Shouting Back to the Night

Part Two of Watchtower

Sequel to This is Not Our Fate

Warnings: graphic depictions of violence, underage, language

A/N: The title comes from a line in "These Are the Times" by Styx.

I realize it looks very much like I should be working on Breathing Smoke but am, in fact, not working on Breathing Smoke. That's because Breathing Smoke has betas to make it fantastic, and it's their turn. This fic does not have betas, so while it may be less awesome than they could make it, I can upload it much faster.

Part One: Outrunning

The thing breathed. The rush of air spoke to its size, and Stiles reminded himself that the sound only seemed to echo all around him because he was under stress. And scared out of his mind. The breaths were uneven, some short, some almost equal to Derek's, others... Stiles smirked. The long breaths carried a hint of a wheeze. That was weakness, and weakness could be exploited. He tapped the back of his hand against Derek's shoulder and then ran his fingers along his neck to his chest where flesh and bone concealed his lungs. Derek nodded, but then he shrugged and shook his head. The thing was still too strong. They needed something else.

The sound of breathing neared, and heavy footsteps reached the end of the row of cars Derek and Stiles hid behind. They shuffle-crawled around a corner to avoid being caught. Plenty of cars and hiding places at an off-hour car dealership. Stiles caught a hint of red at the corner of his eye and nearly hissed. Derek was bleeding again. Stiles shot his hand at the air in front of Derek's wounded arm and then pulled it back. Derek shrugged again. He was pale. His eyes drifted to the shadow under the car, narrowed as he half-snarled, and snapped back to Stiles as he came out of it. He was losing it. This was bad.

Stiles ripped another length of cloth from his shirt, hoping the sound wouldn't carry, and wrapped it over the blood-soaked bandage on Derek's shoulder. His werewolf healing should have kicked in by now. Stiles grimaced as the thing's footsteps quickened. It had heard him. He pulled Derek away, but Derek jerked him another direction at the last minute. When they stopped, Stiles peeked out to see what had driven Derek back.

It was a man, maybe Derek's age, with brown skin and bleached blond hair. For one moment, Stiles wondered if they should warn him there was a monster loose. Then the thing found him and rested it's misshapen muzzle against the man's outstretched hand. This was its master. He patted the thing's snout like someone consoling their pet dog.

Stiles turned to Derek and mouthed, Human?

Derek nodded. Yes.

One human. One monster. Check and check. Stiles tried not to imagine a wall of bars blocking him and Derek in, but then he saw the fence around the dealership and almost laughed aloud. He settled for a grin and tugged on Derek's jacket. They would be seen if they made a break for the fence. Stiles couldn't leap it, and if he tried to climb, the thing would catch up before he got over. Derek rubbed at his shoulder. He was worried then. With a bad shoulder, he couldn't help Stiles over. Escaping here wouldn't solve the problem anyway, just prolong it. Stiles had texted most of the pack before he lost his phone. At least one of them had to check their messages at some point tonight.

There was a crash against their backs. Metal and plastic crunched, and the car reshaped to jab at their flesh. Stiles ran. He didn't look back, but he did shout Derek's name.

"Keep running, Joker!" His voice was strained, and not nearly close enough. Derek had tried attacking the thing to help Stiles escape.

Stiles spun and found himself facing the human. He used the momentum of his turn to drive his fist against the human's face. The tackle that the man turned his run into when Stiles stopped added to the force of the punch. It also drove them both to the ground. They fell, turning with Stiles' momentum, and he strained to land on top of the other man. Then he pulled his fist back to ram it against his face. The man tried to claw at Stiles' eyes, so Stiles bit at his fingers. He almost caught one, but he kept his focus on pummeling the human into the ground.

The man's eyes left Stiles in favor of his monster. Stiles jumped up and ran again just before the thing reached him. It stopped to check on its partner. Stiles circled around to Derek and found him on the ground covered in slashes and blood. They would need a lot more shirts to bandage that. Stiles pulled Derek to his feet and let him lean against his side. Derek wasn't nearly as big as he had seemed back when Stiles still feared him, but he was big enough to slow Stiles significantly. They would get all of nowhere like this. Stiles dragged Derek toward the fence anyway. He couldn't leave him behind.

The thing howled, and only a moment later, Stiles was on the ground again. It was fast. Faster than it had been earlier, if that was possible. Stiles rolled when he landed and found his feet again. Derek was not so lucky. The thing took a slow step forward, growling. It was playing with them, already relishing its victory.

One small knife waited in Stiles' pants' pocket. It was all he had after wasting his other blades against this thing, but this looked like a last stand to him. Derek struggled to stand on his own and spat blood onto the asphalt. Stiles pulled the knife from his pocket and opened it. The thing made a noise like laughter. Stiles didn't blame it. He raised the knife like he had a chance of stabbing something with it and charged, screaming, at the monster.

He kept the knife raised so it would think he meant to stab it's throat or eye. It laughed again and lifted an arm to smack him down. Stiles ran until he was almost in reach of the thing's claws, and then he dropped to the ground just as it began to swing for him. He rolled and slashed at the back of its ankle to hamstring it as he moved past it.

The thing screamed and fell. The wheeze in its breathing was louder this way, but Stiles didn't wait around to listen. He didn't know how fast the thing would heal, so as soon as he regained his feet, Stiles ran full-speed at the human where he sat propped against a car. He stood as Stiles approached, but by the way his eyes drifted and he stumbled slightly on his feet, he was hurt badly, probably concussed. Stiles flashed him his killing grin and slashed the tiny knife through his throat.

As the human fell, Stiles spun, weapon raised. The thing would have followed him. He found it only feet behind him, the sound of its approached covered by his own loud breathing and the slap of his feet against asphalt. It was frozen now, stunned by the death of its master or friend or—hopefully not—lover. Its partner.

Stiles leapt at it to reach as high as its eyes, and he stabbed his knife into one. He caught onto the thing's head with his free arm and set his feet against its chest. The knife slid easily out of its eye and into the other. Stiles pressed it deeper this time. Then he slit the thing's huge, hairy throat just to be sure. He leapt out of the way as it fell forward and stood, gasping for breath, unable for a moment to remember what he should do now. There should have been sand, he thought.

Derek coughed. The sound barely reached Stiles past that of his own pounding heart. Someone shouted. Stiles' heart slowed. Footsteps echoed off asphalt and metal. Stiles closed his eyes and breathed as slowly as he could. When he opened his eyes, he turned back to Derek and found the pack scattered around him, staring at Stiles. They were close enough for him to see the gears working behind their eyes as they realized Stiles had killed the monster, not Derek.

No one had helped Derek stand. Their shock was too distracting. Stiles started walking toward the pack, but his leg buckled under him. Strange. He didn't remember being hurt. His adrenaline was fading now though, and behind it waited pain. Blood leaked from gashes on the back of his leg. The ground between him and the pack was clean, so the thing had caught him here, probably when he leapt at it, thinking it too stunned to fight back. Stiles wished he remembered for sure. He gritted his teeth against the pain and forced his leg to take his weight. Stiles limped to the friends who had come too late as they watched. No one offered to help.

"You're late," he told them.

"Oh, uh, sorry?" Scott stammered at last, looking back and forth between Stiles' leg and the dead monster he'd left behind.

"It looks like you handled it without us," Allison added. Her wide eyes looked more impressed than confused. "How did you kill it? We've been trying for weeks."

Stiles shrugged and bit back a grin. "It's easier to fight like I'm dying when I really am." No one looked comfortable with that answer. "Also I used my brain and tricked it, okay. I'm smart. It was dumb."

"If by 'smart,' you mean 'crazy,'" Derek muttered. He'd finally found his feet.

"Yes, that too."

"Who is that?" Scott asked. "He doesn't look like he was mauled by a monster."

"He was the thing's partner," Stiles said. "He's also the only reason I was able to beat it, so I thank him, whoever the hell he was." Stiles turned on his good leg and gave the guy a bow. He friends were looking at him like he was crazy again. Stiles shrugged it off and made his way to Derek's side. When Derek raised an eyebrow, Stiles realized he was grinning again. Old habits, he guessed.

Stiles tried to help Derek stand, but Derek took on his weight instead. "What are you doing?" he asked. "You're way more injured than I am."

"Your heartbeat's almost stable. I'd guess you have less than a minute left."

"Left until what?" Stiles rolled his eyes, but then what he'd done hit him. They had been hunting the monster as a pack, never able to do more than drive it back and retreat to lick their wounds until next time. And Stiles had charged it. Alone. With a pocket knife. And won.

His body shook with weakness and all the terror he'd fought back earlier. His breath came in gasps. He should have died. He knees buckled and failed him, but Derek caught Stiles and held him against his chest. He was sticky with blood, but warm and strong. He felt safe. Stiles squeezed his eyes shut against risking both their lives for an insane last stand, but the backs of his eyelids looked like prison bars. Stiles' body shook. Derek held him still. For an instant, Stiles thought this wasn't real. He had died. Derek had died. This was the last flicker of nerves in his brain giving him a good dream before he passed into nothing. The moment stretched on. Stiles clung to Derek's jacket with what little strength was left to him.

When he could breathe again, Stiles found everyone pretending not to watch. He tried to thank Derek for holding him even though they weren't supposed to be so close anymore, but he couldn't find the words to wrap his lips around. All his mouth could find was Derek's, and that seemed like enough, at least until Scott pulled him away from the kiss with some apologetic mumbling about promises to his father. Stiles didn't have it in him to grin at that, but he stepped away from Derek and let Scott take him home.

~.x.~

Derek's new loft seemed small compared to his old house. But it was stable and not half ash. Stiles figured that had to count for something. He leaned back into an armchair and thought real, not destroyed furniture was also a plus. Derek sat on the couch, but with members of the pack there to chaperone, he and Stiles kept their distance. They were allowed to be friends. Sort of. They were not allowed to be boyfriends. At all.

"How can we still not know anything?" Scott asked. He gave his hair a frustrated tug and groaned. "We have the thing. Can't we, like, study it or something?"

"We have been," Peter pointed out. "And it's definitely dead."

Stiles rolled his eyes. They'd had to do something with the bodies, and apparently letting Peter claim them for study had sounded like a better idea than leaving them for the police to find. Stiles didn't understand why they needed more information. He'd eliminated the threat. They could all move on now.

Because I'm obviously so good at moving on, Stiles thought with a too-long glance at Derek where he lounged against the couch, staring at the ceiling with the sort of attractive boredom Stiles thought only supermodels bothered to master. Derek's fingers twitched. He wanted to seem uninterested, but there was something bothering him.

A human and a monster in a pair. Stiles and Derek had seen that before, in a long-repeating pattern that ended with a scared girl and a horrible monster. Stiles wondered if the thing had been one of the lead scientist's experiments. He didn't know the man's name, just his grin and the bad joke of a nametag he wore that read, "Haha, No." Some part of Stiles had thought Haha, No's work would be done when his alpha kanima died, but people rarely worked like that. If one project failed, life went on; they found another. Maybe he was making his own kanimas now.

"Did you let Deaton look at it?" Scott demanded, complete with accusatory finger jab.

"Yes." Peter drew out the word, probably just because he could. "He agrees that it's dead."

"That's not what I meant."

"He can't figure it out either. Or if he can, he's not telling me." Peter sighed like he didn't deserve to be universally distrusted.

"What about the human?" Allison asked. Stiles snapped his attention to her and realized Derek had done the same. She eyed them both. "Okay, now I definitely want to know about the human. What's up with you guys?"

Derek studied the ceiling intently. Stiles studied his own hands. There was dirt under his nails. Lydia would yell at him for that.

"He's just a human. He's not important," Peter said.

"Matt was human too. Gerard was human." Allison narrowed her eyes when Derek tensed. Stiles cursed mentally. He'd been prepared for it. Clearly Derek hadn't. But why had Stiles bothered to brace himself? He shook the tension away and reminded himself that these were friends, allies.

"We hide out of reflex," Stiles said with a sigh. He should have told them the instant he suspected Haha, No. Well, not the instant because he'd been hiding behind a car, but sooner than this, certainly. "The place we were taken was arranged in pairs with a human and a werewolf for each."

"They were studying the kanima, right?" Scott asked.

"Yeah, but they were studying the connection between shifter and human specifically." Stiles struggled with how to explain the rest of his thoughts.

"That's not really a lead. Matt and Jackson linked to each other without an evil scientist's help." Peter raised an eyebrow.

"But anyone who got out of that facility would have reason to attack us," Allison said. Maybe the pack was right not to move on, Stiles realized. Maybe it didn't end with these two.

"Because we took it out," Scott added.

"Yes, I got that, Scott." Peter set his hands against the back of Stiles' armchair, and Stiles thought his fingernails might have changed shape slightly. It was too little to be sure.

"And we killed their kanima alpha."

"I got that too."

"And set their prisoners free."

"Yes, Scott." That time his nails definitely shifted, still only a little. "We all get it."

"I don't get it," Stiles lied with an easy smile.

Peter's eyes flashed, but Stiles thought he caught a hint of amusement.

Derek shifted his legs and glared at Peter. Stiles paused to study him because that was clearly jealousy. It was surprisingly hot on Derek. Most things were.

"So are you going to tell us anything about the human?"

"He carried no ID. Died of a slit throat, probably Stiles' doing. Was important enough to the creature to stun it by dying." Peter shrugged.

"I think they were linked mentally," Stiles said. "It was more than emotionally stunned. It was like it literally couldn't act while the bond dissolved."

Derek nodded, and Stiles thought Derek had linked this back to the alpha kanima too. He confirmed it when he said, "It froze exactly like the kanima did when Stiles killed its master."

The others nodded agreement.

"The kanima was supposed to be an abomination," Stiles said, "But this shifter looked way worse." The kanima looked like a humanoid lizard. The thing looked like... a thing. It's pieces fit together poorly, more like Frankenstein's version of a monster than like the monster itself. It lacked the grace of other shifters, and Stiles thought the wheeze in its breathing might have been an inherent part of its form, not sign of wound or sickness.

"You think it's worse than a kanima?" Allison asked. "Or just... less natural?"

Stiles nodded. "I think he made it."

"The human?" She clearly doubted that, which was good, because it wasn't what he meant.

"He means the scientist," Derek said. "The one who used to have a kanima."

"I call him Haha, No."

"That's a weird name" Scott said.

"No, like, it's a joke from his—never mind. I don't know his name."

"How exactly do you get from 'It has a master,' to 'My evil scientist friend made it'?" Peter asked, leaning over the armchair.

"I am remarkably skilled at reading his intent? I don't know for sure. It just... feels right." Stiles shrugged. He knew it wasn't enough, but most of his ideas about Haha, No's experiments had been based on not enough information. They'd also been right.

"I'll... keep it in mind." Peter's tone was grudging. He left the room without saying goodbye, and Stiles doubted he planned on returning any time soon.

They sat in silence after he left. No one knew anything more. Stiles shifted in his seat and considered a joke to cut through the awkwardness.

"I want to talk to Stiles." Not quite what Stiles would have gone with, but Derek rarely spoke anymore except to say something practical.

"We're not stopping you." Scott motioned to Stiles as if telling Derek to go ahead.

"Alone." He raised an eyebrow.

Scott glanced at Allison. "I don't think we're supposed to—"

"No," Stiles cut in. "You're not my guardian. He just wants to talk to me. Without you. You should go."

"I promised your dad I'd look out for you."

"In case you've forgotten, I took out the thing and its partner single-handedly. I don't think I need you to look out for me." Stiles grinned for Scott.

Scott's mouth opened and closed.

Allison pulled at his arm. "We'll be waiting downstairs," she told Derek and Stiles as she led Scott from room. Allison knew a little about being forced away from someone. Scott should have too.

Stiles moved to the couch, but stayed at its edge when he saw Derek press against the opposite arm. "Did I do something again?"

Derek shook his head. "I said I didn't care about anything else as long as I could see you." Stiles nodded. He remembered. "I just think I was wrong." Derek clamped his teeth together once the words were out. His eyes closed, but the tensioned didn't fade before he opened them again.

"You don't want to see me anymore." Stiles shook his head because that wasn't quite right. "You don't think you should see me anymore."

"I think I called you Joker instead of Stiles the other night."

"It was a high-stress situation. I kept thinking of that place too."

"Tonight you joked with my uncle, and I nearly tore his throat out for it."

"That is a little excessive, I admit." He lifted his hands like pans of a balance, shifting before they stabilized. "But on the other hand, Peter is a crazy son of a bitch and probably deserves it for something else anyway."

"That's not the point."

"But you don't deny it."

"Don't change the subject."

Stiles let out a slow breath. "Sorry. I just... I don't like not seeing you."

"Me neither."

"But you think it will help?"

Derek nodded.

"Then I guess I won't call you unless you call me."

Derek nodded again. He teeth were clenched too tightly to speak.

"Goodbye, Derek." Stiles left without looking back. He had seen the gleam at the corner of Derek's eye and knew he wouldn't want Stiles to see him cry.

~.x.~

Living without Derek made Stiles itch for another monster to kill. He couldn't control that, so he got Peter to take him to the old one instead. It lay beside its partner in a double circle of wolfsbane and ash. Its blood had dried and matted into its fur and scales, but otherwise it looked as Stiles remembered. So did the human, though Stiles was close enough now to study scars he hadn't noticed in the darkness during their fight. He cursed himself for missing them. Scars were important. The human had burn scars on his arms and a jagged slash across his collar bone. There were smaller marks at his temple, pinpricks surrounded by a ring of irritated skin.

Stiles touched his own temple. He'd had marks like those once.

"Why aren't they rotting?" he asked as he stripped the human's shirt out of the way.

"Deaton's doing. Something mixed in with the ash." Peter stepped forward into the circle. "I thought you wanted to see the monster."

Stiles paused, confused. He was studying the monster. They had been on the burn level, and the monster had often been slow to his human's defense. There were old scars from human-shaped fingernails along the human's neck and face. Then he remembered that Peter hadn't been there. He wouldn't understand. "If they were together, the human would show the scars, but the wolf would heal."

Peter was giving him that look again. The one that meant Stiles was crazier than he was even though Peter was obviously a psychopath. Stiles' eyes returned to the human's wrist, trying to tell if the scars there were from rope or metal, but he felt Peter's eyes on him. He turned and found exactly the expression he'd imagined.

"I wondered for a long time why he didn't use implants to study us. I knew he wanted readings." Stiles winced at the pain in his leg as he shifted toward the human's feet and pulled off the his shoes and socks to study his ankles. He'd never been able to look at the ankles before, but he'd noticed the way some humans walked gingerly like they'd been damaged. There were scars there to match those on his wrist.

"There were a lot of captives there. It was probably impractical."

"Yeah, I figured that, though you're an asshole for having it instantly, just so you know." Peter shrugged at that. He looked smug. "In my defense, I was half insane," Stiles added in a mutter he knew Peter would hear clearly.

"And you're not now?"

"More like a quarter insane now. Anyway, then I wondered, why not just use implants on the top specimens then?"

Peter tilted his head to consider that one. He tapped a finger against his leg and eventually shrugged. "I'm sure you have an answer for me."

Stiles set his finger against the dead human's temple and traced the outline of the circle Haha, No's suction cupped needle had left. "He wanted to have fun," he said, "So he had them brought to him so he could play while he studied."

"Thank you, Stiles, now everything makes sense."

Stiles rolled his eyes. "He had a science torture setup, basically. Tiny needles for the temples, throat, and chest." He traced the marks on each area as he spoke. "The needles were held in place by suction cups." He traced the irritated area again for Peter. "He used it to activate nerves as well as take readings."

Peter crouched beside Stiles and studied the marks. "You had these too when you came back," he said, like he'd only just remembered. If one member of the pack noted and understood scars, it was Peter.

"The only way to see the machine was to be in it."

Peter nodded. "I thought the wolf and human were always together."

"What?"

"Derek noticed the same marks but couldn't tell me where they came from."

"Derek was here?"

"He didn't stay long." Peter stood, but not before Stiles caught a flash of amusement in his eyes.

Stiles wondered if Derek counted as a scar. Partners had been a given when they were captives. Everyone had one, everyone except Jorge who died. It was different out here though. Stiles looked at the thing lying beside his monster. He had only killed it because it had a partner. The human had been its weakness, not a strength. The muscles around Stiles' eye spasmed briefly, an echo of the twitch that haunted him in the View.

"I can see what you're doing, you know."

"I'm not doing anything." He should have been studying the human's scars, but he'd been too distracted by his own.

"You're reassessing Derek's importance based on how easily you were distracted by just his name."

"Oh." Damn it. That was the same as admitting it. Stiles shook his head. He couldn't afford to be off-balance like this, especially not with someone who knew enough to use it against him.

"You want to see something fun?" Peter smirked and motioned for Stiles to step outside the ring with him.

When Stiles followed, careful to stand with his weight on his good leg, Peter took hold of a rope anchored to a pillar. The rope stretched to a pulley near the ceiling and then down to the edge of the circle around the thing and its partner. As Peter pulled, the wolfsbane circle rose, but the slightly smaller ash circle remained undisturbed. Stiles remembered when he and Scott discovered Laura Hale where Derek had buried her. At first she appeared to be a wolf, but when Stiles removed the wolfsbane surrounding her, she reverted to human form. He focused his eyes on the thing.

It shifted slowly, like its body resisted human form. If it hadn't been dead, Stiles suspected the transformation would actually hurt. The face was the worst. The snout caved in with a crunch like crushed bone. The bone jerked beneath the skin until it locked together in the shape of a human skull, but the teeth were still too large and locked the jaw open until they too shrank down to human size. They remained sharp, and Stiles suspected they had been filed.

The fur disappeared from its body, but the scaly patches remained. In its shifted form, the thing's fur had covered it, but now, as he moved closer again, Stiles saw scar tissue surrounding where scales had been grafted onto its skin. He wondered what you had to do to a werewolf for it to keep its scars and glanced at Peter. He'd born his scars for six years. Would this shifter also heal if given enough time? It didn't matter now since Stiles had already killed the thing.

Even with the... additions, it looked less like a thing this way. If he pretended the scales were tattoos, it just looked like a woman with a piquing interest in body modification. Stiles set a finger against the scales to remind himself that they were real and wondered what else Haha, No had done to her.

"I thought you said it would be fun," Stiles said as he studied the corpse.

"I never said fun for her."

"Haha, No would have liked you."

"I take it that's not a compliment."

Stiles shrugged. "I think he liked me too."

"And studying them has you more convinced this is his doing."

Stiles nodded even though Peter clearly didn't need an answer. He tried to imagine the partners when they'd been alive. They could have been normal once, or they could have been more like Derek, beaten down even before Haha, No got them. They would have been desperate afterward. Afraid, confused, willing to kill rather than be killed. He didn't recognize them from the View, but the human's scars rose from a familiar source.

The marks on his wrists and ankles meant he would have been delirious, barely able to move, but filled with enough desperation to push his body past the point of breaking because if he didn't, he'd have been dead. Stiles shuddered. He'd never seen that level himself, but he'd seen the ones who had. It was usually a death sentence. That meant these two were strong.

And they had come to Beacon Hills.

Haha, No wouldn't have freed them. He would have broken them, made them too afraid to disobey him, or whichever figurehead he used now in place of his alpha kanima. Stiles wondered if that was the fate meant for him. For Derek.

"I have to go," he said. Peter shrugged as he passed but didn't stop him. He didn't seem amused anymore.

~.x.~

The dining room hadn't gotten smaller in the last ten minutes, but the walls still seemed to close in. Stiles chewed on his bottom lip and stared at the table. His hands were together in his lap, still except for brief waves of tension. He didn't have time for this.

"Look at me, Stiles."

He raised his gaze to meet his father's. He looked old and tired and scared. Stiles tried not to hold it against him since it was worry for Stiles that aged him, but Stiles didn't need his concern anymore. He was fine.

"You've pulled away again recently." His voice was worn, not stern.

"I'm fine," Stiles insisted. "Haven't had a panic attack in two weeks, and my leg is healing nicely. I can sort of jog without crying much."

"Your pupils are dilated." He pointed at Stiles' eyes. "I haven't checked yet, but if I did, your pulse would be racing. You keep twitching. And you skipped your last three therapy sessions."

"One of those doesn't count because I was at the hospital." Getting his leg sewn up and telling lies about mountain lions.

"And the rest?"

"I don't know, Dad, why don't you tell me?"

"Your body is overproducing adrenaline. You haven't had a panic attack because you've trained yourself not to until you come down, and you haven't yet."

"You've been talking to Scott's mom again, haven't you?" Stiles narrowed his eyes.

"Where have you been spending all your time?" That wasn't an answer. That was an abrupt change of topic. Stiles couldn't hold it against him since he'd just done the same thing.

"Out?" With Peter and his dead monsters, mostly. Derek didn't want him, and his other friends treated him like his dad was now.

"Stiles."

"You can't act like I'm about to break for the rest of my life, okay. I said I'm fine, and I am."

"You haven't been sleeping either."

"Of course I've been sleeping."

"Doesn't count unless you beat two hours a night. No, you know what, it doesn't count unless you beat six hours a night." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm worried about you, son."

"I caught that and told you to stop." Stiles stood.

"Sit down," his father ordered, but Stiles stamped past him.

His feet were bare, but Stiles didn't care. He left the house, slamming the door behind him the way the soldier-types had slammed the doors to the cellblocks. His keys were in his jacket in his room on the back of his computer chair, so he turned down the sidewalk and walked. When the door opened behind him, Stiles started to run. Maybe Stiles' leg was injured, but his father was old and tired and scared. Stiles outran him.