"They were there for two days, waiting, hiding," Cora explains. "That's what we're taught to do when the hunters find us...hide and heal."

"Okay, so is two days standard, then, or are we thinking Derek's on, like, some extended getaway?" Stiles asks.

"Why do you care?" she fires back.

"Why do I care? Let's see...because over the last few weeks, my best friend and his sister, who is also my best friend, tried to kill themselves., their boss nearly got ritually sacrificed, a girl that I've known since I was three was ritually sacrificed, Boyd was killed by Alphas. Oh, there is also a chance Scarlett could be apart of this stupid ritual. I... Do you want me to keep going? 'Cause I can, alright? For, like, an hour."

"Stiles," I say softly through my teeth.

"Derek has changed since I knew him," Cora says.

Peter elaborates saying Derek was once like Scott. Derek was apparently once unbearably romantic and profoundly narcissistic. "Taking an innocent life takes...something from you as well, a bit of your soul...darkening it, dimming the once brilliant, golden yellow to a cold, steel blue... Like mine." His eyes flash blue. "Her name was name Paige. She could always be found practicing the cello in the Beacon Hills High School Music Classroom. Derek was playing basketball with a couple of his friends in the hallway, messing up her rhythm. She stepped into the hall and she asked them to stop. Derek told her he would stop if she could take the ball. She made a few attempts as Derek showed off with trick dribbling. She just turned around and returned to the Music Room. Derek followed and apologized. He asked her name but she refused to tell him unless he could play one instruments in the room. He spent a short amount of time scanning shelves stacked with musical instruments before returning to her with something behind his back. He revealed a triangle and struck it gently with the metal beater producing a single clear note. She acquiesced and said her name was 'Paige'. He offered his name but she said she already knew who he was," Peter explains.

"Wait, I'm confused. Derek was a sophomore when he fell for Paige, right?" I point out.

Stiles wants to know his age at the time, he also questions Peter's age back then and now. "Not as young as we could have been but not as old as you might think," he answers.

"How old are you, Cora?" Stiles asks, annoyed by Peter's response.

"Seventeen."

"See, a direct answer."

Then she further confuses and frustrates the topic by saying, "Seventeen in how you would measure in years."

Stiles drops the question of werewolf ages. Peter continues his tale of Derek's whirlwind teenage romance with Paige. "Derek had a favorite getaway. It was an abandoned distillery outside Beacon Hills."

He stops his story and looks at me. "I hope this isn't bad for you."

I knew he was talking to me. "It's okay. Derek doesn't even love me. He found someone his age anyway. My English teacher."

Stiles sighs. Peter draws a spiral with his finger on the condensation collecting on the window. "This is our symbol for vendetta."

Stiles, referencing Peter's own revenge fueled killing spree, says, "Werewolves take revenge to a whole new level."

"It's not just about revenge. Losing a member of the pack is more painful than losing a member of your family. It's like you lose a limb," Cora explains.

Peter then relates how Beacon Hills' authorities wouldn't let Ennis see the body of his dead Beta. Peter says he looked at Ennis' situation and saw profound loss but that Derek saw opportunity to always be with Paige. That was a lie. The truth was the opposite. "Derek use to always sit in class using his heightened senses to listen to Paige play Franz Schubert's 'Ave Maria'. He made his way to the Music Classroom and tried to distract her from her 'laser-like focus'. Derek lived in constant fear that Paige would find out he was a werewolf."

But that was another lie. I can tell he's lying by his heartbeat and even his tone. Peter continues to lie to us, claiming that he tried to talk Derek out of turning Paige. "The druid emissaries keep the werewolves connected to humanity but are kept a secret even within the pack. Sometimes only the Alpha knows their identity," Cora is explaining.

Peter then tells a startled Stiles, that Ms. Morrell is emissary to the Alpha Pack. "Why don't the werewolves never tell me important things like this?" Stiles asks. "I shared a number of really intimate details with Ms. Morrell. I'll admit she gave me good advice."

"That's what emissaries do," Peter replies.

Peter starts finishing up the tale of Derek and Paige. "The bite didn't take with Paige. It should have because she was young and strong but that sometimes it just doesn't happen. Paige was in pain and dying slowly. Derek held her at the base of the druid tree in the basement of the abandoned house. Derek took away as much of Paige's pain as he could but she was still suffering terribly. She explained that she knew he was different. She suspected he was a werewolf because she had seen strange things in town and also because of the way he spoke saying he's 'caught a scent'. She knows she was going to die and asked him to end it. He does by gently breaking her neck. He took Paige's body to the woods where she would be found and her death attributed to a long line of Beacon Hills' animal attacks. killing an innocent takes a piece of a werewolf's soul making it a bit darker."

Cora questions Stiles look. He feigns ignorance as to what look she is referring. "It's the look that makes me want to punch you," she says.

"You are definitely Derek's sister," Stiles mumbles.

I nod in agreement. Stiles then explains that he doesn't believe Peter's account of the Derek and Paige tragic romance. "We are reading Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness in school and that the book's narrator, Charles Marlow, is an 'unreliable narrator'."

"Telling the tale from his perspective which may or may not be what actually happened," I continue.

Stiles says we didn't get the whole story from Peter.

"Do you two really plan to ask Derek about the girl he loved but had to kill?" Cora asks

"Yes, if I have to." As I'm walking away, I stop by the door and glance back. "Oh, and Peter? Next time you want to lie, try doing it when you're not talking to another werewolf...idiot."

I hope this wasn't as boring I it sounds. Please vote comment and follow. I'll bite you later my Teen Wolf troopers! ♥