When the ringing in his ears finally subsided, Derek managed to blink away the static from behind his eyes, stagger to his feet in the aftermath of the explosion. All around him his pack was climbing to their feet, shaking their heads like dogs in an attempt to get their bearings back. The air around them hummed with electricity making his hackles rise, heavy with the smoky, acrid scent of a lightning strike and his wolf was slamming itself against the bars of his control, howling itself hoarse with Stiles' disappearance.

Because he had disappeared.

Gone, with a crack and a sizzle, like a cheap magic trick.

"Shit!" the Omega cursed, and Derek's eyes snapped to the back of his head with a cold fury that clawed at his insides. "Dammit Stiles! Little idiot!"

"You!" he snarled, taking two long strides forward. "What the hell did you…"

The betas must have seen killing in his eyes because Isaac, Peter, and Erica all leapt into his path, hands out as though they thought they could hold him back.

His lips curled back off his fangs in a cruel smile.

He'd like to see them try.

"Derek stop!" Erica demanded, but he didn't meet her gaze, just stared over her head at the massive blonde who was glaring back at him an intent just as deadly as his own. "He wasn't hurting Stiles, we were…"

"Get out of my way Erica," he said in a cold, dead voice.

"Do as he says, little cat," the Omega murmured, and his voice was oddly gentle around a mouthful of fangs.

Boyd must have sensed the bloodshed coming, taken heed of the Omega's warning, because he stepped up from Derek's left and took Erica carefully by the elbow, drawing her out of the range of fire though she was looking desperately between the two of them with a shaking sort of fear that was almost enough to make him want to back down. Isaac and Peter shifted forward to take her place, almost shoulder to shoulder as they faced him, standing between him and his quarry and he showed his teeth.

"Move," he growled, and his eyes flashed red, but despite the broken arms he hadn't quite been able to heal himself, and the Alpha's command was lacking the punch it needed to force his betas away.

"Get yourself under control nephew!" Peter snarled quietly, splaying his left palm flat just over Derek's heart. "Now!"

"I could hear him," Derek hissed, his eyes still on the blonde stranger as he leaned heavily against Peter's hand. "All the way from the damned house. I heard him call the hunt, heard Stiles call for help…"

"He wasn't calling for help!" Erica insisted loudly from where Boyd had caged her against his chest. "He was calling us, calling a run! God, we were…"

"You were what?!" Derek roared, turning on her with flashing eyes, and Boyd snarled and showed his teeth. Much to the pack's surprise, the Omega did too, the muscles in his chest and upper arms rippling as he growled, widening his stance. Derek didn't stop to contemplate the action, the odd protectiveness towards Erica that didn't make any sense. "Where the hell were you, all of you? Yards off, half the damned hill away and he had his teeth in Stiles' throat, had him screaming!"

"It's a game you moron!" the Omega barked, and Derek turned to face him once more, fury boiling in his blood even as his whole pack had started shifting and protesting his accusations. "It's his game! One we've played a thousand times! Jesus, you…"

The wolf threw up his hands, cursing a wicked streak in some sharp, curling tongue as he shook his head and stalked a few yards away, his movements jerky and disjointed just like his speech as he began to pace, turning tight circles as he stared at the ground, searching for something.

"What the hell do you do around here for fun?" he muttered under his breath acidly. "He said you were a pretentious son of a bitch, but Christ…"

"It was a game, Derek," Isaac urged, his tone calm and soothing. "That's all. Just a game."

"Just a misunderstanding," Erica whimpered quietly.

Guilt probably should have hit him then. For coming in on the scene without knowing exactly what was happening, for jumping to conclusions fueled by his own angry assumptions, for panicking. He should have felt guilt. But he didn't. There was too much other, too much more, predominantly an overwhelming jealousy and something suspiciously akin to hatred that threatened to overwhelm him whenever he looked at the wolf that moved so easily around the boy who was once his friend, the boy who was once his…

His nothing.

He'd pushed Stiles away and he'd lost him, and it had been his fault.

And now he was gone again.

"Where is he?" Derek demanded, his fists still tight at his sides, straining forward, sure that Peter's hand was the only link to sanity that he had left.

"How the hell should I know?" the Omega muttered, still dancing over the earth, scenting, searching…

It was the dismissal that broke him. The distracted, careless response, as though he were the last thing that mattered in the world to this lone bastard who waltzed in with Stiles at his side like they were brothers, like they were mates, meant to be close as though Stiles were pack, his pack…

Derek threw Peter and Isaac off with a roar, vicious anger and a flood of old, bitter feelings sweeping through him as he lunged forward, teeth and claws ready to tear his rival to shreds, because in that moment that was exactly what the Omega was; his rival. He'd come into his territory with the young man who should have been theirs, with a member of their pack, had sided with Lydia, or so he'd guessed, was standing guard over Erica like she didn't already have a mate of her own…

He was going to kill him.

The Omega turned to meet his challenge, his eyes blazing in the dark as he braced his feet, unsheathed his own claws but it was all made null when his pack piled on him like a ton of bricks, cutting him down as they clung to his arms and legs, bound him until all he could do was thrash and snarl under their weight, desperate to bite but unwilling to hurt those who were his.

"Where is he?!" Derek screamed madly, trying to wrench his arms away from his uncle who had pinned them to his sides. "You tell me where he fucking went!"

The Omega looked up from the ground he was trampling, the small, dark patch of earth that had turned to thick, chalky ash with Stiles' disappearance, and beneath the anger and the defiance the Alpha could see a snake's strike of fear.

XXX

Pheelan could almost tune out the snarling and snapping of the Alpha and his pack as he scoured the dirt beneath his sneakers for some trace of where Stiles had gone, searched the air for the faintest trace of a scent that would give him the barest clue. It warmed him a bit, seeing the betas stand up for him, if only by default, especially the curvy little blonde. Erica. He liked her spirit, the fire in her even if it didn't burn as bright as the Banshee's, and he knew that she was important to Stiles.

Or… had been…

Phee snarled to himself, shook his head to push away the tangled mess of memory, the minefields he sifted through as he tried to navigate this place. He'd done his best, tried to support Stiles as well as he could, tried to be a pillar of strength and reliability, but now Stiles was gone and shit. He didn't know what to do now. He could feel an anger boiling in him, zinging through his blood and it made his wolf snap its teeth. Normally so calm, so even-keeled, this whole thing was like a scar that he couldn't help but claw at, fury raging in his chest until he could feel the trembling of the shift in his biceps and his abdominals, his muscles clenching as sweat beaded on the back of his neck and ran down his spine like fingers, tapping at his vertebrae.

He'd been ready, ready to meet the Alpha's challenge, ready to bite and rip and tear if that's what it came down to, but once again the pack had leapt to the fore, piling onto the wolf like a bloody American football team, something he almost regretted. But Stiles was gone, had zapped out to God knows where, and that wasn't even the worst of his problems. He'd seen him pull a Houdini before, seen him lose control a dozen times, but this was different, this was wrong.

Stiles had only just told him that he wasn't ready to leave this place.

He could understand wanting to. Hell, he probably would've disappeared too after that fucking fiasco. They'd pushed all the right buttons, torn open all the right scars to completely destroy the young man, and that was what had happened. He'd seen it, in that half flash of a second before the damned shadows had consumed his eyes.

But Stiles' father was hurt, still recovering, and the fact that they were here at all was a testament to the fact that Stiles would have never left his father in that condition. These last days had proved that. He would suffer, face all his demons to protect his dad, make sure that he was ok.

And he never would have threatened the Alpha with fire.

That wasn't Stiles, even with all his hurt and pain and hatred.

And that was why this felt so wrong, why his wolf was whining piteously as it searched, aching for the man who'd said such things…

Phee swallowed, ignored the echo of those words, the ones he hadn't realized he wanted so badly to be true.

Focused on other words instead. Harder words. Ones he didn't think had really come from Stiles.

Yes, they had fought before. Gone fang to fang, for all that was worth, even come really, really close to beating the shit out of each other on one horrible occasion, and that wasn't what was wrong either. They'd yelled at each other, run from each other, but they'd always come back together, and now they couldn't do that.

Behind him the commotion of the pack slowly began to fade back into a reality, clamoring in his ears like the bells that called the hellhounds back to rest each night. He tried to tune back out again, tried to focus in on his task, but the Alpha's voice, now mostly hoarse, broke through his concentration, drilling through his skull like hot nails.

"Where is he?" the wolf shouted, and Phee felt his lip curl back over his teeth, his jaws aching as his anger forced them from his gums, longer and sharper than he thought they might have ever been. "You tell me where he fucking went!"

In an icy flash of anger, Phee felt himself go calm and cold, turned on the Alpha and met his gaze with such frigid composition that the wolves went still and silent.

"I am not your beta," the wolf said with a fearsome amount of control, his canines long and sharp and white. "Don't talk to me like you're my fucking Alpha."

Turning his back on them once more, he went back to his search, seconds ticking by like hours until the spitfire of a blonde took a tentative step towards him, her voice soft but still grating over his skin like shards of glass.

"Pheelan?" she whispered, and her voice was thick with tears. "Is he ok? I mean… where did he…"

"I don't know where he went," Phee replied, finally admitting defeat with a great, heaving sigh. "He has circles all over the world, dozens. He could've popped out to any of them."

"But…"

"But he doesn't have any here!" he snarled. Dragging his hands through his hair roughly, he growled in frustration. "None! Not in the whole damned country. He can't… he can't come back."

The lanky beta, the second, Isaac, if he remembered correctly, stepped away from Derek with a hand up, a plea to stay still if not calm. The Alpha's eyes were blazing like garnets in the dark, his teeth bared, but he'd gone silent and static, and Phee wondered if he were just waiting for an opening. He still smelled like a challenge, one he would be only too happy to meet, but Stiles was his priority. The second cleared his throat, pulled his focus, all intent and determination.

"It's Pheelan right?" he asked with obvious tentativeness. "I'm…"

"Isaac Lahey," Phee muttered, peering out into the dark. "I know who you are. I know who all of you are."

"Fair enough," Isaac answered back calmly, clearly determined to keep the peace. "What do we need to do here?"

Phee's head snapped up and he eyed the beta warily, abruptly on edge despite the clean, soap-smell of honesty.

"Please," he said, and behind him he felt the pack shift in agreement. "How do we bring him home?"

Frowning, it took him all of five seconds to decide, five seconds to choose his sides even if he didn't have much of a choice at all.

"Give me a phone," he demanded, extending his hand, palm up.

"Are you gonna call him?" the floppy-haired brunette with the crooked jaw whimpered, Scott, the one who should have stood up and led five years ago but who chose to lie down instead.

"You really think he'd pick up?" Phee drawled with a cocked eyebrow, biting back the shock of hatred that jolted through him as he stared down the young man. When he got no more of a response than a miserable choking sound and a look like a kicked puppy he rolled his eyes and turned back to the phone in his hand. Scrolling through Isaac's contact list, he found the name of the one person he thought could help him and hit the call button.