In hindsight, perhaps expecting hunters to have common decency had been giving them too much credit. If Laura had still been alive she'd have been berating him to no end. But she wasn't. Otherwise he'd have been in Kansas worrying about next week's math test rather than standing at her grave behind the skeleton of his old house.

Derek had followed the family tradition; there was no headstone to mark the place. Just freshly turned dirt and a small wolfsbane plant poking out of the dirt, it's purple flowers the only spot of colour in the dead area.

In the dark light of the forest the once lively house looked like something from a horror movie. The Hale home had once been full of life; squealing children, birds singing, and bees buzzing in Laura's meticulously maintained garden. Now it was if everything in the forest knew that this was a place of death. The only plant that grew around here was the wolfsbane that snaked around the back of the house where the family had been buried.

Julian hadn't wanted to come here. He'd already grieved, but Deaton had suggested at least going to see the grave.

Something about closure.

Closure, Julian had thought, is somewhat harder when it turns out your uncle was the killer.

He'd gone anyways though (Not that he was entirely sure why), even knowing that there were hunters in the area. It wasn't a full moon and he had assumed that the Argents would let him pay his respects in peace.

His assumption had been wrong.

And now he had a sword through his stomach.

"You know, your uncle tried to build a pack. Rebuild what he lost and get revenge on those he felt took it from him," the old man said. His tone was horrifically casual for someone who was currently stabbing a teenager. "It didn't work out very well for him as I'm sure you've heard."

Breath coming in uneven gasps and involuntary tears rolling down his cheeks, Julian met the man's gaze with a furious glare. "My uncle was a lunatic and a murderer," he gasped out. The words were filled with the coppery taste of the blood in his mouth. "You should know something about what that's like, right?"

Bringing up Kate Argent had been a mistake.

Rather than exploding, the woman's father simply smiled and twisted the blade ever so slightly, the small movement sent new waves of tearing, ripping pain through Julian that turned his knees to jelly. The teen's teeth clamped down hard on his tongue in an effort to keep himself from crying out; he wasn't going to give the bastard the satisfaction of hearing him scream. Instead, he gave the man a bloodied smile. "Hit a nerve there?"

One of the other hunters, a tall, thin man with greying hair and icy eyes, looked briefly uncomfortable. "What Kate did-" he began.

"No, please. Tell me why burning us while we slept was justified," Julian spat out. Gesturing at the sword through his stomach, he continued, "I'm not exactly going anywhere."

The hunter didn't have respond. Something flickered across his eyes and he shifted his grip on the shotgun in his hands, but he remained silent.

As soon as Gerard Argent had approached, Julian had weighed his options and decided that not fighting back was, unfortunately, the best option. Running would only lead to getting shot and fighting back would lead to the same result. Besides, trained or not, taking on more than one opponent was idiotic as anything other than a last resort.

They weren't going to kill him. At least not tonight. Their behaviour was that of those who wanted to intimidate, not kill. While being stabbed was excruciatingly painful, the blade was clean of wolfsbane, and Gerard had made sure that he wouldn't bleed out before he could heal.

"So you just happen to arrive in Beacon Hills as Derek Hale begins to build a pack?" Gerard asked. "Right after you have a new Alpha? That's quite a coincidence, wouldn't you say?"

"I didn't know," Julian insisted, doing his best to keep his voice even. "Laura changed my legal guardian in her will to our old pack emissary, he still lives here. I just came here to see her grave." His gaze flicked momentarily over to the white lilies he'd dropped on the freshly turned dirt.

"Nothing to do with recent events?"

"If you're talking about my uncle ripping my sister in half? Then yes," he growled out.

Gerard studied him intently for a moment, his cold, soulless eyes boring into the teen's before smiling.

"Gerard." The voice was that of the hunter who had spoken up before. There was a disapproving look in his gaze as he spoke to the group's leader. "This isn't necessary. The code-"

"The code means nothing anymore," Gerard sneered. "Not after what they did to Kate." This time the twist of the sword was involuntary but it sent twisting, white hot pain through Julian all the same. If it hadn't been for the blade holding him up, he'd have collapsed.

"He's sixteen and he hasn't killed anyone. You saw his eyes. We don't kill innocents," the younger man insisted before deciding to appeal to the more practical side of the white-haired man. There certainly wasn't a human side to worry about. "If you kill him then we'll start a war. And now is not the time." There was more to it than that, but whatever it was, the younger man didn't want to say anything in front of Julian.

Gerard paused, his dark unsympathetic eyes not wavering from the watering grey-green ones. Time seemed to stretch on for an eternity before he withdrew the blade. Julian collapsed to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Falling forwards onto his knees, his hands went to his stomach as he reflexively curled in on himself. Body shuddering uncontrollably, he forced himself to try and even out his breathing as new waves of pain rolled through his body.

"A quick reminder, Mr. Hale." Gerard crouched down, grabbing the teen by chin and forcing him to meet his cold black stare. "Make sure your brother is well aware of the consequences of his actions, for both him and others. Otherwise our next talk may not be so pleasant."

Eyes flickering between gold and grey, Julian spat out, "Bite me." A few specks of red appeared on the old man's face as it contorted into a small sneer.

Casually standing up, Gerard used his boot to push Julian onto his back before setting the boot against the stab wound and pressing down. Letting out a strangled cry of agonized pain, Julian's eyes flared gold before they dulled rapidly and the world rapidly began to darken at the edges.

Abruptly, the boot was gone. Julian gasped for air like a fish out of water, hacking as the blood ran down the back of his throat. The world was blurred from the pain and the tears in his eyes, gradually coming back into focus as he blinked and took in gulps of air.

Turning his head as he got control over his breathing, he caught sight of the hunters walking back off into the darkness of the forest. They walked with the arrogance and contempt he'd come to expect from their kind; leaving him lying next to the lilies he'd brought, the crumpled flowers crushed under the feet of one of the hunters.

None of them looked back.

Waiting until their footsteps had faded, Julian stayed curled on the cold, unforgiving ground rocking slightly back and forth trying to wait for the worst of the pain to pass. He could feel his insides trying to knit themselves back together from the middle out to the exit wounds.

It struck him that he was bleeding out all over his family's graves. Almost laughing, he wondered if that counted as irony. It didn't technically, he supposed, but it was still funny in some twisted fashion.

He wasn't sure how long he'd lain there in the darkening forest before he shakily pulled his phone out of the pocket of his now-ruined coat. Dialing Deaton's number with unsteady fingers, Julian tried to ignore the sticky blood on the buttons as he held his red-stained hand to his ear.

After the click of the phone being picked up sounded, Julian felt a sense of quiet relief. "Deaton, it's Julian," he said, glancing briefly down at the wound in his stomach. "I may need a ride. And some stitches."

"You need to be careful," Deaton said seriously. "This isn't like the city where you can hide in the crowds. The Argents are on a warpath and they don't care who gets in their way. Or, for that matter, who doesn't. You've been living with me for all of a week and you've already nearly gotten yourself killed."

"I was careful," Julian said defensively, wincing as the vet pulled the sutures tight. He was trying not to look at the needle passing through his skin while simultaneously not looking at the mauled body on the examination table. "Okay, maybe not as careful as I could have been, but I didn't think that it would be this bad."

"The sword nicked your intestines," Deaton said. "Your body needs to heal inside first, and that will take some time. You were lucky, Julian. If this was any worse…"

"I know," Julian said softly, his tone turning serious. "Thanks."

Deaton gave him a sad smile as he pulled the needle through the flesh again. "Have you told Derek about what happened yet?"

"No. Asshole didn't answer any of my calls or the court's before. Why would he now?" Julian snapped with more venom than he'd intended.

"Maybe he didn't get the message," Deaton reasoned in an attempt to be supportive.

"Of course. I'm sure he just didn't want to accept the long distance charge," Julian said, watching as the emissary tied the sutures shut. The worst of the pain had faded to a dull ache, likely due to the medication Deaton had given him rather than his lackluster healing ability.

Sighing, Deaton peeled off his gloves. "The bag you left in the car is still in there. There should be some clean clothes in it. Make it quick. The Argents are going to be here soon. They gave me a time frame and they'll plan on sticking to it."

Wincing as he eased himself up off of the counter, the teen slowly made his way out of the clinic to the car outside. The sun had set several hours earlier and the main source of light was coming from the small lamp above the clinic door, casting shadows around the empty parking lot.

Things hadn't changed much at the clinic since he'd last been here nearly seven years ago. Most of his memories of the town were blurry. Foggy recollections of the elementary school, library, clinic and his home.

All that was left of the latter was the broken, blackened structures of a building that should have been condemned years ago. Bones with nothing to hold up. Julian hadn't been able to bring himself to actually enter the building. He could blame it on the structural instability of the house but the truth was he'd made it up the steps to the door before he'd frozen at the door.

Homecomings weren't supposed to feel like that. Like your heart was being ripped apart.

They weren't supposed to hurt more than being impaled.

Shaking his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts, Julian focused instead on painfully removing his jacket, setting the blood-soaked fabric in the back of the car before beginning to dig through his go-bag.

Laura had always insisted on being prepared; there had been several different, fully-stocked backpacks scattered around in case hunters had found them. His sister had been one of the bravest people he'd ever met, but she was still human and she had never stopped looking over her shoulder. Nor, for that matter, had he. The burns had healed but the scars never had. It hadn't been unusual for her to wake up in the middle of the night to check on him, trying to reassure herself that she'd just imagined the smell of smoke or that his muffled crying was just another nightmare.

The preparedness paid off, just as it had four years ago, and Julian found a maroon t-shirt and black pullover stuffed underneath several granola bars that Laura had bought six months earlier.

Smiling sadly at the memory of his older sister trying to choke down the craisin filled bars she had bought in an effort to be healthier, he grabbed one of the bars and shut the door of the car.

He stared at his reflection in the window in shock for a moment, the smile replaced by wide eyes before he remembered that, in all fairness, he had been stabbed. The pallor of his skin made his black hair look even darker than usual, and his lips were cracked with dried blood that was smeared across his cheek and chin. His eyes were still tinged pink around the edges and several strands of his hair were matted and clumped together with a combination of sweat, dirt and blood. It looked like he'd gotten dressed up as a zombie for Halloween.

The sound of someone approaching brought his attention off of his reflection and he stiffened, his grip on the fabric tightening as his eyes rapidly scanned the area.

They were alone from what he could hear, something hunters were usually smart enough to avoid, but Julian kept himself behind the car all the same. Even if it was only one person, they could be armed and he was already injured.

Peeking over the hood of the car, Julian watched the figure step into the yellow light of the clinic. About Julian's age, he was tall with short, slightly wavy dark hair and a deep, even tan. One of his hands was clasped over his side, blood leaking through his fingers, the coppery scent cutting through the clear night air.

"Hey, are you alright?" Julian called over, stepping out from behind the car.

The other teen turned his head towards him to reveal a pained expression.

"Deaton's in here," Julian told him. He was ninety percent sure that this was the kid that Peter had turned. The age fit and Satomi's pack was on the over side of town, if they were even still around.

The guy stared at him for a moment, as though debating whether Julian was friend or foe. His gaze went to the mess of blood on Julian's shirt and he took a step back, body poising for an attack. Julian couldn't really blame him. He looked awful and Deaton had mentioned that people did occasionally break into the clinic with the intent of stealing drugs.

Eyes flaring gold, Julian gave him an expectant look. "Come on."

Surprise and relief flashed across the other teen's face and he hurried towards the clinic entry, Julian falling in step behind him.

"Did you find something that fits?" Deaton looked up to see the new teen clutching his side. "Did the Argents do this?" he demanded.

"Derek," the boy hissed out through clenched teeth. "I went to stop him from turning Boyd but I was too late."

At the mention of his brother's name, Julian scowled. Something that didn't go unnoticed by the newest patient.

"You know Derek?" The teen's tone wasn't suspicious, rather honestly curious.

After rummaging through the cupboard for a moment, Deaton seized a bottle. "Scott, this is Julian Hale. He'll be staying with me for the foreseeable future. Julian, this is Scott. He works part time at the clinic so you'll be seeing him around."

"What's that?" Scott asked, momentarily distracted as Deaton unscrewed the cap and soaked a cotton ball in it.

"Rubbing alcohol," Deaton answered. "You don't want it to get infected do you? Julian, grab some gauze out of the drawer on the right please."

Handing the vet the gauze, Julian watched as Deaton began to hurriedly tape the gauze over the wound. "You'll heal the same, just not as quickly because of Derek."

"Wounds from an Alpha tend to be like that," Julian explained as he studied the gash. "It'll hurt but it doesn't seem like he hit anything too important."

"How do you know all this? Actually, how do you know anything?" Scott demanded, his brown eyes darting between Deaton and Julian.

"Born wolf," Julian answered. "I grew up with this."

"In my case that is a longer story," Deaton said evasively. "What I can tell you is that I know about your kind. People like you and Julian I can help but this…" He gestured to the body on the table behind him. "This is something different."

"Wait, it wasn't one of us?" Julian asked. With the mention of the Argents and their behaviour, he'd assumed that it was a werewolf gone rogue. Deaton had been weirdly cryptic about the whole thing last night, but Julian had figured that was because the vet hadn't wanted to stress him out when he was about to start school. "What the hell did that then?"

Gaze lingering on the terrible gashes in the corpse, Scott grimaced. "It's reptilian and it's fast. I was hoping that you'd know something."

Deaton was already shaking his head. "No, but the Argents will. And this is the crucial part: they'll have some kind of record or book. It'll have descriptions, histories, notations. All the things they've discovered."

"All the things? How many different things are there?"

Scott didn't get his answer. The bell at the front had rung. The Argents had arrived.

"Get in the side room," Deaton ordered in a lowered voice. "Don't make a sound."

"But-" Scott started. Seizing him by the arm, Julian dragged him into the room and closed the door as quietly as he could, before ducking down out of view of the window. Pressing his ear to the door, Julian looked at Scott who had taken up a position across from him, standing next to the door so that he could peer through the window.

"I'm starting to think I need to buy a more prominent closed sign," Deaton said, his tone conversational.

"Hello, Alan." Julian felt his breath hitch. The voice was that of the man who had run him through with a sword not an hour earlier. "It's been a while. Last I heard, you had retired," the man continued.

"Last I heard you followed a code of conduct," Deaton retorted evenly.

A new speaker joined in. "If you haven't noticed, this body is one of ours." The man who had stood up to Gerard.

"I did. I also noticed the gunpowder residue on his fingertips. And that my charge came home with a stab wound." Scott's gaze flicked briefly over to Julian who was still wearing his blood-soaked shirt. "So don't assume I'll be swayed by your philosophy just because I'll answer a few questions." There was an edge to Deaton's tone now.

"He was only twenty-four."

Anger twisted in Julian's stomach and he dug his nails into his palms. The Argents didn't get to play that card after Kate; Cora had been eleven. Luke had been three. There was no justification for that. He had lost everyone because of the Argents, yet they had the gall to act as though they were the defenders. The ones who protected the innocent. Heroes fighting monsters. Julian wondered if they knew that the horror stories werewolves told were of their kind.

"Killers come in all ages," Deaton pointed out darkly.

"All ages, sizes and shapes," Gerard said. "It's the last one that concerns us."

"How about you tell us what you found." The other hunter's tone made it clear that this was not a request.

There was a pause before Deaton spoke again. "See this cut? Precise, almost surgical. But this isn't the wound that killed him. This had a more… interesting purpose."

"Relating to the spine?" Gerard guessed.

"That's right. Whatever made this cut sliced with a paralytic toxin potent enough to disable all motor functions. These are the cause of death. Notice the patterns on each side?" Julian frowned thoughtfully. He couldn't remember any shape shifters with the capability to create a toxin, let alone a paralytic one. He could foggily recall a mention of certain shifters having saliva that could be toxic to humans but Julian was fairly sure that Peter had been teasing Derek about his new girlfriend.

"Five for each finger," the unnamed hunter realized.

"Each claw, Gerard corrected.

Seeming to ignore the exchange, Deaton continued. "As you can see, it dug in and slashed upward eviscerating the lungs and slicing through the bones of the ribcage with ease."

"Have you seen anything like this before?" the unnamed hunter asked quietly.

"No."

"Any idea at all of what killed him?"

"No, but I can tell you its fast, remarkably strong and has the capacity to render its victims essentially helpless in seconds."

"If you're saying we should be cautious, we get it."

Deaton nearly laughed judging by his tone before he went on in careful, precise detail. "I'm saying you should be afraid. Be very afraid. Because in the natural world the predators with paralytic toxins use them to catch and eat their prey. This prey wasn't eaten. That means whatever killed him only wanted to kill him. In fact, killing may be its only purpose."

"We appreciate the warning," Gerard said with an almost amused tone. "It was nice seeing you, Alan."

Opening up his eyes, Julian stayed curled up next to the door until the sound of boots faded and the voices now emanated from the entry to the clinic.

As he started to get up a sharp stab of pain lanced through his side. Gritting his teeth together he took a pained breath and forced himself upright, a vice-like grip on the nearby counter. It was best to stay hidden a little while longer. Until Deaton returned with an all-clear, one of the hunters could still come back.

Scott hadn't moved from his position next to the window, a thoughtful expression on his face as he stared into the room. He appeared to be lost in thought rather than waiting for the hunters to leave though.

"You're the kid that Peter bit, aren't you?" Julian studied him curiously. He'd known that Peter had turned a teenager but he'd been picturing a hulking mass of testosterone or a burgeoning murderer.

"Yeah," Scott said quietly, turning to face Julian, his warm brown eyes studying the other teen's face. Julian had no doubt that Scott was comparing him to Derek. The Hale family resemblance was there; the jet black hair, sharp cheekbones and thick eyebrows. Even though Julian had gotten grandmother's almond-shaped, green-grey eyes and wiry figure, and living in Kansas for the past six years had left him with a light accent, it was still quite obvious that he was related to Derek.

"Sorry, man. That must have sucked," Julian sympathised as he leaned back against the wall, waiting for the stabbing pain to pass.

"You aren't going to tell me 'the bite is a gift'?" Scott asked, adopting a gruff tone and furrowing his brow. That was pretty much all that was necessary for a decent Derek impression.

Julian scoffed. "Out of all the people to pull the 'the bite is a gift' crap it's Derek?" Letting his head loll back against the wall, he laughed humourlessly. "That's rich."

Confused, Scott opened his mouth to ask a question but Julian was already shaking his head. "Don't worry about it," he told Scott, still grinning dryly as he opened the door to reveal a frustrated-looking Deaton.

"I get the impression that Gerard knows more than he's letting on," the vet stated. "It's imperative that you find that record," he told Scott. "Gerard is always several steps ahead; it doesn't help to start falling behind."

"You two know each other?" Julian asked as he carefully removing the blood-stained t-shirt he'd been wearing and dumped it in the trash. Even if he had been able to get the blood out there was still a large hole in it, and deep down Julian didn't care enough to save the shirt that he'd been viciously stabbed in.

"That too is a long story."

"Do you have a short version?" Scott quipped with a lopsided grin.

"The abridged edition?" Julian remarked with a strained smile as he began to pull the maroon coloured shirt over his head, the movement pulling at the stitches in his abdomen.

Noting the faint hiss of pain, "Are you alright?" Scott asked. The genuine concern from someone Julian had known for all of ten minutes was unexpected. Of all the people Peter could have picked to help him murder people (who, for the most part, deserved it) he had picked Scott. So far, Julian had no idea why. The guy seemed almost painfully good.

"I'll heal," he responded as he pulled his shirt down. "Probably quicker than you will. And I'm definitely better off than that guy," he added, nodding at the body still lying on the examination table and turning to Deaton. "You said that whatever did this just wants to kill, could it not have been self-defence?" He looked pointedly down at where he'd been stabbed. "The hunters around here aren't exactly welcoming."

"This isn't the first victim," Deaton responded. "Whatever did this also killed Mr. Lahey, the father of one of your brother's betas. And whatever it is will continue killing unless it is stopped. The book should help," he added, directing the last bit at Scott who nodded distractedly as he stared at the time on his phone.

"I've got to go," the teen said, jamming his phone into his pocket. "I'll get the book. Thanks for the help Deaton, nice to meet you Julian," he added as he raced out the door.

"I'll see you tomorrow for work!" Deaton called after him.

Watching him go, Julian turned to Deaton with a raised eyebrow. "Laura told me that you were staying out of this stuff. This doesn't really seem like 'staying out of it.'"

"I prefer to think of this as 'providing a guiding hand.'" Deaton smiled slightly. "And Scott and his friends are more capable than you'd think."

"They'd have to be if you're trusting them to take care of a 'born killer' as you put it."

"They don't have to do it alone."

Julian rolled his eyes. "Your subtlety is truly a gift to behold. You should stick to 'annoyingly cryptic.'"

"Making friends is important and I think you'd get along with them. Besides, you could use some people who know about what really happened," Deaton said seriously. "And they could use your help."

"I'll think about it," Julian lied. He had made the decision before he'd come here to stay out of this crap. He was leaving the town as soon as he could, and just like before, he had no plans on looking back.