Its late and I'm exhausted. Derek laid passed out beside me. I tried so hard to focus on staying away but it grew harder by the minute.

I blink.

I'm standing in some woods. The sweet coppery smell of blood is somewhere near me. I follow it, surprisingly stealthy for how clumsy of a person I am. The smell gets stronger, there is specs of blood along leaves of bushes. I push through the bushes, a possum lay before me. Holes in it's back from teeth. From fangs. Blood oozes from the wounds as the possum is dying but I don't do anything to help. I just stare at the blood. Longingly.

I gasped, bolting up from the bed. I scared Derek in the process and woke him up.

"Hey hey whoa, where's the fire?"

I was drenched in sweat. I'm ok, I'm ok, I told myself.

"You don't seem ok," Derek rubbed my back. "Whats going on?"

"Bad dream," I said.

"About what?"

I saw the image of the possum at my feet and how I wanted the blood that the ground greedily took away from me.

"Did it have something to do with a possum?" Derek asked.

"How did you know?"

Derek shrugged, "I just pictured one."

I couldn't deny it, "Somethings going on Derek. I swear we're reading each others thoughts."

Derek yawned, "You've barely been sleeping Chloe. Don't think I haven't noticed. You're just having a little bit of an overactive imagination." He pulled me back down. "Sleep babe."

I curled up against his chest, dream or not, the fact that I saw that and felt that; I was scared of what I might become. Slowly I drifted back off to a restless sleep.

I yawned as I woke up.

"Morning," Derek said.

I blurted the first thing that came to my waking brain.

"Nate is still pushing for me to go back with him."

"Oh."

I definitely had caught him off guard.

"Well what are you thinking of doing?" He asked.

"I don't see why I would want to go with him," I said honestly. "All my friends are here, together, why break it up?"

Derek nodded, glad to hear me say I wanted to stay with him.

We went downstairs, Derek must have let me sleep in some because everyone was already up and busy. I picked up a box of cereal. It had sounded good. But as I stood here looking at it, cereal wasn't appealing at all. Pain started to resurface in my stomach. Cereal wasn't what my body wanted.

"Maybe you weren't imagining things last night," Derek said behind me.

"What?" I jumped.

"I can hear your disgust with that cereal," Derek said. "You're right, something is up."

I laughed, Derek wasn't always the joking type.

"Whats so funny?"

I stopped, "You're serious?"

Derek nodded.

I set the box down, "We should go talk to Matt."

Derek grabbed my arm, "No." he panicked. "We don't breathe a word of this until we understand what is going on."

"I promised to keep him in the loop," I told Derek.

"Please? Just give me a day or two to figure it out?"

I sighed, "Ok."

The pain shifted to the feeling of needing to throw up. I excused myself from the kitchen and went into Tess' bathroom. Away from prying ears. I promptly threw up into the toilet and as quick as I could, got rid of the evidence. As I washed my hands, I examined myself in the mirror. My eyes seemed a little redder than usual. I chalked it up to lack of sleep.

I inhaled sharply against more abdominal pain as I was drying my hands. Before I could really react to it, Derek came through the door with Simon. There really must be something psychological going on if he knew something was wrong.

"Whats wrong?" Derek asked.

"I'm fine," I replied.

"No you're not," Simon knelt down in front of me.

The pain subsided for the moment.

"I'm fine," I repeated with a little more confidence.

We went back to the kitchen, I forced down a bowl of cereal. Both of the boys watched me out of the corner of their eyes.

"Is she on suicide watch again?" Tor entered the room

Derek growled at her.

She chuckled, "You don't scare me anymore. I have magic."

I found myself tuned out of the conversation, my focus was on the loud pounding veins in Tori's neck. I needed Matt before I did something bad.