You Be the Anchor That Keeps My Feet on the Ground

“We were down in a bad part of town looking for a new werewolf that’s around. There were four of us -- you two, Scott, and myself. Liv, you and I went into an old abandoned warehouse, and I told Isaac and Scott to check another one because most of the warehouses down there had the new wolf’s scent and I wanted to try to find it quicker,” Derek began, and paused to look up and see that Isaac and Olivia were both intently staring at him.

“So, you and I were in this warehouse and you were upstairs and I was down, and all of a sudden I heard you and someone else struggling. Before I could get to you, another came out of a side room and attacked me. I fought him off, and a second later I heard you falling down the stairs. I tried to get to you, but the one I’d fought off came back and stuck a wide pipe right through the middle of me and stuck me to a wall. As I watched, the one you had been fighting upstairs and the one I had been fighting walked over to you and started kicking you over and over again. You were screaming and crying and calling out for me, but the second one had pinned me so well to the wall, and the pipe had grazed so close to my heart that I couldn’t get away fast enough. Then, they stopped kicking you and one of them pulled a syringe out of his pocket and stabbed you in the arm with it. You passed out automatically. About that time, Scott and Isaac came in. Scott freed me, and Isaac came straight to you. I went after the two other wolves, but somehow they’d masked their scents and I couldn’t track them very far. I don’t know what they shot you up with, but it knocked you out cold for almost a week, and it’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have insisted on splitting up. I should have been there to protect you. You could have died and it would have been my fault,” Derek finished, and put his head in his hands. Olivia glanced at Isaac to see that his eyes had filled with tears. Right at that moment, more memories flashed through her head. A few were of Isaac, but most of them involved Derek and the very loft that they sat in.

She stood and took a step toward Derek and put her hand on his shoulder. “It’s not your fault. I don’t remember it, but it’s not your fault. You couldn’t have done anything, and I don’t blame you,” she said, hoping that he’d believe her.

“I don’t blame you either, Derek. It wasn’t your fault,” Isaac said, standing up as well.

Derek raised his head to look at them, and they both attempted to smile back.

“I figured you’d both hate me,” he said, and Isaac and Olivia both shook their heads.

“No way,” Olivia said, and Isaac shook his head again.

“You’re sure?” Derek asked, and Olivia kneeled and looked him straight in the eye.

“We’re sure,” she said firmly, and Isaac nodded in agreement. After a moment, Derek nodded shortly and gave them an almost-smile.

“Now that we know what happened, we do need to try harder to find out what they injected her with, though, because if there’s some sort of new inject-able toxin that’s taking down werewolves, we need to know what it is,” Isaac said, and Olivia nodded.

“And if possible, I’d really like to get my memories back. I keep getting short little flashes, but there’s still so much about everything I don’t remember and I want to,” Olivia said, and Derek nodded.

“Well… there’s someone who can probably help you there, but you don’t like him. Actually, none of us really like him too much,” Derek replied, and Olivia felt a little ball of nervousness rising in her stomach.

“Who is it?” she asked, and Isaac and Derek exchanged a look that told her that they both knew who this person was.

“My uncle Peter,” Derek answered, and although the name did sound vaguely familiar to her, she couldn’t attach a face to it in her mind.

“Well then, call him,” Olivia said, even though the uncomfortable looks that both Derek and Isaac wore worried her.