Appetite for Destruction

A Killer With No Blood On His Hands

Beacon's Crossing Home was somewhere I never really wanted to visit. I hated hospitals enough, but long term care units? Even worse. But this was where Peter was and I was running out of options.

The Alpha had killed again.

I slipped inside once visiting hours were over, hiding from nurses and hospital staff until I made it to Peter's room where I carefully and quietly closed the door behind me. I took a deep breath and turned to face my uncle.

If it weren't for the fact that I could hear his heartbeat I might have thought the man had died sitting in that wheelchair. Seeing the burns covering the right side of his face made me wince. I remembered what Laura told us after she spoke with the doctors; how seventy five percent of his body was severely burned, that his chances of recovery were slim to none, that we shouldn't get our hopes up. The only thing we could do was put him in a hospital under a fake name so the Hunters couldn't find him, and leave him behind when we fled Beacon Hills.

If I wasn't so desperate I wouldn't have come here, but we were down to three surviving members of the Hale family and I couldn't think of anything else to do.

I perched on the edge of the bed and stared Peter down.

He was definitely non-responsive. He hadn't blinked at all since I'd entered the room and when I tilted my body to the left and right his eyes didn't follow me. I reached out and waved a hand in front of his face. Nothing.

I sat back and listened to the nurses wandering the halls. "Okay," I breathed. "Alright. I know we've never really been close, and I'm sorry I never visited you all this time, but I need your help. There's... someone killed Laura - your niece. They killed her and took her power and now they're killing more people, and we have no idea who it is or how to stop them."

Nothing. He didn't move, or blink, or give any sign he even knew I was there.

"Peter," I said, leaning forwards, pleading now, "you've always been the smart one - you never shut up about it, and I know you'd be able to figure this out so just... Please. Give me a sign - give me something. We need help."

There was noise everywhere. Heartbeats, footsteps, the ticking clock, the machines beeping, but nothing from Peter. It was an impossible mission, getting a response from a comatose man. No amount of healing would bring him out of this but I still stayed, watching, waiting.

I ran a hand down my face. "Fuck, I might as well be talking to a brick wall. You probably don't even know who I am anymore."

I mulled things over in my head. If there was one thing I knew with absolute certainty it was the bond between pack, even stronger when your pack was your family. No matter what I wanted to believe, there was nothing here. I felt nothing sitting in front of Peter. Connections couldn't like; they were a primal, base thing.

Peter might have been my blood, but he wasn't my pack anymore.

I didn't know what I expected coming here. Peter was the most experienced werewolf around, he would have been able to figure out who the Alpha was... but this Peter couldn't. There wasn't enough left of him, and coming here had done nothing except open up old wounds.

"Fuck." I repeated. How the hell were we supposed to find this Alpha? And even if we did, then what? Obviously he had to be stopped, there was no doubt about that, but what were we supposed to do about it? Even if we succeeded - and that was a big if - one of us would take that power, become the Alpha. I didn't want that responsibility and I doubted Derek did either.

But the Alpha had only become so because he'd taken the power from Laura, the power that was supposed to be passed down through our family. We couldn't allow it to be extinguished by the Hunters but I couldn't imagine killing someone like that, taking their power.