Stella's POV

I cautiously stepped outside the apartment and knocked on the neighbours' door, and kept my fingers crossed that someone would be home. I'd ransacked the entire apartment and had no luck whatsoever locating my phone. Two hours into the search, I remembered having downloaded an app on my phone in case it ever got lost – I guess it was time to use it now. The thing was – I needed an internet connection, which Derek didn't have.

A full minute had passed and the door still didn't open. I started to grow restless standing in the dimly lit hallway and knocked again, louder this time. The door opened a few moments later and revealed a fairly young man standing on the inside.

"Yes?" He looked confused to see me standing outside his door it seemed, and I don't blame him. Given my appearance, I would be skeptical about the 'me' standing outside the door too.

"Hi," I began, quite nervously I may add, "I was wondering if I could possibly borrow a computer. I need to locate my phone and I don't have internet and I'm sure my uncle's preparing to notify surrounding police services that he hasn't heard from me in two days now." When he didn't say anything, I added, "please?"

A few moments later, I was sat at a laptop, typing in my attention word into the site to activate the white siren ring that it was set to. As soon as I pressed enter, I could hear the shrill ringing of the siren through the wall.

I ran out of the apartment and into Derek's.

As I wandered closer into the hall, the siren was getting louder. It seemed to be coming from the bathroom – odd. Why would he hide it in there?

Well, the bathroom had been the one place I hadn't bothered to look, so I guess Derek's plan had worked.

I found it stashed inside a jar of cotton balls. Quickly fishing it out of there, I noticed that there was a figure standing in the bathroom doorway. I turned my head and saw the neighbour looking at me weird. I couldn't blame him. A jar of cotton balls was a strange place to lose a phone …

"Right then," I said, shifting his attention from the phone in my hand to my face. "Thank you for all your help …"

"Mark," he said.

"Mark," I repeated. "Thank you so much. You're an absolute life saver."

I hugged him in my excitement and even placed a kiss on his cheek. We walked out to the living room and after answering questions about who I was and why I was in Laura's apartment I managed to get rid of him.

Heading into the kitchen, I dialled my uncle. I had over 50 missed calls from him, about half a dozen from Stiles and even a few from Scott.

"Stella?" he answered on the first ring.

"I'm fine," I began only to be cut off.

"Oh thank God," my uncle exclaimed. "It's her," I heard him say. He obviously wasn't telling me that. "Where are you and why haven't you been answering your phone?" he asked.

"Erm …" I tried to think of something to say. God, at least I could've been smart enough to pre-think answers to all the questions that he could've possibly asked me. What was I supposed to tell him?

"I lost my phone," I said, quite abruptly might I add. "I just got another one and I know you would be worried so I called you the first chance I got."

There was silence from the other end. I thought maybe the call had disconnected until he spoke again a moment later.

"Alright," he said. I could tell he didn't really believe me. "Why didn't you tell me before you left? I've been really worried Stella."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I know I was wrong to just leave like this and then not call you for two days. I'm really really sorry."

"It's fine Stella," he said sighing. "Just don't do anything like this again. Do you have any idea of the possible things that I thought could've happened to you? There's an animal loose in town and I thought you could be dead. I just – don't ever do this again."

I nodded before realizing that I'm on the phone and that he can't see me.

"Never again I promise," I told him.

"Where are you right now? Are you okay?" he asked next.

"In the city," I answered. "I'm staying at a friend's and I'm looking for work and I promise I'll come back soon. Don't worry about me."

Wow. I really surprised myself at how fast I had come up with the lie. Not to mention how believable it really was.

"You never did tell me what happened to your old job," he said.

I sighed. I could picture him rubbing at his temple. If his job and Stiles weren't enough to worry about, now he had me to worry about too.

Why had I bothered to come to Beacon Hills? I was nothing but a burden on my uncle and he had enough to worry about with this "animal" on the loose. Had it not been for Stiles, I would've pigged out on ice cream and watched TV all day at home. But I love Stiles, and love makes you do stupid things and here I was – the result of one bloody phone call.

About my job … I'd honestly just hated the place where I was working. The job itself was fine but the people I was working with were complete asses. My boss was the biggest of the assholes and I didn't even have the words to describe how much I hated him.

"I promise I'll tell you everything when I get back," I finally answered.

"How long will that be?" he immediately asked.

"I'm not sure," I answered with uncertainty. It all depended on how fast Derek could track this 'Alpha' and 'save me'. Why was this thing after me again? I've barely even lived in Beacon Hills.

"Stella," he said. He sounded concerned.

"Yeah?"

"Take care of yourself."

"I will."

"And call me every day. I need to know you're fine."

"Will do," I assured him.

"So that means I'll talk to you tomorrow?"

"Yes sir," I said.

We finally hung up after saying our goodbyes.

I opened the fridge to look and hopefully find something to eat. But of course, nothing was magically going to appear; I'd only checked the fridge about 30 minutes ago. Same with the cupboards: nothing there.

I tried calling Derek, but he wasn't picking up. So I called the next best person, Stiles.

"I see Derek finally let you have you phone back," Stiles said before I could even say anything.

"I haven't heard from Derek in hours," I said. "What are you talking about?"

"It doesn't matter," Stiles said. "Where are you?"

"I honestly have no idea but at the moment, I'm in an apartment, which the neighbour told me belongs to Laura," I answered.

I honestly really didn't have any clue as to where I really was. I was in a city, but which one? The car ride had been so boring with Derek and not having had much sleep the night before; I'd fallen asleep and hadn't woken up until Derek had mumbled we had arrived.

"Well damn," Stiles said. "I thought maybe I could come by and keep you company or something sometime …"

"And you know damn well that, that is not a good idea," I said. "Where is Derek by the way? He's still not here, there's nothing in the place to eat and I'm starving."

"I dunno," Stiles said. "I haven't seen Derek at all today."

Hmm, that's weird. He'd told me he'd be going to Beacon Hills.

"Would he be with Scott?"

"No chance," Stiles replied. "Scott's with Allison."

"Well alright," I said, not knowing what to say. I was confused as to why Scott was still dating the Hunter's daughter. I mean, he's in constant danger if he's around her. What if he accidentally changed or something? Stiles had mentioned that Scott couldn't really control himself sometimes. He's really threading dangerous grounds by being with her.

"I'll talk to you later then," I said. "And if you hear from Derek let me know."

"Will do," Stiles said, "take care, Stel."

"You too, Stiles."

I hung up and made my way back to the living room. A little TV would have to do to kill time until Derek got back then.

[…]

I woke up unexpectedly in the middle of the night. I took in my surroundings before realizing that the TV was still on and I had fallen asleep on the sofa.

I grabbed my phone from the coffee table and made my way to the kitchen.

Pouring myself a glass of water and after gulping it down, I noticed that it was almost 2:30 in the morning. There was no message from Stiles telling me he'd heard from Derek.

I peeked into his room on the way to mine, to find the bed empty. Odd. Brooding werewolf was having a night out while I was starving.

Not wanting to listen to my growling stomach, I slipped under the cover of my temporary bed in the guest room.

Derek had better have found the Alpha if he was going to make me starve. Or he better be ready for me to kick his werewolf ass in the morning.

A/N: Hai there. Long time no see then. I'm sorry, I really am. I update and then go missing for a long time. And it's going to happen again. I'm sorry.

I'm trying to do things differently with this story now. Instead of skipping around to Derek and Stiles POVs, I'll be sticking mostly to Stella POVs. Unless of course you don't want me to change that, do let me know. I don't mean that you will never see Derek or Stiles POVs again, they will come back every now and then but I just don't think it's a good idea for me to be doing too many POVs at the same time or at least in the same chapter. So if you noticed, this chapter is Stella only.

What do you think about Stella btw? Her reaction to everything? To her current situation? Any ideas as to what her story could be?

Answer and guess away in the reviews. Reviews would really cheer me up right now, so please don't hesitate to leave your thoughts :)

xo,
Neena :)