I own nothing except for my own characters.
Ella Stilinski - Lily Collins
Ophelia Lite - Candice King
"And worse I may be yet. The worst is not
So long as we can say 'This is the worst'."
William Shakespeare, King Lear
As it turned out Derek was alive. Ella had gotten Ophelia's text a few minutes after ending her angst-ridden call to Stiles and had immediately called her friend to figure out what she meant. It had to be more than just Ophelia insisting she was right.
She had been right, though, and Ophelia had calmly told Ella about her midnight drive to Derek's loft, where she had found the werewolf alive. And in bed with an unknown woman. Ophelia had taken Ella's scolding quietly, too quiet for Ella's liking, and had hung up with the assurance that they would talk the next day.
Ella knew that something had been bothering her friend, and knew it possibly had something to do with the brunette sleeping in Derek's bed, but had been too preoccupied with her own personal crisis to deal with Ophelia and Derek's weird relationship.
She had then called her brother once again to tell him the news, leaving out the part about Derek's new girlfriend, and had spent a couple of minutes talking to Scott, who had come back to his senses.
He didn't mention having seen or heard her at the motel and neither did Ella. If Stiles hadn't told him about it, he had to have a good reason, and Ella wasn't sure what to tell him anyway. Either way, Scott had had enough of the supernatural for one night already. He didn't need to deal with her problems on top of it all.
Ella hid a yawn behind her hand as she stood in the parking lot, waiting for a certain school bus to arrive. It had been a long day already and it was only past two, but after the non-dream and the phone calls she had barely gotten any sleep that night.
And with Jennifer calling in sick she had had to teach the classes herself. Which had been a bit daunting, but she thought she had performed admirably giving the circumstances. It helped that the students liked her and that she knew the material like the back of her hand.
She let out an audible sigh of relief, when the yellow bus finally pulled into the parking lot and stopped not far from her. She knew nothing out of the ordinary had happened on the bus ride home, but she felt much better knowing she would soon have her brother in front of her.
It was almost ridiculous how overprotective she had become during the last 24 hours alone, but seeing Scott standing in that pool of gasoline had shocked her to her very core. She hoped for Melissa that she would never learn what had almost happened to her son.
The first person to step out of the bus was the Coach and he inhaled deeply as if he had been without air for hours. She noticed wryly that he was missing his beloved whistle that no longer hung around his neck. Apparently, it had been the cause of the werewolves' momentary insanity.
"Ella." Finstock greeted tiredly as he saw her standing by the door. "Nice to finally see a rational human being again."
"Welcome back, Bobby. How was the trip?" she questioned with a sympathetic smile and he looked at her as if she was mad for even asking.
"Jared puked all over the God damned bus and your brother apparently spent all night in the bus with his little group of misfits and I lost my whistle." Finstock ranted loudly and surprised Ella by handing her a clipboard with a list of names on it. "Here. Make sure everyone's here. I need a drink."
Finstock was gone before Ella could even think of protesting or telling him that checking if everyone was there was something you did before you left the place you had been staying. Hopefully, all students had made it onto the bus and weren't stuck at the creepy motel.
When the first student appeared in the doorway to leave the bus she asked for her name and checked her off the list. She repeated the process – Jared looked like he was about to throw up again – with a welcoming, if a little forced, smile until a certain alpha twin stepped out and her expression turned into a scowl.
Ethan barely seemed to notice her, though, as he hurried away and left behind a confused Danny. The tall boy glanced after the werewolf before greeting Ella with a smile and leaving as well.
After Danny followed Boyd and Isaac, and Ella couldn't help the wide smile that spread on her lips at seeing the boys unharmed.
"I'm so happy you guys are okay." she told them honestly and while Boyd looked slightly uncomfortable with her concern, Isaac, to her surprise, pulled her into a quick, but tight hug. "Go see Derek. He should be at his loft."
Following her advice the two betas left and next came the two girls, who had been blind passengers on the bus. Allison and Lydia looked tired with dark circles under their eyes, but smiled at Ella as they stepped off the bus.
They were both startled, when the older girl wrapped an arm around each their neck and pulled them into a three-way hug. They liked Ella and had become closer with her over the last couple of weeks, but they hadn't expected a hug.
Ella could feel Lydia's watchful gaze on her as she pulled away from the girls, while Allison only blinked in surprise. Lydia had, somehow, seen her at the motel as well, but had, like Stiles, kept quiet about it to her best friend. Ella couldn't tell whether that was a good or bad for her.
When the two girls moved aside Scott was standing right behind them and Ella threw herself at him; propriety be damned. The feeling of never wanting to let go of him, which she had felt in her non-dream, reappeared and she blinked to keep the tears out of her eyes. The image of Scott being ready to set himself on fire had been seared into her brain.
"What am I, chopped liver?" Stiles asked from behind them and Ella glanced over Scott's shoulder to find her brother looking at them with a lopsided smile on his lips.
It didn't reach his eyes, but Ella couldn't get herself to care as she pushed away from Scott and pulled Stiles into a bone-crushing hug.
"Hey, sis, remember how I'm human cause you're kinda bruising my ribs." Stiles groaned, slightly out of breath, but didn't let go of her as she relaxed her grip on him.
"You okay?" he muttered into her ear before she slowly pulled away and she nodded as she sent him a wavering smile.
"Didn't I tell you to stay in your rooms and not get in trouble?" Ella chastised the boys with her arms crossed in front of her, making Stiles roll his eyes.
"How could we know that a crazy druid was gonna try and kill everyone?"
"Point taken."
The small group laughed for a moment until a tense silence fell over them. They were all still marked by the night's events and Ella studied them all with a sad look in her eyes. It was not supposed to be this way. They were too young to carry a burden such as this.
"I still have a class to teach, but you guys go home and get some rest, okay?" she told the teenagers, who nodded without protests. She turned to her brother, who hadn't taken his eyes off her since leaving the bus. "I'll see you at home in couple of hours."
She glanced at them all one more time before she stepped into the bus to make sure there were no one left inside; not noticing the look Stiles and Lydia shared before the group split up.
Ella arrived home a little after five, having gone to the supermarket after her last class ended. Normally, she would been too tired to do anything but go home and sleep, but their fridge was nearly empty and she knew her father wouldn't have time to shop.
She knew that Stiles hadn't gone to sleep like she had told him to and was waiting for her to come home, but the conversation they were about to have made her nervous, so she took her time unpacking the groceries before she went upstairs with a bowl of chocolate ice cream in her hand.
She had been craving it all day and the cold porcelain against her hand made her feel more focused and awake. It also meant she would have something to do with her hands, when Stiles inevitably started ranting.
Stiles' door was already open, when she arrived and she paused in surprise in the doorway, when a certain strawberry blonde-haired girl caught her attention.
"Lydia, uhm, hey. I didn't know you were here." Ella greeted dumbfounded and forgot about the spoon with ice cream she was holding in mid-air and about to put into her mouth.
Lydia was sitting on Stiles' bed with her hands gathered in her lap and looked as if she felt slightly out of place. As far as Ella knew Lydia hadn't been in Stiles' room since the night of his birthday, where she had eavesdropped on them.
"I want to know what happened last night, so I went home with Stiles." Lydia explained and frowned, when she realized the turn of phrase she had used. Those were probably words she had never expected to hear herself say.
Ella glanced at her brother to see if he had noticed, but he was entirely focused on her and any amusement she had felt over Lydia's words dissipated. She couldn't help but wonder, though, what they had been doing for the last couple of hours while they waited for her to come home.
"Right." Ella muttered slowly and licked the ice cream off her spoon as she decided what to do with herself. In the end she walked over to sit beside Lydia. "So…"
"What do you remember?" Stiles questioned as soon as was sat down and Ella looked down at her bowl of ice cream for a long moment before raising her head to answer.
"I went to sleep and I had a dream I really can't remember, but it was definitely a dream. Then I stepped off the school bus and it didn't feel like a dream any longer. I could sense things. Things you can't normally sense in dreams. And then you were there."
"I thought I was hallucinating."
"Yeah, you told me as much. Said I wasn't your sister."
"Sorry." Stiles replied as he sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. Ella made a gesture with her hand, telling him it didn't matter, and scooped up another spoon of ice cream.
"What then?" Lydia questioned and studied the older girl carefully as she ate her ice cream.
"Stiles left and I didn't know whether to go after him or not. But then… then Scott came walking right towards me. And he looked right through me. It was as if I wasn't even there. And when I tried to touch him it was like some kind of invisible barrier was between us."
"What, like a force field?"
"I guess?" Ella said with a frown and watched as her brother stood up to pace the floor. "I also tried taking the gasoline from him, but it kinda just slipped out of my hands. There was one time, though…"
"One time what?" Stiles inquired as he paused his nervous pacing to look at her and Ella let her spoon fall into the bowl in her hands.
"I was trying to stop him, but he wouldn't listen, couldn't even sense I was there, so I slapped him."
"And you hit him?" Lydia asked without any notion of blame in her voice; only curiosity.
"Yeah. And I don't know, but it was like, for a moment, he could see me."
"Wait, so you Patrick Swayze'd him?"
"I'm sorry, what?" Lydia spoke and shared a look of confusion with Ella before they both turned their eyes back to Stiles.
"You know in Ghost, when he's dead and he can only touch things if he gets really angry or emotional."
"Well, I was pretty desperate. But it doesn't make any sense, Stiles. How could I touch Scott if I was here in my bed the whole time? Speaking of which, why were you the only one, who could hear and see me?"
"I don't know."
"I heard you scream." Lydia revealed quietly after a moment of tense silence and the Stilinski siblings both turned to stare at her.
"You what?!"
"But I thought only Stiles heard me."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I heard a lot of things last night that I would really like to forget." Lydia sighed tiredly and Ella reached over to give her arm a comforting squeeze.
Stiles had told everything that had happened, when she had called him after waking up and it turned out that Ella had only witnessed the peak of their horrible night.
Suicide wasn't an uncommon occurrence at the motel they had been staying at and Lydia had somehow heard echoes of those desperate people just before they took their own lives.
"But no one else heard me scream? Just you and Stiles?"
"They didn't see you either." Lydia said with a shake of her head and Ella was reminded how Lydia had suddenly been able to see her after she had taken Stiles' hand.
"But you did. How? Was it the Darach?" Ella asked with her eyes trained on her brother, who had started pacing once again. Giving Stiles a moment to think, she offered Lydia her bowl of ice cream and the girl took it was a brief smile.
"Maybe." Stiles finally sighed and threw his hands into the air before sitting back down in the chair by his desk. "Maybe not."
Ella could easily tell how frustrated he was becoming with not knowing what was going on. With Lydia, the Darach, his sister; the list went on.
"I saw the Darach. I saw her standing in the fire after the gasoline was lit." Ella told them as she watched Lydia scoop of some of Ella's ice cream and eat it. The girl nodded as if to say she had as well.
"Wait, 'her'? Why did you say 'her'?" Stiles asked and immediately straightened in his seat as he stared at his sister with an intense look in his brown eyes. It was like a small light had been turned on behind them; making him look less tired and worn out.
"I don't know." Ella shrugged, but couldn't help but wonder herself why she had automatically thought the Darach was a she. "Equal opportunity and all, I guess. It might as well be a woman as a man."
"Yeah, but you said as if you knew it was a woman." Stiles pointed out and then looked at Lydia, who was busy with the bowl of ice cream in her hands. "Lydia?"
"Hm?"
"You saw the Darach. Was it a woman?"
"I couldn't see. They were just really pale and had large scars on their face. I suppose they could be a woman. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."
"But their sex doesn't have anything to do with what happened to me." Ella reminded them and she noticed her brother deflate a bit, because even if that was some sort of tiny clue, it did not explain what had happened to Ella.
"Let's say you could see and hear me because you're my brother." she hypothesized with her eyes on Stiles, who was listening quietly. "Where does Lydia come in? I mean, she only saw me, when we touched."
"So?"
"Maybe there's some kind of bond between the two of you? Something that made her see me through you, somehow." Ella suggested carefully, knowing she was on her way to make things awkward for her brother, and she quickly diverted her gaze, when she noticed Stiles blush.
"Why would there be a bond between me and Stiles?" Lydia questioned with a confused frown and glanced between the siblings until her eyes widened as she realized what Ella meant.
Ella knew that Lydia hadn't meant to be so careless with her words, but she couldn't help but feel slightly annoyed with the girl as she took in the crestfallen expression on Stiles' face.
Lydia had known about Stiles' crush on her for months now and had to know there were still some lingering feelings despite the developments in their friendship.
"Forget it." Ella said quickly, but didn't manage to dispel the awkward tension in the room. "Lydia heard me before that, so maybe it's something else. Maybe it has to do with Lydia being-"
Ella paused, when she realized what she was about to say and glanced apologetically at the girl next to her. They hadn't come any closer to figuring out what was happening to Lydia, but last night's events seemed to prove that she wasn't just finding dead bodies by coincidence.
"You can say it." Lydia sighed heavily before taking another scoop of ice cream into her mouth. "I'm something."
"That doesn't explain why you were there. Why would the Darach want you at the motel?"
"To freak us out?"
"But you were helping, or trying to. If the Darach wanted Scott dead, then why send you to stop it?"
"So if the Darach didn't do this, then who did?"
"Assuming there is a third party involved." Lydia commented with her eyebrows raised at Stiles and it took Ella a few seconds longer than her brother to realize what the redhead was hinting at.
"You think Ella did it? That she could be…" Stiles trailed off and rested his eyes on his sister, who was blindly reaching for the bowl in Lydia's hands with a wide-eyed expression.
"Something."
The next day at school passed by uneventfully with both Jennifer and the pack back. Although that also meant the return of the alpha twins and, now that they knew Derek was alive, Ella received meaningful stares every time she passed them in the halls. Ennis, one of theirs, had died and they were blaming Derek.
There was also the fact that her level of anxiety had risen to new, dangerous heights. Not only was the whole Derek/alpha pack situation balancing on a knife's edge and she constantly feared for Ophelia's safety, but there was also the fact that she might be "something".
She hadn't truly realized how frustrated Lydia had to feel all the time, not knowing what was happening to her, before Ella had somehow left her own body and, as a ghost, gone to find her brother hundreds of miles away.
She felt like she was going crazy just thinking about it and had spent the whole day completely distracted. In the lunch break Stiles and Scott – her brother having told his best friend what had happened – had caught her before she managed to hide in the teachers' lounge and taken her to Deaton despite her protests.
Despite how much her brain was obsessing over it, Ella was content living in ignorant bliss for just one more day before someone turned her world on its head once again by telling her what was happening to her.
When Deaton couldn't explain how or why her non-dream had happened, she didn't know whether to feel more relieved or frustrated. Relieved because maybe it wasn't actually her there was something wrong with; frustrated because there still was a very real chance it was her there was something wrong with, but she didn't know what.
It was after nine and Ella was in her room reading, and trying to distract herself from her own thoughts, when Stiles swung open the door and practically dragged her out of the room.
As they ran downstairs he told her in a few short sentences about Scott calling from the hospital to tell that another victim had been taken for the sacrifice. And a second person was missing.
The sheriff had apparently gotten the same call as he quickly walked through the house from the kitchen and followed his kids out of the front door. He didn't bother arguing, when they hopped into the backseat of his car to go with him.
Luckily, Ella hadn't changed out of her work clothes when she got home, but the sleeveless button-up she was wearing was too cold for the evening weather and she hugged herself to keep some of her warmth.
She looked up in surprise, when something black landed in her lap and she lifted the fabric to find that Stiles had grabbed her leather jacket on their way out.
"Thanks." she told her brother with a smile, which he returned before looking down at his phone to finish the text he was writing.
"I'm guessing Scott called you, huh?" their father asked with a glance at Stiles through the rearview mirror.
"Yeah. He's at the hospital."
"You know, I can't just take my kids with me to a crime scene. And you both have your own cars."
"But this way we're saving gas. Good for the environment and all that." Stiles pointed out and their father only shook his head in reply. He knew it was futile to try arguing with his son. "Just drop us off at the corner."
Ten minutes later Ella and Stiles stepped out of the car and they started jogging towards the main entrance of the hospital as the sheriff drove off. Their father was making his way over to two of his deputies, who were already on the scene, when Stiles and Ella reached Scott.
"Hey." Scott greeted them with a concerned look in his eyes and Ella followed his gaze towards the empty car, which belonged to the missing doctor.
"You're okay?" she asked Scott, who nodded in return and turned his head to look at Stiles and Ella.
"I was delivering some food for my mom since she had to work an extra shift." Scott started telling even though both Stiles and Ella already knew most of it from what he had told over the phone.
"Aw. Son of the year." Ella said with a teasing smile and managed to make the teen wolf blush a little.
"Hey!" Stiles exclaimed from beside her, but Ella just rolled her eyes.
"Please, you don't even qualify."
Stiles opened his mouth to argue, but then seemed to remember his current track record for the year and thought better of it. Alone getting his father fired disqualified him.
"Suddenly Ethan was there with Danny, who couldn't breathe. He'd been poisoned with mistletoe." Scott interrupted the siblings' banter and they immediately became serious again.
"Do we know why?" Stiles questioned with his arms crossed in front of him and an expression that told Ella he was already trying to figure it out. Ella, on the other hand, frowned at the thought of Danny being with Ethan.
"No, but he almost died. My mom managed to save him." Scott replied and there was an unmistakable tone of pride in his voice, which made Ella smile. "Then when I was leaving Ethan followed me. We were talking, when a car started swerving through the parking lot, but when we opened the door there was no one in there."
"And it couldn't just be some stupid prank?" Ella asked hopefully, even though she knew the chance was next to none.
"No. My mom told me there was already a doctor missing, so they had to get the on-call doctor. That's her car."
"So healers. Two healers have been taken." Stiles concluded as he calmed a hand through his hair and shared a dejected look with Scott and his sister. That meant two down, one to go.
The trio didn't get a chance to continue their conversation as both Melissa and the sheriff were making their way over to them from each their direction; the hospital and the empty car.
Scott quickly told the sheriff what had happened, but was stopped when he mentioned that not one, but two doctors were missing.
"Hang on there." her father interrupted with a lifted hand as he stopped writing down Scott's statement. "They were both in the car?"
"No, dad. He's trying to tell you that it was two separate kidnappings, okay?" Stiles explained with a slightly exasperated look on his face as their father didn't understand what was going on. "Two doctors, both gone."
"So whose car is this?"
"Doctor Hilliard. The on-call doctor. The ER attending is the one that never made it in." Melissa answered instead of Stiles, who was anxiously rubbing his fingers together.
Ella could feel his impatience radiating off of him and placed her hand on his right arm in an attempt to calm him down. He briefly glanced at her out of the corner of his eye before he let his left arm fall to rest on top of the one crossed in front of him.
"Let me just focus on getting your story first, alright?" their father requested with a look at Melissa, who quickly agreed. He then turned to Scott and his children. "Give us a second."
The three stepped away as the sheriff started taking Melissa's statement and they all glanced at their surroundings as they wondered what to do next.
"So the next pattern is healers. But what about Danny? He threw up mistletoe. That's not a coincidence. And if he hadn't been with Ethan he probably would've died. And Danny's not a healer." Scott spoke and brought Ella out of her dark thoughts about a paled, scarred woman.
"Can you hear that?" Stiles asked instead of answering Scott, and Ella turned her head to see their father in the middle of a phone call. Scott turned his head as well and listened for a moment before looking back at them.
"They found a body."
"Shit."
"I think that's putting it mildly."
"Good morning." Ella greeted the class as cheerfully as she could manage as she walked into the physics room. She sent a brief smile to Scott and Stiles, who were sat together in the front of the class.
"As you know, Mr. Harris is still mis-, uh, sick, so I will be substituting until they find a more qualified teacher to take my place. Which is soon, hopefully." she told the class and tried not to wince at her slip of words. "Anyway, let's get started."
Ella sent the class a smile before she walked behind the desk to write on the green chalkboard. She looked down at the note in her hand, which told her what the day's lesson was about, and picked up a piece of chalk to write on the board.
She had read through the chapter of the day a few times after the principal had offered her the class and luckily she had understood most of it.
Physics wasn't her best subject, but after a lot of studying she had managed to pull a B average in the subject in her senior year. So teaching a class of juniors wouldn't be too hard. She hoped. And substituting instead of only assisting would mean she finally got paid.
Ella glanced over shoulder and paused with the chalk still touching the board, when she heard a phone vibrate loudly. She saw Scott answer his phone out of the corner of her eye and duck under the table to not be heard.
She could hear his mumbling as she resumed her writing and finished with a line under the word 'Electromagnetic waves – chapter 4'. When she turned to face the class her eyes fell on Scott, who had finished his call and was whispering something to Stiles with a panicked look in his eyes.
Ella watched with a concerned frown as he abruptly got up from his seat and grabbed his bag. The whole class was watching curiously as he stopped in front of Ella and she almost reached out to touch his hand as she saw the fear in his dark eyes.
"Deaton's been taking. I need to find him." Scott informed her in a low voice, so none of his classmates could hear and Ella felt her heart drop to her stomach.
"Of course." she quickly told him with a frantic nod and pushed at his arm, when he for a second remained unmoving. "Go. Go, go, go!"
Without another word Scott sprinted out of the class and Ella's eyes lingered on the closed door for a long moment before she turned her attention back to the class. They were all staring at her, but Ella looked to her brother, who was busy typing something on his phone. He was probably alerting their father.
"Right, so can anyone tell me what an electromagnetic wave is?" she asked the class, while trying her hardest to keep her voice even. Taking a deep breath, Ella clenched her shaking hands into fists and smiled at the students.
"Yes, Ian?" she picked a redheaded boy she remembered from English.
As the boy started talking all she could hear was the blood pumping in her ears. The Darach had taken Deaton and Scott had to find him before it was too late. If anyone could do it, it was Scott. The trouble was he would have no idea where to look.
"Alright." the Sheriff said as he slapped his hand down on Scott's shoulder, making the boy jump. Scott had run to the animal clinic as soon as he got the call from Deaton, but had found no leads as to where he might be. "We're gonna do everything we can, but right now the best thing you can do is go back to school."
Scott nodded dejectedly and the sheriff sent his son a meaningful look, telling him to do the same. Both boys knew that wasn't going to happen. Stiles thought briefly of his sister, who had barely managed to get through the physics class without panicking, and took his phone from his pocket to update her on what was happening.
When he finished his text he looked back at Scott, who gestured with his eyes and head towards the Cat Clinic, and Stiles followed him into the empty room. No new cats had come in after the mass suicide two weeks earlier.
"We have to tell him." Scott spoke urgently as soon as he had closed the door behind him and Stiles felt how his pulse immediately started racing.
"You mean like tell him, tell him? Or tell him something else that isn't telling him what I think you wanna tell him." Stiles said as he clutched one of the empty cat cages in an attempt to remain calm.
"You know what I mean."
"Remember how your mom reacted? She didn't look you in the eye for like a week."
"She got over it." Scott whispered, when Stiles' voice rose in volume and he could see how his friend was already starting to panic as he looked towards the door through which he could see his father.
"And it actually made us closer." Scott tried to argue, but it didn't seem to convince Stiles. "Stiles, just think of Ella. She knows and she's fine."
"Ella is not fine. She's constantly worrying, barely sleeping and when she does she has nightmares, Scott. And we still don't know what really happened at the motel." Stiles snapped at his best friend and diverted his eyes to the floor, when Scott flinched at his tone.
"Why haven't you told me?"
"Because she hasn't told me either. And what if the same happens to my dad? I mean, look at him." Stiles said with his eyes trained on his father, who tiredly rubbed a hand over his face. "He's completely overwhelmed as it is."
"He's overwhelmed because he has no clue what's happening. He's got people dying in his town, the town that he's supposed to protect and it's not his fault that he doesn't know what's happening. He's gonna find out sooner or later."
"Okay, but is now really the right time?" Stiles protested, hoping to somehow delay the inevitable.
He knew Scott was right, just like Ophelia had been with Ella, but he couldn't get himself to do it. His sister finally knowing had been a relief for a few days, but then the human sacrifices had started happening and the alpha pack had made their entrance and everything was blowing up in Stiles' face once again.
Ella would never tell him about her nightmares and sleepless nights, because, even after four years away in college, she still felt like she needed to take care of him and their father.
But he had heard her. He had heard her cry out in her sleep; seen her kick off her sheets as she tried to get away from whatever was chasing her, when he checked on her after hearing her voice through the wall; heard her wake up at four AM and move around in her room until her alarm rang.
It wasn't every night, but enough for Stiles to notice that something wasn't right. And now she had, in her sleep, somehow managed to be two places at once without any of them knowing how. She hadn't told him, but he could see it on her face that she was afraid it would happen again.
Whatever was happening with his sister, he couldn't do that to his father as well.
"What if not telling him now gets someone else killed later?"
"What if telling him gets him killed, huh?" Stiles questioned, his voice desperate as he stared at Scott, who couldn't meet his gaze.
"I mean, I get that Deaton's been like a father to you. I get that." he continued with a trembling voice, which slowly rose in volume as he tried to make Scott understand. "Okay, but this is my, Scott, this is my actual father. I can't… Ella and I can't lose both our parents, alright. Not both of them."
"You're right." Scott finally conceded as his eyes briefly met Stiles, who deflated with a deep sigh.
For once he wasn't right. His father needed to know before more people got killed. Or maybe even him if he suddenly found himself in the same situation as Ella had with Boyd and Cora. Not knowing could as easily get him killed as knowing.
"No, I'm not. I'm not right." Stiles said with a glance towards the door and his mind was already trying to come up with a way to tell his father. He would need to call Ella as well. "I'll tell him."
"I'll help you." Scott promised without taking his eyes of his best friend and then walked towards the door, leaving Stiles to follow him after a long exhale.
The plan of telling the sheriff what was really going on completely left their minds as they exited the Cat Clinic to find Ms. Morell telling the sheriff that she would offer whatever they needed to find her brother.
Stiles looked at Scott, who was equally as confused as himself, and mouthed the word 'brother'. If Deaton hadn't been the newest victim of the Darach, this new piece of information would have made the veterinarian very suspicious in Stiles' eyes.
"Will you excuse us for a minute? Thank you." the sheriff told the guidance counselor and had barely left the room before she was making her way over to the boys.
"Listen closely, both of you. No sheriff, deputy or detective is going to be able to find him." she told them without showing any form of inner turmoil or worry about her brother's disappearance.
"You don't have to ask us for help." Scott told her and a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as she eyed the werewolf.
"Actually, I'm trying to help you. Because if you're going to find my brother you need to use the one person, who might actually have an ability to seek out the supernatural."
Scott stared at the woman with a frown and looked at Stiles, who seemed to immediately understand who she was talking about.
"Lydia."
"You know, if you pull that it'll get you at least a month of detention and large bill you don't want to pay." Ella warned the brunette, who was standing with her back to Ella and about to pull the fire alarm.
Ella took a step back in shock, when the girl turned around to glare at her and she saw it wasn't a student. In front of her stood Cora Hale, who had tried to kill her just a couple of weeks ago.
"I'm not a student here, so good luck with that." Cora told her harshly and eyed the small woman in front of her with disinterest.
"What are you doing here, Cora?"
"How do you know who I am?" the she wolf questioned threateningly and took a step forward in an attempt to intimidate Ella.
"Well, you tried to eat me not that long ago. Here at the school, remember?" Ella replied calmly and didn't flinch away even though she felt her pulse elevate.
She didn't think that Cora would actually try to hurt her again, but she hadn't forgotten the last time the girl had looked at her with such animosity and a feral glow in her eyes.
"Ella Stilinski." she introduced herself, when Cora didn't show any signs of recognition and tryingly offered her hand in greeting. Cora barely glanced at it, so Ella let it drop to her side.
"Stiles' sister."
"Yes, and a teacher here. So if I'm gonna let you pull the alarm and call the whole fire department here, you better give me a good reason why." Ella told the girl sternly with her arms crossed in front of her.
She had quickly learned that some situations meant breaking the rules, like the prank they had pulled on Aiden, but as of now she didn't know of any supernatural crisis that required the whole school to be evacuated.
"Derek sent me here."
"To do what exactly?"
"Tell Lydia to stay away from Aiden." Cora said and raised an eyebrow at the surprised look on Ella's face. "You didn't know she was screwing him?"
"You're wrong. Lydia knows who Aiden is, so why would she be with him?" Ella argued, because Lydia and Aiden together didn't make sense to her. Lydia was too smart to knowingly get herself involved with someone from the alpha pack.
"How the hell should I know?"
"You're sure about this?"
"I saw them sneak into that room just five minutes ago." Cora replied as she turned around to point at the closed door that read 'Coach's Office'.
Ella stared at the door for a long moment before looking back at Cora, who was watching her expectantly. She let out a frustrated sigh before she moved past the girl and strode over to the door. Ella paused for a moment with her hand on the doorknob before she pushed it open.
"For fuck's sake, Lydia!" she couldn't help but exclaim, when the sight of Lydia kissing the neck of a bare-chested Aiden met her. The redhead was standing between the alpha's legs as he sat on Finstock's desk.
The couple quickly jumped apart at the interruption and a deep blush colored Lydia's cheeks as Aiden pulled on his shirt. Ella didn't notice him glaring at her as she kept her eyes on Lydia, who was busy straightening her clothes.
"You, out, now!" she barked at Aiden, who glanced at Lydia one last time before he left the room.
The realization that Ella had just yelled at an alpha werewolf easily capable of killing her didn't catch up to her until after he had left the room.
"What?" Lydia asked innocently as she pulled her bag unto her shoulder and moved to follow Aiden out of the room.
"Look, I don't care who you fool around with, but Aiden out of all people? You have an IQ of one-seventy and you chose the guy, who would kill anyone of us without blinking if he was told to do so?" Ella questioned disbelievingly and Lydia paused in front of her; a strange look in her eyes as if she hadn't really thought about that.
"You have a shitty taste in guys." Cora spoke from behind Ella and blocked Lydia from leaving the room. Ella didn't like the sudden turn the situation had taken, when Cora stepped past her with her eyes trained on Lydia.
"What do you want?" Lydia scoffed and gave Cora an unimpressed once over before she tried to step around her, only for Cora to follow. "Is there a problem?"
"Yeah. Derek would kindly ask you to stop seeing Aiden. Which means that if I catch you with him again I'm not gonna warn you a second time, I'm gonna pull your tongue out of your head." Cora told with a smirk on her lips and didn't seem fazed by Lydia's bitchy attitude.
The situation had escalated way too quickly for Ella's liking and her hand slowly moved into her bag to find the small glass bottle of wolf's bane she had started carrying with her everywhere. It probably wouldn't do much against Cora, but it would distract her enough to give Ella and Lydia a chance to run.
"Sweetheart." Lydia sighed overbearingly and ignored the warning look Ella was sending her to keep her quiet. "My last boyfriend was a homicidal lizard, so I think I can handle a werewolf."
Once again Lydia tried to move around Cora, but was stopped when the brunette suddenly grabbed her arm. Ella froze for a moment and clutched the bottle of wolf's bane in her hand harder.
"Let go." Lydia demanded with a low hiss of pain, but Cora easily held unto the struggling redhead and Ella took a quick step forward to help Lydia. "I said-"
"Let go." Stiles' voice interrupted loudly from behind Ella and she turned her head to find her brother staring angrily at Cora. He had found his way to the office through the locker room. "She said let go."
"Remove your hand or I won't have any problems using this." Ella sneered at the girl, when she didn't listen and pulled the bottle of wolf's bane from her bag to shove it in Cora's face.
"Fine." Cora growled and flinched away from the wolf's bane as she let go of Lydia's wrist.
"You okay?" Stiles asked as he quickly made his way over to Lydia and gently brushed his fingers over the red imprints Cora's fingers had left on her pale skin.
Lydia's eyes lingered on Stiles' face for a moment before she nodded and then glared at Cora. Ella glanced warily at the three teenagers as she held the wolf's bane ready in her hand, but Cora didn't seem eager to attack any of them.
"Deaton?" she asked Stiles, when she found it safe to take her eyes off Cora, but knew just by the look on his face that he didn't have any good news.
"No." he told her with a shake of his head and turned his eyes on Lydia. "Which is why we need Lydia."
"Me? Why do you need me?" the girl asked in confusion and frowned at Stiles. "And what's wrong with Deaton?"
"Who's Deaton?" Cora questioned as she took a step forward to stand beside Ella, who shifted slightly away from her. The werewolf rolled her eyes at Ella, but moved over to lean on the coach's desk to give her some space.
"The local veterinarian." Ella answered and noticed a flash of recognition cross Cora's face. She thought maybe now the girl would lose interest and leave, but Cora stayed where she was.
"Where is he?" Lydia asked worriedly and didn't take her eyes of Stiles as he started pulling her along with him and out of the room.
"He's been taken. He's the third sacrifice." he informed her as they walked through the locker room with Ella and Cora following them.
Ella wasn't sure why Cora was still there. She had come to talk to Lydia, not help with Deaton. And none of them really knew her or had talked to her before, so she had to feel awkward in their company, but it didn't seem to bother her the slightest.
"The healers?" Lydia questioned with a wavering voice.
The look on her face made Ella think that no one had even told her about the two other victims. She made a mental note to text Lydia in the future, when something like this happened.
Stiles answered with nod and the four of them walked through the halls until they reached the physics room, which was empty. Lydia placed herself in a chair by one of the desks and glared at Cora, who sat down beside her as if she hadn't just threatened the other girl.
"Just wait here, I'll be right back." Stiles told the girls before he ran out of the room, leaving them to sit in awkward silence.
"Where's Allison?" Ella asked Lydia, when the tension in the room became too much for her and the girl looked up from studying her nails.
"Home. Her dad grounded her after the whole Derek dying incident."
"Oh."
Ella had hoped she had somehow gotten through to Chris and that he wouldn't punish his daughter for trying to help her friends, but apparently that wasn't the case.
They didn't get to say more as Stiles returned with what looked like a board game in his hand. It was then Ella noticed the troubled look on his face and she knew it was something more than him worrying about Deaton. He had only just placed the box on the desk in front of Lydia, when she grabbed his hand and pulled him away.
"Stiles, are you okay?" she asked her brother and studied him with concern. He frowned as he tried to figure what she meant and looked to the floor the second their eyes met.
"Sure."
"Tell me." Ella pressed, knowing that he was lying and she grabbed his hand, when she noticed it was shaking; a sign that his anxiety was getting to him.
"I almost told dad." Stiles finally revealed and looked up to find his sister stare at him in shock. "You should have seen him at the clinic, Els. He had no idea what to do or what was going on, and the FBI is breathing down his neck and he's just exhausted."
"Hey, hey, it's okay." Ella muttered softly, when Stiles' voice began trembling and tears sprung to his eyes. She quickly pulled him into a hug and felt him bury his face in the crook of her neck as his fingers curled into the cardigan she was wearing.
"We'll tell him together, soon, okay? I promise." she reassured her little brother and stepped back to smile at him. "Until then we'll just have to do everything we can to help him."
"Are you two done over there?" Cora then called after them, breaking the moment between the siblings and Ella let out a long sigh, so she wouldn't snap at the girl.
"Will you shut up?" Ella heard Lydia hiss at the werewolf and a smile appeared on Stiles' face as he shared a look with the redhead.
"Right, so what do we do now?" Ella asked Stiles as they walked over to the desk and she recognized the box he had brought with him as an Ouija board. "An Ouija board?"
"Also called a spirit board. It's worth a shot." Stiles told as he quickly unpacked the board and placed it on the desk between the four of them.
He seemed to have pushed some of his worries about their father to the background and was back to being his normal hyperactive self.
"A shot in the dark." Lydia said with an unconvinced expression on her face and Ella knew immediately that this wouldn't get them anywhere. If Lydia was going to be any help she also had to believe that she could be.
"Would you just try it, please? Okay. Let's not forget who this is for. Scott's boss, the guy who's saved our collected asses on more than one occasion." Stiles reminded them and Ella could hear him getting worked up.
"So do we all do this?" Cora asked as she pointed at the white, arrow-shaped piece of plastic that lay in the middle of the board.
"Yeah… yeah." Stiles said hesitantly with an uncertain glance at the board before looking at his sister, who just shrugged. She had never tried using an Ouija board before and had little idea how it worked.
"You guys ready?" he asked them after they had all placed their fingers on the white arrow and the girls all responded with a "yes"; some more willingly than others. Stiles took a deep breath before he asked his question: "Where is Doctor Deaton?"
There was a long moment of tense silence where nothing happened and Stiles, Cora and Ella all glanced at Lydia, who was just staring at the board with a pout on her lips.
"What?" the girl asked when she felt their eyes on her and Ella held back a sigh. Lydia wasn't even trying.
"Are you gonna answer it?" Stiles hinted with a gesture of his head towards the board and Lydia sent him a confused look.
"Oh, I don't know the answer. I thought we were asking some sort of spirit."
"Well, do you know any spirits?" Cora questioned in a voice that told Ella she was being serious. She tried her best to keep a smile on her face, while Stiles just glanced at them with an exasperated look on his face.
"Is she for real?" Lydia asked with a look directed at Ella as she pointed at Cora, who pulled back from the board with a scowl on her face.
"Let's try something else." Ella suggested when it became clear the Ouija board wouldn't work.
"Right." Stiles agreed and fished a bundle of keys out of his pocket. "Okay, this is Deaton's key for the clinic. Close your eyes and I'm gonna put them in your hand and we're just gonna try and see if you can feel out for his location. It's called psychometry."
"I'm not a psychic."
"You're something, okay!" Stiles exclaimed frustratingly and Ella found herself sharing a tired look with Cora as they listened to the other two argue. "Just, Lydia, put out your hand and…"
Stiles' voice trailed off as Lydia finally closed her eyes and held out her hand, so he could give her the keys. Lydia let out a small sound of surprise as the keys connected with her palm and she wrapped her fingers around them.
"What?"
"They're cold."
Stiles looked as if he was about to yell at her again and Ella pinched the bridge of her nose as she tried not to do the same. They were getting nowhere fast.
"Lydia, concentrate, please. We're trying to save lives here. For the love of God." her brother spoke through his teeth as he struggled to keep himself from yelling.
A concentrating frown appeared between Lydia's brows as she closed her hand around the keys and closed her eyes. For a moment it actually looked like it would work and Ella held her breath as she waited for Lydia to speak.
"What is it? What do you see?" Stiles asked quietly, when her frowned deepened and Lydia opened her eyes, only to shake her head.
"Nothing."
"Got any other tricks?" Cora asked curiously as they all tried to get over their disappointment and Ella could see the wheels turning inside Stiles' head.
"Maybe." he muttered as he suddenly dug into Ella's bag and withdrew a pencil and note book from it. "I've read about this thing called automatic writing. You just start writing and then your subconscious tells you what to write."
"Automatic writing?" Lydia questioned as the paper and pencil was placed in front of her and it was obvious she didn't think this would work either.
Stiles nodded encouragingly and Lydia let out a sigh as she placed the pen against the paper and started drawing.
Ella leaned over the table to get a good look and frowned, when she saw that Lydia had started drawing a tree. Something about seemed familiar and she realized it looked very much like another tree she had once caught Lydia drawing in class. If she hadn't known better she would say it was exactly the same.
"Lydia, what are you doing? What the hell is that?" Stiles asked, interrupting Ella's train of thought, but Lydia didn't seem fazed by his growing annoyance.
"A tree."
"A tree?" Stiles gaped, barely able to get the words out, and Cora closed her eyes as a sign that she was about done with the whole situation. "Lydia, you're supposed to be writing words! Like sentences, something like a location, something that will tell us where he is!"
"Well, maybe you should have said that."
"Isn't she supposed to be some kind of genius?" Cora questioned angrily with her arms crossed in front of her and looked ready to slap Lydia.
"A genius, yes. Psychic, no." Lydia replied calmly and Ella stared disbelievingly as she just went back to her drawing. "Honestly, I don't even know why you're bothering with me anyway. Especially since it's obvious you should be talking to Danny."
Stiles, who had finally given up and hid his face in his hand, suddenly straightened and shared a wide-eyed look with his sister before they both turned their eyes on Lydia.
"Why Danny?" Ella questioned urgently and Lydia looked up in surprise as she realized what she had said.
"Because last night he was a target." Scott spoke as he walked into the room and Ella quickly made her way towards him, when she noticed the blood seeping through his fingers from a wound on his shoulder. "But he wasn't a sacrifice."
"What happened?"
"What do you mean?"
Ella and Stiles asked at the same time and Scott let his hand drop from his shoulder, so Ella could look at the cut Deucalion had given him, while he started explaining.
"Deucalion was here. He said that if we wanted to find Deaton we had to follow the currents."
"Deucalion?" Ella questioned with a frown as she examined the cut on Scott's shoulder, which was already healing. All that was left from it was the blood on his fingers and skin. "Why is he helping us?"
"I'm not sure."
"What does currents have to do with Danny?" Stiles asked as he walked over to his friend and sister, trying not to look at the blood smeared on Scott's right hand. He was already feeling lightheaded from everything else going on and the blood didn't help.
"He was writing a paper on telluric currents." Lydia answered for Scott as she abandoned her drawing and moved towards them with Cora on her heels.
"Telluric currents?"
"They are electric currents that run underneath the surface of the Earth's crust." Lydia explained as Stiles ran past her and started packing up the mess they had made. He grabbed Ella's bag from the desk and gave it to her as the five of them left the room.
"So we need to talk to Danny."
"Isn't he still at the hospital?" Cora asked Scott, who was suddenly busy checking his phone and Ella was surprised Cora even knew about what had happened to Danny.
"Yeah, that's where we're going right now." Stiles told her as the bell rang, signaling the school day was over and that they were running out of time.
"I'll meet you there." Scott said as he walked ahead of them with his phone still in his hand. When Stiles asked why, he showed them the text Allison had just sent; telling him she had found something. Even stuck at home, she was still helping.
The group split up in the parking lot with Scott driving off on his dirt bike and the rest of them running towards Ella's car. Stiles' jeep was getting repaired for the hundredth time, so he had driven with her to school.
Ella reversed out of her parking space and drove a little too fast past the rows of parked cars that were slowly filling as students got ready to leave the school. She could feel herself panicking as she glanced at the digital clock on her dashboard and willed herself to keep calm unless she wanted to get into an accident.
"Why would Deucalion help us find Deaton?" Stiles wondered from the backseat as they drove towards the hospital. Cora was sitting beside him, while Lydia was in the front seat; the two girls having split up without having said a word about it.
"It could be a distraction." Cora suggested as she typed something on her phone and Stiles looked at her in surprise.
"From what?"
"Kali is coming after Derek to kill him."
"What?! Why didn't you tell us?"
"I am now." Cora shrugged and went back to her phone as Stiles stared at her. Ella had a bad feeling about the whole that she couldn't shake, but didn't say anything. "Isaac and Boyd are with him. They have a plan."
"A plan?"
"They flooded the loft and laid down some cables. They're gonna fry the bitch." Cora told with a smirk.
"And then what?"
"Kill her, hopefully."
The car went silent after that and Ella tried not to think too hard about all the things that could go wrong with both Derek's plan and their mission to find Deaton. She glanced at Lydia a couple of times as she sped through the town and noticed the far-away look on the girl's face.
Stiles jumped out of the car as soon as Ella parked by the main entrance to the hospital and left the girls with a promise to be back in a few minutes. She didn't know what he was going to do to get the necessary information out of Danny, but hoped he had a plan that wouldn't get him into too much trouble.
"Lydia, are you okay?" Ella asked carefully after having sat for a couple of minutes in nervous silence and looked at the girl, who kept staring out of the window.
Something was definitely bothering her and Ella didn't think it was just Deaton's kidnapping.
"I don't know why I said it." Lydia spoke quietly after a few long seconds and her hands clenched into fists as her eyes met Ella's. "I don't know how I knew about Danny."
Lydia was scared, Ella realized. Scared of herself and what she could possibly do.
Not even Ella's all too real dreams was anything compared to what Lydia had been going through ever since she had been bitten; hallucinating, bringing Peter back to life, memory loss, finding dead bodies without knowing how, hearing the voices of people committing suicide. It was a wonder Lydia managed to stay sane.
"You know, it's okay to just let it all out sometimes. Cry, scream, punch something. Or just get really drunk and do all of it. Which I'm telling you as a friend, by the way, and not as your teacher or a responsible adult."
Lydia smiled at the older girl, who halfway through her speech had realized she was encouraging a minor to drink and then awkwardly tried to backtrack. Ella made a grimace at her own rambling before her lips curved into a smile.
"Or you can talk to me. Or Allison or Scott or Stiles. We're all here to listen if you need it." she told Lydia with a serious look in her eyes, making sure the girl knew she meant it, and Lydia nodded; her lips pressed together as if she was trying not to say anything.
"The thing with Aiden," Lydia started slowly, when Ella kept staring at her; waiting for her to speak.
"I'm not gonna tell you, who can or cannot sleep with, Lydia. And I'm not gonna judge you either." Ella interrupted, when it was obvious how little Lydia wanted to talk about what Ella had seen in Finstock's office.
Honestly, Ella didn't want to talk about it either, but she was worried that Lydia wasn't thinking properly about the consequences of what she was doing.
Aiden was dangerous and Ethan had already revealed to Scott that Lydia wasn't just a random booty call. She was a ransom, something to hold over Scott's head. And Ella had no idea how to tell her that.
"You're sure about that?" Lydia scoffed from beside her as she definitely hadn't forgotten Ella's strong reaction to seeing her with Aiden. It seemed to her that Ella was very much judging her.
"Look, I'm sorry that I got so angry. I just don't want to see you hurt, physically or emotionally."
"It's nothing more than sex. I'm not looking for a relationship, anyway. He's hot and that's it."
"Just be careful, okay?"
"Are you telling me to use protection?" Lydia questioned teasingly with a smirk and Ella became flustered over the insinuation.
"No! I mean, yes, definitely do that. But that's not-"
"Stiles is back." Cora called from the backseat and Ella had to pretend she hadn't totally forgotten about the other girl's presence in the car. She was surprised Cora had actually kept quiet for so long.
"I know what you mean, Ella. And I'll be careful, I promise." Lydia reassured her earnestly and Ella gave a nod as Stiles stepped inside the car.
"Thank you."
"Did Danny tell you anything?" Cora questioned eagerly and the three girls all turned in their seats to look at Stiles and the stack of papers he was now carrying.
"I took his assignment. He was definitely on to something."
"Okay, so what now?" Ella asked as she watched her brother over her shoulder and he briefly glanced at her before going back to reading Danny's paper.
"We're meeting Scott at the clinic." Stiles told quickly and Ella turned the ignition, bringing her car to life.
"He just called. Apparently, Allison's dad's been tracking the sacrifices; where they were taken from and where the bodies were found. He's marked it on a map, but there are twice as many markings as there have been sacrifices so far."
"So he knows where the next body will be found and taken from?" Ella questioned disbelievingly and had to make a sharp turn, when she suddenly remembered she had to go right. Her passengers were thrown to the left, only to be stopped by their seatbelts, and she heard Cora curse in Spanish.
"Bodies, as in he's marked six different places. And Deaton could be in one of them."
"But how does he know?"
"Maybe he's following the currents as well." Lydia suggested with a glance at Stiles, who looked up from the paper in surprise as he finally noticed Lydia hadn't really spoken since they left the school. "I mean, the Argents lived in Mystic Falls for years before moving away. If the telluric currents somehow affect the supernatural they must know about it."
"What if he's the killer?" Cora asked unabashedly, making Stiles and Lydia stare at her in surprise, while Ella was forced to keep her eyes on the road. "What if he isn't tracking the sacrifices, but planning where he's going to sacrifice the next victim?"
"Why would he want to sacrifice people?" Ella questioned with a frown and briefly glanced at Cora through the rearview mirror as she stopped for a red light. She couldn't help but think about how Stiles had placed Cora on his list of suspects just a few days ago.
"Why not?"
"It's not Allison's dad, okay?" Lydia replied sternly and glared at the other girl, who just lifted a challenging eyebrow. Cora probably didn't have any other reason for blaming him beside the fact that he was a hunter, or former hunter.
The last five minutes of the drive was spent in silence as Stiles was busy reading through Danny's paper, while Lydia stared thoughtfully out of the window and Cora was looking at something on her phone.
Scott's bike was already parked in front of the clinic, when they exited Ella's car and ran inside. He had gone in through the back door, so he could make it past the wolf's bane and was busy printing something.
They all paused over the steel examination table in the backroom and Scott laid down his printouts as Stiles started explaining what he had learned from Danny's paper.
"So the paper is a project on geomagnetic fields, or telluric currents as Lydia said. They flow through the Earth, they can even be affected by lunar fazes." Stiles told them with a look at Scott at mention of lunar fazes, but then quickly continued. "Right, look at this. This is a note from Harris on Danny's proposal."
"I strongly advise you to choose another subject. The ideas here, while innovative and thoughtful, border on pseudoscience. Not suitable for class." Lydia read aloud from the page Stiles showed them, where Harris had written in red ink.
"Harris wasn't just a sacrifice, he knew something." Scott said and his lips parted in surprise as he stared at his best friend.
"Just like he did with the Darach." Ella added and Stiles nodded in agreement before he found something hidden in Danny's paper and pulled it out.
"And check this out. Allison's dad wasn't the only one with a map, right. Danny had one too." Stiles told as he unfolded the map and spread on the table between them. Scott placed his printouts, pictures he had taken of Argent's map, on top of it.
"Danny marked all the telluric currents. Okay, now the weird thing about Beacon Hills is that it actually is a beacon. You wouldn't believe how much energy flowing through the Earth is around this town."
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Stiles remembered someone else once telling them that Beacon Hills was a beacon for everything supernatural. He glanced at his sister, who was staring down at the maps with a concentrated expression as she tried to comprehend everything he was telling them.
It was Ophelia, he realized suddenly. Ophelia had called Beacon Hills a literal beacon, when they first found out what she was, and she wasn't wrong. Did she know about the currents as well? Or was it all just a coincidence and the two had nothing to do with each other?
Stiles didn't have time to ask as Scott spoke up and he looked to his best friend to find a shocked expression on his face.
"Stiles, look, they match." the werewolf said as he compared the lines Argent had drawn with the ones on Danny's map; showing the pattern of the currents.
"There's three places, right?" Scott continued as he took a pen and circled the two locations related to Kyle's murder; the clinic and the running track. "Where they're kidnapped and the place where their body was found."
"Wait, that's right on the telluric current." Lydia pointed out with her finger on the map. Every new clue they found seemed to exhilarate their sense of urgency and Ella felt her heart race as she watched the others work it out.
"So maybe where he was sacrificed was somewhere in between."
"Let me see that." Stiles said and grabbed Scott's pen to draw a cross over the animal clinic, where Deaton had been taken. "You said there's six more bodies to be found. Deaton's one of them. Gotta be somewhere in between, right?"
"Stop." Cora interrupted, surprising them all, and placed her hand over Stiles' as he moved the pen over the map. They all watched as Cora moved Stiles' hand to a new location, where two of the currents met; Beacon Hills First National.
"He's in the vault. He's in the same vault." Cora spoke angrily as the memory of having been in the vault for months flashed through her eyes.
Ella noticed her brother wince slightly, when Cora's hand tightened around his, and she carefully grabbed Cora's wrist to make her let go of Stiles. The werewolf met her gaze as she released Stiles and Ella looked at him to find him flexing his hand.
After that things moved quickly as Ella, Lydia and Stiles gathered everything spread out on the table and made to leave. Scott was already halfway out the door, but Ella noticed that Cora had frozen as she looked down on her phone with a stricken expression.
"Wait a second." Ella called after the other three to stop them from leaving as she herself paused to hear what Cora had to say.
"It's Boyd. The plan didn't work. They cut the power." Cora informed them with a wide-eyed look and for the first time Ella saw fear on the girl's face.
"It's just like he said." Scott spoke after a brief moment of shocked silence and they all turned to stare at him in confusion. A flash of determination then crossed his face and he continued urgently, "Go! I can save Deaton myself."
"Wait, Scott! What about us?"
"Cora can't get there fast enough without you. Go! We can save both of them."
"Alright, let's go!" Stiles urged as Scott disappeared out of the back door, and they all ran out to Ella's car.
Ella couldn't concentrate on what the others were saying as she tried not to crash her car and everyone in it, while she drove through the town faster than she had ever done before. If she got caught she would surely lose her license; sheriff's daughter or not.
She didn't hear any complaints either, when she took a sharp turn or braked suddenly; tossing them around in their seat belts. For once even Stiles felt grateful that they had not taken the jeep as Ella's car could accelerate considerably faster without the risk of breaking down.
Cora and Stiles were jumping out of the car before Ella had even come to a full stop and she ran after them with Lydia beside her. They caught up with them just as Cora pushed open a heavy door that read 'Electric room. Only authorized personnel'.
"Okay, what do we do?" Stiles asked, when they came to a stop in front of tall relay with multiple switches. They had no idea which to pull to get the power on in Derek's loft.
"We pull them. All of them." Cora replied breathlessly and, with Lydia's help, she began to turn on the power to everything in the building.
Ella wrung her hands anxiously as she kept an eye on the main staircase, which led to Derek's loft, while Stiles sent a one word text to Isaac reading 'NOW'.
Pained cries echoed all the way down from the top of the staircase, when Lydia and Cora pulled the last switches and turned the power back on. Once again Cora and Stiles were the fastest out of the room, but Ella and Lydia were right behind them.
Ella was breathing heavily as they made it to the third floor; Lydia by her side, and Stiles and Cora several steps ahead of them. Given, they did have longer legs and more strength to climb the stairs faster.
I really need to start jogging again or I'll die of a heart attack before any werewolf ever gets to me.
She was surprised when they suddenly caught up to Cora and Stiles, but stopped short as well, when she turned a corner to find Kali, Ethan and Aiden in front of them. They all looked dripping wet and especially Kali, whose protruding claws were also colored red with blood.
And I need a gun. Jogging and a gun, first things tomorrow.
Stiles' hand wrapped around Cora's arm, when she started to growl and looked ready to attack the three alphas. Kali only smirked at the other she wolf and then jumped over the railing without a word. Ella didn't look down to see where she had landed, but hoped she had at least sprained something doing it.
Ethan glanced at all of them with an almost regretful look in his eyes before he followed Kali. Only Aiden was left standing, but his gaze was solely focused on Lydia, who wouldn't even spare him a look.
As soon as he was gone, they continued up the stairs and Ella heard water splashing as Cora and Stiles ran into the loft, while Lydia and her climbed the last steps.
At first all Ella noticed was Boyd lying on his back in the water with Cora on her knees beside him; sobbing loudly.
Derek was on his knees as well, looking down at Boyd and then his shaking hands, while Stiles placed a hand on his shoulder. It wouldn't be any comfort for Derek, but maybe just a small reassurance that they didn't think him the killer he thought himself to be.
It took her a moment, but Ella put the pieces together. While it could have been Boyd's blood under Kali's nails, it was more likely that they had somehow forced Derek to kill his beta. The way Derek kept staring at his hands confirmed Ella's theory, but for once she didn't want to be right. Not about this.
Ella was about to step into the water, when someone quietly spoke her name and she looked to her left to find Jennifer staring up at her. She froze in shock at the sight of the woman, who was sitting between Isaac's legs; curled into herself with eyes widened in confusion.
"Jennifer." Ella whispered as she knelt in front of her friend and examined her for any signs of physical trauma. She had no idea why the woman was there and was too shocked to think of a reasonable explanation herself. "What are you, I mean, are you hurt?"
Boyd's death and Ella's appearance had made the woman speechless, so she only shook her head. When Jennifer reached for her, Ella grabbed her and pulled her into a tight hug. Over Jennifer's shoulder she looked at Isaac, who was staring back at her with tears shinning in his blue eyes.
"It's okay, I got her." she told the boy, who then slowly rose to his feet; his hands gripping the wall behind him in case his legs wouldn't carry him.
Jennifer's body shook as Ella held her and she found herself muttering "it's okay" repeatedly as she stroked her friend's hair. It wasn't okay, though, and Ella felt like crying herself, when she turned her head to look at the scene playing out in the middle of the room.
Isaac and Cora were both leaning over Boyd's lifeless body and she could hear them both sob over the loss of their friend. Derek was still on his knees, staring desperately at his hands as if he wished they would fall off, and Stiles hadn't moved his hand from the alpha's shoulder.
Lydia was standing next to Stiles with her hands wrapped around his arm as she stared at Boyd. The room was lit by the moon light shining through the large window behind them on which a triangular, swastika-like symbol was painted in black.
Ella wasn't sure how long they all stayed like that, but when her knees began to hurt, she slowly pulled away from Jennifer to stand up. With some difficulty she managed to pull the other woman to her feet as well.
"I'm taking Jennifer home." she told her brother, her voice only loud enough for him to hear her, and he answered with a nod. Ella watched as he slowly removed his hand from Derek's shoulder and pulled his arm out of Lydia's grasp to wrap it around her shoulders. "Call me when you hear from Scott."
"What about…?" Jennifer asked weakly with a look directed at Derek, but Ella shook her head and the teacher fell silent. Ella had no idea what to tell her, no idea herself what would happen now, so instead she led Jennifer out of the room silently.
Ella wasn't sure whether she was holding onto Jennifer for her own sake or to make sure the woman kept walking, but focusing on helping Jennifer was slowly clearing Ella's mind and she was able to stop herself from crying by blinking a few times.
Both women descended the stairs in silence as neither of them could think of anything to say and they got into Ella's car without a word as well. They sat in the car, staring out of the windshield and into the dark, for almost a minute, before Ella finally decided to speak up.
"I know you've told me before, but where do you live?"
"At Hill Street, not that far from the school."
"Right, of course. I know where that is." Ella replied with an apologetic smile, which fell as soon as she started the car. She drove away from the building much slower than how she had arrived and didn't once break the speed limit on her way to Jennifer's apartment.
"You know about…" Jennifer spoke after a couple of minutes of silence and Ella glanced to her right to find the other woman staring at her curiously.
"Werewolves, yeah. And all those other things that go bump in the night."
"Other things?"
"It's a long story." Ella sighed with a shake of her head, hoping that Jennifer would drop the subject. She didn't want to spend the next hour trying to explain what a kanima was.
"How did you find out?" Jennifer asked after a brief silence as she sensed Ella's mood and the younger woman tiredly calmed her fingers through her dark brown hair.
"The same day you did, actually. I was almost attacked by the two that were locked in the boiler room with you. Derek and Scott stopped them, though." Ella explained lightly and tried without success to push Boyd to the back of her mind.
"Scott McCall? He's a werewolf too?"
"It's because of him my brother is involved in all of this as well, even though he's human. Not that I blame him or anything. He was bitten by Derek's uncle and then it kinda just escalated from there."
"I only knew about Derek." Jennifer told with a strange look in her eyes that Ella couldn't decipher.
For some reason she felt like Jennifer wasn't telling the truth. Although, maybe she was just trying to downplay her own knowledge, thinking it would make her threat somehow. Or a target.
"You and Derek?" Ella asked leadingly, when she couldn't hold back her curiosity any longer, and while she knew this was a bad time to be talking about boys, she also needed to know why Jennifer had been a part of the fight between Derek and Kali.
"It's complicated, I think." Jennifer told sheepishly and Ella only noticed the blush on her cheeks when they drove past a street lamp.
The sun had set over an hour ago and Ella glanced up at the bright moon, which had an intimidating presence on the evening sky.
"You think?" she questioned with a confused frown and looked at Jennifer, who was twirling a lock of hair around one of her fingers.
"I like him, but I've only known him for a couple of weeks. He came to me after his fight and he was almost bleeding to death, so I brought him to his apartment. But that's the only time we've talked for more than a couple of minutes."
"Oh."
Ella was too surprised to offer any form of advice or otherwise comforting words.
Jennifer was the brunette Ophelia had seen in Derek's bed that night. She had called in sick the next day to be with Derek. Derek had been dying and he had gone to Jennifer for help. Then he had slept with her. She couldn't possibly tell Ophelia any of this.
"So you were visiting him tonight?" Ella asked when she found her voice again, as she was still confused about what Jennifer had been doing there.
"No. Kali, that werewolf woman, and the twins kidnapped me. They would have killed me if Derek didn't fight Kali alone. I don't know how they even knew about me."
"Your smell maybe. They might've been able to smell him on you. Or you on him." Ella suggested with a shrug as she didn't have nearly enough knowledge about werewolves to give a proper answer.
"My smell? But I shower every day."
"I don't think that means much to a werewolf. Just makes it a bit harder."
Jennifer didn't get to reply as Ella's phone interrupted them and she quickly answered, when she saw it was Stiles. She knew talking on the phone while driving was dangerous, but this was too important to miss.
"Scott just called. Deaton's alive." Stiles said instead of a greeting and Ella exhaled slowly in relief; letting go of some of the nervous tension in her body.
"Thank God."
"Dad was there too."
"What, Dad? What was he doing there?"
"He figured it out. Something about seeing some Celtic symbols at the clinic and remembering the logo of the bank. He saved Deaton."
"What about Scott?"
"There was a ring of mountain ash around Deaton, so Scott couldn't get to him."
"The Darach knew Scott would come." Ella realized and felt how the horrifying notion of that overwhelmed her for a moment, making it slightly harder to breathe. Was the Darach playing with them?
"Yeah, and we don't know what will happen with the third sacrifice now. Maybe someone else is already dead and Deaton was just a distraction."
"Right, okay, we'll figure that out tomorrow." Ella said with a shake of her head as she tried not to think too hard about the fact that the Darach was probably watching them. Manipulating them into looking the other way, while another sacrifice was made. Maybe they were getting too close to the truth.
"How about Derek?" Ella asked quietly with a glance at Jennifer out of the corner of her eye and she immediately felt the woman's stare.
"I don't know, he isn't really responding."
"Responding?"
"Uhm, yeah, he hasn't said anything since you left. I mean, quiet and brooding is sort of Derek's whole thing, but this is on a whole new level."
His voice was low and the words fell quickly out of his mouth, revealing that he was feeling more out of it than he wanted Ella to know, and she had a strong urge to turn around her car and drive back to him.
"What do we do with Boyd?" she asked after having listened to Stiles' breathing for a few long seconds, and felt her stomach churn at the thought of another funeral.
"I'll take care of it. Somehow."
"Call me if you need anything, okay?" Ella more or less ordered her brother, when she heard the exhaustion in his voice. "Anything."
"I will, promise. Right now I just have to think of an explanation that isn't 'killed by werewolf', pump out all the water and, you know, make sure Cora doesn't run after the alphas to get revenge. But Lydia is here, she can help. And I'll call Scott."
"Okay. I'll come back as soon as I can. And Stiles?" Ella spoke as calmly as she possibly could, because Stiles sounded close to a small panic attack, and he hummed to tell her he was listening. "I love you."
She knew that maybe she was being slightly overdramatic by telling him, but after Boyd and the chaotic day they had had, she needed to. Not so much for Stiles' sake as for her own. And just knowing that he was still alive to hear it made her forget some of her own fears.
"Love you too, Els. Talk to you later."
"Bye."
"Sheriff, thank you for being one hell of a detective." Deaton told breathlessly after the sheriff had explained how he had found them by recognizing the Celtic symbols at the clinic and connecting them to the closed bank.
The veterinarian was leaning against the cold steel bars, which encircled the inside of the vault, as he tried to catch his breath; his chest rising and falling quickly. He rubbed his sore wrists carefully with his hands as he waited for the sheriff to leave him alone with Scott.
"You bet. Let's get you an ambulance." the sheriff said as he clapped Deaton's knee and rose to his feet. He was barely out of the vault before Deaton grabbed Scott's arm and pulled him closer.
"Your eyes, were red. Bright red."
Deaton's words came out in short breaths as he told Scott what he had seen and a shocked expression appeared on the werewolf's face. Deaton winced in pain as just using air to speak made his lungs burn.
"How is that possible?" Scott asked disbelievingly, but the sheriff walked back into the room before he could get an answer.
"The paramedics are on their way. I'll be back in half a minute." the sheriff informed them and left again without noticing the troubled look on Scott's face.
"It's rare. Something that doesn't happen within a hundred years, but every once in a while, a beta can become an alpha, without having to steal, or take that power. They call it a true alpha. One who rises purely, on the strength of character, by virtue, by sheer force of will."
"You knew this would happen." Scott realized slowly as he stared at the closest person he had to a father and Deaton almost managed a smile as he held Scott's eyes with his.
"I believed. From the moment I knew you were bitten, I believed."
"You're not the only one." Scott spoke when a new thought hit him and he quickly made sense of every vague hint he had been given over the last few days. Deucalion knew and he wasn't after Derek. Not anymore.
"No." Deaton confirmed in a whisper and he could see the immediate panic in Scott's eyes. "Deucalion isn't after Derek. He's after you."