Being in front of the house evoked a plethora of memories. An inexplicable feeling of tearful sadness took over Ivy.

       Upon her move back to Beacon Hills, when she found out about the fire, she never had the fortitude to go there. She felt that she was invading the family's confidentiality. It was not in her welfare to mourn and lament.

       Yes, she had many wonderful memories associated with the house and she was sad that a vibrant place had been turned into a ruin.

       One of the wooden floorboards creaked beneath her jet-black footwear as Derek twisted the key in the door, holding it open to let her in first.

       The first thing that welcomed her when her foot crossed the threshold was the smell of mould and the frigidity inside. Her brown eyes scanned the corridor as Derek closed the door behind him, watching his ex-girlfriend with a careful look.

       Ivy noticed the look. She cleared her throat, waving her arms around. "So⎯"

       Derek's eyebrows pinched together. "So?"

       "Hope I did not jinx your plans." said Ivy. "Have you rescheduled stalking Scott to another day of the week?"

      "I'm not stalking him." Derek contradicted, which prompted Ivy to stop in her actions. She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a questioning look. "I'm trying to keep him alive."

       Derek led her to a room. The creak of the panels under the pressure of the sole of her shoes accompanied Ivy as she looked around at the remnants left of the old bedroom. "Jokes aside. Why are we here?"

      "I told you I was going to train you how to defend yourself." answered Derek in a truthful manner when he stood with his back turned to her. His ex- girlfriend was too concentrated on examining the room and immersed in her melancholy that she failed to notice when he took his shirt off.

       The material of his shirt landed on the floor, which made Ivy furrow her eyebrows when she saw the T-shirt near her feet. The Stilinski girl soon regretted that she had turned around when shirtless Derek blessed her eyes.

       "Oh, my God. Oh, my God!" Ivy blurted out, her hand covered her eyes. "You're so not wearing a shirt right now."

       Jesus titty-fucking Christ, what's in those genes?

       A nervous chuckle escaped her lips as Ivy started to retreat to the back with her hand over her eyes. Once again in not even twenty-four hours, Ivy bumped into a rack. She spun around to knock a few things off there.

       Could you be any more awkward?

       "Okay, okay. How about this?" Ivy sounded conciliatory when Derek covered his mouth with his hand to hide the smirk that showed on his face upon hearing her quickened heartbeat. "I'm about to uncover my eyes and if you're not wearing any pants, I'm so out of here!"

       Derek remained impassive when Ivy parted her fingers, revealing to herself a view that hadn't changed from the one of minutes before. "If you are not going to do a strip show in Peter and Eliza's old room, you better have a good explanation as to why you are parading around half-naked in front of me."

       "Do you really want me to wear a T-shirt?" It was like a pre-fire Derek reappeared when Ivy was around. The tone of his voice and his mannerism reminded Ivy what an arrogant tease Derek used to be. "I can hear your heart beating faster now. How about if you try again?"

       "Don't get too excited, you horn dog." said Ivy, taking off her green jacket and throwing into a corner. "Are we doing this or not?"

       Derek gave her a quick nod. Ivy wrapped her arms around her bare shoulders as the coldness of the house left her with goosebumps.

       It was noticeable that the house had been abandoned for years. This was not just the dilapidated interior, the stripped furniture, the leftover ceiling on the floor or the mould that had collected on the walls.

       A place full of life had been replaced by an indescribable aura. The negative vibrations that caused Ivy to feel uncomfortable there.

       Ivy had taken a few steps forward, her hands clasped together behind her as she stood in front of Derek.

       "Hit me."

       She laughed in his face. She hadn't planned on it, but Derek's words caught her off guard in such a way that she could not help herself.

       "Oh⎯" Implementation beckoned to her when she saw the impassive expression on Derek's face. "You weren't joking."

       Ivy looked as if she was deliberating from which side to strike. Her one hand came close to his cheek, slapping him gently.

       Derek gave her a look. "What the hell was that?"

       "That was a good one, huh?" asked Ivy with a falsified hint of excitement in her voice. "Now we can go and have something to eat." she said, heading toward the place where there used to be a good-sized wooden door.

       "Get back." He grabbed her wrist, not using much strength to avoid harming her. His touch was delicate, but strong enough to stop her from walking past him, but not enough to cause her any pain.

       A groan left her lips, tilting her head back in a vehement gesture of reluctance. "Look⎯" Ivy started once she graced him with a look. "I appreciate your help, or whatever it is, but I don't see how this is going to help me. I mean, there is no chance in hell that I will fight off this outsized mole."

       "I don't want you to fight with him." remarked Derek, which caused Ivy to scrunch her nose in confusion. "But it has to be someone close to you. That's the only explanation why he didn't kill you last night."

       "Great!" said Ivy dryly. "As if I wasn't too busy agonizing over the fact that I have to look for a new job, and on top of that, the fur-headed egomaniac has a soft spot for me."

       "None of your friends were acting weird?" asked Derek.

      "Well⎯" Ivy proceeded to list the people she spent most of her time with on the fingers of one hand. Her eyes widened in shock as she realised a thing, which hadn't escaped Derek's attention. "How is this even possible?" she mumbled to herself as she held up three fingers.

       "What?" He was wracked with worry when he saw how disturbed Ivy was. There was always the same sparkle in her eyes when she knew the answer to a question or when she realised what she had overlooked. And she had the same sparkle this time. "What, Ivy? Do you know who that is?"

       The girl looked up at him, her three fingers still held up. "How come I only have three friends?!" Ivy yelled in frustration. "And one of them is in a coma and two of them are my father and brother?"

      Derek pinched his nose. "Ivy⎯"

BANG. Someone kicked in the door, which caused Ivy and Derek to turn their heads in the direction of the source of the noise.

       "No one home?" A male voice reverberated across the house, which seemed deserted. His eyes flickered around each dusty corner as his hands clamped down on his weapon in readiness to pull the trigger.

Derek put his hand over Ivy's mouth, with his free hand showing her not to make a sound.

"Oh, he's here." Kate looked around at the remains of Derek's family home. A glint of contentment appeared in her eye as she saw her creation from the inside. "He's just not feeling particularly hospitable."

"Maybe he's out burying a bone in the backyard." The hunter on Kate's left jested, which made Derek roll his eyes at his little comment.

"Really? A dog joke?" asked Kate in a sarcastic manner. "We're going there and that's the best you've got?" His smirk soon faded from his face as Kate carried on. "You want to provoke him? Try something like too bad your sister bit it before she had her first litter."

       Derek's body tensed up. Laura was the only family he had left. There was still Peter, but he had been a wreck of a man for years. Half of his face was burnt, he sat in a wheelchair all day and stared blankly at a white wall.

      Now he was left with nothing again. With no remaining family in the world. Left to his own devices.

       Something snapped inside Derek when Kate said the next words. "Too bad she howled like a bitch when we cut her in half!"

       "Stay here." warned Derek, his voice turned dark. "Not even make a sound."

       Derek knew what Kate was capable of, but he didn't want Ivy to find out. Just to get under Derek's skin more, Kate was able to torture Ivy to get the information she needed.

       One of the hunters pulled out his gun, but in a blink of an eye his weapon was out of his hand and he collapsed on the floor.

      Derek looked up with bared teeth, leaping in the direction of the other man. A moment later he was knocked on the floor unconscious, and his body rolled to Kate's feet.

       A repulsive smirk plastered itself on her face, as if she was waiting to be deposited in her grave, when something was suddenly in her hands.

       A telescopic stun baton that crackled with an electric spark. She spun it around and pressed it against Derek's skin, who hurled at her.

       He crashed to the floor. His muscles flinched and trembled out of control.

      Kate started walking in Derek's direction, oblivious to the fact that there was someone else there.

"Wow. This one grew up in all the right places." Kate rounded a pained Derek as he curled up on the floor. "I don't know whether to kill it or lick it."

Derek fought with his remaining strength to get up. As his hands supported against the stripped and scorched panelled floor, each muscle trembled as he dropped to the floor again.

"Nine hundred thousand volts." said Kate, bluish lines of electricity rimmed around her weapon. "You never were good with electricity, were you? Or fire. So I'm going to let you in on a little secret and maybe we can help each other out." she said, one hand resting on the chair. "Yes, your sister was severed into pieces and used as bait to try to catch you. Unpleasant and a little Texas Chainsaw Massacre for my taste, but quite true. Now here's the part that might kick you in the balls. We didn't kill her."

Derek shook with frustration and anguish when he managed to lean his back against the window in the place that used to be his living room.

"Think I'm lying?"

"It wouldn't be the first time." replied Derek through clenched teeth.

"Oh, sweetie." An artificial pout formed on her face. Kate took a couple of steps in his direction only to kneel in front of him. "Listen to my heart and tell me if I am. Okay?"

With each reassurance from her that they had nothing to do with Laura's death, Kate inched closer and closer to him. She whispered the last word in his ear with a satisfied look.

Just as she had six years ago when she had whispered sweet nothings in his ear when she wanted to manhandle him into helping her the rest of his pack into her ruthless snare.

"Hear that?" The voice he abhorred yanked him out of his lethargic trance of listening to Ivy's heart pounding like a drum in her chest. "No blips or upticks. Just the steady beat of the cold, hard truth." said Kate when she rose to a standing position. "Bite marks were on your sister's body. What do you think it was, Derek? A mountain lion?"

Ivy shuffled out of her hideout, her back bumping onto the wall behind which she was holed up and had a perfect vantage of what was going on inside the living room.

The huntress snapped the stun baton back and slipped it into her jacket. "So, why aren't we helping each other?" offered Kate. "Just admit what you've been guessing the whole time. The Alpha killed your sister. Tell us who he is. We take care of him for you. Problem solved. Everybody goes home happy."

       Kate waited for a response of any calibre. Derek's lips tightened into a thin line, and the silence he lavished on Kate was no louder than a lone howl. "Unless you don't know who he is either."

       Ivy was panting, her gaze resting on the two unconscious silhouettes of men lying in the passage of the corridor with weapons knocked out of their hands. Her eyes widened and an idea popped into her head.

       She covered her mouth with her hand to muffle the sound of her own breathing as her foot drew the weapon in her direction.

       Surely, she could have escaped when she had the chance. She could have escaped while Kate was focused on talking Derek to death. She could have run away and not looked back, but she stayed.

"Well, guess who just became totally useless?"

       A sinister smirk crossed over Kate's face once more, her hand slipped inside her jacket to pull something out. It was the perfect opportunity for Ivy to divert her attention, which would have given Derek time to escape.

       A bullet fired from a shotgun hit the window, glass shattering all over the place. Kate smirked, spinning with lightning speed firing shot after shot when Derek managed to break away from his position and escape from his own home, which had once again been invaded.

       Ivy dropped the weapon to the floor as Derek pulled her by the hand, the two of them running away from the Hale household.

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       "Do you realise how stupid what you did was?" snapped Derek.

       A scoff left Ivy's lips, an expression full of incredulity written all over her face when she lavished a sidelong glance on him. "Have you ever heard of such a word as thank you?"

       Derek didn't mean to, but he raised his voice when a helpless sense of frustration surged through his body. "You almost got yourself killed!"

       "Hey, I was only trying to help you!" Ivy defended. "I saw a gun. I seized the opportunity and fired anywhere to distract this hunter-trollop. Long story short, I saved us both, but I assume you're too damn good to even admit it."

      Derek was too prideful to acknowledge that Ivy was in the right and had saved them both, but he was also angry with her.

       The last thing he wanted was for Ivy to put her own life at stake to save his. He would not have forgiven himself if Kate had caught Ivy in her snare and through her involvement with him.

       He had already paid for his radical decision once with the loss of those closest to him. He was not going to make the same mistake a second time.

       "I don't want you to save me." said Derek crossly, his hands clenched tighter on the steering wheel of his car. "When you see danger, don't look at me, just run away."

       Ivy knew that she didn't stand a chance. She did not have claws or fangs that could have torn more than one to shreds.

      She lacked the agility to stand a chance with someone as well-trained as Kate.

       But Kate was like a wolf in sheep's clothing. She did malevolence under the guise of doing good, while she was evil herself.

       Even Derek had no chance against her, and Ivy didn't even delude herself that she could.

       However, she did not want to wait until she was rescued, nor did she want to save her life at the cost of forfeiting another one as valuable as her own. She never wanted to be that person and never will be.

"I'm sorry, but I can't do that." And before Derek had time to protest, Ivy gave an unquestionable reasoning. "I know you wouldn't do that too."

Her words had the effect of touching the darkest recesses of his heart. Derek gave her a stealthy look out of the corner of his eye, whereupon he focused his attention back on the road.

"I mean, I hope so⎯" added Ivy.

"This is different." Derek tried to be argumentative. He was never very good with words and could not explain the distinctiveness of the two situations. He was unable to explain why Ivy's life seemed more valuable to him than his own.

"Oh, really?" Ivy questioned, tilting her head. "Because I don't see how."

Derek started to grow irritated by her persistence.

"And drive a little slower, could you?" And just when Derek thought his ex-girlfriend could not have annoyed him more that day, Ivy proved him otherwise. "My father likes it when I get home alive."

What have I done to deserve this?

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author's note:

i have a serious beef with this chapter, but it's probably because pedo kate is here. SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE HER OUT FROM THIS PLANET DKJFKNDD