long lost

He didn’t look away when he caught his own gaze in a reflection anymore. Months before it had been a skitter away, wanting to look anywhere but at the face that was only his on the surface. What had been underneath, revealed in flashes of other eyes, other faces, hadn’t been him. That thing had been created by things bent on corruption. A twisted form that had struggled and squirmed and had ultimately lost out to the bite of something else. Derek’s lips pursed faintly, green eyes lingering on that watery reflection a moment longer. He was still no closer to finding out who had taken him or handed him over to the Dread Doctors or where they were, but for now that pitiful, despised thing was vanquished, sent down into the depths of his brain where it could only escape to the nightmares that racked him on occasion.

Tearing his gaze away from his reflection Derek pushed through the first set of double doors. Another set lay ahead, the exit from the office building that squatted on one side of the square just ahead of him. There wasn’t some do over button for his brain the same way there had been for his body. You lived with it, you shoved it aside, hoped that eventually the screams that tore out of your throat, the cold sweats, the ragged mental wounds those claws in your subconscious tore open would fade away. They had after the fire, they had after Laura’s death and the decimation of the pack he’d built for himself. They would again.

Derek raised a hand in acknowledgement of the guard who’d let him in and guided him up to the lawyer’s office an hour earlier. All done, the retainer handed over and paperwork started to get what he needed to transferred from Beacon Hills. With Cora and Erica and the others here, there was nothing to go back for now. It had been a town of nightmares, the eventual location for the downfall of a family who had helped to keep the town in balance for decades. Now what remained of the Hales were scattered here, picking up the shards of what was left, or in Peter’s case, probably scrabbling to find some way of regaining the former glory and power.

Lifting a hand, he pushed the door open, stepped out onto the sidewalk. He’d had the power, had stripped it from Peter in the foolish hope of rebuilding the pack, doing what his uncle hadn’t been able to. Thanks to Jennifer Blake and the Alpha pack all that had been taken from him. In the end the choice had been between keeping that spark and keeping Cora alive and really, that had been no choice.

Frown cutting deep he turned, went to stalk to Campbell’s to burn the memories of what might have been from his mind. As if he’d asked for it with the brooding introspection he ran straight into someone. Or she ran into him. Either way she was small enough to take the brunt of the hit. She didn’t go down but everything in her hands did. The kaleidoscope of photos that fluttered down, the flap of printed documents. Not all that different to the ones rolled and shoved into the inside pocket of his jacket.

The curse that was spat out of her mouth had Derek’s brow’s rising. He squatted next to her, gathering up one of the documents before he reached for the photo that had fallen. ”That makes two of us. Part of this is on me, I wasn’t…” Paying attention. The words trailed off in his head, his frowned deepening as he rested two fingers lightly on the photo. One beneath what was obviously the woman he’d crashed into … the other. ”We’re both OK and we’ve got both your … family? Your sisters?” There was a resemblance there between them, one that he searched for in her face as he slowly picked up the photo of Jennifer Blake – Julia Baccari – the darach who’d duped him in the name of vengeance. Fool the idiot Alpha into beginning to fall in love with you and it was a cake walk to pit him against the pack you wanted to dead. It didn’t matter how many were killed as long as you got what you wanted.

Tagged: DESTINY BACCARI * Word Count: 725

He’d have bolted from this too – the way he had done the woman on the street when he’d taken on her brother’s face. The fight or flight response squarely in the court of flight these days. If Scott’s bite hadn’t worked. The skin the Alpha’s fangs had torn into was smooth and golden again, no sign of what had been done to him to save him from a twisted, miserable experience. It shifted easily beneath the cover of the black cotton as he bent to help the woman pick up what had been scattered. The scars might have still existed below, to rise to the surface in nightmares and those tense conversations as they tried to pick apart the trail to the Dread Doctors – who it seemed were still conducting their experiments in town – but during the day it was all smooth and he could be the Derek he’d been getting back to before he’d been snatched.

Polite Derek, all civil smiles as he lightly gathered together those photos. Suspicious Derek as he slid one out from beneath the others and felt the world under his feet shift. He cleared his throat, felt the lump reassert itself almost immediately. Speak of the devil, even think of her, and she shall appear. He could almost feel her fingers close over his shoulders, rubbing, encouraging, as he forced his mouth to twitch. ”You might not’ve been this time if I’d been watching where I was going. I wasn’t. I really am sorry.” Sorry that he couldn’t have been a couple minutes more in the office.

Coincidences have never been just that with Jennifer Blake – Julia Baccari – she’d manipulated everything. Suckered in, he’d opened himself up to her and allowed her to drag him deeper with the pack that would’ve given anything to tear her apart. In the end it hadn’t been Deucalion or his people who’d done it – maybe it hadn’t been any of them. Jennifer had dragged herself away, could’ve been licking her wounds somewhere again …

With her sisters.

Derek’s chest went tight as he watched her not the photo. She tapped her finger on a girl in the photo, an identical twin – or at least they’d seemed close enough to it in the snatched glimpse he got of the photo. Julia. There was no mistaking it, the photo was old but it wasn’t old enough to hide the face of the woman he’d fallen for. She’d glamoured herself to disguise herself from Deucalion and his people at times but it was her.

He pushed to his feet slowly, holding the last of the photos out to her without crushing them in an iron grip – her throat in the biting grip of the other hand. ”Looks like a nice family,” he managed tightly. ”That all about them?” Derek frowned, glancing down at the paperwork gathered up with those photos. Dark brows almost beetled together into one fierce line. ”You tell me you’re here to see the lawyer upstairs and I’m gonna think you’re stalking me.” Words delivered with a thin veneer of wry humour. They nearly stuck in his throat though as he stared into big blue eyes. His own were pale, even in a face that felt like it had partly drained of colour. ”You said her name was Julia? Not … Jennifer?” Suspicion laid on thick now. You didn’t gather things like that together unless you were looking. Like when Sheriff Stilinski had been trying to track Laura, before they’d stumbled on her body – part of her. That shift under his skin sent a growl vibrating low under the bow of his ribs.

Had Jennifer come back? Was she dead and waiting in a shallow grave somewhere in Beacon Hills? Did he honestly want to know?

No. Not even if it started to make some sense of what had happened to him. He flexed his hand, almost imagining Jennifer’s grip on it, and her continued grip on his life even after she was meant to be gone.

Tagged: DESTINY BACCARI * Word Count: 669

Paranoia never hit when he needed it to. He hadn’t seen what was coming when Peter had talked him into getting Paige turned, although the poison dripping from his uncle’s lips should’ve been obvious enough. He hadn’t seen through Kate or Jennifer, or even Alix, all too readily accepting the pretty picture they painted for him. It backed off into a corner then, the little voice that whispered in his ear about others laughing inaudibly somewhere deeper as Derek found his life circling the drain. Fate being the bitch she seemed to exist to be.

That laugh was sharp enough now as he looked down at what paranoia should’ve warned him was coming. That same mocking tone that left the hair on the back of his neck standing up. Kate had been the one to destroy all records of his own family. Almost everything that had been in the house going up in smoke with almost everybody he’d cared about. No photos left of little Derek’s third birthday or those photos of Cora as a baby, all kinds of goofy until she’d grown into those fierce scowls. Certificates turned to ash. Undoubtedly the sheriff could’ve dug some official records up from the archives if he cared to but the days of Sheriff Stilinski turning over every stone with his family was long gone. Stilinski wasn’t even Sheriff anymore, not here in Mystic Falls. Would Forbes have had a file on the Baccaris the same way?

Sea glass eyes ticked from the photo back up to her face at the sound she made at his comment. It tailed off into a sigh, a story behind that shift that would do him no good but that he needed to hear for his own sanity at least. There was no desire there to spend the next month with an itch between his shoulder blades, imagining Jennifer Blake – Julia Baccari – dragging herself back out of whatever hole she’d ended up in afterwards to turn up here like everyone and everything else from Mystic Falls.

Derek forced his lips to twitch faintly as she took what he held out to her. All of Jennifer’s history there, ripe for whoever would want to take some sort of vengeance out on the people who’d produced her. Tit for tat in a world that was practically built on it. ”All the important stuff. Lucky none of it got away.” It had survived intact. Unlike her sister. Derek felt his shoulders tense as he tipped his head back towards the building. ”There’s at least a couple of lawyer’s offices in there.” Along with at least a dozen other offices. Mystic Falls’ little white collar community. Only it seemed that the collars she was after were brown instead. This town’s sheriff.

Tilting his head, Derek looked past her. Stilinski still probably could’ve pulled something up if he asked but there was no way he was extending the invitation now and burying himself neck deep in whatever trouble Jennifer had tried to wade out of. He slipped his hands into the pockets of his jeans, shoulders hunching beneath the cover of cotton and leather. ”You’re a long way from home.” That made the both of them and somehow they’d both ended up here. Coincidences that big just didn’t happen. ”Maybe they’ll turn something up.” A knot in his throat. There wouldn’t have been much on paper, nothing of what had truly happened at the hospital when the Alpha pack had tried to put a stop to her once and for all. Lies and bullshit. All that they could use to screen the truth.

Seeing the frown start to crease her brow, Derek went to take a step back, one hand going up. Like he was about to brush this off. She had her photos and certificates back, it was just a matter of mistaken identity now. Only that vague smile he gave her did nothing to ward her off. The woman was stepping forward, holding up the photo of Jennifer, her and the twin sister. ”She didn’t tell me anything,” he said gruffly, his throat tight. ”I knew a woman named Jennifer Blake. She looked a little like your sister but it wasn’t her. Obviously. You said it yourself, her name’s Julia. You ask for a Sheriff Forbes when you get there, she’ll see you right on your search.” Jaw tight, Derek stared at Jennifer as he took another step back. That was a truth the sister really didn’t want to start to unpick. You were better off not knowing it, being able to wrap yourself up tight in the lies to protect yourself from what would really hurt.

Tagged: DESTINY BACCARI * Word Count: 778

He’d told too much already. The fact that he was losing count of how many times he’d seen hope flare in somebody because of something he’d said, because he’d taken something lost of theirs and had drawn it into himself, was a bad sign. He didn’t want to see another person crumbled when the truth came out. Derek knew he couldn’t give her what she needed any more than he’d been able to bring the woman’s brother back months ago. The Dread Doctors had screwed him up, turned him into something else until Scott had turned him back, but their gifts hadn’t included a magic wand.

Eyeing her apologetically, Derek tried to back out. Too little, too late, but there was no way he was going to tell her that the sister she was looking for, the one who looked so innocent in that photograph, had slaughtered multiple people to get her revenge on the Alpha who’d tried to kill her. He felt his chest go tight, the smile he’d pasted on growing brittle as he averted his eyes from the photo. It was still too easy to feel Jennifer’s hands on his skin when he closed his eyes. Her voice soft, her touch gentle, healing.

God.

Derek’s head dipped slightly, his eyes shutting for a moment so he wouldn’t have to look. He’d almost not believed them, despite everything, but Scott had never lied to him. A true Alpha dangling the truth in front of his nose. This woman dangling more of it now.

She was frowning when he opened his eyes again. Disappointment instead of hope, frustrated maybe, definitely not believing a word out of his mouth. Derek swallowed hard, gesturing vaguely away towards town. ”I’ve got another appointment. I’m sorry I …” I didn’t save her life instead of letting others deal with her? I’m sorry I’m lying to your face? I have to run. He wanted to but then the tears started to build in her eyes.

Letting out a long breath, Derek forced himself to frown, trying to stare at the other girls in the photo. Her eyes had filled when he looked up and it was enough to lodge that fist higher into his diaphragm. ”People change more than you think they could,” he said tightly. ”Dark hair, brown eyes. There are probably thousands of girls in Virginia who look alike.” And he could’ve said he didn’t know any of them but one little slip and he’d opened a door that was supposed to stay locked tight shut now.

Why go and ask when she already had him? One painful burst of the truth and he could put an end to her wondering forever but he couldn’t do it. Shit. Dark brows furrowed deep that the lines practically cut to the bone. Scowling. Stiles would’ve told her not to pay any attention to it but he was hoping he could get her backing off before something came out anyway. Derek raked his teeth over his lower lip before he gestured somewhere out west. ”It’s obvious to me. That girl’s not the woman I knew.” That was the truth. Whatever Deucalion and his people had done to Julia Baccari had killed the girl this woman knew. What had survived, had come back, was scarred in more ways than the physical. ”California. Beacon Hills. She’s not there anymore though and no, I don’t know where Jennifer went to afterwards. I don’t know anything else. If you want to throw away your time chasing a ghost … go there.” Ghost wasn’t wrong. The chances that Jennifer had survived what had been done to her again were slim to none.

Tagged: DESTINY BACCARI * Word Count: 612