noise.

"Fighting," Derek said flatly.

Even in the dim light, he saw her eyes flash with panic. "What type of fighting?" she demanded.

"Not the type we're concerned with," he said. "Just typical, run-of-the-mill human fighting."

"Between who?"

"I don't know. Sounds like two guys, one older and one younger."

There was another jarring crash and the sound of fists pounding flesh. Someone made a noise as if they had been punched in the gut.

"It sounds pretty bad…" she noted.

"It's none of our concern." His voice was stern, as if to discourage her from wanting to get involved. But it was too late.

"Maybe we should go see if everything is okay."

"Amy…" he warned.

"It's right across the street," she continued as if she hadn't even heard him.

"No, Amy."

"We should just check!" Without waiting for him to respond, she bolted off towards the source of the racket. Derek rolled his eyes, but followed begrudgingly nevertheless. Regardless of how mundane the fighting sounded, he wasn't going to take any chances.

They arrived at the house across the street from Jackson, and it soon became apparent that the crashing noises were the result of pots and plates being hurled against the wall. Amy peeked through the window; she wasn't quite expecting what she saw. Cowered in the corner of the brightly lit dining room was one of her classmates. She couldn't quite recall his name, but his face was familiar and she was certain that he went to Beacon Hills High. He was tall, lanky, and didn't look at all like he should be in such a vulnerable position. His handsome face had a long, bloody scratch running down one cheek, which was inflicted by a stray shard of glass. The aggressor was a middle-aged man who vaguely resembled him, presumably his father.

Amy looked back to Derek in order to ascertain what they ought to do and his expression was unexpectedly pensive.

"What are you thinking?" she wondered aloud.

"It's a good thing you wanted to see what was going on," he started ambiguously.

"Why?" she prodded.

"Because I think we've found our newest packmember."

Author's note: Please review! And let me know what you think of how the season is progressing!