"Basically, because of the bond between the kanima and the one who's controlling it... we can catch them both." Derek finished explaining what he'd learned from Dr. Deaton the night before.

Isaac nodded as he picked up his bag from the floor.

"I'm in." Erica said as she checked her make up in her compact mirror from her purse.

"Me too." Boyd agreed.

When everyone looked at Sam she kept her gaze steady on Derek, "I need to know something. Are you still planning on killing Jackson?" she asked.

A few moments passed, each felt like an hour as she waited hopeful on response.

"We're trying to trap them both." Derek explained.

"But..." Sam pushed knowing it wasn't the entire story.

"But, if I get the opportunity... yes, I'm going to take him out." He admitted, knowing she wouldn't like the answer.

Shrugging she said in a defeated tone, "I don't know what's right anymore. After seeing what happened to Erica, I'm not sure we should let Jackson live. But I do know that I can't be a part of killing him."

"Then what are you saying?" Isaac asked.

"I'm saying that... whatever happens, happens. But I don't want to know. Don't tell me where it's going to happen or the plan or anything. Just count me out of this one."

Erica looked between her and Derek.
She knew that they hadn't had the chance to talk since Sam had given him an ultimatum about accepting who she was and what she believed in.

"Yeah, besides... Sam can't help us. She's got a date."

Sam's eyes widened as she looked over to Erica, who smirked at her while holding back a laugh.

"It's not a date." Sam said, as she looked back to Derek, who's expression wasn't giving anything away.

She hated the way he could do that, manage to mask every single one of emotions.

Sniffing the air, Erica continued "Hmm... is that the ripe scent of jealousy? Or anger? I can never really tell..."

"We're late for school." Sam gasped as she pushed Erica up the stairs and out of the hideout.

~(Later that night)~

"Are you okay?" Sam asked as she looked in the driver's seat to where Allison was gripping the steering wheel, even though the car was shut off.

"I'm fine." She dismissed, but the truth was she wasn't fine at all.
She'd had to tell her dad and Gerard that Jackson was the kanima and that he'd be at the rave that night.

She was under the impression that her family was going to trap him, but the truth was they were planning to kill him.

"I'll meet you guys inside." Allison said as she got out of the car.

Matt got out of the backseat and Sam got out of the passenger seat as they both looked around the steadily filling parking lot.

He started to walk but then stopped when he realized she wasn't following him.

"Are you okay?" He asked her.

"I've just never been to this kind of party before... or really any kind of party. I'm just not sure how to act, or if I even wore the right thing." She crossed her arms over herself and then awkwardly let them fall to her sides.

He looked her over, from her black boots, destroyed dark denim shorts and black and white shirt

"You look great." He said, his tone honest.

"Thanks, Matt." She smiled.

"And as for how to act... just be yourself Sam. You're really great, and you shouldn't have to try and change to fit in to some scene." He continued, causing her smile to grow.

She loved when he was like this, friendly and genuine, not when he started acting strange and looking at her more like a possession than a person.

"Come on." He said with a smile as he held his arm out to the side for her.

With a laugh she held onto his arm and the pair made their way around the building towards the entrance.

They both had to stop abruptly as they almost walked into someone.

"Excuse us." Matt said, not looking up.

"Derek?" Sam gasped.

Derek looked between the teenagers, his eyes stopping on where Sam was holding onto Matt's arm.

"What are you doing here?" He asked her, he thought she wanted nothing to do with the plan for the night.

"I'm here with friends... what are you doing here?" She asked, then shook her head as it occurred to her.

"Oh my god... here?" She gasped, letting go of Matt and taking a step closer to Derek.

"Did I miss something?" Matt asked, but Derek just looked at him before turning back to Sam as they stared at each other in a loss for what to say.

Taking a deep breath as the wind blew Sam looked at him confused, as she caught a brief scent in the air.
Just like Erica had described earlier, either anger or jealously. Possibly even both.

When no one talked, Matt reached down grabbing her hand as he started to pull her towards the building, "We should get inside, you don't want to miss this."

Sam shook her head at a loss of what to say to Derek, so she let Matt pull her inside the building.

Looking around at the all the people dancing, and jumping in rhythm to the music and at the strobe lights and black lights everywhere she thought to herself that she wouldn't even be able to enjoy the night now.

Something caught her eyes, looking over she saw it was Allison and Scott. Tucking some hair behind her ear she listened as Allison admitted how she had to tell her family about Jackson, and then pleaded for Scott to let her fix it. But all he said was that she needed to stay out of the way.

When she met back up with her friends, all she could manage to do was look at Sam and breath out, "I'm sorry."

"Okay, seriously... why do I get the feeling that there is so much going on that I don't know about?" Matt asked, looking between the teenage girls.

"It's nothing." Both girls said in unison causing him to raise his eyebrows at them.

Allison took out her phone to text her dad and say she couldn't find Jackson as Sam looked down to the floor, not sure what to say.

"It's alright, I get it." He said a disappointed expression on his face.

"Get what?" Sam asked.

Defeated Matt said, "You saw Derek outside and now the last place you want to be is in here with me." Glancing to Allison he continued, "And you're only here because you're doing her a favor."

Allison gave him an apologetic smile as Sam shook her head.

"That's not it... I'm sorry, I'm just in a really complicated spot right now, and I just can't get my mind off things. And you've been such a great friend, it was really sweet for you to ask me to come with you." Sam said, her voice trailing off.

Taking a step back Matt said, "But you're going to leave anyways."

Shooting him a smile she said, "Actually... I was going to suggest we move closer to the DJ."

Looking between her friends she said, "I think after the week we've had. We deserve to let loose and have some fun. You with me?"

Matt smiled widely as he nodded, and kept his attention on Sam.

"You're right." Allison agreed.

Reaching out Matt grabbed onto Sam's hand and started to lead her through the crowded floor and Allison followed behind them.

When someone backed into her, Sam let out a pained groan and looked up to see their chemistry teacher Mr. Harris.

"Oh my god... Mr. Harris?" Sam gasped, unable to hide her shock.

Then everyone's eyes went to the pretty young woman he had on his arm.

"She's 21!" He groaned before pulling his date away from his students.

Allison, Matt and Sam all exchanged looks before they busted out laughing. Finally letting themselves have some fun, even if it was at their teachers expense.

They danced for a while before Allison excused herself and found a table off to the side of the dance floor.

Sam kept trying to dance and have fun, but she was worried about her friend.

"I should check on her!" Sam yelled over the music.

Matt nodded, but she saw the disappointed look on his face. He followed her over to the table and sat down with them.

"You're not having fun?" Sam questioned.

"Do you ever feel like you have the best intentions but you're just making one mistake after another?" Allison asked them, as she stared down to her phone in her hands.

"That's the story of my life, lately." Sam sympathized.

Matt looked between them and decided to lighten the mood as he joked, "Not me. Unlike the rest of humanity, I'm perfect."

They all laughed, and Allison looked at her phone again.

"I'm gonna try and find the restroom, see you guys in a little bit."

Matt and Sam watched as Allison walked away.

He watched as Sam looked around the room, all of the lights reflecting in her eyes as she took in the sights.

"Thanks again for inviting me." She politely said, when she could feel his eyes on her.

She turned her head and looked at him, but before she could even process what happened, he leaned in pressing his lips to hers.

Pulling back she looked at him shocked.

His eyes widened and he laughed nervously as he said, "I'm sorry. That was a huge mistake... I'm sorry."

"Matt..."

"I know... I get it. I screwed up." He sighed as he scooted back in his chair.

"The truth is, I think you're really great. You're cute and funny... and a really good friend. But I have... something with Derek, I'm not sure what that is yet. Because god knows every time we manage to make progress, something sets us 20 steps back. But this was wrong. I shouldn't even be here right now. I have people who were depending on me and I can't let them down." She rambled as she stood up and started to walk away, but he grabbed her arm.

"I'm sorry. But honestly it's probably safer for you to stay away from me. Just find Allison and have her take you home." She said as she rushed off without giving him the chance to say anything else.

Somehow managing to find her way out of the building, she stumbled out the door and grabbed onto the railing as she took a few deep breaths. What started out as a good time, turned bad so fast.

"Sam?" Derek asked as he ran over to where she saw her.

"Hey..." She breathed out, as she walked down the stairs.

"Are you okay?" He asked, seeing she was shaken up about something.

"No... I'm not." She said as she tried to go towards him, but was stopped by the line of mountain ash on the ground.

They both looked down at the black powder and then to each other.

"We kind of lost Jackson inside." Stiles admitted as he darted out of the building and over the line of mountain ash.

His voice trailed off as he looked between them, and then glanced over to where Erica and Isaac were staring down to the mountain ash.

"Oh my god! It's working, oh this is, wow... I did something and it worked!" Stiles happily exclaimed.

Sam stared at Derek, she wanted to rush to him. Tell him how sorry she was and that she'd been wrong for ever going against her pack, but she couldn't cross the mountain ash.

Hanging her head she sighed.

Just then a howl sounded through the cool night air, catching everyone off guard.

Sam glanced around at her pack mates, but realized Boyd was the only one missing. And she knew what she'd heard wasn't Boyd.

Then it dawned on her, the howl she'd just heard.
The last, desperate cry of a weakened wolf on the verge of death was Scott.

"Scott?" She gasped, looking to Derek who had an extremely concerned expression on his face.

"What?" Stiles asked.

"Break it!" Derek demanded looking down to the mountain ash.

"What? No way." Stiles argued.

Sam couldn't wait another second on them to break the line. Scott was dying and she knew she had to do something.

Without another word she turned and raced back into the building, ignoring Derek as he yelled, "Sam, wait!"

She wasn't even sure how she was able to find the room through the strobe lights and loud music, but somehow she did.

"Scott?" She yelled as she broke the lock on the door and pushed it open.

Immediately she was hit by the vaporized wolfs bane fumes that were thickly coating the air.

Her eyes went blurry and it felt like all her airways were blocked.

Stumbling weakly she spotted Scott laying on the floor, and tried to make her way over to him, but was stopped when she felt a sharp pain in her side.

Looking down she saw the crimson stained blade being pulled from her side, and she let out a pained cry.

Her vision focused on Allison's mom and she weakly coughed out, "Why..."

Losing her balance she stumbled and landed on the floor with a hard thud a few feet away from Scott.

Finding the strength she raised her head in time to see Derek rushing into the room.

"It's... a trap..." She coughed, but it was too late, as Victoria Argent plunged the knife into Derek's back.

Even through the damaging effects of the wolfs bane vapor, he fought back.

Tears stung her eyes and she mustered the last bit of strength she had, as she pulled herself to her feet and grabbed Scott dragging his unconscious body from the room, right past the fight before dropping him next to the dance floor.

Leaning against the wall she sputtered and coughed, trying to get a breath but still felt like her lungs were on fire and not getting any oxygen.

She saw Allison's mom run from the room, and she was about to go back in after Derek but he stumbled out, slamming the door shut behind him.

Sweat glistened on his face as he also fought to try and breathe.

Looking down to where Scott was laying on the floor, Derek hoarsely said, "We need to get him and get out of here."

Sam thought back to when she'd met Scott's boss, Dr. Deaton and knowledgeable he'd been.

"To the animal clinic." She whispered then cleared her throat as she repeated louder, "We need to go to the animal clinic."

~()~

Sam shut her car off after parking on the street outside of Matt's house.

After leaving the vet clinic, she'd gotten a text from him asking if they could talk.

Walking up the dark walkway a chill ran down her spine as she looked around.

Something was wrong, she wasn't entirely sure what that something was. But something wasn't right.

Ignoring the feeling, she continued up to the door where she rang the doorbell.

Moments later the door opened and Matt greeted, "Hey!"

"Sorry, I know it's kind of late... but I just got your text and since I was already out, I thought I'd just drop by." She apologized hoping she hadn't disturbed his parents or anything.

Ushering her inside the house he said, "It's cool. My parents went out for a late movie and dinner, they're still not back."

She looked around the interior of the house as she said, "So... you wanted to talk?"

He nodded for her to follow him up the stairs. Once they were in his room, he said "Yeah, about that incredibly bad idea, I had..."

She looked around to the slate gray walls of his room, to the plain dark blue bedding. Strange, she thought to herself.

You'd never guess it was a teenage boys room. Everything was neat and organized, and nothing really personal about the space. No pictures on the wall of his friends or anything, which was even stranger considering he pretty much had a camera glued to his hand.

A single lamp and digital alarm clock were all that was on his bedside table.

An organized desk, and large computer monitor was against the far wall.

"I really can't begin to tell you how sorry I am." He continued

Knowing he was talking about the kiss she said, "It's okay... seriously, don't even worry about it."

"For real?" He asked surprised.

"Yeah... we can just forget it ever happened." She reasoned, just wanting things to go back to the way it was before.

"Great." He said smiling as he sat down on the end of his bed and asked, "So what's going on with you and that Derek guy? Are you together... or broken up?"

"Wow..." she breathed out.

Taking a deep breath she tried to explain, "I guess we're... not really together?"

"Not really? God, I hate not reallys, you never know what to do with that." He joked.

Laughing she said, "Would you understand if I just said, its complicated?"

Pausing he replied, "Not really"

They both laughed at the joke, but her laughter soon turned into a coughing fit. She was still healing from breathing in the wolfs bane.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" Matt asked rushing to her side.

She nodded, but continued to cough and try and breathe.

"I'll get you some water." He called over his shoulder as he left his room.

Finally able to get a breath she wiped her watery eyes and started to sit down at his desk when her phone rang, it was Allison.

"Hey..." Sam answered, wondering if Allison knew Derek had bit her mom yet.

"Sam... hey, I just got back home and I just had to call you before I went inside."

Leaning against his desk, she said, "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, but listen... something is wrong with Matt. And I think you should stay away from him."

"What..." She started to asked, but Allison kept talking.

"When I dropped him off, he left his camera in the seat. I was looking through it and I saw all of these pictures of you. Not just at school, but he has pictures of you in your bedroom... at your job. And also, some of them have really bad lens flare... from your eyes. Sam, if anyone sees those pictures they're going to know what you are..."

The color drained from her face as she processed what she was being said.

"Sam?"

"Thanks for calling me... I gotta go." She said, as she quickly ended the call.

When she'd leaned against the desk, it had moved the mouse and turned the computer screen on, her eyes widened as she saw his background was a picture of her sitting against a tree, reading in the small park across from the restaurant she worked at.

That was normally how she spent her breaks, reading a book in the park.

"Here." Matt said as he entered back into the room.

She quickly maneuvered to hide the computer screen from him.

"Thank you." She said as she raised the glass to her lips, but didn't take a drink.

He opened his mouth to say something but sighed the house phone rang from downstairs. "It's probably my mom, I'll be right back."

She nodded and managed a smile.

Once he was out of sight she took in a deep ragged breath and sat the glass down on the desk.

Her eyes stopped on the closet door, walking over she opened it and gasped at what she saw. There were no clothes hanging up, all his clothes were folded neatly in baskets sitting on the floor. But almost every inch of the wall space was covered in pictures of her, some of the pictures with him photoshopped into them.

"I got some pretty good candids of you, huh?" She heard him ask.

Slowly turning to face him she couldn't find words to speak.

"I have more..." He continued nodding to another door. "I have it set up as a black room, but I mostly just print the pictures off my computer now."

"Why do you have all of these?" She squeaked out.

Ignoring the question he pulled a picture off the inside of the door and said, "I think this one is my favorite."

Her stomach turned as she looked down and saw it was a picture of her in front of the window in her room.

"I took this right after you painted your room." He said pointing to the purple color on the walls in the picture.

"You see, Sam... you're like the color purple, beauty like yours is rare in nature. The moment you sat with me at lunch that day, I couldn't take my eyes off of you." He continued, causing her to feel even sicker.

"This is messed up..." She accused, barely able to speak.

Laying the picture down on his bed, he took a few steps closer as he said, "I have some other great ones... I could show you on my computer, if you'd like."

Swallowing hard she shook her head back and forth, "It's getting late..."

"It's the weekend." He argued, taking another step.

"Yeah, but I should really get home..." She lied, just wanting away from him.

The look in his eyes changed as he moved closer, pushing her against the wall beside his open closet.

He looked over at the collection of pictures he had before he said, "You honestly have no idea how much work I put into those pictures. Do you have any idea how long it takes me to fix the pictures from the lens flare of your eyes?"

She shook her head back and forth, wondering if he knew about her.

"Hours, Sam. It takes me hours to fix your pictures. But... I think it's worth it, don't you?" He asked.

She pinned her eyes shut and tried to think of a way out of the situation.

"To get the exact color of your skin... your perfect complexion." He said as he trailed a hand down the side of her trembling face.

"Let me go." She said as he continued to block her in against the wall.

If he didn't know she was a werewolf, she certainly didn't want to give herself away by showing her eyes or claws.

He stared at her and their eyes met, before she saw the vein in his forehead was protruding.

"Matt... please, it's getting late and I'm exhausted. I just want to go home." She pleaded.

He stared at her a little longer, and she held her breath until the door opened downstairs and Matt's mom called out his name.

He stepped to the side, trying to figure out his next move as he yelled, "I'm in my room!"

The small distraction was all Sam needed to slip by him and out of the window undetected.

It was over an hour before she finally made it back home. She'd been driving around trying to clear her head, and figure out what to do next.

She couldn't go to the police, not when she didn't have a clue about how much he really knew about her, and possibly even her pack.

After heading down to the basement she grabbed a clean shirt and pajama shorts before headed up her bathroom to take a hot shower, and hopefully wash the night away.

But her mind kept drifting back to all of the pictures he had of her. He'd practically been stalking her for months and she'd had no idea... she felt violated and the invasion of privacy was sickening.

After changing into her clean night clothes and towel drying her hair, she walked into her room, immediately freezing when she saw her bedroom window was wide open.

She was sure before she took her shower the window was closed.

Shakily she breathed out, "Hello..."

~()~

A/N- Thank you so much for reading.

This is one of my all time favorite stories to write for and you have no idea how much it means to know that so many of you enjoy it was well.