Derek's POV

I woke up groggily. Wherever I was, it was very soft. I opened my eyes to find myself in a twin bed. I looked around the room I was in. It was my bedroom at Tess' house. Chloe sat on the edge of my bed to my left. Dad and Simon were sitting in chairs to my right. Their focus was on a TV set up on the dresser. This had to be a dream, minutes ago I was sitting behind a warehouse. I lifted my left arm and pulled down the collar of my shirt to inspect my right shoulder. This wasn't a dream. There were stitches over the hole, I'd been unconscious for some time. I needed to be careful with how much I moved my arm. I let go of the collar and lifted the bottom of my shirt, stitches over that hole too. Which probably meant stitches inside on whatever got damaged.

I slowly tried to sit up but was hit by a massive wave of pain.

"Nope," I said and let myself lay back down.

They turned around.

"Whoa there," Dad held up a hand telling me not to move.

"Derek," Chloe smiled shyly. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying. But still there was something so pure. So innocent about her in that moment.

I reached out for her hand and rubbed my thumb across the back of hers.

"I missed you," I said.

"How do you feel?" Dad asked interrupting our little moment.

"Like hell," I said. "How long have I been out?"

"A day or so?" Simon guessed. "We brought you to the nearest hospital and got you stitched up. They wanted to keep you for observation but we snuck you out and brought you home."

"What happened to the subjects?" I asked.

"Some of them came with us, some we don't know. They disappeared when everything went down." Chloe said.

I studied Chloe for a minute.

"What?" She asked.

"How are you?" I asked. I knew what she was going to say, and I knew it was going to be a lie. There was no way to walk away what she had been through unscathed. Especially when family is involved.

"I'm fine," she lied.

Chloe's pov YESTERDAY AFTERNOON

They brought Derek in for surgery immediately. Now wasn't really the time for us to be picky about the werewolf gene blood thing. Derek needed help. We sat in the hospital room that they told us they would bring him to afterwards.

We sat in silence for some time. By we, I mean me, Simon, and Kit. Tess had brought everyone else home to the safe house. Apparently they had brought Nate and some werewolves with them but none of us had seen them since the building collapse.

Kit broke the silence, "If you want to talk about what happened-"

"-I don't," I interrupted.

I turned to look out the window as a tear fell down my cheek. How was I supposed to casually talk about family betrayal and changing species? Especially at a time like this with Derek on the brink of disaster.

Simon set a hand on my arm gently to try to comfort me. He wasn't going to pretend to know what I'd been through.

Kit started coughing and eventually said between coughs, "I'm going to get some water," Then left the room.

The moment he did, I turned to Simon and buried my face in his shirt. Sobbing. He put an arm around me and allowed me to just let it all out for a few minutes.

Eventually he said, "Are you going to change?"

Werewolves can change from intense emotional experiences/outbursts, so I didn't blame him for thinking that might happen.

"No," I said into his soaked shirt. "Never."

"What?" Simon asked. Pulling me backwards so he could look into my eyes.

"I'm just a necromancer," I said. Then crumpled back into his shirt sobbing. Something about saying it out loud made it hurt even worse.

PRESENT DAY Chloe's pov

"I know you're lying," Derek said to me.

How was I supposed to tell him? I couldn't bring myself to do it.

"I'm alive, therefore I'm fine," I said.

Tess came into the room, interrupting Derek's disagreement. She had a plate of food and glass of water. She set it on the bed beside Derek.

"Eat," she instructed.

"I'm not hungry," Derek said.

"I don't care," Tess brushed his hair from his face so she could feel his forehead. "You're going to eat either way you just had surgery done, you need to build your strength back up."

Kit offered to go help her distribute food to everyone else and left with her. Simon helped Derek sit up against a pile of pillows so he could eat. I thought back to the trays of food that would be handed through my cell door a few times a day and I lost any appetite that I had. I knew I would walk away from this with some trust issues, but distrusting food? I didn't see that one coming. But I guess it made sense since that's how they dosed my up quite often.

Derek's attention was turned back on my lie.

"What happened to you in there?"

"Could you be any more blunt?" I asked back. I looked down at the comforter where I was fiddling with a loose strand. Both of the boys had their attention fully on me. I sighed. "They had failed experiments there to fix their mistakes. Take our powers away like they tried to in the first place." I lifted my shirt, exposing my stomach with the incision scars. "They did...stuff...to figure out ways to take our powers."

Derek gently pulled on my arm until I scooted over and sat beside him. He wrapped his arm around me, not saying a word.

"I'm sorry," Derek said finally.

Simon didn't say anything, he just waited for me to tell Derek. I didn't want to, I looked at him pleading for him to say it.

"There's something else," Simon said.

Derek glanced between both of us, "What?"

"They were successful," I said quietly.

Derek shook his head, "No, you accessed magic in the courtyard."

"Derek," Simon finally caved and saved me from saying it. "She accessed necromancy magic."

"Ok, and?"

Simon ran his hands through his hair, "Derek, they were successful. Chloe's not werewolf anymore."

"What?" Derek's arm dropped from around me. He was afraid to touch me.