Game of Survival - Teen Wolf

1.2

"I can't believe we're back here."

Isabelle watched the town she once called home fly past her in a blur. Derek and Isabelle had arrived in Beacon Hills about two hours ago at the nearest airport. It was about an hour drive into town, and during the hour-long car ride neither of them spoke.

Derek grips the steering wheel as they drive through the town, his knuckles turning white. For his sake, she pretended not to notice.

"Is Peter still in the nursing home?" Isabelle asked out loud, she smiled at the thought of her uncle. "We haven't seen him in forever. Can we go see him later?"

Peter Hale. Isabelle and Derek's uncle. He was the youngest of the Hale Children. Talia, Derek's mother, and Andrea, Isabelle's mother, were the oldest.

Peter was a few years older than Derek, they were best friends. Isabelle loved Peter, he was her only uncle and when she was a kid he had dubbed himself the fun uncle. She remembered thinking he was silly and didn't mention that he was her only uncle.

Peter and Isabelle were the sole survivors of the fire. Because of him Isabelle had gotten away with only a few burns. He wasn't as lucky. Peter had been living in a nursing home for the past 6 years. The fire scared him in ways they couldn't even begin to understand.

He was in a catatonic state. He couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't eat or do anything by himself. Peter Hale was a shell of who he used to be. Remembering all those details made Isabelle's heart ache with pain and guilt, and she changed her mind on seeing him again.

"Maybe," Derek concedes. "But if we're going to blend in you have to fix your hair."

Isabelle's hands darted up to her hair, she raked her hands through the auburn brown color that consisted of pink highlights. She had gotten them for her birthday in the summer, she kept them regularly checked in the salon. She had to admit that her hair would immediately draw attention.

"How about we cross that bridge when we get to it?" She didn't want to part with her highlights. They weren't that pink. Derek sighed heavily.

Isabelle frowned when she noticed Derek taking the back roads for the preserve. "Where are we going?"

"I heard about a body in the woods." Derek answered.

"And you think it could be Laura?"

Derek grimly nods. "Yes."

Isabelle tenses when she sees the house in the distance. It used to be their home. They named it the Hale house. Even though it had been years the smell of burning flesh found its way to Isabelle's nose, her eyes watered and she put her hand on her shoulder as she remembered the way the fire burned.

The house- if you could call it that -was barely standing. The wood was rotten and was charcoal black. The entire back wall of the house was gone, including part of the roof and half of the chimney. Isabelle wondered how it was the same house. The cousins get out of the car and stare at the house.

Laura and Derek were at a basketball game at the school. Derek was on the team, she had gone to cheer him on. The rest of the family would have gone with them but it was the full moon. They lost 12 family members. Parents, siblings, aunts, cousins, grandparents.

When they had arrived, Isabelle was a crying, screaming and coughing mess with a third degree burn on her small shoulder and a section of her back. Peter was covered entirely in burns. The smell of burning flesh was everywhere that night. It was safe to say that they both thought back to that night many times.

Isabelle found herself walking up to the house. Derek walked in after her. She couldn't believe that this was the same house she had grown up in. The first floor of the house was beyond recognition. Everything was burned and barely standing. And it was where her parents had died. No, Isabelle couldn't stomach the sight and she ran outside. She threw up her breakfast.