|Revised Chapter|
3rd POV
Layla laid there asleep, she hadn't been sleeping well lately since the Oni had made their appearance. All she could visualize when she closed her eyes was that eerie yellow that centered a hollow darkness. Her eyes snapped open when she heard the faint buzzing beneath her pillow. Checking the called ID that read Stiles, she picked up immediately. "Yeah Stiles?" She yawned, rubbing her tired eyes.
A static responded rather than her best friends voice. Layla called out his name once more only hearing the buzzing sound of electricity and moved the phone to end the call. "Layla," He whimpered, causing the sleepy teen to awaken fully and sit up in her bed.
"Yeah, it's me." She answered soothingly, pushing her heavy covers off of herself. "What's up, are you okay?"
"Layla, I don't know where I am?" Stiles voice cracked, fear evident from the simple sentence. "I don't know how I got here. I think I was sleepwalking."
"Okay, Stiles I need you to look around and tell me what you see. Anything that can help me find you, alright?"
His heavy breathing sounded over the phone speakers. "It's dark, there's something wrong with my–" The call dropped and Layla scrambled out of bed redialing his number by memory, only receiving his cheerful voicemail. She called again, gaining the same fate. When she hung up a second time, the phone rang, and Layla immediately pressed accept.
"Stiles," Layla sighed in relief, running her fingers through her messy hair. She took a look at her clock showing it was no later than midnight.
"I don't think I can get out of here, I can't move."
"Where are you?"
The question seemed to trigger more worry in the teenage boy, making his voice shake and tremor as her answered. "I don't know. It's too dark, I can't see. But something's wrong with my legs. Its stuck on something, I think it's bleeding. Layla it hurts."
Layla put on some shorts, throwing on a sweatshirt and the closest shoes she could find. "How bad? Do I need to bring a first aid kit with me?" Noisy answered on the opposite line, just pure silence but the call was still going. "Stiles? Stiles can you hear me?"
"Layla, there's a smell down here. Something smells terrible, it's brutal, my eyes are watering."
Layla grabbed her keys and walked out her front door, rushing to her car. "I'm going to call your dad Stiles, to come help me find you."
"No!" He denied immediately. "No, no. Don't."
She froze, her keys hovering over the ignition slot. "But your dad–"
"Layla, please. Don't call him. Promise me Layla. Promise me you won't. He already worries about me too much, please."
Layla clenched her eyes shut, a tear falling down in worry. "Stiles, I'm worried about you. What if I can't find you? Stiles I can't make a promise like that."
Stiles started crying over the phone, and Layla's heart twisted tightly at the sound. "Please, no. No. Please don't call him come on, you can find me. He doesn't have to know, I trust you Layla."
"I don't know if I can do this." Her breathing began to increase rapidly, almost to the point that she felt like she would have a panic attack, but werewolves couldn't have those. So she was just feeling the early signs and never the actual effects.
Stiles cried out. "I've got to call you back. I have to turn the phone off." Layla's eyes snapped open, her blood pressure spiking to the point where she wondered if she'd turn right there in her car. "I'll call you back."
"No. Stiles don't you dare hang—" The phone beeped, signaling the end of a call. "–up."
Layla's shaking fingers were barely able to dial the first number that popped in her head, a number she spent the past couple weeks using so often it branded itself in her brain. She waited a couple seconds before someone answered the phone. "Hello?" He sleepily asked, but Layla didn't care that she probably just awoke him from his slumber.
"Aiden, I need your help."
"What's wrong? What happened?" Aiden rushed up, the click of his bedside lamp sounding through the phone his brother waking up because of the bright light shining on his face from the bed adjacent to him.
"It's Stiles, he just called me and said he didn't know where he was. He was sleepwalking. He made me promise not to tell his dad that he was missing, but Aiden I'm so scared."
"Alright baby I'll be right there, just calm down. Breathe. Have you told Scott yet?"
Layla's keys dangled in the ignition, the car still off and the cold nipping at her bare legs. "No." She gulped down the saliva that gathered in her mouth. "I've been talking to Stiles for the past couple of minutes, I didn't have time to call anyone else and you were the first number that popped in my head."
"Okay, that's fine. I'll have Ethan call him, Layla I'm almost there just stay calm." Her phone buzzed again, Stiles impending call catching her attention.
"I have to go."
"No Layla, don't hang up." But the brunette didn't listen, she switched over the calls, allowing Stiles' voice to be heard through the speakers that she turned up on high.
"Stiles." She all but shouted, her left hand gripping the steering wheel while the other held the phone.
"Did you call him? Did you call my dad?"
"No," Layla sighed biting her lip to the point where she thought blood would come through. "Just Aiden. Ethan's going to call Scott, we're all coming to find you. Can you give me clues as to where you are. Try to find something, anything."
"It's a basement. I-I don't know some kind of basement." Stiles stuttered, sniffling loudly.
"In a house?"
"No, it looks bigger. Industrial. I think there's a furnace but it's cold. It's freezing down here." Layla racked her brain of potential places Stiles could be, placed he could've slept walked to. "Layla, I have to turn the phone off. It's going to die."
"Wait!" She cried out, her hand shaking to find a pen to write down the description he gave her. "What else is there. What else can you see? I need you to help me Stiles, give me clues."
"I can't talk, the phones dying. I have to go. Please just–
Layla finally realized that Stiles was whispering and not talking at his usual volume. "Stiles, why are you whispering."
He took in a shaky breath, each uptake in the air he received being hear through the phones speaker. "Because I think there's someone in here with me."
The call dropped again, the sound of a motorcycle sounding beside Layla's car. Aiden rushed to the house, only stopping and rerouting when the car door opened and her scent washed over him. "Layla." He warm hands covered her cheeks, adjusting her worried gaze to his.
"We need to find him." Aiden's fingers wiped at her fallen tears, letting the salt water wet the pads of this thumbs.
"Okay, I'll drive."
The found themselves at Stiles' house, Layla used the key he gave her months prior so she didn't have to knock and wait for someone to come answer the door. Lydia was already there, makeup and hair neatly done and outfit perfectly adjusted. "Did he call you too?"
"No," The strawberry blonde denied. "I heard him." Aiden's mouth opened to comment but Lydia raised her pale hand. "Don't ask, it gets more confusing when you ask."
"Not as confusing as that," Layla walked past Lydia to the red string pinned to photos around his wall that was centered around a pair of scissors stabbed in the middle of his bed.
"He uses red for unsolved cases," Lydia revealed, easing some of the confusion.
Aiden rested his hand on Layla's shoulder, squeezing it in comfort. "Maybe he thinks he's apart of an unsolved case."
"Or is an unsolved case."
Lydia spun over on the balls of her heeled feet. "Hold on, is he still out there? You don't know where he is?"
"He said he's in an industrial basement somewhere." Layla rushed out, tugging at the bottom of the sloppy braid she did on the drive to Stiles' house.
"I came here to get a better scent," Aiden shuffled his weight from foot to foot. "Scott and Isaac should be here soon."
"What else did he say Layla?"
"His leg, he said his leg is bleeding and that he's freezing."
Aiden cranes his neck forward, scratching the back of it. "Tonight's the coldest night of the year, it's going to drop to in the twenties."
"What did his dad say?"
I scratched at the exposed skin if my legs. "I haven't told him yet." Lydia's green eyes widened.
"Stiles is bleeding and freezing and you didn't call his dad? Are you stupid?" Lydia scolded stepping forward, her berry colored lipstick distracting Layla because she was pretty sure that it was hers.
"He made me promise not to. I can find him, I know it. I-if he was sleepwalking he couldn't have gotten far, right?"
Lydia pressed her lips together before reaching in her pocket and grabbing her phone. "You didn't notice his Jeep was gone, did you?"
"What are you doing?"
"You promised not to call his dad, I didn't."
I snatched the phone from her hands. "Lydia hold on. I can get more help, I can call Derek, Allison."
"Everyone except for the cops. Great idea Layla. You do realize that I only get these feelings when someone's about to die right?"
Tears welled up in Layla's eyes, her lip quivering. "But-"
"You may think you can save him Layla, but I don't."
Lydia retrieved her phone from her sisters loosened grip. The welling salt water dripped from her eye and she backed away. "You don't have to call his dad. The stations only five minutes away."
"I'll catch up," The red-head spoke, staying behind.
"Why?" Aiden answered for Layla.
"There is something here," The banshee insisted.
"Yeah, total insanity." The beta twin snapped suddenly becoming frustrated with the death omen.
Layla pulled Aiden with her and away from Lydia's negative energy towards her. "We can figure out what's wrong with him after we keep him from freezing to death."
"Go," She insisted. "I'll be right behind you."
Aiden guided the brunette to her car, once again taking the drivers seat. "What if she's right?" Layla monotonously asked him, intertwining her fingers together.
"About what?"
"What if I can't save Stiles? What if he dies because I didn't call his dad sooner. What am I supposed to do then?"
He took her hand in his giving it a tight squeeze. "Don't think that way. She's just scared because she cares about him just as much as you do. Nothing is going to happen to Stiles, alright. We'll keep him safe."
"That's the thing, Aiden." Her brown eyes looked into his own. "You guys weren't the one he called. He's putting his faith in me to find him and if I can't then it's my fault." Sudden determination coated her like armor. "I'm going to find him."