"Stiles?" Lydia questioned as she slowly walked into the empty hallway at the school. Jackson was on the other side of the building, seeing if maybe he was in the library or something while Lydia was looking in the main hallway. They were not sure where Stiles was, or if anything was actually wrong. They were all being cautious, though. Lydia tugged her jacket closer around herself as she walked, her heels echoing down the hallway as she walked. Maybe going alone was not a good idea, she thought to herself with a sharp intake of breath. The school never quite felt right to Lydia, and that evening was no exception. Her attention snapped ahead of her quickly at the sound of something clanging farther down the hallway than she could see.
Lydia's eyes narrowed as she took a few more steps, only to stop when she heard a locker slam shut behind her. The redhead took a deep breath and slowly turned to look behind her, one hand slipping into her jacket pocket to grab her cell phone. There was nobody in the hallway that she could see, but she felt like she was being watched. Slowly, she lifted her cell phone to her ear, taking a step backward as the line rang. After several moments, Jackson answered the phone call with a slightly irritated sigh. "Jackson?" replied Lydia slowly, quietly in a slightly shaky voice.
Jackson froze in his steps there in the library when he heard her speak, blood running cold by how terrified she seemed. "Lydia? What is it?" he replied as he started to walk again, quickly toward the exit.
"Somebody else is here." Her voice was barely above the whisper, but she knew that Jackson had heard her. She spun around quickly to face the other direction after hearing something else in that area. "Jackson, was that you?"
Jackson frowned when he got to the door and found that it was locked. No matter how much he shook the bar that served as a handle, the door did not move. Something heavy stood in front of it, and Jackson putting all his weight onto the door was not making it budge. "Lydia, run!"
Dropping her phone with a gasp, Lydia took out in a run, squeezing her eyes shut as the world seemed to slow down around her. Blood began to seep out of the lockers and doors, pooling onto the floor as she continued to try to reach the front doors. All at once, Lydia collided with the locked doors; and, she struggled to open it.
"Lydia!" she heard someone call, but she did not stop struggling with the door. "Lydia, it's okay. You're okay."
It was as she blinked several times that Lydia realized that she was in Jackson's arms in the middle of the Stilinski living room. Her breath came in short, uneven pants as she looked around, taking in the sight of the home around her. "It was a dream?" she mumbled, quickly pulling away enough to look around herself fully, brushing her hair back out of her face. "I didn't fall asleep."
"You did," countered Jackson with a slight frown, nodding a little. Lydia had only fallen asleep after a fruitless search of town did not bring them any closer to figuring out where Stiles had gone. She vaguely remembered sitting down on the couch, closing her eyes as she rested her head on the back. She must have fallen asleep right there without even realizing it.
"Oh..." Wetting her lips, Lydia slowly took several steps back over to the couch and slowly sank down to sit there. She remained silent as Jackson walked to her side and sat down next to her; even as he took her hand in his own. A part of her wanted to jerk her hand away, to say something about not needing him; but, she did need him. Stiles was out there somewhere, and none of them were any closer to figuring out what was going on. She was terrified. Lydia squeezed Jackson's hand to the point of near bruising, resting her head on his shoulder.
He did not say anything for a long while, just sat there providing Lydia with a silent comfort that only he was ever known to bring her. It was then that Lydia remembered exactly why she had fallen for him in the first place. "What happened in your dream, Lydia?" questioned Jackson quietly after a while. "You were walking toward the front door."
Her brow furrowed a little as she struggled to remember exactly what the dream had been about. "We were at the school, looking for Stiles," she explained without lifting her head any. "There was blood, and... I'm not... I'm not sure what was happening, but I was terrified."
"We'll find him, Lydia." Jackson nodded slightly, his lips brushing against her forehead before she slowly pulled away enough to look at him with a slight nod of her own.
"Yeah. Then what?"
"Danny?" his mother said with a slight frown, setting a glass of milk in front of him at the kitchen table as she tried to get his attention. "Daniel!"
"Huh? Yeah?" questioned Danny with a slight start as his mother's sharp tone finally got his attention. "Sorry, Mom. I'm just... tired." He sighed out the last word, smiling thankfully as he grabbed the glass of milk offered to him.
"It's winter break. I thought you'd be out with your friends." Kelia Mahealani said as she watched her son thoughtfully, clutching a glass of milk for herself.
Danny shrugged his shoulders as he pushed his untouched drink aside. He was not hungry and did not want anything to drink, either. He wished there was more that he could do. He wanted to find Stiles, but if Scott could not even track the other teen down...
It had been three days since Stiles had disappeared, and three days since the accidents started. Unexplainable injuries kept finding their way to the hospital; snapped cables that should not have been, burns and explosions, multi-car pileups. A part of Danny kept hoping it was all just a big coincidence. "Sweetheart, does this have anything to do with that Stilinski kid going missing?" Kelia asked after a moment, placing a hand on Danny's arm.
The sheriff had put up fliers and had the entire station on the lookout for any sign of his son. The official report was that Stiles had run away. Only the pack knew the truth; and, Danny almost laughed bitterly at that thought alone. He almost considered himself a part of it, and if the way Allison and Scott were keeping him informed was any indication, he was not alone. "Yeah..." Danny answered honestly after several more moments before actually letting out a laugh, reaching up to run his hand over his face. "Stiles is so annoying and has no sense of personal space. Not everyone's kind about that sort of thing."
"You're worried about him." There was no question in her words, just a simple statement paired with a faint smile as she squeezed Danny's arm reassuringly. "I'm sure he'll come back home, Danny."
Danny smiled a little at his mother, grateful for her company and support without asking any more questions. It was not like he could tell her the full story, anyway. "C'mon, Mom. I'll help with dinner," Danny said as he stood up, leaning down for a moment to press a kiss to her cheek.
"Why are we here?" Lydia asked quietly, wringing her hands together as she looked up to the school before looking to Scott and Jackson. A slight shudder traveled along her spine as she remembered her dream from the night before. It still weighed heavily on her mind.
Scott frowned a little as he looked around the empty parking lot. "Someone saw Stiles heading this direction," Scott informed. "They called in the tip to the sheriff. He asked that we check it out."
They made no moves to head into the school, however. Lydia tugged her jacket tighter around herself as the wind picked up for several long moments, blowing her hair into her face. She tucked it behind an ear as she looked toward the parking lot again to see another car pulling up. The three of them stood there as Allison got out and walked over to the three of them. "Stiles is here?" she questioned, jogging over to Scott's side without moving her gaze from the school looming ahead of them.
"Someone called it in." Scott nodded a little, and smiled faintly at Allison before he walked the short distance to the front doors, gaze dropping to the chain padlocked around the handles.
"Does anybody else feel like..." Jackson started to ask, frowning a little as Scott ripped the lock off of the door "We shouldn't be here?"
Lydia nodded in agreement with Jackson, but she followed Scott into the school as well. She was hit with a heavy sense of deja vu as she glanced over her shoulder to see Jackson and Allison walking slowly through the shadows in the dark behind her. It made her have to clamp down a strong urge to scream, remembering that night trapped in the school by Peter. It seemed like so long ago, but as if it were only the night before all at the same time. It nearly made Lydia's head spin. "Stiles?" Scott asked, raising his voice so that it echoed off of the lockers and walls.
There was silence in response, but they all continued to walk, hoping to find any sign of Stiles. A step forward brought Scott's foot down on a thin wire that none of them noticed until it caused a trap to be released. Scott barely leaned back in time to avoid being impaled by several arrows grouped tightly together, causing his eyes to widen almost comically as he quickly looked to their source to find a crossbow set up close beside a row of lockers, which kept it out of sight unless you stood where Scott was, right in front of it. "Holy shit," Scott gasped, glancing over to where the others were.
Scott took a step backward and straightened up, letting out a heavy breath. That had to be a sign that Stiles was there somewhere, and he was definitely not himself. "Walk carefully," Scott instructed and he walked forward again.
"What is that?" Lydia asked after a few slow steps, her brow furrowing as she tried to make out what was on the wall at the end of the hallway. It shone slightly in the faint light that filled the darkened school. Nobody answered her, and the closer they walked, the more anxious she grew. "Is that...?"
"Blood," Allison finished with a heavy breath. There on the wall, written in blood was what seemed to her, a riddle. It did not make any sense to her, but it was there for a reason. It had to be. "Everyone has it and no one can lose it, what is it?"
"Why the hell is there a riddle in blood on the wall?" questioned Jackson with a slight huff of breath.
"Doesn't matter," Scott insisted, making a right turn down the connecting hallway. "Let's just find Stiles."
Jackson nodded stiffly as they kept along their course, stepping over another trip wire. Allison took Lydia's shaking hand with a gentle squeeze and a faint reassuring smile. There was some sort of clicking sound behind them, causing Allison to stop and quickly look behind them. There was nothing there. Nor was there anything ahead of them when a row of lockers suddenly slammed shut. "Stiles!" Scott called before breaking out into a run, ignoring his friends' protests behind him. He had to step around a body lying in a pool of blood around the corner, nearly tripping over his feet at the sight.
Scott did not take the time to see who it was. His only goal was to find his best friend. At the end of the hallway was a set of double doors, and when Scott got to them, eh went to push them open. The locked doors caused him to jerk to a stop, looking through the window. His eyes narrowed as he struggled to see someone lurking in the shadows of the treeline outside. As Allison, Lydia, and Jackson finally caught up to him, Stiles stepped out of the shadows with a smirk on his face unlike one any of them had ever seen.
Stiles wiggled his fingers in a sarcastic kind of wave while Scott struggled with the door. "Wait, wait, Scott," Jackson insisted, grabbing one of the other teen's arms to get him to stop. "Do you smell that?"
They all froze for a moment, and then Allison realized what the smell seeping throughout the school was. "Gas!" she gasped, tugging on Lydia's hand gently. "We have to find an open door!" All at once, they started to run back down the hallway, and during a glance over his shoulder, Scott watched as Stiles lit a match.
"Sheriff," said Deputy Parrish as he came rushing into Linden's office at the station, tugging his jacket on. "We've got to go!"
Linden Stilinski's brow furrowed a little as he sat his pen down on top of the paperwork he needed to file before the end of the night. "What's going on?" questioned Linden, though he stood up and grabbed how own jacket as well.
"There's a fire at the school, some say there was an explosion." Parrish kept up with Linden as they quickly walked through the station toward the front door. "There were some kids at the school."
Linden swore under his breath, pulling his keys out of his pants pocket. "Any injuries?" he questioned while they quickly walked down the steps.
"One girl got burnt; I'm not sure how badly. They're taking her to the hospital, though."
"I'll meet you at the school." Linden nodded and walked over to his cruiser. He immediately turned on the lights and sirens before peeling out and speeding toward the school. When he got there, he found Scott and Jackson standing outside the barricaded area; Scott was pacing as he wrung his hands in front of him while Jackson glared at the ground. "What happened?" questioned Linden as he hurried over to the teens that had practically moved into his home over the previous few days. Days, it suddenly hit Linden as to how little time had passed since all the craziness started happening.
"It was Stiles," Scott hissed, his voice scratchy and raw from smoke that had been inhaled. Even with his werewolf healing, it was not back to normal; unless it was because Scott was not letting himself heal, something Linden was told he had been known to do. "But it wasn't Stiles. His eyes... it wasn't him, I don't..."
"Who else was here with you?" Linden frowned a little, looking ahead to where the fire department was struggling to put out the flames that engulfed the building in front of them.
"Lydia and Allison," answered Jackson. "They're on the way to the hospital."
Linden nodded and sighed running a hand over his face before looking around at the scene around them. Some of the detectives were standing around what seemed to be a point of origin for the fire, a burnt out trail that went right up to the school. "I think we should go talk to that boss of yours," Linden stated after a moment, looking back to Jackson and Scott. They both looked exhausted, ash smears on their faces, but they both nodded, and Scott insisted he would meet Linden there as soon as the sheriff could get away.
None of them wanted to think about what all of it meant, what it meant about Stiles; their only thought was, how do they get him back.