Payment (revised)

Chapter 16

edited: 5/13/20

edited: 7/5/23

Derek had been restless for days now. Watching Stiles. Protecting Stiles. Making sure nobody got near him.

He couldn't sleep.

If he slept something might happen.

If something happened to Stiles it would mean he had failed. Again.

This was Derek's fault. He should have never sent Stiles out with Lydia and Erica. He should have never allowed for the situation to get so out of hand. If he had been clever for even a moment, Lydia might still be with them.

Lydia.

Derek had failed her most of all. She was gone, taken, just as Isaac had been. Derek was a fool. If he had figured out the threat sooner, set up extra protection for his pack, so many things would have gone differently.

He wasn't allowed to dwell on the past, not when it was his mistakes that were building up.

Now he had to focus on getting Lydia back. For all they knew she might turn up looking worse then Isaac had, if she turned up at all. He needed to take control of this manhunt; but one thing was holding him back from starting his search with a blazing fury.

As always, Stiles was the sole occupant of his thoughts, and the guilt it brought was tearing through Derek. When the younger man woke up, Derek would commit himself to the role he had never before strayed so far from.

If he hadn't let his selfishness corrupt his neutrality, maybe none of this would have ever had to happen in the first place.

But Stiles had not yet awoken, and Derek had yet to relinquish to saint-hood.

He couldn't imagine what Allison was going through.

Despite Derek's tunnel vision, he was concerned for his second.

She wasn't the same with Lydia gone. Not three days since the girl had been taken, but in that time Allison had twisted into a different woman.

When Derek had first built up the courage to admit to what happened, she shut down quickly.

She hadn't said a word, and he wondered if she had even heard him.

Quite naive of him, which was why he kept it to himself. Of course Allison had heard.

It was as the news sank under her skin that she had lost her mind.

~~~~~~~~~~

A screaming silence haunted the room.

The only sound was of Stiles's steady breathing. Derek couldn't be more grateful for the noise, but he was afraid the slightest disruption would be enough to push Allison over the edge.

She was worryingly calm considering the information he had just told her.

When he had been in her shoes, he raged. Swearing vengeance on any enemy who stood in the way of getting back to those he loved. Not that it had done him much good in the end, and his loved ones certainly had not come back. Maybe it really came down to Allison just being smarter than him.

Maybe, she was just saving her strength.

Yes, much smarter. She was containing the eruption so she didn't destroy herself before she took her enemies down with her.

In that, perhaps they weren't as different as he was led to believe.

"I'm sorry," the Alpha had dared to say.

The words felt clumsy, and foreign on his tongue. But if it wasn't for his orders, Lydia would be here, safe at Allison's side. An apology was the least he could give her.