Wolfbane Heart

Jude had been chatting with Allison for the past few minutes, trying to make the girl as comfortable as possible while seated in a brooding stranger’s car.

“So I’m assuming Lydia put your outfit together?” Jude asked her, twisting her body around on the center console in order to see Allison better. Allison laughed and nodded.

“Yeah, she didn’t give me much of a choice. How did you know?”

“Well your outfit matches perfectly and I’m pretty sure that that’s her dress. It looks great on you by the way,” she answered, flashing the girl a smile and making her beam.

“Thanks! Your outfit looks amazing on you too! Did you pick it out?”

“I mean my two best friends are teenage guys so I’m kind of left on my own for the whole fashion thing. I mean they try to help, but it doesn’t usually end well.” Allison broke into peals of laughter and Jude looked at her in amusement, trying to figure out what was so funny.

“I’m sorry, but imagining Scott and Stiles going through your closet and telling you what to wear is just the funniest image,” she said, and Jude smirked at her.

“They’ve actually done that before,” she remarked, making Allison clutch her stomach from how hard she was laughing. Jude joined her and soon they were both in hysterics, making Derek look at them impassively. Obviously he wasn’t as amused as them.

“We’re here,” he told them, making both the girls look up in shock at the mansion that seemed to come out of nowhere.

“Oh wow, that was fast. Okay, thanks for the ride Derek! I’ll see you tomorrow Jude!” Allison went to jump out of the car, but Jude’s hand stopped her.

“Wait! I’ll come with you and tell your dad that I dropped you off,” she said, making Allison look at her in confusion and Derek raise an eyebrow in her direction. “I mean unless you wanna tell him an older guy did,” she continued, waiting for them to catch on. Allison started nodding her head rapidly and quickly agreed, pulling Jude out of the car with her.

“I don’t know if he’ll be awake but if he is-“ Allison was cut off when they opened the door and saw an older man leaning against the staircase.

“Allison, you realize your curfew was about twenty minutes ago,” he sternly addressed her, making Jude want to come to her rescue.

“Yeah I am so sorry about that! I got lost on my way here since I live on the other side of town and these driveways are pretty hidden,” she offered, making the man finally look her direction. He looked mildly surprised at the company and immediately walked forward to shake her hand.

“I seem to have forgotten my manners, I’m Mr. Argent, and you are?” he inquired, seeming to have forgotten his daughter’s late arrival. Allison was mouthing “thank you” a million times over her dad’s shoulder and Jude subtly nodded her head at her.

“My name is Jude Winters, I’m a junior at Beacon Hill and I ran into Allison at the party and offered to give her a ride home.” Mr. Argent’s eyes seemed to flash in recognition at her name but it was there so quickly that Jude didn’t know if she imagined it.

“Well it’s nice to meet you Jude, hopefully you’ll be stopping by a bit more now,” he answered, making Jude smile and nod at him before telling both of them that she should probably get home to her aunt. Allison gave her a hug goodbye, and when Jude finally closed the door to the house she let out a sigh of relief. By the time she meandered down to the Camaro, Derek was already irritated.

“What took you so long?” He demanded the second she opened the car door and slid in. Jude rolled her eyes but figured the best way to appease him would be to answer all of his questions.

“I had to introduce myself to Allison’s dad since he was waiting up for her, he’s super attractive for an old guy by the way,” she commented, making Derek roll his eyes and back out of the driveway. “I think he recognized my name,” Jude added on, making Derek look over at her curiously.

“But they just arrived this week,” Derek said, furrowing his eyebrows at her. Jude sighed and shrugged, but was internally pleased that Derek was taking her seriously.

“I don’t know, maybe it was nothing, but Mr. Argent’s eyes told me that he knew my name.”

The second Allison’s dad’s name exited Jude’s mouth, Derek’s grip turned white on the steering wheel and the speedometer started going crazy from how much he accelerated.

“Whoa Derek, slow down! I don’t bode too well with fast cars!” She yelled at him, clutching onto the side of the car and going paler by the second as the car flew down the abandoned road. Derek didn’t seem to be listening and continued speeding around the winding roads. Jude’s breath started coming in shorter spurts and she squeezed her eyes shut as flashes of her last accident appeared in her mind. She clutched at her head as images of her mom’s head lying on the steering wheel and her dad crushed against the windshield whipped through her mind. She heard sirens in her head and felt her nails digging into her scalp.

Distantly, she heard a voice calling her name and squeezed her head even harder, assuming that her parent’s voices were plaguing her mind again. Suddenly, she felt a warmth curl around her hands and then the pain of her fingernails digging into her scalp was lifted. She heard her name again, but instead of being spoken in a loving way, there was a growl laced into it. Her mind finally registered that the voice wasn’t part of her memories and her eyes snapped open.

Derek was holding her hands in her lap with one of his hands while the other was shaking her shoulder. His eyes, for once, actually had emotion in them as she caught the desperation hidden in their depths. Once he realized that she was lucid, he breathed a sigh of relief and dropped his hand from her shoulder to the curve of her elbow.

“What the hell was that?” He asked, bringing his body back over to his side of the sports car. Jude looked around at their surroundings and realized that he had pulled over to the side of the road. It must have been pretty bad for him to have to pull over she thought, wincing. “Jude?” He asked again, and she realized that she must have spaced out.
“I don’t like driving fast?” She asked meekly, cringing at how weak her voice sounded. Derek looked at her curiously but seemed to realize that she didn’t want to talk about it and dropped the subject, driving his car back onto the road at a much more reasonable speed. Jude sighed quietly in relief and Derek’s eyes darted over in her direction before returning to the road.

“So where am I taking you? Where do you live?” He asked, making her relax a bit more into the seat at the fact that he wasn’t treating her any differently from before.

“If you could actually drop me at either Stiles’s or Scott’s house that would be great,” she said, curling into herself a bit in order to warm herself up. Her silk tank top didn’t really go well with the AC blasting from the werewolf’s car.

“Are you not going to stay in your house?” He asked, looking over at her with a raised eyebrow, which he seemed to do a lot. She shook her head and continued to gaze out of her window.

“Nah, my aunt is never home so I don’t stay there that much,” she answered, before groaning and hitting her head on the car window. He gave her a questioning and slightly amused look and she groaned again. “I just told a complete stranger that I usually am at home alone! That pretty much goes against every common sense handbook ever made!” She smacked her palm to her forehead and she swore she heard a small chuckle come from his side of the car. She felt the car roll to a stop and looked up in surprise at Stiles’s house. “Do I even want to know how you figured out where Stiles lives?” She asked him, raising one of her eyebrows with a look that could rival his.

“Probably not,” he answered, a smirk spread on his face that made her stomach clench a bit. But only a bit!

“So concerning,” she sang under her breath, grabbing Allison’s jacket from the back seat and turning back to the brood machine in the seat next to her. “Thanks for the ride Hale,” she said, making him nod at her. He looked like he wanted to say more but instead he reached across her and opened her door. She smiled at him one last time and slid out of the car, shutting the door gently behind her. She thought that he had left, but when she got to the front door, she heard her name being called from the Camaro. She spun around in shock and saw Derek leaning towards the open window.

“I’ll be seeing you soon Jude,” he said, before smirking and speeding back onto the street. Jude shook her head and smiled as she entered the house and walked up the stairs.

“I’ll never understand that man,” she muttered to herself, pushing open Stiles’s door without knocking and finding him reclining on his desk chair while looking at some more mythological websites.

“Jude! Hey! I was wondering when you were going to show up!” He exclaimed, grinning at her and spinning around in his chair. She chuckled, dropping down onto his bed and grabbed one of the many old books he had retrieved from the library that day.

“Well I’m here now! You ready to learn everything there is to know about werewolves and other things that go bump in the night?” She asked, making Stiles grin deviously.

“Oh helllll yeah!” He responded, making her laugh and open up her first of many books that she would be scouring that night.