(Note: Green text indicates a narrator's twist on the story as we see it, indicated in purple.)

A boy runs through the Beacon Hills Preserve at night. It's Derek Hale as a teenager. He falls down a slope and lands near a Sonic Emitter that some hunters have placed.  As he runs, he encounters another emitter and changes direction. He runs into another boy in the woods who asks him if he's a Hale. Before Derek can reply, a hunter's arrow pierces the boy's throat, and he falls down dead.  The hunter aims at Derek, but Derek doesn't run. Peter catches the arrow before it hits Derek in the chest, and together they run.

 

Gerard Argent is leading the group of hunters. Chris is with him. Gerard asks if the boy they shot is the one they were after. Chris confirms that he killed two hunters. Chris orders his Red Shirts to find Peter and Derek and bring them back alive. He tells them to follow the Code. 

 

The hunters scour the forest, but they fail to find a root cellar that's been built around the nemeton. 

 

Cora has been narrating this tale. She says that Peter and Derek were in the cellar for two days. She says that hiding and waiting is what they were taught to do when hunters find them. Present day, she stares out the window of Derek's loft at the rain, which slowly washes the alpha pack symbol away.

 

Stiles asks her if two days is standard or if Derek can be expected to be gone for longer. Cora asks Stiles why he cares. Stiles explains that over the last few weeks Scott tried to kill himself, Deaton nearly got ritually sacrificed, a girl that he's known since he was 3 was ritually sacrificed, Boyd was killed by alphas... he asks her if she wants him to keep going. Cora asks if Stiles thinks Derek can do anything about any of these things, and Stiles replies that since everyone seems to be after Derek maybe he's the one who should be doing something about it. 

 

Cora tells him that there's something different about Derek now. "He wasn't like this when I knew him." Stiles asks what Derek was like, and Peter comes down the spiral staircase of the loft. "A lot like Scott, actually." He further claims that Derek was a lot like most teenagers, unbearably romantic, profoundly narcississtic, tolerable really only to other teenagers.  Stiles asks what changed him. Peter tells him that it was a girl, and Stiles in incredulous that Derek "is the way he is" because he heart broken. 

 

Peter asks Stiles if he knows why some Werewolf have blue eyes. Stiles admits that he always thought it was a genetics thing. "If you want to know what changed Derek, you need to know what changed the color of his eyes."

 

Meanwhile, Gerard gets a visit from Scott and Allison. He turns around in his wheelchair and rolls up his sleeve, asking Scott to give an old man something for his pain. Allison tells Scott that he doesn't have to do this, but it's Gerard price for telling them what they want to know. Scott grips hands with Gerard and starts siphoning away his pain. The pain is intense enough for Scott that his eyes glow.

 

A girl sets a metronome going and starts playing the cello.  She's only just begun practicing when she hears a basketball being bounced outside in the school hallway. She tries a second time to play, but the noise interrupts her, so she goes out and challenges the boys. "Hey, do you guys mind?" One of the boys is Derek. She tells them that she's trying to practice. He asks her how she knows they're not trying to practice too. She replies that basketball practice takes place in the gym, and Derek tells her that basketball practice takes place anywhere you have a basketball. He busts out with a few dribbling moves and approaches her. She turns away in annoyance, but Derek tells her that if she can get the ball away from him, maybe he'll stop.

 

She takes his challenge and tries to get the ball. Eventually, he shows off too much and she just walks away. His friends make fun of him and call him "Lover Boy." Derek looks distressed that he scared her away instead of impressing her. He follows her to the music room and apologizes. She blows him off, but he asks for her name. She tells him that she's trying to practice, and he agrees to leave after she tells him her name. She challenges him back, agreeing to tell him if he can play one instrument in the room.

 

Derek looks over his choices on the shelf and then comes back with his selection hidden behind his back. Derek chose the triangle. She smirks and tells him her name is Paige. She asks him to leave so she can practice. He starts to introduce himself, but she interrupts and tells him that she knows who he is. 

 

In the present, Gerard is interested to learn that there was a third healer sacrifice after Scott saved Deaton. Gerard points out that it's almost like Deaton was expected to survive, since the sacrifice happened so quickly. Gerard posits that Deaton is the Darach. Scott is adamant that Deaton would never let anyone innocent die. Gerard tells him that he would be surprised how far some people would go to get rid of Deucalion. "Or someone like you?" Allison adds. Gerard laughs because he doesn't go particularly easily. He spits up more black ooze. Gerard says that Scott's turned him into a medical mystery. His cancer is basically gone, but his body keeps making ooze. 

 

Scott demands to know how to beat Deucalion, and Gerard huffs. "You can't. I've tried." Allison decides that they aren't getting anything out of Gerard, and she tells Scott they should leave. As she's on her way out, Gerard tells her to wait. He tells them that Deucalion may have lost his eyes, but he's not always blind. 

 

Derek met Paige when he was a sophomore. Stiles asks Peter how old Derek was back then. And how old Peter was. And then how old Peter is now. "Not as young as we could have been but not as old as you might think." Stiles asks Cora how old she is, and she replies 17 "how you'd measure in years." Stiles decides to drop the subject. He asks Peter to go on with the story. Peter tells him they were teenagers, they went from I Hate You to frantic groping in any dark corner they could manage to find themselves alone in for five minutes. 

 

Their favorite dark corner was an abandoned distillery outside of Beacon Hills. 

 

Derek and Paige run to the distillery at night and start to kiss. Stiles stops the story and asks Peter how he could know this since he's describing a scene where Derek and Paige were alone.

 

 

 

Paige breaks off the kiss and asks Derek why he likes her. He dodges the question. "Why do you think I like you?" She replies that at first she thought it was just because she didn't like him. He asks if she's worried that now that he knows that she does like him, his affections will fade. She says that she's not worried, she's just wondering when it will happen. He smiles and asks her what will happen if he never stops liking her. He goes in to kiss her again but stops suddenly and looks around them. She asks if he heard something, but he tells her that something happened in the distillery and he caught the scent of blood.

 

He hears something and leads Paige out of the building.

 

A pack of Werewolf led by Ennis approaches the distillery. Peter shifts positions to stay hidden from them. Ennis shows the Werewolf with him a rope covered in blood hanging from a hook in the distillery ceiling. Deucalion and Kali are among the group. Ennis says the hunters dragged one of his wolves here with an arrow in his throat. They hung him up and cut him in half. "They killed one of ours." "One of yours," Kali says. She wants to know why she should care about someone from another pack dying. Another Werewolf points out that hunters don't discern packs. Deucalion adds that they do discern motive. 

 

Deucalion asks Ennis why his pack member was killed, and one of Duke's pack says that Ennis's young and naive beta killed a hunter. Ennis says it was accidental.

 

Gerard is telling the story now. Allison asks if Deucalion, Ennis, and Kali's packs all lived in Beacon Hills, but Gerard says no. There was an exceptionally powerful alpha who did, though, Talia Hale. Talia could shape-shift into a full wolf, which is a rare talent, and it made her a leader among Werewolf. 

 

A wolf howls outside the distillery, and then a black wolf trots into view. She shifts into human form, and one of the wolves from another pack puts a blanket around her shoulders. She gives Deucalion a smirk and a knowing look. 

 

Peter watches as Talia tells the other wolves that "It's his right. We're not the only people to adhere to rituals thousands of years old." Deucalion argues that tradition is no reason to keep doing something. Ennis says that the hunters have not evolved so neither should they. Deucalion tries to convince him not to carry a vendetta. A blood feud with the Argents won't end with an eye for an eye. A murder will become a massacre. Ennis doesn't listen and carves a revenge spiral into the side of the distillery. Talia and Deucalion look worried.

 

Present day Peter traces a spiral on the fog of the window. Stiles comments that Werewolf take revenge to a whole new level. Cora tells him that it's not just revenge, because losing a pack member is like losing a limb. Peter comments that Ennis wasn't even allowed to see the body.

 

Deputy Stilinski goes into the hospital and finds Ennis threatening a nurse. Ennis comes at him, demanding his pack member's body. Stilinski nudges Ennis back with his hand, telling him to take a step back. He tells Ennis that a young man shot with an arrow and cut in half means there's a homicide investigation. Also, unless Ennis is blood family, he doesn't get the body.

 

Cora interrupts Peter's story to ask what this has to do with Derek.

 

 

Stiles asks what he could see the opportunity to do. "To always be with her."

 

Derek sits in class and listens to Paige play in the music room. He eventually goes down and leans against the door, watching her. She stops playing and asks him what he's staring at. "I'm not staring. I'm listening. Am I distracting you?" She claims that she has laserlike focus, and he takes it as a challenge. He brushes the hair away from the side of her face and drags his lips over her ear. She smiles and tells him she hates him. "No you don't. You love me." She says again that she hates him, and he gives her a sincere, hurt look. "You love me." She nods, and they kiss. 

 

 

Peter shows up at the high school and asks Derek why Paige is eating lunch alone. Derek asks him what he's doing there, and Peter replies that he's looking out for him. Derek informs him that he could get him banned from school grounds, and Peter says that no one would ban him from anywhere because he's too good looking. 

 

Derek tells Peter that Paige has a few friends but likes to study during lunch. She also doesn't like Derek's friends. Peter calls Derek's friends halfwits. He then says that Paige is perfect for Derek and perfect combinations are rare in an imperfect world. 

 

 

 

 

Chris and Gerard Argent find the cellar that Peter and Derek hid in. They see the five-fold knot on the nemeton. Chris explains that it's a sacred meeting place. Druid would choose a large tree to represent the center of the world. They believed that cutting or harming the tree would cause problems for the surrounding villages. 

 

Allison asks how her father knows about Druid and celtic symbols, and Gerard tells her, "Know thy enemy." Older wolves had a relationship with the Druid and called them emissaries.  Gerard gets up and asks them if they know the myth of Lycaon. According to the myth, some ancient Greeks believed that they owed their lives more to Prometheus than to the gods of Olympus. Some of these people took names that honored the titans instead of the gods. Deucalion was the son of Prometheus. Lycaon challenged the gods, by inviting Zeus to a banquet and attempting to serve him human flesh. Zeus punished Lycaon and his sons by turning them into wolves.

 

Lycaon then sought out the Druid to help turn him back into a human. He sought druids because they could supposedly shape-shift. The druids couldn't cure Lycaon, but they could teach him how to shift. Ever since, Druid have been important advisors to the packs.

 

Cora explains to Stiles that the emissaries keep them connected to humanity, but they're also a secret from most of the pack. Derek, Cora, and Peter didn't know about Deaton or Morrell. Stiles gets upset that no one told him that their guidance counselor was working for the alpha pack, because he shared intimate details with her. Cora asks if she gave him good advice, and Stiles admits that actually she did. This is what Deaton used to do for Talia.

 

Deucalion and Talia are in a meeting with Deaton. He says that their willingness to extend an olive branch to the Argents is admirable, but Talia thinks Gerard is unlikely to accept it. Deaton thinks that Talia means it's the matriarch of the Argents who they should be dealing with, but she clarifies that she just meant Gerard is a psychopath. Deucalion is surprised that they have so little faith in humanity. "You think that Gerard isn't worried about the deaths on his own side?" 

 

Deaton replies by telling them the story of The Scorpion and the Frog. The scorpion asked the frog to carry him across the river, and the frog asked, "How do I know you won't sting me?"  The scorpion replied, "Why would I do that? Then we'd both drown." So the frog agreed. Halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the frog. The frog asked him why he did it since now they would both die, and the scorpion replied, "It's my nature." His point is that faith in humanity isn't the concern as much as Gerard's nature is. 

 

Talia advises Deucalion to meet Gerard and neutral ground and not to go alone. Duke replies that he's an alpha, so he never walks alone.

 

Paige is at the school late, coming to meet Derek based on a note he gave her. The hallway is dark. And then Ennis appears, wolfed out. Paige drops the note as he growls, and then she turns and runs. He chases her down and gives her the Bite. Derek is in the boys locker room, worried. 

 

Cora asks Peter why he would choose Ennis to bite Paige. He explains that Ennis needed a new member for his pack and doing a favor for Talia's son would get him in good with her. Everyone wanted to be in good with Talia. 

 

Derek sits in the locker room, listening to Paige crying as Ennis attacks her. 

 

Stiles realizes that Derek doesn't remember it was Ennis who bit Paige. 

 

Unable to listen to Paige's cries anymore, Derek runs through the school to find her. He sees Ennis crouching over her and she tries to crawl away. Peter is in the hallway too. Derek attacks Ennis. Ennis throws him against the wall and then holds him down until he sees that Paige has already been bitten, so there's nothing to fight over. 

 

Deaton was the one who arranged a meeting between Deucalion and Gerard. Gerard still believes that Deucalion was there to attack him. Scott asks him how he knows they didn't want to make peace, and Gerard replies, "Because I'm not an idiot." Gerard asks if they know the tale of the scorpion and the turtle. It's the same story as The Scorpion and the Frog. Gerard says that he knew he was walking into a trap. 

 

Deucalion and his pack and Gerard and his hunters meet in the distillery. Gerard thinks this is a fitting setting because distillation is the separating of two substances by pushing them into their volatile states. Deucalion says that he was hoping to avoid volatile. Gerard then turns a crank and blasts them all with steam with something in it, perhaps wolfsbane. Gerard gives himself a shot of something to protect from the effects.

 

 

 

Cora asks Peter if Paige turned. He says that she should have, because most of the time it takes. "When you offered it to me, you said if it doesn't kill you," Stiles replies. 

 

Peter follows Derek and Paige to the cellar with the nemeton. Derek asks him what's happening to her, even though he knew the answer. She's bleeding black ooze from everywhere. Peter tells Cora and Stiles that it didn't matter that Paige was young and strong, some people just aren't made to be werewolf. Stiles has tears in his eyes. Peter tells them that Paige fought, struggling desperately to survive.

 

Deucalion crawls out of the distillery, coughing. He rolls onto his back and looks up at Gerard begging him not to kill him. "I had a vision, a vision of peace." Gerard smirks and jams two arrows into Deucalion's eyes. They might be flashbomb arrows from the sparks that shoot out. Duke wails in pain.

 

Derek holds Paige's hand and draws as much of her pain out as he can. He apologizes, and she tells him that she knew. She says that right after she told him her name, she thinks she knew that he was a Werewolf. He'd say things sometimes, like how he'd catch a scent. She knew he could hear things he shouldn't be able to hear. "I knew." "And you still liked me?" "I loved you." She cries in pain, and Derek kisses her forehead. He draws out more of her pain.

 

Paige says that she's going to die, and Derek nods. She cries and tells him that she can't take the pain anymore. She begs him to end it. He pulls her into an embrace and then hugs her so hard he breaks her neck.

 

Peter says he took Paige's body from Derek and placed her in the woods where he knew she would be found. Cora asks what happened to Derek. Peter explains that taking an innocent life takes something from you, a bit of your soul. It dims the once brilliant golden yellow of their eyes to a cold, steel blue. 

 

At the Animal Clinic, Deaton unwraps the bandages from Deucalion's face. Deaton tells him that his eyes will heal physically but his sight will be gone. Duke roars and collapses against the table. He orders the others to leave him alone, and Talia and Deaton leave. Duke's second, Marco, remains in the room with him. Duke tells him again to leave him alone, and Marco replies that he is alone. Marco attacks him, and Duke learns that he can see with alpha vision. He attacks Marco in return and tears him apart. 

 

Gerard tells Scott and Allison that this is why Deucalion isn't always blind. He can see as a wolf. Allison and Scott get up to leave, and Gerard asks him to take some more of his pain before they go. He tells Scott that sometimes he wonders what would have happened if he'd done things differently. He wonders when it became his nature to believe that most things couldn't be asked for but had to be taken. Scott replies that he doesn't believe him. The whole time he was talking to them, his heartbeat never wavered. "Because I was telling the truth," Gerard says. "Or because you're a really good liar," Scott replies. 

 

Scott grabs Gerard's hand and squeezes hard. He warns him that if he lied and it gets people hurt, he'll be back to take away more that Gerard's pain. 

 

Cora and Stiles sit together in the loft. She asks him what he's thinking about. There's a look on Stiles's face that make her want to punch him. Stiles says he doesn't believe Peter. He says that in Ms. Blake's class they're reading Heart of Darkness which is told in first person by Marlow, who is an unreliable narrator. You know the details have changed just because of his perspective. Stiles doesn't think they got the whole story. Cora asks if he's just going to ask Derek about killing Paige. "If I have to... yeah." 

 

Derek is still in the nemeton after Peter has taken Paige away. Talia comes down to talk to him. He tells her that he did something terrible. She knows. She lifts his chin, but he keeps his eyes closed. "My eyes. They're different." "Different, but still beautiful," she replies, "just like the rest of you." He opens his eyes, revealing their blue color.

 

Present day, Derek is in the distillery. Schubert's Ave Maria plays, which was the song Paige was practicing when they first met. He stares at the revenge spiral that Ennis carved in the wall all those years ago.