Chapter 2

(Back to where Derek was sitting by the river in the woods.)

DPOV-

How much competition was I going to get? First Simon, now this Will guy! He's a friggin vampire, how much of a difference is there between a werewolf and a vampire, they are both monsters! Well, Will was not a monster, which I guess explains why Chloe was starting to like this guy. I could feel my shoulders slump at that thought. I liked Chloe, A LOT, especially with the fact that she helped me so much, like she actually cared, like she cared about the monster. The dangerous one.

I don't know how, but over the course of the last couple weeks, I had really started to like Chloe, she was just so nice to everyone, she put everyone in front of herself. But I still didn't like the fact that she would put herself in front of someone like Tori in the line of a gun if it meant to get that person to safety.

I didn't want anything to happen to my Chloe.

My Chloe….

My love….

My life….

My mate….

Yes I'll admit it, Chloe was my mate. I didn't mean for this to happen, but she just got so close, it's almost like she understood what I was going through. When she was with me during my changes, it's almost like she wants the pain to go away, like she didn't want me to be in that sort of situation.

But I knew I couldn't be with her, even if she wanted to be with me, but it was impossible she ever would, I was too dangerous to be around. So no matter what happened, no matter how much it hurt, I had to let either Simon or Will have her, and I would not be the jealous friend or brother. I didn't really want to be around when my mate fell in love with my brother or a vampire, I still couldn't believe that it was possible for her to actually like a vampire! He was just as dangerous as I was, but Will didn't show it, it wasn't as obvious as it was with me.

I stared at the river in front of me, the blue water reminded me so much of her eyes, and it was almost painful. Then I heard her voice, 'Hey, Derek, you ok?' I was sure it was just my imagination but when I turned around there she was. Wearing a sweater that really brought out the fact that she was a necromancer, it was black with dark-gray skulls in little crosshatches. Why would she care if I was 'okay'?

"Yeah, I'm fine." I mumbled, than looked back at the gentle river's currents in the water. I wasn't really in the mood to talk to Chloe at the moment; I didn't want to get my hopes up that she actually did want to be with me. I heard her quiet foot steps come up to me; she followed my gaze over to the thicker woods on the other side of the river.

"What are you looking at?" She asked. I didn't even answer at first, why did she care! Don't make it feel like you want to be around me. Will was in the house, or even Simon, I'm sure she'd rather talk to them then me.

"Nothing, just thinking" I said, not looking at her, because I knew that I would get sucked into her gaze.

"Bout' what?" she asked me, ugh.

I sighed loudly and walked back to the rock I was sitting on earlier.

"Just worried about all this crap going on," I lied "this safe house doesn't exactly feel like a 'safe house'." I said empathizing the last word.

"Yeah, I have that feeling too, but for now just relax…" She kept talking, but I tuned her out, I knew that there were tons of reasons to be happy with why we were here. But all I needed to be happy was to have her around, just hearing her voice at least once could keep me going through the day. I started to listen to her again, just because I was craving her soft, calming, reassuring, tone. "…Not to mention, we have Will on our side now two." She said, just hearing that leaches name in her voice hurt me.

"Yeah, I guess." I responded, me being upset creeping into my voice.

"I'm going to go look around a bit more, you can come with if you want."

Finally I looked at her, looking at every part of her face, it hurt so much that I couldn't reach out and cradle her face, tell her how I felt about her. But I couldn't, it would just be so embarrassing. So I just said, "Nah, I'm going to go back, you should come with too, it's starting to get dark." I said, than stood up and started to head back, but slowly, waiting for her to follow, just to make sure she didn't get lost out here.

"K" was all she said, than we headed back.

Ugh, it was so hard to not turn around with her following me, I wanted to hug her close to me because I could hear her shivering back there, just trying to keep her warm like a friend would right? Oh who am I kidding, I wish that was something normal, or it was normal to hug a friend like that.

When we got back it was a relief to escape Chloe, just being around was starting to hurt now, all I wanted was her to like me back, was that so much to ask? Yeah, of course it was.

I was sitting in the living room watching Simon play some old war game, he kept asking if I wanted to play but apparently he couldn't get it through his thick skull that I didn't want to play video games right now. I shouldn't say that, Simon was my brother, but he was still annoying sometimes, but I will never regret the fact that I live with him. About an hour later Simon now sitting on the floor talking to some random person on the X-box live that was on his team in Halo 2. I heard a bang from down stairs and an explosion of laughter. OH CRAP! Did Will do something to Chloe! I bolted up off the couch and ran down the stairs to the basement where the library was. What I saw though wasn't Chloe glued to the floor with a ravenous vampire at her neck, what I saw was Chloe on top of Will both laughing as they slid down to the floor. Was it wrong that I kind of hoped the other thing, so I could be Chloe's hero and throw that stupidly annoying blood sucker out of this house for a reason? Of course it was, but still.

"What the hell is so funny!" I shouted over the roar of laughter and some random blaring song on Chloe's i-Pod.

"N-o-t-h-i-n-g" Will said, I wasn't asking you, you little b****!

It was a little quieter now, and the fact that Chloe was spending more time with Will now than with Simon, and me combined was really starting to get on my nerves.

"Doesn't sound like nothing" I mumbled, chest throbbing.

"Sorry", Chloe said, I looked at her, with her saying it, even if she was still smiling like she was hiding something, made me feel a little better, but it hurt my chest even more.

"It's fine." I mumbled disappointedly, than went back up stairs. I plopped down on the exact same spot on the couch, Simon still playing the same game, and still talking to someone random person on live. My life sucks.

That night at dinner we had spaghetti and garlic bread, it was, surprisingly really good, thank-you Andrew. I wasn't trying too but I was, again, eating everything in sight. I heard Chloe laugh, I looked up to see an extremely long noodle hanging out of Will's mouth, it made him look so stupid, but when everyone else looked up they started laughing two. I didn't I just stared at him in disgust, how could a noodle hanging out of a vampire's mouth be funny? An almost silent growl rumbled in my chest. I really hated this guy!

As soon as I was done with dinner I dumped my plate, helped clean up a bit, than went up stairs and took a shower, there was a reason I was doing this in the morning and at night. In the morning it got rid of the tension from my dream, the same nightmare I have every night of Chloe being attacked by Liam and Ramon, and me being unable to stop them and help her, than at night to get rid of the tension of the day. The warm water was so soothing on my tensed up muscles. After that I fell into my bed in my borrowed room, this being the first room I had where I wasn't sharing with Simon.

I didn't even notice how tired I was, but once my head hit the pillow I was out like a candle.