AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Guess who is finally 15! ME! I am so excited it is not even funny! I was 14 while everyone else in my grade was 15 and some are even turning 16 but now I'm caught up with them (sort of... until they all turn 16 *sad sigh*) And for my b-day I went to The Smart Chicks tour and got to see Kelley Armstrong in person! It was so cool! And I got a little Derek buttom (It's so cute!).

Now, getting back to normal. I know this wasn't supposed to be posted until tomorrow, but tomorrow is going to be hectic for me, so I'm posting it a day early. I'm sure you won't care. I would also like to thank everyone who reviewed, I love you all. I'm so happy to see that some of you followed me over from A Werewolf In The Making and I'm glad that you liked the first chapter. And I'm happy to see people who I have never seen before reviewing for my story, I love you too. Thank you so much everyone, you're the reason I love writing. And without further ado I present to you Chapter 2.

Disclaimer: I don't own Darkest Powers, but maybe someday Kelley will give it to me... A girl can dream.

Warning: Kind of long chapter, with an itty-bitty-bit of gore, just a little bit, no worries.

Chapter 2: Broken

Chloe jumped off the bed and ran for Jessa, followed by Derek, Simon, and Tori. Jessa was standing in the little bit off hall space between the door to their room and the main room where the beds were, shrieking her head off while gazing into the bathroom with a look of complete horror on her face. Chloe glanced into the bathroom without thinking, and as soon as she saw what was inside a scream of fear burst through her mouth.

Then it was as if Time stopped making sense, like Chloe was having an out of body experience and everything seemed to move too fast and too slow at the same time. She was screaming and looking into the bathroom for the longest time, but at the same time it felt like it was just seconds. Then Derek was yanking her away from the door that led to the bathroom and she was no longer looking at the horror within.

And then as if out of nowhere she was suddenly being cradled by Derek on one of the beds, curled up in his arms like an infant as he rocked her back and forth gently, his huge strong body protecting her. And she was crying because she could still see it, could still see the bathroom inside her head and it didn't want to leave and she knew it wasn't going to leave and that she would have to live with that image in her head for the rest of her life. She cried because the image scared her like nothing had ever scared her before. She closed her eyes, burying her head into Derek's chest, trying to block out the image, but it wouldn't leave.

Blood... so much blood, dripping down the walls, filling the sink and the tub, covering the floor. The eyes... all of them staring at her, all of them glassy and lifeless. And the bodies... The bodies of kids, no older than toddlers, littering the floor, propped against the walls, no longer living...

Chloe sobbed and scrunched up her eyes, trying not to think about it, but the harder she tried the more she thought about it.

"It's okay, Chloe, it's okay." Derek was rubbing her back, holding her to him tightly, whispering nonsense to her, trying to calm her down, "It's okay, it's okay, everything's going to be alright, it'll be alright." No, it won't, she thought, no it won't. They're already dead. They're gone and they lost their lives before they even started. It's not alright. It's not, it's not, it's not...

But she let Derek comfort her even though he was wrong because she needed him and he made her feel better.

Once most of the tears were gone, Chloe peeked her head out from Derek and saw Simon holding Jessa the same way as Derek was holding her. Jessa wasn't crying, but Chloe saw the wetness on her cheeks and knew that she had been. Jessa was pale and shivering, and only then did Chloe notice that she was shivering too, and the cold hit her hard, making her feel like a leaf in the breeze. Derek circled a blanket around her tiny body and held her close to him, rubbing her, trying to make her warm.

"How are they?" Kit's voice penetrated the heavy silence in the room. Chloe jumped when she heard his voice, and Derek tightened his arms around her even more. She turned her head to find a very concerned Aunt Lauren and Kit standing in their room. When did they get there? How did Chloe not notice their presence?

"Are you feeling better?" Derek was looking into her eyes, searching for something she didn't know of. Chloe didn't answer, because she didn't know, or care. How could you care about something so trivial as your feelings when mere babies had been murdered?

Her face must have said something about the horror that was still playing inside of her, because Derek just gently pressed her face against his chest again and he continued to rub her back soothingly.

"Chloe? Jessa?" It was Kit again, "Can you tell us what you saw?"

Chloe knew that what she and Jessa had saw was a residual, a scene that was forever imprinted in that room because it was so awful. She knew that only her and Jessa saw it because they were necromancers (part necromancer in Jessa's case) and that only they could see the horror that laid just through the wall of the very motel room they were staying in. Such a normal room, so ordinary and bland, it gave no hint to the fact that it held a dark secret. But the others couldn't see what they did, all they knew that whatever it was was horrible.

Chloe moved her head so she could see Jessa. Jessa was looking back at her, her bright green eyes looking haunted, her face pale, so much paler than it usually was, sickly pale; it scared Chloe to see her like that. And yet somehow, Chloe knew she was wearing the exact same expression. But she kept her eyes on Jessa, not wanting to look at anyone else when she answered Kit, because she didn't want to see their reactions.

"There was blood... everywhere..." The image flashed in her mind's eye again and she started shaking again. Jessa's face turned green, and Simon dove for the trash bin sitting beside the bed and held Jessa's hair back from her face as she got sick in it.

The room was quiet as they all listened to Jessa gagging and retching. Chloe's own stomach became uneasy, and she began to wonder if maybe she would need a trash bin, but she managed to control the queasy feeling, all she had to do was think of it as if it were a movie. How many times had she watched gore filled films and laughed about it? Now that the gore was real (or at least real to her) she suddenly no longer found such a thing funny. But she continued to pretend that it was all fake, and started to think about how she and her set managers would go around creating such a scene: what props would she use, how would they place the blood, who to use as the children... not real, not real, not real...

"They were just kids." Jessa lifted her head up from the bin, and stared at nothing with far away eyes, "Just babies, no more than toddlers. So many of them... and they were looking at me... But they were already gone..." She shuddered and started to cry again. Simon - pale, now that he realized what they had seen- wrapped his arms around her and started to stroked her hair gently.

Derek looked down at Chloe with worried eyes, and she didn't know why. What did he think she was going to do? Go and cut herself or something? She was fine. Scarred, freaked out, scared, horrified, but fine. She was a necromancer, she would be dealing with this her whole life, she had to be fine, she had to be able to brush something like this off like it was nothing and move on because if she didn't she would break and once you're broken there's no putting you back together.

And as soon as she thought that she knew that was what Derek was worried about. She knew that he was thinking the same thing that she was: that she would be seeing this the rest of her life. She would be seeing things no one was ever meant to see, things so horrible that the universe itself couldn't heal the wounds they created. He was worried that she would break, that she would go mad from her 'gift' and after what she saw, she wasn't sure if she could hold off the madness if horrors were always going to be waiting for her in the most unsuspecting places, like a bathroom in a motel. Maybe she would lose her mind, maybe one day she would see something that would push her over the edge and she would be gone forever... broken forever...

She shivered at the thought. No, that wasn't going to happen. She couldn't do that to Derek, she couldn't go mad and leave him to deal with a person that was the ghost of herself, she just couldn't.

She shifted herself in Derek's lap, turning sideways and tucking her head underneath his chin. Derek kissed her head and kept his arms around her. Chloe looked at the rest of her group. Tori was standing in silent horror, Simon was comforting Jessa, Jessa had stopped crying and was calming down again, and Aunt Lauren and Kit were looking at each other in shock, both of them wanting the other to decide what to do now.

"We should all go to bed." Chloe said, deciding to be strong and take action, brushing the whole thing off.

...Not real, not real, not real...

Everyone but Jessa looked at her in surprise. Aunt Lauren said in a concerned voice, "Chloe, are you sure? Wouldn't it be better if we switched motels-"

"No." Chloe cut her off, "I've had enough of driving for one day, we can still stay here."

"But what if you want to use the bathroom?" Tori asked, eyeing the door to the dreaded thing like it was a squished spider.

"We can switch rooms with someone." Jessa said quietly. Chloe looked at her friend and was glad to see that the haunted look in her eyes was fading as she came back to reality. Jessa looked back at her, and smiled weakly and Chloe knew that she was trying to be strong, trying to get over what she had seen, trying to be the protector again, not the protected.

"They can have our room." Simon said quickly, and Derek agreed just as quick. And just like that the problem was solved.

Chloe unfolded herself from Derek and slid off the bed and onto her feet. Jessa did the same with Simon, and once both girls were free from their boyfriends, they hugged.

A lot was said in that hug. It said that it was all going to be okay, that neither of them were alone, that the other would always have their back, that no matter what happened they had to stick together and make sure the other didn't break, because inside each girl knew that if she let the other break, then she would break as well.

In that hug Chloe forgot all the jealousy she felt for Jessa, forgot all the things Jessa could bring out of Derek that she herself couldn't, forgot all of her beauty, and for the first time in a long time, all she thought about was the girl that was her friend and whom she loved like a sister and Chloe made a silent promise to always protect her, no matter what happened.

Chloe knew Jessa would never steal Derek away from her, she knew that, and any thought she put towards that idea was a waste of time and stress and just made her an idiot. Jessa was her friend, a good friend, having almost given up her life a few months ago to protect her, and it was time that Chloe started to be a good friend back.

The girls stepped away from each other and collected the few items they brought into the motel with them. Then without a backwards glance, they both walked past the bathroom door and out of the room.

Chloe turned over on the bed she was sharing with Tori, trying to find a more comfortable position, but in reality she knew that even if she found the most comfortable position in the world she still wouldn't be able to sleep.

Most of that had to do with the fact that no matter how tough she tried to be, no matter how indifferent she tired to act, she still couldn't get the bathroom horror out of her mind. It was forever burned into her brain. When they had switched rooms with the guys, Chloe noticed right away that the rooms looked exactly the same, like most rooms at motels did. And so she had tried to prepare herself when she walked into the bathroom to brush her teeth, but seeing the little room that looked just like the one from before freaked her out and the details came crashing back to her. She had ran out of the bathroom quickly, and ended up having to brush her teeth with her eyes closed, and even then her body was crawling with chills, but she had to be strong.

Another reason why she couldn't sleep had to do with the fact that this was the first night in about four months that Chloe had gone to sleep without Derek right by her side. After Jessa had been attacked Jessa had been plagued with nightmares, and so she had asked Derek if he could switch bedrooms with her at night so she could sleep with Simon. Derek of course consulted Chloe before agreeing, and when he told Jessa he didn't care, Chloe was given the gift of falling asleep with Derek's arms around her every night.

Nobody but Tori knew about this arrangement, which meant that they had kept it a secret from Kit and Aunt Lauren because everyone knew they wouldn't approve. And they kept it hidden by having both Jessa and Derek wake up early each morning and sneak back into their assigned rooms, that way none of the adults ever walked in one morning and found one of the couples sleeping together.

Chloe had known all day that this was coming, that she would have to spend the night without Derek with her, and she had accepted that. But then the bathroom fiasco happened and now she wasn't even sure if she could sleep, and if she did, she knew she would have nightmares. At least she didn't have to worry about raising the kids in her sleep. The killer would have had to have been caught and the bodies of the kids buried in some cemetery far away from her...

But then she remembered the small meadow behind the hotel. What if the killer wasn't caught, what if he had taken the broken bodies of the kids and buried them in the meadow behind the motel and cleaned the room and no one ever knew what had happen? What if she had a nightmare about the kids and she accidently raised them? How would she know before someone found the zombies? She wouldn't know and that was the problem.

Now she really couldn't sleep. If she dreamed about the kids she could wake them, and she didn't want to do that to the poor things, not after their brutal murders.

Chloe sat up in her bed, refusing to allow herself to sleep.

"Are you okay?" Jessa's voice floated over to her from the other bed in the room. Chloe just barely held in her shriek of panic, somehow thinking that her friend was a zombie, and turned her head to see a flash of Jessa's green eyes in the dark. "Chloe?"

"I'm fine, you scared me." She laid a hand over her heart, feeing as it pounded frantically in her chest.

She glanced at Jessa, and realized that her friend was just as awake as she was, the only one who was asleep was Tori. Chloe realized that Jessa was going through the same thing that she was. Jessa was haunted by the same thing she was and she was missing Simon from her bed, both of which was probably bothering her as much as it was bothering Chloe. The only thing that differed between them was that Jessa didn't have to worry about raising the dead in her sleep since her necromancer powers were at a normal level and not totally out of control.

"Can't sleep?" Chloe asked, smiling ruefully.

"No." Jessa sighed, "I miss Simon."

"I miss Derek." Both girls spent a silent moment between them missing their boys.

"Well how come we can't go get them?" Jessa asked suddenly, "I mean, if it would help us sleep."

Chloe frowned, "What about Tori?"

Jessa was already getting out of bed, shivering as the air pierced her tank top and basketball shorts, "We can move her, she wouldn't care, in fact she'll thank us if we tell her we made out with them and stuff, she hates that." And then Jessa was heading out of their room and across the hall to the guy's room.

In less than a minute Derek was in the room, and Chloe's thoughts took on a happier tone. He smiled at her, but moved to Tori and picked her up in his arms and left to go put her in the guy's room. Simon and Jessa entered after Derek left, both of them talking quietly, Chloe unable to make out the words. Then Derek was back in the room and was getting under the covers beside her.

They had long gotten past the point of awkwardness when it came to sharing a bed, and they had it down to a routine. She snuggled up against his chest and he wrapped his arms around her.

"I couldn't sleep." She murmured, as a way of apology.

"It's okay, I couldn't sleep either." Chloe hid a smile at his words, happy that he couldn't sleep without her. "So what's wrong?"

And Chloe told him quietly how she kept seeing the bathroom and how she was worried that maybe the killer hadn't been caught and that the kid's could be buried outside the hotel or something. Derek listened the whole time, his face serious.

"You don't have to worry about raising them, Chloe." Derek murmured, staring at the wall as he thought how to phrase what he was going to say, "After what happened I was curious about it so I took the laptop and researched the motel." Derek looked at her, his eyes studying her, trying to see what she thought of him prying into what scared her so much, "It happened ten years ago, Chloe, the guy who did it was caught and sentenced for life, the bodies were returned to the parents. They aren't buried behind the building, you don't have to worry about raising them." She breathed a sigh of relief. It didn't surprise her that Derek researched it, he was always curious and was always hunting for more info, she would've been more surprised if he didn't.

"You can sleep now, Chloe." He said bluntly. And there was Derek wondering why she wasn't sleeping, even after he had been brought over from his room to be with her. Those kind of remarks used to bug her until she understood that Derek thought conventionally: if you're tired, you sleep; if you're hungry, you eat. Now that he knew that her fears were set to rest, she could sleep and he was confused as to why she was still awake, even if he wasn't admitting it.

"Be quiet, I'm thinking." She whispered, and really she was, she was marveling at the fact that she had still managed to find a way to sleep with Derek after thinking all day that she wouldn't be able to. It filled her with a mischievous glee, made her feel kind of like a secret agent or something else that was cheesy but every kid wants to be at some point in life, like a ninja.

Derek watched her think for a while, and she could tell that he tried, he really tried, but in the end he couldn't help it, his natural curiosity getting the better of him, "What are you thinking about?" he asked.

She, of course, wasn't going to tell him about how she felt like a ninja, that was embarrassing, so she spoke the first thing that came to her mind, "I'm trying to figure out how Jessa can sleep with Simon snoring in her ear like that." And they both spent a moment listening to Simon snore rather loudly from the other bed.

Derek smiled at her, "Werewolves get used to hearing lots of things when they sleep, you just sort of learn to block it all out, reacting only to the uncommon noises, like a creaking floorboard or an opening door."

She frowned at him, "You do that when you sleep?"

"It's easy, I don't even have to think about it anymore, it's just instinctive now. I react to possible threats not my brother's snoring, simple really." Derek smiled again at her face.

"Yeah, real simple." Chloe shook her head.

"You need to sleep." Derek murmured seriously.

With a sigh Chloe realized that not only did she need to sleep, but so did Derek. After the whole bathroom scene and him being helpless to help her, let alone see what she was seeing, his nerves were frayed and he was worried about her again. She knew that he wouldn't fall asleep until she did, so she had better hurry up and sleep so he could get some rest.

She scooted closer to him, laying her head on his chest, feeling how warm it was, thinking about how warm it was, imagining the warm traveling from Derek to her, how that warmth would spread throughout her body, making her whole being warm. And soon her eyes were getting heavy and her breathing was slowing and her mind was entering that limbo of consciousness and unconsciousness.

And in minutes she was asleep and dreaming of giant packing-peanut mountains that she was sledding down, and not once did the dead kid's enter her mind.

Okay people, that promise Chloe makes when she hugs Jessa is VERY IMPORTANT for later chapters (*cough cough* foreshadowing *cough*). And I feel like I'm hitting Chloe's character better in this chapter, like I'm getting used to writing in her point of view. Let me know if Chloe and/or Derek seem OOC because if they do, let me know how to fix it, because I can't handle fanfics with OOC characters, it bugs me like nothing else does.

Please review, I want to know what you think of my new story so far! We're not into the plot yet, I'm still trying to find a way to work up to it, but I promise it's going to be good.

Thanks- Cheerfully Blue