"Did you fill the hole?
Hope you find peace
for yourself."
Deaton raised a brow, jumping out of the way when Jade fell off her chair onto the floor, which meant Lydia got dragged down with her. It had only been a matter of time until they awoke, given the fact that the blonde had been stirring in her sleep for the last half hour. He assumed it had been a bad dream, something to do with Allison's death, given the panicked mumbles under her breath.
Jade nearly gave herself whiplash trying to see where she was, even after waking up multiple times during the night. The recurring nightmare hadn't given her a break last night, no matter how tired she had been. She had somehow gotten used to the terrors that occurred every time she closed her eyes, almost expecting to be jolted awake in a cold sweat and a panic attack. She muttered a quick apology to Lydia, who had thought she was being murdered when she fell.
"Good morning," Deaton trilled, pressing his stethoscope against Derek's chest.
"How's he doing?" Lydia asked, trying to rub the clumpy mascara out of her eyes and adjusting to the coldness of the tiles. She knew she would regret not taking off her makeup last night, but the sleep had gotten the better of her, luring her in with the promise of a break from the real world. Well, that and the cup of hot chocolate that the vet had made the pair.
Deaton paused, listening again before wrapping the equipment around his neck. "His heart rate is actually alarmingly high," he noted, pursing his lips as the other two surrounded the metal table. "Lydia, I'm gonna try something. I want you to hold his hand, if that's okay."
She done as she had been told, gently wrapping her clammy fingers around Derek's. He was a lot warmer now, which was an improvement from when he had been basically hypothermic. She furrowed her brows while Deaton picked up a scalpel from a tray, immediately cutting it into the werewolf's arm. The more he dragged it along skin, the quicker the incision disappeared.
"That healed too fast," Jade shook her head, running a hand through her bed-head curls. It was a pity she didn't have a spare hairbrush in her car, given that she could probably find an oven in there somewhere.
Deaton nodded in agreement, moving around before his mouth had time to spew out the instructions. "Let's try something else. Lydia, grab me a five millilitre syringe from that top draw. Jade, grab me another scalpel from that locked cabinet." The group sprung into action, busying themselves in finding the items.
Jade found the scalpel with ease, not needing the key to open it and simply using magic. Sometimes it could be her worst enemy, but other times it could be her best friend. It was cool against her skin as she picked it up, twirling it in between her fingers. It was hard to believe that this one simple tool could be used to help save someone's life.
Turning around when she heard a deep growl, she side-shuffled over to Lydia and Deaton, an arm out to protect the two.
Derek got down from the table with ease, his eyes glowing blue and his claws growing by the second. His eyes didn't remind her of Isaac's, Aiden's or even Ethan's; they were more aggressive in colour, like a ship that was battling on choppy waves. The group tried to call out his name, but all it done was make him more overwhelmed, covering his ears to block their voices out.
He swiped at them once, throwing Deaton into a cart full of medicine, before running out the double doors and into the midst of town.
Jade leaned down beside the man, ignoring the werewolf that had just bolted out of the clinic and was probably going to wreck chaos that they would have to fix. His arm had two bleeding claw marks drawn across it, from his elbow down to his wrist. Closing her eyes, the mark was fully gone in a few seconds, the witch's white outline disappearing.
One of the only good things about learning what her mother had done was destroying the necklace, which gave her a bit more control. And with more control came spells being completed at a quicker pace, making her more powerful and less likely to drain herself.
Lydia was already on the phone, trying to get through to Scott, Stiles, Max- basically anyone that would answer. They were currently scheduled to be in history, though, and might not get a chance to check their voicemails until later.
So, doing what any sane person would, she found Mr Yukimura's number on their school website, sending him a message that he would hopefully pass on. She smiled in triumph when a few minutes later her screen lit up with an incoming call from Scott. "They're on their way," she knelt down, helping Jade pick up the items that were covering the floor.
The group must have broken at least a hundred traffic rules, because they were at the animal clinic in five minutes, huddling into the room that had just been tidied up.
"Why didn't you stop him?" Stiles asked, glaring daggers at Jade who was casually leaning against a cupboard. She had no problem using her magic when it benefited her, but couldn't bother using it to stop Derek escaping?
"I was in the middle of making sure Deaton didn't bleed to death," she seethed, balling her hands into fists. Let the comments roll down her back and eventually the anger she was feeling would fade into nothingness. Well, that's what everyone told her would happen. Although it hadn't worked for the last month, the anger just bubbling away and threatening to explode more with every day that passed.
"I don't think he's just younger in body," Deaton cut in, interrupting the fight that was about to break out in his place of work. "I think he's younger in his mind, too. He didn't recognise any of us and was scared out of his mind."
Scott asked the question on everyone's minds, trying to think of the answer. "So, you're a terrified teenage werewolf. Where do you go?"
"He'd go to the Hale house," Max shrugged, trying to come up with an accurate timeline in his head. Derek looked roughly sixteen or seventeen when they had found him in Mexico, which meant the fire hadn't happened yet. Therefore, when he showed up there, all he would find was some burnt down ruins and would panic even more. He glanced up at his sister, tilting his head in thought. "We might have to talk to him, Jade. It might calm him down, considering he trusts us. We can just tell him that you're using an aged up spell."
She sighed, her head throbbing too badly to come up with a better idea. "Alright. So, we go to the Hale house first and if he's not there, where's our next stop?"
"The sheriff's office," Scott added, both feet already out the door, but retreating when Lydia called him back.
"Say you do find him. What are you gonna say? That his whole family is dead?"
"I guess I'm gonna have to. We can't lie to him, he can hear our heartbeats."
Max scoffed, his sister beating him to the point and quickly scolding him for how stupid that plan was. Scott obviously hadn't learned anything about the man in the last year and a half, or he wouldn't have even suggested that. Derek used anger as a form of control, and he would most definitely freak out if they told him the truth. What did that mean? He would lose that control and probably kill them all.
"I don't think a stranger telling an emotional werewolf that his entire family burnt to death in a fire caused by hunters will help. It'll be like adding fuel to the fire, no pun intended. I say we lie our asses off until we find a way to turn him back to normal."
"Of course, lying is the only plan you could come up with destroyer of the world," Stiles spat, hands on his hips.
Jade pounced forward, a pair of hands wrapping around her waist and yanking her away from the boy who had bolted out the door. "One more snide remark and I'll live up to my name, Mieczyslaw! Fine!" she threw her hands up in the air, smoothing out her crumpled t-shirt and blowing stray pieces of hair out of her face.
"Now that you've got that out your system, Sabrina, we should probably find Derek before anyone else does," Max sighed, kicking his foot onto the table to retie his lace that had came undone in the prevention of Jade's murder count going up to eight. It was a daily job for him and Lydia to make sure she didn't flip out- especially when Stiles and Peter, to name a few, were constantly taunting her.
It was as if they wanted her to go off the rails again, just to prove their point that the pack should cut ties with her completely. The whole lot of them were instigators beyond belief.
~
Jade and Max rushed into the sheriff's station, already spotting Scott and Stiles being ushered into the man's office. Their eyes fell onto the escaped werewolf who was wearing an envy green shirt, a brow raised at the two teenagers who had burst through the doors. "Can I help you?" he narrowed his eyes, refusing to be the one who broke eye contact first. Anyway, they were staring at him.
"You got yourself arrested, well done. Classic Hale," Max hissed, shuffling the weight from foot to foot, trying to soothe the jittery uneasiness that ran through his veins. It made him on edge, as well as more likely to snap if Stiles was to utter another insult. He hated how his brain worked; how the first thing he had connected anxiety with was alcohol. A thing that got rid of the restlessness, but made him a numb and malicious mess.
"How do you know I'm a Hale? Do you know where my family is?" he straightened up his posture on the uncomfortable bench he was sat at, leaning forward and listening to the beating heartbeats of the strangers. He paused for a second, taken aback at how familiar the sound resonated within his ears. His eyes squinted as he looked between the boy, then back at the girl.
It looked a lot like Jade and Max, but it couldn't be. One, they didn't live in California, they lived in Florida. Two, Elizabeth and Talia had severed any ties between both families. Three, the twins were younger than him, whereas these two kids looked seventeen at a push.
But they had the same mischievous glint in the corner of their dark green eyes, something that never went away- even when they weren't scheming up a plan. The girl's blonde hair framed her face in the same way, although it had grown longer and there was faint pink streaks towards the ends. If the boy was Max, he had dyed his hair from his natural dirty blonde to a golden brown, which actually suited him better.
He was about to start his interrogation when the door behind him swung open, the sheriff beckoning him into the room and out of the waiting area.
Jade shared a look of understanding with her brother, both of them knowing that Derek had connected the dots. Or he was at least getting there. Noah held the door open for the twins to follow in as well, Jade falling behind for a second.
She felt as if she was being watched, glaring daggers at one of the deputy's who quickly averted his gaze away and returned to typing on his computer. Parrish shot her a concerned glance, but she didn't pay attention. Maybe she should let Noah know that he had hired a perv as a deputy. She had never seen him around here before, so she assumed he was relatively new. God, it was bringing her back to her days when Matt had stalked her. No, he was dead and had been for a while, she was just catastrophising.
"Why would I go anywhere with you?"
Well, walking into the office and hearing that as a first sentence, wasn't exactly a good place to start. She bit the inside of her cheek, breathing deeply when Stiles made the effort to shuffle to the opposite side of the room, using Scott as a human shield. She wanted to say how if she was going to attack him, she would of done it by now, but bit her tongue for good measure. For once, she was going to keep her mouth shut, no matter how much she wanted to kick him in the face.
"There was an accident. You lost a lot of your memory, but we can help you get it back. You can trust us," Scott explained, trying his best to ignore Stiles jumping around in circles every time Jade moved in the slightest. The two of them needed to quit being at each other's throats for two seconds and just help him convince Derek to come with them.
Derek lounged back in the leather sofa, pulling his legs up to his chest as if to protect himself from what was being said. "What's your names?" he asked, pointing at the group individually. If they wanted him to trust them, their names were essential.
"I'm Scott. This is my best friend, Stiles," he pointed at the boy who was clinging to his jacket and using him as a protected. "These are my cousins, Max and Jade." He pointed at Max, who was sitting up on the windowsill, reading a magazine that he had found and waving a hand lazily behind him at Jade, who was swinging back and forth in Noah's chair, her legs kicked up on the desk.
Derek looked stunned for a second, his mouth hanging open as he tried to comprehend what he had just heard. He knew for a fact Scott wasn't lying because he could hear a steady and never-changing heart beat. But this didn't make any sense! "How—"
"Aging up spell," Max cut in, gesturing towards his sister who shrugged in a dignified manner. She couldn't really take credit for something that probably didn't even exist! But Derek didn't know that, so as long as he didn't find out, everything would go smoothly.
"I don't believe you," he shook his head, folding his arms across his chest in defiance. His hands fell limply at his side when Jade flashed her eyes purple, at the same time as Scott knelt down and showed off his red eyes.
Max decided against participating, given that Derek would know they were lying. His eyes had only ever turned green when he inherited his dad's empath powers, which wouldn't add up, considering he was only a seer up until the evening of their car accident. The first of many car accidents, might he add.
Stiles interrupted the protests from the Hale, knowing that he could complain for hours on end. "Look, you almost tore apart two cops out there, okay? You need to listen to us and that starts with no fangs, no claws, no wolf man. You got that?"
"I'm fine as long as it's not a full moon."
Scott's eyes almost popped out of his head as he stared in shock at the werewolf. "You still have trouble with the full moon?"
"Where's my family?" he changed the conversation into a completely different route. He wanted answers and he wanted them now. There was too much crap that everyone was spewing, too many stones left unturned. "You want me to trust you? Answer my question."
Max clamped his mouth shut, refusing to get involved. He was willing to help- that was, up until he found out that Derek still had trouble controlling his shift. He wasn't going to be the one that got punched in the face or kicked in the stomach; he was too much of a frail person! But out of everyone, he hadn't expected Scott to be able to lie through his teeth.
"There was a fire. And..." Scott had genuinely started with the intention of telling him the truth. But when he looked into the teenager's teary eyes and saw the panic written across his face, he just couldn't bring himself to do it. "They're not here anymore, but they're fine, don't worry. They just had to move out of Beacon Hills. And we're gonna take you to them, as soon as we find out how to get your memories back."
Derek hesitated, but didn't hear a tremor when the alpha had spoke. Exhaling shakily, he nodded. He would trust them. "Okay."
Max jumped off the window sill, clapping his hands together and holding the door open for them to exit the stuffy room. It was like every object in there knew that they were lying and was punishing them by making the atmosphere as uncomfortable as possible.
Noah walked towards the group, after leaving them to talk in private. He raised a brow, waiting to see if they had gotten through to Derek or not. Scott nodded, a hand resting against the door. "Alrighty then. I just need you to sign some paperwork and then you're free to go," he said, calling over another one of the deputies, the one that had been staring Jade down.
She turned around to head into the hallway, before realising that Scott, Stiles and Max were already in deep conversation out there, no doubt about her cousin lying. "I guess I'll stay here then," she mumbled, sighing and reading the paperwork over Derek's shoulder. It was just some standard forms that needed to be put on record, the deputy explaining where he had to sign.
"Since when could you do a spell that complex?" Derek questioned, throwing the ballpoint pen back into the holder and leaving it on the desk.
"My mom done it," Jade lied, keeping her heart beat steady. The words tasted like poison on her tongue, making her want to stab herself in the leg for even uttering them. Her mom wouldn't have done no such thing for her daughter. Instead, she probably would have locked her in her room with a spell book and came back in a day to see if she had learnt it.
"No, seriously Scott, please! Don't leave me here, I swear to God, she's gonna kill me!" Stiles hissed, planting his feet firmly on the hardware floor and refusing to let go of Scott's jumper, even when he was dragged halfway across the office. Eventually, the werewolf and Max made a run for it before the brunette had time to stop them.
Derek scoffed, rubbing his knuckles into his eyes. "He's scared of you? You wouldn't harm a fly."
That was the part he was wrong about, the part that made the smile more forced than normal. She wasn't that harmless young girl anymore, she hadn't been in a while.
Maybe they were right.
Maybe she was the monster, the villain in her own story.