chapter eleven
"i momentarily trust you"

"GOTTA ADMIT, I EXPECTED SOMEWHERE less...dingy?"

Even though Lynn was desperately trying to add some humor to this dull and agonizing moment, it didn't seem like the situation was getting any better with her dumb remarks.

      After Erica had led Stiles to drive in his old Jeep to Derek's new homebase, with Lynn and Scott holding the blonde in between them in an attempt at calming her seizure, but it was failing. She still thrashed and violently shook practically the entire time it took the teenagers to get some the school to Derek.

     Currently, Lynn was carrying some of Erica's weight by having a shoulder under the girls armpit, where Scott was doing the exact same thing but on the other side. Stiles seemed to be trailing right behind the two werewolves, and within a second, Derek appeared from behind a completely rusted and dirty bus. At first, he seemed utterly agitated, Lynn could quite literally smell the annoyance dripping from him, but that all seemed to shift once his eyes landed on the sick Erica.

      "What happened!?"

      "She got paralyzed from Jackson's venom, but s-she's gotta be allergic to it, or something," Lynn spoke swiftly and quickly, and dramatically rose her eyebrows towards Derek while signaling where the hell they could safely put her.

      With no time to have a solid reaction, Derek then led the teens holding onto the spazzing Erica onto that same covered it dirt bus and land her carefully on the ground.

      "Pull her up!" Derek shouted, and immediately Stiles leapt forward towards the girl. He took a seat right behind her, and then Derek carefully placed the girls body onto Stiles', so he would be holding her straight up rather than her be completely on the ground.

      Scott swallowed some nervous spit and seemed to cover his face with hand in horror, looking totally terrified. Lynn let out a shaky breath as she kneeled right beside Erica, and she gripped onto the blondes right hand, giving her a gentle yet completely supportive squeeze.

      "Is she dying?" Scott questioned with concern completely written in his tone of voice.

      "S-She might, I—" Derek trailed, his chest heavily rising and falling as he just stared at the growing unconscious she-wolf. "Which is why this is gonna hurt."

      Derek then wrapped his strong fingers around the arm that Lynn currently wasn't holding onto, and almost instantly she knew what he was going to do — trigger the healing process so it could begin quicker, but she still wasn't sure how to get the venom out. Not even a second passed and Derek snapped the main bone of Erica's arm, and she let out an echoing and absolutely painful scream, whimpering still after. 

      "You broke her arm!?" Stiles exclaimed, and Lynn was almost certain the buzz-cut boy was now growing impatient and very much angry, which seemed to be knew for Stiles, he always had his emotions in check — at least, in front of Lynn.

      "It'll trigger the healing process—"

      Both Derek and Lynn stopped in their uniquely same sentences as the other when they glanced up to make eye contact. She carefully narrowed her eyes at Derek, where Lynn could see it in his pretty green eyes — there was a glimmer of impression.

      "I still gotta get the venom out, this is where it's really gonna hurt," Derek continued on, and Lynn immediately dropped the man's gaze when she realized they had had way too prolonged eye contact.

      Derek's grip around Erica's arm only tightened, like a constricting snake, so harsh that blood had started to seep from his fingers. But that's exactly what he wanted — it would be the venom out quicker than any other solution. Lynn's eyes flickered to the man, and it was now her eyes that had a slimmer of impression.

      Erica let out cries of agony and Lynn wasn't sure how much longer she could see the girl in such amount of pain. So, she sucked in a deep and calming breath, and wrapped another palm over the hand Lynn was already clutching onto, and she clasped her eyelids shut while focusing.

      And just like that, the crushing pain that Erica was intensely feeling was switching over to Lynn. She couldn't see everyone's eyes now on her due to her eyes being forcibly closed, but they all looked at her in awe.

      Truthfully, it was the first time Stiles had ever seen a werewolf taking someone's pain, so he would surely be asking Scott later on what the hell had been happening. Whereas Scott just stood from behind, staring at the thundering movement of darkness shifting from Erica's veins over to Lynn's. Deaton had showed him a few times at the animal clinic to take the pain away from dogs or cats when they weren't getting better, but he had never seen someone do it on a human before.

      And that left only Derek, to stare at the mysterious girl with complete and utter awe. The way she was absolutely managing the most likely excruciating pain she was shifting from Erica to herself. But just as soon as Derek thought enough was enough and Lynn was only going to get herself severally hurt by taking too much, she released her soft hands from Erica's grasp.

      She let out hallow breathes of air, backing up a foot or so away from the now unconscious Erica. And her heavy eyelids flickered over to the boys staring at her, and immediately Derek dropped his stare to pay attention to Erica.

      "What?" Lynn asked, but anyone could tell her voice sounded weaker, less of her usual attitude. "Never seen a pain transference?"

      "A what-who-now?" Stiles questioned with furrowed eyebrows, and Lynn pushed a few strands of her brunette hair out of her face by tucking them behind her ear, sucking in a few deep breathes.

      "I'll tell you later," Scott explained, just patting his friends shoulder while glancing over to Derek, and he had this single look meaning — we need to talk. "We'll be back."

      Stiles and Lynn stayed back while carefully laying Erica completely on her back, where she still seemed to be having whimpering pain, but Lynn knew better than to try to take more than what she can handle.

      Now that Derek and Scott were outside the bus, and Lynn could hear the entire conversation — Derek knows that it's Jackson, but he wanted to have Erica confirm it beforehand. Lynn heaved out slightly while she shifted herself where her back would be pressed against a metal seat of the bus, it creaking ever so more while she did such. Stiles just stayed near Erica's slumbering body, folding his legs inwards so he could place his elbows on top of his knee's.

      "How did you help her?" Stiles spoke up, and it wasn't like his usual curious tone of voice, he sounded like there was genuine gratitude written in it.

      "It's a thing werewolves can do, if they know the correct way," Lynn explained, and she glanced from leaning her head back to make eye contact with the dark brown eyes of Stiles. "You saw the veins, right? Well, that was me taking some of Erica's pain, to make it easier for her, I guess."

      "Does it hurt you?"

      "It's more of a dull ache, really, like I don't feel as strong as I usually am," Lynn replied, her eyes flickering from Stiles down to Erica, the blonde's body twitching ever so slightly. "But we have to be careful, we take too much, and we, well, we can—"

      "—You can kill yourselves," Stiles finished.

      Lynn didn't have to gaze back up to the boy while she nodded her head slowly while nibbling on her bottom lip, and it was like she was purposely avoiding his glance.

      "I-I'm gonna go make sure Scott's good," Stiles spoke up after a few moments of silence, and Lynn bobbed her head up and down towards the boy and he shifted from sitting down on the cold metal of the bus and started to walk down the few steps of stairs out into the central area.

      Lynn paid her attention back towards Erica, carefully brushing a few strands of the girls curly blonde locks out of her face. Erica was genuinely pretty, she had beautiful brown eyes and good features, every boy in school was now obsessed with her. Lynn had never actually met the girl before she had gotten bitten, but by the way Stiles and Scott described the previous socially anxious, scared teenage girl who had no friends, she had every reason to want the power that comes along with being a werewolf.

      But Lynn wasn't quite sure she understood the consequences that came along with the title.

      Completely jerking her back to reality, Erica had tightly wrapped her fingertips around Lynn's small framed arm, pulling the girl closer to her.

      "Thank...you," Erica breathed out, and within a second, the newly awake werewolf than clasped her eyelids shut and went back to her slumbering ways.

      Thinking that the blonde would be okay now that the venom was out of her system and Lynn took as much pain as she could, she figured that it would probably be best to just leave her to get some rest.

      Out of the corner of her eye, Lynn caught Derek standing in the doorframe of the bus. Her eyes flickered over towards him, and immediately his jaw tended up and he dropped his glance towards his feet — steadily trying his best to avoid being caught staring at Lynn, but she already got him in the act.

      "Where's Stiles and Scott?" Lynn hummed, and Derek snapped his head back over towards her.

      "The wife of that trailer park guy was murdered at the hospital."

      "What?" Lynn huffed herself up off the ground using her palms for support, but then instantly wrapped her pale fingers around an extremely rusted pole as she felt weakness hubble in her knee's, for nearly a second thinking she was about to crumble right back down to the ground.

      Guess I took more than what I originally thought...

      In a flash though, she felt a strong hand snake around her forearm, pulling her up from needing to balance on the pole herself. She instantly recognized Derek was standing right beside her, his muscled and defined body merely a few inches away. Her eyes hovered, almost as if her feet were frozen to the cold metal, just staring at his green eyes, but then she flickered back to reality.

      "I'm fine," Lynn assured, taking a slight step backwards to give her some space from Derek. She had no idea why, but being so damn close to the man made a severe blush stain her cheeks, not to mention, her heart was beating so rapidly in the back of her throat. "So, what, they seriously left without me?"

      "Well, they said they didn't have the time to drop you off, so I offered to take you home," Derek explained, and Lynn cautiously narrowed her eyes in his direct, looking a bit weary. "What? Don't trust me?"

      "If Scott doesn't trust you, then I don't trust you," Lynn countered, flashing a quite fake sympathetic smile before returning to her distrustful stare.

      Derek let a little amused grin cross his lips, and then he took a small step towards Lynn, and instantaneously, she snaked a step backwards. Her back bumped into that same rusted pole she originally used for support, and her eyes flickered upwards to look at Derek since he was quick a few inches taller than her. Once again, he seemed to only be a few inches away from her face, and she could almost feel his breath bouncing off her cheeks.

      "I guess you weren't listening in, so, would you believe if I said Scott had agreed to join my pack?" Derek questioned, and Lynn's once tough girl act faded when shock crossed her face, but then a part of her quickly understood.

      "To take down Jackson together, I'm assuming?" Lynn countered, perking an sly eyebrow up towards Derek, trying her best to take control of her heart rate. The last thing she wanted to let the man know is he had some sort of effect on her. "So he momentarily trusts you."

      "So, that means you momentarily trust me?"

To be honest, all Lynn saw in his eyes was trust.

      "Fine, then I momentarily trust you," Lynn retorted, having an overwhelming feeling to just brush the emotions she was feeling and cover it with her usual amount of sarcasm. "At least if you kidnap and murder me while taking me home Scott and Stiles will already know my killer."

She pushed past Derek, quite possibly purposely and forcibly bumping into his shoulder, and off the old bus back onto solid ground. Lynn was a bit curious on how Derek just happened to stumble along this place, but it wasn't high on her list of questions.

What was high on that list, you ask?

Why does he have this whole obsession with becoming an overly powerful Alpha? Why is he completely and utterly fine with giving naive and troublesome teenagers the bite? Why—

"Well, are you getting in or what?"

Lynn blinked several times as she was yanked back into presentness, and she glanced confusingly at Derek with pointed eyes. But then she realized the two werewolves were now outside, where she must've mindlessly followed the man out to his car while deep in thought. In front of her, Derek had peeled open the passenger side cardoor that belonged to an unbelievably slick Chevy Camero.

"Sorry," Lynn mumbled quickly while mentally scolding herself — she got much too distracted in her own thoughts way too often.

She then took a few silent steps to take a seat in the car, the soft leather rubbing up against her skin as she did so, and she heard Derek then shut the door behind her. He cautiously glanced in both directions before walking to the drivers side and carefully getting in.

"Paranoid much?" Lynn teased, letting her infamous smirk cross her face while she saw the way Derek just deadpanned at her, attitude written on his face.

So, that was when Derek started the car and Lynn could hear the engine rumble to life. He put the shift into drive, and then took off down the stretch of emptiness until he finally made it onto a main road.

The two werewolves were quiet for awhile, not that it was an awkward tension filled ride where Lynn had to crack open the window to finally get a breath of fresh air. She secretly liked it — it had been awhile since she just got to enjoy someone else's silence.

But even with the silence of themselves, it wasn't like Lynn's mind was quiet — no, it was bumbling with thoughts. How many more people was Jackson going to be able to kill before they finally were able to stop him? That's if they can even figure out a way in the first place, since they had absolutely no idea who the person controlling him could be.

Not even that alone; but were they going to be able to save Jackson from himself? Truthfully, the guy annoyed Lynn with his rich-like tendencies, and naive and self-centered ways, but that didn't mean she wanted him to die.

"Do you think we'll be able to save Jackson?" Lynn blurted, and just the second that the words escaped her mouth, she had the sudden urge to slam her head into the front dashboard. Derek had repeatedly stated he wanted to kill whoever the kanima was — not caring in the slightest who it would be. "That—yeah, that was a dumb question. Nevermind I asked."

Lynn heavily exhaled a sigh, leaning her head back against the leather seat while glancing out the window again. The stars were littering all over the sky, some bright while some were more faded, there was hardly a single cloud in the sky.

"You know, it's not like I want to kill Jackson," Derek responded after a silent moment, softly regaining Lynn's attention. He only glanced over with his bright green eyes for a second before turning back towards the road, and Lynn dropped her gaze back to her fiddling fingers. "I'm not some...bad guy, at least, I don't try to be. I don't want to be."

Lynn was quiet. What in the hell am I supposed to respond to that? She picked some of the completely white nail polish she had painted on earlier in the week, but it was already chipping from her nervous tendencies.

Derek had now pulled to a slow stop in front of Lynn's house, and she was relieved to see her mother's car not in the driveway, she didn't want to explain the extremely hot guy that drove her home. She must be having another late night shift, which wasn't surprising, Katherine had been picking up a lot of shifts recently.

"Do you think I'm a bad guy?"

Lynn switched from staring at her shadow filled house — due to not having lights on either in or out, over to look at Derek. The almost sad expression the man had written all over his face quite literally made Lynn's heart start to break into two, his green eyes were now shifted into a puppy dog glance, and his heartbeat had picked up, just a bit. How could a person like that be a bad guy? A sociopath, that's the answer.

But as Lynn searched his facial features, she couldn't find a single atom of Derek's being as evil. It wasn't him.

"You're not a bad guy," Lynn stated with a gentle tone of voice, shaking her head softly. When Derek looked unsure of her answer, but then she instinctively reached forward to wrap her fingertips around Derek's available hand that was resting on the shift. "Listen to my heartbeat. You're not a bad person, Derek."

And he did. His eyes hovered for a moment as he focused, but then they floated back up to make eye contact with Lynn, and she flashed him a small smile; not her infamous smirk, or a teasing grin.

And the two werewolves stayed like that for a moment, staring deeply into the others eyes, where Lynn still had her hand warmly placed on top of Derek's. His thumb had traced the outline of her pinky finger, and she quite literally felt chills run up and down her body.

Suddenly, something snapped inside Lynn. Her eyes flickered from Derek's down to their hands, and she quickly exhaled loudly while taking her hand back, almost in disbelief. Derek had awkwardly cleared his throat, also taking his hand off the shift towards his own body.

"Uh, I should, get going," Lynn forcibly laughed as she unbuckled her seat belt, and she flashed the boy a polite and tight smile while popping open the door. "Thanks, um, for the ride."

Derek smiled in Lynn's direction as a reply, but just like hers, it had been tight-lipped. She quickly scrambled out of the car as nonchalantly as she could, but most likely failed in truth, and then skipped a few beats to unlock her front door.

Lynn glanced over her shoulder to see if the man's expensive looking black car was still there, which it was, and Lynn nervously nibbled on her bottom lip as she tried to shove the key into the doorknob — but was most definitely failing. She sucked in a deep breath, unlocked the door, and stepped it as if there were an ax-murderer right behind her.

She felt utterly overdramatic as she pressed her back against the wooden door — tuning in to hear Derek start the engine again, and until the sound slowly disappeared out of distance.

She let out a huge sigh, and cringed up her face awkwardly as she recounted their conversation. She collapsed her face into her hands, groaning so loud into her skin.

"'You're not a bad person, Derek'," Lynn mimicked herself, using a more high-pitched and ugly tone of voice. She aimlessly tossed her arms into the air, letting another groan rumble from her chest. "God! You're an idiot, Evelynn. That's the best you could do!?"

And the rest of the night, Lynn didn't give herself a break as she countlessly went over their conversation in her head.

a/n: okay i take it back this was my fav chapter😌what do y'all think!!??? don't forget to comment and vote and all that rad stuff :)