Don't Make it Personal AA/TW

Catch-22

CHAPTER 6 - Catch-22

—Location: Apartment Complex—Paris, France.—Date Aug 21st—Time: 1340hrs—

The first thing he noticed was Micheal's eyes. Death and Derek were, for some unknown reason, synonymous. No matter how hard he tried to run away, decay followed him to the ends of the earth like a heat seeking missile with no cancellation clause. Desensitizing him while simultaneously making him familiar with his own mortality salience.

After years of forced interaction, he could usually view a dead body with nothing more than a backwards glance and a formidable grunt. Hell, at this point he can't even remember how many people have fallen on his own preverbal sword. But this? This was something out of a horror movie.

Derek always remembered the eyes... Boyd's, Paige's. The way they would glaze over, becoming unaware of the world around them. The unresponsiveness was a fucked up cocktail of grief and relief. The dim-less retina's signifying that their host was no longer in pain.

At least there was peace within the suffering. When they stopped surviving and succumbed to the metaphorical white light, that's when he knew their souls would finally be free. But as Derek stared into Micheal's lifeless eyes, he felt no calm. There was something...different about them. Instead of the glassy gaze he's expecting, the wide orbs held an accusatory darkness. The pain that was supposed to fade alongside the beta's last breath was still very much present on his features. There was no peace for Micheal...Only agony.

Derek knew the whole pack will never be able to fully recover from the sight of his narrowly recognizable body. Micheal's arms were bound in front of him, strapped against a frail wooden chair with electric wires. Rigour mortis had barely set in. What was left of his blood pooling at his feet making his upper half a porcelain white.

He's surprised he still has any of the crimson substance left in him. The red liquid encapsulated the space, smearing against every surface of the room like a child's failed finger painting escapade. Mutilated bones stuck out from the ends of missing fingers that were offhandedly scattered across the laminated floor.

"What happened to him?" Derek whispered, trying to gauge the situation.

Noah moved closer to the body, putting his hands on his knees to inspect the corpse. "Looks like the poor son of a bitch was tortured." With a wince, he tentatively picked up Micheal's right arm to count the number of missing appendages.

"He's missing fingers!?" Liam retched, bringing the neck of his shirt up to cover his sensitive nose. "Oh my god that is so gross...I'm going to puke."

From over his shoulder, Derek heard a quiet huff. Lydia stood near the kitchen with her toes slightly pivoted away from Micheal's body; No doubt succumbing to the torment of her powers. It was the one unfortunate thing they had in common, a mutual distaste for the constant death they both seemed destined to endure. Except Derek knew he could escape. At least he didn't have to hear the voices rattling inside his head like a raffle drum.

It was a small luxury.

Lydia was hurting. While her post secondary experience wasn't filled with the same teenage supernatural antics as her high school years, it hadn't stopped her from finding the body a dead co-ed outside her campus.

She had called Derek that night. The sniffling, creating a static ambiance over the line. There wasn't an in depth recount of the event, just "Derek.. I'm tired." 3 words that echoed around his subconscious for weeks.

When she had arrived back in Beacon Hills for the summer, Derek had asked her why she chose to call him.

"Because you understand." She replied with a small smile, looking out at the preserve from the spot on the Hale house steps.