Chapter 20: The Father II
One upside to a family dinner with a federal agent and an ER-nurse was the stories. Aunt Mel and Joe's dad went to the extremes in trying to upstage each other with the stupidest criminal vs. stupidest accident. Scott had to loudly ask his mom to stop when the other people in the restaurant gave them side-eyed look at the story of the man with an action figure up his...you get the gist.
Aunt Mel giggled into her napkin so her bright lipstick smeared, while Joe's dad sniggered into his beer glass. Times like these always made Joe uncertain if she wanted to have a sibling or if she should feel blessed to escape it. At least she had Scott and their relationship seemed healthier than the unconditional love, but also occasional intense hatred between Rob and Melissa Delgado, now McCall.
"God, Rob, I don't know how to thank you for the dinner," Aunt Mel said without sarcasm when they were on desserts. They were all dressed to the nines — Scott back in the suit he'd worn to the Winter Formal, while Joe and Aunt Mel wore sombre dresses and even makeup. "This was delicious!"
"Who knew you could find fine dining in Beacon Hills?" Joe's dad said with a wink and Joe rolled her eyes. He had always made jabs at Aunt Mel for moving into a remote town like this when they all originally hailed from bigger cities. "It's all my pleasure. It's been a while since I saw you all, nice to get a chance to catch up."
Scott and Aunt Mel fell silent, both glancing at Joe like she wouldn't notice.
"You can say it, dad." Joe stirred the spoon into her machine-made cappucino. "Everyone knows it's because of me."
It was her fault her dad hadn't been able to visit. It was her fault they hadn't celebrated Christmas together the last few years. Or Thanksgiving or 4th of July or any other holiday or birthday or major event.
"I did not say that," her dad said slowly, mostly directed to the remains in his beer glass. "Come on, Josie, let's not ruin the mood with our fighting."
Aunt Mel closed her eyes in defeat while Joe bit out: "For the millionth time, dad, it's Joe."
He finished his beer without looking at her. "That's not what it says on your birth certificate."
"To be fair, it doesn't really say Josie, either, does it?" Joe put her cup down so hard it clanked against the saucer. "I would've changed my name the second I turned eighteen if it hadn't been for..."
Her dad followed suit and slammed his beer glass onto the table. "If it hadn't been for what, Joe?"
"Rob, tranquilo," Aunt Mel tried to break in. She cast glances around the restaurant. "Not now, guys."
Glaring at her dad, but not saying the last words that would make him blow up, she got up from the table instead. She threw her napkin into the chair. "If you'd excuse me."
"Joe, hold on, just..." Aunt Mel's voice trailed behind her. "Jesus, Rob!"
Storming out of the restaurant like she was fifteen years old again, she willed herself to not cry. She was done crying. Her dad always had a knack for riling her up! And then made her look like the bad guy when she talked back. She stomped into the alley behind the restaurant and sucked in the cold air to numb the burning anger in her chest.
"At least we made it all through dinner."
Her dad had followed her out. She knew without turning around he was lighting one of those foul-smelling cigarillos. Never one for hard liquor, he claimed the cigarillos were his worst habit.
"I really just wanted to have a nice evening with you, Mel and Scott," her dad continued at her seething silence. Her dress didn't have sleeves and now goosebumps covered her shoulders. "I miss you guys."
"This doesn't change anything," Joe said and tore around, tears threatening to fall from her eyes. "We can be civil all we want and make small talk until we're red and blue, but things aren't okay, Dad!"
He let out a puff of smoke, temporarily disguising his features. "This still 'bout your mom?"
"Of course it's about my mom!" Joe yelled and her voice cracked on the last word. "It's always been-" She choked up and stuffed both hands into her eyes, as if she could force the tears back. "Damn it!"
"Josefina..." Her dad took a step towards her, hand reaching out, but stopped at her incessant glare. "Baby. Sometime, you'll have to let go."
"Let go of what? I never had anything to hold on to in the first place."
He closed his eyes briefly and looked to be saying something to himself under his breath. "You know, the last couple of years I've felt like the shittiest dad in the world."
"Oh! Oh, so you're trying to guilt-trip me now?" Joe laughed and blinked rapidly to clear her vision from tears.
"No, no, just hear me out," her dad said wearily and held his hand up. She sniffed and hugged herself, but kept quiet. "I know last time...we both said some things we didn't m-"
Joe scoffed. "I meant every damn word I said!"
"Can I get more than five words out here?" her dad snapped and held the lit cigarillo out to the side. "I'm tryna apologize and you just keep jabbin' at me!"
She scuffed her shoe against the glistening pavement. "Fine. Go on."
"Thank you! I just meant that things got out of hand, okay? We were shoutin' and even if you meant everything you said, I didn't! Okay? I let my temper get the best of me, but, I've been tryin', kid. I've started this therapy thing."
"Oh God," Joe said and wanted to throw up. "Good for you, dad. Way to go. Just, what, fifteen years too late?"
"I regret some of the things I said, okay? Last time. I was honest, but I was too harsh," her dad continued as though he hadn't heard her. "And with the name-thing...I'm not doin' it on purpose, I swear. I look at you and I still see my little girl, y'know? My little Josie." He shrugged. "But if you wanna go by Joe now, it's fine. You've grown into a hell of a woman, kid. Maybe I should've started therapy fifteen years ago, but I mean, I can't have done all bad. Look at ya."
He gestured towards her and she hugged herself harder.
"The last few years...every phone call you ignored, every present you sent back," her dad said and now the tears fell on their own, nothing left to hold them from her side. "I know now I've made some mistakes." He ignored her incredulous noise. "And I'm sorry. But I must've done something right, 'cus I'm tellin' ya, I've never felt more proud when you still called me when you needed help."
"I needed Special Agent Delgado," Joe bit out through the crying and the shivering. "Not my dad."
Her dad slumped a bit in defeat and splayed his hands out. "They're one and the same, kid." She watched him trudge back to the restaurant, throwing the half-smoked cigarillo into a drain.
Special Agent Rob Delgado took the red-eye flight back to Quantico. He sent a text message to Joe telling her to stay safe. Joe stayed safe by staying in her room all day to avoid the inevitable conversation with Aunt Mel. She had this annoying habit of being rational at all times and Joe did not need that kind of energy in her life.
Joe found herself re-reading some of her old notes on the Beacon Hills-attacks. A lot of the blanks filled in if you allowed for the existence of werewolves — as in, animals with motives. She found herself wondering about Kate's motive, six years ago, when she decimated the Hale-family. Hate crime? Not unlikely. Kate's blind hatred of werewolves did had the same characteristics of racism or anti-semittism.
"I did what I was told," Joe said aloud, mimicking some of Kate's words as she had the gun trained on Scott. Had she meant that she was told to hunt werewolves or was she talking about a specific mission to eradicate the Hales?
If only she had access to Jimmy's research...
After his published article, Joe had an alert for any mentions of his name or alias online. His blog seemed dead, no updates since before they went looking for Kate. No strange attacks or sightings around the county either. No bodies discovered.
She had never asked Derek outright if he had moved the body. He'd seemed too confident she wouldn't need to worry about Jimmy, what if he knew more than he let on? Well, that was a given, but about this specific case? Joe span around on her computer chair. Derek remained an enigma. She unconsciously flexed the hand he had held the other day, as if she could still feel the tingling.
Mates.
Testing the word in her head and she made a face at her room. Sounded like bullshit. Another spin on her chair and she confronted her unkempt bed again. If she accepted Derek was a werewolf, only because there was no other reasonable explanation to his changed appearance when fighting Peter, what could be his motive for involving her in his world? He obviously did not like her, as he'd never even come close to smiling at her like the way he had at Kelly. Or say anything remotely kind to her, like he had to Kelly.
Why was he still in Beacon Hills anyway? She stopped the chair from spinning before she got dizzy. With known hunters in town, his whole family dead and his name finally cleared, what was left for him here? A burnt out shell of a house and a lot of trauma. Even if he was going to continue helping Scott, which he wasn't according to Scott himself, it was not out of the goodness of his heart.
Motive. Means. Opportunity.
Joe instinctively put her computer in sleep-mode when someone knocked on her door. Making a noise of approval, she turned to see Scott pop his head in.
"Mom says there's leftovers in the fridge if you ever decide to emerge from your shell," he explained. Aunt Mel must have left for work without her noticing. Scott's gentle smile faltered as he spotted the dress hanging on Joe's closet door. "Uh..."
Joe looked at the dress as well. Knee-length, black, high neckline. The funeral was tomorrow.
"You're going?" Scott asked, now coming inside fully, staring at the dress like it was the embodiment of Kate's death.
"I dunno," Joe said with a long sigh and threw her head back. "Chris Argent said I was welcome if I...I dunno."
Unable to sit still, she pushed her chair to another spin. "It's gonna be crawling with press and general busybodies." Her father had warned her about that. The case spanned over half a decade and a dozen murders, so it attracted a lot of attention. Joe sat up straighter. "Everybody's gonna want to see the show..." Her brows furrowed. Everybody would inevitably include the man who'd seemingly dedicated his life to the case.
If Jimmy was alive and presumably in his right mind, he would not let an opportunity like that pass him. "Hey, Scott, would you be able to smell- Scott?"
Scott's phone had vibrated and he practically tried to rip off his jeans to check the message. "Uh, I gotta go."
"What? Now? Where?" Joe followed him out the door and stood at the top of the stairs as he bounded down. It was late and a school-night. "Isn't your curfew in like-"
"I, uh, gotta go right now! I'll talk to you when I get back. I gotta go! Bye!"
Joe watched Scott shrug on a jacket and a pair of shoes she was 80% certain didn't match before he was out the front door. She doubted the text was from Stiles. This Romeo and Juliet-thing he and the Argent-girl had going on was more than just a history repeat of Kate and Derek, she had a feeling it would turn out to be downright dangerous. Chris Argent seemed like he tolerated Joe, but then agan she was not trying to sleep with his daughter. Kate had mentioned his overprotective streak.
With an empty house, she felt confident enough to trudge downstairs and have the previously mentioned leftovers. Seemed like Aunt Mel was not above taking home doggy bags from the restaurant and Joe snacked on some delicious breaded king shrimp dipped in hot sauce. She chewed thoughtfully, still mulling over how her life was so weird lately, and happened to glance out the kitchen window.
A pair of bright blue lights flashed in the forestline. Like eyes. Werewolf eyes.
Joe was out the back door in a heartbeat, dead leaves crunching under her sandals. She squinted at the dark mass of trees and brush, trying to make out a shadow or silhouette not belonging there. Nothing. No lights, no movement.
"Derek?" she asked aloud. The cold air outside nipped at her skin. She could not smell him, but the breeze was moving away from her and would probably carry his scent off. The blue lights looked like Derek's eyes, but that was before he...before he killed his uncle. Swallowing to get her throat to work, she tried another one: "Jimmy?"
The leaves and branches rustled, but it was because of the wind. She had seen the lights, she was sure of it. Joe hugged herself to stave the cold from her arms. It was almost like the wind picked up now, branches swaying and creaking ominously. Could it have been a raccoon or something?
A twig snapped somewhere out in the dark and Joe held her breath, trying to listen.
"Jimmy? Is that you?" she tried again. She shuffled backwards to the light and safety of the back doorway. Tempted to say something like she was not going to hurt him, she decided against it on the basis that was probably not his concern at all. The shotgun going off and the blast hitting the wall where her head had been replayed over and over. Jimmy's shaking hands, his deranged look...Scott mentioned feelings being intensified after turning. If Peter bit Jimmy right as he tried to shoot Joe's head off, that was probably not a feeling Joe wanted intensified.
More rustling, too much to be the wind.
"Shit," Joe muttered and drew back further. If Jimmy lived and knew, or even saw, Joe help Kate survive...if Jimmy saw Joe trying to undo Peter's final kill. "Shit, shit, shit."
"Jimmy, if you're out there, please answer me!" Joe called out, but it almost drowned in the wind. She scanned the tree-line fervently. What if...what if it wasn't Derek or Jimmy? What if Kate's death had attracted other things?
Something shuffled in the dark and Joe's nerves got the best of her. She ran inside and slammed the back door shut before locking it in place. Sometimes her decision to refuse her dad's offer of a gun really came back to bite her in the ass. The dark backyard remained empty apart from the shifting leaves picked up by the breeze.
Trying to keep one eye out the window, she grabbed her phone to call Scott and ask him to come back home. She already had a text message from Beacon County — an AMBER Alert for a missing girl. Lydia Martin: 16 years old, Caucasian, red hair and naked, last seen at the Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital. Scott and Stiles' friend.
Joe glanced out the window again. Could it have been her?
Torn between wanting to help the girl and the fear of being mauled to death, she decided to call Scott anyway. Busy signal. She blew air out her mouth and tore at her hair. Damn it! If the girl was a turned werewolf, Joe would not stand a chance. She needed Scott.
Joe grabbed her car keys and said a small prayer before sprinting out the front door and to her car. Nothing grabbed her ankles or jumped out of the bushes, so she deftly drove to the hospital, figuring that was where Scott would most likely show up. She knew she was too late already when she pulled into the parking lot. Stiles' Jeep was gone.
Swearing, Joe parked nearby and inspected the empty space where the Jeep had been parked. She knelt down to feel the ground, the light drizzle weighing down her curls. A large dry square on the asphalt indicated the Jeep had recently left. She'd just missed them.
"God damn it, Scott," she mumbled and tried calling him again, scanning the parking lot in case they were still nearby. No answer.
"What are you doing here?"
"AAH!" Joe yelled and threw her phone at the dark figure that suddenly materialized out of the shadow. Derek snatched the flying object out of the air with one hand still in pocket. He did not seem particularly phased by her outburst. "Jesus Christ! Can - you - stop - lurking?"
Without a word, he tossed the phone back to her which she barely caught with two hands.
"You really need to pay more attention to your surroundings," he said without a hint of emotion and remained standing in the shadows from the hospital with both hands stuffed inside his jacket.
"You need to announce your arrival instead of sneaking up on me at night," Joe bit back and stuffed the phone into the pocket of her pajama pants. She had not considered running into anyone when she left the house and probably should have changed her clothes. Or her hair, which laid in a sloppy bun on the top of her head. "Shuffle your feet or, I dunno, yodel or something."
With a tired sigh, Derek asked again: "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for Scott. What are you doing here?" An idea struck her and she narrowed her eyes at him. "Did you follow me?"
Derek looked like he was going to answer her first question, before he furrowed his brows a bit in confusion. "Follow you? From where?"
"So it wasn't you in my backyard just now?" Joe barely had time to finish the question before Derek walked up to her, still at arm's length, but too close to comfort. She tried to lean a bit back without making it obvious. If it was from his imposing scent or his intense eyes, she wasn't sure.
"No," he growled and fixed her in his glare, moving his head around as she tried to look at his earlobe or shoulder, anything but his eyes. "What did you see? Why would you think it was me?"
"Uh, apart from the fact that it's always you, I did see a pair of glowing eyes, I think. And I guess you're the only..." She wiggled her fingers at him to indicate the word she still felt weird saying. "...y'know with blue eyes that I know of. Scott's are ye-"
Joe flinched when Derek grabbed her upper arm, forcing her to stare straight at him. "Blue? Are you sure?"
"Yes," she admitted and wondered how much a surgery to temporarily disable her sense of smell would cost. Derek's anger only seemed to intensify his scent and at this proximity it seemed to seep into her pores as well as her nose. "I thought it was Jimmy, but I don't get why he would be hiding in the bushes and then I saw the alert about the missing girl and-"
"Joe, this is important," Derek bit out and his grip on her arm increased to underline his words. "Are you sure they were blue? Blue, not yellow?"
"Dude, I know my primary colors. Yes! Yes, I'm sure, Derek. What's the big deal?"
Finally, his eyes left her to look uncertainly to the side. His nostrils flared and like he wasn't aware he had grabbed her, he let her go to take a step back. "Normally, our eyes are yellow. Red if you're an Alpha. Blue...is different."
She waited for him to elaborate, but he seemed lost in thought. "Okay? Different how? Derek?"
"Worse," he said so low she had to lean in to catch it. "If you suspect something again, call the cops or something. Don't go looking for it."
"But didn't you have-"
"Yes," Derek growled and the muscles on his neck flexed again as he seemed to bite in a follow-up retort. "Just- just trust me on this."
"Okay, fine, I just thought it was because Scott's normal eyes are brown that his turned yellow." Joe shrugged in an attempt to shake off the ominous feeling Derek put in her. "And yours are green, so they turned blue, I guess, except now they're red? Is there a chart or something I can look at?"
"It's more complicated than that," Derek said and rolled his eyes. "If you saw blue eyes, it couldn't have been the girl. Not enough time." The last part he almost whispered to himself. "So you're sure she's turned?"
"I'm not sure about anything," Joe said honestly and paced around Derek to lean against her car, hoping the breeze would carry his scent away again. "But she's alive, so...I thought you either turn or die?"
Derek shrugged and stuffed his hands back into the pockets of his jacket. "Most likely. It's not an exact science." He glanced into the dark edges of the parking lot, illuminated briefly by the bright sign of the hospital. "Was her bite healed?"
"I don't know," Joe admitted. Scott hadn't told her and she forgot to ask, too absorbed with the other potential new werewolf running around.
"Can you find out?"
"Why?" she asked with new suspicion. Derek had never answered why he was even here.
"We're not the only ones looking for her," Derek said simply.
Joe pursed her lips in thought. He was probably not talking about the police or even Scott and his friends. She spotted Aunt Mel's beat up car in the employee parking zone and sighed. "I guess." She bounced off her car and tried to give Derek a stern look. "Wait here. Like, right here. I mean it, no skulking away."
He held his palms up and took her spot leaning against the side of her car. She walked towards the hospital's entrance, but turned to make sure he was still there every once in a while. Derek was her best chance of finding and helping the girl and if he slipped away she had no way of contacting him until he decided to materialize out of nothing again. If she was being honest with herself, she also did not want to be alone after learning whoever had been in her backyard worried Derek enough to order her to call the police.
Even at this late hour, the hospital buzzed with people and noises. Joe made her way to the intensive care unit she knew the girl would have stayed in and dodged some wayward balloons tied to the visitor's chairs. Aunt Mel stood with a deep frown scanning some charts and discussing with a young resident doctor. Joe waited a bit on the side, studying the repairman trying to fix a broken vending machine with cracked glass.
"This is a surprise," Aunt Mel said after sending the resident off with the charts. She glanced at Joe's attire. "Nice pants. Did something happen?"
"No, I just felt bad for ignoring you and then finishing all the leftovers," Joe said, the first part true, the second one a lie. "Making a late-night grocery run. You want to add something to the list?"
"Yes." Aunt Mel nodded with a tired smile. "Doritos and salsa would be nice. And a sixpack of beer." She crossed her arms and Joe steeled herself for the inevitable. "You're planning to drown your sorrows in chocolate and wine, Joe? I guess seeing your dad for the first time in a few years didn't exactly help on the post-traumatic stress?"
When Joe didn't answer, her aunt continued: "He gave me a check to pass on to you. Something about fixing that dent in your car, a physical apology for calling you Josie all the time."
Joe scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, like that's the most important thing to fix." She sighed and threw her head back in defeat. "I'm sorry for ruining dinner. I really was trying."
"I know, sweetie," Aunt Mel said with a gentle smile. "And believe it or not, so was your dad. I'm not trying to defend him!" Aunt Mel raised her voice to stop Joe's protests. "He's an asshole. I mean, he's my brother and I love him, but I can still see he's an asshole. You want me to tear up the check?"
"No, just add it to the household," Joe mumbled. Her dad made almost twice of what Aunt Mel did. "Did he...did he say anything else?"
"No, just how proud he's of you for pursuing that post-grad degree and also Scott for making first line," Aunt Mel mused and moved to the side to allow a pair of EMTs roll out an empty stretcher. "It really meant a lot to him that you called him when you needed help. I guess he feared your stubborness would be the death of you."
"My stubborne-"
Aunt Mel held her hands up in surrender. "His words, not mine. Hey. You wanna have a girl's night tomorrow? Bad romantic comedy, booze, chocolate and ice cream? I could really use one. Peter, uh, that sales rep...he never called me back."
"Oh..." Joe said and struggled to keep her gaze steady. "Uh...yes, girl's night would work. When are you home?"
"Oh, who knows?" Aunt Mel sighed and looked around the corridor. "I'm working double, at least, with the girl missing and all...half our staff is combing the hospital in case she wandered off and got lost in a broom closet."
"I got the alert," Joe said and tried to act non-suspicious. If she got too eager, she would lose her chance. "Did something happen? I mean, did she wander off on her own? I thought she was still in critical condition."
Aunt Mel pulled Joe's elbow to take them a bit to the side. She kept her voice low. "We're not sure. Everything points to her taking off on her own, but I can't see how. She's still severely injured."
"Still? You're sure?"
"Of course I'm sure," Aunt Mel said with a raised eyebrow. "You don't lose 50 ounces of blood and recover in a week. We finally got the infection cleared, some sort of allergic reaction, but- Jesus, Joe, sorry, I shouldn't be talking about this with you."
"It's okay," Joe said weakly. The bite hadn't healed, but the girl had left on her own. Another resident approached them with the harassed look of needing help. "I, uh, better get going anyway. Doritos, salsa, and beer?"
Aunt Mel gave her a thumbs up as the resident took Joe's place. She side stepped the busy patrons of the hospital, trying to piece together everything. The girl was alive, but not healed like both Derek and Scott had claimed would happen if she was turned into a werewolf. Did things work different with girls?
Joe came around a corner and let out a yelp as something grabbed her arm. It span her into a storage closet where the other arm shot out to steady her from crashing straight into her assailant's chest.
"I thought I told you to wait outside!" Joe hissed as Derek gently closed the door. "And stop lurking!"
"So she didn't heal?" Derek asked, an urgency in his voice that only partially distracted Joe from the fact that they were within touching distance in an enclosed space.
"No, apparently not," she admitted grumpily and crossed her arms. "Can you perhaps not listen in on private conversations in the future?"
Derek apparently did not hear a word she said as he peered out through the crack of the door. "What's the deal with your dad? He seemed decent enough."
They must have met when Derek turned himself in. Joe's lip twisted in a scowl. "Using your super-hearing like that is not exactly a sign of trustworthiness." She turned her face away from him. "As you already heard, he's an asshole. End of story."
"Why, 'cause he calls you Josie?"
Derek's arm shot out to bar her exit as her initial reaction was to storm out.
"I'm leaving!" she bit out and Derek shook his head, still fixated on whatever was going on out in the hallway.
"Wait," he murmured and rolled his eyes at her disgusted noise of disapproval. He nodded towards the door. "Argents."
"What?" She pushed Derek to the side to peer out the crack herself. Sure, if you had a heightened sense of smell and hearing, it might be possible to deduce the moving blobs were Argents. The doors had to be thick as she only heard a muted murmur from their conversation. "Are they after the girl?"
"Probably. They might have people working here," Derek said somewhere behind her. Her push hadn't moved him far and now she became aware of his body heat transferring to her where they were in contact.
"I thought they had a code," she stuttered and tried to discreetly create some distance between them. No breeze in here, nothing at all to dilute his scent and it would seem a bit weird to open one of the detergent bottles to sniff them.
"Some of them do," was Derek's dark reply. They waited in silence for the Argents to move on. At least that's what Joe suspected Derek to wait for, she was just waiting for him to give her the clear to leave. Derek's brows furrowed and he turned his head slightly towards her. "Are you- are you holding your breath?"
"Mh-mm." Joe shook her head and took a step back. Hoping it was dark enough to be concealed, she put the arm of her jacket over her mouth and nose to inhale briefly. "Nope."
He moved away from the door to look fully at her, eyebrow slightly raised, almost amused. "Is it that bad?"
"Whaddaya mean?" Joe still tried to talk without actually filling her lungs with air and her words rushed out in the limited time she gave them. "What's that bad?"
Derek took a step towards her and she took a step backwards to maintain the distance. The problem with a storage closet was the finite amount of space, and when her back reached the wall, Derek still came closer to her.
Not bothering to even try and hide it, he probaby had heightened night vision as well, Joe pinched her nose together and said nasally: "It's just a bit stuffy in here."
He towered over her and put both hands on the cabinet shelves on either side of her head. It meant he surrounded her, encapsulated her in a cocoon that was all him. Joe tried to breathe with her mouth, still with her hand over it, hoping his heightened sense of smell didn't detect the hot sauce with garlic she had earlier.
Derek's scent saturated the air. Woody, earthy, musky — no way of describing it. At this proximity, she could detect something sweet, akin to vanilla, and a hint of amber. It smelled of strength, dexterity, masculinity, but also something softer, vulnerable, careful. A protector that also needed protection.
His face came closer, but just as Joe's heart was threatening to burst through her chest, he leaned towards her ear instead and whispered: "You're only making it worse by denying it."
Unable to take it, Joe ducked down and deftly side-stepped under his arm. She popped up and retreated to the far corner of the closet, achieving maximum distance, which was admittedly not nearly enough at the moment.
Joe fought tooth and nails to get her hormones in check. "Uh, so, if the girl's not like you and not dead, what other options are there?"
"I guess she could be human," Derek said from where he now leaned against the same cabinet shelves she had pressed again. "As I said, not an exact science." He sighed and stared down at the floor a bit, as if he too needed to pull himself together.
"There are ways of knowing if someone would be receptive to the bite or not." His brows furrowing in thought, his words came slowly. " Something in the smell. It's hard to tell sometimes, but Peter was always really good at it..."
"So, you're saying that..."
Derek nodded as he knew what she was trying to say. "If she's not going to turn into a werewolf, Peter already knew that when he bit her."
"And that raises another question," Joe murmured to herself in the dark, but Derek heard her and finished for her again.
"Yeah. Why?"
Oh my gosh, you guys, we're on chapter 20! Sooo close to reaching the 100 reviews-milestone too! You guys are seriously amazing! So many exclamation points!
So happy to see that Joe's sexuality seems to be believable and accepted based on your comments. Teen Wolf did a good job in including LGBTQ+ characters and after writing Joe and Kate, I realized my girl was definitely into more than just guys. Also, adding a little insecurity on Derek's behalf, because he's a hot guy (and he knows it) and might worry now about not being Joe's type.
Much love to all of you who comment on all the chapters. I update my inbox way too often, eager to hear your feedback. Even one-word reviews are validation that I'm doing something right. Multi-word reviews are even better and multi-line reviews are the best! Speaking of, this update is dedicated especially to Rayne91 for being an awesome reviewer and I hope you're staying safe and healthy :)