St. Clair || Stilinski [2]

Twenty-Six || Keep Going

"Can you get scent?" Mason asked, looking between Jacy and Scott.

"There's too many chemicals," Scott replied, shaking his head.

Jacy sighed. "That's exactly what they want."

"Then this might take a while."

"Keep going. We can't stop until we find them."

||

The chemical cleanliness surrounded Stiles as he walked through the first floor of California's most unfortunate hospital.

"You tell me, man. You're the mechanic," Stiles said, phone pressed to his ear as he dodged doctors and nurses alike. "If the gas tank didn't rupture and nothing electrical was burned, then how did the fire start? Spontaneously combusted? That's your answer? Are you kidding?"

Sheriff Stilinski met his son in the corridor, pulling Stiles' phone from his hand. "What are you doing here?"

"Dad, you gotta leave the body, okay?" said Stiles. "Leave it and let whoever wants to take it just take it. Trust me."

"I'm doing my job, Stiles," the sheriff told him before heading for the elevator. "Go home. Now."

Stiles followed his father into the elevator, steadfast in making a statement.

"This is not up for debate."

"Well, then, I'm not leaving."

Stilinski's eyes fell on a name badge as the elevator doors shut, triggering an ooccurance from earlier in the morning. "You know, Clark mentioned something about, uh, key cards for the library. Do you all have after-hours access?"

Stiles hesitated before nodding. "Yeah. Yeah we do. I'd show you mine but I lost it a couple weeks ago." He looked away from Noah, praying for the elevator to rise quicker.

Why the library? Why now?

Well, why would anything go right in Beacon Hills?

||

"Hayden!"

"Liam? Liam!"

"Li -" Jacy gasped as she collided with Scott, the wolves catching each other by the shoulders. "Anything?"

"Nothing," he said, shaking his head as they let go.

Jacy and Scott, defeated but not down, began to head down a hall of pipes.

"Hayden!" Mason ran behind the pair, skidding to a halt as he spotted the wolves.

"Okay," Scott said with a sigh, "we need to make sure we're not covering the same area."

Mason watched Scott, the alpha breathing heavily as he tried to think. "You need your inhaler, don't you?"

"Quiet," said Scott, brows furrowing. "I think I hear something."

"It's just the lights, isn't it?" asked Jacy. "I mean, I don't even hear spirits down here."

"There's something more to it. Come on. This way."

The trio took off through the underground system, overly cautious and overtly worried.

Jacy's phone hummed in her back pocket, calling out to give her an answer, but the recoil of running through the echoing tunnels blurred it into silence.

Steps continued to fall, Mason, Jacy and Scott apt on finding their way through the maze.

"I'm telling you guys," Mason said, falling out of his run. "We've been down this one before."