The Hellhound's Mate

Angie's Return - Part 10

The tension in the room was thick enough to taste. The flickering lights overhead cast erratic shadows across their faces — Derek, stone-cold and rigid; Scott, desperate and shaking with adrenaline; Stiles, pacing like a caged animal, his voice rising with each word until it bordered on hysteria.

"Where's the big guy?" Stiles demanded, eyes darting toward the door as Peter set Cora's body down gently on a metal slab.

"He's close," Derek muttered, scanning the darkened hall.

"What about Miss Blake?"

Derek didn't answer.

Stiles's voice pitched higher, raw with panic. "What do you mean, what about her? What does that mean? Like she's gone?"

Scott hesitated, and that hesitation said everything.

"Scott—are you kidding me?" Stiles snapped, his hands flying up.

"Shh!" Derek hissed. "Quiet!"

"Me? Be quiet?" Stiles whirled on him, incredulous. "Are you telling me what to do now? When your psychotic, mass-murdering girlfriend — the second one, by the way — has my dad somewhere, tied up, waiting to be ritually sacrificed?"

"Stiles," Scott tried to steady him, his voice even, "they're still out there."

"And they want her, right?" Stiles's voice cracked as he took another step forward. "Which means now we don't have her either, so my dad and Cora are both dead!"

The argument was about to explode again when the doors slammed open. All heads whipped around — and there she was. Angie.

She was breathing hard, her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat and streaks of blood, her left arm hanging at an unnatural angle. But her eyes — glowing faintly red — were calm. Grounded. "Two of the people I love most arguing," she said hoarsely, her voice cutting through the tension, "isn't exactly helping the situation."

"Angie—" Stiles was on her in a heartbeat, panic flooding his voice. "Your arm—oh my god, what happened?"

"It's dislocated," she said simply, wincing as she tried to move it. "It's fine. I'm fine. I've had worse."

Derek stepped forward, already reaching for her bicep and her shoulder. "Hold still."

"It's fine, Derek—"

He didn't wait for permission. With one sharp, precise movement, he popped her shoulder back into place. Angie's breath hitched sharply — a low, animal sound of pain — but she rotated her arm once, twice, and nodded.

"That hurt," she snapped.

"But does your arm work now?"

"Irrelevant."

"You're welcome," he said with a sarcastic grin.

"Ok, as much as I'm loving this moment," Stiles began with an equally sarcastic grin. "Where are the twins?"

"Down," Angie answered. "I bought us a few minutes, but they never stay down so long, those two."

"She's really dying, isn't she?" Scott asked as Peter fretted over his unconscious niece.

"She's definitely not getting any better.

"There has to be something we can do," Scott said urgently. "We have to help her—"

"You can't," came a cool voice as the doors on the other side of the room flapped as someone entered. Jennifer, still pale and shaking but somehow defiant, lifted her chin. "Only I can. I can save her, and I can tell you where Sheriff Stilinski is. But there's a pack of Alphas in this hospital who want me dead. So I'll help you—but only when I'm out of here. Only when I'm safe."