Water never tasted so good. Breathing never hurt so bad.

Stiles couldn't comprehend how he felt, really. He felt scared, paranoid, sick, even though his brain seemed to be telling him that none of what he saw was real. They hadn't sliced up and killed Lydia in front of him. He hadn't told Heather everything about Scott and Derek.

But something still lingered inside of him that made him want to die.

He knew that if they didn't get out of this cell tonight, and they threatened him with more of that god awful poison, he wouldn't hold it together.

As he tried to sit up, he felt stiff. His arms itched and burned. His leg was an annoying shooting pain. His face was still sore from Grandpa Argent fucking it up days before.

Days? Had it been days? Stiles nor Lydia were quite certain how long they'd been in the cell, but it didn't really matter anyways, did it?

Stiles didn't know what had happened to Lydia when he was delirious. He didn't know whether she lied about them not hurting her, but she had no fresh wounds. The only thing Stiles saw in her that was new was her voice full of determination and promise when she spoke to him. Also, she must have ripped his chains from the wall or something. The thought made him smile while she was wrapping his arms with fresh bed sheets, to which Lydia rolled her eyes and asked; "What are you smiling at?"

But Stiles just looked at her like he always did, because she never ceased to amaze him. She was holding it together better than any other full grown human being could have. Or at least, she was very good at hiding her dwindling sanity.

According to her, they were going to make it out tonight. How in the hell they were going to do that, Stiles didn't know, but he believed her.

He winced as the sheet rubbed against his burnt flesh and Lydia hesitated and looked up at him for a second.

"No, it's fine, keep going," Stiles said, gritting his teeth.

She kept going without a word. The silence was allowing Stiles' thoughts to move to the nightmares he saw in his poisoned state, and so he tried to start up some kind of conversation to keep the images at bay.

"So, um, do we have a plan or something for this escape thing?" Stiles asked.

"Nope," Lydia replied, not looking up at him.

"Well that's convenient."

Lydia sighed and finished wrapping up his arm before sitting back and looking up at him, irritated. "I'm working on it, Stiles. If you haven't noticed, those are full grown werewolves out there."

"Yeah, I got that. I'm not trying to push you. You just...do your thing," Stiles said, waving his hand around to represent whatever Lydia's thing was.

"Okay well first of all, we have to see if you can even move. Or else I'm just going to have to run and find Scott and tell him where you are," Lydia explained, looking up to her right as she usually did when she was thinking.

"Run?" Stiles asked, incredulous. He shifted his position and was glad to know that it wasn't too excruciating to move. "Your plan is to just run right passed them?"

"Of course not. We'd distract them first."

Stiles waited for her to elaborate, but Lydia always loved to push people to the very limit before she thoroughly explained.

"Okay, how?" Stiles asked.

Lydia pressed her mouth into a tight line and looked at Stiles for a second before responding. "You're not going to like it."

Lydia had fully explained her plan, and although it made Stiles pretty uncomfortable, he thought it could work.

But for the most crucial part, they had to test Stiles' strength.

And so Lydia sat, patiently waiting for Stiles to gather himself before she began helping him up.

"Okay, just give me a sec," Stiles said as Lydia stood up and held out her hands.

He grabbed her hands and pushed himself up. Too fast. His head spun and he took one of his hands away to push it against the wall. Lydia held his other hand firmly as he swayed for a moment. When it subsided a little, he put pressure on his leg. It hurt terribly, but it wasn't useless.

He nodded at Lydia, telling her that it was okay to move. When he walked on the leg, there was a limp, but it wouldn't completely affect his ability to run. Lydia helped him walk to the door and back, like he was an old man undergoing joint therapy.

"How does it feel?" she asked after a while.

Stiles was about to reply with a simple fine , but he hissed in pain as he stumbled and flexed his arm a little too much until he felt fresh bleeding on his burn wounds. He pulled his hand from Lydia's and went to the wall to steady himself.

He was miserable, but he wasn't going to whine about it. "I'm good."

Lydia looked at him with her lips in a tight line. It was a look of disapproval that she seemed to be using to hide her concern. "Stiles, if you can't walk, we can't escape. We have to know for sure."

Stiles sighed and turned so that his back was leaning against the wall. He tilted his head back and sighed. "I'm trying, I swear to God. If we get out of here, I'll probably be all hopped up on adrenaline and stuff, right? And I'll keep practicing until then. I won't screw this up for you, okay?"

Lydia's face softened, and there was that guilt again. The guilt that Stiles hated on her face.

"Are you going to tell me what you saw? When you were..."

She trailed off. She seemed to have wanted to ask that question for a while now, and now that she did, she looked even more guilty than before. Suddenly, Stiles wondered what he must have looked like from Lydia's point of view when he was poisoned. He remembered screaming, but he couldn't be sure if he actually did it out loud. If he did...and if he did other things too, of course Lydia would wonder.

And he would tell her. Just...not yet.

He didn't quite know what to respond to her, but unfortunately he didn't have time to think of an answer anyways. Just then, Heather, Jaymie, Raynes and the other guy walked into the cell. They were human for now, at least.

But they weren't ready. Stiles wasn't ready. They didn't go over the plan enough times. But as Stiles caught Lydia's eye, she nodded very subtly. There was fear and doubt in her eyes, but the message was clear.

We have no choice. We have to do it now.

Stiles got the message. Lydia could see it in his eyes. See the color drain from his face once more.

She didn't need to look behind her to know that all four of the wolves were there. She was hoping it was just Heather or Jaymie, because it would be a lot easier to run. But no such luck.

They couldn't wait. They would be expecting information from Stiles now, and if he didn't cooperate, she knew what they would have in store for him - or perhaps for her.

She turned and backed up towards the wall as the four werewolves lined up in front of her.

Heather noticed the chains right away. Her eyes flashed, but then she smiled. "Some strength you have, boy."

Lydia was just going to let it go, but Stiles spoke up. "It was Lydia actually."

"You don't look very good, kid. We should probably get you a juice box or something," Jaymie said. She seemed dirtier and more insane every time she visited the cell. Her hair was messier than it had been, and there was more blood on her shirt that she still hadn't changed. Her eyes were absolutely crazed and she looked at the two of them like she wanted to rip someone's throat out badly.

Raynes grunted with something that must have been laughter. Heather stepped forward, rolling her eyes. A group of betas didn't seem as closely connected as a regular pack of werewolves. They all had their own rules, and Heather didn't seem to care at all about any of the wolves behind her, except maybe her sister.

"Alright, enough. You know what I'm going to ask. We're tired. We don't want to hurt anyone again. Stiles, tell us where they are or I'll do it again," Heather said. She really did sound exhausted. There was no menace in her voice.

Stiles stepped forward. He was steady on his feet, but there was no mistaking the clenching and unclenching of his fists that said that standing wasn't exactly pain-free. When he spoke, his voice was clear and angry. "I'm not telling you shit."

Heather seemed surprised for a split second before she closed her eyes and tilted her head back, taking a deep breath. Lydia remembered how confident Heather was that it would work, and Stiles would give everything up.

She was wrong. And she was pissed.

But instead of advancing on Stiles, she lunged at Lydia and pinned her against the wall.

"Is this what you want?" she screamed. She was screaming in Lydia's face, but Lydia knew that the question wasn't directed at her. It was directed at Stiles. "You want me to snap her neck? If that's what it takes, I will."

Stiles' eyes were wide and he made towards Lydia but Raynes seized him from behind and pinned his arms behind his back. Stiles screamed as Raynes dug his claws in to his burned arms, but apparently he didn't have time for pain. He screamed again, but words this time. "I'd take a thousand more doses of that crap before I told Lydia's killer anything. So you go ahead and do it, lady, but it's not going to get you any closer to finding them!"

Stiles was intelligent. That much was no secret, and Lydia knew it. If he were to go so far as telling a werewolf to go ahead and kill Lydia while he watched, than he knew 100% that she wouldn't do it.

So Lydia wasn't scared. In fact, when Heather looked back at Lydia with fear and exasperation in her eyes, Lydia stared back with daring determination. The werewolf knew that Stiles was telling the truth.

And Lydia knew it too.

Heather let her go, and she was the first one to break eye contact with Lydia. She didn't say anything, but Raynes brought Stiles over to the back wall and slammed him roughly against it. He stepped aside, keeping Stiles firmly in place.

And then Heather reached in her back pocket, and Lydia's heart soared, because this was the plan. This was it.

The other male werewolf came over to hold Lydia in place. Jaymie stayed blocking the door. He was trying to scare her, growling in her face with angry eyes, but she was too busy looking at what was happening beside her.

Heather took a needle out of her back pocket. Sucked up some of the liquid. Moved it towards Stiles neck, who looked scared.

When it was only centimeters away from being stabbed into his neck, he did what he and Lydia had talked about. With incredible speed, he lifted his arm, grabbed the needle from Heather and flipped it around. Heather was caught off guard, and so she didn't have time to stop the needle from being plunged in her own neck. She gagged and growled and tried to claw Stiles' hand away, but Stiles had already pushed the liquid into her and pushed her out of the way. Raynes was surprised too, and he stumbled backwards when Stiles kicked him in the groin with his good leg. He had to do it three times, cause apparently werewolves had some pretty strong equipment, but eventually Raynes howled and fell to his knees.

Lydia moved before the wolf holding her could realize what was going on. She gathered up the knowledge she gained from her self-defense class years ago and plunged her thumbs into the wolf's eyes. Lydia found herself making an odd noise, like she was growling too. There was a weird pleasure from pressing this guy's eyes into his skull and watching him squirm and bellow. The eyes were one of the most sensitive parts of the body, even when it came to werewolves. When she had pressed them hard enough, she ran towards the door where Stiles was punching Jaymie repeatedly as she tried to push him against the wall. She hadn't turned into a werewolf yet, probably too unprepared to realize what was happening around her - apparently, though werewolves were quick when it came down to it, they weren't so quick to act in the first place, especially when it came to a fight with two scrawny humans.

Lydia could see the muscles contracting in Stiles arm as he punched her over and over across the face, and she saw fresh blood appearing under his bandages. She couldn't stare for long though, because Heather was crawling towards her, looking sickly pale and on the edge of consciousness. She still managed to look enraged though, and her werewolf face was turning itself off and on.

Lydia ran towards the woman and kicked her in the face until she rolled on to her side. Through the howling of the two male wolves, Lydia recalled what Heather had said on the first day of her and Stiles imprisonment, and so she leaned close to the wolf and whispered;

"I am not a floozy."

And then she kicked her in the face once more and made her way over to Stiles, who had Jaymie pinned against the door frame. Lydia managed to make it over to them in time to see Jaymie's werewolf face fade back into a human one. Her face was bloodied, and red flew from her mouth as she spoke.

"Wait," she begged. "You don't understand. They killed her. Your precious Scott killed my daughter."

Lydia was looking at Stiles' profile from outside the door.

"Stiles, let's go!" she hissed as she saw the male werewolves recovering.

Stiles' face changed from angry, to surprised, to dubious, and then to disgust. But he didn't seem to be disgusted by Jaymie. He seemed disgusted by what Jaymie had said.

"Why should I believe you?" he asked quietly.

Jaymie spit out some more blood. "A mother doesn't lie when it comes to her children."

Suddenly, Stiles furrowed his brow in conflict and pain, but it wasn't a physical pain, Lydia could tell. It was something going on inside his head. Some kind of understanding as he looked into the eyes of the wolf that now seemed too human.

"Stiles, please," Lydia pleaded, more urgent this time. The two male werewolves were both slowly getting to their feet now, growling.

Stiles seemed to shake himself out of his stupor. He looked at Jaymie and let her drop to the floor before grabbing Lydia by the arm and running without looking back.