Stuck Like Glue (Derek Hale Fanfiction Book #2)

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Lost Girl

            By the time I finally got home with Monica, neither Derek nor Isaac was anywhere to be found. After spending two hours doing homework with Monica, I finally convinced her to go home sometime around seven, which left me wandering around the apartment with nothing to do. I’d been denying myself the temptation to call Derek since I was angry at him for the way he’d acted earlier on the phone, which meant I’d be stuck out of the loop until he and Isaac got home. Ring, ring. Ring, ring, he apartment phone blared, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. We never used the home phone, opting instead to communicate with our cell phones, but Derek had insisted we have one in case of an emergency.

“Hello?”

“Is this Christina Laymen?”

“Um, yeah,” I mumbled uncertainly, not recognizing the voice on the other end. It was deep and masculine, but muffled slightly.

“We’re coming for you.” The line went dead after that, and I stood frozen to the spot as fear coursed through my veins. The living room lights were on but the corners of the other rooms were hidden in shadows, and I spun around, suddenly paranoid. Who’s coming for me? Who was that? Who would want to hurt me? Is somebody in the apartment? Without hesitating, I quickly dialed Derek’s number, waiting as it rang and rang before his voicemail picked up.

“Hey, you’ve reached Derek Hale. Leave a message. Beep.”

“Derek-“I considered leaving a message telling him to get his ass over here now, but then I thought again and decided to just hang up. Whatever he was busy with, I didn’t need to go adding to his list of problems. Besides, it was probably just a prank. Stranger things have certainly happened in this town, I thought shakily as I walked around the apartment, turning on every light in every room. Just in case. Then I crawled under the covers of the bed I shared with Derek and began to watch Bridesmaids on my laptop to distract myself from the dark thoughts running around my head. Sometime during the movie, my eyelids began to droop closed and I let them, rolling over and curling up against the soft, warmth of my pillow as I allowed fatigue to overcome me. 

             Several hours later, I was awoken by a pair of warm, hard-muscled arms wrapping around my body and pulling me against an even harder and well-built chest. I mumbled something incoherent as I turned over, peering up at Derek’s serious face in the pitch blackness.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said quietly, his deep voice surrounding me and calming my frazzled nerves. No matter how much I lied to myself, I couldn’t deny that the phone call earlier had scared the shit out of me; it felt nice to be wrapped up in Derek’s embrace, to know that I’m safe.

“S’alright.”

 “What is this?” Derek’s fingers ran over the bandages on my upper arm lightly.

“Nothing. I just, um, tripped at school and scraped my arm on the edge of a desk,” I lied elusively, frowning when Derek’s arms pulled away from me. Seconds later, the bedside lamp flickered on and light flooded our corner of the room. My eyes took in Derek’s messy hair, shadowed eyes, and worried expression with an internal sigh of regret. He spends too much damn time worrying about me.  

“Chris.”

“What? I did,” I yelped defensively, and luckily Derek just shook his head and ran a hand over his face roughly.

“Whatever,” he said resignedly, making a move to turn the light off when I stopped him. The concern in his eyes had melted into determination, and I didn’t like to think of Derek being upset with me. I was supposed to be mad at him!