Familiar Stranger

Chapter 16

It had been a long time since Eva had dared to wander into the basement of the grand home she had once been able to call home. It was so empty now, so void of life that it felt as if it was never inhabited at all. As if it was there with all of it's thousand dollar decor and exquisite layout only for show.

The basement that she was standing before the door of was the one and only place she had been forbidden to enter, it had been the same way in the old house they had lived in and it was the same in this one. Her mother promising horrible consequences if she were to enter it. The threats had never been necessary, Eva had no interest in the room at the end of those stairs. Until now.

It required some sort of key code to open it, but neither Eva nor Isaac would have to locate such a thing, Eva had stepped back and allowed Isaac to break down the door with one quick kick place in just the right spot.

"Eva, I need to ask you something..."Isaac said as they each got their first peek at the room on the other side of the door. It was much more than any room she had been before, more like a lab than anything, filled with an overly sterile smell and test tubes upon table tops. It looked just as she had remembered it the first time she had wandered into the basement, although the basement she had gone into was at their previous house. Along one side of the room computer screens stretched along the wall, some of them showed various rooms in the house, all of them entirely empty other than the furnishings throughout them. Another showed the sides of the house, swiveling back and forth slowly to capture anything going on in that area.

Eva paused after the two of them stepped into the room, turning to face Isaac before exploring any further into the room. "You know you can ask me anything." She replied, her voice soft and sincere as her clear blue-green orbs found his.

"How come you never asked about what I remembered, about what you missed out on? And why is it that you seemed to come out of the sedation as soon as I came out of the trance?" Isaac was pretty positive he already had the answer to those questions, but he needed to know, he had to hear the answer from her.

"I think you already know the answer to that, Isaac." Eva began, her voice soft as she bit gently upon her bottom lip. Isaac frowned, he had known from the very moment she had come into the same room as the rest of them and when her hand had touched his, the iciness of her touch matched his. He had known right then and there that she had managed to join him in his trek down memory lane. He had been secretly hoping, though, that he had been wrong.

"It's okay, though. We both survived and we got through it together, I'm ok. I can handle it." Eva didn't want Isaac to feel as if it was his fault that she had to experience what he did, because it wasn't. She wouldn't have changed what she experienced with him for the world.

"But what if you can't, Eva?" Isaac asked, his voice rising just a little, he wasn't angry with her, not really. He was angry with the situation at hand, the fact that she could end up dead because of this connection they had to each other. He could handle death himself, but not the death of her. He couldn't imagine her life being cut short because his was.

"Isaac, please. Can we talk about this later? We've only got so much time to find the tape from that night, or anything else that could prove if I'm right or wrong." Eva's voice was pleading, nearly begging him to drop the subject at hand and focus on the more important matter before them.

"Fine, but I'm not going to forget about this." Isaac agreed and Eva knew that he wouldn't forget, after all, how could you forget about something that nagged at you each and every second of the day, at least that was how it was for her.

They had been searching for nearly an hour, tearing the place apart in searching of the tapes from that night her mother had been 'taken' before finally coming across something.

"Eva?" Isaac called over to the petite raven haired girl who had flipped through documents on the desk across the room.

Eva turned to face him, her multicolored orbs swirling slowly as she had heard the slight urgency in his voice, Isaac's eyes had been placed on the computer monitor before him, it was playing something, a video recording, it was the very one they had needed.

There was no sound, but Eva could see the back of one females head, that was her mother, she could tell from the suit she had on. The other she could actually make out the face of, it was the one that her and Isaac had both seen in the memories that they recalled, Deucalion. Even though the quality of the video wasn't the best, she could see the sunglasses that covered his eyes and his hand reach out to stroke the side of her mothers face. This seemed much too intimate, even for someone who was supposed to have been kidnapped. She watched as her mother offered out her arm to the Alpha at her side and as he grabbed it. Eva was silent as she watched the two of them walk out of the range of the camera, together, both willingly leaving the view of the camera and into the night. She had been right. Her mother had to have been a part of this.

Even though she had the suspicion that her mom was a part of the Alpha pack that had invaded Beacon hills, that didn't stop the ache in her heart at knowing that her mother was fraternizing with the enemy. She could feel tears beginning to well up in her eyes. She could feel the hot salty tears slipping down the expanse of her slightly pink cheeks. She felt the strong arms of Isaac wrapping around her, holding her tightly to his chest and that was the only thing that kept her from losing it. Losing her cool entirely and destroying everything in her sight.

"We should go." She whispered softly and Isaac nodded, only releasing his hold on her to slip his hand into hers and lead her out of the house.

Isaac had to drive back to the apartment, Eva sat silently in the passenger seat, silent, yet seething. She was mad, angry as hell at her mother for what she had done. For being a part of those people who wanted to kill her and her friends. Also, she was mad at Derek, for keeping this from her. She was easily able to forgive Isaac, after all he had been under Alpha's orders to keep her mothers kidnapping a secret from her, but Derek, he had no right to keep it from her. None at all.

As they appear in the door way of the apartment, Eva spots Derek. Still, she is seething, more so now that the traitor is standing just before her.

Her eyes flash, swirling more now then they had ever before, an anger that she can hardly explain herself is slowly taking over her entire body. She can feel it, from the tips of her toes, rising, engulfing her until it had entirely consumed her.

"How could you!" Eva roared, her eyes fully wolf like now, teeth becoming long and deadly canines and finger nails growing into claws, fur had already sprouted up covering places on her body that no girl should ever even had hair.

Before Eva can do anything, Isaac wrapped his arms around her, holding her from attacking. Eva continued to struggle, trying hard to break the hold that Isaac had upon her. But he didn't give up. No, he couldn't let her go, because as much as he knew what it felt like to be that angry, especially with the full moon lurking closely with it's dangerous pull on new wolves, he couldn't let her give in.

At that point, it was only Derek and Peter, both of them looking on at the two, Derek moved to approach, but Peter held him back. "She wants to rip you to pieces right now, I don't think getting any closer is going to do either of you any good." Peter said before dropping his hand from his nephews shoulder.

"How could you keep the fact that my mom was missing from me? How could you not tell me that she was kidnapped?" Eva asked, her wolf form shifting in and out before finally fading out. She stopped struggling as hard against Isaac, but he still held on to her, afraid that if he let her go she would attack Derek.

"You told her?" Derek asked, looking to Isaac.

"So what if he told me?! I deserve to know!" Eva yelled.

"Did he tell you everything else about your mother? Like how the fact that you knowing she is gone is a danger to you? Or well, every werewolf in the area or even in the world? Did he tell you that?" Derek countered and Eva stiffened.

"What are you not telling me?" She asked, her question focused on Isaac.

And Isaac knew that this was going to be a very long night, one full of revelations for all of them.