"Erica," he threw the name to the wind. "I need you."

Nothing.

Stiles summoned back up the command he'd used on the other ghosts just a moment ago. "Erica. Please. Come here." He saw nothing except the road in front of him.

A minute later, her shape materialized before him, looking a little paler than before. For the first time since all this had begun, Stiles was happy to see her. Erica, of course, looked sad.

"Finally. You were making me look bad." She simply stared, and Stiles immediately felt bad for joking. "I'm sorry. I need your help again. We have to find them. We have to save them. You understand, right?"

Erica nodded.

"Can you show me where they are?"

She nodded again and turned, pointing off in a direction that was almost directly behind Stiles.

"They came in through the back of campus?"

She nodded a third time, and like that, Stiles knew what had happened. He knew how the Vampires had gotten in. He turned to Malia. "We need a map," he said.

Malia walked back through the gate and spoke a few words to one of the guardians on duty. A moment later, she returned with a map and unfolded it. It showed the layout of campus, as well as the surrounding roads and terrain. Stiles took it from her and held it out to Erica.

The only true road out from the school was right in front of them. The rest of the campus was surrounded by forests and steep cliffs. Stiles pointed to a spot at the back of the school's grounds. "This is where they came in, isn't it? Where the wards first broke?"

Erica nodded. She held out her finger and without touching the map, traced a route through the woods that flanked the edge of a small mountain that eventually led to a small dirt road that joined an interstate many miles away.

"No, that's not right," Stiles said. "It can't be. There are no roads here. They'd have to go on foot, and it'd take too long to walk from the school to this other road. They wouldn't have had enough time. They'd be caught in daylight."

Erica shook her head and again traced the route back and forth. In particular, she kept pointing to a spot not far beyond the Academy's grounds. She held her finger there, looked at Stiles, and then looked back down.

"They can't be there now," Stiles argued. "It's outside. They might have come in through the back, but they had to have left through the front — gotten in some kind of vehicle and took off."

Erica shook her head.

Stiles looked up at Malia, frustrated. "Is there any building or anything out there?" He pointed at the spot Erica had indicated. "She says they were going out to that road. But they couldn't have walked there before the sun came up, and she claims they're there."

Malia's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Not that I know of." She took the map from Stiles and brought it to the other guardians to check with them. While they talked, Stiles glanced back at Erica.

"You better be right about this," he warned her.

She gave him a weak smile.

"Have you seen them? The Vampires and their captives?"

She nodded.

"Are they still alive?"

She nodded.

Malia walked over. "Stiles..." There was a strange note to her voice. "Stephen says there are caves right at the base of the mountain here."

Stiles met her eyes, no doubt looking just as astonished as she did. "Are they big enough...?"

"For the Vampires to hide out in until nighttime?" Malia nodded. "They are. And they're only five miles away."

It was almost impossible to believe. The Vampires were practically right next door to them, waiting for nightfall so that they could finish their escape. Now they had an odd situation in their hands.

Under normal circumstances, they would have never pursued the Cold Ones. Those who were taken were usually written off as dead. This time, however, they knew exactly where they were. The Vampires were essentially trapped.

For Stiles, the choice was quite obvious. He honestly couldn't figure out why they weren't in those caves right now, flushing out the Vampires and looking for survivors. Malia and he hurried back, anxious to act on their news, but they had to wait until all the guardians gathered.

"Do not interrupt them," Malia told him during the meeting. "They'll make the right choice. You just have to be patient."

Stiles' dad appeared beside them. "I hope you know, Stiles, that if there's a rescue, it's not going to be a 'we' thing. You aren't going."

"Why?" Stiles exclaimed. "You know I can help. You know what I did. You guys need as much help as you can get, and there are plenty of other novices who are ready too. Bring Kira, and we'll be unstoppable."

"No," his dad said quickly. "Not her. You should have never gotten a half-breed involved, let alone one as young as her."

"But you saw what she could do."

"Yes, I did. And I fear the consequences of that."

The caves' layout was examined in detail by one of the teachers who was also a geologist. People asked questions. Then decision time came.

Stiles braced himself.

One by one, the guardians stood up and expressed their commitment to going on the rescue mission. Everyone was ready for a fight. They wanted it. The Vampires had gone too far.

"Well, then," said Chris Argent, glancing around. "We'll plan the logistics and head out. We've still got about nine hours of daylight to go after them before they leave."

"Wait," said Guardian Stilinski. All eyes turned to him. "I think there's one other thing we should consider. I think we should allow some of the senior novices to go."

This started a small outcry, but it only came from a minority. Stiles' dad gave an argument similar to what Stiles had given him. He also maintained that novices would not be in the front lines but that they would serve more as backup should any Vampire get through. The guardians had almost approved of this idea when he dropped another bomb on them.

"I think we should bring some half-breed with us."

One of the guardians shot up. He had a huge gash on the side of his face. "What? Are you insane?"

Guardian Stilinski fixed him with a calm look. "No. We all know what my son and Kira Yukimura did. One of our biggest problems with Vampires is getting past their strength and speed to go in for the kill. If we bring powerful half-breeds, we have a distraction that will give us an edge. We can cut them down."

A debate broke out. It took every ounce of self-control Stiles had not to join in. Every minute that passed was another minute they weren't going after the others. It was another minute in which someone might die.

"They're being idiots," he hissed to Malia.

Her eyes were on Chris, as he debated a guardian. "No," murmured Malia. "Change is happening before your eyes. People are going to remember this day as a turning point, Stiles."

And she was right. Once again, the guardians slowly signed on with the idea. This was more than just their fight — it was the half-breeds' too.

Stiles felt triumphant and exultant. Malia was right. This was the moment their world would change.

But not for four hours.

"More guardians are coming," Malia told him when he once again expressed his outrage.

"In four hours! Everyone could be dead by then."

"We need an overwhelming show of force," she said. "We need every edge we can get. If we go in unprepared, we could lose more lives than that. Come on," she added, gesturing toward the exit. "Let's go outside."

"Won't they need you here?"

"No. Most of what they're doing now is waiting for the others, and they have more than enough people right now to help plan the attack. Your dad's leading that."

Outside, they sat on the grass under the delicious sunlight. From there, they could see some signs of the attack: damage to buildings, bloodstains in unexpected places, etc. Most noticeable of all was the mood. Even in full daylight, there was a darkness around them, a heavy sorrow that you could almost reach out and feel.

"You told me you had a theory about why the wards broke," she said.

Stiles had nearly forgotten. No one had asked many questions about it, not yet. The immediate concerns had been to get new wards up and tend to their own people.

"Ethan's group was doing their initiation right there by the wards. You know how stakes can negate wards because the magic go against each other? I think it's the same thing. Their initiation rights used a lot of magic, and I think they negated the wards in the same way."

"Magic is used all the time on campus, though," pointed out Malia. "Why has this never happened before?"

"Because magic isn't usually happening right on top of the wards. The wards are on the edges, so the two don't usually conflict. Also, I think it makes a difference in how the magic is being used. Magic is life, which is why it destroys Vampires and why they can't cross it. The magic in stakes is used as a weapon. So was the magic in the torture session. When it's used in that sort of negative way, I think it cancels out good magic."

Malia stared at the horizon. "I never would have thought that was possible, but it makes sense. The principle really is the same as for the stakes."

Stiles thought about Ethan's idiotic group. Bad enough they'd done what they did to Scott, but this? Letting Vampires into the school? How could something so stupid and petty on their part have led to this sort of disaster?

"Stiles, about what happened—"

Stiles glanced at her, suddenly scared of what she might say. They hadn't had time to talk about ot yet. Would she say that it'd been wrong? That it could never happen again? That she already regretted it? Deciding he didn't want to hear it, he said the first thing that came to his head, the one thing he knew to be true: "Look, I love you, and I don't want to keep pretending like I don't."

That caught her off guard. Malia stopped whatever she was going to say and just stared at him. "I don't either," she decided. "I don't want any more lies."

Only the relief he felt proved how scared he was of what she thought. But this was it. They had finally reached the point where they weren't going to deny their relationship anymore. "Then what'll happen now?"

Malia stared off into the sky ahead, face thoughtful. "After you graduate and are out with Scott..." She didn't finish, but there was no need; Stiles understood what she wasn't saying.

"You're going to ask to be reassigned. You won't be his guardian."

"I don't need to," she shrugged. "And it's better this way. He needs two guardians perfectly dedicated to him. If I can get assigned somewhere at Court, we'll be near each other all the time. And in a secure place like that, there's more flexibility with a guardian's schedule."

Stiles realized there was no option they had that was ideal. Each one came with hard choices. He knew it was hard for her to give up Scott. She cared about him and wanted to keep him safe. But she cared about Stiles more.

"Well," he said, realizing something, "we might actually see more of each other if we're guarding different people. We can get time off together. If we were both with Scott, we'd be swapping shifts and always be apart."

After all this time, after all the heartache, Malia and Stiles were going to make this work. There was always the possibility she could get assigned away from Court, but even so, they'd still manage to get some time off together every once in a while. The time apart would be agony, but they would make it work. And it would be better than continuing to live a lie.

Yes, it was really going to happen. Stiles was going to have it all. Scott and Malia. The thought that he could be with both of them was going to make him strong. He'd tuck it away in the back of his mind, like a good luck charm, and used it to crush the Trickster's presence.

"A lot of people aren't going to be happy," she said, but Stiles didn't care at all what other people were going to think. In a normal world, this would have been a happy morning after sex. They wouldn't be preparing for battle and worrying about their loved ones. They'd be laughing and teasing each other while secretly planning their next getaway.

They didn't live in a normal world, of course, but when she smiled, it was easy to imagine they did. Dark times were ahead of them, but with her by his side, Stiles felt like he could do anything.

Even face down a pack of hungry Vampires.