[ 4.08 ]

•.☆☁︎︎☆.•

BEFORE BRAEDEN GOT DISCHARGED FROM THE HOSPITAL, ISABELLA TRANSPORTED DEREK BACK TO HIS TRUCK IN THE WOODS. Getting back to the hospital, Isabella helped Braeden out and when the coast was clear she transported them back to her house in the woods.

Settling her in a spare room, Braeden got work on filling Isabella in on what was going on with Derek, so she could go over to his place and basically be there as a house detail and teach him anything he needed to know.

Once Isabella understood everything Braeden then wondered how she even knew Derek.

"Last I checked, you were never friends with wolves. So how do you know Derek?" Braeden questioned, while raising her right eyebrow.

Isabella chuckled to herself, "Long story short, Derek is the guy I've been having visions about." Tilting her head to the statement Braeden asked her to elaborate.

"Apparently whatever my entity – Zella – did here on earth, in the process she became best friends with Derek. And since we've met, we decided to see if we could try being friends since they got along so well, why couldn't we." she explained.

"I know I said you should get out more and make friends with the supernatural, but I didn't think it already happened with my knowledge." Braeden said, playfully hitting Isabella's shoulder.

"Yeah, I know. But I was also right when I said I didn't need to go looking for it, because look, it found me."

"I guess it did, I'm happy I'm not your only friend." Braeden teased.

"You are not my only friend, I just happen to not talk to people." Isabella countered.

"Yeah, yeah well I guess you better head over to Derek's, because I want my money whether you're doing my job or not."

"Yes, boss" Isabella said, dragging out the 's' in yes.

Packing her things, Isabella left her house to Braeden and headed to Derek's loft.

Isabella didn't notice, but she never asked Braeden for directions to his loft; it almost like she knew exactly where to go even though she hadn't been here before.

☁︎︎

Walking up a ton of stairs Isabella finally reached his door and knocked on it.

Opening the door, Derek was surprised to see her on the other side of it.

"Not to sound rude or anything, but what are you doing here?" Derek asked, confused.

"Since, Braeden is injured and healing, but still wants her money I am here to take her place." Isabella informed him.

Nodding his head, he let her enter his loft.

Looking to the corner of the room, Isabella saw a little tree. As it caught her eye she had to say something about it. "Nice tree, though it could use a little more sunlight." she commented.

Derek laughed lowly to himself, because it was actually her or Zella, he should say who got the tree for him during their first bonding session. He vividly remembered entering his loft and the branch slapped him in the face and he heard Zella laugh at the incident.

Walking further into the loft, Isabella took a look around the place then turned back around to face Derek. "No offense Derek, but your loft looks lonely in the worst way possible and I've only been here for like a minute."

What happened next shocked Isabella, Derek laughed. Not a little one or a chuckle, it was a heartfelt laugh that boomed throughout the loft.

She was confused as to why he was laughing, normally people would take offense even if you didn't mean to offend them but he had taken it completely opposite from what she expected.

It was a good minute before Derek stopped laughing and got back to his usual nature. As he looked at her stature he finally realized she didn't know why he was laughing.

"If you think you offended me, you didn't in fact Zella kind of said the same thing when she first arrived at my loft, so you really just brought back a good memory." Derek explained, walking over to his couch.

Isabella just nodded her head, "I have to stay overnight since those were my instructions from Braeden, so I can just take the couch."

"First, I would never let you sleep on the couch. And second, you can take my bed and I'll sleep on the couch." Derek told her.

In all honesty, he didn't really see a difference in her staying at his loft because Zella was there almost everyday, so he got used to her being there. He really had no problem with Isabella staying there now, even if it was for a little while.

"If that's what you insist." Isabella stated, as if it was a question.

"I do, you can take my bed and I'll sleep on the couch." he told her, and she nodded her head. But her eyes trailed off to the radio that was sitting on the coffee table in front of the large window in Derek's loft. And as she focused on the radio, she saw flashes of Derek and her dancing and singing.

It looked like a fond memory, even if it wasn't actually hers, she felt like it was. Snapping out of the memory she turned to Derek.

"Getting down to business, Braeden told me everything she has to do. But I want you to tell me what you need, since all of this is technically for you." Isabella asked.

And Derek happily replied and they talked about everything till the sun went down.

☁︎︎

It was around the middle of the night when Isabella woke up. As she always did wake up throughout the hours of the night, since getting her body back.

When she got up to clear her head, she noticed a blood stain pooling on Derek's shirt. Walking quietly over to him, she lifted up his shirt to get a better look.

She saw a rather big wound by his hip, which confused her since he was a werewolf and they're supposed to heal, so why wasn't he.

And out of nowhere, Derek's hands reached up to grab hers, but since she had fast reflexes she grabbed his.

She might have had fast reflexes but he sure did scare the living daylights out of her because she let out a yelp at the sudden movement.

"What are you doing?" Derek questioned, looking at her.

"What am I doing? What are you doing?" Isabella said, as she laughed nervously. "But what Braeden would say is, protecting my investment." she said in a mocking tone.

Derek just "hmmm."

"Why aren't you healing?" she asked, in a more serious manner.

"Some wounds take longer." Derek answered simply.

"And what I learned from my parents was, some leave scars. But not for people like you, so what's going on with you? And be honest, Derek."

"Maybe I'm just tired." he said, and turned his back to her.

"Derek, I know you just did not turn your back to me, I'm highly offended. And just for that, show me your eyes." Isabella ordered slightly.

With his back still towards her he said, "You just saw them."

"Boy, I'm not playin' with you. Show me your real eyes."

Huffing a little, Derek turned back around and looked at her.

Not seeing a change Isabella just said "Okay, now why don't tell me what's really going on? Because I might not know you so well, but Zella did and even I can tell somethings not right."

☁︎︎

While Isabella was sterilizing Derek's wound, he told her everything that was going on with him.

After she had cleaned the wound she started to patch him up. "It's just a graze, but make sure it doesn't get infected." she said, smoothing over the bandage.

As Derek began to put on his shirt, Isabella walked around him. "That's probably something you've never had to worry about before, is it?" she questioned.

He just scoffed and shook his head 'no'.

"So, it's everything then? No glowing eyes, no healing."

"No smell, hearing, speed, everything." Derek listed.

"I never read about anything like this, but do you still have strength?" she asked, leaning on the table.

"I can still win a fight." Derek said, definitively.

Isabella just gave him the look saying 'yeah, okay'. Which made Derek tick his head back at the look on her face.

She then got into an arm wrestling stance, using her left ambidextrous hand. Derek laughed at her gesture.

"What are you laughing at? I'm completely serious, let's go playboy." Isabella remarked.

Agreeing to it, Derek placed his right arm on the table and his hand in hers signifying the game has now begun.

"You ready?" she questioned him. "Mhmm," he said.

"One, two...–" Isabella trailed off then hit Derek where his wound was and slammed his arm down on the table. It was safe to say she won the arm wrestle.

Derek grunted at the sudden pain he felt. "You cheated, that's cheating."

Laughing at his sudden pain she replied with, "I won. When you don't have super strength when facing off with a supernatural who does, you need to learn to bend the rules to your will. Which I just did to you obviously, so now I'm going to teach you how to bend."

Derek didn't like the fact that he was in pain, but he had to admit that she was right.

☁︎︎

Grabbing her bag, Isabella took out her gun and placed it on Derek's table for him to see. "This is a SIG SAUER P226 9MM."

"I don't like guns." Derek said, with his left hand on his hip.

"I'm guessing that's because you've never learned how to use one."

"Or because shot.... repeatedly." Derek said to her.

"You'll like this one." She said, grabbing it off the table and took the clip out. "The legal clip size in California is ten, and in New York it's a seven but that's besides the point."

"You always want to remember how many shots you fire. Running out of bullets, it also makes you look stupid." she explained, then put the clip back in the butt of the gun and handed it to him.

"But using a gun isn't about learning how to point and shoot."

"Why's that?" he asked.

"Because an average person can move twenty–one feet in one–point–five seconds. If they have a knife, which I do most of the time. They can gut you before you can pull and fire. So with a gun, you need distance." Isabella told him.

And then took a step back, "Go for it, pull the gun on me." She was rather amused with the situation.

Derek, however, laughed again at her gesture, but still tried– and failed. Because when he tried to point it at her, she disarmed him too quickly for his liking.

Seeing it was not as easy as it looked, he just pointed and said "So, yeah."

Turning the gun over to him she asked, "Wanna try again?"

"Mhmm," he answered.

Seeing he was clearly not prepared at all, Isabella laughed at him.

As Derek tried to do it once again, he failed miserably. He started to get frustrated with himself and Isabella.

"One more time," he asked.

"I could do this all day." Isabella teased.

But Derek had a trick up his sleeve, he remembered from his past friendship with Zella that she was ticklish, and it was really bad.

So he faked putting up the gun again and when he saw Isabella try and take it from him, he tickled her.

And just like that, she folded like a book. Laughing all over the place and Derek wasn't stopping anytime soon, not until he saw tears in her eyes.

While he was still tickling her she tried pleading with him, but he just went on till she shed her first tear and then the second.

That's when he finally decided to let go, standing in front of her now he could see her face was bright red from the laughing.

Getting herself together she asked him, "How did you know I was ticklish, not many people know that, not even Braeden."

"You forget I do know you, maybe not the real you but I did know Zella. One day she decided to hide my leather jacket and wouldn't tell me where to find it so I had to get it out of her myself, and that day I found out she was ticklish." Derek admitted, with a smile showing on his face.

"What else do you know about me, that I don't know you, you know?" she questioned.

"Oh I know a lot of things, like the fact that you don't like sleeping on the left side of the bed and when the sun is out you take extra long walks wherever you're going." he said.

"So you know some things about I'll give you that. What I want to know is your first impression of Zella, how did you guys meet?" she asked.

Smiling at the memory, they both headed over to the couch so they could talk and be comfortable.

"The first time I met Zella was after I scared little kids on halloween, actually."  Derek said remembering the laugh he heard right after the kids ran away.

"For some reason, that seems like something you would do." she said truthfully.

"Yeah, I know. But right after that, she laughed and said "you know i might not have been here that long but that was the first time I laughed, thank you for that." And then proceeded to walk for and knock me unconscious, but we can't forget what she said before she knocked me unconscious, "This is gonna hurt, but I'll try to be gentle, okay."

Isabella was nothing but shocked, that was like the second time her entity had knocked someone unconscious, Derek looked at her then laughed at her expression.

"I was pissed off at first, but then she kept on popping up in my loft and eventually we just started to become friends." Derek explained.

"From the memories that I've seen I can tell you two were really close especially since you had only known each other for two months."

"That is true now that I think about it." Derek agreed, nodding his head.

"Well, hopefully I get all the memories back because they seem fun."

"Hopefully, but we are also building our own friendship so I'm pretty sure if you can't remember hers you'll have ours."

Isabella pushed his shoulder, "Don't go getting all soft on me sourwolf." she taunted, then froze.

"What's wrong with you," he asked, noticing her freezing.

"I've never said that expression before, but somehow I knew to say it to you." Isabella said with a slight smile.

"Well, Zella used to say it a lot so I think it only fits." Derek assured her.

"I'm sure it does. Well this was a nice little chat to start off our friendship, but I'm tired so I'll see you in the morning, Derek." Isabella said getting off the couch and walking towards his bed.

"Goodnight, Isabella." he said back.

"Hey, Derek?" Isabella asked, turning back around.

"Yeah?" he answered.

"If it makes you feel any better or if you want to, you can call me Zella."

He thought about it for a good minute, but ultimately decided "Zella passed away, but you're here now so I'm going to call you by your name or I will call you Ella." he stated.

"Never had someone call me that before, so I guess you can. Have fun with it." she smirked, turning around and walking to his bed.

He laid back out on his couch peacefully.

And they both feel back to sleep throughout the night, sleeping peacefully.

•.☆☁︎︎☆.•

I can't wait to build more on their friendship.

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