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It’s been a while since she’s stuck around anywhere long enough to become really familiar with a place. Even longer since she became comfortable. She realizes this with a sharp jolt as she’s huddled over a table scattered with glossy photos of the last three victims of Kate.
"What’s wrong?" Derek leans back, flicks his eyes up and down her body, "Your pulse jumped." She bristles, annoyed at being read.
"It’s nothing. Do you recognize any of them?" Braeden gestures to the pictures on the table and Derek just shakes his head. Drops it.
She tries not to feel relieved.
She cancels the lease on the townhouse she has in town that afternoon. Most of her things get stuffed in the flatbed of a rented truck, the rest is tucked into niches in the small apartment she starts to rent on a month by month basis. It’s small, on the edge of town. It’s not much, but Braeden’s never needed much, and she can’t afford to be comfortable.
She can’t afford to be complacent.
She’s not getting paid nearly enough for that.
No one told her there would be berserkers. To say that Braeden’s surprised would be an understatement. Now she’s got her own shotgun pressed up against his throat, cutting off her air, and try as she might, she knows she’s not getting out of this one alive. It makes her angry, furious even, but she opens her mouth and screams as loud as she can with the air left in her lungs.
Her arms go weak, flop uselessly by her sides as her brain asphyxiates. Her vision’s going dark and blurry at the edges, and just before she slips into unconsciousness, she hears an answering howl.
She has just enough in her to be surprised that she can recognize the sound of Scott’s outraged roar before the world goes dark.
She wakes up in Derek’s bed. Derek’s sitting in the arm chair next to her, a book in his lap. There’s a glass of water and three types of painkillers on the nightstand next to her.
"Scott didn’t know what to do, so he brought you here." Derek’s eyes are flitting around her face, and Braeden winces. Nothing like a cut up face to make you feel like shit. She chooses the Advil, downs two of them and the entire glass of water.
Braeden sits up and fights through the sudden vertigo and pounding headache until she’s upright. She waves away Derek’s proffered hand.
"I’m fine," She lies easily, and rubs at her face. The sleeves of the shirt she’s wearing slip down her arms. "This isn’t my shirt."
Derek blushes, and Braeden kind of wishes she could record the moment for posterity. She also really wishes she could remember last night.
"Did you at least buy me dinner first?"
Derek’s face goes ashen, and fumbles out, “I would never—”
"Relax, dumbass, I was joking." She rolls her neck and psyches herself up for standing. "What happened with the berserker?" She pushes to her feet and just stands for a moment until the bright lights stop flashing behind her eyes.
"Scott got there before I did. Scared it away." Derek eyes the way she’s shuffling towards the bathroom but doesn’t say anything. She’s got one hand on the wall and is slightly hunched over, favoring one side.
"I think your ribs are bruised." Derek waits outside the open door, leaning against the wall so that he can’t see inside.
"Almost definitely." Braeden agrees. She looks into the bathroom mirror and inspects the damage. A split lip, bruised cheek, and a long cut extending from her hairline to right ear that looks like it’s been sealed with liquid stitches. Not that bad considering she went toe to toe with a Norse bear warrior.
"Should I take you to the hospital?"
Braeden sighs and mutters, “Probably.” When she lifts the shirt—it’s a tee-shirt, soft and worn and huge on her—the entire left side of her abdomen is mottled and dark. “Except I don’t have any insurance to speak of, and I have no intention to pay for my healthcare.” She doesn’t even bother poking at it. It’s going to hurt like hell until it’s bound.
"Canadian?"
"Swiss, actually." She shouldn’t have said that. She’d berate herself, but she figures she’s already in enough pain.
"Huh." he huffs, "When did you move…?"
"A while ago." she says shortly. "Where are my keys?" She spots her jacket on the couch, is relieved to note that it’s not scuffed or scratched. Or covered in blood for that matter. Her clothes are folded up next to it, but she can already tell they’re a total loss.
"You can’t drive like that, Braeden."
"I have before. Keys?" She’s stuffing her foot into one of her—thank god they’re intact—boots when the idiot grabs her arm. Braeden immediately goes to throw him off, which is when she finds out her left pinky is broken.
"Shit—" God that hurts like a mother. She’s struggling to pull away but Derek reels her in by her wrist. It feels like there’s a vice around her throat. Like she can barely breathe.
"Wait, just let me—” He cups her hand gently, and his eyes flare yellow. The pain starts leeching out of her and she can’t stifle her sigh, slumping slightly as the hurt settles into a throbbing ache. Braeden stumbles out of his grasp and stares at the floor until her heart rate is under control.
"Never, ever grab me.” She hisses. She’s shaking a little, and she decides, fuck it, and sinks onto the couch. She puts her feet up on the coffee table and sends a silent fuck you to wherever the hell Peter is.
"Sorry, I didn’t…sorry." He scrubs his hands through his hair and sits in the chair besides the couch, physically maintaining his distance. Braeden releases the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. Her ribs twinge like a pulled muscle.
"Scott’s mom is a nurse. I can ask her to bind your ribs, if you want." He’s not making eye contact and Braeden stares at him until Derek lifts his head and stares right back.
"Keys."
He takes a long time to respond, but doesn’t try to stare her down. “Left boot.”
Braeden fishes her keys out of her shoe and tosses them on the coffee table. She kicks off the other one and leans back. “Call her then.”
Derek slips his phone out of his pocket and starts dialing.
"Seriously, Derek!" She yells, dodges out of the way of a bone knife what the hell and runs smack into Derek’s chest, “I’m human not helpless!” He keeps jumping in front of her, and one of these days it’s going to get him shot.
"Now is not the time!" It really isn’t. Derek’s inattention gets him a knife to the thigh, and Braeden pumps the Berserker full of lead. It barely even flinches. The slide locks back on her gun and Braeden curses.
"Shit. Time to go."
"Wait, where’s Scott?"
"He’s dragging Stiles’s sorry ass somewhere. Let’s go.”
“Can you see him?” Derek’s almost frantic with worry, as if he doesn’t have four inches of steel buried in his leg and is bleeding out of various other wounds.
Braeden throws the flask Lydia gave her—thank god for someone with sense—at the Berserker and keeps dragging while the thing goes up in flames. She spots Scott off in the distance with his girlfriend, fighting the second berserker. Stiles and Lydia are standing behind them, more Molotovs in hand.
"Yes they’re fine. Come on. We’re the only ones in immediate mortal peril now!”
The Berserker is flailing, on fire, and Braeden and Derek hobble the fuck out of there.
They regroup at the loft and wow, Braeden is somehow only just now realizing that Derek surrounds himself with teenagers. She’s not quite sure how to interpret that, so she doesn’t try. She just watches him yank the knife out of his thigh, grimace, and toss the thing on the coffee table. She’s starting to like the coffee table, actually; it has character. She tosses Derek a roll of bandages. He tosses them right back.
"There’s no point, they’ll heal on their own."
"I know how werewolves work, Derek." Braeden frowns at him. Stiles snorts as he scrubs dirt off his face.
"He’s always like that." Derek glares at him. "What? It’s not my fault you’re a pessimistic masochist! Masochistic pessimist? Yeah, that sounds better. Anyway!" Stiles claps his hands, "This has been great fun but I’ve got a History paper due in—" he checks his watch "—four hours, and I need at least one to bullshit it. Stiles is out."
"Are you sure you’re okay?” Braeden’s surprised to be included in the question, but at a brief look from her Derek nods for the both of them.
"We’re fine, Scott. Thanks."
They leave, and Derek flops backwards onto the bed, groaning, like he was holding himself up for show. Braeden’s not really surprised.
"Move over." She shoves at his leg until he complies and starts unrolling the bandages.
"I told you already—"
"And I heard you the first time, but whaddyaknow, you’re still bleeding all over everything. Clothes off. And bend your leg."
He huffs out a laugh to cover the fact that he’s in pain. “What, not gonna buy me dinner first?”
She bites off a length of cloth to cover her smirk.
Braeden wakes up to the sun shining in her face, which immediately tells her something’s wrong. She jerks awake and realizes where she is. She drops her head into her hands and counts to one hundred, and when she looks up, Derek’s staring at her.
"Stiles has panic attacks." He says. Braeden bristles, and gets up, stretching until her back pops. She notes the way Derek’s eyes dart up and down and then away to stare fixedly at the wall until she’s done.
"Stiles’s neuroses having nothing to do," with mine “with me. You done bleeding yet?”
Derek tilts his head towards the garbage can, which is overflowing with bloody gauze. When he flicks back the blanket his skin is unbroken, just as lovely as ever stretched over muscles Braeden would thoroughly having one on one time with. He raises an eyebrow and Braeden shrugs.
"A girl could get used to waking up to that." She grins when a second eyebrow rises to join the first, and grabs her keys. "See ya, Derek."
She forgets her jacket, but it’s worth it to see Derek staring at her back through the mirror by the door.
She has two days before her time is up, and the closest she’s come to Kate is the last man she killed, throat ripped out like the others, but the rest of him intact. It means Kate’s gaining control, and Braeden knows it’s only going to get harder to catch her. She needs more time.
The Calaveras have given her a month. She has two days left with the Hales.
It’s prickling at her, and it bothers her that it bothers her. She shouldn’t want to stay. She shouldn’t want to feel comfortable. But she does, and she doesn’t know what to do about it.
She goes to Derek.
"I’m leaving." She doesn’t realize it’s true until the words are out of her mouth, but she knows they have to be true. Doesn’t mean something doesn’t go dark and hard inside of her when she says it out loud though.
"Wait, why? You still have time to find Ka-"
"We both know I’m not going to find her in two days. You can have all my intel, but there’s no point in me sticking around any longer." She jots a number down on a stray piece of paper and grabs the jacket she left there days earlier. She’s seen Derek twice since then, always covered in blood, always jumping in front of her.
Derek’s on his feet, book forgotten and Braeden forces herself to look him in the eye. He’s shirtless, and his sleep pants are low at his hips. So low, in fact, that the fabric is bunched up around his toes and the vee beginning at the crease of his hip is exposed. He looks so comfortable, Braeden wants to leave livid red scratches on his hips, stay in bed with him afterward.
"Yeah, but there’s no point in leaving. Just stay the two days, you might get lucky."
"What I do has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with skill. And my skills are no longer relevant to this case." She sighs, "As much fun as this has been, I need a new mark, and you don’t have one to give me."
"Okay." He’s so visibly defeated she has to roll her eyes.
"God you are so fucking aggravating."
"I…what?" His eyes go wide and he blinks in confusion when Braeden strides toward him. He figures it out pretty quickly when she starts biting at his mouth. Good for him.
“We’re not doing this,” she says into his mouth. She’s got a hand down his pants and her nails digging into his ass, but she’s sticking to her guns.
“We’re not?” She could really get used to the way he sounds breathless and turned on, and therein lies the problem.
“Uh uh.” When she pulls away, his sweats are tented and his cheeks are pinked up in a way that makes her want to see how far she can make that blush extend. She hums to herself and gives him one last biting kiss, relishing the weight of his hands on her hips, the way his mouth opens for her.
She bites his lower lip gently and whispers, “My number’s on the coffee table. Call me if you need me.”
“What if I need you now?”
She squeezes her eyes tightly shut and sighs. “You can’t afford me now.”
Then she turns away and leaves without a backward glance.