Chapter 3: Traitors

Chris Argent approaches nearer, and aims his gun towards Derek.

"Should've killed him at first shot," he sighs, as if he is bored to death. Kate gets on her feet.

"You hurt my family, you're dead," Chris says and puts his finger to the trigger. Kate pulls the blade from under her shirt. She swings it and strikes Chris on the side of his head with the blade's handle. She hits with such strength that Chris spins on the spot before he slumps on the ground. Kate walks to the fallen beta. She drops on her knees and finds that Derek is still lucid, breathing laboriously. He is trying to get up but due to obvious reasons cannot do so. Kate gnashes her teeth and grabs at Derek's collar.

"Why did you do it?" She yells. Derek shakes his head, as if trying to clear his mind.

"Did what?" He asks.

"Saved me," Kate answers in anger. Dying, the man still manages to royally annoy her.

Derek grins and bares his detestable but terrifyingly beautiful canines.

"Kate Argent, how did you get to be so messed up?" He says before he closes his cold, icy blue eyes. Kate curses, damn you, damn you. She pulls his collar and forces him to be on his feet.

"And how did you get to be so weak, Derek Hale?"

It is as if she is moving without her own consent. She puts her arm to his back and becomes a reluctant crutch for him.

"It's a silver bullet, for f*ck's sake."

"Walk it off," she orders.

"No one walks off a bullet, silver or otherwise."

He limps; dragging his feet as she half pushes and pulls him to her jeep. Kate glances at the face-down Chris regretfully. He would just let her do her own thing now. She has her reasons. When they reach the jeep, she throws him on the back seat.

"Put pressure on the wound," she reminds him. Derek moans something guttural. Kate gets behind the wheel. She has to get him out of here. But where? She has only managed to drive for a half a mile when she hears the werewolf groans.

"Stop!" He yells, exerting all he has left.

Kate Argent stops the engine and turns to the backseat. She can see it. Derek Hale is pale but now he is deathly pale.

"What?"

"Where are you taking me?"

"I don't know yet."

"Stop it now. Kill me. There's no use lugging a dead weight around Beacon Hill."

Kate gets out of her seat and slams the door.

"You want to die, Derek Hale?" Kate taunts him. She takes out the knife she had used on her brother a few minutes ago.

"It's like I'm being skinned alive. Kill me now."

Derek tears apart his shirt and it is all shown to Kate. His wound is beneath his ribcage. The bullet has probably pierced his stomach or spleen. But that isn't the thing doing the damage. The curse of silver against lycans is spreading along his torso in thick snake-like purple-black coils, all moving towards his heart. Derek is in agony. Kate is almost upset that she doesn't feel rapturous seeing it happen.

"Tell me, Hale. Who killed my father? Tell me and I'll put you out of your misery!"

There is something on Derek's face that shames her. It is almost as if the lycan is sympathetic towards her. And she hates to be pitied upon. And how can he do that when he is the one suffering now? Kate is completely thrown off balance now.

"I'm sorry, I don't know. Arghh!" Derek's apology is halted by another surge of tremor spasming his body.

"This will never end," Derek exhales. What energy he has left to prop his body against the wall of the jeep is now gone. There is nothing left in him to use for the struggle against pain.

"Damn you, wolves!" Kate yells and begins to rip Derek's shirt completely off his torso. She looks at him and remembers how she has had him completely restrained but absolutely not subdued. She has literally tasted Derek Hale's body. It feels like tasting salt on silk.

"Damn you!" She plunges the knife into the bullet wound on his side. He responds with a sigh, moving barely. She knows how it looks like. She is a psycho hacking at meat at the backseat of her jeep. After making a crude incision, then with her bare hands, she takes out the bullet made of silver from the wound. His body arches is its final bout of agony, as she searches for the bullet among his insides. She feels it, cold and unforgiving. She yanks it out and he breathes out, body slack and utterly spent surrendering to the discomfort of the cramped space of the backseat. Kate looks at the bullet, thought bitterly about the war, and throws it out, into the dark of night outside the jeep.

Then she looks at him. Sleeping or dead, she doesn't know. His blood is on her hand. She sees a vehicle's headlights half a mile away. She knows it is Chris. What is she going to do?

This will never end, he said. It rings clearly in her mind.