The sheriff answered his phone with the wariness of someone who had had to deal with the supernatural far too much in one week but when he heard the wet gasps of his only son all else slipped from his mind.

"Stiles?"

Rasping gasps, a pained whimper.

"Dad….help."

"Stiles!"

There was no reply but the sound of his boy trying desperately to breathe.

"Stiles where are you? I'm coming okay? I'm coming son."

The Sheriff put his phone on speaker and picked up the phone on his desk instead, dialing the well-known number while looking at the framed photo of his son on his desk, praying to everything he would be okay.

"Sheriff?"

"Scott! Please tell me you know where Stiles is."

The Sheriff could hear the rest of the kids on the other end of the phone and had to strain to hear Scott's answer.

"Yeah, he's at my house. He was going to help Malia with the desert wolf. Why do you sound so panicked?"

"He called me but something's wrong. He only asked for help and then nothing, just his breathing but he sounds hurt and he won't respond. Scott if the desert wolf is still there I'm going to need you to do something about her."

"What? Okay, we'll be there as soon as we can, he'll be okay, I promise."

The background chatter went quiet as Scott talked and John thanked the kid and hung up. Grabbing his phone, The Sheriff ran out of the station to his car, talking to Stiles the whole way.

"I'm coming son, just hold on."

….

Lydia could hear Scott talking on the phone and everyone quietened when he started telling The Sheriff that someone would be okay. Lydia knew it was Stiles. If it was the Sheriff calling, panicked, about someone then it had to be but she could hear him too. She could still hear that gasping, it sounded strangled and shallow but she knew it was him.

There was a thread in her chest tugging, being pulled so tight it made it hard to breathe. She needed to be with him.

"Scott we have to hurry."

Scott turned to Lydia, phone still in hand despite already having hung up. His eyes were worried and desperate.

"Did you?" Scott wasn't sure what to ask but Lydia nodded.

"I can hear him." Everyone turned to Scott for leadership but the Alpha was close to tears. The packs Banshee can hear his brother, and that only ever meant one thing. He felt sick, how many times ha this happened? How many times had Stiles gotten hurt trying to save someone? It was just a matter of time before he got hurt so badly he…

Scott closed his eyes for a moment and concentrated on breathing. He had seen both The Sheriff and his mother do similar things when they needed to concentrate on their work to save someone. He breathed deep, concentrated, and calmed down enough to think about the next logical step. Opening his eyes, the Alpha addressed his pack.

"The Desert wolf was there with Malia and Braeden and if they can't help him then we have to assume they're still fighting. Our job is to get the Dessert Wolf away from Stiles so that we can get an ambulance in without any civilians being hurt."

The pack nodded and immediately went for the cars, Lydia running faster than any of them.

….

John drove faster than he should have, with more emotion shaking his hands than he should have been driving with, but nothing would keep him from his son when his kid needed him. The father tried to shake away the dark thoughts swirling around in his mind. Stiles driving with the same recklessness, same tears in his eyes as he tried to find his dad. Stiles finding him there bleeding, the way he would as soon as he got to the McCall home.

John could still hear Stiles' labored breathing through the phone and almost drove the car right off the road when it suddenly stopped. It sounded strangled, the kid struggling for a moment before his breathing ceased. He sounded like he was drowning. John felt his heart pounding in his chest, hard and fast against his rib-cage, as he pushed harder on the accelerator and yelled out to his son through his emotion thick throat.

"No, no, no. Come on Stiles, keep breathing kid! I'm almost there, Dad's almost there just hold on! Stiles!"

John drove wildly, speeding recklessly as he tried to see through his tears, until he finally came to a swerved stop in front of the McCall home. The Sheriff could see Malia and Braeden taking on the Desert wolf and sprinted past them, into the house.

There was carnage everywhere, broken furniture and bullet holes in walls, but what stopped him in his tracks was the sight of his boy, covered in blood among the wreckage of what once was a glass table. He almost stopped breathing himself when his eyes caught the glint of the large shard of glass. It was slick with blood, the blood that was soaked through Stiles' shirt and the carpet beneath him, and pierced through the chest of his son.

Stiles' eyes were closed when The Sheriff knelt beside him, but his lips… his lips were blue.

Lydia lent forward in her seat, knee bouncing as she begged the car to drive faster even though she knew Scott was driving as fast as he could. The sound of Stiles' breathing got louder, the wet gasps sounding as if they were from right beside her until, after a strangled gurgle, they stopped.

Lydia held her breath as she waited for Stiles' gasps to return. But there was nothing. Her hands came up to cover her mouth as she let out a sob. He wasn't breathing.

"Scott you have to drive faster!" She didn't know how Scott could understand her through the lump in her throat but the acceleration of the car told her he did. Liam took her hand in comfort but Lydia hardly felt his touch because she could feel it creeping. It was swirling up from her chest and making its way into her throat and there was no way she could stop it. She was going to scream.