I feel like I'm starting to sound like a broken record-and I apologize for that-but I don't care. ALL the readers and ALL the reviewers must be thanked for all their support! The story keeps going because of you amazing people :)
This is set during The Summoning when Chloe confronts Derek in the bathroom.
Disclaimer: As much as I wish that I were in fact Kelley Armstrong, sadly I'm not. I don't own Derek-or anyone else, of course-no matter how much I dream I do.
Not a dumb blonde
DPOV
I walked into the bathroom, promptly at eight, ready to take a shower and let the warm water wash away the day's tension and hopefully help with the fever I was starting to get. Shutting the door and turning the light on, I turned toward the mirror and let out a yelp of surprise. I didn't know what was more shocking: seeing Chloe, looking determined with her arms crossed, or the fact that she had managed to catch me off guard.
That didn't happen. Ever.
I figured it was because I already reeked of Chloe, so I hadn't been able to pick up on her scent properly and realize that it was out of place. Reeked probably wasn't the finest choice of word. On the contrary, Chloe smelt quite good, like honey and vanilla with a hint of lavender. And it wasn't even perfume; she naturally smelt like that. I have never encountered someone whose scent was quite so…inviting.
Regardless, her appealing scent was the last thing I should be contemplating; far behind wondering why the hell she was staking me out in the bathroom.
"Are you nuts? What are you doing here?" I hissed, questioning whether the afternoon's events had finally caught up to, and possibly cracked, her. If anyone besides Simon saw this or heard us, they'd think I was assaulting her and call a code red.
She ignored me, instead walking past me and locking the door. What was she doing in here? I'm sure it wasn't to join me in the shower. That was not a road I wanted to go down at the moment and I struggled to figure out what could logically justify her being in here. The plan. It must be the plan she wanted to talk about.
"If you want to discuss the plan, this really isn't the best place." I really thought she had more sense than this.
I watched as she crossed to the shower and turned the cold water on.
"Great. Now they're going to think we're showering together. Maybe we can just tell them we were washing off the crawl space dirt and trying to conserve water." I muttered angrily. Just thinking about that seemed to suck up all the oxygen in the small room. I really just wanted her to tell me what she was doing here so I could shower. Alone.
She planted herself in front of me, crossing her arms, with accusation glinting in her eyes, and said, "You set me up."
Oh. Shit. She couldn't have possibly figured out the master plan, the one that didn't just include Simon's escape. I needed to do damage control though. If she had managed to figure out her position of vital importance in the plan, she'd back out, insulted at being used and refuse to leave, and we'd be back at square one, with Simon having no motivation to leave and refusing to go anywhere without me. I opened my mouth, prepared to fervently deny knowing what she was talking about, but there was no use. I could see it in her eyes. She had already figured it all out. She didn't need confirmation. This was confrontation. I settled on scowling-a default reaction to anything that hadn't gone as planned-upset that she had seen right through me and that the plan was for sure about to go to hell. I let myself hope though that I would be able to salvage it.
"All this time, I've been trying to figure out why you want to help me. Why do you care if I'm a necromancer? Why do you care if I get booted out? Why stick your neck out for me, like you did this afternoon?" she asked heatedly.
"I just want-" Apparently having decided that she wasn't taking any bullshit, she interrupted me, saying, "To help. Sure, you're obnoxious and arrogant, but underneath, there's a decent guy who wants to help a fellow supernatural. Yeah, right. There has to be another reason. Today I found it: Simon."
I crossed my arms, defensive. "Yeah, Simon wanted me to be nice to you. Okay? Can I have my shower now? Alone?" I wanted to dissuade her, get her to leave before she could further elaborate. Plus, what I told her was true. Simon did tell me to be nice to her and she wasn't as bad as most people, so I didn't mind obliging.
"You want Simon to run away; to find your dad. But he won't go without you. He needs a reason to go right now. So you gave him one. The designated damsel in distress."
She had done it. She had managed to see right through all the pretences, through me, to the core of things, something even Simon still hadn't managed to do.
I tried once more in vain to deny having any knowledge to what she was talking about. "I don't know what you're talking about." I muttered, but there was no use to lie. It was so blatantly obvious that I was, by avoiding her penetrating blue gaze. But I couldn't lie, not while looking her right in the eye anyway. Chloe was too good to be lied to.
She plowed on, fresh anger bubbling to the surface. "Here I was, a real necromancer, naïve and lost. Perfect bait. Just keep pushing us together, make a big deal of how helpless I am, and eventually he'll pull on his shining armor. Great plan. But it still lacks something: stakes. In any great thriller, your hero needs three things: goal, motivation and stakes. Goal: find you missing dad. Motivation: help the poor necromancer chick. The stakes were missing though. You needed to put your damsel in actual distress. What if she was about to be transferred to a real mental hospital? Where she'd be out of Simon's reach and beyond help? Or worse, where she might die, the victim of some evil plan. So you get Tori to-"
"No!" I cut her off there, raising my hands, shocked. I would never, ever, do something like that. I would never set homicidal, maniac Tori on some poor unsuspecting soul. Especially Chloe, I felt, rather than thought. "I did not have anything to do with that. Even if Tori would get close enough to me to carry on a conversation-which you may have noticed, she won't-I wouldn't do that. I did nothing to make them transfer you." All still true.
"Okay, so you just took advantage of the situation." she determined. She took a moment then, giving me time to respond. Again, it was useless. She already knew. She had come this far, she must have figured out the rest. Taking my silence as an answer, she continued, "When I first told you about seeing Liz, you brushed it off. But then you realized this could work in your favor, so you changed your tune with Simon. You planted the seeds of doubt, then waited for them to sprout. That's why you didn't argue when I offered to be the one transferred. That's exactly where you wanted me. You manipulated the situation and you lied-"
"I never lied." I interjected. Call me what you want, but a liar I am not. I don't lie, not outright. That's deceitful and I don't respect that.
She fixed me with a look, completely disbelieving. "You heard the doctors talking about transferring me yesterday?"
I shoved my hands in my pocket, just for something to do before I had to sheepishly admit that I might have slightly distorted the truth. She really had worked this all out. "I heard them talking about you and they seemed to be suggesting-"
"Okay, you didn't lie. You exaggerated."
I scowled, frustrated because she seemed so opposed to even try to see that I was doing the right thing and because she seemed to not believe she was in any danger. "You are in danger. The more I think about Liz-"
"Cut the crap, okay, Derek? You got your wish. Simon's going. I'm going with him. You're right. He needs to get out and find is father. Of course, you could have saved us all this trouble by just going with him yourself. But that might be dangerous. And he's not your father so it's not really your problem-"
I shot towards her so fast it took a moment for my mind to catch up to my body. It was one thing for her to confront me and call me out on my bullshit. That I could understand. And however frustrated and inconvenienced it made me feel, she still had a right to do it. I had used her and it was understandable that she was angry and wanted to vent. She however had no right to attack me with erroneous and derogatory accusations.
"Is that what I think, Chloe?" I demanded, looming over her. She had stumbled back, but now stood her ground, glaring right back up at me.
"I don't know what you think Derek. Simon says you won't go. A stupid reason according to him. So maybe it's an excuse. Maybe you just don't want to bother."
Finally, a flaw in her calculations and I was not going to pass up the chance to set her straight. Time to call her out on her bullshit.
"An excuse?" I laughed bitterly. I backed away from her with difficulty, her anger and her scent were so tangible and were mixing with my anger that I was struggling for mental control, something I couldn't afford to let slip. She needed to understand without knowing too much.
"You read my file, right?"
"I-" I cut off what was undoubtedly denial.
"I know you read it that night you and Rae pretended to be raiding the kitchen."
"Only because of what you did. I had to know-" She did have a right to know, especially after what I had so stupidly and so recklessly done. I threw her across a room. I bruised her. I couldn't believe she was still wondering why I wasn't leaving.
"How dangerous I was. I don't blame you. But you got your answer, right? You know exactly how dangerous I am." I said emphatically.
She swallowed, evidently nervous by the turn in conversation. "I-"
"You know what I did, and you think I should be walking the streets? I'm exactly where I belong." The words were so true, so painfully true that they hurt to say. I had ended a life in a second, with a flick of my wrist. I was a predator, by nature and I don't think a naturally apt killer with anger issues should be roaming around with the ever-present possibility of overwhelming emotion, loss of control.
Inexplicably, her gaze softened, almost unconsciously, and she looked away, finally breaking our stare down. After a moment, she looked back at me, not with pity, but with… empathy? What the hell? Where was this coming from? How could she manage that? "You must have had a reason for doing it." she said, almost certainly, like she knew me, understood who I was, what I am.
"Did I?" she tried looking away, but I was having none of that. "Is that what you want, Chloe? To hear my reason? My excuse?" Of course that was what she wanted. She didn't want to believe, to plainly accept, that I could be, that I was unquestionably as awful as my file made me out to be. But she wanted the truth, and I wouldn't deny her that. "That the guy pulled a gun on me and if I hadn't thrown him into a wall, I'd be dead? Well, that's not how it happened how it happened. There's a kid out there who'll never walk again and I have no excuse. It's my fault. All my fault. Our dad disappearing. Simon being thrown in here. I-"
I snapped my mouth shut, having said too much, all unconsciously. Her unwavering blue eyes were so soft and full of deep understanding, that they seemed to have pulled these facts from the abyss that I had buried them in, but nonetheless carried around everyday. After having taken a moment to reorganize my thoughts and regain control, I said, "So, yeah, I want Simon out, and I'll do anything to get him out, but it's not like I'm putting you in danger. You're getting something out of it. You don't have any reason to complain." She'd be with Simon, for God's sake. Caring, considerate, charming Simon. Oh, yeah, poor Chloe.
She stared at me for a second, seeming to recollect her thoughts, and then said slowly, "No danger? I'm running away. From the home. From my family. From my life."
"You'll be with Simon. Don't pretend that's any big hardship."
"What?" she asked, genuinely confused.
"You know what I mean. A few days alone with Simon? That'll be tough. And it means a lot to him. A lot. He'll never forget that."
She widened her eyes. "Oh my God, do you think so? Really? That's so cool. I bet he'll ask me to go steady and everything. We can send love letters between my juvenile detention center and his, and maybe they'll let us meet at the coed dances…"
She got a look for that one.
"You really think I'm an idiot, don't you?" Then she shot her hand up. "No, don't answer that. Please. News flash: getting a boyfriend is not at the top of every girl's priority list. Right now, it ranks about as low on mine as you can get-way below such trivial concerns as getting my life back together."
"All right-" I was about to admit that she did have a point and it might not be as easy as I'm making it seem.
"After this is over, I wouldn't be surprised if Simon wanted to never see me again. Just to put this all behind him. You know what? That's fine. Because I need to find out what happened to Liz. And I want to help Simon because it's the right thing to do, not because I think he's sooo cute. I might not be a genius like you-"
"I'm not-"
"But I'm smart enough to know this isn't going to be some grand romantic adventure. I'm running away. I'll be living on the streets. Even if we do find your dad, I'm not sure he's going to be able to fix my life. I'm not sure it can be fixed."
"So I'm supposed to feel grateful for you going?" All Chloe was saying was completely true and valid. But something in me wanted to argue. Chloe wasn't backing down and I wasn't used to that.
"I never said-" she stopped as I loomed over her once more.
"You need to get out of here just as much as Simon does, maybe more. You might not see the danger you're in, but I do. And I'm worried." I said honestly.
"Worried? About me?" she sounded as if I had just told her I was actually a girl. As if it were so hard to believe that I could feel anything besides anger and irritation.
I shrugged. "Sure. Concerned. You know" I couldn't really look her in the eye, in fear that they would pull the truth from me again. I couldn't exactly tell her that in the few days I had known her, I had started to worry about her. "Yeah, we need you, but I do want to help a fellow supernatural. We gotta stick together." I said, sneaking a glance her way.
"Don't you dare." she said warningly. Chloe seemed to have the annoying talent of seeming to see right through me.
"What?" again, I cowardly avoided eye contact.
"You're right. I do need help. My life is falling apart and maybe someday I'll look back on this as the biggest, stupidest mistake I've ever made, but at this moment, it's the only solution I see. You need me to be your designated damsel in distress? Okay. But don't ever say you're doing this for me. This has nothing to do with me. Don't you dare pretend it does." And with that, she turned and walked out, closing the door firmly behind her.
I stood there, stunned, for a couple of seconds, then made my way into the shower, refusing to think about what had just happened until I was in my room and had time to mull it over.
I lay in my bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to Simon snore softly beside me. I was honestly still a little taken aback. I had completely misjudged Chloe and that doesn't happen to me. Usually I can have someone pegged within the first five minutes of meeting them. Chloe was different, and I hadn't realized it. So far, she had one everything I had expected she would. She seemed helpless and frail, perfect for what she called a damsel in distress. She stuttered and blushed when she was with Simon and today, she had vehemently denied that we had been together in the crawl space, as expected, because really, regardless of how good she might be, she wasn't about to let people think her standards were that low. I thought she was just one of those girls who, while nicer than most, didn't have trouble getting what she wanted with her blonde hair, small stature and big, blue eyes and didn't have to do much for herself.
Then today happened and all my assumptions went out the window.
After the initial shock and terror of having raised the dead, she handled it rather calmly and seemed to take in stride that she was capable of such a thing. Then, during her meeting with her aunt, she had demonstrated that uncanny and unexpected ability of hers to hear what was being said and understand what was being meant. And while it hadn't surprised me that she had volunteered to be transferred-Chloe was like that, always wanting to cater to other people-I had been surprised that she did so without hesitation, so certainly.
I also couldn't forget our little showdown in the bathroom. She had managed to figure out my plan entirely. Every part she could justify and all of my interjections were scoffed at and handled with a rebuttal. She was sharp and intelligent and most shockingly, was so convicted that she would not back down.
I was not an easy person to look in the eye, let alone argue with, what with the rough exterior, the large size, deep voice and the vibes I naturally gave off that told people I was a threat, a danger. I towered over Chloe; I had a good foot and five inches on her. But tonight, that hadn't mattered. She matched me glare for glare and stood her ground. It was unfathomable that the stuttering mess that was Chloe could have, in lack of more appropriate terms, so much balls. She had put me in my place, which I wasn't used to.
Most importantly, was the way I reacted to her. Like today, after we had taken care of the crawl space incident I had the most unshakable urge to get mad at her, to demand that she tell me why she had followed Tori and put herself in danger. It was irrational. She had just summoned and sent back the dead and I had wanted to yell at her? And tonight, she had managed to get a rise out of me and find out more that I had intended to share.
I don't get mad really, surprisingly. I get irritated and frustrated, but not necessarily mad. The only people I talk to-talked to-is Dad and Simon, and because they know me and how I am, they don't make me angry. Chloe had inadvertently known exactly how to push my buttons and she had gotten me to react. And while I regretted letting the anger take over for a couple of seconds, it didn't scare me, which was bewildering. One of the things I'm the most concerned about is letting my emotions take over because I don't know what I could do when that happened. The fact that I was not afraid of the anger that had flared in my chest tonight was new and I realized was because Chloe had not been afraid. She hadn't been scared of me, so there was no reason for me to be scared. I knew-rather felt- that I would never hurt her, so letting myself get mad, have an argument, wasn't the end of the world because I knew I wouldn't do something I'd regret. And having her not fear me felt surprisingly good. After having thrown her across a room and knowing what I had done, for her not to be scared to stand up to me, to argue with me, was just so new I didn't know what to do about it. She had made me feel normal, I suppose, which was comical considering I was anything but.
After the exhausting day, I had almost all but forgotten about the fever that had started to manifest itself earlier today. It was an odd occurrence, considering I never got sick, but I supposed there was always a first for everything. It suddenly came back, with startling force, as if to punish me for not taking notice earlier on. Not only was I unbearably hot, I was terribly itchy too. I let my heavy lids close, hopping that I would be able to sleep in so much discomfort.
"Derek." I pushed myself farther into my pillow; sure I must be dreaming that voice. "Derek." The voice said again, still softly but with more volume than the first, this time accompanied with a tap at the door. I opened my eyes slowly, blinking back the much needed sleep that I hadn't expected to get. Her scent suddenly filled my nostrils and I knew I couldn't be dreaming. I got up a bit unsteadily and went to answer the door, trying to prepare myself for the third round in my Chloe-fied day.
Wow, this one was long. I'm not sure if Derek sounds too angsty or if I completely killed this by dragging it out so much. Tell me what you think. R&R please :)