Scott's bare feet were quiet on the cold concrete. He occasionally stepped on something hard or sharp but those were minor irritations from which he healed instantly. The dust their passage stirred up tickled his nose. His bare chest and arms were prickled with goosebumps. His escorts wore chill-cutting jackets and the cold was enough that even Scott's improved tolerance was not impervious. He didn't remember it being so cold when he went to bed.

He resisted the urge to look back, to give Liam one more encouraging glance. All he would see was his rear guard anyway. Besides, he decided, it won't help Liam for me to look worried.

Liam was already an anxious bundle of nerves and Scott had walked away with the sounds of Liam's rapid heartbeats and shallow breaths fading slowly behind. The scent of the beta's anxiety had assaulted Scott's sensitive nose in reeking waves. Scott didn't like being separated, either. Being separated always made things harder and usually ended badly. Scott's life was such that he now knew things like that from experience.

The unknown could be scary, but Liam's anxiety had seemed out of proportion given the lack of any real threat at the moment. They'd calmly been informed by one of the men that they were only there to take Scott to visit their boss. Scott had seen little choice but to comply, and as he was curious about who had taken them and why he'd cooperated with little protest. Scott wondered if perhaps he'd become jaded to immediate fear over the last year. Liam hadn't had the same level of experience facing fears that Scott had and he briefly wondered if Liam's reaction really was as disproportionate as he thought it was. Maybe it was Scott's own lack of real fear that was disproportionate. Rather than fear, what Scott felt was more a sense of caution... Caution that warred with curiosity.

Visit. That was the word they'd used as if he was going to pop in at a neighbor's to say hi. The fleeting ideas Scott had entertained of fighting his way out never came to fruition when he realized that Liam was in no way ready for something like that... Besides, the men had an advantage over Scott with their weapons. They carried the weapons in their hands like they'd done this before but the biggest weapon they had was the knowledge that Scott could be dangerous and they behaved accordingly. They'd even made Liam put the shackles and cuffs on him, padlocks and all, rather than getting close enough to do it themselves.

Scott walked between the formation of men – one on either side, one before him and one behind. The ankle shackles clanked at his feet and the thick cuffs were heavy on his wrists. Each man carried a heavy-duty electric rod; they were taking no chances. The familiarity of their careful method resonated with Scott. This was definitely not new to them.

The man that walked three feet behind Scott kept clicking the power button on his baton, letting it buzz sharply on and off. It might have been a threat or a warning but Scott didn't think so. As Liam's anxiety faded it was replaced by the sour odor of fear that wafted from guard number four when Scott turned his head to the side just right, catching the scent from over his shoulder. He could hear how the man's heart added a couple of extra beats to its rhythm any time Scott moved just a bit too abruptly.

More likely it was an attempt at intimidation because the clear signs of fear didn't match the smug look the man had pasted on his face. Scott's attention had been drawn by the three men who were clear threats, enough so that he'd overlooked the one who hadn't screamed 'danger' to his wolf's senses.

He certainly wasn't as smart as the other three men in their formation, who held themselves relaxed but ready, watchful and confident. The nervous man behind was stupid, Scott concluded. Unlike the other three men, he walked too closely and held his weapon in what seemed an imitation of menace rather than with skilled readiness.

That was probably why they'd put him behind Scott.

I could be on him before he knew I'd even turned on him, Scott thought. He squashed the temptation soundly. Liam was still locked away back in their little prison and Scott wasn't comfortable with the idea of an escape attempt while they were separated. Besides, even if he was successful in taking down the overly-eager nervous man, there would be the three others to contend with and he knew instinctively that they wouldn't go down so easily.

Not yet. The time would come but this wasn't it. They'd probably only get one good chance at escape and it had done right.

When Scott followed his guards out of the stale building he was greeted with bright afternoon glare. He appreciatively sucked in a lungful of clean air. The dust and mold had been more unpleasant over the hours than he'd realized, clogging his sinuses and inhibiting the full use of his powerful nose the longer he'd been breathing it in. Dust had caked the dried blood on his skin, leaving an uncomfortable filth. The fresh air was welcome.

But the cold! Why was it so cold? His bare feet crunched stiff frost underneath, startling him upon his first steps outside of the building. It had definitely not been that cold 12 hours ago.

Beacon Hills, situated in Northern California, had plenty of forests and no coast. Their winters were cooler than one would find in So-Cal, usually downright cold for at least a few months. But when Scott had gone to bed the night before it had been a mildly cool but perfectly pleasant late Spring evening. The perfect sort of night to sit by a bonfire and enjoy Spring Break with his friends.

Scott looked at his surroundings with deeper attention. There was a thin layer of ice over each limb and boulder. There were patches of snow in the shade and shallower puddles of slush where the sun shone. The trees were different, he realized immediately. Scott had little knowledge of the physical differences between one kind of tree and another, definitely less knowledge than he should have for someone who spent so much time in Beacons Hills' local preserve. But he knew that those he was now seeing were different than the trees he saw every day, and they smelled different, too. While the exact location was not familiar to Scott, the terrain was. He had been taking camping trips further north, into the mountains, with Stiles and his dad for years.

That could only mean one thing, Scott realized with a chill working its way into the pit of his stomach. They were not in Beacon Hills. And if they weren't in Beacon Hills, then where the hell were they?


Liam watched as Scott was led away by four men, each holding their weapon with varying degrees of readiness. Two seemed comfortable, one seemed tense but ready. The fourth held his in a tight-knuckled grip that spoke of uncertainty, maybe even fear, but his face had the cast of excitement to it, or so it seemed to Liam. That was the man he disliked the most, Liam decided. That was the man that had lit his baton in warning when Liam had hesitated in shackling Scott when they had tossed the chains to the floor at his feet.

It had frightened him, Liam would admit to that, even if only to himself, and not only because the man seemed hopeful for a chance to painfully encourage compliance. Liam had learned that electricity weakened the wolf inside of him, but more than that, it hurt like hell. He winced at the memory of the few excruciating jabs it had taken for his abductors to overpower him at his home.

Liam had been prepared to refuse their demand again, warning be damned. It was only Scott's nod and confident 'Do it, Liam' that had spurred him into complying, but he felt some guilt that he'd been relieved not to have to make the choice.

You shouldn't feel guilty for being afraid, his traitorous inner voice tried to convince him. Being afraid of pain is a good thing.

Not as a werewolf, he argued back. Pain was often the only thing that pulled him back from the brink of losing control when his inner wolf tried to take over. Scott had taught him that little trick. Of course, that was quite a bit different than pain being unwillingly inflicted upon him by others.

Liam sighed as Scott disappeared through the door of their building. Moments later the clinking of Scott's thick iron hindrances faded away as well. Backing away to what he'd already begun to think of as his corner, Liam lowered himself to the damp floor and rested his elbows on his knees. He refused to let his concerns shape themselves into full thoughts. If he even considered for one moment that he was going to be left there alone, in the dark, that they weren't going to be bringing Scott back...it wasn't a possibility he could bear. Instead, with wide eyes scanning the dark shadows beyond his cage, Liam pushed the thoughts down and waited.

Please let them bring him back.


Scott was woefully under-dressed, to judge by his host, and by that, he meant the sheer amount of clothing, not fashion. The man he stood before sat behind a sturdy desk. Even in the warmth of the room, the man wore layers. A flannel shirt topped a t-shirt and a thick khaki jacket lay over that. Even still, Scott thought that the man might have been fighting back shivers.

The heat had felt divine upon first entering. The hours in the damp and cold been enough to chill Scott into stiffness. It had taken only moments in the warm room, however, for the warmth to begin to feel stuffy and suffocating. Wearing only sweatpants, without shoes or shirt, Scott was already too hot. The stink of cleaning chemicals layered over those of sweat and body odor and the unpleasant combination lay heavy on the overheated air. It wasn't long before Scott felt that he was struggling for a clean breath and he longed to be able to go back outside in the cold where he could breathe in the fresh air.

He was also filthy. The office he'd been escorted to was pristine, a somewhat impressive feat given that it was within another long-deserted building, the rest of which was not in much better condition than the building Scott had been escorted from. But pains had been taken to make this little office into a comfortable and functional space. Scott's feet left blood and debris and wet prints on the patterned rug that covered the bare concrete and he was too aware that he was barely dressed; sweat, dried blood, and dirt adorned the rest of his body, while his sweatpants were damp and dirty. A couple awkward moments of his mother's ingrained manners flitted through his mind – mustn't dirty his host's floor – before anger took its place. He was here because of this man. A dirty floor was the least comeuppance he had coming to him.

"True Alpha Scott McCall."

It wasn't a question. This man knew who he was.

Of course he did. He'd wanted Scott for a reason, and whatever the reason was, he'd have to know who Scott was to know what he wanted from him.

"Who are you?" Scott asked. "What do you want? Why am I here?"

The man's chair creaked as he leaned back. Sharp eyes evaluated the young werewolf standing before him. There was intelligence in those eyes, Scott decided. Intelligence and something that seemed very much like indifference.

"You may call me Mr. Cross. As for why you're here? I have a proposal for you."

"A proposal? You could have done that without coming into my home, threatening my mom, kidnapping my friend and forcing us to come here."

"Yes. I could have." The man – Mr. Cross, Scott reminded himself – narrowed his gaze. "But then you would have had very little motivation to give it some thought, yes?"

Mr. Cross paused, possibly waiting for a reply. Scott simply stared, his own eyes beginning to burn with anger. People often underestimated Scott as lacking in intelligence and maybe he could be obtuse at times. He certainly wasn't on the same level as Lydia or even Stiles and he could admit that. But he was smart enough to understand that any proposal offered by this man was going to be nothing more than a demand that he had the leverage to enforce.

Mr. Cross let the silence go on for half a minute and Scott was not tempted once to fill it. Let the man lead the conversation. He was the one who'd brought him to this place. Scott was not going to help him nor make it easy.

"Would you care to hear the proposal?" Mr. Cross finally asked, mild amusement coloring his tone.

"Isn't that why I'm here?" Scott asked neutrally.

Mr. Cross smiled. It didn't reach his eyes and seemed to Scott that it held all the friendliness of the hungry grin of a shark. "Yes. It is."


"This isn't working," Stiles snapped in frustration.

Malia shook her head with a scowl on her face. "I know it's this way. I know it is."

"Forget it," Derek growled. "We know he was put in a vehicle because we lost his scent just where we picked up the scent of one. But we've tracked it as far as we can. There's no way we can distinguish their vehicle from any other here on the highway. It's gone."

"DAMMIT!" Stiles screamed to the clouds before he threw an ineffectual punch to Rosco's hood. He immediately hissed with pain and cradled his bleeding knuckles.

"Feel better?" Derek asked sardonically.

"A little, yeah," Stiles snapped back. He did feel a bit guilty about venting his frustration on his trusty jeep, though. Where was a bad guy or murderous creature when you needed something to punch?

Lydia glared at Derek while she rummaged between the seats of the jeep. Sliding back out she handed Stiles a wad of fast food napkins.

"Thanks," Stiles muttered while Derek huffed his trademark exasperated sigh.

"Look," Lydia started, pulling the attention of all three of them. "We're all worried and frustrated, but we're wasting time. This is obviously a dead end so we have to try something else."

"Like what?" Malia asked bluntly.

Stiles would like to know that, too, because he was fresh out of ideas.

Lydia shrugged. "We'll have to figure that out."

"Great," Stiles muttered just under his breath but he was saved by any retort from any of the others by the ringing of his cell phone. He fumbled to answer it with his sore hand and noted that it was Kira.

"Hey," he answered. "Did you find….wait…what?"

Half a minute later, as he put his phone back into his pocket, Stiles looked at the faces watching him. Derek's thinned lips indicated that he, at least, had heard the other end of the conversation and Lydia had a tight grip on Malia's arm.

"Our problem just got bigger, guys," Stiles informed them needlessly.


"This changes things," Stiles announced, pacing across the floor of Derek's loft thirty minutes later. They'd reconvened to regroup and Derek's place had been the most sensible location to retreat to under the circumstances.

"How?" Malia asked with a frown. "Scott's still gone. Now Liam is too but nothing else has really changed. We were already looking for Scott. Now we just have two to get back instead of one."

Stiles sometimes wished he was able to see things as simply and directly as Malia did. Instead, his thoughts fractured into a million little pieces and he had to try to catch each fleeting piece, put them together into plans and strategies and then try to make sense of them. Each little piece could lead to a hundred different scenarios.

Most people said he was smart and he knew he was - not arrogance, just fact - but they didn't have to be inside his head to make sense of it all. They got the finished product when he spouted it out. It might scare them to know that what they thought of as critical planning and clever ideas started out like so many shards of glass that had to be swept up and sorted carefully and rapidly into a mosaic that began to show the big picture.

For Malia, living her solitary life as a coyote for so long had given her a one track mind. Decide what needed to be done and survive doing it. The little intricacies often eluded her. Not because she wasn't smart enough for them but because they simply didn't matter to her. A coyote didn't stay fed by taking the time to deliberate about the best way to approach its prey and then trying to come up with three more possibilities in case the first didn't work. A hungry coyote saw its prey and went after it, following instinct to get the job done.

Malia didn't live in the forests anymore, but she still had a lot to learn. At least she didn't try to kill people as often.

Progress.

"And we still have no idea about how to do either one of those things," Kira added, bringing Stiles back to the problems at hand.

"Do you think Scott and Liam are together?" Mason asked.

"Most likely," Lydia said with confidence. "It would be too much a coincidence otherwise."

"I don't believe in coincidence," Stiles replied automatically.

"They're together." Derek sounded very sure. "I got the same scents from Liam's bedroom as I did from Scott's. Not all were the same exact people but there were a couple that were at both locations."

"That doesn't mean they're together," Kira pointed out. "It just means they were taken by the same people."

"That's a good point," Stiles complimented with raised brows. He hadn't considered that possibility but they had no idea who had Scott and Liam or why. It was easy to assume that they were together, having been taken by the same people, but without knowing the abductor's intentions there was no real way to be completely sure.

"What if…" Mason began, then trailed off with uncertainty.

"What if what?" Lydia urged.

"What if they're not through?" Mason asked, looking from face to face. "I mean, we know it's not just about Scott now because they took Liam. What if they're targeting all of us? Or just the werewolves?" He looked at Derek. "Or any of the not-just-humans of us?" He finished with a glance at Kira.

Heavy glances were exchanged. They had been so focused on how to locate their missing friends they hadn't yet considered that the abductors' motives might not stop with Scott and Liam.

Stiles cursed himself for the oversight. Any one of them could have been in danger and they'd never even considered it.