Destiny [D.H.]

23

Stiles left the guidance office and I entered, seemingly unnoticed by him.

Ms. Morrell smiled at me. "How can I help you, Eliana? You don't have an appointment."

I sighed, running a nervous hand through my hair. "I know. I just needed to talk to someone."

"This is something you feel uncomfortable talking to you friends about, isn't it?"

I nodded. "Only a couple of them know about the shit I've gone through. Oh, sorry. I don't know if you--"

"If cussing helps you express what you're going through, go ahead. I don't mind. What sort of stuff have you gone through?"

"Uh, well, I should probably start at the beginning."

Ms. Morrell nodded silently and I continued. "My mom started abusing me when I was ten. She always told me my brother Evan's death was my fault, even though it wasn't. Eventually, I started believing her. I nearly tried to commit suicide when I was 14, but was stopped by Stiles before I could actually do anything. She was arrested recently. I haven't been sleeping well. I constantly wake up with nightmares. I'm afraid she'll find me and kill me dead. I feel like I'm on the verge of a never-ending panic attack."

"There is always someone who can help," Ms. Morrell replied. "Abuse is hard to recover from. Is there anything I can do to help?"

As though my sudden burst of courage abandoned me, I shook my head and said, "No. I should go. This was a mistake."

I left the school and made my way to the abandoned subway station to see Derek. I arrived and heard Erica say, "It's not like we want to."

"Want to what?" I asked.

Derek growled. "Leave my pack. What do you want?"

"Since I just turned 16 a month ago, I wouldn't mind getting my license," Erica replied. "I can't do that if I'm dead, you know."

"Well, I told you there was a price."

"Yeah, but you didn't say it would be like this," Boyd replied.

Derek frowned. "Yeah, but I told you how to survive. You do it as a pack. And you're not a pack without an Alpha."

"We know."

"You wanna look for another pack? How are you even gonna find one?"

"We think we already did."

"Like, all of a sudden, we heard this howling. It was unbelievable," Erica said.

"There must have been a dozen of them," Boyd added.

"Maybe more."

I scoffed. "Yeah, or maybe only two."

Derek nodded briefly. "You know what the Beau Geste is? If they modulate their howls with a rapid shift tone, two wolves can sound like 20."

Erica sighed. "Look; that doesn't matter, okay? There's another pack out there. There's got to be. We've made up our minds."

Boyd nodded, glancing to Erica. "Yeah, we lost, Derek. And it's over. We're leaving."

Derek growled. "No. No, you're running. And once you start, you don't stop. You'll always be running."

A voice startled me after Erica and Boyd had left. I turned to see Peter fucking Hale. Last I knew, he was dead.

Peter smirked. "It's quite a situation you've got yourself in here, Derek. I mean, I'm out of commission for a few weeks and suddenly there's lizard people, geriatric psychopaths, and you're cooking up werewolves out of every self-esteem-deprived adolescent in town. I see you have a mate. She's practically a luna."