Theo takes sometime to heal, and a little more to wakeup but Jim gets curious, fear finally started showing on his features, though his scent was a dead giveaway from the start, it didn't show until now.

"Is he like me?" he asks, before he goes quiet, waiting for an answer Scott knows he doesn't want.

"No, he was bitten." He answers anyway, looking pointlessly over to the front door he'd opened earlier.

"Did the doctors... hurt him?" Scott looks back to the chimera and there's the look he's seen on so many faces before him, it's always the same expression: hope. It's a pattern, the three different stages a typical chimera would go through, and it always ends with hope.

"We don't know yet."

There's nothing after hope.

"So they can hurt him," Jim adds, "even if he isn't like me?"

"Maybe." Scott keeps his ear listening for Theo's heartbeat, deciding not to let the pity he's feeling show on his face... this poor guy really thinks there's safety in the answers he'll get. Kira takes on the questions from there and he's more than thankful for that, at least he gets to not see the reminder of whom he's about to fail, he tries to stay optimistic though, if Theo's awakening clears things up even just a little bit, they might have a chance to defeat the dread doctors, help both Jim and Stiles.

._._._.

"You said they weren't coming." Scott slowly stated, his eyelids almost dropped closed again when Kira woke him up with the news: Theo finally awoke, though weak and healing still, he could answer a few questions.

"The dread doctors, they're not coming for him" he glanced knowingly in Jim's way "they're with Stiles now" he finished and Scott's eyes widened at that:

"They took Stiles?" Theo shook his laugh away with his head, he seemed to find something funny in that statement, the smirk didn't even leave his face as he talked and Scott knew from experience that it takes a real joke to laugh at when you're still healing:

"He took them." he winced into his still healing wounds and Scott winced from a woundless pain "I was there." He justified and Scott wasn't going to act like that made it any better.

How could Stiles even get close to one dread doctor without dying?

"With Stiles or..." Kira inquired, her features a little paler than when they received Theo.

"we had things to discuss"

"Was it about that night?" Theo looked away "you were going to tell me but then you stopped showing up for school, what happened?" Scott tried to keep frustration out of his voice but that was hard to do considering he was also angry.

"He broke Liam's leg." Scott added to fill the silence that lingered.

"Lucky him." Theo commented bitterly and Scott tried not to let that statement shake him further "he tried to rip my heart off."

Kira's breath hitched.

"yes," Theo answered Scott's expression, which he's sure, was a strong mixture of disbelief and heartbreak "your best friend Stiles literally tried to rip my heart out of my chest with his bare hands, and you know what's the only thing that stopped him from doing that?"

Scott stayed quiet.

"Because it would've blew his cover sooner than he would've liked." Kira looked his way with a silent 'told you so' dancing between her eyes and if there was malice shining in them he's sure she didn't mean it, except that with his level of irritation and given this situation, it was really getting to him.

Again, they should've listened.

They should've noticed.

"He's void." came out almost a whisper, he doesn't know if he shivered from the cold, or if Kira's expression hardened because of that information, but he knew once the cards were turned there was no going back, something smelled scared in the corner of the room until Scott remembered and faced him with the 'you really don't want to know' look, that seemed to always work.

"Figured that much" the other werewolf agreed "now, are you in to save the doctors or what?"

"Save the doctors?" Jim quirked an eyebrow "I thought they were out to get me?"

"They're not out to get you any more" Scott reassured him, wearing his determination like an armor "but we're gonna save Stiles." and there was no plan.

._._._.

Scott and Kira had to wake the others through very confusing texts and voicemails, some things like numbers that made no sense translated into simpler ones as the words progressed, and it always ended with a 'texted the location'.

"Stiles hurt Liam for a reason." Scott prompted while they were on their way, trying to fit any piece of information he could get his hands on "he told his dad about him."

That never seemed to work though.

Theo side glanced his way before looking back ahead, he smelled fear after that, like a night alone in the woods. A gun to the head. Fear.

"You want to know why he hurt me." He stated. Unfazed.

Scott silently agreed.

"He thought that I kidnapped that chimera, Natalie." Theo said, his voice wavering "he didn't even let me explain what was going on when he attacked me" he sighed, still looking ahead "my point is, he doesn't always have a reason, it was just his hunch that time."

Scott felt nausea making its way up his throat, Stiles was really not who he said he was.

"I'm..." He was at loss of what to say, he couldn't apologize for something he didn't do, but he could stop it, and god knows he doesn't want to stop Stiles.

If he can.

"Look, Scott. you're over thinking this."

"what do you mean?" he asked, the mere idea of the future squeezed his heart then released.

"You're not gonna hurt him." he sighed "I know you're not."

And like sitting on the floor and realizing what you should've said, when your brain finally connects with the rest of your senses. There it was again, the smell he never would've thought he'd catch at this moment: deep black regret reigned the forsaken moment!

Scott stayed wary of Theo for the rest of the ride.

._._._.

"where in the hell are we?" Lydia asked, checking her phone for the accuracy of the location, the awful smell succefully ruined the mood, it was pretty remarkable to find it stank so much considering it was supposed to be a 'secret laboratory'... the dread doctors really didn't care about the safety of their experiments if they left their workplace in that state.

"The dread doctors' infamous laboratory" Theo announced while he navigated with ease through the tricky corridors and didn't so much as grimace at the heavy chemicals' odor that was twisting the werewolves' senses, his wounds not even slowing him a bit, if anything he moved faster than the rest of them.

"I don't like anything about this place." Liam commented, wrinkling his nose.

"You guys are gonna have to be more quiet than that" Theo warned once they reached the stairs "and be ready." For what? Scott could only assume, but what he assumed all along turned out not so exaggerated after all, when they started finding the doctor's 'limbs' thrown haphazardly across the rooms, with patches of blood that he -for once- knew whom it belonged to, Scott knew this wasn't going to be good.

"Do you guys hear that?" Malia stopped in her tracks to listen closer, Scott and the others eventually did too. It was only incoherent static, and it was probably to disorient the supernaturals, Scott realized before Lydia pointed it out.

"I'll find it." she decided.

"I'll go with you." Malia offered and they both followed the sound, to wherever it lead.

._._._.

"How come you know where you're going?" Liam asked once they started moving again, Theo didn't turn around when he answered:

"I came here to look for Stiles" he explained, voice even and controlled, simply because Scott was still wary and could not calm down "he had a whole bunch of stuff to mess with directions, I had to walk through this a lot of times before I found him."

"What happened then?"

"What do you think?" he snarled back, and Scott noticed something else that almost made him stop in his tracks: he was supposed to be angry, he's sure behind the chemicals he smelled at least a little bit angry, then why in the name of dread did his heartbeat stay even?!

and... how come he could hear his heartbeat?

It took Scott nearly two seconds to realize that the static had stopped, and he guessed that was a good thing until he saw Theo stop walking and heard the scream.

It wasn't just one person who screamed though.

Theo took a sudden step back almost tripping the two werewolves behind him, dust gathered all around and suddenly Lydia and Malia were both lying unconscious on the floor.

Scott looked up to see a set of dark eyes staring into his own, the same thing that wasn't right was definitely wrong, and definitely evil.

But that was Stiles!

While Scott struggled to decide which side he would choose the other was already set, if the wicked grin on his face was anything to go by. One moment it lasted, the next consisted of dust and silence.

There were no shadows left where darkness found home; the power went off and Scott was choking.