Chapter 28: The Kiss
The good thing was that Sheriff Stilinski had not taken his son entirely seriously when Stiles reported her missing. This meant he had not alerted Aunt Melissa as he wanted to make further enquiries first. The bad thing was that he now probably thought she and Derek were a thing and might mention that to Aunt Mel at some occasion. The other bad thing was that both Scott and Stiles pounced on her the second she walked in the front door to subject her to the weirdest cross examination in the history of men.
It started of normal, with the usual questions of: "Where were you?", "What happened?", "Are you hurt?" and "Why exactly are you wearing his jacket?"
Joe, after the initial thank-God-you're-alive hugging was done and over, made a one-bowl microwave mac and cheese while the boys bombarded her with questions. She could not even remember the last time she ate. When the final question came about the jacket, from Scott, she sat cross-legged on the counter with her back against the kitchen window.
"Uh..." was her brilliant reply and she shuffled more macaroni into her mouth to buy time. To be honest, she'd forgotten about the jacket and Derek obviously had too as he hadn't asked for it back. She could have gotten away with telling Scott and Stiles that she had just woken up in the Preserve, disoriented, but unharmed, if they hadn't seen Derek drop her off at the house. He sped off without looking back as Scott and Stiles ran out the front door. "It was...cold?"
"Wait, wait, wait," Stiles intercepted and put one hand on his hip while his other emphasised his words in the air. He had a large bruise on his forehead, courtesy of the only female werewolf they knew of. Apparently she'd clocked him with the starter of his car and tossed him in a dumpster — Joe could not help but smile a little bit at that thought. Just a little bit though, it looked like a painful bruise. "Derek gave you his jacket because you were cold? While he was still all," Stiles gestured to his own face, "wolfy and stuff?"
"I don't know, actually," Joe said and stabbed more pieces of gooey pasta onto her fork. She'd just woken up with the jacket over her — she could have taken it herself at some point for all she knew. Those pills seemed strong enough to result in a complete blackout and loss of memory. Not that she was going to dig deeper into that, it was more comfortable to think she actually did remember everything.
"Does this have anything to do with that you-feel-what-he-feels thing?" Stiles asked with squinted eyes. Scott had the decency to look a bit apologetic when Joe glared at him, as he was obviously the source of that particular fun-fact.
"I dunno," Joe mumbled and focused on her food. Blushing and stuttering in front of these two high school idiots was not acceptable. She shrugged. "Maybe."
Stiles threw his arms out. "Well, does he feel what you feel?"
Another shrug and Stiles scoffed loudly. Scott seemed lost in thought, like he was recalling something. "At the ice rink...when you fell down, Derek flinched."
"So it goes both ways!" Stiles exclaimed and turned to both Scott and Joe in turn. Joe chewed on in silence. "Do we know why? Did you both get struck by lightening at the same time or mix up your fortune cookies or something?"
Joe's fork stopped in the bowl. "What?"
"Really? You don't know Freaky Friday? Scott, come on, you know it. What? Do any members of this household keep up with generic pop culture?"
Scott kept quiet with his arms folded. The large slashes on his stomach after Derek's claws were almost completely healed. He still seemed to restrict his movements slightly so she imagined he was somewhat sore. Apparently the wounds healed slower because they'd been inflicted by an Alpha, an interesting tidbit provided by Dr. Deaton. How he knew what he knew or why he hadn't said anything before was still anyone's guess. Maybe Derek had a point to trust that guy about those pills.
"He said I wasn't strong enough to keep you safe," Scott murmured and Joe recalled Derek saying those exact words in the underground torture chamber. "He told me over and over that I should leave you out of it when we were trying to stop Peter..."
Uh-oh, thought Joe. She increased the speed of her eating, to ensure she had a full mouth when Scott inevitably reached a logical, but misguided conclusion.
"Are...are you and Derek together?" Scott finally asked with wide innocent eyes. Stiles had apparently not considered this to even be in the realm of possibilities and did a large double take with his whole body. Both of them stared at her and awaited her reply.
"'ry," Joe garbled and pointed at her mouth. Chew, chew, chew — she shook her head and indicated again to just give her a minute. Her brain went on full speed to come up with a reasonable explanation for anything. Problem was, not even the truth was a reasonable explanation. In the end, she swallowed heavily. "No."
"But he's gotta have a crush on you?" Stiles guessed and Joe's macaroni went down the wrong pipe. Coughing and sputtering until Scott came forwards to thump her back, her eyes ran over with tears. Trying to eat, laugh and gasp at the same time did that to you.
"No," she croaked out and wiped her face. Something about the word 'crush' was so high school drama that her mind instantly conjured images of Derek drawing pink hearts in a diary around her name. Derek Hale probably had not had a 'crush' since middle school. Derek Hale could have an interest in someone, he could have desire for someone, but he could not have a 'crush'. Especially not on her.
Stiles shook his head and paced around their kitchen. "Okay, even if we attribute the kidnapping to some weird loss of control spurred on by that spray-thing you used, which burned like crazy, might I add." At her furrowed brows, he sighed. "I might or might not have given it a little test spritz to see what it was when we picked up your car and I might or might not have held it the wrong way. Anyway," he raised his voice to stave off any comments, "that does not explain why he drove you to Berkeley and back again!"
"Maybe he felt sorry for kidnapping me," Joe theorized and picked up the bowl of mac and cheese again. That was a question she'd asked herself too, but no easy answer presented themselves other than she'd been so pissed off when they woke up that he felt he had no other choice.
"I'm sorry, are we talking about the same Derek Hale here?" Stiles asked incredulously. "The guy who's been turning our classmates into werewolves left and right this week? Who snatched away Scott's only chance of a cure? Who threatened, on multiple occasions, to rip my head off?"
Joe mumbled into her bowl. "I said maybe."
"Oh my God, Joe, would you stop eating?" Scott yelled as his usually endless source of patience ran thin. Joe paused with the fork still in her mouth. "Don't you think there's a little bit of an issue with you being randomly connected to Derek Hale of all people?"
She put the fork back in the bowl with a clink. "No, I think it's great!" At his surprised gawk, she rolled her eyes. "What do you think, Scott? Of course I think it's an issue! But what do you want me to do?"
"I don't know? React at least? Freak out a little bit?"
"I've already done that. It didn't help much. So now I'm like on stage three of dealing with this." At his completely lost expression, she rolled her eyes. "Stage three is bargaining."
"First thing's first, we should find out how it's done. It's gotta be some kind of werewolf mojo, maybe a trap left over from Peter," Stiles piped up, leaning forward over the other kitchen counter like a Roman general over a map of Normandy. "If we find the source, we can find out how to break it."
"Maybe we can just let me handle this?" Joe's question seemed to go unnoticed. "Guys?"
Scott and Stiles were too busy making battle plans to hear her protests. From asking Doctor Deaton to consulting the internet to performing an exorcism, they provided plenty of options. Stiles wanted to test the connection as well — maybe distance mattered? Or intensity of pain?
"Wait, I can ask Allison," Scott suggested suddenly and now ignored Joe's panicked look. "Maybe someone in her family's heard of something similar."
"Great idea, Scott!" Stiles said earnestly.
Joe hopped of the counter. "No! No, not great idea! That's like telling the Argents about Derek's biggest weakness. It's a hell of a lot easier to catch me than him! I don't have super healing."
"She'd have to be sort of elusive," Stiles said in agreement and Joe groaned. "Hypothetical."
Joe grabbed Scott by his shoulders. "Okay, Scott, listen to me, you can not tell this to Allison, understand? My torture quota is filled for the year."
"Allison's not gonna torture you-"
"Oh my God, Scott!" Joe resisted the urge to smack Scott over the head.
At least Stiles caught on. "No, Allison's not gonna torture anyone, but her crazy grandfather might! Using Joe as leverage to get to Derek sounds exactly like the kind of thing he'd do!"
"And what happens if Gerard catches Derek? If he kills him? What happens to Joe?" Scott tore around to question his best friend. "Maybe my boss knows and maybe he'll tell me, but I still think our best shot is with the Argents."
Stiles stuttered out something unintelligible and Joe gave up.
"Scott, I already know what it is!" She threw her head back when he turned back to her in shock."Sort of. Maybe. I think." Joe rubbed her face tiredly — she wanted a shower, a face mask, a large coffee and some time to herself.
"Well?!" Stiles squeaked when Joe's artistic pause dragged on too long.
"Okay, if I tell you, can you promise me you'll keep it to yourself? Both of you? I'm trying to figure out how to deal with it, if it is what he said it was, I just need some more time." Joe waited until both boys nodded and made various promises on their lives and livelihood. "And...no laughing."
Joe leaned against the kitchen counter and focused her gaze somewhere on the handle for the lower drawer. "Derek says it's something super rare, even for..." Vague hand waving at Scott. "I don't know how it works or why it's happening, but he says it's because we're, uh," she cleared her throat, "mates."
There, she said it. Out in the open. In public. To her sixteen year old cousin and his best friend, unfortunately her only trustworthy confidantes lately. A long silence followed in the kitchen and Joe went through a dozen different scenarios on how it could play out.
"Like...soulmates?" It was Scott who said something first and he had that confused frown on his face, like when faced with a particularly nasty set of chemical equations.
"No, idiot, like wolf mates," Stiles hissed and slapped Scott on his chest. No humor on Stiles' face, brows drawn together and his mouth in a tight line. He looked at Joe for confirmation. "Right?"
"I guess," Joe said with a shrug while the blush crept up and up for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. "It's like a...physical thing, I don't know. That's how we're connected."
"I don't really know what wolf mates mean," Scott admitted slowly and Stiles did an eye roll that encompassed his whole body.
"Dude, seriously? Okay, remember Biology with Mr. Paulson? When he taught us that some animals are polygamous and other monogamous?" Stiles blinked at Scott's still confused face. "It means either dating different people or sticking to one your whole life. Wolves, like normal wolves, are monogamous, they mate for life. So if Derek and Joe are wolf mates, it means they're-"
Scott finished the sentence. "...destined to be together."
Joe squirmed when both Scott and Stiles stared at her like she was an interesting specimen under a microscope. This was the part about mates she knew, and tried to avoid thinking about. It just made it so unbelievably creepy!
"Okay, you're kinda skipping a few steps here," Joe said to pierce the uncomfortable silence. "One, the only person claiming this to be true is Derek himself, not the most reliable source of information as proved when that whole thing with his uncle hit the fan. Two, we're not talking normal wolves here, are we? You're still part human and humans are polygamous. Three, 'destined' to be together? Really? We're gonna bring destiny into this? Come on, that sounds like the biggest bullshit I've ever heard."
Joe gestured, trying to make sense of something that in its essence didn't. "It's a physical thing, all right? Compatible pheromones or whatever. Sympathetic nerve responses. Placebo effect. Lots of perfectly sound, reasonable, logical, and medically sort-of-possible options."
Again, Scott was the first of the pair to speak up. "Uh, how physical are we talking exactly?"
"You're asking if we had sex?" Joe snapped and crossed her arms. The two teenagers blushed and Scott stuttered out some sort of response that made no sense. "The answer's no, but if you want, I can give you two a play-by-play if we ever do."
Their replies were instantaneous:
"Noooo, that's okay," Scott said with horror written all over his face while Stiles looked like he wanted to blend into the shadows: "We're good, thanks, that's, uh, no thank you."
"Great, so, the practical side-effect of this whole shtick is that I feel pain when Derek's hurt and vice versa. Let's just leave it at that for now and worry more about this other thing that's tearing people apart, okay?"
They agreed, probably just to avoid hearing her talk about sex.
The 'thing' Joe referenced earlier was some sort of humanoid creature that attacked Allison and Scott the same night Joe helped bust Isaac Lahey out of jail. Last night, when she was cuddling with Derek Hale in the woods, it had killed one of the hunters employed in the Argents' service. It used some sort of venom to paralyze its victims before tearing them apart with its claws. Last part made it similar to a werewolf, but the first was not something commonly associated with larger landbound predators.
Venomous animals were usually smaller than its prey, relying on the poison rather than brute force. Snakes, scorpions, spiders and lizards. It did not make sense from an evolutionary perspective for any creature to have both claws and strength to tear a person to shreds in addition to paralyzing venom.
Scott overheard Doctor Deaton explain some of this to the Argents, who'd brought their fallen comrade to the veterinarian for a second opinion. When Scott said he overheard, it became clear that Doctor Deaton made sure he overheard the conversation. He had also admonished Scott to get his hands on some book with all the recollections of the Argents through the centuries, hoping a similar sort of creature had been referenced earlier in history.
That Scott had been allowed to discuss with Allison later at night, as they would probably need her help, but he had promised to keep the whole Derek-Joe thing to himself.
Not that there was a Derek-Joe thing, other than the supernatural pain connection.
Joe found herself scouring old blog posts on Jimmy's website. He collected news from all over the world, put them together in the light of paranormal existence and drew new conclusions. If the creature only had one purpose in life, as per Doctor Deaton's description, any other instance of the same thing would have left a significant body trail. She ran into a problem when she realized that most of the blog posts Jimmy had involved a large body trail and suspicious deaths by maiming. The hunter's death had not even made the news, so the police probably weren't even aware. Joe wondered how many other deaths the Argents had covered up in their career.
She also wondered how many fake deaths they had covered up as well.
One problem at a time. Jimmy's website was five years old and he had posted two-three times a week on average. That meant a lot of posts and a lot of cross-referencing to find a pattern fitting the murder of Oscar Lahey and the hunter. Again, she found herself missing Jimmy. She hoped he was all right.
Derek's second jacket in her collection sat in another plastic bag next to her closet. Something about having his scent close without having him gave her a headache. Not willing nor wanting to analyze that whole can of worms, she stuffed the jacket in plastic to trap the smell and buried herself in work instead.
Scott had her car to go see Allison, which was fine by Joe who had no plans of leaving the house for the foreseeable future. Stiles had left to pick up his Jeep from a garage. Apparently Erica using his starter as a blunt force weapon left it in less than pristine condition and he needed to get it replaced. He'd moaned about the cost and Joe felt his pain, cars were expensive and Stiles did not have Derek Hale showing up unannounced to do the work for free.
In a tight-fitting tank top.
Joe stopped typing in another search word and grimaced at herself. She was starting to creep herself out. Thinking of Derek only in terms of his looks made her no better than Kate. Thinking of Derek only in terms of what he could do for her made her no better than Peter.
Solution: don't think of Derek at all.
It worked fine for all about five minutes when one of the plastic bags containing Derek's jacket buzzed twice. Joe stared at it silently. She'd forgotten about Derek's phone. Still grimacing, she held her breath as she opened the bag and rummaged around until she located the buzzing phone. He had a new text message.
The number was not saved to Derek's contacts, but Joe knew it by heart. That was her number. She'd completely forgotten about the old Nokia, seeing as it was useless for checking her e-mail or looking up cute kitten-videos, where most of her included data of the month went. She had assumed it was left behind in her car, but that meant Scott had texted Derek the cryptic message.
"Beacon Hills Railroad Depot," Joe read aloud with a raised eyebrow. That was it, that was the whole text. The railroad closed down a decade ago, as did its depot. After checking the location on her PC, she found that it was down in the warehouse district, but no listed owner. Abandoned, most likely.
She tried calling her own number from Derek's phone, but no one picked up. Weird. Maybe Scott did not have her phone after all, but then who did? It could have been left behind at the ice rink, when she was stumbling and sliding all over the place. One of the newly turned werewolves could have it, or someone completely else. But no one knew she had Derek's phone, except maybe Derek.
A trap. It had to be. A set up. Someone was trying to lure Derek to the old railroad depot posing as her. The Argents? Jimmy? The venomous creature of unknown origins? Who would know that she and Derek even knew each other? Jimmy, obviously, but none of the Argents except Kate. Unless Scott had in fact told Allison and everyone knew by now.
Or, maybe, she was being paranoid and Derek had her phone, must have realized she still had his, and texted her a neutral meeting location to conduct an exchange.
Either way, she was bringing the shotgun.
At least whoever was waiting would not see her coming in Aunt Melissa's old clunker of a car. They would hear her though as something was definitely not running smoothly in the machinery, but they would not know it was Joe if they expected the Ford Fiesta. Aunt Mel was already in bed, evident by snoring from inside her room, and Joe tip-toed downstairs and picked the car keys off the dresser. So, taser, shotgun, mace and night vision binoculars. If this went on, she would need to invest in a bigger backpack.
The night seemed eerily quiet as she drove. The waning moon only reminded her of the full one a week ago. It seemed like a lifetime. She passed a pair of ambulances heading the opposite direction, must have been some sort of accident. Regular accidents did still happen in Beacon Hills, she told herself, to stop from worrying something had happened to Scott. Like a madman with a broadsword. When she reached the warehouse district, she checked the location again on Derek's phone. Life was so much easier when you had a smartphone with internet and GPS.
She parked far away from where the depot should be located. Rest would be done on foot. The binoculars were saved for a potential stake-out, mace put in her back pocket and now she had to decide between taser and shotgun...Worst case, it was the Argents or the venomous creature who was after Derek. Best case, it was Jimmy or Derek. The first two she would not mind shooting, the last two would heal anyway. Shotgun it is.
Skulking in the shadows, she felt like a kid playing spy-games. Joe crept towards the Beacon Hills Railroad Depot, stopping every few seconds to check her surroundings, and keeping light on her toes to avoid making unnecessary sounds. God, if a security guard happened to catch her in her dark attire with shotgun in hand, she would have some serious explaining to do down at the police station.
Nothing jumped out of the shadows, nothing stood lurking behind a corner. Joe reached the entrance to the depot. The heavy door was unlocked, but made an intense whining sound when she pried it open. Joe made a face and squeezed through the smallest possible opening. If it was Jimmy or Derek waiting for her, they would definitely have heard that. They would have heard her already anyway, because of her heart thumping almost painfully hard in her chest.
Shotgun loaded, safety on, she crept into the dark building. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the dark, but she almost wished it hadn't. Every shadow of old equipment and outline of machinery morphed into something sinister and threatening. Joe knelt on the ground and touched her finger tips to the heavy layer of rust and grime. Footprints? Abandoned warehouses like this were ideal locations for squatters or illegal parties, but then she would have expected more garbage, like cigarette butts and old beer cans.
Still on the ground, she became aware of a muted sound. Like crashes or something slamming into the foundation. It was coming from...beneath her. Joe searched around until she found a likely door leading to a stairwell. Taking each step with care to avoid creaking, she made her way downstairs and saw a dim light protrude around the frame of another door. The sounds were clearer down here; it sounded like fighting.
Joe gripped the shotgun tightly for the little comfort it brought. Her initial plan, if you could call it that, was to stake out the meeting location to find out who had her phone trying to snare Derek Hale. Now she felt like the one being ensnared — remote underground location? Major deja vu. No escape routes, no one to hear her scream.
The door opened to a large underground warehouse, obviously used for storage back in the day. Old discarded subway carts lined the walls along with oil drums and large coils of plastic tube connectors. Maybe some kind of repair workshop. 60s-style ceiling lights lit up the large space and thick steel beams supported the roof.
Up ahead, she heard grunts and crashes. Joe swallowed thickly and made sure the shotgun was loaded before creeping forward, trying to keep out of sight. There was almost a rhythm to it — grunts, snarls, crashes before it ended in a heavy slam to the floor. Rinse and repeat. It made no sense until she was close enough to see it.
Isaac Lahey dashed through some kind of obstacle course made of crates and barrels, trying to attack Derek, who was back in a white tank top Joe could not help but notice. Isaac performed some moves a professional traceur would envy, but Derek still caught him in the throat each time and proceeded to thrash him to the concrete floor.
A split second later, another figure pounced at Derek from the top of a subway cart, but Derek twisted the assailant and flung her, Erica, to the floor next to Isaac, both of them groaning.
Derek scoffed and dropped his attentive stance. His voice echoed out. "Does anyone wanna try not being completely predictable?"
Training, Joe realized. He was training them. That was as far as she got before Erica pushed herself off the ground with alarming speed. Joe's breath stopped and she instinctively dashed forward, out in plain sight. Not that any of them noticed her, because instead of clawing his face off like Joe feared, Erica latched onto Derek with her feet around his waist and, well, kissed him.
Kiss was a pretty generous word, to be fair, and Joe was reminded of how they used the term 'sucking faces' back in high school. It was, as kisses went, pretty aggressive and seemed to last for an eternity. No way of telling if Derek was into it or if Erica had such a good grip on his head that he had no choice. Well, he probably had around fifty pounds of muscle on her, so he did have a choice.
Joe felt her stomach drop somewhere to her ankles at the sight and how her fingers tightened around the shotgun. Get a grip! She was not gonna shoot a high schooler over some kissing...and groping...and grinding. She was not.
She took an automatic step back when Derek snarled and slammed Erica back onto the ground so the floor shook. He wiped his lips with distaste.
"That's the last time you do that."
Erica, on the floor, looked more angry than embarassed. "Why, because I'm a Beta?"
"No, because-" If it was her scent or the fact that she stood in plain sight, she had no idea. Derek had finally noticed her. As they were a common entity, Isaac and Erica's heads swivelled towards her as well. "Joe?"
"Statutory rape, huh?" Joe said brightly and put the shotgun over her shoulder to cover up for the fact that she would rather evaporate than look at him at the moment. "Nice."
Derek's eyes scoured over her, resting on the shotgun. His nostrils flared as he came towards her, effectively positioning him between her and the teens. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Looking for my phone," Joe insisted with a shrug. She pulled out Derek's cell phone and held it as evidence. "I got a text that gave me this location. Well, okay, technically you got a text from my phone, which makes absolutely no sense because this looks to be your," she cast a glance over the subway carts filled with personal belongings, "lair?"
"And you brought a shotgun?" Derek snarled and Joe shrugged even wider.
"I thought it was a trap!"
The disappointed anger shone from Derek's eyes. "You thought it was a trap and you still-"
"I thought it was a trap for you," Joe clarified and waved her hand in his direction. "They wouldn't expect me. With a shotgun." Luckily, Derek looked too angry to talk and she took advantage of the opportunity to make a quick escape. "Anyway, give me my phone and I'll be on my merry way."
Derek crossed his arms. "I don't have your phone."
Joe glanced at the betas on the floor, and now noticed Boyd sitting on a nearby staircase, almost invisible in the dark. "Okay, how about your brainwashed kids?"
"Here," Erica said as her arm shot out. The Nokia came flying at high-speed, heading straight for Joe's face. Knowing how much those old phones could handle, Joe would have looked at at least a broken nose and a concussion if Derek's hand hadn't struck out to catch the projectile mid-air.
He turned towards the girl and Joe could only imagine the look on his face as Erica cowered backwards, but still not backing down completely. Joe had no idea if she was challenging him or trying to flirt.
Joe, on the other hand, let out a long breath of relief. "Oh thank God." This earned her the spotlight again and Joe couldn't help but laugh. "I just...I came here expecting the Argents with guns blazing and then it's just this high school drama stuff."
It explained the kiss. Erica had wanted her to see that. Somehow, that made her feel a little better.
Still smiling, Joe took down the shotgun from her shoulder to empty it. Running around with a loaded gun was how you accidentally shot someone and even if all the other occupants in the room would heal, it would still hurt like crazy first. She stopped as a low growl came from the two kids on the floor.
Not surprisingly, the source was Erica who had her stare fixated on Joe with her lips twisted to bare her teeth — well, fangs. The teenage crush was evident and Joe found herself ignoring the outright challenge, if that was what it was. She made a big show of emptying the shotgun to put the shells back in her pocket.
Erica's growl intensified and Derek apparently had enough. He tore around and released a roar, much like the one at the police station, that rattled the steel framework and made Joe's insides turn to gush. Both Erica and Isaac whimpered and retreated into the shadows. Poor Isaac hadn't even done anything but stare at the whole scene in fascination, but Joe guessed the roar didn't differentiate.
"Dude, relax, they're literally just kids," Joe said and pulled the trigger of the now empty shotgun. It was a best practice her dad taught her from shooting ranges that would tell anyone who paid attention that the gun was now out of action.
"Relax?" snarled Derek as he turned back around and his eyes dimmed from intense red to his normal green. Joe struggled to stand her ground, but did. "I got less than three weeks to teach them everything I know! If they're not ready by the full moon, they'll be easy pickings for either the hunters or the thing that killed Isaac's dad!"
"Maybe you should have thought of that before you decided to sink your teeth into them?" She refused to back down when he redirected his anger to her. "Hey, the lunar cycle is kinda straightforward, buddy, don't blame your poor planning on me. Maybe you should all have a group session on anger management instead of play fighting?"
"I'm not teaching them to fight, I'm teaching them to survive and first lesson was not revealing our hide-out!"
The last part he practically roared over his shoulder to the still whimpering Erica. Derek's fists were clenched and unfortunately, one of those fists still held Joe's phone. The old school Nokia she thought would be the sole survivor of a nuclear blast could not withstand Derek's unnatural strength. The crack echoed in the warehouse when Derek's shout died down.
"Are - you - kidding - me?" Joe said slowly as Derek held up his hand like he was surprised to see the broken parts of a cell phone fall from his fingers. Two phones now lost because of Derek. "Are you actually," she swore, "kidding me?"
Erica let out a snort while Joe shooed Derek away so he stepped back. She put the shotgun strap over her shoulder and knelt down to sift through the pieces, hoping he hadn't snapped her SIM-card in half. It was still in one piece and Joe brushed dirt off it when she got back up. She held it between two fingers for inspection and saw Derek's face behind it, locked in a neutral angry expression.
Now she regretted emptying out the shotgun prematurely; she really wanted to shoot something.
Instead, she swallowed thickly, pocketed her SIM-card with care and brought out Derek's phone again. His face blanked, probably understanding her plan, as she tossed the phone into the air. Holding the shotgun like a baseball bat, she swung from her hip and hit the cell phone with everything she had, beating it into the wall behind Erica and Isaac with a satisfying crash.
"Now we're even," Joe said with as calm a voice she could muster. Shotgun back on her shoulder, she stormed towards the stairwell to make a fast exit, flinging her middle finger at him. "Asshole."
Scott and Stiles to the rescue, much to Joe's chagrin. Things are back to where they're supposed to be: Joe confused and pissed off at Derek. Don't worry, it'll get better. It's a hot and cold kind of thing. Also, reached over 100 followers to this story, so yay! So cool to have so many people reading!
Edit: Guys, I wrote this author's note to avoid any more 'drama', but I guess it turned into a need for validation? Woops. I don't have great interpersonal skills all the time, so sorry about that. Everything is fine now, let's just leave it at that :) Thank you for the kind reviews nevertheless, and to be clear, I welcome all kind of feedback, if it's plot, language or characters. Much love to all of you!
If you've made it to chapter 28, I hope that means you like the story and I hope you guys will keep reading, because I'm halfway through writing season 3 now and it is SO MUCH DRAMA and Derek and fun and I can't wait to post it :)