teenagers [ teen wolf ]

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

maddy, scott, and derek walked in silence towards the hale house, maddy staying close to her brother's side. she had expected to be excited to see him, but after everything she had thought about earlier, she didn't know how to feel. for now, all she knew is that she needed to figure out how to be a person outside of him. how to be a teenager in beacon hills without her life and personality revolving around being a werewolf, if that was even possible.

derek paused, his breathing heavy as he looked around. she could tell he felt like something was off, whether it was an actual bad feeling or his body still trying to recover from kate's torture.

"something doesn't feel right," he said, shaking his head. scott turned around, a few feet in front of the two siblings. "it's almost like it was-"

"no, no," scott interrupted. "don't say too easy. people say too easy and bad things happen."

"scott's right," maddy nodded, crossing her arms as she glanced around the forest again. she definitely felt like something was off, but not in the sense that they were playing into a trap. "finding you, getting you back, nothing about this has been easy."

derek looked between the two teenagers, nodding in submission. the other two started walking again, maddy continuing to look around the forest. her heart stopped as she noticed two figures in the distance, the hair on the back of her neck standing up. before she had time to think, maddy stepped in front of derek, the arrow that had been meant for him plunging into her chest.

a moment later, another arrow hit her leg, and she fell to the ground. she clenched her jaw, squeezing her eyes shut as pain shot through her body.

"scott, your eyes!" she heard derek yell, assuming a flash grenade went off. she felt derek kneel down next to her, squeezing his arm as soon as she found it. "addy, this is gonna hurt."

she screamed as derek ripped the arrow out of her chest, the pain multiplying. he didn't waste any time doing the same thing to the one in her leg, putting her arm over his shoulder and pulling her up. he grabbed scott's hoodie with the hand that wasn't around her waist, pulling him towards the house. the three didn't make it far, only getting a few feet before collapsing again, derek still too exhausted to be able to drag the two teenagers any further.

"allison i can explain," she heard scott say. she wasn't surprised to see that kate was the one with allison, the older woman following closely behind her niece. maddy's heart broke for scott as she listened to him and allison's conversation, almost feeling like she was intruding. she was too focused on her friends to notice derek position himself in front of her, his attention focused on kate rather than the two teenagers.

"come on allison," kate said, the boredom in her tone obvious. it still shocked maddy how a person could be doing something so horrible, yet look so emotionless at the same time. she wondered if that was how she looked when she sided with peter against scott and stiles, if her eyes held the same apathy as kate's. "shoot him before i have to shoot myself."

allison spun around to look at her aunt, the same horrified look on her face from when she first saw maddy and derek chained up in the cellar. maddy wasn't sure how allison wasn't getting that her aunt didn't just wanted to hurt werewolves, she wanted to kill them. all of them. she had a suspicion that kate hadn't informed her niece about the hunters code, considering that she blatantly ignored it, and doubted that allison would actually do anything to stand up to her aunt, which almost guaranteed the signature of their death warrant.

"i thought you said we were just going to catch them?" allison whispered, looking between scott and her aunt. maddy scooted closer to derek as she realized that allison didn't give a single shit what happened to her and derek as long as scott was okay, pain shooting through her body as she tried to move.
"we did that, now we're going to kill them," kate shrugged, nonchalantly firing two rounds at maddy and derek as she continued towards scott and allison.

after so many years of practice, her aim was perfect, even with how close together derek and maddy were sitting. derek's bullet hit in a much more dangerous spot than maddy's — hers hitting her stomach, whereas derek's landed just to the right of his heart, almost a perfect kill shot. it took everything in her not to breathe a sigh of relief as she heard derek's breathing, not wanting to give kate any reason to shoot either of them again.

she finally let herself feel the pain of getting shot, every cell in her body screaming in agony. she honestly didn't know if her body had enough energy to heal itself anymore with how much damage being back in beacon hills had done. ignoring all the physical torture she had gone through, she was mentally exhausted, and had hardly able to eat or sleep since kate almost killed derek her first night in beacon hills.

eventually the pain began to subside, and maddy could feel her body start to relax. it was a comfortable feeling until she noticed she could no longer hear anything. not derek's breathing, not any fighting or arguing. she began to panic, struggling to open her eyes. she couldn't feel her limbs, let alone move, the state of peace she had been in moments ago quickly turning into fear. she wanted nothing more than to open her eyes and see something, anything besides the darkness she felt now. she didn't care how much pain she had been in before, anything was better than this.

"that's it, keep fighting baby girl. it's not time yet. they still need you, especially your brother. he can't lose you too."

maddy blinked away tears as she tried to keep her eyes open, her vision blurry. she struggled to push herself up off the ground, realizing that she had been out for a lot longer than she thought. derek was no longer next to her, and allison was huddled into her father's side. she followed their eyes, her heart stopping as she looked across the property at her brother. his eyes were no longer the bright blue she was so accustomed to. instead they were a bright red.

she felt like she should be angry at derek, horrified that he had killed someone, but instead, she felt calm for the first time that night. because if derek had red eyes, it could only mean that he had killed peter, and in that moment, that was all she cared about.