Sadie despises cockiness when it comes from anyone but herself- and, being a werewolf whose sense of control has magically vanished, that leads to a lot of problems.
When a secretive werewolf named Theo Raeken invites himself into the picture, she'...
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I can't decide whether I can feel everything or nothing at all.
The cuts burn at my stomach and I feel the occasional warmth of blood dripping down my waist. My eyes are shut, too heavy to open, and the world jumps up and down wildly as Derek continues running. He's carrying me like I'm a child, trying his best to keep me comfortable. His hand clutches my arm tightly, and with each step I feel a single ounce of pain evaporating.
But taking my pain away doesn't help. I know that I'm dying.
I feel myself being placed on a cold, metal table. I hear familiar voices gasping. Muffled words fill the air, and I use whatever strength I have left to focus on what they're saying. They're asking if I'm okay, again and again, asking what happened.
"Scott, you need to bite her." Derek says forcefully, ignoring the panic that's just erupted in the room. Scott is speechless. Derek would've done this himself, I'm sure, but his abilities had changed so dramatically, and we haven't found out why. He's back to being a beta, which means that taking my pain away is about as much as he can do for me.
"Damn it, Scott, I wasn't asking, do it!" He's yelling now. He slams his hand onto the table, and the sound of metal clanging echoes in my ears.
"I- I can't just-" "Yes, you can!" "Look at the state of her, Derek! We need to get her to a hospital!" I feel my shirt being ripped open, and whatever is under it causes more gasps to fill the room. "There's no time. Please!" his voice softens. "Please." "She'll die, Derek." Stiles whispers, his voice thick, a lump in his throat. "She's already bleeding out, she is going to die any minute now! This is the one thing we can try!" I've been listening for minutes, but it only hits me now.
He's going to turn me.
I'm trying so hard to sit up, to open my eyes, or my mouth, anything. Nothing works. I can't do it. Just let go. I don't need to think about it any longer- or maybe I'm just too weak to think about it. This is how it ends, I guess.
But before everything goes black, I feel two sharp stings in my arm, one right next to the other. It sends a wave of shock through me, and part of me knows what's currently happening. But the other part of me, which is the bigger part of me, isn't strong enough to recognize anything. All I manage to do is release a pained groan before completely passing out.
~
The sun paints my vision a blinding shade of white for three whole seconds when I open my eyes. I feel like I'm healed, but I feel stronger, too. I can't feel blood oozing out of me anymore. In fact, I feel like I just shed into a new, bulletproof layer of skin. I feel as though my muscles have doubled in size, and every sense I possess seems to be heightened.
I'm at the animal clinic, I realise. Turning my head to the side, I see Derek, who seems to be resting his face on his knuckles nervously. As soon as I see him, he sees me, and his eyes widen. He stands up and walks over to me hastily. Sitting up is surprisingly easy. I would expect an extremely violent slash of a Berserker's claw-like hand to lead to painful aftercare. I know exactly why it doesn't hurt as much as it should, but I lock the thought away quickly- I'm not ready to comprehend that yet. Everyone else is here too, and all of them stand up, looking at me as if they haven't seen me in years. I don't blame them, because it certainly feels like I've been sleeping for years.
Derek examines the side of my stomach- that must be where my wound was- and takes my face in his hands, examining it, too. I almost laugh and roll my eyes, because everyone in this room knows that my face isn't where I got hurt. "How do you feel?" "Strange..." my voice sounds shockingly unfamiliar, so raspy and hoarse. "But you're alright?" "I guess so." He exhales loudly and kisses me on the head. That action alone tells me how close I must've been to death last night.
"Hey, why didn't you do that when I was dying?" Stiles protests across the room. I laugh, and so does everyone else apart from Derek. "You scared the hell out of me!" Lydia scolds. She comes over and gives me a hug. Her perfume is so sweet, it's sickening, but something about it is comforting to me. She brushes a strand of red hair out of my face when she pulls back from the hug. "Hey," I point an accusing finger at her, "your powers should've warned me about that." We all laugh again, although I think that they're all trying to distract me from what's about to hit me.
The laughter fades as I try to make out my memories from last night. My heart starts beating faster as I realise what happened.
"Sadie," Scott begins cautiously. "There's something you need to know."
But I already know, and I don't know how I feel about it. Everyone in the room tenses. They all know, but Scott saying it out loud is going to make it so much more real. He sighs and looks me in the eye, placing a hand on my shoulder with the comforting touch that he always has.
