Chapter Text
Chapter 23
Henley slept. She hadn’t slept in weeks. Between spontaneously combusting in her sleep, the nightmares of Peter finding her in the woods and attacking her, and memories of her family that suddenly made sense, sleep wasn’t something she had the luxury of anymore.
Except that she had slept last night. While there were hunters arriving in town to find her and kill her, she had her first good night’s sleep since Peter had tried to kill her. And it happened to be on Peter’s balcony.
Henley sat up in the lounge chair she had dropped into last night. Peter’s apartment overlooked the woods that trailed through Beacon Hills and surrounded the town. In the morning light, they weren’t as dark and threatening as she had come to think of them as.
She took a long breath. The morning air was cool. Or, at least, it felt cool when she breathed it in, but that wasn’t saying much. Her airway was overheated. Sometimes it felt like she was burning from the inside out.
She shoved those thoughts aside. She padded across the balcony, cool under her bare feet.
In the drive of her anger at being evicted because of what Peter had turned her into, she hadn’t thought twice about intruding on him. But now, standing at the sliding glass door, she hesitated.
She looked through the glass at his penthouse apartment. Everything about it was classy. Orderly. Completely under control. Except for the giant heap of burned couch in the center of the room.
Heaving a sigh that came out as a puff of steam in the cool morning air, Henley slid open the door and let herself inside.
She went to the kitchen. She had tried not to look around at the stocked pantry and fridge last night. Bare cabinets and empty shelves was the standard at her house growing up, since she was generally the only one home for meals.
She bypassed Peter’s food and grabbed a bag of marshmallows she had brought with her.
Leaving the walk in pantry, she bypassed the stools at the counter, the dining table with matching chairs, and went to an armchair. She flopped down, leaning against a down throw pillow that was way too comfortable, and hanging her legs over the arm of the chair.
She pulled a marshmallow from the bag. With her free hand, she ignited a flame. She held the marshmallow over the flame while she studied the main living area.
Where in the world did Peter get this kind of money? Did he have a job?
Her marshmallow sufficiently golden, oozing a sticky, melted inside over her fingers, she popped it into her mouth.
She didn’t have to work today. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. She looked around for a record player and only saw a sleek sound system on a shelf against a wall. She wasn’t holding out hope that Peter had decent taste in music.
Another roasted marshmallow into her mouth.
She should burn his sound system. Force him to have to replace it with a record player and decent vinyl.
She was debating what else of Peter’s she’d like to burn, when she heard footsteps down the hallway.
She didn’t look at Peter when he came into the room, giving the marshmallow in her hand all her attention. And also picturing roasting Peter over flames. Just enough to make him squirm and rethink turning people into phoenixes.
“That’s your breakfast?” came Peter’s judgmental tone.
Henley tossed the marshmallow at him.
He blew on it and put it in his mouth. Then immediately opened his mouth up to suck in some air.
“It burns!” he exclaimed.
Henley caught a marshmallow on fire and popped it in her mouth, still flaming.
Peter was on his way too the kitchen, grabbing a glass from a cabinet, filling it with water and gulping it down.
“How can you eat that? It’s hot,” he finally said, setting the glass on the marble counter with a solid thunk.
Henley fixed him with a look, annoyance that she was coming to associate with anything to do with Peter spiraling open in her chest. “I’m always hot, Peter.”
His eyes narrowed and he looked at her. His eyes dropped to her stomach, were her pajama top had crept up.
“Yes, you are,” he agreed under his breath.
Annoyed. She was annoyed. The flames that were being fanned in her stomach were annoyance. She could barely stand Peter.
He broke away first. “Do you ever eat anything that’s not pure sugar?” he asked.
Henley defiantly pulled another marshmallow from her bag and roasted it.
“Good. The silent treatment,” Peter said. “You know how much I love that.”
Henley set her bag of marshmallows on the coffee table. “What do you want me to say?” she asked, unable to keep the edge of anger from her voice. “Thanks for ruining my life? How soon until the hunters find me and try to kill me?” Her hands were sticky. She flared flames on both hands, moving the flames over her skin until it burned the sticky remnants of her breakfast off her hands.
“Can you not do that on the furniture?” Peter asked. “I don’t want to replace any chairs, too.”
Henley flared the flames larger, then rested her fiery hand on the armchair. She was in control now, not like she had been last night. The flames covered the arm of the chair, but didn’t make a mark.
Once she saw Peter’s jaw tic like she was getting to him, she drew the flames back into her hand, leaving his chair unscathed.
He didn’t say anything more, just turned his back on her and went to the kitchen, pushing a button on a coffeemaker.
All the fight drained from Henley. She leaned back and stared at the ceiling. She wasn’t sure how long she laid there, thinking about the mess her life had become. Mess was too generous. Trainwreck too gentle.
“Cataclysmic shock,” she whispered to herself. That fit.
“Is this what you do all day?” Peter’s voice intruded in her thoughts.
Henley didn’t bother looking at him.
“Eat junk food and wallow in self pity?” he asked.
She turned her head enough to see him and glared at him. “No. Sometimes I also like to relive the memories of being mauled in the woods.”
Peter heaved a put-upon sigh. “You’re still holding a grudge about that?”
She wanted to launch a ball of fire at him. But if she burned the entire interior of this apartment, she didn’t have any better options for housing. So instead, she swung her feet to the floor and forced herself up from the chair.
“I’m going for a walk,” she said. She didn’t bother going to her room for clothes. She stuffed her feet into the sneakers she had kicked off in the living room last night.
She shut the door on Peter behind her.
#
Derek didn’t know Henley’s work schedule, but she wasn’t in the record shop when he checked. He didn’t have many other clues to help him find her. He frowned as he thought about how little any of them knew about her.
There had been no answer when he had knocked on her apartment door. He thought of the gravel pit. There was always a chance she was blowing off steam—literally—out there.
Isaac had filled him in on Henley’s drunken appearance at Stiles’ party. And none of them had heard from her since. Add in the text he had gotten from Chris Argent that hunters were in town, and he really needed to find Henley.
He drove slowly through town, scanning sidewalks and streets for any sign of her.
There. She was heading toward the record store….wearing pajamas.
He watched her shuffle into the store, then found a parking spot on the street.
He didn’t jog. Not with hunters in town. He wasn’t going to move fast or do anything that would draw eyes to him.
Inside the store, Henley was in the back corner of the store, where a shelf of used record players was.
He started toward her. Her hair was hanging in her face and, judging by wearing pajamas in public, she wasn’t doing any better than what Isaac had told him.
“Henley? Henley Dawson!”
Derek stopped at the call.
A dark man with a broad grin approached Henley. Derek turned slightly away from them and pretended to be interested in a collection of opera records.
“Hey,” Dante Calavera was saying. “I didn’t expect to see you in Beacon Hills.”
Henley turned to him and her brow wrinkled. “Yeah. I just got here not long ago.”
It was clear she knew Dante. Of course she did. Their families’ paths would have crossed over the years. But Derek didn’t think she knew he was a hunter. He willed her to keep quiet and get away from him.
He wanted to get over there and intervene. Get her away from the hunter. But as soon as he linked himself to her, it would raise red flags among the hunters.
He kept his head down and listened, jaw tight.
#
Henley hadn’t known Dante Calavera lived in Beacon Hills. The man’s family had worked with her dad over the….
OH.
Her breath locked in her throat, nearly choking her.
Was Dante a hunter????
She tried to keep from screaming the question at him.
“Are you here for work?” Dante asked cryptically. Except now she knew exactly what he was asking.
Her skin started to burn. Noooo. No, no, no, no. She couldn’t catch on fire. Not in front of a hunter. One who was HUNTING HER.
Her breath came in short gasps. She looked at Dante, someone she was supposed to know, but now realized she didn’t know. She didn’t know him at all.
And then she saw Derek.
He was off to the side of Dante and behind him. But his eyes were fixed on her, sending her a silent message. Don’t panic.
Good advice. That was really, really good advice. Because if she panicked, and started on fire, Dante would know what she was. And then would he kill her?
Her heart thudded against her ribs.
Derek was glaring at her now. Or maybe trying to send her silent support?
“There you are.”
Another person entered the store and came toward them.
Fiona. That’s all Henley could remember. Her name was Fiona and her family also worked in the same business as her dad.
Was there anyone from her childhood who wasn’t a murdering hunter of supernatural creatures?
“Hey…” Fiona said. “Dawson, right? You’re Garrett’s kid.”
Henley looked over at Derek. He didn’t make a move toward her.
“Henley,” she said, providing her name to another hunter.
Fiona nodded, her blue eyes studying Henley. “I didn’t realize you were working with your dad,” she said.
For a split second, Henley wondered if they would leave her alone if she said she was. They wouldn’t expect her to be a hunter and the phoenix they were looking for. She opened her mouth. And then realized word would get back to her dad. And he would have no idea how she had found out about werewolves and phoenixes.
“I’m not,” Henley finally answered. Ugh. She was so hot. Her muscles were locked, rigid, trying to keep even a stray spark from falling free. “I moved to town awhile ago.” And then got attacked by a werewolf and turned into a mythical creature that they were looking for. But those were just minor details.
“Oh,” Fiona said, exchanging a look with Dante. The reservation Henley was used to fell, like a curtain coming between her and them. Keeping her from seeing anything once it was in place. “Well, it was good seeing you,” Fiona said formally, her smile cool.
“Take care, Henley,” Dante said, his smile no longer reaching his eyes.
Fiona’s eyes swept over her baggy cotton pants and t-shirt. Henley’s heart punched her throat when she couldn’t remember if this shirt had burns on it. But Fiona didn’t say anything, just issued a silent judgment on Henley’s pajamas in broad daylight.
“See you around,” Fiona said. “Tell your dad I said hi.”
Derek lowered his head and turned away, bent over a record, when they walked past him.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Derek was at her side.
She looked up at him. “They’re hunters,” she said.
He didn’t look surprised. “I know.”
“They’re here for me,” she said.
“I know.”
“They’re going to kill me,” she added, the pitch of her voice rising.
“No, they’re not.” Derek took hold of her arm. “Where’s the back door?”
Back door. Obviously. She couldn’t be parading around town. She wondered how many more people from her past were actually hunters? She started running through a list of everyone she could remember meeting through her dad’s “business”.
Everyone.
Everyone that had been in her family’s life was a hunter.
Derek didn’t pull on her arm, but moved his head to direct her to move.
Move. Get away.
She started moving. She led Derek to the back door.
Once in the alley, he told her to wait there, he’d bring the car for her.
Every sound was a jolt to her nervous system. She had known the hunters were coming, but seeing them—and then realizing she knew them, she knew every. single. one.—flared her reactions exponentially.
Finally the sound of a car down the alley drowned out the other noises. Henley barely waited for Derek to stop his car before she got in.
She didn’t . As if a low speed car crash in town was anywhere near the top of her list of concerns.
Henley put her head between her knees. She was going to pass out. Or throw up.
Derek didn’t say anything.
She kept her head down, willing herself to hold it together. Flames weren’t even what she was trying to control. She was fighting off a full blown panic attack.
She didn’t realize when Derek parked the car. Flashes of sparks were flaring on her skin erratically.
He opened the door. She was aware of him reaching to help her, then thinking better of it. She stumbled out of the car.
They weren’t at Peter’s. Or her apartment—which wasn’t technically hers at all anymore, but she didn’t think Derek knew that. They were in front of another apartment building.
Derek glanced around the parking lot.
“Can you turn it off?” he asked with a nod of his head towards the flickers of light bursting off her skin.
Right. They couldn’t risk anyone seeing her on fire. Or even just sparking. She squeezed her eyes shut and tightened her already sore muscles even more.
The sparks slowed their movement. The trade off was her muscles shook with the intensity of holding it in.
“We’ll move fast,” Derek said.
She wasn’t sure where they were moving fast to, but she hoped it was somewhere she could finally let go and stop gripping her muscles.
Derek was on his cell phone, sending a text. He got a response and put his phone back into his pocket and stayed near her side as they hurried across the parking lot.
The door to the building buzzed open when they approached. Derek hurried her to an elevator and punched a button.
Henley’s hands shook. She fisted them more tightly. A stray spark drifted from her knuckles and she redoubled her efforts to get herself under control.
The elevator dinged their arrival on the fifth floor. The doors slid open.
“Did anyone see you?”
Henley jolted in surprise at Chris Argent waiting for them.
“Not after leaving the record store,” Derek said.
Chris looked around the empty hallway and motioned for them to follow him.
Henley bit her lips together to keep from asking who was going to be there. Avoiding Allison, Stiles, and whoever else wasn’t a luxury she had right now. Not when there were hunters.
Chris let them into an apartment and closed the door behind them. He flipped two deadlocks and slid a security chain into place.
Inside, the threat out there locked away from her, Henley’s muscles started to give way. Her arms and legs quivered. Sparks started to fall.
Henley glanced at the flooring. Not carpeting. At least she wasn’t going to destroy Chris’ carpeting.
“You saw the hunters?” Chris asked.
“I knew the hunters!” Henley exploded. She glared at Chris, like it was his fault.
He didn’t react. “Who did you see?”
“Fiona somebody,” Henley said. “I haven’t seen her in forever.”
Chris nodded. “Fiona Prowman. If she’s here, then her brother is, too.” He frowned, but didn’t look like the information was overwhelming him, the way Henley felt is was her. “Who else?”
How could Chris ask who was here to hunt people, nod and then ask who else? He was acting like this was normal. But Henley told him what he was asking for. Maybe he’d have some sort of idea how she could avoid them.
“Dante Calavera,” she said.
Chris frowned slightly at that. “The Calaveras won’t be here without Araya. She won’t be easy to hide from.”
“Araya?” Henley echoed. “Mrs. Calavera?” The grandmotherly lady who sent her family a Christmas card every year? “Mrs. Calavera is here to hunt…”
“They’re all here to hunt you,” Derek said bluntly.
Flames flared on the backs of her hands and Henley focused on at least making sure the flames didn’t burn any furniture.
“The Xi family is here, too,” Chris said. “I saw Tag Freeman this morning, and I heard Sam Hurst is in town.”
She recognized the names. Knew their faces.
“I don’t…Why do they want to kill me?” she demanded. “I’m not a threat!” As she spoke, her flames flared. A throw pillow caught a stray spark and started to burn.
Derek picked it up and tossed it onto the tile floor of the kitchen, stomping out the flames. He gave her a look. Fine. She was a threat. But not on purpose.
“They have a code,” Chris said.
“A code?” Henley asked. “Like a secret code? A secret handshake?”
“A set of rules,” he clarified.
She noticed Derek’s face tighten.
“Rules?” she asked.
“The hunter’s code,” Chris said.
“That sounds noble,” she said. Again that look on Derek’s face like the hunters were anything but noble. “So what are their rules?” she asked. She braced herself for the answer. “No selfies with a fresh kill? Some sort of hunting license to prevent poachers?”
Chris didn’t react to her sarcasm. “No killing young. Only adults.”
“How generous of them,” Henley said. She clenched her fists. Discussing the rules for killing people was disgusting. Hearing him say it so plainly was like a sucker punch.
“They only track and take care of supernaturals who harm innocent people.”
Henley wondered if burning Derek counted as harming an innocent person. “And who decides if they’ve hurt an innocent?” Henley asked. “Or are they judge, jury, and executioner?”
“They make sure they have proof before they make a decision,” Chris said.
“Why do you say ‘they’?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him. “You’re one of them.”
“Not anymore.” Chris’ reaction was immediate and unequivocal. “I’m not a hunter.”
She wondered if it was really that easy to just not be part of the super cool kids clique. But Chris held her gaze. Something her dad and brother rarely did.
“And they all follow this code?” she asked. Learning about her dad and brother like this was…it was like learning about some distant relative she had never met.
“They’re supposed to,” Derek said darkly.
“So they don’t,” she surmised. “Then what’s the point of their stupid code?” she demanded, looking at Chris like it was his fault.
“Most do,” he said. He didn’t look offended by her frustration being leveled at him.
But it wasn’t just frustration. The panicky twitch of fear prodded at her incessantly.
“What…” The thought formed, slowly and not fully. She felt her brow wrinkle as she turned it over before trying again. “What if I tell my dad…” Just saying the words made her stomach lurch. She couldn’t bring herself to say what she would have to tell him. “Will that change things? He can tell everyone I’m not—not…” What wasn’t she? She was definitely a monster. A freak of nature. But she didn’t hurt people. Or at least, not on purpose. “He can call them off.”
Her muscles quivered with the effort to hold the flames in.
Chris didn’t answer. Henley’s gaze darted between him and Derek.
“That could be worse,” Chris said quietly.
Henley’s breath escaped on a disbelieving laugh. “How could it possibly be worse than all my dad’s colleagues, or whatever they are, hunting me?”
Chris didn’t answer right away. Derek was staring at his feet, hard enough to bore a hole in the tile floor.
“There’s an honor code,” Chris finally said.
“Of course there is!” Henley exploded, tossing her hands in the air. Sparks flung free from her hands and rained down around her. She tried to get control back, but the flames started. Derek moved a step closer to her.
“You’re not a hunter by trade. But by birth, you are,” Chris said. Henley clenched and unclenched her fists. “Any hunter who gets bit, or is going to change into a shapeshifter is honor bound to end their life.”
“I’m not doing that,” Henley burst out.
“Your dad would be the one bound by the code,” Chris said. There was sympathy in his eyes. But Henley didn’t want sympathy. She wanted different facts. She didn’t want to think about what Chris was really telling her.
Chris faded out of focus. Derek was saying something, but it was muffled.
Her dad. They weren’t close, but if he found out, he would the most motivated to end her life.
Derek and Chris were arguing now. She blinked, coming back to Chris’ kitchen.
“Why would you tell her that?” Derek was saying, his words sharp.
“She needs to know,” Chris said. “She needs to know the rules.”
“The rules?” Derek asked. “There aren’t any rules! You should know that better than anyone. Your sister showed you that.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with Kate and that fire,” Chris said, sounding like he was on the verge of losing his temper for the first time.
“I need to go,” Henley said numbly. Her voice was soft, but it still cut through their arguing.
She saw Derek’s last glare for Chris. She didn’t say anything more.
She moved on wooden legs to the door. Chris walked with her and Derek.
“Call,” Chris instructed her. “If you even think there’s a hunter who suspects anything.”
She blinked at him. Call him. If someone was figuring out what she was. Let him know so he could fight them off.
She wasn’t going to call anyone.
Derek was silent as they walked back to his car.
“Are you going home?” he asked, starting the engine.
Home. She didn’t even know what that meant anymore. It wasn’t where family was. It wasn’t the burned apartment she had left behind.
“I’m going to Peter’s,” she answered.
Derek didn’t say anything about her destination. They rode in silence.
When he made a move to get out of the car at Peter’s, she looked at him for the first time.
“Thanks. For the ride,” she said.
She went to the entrance. The security panel was still a mess of burned wires. She opened the door without a problem.
In Peter’s apartment, she listened for him. He wasn’t there. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to feel relieved or disappointed about that, but she didn’t feel anything. And, honestly, not feeling anything was better than feeling. She wished she could ignore reality.
A break from reality.
What had that customer at the record store said? If she wanted to take the edge off…make a rough day sail by.
She moved to the room she had claimed the night before. Her clothes were piled on a chair in the corner.
She pulled pants from the pile. Felt in pockets until she found the baggie with pills.
Three pills. She wondered what would happen if she took three. Not enough to end her life, even thought that seemed to be the general consensus of what everyone wanted.
Bothered by the direction her thoughts were heading, she took a single pill out of the bag. She stuffed the other two, still in the bag, in the drawer of the nightstand. Then she went to the kitchen for water to wash the single pill down.
#