"If Isaac didn't kill his father, who did?" Scott asked as they moved around the interior of Isaac's house with a flashlight to see.
It would be too risky to put the lights on and chance the neighbors reporting activity in the home to the police.

"I don't know yet." Derek looked around the living room as he spoke.

"Then..." Scott sighed, "How do you guys know he's telling the truth?"

"I just do." Sam shrugged as they made their way into the kitchen and she saw broken glass on the floor and the overturned chairs at the table.

She swallowed hard and hugged her arms around herself.
Before her father went to jail, their kitchen had been a replica of this scene on a nightly basis.

"I trust my senses." Derek reasoned, "And it's a combination of them... not just your sense of smell."

Scott shrunk down in place.
Derek must have been at the school and saw the lacrosse practice where he'd been trying to sniff out who the other werewolf was.

He'd hoped he'd gone about it subtly enough but judging from the look on Derek's face, he was second guessing that now.

"You saw the lacrosse practice today?" Scott asked.

"Yeah." Derek came to a stop to face him.

"Did it really look that bad?" Scott cringed.

"Yeah." Derek nodded.

Sam was only half-listening to their conversation. Her attention kept getting pulled to the hallway.

She looked over her shoulder to where Scott and Derek were still standing in the kitchen doorway.
Derek had been clear about his intentions of wanting Scott to join their pack and was using this as training exercise to try and sway him.

Sam wasn't the point of fully trusting in her senses and abilities yet. Confidence over all wasn't her strong suit.
But she was trying.

Leaving them in the kitchen to talk, she ran her fingers along the wall as she walked into the dark hallway.

She felt uneasy.
It was like tension and torment had seeped into the structure and became a part of it's very foundation.

At first she thought maybe the tug she felt was going to pull her to Isaac's bedroom, but instead when she opened the door she saw a stairway leading down into what looked like utter blackness without any lights being on.

Pulling her phone from her pocket, she put the flashlight on and made her descent.

With every step down the feelings of pain and negativity grew.

It wasn't just fear that she felt seeping up from the floors, it was utter terror.
Not just pain but absolute torture.

Her eyes immediately went to an old large chest freezer pulled out near the middle of the room.
She moved some loose hanging plastic out of her way as she walked and just barely caught sight of some scratches on the floor.

Kneeling down, she aligned her fingers with the markings and slowly drug her hand over it. They were leading in the direction of the freezer.

Sam stood up and wiped her eyes with the back of her free hand. She hadn't even realized the impressions left in the basement had brought her to tears.

Her legs shook as she closed in on the chest freezer.
Shakily, she laid a hand down on the surface and and closed her eyes.

She didn't even have to open it to know what she'd see inside of it.
In fact, she couldn't bring herself to open it at all.

Hearing footsteps, she sniffed and wiped her eyes again before turning to look at Scott and Derek as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

Scott shined the flashlight in his hand across the room, the beam of light stopping on Sam when he noticed her watery, red eyes.

"What happened down here?" Scott asked.

Sam opened her mouth but stopped when she saw Derek shake his head at her.
He wanted Scott to see the importance of using his own senses to get the answers.

Clearing her throat, Sam summed everything up into one simple word, "Hell."

Scott's brows lowered.

"The kind of thing that leaves an impression." Derek quietly added.

"Are you okay?" Scott asked.

Sam nodded but couldn't bring herself to speak.

Scott resumed his search of the room.
At first he was looking at a broken mirror, but soon enough he saw the marks on the floor.

Just like Sam had done, he leaned down to fit his own fingers over the marks.

He looked back up at her, as if to silently ask if she'd noticed them too -but then his eyes landed on the freezer and he could feel his heart sink.

His breathing grew shallow the closer he walked to it.

Sam took a small step away from it and watched as Scott started to reach for the open, heavy padlock looped on it.

His breath caught in his throat as he looked back to where Derek was walking up beside Sam.

"Open it." The alpha instructed.

For reasons he wasn't quite sure of, he couldn't get his hands to stop shaking and ended up having a surprisingly hard time removing the lock from it's latch.

With another glance at the pair standing to the side watching him, Scott pushed the top open and gasped.

The interior of the freezer lining was full of more claw marks -the kind that would snap and break off human nails to make.
He saw dried blood smears and could taste the rust on his tongue when he breathed in.

Sam averted her eyes away from the freezer, unable to stomach the sight of it for even a second longer.

She was about to turn and leave the room to get some air when she felt a hand gently land on her arm and looked over to see it was Derek.

His brows knotted in a silent 'are you okay?'

"I'm okay." She whispered.
But when he left his hand there, she doubted he believed her.

"He went through hell." Scott breathed out, repeating Sam's chosen word for what had happened in the basement.
He let the lid of the freezer drop down with a thud.

"This is why he said yes to you." Scott turned to face Derek.

"Everyone wants power." Derek agreed with a nod.

He let go of Sam's arm and she looked down to where the ghost of his touch still lingered on her skin with a frown.
She'd felt more at ease when his hand was there.

Scott stared back down to the freezer.

"If I help you, then you have to stop!" Scott's voice raised, "You can't just go around turning people into werewolves!"

"I can if they're willing." Derek looked almost amused with Scott for that ultimatum.

"Did you even tell Isaac about the Argents? About being hunted?" Scott questioned.

"Isaac knew all of the risks." Sam promised.

With a nod, Derek added, "And he still asked."

"Then he's an idiot!" Scott exclaimed.

"Hey!" Samantha yelled back at him in defense of both Isaac and herself for choosing to take the bite.

"And you're the idiot dating Argent's daughter." Derek accused.

Scott looked stunned.
He thought they had been doing such a good job of hiding it.

"Yeah." Derek stared him down, "I know your little secret -and if I know, how long do you really think it's going to take for them to find out?"

Derek reminded him of the night in the woods when they'd witnessed the hunters sever an omega in half.
Things don't end well for lone-wolves.

"With me you'll learn how to use all of your senses." Derek reached out and held up Scott's hand to point out he was starting to lose control from the moon already, "With me, with being in my pack, you'll learn control. Even on a full moon."

Scott jerked his wrist away, "If I'm with you, I lose her."

Derek scoffed.
"You're going to lose her anyway. You already know that."

Derek turned and started to leave.

Sam gave Scott an empathetic expression.

If she was being honest, she thought it was sweet just how much Allison meant to Scott.
Romantic even; that he was trying to navigate things the way he was be with the girl he loved,

Considering he'd also seen the Argents cut a man in half, she also thought it was foolish to want to be entirely without a pack.

Mainly, she didn't understand why they couldn't just all help each other out even if Scott refused to join the pack.
Being a part of them or not -they were all on the same side of this war.

"Good luck tonight, Scott."
Sam took a few steps backwards before turning to follow Derek.

"Wait!" He called after them, "I'm not part of your pack, but I want to help Isaac. He's my responsibility too."

"Why?" Derek asked, "Because he's one of us?"

Scott stared at the freezer once more, "Because he's innocent."

~()~

Sam sat down on the couch in Isaac's living room when her heart started to race.

She started to raise a hand to her chest but stopped when she saw her claws were extended and she hadn't even realized it.

When they were all in the basement, she'd seen Scott struggling from moon rise getting closer but all-in-all, she thought she'd been holding it together pretty well.

To the point that she was really starting to believe she wouldn't lose control at all this time.

Which might have been the case if it was just doubt and fear spreading over her, but the fire of rage was starting to burn her up from the inside out too.

She'd been sad -deeply so, when she realized the extent of the abuse Isaac had suffered at his father's hands, but she'd also been angry.
Enraged that he'd endured such turmoil right under the noses of so many other people.

That no one, not a single one of his neighbors who clearly knew of the abuse had said or did anything to intervene.

How much suffering could have been avoided if someone had just said or done something.

As hard as she tried not to go there, her mind drifted back to when she was younger and physical violence was a common occurrence under her own roof.

The way the neighbors would avoid looking at them if they crossed paths at the grocery store because they knew something was happening at their house but didn't want to get involved.

The teachers are her school who had to have seen the bruises, her mom's co-workers who couldn't have possibly believed the excuses of clumsiness to cover up the constant stream of black eyes she showed up with.

Next thing she knew, she was down on the floor, her claws cutting into the throw rug beneath her.
Her heart was speeding, head pounding.

The moon hadn't even come out to play yet and she was rapidly losing control.

A pair of strong hands pulled her up to her feet.

"Sam!" Derek yelled, his hands still holding onto her upper arms.

Her mouth hung open, her chest ached as she gasped for air like she were being held underwater.
Eyes glowing golden-yellow.

"Sam!" Derek repeated, louder this time.

With a groan of pain she started to fall again but he kept her standing as steadily as possible.

"I can't do this." Sam blinked, her eyes flickered rapidly between werewolf yellow and human blue, "I have to go.. I can't -I'm no help to you or Isaac, I-I."

"Take a breath." Derek instructed her.

She twisted out of his grip and backed up. Afraid she'd end up hurting him.
With the redhot anger coursing through her, she didn't think anyone would be safe.

She could hear Derek telling her to breathe, and so she tried to.
But what had started as deep supposed to be calming breaths quickly morphed into rapid shallow gasps.

She couldn't get her claws to retract, her fangs were starting to come out.
This wasn't going to end well for anyone.

"Sam, listen to me." Derek took a cautious step forward, "It's okay, you're okay. You need to-"

"I don't have control -it's the full moon. I thought-" She sputtered and choked, "I thought I could do this, but I can't! Scott's going to have Allison chain him up in the freezer. The Argents are sending someone to kill Isaac... and we've got what? Stiles? Stiles to help us? What the hell is he going to be able to do? My god, we're probably going to get him killed too!"

"This isn't the moon." Derek kept his voice calm, "It's not helping, but it's not you losing control because of the full moon. It's because you're panicking."

He looked around the house.
What seemed like a good idea earlier to see in real-time how she'd be able to navigate the house and if using her senses would guide her to the basement was now clearly too much for her to handle on a full moon.

She'd easily picked up on the lingering feelings the abuse had left in the environment there and went right to the freezer.
It had taken Scott much longer to pick up on the same things.

But now, Derek realized he hadn't taken into account how reading the impressions in that house might just trigger buried trauma from her past.

She was surrounded by both what had happened in the house and the hell that she had made it through as well.

Knowing he needed to get her out of the house and away from the all the stains the misery had left in the house, he grabbed onto her arm and pulled her through the kitchen and out of the back door.

Being outside of the house wasn't ideal but he hoped they'd be less noticeable there than right out front.

"Sam!"
His hands were on her shoulders trying to be a comforting touch -to then holding onto her arms to keep her running off when she tried to shrug away.

If she took off in that frantic state, she'd shift when the moon reached it's peak and the hunters would find her; she'd surely be dead before the sun rose in the morning.

When she finally looked at him, the expression on her face and the feeling in the air around her hit him right in the chest.

She was standing there, right in front of him, she was literally in his hands but the look on her face showed she was worlds away. Like the past had just crashed in and carried her off to sea -she was drowning.

"Hey?" He tilted his head and kept her line of sight when she started to look away again. He needed to keep her in the present so she could get control back, "I'm right here with you. It's okay."

"Oh my god..." She cried out, just sort of a full sob.
Her hands flailed before finding a grip on the open sides of his leather jacket.

She desperately clutched onto it, her hands twisting and balling up the fabric as she violently shook her head from side-to-side.

A look of confusion took over her features and he could feel the embarrassment radiating off of her.

She wanted to hide, she needed to get away from there -away from everyone, for their sake and her own.

She let go of his jacket with an apology.

"I can't do this." She repeated what she'd said inside the house.

He misunderstood.
"It's okay, look we can wait outside for Stiles to get here. You don't have to back in there."

"I don't mean the house, Derek." She strained to clear her throat, "I mean, I can't do any of this. I should be chained up right now. I don't know -I don't know what I was thinking when i thought I'd be fine tonight."

"You need to look at this logically." Derek urged, slowly rubbing his hands up and down her arms trying to get her to calm down more, "I can't be in two places at once. If we don't get Isaac out of the police station -he's dead. They are 100% going to kill him."

"I know." There was a trace of a whine in her tone, "But you can get him alone. You don't need me for that."

"What I'm saying is that I don't have time to chain you up and get back to the police station." He reiterated.

"I can't do this." She repeated.
For the first time feeling Scott was right when he called them idiots for agreeing to be bitten and turned.

"Yes. Yes, you can." He glanced around them to make sure they hadn't garnered any unwanted attention, "You pulled back control almost immediately on your first full moon. You've learned so much, you just need to believe and trust in your senses -in yourself. You've got this, Sam."

He might have been able to sell her on the idea of being a werewolf in the first place, but he wasn't a good enough salesman to get her to buy into having an ounce of the confidence that he seemed to hold in her.

"If I freak out like that again-"

"I shouldn't have brought you here." He let go of her and motioned back to the house, "This. This is on me, okay? But we're not gonna go back in there. You're going to be fine."

She stubbornly shook her head.

"I can get back to the hideout and chain myself up in time." She offered.

"You don't know that." He argued.

"But I do know that I'd be useless to you and Isaac." She blinked back the tears stinging at her eyes, "I need to go and lock myself down before it's too late."

Derek let out a heavy sigh at her inability to recognize just how well she was doing and how far she'd come.
If she could just see how much of an asset she was to the pack then 'I can't do this' would no longer be the mantra on repeat in her head.

But there wasn't time to keep arguing with her and it wasn't doing either of them any good.

It was getting later and Stiles would be there any minute.

She wasn't wrong when she said she'd be useless to them that night -but only because she'd gotten herself so convinced of it that she was making that her reality and the moons apex was quickly approaching.
If she wasn't going with him she did need to get somewhere safe.

"Fine." Derek relented, he pulled the car keys from his pocket and pushed them into her hand, "Take my car, get underground and lock yourself up. Hurry."
He'd just ride with Stiles to the station when he got there.

~()~

Samantha pulled Derek's car to the side of the road and rolled down the windows.
She took in a deep breath of the evening air and tried to steady her racing mind and racing heart.

Breathing heavily she gripped onto the steering wheel tightly and stared at her hands until her claws started to retract.

She didn't much care for any of the plans that had been decided before they parted ways at Isaac's house.

Allison was bringing chains to lock Scott up at the house for the full moon.
He was going to have her chain inside the very freezer Isaac's dad would imprison him in.

Stiles was coming to pick Derek up and they were planning on going to the police station to get Isaac out of there.

Any number of things could go wrong with all those plans.
Scott could break free and hurt Allison.
The hunters could get to the police station first and kill Isaac.

Looking around she realized that she was closer to the police station than she was to Derek's hideout.

She pulled back out onto the street and headed to the police station.

All she could think about was all of the people who'd failed Isaac and let him say in such a damaging environment.
Everyone who'd left him to fend for himself in a hellish place.

And how she wasn't going to be one of them.

She didn't have time to call Derek; she knew he should be there soon as it was and they could just meet up then.

She paused long enough to get another deep breath and watch through the window as the female officer working the desk disappeared out of sight into a back room.

Quietly and carefully, Samantha crept into the police station.

She came to a stop once she entered the room with the holding cells.

She could feel the energy in the air. Hearing Isaac's ragged breathing and racing heart.

"Isaac?" She quietly asked, not wanting to draw attention to the room.

He let out a low growl, and looked at her through the small window in the door, his eyes already glowing yellow.

Her original plan was to break him out, but with the moon's position in the sky it was too late for that, now her best hope was to keep him inside of the cell while she fought to keep herself in control until Derek and Stiles arrived for back up.

There wasn't going to be any reasoning with Isaac now.

A few minutes later he started trying to bust out of the cell, she raced towards it just as he gathered enough strength to bust the door open.

The heavy metal door collided with her and sent her body flying backwards with a pained groan.

Seconds later she was back on her feet, he tried to race past her out of the door but she quickly blocked his way and threw him backwards.

As he ran for the door again, she tried to block him but he her slashed her across the stomach.

Letting out a pained noise she could feel blood starting to soak her clothes.

Shifting at will, she charged and knocked him down pinning him to the ground as he struggled beneath her.

Moments later the door to the room opened and she looked up to see a man dressed as a police officer dragging Stiles into the room.

The man was clearly shocked; he'd only been expecting one werewolf.
He'd only brought a dose of wolfs bane strong enough to kill one.

Hearing the sounds of their heartbeats and smelling the blood running from the man's leg, where Allison had shot him with an arrow to try and slow him down, Samantha had to let go of Isaac to shift back to human and resist the urge to tear both Stiles and the other man apart.

As soon as she let go, Isaac ran at the man effortlessly pinning him to the wall.

She looked over at Stiles with widened eyes, wondering why Derek wasn't with him.
Stiles' eyes went to her shredded shirt and her blood soaked clothes.

She looked back over in time to see Isaac knock the syringe of wolfs bane from his hand, and bash his head against the wall.
The man's body crumpled to the floor.

He could hear Stiles' erratic heartbeat profoundly over everything else and Isaac turned his direction.

"Oh god..." Stiles breathed.

"Get back." Sam yelled as she put herself between them and growled at Isaac.

He made an attempt to get around her to Stiles, but she threw him back across the room.

Just as he made his second run at them, Derek entered the room.

Stepping on the glass syringe so no one could use it to kill any of them and then let out a loud roaring growl at Isaac, his eyes burned red.

Immediately the beta cowered backwards, up against the far wall and slid down to the floor, using his arm to block his face from the room.
The same pose he'd been in so many times at home to try and protect himself from further harm.

When he looked back up at them his face was back to human.

"How did you do that?" Stiles asked.

"I'm the alpha." Derek reminded him.

Trying her best to ignore the harsh feeling of Derek's eyes on her, Sam crossed the room and knelt down beside Isaac.

"Are you okay?"

He looked at her bloody clothes and shook his head, "Sam, I... I didn't meant to do that."

"It's okay... I'm healing" She did her best to offer as close to a smile as she could muster for the moment.

"Come on," Derek nodded for his betas to follow him, "We need to get Isaac out of here."

Samantha glanced over at Stiles, before she led Isaac out of the room and towards the nearest exit.

It was decided that Isaac would stay hidden with Derek in the underground hideout until the police didn't consider him a suspect anymore.

The car ride was mostly silent, aside from Isaac who kept apologizing from where he was seated in the back of the Camaro.

Usually Samantha preferred to be in the makeshift underground shelter more than anywhere else.
She'd grown fond of the space -and spending time with Derek.

But after assuring Isaac for the hundredth time that night that she she was okay, she couldn't wait to get out of there.

She was used to Derek being quiet, but being the target of his angry silence was new for her.

After saying goodbye to Isaac and leaving the subway car, Sam slowed to a stop near the end of the stairs leading above ground.

Her mouth hung slightly open as she stared at Derek who was standing there waiting on her.
She wasn't sure what to say to him.

Without a word to her, he nodded towards the stairs telling her to go on up.

At first she thought maybe he was going to make her walk back to the school to get her own car, but then he followed her up.

She kept her head lowered as she walked towards his car, hugging her jacket over the destroyed fabric of her shirt as she went.

Once she reached the car, she gathered the courage to turn back and face Derek.
He was standing just behind her with his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, his expression serious.

"Derek?"
His name left her lips in a whisper.

"What the hell were you thinking?"
He was angry.
His tone unforgiving.

"I'm sorry." She spilled an apology, "But there's no way I've have gotten myself chained up good enough on my own-"

"So, you just decided to go the police station on your own?"

"You're the one who said you though I'd be fine during the full moon." She reminded him.

His eyebrows raised as he took another step closer.

"Yeah, but the problem is that you didn't, Sam. You told me you didn't trust your abilities enough and then less than an hour later you went somewhere that you knew hunters were going to be." Derek shook his head at her.

"I tried-" Her voice cracked with the admission, "Okay? I tried to just come here and lock myself down, but I just couldn't. The hunters were coming for Isaac... they were going to kill him. I had to do something to help him."

Derek looked around the deserted parking lot.

He had wanted her to be there to begin with and had -had every intention of bringing her along on the rescue mission, but she was the one who said she'd have to sit it out.

The problem was that she said she was going to do one thing then turned around and did the opposite.
Her not trusting in her own abilities could get her killed.

"You could have been killed. By Isaac or the hunters, your first full moon you tore me up... imagine what he could have done to you." He came just shy of yelling at her.

She nodded and looked down to her shredded and bloody shirt before hugging the jacket closed again.
"I'm healing-"

"It could have been a lot worse." Derek reminded her.

Feeling defeated, Sam shrugged, "I don't know what you want me to say."

He scoffed.
It wasn't a matter of her needing to say any certain thing. It was that she needed to trust in everything he'd taught her.
He'd warned her from the beginning this was a matter of life and death.

"I need you take this seriously. We've been working on your training almost every single day. I've been trying to teach you how to survive-"

"I know that." She cut in.

"If one thing had gone wrong tonight, I could have lost you." Derek reached behind her and opened the passenger door of the car, "I told you how dangerous Beacon Hills is for people like us, espeically with the hunters declaring war."

Sam's gaze snapped up to Derek's face.
He said: I could have lost you.

"You don't want to... lose...me?" She asked, her voice quiet as she looked up at him in the glow cast from the moon.

"Get in. It's late and I need to get you back to the school to get you car."
He nodded to the open passenger side of the car -as if he hadn't just let slip that she was important to him.

She got in the car like he'd told her to and sat still replaying his words in her head as she shut the door and crossed around to get in the driver's seat.

For a moment, a very brief fleeing moment she entertained that he'd meant something deeper by what he'd said, but just as fast, she dismissed the thoughts, she reminded herself that there was no way someone like him, would really be into someone like her.

He probably just meant how he couldn't afford to lose a member of the pack with their numbers being so low.

~()~

Samantha stood towards the back of the group of students in gym class as they surrounded the wall set up for rock climbing.

She looked over and saw Allison, who raised her arm and gave her a friendly wave and smile.

Sam returned the gesture.

Her secret was out now -well, to Allison at least. Thanks to Scott for telling her.

It had been Allison who'd gave them the heads up that her family had sent someone after Isaac at the jail.

She considered maybe Allison was telling the truth about not being like the rest of her family, but then she reminded herself what Derek had told her; she needed to stay as far away from the Argents as possible.

"Hey, you think you'll make it to the top?" Stiles asked as he wandered through the other students and stopped beside her.

"I think so." Sam glanced over at him.

"You don't sound so sure." He said with a goofy smile.

"I'm a werewolf, I'm sure I can climb a rock wall." She leaned over to whisper, then added "I just hate having everyone's eyes on me while I try it."
She rubbed her hands over her arms and looked around, hoping Coach Finstock might forget about her.

It had happened before when she'd stayed quiet and hung to the back of a large group, sometimes they'd skip right over her.

He watched her in silence for a few moments.

"I didn't get a chance to say it last night, but thank you... for holding Isaac off until Derek showed up." He said quietly.

She smiled, "Thank you for helping us get him out there."

Once Allison and Scott were off the wall, Coach Finstock looked around and called, "Stilinski. Erica, let's go."

She watched as Stiles quickly climbed the wall and made it back down before Erica ever reached the halfway point.

A strange vibration moved through Sam's body, her skin was tingling, hands shaking and she felt short of breath while standing still.

It took her a couple seconds to realize she was feeling Erica's fear and anxiety -not her own.

No longer caring about staying invisible to get out of gym class, Sam pushed her way past a few students who were laughing at Erica freezing on the climb, she tugged at the Coach's sleeve.

"Something's wrong." Sam didn't take her eyes off the fellow teenager.

Finstock was confused until he followed Sam's line of sight and saw that Erica was crying, her entire body shook as she desperately tried to clutch on to the climbing wall.

"Erica, you dizzy? Is it vertigo?" His eyes widened

Stepping up from where she'd been watching, Lydia explained, "Vertigo's a dysfunction of the vestibular system of the inner ear. She's just freaking out."

"Erica?" Coach called out again.

"I... I'm fine." She managed to shakily say.

Sam cringed, she felt for her on so many levels.
Being the center of attention while having a meltdown was her worst nightmare. She'd just as soon face off against a hunter.

"This may not be safe for her, you know she's epileptic?" Allison spoke up from where she was standing beside her best friend, Lydia.

"Why doesn't anyone tell me this stuff?" Coach muttered, before calling out, "Erica, you're fine. Just kick off from the wall. There's a mat underneath you."

Once she landed on the ground, she brushed some of her dry, frizzy blonde hair from her face and wiped a few tears away.
Her cheeks were tinted pink in embarrassment.

"You're all right. Shake it off, you're fine." Coach assured her as he helped her undo the harness she'd been strapped into.

Other students laughed and made fun of her while he made her way away from the crowd.

Once gym was over and Samantha was in the locker room changing back into her clothes for the day, but her hands just kept shaking.
At first she tried to chalk it up to an extreme case of second hand embarrassment, until she couldn't take it anymore.

Something was wrong.
She wouldn't have been able to explain it to anyone else but she could just feel that something was off.

Pulling her shirt back on, she glanced around the locker room once more before heading back out to the gym.

She saw Erica fall from the rock climbing wall. She'd attempted to try it herself after class was over, when no one would be watching her.

Luckily, Scott caught her before she hit the hard gym floor.

Samantha rushed over to them and looked at Scott, they exchanged looks, they had both felt what Erica had been feeling.

Within minutes the rest of the class ran into the gym to see what was happening.

Erica's body started to shake and convulse uncontrollably.

"Put her on her side!" Allison knelt down beside where Scott was still holding onto Erica and said, "She's have a seizure."

"How did you guys know?" Allison asked.

"I don't know, I just felt it." Scott couldn't explain how.

Sam nodded in agreement.

~(After school)~

After getting the address for the Reyes residence in Beacon Hills, Samantha pulled to a stop in the street outside of the modest house.

She was still shaken from what she'd seen at the gym that day.
Witnessing the seizure up close was horrible and something she didn't want to ever see again.

If that was that bad to just watch, she couldn't imagine what it must be like for Erica - knowing her body could basically turn on her any minute.

Sam took her phone out and called Derek -who answered on the third ring.

"Would becoming a werewolf stop seizures?" She asked after a pause.

Derek was silent; he certainly wasn't expecting the trivia.

"Derek?" Sam repeated, "If someone had epilepsy, would the bite cure them?"

"Yeah, why?" He asked.

"You said we need more members in our pack, right?"

"I explained how the bigger our pack is, the stronger we are." He agreed, "Sam, what's going on?"

"There's this girl in my grade. She's epileptic and had a really bad seizure in class today." Looking back to the house, Sam added, "I think I might have found our newest member."

She ended the call and took a few deep breaths to steady her nerves before walking up the small stone walkway and ringing the doorbell.

Moments later a man opened the door and looked at her confused, "Can I help you?"

"Hi, is Erica home?" She smiled.

"Are you a friend of hers?" He asked, he'd never seen Erica have any friends over from school before.

Nodding, she said, "We're in the same class."

As he was ushering her inside of the house, his cellphone rang seeing it was work he pointed her towards the side door leading to the back yard.

Samantha walked outside and looked around the small yard, Erica was sitting on the grass, her back was against a large tree and she had a blanket over her legs as she read a book, oblivious to the fact anyone was out there with her.

"Erica?" Sam called out as she started towards her classmate.

Dropping the book startled, Erica looked up at with a growing look of confusion spreading over her face as she pushed the blanket off her lap and stood up.

"I'm Sam, we go to school together." She introduced herself.

Erica could have laughed if she'd felt any better.
Of course she knew who Sam was. She'd just seen her talking to Stiles earlier that day.

"I know who you are... I've seen you around."

"How are you?" Samantha asked her concerned.

Erica's eyes widened at the sincerity in her voice, no one ever came to see how she was after having a seizure.
Not a single person.

"Better now." She said quietly.

"I can't imagine what it must be like to be epileptic." Sam sympathized.
She wanted to help her but was feeling like bringing Derek along might have been a better plan, he was a much better salesperson than she was.

"I hate it, I hate it so much." Erica responded as tears welled up in her eyes.
Every part of it was miserable. From the toll the seizures took on her body to the sever side-effects of the medication that only worked part of the time.

"I think..." Sam swallowed, "I think if it were me... I'd probably do just about anything to make it stop."

"This is probably going to sound crazy but, I think I have a way to help you." She added.

"Help me? Why would you help me? You don't even know me..." She reasoned as she hugged her sweatshirt to herself in the chilly early evening air.

"Because... I may not know what it's like to have seizures, but I know what it's like to suffer every single day. To dread walking into school because the only time people notice you is when they make fun of you." Sam leveled with her.

Taking a deep breath she slowly let it out and continued, "I know exactly what it's like to want to prove to yourself that you're so much more than what everyone takes you for. Erica, you went back out there to climb that wall with no safety gear and no one out there because you wanted to prove to yourself that you could get to the top of that wall."

Erica's wide eyes scanned her face before finally meeting up with Sam's blue eyes.
There was something so genuine and honest about Samantha that she immediately trusted her.

"You know of a way to change everything for me?" She sniffled, trying not to get her hopes up, but feeling like hope was all she had left.

"i do." Sam closed her eyes, when she opened them they were glowing yellow.

Erica's jaw dropped.

"What are you..."
She was shocked.
Staring the impossible right in the face but she didn't step back, she just somehow knew she wasn't in danger.

"Not human." Sam admitted as she blinked away the glow from her eyes, "Not anymore at least. I'm a werewolf."

It sounded completely absurd and not the least bit logical, but with proof staring her in the face, Erica couldn't deny what she saw.

"How?" Erica choked on the word, "H-how do I..." She motioned at Sam but didn't finish her question.

"A bite." Sam's hand fluttered to her side where she had been bitten herself, "Getting bitten is what turns you."

"Just one bite and the seizures stop?" Erica asked.
At this point she didn't really care how the process happened to turn her, she just wanted, no -she needed things to be different.

Samantha nodded, "You can think more about it on the way to see Derek, he's the alpha."

Walking away, she paused and turned back, "Or you can stay here, it's entirely up to you. It's your decision."

Erica watched her and waited until she reached the gate, before she quickly caught up with her.

The car ride was filled with conversation, Erica talking a million miles an hours with no less than a hundred questions about how it would all work.

By the time they'd reached the underground entrance, it had gotten dark outside.

"I've got a flashlight in the trunk." Samantha said as she exited the car, she could feel Erica's anxiety growing.

She was reminded in many ways of the night Derek had approached her and brought her there for the first time.
How terrified she'd been.

Once she handed her the flashlight Sam led her down to the abandoned subway car, Erica shined the flashlight around and gasped as she shined the light over Derek and his eyes reflected in the beam.

Walking up to them, Derek said "This is your epileptic?"

Sam blinked at him.
As if there wasn't any other way he could have worded that.

"This is Erica." Sam reached out and gave her arm a small squeeze, "And I already explained everything to her."

Erica clutched onto the flashlight and looked between them.
She'd had no idea what the alpha Sam told her about would look like, but she guessed Derek seemed to fit the profile.

"Everything?" Derek almost looked amused.
He'd expected Sam to leave the explaining of how the bite could kill someone up to him.

"The full moons, the hunters... how the bite can either turn or kill someone." She said nodding as she looked towards the subway car where she could hear Isaac hiding inside.

While Sam and Derek spoke, Erica had taken a couple steps back behind Sam, feeling safer sticking close to her.

"But the seizures will stop right, if I get this bite... get turned into a werewolf, I won't be epileptic anymore?" She asked them, trying to remind herself of the bright side.

Derek nodded, he glanced at her and then his eyes lingered back on Sam.
Just like with Isaac, she was playing a crucial part in helping build up their pack.

"If it doesn't kill you." Sam reminded her.

Erica's heart started to pick up speed as the reality started to sink in how utterly life changing this could be.
Either for the better or for the worse.

Sensing her fear and seeing the way she was trying to stay hidden behind Sam, Derek said "It's your choice, I'm not going to turn you unless you're willing."

Looking back to Sam, Erica nodded and said, "There are worse things than dying."

~()~

A/N-The pack continues to grow. ^_^ I hope you all liked the update.