Welcome back for chapter 2! Thanks to all who have favorited or are now following me and this story… you made my day! I hope you like this chapter… On a personal note, I really do!
Chapter 2: On the move
Scott could feel the gunshot wound on his right shoulder already beginning to heal and little by little the dull pain that had settled over him due to the electricity had been fading until just a small body spasm every three or four minutes. He hoped that by the time they got wherever they were going that he would feel completely back to normal and then be able to try to escape their captors.
He tried to rise Stiles by shifting his position from underneath him, since the men had dropped his friend right on top of him inside the cramped space of the trunk, but nothing seemed to work. He was beginning to worry that the man had hit Stiles way too hard, but after a while he was reworded with a slurred moan.
"Stiles" he whispered "Stiles, you all right?"
"Mmmm" Stiles scrunched up his eyes and pressed his forehead against the soft surface underneath him "Jeez!" he exclaimed because the pain pulsating behind his eyes was unlike any hangover he had ever experienced before. He kept pressing his head downwards, trying to compensate the pressure behind his eyes with the pressure on his forehead and that way maybe alleviate some of his pain when he felt the warm surface underneath him give a little shake and then he heard Scott's strained voice somewhere close to his right ear.
"Stiles... Stop..." although his shoulder wound had begun to heal already, having someone pressing it down with his forehead was definitely not helpful. Stiles stilled his movements and ever so slowly opened his eyes. The first thing he noticed was that the surface he was laying on was breathing and that the spot he had been rubbing his forehead against was all covered in blood, which he supposed must have left a huge blood stain on his face. Second, he realized how hard it was to breathe when lying face down on top of someone and, last but not least, he noticed that his arms were tied behind his back when he tried to used them for leverage in changing is current position. For a moment, he started to panic. He had never liked tight spaces and, that, combined with the almost suffocating heat inside the enclosed space, the brain crushing pain behind his eyelids and not being able to move his arms was sending him directly into the clasps of a panic attack. His breathing was becoming increasingly rapid and he couldn't stop his mind from remembering another time when he had woken up disoriented and in pain in a place where he definitely hadn't decided to go to sleep. Of course, having witnessed countless of panic attacks from his friend, Scott immediately recognized it and tried to do what he always did when dealing with them.
"Stiles, listen to me" ha was using a calm tone of voice to try and transmit some sense of control over to him "you're okay. Hey, you're not alone. I'm here, all right?" Stiles lifted his head carefully to look at his friend.
"Sco...Scott?" he was still wheezing "what's going on?" Scott frowned.
"You don't remember?" maybe that last hit to his head had been as hard as he had feared "what's the last thing you remember?" he asked. Stiles dropped his head to rest on Scott's chest again (mindful of the gunshot injury) because right now it was just too heavy to keep up and tried to remember. Wait, gunshot injury?
"You were shot" he started to say as the memories came crushing back "and electrocuted! Are you all right?" he asked alarmed, beginning to roll to the side trying to take his weight off his friend's body who had to have been struggling to breath enough without his completely useless weight on top of him.
"I'm okay. Don't worry" he responded, also noticing the almost frantic movements his friend was making to try and get off of him "Stop, I'm fine. The bullet was ordinary and the aftershocks are over. Stiles!" he said a little bit more urgently "Stop. I'm fine. And there's not enough room anyway" Stiles let out a sigh and dropped his efforts to move. Scott was right, there was not enough room for the both of them and all the yunk around them. Eventually he calmed down enough to draw a proper breath and asked.
"How long was I out?"
"At least fifteen minutes"
"Any idea where we're going?"
"No" Scott replied.
"Who this people are?"
"Nope" he sighed.
"And what could they want?" Scott shook his head and Stiles grumbled "Great. You think this could be another group of assassins? Like maybe they didn't get the memo of the dead pool business being over?" he asked again.
"They would've killed us already, not taken us hostage"
"Yeah but hostages for what?"
"I don't know" both boys knew that neither of them knew more than the other, but somehow talking about it made it easier to handle for Stiles and Scott knew that his friend used talking as a mechanism for coping with situations like this.
"Maybe they're hunters!" Stiles exclaimed as if he actually wanted that possibility to be true "we've dealt with hunters before so this should be a piece of cake!" he also reflected on the fact that their lives had become so screwed over the past couple of years that actually hoping to run into werewolf hunters instead of something else, something worst, was pretty much good news by now.
"Naah. I actually thought of that, but I don't think they're hunters. I don't know, there's something off about them"
"Oookay, can you hear something? Anything?" Stiles asked hopefully thinking maybe they could at least find out where they were going by listening into their conversations.
"They're not talking. All I hear is music and the engine" suddenly the car took a hard right on a corner and they were sent crashing into one side of the vehicle before reassuming their previous position.
"Argh!" Stiles pouted, closing his eyes again when a new wave of pain threatened to melt his brain "I feel like puking now" Scott was alarmed by this.
"Dude! Not on top of me, please" Stiles tilted his head to the side, resting his right ear on Scott's chest and began to breathe through the nausea. After a while, he frowned.
"How can you be so calm?" he asked, because in this position he could listen to his friend's heartbeat and it was totally normal. Scott was a bit surprised by the question but then he understood what Stiles meant. He wasn't going to deny that the situation scared him a bit, but he had to remain in control, calm and collected for his friend's sake. He could still hear Stiles's heart beating a bit faster than usual and he also knew that as brave as he was hanging around supernatural creatures and charging into any kind of bizarre situations armed with only a baseball bat, there were certain things that got to him, like being kidnapped, or unable to move or trapped in a small place, or all of the above combined, like right now. After a few seconds of considering his answer, he replied.
"Because we'll get out of this as we get out of everything: with the help of the pack. They'll know we're missing and as soon as they find the jeep, they'll know something happened to us"
Stiles's sudden nausea had receded enough for him to open up his eyes again and stare at the back of the trunk. Scott was right: they were going to get out of this but, would they be the same afterwards?
Lately it seemed that every time they got out of a difficult situation or solved a mess (a supernatural one of course) they ended up just a little bit more beaten than they were before. Ever since that business with the Nemeton, being surrogate sacrifices, the darkness creeping around their hearts, the nogitsune taking residence in his body, the dead pool, all the pain and suffering... All the deaths. Lately it just seemed that every time they went up against a new threat, they lost a little bit of their souls in the process, a little bit of themselves.
So why would this time be any different? And when would their bodies and their minds just have enough?
As if on cue with his pessimistic thoughts, the SUV started to slow down until it came to a complete stop.
"They're coming" Scott warned maybe a minute before the trunk was popped open and they both had to squint against the harsh glow of the flashlights pointing directly at their eyes. Rough hands grabbed the back of Stiles's shirt and pulled him out of the car. He struggled a little trying to get his feet underneath him but finally he managed. He was guided forward by a hand squeezing his arm and he got a final glance back at the vehicle to see Scott getting out on his own and beginning to walk too, prompted by the movement of a gun nearby.
Stiles looked ahead again when he tripped over his own feet and the hand pulling his bicep squeezed harder. The minimal amount of assurance he had managed to get from Scott during the last part of the ride was beginning to fade away when he glanced at the structure that rose in front of them.
It was the size of an industrial factory. In fact, he almost recognized it as one of the few broken down factories on the oldest part of town. This part of Beacon Hills was almost completely abandoned. There were just a few other rundown buildings closer to the main road but, other than that, this factory was well within the forest and almost obscured by the amount of foliage surrounding it.
There didn't seem to be a lot of security apart from a couple of armed men on the front door and he didn't know if he should feel concerned or relieved by that fact. Did that mean this people were sloppy with security or that they were confident enough that they didn't need it? Stiles just knew he really wasn't interested in finding out and that they couldn't get inside that facility at any cost.
By now Scott and the rest of the men guarding them had caught up to them and so they were walking almost side by side now, but when Stiles glanced over to his friend trying to convey with his eyes that they needed to do something now, he was puzzled by Scott's facial expression. His brow was furrowed in concentration and, maybe, frustration? His lips were set in a tight line and his arms were tense. He had been trying to break the cuffs around his wrists but, no matter how much strength he put into the task, the damn thing just wouldn't break. Stiles didn't need to be a werewolf to know that his best friend's heartrate was accelerating and he couldn't blame him. Why wasn't he able to break the cuffs? As far as Stiles could see, the cuffs were normal. At least, they felt normal around his hands. Were Scott's somehow different? Or was something wrong with his powers? Either way, whatever window of opportunity they may have had was lost the moment they stepped inside the factory and the doors were slammed behind them.
The silence of the procession was unnerving and Stiles was dying to ask where they were and why they had been taken there, but the memory of the weapon hitting him in the gut was enough to make him remain silent... For now.
Scott eventually gave up on trying to break the cuffs and instead concentrated the rest of his senses on his surroundings. The factory was empty, dirty, and clearly abandoned but there was a smell that reached his nose and was becoming stronger the closer they got to a door on the farthest wall across from them. He had been around one long enough to recognize that smell anywhere; it smelled like hospital.
"Where are you taking us?" he asked. He had been half expecting a violent answer from the man in charge or any of the others, really; instead, he got a snicker and a vague reply.
"You'll see" said Brig, the man who hadn't left him out of his sight, and the sight of his electric baton, even for a second.
The man in charge produced a card from one of his pockets and inserted it into an electronic lock by the side of the door. There was a slow beeping sound, a red light turning green and the door popped open. Stiles was surprised that such a sophisticated opening mechanism could be found on an old abandoned factory like that one, but maybe the place wasn't as abandoned as they thought it was, and the moment they were pushed through the door, it felt like they had stepped into another dimension.
TWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTW
What did you think? Also I would like to let you know that there will be NO slash in this fic because that's not what I do. I'm a bromance fan and I will explore that a 100%, but no slash will ever happen between Scott and Stiles! Just thought I should let you know
Remember: if there's anything specific you would like to read here, I accept requests that I'll try to fit into the storyline!
