Master plan
Sheriff Stilinski was a smart man that knew how to be objective when the occasion called for it, it was what ate at him when he recalled his late wife. He was given the option the night she passed to abandon his position and see her one last time but he chose to stay with the young girl that was trapped in the car because that was his job. But if there was one thing, he struggled to be objective about, especially when it came to choosing between his work and his life it was Stiles.
Stiles had always been one giant question mark after another, he could never figure out what was going through her head at any given point. He used to think she was a little too much like Braeden, always quick to jump into the thick of things, put herself on the front line of stupidly dangerous situations which was why he taught her how to use a gun and self-defense in between her ballet classes when she was little. It's why he allowed Braeden to show her how to use older weapons so that if the need ever arise and she couldn't get to a gun then she always had a back-up plan. Noah may not have the slightest clue as to what was going through Stiles' head but he did have a fairly accurate grip on her way of thinking which is why her sudden disappearance after the lacrosse game and Jackson's death flooded him with so much worry. It just wasn't like her.
Noah passed the locker room his phone clenched tightly in his hand as he fought the urge to call Braeden back to town, that would just let her know she was probably right and Stiles wasn't safe in Beacon Hill's anymore. He swallowed past it and turned to the two boys Stiles seemed to be close with, Scott and Isaac.
"Look, I got to go meet the medical examiner and try to figure out what just happened with Jackson. I put an APB out on Stiles, her jeep is still in the parking lot so that means…" The sheriff trailed off his throat closing up in worry. "I don't know what the hell that means, but if either of you see or hear from her… anything at all."
"We'll give you a call sheriff." Scott promised with a small crooked smile. "She's probably just gone off to comfort Lydia after what happened."
Neither Isaac nor the sheriff felt like pointing out the inconsistency in Scott's flawed logic, Stiles had vanished during the black out and Lydia had been helping Melissa with Jackson before the ambulance arrived.
"Yeah, I'll see you two, okay?" The sheriff didn't stick around for a reply, if he stayed at the school any longer, he would completely blow of his duties as sheriff and scour the entire town until he found his daughter.
Coach Finstock had been waiting diligently for the sheriff to take his leave, after the game ended and Jackson was taken away; he'd rounded his players up and given them a short speech about team unity, leadership and how he didn't totally hate them, only wanted to see them achieve their very best. He approached his teams co-captain… well just captain now, and Lahey one of his better players.
"McCall. Listen, you know we need you on the team, okay? I can't put you out on the field next season if you don't work for it." It didn't seem like the right time to bring up McCall's grades but really the kid was squirrely, he always managed to duck him whenever there wasn't a practice so really there was no greater time to bring it up and really drive the point home.
"Yeah, I know coach." He answered only half sincere about it, Isaac wrinkled his nose and watched Scott with carefully narrowed eyes, he seemed a little… off. They waited until everyone had filed out before Scott opened his locker and pulled out some items that belonged to Stiles, she sometimes left things in the closest convenient locker which was usually Scott's or Danny's.
"You want to find her by scent?" Isaac asked dubiously, he was well aware that Derek hadn't taught him everything just yet but he knew there were better ways to find someone.
"Yeah, we both are." Scott replied handing Isaac an old T-shirt or something. "It'll be the easiest and quickest way."
A snort of disbelieving amusement had both betas snapping their heads up, Derek had slinked into the locker rooms quickly followed by his recently revived uncle. Listening to Scott yakking on about something he scarcely knew anything about was both amusing and sad.
"We need to talk." Was all he said as Peter took that as his cue to step out of the shadows with a bland smile.
"That would mean all of us." Peter crowed glancing around the dank space one special little spark not catching his eye or making any annoyingly sarcastic remarks. "Where's Stiles? She should be here too."
Isaac turned to Derek questioningly, he'd never met this guy his alpha never even mentioned him but it seemed everyone knew him but Isaac. Scott on the other hand glared at the new comer with vengeance.
"Stiles' isn't here." He snapped uncaringly.
"Well, where is she." The man asked with a quirked brow, Scott continued to glare until Derek stepped between them with an annoyed snarl.
"That's enough!" He growled causing Isaac to duck his head meekly and scurry to his side. "Where is Stiles, we need her help."
Scott shrugged a little, acting completely different to how he was just a few minutes ago when he was determined to find his best friend. "She's gone."
"She disappeared right after the game." Isaac chipped in causing all three of the wolves to turn to him. "We were going to try and find her."
"Well, isn't that just wonderful." The man clicked his tongue. "We really needed her for this plan to work."
Derek rolled his eyes, the only thing his uncle wanted Stiles to do was get Lydia. The stubborn redhead would freeze hell for the spark… or at least try and find a way.
"What plan?" Scott asked at the same time Isaac decided to state his curiosity and ask; "Who is this guy?"
"That's Peter Hale, Derek's uncle." Scott drawled still shifting his hate-filled glare between the alpha and the resurrected ex-alpha. "Little while back he tried to kill all of us, so we set him on fire and Derek slashed his throat. You're working with him, why didn't you tell me?"
"Funny you should ask, Scott. I could ask you the same thing when I saw you outside the station talking to Gerard." Derek said painfully calm but his eyes flashed warningly. "You know when your best friend was trapped with a murderer who had a sick fascination with her?"
"No, okay hold on… He threatened my mom." Scott's eyes widened fearfully. "What was I supposed to do? I had to get close to him, somehow."
"So, how is it your still alive?" Isaac asked Peter who was watching Derek and Scott's testosterone filled pissing match with no small amount of boredom.
"It's fairly simple, I tied my soul with another whom was immune to the bite of a werewolf. The spell I used would ingrain a form of myself in her subconscious until the right time where I could be revitalized under the power of the full moon and a blood relative that had the power of an alpha." Peter explained flippantly, smirking a little at the betas wide-eyed look, he was hoping to tell Stiles all this first before she tried to kill him for hurting her friend. "And before you ask, the reason I didn't show myself until now is because the spell is draining on even a trained wiccan, as a werewolf it leaves much to be desired in terms of power and strength."
"…Jackson's dead, it happened on the field just now." Scott was saying and the room suddenly dropped ten degrees. "Why isn't anyone taking this as a good sign?"
"Because it's not, if Gerard killed him now, it's because there's a bigger plan in motion. We need to find Stiles." Peter nervously ran his fingers over his bottom lip wondering what could've happened to the hyperactive spark.
Derek snarled, turning on Scott with blood red eyes demanding to know what happened. Scott, with very little self-preservation, smirked with cold eyes.
"Why are you of all people so hung up about Stiles? You don't even like her."
Derek tensed and Isaac could swear that for the briefest of seconds he heard his alpha's heart skip a beat. He blinked the thought away because surly he was hearing things but when Peter turned an inquisitive gaze on his nephew, his lips twisted into some kind of condescendingly sad smile, his eyes shining with mirth, Isaac knew he'd heard right.
"Oh, dear nephew, don't tell me you found a mate?" Peter's smile turned a little wistful at the thought. "I mean not that this isn't a wonderful occasion or anything but couldn't you have found someone whose father isn't the sheriff?"
Derek just huffed and turned away, Isaac knew enough of Derek's mannerisms to know that he was through with this conversation and he'd go about saving Jackson himself if he had too. Which is why the oldest of Derek's betas almost skipped out of the locker rooms right behind his alpha.
Stiles groaned as she slowly came to with a pounding ache in her head and a heavy weight pressing down on her chest. Her mouth felt dry and sticky as she pried her eyes open to find out where she was, a pitiful whine escaped her when she noted she was lying on the cold concrete floor of a basement and the dull lighting pierced her retinas with little remorse. There were muffled shouts from somewhere nearby but Stiles ignored it, she felt like her entire body was encased in lead, her movements where slow and heavy. Her head rolled over her shoulders as she pushed herself into a sitting position and forced herself to breath slow painful breathes.
Nausea had her stomach roiling but all Stiles could do was dry heave as the ground beneath her swayed dangerously. She launched to her feet as a door opened and heavy footsteps came pounding down the basement stairs followed by much lighter, dancer steps. Stiles smoothed her features into an impassive, unimpressed look as Gerard and Allison appeared at the bottom of the stairs with cool indifference. Although Allison looked particularly murderous and Stiles wouldn't put it passed her to try and kill Stiles right then and there. Stiles straightened her spine and took in her surroundings with a quick, fleeting glance. Standard basement with roughly thirteen steps leading to the door, a small and narrow window that was possibly locked, two crazy hunters one of which was carrying a large knife and the other had a concealed baton type weapon and two betas tied up with electrical wires at the other side of the room. Stiles' eyes flickered back to Gerard before she blinked and slowly turned back to the last thing she saw, Erica and Boyd were in fact tied up with duct tape slapped over their mouths, muffling their cries of pain and fear.
"Okay, I'm just going to address the fact that kidnapping and torture is against the law." She snarked giving the hunters a lazy smile. "Then I'm going to tell you that you've made a colossal mistake."
Allison turned to her grandfather, looking for direction maybe but the look in her eye screamed that she wanted to shut Stiles up. Gerard smiled and waved his hand at the brunette, regarding her like something that had been left too long in the fridge.
"You see Allison, this is a witch. Occasionally called a wiccan or sometimes even a druid, they believe that by drawing on the energy around them to conduct their powers that their doing no harm."
"But that isn't true?" Allison questioned, her tone just on the right side of curious.
"Exactly, the difference between witches and druids is that the latter are benign creature that like us, maintain the balance between good and evil, the supernatural and natural. Witches, like young Stiles here are dangerously volatile and deadly, worse than even going up against a rogue omega. You should never underestimate them; they'll stall for time before striking with blood magic or even just deadly force. It's best to simply eradicate them in one fell swoop." Gerard lectured before smiling tightly. "But that's not why we brought you here, Stiles."
Stiles gave him a perfectly bland look, "No you just wanted to talk my ears off about how your mission in life is to kidnap, torture and murder people."
"No! It's our job to rid the world of creatures that abuse and manipulate the people and world around them. Things that aren't human have no place walking among us." Allison stated coldly, her eyes dark and chin high; Stiles nodded with pursed lips.
"Cool motive, it's still murder and still pretty damn illegal." She sighed, growing indefinitely bored, she knew there was something not right with her, her magic specifically, it felt muted somehow.
The punch, quite frankly, came out of nowhere and Stiles did not see it coming despite knowing there was going to be an attack. Allison lashing out with the baton that turned out to be an electrified stick, a few kilowatts short of being a light saber was definitely unexpected and knocked the hyper vigilant teen to her knees, Stiles briefly met Erica's fearful eyes that welled up with tears before she looked away, back to Allison as the hunter kicked out, her foot connecting sharply with Stiles' ribs. Stiles grunted as she fell back to the ground and Allison brought the baton down on her side and back repeatedly without care or hesitance, Stiles didn't fight back as she struggled back to her feet and faced the hunter head on. Instead of begging or pleading she took each and every blow with a cool indifference until Allison left her bleeding and shaking from the repeated assault.
Stiles honestly wasn't sure how long had passed before Allison finally backed away, her chest heaving and knuckles bruised and split – she dropped the baton and decided to continue to simply beat Stiles into giving up. She also didn't know how the two betas were still conscious with the continuous currents that were running through them when she could barely stand from the basic, short burst of electric that she was subjected to. With a shaking sigh Allison moved backwards to the stairs of the basement, Stiles fought to get to her knees.
"Don't get up, Stiles." Allison sighed, wiping a hand over her face. "Just don't. This… whatever this is your trying to do, whether it's be a hero or who knows what, you should just stop. It's not strength, or determination or redemption it's just sad and pathetic at least I'm trying to make things right. I'm trying to make the world a better place…" The huntress trailed off with a scowl as Stiles looked up with a toothy grin, her shoulders shaking with hysterical laughter.
"No… oh, no please keep going on your whole 'I'm just trying to save everyone; that doesn't make me the bad guy' spiel that just about every villain from just about every superhero sci-fi movie ever has already conned." Stiles took in a shuddering breath and swallowed thickly, spitting a bit of blood from her mouth. "I'm sure at some point I'll be convinced that you are totally justified in your actions here and I'm sure the sheriff's department, and a court full of normal non-supernatural people would totally be on your side."
"There's no point in trying to talk yourself out of this Stiles. We dosed you with witch hazel, you can't access your magic for at least another few hours." Allison smiled sympathetically. "Like I said; pathetic."
"No, what's pathetic Ally-cat is how you think that using your moms' death, your aunt's death and Jackson's change to justify your actions. Like that somehow make all this okay," Stiles gestured around her to the basement's dully lit surroundings. "It's pathetic how easily the Argent family are so quick to jump to 'murder is the only option' when they think they're the victims. When really, they're the instigators to everything that seems to be going wrong, you know that killing every supernatural creature isn't going to help fill that black void of nothing in your chest Allison, nothing will."
Allison took several long, purposeful strides over to Stiles and kicked her booted foot out, it connected with Stiles' jaw and sent her flying backwards into the hard wall. Blood poured from her split lip and the now torn muscle inside her mouth, Stiles made point to snake her tongue across her bottom lip before spitting a large wad of blood on the ground next to her as Allison stomped up the steps. Her jaw ached as did the rest of her body as she slipped down to sit on the floor, her back pressed against the wall cooling her overheated body, Stiles watched Allison grit her teeth and smiled innocently as the huntress stomped up the stairs and back into her normal, sweet new girl façade. The spark turned to take in her wolves as she cradled her aching jaw, catching drops of blood that dripped from her chin in her hand.
"It's going to be okay." She promised, her voice steady and honest. She was going to make it okay, however she could, Stiles felt her eyes droop heavily, her breaths coming out harsh and wheezy, her mind completely blank as she tried to conjure up an amazing escape plan but she had no access to her powers and the only ones that could break out of the Argent's basement were tied up and in agony.
She was unaware of having fallen asleep or for how long when she snapped in awareness when Chris Argent's low baritone filled the basement. Stiles was hardly capable of understanding the jumbled jargon that the older hunter was saying only that he had turned off the box that was attached to Erica and Boyd via some black cables and that their feature relaxed minutely when he did. Only tensed and snarled behind the tape when he slowly, hesitantly approached Stiles and helped her to her feet.
"You need to get to the hospital. Those electrical burns need medical attention immediately."
"No… need to find… Help save Jackson…" She mumbled as she attempted clear her foggy mind. "Derek… needs to know…"
"You need the hospital…" Chris trailed off with a heavy sigh when Stiles glared at him. "But I see you make a habit of not listening to people. You're going to need a ride."
Stiles had the feeling Argent wasn't offering and immediately looked around for her purse, someone must have thrown it in the basement as an afterthought as it was lying under a table half open and her phone was sitting on the floor having fallen out. Stiles limped over and scooped up the device typing a quick text to Lydia, mentally apologizing for putting the redhead in the position given how she must be feeling. Thankfully she lived close by and was at the Argent house in a matter of minutes, all but flying out of her car to wrap Stiles in her arms. Dry tear tracks streaked through Lydia's usually perfect makeup, her eyes were bloodshot and rimmed red but she still made the effort to smile and completely ignore Stiles' obvious injuries, simply leading her to the car's passenger side and pausing briefly as she made her way to her side.
"You need to see this." She said as she slid into the car and handed Stiles her phone, there was a text from Allison.
'We need you and Stiles to get to the warehouse the rave was at ASAP. We know how to save Jackson!'
Stiles wanted to ignore it, what right did that little chit have demanding her presence and help over something as important as that when she knew fine well that Stiles was incapable of using magic to help in the first place. But Lydia's pleading, desperate look made her pause, holding off on sprouting the acid forming on the tip of her tongue.
"Please, Stiles?" The redhead begged in a voice so small and weak that Stiles actually hurt. "Even if they can't save him, I need to see him. They wouldn't let me at the hospital and I need to give him something; he kept asking for it back and I kept hoping he'd change his mind."
"Okay, okay." Stiles groaned scratching her eyebrow, she felt a migraine niggling at the corners of her mind. "But first we need to go to the school, I have a plan but we need Roscoe."
"Why can't we just use my car?" Lydia asked sounding mildly offended as she started to drive.
"Oh, we could. If you wanted completely total the front of it crashing through the side of the warehouse."
Lydia's jaw twitched but she said nothing as the headed for the school and switched from Honda to jeep and took off towards the warehouse where Stiles stopped for a couple of heartbeats before she pressed down on the gas and did as she said she would. Roscoe not only crashed through the thin metal barricade but smacked into fully shifted homicidal lizard Jackson, knocking him straight the ground and giving them enough time to climb out of the jeep.
"Lydia!" Stiles felt something unfurl inside her chest as Lydia stopped in front of Jackson holding out a key on a length of chain. The Kanima tilted its head curiously looking between the object and the girl holding it.
Peter and Derek lurched into action, imbedding their claws into Jackson's stomach and back, returning him to what he should have been. Jackson became more human in appearance as his breath came in short burst of air, his eyes wide as he took in the stunning, heartbroken genius.
"Do you… do you still…" He tried to ask, Lydia merely smiled and nodded assuring because of course she did. Even after everything was said and done, a part of her would always love Jackson Whittemore and she didn't care in the slightest if those affections were never returned.
Stiles backed away from the couple – ex couple – having their moment and headed straight for Derek and Isaac. She only raised an eyebrow at Peter, some part of her wondering if he was really here or if her powers were starting to return, Stiles gave a lopsided smile as Derek gently, hesitantly reached out to caress her cheek his face pensive. He opened his mouth to say something when Scott asked where Gerard went, Stiles' head spun around and immediately took note of how close he stood to Allison with their hands intertwined. A deep, halting snarl unleashed from her throat and she moved without realizing what she was doing, a misty shape formed around her in deep purple and black smoke as her eyes became pitch black and she grabbed Allison by the throat.
Something inside her screamed and begged for retribution, for payment for the little huntress and her suppose best friend had done, the people they had hurt and allowed to be hurt all in the name of their doomed romance story. Before Stiles could tighten her hold, squeeze until every last ounce of breath was removed from Allison's lungs and she could feel the bones snapping underneath her fingers something sharp and burning hot raked over her chest accompanied by a flash of bright amber-gold that she'd come to associate with Scott's beta eyes. Stiles stumbled away from Allison, her hand moving towards her chest on instinct, she could see the looks of fear, worry and shock from those around her but couldn't make out any distinct sounds as she peeked down at her hand that was slicked with vibrantly colored blood. Stiles felt her knees buckle beneath her and strong arms lifting her into the air as her eyes rolled into the back of her head and her limbs locked in shock.
Scott had just attacked her; almost killing her. He didn't once think about how she came to be covered in bruises and cuts or even why she'd attack Allison in the first place. Stiles realized with stunning clarity that when push came to shove, Scott would always choose someone else over her, he wasn't the sacrificing type and most certainly wasn't alpha material.
What's this? What's happening? Sorry this took a while after leaving you guys on that cliffhanger last chapter but I hope you like this chapter just as much.