II
Derek
Derek rolled over, wiping sweat from his brow before pushing the blonde away with one arm and reaching for a cigarette with the other. The carton was half empty; he made a mental note to stop off for some more on his way to the deal.
"C'mere baby." The blonde purred in his ear, nipping at his lobe and running her fingers over his back. He growled, shrugging her off as he lit the cigarette and took a long, deep drag. It didn't do much for him, never had – he supposed it was to do with his body being different from everyone else – but he had fallen into the habit last year.
"I'll call you." He told her, getting up from the edge of the bed and slipping into his jeans. It wasn't a complete lie, she had been fun, he'd call her if he was lonely again. She was running around the room naked save for his boxers, leaving him to go commando as she spewed about how it had been the best night of her life and how he was just so good in bed, but he wasn't listening, finding his shirt, shoes, and jacket and getting out of there before she tried to tempt him into round two.
He had work to do.
The Camaro was parked on a side street a ways from her apartment building, it would have been hard to find if the rain effected him like it did everyone else. It made him feel clean, the water running down his face and soaking through his shirt, gave him a new energy for the day ahead. It was going to be a long one.
The streets were packed, people seemed to lose the ability to drive properly when it rained, but he was still at the meet twenty minutes before he needed to be. He sat in the car and chain smoked, listening to the rain bouncing against the roof till a rap on the window jolted him from his thoughts.
"Nice morning." Laura said, hopping into the passenger seat. She was dressed much the same as him; blacks and leathers.
"Laura." He said in greeting.
"What's happened to your face? Your latest bang not up to par?" Laura took a cigarette from the fresh carton he had picked up on the way and lit it, filling the car with even more smoke. "Why do you still smoke this shit? It tastes like, I dunno, nothing." With disdain she stubbed it out and slammed the ash tray shut, proceeding to pick absently at her red painted nails as the minutes ticked by. She always liked them to be at least a few minutes late.
"We should go." Derek took the bag from the back seat and stepped out into the rain, locking the door once he saw Laura beside him, her head held high. They headed into the hotel with rain dripping from their hair and their leather jackets, yet none of the comfortable, well dressed guests mulling about their business in the lobby said anything to them; there was something about them that made people avert their eyes.
It was a grand hotel, the oldest in Beacon Hills, with mouldings from another era on the walls and a sophisticated air of a more lavish time. Derek and Laura stuck out among the cashmere and pearls sort of clientèle the place favoured, yet they kept their heads up, exchanging glances between one another as they headed to the elevators.
"Try and keep it together, no running your mouth off like last time." Laura told him, pressing the button for the lower level.
Derek snorted at her words, "You're the one who needs to keep your mouth in check, you screwed up last months shipment when you ripped out his throat." Laura was a wild one, often ruining their deals if she was cheated by even a few pounds of product; she couldn't seem to get it into their head that it was normal for suppliers to skim a little off the top.
"No one screws me." Her words were like ice. If she wasn't his sister he would have shivered and backed away, but he knew her well enough that she didn't scare him; most of the time. Laura took the lead this time, walking a step ahead of Derek, silencing the screaming chef with a glare as they walked through the kitchens, pushing through to a storage area and out back to the cargo bay. Three figures were waiting for them with a bulging black carry-all.
"Laura, is it? You sure are a looker." The tallest of the three stepped up to speak, his face pockmarked and lined, but still with a certain handsomeness to it.
"Can't say the same for you." She countered, signalling to Derek to dump the bag he was carrying. He dropped it in the middle of the two opposing groups, stepping back to stand behind Laura without a word.
A blonde girl stepped up from her position lounging against the wall and opened the bag up, counting out the stacks of bills with agonising leisure. Derek's heart was beating a little faster, like it always did, but he kept his face as impassive as Laura's.
"It's there." She told the tall man, zipping the back up and throwing it over her shoulder.
"Now you." Laura told him, nodding to Derek to go and check the bag that a third figure, a short black man with a wild mane of hair, had just dumped a few feet away.
His sister and the tall man, who was chewing at his nails disinterestedly, exchanged banter while Derek counted, but he hardly listened, counting out forty-eight bags of colourful pills. He gave Laura the look.
"You trying to fuck us?" She asked, taking a step forward. Derek could see her red painted nails extend slightly, the paint chipping as the claws started to come out.
"It's there. Your boy just can't count." He laughed with the blonde girl, while the black man took a step back, his hand reaching down the back of his jeans. Derek knew trouble was coming.
Laura was in front of Derek now, her head tilted to one side and a smile on her lips, "You're new, so you probably don't know how I deal with people who try to fuck me over. Hand over the rest."
"What ya' gonna do about it? Your little bodyguard here -" He gestured to Derek, who was rising from the ground, kicking the bag behind him and taking a step closer to the blonde, "- gonna hurt me? This seems fair to me. Walk away, Laura."
"I'll give you one more chance to -"
"- Fuck you, you little bitch." He snorted, turning to the SUV parked beyond the cargo bay doors. He never saw her coming, her hands closing around his throat quick as a flash, nails extending into the skin.
The blonde stepped forward, reaching for a gun in her purse, but Derek knocked her easily aside as a mangled cry went up from the tall man, blood spurting onto the floor as Laura tore out his throat. The black man panicked and ran, dropping his gun and scrambling over a crate in his haste.
"Get him." Laura said softly, picking blood out of her nails as she stepped across the room, blood pooling around her as she stabbed them through the blonde's chest.
"It'll be easier if you don't run," Derek cried out to the black man, who was running through the rain with nowhere to go, his escape haltered by the gates which had been closed behind his own team. Derek dragged him, kicking and screaming, by the back of the collar and into the cargo bay. Laura was licking blood from her fingers.
She gave him just the most cursory of glances, "Finish him."
"Laura – I -" Derek panicked again; he hated when things went this way. Laura killed without a thought, anyone who messed with her ending up dead. He didn't like things to go that way, hated it in fact.
"I won't tell anyone I swear, please – I'm only twenty, I just came along to make some extra money – please..." He was fumbling with Derek's arm, which was holding him in place across his throat.
"Derek?" Laura looked up, her eyes baring into him. "Can I still trust you?"
He knew he had to do it. Laura wouldn't let him get away with leaving another one for her again. She had been furious when he purposely let a young girl escape on one of his first deals. To pay him back she had hunted down the girl and brought her, along with her mother, to their house, making him watch as she killed them, telling him it was his fault the mother had to die.
He snapped his neck in one swift movement, glancing up to see Laura looking bored.
"Come on, little brother." She fished out any valuables they carried and loaded the bodies into the back of the SUV which she would no doubt now be taking for herself, just as soon as Deets worked his magic on the plates and colouring to make it unrecognisable.
The floor was stained with blood, but she didn't worry about it. The hotel wouldn't want it getting out that two bloodstains were discovered in their cargo bay; it was a respectable place, everything would be covered up. Just as Laura planned.
By the time they arrived home the bodies were already stagnating, the heat of the car bringing out a putrid smell that made Derek want to throw up. He slung the girl over his shoulder, while she took the tall man and the black man, dragging them along the floor by their limbs without a care.
Relentless rain that had showered Beacon Hills for the past week had made the vegetable patch soft, the mud came up easily as they started to dig. He wondered how many bodies were down here as he uprooted a turnip and a locket that had probably wormed it's way through the mood from another of Laura's victims. With certainty he knew it was no longer in the single digits.
At first he had been horrified, but she justified it to him by explaining how they had screwed her over, besides, she would say, they were just drug dealers, scum. It didn't seem to matter that she was a dealer herself. It was the kids that were the worst, the black boy who claimed he was just out to make some extra cash. He could have been lying, sure, but it was still hard.
The carrots and turnips he had displaced were replanted over the blonde girls body, soon ready to be eaten; their vegetable patch was the most well nourished in Beacon Hills. Laura told him it was just another part of life, the scum died and the minerals of their bodies were planted in the soil to give the numerous plants, vegetables, and fruits that grew all around him a new vigour.
He went back to the car and grabbed the two black carry-all's once they were done, dumping them at her feet in the kitchen. She pressed a searing mug of coffee into his hands and sat down at the kitchen table to count, pulling her laptop forward and typing away at some unseen spreadsheets.
"Derek, hey. Derek!" He had been daydreaming about his mother and father, pushing them back when she snapped him awake with a click of her fingers.
"Huh?"
"Wanna go out tonight? Peter's opening a new club." How could she think about going out after killing three people? They were hardly innocent, but they were still people. "You might be busy anyway, with our cash I and the money we found in their car -" She referenced the ten grand they had came across in the trunk of the SUV, "- I can get something better. We're branching out."
"Branching out?" Derek was confused, they already had a firm hold on the club scene in Beacon Hills and the six neighbouring towns, as well as a small presence in Sacramento.
"Kids."
"No." Derek replied, quick as a flash. Even quicker she was up from her chair, the nails – paint now chipped away and stained with blood instead – coming forward to dig at his neck.
"Yes. Nothing heavy, just E." She was astride him, her nose just inches from his face, sniffing at the scent of blood and rain and dirt that was all over him. He thought she smelt like corpses, like death.
"I'll look a little obvious, don't you think?" He asked quietly, wincing as he swallowed and his adams apple came dangerously close to a claw.
"Figure it out. Find a kid. You're not going to defy me, are you?" A small smile was playing on her lips. A nagging feeling in his gut told him she probably wanted him to defy her; Laura was always bored, and loved to put people in line.
"No." He managed, his voice rising with the growl in his throat.
"Get going." If he didn't still have his pride he would have ran from the house, but he walked instead, careful steps to the back door and around to where her red convertible, the roof up to keep out the rain, was waiting. The Camaro was still parked outside the hotel.
An email from Laura came through to his phone, reading it as he drove. It listed her demands for the newest dealer she wanted. It also said she never wanted to meet them, and never wanted them to know she even existed. It amazed him that she was so cautious at times, while at others she'd kill without a care for the consequences.
Beacon Hills High School loomed up before him, lights blazing in the windows to keep away the rain and darkness. He could see kids laughing and smiling, but none of them would do, he needed someone else. For a while he just sat in the car, using his extra senses to watch students as they went about their business. No one stood out, no one looked like they could do what he and Laura did.
He got out and walked around the parking lot absently, thinking of how he could broach the subject to someone, 'Hi I want you to be a drug dealer. I have to tell you me and my sister have both murdered people who screwed us over, and you may have to do the same.' It occurred to him then that whoever he chose might not have to kill. They wouldn't be dealing with suppliers or going to meets, he would just give them the E to sell to other students. Suddenly the list wasn't so barren, he could think of a lot of suitable kids, Jackson, Greenberg, even Scott, they could all do it, but they weren't the best option, not really.
He and Laura had hired numerous dealers to work for them, trying to lighten their own load so they could actually enjoy all the money they were raking in, but Laura always either; got bored and went back out anyway; or killed their dealers for screwing up or skimming off the top.
Someone new was needed, someone who people didn't know. It would be different this time, he knew it would be. Laura wasn't dealing with them any more, possibly the wisest move she'd ever made. Derek would be good to whoever he chose, would take a kid and make them into someone everyone at their school wanted to know. The money wasn't half bad, too. A blonde figure burst from a door in front of him, not noticing Derek at first, his hood up against the rain, muttering profanities. He saw the most annoying kid in town down the hallway – Stiles, shooting him a smirk before he followed the blonde across the parking lot.
Whoever he was, he got one point for storming out of school in the middle of class, another for the pretty coarse language he was muttering to himself, a third for being tall enough to look down on most people, and a forth for the scowl he gave Derek when he grabbed his shoulder.
"Get the fuck off, St -" His words fell flat, though his face was still a mask of anger, "Oh. Fuck you too."
"Do you want a job?" Derek blurted out, turning and seeing a teacher hanging from a second story window, shouting for the kid to get back inside.
"A job? Is this a joke?" He pushed against Derek's chest, turning to leave the parking lot.
"Meet me in the old clearing on Friday if you want a job," The old clearing was the first spot that came into his head; it was where Laura had first told him what she did and why she did it, and everyone in town knew it, "easy money, minimal work."
"I – fuck you." Derek saw the moment of weakness in his eyes, he knew he was thinking about it.
"Be there at half nine." Derek called out as the boy jumped onto an old, rusty bike and roared off into the rain. He knew he would come, they always did. Though if Laura showed up, it was questionable if he would get out alive.