Old Scars, Future Hearts

32

The siblings and Stiles met Cora st Derek's loft.

Derek was missing, so they figured talking to Cora might help. She started telling them a story. "They were there for two days, waiting, hiding. That's what we're taught to do when hunters find us... hide and heal."

"Okay, so is two days standard, then, or are we thinking Derek's on, like, some extended getaway?" Stiles asked.

"Why do you care?" Cora retorted.

"Why do I care? Let's see... because over the last few weeks, my best friend's tried to kill himself. His boss nearly got ritually sacrificed. A girl that I've know since I was three was ritually sacrificed. Boyd was killed by alphas. My friends could have died fighting them. I... do you want me to keep going? 'Cause I can, all right? For, like, an hour."

Cora glared at him. "You think Derek can do anything about that?"

"Well, since he's the one everyone seems to be after, it's more like he should do something about it, yeah."

"I don't know. There's something different about him now. He wasn't like this when we knew him."

"What was he like?" Marika asked.

"A lot like Scott, actually," Peter said, coming down the spiral staircase. "A lot like most teenagers... unbearably romantic, profoundly narcissistic, tolerable really only to other teenagers."

"What happened?" Dmitri wondered.

"What changed him?" Stiles added.

"Well, the same thing that changes a lot of young men... A girl. A circumstance you and Mr. Caldwell understand all too well, Mr. Stilinski."

Stiles glanced at Marika who said in a questioning tone, "A girl broke his heart?"

Peter placed his hands on either corner of the table at the end closest to the stairs. "Do you remember Derek before he was an Alpha had blue eyes? Do you know why some wolves have blue eyes?"

Stiles frowned. "I just always thought it was, like, a genetic thing."

Dmitri shook his head. "Werewolves aren't like humans. Marika and I remember Chiron saying something about the death of someone. An innocent, if I remember correctly."

Peter nodded. "You're onto something. If you want to know what changed Derek, you need to know what changed the color of his eyes."

Peter launched into a story about young Derek and a girl named Paige Krasikeva.

Stiles frowned in confusion. "Okay, so if Derek was a sophomore back then, how old was he? How old were you? How old are you now?"

"Not as young as we could have been, but not as old as you might think," Peter answered.

Stiles rolled his eyes. "Okay, that was frustratingly vague." He turned to Cora. "How old are you?"

"I'm 17," Cora answered.

"See, that's an answer. That's how we answer people."

"Well, 17 how you'd measure in years."

Stiles sighed. "All right, I'm just gonna drop it. What happened to Derek and the cello girl?"

"Paige, Stiles," Marika corrected. "Cello girl is named Paige."

Peter stared at Stiles. "What do you think happened? They were teenagers. One minute, it's "I hate you, don't talk to me." The next, it's frantic groping in any dark corner they could manage to find themselves alone for five minutes. Their favorite dark corner was an abandoned distillery outside of Beacon Hills."