Chapter 9- Fray

Stiles tore through the room looking in the closet and under the bed as if she would be hiding there. He found nothing of course. No clue as to where she might have gone. The wolves had thundered in behind him and the Sheriff checked the bathroom. Stiles looked to Scott from the floor where he had been kneeling to look under the bed.

"No scent." Scott proclaimed as he moved to the window to peer out of it. "Lydia?" Scott called but startled when the banshee was right behind him.

"They aren't here. And I don't see anything you can't either I don't think." Lydia said softly as she moved to help Stiles to his feet.

"What do we do now?" Scott deferred to Stiles.

Stiles swallowed thickly and ran his fingers through his hair trying to gather his thoughts. "We see if our tracker shows up I guess. If that doesn't work…" Stiles started to think of the worst when a firm squeeze to his side from the banshee pulled him from his morbid thoughts.

"We'll find them Stiles." She never broke eye contact but he could tell that she was saying it for his comfort more than she actually believed it. Most of their plan was based on a defensive tactic. Guard the house and Malia. They used every kind of force, both supernatural and the kind offered by modern technology in an attempt to keep the faeries from reaching them. They had a few small back up plans but nothing too concrete.

Stiles pulled his phone shakily form his pocket and slid it unlocked. He hastily thumbed opened the tracking app that he had installed. Malia had been furious when they had suggested their own version of the tracking tattoo. Eventually Lydia was the one to make her see reason. They all sat staring at Stiles and Lydia, a thick silence sitting over the room as they waited to see if the fairies had blocked the app from functioning.

"It works!" he shouted and jumped a good foot off the floor nearly upsetting Lydia in the process. "Well sort of. It looks like their magic might be interfering with the tracking app but not able to block it entirely!" He felt an enormous sense of relief at the thought he might very well just track her down and bring her right back.

"Well whatever we do we need to hurry. How far apart were the contractions getting Stiles did she say?" Lydia asked as she looked over to find Melissa who was standing beside Sheriff in the hall way looking in.

"She.. she didn't really get into the specifics of it. She just said she'd been having them on and off since yesterday and that they were about every half or twenty minutes now." He appeared flustered as he remembered that Fin was going to be making his appearance soon and he wasn't where he needed to be. He looked from Lydia to Melissa waiting for one of them to say something.

"We still have a little time but the fact the contractions have evened out and continued to progress means she's really in labor. It varies from person to person, it could be anywhere from one hour to another day." Melissa announced as she wrung her hands together clearly anxious with what she knew could happen.

"Right." Scott said stepping into action for Stiles who seemed hesitant to move. "Let's look at where it says they are at and we will set up a plan. We go in with two teams… and we have a backup plan." He looked right at Stiles when he mentioned the black up plan. He didn't need to tell Stiles that failure was not an option.

It looked like wherever they were headed they were still on the move. They headed out past their Nemeton site they previously used and skirted the bluff, edging back out of the preserve and circled back to the run down into the commercial district. There were more vacant warehouses in Beacon Hills than there were drive-thru restaurants, something the Sheriff used to lament loudly about when waiting in the slow moving line at the In and Out Burger.

When the intermittent blip on the GPS screen seemed to stabilize around one building in particular they went to work. Parrish logged into the county database to figure out which building it was. He was able to locate blueprints on the off chance that a corporation had looked at updating the building a few years back but the improvements needed to meet the codes proved to be too costly for the firm and they abandoned the idea.

Lydia and Stiles pieced the prints together and poured over options, both working silently as the circled the building layout, their motions almost mirror each other. Eventually they decided on one team coming in as more of a distraction to the faeries to draw them into an all-out battle if necessary while the second team slipped in through a shoot used to deliver coal back in the day to an old smelting furnace. They could only hope that the chute was over looked if they had used any type of barrier system.

Lydia and Kira jetted off to Deaton's who had stock piled a reserve of touch stones to help those without the second site to see. He had called in a favor from Morell who seemed a little too happy to oblige but they were thankful not to be going into this fight completely blind. While they were gone Chris and Isaac left to acquire some more traditional fire power and Stiles and Scott helped Melissa clean up the food and put it in the fridge. Stiles felt bad that their dinner had been interrupted. Melissa and Lydia had worked so hard preparing the feast and everything had been wonderful. Up until his unborn son and Malia had been kidnapped that is.

Just as they'd finished the task the power flickered back on and Melissa flittered about going from room to room putting out the candles before claiming her spot at the sink. Stiles was just pushing his sleeves up to help her when Lydia returned followed quickly by Argent. Melissa hugged him before shoeing him away. "Be careful. And bring me back that baby." She said giving him a small smile. He nodded knowingly at her. She was worried. She rarely hugged him because when he was younger it used to immediately set him off into tears because his mother was the only one who hugged the way she did.

"Okay here's the deal. We have A team going through the front to storm the faeries direct and cause as much of a distraction as possible. B team will come through the shoot and rescue Malia and Fin if he's arrived. On B team we'll have Lydia, Kira, Stiles and Isaac." Scott announced.

Stiles shot to his feet in protest. "No. I have to be on Team A. If I'm not there they will know something is up. This is what they'd expect from me Scott." Stiles moved closer to the Alpha his voice rising as he carried on.

Scott stopped for a second before nodding in concession. Stiles calmed a bit before letting out a breath and rubbing the back of his neck before looking to Lydia. Her eyes were brimming with tears at what had just transpired. As the group broke up to assemble for their departure Lydia moved forward and claimed his lips in hers, her kisses frantic and desperate.

"I won't tell you not to do this because I know you have to." She paused kissing him before speaking again. "But please, please be careful. Fin is going to need you." She sounded breathless.

"I will. You need to take care too Lyds. I need you. We need you." He corrected before pulling her into a bone crushing hug. He could feel her slight frame trembling in his arms and he knew that she was crying.

"I love you Stiles." She whispered into the soft cotton of his flannel shirt.

"I love you too Lydia." He said as he kissed the top of her head.

"Then let's go get our boy." She said and he gulped at the way she'd called Fin their boy. He didn't know if she'd said it intentionally and he wouldn't bring it up then but it floored him and gave him strength to hear her say it that way.

"Let's go get him." He answered and led the way out to the waiting convoy.