Need

Chapter 4

Stiles

"Guys, we can trust her!" I exclaimed, trying not to notice how close Derek was standing to me, and the buzzing in my shoulder from where he set his hand on me, the second Zeke was brought up.  I felt bad for Jhene, who now suddenly had three sets of gleaming werewolf eyes on her. 

"You don't understand," she began, calmly trying to settle them down. "Zeke is my stepdad, but I hate him. Why would I like him? He killed my mother," she added. I felt a pang of empathy for her, and immediately Derek seemed to cool down, retracting his claws and his eyes going back to their usual greenish-hazel. Could he smell my emotions?  I didn't think he could. Derek took his hand off my back. 

"I'm so sorry," I said to her. "We'll find him," I assured her.  

"Why are you helping us?" Cora asked. 

"You guys seem like good people, and I wanna get back at Zeke," she explained. It made sense to me. It looked like it made sense to everyone else too, because they moved on from the topic. 

"Stiles," Derek said, helping me up. I knew what was coming. "What was your dream?" He asked. I sighed and explained it. I didn't mean to cry, but when I told them about Scott being dead, I couldn't help it. Derek put a hand on the small of my back, to comfort me, which made me feel a bit better. When I told them about how Derek had been whipped in the same spot that he started bleeding from, they looked surprised. "And you didn't think this was important?" Derek said accusingly. He had quickly turned from affectionate to frustrated. I sighed. 

"I was going to tell you when it was necessary, and now seemed like a time it was," Derek glared at me, making a strange amount of eye contact. I looked away. "We should get going, they're going to find us any second now," I said, changing the subject. I wasn't in the mood to argue with Derek. We walked towards the cars, and I hopped in. Derek slid into the seat next to me, and I didn't say anything to him, just because I knew he was going to bring up the dream. What I didn't expect was for him to do what he did.

"I'm sorry," he said simply. I was confused. 

"For what?" "For snapping at you back there. I know that was hard for you. I don't think Scott's dead. I think if he was, you would know," he told me. I felt a bit better. 

"Thank you," I said. "At least you haven't gone all grumpy wolf on me again," I said laughing. Derek paused for a second, and I saw a hint of a smile, but then it passed, and his face seemed to close up. He shrugged. Why was he suddenly so upset?  Just a few seconds before we had been fine. We were joking around. Was that it? Why couldn't he just be happy for once? 

 " Derek, I'm not in the mood for your mood swings right now, whatever wrong, just say it," I complained, I knew he wouldn't say anything, but I wanted him to know I noticed. "Nothing's the matter," 

I didn't want to argue. So I left it. We pulled out of the parking lot, Cora in the car behind us, and behind them, Liam and Jhene in Liam's beat-up truck. 

Liam having a car was weird for me. I remembered when he was just a freshman and Scott turned him. He was just a kid with anger management issues and a gay best friend. I remember helping him with Scott when he first go the bite. I loved that kid, even though he was a nuisance at times. Now he was a junior in high school and was captain of the lacrosse team. I missed the days when everything was simple and the greatest threat was...well actually in Beacon Hills, nothing was ever simple. 

About an hour into the drive Derek jumped out of his seat. "What?" Derek checked the rearview mirror. 

"I thought I saw something. It was probably just a shadow." He excused. I raised an eyebrow.