The burn in his lungs was familiar, but this was a lot more high stakes than Coach making him do more suicides if he failed the first set. This was he'd be eaten if he failed running. He could feel the heart pounding through his chest, reverberating into his throat and making it feel impossible to take deep breaths to feed his starving lungs. His body was trying to tell him to slow down, stop, it's too much! But he couldn't.
He kept pounding through the woods, jumping over logs and boulders, dips in the land, to try to live. Just a little further, just keep going and maybe he'll come, maybe he'll get up and come save the human's life. Surely he was close enough to hear the human's heartbeat, smell his fear, as the werewolf behind him snarled and slowed its gait enough to keep up with the teenager, but enjoy the chase and sharp tang of his emotions in the air.
"Derek!" He screamed, arms flailing to keep himself upright as he slipped along the muddying Earth. The clearing was close; he could see the claw marks on the trees from where Derek, Zane and Brenna took turns training Scott. He just had to get to the clearing where the dilapidated Hale house sat, and he would be fine… as long as Derek was home.
The rain was pelting harder, slapping into his skin and making his clothes feel heavier on his body. Stupid, freakin' rain! It was all because of the weather. He wouldn't have been caught alone near the preserve if the rain hadn't caused the dirt road to get slippery with mud. As he drove back into town from visiting the library two towns over to get more books on lycanthropy, he wouldn't have skidded out and blown a tire in the middle of the weather, and then been stalked by a crazy werewolf if it weren't for the rain.
He was at least grateful that it wasn't the forecasted snow hitting already in early November. Then he really would've been screwed. He wouldn't be able to run in snow. He'd have been nothing more than a red smear sinking into the layers of ice.
The clearing was a bit of a blessing as he came up on the back of the Hale house, his legs giving out as soon as he skidded to a stop. His hands and knees were soaked through with mud now, the thick substance feeling gooey as he tried to inch his way back. The werewolf looked like Derek's Beta form on steroids, with black hair and even blacker eyes. He smiled – or what Stiles likened to a smile – predatorily as he stalked forward slowly on his hands and feet.
Stiles' breath misted in the air, shuddering out as the cold began to seep into his skin, his body, as the adrenaline quickly purged itself from him.
He was going to die.
"That was fun, little lamb. You worked my appetite up good." The wolf licked his chops, and Stiles was more terrified by that imagery than being insulted at the lamb remark.
"L-look, you don't want to eat me. I eat a lot of fatty foods, a lot of salt; I probably won't taste very good. How about a nice bunny rabbit? They eat carrots and greenery, I bet. I'm sure they taste like deep fried vegetables. Good for the growing werewolf. Go find Thumper!" Stiles stuttered out in a nervous tirade, falling back to rest on his butt as he searched blindly for any sort of dry patch that he could fist and throw at the wolf before taking off in a run.
He might be about to die, but he wasn't going to be easy about it. Much as he was in other areas of his life, he was going to be the biggest pain in the ass he could be. He owed it to his father, who he was about to leave alone. Wife – dead in fiery car crash. Son – torn apart by a 'cougar'. His father was going to end up an alcoholic, lose his job, the town would go to hell, and it'd all be because it just hadto rain today.
The wolf was tensing, leaning his weight forward on his hands and getting ready to push off, when he suddenly looked above Stiles. Stiles was nervous about looking away immediately, tilting his head up without removing his gaze from the wolf in case it was a trick. However, the wolf seemed riveted on something and was quickly growing agitated, so Stiles chanced darting his eyes up quickly.
Derek stood at the jagged mouth of his house's second story, fully morphed into a pissed off Beta. With an angry roar, he flipped into the air in one fluid movement, landing crouched in front of Stiles' shocked and relieved self.
The wolves growled at one another, trying to menace the other to back off.
"I saw him first, he's my food!" The encroacher slammed his hands down in rage, showing his canines to assert dominance.
Derek didn't back down, snapping out in his deepened voice, "He's my pack!"
It was that which started the fight. Stiles slid backwards, flattening him against the rotting porch foundation as the two snarled at one another, clawing open flesh and snapping at necks as they rolled in the mud. If only they weren't trying to kill him, he might enjoy the sight… and also if they were two girls in bikinis instead of two dude werewolves.
Stiles thought it would last longer, that it'd be some epic battle that lasted hours between the two Betas trying to assert dominance over the other, but it didn't. In reality, it took less than a couple of minutes, about as long as it took for Stiles to completely crash from his adrenaline rush.
Derek's teeth sunk into the other wolf's neck before yanking back. Stiles watched as Derek spat the chunk of flesh and blood and muscle to the ground, letting the wolf form fall to the ground dead. He slowly began shifting back to human, his neck literally missing a chunk!
Stiles could see the pulse throbbing its last beats, see the convulsions of his throat, his actual throat, as he tried reflexively to swallow while he died… and promptly twisted to the side to throw up the chili cheese dog and Cheeto's he'd had after the library.
He dry heaved as Derek wiped to blood from his mouth with his shirt, morphing human again and looking disdainfully upon Stiles. "C'mon." He growled, fisting the material of Stiles' shirt on his shoulder and heaving him into a standing position. He practically had to help the teen walk until they were in the confines of his house.
Stiles paced nervously, his hands shaking as he ran them along his buzzed hair, feeling the points scratch at his sensitized flesh. This was so messed up. So messed up. "It's getting worse." He muttered, though he knew Derek could hear him. "They're hunting now. It's getting worse."
"We'll take care of it. Brenna and Zane will put out word that Beacon Hills is claimed."
"It's not going to matter though because it's not an Alpha claiming it, you said so yourself a few months ago when this started happening. 'They'll come to challenge it for themselves', that's what you said." He rounded, pausing in his pacing to stare at Derek. He looked completely relaxed, leaning casually against the wall with his arms across his chest. He looked wholly unaffected at having just ripped someone's throat out with his teeth. Literally! Now that he'd seen him do it, Stiles wasn't ready to piss off the wolf who favored that threat when Stiles was particularly irritating.
"We're taking care of it." Derek's tone ended the conversation before it could even really become one. "Where's your car?"
"I don't know. I blew a tire and when I was getting out to change it, Kujo came out of nowhere." Stiles shrugged, feeling the exhaustion creep up on him.
"I'll call Zane and Brenna out here, have them look for it and drive it back to your house after a sweep of the woods." Derek shrugged his jacket on over his wet and muddied clothes, grabbing his keys from the pocket. "I'll drive you home."
Stiles took the pity where he could get it, not about to argue to go look for his car and drive home himself, because he was pretty sure he'd pass out against the wheel at this point.
The rain seemed to be tapering off slowly on the drive from the preserve into town. By the time they passed the animal hospital where Scott's bike was chained up, the sun was even trying to come back out for the last few hours of light. The heat in the car was helping to dry him a little, his skin feeling tight and the mud splotches all over him making his clothes feel hard. The rain was only spitting as the silent drive came to an end in front of Stiles' house.
His father's cruiser was gone, luckily, so he didn't have to explain where his car was, why he was full of mud, or why he was still shaking. He could go in, strip off his clothes, take a hot shower and then collapse into bed with no parental disapproval. He searched around his feet out of habit for his tattered backpack, only to remember he'd left it – along with all his schoolwork, the library books, his files (including a sparse one on the man sitting next to him) and everything else he held dear – in his Jeep currently sitting in the middle of the woods, vulnerable. His poor baby.
"Uh, thanks." Stiles said awkwardly, angling his body to get out of the car. He was about to close the door when a random bit of information from Derek's file popped into his head. A date: November 7, 1988. Bending down to look in the Camaro, he waited for Derek's annoyed self to actually look at him. "By the way, happy birthday." Without waiting for a response, he closed the door and began a slow walk up to the house.
He supposed he'd surprised the wolf, because he managed to find the spare key, wiggle the unused metal into the lock, get in the house, close the door and peel off his plaid over shirt before the rumble of the Camaro suddenly got louder with movement, and faded away.
The last year certainly had been hell on his nerves. Now they had to worry about two separate sects of rival werewolves. Ones looking to claim the territory and the others who were looking to join Peter's pack, with one of the formers having just tried to make him a snack. At least he was home now. Nothing surprising or life threatening would happen here.
He trudged into the kitchen, grateful for hardwood floors and not carpet as mud trekked behind him. He'd clean it up after he showered. Or just listen to his father's rant after he came home to see the smears and find his son unconscious in bed. He wasn't sure which option he'd go with at this point.
The plan was to get the water bottle, go up to his room and swallow a fistful of Ibuprofen before going to sleep. However, he got as far as the water bottle, before he froze on his way out of the kitchen.
The niggling feeling in his stomach as he stood motionless in the door way between the kitchen and the dining room was like a strange sense of déjà vu from ten months ago. Back then, he had drunk from the carton of milk before spotting his father in his peripheral, working hard at the Hale case. Son had plied father with alcohol for the following hour trying to get information on how he was proceeding to make sure he wasn't getting too close to the truth.
Now though, the figure had long brown hair trailing down her back. She was looking at the picture frames on the hutch that his mother used to use for cookbooks and that his father now used for alcohol.
"Who…" He barely got the word out before she turned her head just the slightest to give him her profile. He dropped his water bottle, the feeling of being punched in the gut reverberating through his body and firing off synapses in his brain as his memories lit up when the most familiar scent hit him. It was ingrained from a long time ago, a time that he'd put to rest and moved on from, had dealt with the grief as best he could.
"Mommy?"
BOOM! Who didn't see that coming? I'm giggling like mad right now. I love love love that everyone thought the mystery person was Scott's dad! Lol. Anyways, I hope you've enjoyed this chapter. The next one might not be out 'til Sunday evening, maybe Monday. I'm going upstate to stay with my father for a month on Saturday, so the next couple of days will be super busy. I'm leaning towards Sunday evening - unless the Saints lose the playoff game against the Lions on Saturday night and I spend all of Sunday bitter and drunk.
Hope you're all having a good one and enjoying this! Thank you so much for reading. I truly appreciate anyone that takes the time to inspect my story or continue to read it or review. It means the world.