Although this fic is completed, I haven't had anyone but myself beta it, so it's still a work in progress. If you have any feedback please let me know!

I'm also considering cutting chapters in half; the longest chapter (ch. 5) is almost 8,000 words, and I understand how that can be kind of hard to digest in one sitting. Let me know if you have an opinion on that!

Some light horror in this chapter.

Two: Coatlicue

Coatlicue is said to have eagle talons as feet, a necklace of human hearts, and in statues her head is replaced by two snake heads. Coatlicue is viewed as a goddess of both life and death, containing within her both a womb and grave. "[She] is the mountain, the Earth Mother who conceived all celestial beings out of her cavernous womb."

"She is a symbol of the fusion of opposites: the eagle and the serpent, heaven and the underworld, life and death, mobility and immobility, beauty and horror."

x.

The night was well-lit outside the Argent home, streetlamps casting sodium-yellow light upon the residential lanes. Allison was in the house alone, her father gone to "work" – although he had not specified exactly what it was, and had loaded up the car with tools hidden in blank black cases before he left. She didn't worry. After what they had been through together, she had learned to trust her father again some time ago.

She sat in the living room, the TV on but so quiet it was nearly muted; mostly she was focused on her homework before her, taking notes from a history book.

There was a clattering sound coming from the kitchen. Instinctually, Allison's body tensed slightly. There were, undoubtedly, people and – creatures, perhaps – that might break in, could threaten her. Try to threaten her, anyway.

Out of habit, she kept knives on her all the time. Her bookbag was thrown unceremoniously beside her, and she reached into it, extracted a pointed knife, threaded her forefinger through the grip. And then she stood and, slowly, she approached the kitchen.

There was near silence, except for the gentle whispering of the television's sound, turned down so low that she could not make out individual voices, much less words. The lights in the kitchen were turned off, and she slowly slid towards the threshold, squinting into the darkness. She closed her eyes, collecting herself. Then, clenching her fist around the hilt of the knife, she entered the room aggressively, simultaneously flipping on the lights.

She glanced around. There was nothing there. Not yet lowering her knife, she looked around the room, checking all the potential hiding spots. Maybe something had just fallen. Opening the cupboards, she glanced through drawers, looking for something amiss. The only thing she could find was that a kitchen knife seemed to be missing from its holder.

From above her, there was a loud thud, like a body hitting the floor. She froze again, glancing upwards at the ceiling. Directly above the kitchen was her parents' – her father's – bedroom. For another moment she did not move, straining her ears to hear another other sounds. She would not call her father, or Scott, or anyone. Whoever or whatever this was, she would take care of it herself.

Lowering her gaze, casting one more look around the kitchen, she began to move towards the stairs.

A dripping fluid atop her hair, lining the crown of her head with something unnaturally warm. She did not move. Very slowly, she raised her fingers up to the top of her head, touched something wet and viscous there. Holding her fingers up in front of her eyes, her heart seemed to slow into stillness as she smelled the heavy, metallic scent of the blood on her hands.

Horror rising in her stomach, roiling like a pit of vipers, she leaned her head back. Blood instantly dripped into her eyes. It stung and she tried to blink it away, letting out a little whispering hiss as it trickled down her face; as her eyes watered and washed the crimson blackness from her eyes, she stared up at the ceiling, at the stain of blood thick enough only in a single point to drip down into the floor below. The blood dripped onto her face, slit into her open mouth, and she gagged at the sudden saltiness, the stench of injury and death – whatever was in her parents' bedroom, it would take an impossible pooling of blood to soak through the ceiling – it could not be, and yet the red-black liquid fell in a syrupy stream now, coating Allison's hair, sticking to her skin. Panic hit her sharply, knocking the breath out of her lungs as she struggled, tried to move, but the stream seemed more like a length of liquid rope, and it trailed across her neck, and she raised her hands to bat it away but the blood was intangible to her touch, real only in its tightening hold around her throat. The blood poured into her mouth, smothering her breath, suffocating her; a gentle tug pulled her upwards, to the tips of her toes, the blood burning like a noose around her neck-

There was a sudden resounding knock, a sound too mundane in the awful terror of the moment. The blood disappeared, the heat erasing suddenly, leaving the scorched skin around her throat searing in phantom pain; Allison gasped and fell to the ground, chest heaving with breaths. Eyes wide, no longer obscured by blood, she lifted her head, watching across the room. The sound had not come from the front door, but from the door to the garage, to the cars and the weapons and, Allison knew, the entrance to the basement. There was not another knock.

Slowly, Allison got to her feet. The stench was no longer there, but the inside of her nostrils and the back of her throat still stung. She took an unsteady step towards the garage door.

As she passed the mirror in the hall leading to the door, she peered into her face. Her cheeks were pale, and there were no marks around her neck. But her lips were stained a deep reddish pink, as if rubbed raw, as if from a kiss. Her tongue flicked across her mouth, and as it slid across her teeth her mouth tasted coppery and red.

She looked to the door again, her eyes flickering down to the crack at the bottom of the door. White artificial light lined the threshold, and her heart seemed to pump too hard in her chest. A flicker across the light; a shadow cast, as if someone stood behind the door.

She tore her gaze away and the moment she looked at the mirror again she felt lips brush against her ear and she heard the commanding, dangerous voice of the only woman in the world who could hurt her, and a drop of blood trickled down a white forehead from a symbol carved in pale flesh, and Allison opened her mouth in a scream that would not come as her mother's fingers dug into her sides and the Argent matriarch with short hair dyed red with blood, and skin paler than death itself hissed, "Allison."

The scream finally came, bubbling up from the depths of Allison's body, burning past her heart, scorching her throat and shattering into nothingness as the specter disappeared, and Allison was left standing in her dark home, lungs pumping like bellows, heart lodged in fear at the hollow dip below her neck.

"Derek. Derek."

There was a hollow, cold emptiness inside of him. He could feel it; he could see it, spread out before him, vast and never-ending. It was empty except for shadows, for figures without names. With names that had died with their final breaths.

"Derek."

Claws dug into his flesh, and an arrow shot straight through his heart, and a deep, bleeding wound on the back of his neck – a spine broken in a gesture of mercy, with words wept against his ear like love – and then firm hands on his shoulders, shaking him, and, with a great, gasping breath, he awoke.

His hands gripped her wrists, his claws extended, and he could feel warmth where they drew blood. His eyes flashed a bright blue for one moment, and his sister stared at him, hands at his shoulders, no trace of fear in her gaze.

She let go of him. Her hands hung there, fingers spread open, until he realized where he was and let go of her in return. The icy blue faded from his eyes, and he closed them again, leaning back in bed. Cora stood up.

There were so many things she could say. Derek could feel the questions on the tip of her tongue – more than that, he could feel the judgment bleeding from her lips, dripping down her chin. He used to be stronger. He was not sure that she knew this.

Letting everything else slip away unsaid, burrowing into whatever depth she dug inside of herself, Cora said lamely, "I need a ride to school," and left the room.

Derek didn't move at first, the images and sensations of his dream coming back to him, lingering on his skin like open wounds. Throat dry, head pulsing, he reached around, stretching his arm, brushing his hand down the back of his head, down his neck-

He brought his hand back before his eyes. The tips of his fingers fingers were dotted with dark blood, lining his fingerprints, that of a relatively fresh wound beginning to clot. He looked up at the door Cora had closed behind her, and felt warm blood leak down his back.

In the car, he drove slowly, the back of his neck hastily bandaged and hidden from Cora by the collar of a jacket. She said nothing during the drive, curled up into the side of the seat. "Did you hear about that fire?" she asked, her eyes threading along the horizon. When he didn't answer, she looked up. "Derek?" she asked.

He finally glanced at her, blinking. "What?"

"There was a house fire, in town. Did you hear anything about it?"

"No," he said shortly.

She looked out the windshield. With urgency in her voice, she began, "Derek-"

He slammed on the breaks, his hands shaking on the wheel, turning to her with wide, alert eyes. "What?"

She met his gaze, confusion reflected in her eyes. Pointing behind them, she said: "You missed the turn."

There was silence between them, broken by the morning sounds outside the car. Someone behind them honked, then drove around them.

"Right," said Derek, and he reversed the car, then turned around in the middle of the road. Cora only watched him, holding her backpack tightly in her hands, concern in her eyes.

"Are you OK?" she asked. "Should you be driving?"

"I'm fine," he said.

"Are you sure? I could…call Stiles, I guess."

"I thought you didn't like Stiles."

"I don't. But you look like you shouldn't be behind the wheel right now."

"I'm fine," he repeated, with finality. "Today, can you try to not ditch school?"

She retreated slightly, slipping into a shell, raising a wall Derek hadn't meant to erect. Holding her backpack to her chest, legs bent up, taking up as little space as possible on the seat, she said icily, "I'll try. If you could learn to stop whimpering like a baby every time you have a bad dream."

The venom in her voice burned him. "Excuse me?" he asked, his voice hard, forcing her to say it out loud.

With a sigh, she continued, "You heard me. You're a grown-up, Derek. I know you've never been all that good with responsibility, but maybe you should start trying to act like it."

Derek didn't say anything. He took a moment, his hands gripping the wheel tightly. Quietly, he asked, "I am driving you to school, aren't I?"

"Like I said. Stiles could manage that. I mean, I don't like the guy, but at least Scott can handle a pack. Without killing them all, that is."

There was an abrupt screeching noise as Derek stopped the car, his face pale, his knuckles white on the wheel. He did not look at Cora, and she did not look at him. They didn't move. Cora held her chin up defiantly, waiting for something. He could taste her dare in the space between them, her desperate longing. Hit me, she said. Just try and hit me.

He shook out the color begging to edge into his eyes, and slowed the beating of his heart, which he knew she could hear. Cora was his sister before they were members in a pack, and he no longer had the authority to discipline her. Hit me. She finally turned to look at him, although he refused to meet her gaze, to recognize the demand she gave him. I dare you.

"You want Stiles to drive you?" he asked, infinitely mundane, finally turning to look her in the eyes. "Fine. You call him. Right now."

She looked back at him, cocked her head slightly. But she did not take out her phone.

Derek looked back out before them. "Right," he said, moving the car again. "I thought so."

They drove the rest of the way to school in silence. When they finally arrived, he stopped by the curb, and she looked out the window but did not move. "I don't want this," she said, her voice wistful.

"You've been through a lot worse."

"You don't have to remind me."

He watched her, the deep lines in her face. There was, he noted, no fear there.

Grimly, she said, "I still don't see why we can't just leave. There's nothing for us here. No pack, no family. I barely have you."

"Just go."

"Derek," she said, looking back at him, her face expressionless. She met his gaze with empty eyes. She said, "I used to think a lot more of you."

Tearing his own gaze away and shaking his head, he muttered, "Laura, I don't want to argue with you."

He froze. Beside him, he could all but hear Cora's body tense, her eyes widening. Her shoulders retracted, back tightening, as if shrinking. She stared at him.

"Cora," he said, closing his eyes tightly, then opening them again. "I'm… You know what I meant."

She looked around. There was something almost helpless about the way she blinked, the way she glanced out the window again. And then she opened the car door and got out, and didn't look back. The door slammed behind her, and Derek was left with an impenetrable, sick feeling in the bottom of his stomach.

School went slowly. She was there, physically, but she was not present. At lunch, she seemed to disappear; when Scott mentioned it, there was a slight look of worry in Allison's eyes, but after a few minutes, Stiles pointed out that Isaac wasn't there either. That eased the concern in Scott's chest, but Allison never quite stopped glancing around, kept exchanging glances with Lydia. "Whatever," said Stiles, shrugging. "So she sucks at being a regular person. That just means she really is Derek's sister."

"She's really alone," said Allison. Something in her voice seemed almost hurt that Stiles would say this. "And she's our age. We should be trying to help her."

"I did," replied Stiles indignantly. "I gave her some clothes."

Lydia let out a little noise. "She would take your clothes. Poor girl." With a sigh, she leaned back in her seat. "She dresses like she's in a particularly unsexy lumberjack porno."

At the look on Stiles's face, Scott immediately said, "Dude," and Stiles shook his head, rolling his eyes. He said, "Right, because you two sitting there and talking about her like she's six years old is so nice. At least I treat her like a human being. I'm mean and sarcastic to everybody."

"Fine," said Allison, "but I get the impression Cora could do with a little bit of kindness. So you could try just a little more, Stiles."

"Yeah, OK," said Stiles, and he sounded almost resentful. "As soon as I get a shred of evidence that she's anything more than a permanently angry werewolf, then sure. But I don't think she's looking for somebody to hold her hand." He glanced down at the table. He could remember her eyes when Peter had told them about her brother, and he could remember how vulnerable she looked in the hospital bed. He had, however, forgotten what it felt like to touch her lips with his. In the panicked frenzy of the moment, adrenaline had killed the memory of their mouths together, inflating her lungs with oxygen from his own. His head moved in a slight nod. "Nah," he said. "If someone tried to hold her hand, she'd probably just rip it off."

A few miles away, Cora was sitting beside a hospital bed, her hands lying flat and useless on her thighs, staring hard at the face of the girl lying on the pillow.

Isaac leaned against the wall by the door. He glanced up at the clock before the bed, then said, "We need to get back to school."

"Just give me a second," she said, her voice very quiet, glancing up at him with sharp eyes, then looking back at the girl. Isaac glanced around the room, anywhere but Cora's face. He wished he could give her more privacy, but he was unsure he wanted to leave her alone right now.

Slowly, she raised a hand. Isaac watched her, his eyes half-hooded, arms folded across his chest. But then she lowered her hand, shaking her head, and she stood up, sweeping her long hair back. "You're right," she said, without looking into Isaac's eyes. "We should go."

Neither of them said anything as Isaac nodded, turning to open the door. And then from behind them came a faint breath, like a word or a name left unspoken, and Isaac saw the way Cora's body caught, as if she could no longer take another step; he saw the unbelievably graceful way her head snapped back, her eyes open and steely as she looked at the girl. But she did not move towards the bed, only stared.

"Isaac," muttered Cora, her voice very low. "Give me a second."

His big eyes slid from her to the girl on the bed. "I don't think that's a really good-"

When her gaze snapped back to him, her teeth were bared, and she let out a threatening, commanding growl. He stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do, and then, without looking back, he left.

Cora looked back to the girl on the hospital bed. The girl moved again, her head swaying back and forth, eyes barely open. Slowly, Cora moved towards her, back to where she had been sitting. On the bed, the girl made more sounds, almost like a whimpering, and with distaste, Cora heard the whining of her brother during the night echoing in her ears, filled with distress and genuine pain, so like this girl's. A red-hot needle of guilt punctured her heart when she thought of the repulsion she felt towards her brother, and the ache and sympathy she felt for this girl. She wondered when she had stopped feeling that for Derek, but then she didn't think about that, because she knew exactly when.

The girl's eyes fluttered open. Cora's gaze moved for just one moment to the door, knowing that Isaac would ensure she had some privacy. She leaned over the girl, who stared up around her, the wet whites of her eyes shined against her dark, ashen skin, a pallor sucking the brilliance from her cheeks.

"Hello, Sam," said Cora quietly.

The girl looked at her, confusion knitted along her brow. Her voice hoarse, she began, "I'm…"

"Alive," said Cora, bowing her head into a nod. "At the very least." The girl looked away from Cora's face, her eyes welling up with tears. Cora leaned in and whispered, "My name is Cora Hale. I can help you."

"Help me?" whimpered the girl – Sam. "How…I'm…" she hesitated, closing her eyes. Very quietly, she mumbled, "My family…"

Cora's insides felt tight and acidic, and the burning hot needle in her heart pulled a string tighter. "I'm sorry," she replied, her voice soft. "They're dead."

Sam began to cry, tears spilling from her eyes, dampening her eyelashes, trailing down her cheeks. Slowly, Cora lifted her hand, placed her fingers on the girl's wrist, nails pointed into deadly claws. She gently turned the girl's arm over, exposing the fleshy skin of her elbow, over which Cora traced her claws. Silently, she prepared her next words. She knew how to draw them in, how easy it was to convince someone who'd lost everything that the only way to keep on living was with place, with belonging, with power. Barely opening her mouth, she almost began to whisper, but the girl spoke over her.

Cora's eyes flashed up, her touch hardening on the girl's arm, as Sam cried lowly, "Thank God. Thank… thank God."

After Isaac took Cora back to school, he left; a new school year, a new job, and he'd been working in the local grocery store for less than a month. A few hours into his shift, he stood behind rows of milk and cheese and other dairy in the fridge, restocking, pushing items forward, setting them facing the front.

He shivered in the chilled room, breathing on his hands, then continuing, finishing up the last few items. Pushing the cart he'd been using towards the door, he started to leave, but then stopped, his gaze snapping back behind him.

From the tall, heavy, chrome metal door of the freezer, there was a gentle, resounding, metallic knock.

He waited for another sound, but none came. Glancing around at the cold, sterile walls, he took a few unsteady steps towards the door. He stood there before it, listening. "Hey," he called. "Is anybody in there?"

Nothing. His hands hovered on the lock of the freezer door, waiting. After another minute of silence, he suddenly became aware of how profoundly cold he was, and he shook his head, heading back to the cart. There was nobody there.

Inexplicably unsettled, he pushed the cart towards the door.

Fingers like ice clamped around Isaac's throat, pulling him backwards, so cold it sent everything in his body up in alarm, and the coat could not protect him – his teeth chattered, shivering, the visceral physicality of his body's reaction enough to send his heart up into his mouth. The hands at his neck pulled back sharply, locking an elbow around his throat, tugging him backwards, off his feet – he struggled, desperate to cry out, to call someone to help but the sinking feeling in his stomach, that which he had not felt in a long time, told him, as always, that no one was listening. Before him, he could see a hand pressing around him, and there was a symbol carved into the flesh, something that barely registered in the debilitating fear of the moment.

He could feel the man's face pressing against the side of his, cold as if carved out of crystalline ice, and he could hear the hatred and disgust packed into two simple syllables – an insult, a degradation, stamped into the letters of his name.

His father pressed ice-cold lips against his ear and hissed, "Isaac," and before the oxygen was crushed out of Isaac's lungs, spots flickering in his vision, the pressure was gone, and Isaac was alone.

Slowly – terrified – he crumpled, clutching his knees to his chest, whimpering slightly, eyes closed tightly shut against the pain and the cold.

Derek was there to drive Cora home that day – and so, he was relieved to see, was she – although he didn't stick around. The car allowed him to focus on something, to cling tightly to being human. And being around Cora became…difficult. It was no longer a matter of the weary respect hovering between them, but it was looking into her eyes and thinking a different name. It was how much her long hair resembled her sister's, and how the pointed, jagged outline of her jaw always reminded Derek of their mother.

It was dark night by the time Derek had relented, and was returning to his sister. If, he thought, she was still there. No one anchored her here anymore. Not even, he thought bitterly, himself.

He slammed on the brakes, his heart pumping. He stared with wide, stricken eyes peering into his rearview mirror. Wrenching the wheel around, he skid onto the side of the road, then got out of the car. He stared at the figure before him. The shallow wound at the back of his neck stung, and he blinked, and when he looked again – yes. There was only one woman standing there. As unlikely as it was to see her again, it was not impossible.

Derek, standing behind the car door, did not advance towards the woman. They were so far apart that a normal human would barely have been able to hear him, but when he called to her, she heard him clear as day through the silent night.

"Grace," he called. "Why are you here?"

She didn't answer right away; even from the distance, he could see her eyes glinting, burning. "I heard," she said, just quiet enough that even Derek could hardly hear her, "the Hales were back in town."

Derek didn't answer right away. He glanced around, the back of his neck stinging in the cold. "I've been around for a while now," he replied, meeting her gaze again.

She blinked slowly, shaking her head. Her hands were tucked into jacket pockets. "No," she said softly. "I heard a Hale I actually gave a damn about was back in town."

At this, Derek did not move. And then he closed the car door and moved towards her, with no hurry or rush, no sprinting fury. He simply crossed the distance between them and watched her not flinch as he approached her, so close she could feel the heat emanating off his body, smell the sour stink of lycanthropic sweat beading on his brow. He could see the tiny round marks along her chin and jaw, halfway between freckles and scars. Lowly, staring down straight into her eyes, his voice no more than a breath, he began, "If you so much as touch Cora-"

"I have no interest in touching her," she replied scathingly. "Laura would be so ashamed of your-"

"Don't say her name."

His eyes sparked a bright, icy blue, wide and piercing. Grace stared at him with eyes that did not change color, and then she lowered her head slightly, acknowledging him. Quieter now, she continued, "I'm not looking to steal her away from you, Derek. I never wanted to do that." She said nothing. The sounds of the wild night echoed around them, and then she lifted her gaze, meeting his with one glinting eye. Lowly, she told him, "I think you were the one who did that to me."

Before she had even finished her sentence, he was shaking his head, lips pressed tightly together. "I don't have time for this," he muttered, looking back up at the road. "If you expected Laura to choose you over the only family she had left-"

"I didn't," she spat, suddenly venomously. "I wouldn't. She left me with nothing, Derek, but I don't give up so easily."

"She's dead," said Derek bluntly. "What do you want?"

"Revenge," she whispered. She reached out, planted her clawed fingers along his chest. He took her wrists with his hands and removed them.

"Try and kill me," he said, his voice low. "You know I'm not Alpha anymore. But, even still, there's no way I couldn't take an Omega."

Her lips contorted into a snarl and she released a low hiss, more like a cat than a canine. She tore her wrists from his grip and one hand went to his throat; before he realized what happened, she lifted him up until he was on the tips of his toes, her arm fully extended. She bared her teeth in a sick, ugly growl from deep in her chest, and Derek's eyes widened as her claws dug into his throat, and her eyes shone with color.

"Maybe," she growled, her eyes a deep, crimson red. "But I'm not an Omega anymore."

Her grip loosened on his throat, and, from nowhere, Derek suddenly caught the strong scent of other wolves, creeping out from the darkness of the woods. His heart pumped loudly, resounding in his ears and, he knew, theirs, as well. With an emphatic, threatening growl, Grace threw him to the ground, her pack advancing on them. He coughed, his throat and lungs searing in pain, and then looked up at her, the unmistakable animalistic power hovering about her. Saying nothing, she must have given an invisible sign for her pack to stop, because they moved no further. Besides Grace, he counted five others, mostly female.

As he began to assess the odds of his getting out alive, and wondering if his last words to his little sister would be ones of pain and the rushed inability to express what he knew her should be able to say – Grace knelt down before him, eyeing him carefully.

"Listen to me, Derek," she began, her voice low. "I am coming to you out of respect for your relationship with Laura. She cared about you far more than you understand." She paused, said nothing; Derek met her gaze defiantly, unwilling to look away, refusing to allow himself another hacking cough, desperate to catch his breath. "So," Grace breathed, "I'm giving you the option to help me hurt her killer as much as we can. To hurt him so badly he will be begging for death. Worse than he ever was after the fire. You remember him, you remember how he didn't have to feel the pain – how he fell into a state which made it so he wouldn't feel anything." She watched him hungrily. He dropped her gaze, and she ducked her head, seeking to take it again. When he did not look back at her, her hand shot out, taking hold of his chin, forcing him to look at her. Her eyes were wide and compassionate and the color of mottled blood. Sympathetically, she whispered, "You remember how much you envied him." She leaned in, so close their noses almost touched, and, with a wild gleam in her eyes, she breathed, "Let's rip that away from him, Derek. Let's make sure he can never not feel the pain, ever again."

She stared at him. And then, faster than he could move, she darted forward and clamped her teeth on his ear, incisors digging into his skin, drawing blood. Even as he winced, clenching his jaw, she retracted, smiling at him. The blood on her lips matched the scarlet of her eyes.

Derek said, "No."

The smile disappeared. Her voice hushed, she asked, "Excuse me?"

"We need Peter," Derek said defiantly. "I'm not letting Cora lose any more of our family."

Grace blinked at him uncomprehendingly, then stood up, pulling away from him. "Derek," she said, "Peter killed your family."

"We have him under control," replied Derek.

"He's your Alpha," said Grace pointedly. "He's exactly where he wants to be. He's got you pinned underneath his thumb. I could end that, with your help."

"No," repeated Derek, getting to his feet. "I know why you're here. You don't know where he is. There's no other reason why you'd come to me first."

She stared at him, expressionless but displeased.

"I won't help you," said Derek firmly. "And you can kill me for it, but Laura would never have forgiven you, if you did." He paused, staring at her. "And I don't think you could live with that."

"You're making a mistake," said Grace.

He watched her for a tense moment, saying nothing, but a trace of amusement entered his gaze. With some degree of pride, he could detect the intense dislike reflected in her eyes. Softly, he said: "Prove it."

And with that, he turned around and began to walk back to his car. The pack did not move. Just as he reached out to take the handle of the car door, one of the Betas shot forward, slamming her hand into the top of the car, leaving a sharp dent there. Legs halfway bent in a defensive crouch, she snarled at Derek, her golden eyes sharply contrasting with the deep black of her skin.

From behind Derek, Grace called, "Jaz," sharply. The werewolf growled again at Derek, and then removed her hand from the car, backing away.

Derek looked behind him. Grace stood there, watching him.

"Remember," she said gently, "you're walking away tonight because I can't rob your younger sister of her only living sibling. I don't care how Laura felt about you. I would kill you in a second." She stared at him with hard eyes. Quietly, she continued, "But that girl deserves a family. And, as pitiful as you are, you qualify."

They stared at each other. From the trees before them, the Beta – Jaz – growled again. Derek glanced between the Alpha and the rest of them, and then, mildly, he said, "It was nice to see you again, Grace," and then ducked into his car and drove off into the night.

It was past midnight, and Stiles was not yet asleep. He hadn't even bothered to go up to his room, and sat at the kitchen table, his homework lying in front of him. Hours ago, his father had sat him down and insisted he finish his work, because starting out the school year with a D average was unacceptable. Stiles hadn't moved since then, and his homework was still not done.

He stared at the page before him, leaning his forehead against his hands. The words swam, incoherent letters before him, and he tried to blink the tiredness out of his eyes but it wouldn't go. The images burned beneath his eyelids – the image he saw every night when he slept – pounded in his skull, refusing to go away. It was impossible to concentrate on anything with something like that on his mind, and he had stopped trying a while ago. But he did not want to go to sleep, and immerse himself in the dream again.

Leaning back in his seat, he stretched slightly, glancing at the clock. It was only a few hours until he had to get up and get to school. Briefly, he weighed the prospect of pulling an all-nighter, but he could not force himself. He was too deeply exhausted to eschew sleep any longer, no matter how disturbing his dreams may be.

With a small sigh, he closed the textbooks before him, thoroughly unsurprised at his lack of productivity. There were very few things that mattered to him less than grades, at the moment. As he got up from the chair, rubbing his face, he froze.

There was a gentle sound from the front door. Something like a low creak, or the shunting jolt of the door's latch. For a moment, he did not move, his heart pumping in his chest – he could feel it reverberating against his ribcage, sinking into his stomach. He tried to say something and his voice cracked, so he coughed loudly to clear his throat and asked, "Dad?" Nothing. "Hello?"

After a second of the sound silence, he breathed again and shook his head, heading towards the stairs. He was on the third step when, behind him, he heard a single knock on the door.

Dread slowly rose in his stomach, like the body of some great beast, like an oily, thick mass beginning to writhe. He stood on the stairs, clutching the rail, his knuckles gone white.

And then, very slowly, hating himself and hating everything around him and everything he imagined could be waiting for him, staring in with white eyes from behind the glass of the door, Stiles turned around.

There was nothing there, the porch empty and bathed in silver moonlight.

Despite that, Stiles's insides tightened, and a chill ran, slowly, up his spine, as if ice-cold needles were pricking his skin. Beneath his clothes he shivered, and when he exhaled a white puff of condensation appeared before his lips. Outside, something seemed to move in the moonlight, and his hair stood on end as if in response breath on the back of his neck. There was no discernible figure on the other side of the frosted glass, but he could not tell in the dim night.

A shadow seemed to come alive, bending down to peer into the glass with a face that was not there, a skeletal grin of silhouette and darkness.

Something shot into Stiles's throat and he felt a surge of something in his body, hot and burning. The thing was gone before he could see it and something struck him hard, and he stumbled down the stairs, shooting down the hall and throwing the door wide open, peering into the darkness with painful, paralyzed eyes.

A breeze swept through the trees outside, and other than the sounds of leaves rustling, there was emptiness. Slowly, he closed the door. He ran a hand through his hair, distressed, and then, rubbing his chilled hands together, he turned back around to head up the stairs.

Wide brown eyes and stringy dark hair inches before his face and she whispered his name and his stomach heaved and knees buckled at the same time; there was a bleeding gash on her forehead, a symbol carved into her oily skin, and he fell hard on his knee, knocking his hip hard against the table by the door, throwing a vase to the ground. It shattered as it hit the floor and he quickly followed it, the glass digging through his clothes, pressing against his back as he fell, splayed out on the floor, the wind knocked thoroughly out of his lungs. He gasped for breath but was unable to breathe, unable to suck oxygen in through his mouth – it felt like thin fingers wrapped around his neck, like a body, light as a feather, knelt on his chest.

The lights flickered on and someone said his name again, but it was his father's voice. "Stiles?" he repeated, at the top of his stairs, and this time he sounded panicked. Stiles tried to respond, tried to speak back to his father but his open mouth was gaping and useless, his body not under his control.

His father had dropped the look of fear and alarm in his eyes, but Stiles was not so far gone that he could not see the distinct stony determination there, a dead giveaway of his father's emotion – the emotion he fought so hard to keep under wraps, because a doctor had told him a long time ago that calm and stability and emotional dependence were the ways with which to get his son back down from a panic attack, the symptoms of which he had memorized and saw now reflected in his son's petrified eyes..

Gently, he lifted Stiles by the shoulders, helping him sit up against the wall. And then he held his son's hand and spoke to him firmly, reminding him that he could breathe, that everything was all right, that he was home, he was safe. The terror in Stiles's eyes did not subside, but he kept them fixed on his father's, frozen in fear of what he might see if he looked away.