"We need to... speed up my body's healing process." Sam finally spoke after what had seemed like an eternity.
"How?" Erica questioned, the wounds were still gaping open and Sam's face was unnaturally pale with sunken in eyes.
"Break my arm." Sam instructed, still paralyzed from the kanima venom.
"Sam, no. I can't do that... I can't hurt you." Erica sobbed as tears rolled down her cheeks.
"You have to." Sam urged.
Her eyes darted around the room. Adrenaline was coursing through her veins but she couldn't move.
She'd listened to every single thing that Derek had taught her, and she knew if there was any hope in making it out of this alive she had to start healing, and heal fast.
"I'm so sorry." Erica cried as she grabbed Sam's arm and closed her eyes, as she bent it until there was a loud snap and she cried out in even more pain.
Dropping her arm and scooting back Erica pulled her knees up to her chest as mascara stained her faced, she desperately rubbed her face with her hands as repeated I'm sorry, over and over again.
"Again."
Erica raised her head and stared at Samantha in shock.
"I think I can move my fingers." Sam showed her the small movement she was able to make with her fingers, "And my arm healed. We have to do it again."
"I can't do that again, I don't want to hurt you." Erica explained as she slowly crawled back to her friend's side.
"Erica, if you don't do this, I think I'm going to die."
Nodding and crying even harder, Erica bent Sam's arm again until there was another sickening crack sound and more cries of agony echoed through the room.
After what felt like an eternity, Sam was able to sit up with her friends help.
Her wounds were still open, but slowly healing.
Erica kept a supportive arm around Sam, while she zipped her jacket shut and applied pressure to the sore, open skin.
It was just moments later that the bathroom door flung open and Derek stared at them, relief flooding over his face as he saw her standing.
"You're okay?" He asked as he walked forward and looked her over.
"I'm healing... thanks to her." Sam clarified as she nodded to Erica, who's hands were still shaking.
"I... had to keep breaking her bones... over and over." The blond teenager stuttered out.
Derek looked confused for a moment, "How did you know to have her do that?"
Sam tightened her arms over her stomach as she said, "I listened to everything you taught me."
~()~
"So what is this thing?" Erica asked as the group neared where Scott and Stiles were looking at the contents of the bestiary on one of their laptops.
"It's called the kanima." Derek announced loudly, causing Scott and Stiles to look at them.
"You knew the whole time?" Stiles guessed.
"No, I didn't know for sure until it was confused by it's own reflection." He responded, glancing over to where Sam was standing slouched over, trying to pretend that every little movement wasn't causing her more agony.
"It doesn't even know what it is..." Scott realized.
"Or who." Derek added in.
"Well, what else do you know?" Stiles asked.
Glancing around the now deserted parking lot, Derek sighed "Only stories... rumors."
"But it is like us?" Sam finally spoke.
"A shape-shifter, yes. But it's not right... it's like a..." Derek's voice trailed off.
"An abomination." Stiles finished.
Sam was silent as Scott pleaded with Derek to work together on trying to trap the monster, but he wasn't having any part of it.
When he brought up telling the Argent's, Derek exclaimed, "You'd trust them?"
With her head aching from all the pain she was in, Samantha snapped "Nobody trusts anyone... that's the problem."
Turning her attention to Derek she continued, "Especially with you. You should have told me about tonight."
"Sam's right, while we're here arguing about who's side we're on. There is something scarier, stronger and faster than any of us, and it's killing people! And we still don't know anything about it." Scott agreed.
Glancing back to Sam and able to tell how much pain she was in, Derek growled, "I know one thing, when I find it I'm gonna kill it."
He turned and walked away nodding for his pack mates to follow him.
After several painful steps, Sam stopped and argued, "We don't even know who it is."
Derek turned around, a look of disbelief on his face.
"That thing almost killed you, and you still want to save it?"
"You said yourself that it doesn't even know who it is!"
She tightened her arms around the midsection and hoped the wounds would heal up soon.
"What's this really about?" He demanded to know as he faced her.
Erica looked between them and mumbled an excuse to leave as she walked away and called to let her dad know she'd be coming home in a little bit.
"How could you not tell me about this plan tonight?" She asked.
"It's not important." He said, as he looked back down to where she was clutching her stomach and standing on unsteady legs.
And to him it wasn't important, the important thing was she was slowly healing and they knew what the creature was now.
"You're right." Sam sighed in defeat.
Derek nodded and started to walk away but Sam stayed still as she furthered her explanation, "Maybe I am naïve."
He turned when he realized she didn't mean he was right about it not being important, she was referring to their earlier conversation.
"I was apparently just naïve enough to believe everything you told me, about a pack being a family. Trust and loyalty... I really believed you. I did everything you asked of me and even more." She said, as tears burnt her eyes.
Normally she'd fight against the urge to break down in front of someone, but she was hurting and exhausted. Felt like her entire system was on the brink of collapse.
"Sam..."
"Just admit it! You lied to me to build your pack and now you don't even want me in it! Just because I don't think the same way you do about things." She said, tears of anger running down her cheeks.
"Stop it." Derek instructed, "We need to get you out of here-"
But this time she wasn't going to listen to him.
"No! Tell me why you didn't want me to help you tonight." She pushed.
Irritated and still short tempered from what had happened, Derek snapped back at her, "I didn't ask for your help tonight, because I didn't think you could handle it. What you said earlier about wanting to save this thing, it's ridiculous and I think you're going to get yourself killed with that mindset."
"Just because I don't want to shoot first and ask questions later, I'm being ridiculous?" She swayed and nearly stumbled over.
"No, the way you want to humanize this thing and save everyone makes you weak, Sam."
His words cut right through her, sliced deeper than the kanima claws had in a matter of seconds.
"You're injured and you need to rest, you need to finish healing." Derek said his voice softer as he reached out to guide her towards his car.
But she moved back away from his touch.
"You're wrong... I'm not weak. I believed everything you said about a pack being family, and I would kill to protect any of my pack mates. If that kanima was trying to kill one of us, I would kill it first without a hesitation. And I would die for you Derek... I would die for Erica and Isaac, and even Boyd who just joined our pack. But, just because I'm standing up for something I think is right, doesn't make me weak."
He was silent, not sure what to say to her and he didn't want to keep arguing.
She was exerting energy on a pointless fight when she needed to focus on healing.
Turning and walking away she called out to Stiles and Scott, "Can I get a ride home?"
They both looked at her surprised.
"Please?" She asked, her voice strained and weak.
"Yeah, sure." Stiles said, knowing Scott still had to pick his mom up from work.
Derek shook his head at her and waited until Stiles had driven off with her, before he went to his car.
"Where's Sam?" Erica asked.
But Derek didn't respond as he got into the driver's seat and slammed the door.
~(The next morning)~
"Sam!" Jacob yelled as he walked into his older sister's room.
Her eyes slowly opened as she groaned and pushed the blankets down some.
"What Jake?" She groggily yelled.
"The bus is gonna be here any minute and you didn't fix breakfast... mom already left." He complained as he dropped his book bag on the floor to pull his coat on.
"Just get some money from my purse, I'm not going to school today." She said as she tried to sit up.
But her legs wouldn't move.
She swallowed hard and tried to concentrate and move her toes, but they wouldn't budge. Her legs were paralyzed.
Tears burnt her eyes as she used her arms to pull herself up.
Jacob asked, "How much?" As he picked her purse up from the desk.
"However much breakfast at school is!" She unintentionally snapped.
He looked up as she wiped some tears from her cheeks.
"Are you okay, Sam?" Concern growing in his expression.
Forging a smile she nodded and said, "I just don't feel good, take whatever you need and hurry so you don't miss the bus."
After her little brother had left she threw the blanket off of herself and stared down to her legs in horror at the inability to move them. It was like the kanima venom was still inside her somehow.
Her heart raced from fear, what if it had done permanent damage? What if she could never walk again?
Pushing the thoughts from her head she tried to look at it logically, but there was a steady fear growing in her mind that she may be dying.
Lifting her shirt she saw the wounds were healed up, which was confusing since her legs were now re-paralyzed.
Closing her eyes and psyching herself up she brought her arm down as hard as she could on her bedside table, breaking her arm.
Crying and screaming out in pain she breathed heavily through the pain, until her arm was healed.
After repeating the agonizing move a few more times, she could finally move her legs. But as she stood up, they felt unsteady beneath her.
Grabbing her phone she stumbled into the bathroom and leaned on her sink for leverage as the room started to spin.
Her phone fell to the tile floor and her stomach turned as she leaned over the sink and vomited a black substance into the white porcelain.
"Oh god..." She said as her eyes burnt from tears.
The only conclusion she could come to was that her skin had somehow healed with kanima venom still inside of her.
Looking down to her hand she tried to get her claws to extend, but she couldn't. It was taking all the energy she had to keep herself standing.
Knocking things off the sink as she leaned on it to open the medicine cabinet, she retrieved a new disposable razor. Pulling off the oversized shirt she'd been sleeping in, she was now left in her bra and underwear.
Sitting down on the side of the bathtub she, pried the plastic covering off the blade and looked at it.
Holding her breath and clenching her teeth, she made a deep incision on her stomach where the kanima's claws had ripped apart her flesh.
She let out a loud, indescribable noise as a thick line of black blood bubbled to the surface and began to pour from the wound.
Something was wrong, very wrong and she had no idea what to do.
Somehow managing to find the strength to stand up, she stumbled back into her bedroom and onto her bed, leaving a trail of black blood behind her.
Feeling so weak and freezing cold, she pulled the blankets over her and shivered. It was only moments later that she had to hang her head off the side of her bed and over her trash can as another wave of vomiting hit her; but all that came up was that same black substance.
Her body was trying desperately to heal itself, only she had no idea what she needed to heal from.
Sweat peppered her skin and she tossed the blankets off, the heat had hit her as fast as the coldness had.
This time she didn't even have time to get the trashcan as she puked more of the same black goo all over her legs in the bed.
So many thoughts rushed through her head.
She was dying; she knew that.
Most of all she was afraid it would be her little brother who'd find her body.
Tears poured down her fever red, sweaty cheeks as she wondered how they'd go on without her.
She practically raised her brother, her mother was incapable of taking care of herself; how the hell would she raise Jake?
That gave her the strength to get up out of her bed and back into the bathroom.
Picking up her phone she barely even noticed the cracked screen as she tried to sit down on the edge of the bathtub, but lost her balance and fell into it.
The cold metal felt good against her feverish skin.
It was the only bit of relief she'd felt since she'd woken up.
Leaning forward she turned the water on full blast, as cold as it would get. But even with the steadily filling tub of frigid water, she felt like every cell in her body was on fire.
Her eyes were losing focus as she tried to get into the contact list on her phone, by some miracle she managed to find Derek's number and call him.
"Sam?" He answered surprised she was calling him already with as mad as she'd been the prior night.
"D-Derek..."
All she could manage was a whisper.
"What's going on?".
The seconds felt like hours as he waited for a response.
"Some-something is wrong... my blood is black... and I... something is wrong." She spoke in circles from panic and fought to keep her heavy eyelids open.
"Sam!" Derek yelled, but she didn't respond.
Her eyes closed and the phone landed with a splash in the water, and the room slowly faded to black as she couldn't move her legs or arms now.
"Derek... hurry." Was the last thing she managed to say before she lost all consciousness.
~()~
Samantha's eyes fluttered open as she stared up to the ceiling. It took a few moments for her to realize where she was.
She breathed out a small sigh of relief, she was safe, in her bed.
Pushing the blankets off she stopped as she looked down, she had one of her pale blue bath towels wrapped around her, but she didn't remember doing that.
Sitting up in the bed, her heart started to race as she saw the sheets on her bed weren't the same ones as earlier, which was good because she'd coughed up black goo and bled all over them from her wounded stomach.
But bad because she didn't remember getting out of the bathtub, let alone changing the sheets on her bed.
She saw the trashcan beside her bed had been emptied too.
There were no signs of the struggle for her life that had happened.
Taking a deep breath she pulled the towel open and looked down to her stomach which was now all bandaged up.
"What the hell?" she mumbled.
She was still in her same bra and underwear as before, and the towel around her was only a little damp, so she must have been out for a while.
Wondering if her skin was all healed up, she started to pull the bandaging off, but gasped when she heard Derek's voice.
"Leave it alone, you're still healing."
Pulling her blanket over her almost bare body she stared at him wide eyed.
"What are you doing here?" She asked the first thing that came to mind.
Walking farther into her room, he said, "Just burnt the last of your sheets and trash."
Her forehead lined with confusion, then she slowly started to piece it all together.
"Right, because it would be really hard to explain all the black blood to my mom and brother..."
After a small pause she continued, "And you're here because I somehow managed to call you before I blacked out."
"Why didn't you tell me last night that you weren't healing right? You should have told me something was wrong."
Derek's jaw tensed.
"I thought I was healing, but then when my alarm went off this morning, I couldn't move my legs... it was just downhill from there." She explained she tucked some of her tangled hair behind her ear.
"I thought I was going to die." She recalled the terrifying feelings she'd had.
"You almost did die, Sam."
She avoided his gaze as he came closer and sat down on the edge of her bed, only looking up when she heard a small clank.
"What is that?" She questioned.
He was holding one of the clear glasses from her kitchen with something in the bottom of it.
"A kanima claw... this is why you weren't healing." He explained.
He sat the glass down on her bedside table.
She swallowed hard, realizing it must have lost a claw when it had shredded her stomach.
"Thank you for saving my life." She said, as she looked up at him, immediately wishing she hadn't when her heart started to race inside of her chest.
It was bad enough that he'd seen her in next to nothing while she was unconscious, but being what he was, he could easily hear the effect he had on her.
"Derek..." She stuttered out, thinking she needed to talk to drown out the sound of her racing heart.
"I guess if I was able to survive having a kanima claw embedded in my body for hours and live to tell the tale, I'm not as weak as you think." She tried to joke, but once she'd said it, she wanted to slap herself across the face.
She'd never understood how girls like Lydia were effortlessly calm and collected. How did they always knew the right things to say?
Before he could speak, she quickly exclaimed "I'm sorry, I'm always so awkward and say the wrong things."
"You're not weak." He said before she'd finished trying to excuse the lame attempt at a joke.
She glanced past him to where there was a picture of her mom and her brother on her dresser.
"I have compassion for people. I can't change the way I am." She said, her voice trailed off as she looked down to the comforter on her bed.
"I don't want you to change." He admitted.
Her head popped up as she looked at him, shocked, "You don't?"
His eyes traced her face in the natural lighting from her window as he said, "No, I don't want you to change. But I explained everything before I gave you the bite, in my world... in your world; there isn't just black and white anymore. It's a gray area where sometimes you have to make tough decisions and sometimes that decision is to end a life."
"For what? The greater good?" She asked.
"In a sense." He agreed.
She hated that.
Maybe it should have been easy; the life of one versus the life of many, but it became more complicated when taken into consideration that one person could mean everything to someone else.
There was always collateral damage in a war and that was a bitter pill to try and swallow.
"I just keep thinking, what if this kanima is someone I know? If we kill this thing and then I find out who it is, how am I supposed to live with that?" She questioned, her eyebrows furrowed together.
"It almost killed you." He reminded her.
The room was silent as they both looked at each other, before she broke the eye contact and looked down as she adjusted the blanket under her arms so it wouldn't slide down.
Of course not that it mattered; he'd already seen her in her bra.
Her cheeks darkened at that thought.
When he'd gotten to her house he would have had to pull her barley clothed body from the freezing cold water of the bathtub.
Somehow that realization was more mortifying than the thought of dying from a kanima claw lodged in her. In fact at the moment she could think of very few things that would have been more embarrassing.
Managing to regain the correct train of thought she said, "I agreed to this because you told me about the security a pack would be bring me, remember? About how a pack is closer than family. How could you leave me out of the plan?"
"I didn't think you could handle it." Derek answered.
"When Erica told me about what was going on, I just felt..."
Her voice trailed off.
"Pissed?" He guessed.
"Betrayed."
He looked at her and raised his eyebrows.
"Not everyone's first go to emotion is anger, Derek." Sam said with a somber half-smile.
"In order for me to tell you what's going on, I need to know that you can handle it." He said.
Sam nervously ran her tongue over her bottom lip as she stared at him.
"Well, I guess that's not unreasonable." She said with a small laugh that caused him to smile.
"Maybe you're right... maybe the only way to handle this is to kill the kanima." She agreed, "Before more people get hurt or worse."
"Before we can kill it, we need to figure out a way to trap... or at least a way to track it." He reasoned, relieved she was going to go along with whatever plan he had.
Sam looked back down to her bed, and then it hit her that he'd not only saved her life, but had also cleaned up the mess from her room and changed the sheets on her bed.
A smile toyed at the corner of her lips at the idea of Derek Hale cleaning up her room and making her bed.
"What?" He asked as he saw her trying to keep from smiling, but she wasn't doing a good job.
"I was just... it's kind of funny to me." She admitted avoiding his eyes.
"What is?" He questioned.
"I was just thinking about how you put clean blankets and all on my bed and emptied the trash." She sheepishly admitted.
"And that's funny?" He asked.
"Yeah, it's just... very domestic of you."
When she finally gathered the courage to look up at him again, he said "You almost died, Sam. That's not funny."
In response she gave a small shrug.
"When I got here, you were unconscious... in a bathtub full of ice cold, black water." He said nodding to her stomach where there had been a gaping wound. "Your lips were blue and I..." His voice trailed off.
She looked up at him, her eyes locking briefly with his.
"I thought you were dead." He admitted an unreadable expression on his face.
Carefully, keeping the top of the blanket tucked under her arms she scooted forward some as she said, "Yeah... with the hunters waging war, I can't imagine people would be lining up to take my spot in the pack."
She held her breath as she waited for him to say something, maybe something as cheesy as 'no one could take your spot.' But this was Derek, he wasn't cheesy or even remotely revealing in his feelings.
He looked at her with sigh of irritation at her acting like her death wouldn't have been a big deal to him, "You dying, would have affected a lot of people."
"Like... you?" She somehow found the courage to ask him.
"Yeah, like me." He said, but his tone almost sounded like he was scolding her for something.
Shaking her head she let out a nervous laugh as she looked down and said, "Right, because... I'm your first beta and all."
After a pause she opened her mouth to tell him that he should probably get out of there before her mom and brother came home, but he spoke first.
"That's not the only reason. You're important to me, Sam."
It took her a few moments to look up as she played what he'd said, over and over again in her head.
She was important to him.
"Really?" She asked, as her eyes connected with his.
"Really."
Mentally she tried to tell herself it wasn't a big deal, but the large smile that spread over her lips was a dead giveaway of how much his words had meant to her.
She stared at him, watched as his eyes traced her face before locking with hers again.
She started to lean in slightly, then froze.
Kissing him would be so easy, their faces were only inches apart.
Maybe Erica had been right all the times she tried to tell her that Derek acted differently towards her.
Maybe all of the doubts she had weren't valid.
But self-assurance was something she was still working on, and the fear of rejection still weighed heavily on her mind. What if he didn't return the kiss, or her feelings?
Then every time she was around him or the rest of her pack for that matter, things would be far too awkward.
Just go for it! She told herself, but her body didn't follow the order as her eyes traveled from his lips up to his eyes.
God, he had beautiful eyes. And she might have told him that if she were able to find her voice.
Closing her eyes she bit her bottom lip and as she shook her head at herself, she was moments away from finally kissing him and she couldn't even slow her mind down long enough to actually go through with it.
As she opened her eyes and stared into his again, her nerves slowly started to fade.
She started to lean back and muttered "I'm sorry..."
But before she even got her apology out, he leaned in capturing her lips with his own.
Her eyes widened and it took a few seconds for her to fully comprehend what was happening; they were kissing.
Actually kissing and he was the one who initiated it.
Her eyes slowly fluttered closed as she melted into the moment with him.
Derek's arm slid around her, his palm laying flat against her bare lower back, he pulled her even closer to him.
Finally her mind and fears left her alone to just enjoy the moment with him, in fact the only thing she could think of was how he made her feel.
Well, that and the fact that if she didn't know better, she'd swear she was floating in the air.
Slowly, and a little unsure at first she slid her hands up his chest where she left one hand, and moved the other behind his neck.
Pulling back for a breath she smiled against his mouth as she could not only hear his hastened heartbeat, but feel it under her hand.
Leaning back a little bit farther she was pretty sure she saw his lips curve up into a small smile too before his mouth was back on hers.
~()~
A/N - Thank you all so much for reading! I really hope you all liked the chapter. ^_^