┏━━━━⋆°.☾⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆━━━━┓

HOSTAGE SITUATION

JENNIFER BLAKE WAS A NO GOOD, LYING, EVIL BITCH.

That's quite literally all Derek could think of when he was dragging her into the hospital alongside Scott and Stiles.

Not only was she the Darach, the one responsible for the lives lost in the whole human sacrifices problem, but to top it all off, she was their key to helping Cora. She was literally the only one who could save the dying Hale girl, which is exactly where they were marching her toward.

Though, Melissa McCall's shouting briefly stopped them in their tracks. "What are you doing here?" she asked, albeit a little frantically. "The hospital's evacuating."

"Yeah, we're here for Cora," he stressed out in a single breath.

Melissa surveyed the small group gathered. "All of you?" Her eyes locked onto Stiles. "Why does Stiles have my bat?"

"Mom, just trust me on this: you need to get out of here," Scott warned the woman, easily breezing past her question, "right now."

Immediately sensing the persistence in her son's tone, Melissa paused for a moment. "The building is supposed to be clear in thirty minutes," she explained. "We've got two ambulances that are coming back, one's ten minutes out and the other is twenty. Cora needs to be on one of those."

"What about Hannah Prescott?" Derek asked, his grip on Jennifer's arm unyielding. He hadn't heard back from Emerson, not that he had checked his phone from the time she dropped him off until now— not with everything going on.

Melissa's eyebrows furrowed for a moment. "Deputy Prescott was evacuated just over thirty minutes ago," she informed him, and at that point, Derek's alarm did skyrocket. She turned back to Scott. "They'll be picking up in the basement garage."

Derek had half a mind to track her scent right then and there, but the reminder of what was at stake was something that kept him rooted in place. Emerson could fend for herself, not that he particularly liked that she would need to anyway, and Cora couldn't.

The group set off toward the elevator, oblivious to the way a certain dark Druid was keeping something to herself, concealed by a barely there smirk.

They powered toward the room Cora was in, only to find a rumpled bed and a black puddle of blood that was not comforting to see in the slightest. A trail of it led back out into the hall, toward a set of double doors that Scott helpfully pointed out.

Only, just when the two werewolves of the group strained their ears, a body went flying through the doors. And the body belonged to Peter Hale himself, having been thrown from the other hall by the alpha twins who'd merged into their one colossal being.

From his place on the floor, Peter groaned. "We got a problem."

Their eyes locked onto the hulking figure, its growl reverberating around the hall.

"Big problem."

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Cora was dying, that much they all knew just from one look at her.

They ran to another end of the hospital once they'd managed to knock the twins off their feet. Jennifer ran, as was to be expected, but what they hadn't expected was for her to return in the dim glow of the operating room they were holed up in.

"I can save her, and I can tell you where Sheriff Stilinski is," she started heatedly, "but there is a pack of alphas in this hospital who want me dead. So I'll help you, but only when I'm out of here and safe. Only then."

That was such a crock of shit.

Derek was the first to lash out, pushing a surgical tray away from his path to get to Jennifer. He was intercepted by Scott as he yelled, the younger boy cautioning him. "She was trying to get out!" Derek badgered on accusingly.

"I was trying to keep myself from getting killed, you can't blame me for that!"

"If you want to show you're one of the good guys, then heal her," Stiles demanded, pointing to the sickly pale Hale girl on the hospital table.

Jennifer was undeterred. "Not until I'm safe."

"I'd like to volunteer a different method of persuasion," Peter piped up from just behind the McCall boy. His voice took a giddy tone. "Let's torture her."

Derek jumped at the chance. "Works for me—"

Suddenly, the P.A. system squeaked to life, interrupting everyone's current train of thought. The voice on the other end of it was painstakingly familiar to them. "Uhm, can I have your attention?" Melissa's voice rang out. "Mr Deucalion —excuse me, just Deucalion— requests you bring the woman calling herself Jennifer Blake to the ER reception. Do this, and everyone else can leave. You have ten minutes."

Everyone was on edge once again, but not only were they alone in the hospital with the opposing alphas, but now they had Scott's mother too.

"He won't hurt her," Jennifer said, the P.A. system shutting off with a click. "Scott, you know why."

"What does she mean?" Derek asked instantaneously, turning to Scott.

Scott faltered for a moment, the silence weighing heavily on them all, before Jennifer scoffed in Derek's direction. "You and your little girlfriend are not the only ones he wants in his pack." Derek felt himself tense for two completely different reasons. "He wants perfection. That means adding the rarest of alphas to his ranks."

"A true alpha," Peter murmured to himself, but they all caught it.

Stiles seemed to be the only one unaware of what that title meant. "What's that?"

"The kind of alpha who doesn't have to steal his power from another," Peter elaborated, looking at the McCall boy as he spoke. "One that can rise by the force of his own will. Our little Scott."

Jennifer's head tilted.

"Scott's not the only rarity he wants."

Peter rolled his eyes. "Enough with the cryptic comments— tell us what you know."

It took her a beat to roll her own eyes in return.
"Are you all forgetting that Emerson's the daughter of the demon wolf?" she quizzed, an eyebrow raised in mock disbelief. "He plays favourites."

Derek stilled, and in his peripheral he saw Peter stand a little straighter too. "How do you know about that?"

She blinked, feigning innocence. "About what?"

"I never told you anything about her," he said with a crumb of uneasiness in his tone, like he was on the verge of finding out something. "How do you know that?"

Not only was Derek fairly certain he never told Jennifer a thing about the Avery girl, like, ever, he was also fairly certain that Emerson was a pretty normal werewolf. It never seemed like she inherited the so-called demonic traits that her father possessed, but maybe blood relation alone was what mattered to Deucalion.

Jennifer's arms crossed over her chest indifferently, no one aware of Peter fishing out his phone from his pocket to discretely punch in a familiar set of numbers. "Word travels fast, you know that better than I do," she replied. "I didn't know it was a secret—"

A phone distinctly began to ring out, the same ringtone that Derek had heard earlier in the day when all he worried about was blueberries in pancakes and waking up just close enough to Emerson.

It was her phone, and the sound was coming from Jennifer's damn pocket. It stopped after a few seconds, only when Peter hit the off button on his own phone, and the woman's face immediately soured.

Seems she came prepared with an excuse, though. "I had to have some sort of Plan B."

This time, Scott couldn't hold him back from lunging in the woman's direction, a complete deja vu moment from when he had her by the throat earlier in the loft.

"Where the hell is she?" he barked out, unbothered by the shouting that roused from behind him.

"Like I said," she choked out, her feet lifted off the ground, "I'll— I'll give you all the answers you need, a–after I'm out of here."

"Derek," his uncle's voice rang out, causing his head to flip in his direction. He caught the way his head did a small shake. "Think about this."

There was too much at stake, he knew that already. As much as he wanted to squeeze the life out of the woman, what good would it get any of them? If she was dead, they'd never heal Cora, nor would they ever find the Sheriff.

Nor would they ever find Emerson. And yeah, that made a massive pit form in his chest at the thought of never seeing her again— of her somewhere alone, dying for all he knew.

He dropped his hold on Jennifer, turning his back toward her before looking directly at Scott.

"We need a game plan."

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[ wyn's note ]

well damn. if emmy's not a sacrifice then what is she... thoughts ? LOLOL

at least hannah's somewhere safe cause that rlly would've been a double homicide. y'all are lucky i adore that woman — back to emersons pov next chap tho

two updates in one day are u impressed or are u impressed?! all my love xx