Grievances (Book Three Of Hale Wolves For Teen Wolf :))

ch. 1: Tattoo

The summer had passed, and we discovered the Alpha pack had obviously taken Boyd and Erica, and Derek, Isaac, Peter and I had worked so hard to find them.

Well, mainly Derek, Isaac and me. Peter didn't really care, and he didn't live with us.

Speaking of new living spaces, we had a new one. Instead of the county-owned Hale property house or the hide-out we had used to hide from the Argents, we all lived in a new apartment loft on the edge of town. There was a wall of windows, and windows on the ceiling, decent furniture and a spiral staircase next to the windows. There weren't many rooms, and that, we didn't care much for. I would sleep on the floor and I wouldn't care.

Mainly, I slept on a chair that wasn't the most comfortable, and I didn't care where Derek or Isaac did.

We had spent the summer busy looking for Erica and Boyd, though. And Isaac was out, looking for them now. He had gone out last night and hadn't come back when the sun rose.

So, now, I was out looking for him too.

Derek had helped me most of the.day, and we met back at the loft, both of us sighing.

"Couldn't find him," I told him.

"Me, either," Derek answered.

He walked ahead of me, sliding open the door and walking in, and I followed. "Do you think they took him, too?"

"I have no clue."

"Well, we need to get one," I said as he walked down the few steps in front of the sliding door, and I slid it closed before following him. "We didn't tell them everything, this is our fault."

"I know," Derek said, turning to face me. "I know. But we can fix this if we can find them."

"If?" I repeated.

Derek sighed. "Tara. Do you trust me?"

I looked back levelly. Just the summer before this, I had been living with our sister Laura, when she had been an Alpha, like Derek was now. That wad before our uncle Peter had killed her to take her Alpha power, and Derek killed him for it, turning into an Alpha, and then Peter using Lydia Martin to use Derek to bring him back to life.

I hadn't trusted anyone except Laura in six years, since the fire that Kate Argent used to kill our family, our mom, our sister Cora, and having made me kill my cousin so she didn't suffer, causing my eyes to turn blue when I transformed into a werewolf, the fire where Peter had saved me from only to kill Laura and try to kill me and Derek six years later.

With the only person I had trusted killed, I hadn't trusted anyone, not even Derek, my brother, and he hadn't trusted me. Which almost got us both killed on multiple occasions.

But, over the summer, I had gotten closer to him, gotten to trust him, and even before, I started to trust Erica, Boyd, Isaac and Scott McCall even when he had been working with Gerard Argent and the kanima Jackson Whittemore used to be because he had wanted me and Derek dead, and Allison, his granddaughter and Scott's girlfriend, too.

And I may have been working on my trust issues.

But I trusted Derek more than anyone, if I didn't show it.  "More than anyone."

"Then let me fix this."

I slowly nodded, looking away and toward the flashing red light behind him on the answering machine, signaling one missed call.

"Derek," I said, nodding to the phone.

He turned, walking toward it and hitting the voicemail button for us both to hear.