Killer Queen [Book 1]

Chapter 32

Since Derek left the loft two days ago, I have been staying with my uncle, helping him with his sociopathic urges and to try my best to make him into a somewhat sane person.

    I watched from the couch next to my uncle as my sister talked to Stiles about Derek's backstory—as much as she knew.

    "—they were there for two days, waiting. Hiding. That's what we're taught to do when the Hunters find us—hide and heal." she explained.

    "Okay, so, is two days standard, then, or are we thinking Derek's on, like, some extended getaway?" Stiles asked.

    Stiles looked appalled at that. "Why do you care? Why do I care??? Let's see...because, over the last few weeks: my best friend's tried to kill himself; his boss nearly got ritually sacrificed; a girl that I've known since I was three was ritually sacrificed; Boyd was killed by Alphas...I...do you want me to keep going? 'Cause I can, all right? For, like, an hour."

    Cora rolled her eyes. "You think Derek can do anything about that?"

    "Well, since he's the one everyone seems to be after, it's more like he should do something about it, yeah." Stiles nodded.

    "I don't know...there's something different about him now. He wasn't like this when I knew him." Cora said.

    "What was he like?"

    "A lot like Scott, actually. A lot like most teenagers—unbearably romantic, profoundly narcissistic, tolerable really only to other teenagers..." Peter said.

    "And so what happened? What changed him?" Stiles asked.

    "Well, the same thing that changes a lot of young men...a girl."

    Stiles glanced at me before looking back at Peter. "You're telling me some girl broke his little heart? That's why Derek is the way he is?"

    "Do you remember Derek, before he was an Alpha, had blue eyes?" Peter asked me, looking back at Stiles. "Do you know why some wolves have blue eyes?"

    He shrugged. "I just always thought it was, like, a genetic thing..."

    "If you want to know what changed Derek, you need to know what changed the color of his eyes." Peter said.

    Stiles looked at me. "Do you know? The short version?"

    I sighed softly, but nodded. "Only from what Uncle Peter told me. Her name was Paige. She died when both she and Derek were in their sophomore year in 2003. That's all I know."

    "Okay, so if Derek was a sophomore back then, how old was he?" Stiles asked, looking at Peter in confusion. "How old were you? How old are you now?"

    "Not as young as we could have been, but not as old as you might think..." he answered.

    "Okay, that was frustratingly vague," Stiles looked at Cora. "How old are you?"

    "I'm seventeen." she answered simply.

    "See! That's an answer. That's how we answer people!"

    "Well, "seventeen" how you'd measure in years..."

    "All right, I'm just gonna drop it," he looked at me. "You're my age though, right? I'm not dating an old lady?"

    I bit back a smile. "You're good, Stiles."

    He looked relieved at that, looking back to my uncle. "What happened to Derek and the cello-girl?"

    Peter sighed. "What do you think happened? They were teenagers—one minute, it's "I hate you, don't talk to me," the next, it's frantic groping in any dark corner they could manage to find themselves alone for five minutes. Their favorite dark corner was an abandoned distillery outside of Beacon Hills."