Galvanize

I wake up, and I'm not me. Or I am, but I'm not just me – there is someone else, there is something else here in my head with me, and it's driving me through the school like I'm a person-shaped car, and I watch my hands unlock that door and inside I am screaming, screaming, but this has got to just be a dream, just another dream-within-a-dream, I'm already having trouble remembering the details of how I got to school in the first place…

The phone rings five or six times before a sleepy Scott finally picks up.

"Get your ass down here, now!" I order. "We have a job to do."

"Dude, I'm already in bed! And aren't we getting a little old for this?"

"We do this for Coach!" I protest, stalking around Greenburg's rank lacrosse pads.

"I thought we did this to Coach."

"Whatever, okay, you know he needs this! He lives for this stuff, you know – he loves it."

"But it's the middle of the night."

I brace the flashlight between my teeth while I pull my locker open and rummage around. "It's 12:15, actually, which means it's after midnight and is officially Mischief Night-slash-Day. And, by a perfectly awesome coincidence, also Coach's birthday. So if you are not down here in five seconds, I will destroy you, okay? And I mean five, four, three, two –"

I turn from my locker directly into Scott, all glowing-red-eyes and lurking-in-the-shadows. I yelp something distinctly unmanly and hit the ground as Scott grins a little shit-eating grin and says, "One."

"I hate you."

"So you've said," he says, offering a hand to help me up. "What's the plan?"

I smile my own shit-eating grin and pull a handful of screwdrivers, a power drill, and a roll of wrapping paper out of my bag. "The plan, my friend, is careful deconstruction of Coach's office."

He follows me down the hall to our Economics classroom, and through to the back office Coach uses when he's pretending to be a teacher. I hand him a screwdriver and point to one of the silly motivational posters. "Start there. I'm going to take the bolts of out his chair."

Scott rolls his eyes but goes to work, and we pass the better part of an hour in near silence, just enjoying being around each other and doing something that normal teenagers do for once. We still haven't bounced back completely, but we're getting there, one day a time, and tonight – rigging Coach's office to pretty much fall apart as soon as he walks in – it feels like we may stand a chance of being normal again one day.

Or, at least, surviving high school.

Scott drops the last screw into the box on Coach's desk, and I cover it with a lid topped by a garish bow. We walk cautiously out of the office and head out to the parking lot.

"So, what's going on with you and the new girl?" I ask as we climb into my Jeep. Scott ran here, but a ride home is probably a good idea at nearly two in the morning.

"What're you talking about?" He says, keeping his face studiously blank.

I roll my eyes. "Don't even try, dude. I've seen you talking to her in between classes, and I know it's not texts from Isaac making you grin like an idiot at your phone. Unless it is Isaac, in which case, hey, more power to you – "

"It's not Isaac," he interrupts, and I give him a pointed look as I pull out of the lot. "It's early, okay? And I saved her from getting attacked by Malia, and I don't want her to get those feelings…confused, you know?"

"Plus there's the fact that every few weeks you morph into a giant wolf and run through the preserve, howling your allegiance to the moon."

Scott gives me a look that's murderous enough without the added Alpha-red flash. "Yeah. There's that."

We drive in silence for a minute.

"What about you?" Scott asks suddenly. "Lydia seemed pretty grateful that you pulled her leg out of that trap."

I shrug. "It's not…it's not really like that anymore. I mean, yeah, I still love the girl, and I do care about her, but it's just not…I think we're both realizing that having the friends we have and being what we are makes us pretty similar."

I ease to a stop in front of Scott's house, and he looks at me appraisingly. "Really? You honestly think that you're over Lydia Martin?"

"Over her?" I snort. "No one gets over that level of perfection, Scott. They merely accept that they're fighting a losing battle and move on."

Scott laughs, shoves at my shoulder (that's going to leave a mark), and clambers out of the Jeep. "See you in the morning?"

"Mischief Day!" I call across the lawn. "The most sacred day of our year! Come prepared, McCall!"

Mischief Day starts in earnest with a visit from the twin hellspawn, Aiden and Ethan, outside the school first thing in the morning. I take my place next to Scott in time to hear one of them say, "We just want to talk."

"That's kind of a change of pace for you guys!" I say. "Seeing as you're usually just, you know, hurting, maiming, killing…"

"You need a pack," says the one wearing a blue shirt, choosing not to respond to my taunts. I arbitrarily decide that this one's Aiden. "And we need an Alpha."

"Yeahhhhh," I say. "Absolutely not. That's hilarious, though."

"You came to us for help. We helped," offers green shirt.

"You beat his face into a bloody pulp," I argue. "That's not helping. In my opinion, that's actually counter-productive."

"Why would I say yes?" Scott asks, speaking up for the first time.

"We'd add strength. We'd make you more powerful," tries Aiden. "There's no reason to say no."

I'm pretty sure my reaction to that particular statement reads all over my face, but it's Isaac who answers, casually strolling up from wherever it is he keeps his pessimistic, scarf-wearing self these days. "I can think of one. The two of you holding Derek's claws while Kali impaled Boyd. In fact," he adds, turning to Scott, "I don't know why we're not impaling them right now."

For once, I agree with him. Aiden lets his fangs and innocent-killer blue eyes slip out with a growl. "Wanna try?"

Isaac smiles like he's been waiting for this all day, but Scott grabs his wrist and pulls him back. They make eye contact, and I can practically read the messages they're sending across whatever werewolf-y bond they have – not in public.

"I'm sorry," Scott says aloud. "But they don't trust you. And neither do I." He leads us past the two of them into school, Isaac lingering just a second longer than he absolutely needs to.

The minute we set foot inside a school, a roll of toilet paper comes flying at my head. I dodge, barely, with a "Hey, that's my face!" sent after the thrower. God, I love Mischief Day.

"Good decision, man, good Alpha decision," I say, clapping Scott on the chest as we walk through halls full of toilet paper and spitballs and shaving cream.

"Well, I hope so."

"No, you know so." We stop at my locker, which I open with no problems – take that, supernaturally-induced-temporary dyslexia - and I start removing my supplies when I catch Scott staring over my shoulder. "What are you looking at?"

"Me?"

"You," I confirm. "You looking at her?" I nod toward the new girl, Kira, at her locker a few doors down.

"Her? Who her?"

"Her her," I say, pulling a carton of eyes out of my backpack. "Kira. The one we talked about last night. You like her."

"No," Scott says immediately, then backtracks. "I mean – yeah, yeah, she's okay, she's new."

"So? Ask her out." I shut my locker.

"Now?"

"Yes, now."

"Right now?"

"Yes, right now!" I sling an arm around Scott's shoulders as we walk down the hall. "Scott, I don't think you get it yet. You're an Alpha, okay? You're the apex predator. Everyone wants you, you know? You're like the hot girl that every guy wants."

Scott stares at me, astonishment in every line of his face. "I'm the hot girl?"

Isaac, with his typical excellent timing, picks this moment to join the conversation.

"You are the hottest girl," I confirm, before spinning on my heel. I'm going to be so late for class. I'm still within earshot to hear Scott repeat "I'm the hot girl!" and get additional confirmation from his confused but hopelessly loyal Beta, and I snicker my way through the hall. We may have narrowly avoided the world ending several times in the last year, but it's a still a guy's duty to try to get his best friend laid.

"Son of a bitch!" Coach's voice drifts through the walls as a perfect segue into Econ. I can't keep smug look of happiness off my face, and Scott clearly can't either – Coach must have walked perfectly into our trap. He slams through the door and chucks a pencil at the ground. "Mischief Night! Devil's Night! I don't care what you call it, you little punks are evil. You think it's funny, every Halloween my house gets egged? A man's house is supposed to be his castle!"

He slaps a hand down on Scott's desk, but the twitters of laughter keep bubbling up. "Oh, and this," he says, reaching for another wrapped box on his desk – one I'm not responsible for. "Are we going to do this again? I don't think so." He drops the box to the floor and stomps on it, and something distinctly shatters against the tile. He crouches to pick up the pieces of a now unusable mug with his face on it, and reads the card – "Happy Birthday. Love, Greenburg."

The rest of the hour passes without incident – well, almost. Someone did put wads of chewed gum on the inside handle of the door, so that when Coach goes to open it and let us out at the end of the period, he comes away with fingers coated in JuicyFruit. We make it all the way to fifth period with these sorts of minor interruptions, but it only takes a single noise to ruin an otherwise perfectly innocent day of pranks.

The overhead alarm system blares into life during passing time, announcing that we're once again in a Code Blue, someone or something hostile on school grounds, stay in your classroom and lock the doors. Most of the students scatter, heading into the nearest available classroom, but there's a lack of urgency – honestly, this happens so often at BHHS that a lot of the terror has gone out of it. My dad catches my elbow just before I head into Mr. Albertson's room and tugs me along, filling me in on the background.

"Wait a minute, the William Barrow? The Shrapnel Bomber? Spotted nearby?"

My dad stops, glances around the hall to make sure we're not being overheard, and says, "A little bit closer than nearby, actually."

Before he can continue explaining, I see Scott's dad coming down the staircase, principal and campus security guards trotting along behind him. "How do we get down to the basement?" he's asking. "I need to know where every entrance is. I don't want anybody coming in or out of the school."

I look back at my dad. "Dad, what's really going on here?"

My dad sighs, then pulls me into an empty office, shutting the door behind us. "A few students reported seeing a strange-looking man in a hospital gown entering the school and heading into the basement," he says. "We obviously don't know for sure, but Agent McCall wants to make sure we're taking the necessary precautions. The thing is, Stiles…I don't think McCall really knows what he's getting himself into."

"What do you mean?" I ask, the words tripping over each other in my haste to get the question out. "What else is going on?"

"I talked to Melissa – you know, Scott's mom. She did his pre-op evaluation, and she said that Barrow said he blew up that bus because the kids on it had glowing eyes."

I stare back at him, unable to stop my jaw from hanging open. "Glowing eyes? Like werewolf-glowing eyes?"
"I didn't really have time to ask for the specifics, Stiles, the man was wheeled into surgery, exploded a tumor of flies all over the surgical team, killed half of them, and then took off!"

I hold up my hands to pacify him. "Okay, okay. So what can we do to help?"

A series of text messages later, I've assembled the Wonder Squad near one of the entrances to the basement.

"Did you say flies?" Lydia asks, interrupting my slightly rambly background story. "All day I've been hearing this sound – it's like this buzzing."

"Like the sound of flies?" Allison prompts.

"Exactly like the sounds of flies."

"Okay, well, can you follow it?" I ask. "No, don't look at me like that – we're still getting a handle on what exactly your banshee, harbinger-of-death powers are. It's a logical question."

Lydia sighs, flipping a lock of hair perfectly back out of her face. "It's too faint down here. Anyway, what would be the plan even if I could follow it? The recently recovered huntress, the attention-deficient human, and the emotionally stunted werewolf are going to take on a guy who straps bombs to his chest? Where's Scott?"

I drag my phone out of my pocket – sure enough, Scott hasn't responded to my texts. "I'll go find him. You three – Lydia, try to focus. Allison, try not to let anyone get killed. And Isaac…be helpful?" I plead. Without waiting to see if my instructions will be carried through, I'm sprinting back up the stairs and out into the crowded hallway – the school administration must have lifted the immediate lockdown for some terribly-thought-out reason.

I skid into the History hallway and find Scott creeping outside of Yukimura's classroom.

"Dude, where the hell have you been?" I demand, my sneakers squeaking loudly against the tile.

Lydia comes hurrying up from the other direction – clearly not trying to focus her banshee powers – and blurts out, "The police are leaving. Why are they leaving?"

"The police?" Scott echoes, a few steps behind.

"They must have cleared the building and grounds, which means he's not here," I say, wheels in my brain spinning fast.

"Who? What are you guys-?"

"He has to be here." Lydia cuts Scott off. "That sound, the buzzing I've been hearing. It's getting louder."

"How loud?" I ask, almost not wanting to know the answer.

Lydia just closes her eyes, pain evident in her clenched jaw and the tendons standing out on her neck.

"What the hell is going on?" Scott demands.

"Check your phone next time," I snap. I take Lydia's hand and lead her out of the school, trying to ignore the little whimpers of distress coming from her every few steps. Scott trails behind us, letting out "No way!" and "Dude!" as he slowly catches up on our group text.

My dad, Mr. McCall, and a group of deputies are heading away from the building. I leave Lydia by one of the big pillars out front, assuring her I'll be back in a second, then sprint after them, calling for my dad.

"Yeah?" he says, turning his head to me but not slowing down.

"You can't leave yet," I say, slightly out of breath.

"We've got an eyewitness that put Barrow by the train station," he says, and McCall barks for him to get a move on.

"Whoa whoa whoa, Dad, please, Lydia said that he's still here."

My dad takes a few steps closer to me, his face intense. "Did she see him?"

I wince. "Not exactly, no. Or not at all, really, but she has a feeling! A supernatural feeling."

His face goes blank, and he looks over my shoulder to where Lydia is leaning up against a wall, looking extremely un-supernatural in her skirt and pug sweater. "Lydia wasn't on the chessboard!"

"Yeah, well, she is now," I say, momentarily distracted by wondering what chess piece I'd assign to a forseer-of-death.

"Kanima?" My dad asks, throwing out one of the buzzwords he's shockingly comfortable with.

"Uh…banshee," I correct, wincing again.

He looks up at the sky. "God, Stiles, really?"

"I know, I know how it sounds, but basically it means that she can sense when someone's close to death."

My dad's voice drops to a whisper. "Can she sense that I'm about to kill you?"

"Huh." I'm momentarily taken aback. "I don't know."

Lydia gives us both a sarcastic wave and a smile.

"Look," my dad says, "I'm not saying I don't believe you. But right now, I'm taking eye witness over banshee." He starts edging away from me. "We're leaving a few deputies here. The school's on lockdown until three o'clock – no one goes in, no one goes out. Buddy, that's the best I got right now, it's the best I can give you, Stiles."

"You're leaving me here!" I shout after him as he jogs away to catch up with Scott's dad. "That is not the b- that is the worst!"

Lydia comes up behind me and grabs my hand. "C'mon, we need to get back inside – Scott texted."

"Oh of course he did, now he'll pay attention to his phone," I grumble, allowing myself to be pulled along into one of the empty classrooms along the back of the school.

Scott, Isaac, and Allison are already here, along with the hellspawn twins – and it might be my imagination, but Lydia seems to blush furiously at seeing Aiden.

"Aw, come on!" I complain, throwing my arms in their general direction. "These two? We talked about this!"
"We need their help, Stiles," Scott says evenly. He holds up a plastic bag that I hadn't noticed until now. "My mom brought the clothes Barrow was wearing when he came to the hospital. With them, we've got twice as many noses to search for Barrow, if he's really still here."

"He's here," Lydia protests. "I know he is, I can feel it."

"If he is, we'll find him," Scott assures.

"I should go home," Allison says. "Check the Bestiary for explanations about the flies."

"Good idea," Scott says. "The rest of us – me, Isaac, Ethan, and Aiden will take the basement, since that's where the cops thought he was. Me and Isaac will start at the west end, you guys start at the east, and we'll meet in the middle."

"The boiler room," I offer. "I saw a blueprint of the school once – the boiler room is smack dab the middle."

"Fine," Scott nods. "Stiles, you and Lydia start upstairs. Just look for anything suspicious, and call if you get into trouble."

We dispatch so quickly and efficiently that I half expect us to put our hands in and yell "Break!" before taking off on our separate missions. It seems that Scott's actually turning out to be a half-decent Alpha.

So long as none of us get killed this afternoon, that is.

"The Bestiary is literally a thousand pages long," Allison says, pushing the window open. "If I'm going to find anything about flies coming out of people's bodies, it could take me all night."

"The word in archaic Latin for fly is busca," Lydia says as Allison somehow manages to maneuver her way out the tiny window, in a skirt, while still looking graceful.

"Got it," Allison says, and then she's gone.

Lydia turns to me. "Where do we start?"

I check the clock – 2:40. "Upstairs. Like Scott said. C'mon, we've got to go."

We creep around hallways and use Lydia's compact to check corners – the last thing we need is to get caught by a teacher and harangued back to class. We clear the occupied classrooms and start searching one of the big, open art rooms. Lydia keeps making me repeat the plan, the bits and pieces about the guys being in the basement and meeting in the boiler room, and I'm getting frustrated with her complete lack of helping when she makes a plain statement that stops me in my tracks.

"All of the wolves – all of the ones with glowing eyes – are in the basement at the boiler room?"

Comprehension dawns on me like a ton of bricks. "Oh my God. An engineer could use a boiler room to blow up the whole school."

Lydia nods and swallows hard. "We have to get them out of there."

"Yeah," I say, "We have to get everyone out."

"How do we do that?"

I think for a second, but the idea's already there, half-formed in my brain, and I can't stop the smirk spreading across my face. I sprint into the hall to the first fire alarm I can find, take a steadying breath, and slam the trigger. A piercing siren splits the air, and I grin continuously as students begin to file out of their classrooms and make for the doors – if there was ever a fitting time for this, it's Mischief Day. Lydia's face, however, drops in the same instant I feel hot breath on the back of my neck, and I know that slightly whistling nasal exhale all too well. Sure enough, Coach is there, standing all too close for comfort. He grabs my ear – people still actually do that? – and pulls me out of the school, ranting the whole way.

"Pulling the fire alarm on Mischief Night is one thing. Doing it when there's a mass murderer spotted nearby is insane!" He releases me once we're outside, looking scarily close to having an apoplectic fit. "If I were four years younger, I'd punch you!"

That one's lost on even me. "What? Coach, that doesn't make sense."

"Yeah, well, it does to me!" He exclaims, stalking away to terrorize someone else. I'm still staring after him, bewildered, when Lydia spots our werewolves across the quad and tugs me over to them.

"We didn't find anything," Aiden says as soon as we're close.

"Not even a scent," Scott adds.

"It's 3 o'clock, so school's over," I say slowly. "If there was a bomb, wouldn't he have set it off by now?"

"Does that mean everybody's safe?" asks Ethan.

"I don't know," Lydia responds. Her eyes dart around, searching for something. "I just…I don't know."

"Scott!" Someone calls. All six of us turn to see our history teacher, Mr. Yukimura, heading toward us. "I'm glad I caught you. Are you free for dinner tonight?"

The look on Scott's face is absolutely priceless. Lydia stomps on my foot in an effort to get me to stop laughing into my fist.

"Oh! Well, I, uh…" Scott stutters. "I don't usually have dinner with my teachers…"

Yukimura laughs. "I'm not inviting you over as your history teacher, Scott, I'm inviting you over as a grateful father. You saved Kira's life from that coyote."

"Oh, well, that was really nothing," Scott says, the back of his neck turning bright red. "She probably would've been fine anyway…"

"He'd love to!" I interrupt, stepping up next to him. "He was just saying that he didn't have other plans after work, right, Scott?"

"Work?" Repeats Yukimura, looking interested.

"He assists at the animal clinic over on Monroe Street," I volunteer, patting Scott on the shoulder. "He's a very responsible man, balancing work, lacrosse, and keeping his grades up."

Yukimura nods appraisingly. "I see. Well then, Scott, we'll see you for dinner around 7?"

Scott nods, a little pale, and calls a faint "Thank you" after Yukimura's retreating figure.

"Jesus, Stilinski, are you sure you're not the one who wants to date McCall?" Aiden snorts. "Such a responsible young man."

"Shut up," Scott says, not putting much feeling into it. "Everyone just…I don't know, go home. Get some sleep. We'll deal with all of this again tomorrow."

The pack splits up reluctantly. Lydia trails along after me to the Jeep, still with a distant, haunted look in her eyes that makes me worry about her.

"Hey," I say gently, startling her out of whatever thoughts had been holding her. "Do you want to come over later? My dad's going to be working late with this whole disaster. We can make dinner and do homework and just not be, you know, alone."

She looks up at me, all bright eyes and perfect skin and a sadness that seems to have taken root somewhere deep, deep within her. "I'm fine."

"Oh, I know! No, I know you're totally fine, I wasn't say that you weren't totally fine, I'm just saying that I'm not totally fine, not all the time anyway, and sometimes it's nice to just have someone else be around when you're not totally fine and having that other person around can help to make things more…fine," I finish lamely, sucking in a giant breath after that mouthful.

She gives me a once-over. "Fine. 7 o'clock. I'll bring what we need to make chicken parmesan."

I wake up, and he's back. It's back. The thing that isn't me, the one that's wearing my face and piloting me around, and I suddenly remember this morning and unlocking the chemicals closet. I suddenly remember everything this creature, this non-Stiles has done in the past and the sheer, overwhelming atrocity of it has me screaming again. The kind of scream that would leave my throat raw, but this one won't because outside, I am completely calm. Outside, my hand smoothly leaves three numbers on the chalkboard.

Inside, I am being relegated to a tiny box. Inside, I am being tucked away into a dusty corner, ignored, pinioned into silence by the weight of the horrible things I've done –

No, no, not the things I've done, the things it has done –

Let me in, Stiles.

"What do the different colored strings mean?" Lydia asks after dinner, when I introduce her to my investigation wall. Walls, really – it expanded around the corner when Malia Tate came into play.

"They're different stages of the investigation," I explain. "So, like, green is solved, yellow is to be determined, blue's just…pretty."

"What does red mean?"

I wince yet again today. "Unsolved."

"You only have red on the board."

"Yes. I'm aware. Thank you."

"Did you get detention for pulling the alarm?"

"Yeeeep. Every day this week." I bounce a permanent marker against my cheek, reevaluating one of the strings. "It's okay, though. We were on to something."

"Even though we couldn't find any proof of Barrow being there?" Something in Lydia's voice makes me turn around, and I walk to my bed and start gently untangling her fingers from the red string – she's wrapped herself in it so tightly that her fingertips are the same bright red as the string itself.

"Hey, Lydia. You've been right every time something like this has happened. Okay? So don't start doubting yourself now."

"No scent," she says, shaking her head. "No bomb. And I got you in trouble."

"Okay, okay," I say soothingly. "Barrow was there, all right? You knew it. You felt it. And look, if you wanted to, I'd go back to that school and I'd search all night just to prove it."

Lydia gives me a tentatively smile, and I bounce the end of the marker off my cheek again. Even through the cap, I can slightly smell the marker's – oh. Oh, crap.

"Get up," I say abruptly. "Get up, now – we're going to the school."

I refuse to speak on the way to school, still trying to work out the details in my head. It's only when we actually walk into the main chemistry classroom and Lydia again asks, "So what are we looking for?" that I'm ready to respond.

I push open the door to the chemicals closet and give myself an internal high-five – part one of the theory, confirmed.

"That was supposed to be locked," Lydia says, following me into the small, dimly-lit room.

"Yeah, I know," I say. "Notice anything else?"

Lydia sighs and says sarcastically, "It smells like chemicals?"

I don't dignify that with a response – I just turn on my phone's flashlight app and start looking for part two of my theory while I wait for Lydia to catch on. For a girl with an IQ over 170, she can be surprisingly slow to piece together the many magical mysteries of Beacon Hills.

"They wouldn't have been able to catch his scent," she says after a few seconds.

I still don't respond. We need some evidence that Barrow was actually here, in this room, or the entire theory falls apart.

Evidence obligingly presents itself when I do a sweep of the floor and find a small patch of bloodstained tile, dotted with shards of glass and what look like discarded staples. "He was here," I sigh. "Performing very minor surgery on himself. You were right."

"Then why don't I feel good about this?"

"Probably because he was here to kill somebody," I rationalize.

"But who?"

"That's what we've got to figure out." I push myself back to standing and head out into the main classroom. "Spread out, start looking for…anything." I rummage around under a few of the lab table, not sure what I'm looking for, but sure I'll know it when I see it. Lydia, meanwhile, walks toward the front of the classroom as if in a trance. I see what she's staring at – three numbers on the chalkboard – and momentarily keep searching. "Lydia, what are those?"

"Atomic numbers," she says, and again there's something odd in her voice that makes me drop what I'm doing and circle around the teacher's desk to stand next to her.

"Is it a formula?" I ask. Chem's never been my strong suit.

"Not really," she says. "Nineteen's potassium, fifty-three's iodine, eighty-eight's radium. The first two make potassium iodide?" She snatches up a piece of chalk and writes the corresponding symbol next to each number.

"Potassium's K?" I read, incredulous.

"From kalium. The scientific, neo-Latin name." She continues to write, and I stare at her – only Lydia Martin has this knowledge just floating around in her head, under all the perfectly coiffed hair. With all three elements identified, she steps back from the chalkboard – and I have my phone out with a call to Scott running in less than half a second.

"Scott," I pant into the phone as I skid around a corner, racing to my car, Lydia trying to keep up behind me. "Scott, you really need to start picking up the phone when I call. Listen, Barrow's after Kira – I'm not going to explain to your voicemail, just get her somewhere safe and call me back, now."

I throw myself into my Jeep and Lydia scrambles in next to me, just barely getting her seatbelt buckled before I'm tearing out of the parking lot.

"So, what, we've got another kanima situation going on here?" I ask, thinking out loud as I speed down residential streets while Lydia navigates to the Yukimura's on her phone. "Someone's controlling Barrow, sending him messages about who to kill?"

"I don't know, Stiles. Second right."

"And why Kira? She's only been here for all of a month – guess it makes since, seeing as we live on a hellmouth with a beacon for supernatural shit and all that, but why Kira?"

"I don't know, Stiles. Left after the stop sign."

My fingers tighten on the steering wheel. "This was supposed to be over. We were supposed to get to go back to normal."

"They're three blocks down on the left. Your best friend is an Alpha werewolf, Stiles, and mine is from a long line of werewolf hunters. We left the possibility of 'normal' behind a year ago."

I screech to a halt when I see Scott's bike, and his prone figure on the ground next to it. By the time we rush over to him, he's already stirring a bit – thank God. I repeat his name until he really comes to, sitting up with a gasp.

"Barrow, he – he took Kira!"

"We know," I say, offering a hand to help him up. "He was after her the whole time."

"So what do we do now?" Lydia asks.

Scott scrubs a hand through his hair, accidently smearing blood across his forehead from the now-healed head wound, and uses the other hand to pull his phone out of a pocket. "I'm calling Isaac. He's with Allison – maybe they found something useful."

That turns out to be a no-go, though, and we're back to the three of us standing under a streetlamp with no direction.

"I knew he was there," Lydia says. "How did I know that?"

"Because you heard the flies, right?" I say.

"What do you hear now?" Scott prompts.

Lydia's eyes drop to the ground, searching, focusing. "Nothing." She flicks her eyes to me and starts pacing. "I feel like I can do this, but I don't know what to do. It's – it's like it's on the tip of my tongue, and I don't know how to trigger it! I swear to God – it literally makes me want to scream."

I take a few steps toward her. "Okay, then - scream. Lydia, scream."

Lydia sucks in a breath and lets it out in a single, high-pitched noise that seems to tear clear through my brain and a distinctly not-Stiles voice in the back of my head says A banshee, hmm? Interesting… but before I have time to deal with whatever the hell that was, Lydia's staring up at the streetlamp like it holds all the answers to the universe.

"It's not flies," she says, and when she turns around sharply both Scott and I take a step back. "It's electricity."

Electricity? "Wait a sec, Barrow was an electrical engineer," I say. "He worked at a power sub-station."

"What sub-station?" Scott asks.

"I don't know, how am I supposed to know that?" I demand, suddenly irritable. I pull my phone out and hit the speed dial to call my dad, holding it to my ear while it rings. "You know, Scott, I don't have your phone number so you can ignore me – first this morning at school, now today with Kira – hi, Dad! Listen, I need you to tell me what sub-station Barrow worked at when he was an engineer."

Five minutes later, we're pulling up in front of the station at Craxley and Tenth. "Okay," I say, letting myself out of the car and locking the door behind me. "Just wait here, okay? Wait for the cops to come – my dad said they should be here any minute."

"Me? Wait, why?" Lydia asks.

I've got literally a million reasons Lydia shouldn't come inside. About to take on a mass murderer, check. Heading into a creepy abandoned power station, check. Don't really have any backup yet, check. Don't actually have a plan, check. Overall, have basically no idea what's going on, check. We're only human, and I've only the one bat? Check. That last one's the one I call back at her as I take off into the building after Scott.