I felt safe and secured buried under the blankets with an arm pulling me closely and tightly to a firm chest. The night was quiet except for Peter's loud snoring on the couch and Derek's soft breathing in my ear. I thought nothing could ruin the night but I was wrong. Dead wrong. A buzzing sound came from the nightstand and I lifted my head up ever so sightly so I wouldn't wake Derek and looked to see my phone lighting up with Stiles picture. I grabbed it and gently shimmed out of Derek's grasp and walked outside to the patio.
"Hey, Sty, what's up?" I asked. No answered. "Stiles?" My blood ran cold as I listened to Stiles breath heavily and nervously on the other line. I swallowed nervously and tried to keep my voice steady. "Stiles? You there?"
"Calla?" Stiles whispered, his voice cracking like he trying so hard not to cry, trying to catch his breath at the same time too.
"Hey, I'm here. Are you okay? Can you hear me?"
"Calla, I don't. . . I don't know where I am. I don't know how I got here. I think I was sleepwalking." I looked over my shoulder to see Derek and Peter still sleeping in the loft.
"Okay, um, can you see anything? Just tell me what you see."
"Ah, it's dark. It's hard to see. I think there's something wrong with my. . ." The line clicked and I looked at my phone screen to see the line disconnect. I breathed nervously as I speed dialed his number again but got his voicemail. I exhaled deeply as I dialed his number again.
"Come on." Voicemail again. I ran my hand through my hair as I breathed heavily. "God, come on. Come on." My phone lit up and Stiles face appeared again. Within half a second, I answered it. "Stiles?"
"Calla, I don't think I can get out of here." His voice was getting worse and worse. I had never heard him so scared before and it was making me scared too. "I can't move."
"Where are you?"
"I don't know. I don't know, it's too dark. I can't see much and something's wrong with my leg. It's stuck on something. And it's. . . I think it's bleeding."
"How bad? Stiles, how bad is it?" No answer. "Stiles, are you there? Can you hear me?"
"Ah, there's some kind of smell down here. Something smells terrible. It's brutal. My eyes are watering."
"Okay, listen. I'm calling your dad."
"No, no, no, no, don't."
"But your dad. . ."
"Don't. Just please don't call him. Promise you won't. He already worries about me too much. Calla, please."
"But what if I can't find you? Stiles, I can't make a promise like that."
"No, no, no, just please." Stiles sniffled as he began sobbing, begging me not to call his dad. "Please don't call him. Come find me. You can do it. You and Scott can do it. He doesn't have to know. Calla, you and Scott can find me."
"I don't know if I can do this." Stiles sniffled again.
"Oh, I gotta call you back. I have to turn the phone off."
"What? No, hey, wait. . ."
"I'm gonna call you back."
"Hold on, Stiles, wait. . . Hold on, man." I began panting as I heard the line disconnect. Shit. I ran back into the loft and grabbed my shoes and keys. I ran gracefully on the balls of my feet, careful not to wake Derek or Peter and raced out of the loft, heading to Scott's.
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After running into Scott's house and waking up Isaac and him, we rushed downstairs and headed to the back door with my phone vibrated again and I answered it without thinking, knowing that it was Stiles.
"Hey, Stiles." I answered as Scott and Isaac crowded around me to listen to the conversation.
"Did you call him?" Stiles questioned me. "Did you call my dad?"
"No. Just Isaac and Scott. We're coming to find you. Can you figure out where you are? Try to find something and tell us where to look."
"It's a basement. I think. . . I think I'm in some kind of basement."
"In a house?"
"No. It looks bigger. Like industrial. I think there's a furnace. But it's cold. It's freezing down here. I gotta turn the. . . I gotta turn the phone off. It's going to die."
"No, no, no, wait. What else do you see?"
"The phone's dying. I can't talk. I have to go. Please. . ." Something cold and nerve wrecking hit me as I realized something.
"Stiles, why are you whispering?"
"Because I think there's someone in here with me."
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Scott, Isaac and I rushed to Stiles house to get a scent but when we opened the door to his bedroom, Lydia and Aiden were standing in the middle of the room. They turned to us when they heard us come in.
"How did you know?" Scott questioned Lydia. "Did he call you too?"
"I heard it." Lydia said.
"Don't ask." Aiden said. "It gets more confusing when you ask."
"Okay." Isaac whispered his understanding.
"Not as confusing as this." Lydia turned back around and I looked past her to see Stiles back wall covered in crime scene photos and newspaper clippings. Each photo had a red string that was tied tightly to a pair of scissors that was stabbed into the middle of Stiles' mattress. "He uses red for unsolved cases."
"Maybe he think he's a part of an unsolved case?" Aiden suggested.
"Or is an unsolved case." Isaac corrected him.
"Hold on." Lydia said as she turned back to us. "Is he still out there? You don't know where he is?"
"He said he was in an industrial basement somewhere." I explained.
"We came here to get a better scent." Isaac added.
"What else did he say?" Lydia asked.
"Something's wrong with his leg." I said. "It's bleeding."
"And he's freezing." Scott said.
"Tonight's the coldest night of the year." Aiden said. "It's going to drop into the twenties."
"What did his dad say?" Lydia questioned us.
"We kind of. . ." Scott stuttered. "We didn't tell him yet."
"Stiles is bleeding and freezing and you didn't call his dad?"
"He made Calla promise not to. We can find him by scent. If he was sleepwalking he couldn't have gotten far, right?"
"You didn't notice his Jeep is gone, did you?" Aiden inquired.
"You promised you wouldn't call his dad." Lydia said, pulling out her phone. "I didn't."
"Wait, Lydia, hold on." I said, snatching her phone away from her. "I can get more help. I can call Derek, Allison. . ."
"Everyone except for the cops. Great idea."
"You guys remember she gets these feelings when someone's about to die, right?" Aiden asked. I sighed heavily and handed the phone back to Lydia.
"You don't have to call his dad." I said. "It's five minutes to the station."
"There's something here." Lydia said.
"Yeah." Isaac said. "Evidence of total insanity."
"We can figure out what's wrong with him after we find a way to keep him from freezing to death." Scott said.
"Go." Lydia ordered. "We'll be right behind you." I led the way out of the room and out the house.
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Scott, Isaac and I stood side by side as Deputy ran his hands through his hair as we told him the news of his son. We stood in silence as we waited for an order from him. He took a deep breath before turning his attention to us.
"If his Jeep is gone, that's where we start." Deputy said before turning to an officer. "Parrish, let's get an APB out on a blue 1980 CJ-5 Jeep. Cordova, I want a list of any kind of industrial basement or sub-level of any building that he could've gotten into while sleepwalking. It's the coldest night of the year so far. So if he's out there barefoot in just a t-shirt, he could already be hypothermic. Let's move fast. Let's think fast. The three of you, come with me." We followed Deputy into his office and he closed the door behind us. "Okay. Is there anything you need to tell me that I can't tell anyone out there?"
"Lydia knew he was missing." Scott said.
"Can she help find him?"
"Well, she's working on it." Isaac said.
"Anything else?"
"I called Derek and Allison for help." I said.
"Can you find him by scent?" There was a knock on the door and Parrish opened it.
"We got it, sir." Parrish said. "We found the Jeep."
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Sirens blared in my ears as we pulled up to the hospital. Deputy slammed on the brakes and got out of the car with Scott and me behind him running towards Stiles' car in the parking lot. Deputy opened the driver door and turned the key but it wouldn't start.
"It's dead." He said. "He must have left the lights on."
"Why would he come here?" Scott asked.
"Let's find out." I tapped Scott on the shoulder and pointed to the roof. I lead the way to the roof and saw Derek standing in the middle of the roof, looking around.
"He's not here anymore." Derek informed us. "Not anymore."
"You mean the whole building?" Scott questioned him.
"Gone."
"I'll go tell Stilinski." Scott turned headed off the roof.
"Go with him, Isaac." I ordered. "And see if you can find Allison. She's not answering her phone." Isaac nodded and left the roof. I walked over to Derek and stood by his side.
"Notice how strong the scent is up here?" Derek asked me. "Ever hear of chemo signals?" I shook my head. "Chemical signals that communicate emotion. And just our sweat can give off anger, fear or disgust. Take a deep breath and tell me what you feel." I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. My body tensed up as I felt anxious and stressed as a strong scent clogged my nose.
"Stress."
"And anxiety."
"What was he doing up here?"
"I don't know. But there was definitely some kind of struggle."
"With who?"
"Himself."
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We got a call from Lydia saying that Stiles was at some mental hospital and I immediately hopped into the car with him. We arrived the mental hospital to see Lydia standing at the front gate just staring at it.
"Lydia, I don't want to say are you sure about this, but. . ."
"No, he's here." Lydia vowed. "I swear to God he's here." Deputy stared at her for a moment before rushing into Eichen House and up to the front desk.
"I need access to all basement rooms in this facility." The front desk guy gave us permission and Lydia led the way to the back of the kitchen to the door of the basement.
"It's here. It's right here." Deputy took the lead and busted down the door, taking the stairs three at a time. "Stiles?" My eyes glowed so I could see in the dark. We looked under the stairs and behind the furnace and pipes but there was no sign of Stiles. We all turned to Lydia.
"Lydia?" Scott called to her. Her face was full of confusion and sorrow as she continued to look around the basement.
"I don't get it. This has to be it."
"There where is he, huh?" Deputy questioned him. "Where is he? Where is he?!" Lydia flinched and took a step back at the raise of Deputy's voice. "I'm sorry."
"I don't understand." Aiden took Lydia by the hand and guided her back up the steps with us behind them.
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I walked out of the hospital after checking in on Stiles. Raphael and Melissa had found him in Malia's old coyote den. He must have convinced himself that he was in a basement in his sleep when he called me. I walked over to Stiles' jeep to see Derek and Aiden jump starting the car.
"So you think he was just sleepwalking?" Aiden questioned me. "Or is there something more to it?"
"In this town there's always something more." Derek said.
"What if I told you I know something more? Well, I listened in on Stiles talking to Scott and Calla. How he thinks he was the one who wrote that message in the Chemistry room. The message telling Barrow to kill Kira."
"You think Stiles, skinny, defenseless, Stiles is the Nogitsune? A powerful, dark spirit?"
"I'm not the only one thinking it. I'm just the only one saying it."
"This thing wants to possess someone and chooses Stiles? Why wouldn't it take someone bigger, stroner? Someone with a little more. . . Power."
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"I'm not sure I know how to pronounce this." Stiles' doctor said as we crowded into the MRI room around Stiles who was sitting on the MRI machine. "Or if it's not actually a misspelling."
"Just call him Stiles." Deputy said.
"Okay. Stiles, just to warn you, you're going to hear a lot of noise during the MRI. It's due to pulses of electricity going through the metal coils inside the machine. Uh, if you want we can get you earplugs or headphones."
"Oh, no, no, I don't need anything." Stiles said in a exhausted tone.
"Hey, we're just on the other side of that window." Deputy informed him. "Okay?"
"Okay." Melissa, Deputy and the doctor left the room, leaving Scott and me alone with Stiles. I stuffed my fists into my pockets and stared down at my feet, rocking on my heels as Scott played with his fingers, waiting for someone to break the silence. "You know what they're looking for, right? It's called frontotemporal dementia. Areas of your brain start to shrink. It's what my mother had. It's the only form of dementia that can hit teenagers. And there's no cure." I swallowed the lump in my throat, choking back a sob as my eyes watered. One of my best friend was dying and there was nothing I could do. I never thought I would lose him this way. I always thought that I would lose him to some crazy society for geniuses. But instead he's going through pain and is dying. I wiped the tears from my eyes as Scott began to speak.
"Stiles, if you have it, we'll do something." Scott said. "I'll do something."
"Me too." I sobbed, a tear running down my face. "I'm not going to let you die. I promise you, Sty. I promise." I threw my arms around his neck and pulled him close to me, letting him wrap his arms around me. Scott joined the hug, engulfing us into his arms.
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I sat next to Derek in the waiting room just outside the MRI room. I had my legs pulled up to my chest and leaning into Derek's side, running my fingers across his palms as I stared out into space.
"You know the stuff you were telling me about chemo signals earlier?" I asked. "It reminded me of the time you were teaching me to use anger to control the shift."
"I think you ended up teaching me more about that." Derek murmured, pressing his forehead into my right temple. I let out a light chuckle.
"Are you teaching me again?"
"Think of it more like sharing a few trade secrets. You know, I took Cora back to South America, right? It's where she spent most of her time after the fire. But that's not the only reason I left. I needed to talk to my mother." I turned my head to look into his green on top of brown eyes.
"Your dead mother?"
"She told me something that changed my perspective on a lot of things. She said that my family didn't just live in Beacon Hills. They protected it. This town needs someone to protect it. Someone like you."
"And someone like you to teach me a few trade secrets." I leaned my head on Derek's shoulder and sighed continuing to play with his hands as I thought about something. The more I thought the more it became clear to me. I stood up quickly and looked at Derek who was looking at me with concern. "He was trying to protect us. Stiles was protecting us."
"From himself." I bolted down the hallway and ran through the nearest door to the roof with Derek right behind me. I ran across the rooftop to the spot where I smelt the anxiety and stress the other day. "What are we looking for?"
"I'm not sure. But I think Stiles wasn't just up here struggling with himself. I think he was struggling not to do something." I followed my nose to the power box and I reached up to feel the top of it. My fingers scraped something and I grabbed it and pulled it off, letting it drop to the ground revealing a bag of tools. Something else caught my eye and I noticed a power cable with a cut in it, sparking. We began to walk away from the box when something started to crackle. I looked behind me just in time to see the box exploded, sending sparks everywhere like we were having our own personal firwork show or something. Within the first second, Derek wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me away from the explosion. The power cable that was cut ripped from the box and started flying everywhere, sending sparks up into the sky.