Derek and I were so close on the trail of the Alpha, and I remembered a guy named Harris from when Laura had found him, talked to him about the Alpha, about the fire, and the Alpha was about to kill him now.

"Just wait for me, okay?" Derek was saying, but when I heard the chair breaking against the wall, I was running in. "Tara!"

I ran in, bringing him to the floor. "Get down!"

Derek was running in after me, looking after the direction the Alpha had been, but he was gone now. Derek started to run that way, me getting up when the police lights shone in, sirens blaring. "This is the police. You're surrounded. No one leave the building."

Derek and I looked at each other, not speaking but knowing what to do, and taking off out of the door, heading seperate directions in the hall, using different exits and whatnot.

We basically had half the cops chasing him, half of them chasing me.

Because of an idiot named Scott McCall decided it was okay to tell the state of California that we were the killers because he had thought that we had been dead.

Scott and Stiles were driving the camaro so it'd draw the hunters and the cops to them, but obviously that wasn't doing such a great job with the cops part.

But it was like the cops and the hunters were trying to hoard us into one place so they could catch us at the same time, make it easier on them.

But that wasn't going to happen.

I was running full speed down the road, the cops after me and sirens blaring as I ran, and then was running even faster when I saw Derek, trying to run the opposite way, and it working, running into the Iron Works, and the police dogs following after me, and I spun, eyes glowing and canines with drawled, growled a loud, mean growl, making them think twice about coming near me, running away, whimpering, with tails tucked in between their legs.

Arrows with lights flashing against the machine made me cover my eyes before I was momentarily blinded. 

I watched as Argent was looking down at us with his crossbow, aiming to kill and I was running and ducking behind the machine.

I was glad when I saw Stiles and Scott pull up in the camaro, Derek opening the door. "Get in!"

Argent was aiming the gun at us as I ran and I jumped from the front seat to the back, jumping literally over Derek to get there.

"What part of laying low don't you guys understand?" Scott demanded.

"Damn, we had him!" Derek exclaimed.

"Who, the Alpha?" Stiles asked.

"Yes!" I yelled. "He was right in front of us and the frickin' police showed up."

"Whoa, hey, they're just doing their jobs," Stiles said to both of us, looking at both of the glares that he was getting from us.

"Yeah," Derek said. "Thanks to someone that decided to make us the most wanted fugitives in the entire state."

Hmm. Wondered who that could be. "Can we seriously get past that?" Scott asked. "I made a dumbass mistake, I get it."

"All right!" Stiles half yelled. "How did you guys find him?"

I looked away, not answering, and neither did Derek. "Can you try to trust us for at least half a second?" Scott asked.

"Yeah, all of us," Stiles said, and again he recieved glares from both me and Derek. "Or just him. I'll be back here."

"Look, the last time I talked to my sister, she was close to figuring something out," Derek said.

"She found two things," I said. "The first was a guy named Harris."

Stiles looked over to me. "Our chemistry teacher?"

"Why him?" Scott asked.

"I don't know," I said. "Yet. She never involved me too much in any of this."

"What's the second?"

I pulled out a piece of paper from my pocket, holding it in the space between Derek's and Scott's seats so we could all see. "Some kind of symbol."

Scott was reacting to it. "What?" Derek asked him. "Do you know what this is?"

"I've seen it on a necklace," Scott answered. "Allison's necklace."

Well, that was just great.

The part that sucked most was that we had to stay with Stiles. And his dad was the sheriff that wanted us arrested.

Stiles walked past us, not looking back like he had forgot that we had stayed there, and to his computer as his dad called, "Hey, Stiles."

"Yo, D--" he turned around, looking at Derek first. "Derek." Then he looked to me.

Then he was running to his door way, hiding us in when I pointed angrily at the door, Derek having a finger on his lips in the same way. "What you say?" he asked.

"Wha--I said 'yo, Dad'."

"Hey listen, I've got something I have to take care of, but, uh, I'm gonna be there tonight. I mean, your first game."

"My first game. God--great. Awesome. Uh, good."

"I'm very happy for you. And I'm really proud of you." 

"Thanks. Me too. I'm happy and proud. Of myself." I rolled my eyes. 

"So, they're really gonna let you play, right?" 

"Yeah. Dad, I'm first line." 

"I'm very proud." 

"Uh, me too. Again. I'm--oh." I heard a sound like they were patting each other's backs in a hug. "Huggie--huggie, huggie." 

"See you there." 

"Take it easy." As soon as Stiles came in, he was saying, "I'm sorry--"

Derek took him by his shirt and pushed him against the wall, pointing at him. "You say one word--"

"Oh, what, you mean, like, 'Hey, Dad, Tara and Derek Hale's in my room. Bring your gun'?" Derek lowered his hand. "Yeah, that's right. If I'm harboring your fugitive asses, it's my house--" he hit Derek on the shoulder with the back of his hand "--my rules, guys."

Derek backed off, nodding and straightening out his shirt and jacket, and Stiles laughed once, doing the same. When he walked past Derek to me, I barely even moved my head forward and he was swinging his head away from me. "Oh, my God."

He sat down and I went over to his bed and sat there as Derek asked, "Scott didn't get the necklace?"

"No, he's still working on it," Stiles answered. "But there's something else that we can try. The night we were trapped at the school, Scott sent a text to Allison, asking her to meet him there."

"So?" I asked.

"So it wasn't Scott."

"Well can you find out who sent it?"

"No, not me." He turned for his desk. "But I think I know somebody who can."

Another kid was there, apparently Stiles' lab partner, and when Stiles told him what he wanted, he demanded, "You want  me to do what?"

"Trace a text," Stiles repeated.

"I came here to do labwork. That's what lab partners do."

"And we will, once you trace the text."

"And what makes you think I know how?"

"Well--I looked up your arrest report."

"I--I was thirteen," the kid said. "They dropped the charges." Stiles made a weird sound. "No. We're doing labwork."

"Oh, my--" Stiles cut himself off.

The other kid pulled a stool up next to him before looking back at me and Derek. "Who're they again?"

"Uh, my cousins," Stiles lied. "Maya and Miguel."

I tilted my head back in annoyance, rolling my eyes, the kid asking, "Is that blood on his shirt?"

"Yeah. Yes, well he gets these horrible nosebleeds. Hey, Miguel." Derek looked up at Stiles as Stiles looked at him. "I thought I told you you could borrow one of my shirts." Derek shut the book he had been reading, tossing it on the bed next to me, and walked over to the dresser, taking off his shirt while I was picking up the book he had been reading, bored. "So anyway, I mean, we both know you have the skills to trace that text. So, um, we probably--"

"Um, Stiles," Derek said, turning to face him.

"Yes?"

"This?" he said, pulling at the shirt. "No fit."

"Then try something else on." He turned back to the kid. "Sorry--Woah, hey. That one looks pretty good. Huh? What do you think, Danny?"

"Huh?" Danny asked.

"The shirt. It's--it's not really his color."

"You swing for a different team but you still play ball, don't you, Danny-boy?" Great. Using the fact that he was gay against him right then.

"You're a horrible person."

"I know. It keeps me awake at night. Anyway . .about that text."

"Stiles!" Derek snapped. "None of these fit."

"I'll need the ISP, the phone number and the exact time of text," Danny said.

A few minutes later, Derek and I were standing behind Danny and Stiles. "There," Danny said. "The text was sent from the computer. This one."

The last name was a little startling. "Registered to that account name?" Derek asked.

Danny nodded, and Stiles said, "No, no, no, no. That can't be right."

The name was Melissa McCall, sent from Beacon Hills hospital, where Scott's mom worked.

I didn't bother listening to Scott's side of the phone conversation, Derek, Stiles and I in his jeep now, me in the backseat. "Yeah, I did, and it looks just like the drawing."

They were talking about the necklace, and I gripped Stiles' wrist, bringing the phone to my mouth, not caring that I had it twisted at an uncomfortable angle, possible hurting him. "Hey, is there something on the back of it? There's gotta be something. Uh, an inscription, an opening, something."

"No, no, the thing's flat, and now, it doesn't open. There's nothing in it, on it, around it, nothing."

Stiles took the phone back as Scott said something about the game and first line. "I know," Stiles said after a minute. "Look, can you just--if you see my dad, can you tell him . . tell him that I'll be there, I'll just me a little bit late, okay? All right, thanks."

"You're not gonna make it," I said bluntly as he hung up.

"I know."

"And you didn't tell him about his mom, either,."

"Not until we find out the truth."

We looked back at the hospital that we were at now. "By the way, one more thing," Derek said.

"Yeah?" Derek grabbed his head, hitting it against the steering wheel. "Oh, God! What the hell was that--"

"You know what that was for," Derek said, pointing at him, then at the hospital. "Go."

"Go!" I said louder when he didn't move.

Stiles got of the jeep, running for the hospital. "Idiot," Derek muttered.

A few minutes later, Stiles was calling Derek, saying that he couldn't find Scott's mom. "Look, ask for Jennifer, she's been looking after my uncle," Derek said.

"Yeah, well, he's not here, either."

"What?" Derek and I asked at the same time.

"He's not here, he's gone, Derek."

No he wasn't, I thought, and I said into the phone, "Stiles, get out of there right now. It's him. He's the Alpha! Get out!"

When he didn't answer, I groaned an annoyed sigh, Derek getting out first, and then I did, both of us running for the hospital.

"Oh, my God, I'm gonna die," I heard Stiles say. "I'm gonna die."

Derek stepped out and elbowed Peter's nurse in the face, because she had been blocking Stiles' escape, and we knew that she had been helping him. "That's not nice," Peter--not uncle Peter anymore, even though he had saved my life, because he had took Laura's--said. "She's my nurse."

"She's a psychotic bitch helping you kill people," I said, then looking at Stiles. "Get out of the way."

"Oh, damn," he said, sinking to the ground.

"You think I killed Laura on purpose?" Peter asked, walking forward. "One of my own family?"

Derek growled at him, eyes flashing blue, canines appearing for a second before disappearing, and he used one foot to push off of the wall and went for Peter, who took him by the leather jacket and pushed him into the wall, and then the other. The railing of one of them was falling off and Stiles was crawling my way as I ran forward, growling and when Peter turned to me to try to stop me, I rolled under his arm, rolling over the floor and ending up on the other side, turning with my arm swinging and going to claw him, which he dodged, grabbing my shoulders and backing me all the way to the wall, hitting my head on it, and then throwing me to the other, landing next to Derek.

Peter grabbed each of us by the throat with each of his hands. "My mind, my personality," he started to drag us across the floor, "were literally burned out of me. It's been driven by pure instinct." Finally, he stopped, dropping us to the ground.

Derek got up first, turning to him. "You want forgiveness?"

Derek punched him, then went for it again, and Peter grabbed him by his arms and head butted him. Then he looked at him. "I want understanding."

He kicked him back and I stood up, Peter pushing me far enough to pass right by Derek on the ground. I groaned and Peter asked, "Do you have any idea what it was like for me for me during those years? Slowly healing cell by cell, even more slowly coming back to conciousness? Yes, becoming an Alpha, taking that from Laura, pushed me over a plaetu in the healing process. I can't help that." 

I got up,  going to punch him, but he dodged, and then I tried again. When I tried again, he caught my arm, and then the same for the other arm, squeezing my hand, breaking it, and I groaned, lowering to the ground. "I tried to tell you what was happening," he said to me. "I tried to warn you."

When Derek got up to fight against him, he took him by the leather jacket and threw him through a glass window, into a little room thing, and then, with me still on my knees, Peter gripped my throat and dragged me with him, following after Derek, and my hands tried to pry his hand away, but it didn't work, and I struggled with him as he dragged me, but none of it did any good.

Derek was coughing as I still tried to struggle with Peter, but nothing worked, and I couldn't see where I was going, except that I was being dragged into a hospital with the lights off, passing under the doorway from the lit hallway to the dark room.

When Peter finally stopped, he dropped me next to Derek, both of us crawling back and away from him. Peter looked at me as he said, "I was gonna wait for dramatic flare, but . . . ." he looked to the mirror next to him, holding the bottom edge of it and then spinning it all the way around, and as he looked in the spinning mirror, Derek and I watched his face heal. Peter stopped the mirror. "When you look this good . . why wait?" Then he turned to us. "Derek, Tara, you have to give me a chance to explain. After all . . . we're family."

In what possible way could he explain anything that would make all of this okay?