ᴘʀᴏʟᴏɢᴜᴇ
❝ ᴡᴇʟᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇᴀᴄᴏɴ ʜɪʟʟs ❞
◝.*･ﾟ
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐟𝐭 𝐡𝐮𝐦 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐫𝐛𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐨𝐚𝐥𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐬𝐨𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩. Confined in the safe clutches of her car seat, Isla Hale seemed to be on the cusp of falling asleep.
Her baby blue hues, a startling contrast to her parents' emerald-hazel orbs, continued to roll, defiantly fighting off the slumber that threatened to consume her.
Small fingers clutched around the cuddly toy resting on her lap, a grey wolf with the nickname 'wolfy'- much to Derek's dismay.
Watching closely through the rear-view mirror, lips pinched into an affectionate smile, Aspen's shoulders relaxed as Isla finally allowed herself to fall asleep, her head tilting back as her lips parted.
The six-month old was blissfully unaware of the tension that was radiating around the car like a poisonous gas.
Excluding the purr of the car's engine, the car was silent. Even when Aspen's fingers had reached for the radio dial, flickering on a random radio station with the volume on low, Derek would immediately lean forwards, turning it off.
Aspen had turned the radio on several times throughout the car ride, all resulting in Derek turning the dial the opposite way. In the end, Aspen had accepted defeat, turning away from her husband to glance out the window.
She'd watched with an unreadable expression on her features as the tall landscape buildings had turned into forestry and country-style houses.
The landscape had passed by like a blur, a smudge of ash and emerald flashing through the tinted windows.
Derek's erratic driving was no doubt the main reason for this, and though Aspen would have normally snapped at Derek for driving so recklessly while Isla was in the car with them, she couldn't bring herself to snap at him.
Brows furrowed, Derek's hands clenched tightly around the steering wheel, his posture slouched.
He had barely said a word since they'd got in the car, as if she was a stranger to him.
But Aspen had reassured herself it was nothing she had done, knowing if she pushed Derek into talking it would have made the situation ten times worse.
His eyes never left the road as he pressed the pedal to the floor, the car jolting ever so slightly. Aspen's seatbelt snatched against her chest as the car jolted forwards.
It was now relatively dark, the odd lamppost lighting up the deserted back roads the car sped down.
Unable to hold her tongue, Aspen huffed. "Der, slow down, you're not in the Nascar races, believe it or not." She insisted firmly, hand reaching out to hold his outstretched bicep.
Her fingers wrapped snugly around the muscle that was constricted by his cotton t-shirt. As soon as her touch made contact with him, Derek's tight grip slackened.
Glancing towards the beautiful brunette in the passenger seat, Derek hesitated before easing his foot off the pedal.
He nodded at Aspen, a silent apology which she accepted with what she assumed was a smile but ended up looking more like a grimace.
Calming him down, soothing him; it seemed to be a talent of hers. It always had been.
It seemed no matter how consumed by anger he was or overwhelmed by grief, she would forever pull him from the cliff edge.
Even when they'd been love-sick teens, Aspen had always had some sort of hold on him and his wolf.
As soon as he'd laid eyes on the brunette in the hall, rejecting a renowned bully for asking her out on a date and laughing at the audacity in his face (as he frequently targeted her cello playing sister Paige), he'd been drawn to her.
She was so full of a light it was overwhelming, around her, even he, felt like a better person. She brought out the good in him, but she also brought out the beast.
Aspen could be warm-hearted and protective of her loved ones, but she could also be hot-headed and fiery- a consequence from the bite.
Lycanthropy had intensified the darker side of her and when Isla Talia Hale had been born, Aspen found herself incredibly protective of her daughter.
As her fingers fell from his bicep, Derek's attention was now on the road, with the werewolf driving at a much safer pace, just over the speed limit.
Aspen drummed her fingers against her jean clad thighs.
It was a nervous habit of hers, she'd done it as long as she could remember.
Her stomach was churning uncomfortably at the thought of going to Beacon Hills again, the thought of her daughter being in Beacon Hills...
Beacon Hills was a graveyard for Aspen.
The small town had brought her many tears and tragedies over the years she'd spent there.
After the Hale house had burnt down with eight residents inside- adults and children alike, Aspen had eagerly left the town with Derek and Laura, who had naturally become Alpha from the death of Talia, what with her being the eldest daughter.
Aspen would never forget when the three had arrived home from a late night study group at school. Laura had been laughing at something Derek had crumbled while he reluctantly gave Aspen a piggyback.
Before they'd spotted the frame of the house burnt down to cinders, Aspen had finally felt things were getting back to normal.
The death of her sister had devastated her, it had ruined her.
Her sister had been the only family she had, the two of them had a tight knit bond, so losing her little sister had been like losing a limb.
If it hadn't been for Derek, Aspen wasn't quite sure if she'd have ever escaped her grief.
She'd always been honest about her rough upbringing, especially to Derek. Neither Aspen nor her sister Paige had the best of starts in their lives.
Aspen had been born to Andrei Dunne and Myra Woodfield, twenty-two-year-old drug addicts.
Granted, neither her birth mom nor dad had a great upbringing, but they hadn't decided they weren't going to be the ones to disrupt the vicious cycle.
After finally being taken and placed in an emergency foster care home with Paige at the age of seven (with Paige being five), Aspen could vividly remember certain moments from her dreaded childhood.
Neither Andrei or Myra were stable enough to look after their children, both of them far too concerned on where and when they'd get their hit.
Fortunately, Paige couldn't recall much from living with their parents, the odd memories resurfacing.
Her little sister had been able to remember going from foster home to foster home. Some of their foster parents had been warm and welcoming, while others had been cold and clinical.
Aspen could vividly remember the day she'd been taken away from her parents.
Back then she hadn't understood, she had sobbed and sobbed, shouting and crying to go back to her mom and dad, screaming that she wanted to go home.
She could vividly recall the heartache she'd felt when she'd waited for her parents to turn up to the visitations her social worker had arranged, not that they ever had- hell, she could still feel it in her chest.
She could recall the feeling of her stomach crying out in hunger when she'd lived at home, clad in dirty clothes.
Most of the time her entire bottom half had been soaked with urine as her parents hadn't bothered to potty train either herself or Paige. Her legs had been so chaffed and sore, red raw from the many accidents.
She could even remember the moments her parents had lashed out at her when their withdrawals had sunk in, when the stress of moving away to get away from the debt from their drug dealers had taken over.
One night, when her dad's drug dealer had refused to give him any more heroin till they paid the debt, her dad had been so furious he'd unbuckled his belt, spotting the wide eyed girl in the doorway.
That night her dad had lashed her back so hard she still had the scars to show.
The once puckered red scars had faded white, still evident against her tanned skin if one looked close enough.
After he'd finished, her dad had displayed little remorse, leaving the room to get a drink, leaving the snivelling brunette on the floor.
She'd laid in the blood of her own puddle, confused and upset, wondering what she'd done to upset her dad.
Worst of all, she'd felt guilty; the feeling clawing at the bottom of her stomach. She felt awful for upsetting her dad, for making him hurt her.
She hadn't understood back then that it wasn't anything she'd done; it never had been.
Stomach churning and chest tightening at the painful memories, Aspen felt her eyes cloud over as she worriedly turned to see how Isla was.
Her anxiety seemed to lessen at the sight of the sleeping baby, soft breaths falling from her lips as she slept peacefully.
Relieved, Aspen shifted back around in her seat, her fingers still drumming patterns against her jeans. She hoped they wouldn't stay in the town long, not only for her own sake, but mainly for her daughter.
If hunters were still sniffing around the town, it would put Isla at risk.
They were remorseless, they hadn't cared when eight adults and children had burnt alive that night, so she doubt they'd change their morals at the sight of a six-month old child with the werewolf gene.
Though it had been dismissed as a random act of arson, both Derek and Aspen knew who had caused the fire. Hunters.
They're had been one group of renowned hunters around at the time; the Argent's.
Jaw clenching at the thought, Aspen gripped the rips in her jeans tightly. She wouldn't let a hunter touch a hair on Isla's precious head.
Supressing the sigh that threatened to fall from her lips, Aspen turned to Derek. "I'm sure Laura's fine, Der." Aspen mumbled, her heart skipping a beat at the blatant lie.
Despite hearing the false statement, Derek made no comment, instead glancing back towards Isla.
His cold gaze warmed at the sight of his daughter, her fingers clutching the toy wolf to her chest as she slept.
Swiftly turning his gaze towards the road, Derek nodded, lips curling up into a grimace. "I hope so."
Aspen pulled her lower lip between her teeth as she recalled the weeks chaotic events.
Laura had gone awol, the alpha had left New York, not telling her brother and sister-in-law where she was going and why.
After a couple of days of Laura not answering the phone or responding to any of the messages Aspen had sent, Derek had broken into his sister's apartment that was ten blocks away from them.
They hadn't found much in Laura's modest apartment, however, the sight of a crumpled newspaper on the kitchen table had caught Derek's attention.
It was an article; the page having been ripped out of the Beacon Hills Newspaper.
Although the ink was faded and the edges of the paper was tattered, the picture was clear enough.
It was of a deer, a familiar symbol marked into its side; the universal werewolf symbol for revenge.
The deer had been left outside the doors of the Hale House. The pictures of its blackened remains were unnerving, far from the warm place she'd visited plenty of times.
As they approached the sign that read 'ᴡᴇʟᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇᴀᴄᴏɴ ʜɪʟʟs ' in broad, bold lettering, Aspen felt her coil of anxiety in her stomach tighten.