Sorry for the long gap. I've been away from home and my written chapters were left on the usb drive I forgot to bring with me. Figured better late then never. I have a lot of chapters to post to be prepared for a shit ton of updating while on this quarentine. I do not own anything in this chapter, besides Laci. Everything else belongs to their rightful owners
Chapter 21
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A few days had passed and they were no closer to figuring out any new leads on the beast or how to get Lydia out of Eichen house. Stiles, Scott, and Laci were currently trying to track the beast. Of course, that led them to following the squad cars currently following it. They were listening to the police scanner as the cops persued the beast.
"Unit five heading northwest on Crescent reporting an incrediably large . . . something."
"Unit nine, to dispatch, I think I've got eyes on the same thing. Some kind of rabid animal."
"Unit five to nine, trust me, that's no animal."
"Unit six to dispatch. We have a situation downtown. Multiple fatalities."
"Copy. Medics on the way. Do you have a perp in sight, unit six?"
"Negative. Looks like a 10-91E. Animal attack."
"10-4. Can you say what kind of animal?"
Stiles grabbed his walkie and turned it on. "All units stay back. Do not engage. I repeat, do not engage."
"Stiles, get off the radio." The sheriff snapped over the radio. "All units alert. Wait for back up. Repeat, no one goes near this thing."
"Unit five reporting a sighting on Hill Road southbound . . ."
"Unit nine, I've got it turning off Oakridge, southbound on Beachwood . . ."
"All units, this is dispatch We've got a 911 call with additional sighting on Mitchell."
Stiles shared a look with the twins, his expression confused. This wasn't making any sense. "Wait a second. Beachwood to Mitchell?"
"It's headed back for the hospital." Scott realized.
"Dad . . ." Stiles said over the walkie.
"Stiles, get off this channel."
"Dad, just listen to me, okay? It's headed for the hospital, all right. He's headed for Beacon Memorial. You hear me? It's headed for the hospital."
Laci held on tight as Stiles switched gears and sped up. She grimanced when he took a sharp left turn. Scott glanced back to make sure she was alright. She looked ready to be sick, but she gave him a weak smile and nodded anyway. Stiles' driving wasn't the smoothest, but she'd been through worse. Malia's driving came to mind.
"What does it want with the hospital?" Laci asked, looking between the two of them. "Scott, what about mom?"
Neither knew the answer to that, but they were going to figure it out. Scott glanced back, trying to look reassuring. "I'm sure they evacuated the hospital and she's out."
She gave him a look. The last time they tried to evacuate the hospital, their mom was one of the last ones out and ended up getting taken as a sacriface. He just shot her a look back, asking her to just work with him here.
It wasn't long before Stiles pulled into a spot. He and Scott both jumped out. Scott wanted to tell Laci to stay in the jeep, but she was already climbing out before he could get a word out. She reached back and grabbed the old aluminum bat Stiles had in his trunk. "Don't even think of telling me to stay behind. Come on." She said, as she led the way inside.
The three teens pushed through the doors to the hospital to see it was cleared out, not a person in sight. They jumped when a gun cocked behind them. It was the sheriff. He motioned them all to be quiet. The ground suddenly shook as a growl was heard. Stiles grabbed onto Laci's arm out of habit, and maybe out of fear too.
"Fourth floor." Scott told them.
The four headed for the stairs, the sheriff leading the way. Laci held up the bat, ready to swing if anything popped out at them. She knew it wasn't the best weapon, but it was all they had. The lights flickered as electricity crackled. The entire floor was trashed and on fire. The four slowly crept forward until the sheriff suddenly pushed the three back as a flameball known at Deputy Parrish came flying by them.
They watched as he hit the wall, his flames going out. He had large scratches going down his chest and he was covered in soot and bruises. His eyes glowed bright red until they slowly faded back to his normal color. He stared out blankly, not moving to get up again. The sheriff and Stiles moved closer to him as Scott turned the other way. Laci grabbed her brother's arm before following behind him.
"Parrish, you okay?" The sheriff asked his deputy. Stiles moved around to his other side. "Deputy!" He said louder, causing him to flinch.
Scott noticed a pair of bloody foot prints leaving in the other direction. Laci looked back at Stiles to see they had gotten his attention. He started following after them until Scott came to a stop. The paw prints had shifted into shoe prints.
$#%^^$^%#
The trio headed to the animal shelter once they left the hospital. Deaton had something to show them. When they got there, the three headed into the back to meet the veterinarian. He was getting something ready to show them. "What I'm about to show you isn't supposed to exist." He said to the trio.
He looked between the three of them, knowing they weren't ready for this. "This is the only surviving evidence of Dr. Valack's time as chief medical officer at Eichen house." He said as he laid down more pictures. "To call it human experimentation would be charitable." He said as he watched Scott picked up one picture in particular. Laci looked over to see that it was of a woman screaming.
"A banshee." Deaton said. "She died screaming."
Deaton laid down more pictures until something caught Stiles' eye. "So, he drilled holes into their heads? All of them?"
"That was the experimentation part." He said, looking between the three. "He did it to werewolves, Banshees, wendigos, any creature he could get his hands on. And Valack found that trepanation would initially heighten their powers, but to levels that couldn't be contained."
Laci touched her head, wondering if the dread doctors had done something similar to her to amplify her powers.
"So he wants to make Lydia more powerful." Scott said, wondering if that would be so bad.
"Yeah. Except she's going to end up just like them." Stiles pointed out.
"Worse, actually." Deaton corrected him. "Unlike with Laci's powers that were just starting to show, Lydia's powers were already pretty exceptional to begin with. Putting a hole in her head will be like causing a leak in a nuclear reactor. She'll hear everything. Every death, every dying scream, all at once."
"That's going to kill her." Laci said, worry in her voice.
She couldn't lose another friend. Erica, Boyd, Allison, Aiden . . . they'd already lost too many people. She couldn't lose Lydia too.
Deaton knew the trio was still trying to wrap their heads around this. He knew they needed to understand just how bad this could be though. "Not only that . . . her own dying scream could be so powerful that it might kill everyone around her as well." He said, his eyes flickering from Stiles, to Laci, before landing on Scott.
That wasn't good. Not good at all.
# $%$%^$
While Stiles went to talk to his dad, Scott and Laci got the others all together to go over their own plan on how to get Lydia out. Laci explained the quick version of what Valack was going to do to Lydia while Scott got everything together. Stiles was the last to show up, letting them know there was nothing legal they could do to get Lydia out of there. Plan B it was then. "There's four steps. We get into Eichen house, we get into the closed unit, we get Lydia, we get out." Stiles explained to them.
"Why does that sound too easy?" Laci asked.
"Because it is." Isaac spoke up.
Stiles gritted his teeth. Isaac had never been the one to look on the postive side of things, and he liked to point that out much like Malia had a habit of doing. "And we're back to the not helping. No scarf this time, so I guess there has been an improvement." Stiles shot back, sending him a look to shut up.
Isaac straightened, clenching his fists as her moved toward Stiles. Laci was quick to grab his arm, shooting a warning look to Stiles to cut it out. Scott cleared his throat, getting everyone's attention back. "Isaac's right. It's not going to be easy. We have to do all of this while getting passed orderlies, guards, electric door locks, and a mountain ash barrier." He said, looking down the line of friends in front of him.
"You have a plan for all of that?" Malia asked.
Stiles glanced around the table before holding up the id he'd stolen the other night. "I stole this last night off an orderly, but it's useless 'cause they reset the codes each night."
"So why'd you take it?" Kira asked.
"I'm getting to that." Stiles said, glancing at Scott to keep going.
Laci could see they had this all figured out, or at least, she hoped they had it all figured out. There were a lot of obstacles for them to move around. "The only way to get Lydia out of Eichen house is to make that key card work again." Scott said.
"How are you going to do that?" Liam asked
"We're getting to that, okay, just listen." Stiles said before turning the computer around for all of them to see. "I pulled all the history off the key card. Two weeks ago there was a brownout and the security system rebooted. During a reboot, all of the cards revert back to a default code. So, if we trigger a reboot . . ."
"The card goes back to the default code. It works again." Liam finished, actually impressed by the plan.
"How are we suppose to cause a brownout?" Kira asked, looking from Scott to Stiles for some kind of answer
"That's your part." Scott said. "You're going to draw power from the main line, but only enough to cause the brownout."
"Not a blackout." Stiles was quick to say. "Do that and you send Eichen into lockdown which would be bad. Very, very, bad."
"There's an electical room behind the reception counter." Scott said, pointing it out on the map between them. "The main power line goes into two breakers that run powers to all of Eichen."
Kira looked nervous. "Okay, slight problem. I don't know how to do that."
"That's okay. You have time to practice." Scott assures her.
Malia wasn't convinced of this plan. They had it too perfectly planned, and that never ended well for them. "Let's say all this goes perfectly. How does a brownout get us into the closed unit of Eichen?" Malia asked.
"The system takes five minutes to reboot. In that five minutes, all of the alarms will be shut off. The key card should work."
"And if it doesn't?" Isaac spoke up, crossing his arms.
"It will." He said firmly.
"Liam, you, Isaac, and I will get Stiles to the gate of the closed unit. But after that, he has to go on his own. We can't get passed the mountain ash barrier."
"I could go with him." Laci said, causing all there eyes to turn to her. When she saw Scott's doubtful look, she got frustrated. "I can help, Scott."
"Last time you helped, you got killed." He blurted out on accident. "I mean . . . if all things go right, he shouldn't need your help."
Laci looked hurt. She wasn't the same weak little girl that died a year ago. She'd been working hard with Isaac to train. She could defend herself now. He just had to let her prove it. "But nothing ever goes completely right, Scott. Let me help. I can do this." She said, wishing he'd just let her do this. She needed to prove to herself, and to them, that she could.
Scott didn't look convinced or ready to budge, but Stiles could see how badly she needed to do this. He knew she wasn't the same girl before and they could use all the help they could get. "I say she goes with me." He said, surprising everyone.
Laci looked grateful, squeezing his hand in thanks. "Then it's decided. I'll go with Stiles."
Isaac and Scott didn't look too happy with that decision, but neither was up to having that fight with her. Laci had worked hard to be apart of this pack, she deserved to be here just as much as anyone else. Lydia was her best friend, she couldn't just sit back and let everyone else risk their lives for her.
Scott cleared his throat, returning to the plan they were trying to explain. "And when we're gone, all anyone's going to think is that there was a reboot of the security system caused by a brown out."
"Uh, anymore questions?" Stiles asked.
"How do we get into Eichen house in the first place?"
"What's our worst case scenerio?"
"What if I can't do it?"
"What if something goes wrong?"
They weren't expecting all the questions to be at once. Scott and Stiles shared a look before looking around the table again. "Okay, admittedly, a lot could go wrong." Stiles said, trying to be positive.
"Everything could go wrong." Liam pointed out.
Scott could see that they were all afraid, but this wasn't something they could just sit back and let happen. This was their friend who was in trouble and needed their help. "Guys, if we don't do this, we lose Lydia. She's going to die in there tonight, and she might take a lot of innocent people with her." Scott said, his eyes meeting everyone's around the table. He could see that they were all on board, risks and all.
It was time to save Lydia.