10
It was a damned bumpy road and still this thing drove like something out of a wet dream. Stiles was in love. The part of his mind that wasn't feverishly churning over the half dozen other problems they were currently facing, was trying to come up with an excuse his dad might buy, that would allow him to make an even swap. His Jeep for this shiny new Hummer. It seemed fair, since they'd tried to kill him, right? He might be willing to even forgive and forget - - provided they didn't keep coming after them - - for a chance to show up at school after winter break driving this monster into the parking lot. Because girls loved expensive, shiny things. Some girls more than others.
He hit a rut that even the Hummer's suspension couldn't cushion and one of his other problems made an involuntary sound of pain and curled in upon himself in the passenger seat.
"Damn, are you not healing yet? Why aren't you healing yet?"
Scott drew in a breath between clenched teeth. "I am - - it's just - - going really slow. Really slow."
"Does it have to do with the wolfsbane? That's gotta be messing with your system a lot - - y'know having it injected right into your veins? I think it's the wolfsbane."
"God - -" Scott growled, bracing himself on the dash when the right front tire hit a rut the size of Missouri. His eyes flashed red and claws that hadn't been there before dug gouges in the fine leather of the dash.
It was criminal, but at the moment, with Scott curling his fists, eyes squeezed shut, concentrating maybe on not going ballistic in the closed space of the automobile, Stiles decided not to call him on it.
"Scott - -?"
"I don't know!" Scott finally ground out. "Maybe. Maybe I just got shot one too many times."
That was a dig at him, Stiles just knew it. And okay, maybe his aim sucked - - and maybe the bullet that had gone through the vanago's eye had been sheer luck - - but he was pretty sure it was that bullet that had taken the thing down. And once Scott wasn't cringing in pain and hovering on the verge of a werewolf tantrum, Stiles had every intention of expounding on his Rambo moment in excruciating detail.
"Stiles - -" Scott was staring ahead, eyes narrowed.
Stiles leaned forward himself, peering over the wheel. He saw the gate in the distance, the one they'd passed when they'd entered Dupont's 'preserve'. On the one hand it was encouraging that they were on the right track. On the other, it was closed and there were a couple of vehicles half blocking the road in front of it, and guys with guns scampering around.
"Well fuck."
"What are we - -?" Scott started, while Stiles was cursing through clenched teeth. If they stopped they were dead. One way or another they were dead. So common sense said keep going. Well, maybe not common sense - - because common sense was screeching for him not to barrel full speed into a set of parked vehicles - - so maybe it was some other less popular sense that made him press his mouth tight and tighten his hands around the wheel.
"Put on your seatbelt," he said, fumbling for his own.
Scott stared at him, a distinct look of panic in his eyes, before he snatched for his own seat belt.
And Stiles floored it.
Men scattered when they realized they weren't stopping. A bullet cracked into the windshield, another into the grill, and then he hit the space between the two blocking cars, slamming into the front end of an open topped jeep, spinning it half on its side. The impact jarred the hell out of them, but didn't slow them down, and the Hummer slammed through the gates, spitting up wood and metal in its wake.
There was the ding ding sound of bullets hitting the back of the vehicle and they both scrunched down in their seats,
"Oh my God - - oh my God - - I am Rambo - -" he laughed hysterically. Everything was shaking. He had to lock his arms to keep his hands firm on the steering wheel.
"I think I hate you - -" Scott gasped.
"You worship the ground I walk on," Stiles countered, casting him a manic grin. Which faded when he looked in the rear view mirror and saw the dust of a pursuing vehicle behind them. Which okay, after kidnapping and assault and trying to hunt them down and kill them, it stood to reason these guys weren't just going to throw in the towel and head back to the lodge for a cold beer and an evening trading hunting stories in front of the fire.
At least not while they still had the chance of taking them out in the privacy of the great Northern California wilderness. If they could reach some semblance of civilization they might back off. A little hard to gun them down in the middle of some town and claim justification with a casual 'that one's a werewolf and that one just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, so no harm no foul, 'kay?'
Which didn't mean they didn't need help. The idea of calling his dad made him sweat. One, his dad was already half convinced that he couldn't take a walk down his own street anymore without stumbling into some life or death situation - - which, granted wasn't that far from the truth, considering Beacon Hills' history. And two, the reserves his dad had to call on were law enforcement and explaining the whole big game hunter on the trail of an innocent werewolf thing to a bunch of cops might not go over so well for his dad or the werewolf in question.
Which left the other, more reasonable option of giving the Argent's a yell. Jan Dupont had said they were familiar with the Argent family - -so maybe the Argents might be familiar with them. And if you were trying to back off a group of militant assholes with heavy artillery, it made sense to bring in your own artillery toting, militant bad asses to even the odds.
"I'm calling Allison," he said.
Scott didn't comment, looking too miserable to care.
He snatched up the cell phone Scott had dropped into one of the cup holder wells and hit Allison's number.
It rang enough times that he feared it might go to voice mail, before she picked up with a groggy, sleep hazed 'Hello?'
"Hey, Allison, what's up?" He said, casting a worried glace in the side view and confirming that their pursuit was still firmly in place.
"Stiles? Do you know what time it is?"
He glanced at the time on the cell then brought it back to his ear. "Why yes. Yes, I do. Listen, is your dad around?"
"Its four o'clock in the morning, Stiles. What do you want?"
"Well, funny story, that. Me and Scott are sorta in a little bit of a jam and could use a some help."
There was a pause from her end, a rustle of what might have been covers shifting, then the soft sound of her walking, before she asked curtly. "What sort of jam? I thought you were headed to some show up North."
"Yeah, well, that didn't work out so well - - and I'm not getting my money back on those tickets. And then there was the whole getting attacked by supernatural monsters and big game hunters trying to muderize us. That sort of jam. So you ever heard of a guy named Julian Dupont?"
"I know him," Chris Argent's grim voice answered, so Stiles figured Allison had gone straight to her dad and woken him up. "Where are you?"
"Trying to get back on I-5 somewhere north of bumfuck nowhere in the middle of the forest. The last town big enough to remember passing was maybe - - Redding?"
"At the Dupont preserve." Argent assessed and it just figured he'd be in the know. "How the hell did the two of you end up there?"
"Uh. There was like a thing - - a bear thing - - that attacked us and tore up my jeep - - and it seemed like a good idea at the time - - and then Scott couldn't let go of a scent and things went to hell - -"
"Are you guys okay?" That was Allison, which meant they were on speakerphone.
"Scott got tore up pretty bad. And we're running for our lives with guys after us that have a lot of guns - - so no, not really."
"But he's all right?" Allison pressed about the same time her father cut in with: "Dupont knows Scott's a werewolf?"
Stiles snorted. "He's been better. And yeah, Dupont knows."
"And he initiated a hunt?"
"Yeah."
"Then you're in trouble. Dupont is a relentless bastard who doesn't give up a hunt, once he's started. Present him with a challenge and he won't let it go."
"Well that's freakin' fantastic. What do we do?"
"Don't stop. For anything. Get back on I-5 and head south. Half way point between you and here is - -" Argent paused, likely pulling up a map. "Greenton. We'll meet you there. Do you understand?"
"Yeah,"
And apparently that was all the small talk Argent had in him and then it was just Allison's worried voice, telling them to be careful, before the connection was severed. And the problem with that was, being careful when the universe had decided to align against you was always easier said than done.
"Okay. Don't stop. Head South. That's a plan," Stiles muttered. "But hey, on the bright side, Allison still cares enough to worry about you."
Scott got as far as cutting him a slightly affronted look when a SUV skidded out onto the road from barely perceptible trail cutting through the bordering woods and slammed into the Hummer.
Stiles screamed like a girl. Scott did, as metal screeched against metal and the impact drove them off the road and into the grass and bramble on the far side. The Hummer plowed over brush and saplings, with Stiles yanking desperately at the wheel, trying to get them pointed back at the road.
The SUV tried to cut off that route, but Stiles cut the wheel hard and the Hummer bullied its way back on the gravel track. The SUV roared back up beside them, half on the road, half on the overgrown strip beside it. There was a pop and the backseat window on Scott's side shattered.
"Oh - - fuck - " Scott's serious cursing was usually reserved for special occasions. Stiles supposed bullet spawned safety glass pelting him from behind qualified.
"Do something - -" Scott suggested, sliding down as far as he could in his seat, as another spray of bullets hit the side of the Hummer.
"Like what?" Stiles voice broke embarrassingly. He yanked the wheel, and the Hummer's big back end swung over, slamming into the front end of the SUV. It spun out, cutting a 180 swath in the snow-covered grass, ending up nose down in a gully, one back wheel off the ground and still spinning.
"That'll work," Scott said breathlessly, scooting up enough to peer over the door and into his side view mirror.
"Holy shit," Stiles gasped. Then. "I think I'm gonna be sick."
His gut was churning, nerves finally taking their toll in the form of nausea and a bit of after the fact light-headedness.
"God - - please don't," Scott cast him a desperate look.
Stiles waved a hand. The cold air coming in through the shattered back window was helping. The fact that he didn't see any vehicles in the rear view mirror let him take a beat and just breathe for a moment without his heart wanting to crawl up into his throat, and his stomach subsequently wanting to lurch up and fill the empty cavity.
He could breathe even better once he saw the turn off onto actual paved highway up ahead. He exchanged a look with Scott, who gave him a faint weary, nod.
Scott looked wasted. Stretched thin and exhausted and in more pain that he was letting on, of that Stiles was damned sure. There was too much old blood on his clothes to tell if he was still actively bleeding from any of his various slashes or gunshot wounds, but it was obvious that his healing had slowed down to a snail's pace.
He kept casting him worried looks, until Scott finally got tired of it, and said, without opening his eyes. "Dude, I'm okay - - really."
"You're full of shit. And your eyes are still flashing red."
"Yeah?" Scott opened them marginally and they were thankfully normal brown. But Stiles had caught a lot of flickers of red when they'd been hightailing it down the country road.
"They'll stop - - eventually. When the wolfsbane wears off."
"Yeah, and when will that be? You still having any urges to - - you know - - wolf out on me?"
"I hurt too much," Scott muttered. Then, he shrugged and admitted. "A little, but I've got it under control."
"So why aren't you healing?"
Scott shut his eyes again, pressing his head back into soft leather, refraining from speculation.
Stiles hated not speculating. Hated not being in the know when it was important. And Scott in the grip of some sort of unknown wolfsbane poisoning was important. He snatched up the cell, and scrolled through his contacts until he found Dr. Deaton. Since he was already waking people up indecently early in the morning, he might as well keep up the streak.
He dialed the number and Deaton, unlike Allison, picked up on the second ring, answering with the tone of a man who had long banished any traces of sleep.
"Hey Dr. Deaton. Quick question."
"Good morning to you. I wasn't aware that teenagers willingly embraced the front end of 7 am. How can I help you?"
"Well, hypothetically, let's say a werewolf got injected with a straight shot of wolfsbane - - like on a scale of one to ten, how bad would that be?"
There was an overlong pause on the other end of the line, then Deaton responded cautiously. "With most strains of the plant, it would be fatal within thirty to a hundred and twenty minutes, depending on the individual in question."
Stiles shot Scott a look, which Scott returned with a weary shrug, very obviously not dead.
"Okay, so let's say we've passed that mark and we're not getting any of the usual symptoms?"
"There are a few rare strains of monkshood that while poisonous, aren't always fatal when ingested. Detrimental, yes, but survivable."
"Oh. Well, that's good then. How detrimental, exactly?"
"These stains are used to bring out the wolf and suppress the human. In very, very controlled dosages, the effects are - - short-lived. A larger, more direct dosage - - you did mention an injection? - - would be more troublesome."
"I'm thinking larger dose, maybe."
"Stiles, while I appreciate a good hypothetical conversation as well as the next man - - lets be a bit more specific. Are we talking about Scott?"
Stiles blew out a breath. "Yeah."
"How long ago was he dosed?"
Stiles shot Scott a questioning glance and got a blank look and a shrug, which meant Scott had probably lost a lot of time when he'd been wolfed out. Stiles looked at his watch and did a little mental calculation.
"Uh - - if I had to guess - - four or five hours." It didn't even sound real him saying it. It felt like it had been forever.
"He's with you now?"
"Yeah."
"And he's in control?"
"Yeah. Are you saying he shouldn't be? It sounds like you're saying he shouldn't be."
Deaton was quiet a few beats. Then, "With a direct dose of wolfsbane in his system - - it's a little surprising he isn't trying to tear out your throat."
"Oh. Really? Well - - that's just fantastic. Great news, doc. Just what I wanted to hear." He controlled the urge to slam the phone against his forehead in frustration. He took a deep breath and plunged on. "That's not the only problem. He took a lot of damage and he's not healing like usual."
"Not surprising. The wolfsbane is a poison after all. As long as it's in his system, it's compromising his natural ability to heal. Add that to the fact that he's committing all his energy on keeping his predatory instincts in check and we've got a problem."
"So how long before the wolfsbane is out of his system?"
"It varies. 18 to 24 hours depending on the individual."
Stiles pressed his mouth in annoyance. 18 to 24 hours was a damned long time, when they were on the road a really long way from home, with guys that wanted to kill them maybe still on their tail. "That's just great."
He exchanged a look with Scott, who groaned and flopped his head back against the headrest.
The GPS predicted a five-hour drive to that halfway point where Allison's dad wanted to meet up.
Traffic wasn't heavy this early in the morning this far north up the I-5. A lot of tractor trailers, a few cars. He kept checking the rear view looking for pursuit. There were a few cars back there in the distance that looked like they'd been there for a while, but then, he wasn't sure. It was a lot harder detecting a tail than it looked on TV.
He had the heat on high, trying to counteract the cold air rushing in through the shattered back window, but it was only able to do so much. Scott was huddled against his door, one foot up on the dash, arms wrapped around himself. Every once and a while he'd twitch a little, shivering and he'd clamp his jaw to tamp it down.
"Any better?" Stiles asked for maybe the third time in an hour.
Scott was silent a bit, either taking stock and considering an answer or tired of Stiles asking. Finally he relented. "I can breathe again without it tasting like blood."
"Hey, that's something," Stiles said reflexively while he was coming up with various terrible reasons why Scott had been tasting blood when he breathed. "Why don't you try and get some sleep? Trust me, I'll let you know if shit's about the hit the fan."
Scott shook his head. "I can't."
"Why not?"
"If I'm asleep, I can't control it."
Stiles crinkled his brow. "Because of the wolfsbane."
"Its like this itch - - this really nasty itch - - that I wanna scratch so bad I can taste it - - but if I do, its only gonna make it worse. And if I'm asleep - - nothing's stopping me from scratching." He gave Stiles a helpless look, struggling with that analogy.
"The 'worse' being wolfing out and going a little crazy in the closed confines of a SUV. Yeah, I can see where that might be problematic. Let's listen to some music. Play some road games. I Spy sounds fun, right? Or the alphabet name game. Lets do the ABC's of sci-fi characters."
So for the next several hours, Stiles did what Stiles did best. He talked. About everything and anything that crossed his mind. He had a pretty open floor, since Scott's contributions to the conversation tended to be monosyllable at best. And every once and a while he'd catch a glimpse of red between Scott's half lowered lashes, or an involuntary extension of claws that had the leather arm rest pretty much shredded, when Scott's grasp on control slipped. Which got Stiles thinking about how both Deaton and Dupont had been pretty surprised at Scott actually being able to maintain that restraint at all. And since Stiles was verbalizing his mental processes at the moment, he asked it out loud.
"Do you think its just an alpha thing, you being able to deal with the wolfsbane shooter Dupont gave you - - or is it a 'true' alpha thing?"
He didn't wait for Scott's input before plunging on. "Because they were both pretty surprised, right? At you not going off the deep end. I mean, I get the feeling that if it had been just any old werewolf, they'd have gone stark raving running around howling at the moon, trying to shred anything with a pulse, crazy. Hell, some of the wolves I've met can barely hold it together if you look at them the wrong way, anyway."
"I did," Scott admitted uncomfortably. "At first. I don't know how long before - - before I ran into you and I managed to pull it back."
"But you did pull back. I appreciate that, by the way. Which brings us back to how.
So, have you got some Zen wolf thing going on that gives you a little bit more control. Is it like the force - - werewolf style? Which I have to tell you boggles my mind a little, because you aren't really the poster child for restraint and discipline. Maybe for scattered and disorganized. So its gotta be some sort of alpha thing that allows you extra resistance. And maybe you've got a little something extra to pull on since you're not your everyday run of the mill apha."
Scott gave him a narrow look from under his lashes and muttered. "Can we talk about something else?"
"We can, but this is interesting. I mean have you grilled Deaton for details? Other than the red eyes - - and I have to tell you, the yellow looked better on you - - and the ability to break tried and true rules of the supernatural - - what other super powers did you get?"
"I don't have super powers."
"Yeah, you sorta do. From day one, but that's neither here nor there. We're talking new ones."
Scott shrugged. "Everything's a little better, I guess. I haven't gone out and tested it."
"Yeah, well why haven't you? We need to get on that ASAP. Because as far as I can tell, you're not winning any championship belts in the kicking ass department. That thing back there whipped your ass. And I can think of at least - -oh, three werewolves off hand - - friendly ones - - well, relatively friendly - - that could probably kick your ass."
"Stiles, can we please talk about something else - -" Scott ground out.
This time when Stiles glanced at him, the claws were out and digging into the armrest and the while the brown eyed glare Scott had tossed him earlier hadn't been disturbing in the least, the red tinged one was a bit more unsettling.
Stiles swallowed and changed the subject. "Did I tell you about my MacGyver moment when I broke out of the lodge? With a pocketknife? I didn't tell you that, yet, did I?"