Hey guys! Happy first day of winter! Enjoy this next chapter and happy holidays!

Ok, so, Ami's telepathy is 'italics with one quote,' while text messages are "double quotes in italics."

Chapter 44

Kaden walked me out to Stiles' car, then disappeared into the coming storm. Scott bundled me into the backseat, then pulled my black flyaway cardigan closed over my shoulders when I shivered. "We have to tell Derek it's his girlfriend," Scott realized as Stiles heaved the door shut against the wind.

"How do we prove it though?" Stiles asked.

Scott sat quiet for a minute, then said, "We need to go to the clinic." Stiles and I stayed in the car while Scott ran inside, and when he came back, he had one of Deaton's jars. There was a tan powder inside and a five-fold knot painted on the lid.

When we go to Derek's, he took one look at the way I leaned on Scott and demanded, "What happened?"

"Your girlfriend kidnapped my father and killed the chorus teacher," Stiles told him.

"Hide. I want to see what she does," Derek suggested, gesturing to the brick wall behind us. I pressed against the cool brick and listened to Ms. Blake run up the stairs, unsurprised when she opened the door.

"Derek? Derek, where are you?" she called.

"Right here," Derek told her, coming out from the bathroom.

"Oh thank god," she ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck before she backed away. "Something happened at the recital at the school. Okay, I need to tell you before you hear it, before you hear any of it from them."

"From who?" Derek asked, but he already knew.

"Scott, Stiles, Ami. They're gonna tell you things. Things you can't believe, okay, you have to trust me. You trust me?" Ms. Blake pressed.

"What is it?" Derek asked.

"Promise you'll listen to me?" she insisted.

"Promise." I rolled my eyes as I heard her kiss him, and

"They're already here aren't they?" Derek's eyes flicked to the wall where we stood, and Scott stepped forward. I followed Scott, letting him keep himself between us and potential danger. "So, they told you it was me? That I'm the one taking people?"

"We told him you're the one killing people."

"Oh, that's right. Committing human sacrifices by cutting their throats. Yeah, I probably do it on my lunch hour so I can get back to teaching high school English the rest of the day. That makes perfect sense."

"Where's my dad?" Stiles demanded with tears on his face.

"How should I know?" Ms. Blake asked him, then turned back to the Alpha. "Derek, tell me you don't believe this."

For all the differences between us in the last year, Derek knew Scott and Stiles. Stiles was crying. Scott was furious. They knew. "Do you know what happened to Stiles' father?"

"No!" Ms. Blake insisted, shaking her head.

"Ask her why she almost killed Lydia," Scott suggested.

"Lydia Martin? I don't know anything about that."

"What do you know?" Derek snapped. He was starting to get angry. No one's heart beat was ticking with lies.

"I know that these boys, for whatever misguided reason, are filling your head with an absurd story. And one they can't prove by the way," Ms. Blake turned back to glare at us

So Scott held up the bottle. "What if we can?" Derek's eyes flicked to me. We hadn't told him about this.

"What is that?" Ms. Blake asked.

"My boss told me it's a poison and a cure," Scott explained. He stepped forward as he unscrewed the lid. "Which means you can use it, and it can be used against you."

"Mistletoe," Ms. Blake realized, and Scott swept his arm out. The motion flung a cloud of mistletoe at Ms. Blake, who raised her hands over her face as if she could keep it away. Inside the dust cloud, she writhed, and I watched her façade flicker. The Darach screamed at Scott and Stiles from the cloud, then resettled on Ms. Blake, gasping as the dust fell away. Derek's horror and betrayal washed over me, forcing me to lean on Stiles as the boys stared. Ms. Blake looked at Derek out of the corner of her eye, then tried to run.

Derek's hand closed around her throat, forcing her backwards, and she gasped, "Derek, wait, wait!" I heard the shrink of Derek's claws emerging and straightened. "You need me!"

"What are you?" Derek growled.

"The only person who can save your sister. Call Peter. Call him!" she insisted.

When Peter answered, Derek went straight to the point. "How's Cora?"

"It's not good. She's in and out of consciousness, vomiting up black blood along with one other alarming substance," my father replied.

"Mistletoe," Derek said.

"How did you know that?" Peter asked, but Derek hung up. I watched his hand tighten on Ms. Blake's throat and stepped up to Scott's side.

"Derek, what are you doing?" Scott asked, arm out to keep me from going any closer.

"Her life; it's in my hands," Ms. Blake told him, and my eyes went wide as my brother lifted my teacher off the ground by her throat.

"Stop, Derek, stop," Stiles pleaded, stepping up to Scott's other side.

"Stilinski, you'll never find him," Ms. Blake gasped from over Derek's head.

"Derek," Scott tried, but Derek's rage was overpowering. Then again, insistent. "Derek!"

"Derek," I snapped, and Ms. Blake hit the ground as Derek backed away.

"That's right. You need me. All of you."

"Hospital, now," Derek ordered, dragging Ms. Blake down the stairs. "Ami, stay with Scott."

Scott went first, still between Ms. Blake and Stiles and I. Stiles followed me, a steadying hand on my back as we ran through the wind and the rain. The storm picked up as we were following Derek's Rav4 and Scott stared out the window. "We'll find your dad, Stiles, once we save Cora."

"I don't know, something feels wrong about this. We proved it to Derek but she still had this look like it didn't matter, you know, like it was all still going according to plan. You saw it, didn't you?"

Scott didn't answer, so I reached forward and pressed my hand to his shoulder. "I saw."

We pulled up at the ER, and Scott helped me out into the downpour as Stiles pulled a bat from the trunk. "What's that?" Scott asked.

"What, you got claws, I got a bat," Stiles explained as we followed Derek and Ms. Blake into the ER.

"Scott! Scott!" Melissa yelled, running down the hall towards us. "What are you doing here, the hospital's evacuating."

"We're here for Cora," Scott told her.

"What, all of you? Why does Stiles have my bat?"

"Mom, just trust me on this. You need to get out of here," Scott warned, shifting sideways just enough for Melissa to see the way Derek was gripping Ms. Blake's arm. "Right now," Scott insisted, and I watched as Melissa understood that this was supernatural.

She nodded, then said, "The building is supposed to be clear in thirty minutes. We've got two ambulances that are coming back, one's ten minutes out, the other's twenty. Cora needs to be on one of those. They'll be picking up in the basement garage."

"Got it," Scott nodded, then turned back to me, his hand under my elbow.

"Okay," Melissa watched us leave, and Scott and I both looked back at her.

'Go, mom, please,' I requested, ignoring the blooming migraine as I reached for her wisteria purple ribbon.

Derek hauled Ms. Blake into the elevator and I leaned against the wall beside Derek. Scott took the opposite corner, leaving Stiles to stand behind Derek with the baseball bat. Ms. Blake shook her head at the human, and I would have laughed if it had been anyone other than the Darach. As we were walking down the hallway to Cora's room, the lights hissed off then returned, though I knew they wouldn't hold out against the storm much longer. Derek stopped as he came across the empty bed where Cora was supposed to be, and we all stared at the puddle of black blood on the floor.

"Derek," Scott said, following the trail of black spots down the hallway with his eyes. We looked up as there was a scuffle behind the door, and then they burst open. Peter slid to a stop on his back at Derek's feet and groaned.

"We got a problem," he told us, looking up at Derek. "Big problem," he added, lifting his head to look back at where 'Voltron wolf' stood blocking the hallway. The twins roared and my head spun with the wave of 'oh shit,' coming off the five in front me.

Derek lowered his head, then lifted it fully shifted. A growl rumbled in his chest, prompting the twins' charge, and Derek ran to meet them with a roar. He hit them low, arms around their waist to force them back, only to get a huge elbow to the back. I screamed as the twins elbowed Derek in the face and Scott growled. He took off, and the twins slammed Derek into the wall to face Scott. The younger of my brothers vaulted off the wall over a stretcher and I finally saw Cora laying on the floor behind the twins. "Get Cora!" I ordered him as I felt Ms. Blake's hand close around my wrist.

"Help me," Stiles told Peter, then ran past the twins.

I heard Stiles' sneakers squeak on the linoleum floor before Scott gasped out past the hand around his throat, "Ethan, Aiden, stop!" Stiles looked up as Peter lifted Cora off the floor, and Scott continued, "You don't know what you're doing!"

"All we want is her!" the twins said, forcing Derek to look back to where Ms. Blake had pulled me into the elevator with her. I met red eyes as the twins lunged for the closing doors.

On the ground floor, Ms. Blake pulled me out behind her and I yanked her back. "Wait!" I hissed as I heard a familiar clicking noise. Deucalion and Kali came around the corner and Ms. Blake backed up in front of the doors. We watched Deucalion uncover the blade on his walking stick, and I barely saw him throw it before it imbedded in the wall where Ms. Blake's head had been. She gasped and I pulled her back into the elevator, hitting the close doors button while she stared down a charging Kali.

The she-wolf got her hands between the doors and I gasped, scrambling into the corner as the Alpha snarled. Claws grew on her finger tips and her eyes went red while she pulled the doors open. Ms. Blake grabbed my hands as her eyes glowed white and slammed them against the doors on either side of Kali. The Alpha flew backwards, propelled by a spiral of wind, and only Deucalion saw my eyes fade from white.

Ms. Blake let us out on the second floor then pinned me to the wall as the lights went out. "Find them. Tell me where Derek and Scott are," she ordered. The ribbons were getting harder and harder to reach and I groaned as I pulled Derek's blue-gray and Scott's cocoa to me.

'What about Ms. Blake? What do you mean, what does that mean, like she's gone? Scott, are you kidding me?' Stiles demanded.

'Quiet!' Derek hissed.

'Me be quiet, me?' Stiles turned on Derek, getting right up in his face as he snapped, 'Are you telling me what to do now when your psychotic, mass murdering girlfriend, the second one you've dated by the way, has got my dad tied up somewhere waiting to be ritually sacrificed.'

'Stiles, they're still out there,' Scott tried, moving up beside the two.

'And, and they want her, right? Which means now we don't have her either. So my dad and Cora and Ami are all dead!' Stiles yelled.

'Not yet. Is she really dying?' Scott asked Peter.

'She's definitely not getting any better,' the former Alpha replied, leaning over an unconscious Cora.

"There has to be something that we can do, we have to help her," Scott insisted.

"You can't," Ms. Blake told them, shoving through the doors behind me. "Only I can. I can save her and I can tell you where Sheriff Stilinski is. But there is a pack of Alphas in this hospital who want me dead. So I'll help you, but only when I'm out of here and safe. Only then."

Derek shoved aside a tool stand as he lunged for Ms. Blake, and Scott stepped in front of him. "Derek, wait!"

"She was trying to get out!" the alpha yelled.

"I was trying to keep from getting killed you can't blame me for that," Ms. Blake protested.

"If you want to show you're one of the good guys, then heal her," Stiles suggested, moving up on Derek's other side.

"Not until I'm safe," the Darach insisted.

"I'd like to volunteer a different method of persuasion. Let's torture her," Peter said over Derek's shoulder.

"Works for me," Derek said, shoving Scott's restraining arm down. Scott pushed back until the intercom crackled to life.

"Um, can I have your attention?" Melissa asked. Scott and I turned and Scott's fear washed over me. "Mr. Deucalion, excuse me, just Deucalion, requests you bring the woman calling herself Jennifer Blake to the ER reception. Do this and everyone else can leave. You have ten minutes."

"He's not gonna hurt her," Ms. Blake said, tightening her hold on my wrist to keep me from going to Scott.

"Shut up," Derek snapped at her.

"He won't," she insisted. I watched her turn from my elder brother to my younger and I realized she knew. "Scott, you know why. Tell them it's true."

"What does she mean?" Derek asked.

"You're not the only one he wants in his pack," Jennifer told him. Peter and Derek stared at Scott and I moved as close as Ms. Blake's grasp would let me. "Deucalion doesn't just want an Alpha pack he wants perfection. That means adding the rarest of Alphas to his ranks."

"A True Alpha," Peter realized.

"What's that?" Stiles asked.

"The kind that doesn't have to steal his power from another. One that can rise by the force of his own will," Peter explained, "Our little Scott."

"It doesn't matter," Scott told Derek, holding the Alpha's eyes. "We still need to get her out of here."

"Scott your mom," Stiles protested.

"My mom said that there's another ambulance coming in twenty minutes and I don't think we've been here that long. So if we can get down to the garage and get to the last ambulance, we can get out of here."

"The twins aren't going to just let us walk out," Peter pointed out.

"I'll distract them," Scott decided.

"You mean fight them," Derek corrected.

"Whatever I have to do," Scott told him.

Derek searched Scott's eyes for a minute, then said, "Then I'll help you."

"I'm sorry, but I'm not going anywhere without you Derek," Ms. Blake said.

"I'll do it," Peter volunteered, "But I'd prefer to be out there with an advantage."

"An advantage, what, you mean like a weapon?" Stiles asked.

"Something better than a baseball bat," Peter retorted.

Ms. Blake finally let me go to make me keep track of the Alphas, so I let myself fold to the floor. The boys were going through the drawers and cabinets of the operating room. "Hey wait, what about these?" Stiles asked, holding up the defibrillators.

"You know how to use those?" Derek asked him.

"Well, no," Stiles admitted.

"Then put them down," Derek suggested.

"Epinephrine?" Scott read, holding up a large syringe.

"That's only going to make them stronger," Derek dismissed.

"How strong?" Peter asked, looking over at the syringe. Derek looked at the syringe, thinking, then jammed the needle into Peter's chest. Peter staggered out the door and I watched from the window as Scott followed. Ethan and Aiden were waiting down the hallway and Peter grinned. "Alright boys, let's rumble."

"Go now," I hissed at Derek as the hallway filled with roars and growls. Derek heaved Cora over his shoulder, then ran with Ms. Blake. Stiles pulled me down the hallway, arm around my waist as I directed Derek to the garage.

"It's still here!" Stiles called on seeing the ambulance, scrambling for the doors. I followed Ms. Blake around the side of the ambulance as Derek and Stiles got Cora onto the stretcher. "Derek, over here," Ms. Blake called. Derek stepped up behind me, staring at the blood pooling around the ambulance driver.

"Julia," Kali called, padding around the front of the ambulance. Her feet were bloody and the keys spun around her finger. Derek reached out and pulled me behind him as Ms. Blake retreated. "It is you."

"You can't beat her on your own," Jennifer told Derek.

"That's why we're going to run," my brother replied. Ms. Blake gasped and took off, pulling me with her as Derek faced down Kali. The she-wolf roared and I heard Derek's boots on the pavement behind us.

Derek turned to run down the hall and Ms. Blake cried, "Wait, take the elevator!" Kali was sprinting down the hallway, so Derek shoved a gurney into her path and scooped me into the elevator. The doors closed just in time for Kali to slam into them and drag her claws across the metal as she backed away. Derek held me to his chest as the lights flickered, and then the elevator stopped.

"The generators," I groaned as the lights went out. Derek set me in the corner before he reached up and pried the doors open. "Would I fit?" I asked, looking up at the gap.

"Maybe, but I'm not letting you go alone," he replied, looking up at the ceiling.

"If you're thinking service hatch, they bolt from the outside so you'd have to break it. All you'd end up doing is creating a lot of noise and telling them exactly where we are," Jennifer pointed out.

"Kali already knows."

"Not necessarily. She saw that we got in but she might not know that we didn't get out."

"Okay, but if I get through then we can go to another floor."

"Or you'd end up fighting them alone in an elevator shaft. They'll rip my head off before you even have a chance to land a punch."

"Then someone needs to get the backup generator running," Derek decided, pulling out his phone. When it buzzed in his hand, he read, "Don't move, on our way." Ms. Blake and Derek sighed and wrapped my arms around my legs.

Derek stood at my feet, my toes pressed against his shoe as he listened at the door. "Anything?" Jennifer asked as he stared at his phone. When he didn't answer, she pressed on, "Derek, I know what you're thinking that I'm using you that everything that's happened between us was a lie, or that I'm evil, a bitch, but I hope you're not thinking the most superficial thought. Is that her real face? The slashed mutilated face revealed by the mistletoe; is that what she really looks like."

"Deucalion said Jennifer Blake isn't your name," I muttered, letting my head fall back against the wall.

"Julia Bacarri. That was my name," she replied.

"I don't care," Derek snapped.

"I guess I should have changed it to something with different first letters. I think I read somewhere that people always picked aliases that are subconsciously derivative of their original name. It's a way of not completely letting go of your identity, since your name is so tied to your sense of self. Do you know what else is? Your face. The one that's supposed to be staring back at you in the mirror. Not some hacked atrocity you can't even recognize."

"I still don't care," Derek told her.

"But I bet you're curious. I bet you want to know what happened," she replied.

"You were an emissary. They tried killing you along with the rest of the pack. Mystery solved," Derek told her, finally looking at her. I had never heard him like this, not with Kate or Jackson or Allison.

"I was Kali's emissary. And I was the one she couldn't kill," she corrected, showing me the memory of lying at Kali's feet. Derek knelt beside me as Ms. Blake explained, "For years the Nemeton's power was virtually gone, like the dying ember of a burned out fire. But a few months earlier something happened that caused that ember to glow a little brighter. Something that gave it a spark of power again, a sacrifice of a virgin."

I groaned as her memory filled my head and gasped out, "Paige."

"You didn't know what you were doing back then, but killing Paige in the root cellar, sacrificing her there, gave power to the Nemeton. You gave it power again. You gave me power, just enough to hold onto life just a little longer. Long enough to be found."

"You know that mistletoe is important to druids, but do you know the myth of why people kiss under mistletoe?" Ms. Blake asked.

"No," Derek admitted.

"It's a Norse myth. Baldur, the son of Odin, was the most beloved by the other gods. So much that they wanted to protect him from all the dangers in the world. His mother, Frigg, took an oath from fire, water, metal, stone, and every living thing that they would never hurt Baldur. And at a gathering they tested him. Stones, arrows and flame were all hurled at him. Nothing worked. But there was one god, who wasn't so enamored with Baldur, the god of mischief, Loki. Loki discovered that Frigg had forgotten to ask mistletoe, a tiny, seemingly harmless plant and completely overlooked. Loki fashioned a dart out of mistletoe and it killed Baldur. Frigg was heartbroken. She decreed that mistletoe would never again be used as a weapon and that she would place a kiss on anyone who passed under it. So now we hang mistletoe underneath our doorways during the holidays so that we will never overlook it again."

"We were the overlooked. The emissaries. It was a mistake Deucalion and the alphas should never have made because I made an oath of my own. From virgins and warriors, from healers, philosophers and guardians to loan me their power so that I could teach these monsters that their monstrous actions would never be overlooked."

"You killed innocent people.

So have you. I know the real color of your eyes Derek and I know what it means. I'm not asking you to save just my life. I'm asking you to save everyone they'll ever hurt again."

"You can't beat them."

"Are you sure about that? Boyd asked you right before he died what happens to a werewolf during a lunar eclipse. You didn't get a chance to tell him, nut you know, don't you? What happens, Derek, during the total lunar eclipse?"

"We lose all our power."

Derek's phone went off as I stared at him, and he pushed away from the wall. Ms. Blake read it over his shoulder, then bent over to pull off her shoes. I grinned at Allison as she appeared at the elevator door and handed Ms. Blake her boots.

We waited, and then I felt the daze coming on. My sharp inhale was lost to the thrum of the power returning and I watched Derek hit the button to go down. "Derek?" Ms. Blake asked as I rose. "Please, look at me," she said, and then Ms. Blake was gone. The Darach shrieked at Derek and struck.

I watched my brother hit the elevator floor and turned white eyes on the Darach. She yanked on the service panel, then leaped through. I jumped, caught the edges, and pulled myself through. Then I climbed the shaft behind her.

"Get the Guardian," the Darach ordered as we reached the roof.

I looked around to see Melissa standing by the power switch and called, "Mom! Over here."

"How did you get up here?" she asked as she approached.

"Climbed the elevator shaft," I replied. By the time she got close enough to see my white eyes, it was too late. The Darach's hands closed around the back of our necks.