Work Text:
Chasing Scott through a parking garage was the closest thing Laura’d had to fun since she’d got back to California.
-
Laura remembered papers of her mother’s, letters to other packs, other not-entirely-humans. Some of them had smelled like sick animals and old magic.
Deaton smelled like bleach and hand sanitizer. He’d been friends with their pack. He’d known about them, but been separate from them. Would her mother have tolerated an omega in town?
But when Laura got drop-kicked by the alpha outside the high school, she could smell that Deaton had crawled out of her car and down the street. Away from the wolf tearing that wretched Jeep apart. Guess again, Kate’s voice whispered in her mind.
-
“If you help me find the alpha, I’ll help you kill him,” Laura lied. Scott looked so relieved to have a chance at being human again, she almost felt bad about it.
-
Laura was really tired of being a murder suspect. Slamming Stiles’ forehead into the steering wheel made her feel a little better, but didn’t really change anything about her situation.
That’s the reason it took her a precious few extra minutes to realize what was going on.
“You think I killed Derek on purpose? One of my own family?” Uncle Peter sounded betrayed. “My mind, my personality were literally burned out of me. I was being driven by pure instinct.”
Scott and Stiles kept throwing Laura to the police. Uncle Peter was family. There was never any other way this situation would have played out.
-
Uncle Peter was the alpha, which meant Uncle Peter killed Derek. He hadn’t been in his right mind. He’d been crazy. He’d been nearly dead. He’d been the one who built the tree house for the cousins, he’d called Derek “Wolfy Smurf,” he’d had a toddler who died in the fire.
Laura did whatever he asked and didn’t ask the million questions burning up her throat.
-
“Oh, sweetie, I don't wanna torture you,” Kate said. “I just wanna catch up. Remember all the fun we had together?”
She dragged the point of her knife through Laura’s shirt collar and down the sleeve. She traced the knife’s path with her tongue, finished by sucking a red mark at the pulse point on Laura’s wrist.
Laura wished she’d stick to the cattle prod.
-
“It was Peter’s nurse! They brought your brother here so that Peter could kill him and become the alpha.” Scott wasn’t lying. Laura rocked back, forced to admit that Peter the alpha wasn’t her Uncle Peter any longer. “And that’s why you’re going to help me. Just say you’ll help me and I’ll help you unlock your other--”
She threw the chains down at his feet. “Let’s go.”
-
Kate died in the same spot Sarah had burned to death.
Laura ripped Peter’s throat out, and for the first time in six years she felt alive.
-
