Leverage

Leverage

By Ash Tokyo

"I can end this now," said Lydia, her eyes glazed with unshed tears.

"Lydia, don't scream," I said calmly. "Not yet. You'll kill us all."

The room was dimly lit, but there was no mistaking that we were in Deaton's office. There was a faint stench of bleach, and something else. Something a little more formidable.

Lydia looked at me with mounting dismay; a look that I had become accustomed to, but was never fully prepared for. We were sat amongst a plethora of bodies, all in varying states of unconsciousness. Scott was slumped against Kira, the whites of his eyes slightly visible. Liam was at his feet, his hand resting on Malia's shoulder. And in the far end of the room, chained to a separate radiator was Deucalion, looking worse for wear.

"We're going to die down here," said Lydia.

"Are you saying that as a banshee?" I asked.

"No. She's drawing on past experience..."

I looked up slowly to see Stiles sat at the operating table, swaying his legs gently. "...Aren't you, Lydia?" He smirked and gestured at the bodies around us. "They won't be getting up any time soon. There's wolfsbane in the air. It was as simple as planting it in the ventilation system."

"Then why isn't it effecting you?" Lydia asked.

"I've learnt to breathe around it," he replied. "And Kanima venom for added measure," he held a vial of golden-brown liquid, examining it with great interest. "If I remember correctly, wolfsbane was no match for our... true alpha."

"What do you want?" I asked. A cold sweat had broken over my body and I was making the quietest attempt to slip out of the chains and snatch the Kanima venom from him. It would be as simple as stabbing him in the neck with a lethal dose and watching him fall like a fly.

"Leverage," he replied. Jumping lithely off the operating table, he walked over to us and crouched until we were at eye level. "My spirit is alive, and yet this body will only last me a few more days. I'm gonna need more than that."

"The ice baths won't accomplish that," Lydia snapped. "It could kill us if we have nobody to pull us out."

"Banshees don't need a tether," he shrugged, getting to his feet. "Especially not those who have recently undergone trepanation."

I shared a look of concern with Lydia. The patch on the side of her head where Valack had shaved for the supposed ECT had only just begun to grow back hair.

"You shouldn't be here," I said quietly.

"Oh?" Stiles replied, dipping a pale finger into the ice bath. "You thought that Argent could cross continents with the Triskelion box and all would be well in Beacon Hills?" He laughed derisively. "That's the beauty of this situation, you see. If you hadn't awoken the Nemeton in the first place, none of this would be happening. It was drawn back here by a force too powerful to resist, and Stiles? Poor kid was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I have to admit, he put up one hell of a fight this time..."

There was a soft shuffling noise from behind us. I turned to see Deucalion's eyes flutter open for a brief moment as half slurred words escaped his bleeding lips. "Demon... Demon wolf..."

Stiles' eyes widened at the disturbance. The amount of wolfsbane and Kanima venom that had been pumped into the murmuring man should have been enough to knock him out for a few days. The three of us watched Deucalion, momentarily captivated as the whites of his eyes flashed a vivid crimson.

Lydia smiled, but there was nothing joyous about it. Her eyes met mine, and then Stiles.

"They're waking up," I said.

He shot to his feet and rushed towards us. Grabbing an arm in each hand, we were unceremoniously yanked to our feet and the chains snapped, landing at our feet with a dull plink.

"Get in," he said, shoving us towards the ice baths. "And if you need any incentive, bear in mind that Scott McCall has a gaping wound in his chest, your Kitsune friend could self destruct at any given second, and I have your mother locked in the boot of the jeep somewhere downtown."

I could almost sense the scream building up in Lydia and I grabbed her hand as if to say not just yet. She closed her eyes, composing herself, before mirroring my movements and taking a step into the frigid water of the ice bath. The last thing I saw as I went into the arctic darkness was the bloody flash of Lydia's descending head, and the smirk on Stiles' face before I was tumbling into an endless, yawning abyss.

"I see a light," came Lydia's voice, tugging me towards the feverish amber glow.

"Hellfire?" I whispered.

"Hellhound," she replied.

She tugged me out of the ice bath and the two of us stood frozen at the base of the Nemeton. My eyes were glued to a crying Parrish, who sat cross legged, glowing bright enough to make my eyes swim with crazy colors. It was like staring at the sun.

"I see a light," Lydia whispered again. But she was not talking about the flames that were engulfing Parrish. She was talking about the pale figure laying before him.

This time, I sensed her scream and knew it could not be stopped. I fell to my knees, cowering at the base of the Nemeton as an awful scream tore from Lydia's mouth at the sight of Allison Argent.