┌─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┐
chapter three!
ISAAC ISN'T HELPFUL
└─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┘

( chaos rising, pt. i )

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

THE STREETS OF Beacon Hills are quiet as Vera drives with one hand on the top of her steering wheel, headlights piercing the pitch-black void of her surroundings and eyelids half-drooping with fatigue. She'd spent the past few hours packing her most vital belongings into a suitcase — hours, because she'd kept getting sidetracked by other things in her room — and also getting rid of anything she won't be needing for the next few days. Perishable food items had either been stuffed in her bag or taken to Dominic's house. Hades had been given a thorough scratching behind his ears and a twenty-minute-long reassurance that she would be back soon.

Fortunately for Derek, Dominic had agreed to watch Hades until Vera's return. She already misses her cat and the comfort he always seems to bring along with him. Since her house is often empty except for her, the small animal had become somewhat of a rock for her over the years.

Vera's yawn cuts off part of Allison's sentence that emits from the speakers of her car. "—and she grabbed our wrists, squeezing way too tightly. It left bruises on our arms. When I was helping Lydia pick out a color to paint her bedroom and lifted my arm up next to hers, I noticed they're the same."

"Like, similar in color, or...?" Vera questions, squinting her tired eyes to stifle the flood of tears that threatens to blur her vision from her yawn. The empty road ahead goes soft for a moment before she blinks and pushes her glasses further up on the bridge of her nose.

"Color, pattern, placement, everything," Allison responds. "They're exactly the same."

"And you think it was a message?"

"I think it's something worth looking into." She sighs, exhaustion and confusion mixed in with her voice as well. "Look, I'll send you a picture, but something about this isn't normal."

A wry grin quirks up Vera's lips even though her friend can't see it. "When is anything ever normal around here, Ally?" The complex that Derek's loft is in begins to loom in the distance, most of the lights off except for the one that belongs to his living space. The tall building becomes uncovered by the shadows the closer she drives until she's turning into the parking lot. "I'm at Derek's, so I have to let you go, now. Be safe and don't get manhandled by any random girls before I see you in school tomorrow, okay? Love you."

"Love you, too," Allison replies, her voice still plagued with tension. "Bye."

Their call disconnects and plunges Vera into silence that's only marred by the quiet hum of her car's engine. A sigh puffs from her lips. She pulls into a parking spot that's closest to the front door of the run-down complex and cuts the engine. As she disconnects her phone and climbs out of the car, the hair on the back of her neck prickles with unease. Being a female who's alone in a pitch-black parking lot with minimal lighting doesn't seem like the best situation. Eager to get inside, she yanks her suitcase from her trunk and sets it on the ground before slamming the door closed with a bang.

A flash of movement to her left has years of training bursting to the surface of her mind.

Vera's arm reaches out to punch the unsuspecting attacker, only for her fist to get caught in their hand. She doesn't waste another second before grasping the front of their shirt with her other hand and slamming their back onto the trunk. Her face twists into a snarl, eyes narrowed and chestnut waves hanging in her face as she glares down at the person pinned beneath her.

Only to find Isaac Lahey wide-eyed and with his hands up in surrender.

Vera stares at him for a moment before releasing the collar of his shirt from her bunched-up fist with a huff, stepping back and allowing him to straighten up. She pushes her square-shaped glasses up the bridge of her nose again. "Really, Lahey? What the hell are you doing here?"

Isaac stands to his full height— an entire foot and two inches taller than her, forcing her to practically crane her neck upward to see his face. The shadows of the near-empty lot accentuate his sharp jawline even more until it appears to be cut from diamonds. His normally ice-blue eyes are swathed in darkness. He doesn't even seem bothered by the fact that she'd just slammed him onto the surface of her vehicle, merely adjusting his cardigan.

"I live here," he informs her matter-of-factly.

Vera crosses her arms over her chest. "Of course you do. Nice to see you have clothes on, this time."

Ignoring her comments, Isaac continues, "Derek sent me down here to help you. I guess he thought you'd have more than one suitcase of stuff."

"Well, I am only staying for a little while. Like, a few days, at most," Vera replies nonchalantly. When Isaac shrugs as if to say, If that's what you think, her arms slip back down to her sides and her mouth drops open a bit. "Hang on, how long does he plan on keeping me here?"

"He cleared the other spare room for you, so, uh, probably a little while."

She shakes her head, wondering why supernatural occurrences can't stop interfering with her personal life for once. She's already lost a sister by Laura being killed, had her literal humanity ripped from her to save her life, and now a pack of bloodthirsty Alphas is keeping her from living in her own house.

Her mouth twists into a frown. She is going to wring the neck of one of those wolves.

Without a word, she snatches her suitcase from the pavement and locks her car, storming toward the front door of the complex. Isaac has no choice but to follow unless he wants to be left out there alone. His ridiculously long legs help him catch up to her rather easily, and soon they have to endure a painfully awkward elevator ride up to the floor Derek's loft is on.

The sliding door is already open when they emerge onto the floor. Vera's face still holds the thunder of a thousand storms when she walks inside, causing Derek to turn around upon her arrival. He gives a vague motion to the right of her. "Spare rooms are down that wa—"

She doesn't give him time to finish before she's already walking in that direction. Derek's loft is about as Derek as a place of living could get. The only furniture he owns are the bare necessities— a single couch that's shoved against the left wall and looks like several springs are broken in it, a narrow table that rests near the expansive window overlooking the dark city, and three dining chairs shoved up against it. The space he'd pointed toward had been expanded from the original space in a do-it-yourself fashion; aka, Derek had taken a sledgehammer and smashed it into the brick, creating a messy gap wide enough to fit several humans through and called it a day.

A step through it has her met with a short hallway on her left side. The first door is closed, the plain wooden door seemingly close to falling off of its hinges, while the second one is wide open. Vera walks inside and gazes at her temporary home. A sleeping bag had been placed on the floor along with a deep purple blanket and a single pillow that makes Vera appreciate the fact that she'd remembered to bring her own. Other than that, the room is void of other furnishings aside from the closet, which holds a handful of wire hangers on the rack.

It's certainly not as cozy as her room at home, with its countless plants that Dominic is also going to have to water now — bless his heart — but it's going to keep her safe. She has to remind herself of that. Even though she's still annoyed at Derek for not telling her the truth, it's not him she's truly upset with. She's just pissed at the situation in general.

And Vera knows exactly what he'll say if she tries to confront him about it: "I'm not sorry. I did it to protect you." She knows the extent that he'll go for her, how he'll cross nearly any boundary to make sure she's safe. He'd proven that when he'd bitten her to keep her alive even though he'd known that there was a very real possibility that her body would reject it anyway. He'd risked it for her, because that's the lengths he's willing to go for his family.

She just wishes he wasn't so damn headstrong about it, sometimes.

— ✯✯✯ —

Vera doesn't need supernatural strength to be certain that she's going to rip Isaac Lahey's head off if he keeps pacing back and forth in front of Derek's window, muttering to himself and muscles tensed with apprehension. The pale morning sunlight filters through the small panes of glass that take up nearly the entirety of the far wall. The thick frames between them cast striped shadows over the main room of the loft, creating patterns on every surface that's bathed in the warm-tinted luminance.

"You know, I'm starting not to like this idea," Isaac announces as he clenches and unclenches both fists at his sides. Vera side-eyes him once he begins pacing again, walking the entire length of the window before adding, "It sounds kind of dangerous." A pause in which he turns around and faces the opposite way again. "You know what? I definitely don't like this idea and I definitely don't like him."

Derek, who has been trying to concentrate on a book about supernatural means of restoring memories the entire time Isaac has been complaining, finally speaks up, though his voice sounds more exasperated than comforting. "You'll be fine."

Isaac's jaw ticks. He faces the window for a moment, then turns around and walks toward the table that Vera currently has her ankles crossed on. "Does it have to be him?"

"He knows how to do it. I don't," Derek replies without looking up from his page. "It'd be more dangerous if I tried doing it myself."

"You know Scott doesn't trust him, right?" the Beta questions, absentmindedly toying with the worn cover of one of the other novels Derek had thrown onto the table. "You know, personally, I'd— well, I'd trust Scott."

"Do you trust me?" Derek asks, finally glancing up from his reading to give Isaac a challenging expression.

Isaac swallows, taking a second too long to answer, "Yeah."

"Don't respond any faster, Lahey," Vera drawls as she boredly fiddles with a pencil. Her nose twitches out of habit, pushing up glasses that aren't even on her face. Her brain doesn't always process the fact that she has her contacts in. "We've got all day."

He turns to her with an unimpressed glare, fingers twitching as if he wants to swipe her legs off of the table and make her lose her balance. She's almost certain that he would have if their Alpha hadn't been present. It's evident in the way his jaw is tensed, muscles ticking and broad shoulders growing stiff. Since she knows he can't do anything about it, she gives him a sickeningly sweet grin that he tears his gaze away from with a decidedly wolfish huff through his nose.

His nimble fingers run along the spine of the book, Vera's hyperactive mind tracing the movement. He mumbles in a now-aggravated tone, "I still don't like him."

"Nobody likes him," Derek replies blankly.

"Why aren't you guys saying his name?" Vera scoffs, twiddling the pencil around even faster to distract herself from how Isaac keeps messing with that damn book. "He's Peter, not Voldemort."

As if the mention of his name had summoned the man himself, a heavy grating sound fills the air as the door to the loft slides open, revealing the figure of an all-too-familiar man that makes Vera's mood turn rotten instantaneously. Peter Hale stands gloriously alive in the doorway. A cocky smirk pulls up one side of his lips — his seemingly default expression that he's been wearing for as long as Vera can remember. The sunlight catches on the strands of his short, light brown hair as he walks closer, tan dress shoes echoing his footfalls on the concrete floor.

"Guys. FYI, yes, coming back from the dead has left my abilities somewhat impaired, but the hearing still works. So, I hope you're comfortable saying whatever it is that you're feeling straight to my face."

Derek's expression is dangerously impassive as he blankly responds, "We don't like you." His book creates a bang loud enough to echo along the high ceiling when he slams it on the table beside him. "Now shut up and help us."

Peter blinks in slight surprise for a moment before returning to his usual, assholish self. "Fair enough."

He flicks out his left hand to extend his claws, making Vera sit up straighter in her chair and swing her legs around so her boots are on the floor. She doesn't trust Peter one bit. Seeing him with those horrendous claws, knowing what they've done within the past few months, sends a chill down her spine.

Peter regards her with a glimmer of amusement in his blue-eyed gaze. "Don't worry, Vera. If you're squeamish, you don't have to watch."

"Fuck off, Peter," she spits without hesitation. He knows that she's not apprehensive about seeing claws digging into someone's neck. She's nervous due to the fact that it's his claws digging into her pack member's neck, and they need said pack member to find Erica and Boyd. She wouldn't take it past Peter to "accidentally" tear an important tendon and leave Isaac for dead.

"Well, that's no way to speak to your uncle," he replies, completely unfazed by her acidic words. He jerks his head toward where Isaac is resting his hands against the table. "Take a seat. You can't do this standing up."

Derek grabs another chair and carries it over, placing it directly in front of the table. Taking the one he'd been sitting in previously, he drags it to the right side and eases into it, resting his elbows against his knees. He nods at Vera to do the same. With a sigh, she stands and copies his action of bringing her chair over, only she places it on the left side and across from Derek. She plops into it unceremoniously and brings one leg up so her knee is pressed to her chest and an elbow is slung across it. Her blue-and-white-striped button-up blouse creases with the movement, but she doesn't have it in her to care.

Isaac twiddles his thumbs as he sinks into the chair between them, mouth pulled slightly to the side in the way that he does when he's nervous. His muscles remain impossibly stiff as he anxiously waits for what they're about to attempt. If Vera had their keen sense of smell, the fear radiating off of him would likely have been unbearable.

"Relax," Peter tells him as he tosses his brown tweed jacket onto the sofa against the wall. "I'll get more out of you if you're calm."

Isaac does not heed his advice. Instead, he seems to become more alarmed, fingers curling onto the sides of the seat beneath him with so much pressure his knuckles turn white. His voice is tight when he asks, "How do you know how to do this again?"

"It's an ancient ritual used mostly by Alphas, since it's a skill that requires quite a bit of practice," Peter responds, lifting his clawed hand closer to the back of Isaac's neck to meticulously line them up with his skin. "One slip, and you could paralyze someone. Or kill them."

"Not helping," Vera grumbles under her breath. She hopes Peter can smell the rage and hatred simmering off of her, because she feels it crackling underneath her skin. Every fiber of her being screams at her to get away from the man she'd once considered to be family. But she has to do this for her pack — for Erica and Boyd — so she forces herself to stay rooted to her spot. They wouldn't have asked him for help if they'd had any other options.

"You – You've had a lot of practice, though, right?" Isaac stammers.

Peter rests the tips of his nails against the nape of the boy's neck with a thoughtful hum. "Well, I've never paralyzed anyone."

Vera meets Derek's eyes across from her, both of their brows furrowing in realization at his words.

Isaac catches on as well, starting to twist around in his seat to question, "Wait, does that mean that you've—?"

He cuts himself off with a grunt as Peter jams his claws into his neck. One of his hands instinctively flies up to grab onto the former Alpha's forearm, the other reaching over his shoulder to grip the wrist that harbors the nails in his skin. Peter secures a hand over his chest to hold him in place. As Isaac's eyes burn amber, Peter's flash to a bright, ocean blue, signaling the connection has taken hold.

Vera watches the pair like a hawk. Her gaze rakes over Peter's unfocused eyes as his head swivels without apparent reason, seeing through the eyes of Isaac's past self. The present-day Beta does not take kindly to someone rifling through his memories. His long legs thrash in protest, hands shifting from Peter's arms to yank at his shirt, trying to rip him away. Animalistic growls rumble in his throat.

Derek shoots to his feet to intervene, but Peter stops him. "Wait, I see them!"

The veins in Peter's neck go taut and his body trembles with the force of the ritual, head tilting upward until she can barely see his face from where she's sitting. Isaac's body continues to writhe with reckless abandon, heavy pants making his chest heave against his dark gray t-shirt.

And then the moment snaps. Peter falls backward with a cry, yanking his claws out of Isaac's neck and barely catching himself on the table behind him. Isaac flops forward at the sudden leverage. For a moment, he sits completely still, then reaches behind his head to prod at the already-healing claw indents there. He stays eerily silent in comparison to the chaos that had just ensued.

"What did you see?" Derek demands as soon as Peter composes himself enough to stand on his own.

The older man steps to the side, breathing hard and curling his hand into a fist. His eyebrows furrow. "It was confusing. Uh – images, vague shapes."

"But you saw something," Derek presses.

After a moment, realization dawns on Peter and makes his freshly-shaven face fall slack. "Isaac found them."

Vera's heart lurches in her chest. "What?"

Her head snaps to look at the werewolf, still rubbing the back of his neck and glowering at the wall. His angry face morphs into shock as he processes what was just said.

"Erica and Boyd?" Derek inquires.

Peter fights to recall what he'd seen, rivets in his forehead deepening the harder he forces himself to think. "I – I barely saw them. I mean, glimpses."

"But you did see them."

"Worse," Peter replies in a dreaded tone.

Derek's green eyes fill with a knowing expression, all of the hope that had been there for the last few seconds draining from them within a single moment. "Deucalion."

Vera's breath stutters, her heart skipping a beat at the confirmation that her friends are trapped with the Demon Wolf. She wrings her hands together in an effort to satisfy her restless nerves. They seem to have intensified, firing rapidly inside of her body and begging to be released.

"He was talking to them," their uncle continues as a means of confirmation. Derek plops back into his seat as if the reality of their situation has come crumbling down onto him all at once and his body can't handle it. "Something about time running out."

Isaac inhales a shuddering breath, his voice uncharacteristically quiet and feeble when he asks, "What does it mean?"

"He's gonna kill them," Derek hypothesizes with his face frozen in rage.

"No, no, no, no— he didn't say that," Peter declines, running his thumb over his knuckles and glancing to his left. There's nothing but the broken brick wall and the area that leads to the spare bedrooms, but he still stares there like it's as interesting as a piece of lost treasure. "He did make them a promise that, by the full moon, they'd both be dead."

Derek's tone intensifies its alarm. "The next full moon?"

Peter shakes his head, turning back toward them with a gleam in his eyes– as if things could ever be that easy. "Tomorrow night."

After that wonderful news, Vera is sent off to school. Since Isaac is apparently still recovering — from what, she doesn't know, because he looks fine — she's left to drive by herself.

Dominic's absence is louder than his screeching along to their favorite songs could ever be. She needs him today more than ever, a companion but also a rock to keep her tuned into the world. Her mind is a whirlwind of chaos as she blasts her playlist of current music she likes, trying to hang onto every word and rhythm with her eyes locked on the road, but it's no use. Boyd and Erica's faces keep taunting her. She feels the ache of missing them deep in her bones, her hyperactivity becoming worse due to her intense nerves.

The clock seems to move even faster just to spite her, proving how little time they have to find a way to rescue them before it's too late. Vera doesn't even remember taking the summer reading exam she'd been so worried about the day before. Nor does she recall filling an entire page of Physics notes, intermixed with doodles in the margins, or beginning a new sketch for her art class. Each period passes by in a blur. It seems that some part of Vera's brain hears every bit of her teachers' lessons, but the other portion completely blocks them out and spends six full periods worrying non-stop.

After school, she, Allison, Lydia, and Dominic are working on homework in the library. Strange occurrences in the supernatural world unfortunately don't stop high school from continuing on. However, there isn't much schoolwork that's being done. Allison's wrist rests against the rectangular table, brown eyes periodically scanning the bruise on her arm while her opposite thumb rests between her teeth. She appears to be sketching both halves of the mark onto a page in her notebook. Books are sprawled around her, though Vera doesn't know what they're even about. Lydia, conversely, doesn't seem to be doing anything except staring wistfully off into the distance with her English homework untouched in front of her.

Dominic and Vera are the only two who seem to be doing actual schoolwork. They've already been assigned Physics homework by the devil himself  — Harris — and Vera's brain isn't science-ing right now. She needs Dom for help. Even though he claims to hate the class, he's actually grasping the concepts they're being taught.

"You just have to plug this information into the equation," he explains, underlining a few portions of the story problem with his blue pen.

She points to another bit of information included in the short paragraph. "What about this?"

"They just include that stuff to trip you up. It's not actually important."

Vera is eternally grateful for Dominic's patience with her sometimes slow grasping of concepts that other people find simple. Before she'd been diagnosed with ADHD, she'd assumed that she was stupid, lazy, and careless, and it didn't help that some of her teachers would treat her that way. A diagnosis at age ten was a blessing in disguise. Ever since then, Dominic has taught himself how to explain concepts in a manner that she will understand.

She remembers when Lydia had tried to help her prepare for Algebra II over the summer. Due to recovering from the bite and therefore missing a chunk of school, she had fallen behind and ended up barely scraping by with a passing grade in Geometry. At first, she and the strawberry blonde had butted heads. Vera's patience and temper are as short as her at times, which can make it hard for others to work with her if they don't know how to handle it. Everything had changed a few days later. Lydia had spent hours researching methods to properly teach concepts to people with ADHD, creating a new curriculum for their informal tutoring sessions and saving them from biting each other's heads off.

Vera finishes the problem and angles her worksheet so Dominic can check her answer against his. His green eyes flicker between the pages, muttering the equation under his breath until he finally nods. "You got it!"

"Yes!" Vera cheers, reaching her hand up for a high-five that Dominic gives her immediately. "Now gimme."

"Patience," Dominic teases with a roll of his eyes, chucking a Hershey's kiss at her face.

"Something I, unfortunately, don't have." She unwraps the candy and pops it into her mouth. The reward system is what typically motivates her to stay on task and finish an assignment. She usually has smaller, short-term gifts scattered throughout an assignment, then allows herself a larger, more long-term one when she finishes it entirely, like ten minutes to annoy her cat or a short lap around her house to get her blood flowing.

"I want one."

Vera glances to Lydia, who sits across from Allison with a flirtatious smirk on her lips, green eyes filled with longing. Her long hair is draped over one shoulder in soft curls. The strands are caught around one finger, which she'd been absentmindedly twirling.

Vera, Dominic, and Allison track her gaze to the newcomers of Beacon Hills High— the twins. They're identical in practically every way, from their tanned skin and fairly tall height to their haircuts, which are shorter on the sides and longer on top. The only difference between their appearances is their clothes. One of them wears a leather jacket and harbors a careless expression, while the other is dressed in a black varsity jacket and appears to be looking at a book.

Allison turns back around with a mischievous smile. "Which one?"

"The straight one, obviously," Lydia replies, sipping her coffee with a smirk.

Vera returns her eyes to the twins to see the leather-jacked-clad one propping his arm against one of the bookshelves, giving a flirtatious eye to Danny Māhealani as he walks past. The Hawai'ian boy is so distracted by the attention that he runs directly into a guy who's trying to pack his things into his backpack, apologizing profusely and placing his hands on the boy's waist to help steady him.

"I knew it," Dominic mutters under his breath. "There was no way that one was straight."

At that moment, his phone buzzes and he looks down to check the text. A smile flashes across his tanned face. Vera doesn't have to ask to know it's from Charlie— the boy he'd met at hockey camp over the summer. Although he lives in the next town over, they've been steadily flirting ever since Dominic returned home in mid-July. Vera wonders if she imagines the apparently not-straight twin shifting his intense gaze from Danny to Dom, a smirk tugging up one side of his forward-set mouth.

"Vee, what do you think?" Allison's voice interrupts Vera's sudden daze, snapping her attention back to the short-haired girl in the seat adjacent to her left.

"Hmm? About what?" she questions, trying to sneakily grab another piece of chocolate while Dominic is distracted, only for him to slap her hand away without looking up from his screen.

"What if it's a logo?" Allison repeats, turning to her laptop to type something into the search engine. Her eyes squint in concentration as she peers at the results. Vera's heart squeezes at how hard she's trying. This morning, Allison had shown Derek the bruises on her and Lydia's arms, trying to convince him that it had meant something, only for the Alpha to get more pissed off than before and snap at her to 'find something real.' It doesn't seem like the hunter is letting this go anytime soon.

Any last trace of Vera's attention is seized by her phone buzzing as well. She grabs it, tilting the screen up to read the incoming message from Scott.

SCOOT: deaton said he might be able to help isaac remember where erica and boyd are. meet at the animal clinic at 4:30?

Vera glances at the time. School had ended forty minutes ago, which gives her twenty until she has to get to the animal clinic. She huffs a sigh from her mouth and texts back, sure, and dom's coming too before beginning to pack her things.

"What are you doing?" Dominic questions, finally looking up from his own phone to regard her in confusion. "You did one problem on that worksheet."

"You and I are taking a trip to Deaton's animal clinic," she tells him, shoving her notebook and folder into her bag. "Allison, I'm assuming you want to keep researching that, and Lydia—" she looks to the spot where the strawberry blonde had been seated moments ago, only to belatedly realize she'd left them to go flirt with the straight twin, "is not even here, so never mind. Bye and good luck."

Allison gives her a halfhearted wave, intently focused on whatever has come up on her laptop screen. Vera gives Dominic a moment to finish throwing his belongings into his bag and tell Danny he wouldn't need a ride home before heading out of the library.

— ✯✯✯ —

The light that emits from the x-ray screens mounted to the clinic's brick walls is nearly blinding, causing Vera to squint every time she turns and accidentally looks directly into one.  Rain beats mercilessly against the windows from the brewing storm outside. The sleek floor is littered with bags of ice that Scott and Stiles had been instructed to buy on their way over. The two boys, along with Derek, Vera, and Dominic, tear each of them open and dump the cubes into the metal tub of water in the middle of the floor.

The veterinarian and Scott's boss, Dr. Alan Deaton, guides a hesitant Isaac into the room. "Obviously it's not going to be particularly... comfortable, but if we can slow your heart rate down enough, you'll slip into a trance-like state."

"Like being hypnotized," Isaac says as he walks forward, eyes locked onto the tub now filled with mounds of ice floating on top of the water.

"Exactly," Deaton confirms. "You'll be half transformed. It'll let us access your subconscious mind."

Dominic gazes down at the tub with a frown on his face. "Is this... safe? Like, it's not gonna kill him, right?"

The dark skin around Deaton's mouth wrinkles when he gives the boy a small quirk of his lips. "No, Dominic, it's not going to kill him. You're just going to have to trust that I know what I'm doing."

Isaac crouches down at the edge of the tub, elbows resting on the edge as he rakes his eyes over the chilled water tensely. He'd taken his shoes off before he'd entered the room so he wouldn't have to deal with wet socks. Something about seeing him fully-dressed but bare-footed makes Vera slightly uncomfortable.

"Well, how slow does his heart rate have to be?" Scott questions with a furrowed brow.

"Very slow," the man responds.

Derek leans forward until his hands are gripping the opposite side of the tub from Isaac, annoyance lacing his tone at the vagueness of the answer. "Okay, well, how slow is 'very slow'?"

"Nearly dead."

Dominic claps his hands together. "Alright, everyone, Isaac's funeral service will be held tomorrow at three."

Derek's head shoots up and sends him a withering glare.

Isaac experimentally lowers his hand until his fingertips graze the water, only to immediately retract it with a hiss at the piercing-cold temperature. His voice fills with hesitation. "It is safe though, right?"

"Do you want me to answer honestly?" Deaton asks.

Isaac's voice drops to a whisper, fingers tapping restlessly on the edge of the basin. "No. No, not really."

Dominic subtly elbows Vera and crosses his arms over his chest, closing his eyes in an exaggerated imitation of a person in a casket. Vera rolls her eyes. Dominic opens his to see Derek pinning him in place with a sharp glare, knuckles turning white around the bone as he grips the edge of the tub even tighter in a warning. The smile slips off the younger boy's face immediately. He clears his throat and folds his hands in front of him placidly.

The sound of a rubber glove snapping causes all of them to turn toward Stiles, who stands on the opposite end of the room with a latex glove pulled all the way up to his elbow. He wiggles his fingers around in it, a pleased smile on his face before he notices them all staring and frowns. "What?"

Derek raises his eyebrows. Stiles grumbles and yanks the pale yellow material off, tossing it aside.

Isaac pushes himself to his full height with a slow exhale puffing out his cheeks. Derek looks up at him from his hunched-over position, his voice almost soft in the way that it is only in regard to his pack and Scott. "Look, if it feels too risky, you don't have to do this."

In response, Isaac grabs the collar of his gray long-sleeve and tugs it over his head so he's only left in his black jeans. Vera tries to ignore how her heart hammers in her chest, dread spreading down her limbs to the tips of her fingers until they begin to shake with nerves. She isn't fond of this idea. Even being near the bath gives her the chills, and only Isaac has to be submerged in it.

To disguise her fear and distract herself, though, she raises a brow at Isaac. "Your funeral, Lahey."

He frowns at her and chucks his shirt at her face. She yanks it off of her head, tucking it underneath her arm for safekeeping as he steps into the freezing water. Isaac sits, gripping onto the sides of the tub so tightly his muscles go taut, rattling exhales coming from his chattering lips as he struggles to regulate his body temperature— a fight which will be a losing battle.

Derek and Scott each grip one of his shoulders. Then, with a single nod at each other to signal that they're ready, they shove him underneath the ice.

For a beat, nothing happens. Some of the water and cubes overflow from the tub from the displacement and added mass of Isaac's body, but he stays firmly held underneath the now-churning water. Then the wolf bursts free. Isaac's top half rises up, eyes glowing amber and fangs protruding from his mouth as he releases an animalistic roar.

"Get him back under," Deaton orders.

Derek and Scott press his shoulders back down. Even through the mounds of ice, Vera can still see his body thrashing as his knees clamber against the sides of the too-small tub. He resurfaces again, sputtering and gasping for air with his soaked curls plastered to his forehead.

"Hold him," the man instructs more firmly.

"We're trying!" Derek snaps back, using both arms to keep Isaac held to the bottom of the tub.

The fight continues for a few more seconds as Isaac refuses to give up. Then, everything goes still. The two werewolves hesitate a moment longer before retracting their arms from the water. A moment later, Isaac's body floats to the surface, an exhale puffing from his lips and eyes shut.

Deaton switches his gaze between each of them, index finger held in the air as an indication for them to wait. "Now, remember, only I talk to him. Too many voices will confuse him and draw him out." When they nod in understanding, the bald man leans down and keeps his voice clear. "Isaac? Can you hear me?"

Isaac's Adam's apple bobs in time with his swallows and chattering teeth, tiny gasps escaping from his mouth from the freezing temperature of the water and lack of warmth in his body. Even his voice slightly shakes when he replies, "Yes. I can hear you."

"This is Dr. Deaton. I'd like to ask you a few questions. Is that alright?"

He nods. "Yes."

Vera wonders if she's imagining that his lips are turning blue, but she doesn't want to ask and sever the connection, so she clamps her lips shut and watches in silence.

"I want to ask you about the night you found Erica and Boyd." As the man speaks, lightning flashes outside, accompanied by the rumble of thunder. It seems fitting that there would be a storm at a moment like this— when the entire situation seems like something out of a horror movie. "I want you to remember it in as vivid detail as possible, like you're actually there again."

"I — I don't wanna do that," Isaac protests, shaking his head as his fear edges its way into his voice. "I don't — I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna do that!"

Stiles and Dominic both reach down to hold Isaac's knees when his feet begin to kick. The overhead light flickers in accordance with his unease, accompanied by another rumble of thunder from outside.

"Isaac, it's alright," Deaton soothes him, keeping his voice calm even as he peers up at the light with discontent. "Just relax. They're just memories. You can't be hurt by a memory."

"I don't wanna do that," Isaac repeats through trembling lips that are definitely turning blue. Derek and Scott press onto his shoulders again just in case, but as Deaton comforts him out of the small tantrum, they slowly release him once more.

"Good," he praises. "Now let's go back to that night, to the place you found Erica and Boyd. Can you tell me what you see? Is there some kind of building? A house?"

"It's — it's not a house, it's stone. I think... marble."

Derek's head snaps up to meet Vera's eyes at the small description. She gives him a supportive half-grin— they're getting somewhere.

Deaton nods. "That's perfect. Can you give me any other descriptors?"

"It's dusty — uh, empty."

"Like an abandoned building?" There's no response, but another crackle of thunder punctures the ringing silence that follows the question. "Isaac?" Vera straightens when the light flickers again, Isaac's body beginning to writhe in discomfort once more.

"Someone's here," he chokes out. He reaches out and grabs Scott's forearm with an iron grip that surely would have bruised any normal man, voice growing tight with panic as the bones in his hands become prominent. "Someone's here."

"Isaac, relax," Deaton instructs.

But his words fall on deaf ears. Isaac twists in the tub, voice rising to a horrified shout as water sloshes over the side. His eyes dart rapidly behind closed eyelids. "No, no, no, they see me! They see me!"

The sheer terror in his voice makes Vera's throat tighten. An entire pack of Alphas is already frightening in theory— hell, even the name of their leader is enough to make her gut churn. Isaac had faced them all by himself. Judging by the way he's thrashing, the horror is still rooted in his mind, activating his flight-or-fight response.

"They're just memories," Deaton reminds him again. "You can't be hurt by your memories. Just relax." Something about his words strikes a cord. As the tension in Isaac's muscles fades once again, he continues with the ritual. "Good. Now tell us what you see— tell us everything."

His eyelids shift around once more until they peel open, revealing shrunken pupils and crystal-blue irises who stare up at nothing, similarly to how Peter's had earlier that morning. "I hear him. He's talking about the full moon, about being out of control when the moon rises."

"Is he talking to Erica?" Deaton questions, knowing without a doubt that he's referring to Boyd.

"I think so, I can't—" Isaac cuts himself off with a shuddering intake of breath, "I can't see her, I ca— I can't see either of them."

"Can you hear anything else?"

The light flickers again, exaggerating the shadows over Isaac's eerily blank face. "They're worried. They're worried what they'll do during the moon. They're worried that they're gonna hurt each other."

Derek shakes his head in discouragement. "If they're locked together on the full moon, they're gonna tear each other apart."

Deaton turns back toward the boy in the tub, his voice still level but holding a new sense of urgency. "Isaac, we need to find them right now. Can you see them?"

"No."

"Do you know what kind of room it is? Is there any kind of a marker? A number on a door? A sign?"

Isaac jolts to a sitting position with a gasp, eyes going as wide as saucers. Although they appear to be staring directly at Vera, they still hold that same unnerving blankness like they're seeing right through her. His voice comes out in a whisper as if he's afraid to be heard. "They're here."

He repeats the words over and over, shifting in the tub without moving his eyes around.

"It's alright," Deaton soothes once again.

"No," Isaac chokes out, spitting water that had gotten into his mouth.

"Just tell us—"

"They see me. They found me. They're here!"

"This isn't working," Derek snaps to the dark-skinned man, turning his head toward his Beta. "Isaac, where are you?"

His voice rises to a shrill yell. "I can't see them! It's too dark!"

"Tell me where you are."

"I can't see!"

Vera crosses over to Derek, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder and crouching down to his level. She forces herself not to shake with nerves so she can be strong for him. "Der, stop."

He doesn't listen, voice turning hard as he demands, "Just tell me where you are."

"Too many voices will confuse him," Deaton warns.

"Isaac, where are you?"

The boy thrashes more violently than ever, Derek's desperation conflating memories with reality as his teeth grit together to cease their chattering. Stiles and Dominic fight to keep his legs pinned down, water splashing onto their skin and clothing from the boy's wild movements. He twists so hard his elbow bangs against the bottom of the tub. Then, his eyes go wide again, jaw falling open as more information pours from his mouth.

"One of them is saying something. I can barely hear him. Something about — about someone named Daniel."

Shock barrels into Vera like a sucker punch, making her entire body go as cold as if she were the one submerged in the ice bath instead. Every one of her muscles goes so slack that she almost topples onto her backside.

Derek's head snaps to look at her for a single moment. Then he presses further, desperate for answers and ignoring every single one of Deaton's panicked warnings. "What about Daniel? What did he say about him?"

Dominic releases Isaac's leg and rushes over to Vera, scooping her up by looping his arms through hers and heaving her to her feet. He places a secure arm around her shoulder and presses her head to his chest so his fingers are wound through her hair. She can't feel his touch, desensitized to everything except the sentence reverberating in her head from eardrum to eardrum and Isaac's shirt still clenched in both of her fists.

"His heart rate— he could go into shock!" Deaton exclaims.

"Derek, let him go!" Scott orders in a half-roar, panicked eyes flickering from the Alpha to Isaac.

"Isaac, where are you? What do you see?"

"It's a vault! It's a bank vault!" the boy shouts, the words bursting from his blue-tinted lips. "Th— They got me. I'm in a room, and — and there's a dead body. It's... it's Erica."

Derek pushes himself away from the tub, standing with a stony expression as every face in the room deflates at once. There's ringing silence as the information sinks in. Vera's heart squeezes, a tangled combination of emotions tearing at her heartstrings until she feels nothing but numbness.

"I saw it!" Isaac abruptly cries, sitting up so quickly that a tidal wave splashes onto the floor again. His head turns, eyes filling with life once more and signaling that he's broken out of the trance. "I saw the name." He clambers out of the tub, Derek and Scott supporting his arms as he steps onto solid ground once more. Deaton wraps a towel around his shoulders to warm him. "It's, uh, B–Beacon Hills First National Bank. It's, um — it's an abandoned bank and they're keeping them inside. Inside the vault."

Isaac's clear gaze drifts from face to face, confusion causing his eyebrows to crease when nobody expresses enthusiasm at his revelation. He lingers on Vera. He scrutinizes the way she's curled into Dominic's chest without moving, looking the most stricken of all. "What?"

"You don't remember what you said right before you came out of it, do you?" Stiles questions somberly.

He shakes his head, soaked curls sending water droplets cascading to the floor with the movement. "No."

"You said when they captured you, that they dragged you into a room and that there was a body in it."

Isaac goes completely still, dread filling his face. "What body?"

Stiles hesitates before forcing the words out. "Erica— you said it was Erica."

Derek shakes his head, tongue running over his teeth and goatee-clad jaw clenched. His thick eyebrows are drawn close together as he mulls over the situation. He's uncannily silent; Vera had expected some kind of outburst from him, but he stays as still as a statue.

Dominic reaches down and wordlessly unclenches Vera's fists to retrieve Isaac's shirt from her death grip. Once it's free, he tosses it to the taller boy, who grabs a pair of black sweatpants from the table behind him and momentarily exits to change into the dry clothes.

The room stays painfully silent until he returns. Derek only breaks the stillness by beginning to pace in front of the opposite wall, arms crossed and thunderous expression still pulling down his face. Nobody acknowledges Isaac when he comes shuffling back in, lifting himself onto the counter beside the tub and sitting cross-legged on it as if he's trying to make himself smaller.

Finally, Derek bursts out a firm, "Look, she can't be dead!"

"Derek, he said, 'There's a dead body. It's Erica,'" Stiles reminds him. "Doesn't exactly leave us much room for interpretation."

"Then who was in the vault with Boyd?" Derek inquires with a challenging expression, desperate to believe that his Beta is still alive. His body is tense with disbelief. When he's hopeful, he tends to cling to that shred of optimism and nearly turn it into anger. Anyone who dares to disagree usually ends up on the receiving end of a scathing comment or expression, much like Stiles is right now.

"Someone else, obviously," he replies.

"And maybe it was the girl on the motorcycle," Scott suggests cautiously to prevent an explosion from Volcano Derek, glancing at Isaac. "You know, the one who saved you?"

"No, she wasn't like us," Isaac replies with a thoughtful scrunch of his nose, "and whoever was in the vault with Boyd was."

Stiles rubs his lower lip, eyes lighting up with a theory. "What if that's how Erica died? They, like, pit them against each other during the full moons and see which one survives. It's like werewolf Thunderdome."

"Then we get them out tonight," Derek decides.

"Be smart about this, Derek," Deaton chimes in. "You can't just go storming in."

"If Isaac got in, then so can we."

"But he didn't get through a vault door, did he?"

"We need a plan," Scott agrees.

"How are we gonna come up with a plan to break into a bank vault in less than twenty-four hours?" Derek inquires with a twinge of sarcasm in his voice.

"Uh, I think someone already did," Stiles announces, his eyes glued to his phone as he scans the title of a news article. "'Beacon Hills First National Closes its Doors Three Months After Vault Robbery.' Doesn't say here how it was robbed, but it probably won't take long to find out."

"How long?"

"It's the internet, Derek," Stiles tells him with a smirk. When the Alpha merely stares at him, waiting for a concrete answer, he scoffs in amusement. "Okay, minutes."

It's Scott who switches the topic and asks the question Vera has been dreading. "Who's Daniel? Isaac said that someone was talking about him."

Dominic hugs her a little tighter as Derek sighs, "Vera's father."

__________

a/n:

*cue the dramatic teen wolf sound effect that signals a scene change as the screen goes black*

thank you guys so much for 3k reads already!!! wow, it really means a lot that you guys seem to like this story so much (:

this chapter is long because vera is involved with a lot of derek's pack stuff and also some of the things that go on at school, and leaving any of it out would be confusing to summarize later on. i do plan on this book being a little longer than my other ones because i want to add a lot of my own scenes that aren't in the show. future chapters may not be as long as this one, just an FYI

also my favorite thing about derek's loft is that you can't tell me that any of the details i've created are inaccurate because we know nothing about it. does anyone else even live in that building? who knows? did derek buy the loft with that huge hole in the wall, was it the result of a werewolf fight, or did he actually take a sledgehammer to it?? not even tyler hoechlin can be sure. i tried watching the behind the scenes clip of a tour of the loft to see if it would answer some of my questions, but it literally didn't tell me anything i didn't already know. love teen wolf's attention to detail!!! really rad!!!

also, be sure to check out the pinterest board for this fanfic! it involves some of vera's outfits, memes that relate to the characters, dominic being a cute hockey boi, verisaac as a couple, and more! you can screenshot the pincode that's in the introduction or click the link to my pinterest in my bio (:

–kristyn

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