Nightmare {1} TW

Ch. 2 Shape Shifted

MOTIVE
[2×02]

AS HARD AS SHE TRIED, AYLA KNEW SHE WAS NEVER GOING TO LIKE THE TRAIN CAR. But she knew her uncle was trying to protect her, so she just tried to be grateful. She sat in the little space she had made for herself, her sketch book in her lap.

"Is that a lizard?" Derek wondered, walking onto the train car and peering over his niece.

"Lizard man? I don't know. Just another wonderful nightmare," Ayla told him.

"Have you seen anything else?" he wondered.

Ayla turned towards him, seeing the concern in his expression. "Like hunters?" she asked. He nodded. Ayla frowned, turning back to the sketchbook. "So far, no."

"Derek!" Both looked up as they heard a panicked voice. Ayla recognized the voice as their new beta, Isaac. She sat up as he ran into the train car, glancing between the Hales in panic.

"What's wrong?" the alpha wondered.

"My dad. I think he's dead," Isaac told him.

"What did you do?" Derek asked.

"That's the thing. It wasn't me," Isaac told them.

The Hales glanced at each other, before turning back to Isaac and allowing him to explain.

|

The two betas stood together while Ayla grabbed her things for school. Derek had already talked to the new werewolf, who had explained that his father was attacked by something. They had told Isaac to pretend everything was fine. He didn't need to bring anymore suspicion onto himself.

"So just pretend this is a normal day?" Issac asked.

"Yeah. You kinda get used to pretending everything's fine after a while," Ayla told him, stuffing her sketch book into her bag.

Isaac nodded, frowning at the girl standing across from him. The two had seen each other around school, but until he showed up here, they had never had an actual conversation.

"Can I ask you something?" he wondered.

"You just did," Ayla said, sending him a smile. He just continued to frown at her. "What?" she asked.

"Derek said he let you help choose who he turned," Isaac told her.

Ayla nodded. "Yeah," she said.

"How'd you choose people?" he wondered.

Ayla frowned, sighing. "Umm, well, I never got normal. It was always staying at my dad's house on full moons and running from hunters after the rest of my family died. And it sucked at times. But I still had it better than others," she explained. She saw the other question in his expression.

"I went with Lydia one night when she was picking up something from Jackson's house. I could hear you and your dad fighting across the street," Ayla admitted.

"So you felt bad for me?" Isaac guessed.

Ayla sent him a look. "I wanted to help. We've all got complicated relationships with family. I originally just turned your dad into the office- not that it did any good. So when Derek became alpha I figured that this might be better than that for you," she told him.