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Laura doodles a little wolf into the corner of her paper and adds a moon, because she isn’t paying any attention at all to her teacher, and really. She’s a couple weeks from graduating. She doesn’t have to pay attention. Her grades a fine, the schoolwork they’re being given is completely pointless, and she’s bored out of her mind as it is.
Movement through the window catches her attention and she watches as Derek—her little brother, goody two shoes that he is—slinks through the barely there shadows cast by the school building. He’s heading toward the parking lot and Laura sits up a little straighter to see him better.
He should be in Econ. He should be studying, or listening, or even just doodling aimlessly.
He should not be getting into a grey Toyota, and yet.
There he goes.
“Miss Hale, something you want to share with the class?” Her teacher asks, and Laura shakes her head, still looking out the window to the spot where Derek had been.
“No. Sorry.” She says absentmindedly.
~
Growing up with a family that can see, hear, and sense almost everything means that secrets aren’t things you have. Shame is also something that doesn’t come naturally to a werewolf.
So when Derek walks into the house smelling like soap heavy with chemicals, hair still just the slightest bit damp, Laura pounces. Literally.
“Get off me!” Derek yelps, and he might be young but he’s putting on muscle pretty fast. He bucks and Laura actually has trouble staying on his back, but she’s older and more experienced, and she’s meant to be Alpha. He can struggle, but he can’t win.
“You stink!” She accuses, and Derek goes very, very still.
“It’s called soap, you freak.” He mutters, but his heartbeat is rocketing, and Laura wants to know why her little brother suddenly sounds like he’s got something to hide.
“Where did you go?” She asks, and he bucks so suddenly that he actually manages to dislodge her enough that he can shoot free.
“Mind your own business!” He snarls, and bolts up the stairs. A second later she can hear his door slamming shut.
Talia comes in from the kitchen then, to find Laura still sprawled across the floor in a heap. She tsks and shakes her head.
“Mom, something’s wrong with Derek.” Laura says, and she knows he can hear if he’s listening, but she doesn’t care. She wants him to hear, to know that she knows. To know that he isn’t getting away with whatever it is he’s doing.
Talia sighs and crouches down to pet Laura’s hair, and Laura leans into it. “He’s growing up, Laura. And he’s been through a very tough time. You used to act like that, you know. Rebellious.” She smiles faintly and Laura flushes, remembering her tantrums and her mood swings. But she never hid anything from her family, either. “He’s working things out in his own way, dear, and sometimes that’s for the best. He’ll come around.”
Talia leaves her daughter there, on the floor, and Laura curls into a ball.
She knows her mother means well, but Laura’s stomach is in knots and her proverbial hackles as up.
~
She doesn’t stalk Derek. Not technically. She just happens to always end up following him, that’s all.
She watches him space out in class, watches him skip basketball practice to get into that car—the car that parks at the Motel 6 downtown, that smells like chemicals and soap and perfume. She watches him sneak out of the house.
Ever since Paige died and Derek’s eyes turned blue, their family’s been treating him with kid gloves and Laura—Laura thinks it’s wrong.
Derek killed a girl, and it was terrible, and he’s probably still hurting, but she thinks that the family choosing to ignore his behavior is hurting him even more.
The car—with tinted windows so Laura can’t see the driver—always drops him off a little over a mile away from the house. Smart, she thinks. It’s engine is so quiet that it wouldn’t be noticed in the noise of a full house, and the road is busy enough that no one would think anything if they did hear a car at any time of day or night, anyway. Derek always smiles, when he gets out, this soft little thing that clenches Laura’s heart, because Derek hasn’t smiled all that much since Paige.
Maybe it’s a good thing, she thinks, as she watches Derek walk home for the fourth night in a row. But her stomach clenches uneasily and she can smell the faint scent of heavy soap on her brother, covering everything, and can’t really believe it.
~
Finally, about a week before graduation, Laura corners Derek in the house. It’s empty, for once, most of the family having gone into town to get supplies for Laura’s graduation party.
“Someone has a crush!” Laura sing songs. Derek is literally caged between her arms and the wall, and he blanches.
“Shut up!” He snaps, and Laura glares him down.
“At least, that’s what I’m assuming. You act so weird, Der. Sneaking around, quitting basketball without telling Mom or anyone, skipping classes. I know Finstock is crazy, but he’s still a teacher, and you still need to pass his class.” She scents the fear and the anger Derek’s feeling and sighs. “Who is it? Why do you always shower before you come home? Why doesn’t she—or he—ever drive you up to the house?”
Derek snarls at her and Laura snarls back. It’s uneasy for a minute, until Derek drops his gaze and bares his neck. Laura snuffles into it to say she’s sorry.
“I don’t know. I just…I really like her, okay, and after Paige, I don’t…” Derek trails off, and Laura doesn’t get it, but she nods anyway.
“You can tell me stuff, you know?” She asks, and Derek nods, but Laura can hear his skittering heartbeat, and she knows he won’t.
~
“Damn it, we’re out of flour.” Talia mutters into the pantry, and Laura perks up.
“I can go get some.” She says hopefully, and her mother laughs. Laura’s been fishing for any excuse to drive their dad’s Camaro since she officially got her license, and everyone knows it.
“Ask your father,” Talia says, but just then Richard comes into the kitchen anyway and ruffles Laura’s hair, giving her the keys.
“Take your brother and sister,” He says, and Laura sticks her tongue out but nuzzles into his hand anyway.
Cora, the little shit, does not want to go. Shes glued to the TV with their cousins, and Laura only tries convincing her for a minute. Derek, on the other hands, practically gets dragged out of the house when he says no.
“It’ll be fun. Mom gave me a list and we can stop at the comic book store after, okay?” She says, and Derek finally deflates and gets into the car.
“Love you!” They shout, and listen as the family returns the shouts. Laura guns the engine and they’re gone.
“So. This girl.” Laura says, because yesterday Derek had smelled like perfume and sex, tears and sweat underlying the lust and come smell on him. He’d come home like that, lost somewhere in his own head, and Laura had practically shoved him into the shower before their parents had come home.
Derek sinks into his seat and fiddles with the radio dial. “I don’t want to talk about her.” He says, voice low and sullen. He smells sad, and angry.
Laura sighs. “Did you break up?” She asks, and Derek shrugs.
“Weren’t really dating, apparently.” He grumbles, and Laura very suddenly wants her name and address, because fuck her. NO one gets to use and abuse her little brother.
“Was it all…consensual? Were you safe?” She asks, face bright red. Derek flushes too, though, so she doesn’t feel so bad.
He shrugs. “We were safe. I wanted it.” His heart is beating too fast, again, for her to know if he’s being honest, but she wants to believe he’d tell her if anything was that wrong.
“I’m always here, if you need me, Der.” She says softly, taking one hand off the wheel to squeeze his. He rips it away with a sound halfway between pain and anger, though.
“No, you wont be. You’re going to New York soon.” You’re leaving, he doesn’t say, but Laura hears it. She’d chosen a school in New York because her mom new the packs there and they were friendly, and she wanted to get some experience away from the family before she had to come back and settle down to be Alpha.
“Doesn’t matter. You tell me you need me, for anything, and I’ll hop on a plane and get here as soon as I can.” She says fervently, and Derek glances at her from under his lashes.
“Promise?” He asks, and suddenly he isn’t her pain in the ass sixteen year old brother, he’s back to being a little kid, needing his big sister’s love and approval and protection.
“Promise.” She says, and she knows he was listening to her heart when he smiles.
~
They end up spending an hour in the comic book shop, arguing about trivial things with the nerds there, and they have to rush through the grocery store.
“We’re gonna be late for dinner.” Derek says for possibly the umpteenth time.
“And Mom is going to kill us, I know.” Laura says she carefully inspects the apples. She sniffs one as discreetly as she can and makes a face at the slight smell of rot coming from it.
Derek’s been uneasy ever since they left the comic book store, and Laura will never admit it, but she is too. It’s the kind of thing they can’t explain, a wolf sense that isn’t grounded in their bodies, but their minds or maybe their hearts.
She hears the sirens before Derek does, but only just. They both look out the window for a long couple of minutes before the fire truck and emergency vehicles go screaming past, their lights cutting through the half-light of dusk like bloody knives.
“Lets go.” Laura says, and Derek’s already moving to the door.
This is bad, she thinks, but she can’t think of why, can’t put a claw on what exactly is freaking her out so much. Beacon Hills is small but it isn’t so small that they don’t see emergency vehicles that often. They shouldn’t fill her with panic.
They speed home. It’s a fifteen minute drive, usually, but halfway through Laura almost kills them.
She’s struck so suddenly with a surge of pain and fear and grief that she very nearly runs them off the road. Derek’s clawed hand on the wheel is the only thing that saves them, and Laura has to slam the breaks. She almost rips the door off trying to get out of the car, and Derek scrambles over the center console behind her, whimpering. She thinks he’s shifted, but she can’t be sure. Her vision is covered in red and her heart feels like it’s been ripped from her chest and stomped on.
She screams, and it turns into a howl, and Derek howls with her.
It was only a minute, maybe more, but Laura feels like she’s had the crap kicked out of her for days. Every single muscle is twitching and painful, and her lungs are screaming. She can smell things that had only been vague traces before; the gas in the car, the eggs in the backseat, the crisp paper of the comics Derek bought.
She can smell a shadow of that same perfume, cloying and sickly sweet, wrapped tightly around Derek’s own scent.
“Your eyes.” Derek sobs, and she can see them reflected in his; red on top of his piercing blue.
She screams in grief even as she pushes him back into the car, and her claws leave tears on the steering wheel cover as she peels out.
They see the smoke before anything else, spiraling into the sky. Shortly after that, an eerie orange glow leads them to their house, engulfed in flames. Laura can smell wolfsbane over everything, but beneath that she can smell burning flesh and hair, charred bone and clothing. She doesn’t know when she gets out of the car but Derek and two very human deputies manage to grab her just before she gets to the fire engulfing their home.
“No!” She howls, and she doesn’t know if she shifts, doesn’t care at all. Let these human men see her, let them fear her enough to let her go. Her family is in there; her pack.
“Peter, Laura Peter’s alive.” Derek sobs against her, and Laura pushes him off.
Beneath everything else, all the horrible, horrible smells, is a heavy, sickly sweet perfume.
~