𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐒𝐎𝐎𝐍, derek hale ✓

𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍

┏━━━━⋆°.☾⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆━━━━┓

THE BAD MAN

THE DIRT PATH TOWARD THE OLD HALE HOUSE MADE HER CAR JOSTLE AROUND, THE SMALL TIRES NOT SUITED FOR SUCH TERRAIN.

Emerson couldn't count the many times Isaac's head bumped against the roof of the vehicle, though he stayed silent.

The car was blanketed in it —in silence— and the tension was practically rolling off of Emerson in waves. Even on the main roads she'd been going way over the speed limit, desperate to get some answers as to what Isaac meant by what he had said.

It was bad enough that Emerson caught the attention of the bad man and his cronies once again, but for Derek to fall under the same microscope too? She couldn't even try to convince herself that it was all a coincidence.

Hastily putting the car in park, she was out of the vehicle at the same time the two Hale men emerge from the side of the home, no doubt having heard the car pull up to the destroyed home.

"Let me see it," she demanded, rather frantically. She knew how she must've looked; eyes bloodshot, nerves frayed, and her dress still very much on. "Let me see the door, Derek."

Derek didn't say anything, only guiding Emerson and now Isaac toward the front door. It was left open, and when he went to gently close it, that's when she saw the same markings that were left in her room.

"When did you see this?" she asked.

"This morning."

"They were all over Emerson's room." That was Isaac, filling in the other two on what carnage they'd encountered at the Prescott residence.

She inhaled sharply, tugging on her lip as her arm itched to touch the paint that had been used to draw out the three-legged symbol. Derek's gaze remained focused on her tightly wound stature. "You know what it means, don't you."

It was phrased like a question, but they all knew what her answer would be. Yes, she knew what it meant— if she hadn't, she wouldn't have been standing there among them.

She would've left by now, in pursuit of the same being that was already lurking in the town she stood in.

"This symbol has hunted me down for years," she whispered out, acutely aware of how Derek's eyes widened by a fraction. He connected the dots from the conversation they'd had just last night. "And now it's hunting you. He's coming to—"

"I know."

Emerson snapped her head towards him— he already knew what the symbol meant. "You know?" she snarled back, her face twisted in disbelief. "How much do you know?"

Derek sighed. "Enough to know there's a leader, even when they're all alphas."

Like he'd noticed her internal battle, another voice chimed into the discussion.

"When there's a new Alpha, people tend to take notice," Peter piped up from his place resting against a wooden beam, just on the porch. "And when there are two, you might as well have handed out flyers to announce it."

Isaac rolled his eyes on her behalf. "Not helping, Peter."

She tugged on her bottom lip angrily. Everything, including her plan to lure the bad man away so she could put an end to her eternal sufferance, had all just blown up in her face. He would never follow her trail anywhere else if he had Derek in his sights now, too.