Don't Give Up on Me

05

Ania walked up to her brother with a frown. "Don't you have anything better to do with your time than showing up at Dad's and my crime scenes?"

He shook his head. "Not really, no."

Something caught his attention and he asked, "Oh, whoa, is that a dead body?"

The sheriff began ushering people back. "Everybody back up. Back up."

He noticed Lydia and immediately ran to check if she was okay.

Ania walked up to Jackson. "What happened?"

He looked up at her. "I'm not sure if I believe it."

"Try me."

"Uh, there was this beast-like thing. It walked on two legs. It killed the store owner and did something to me."

"What'd it do?"

"Dug its claws into my neck," he said quietly.

"Let me see."

"No."

"Jackson. Let me see."

He relented and Ania looked to see obvious claw marks. A frown crossed her face.

She noticed Derek and Scott and let out a sigh.

Derek turned to Scott. "Starting to get it?"

"Uh," Scott began, "I get that he's killing people, but I don't get why. I mean, this isn't standard practice, right? We don't go out in the middle of the night murdering everyone, do we?"

"No. We're predators."

"But we don't have to be killers."

"Then why is he a killer?"

"That's what we're gonna find out."

---

Scott made his way to Derek's house and Derek began walking up the stairs as Scott said, "I have a life, too."

"No, you don't," Derek told him.

Scott turned back to Derek. "Yes, I do! I don't care what you say about him making me his pet-"

"Part of his pack."

"Whatever. I have homework to do. I have to go to a parent/teacher conference tomorrow because I'm failing Chemistry."

"You wanna do homework? Or do you wanna not die? You have less than a week until the full moon. You don't kill with him, he kills you."

Scott scoffed. "Okay, seriously, who made up these rules?"

"It's a rite of passage."

"You know what else is a rite of passage? Graduating from high school. And you don't have to kill anyone to do it! Why can't you just find him yourself? Why can't you just sniff him out when he's a human?"

"Have you ever heard of different scents? His human scent could be entirely different. It has to be you. You have a connection with him, a link that you can't understand. If I can teach you to control your abilities, you can find him."

"So if I help you -- you can stop him?"

Derek shook his head. "Not alone. We're stronger in numbers. A pack makes the individual more powerful."

"How am I supposed to help if I have no idea what I'm doing?"

"Because I'm gonna teach you. Do you remember what happened that first night after you were shot in the arm? Right after you were hit?"

"Yeah, I changed back."

"And when you were hit by his car, same thing, right? What's the common denominator?"