Scott was used to seeing his friends hurt. How many times had he seen Derek covered in blood or Isaac nursing broken bones? Jackson, Cora, Allison, Boyd, Erica, Lydia, Danny, everyone else had been stabbed, paralyzed or hospitalized at one point or another. But, somehow, seeing Stiles unconscious, feverish, and bleeding from an Alpha's claws, that affected Scott more than anyone else ever had. He felt nauseous, dizzy. His heart ached. Part of him wanted to put his forehead on Stiles' chest and cry, part of him wanted to slit Kali's throat.
"I'm so sorry I got you in the middle of this," Scott whispered to his friend. "But I'll get you out. I promise." The beta peeled Stiles' cross country uniform up to his chin. He placed one palm on his friend's stomach and the other beneath his spine. The movement strained the mirror wounds on Scott's body and Allison and Lydia gasped when he started to bleed, too. Scott concentrated like Deaton had taught him; focused on sucking the pain from Stiles' body like a milkshake through a straw. Half a minute later the veins on his hands blushed black. Dark currents flowed from Stiles to Scott.
Two minutes later, Stiles opened his eyes and blinked up at his best friend. "Dude..." he whispered, "did you just heal me?"
Scott smiled fondly. "I wish," he said. "The pain – is it bearable?"
Stiles' fingers probed his side and though he winced, he didn't cry out. "Better... feels better..."
Scott helped Stiles sit up. He sat beside him, both of their backs against the cave wall. Isaac began to stir, and the girls went to help him. Scott noticed, then, that although there was dried blood on his body, the actual mystery cut from his own bellybutton to spine had completely disappeared.
"Boyd," Stiles whispered, "he's dead. Boyd's dead."
"I know," said Scott. "I found him."
"Everyone else... is everyone else okay? Derek?"
"I hope so." Scott sighed and leaned his head back against the wall.
Stiles massaged the bridge of his nose. "I tried to help Boyd but I couldn't. Helpless. I was so damn helpless. And they used me as bait to get you in this woods. Scott...?"
Scott looked sidelong at his friend.
"I don't like being helpless. At the end of the day all I really am is a burden to you, to Derek..."
Scott frowned. "Stiles—"
"I just wish..." Stiles hugged his wounds and took a long, steadying breath. His eyes unfocused and when they refocused they landed on the Darach's crate. "Sometimes I wish I had my own powers..."
•••
Derek folded his arms against his chest and paced between two trees. "Anytime now!" he growled at his uncle.
Peter dropped down from a tree branch, splashing mud across his nephew's boots. "I think I see a cave about a hundred yards away. Maybe they're holed up in there."
"Worth a look," Derek agreed. He followed Peter down the hill. The two Hale's approached the cave with their noses on high alert. Derek sensed, right away, that Stiles' fear hung in the air. He was close.
"Wait," Peter said, his hand on Derek's shoulder, "I'll go in first."
This shocked Derek more than Peter's offer to help, but he consented and let Peter enter the cave ahead of him. His uncle stepped through, then instantly bounced back. "Or I won't go in at all," Peter sighed. He pointed down at the line of mountain ash guarding the entrance.
Derek walked up to the line. "Is someone trying to keep us out or keep something in?"
"Derek?"
The two werewolves heard something squeaking and grinding. Derek squinted and saw Scott and Isaac come out from behind a big wooden crate. Allison followed and after a nod from Scott, she kicked a hole through the mountain ash. Derek sprinted in. "Where's Stiles?"
A hand shot up out of a shadowy corner. "Here," Stiles grunted, "alive."
To everyone's surprise, including Derek himself, he ran over to Stiles, knelt on one knee and pulled him into a tight hug.
•••
Gerard dropped his cigarette onto a brown leaf floating in a mud puddle. "I never planned on this, you know." He stomped his boot onto the leaf, drowning the fire. "I summoned you to Beacon Hills to stop the kanima, Deucalion. When that situation was... resolved... I expected you and your Alpha pets to be on your way."
Deucalion folded his cane up into one hand. "You know me, father. I'm always recruiting. And if the prophecies about Beacon Hills are right, then this is where I intend to look for potentials. Imagine it... Imagine the power I could steal from True Alphas. I'd be invincible. Truly invincible." Although he couldn't see his father, Deucalion winked in his direction. "That's what you taught me to fight for: self-preservation."
Gerard sniffed away a drizzle of black blood from his nostrils. His lips parted, revealing black stained teeth and gums. "You do your fighting," he said, "I'll do my rituals."
Suddenly the thunderstorm that had been raging for hours ceased all at once. The rain stopped, the lightning hid, the sky swallowed the thunder.
"That's Hale's sign," said Gerard. "They're all in the cave. Time to kill two birds with one stone. Three, if we're lucky."
Deucalion cocked his left ear towards the quiet sky. "His enchantments are better than yours, father. I'd be impressed if I didn't have the same abilities. I have a bit more dramatic flare, of course. The audience expects a good show."
Gerard ignored that. "Now. You keep your promise. Allison – leave Allison alive. The rest of them – the wolves, the humans, even our allies – you have my permission to do with them as you will. But Allison, I still have plans for her."
Deucalion rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes. Mother reminded me before I left England. I can't make any promises about your other son, though. If Chris Argent enters the woods tonight, he won't leave alive."
"Good," Gerard spat. "Good."
•••
Derek gently probed the bruising skin around Stiles' wound with the palm of his thumb. His eyes blazed red, then squinted. "You need more than stitches," he said. "I bet she hit your kidney."
Either Stiles didn't hear what Derek said, or he chose to ignore it. He held a small yellowed, leather-bound book up to his nose. The group had started to unpack the rest of the Darach's things in the crate. Peter seemed as interested in the Celtic books as Stiles was. "I swear I've seen half of these Druid symbols before," Stiles muttered. "Not just the one at the bank... In the Beacon Hills public library there's a plate collection from, like, the 1800's or something, and this symbol is on them!" Stiles rotated the Darach's book so that the others could see the drawing: a triangle with two overlapping circles inside it. "And this one... look..." He turned a page and wedged the book into Derek's line of sight. "I've seen this same tree all over Memorial Hospital."
"Stiles!" Derek flicked the book into the teen's lap. "You're still losing blood! Will you hold still so I can bandage you up?"
Stiles pocketed the book. "Huh? What are you doing?"
Derek ripped the left sleeve off of his black leather jacket. "I just told you, I'm—"
"No, I mean..." Stiles' brain struggled to get words to his mouth. "Why are you doing that?"
"Like I said, you're bleeding."
Stiles blinked. "But why... Dude, you can't stand me most of the time. I'm just a human, not one of your werewolf sidekicks."
Derek's nostrils flared and his eyes stayed suspiciously locked on his own hands. He muttered something, and only repeated it after Stiles pestered him for ninety straight seconds. "Because you're part of my pack," he said. "You're part of my—"
"Family?" Stiles offered groggily. "That's touching." Stiles sighed and closed his eyes. Unconsciously he leaned in closer to Derek and, suddenly, came wide awake. "Who's my good little sour-wolf, huh?" Stiles chuckled and patted Derek on the head. "You are, oh yes you are! You're my good little wolf, yes you are!"
Derek bared his teeth and hissed, sounding more like an infuriated cat than canine. It just made the delirious Stiles laugh harder.
"Scott? Derek?" Isaac called from the other side of the wooden crate. "I wasn't sure until now but..." The young werewolf scratched the back of his head and bit down on his cheeks. "I haven't been here but I've smelled this place before. These books, the bottles and boxes... I remember this scent."
Derek got up and stood at Scott's shoulder. Scott studied Isaac's pale face and asked, "Remember it from when?"
"From whom," Isaac corrected. "All of this stuff – I've smelled all of it on a person before. On the girl who rescued me from the Alphas. I think... I think this was her stuff. I think she was a Druid. This isn't the Darach's, it's hers."
•••
Chris Argent wasn't as young as he used to be. Five years ago he would've climbed a tree in under a minute, weapons and backpack and all. Now it took him almost ten minutes to get to the top and the only supplies he took was his night vision binoculars. He made it, though. He reached the peak right when the thunderstorm finally let up. Chris raised the binoculars to his eyes and scanned the area.
Movement caught his attention. Two shadowy shapes jogged from east to west and joined a third. Chris didn't need the binoculars to know who they were. Kali and the Twins' didn't even try to dim their glowing red eyes. Why bother when they were at the top of every food chain?
Chris focused on a hillside behind the Alphas. The moonlight shone crystal clear now that the clouds had moved aside. Silver illuminated the entrance to a cave. Chris zoomed in as far as technology allowed and saw dozens of muddy footprints leading into the cave, none going out. The werewolves were surrounding Allison and the others.
The hunter shimmied down the tree. He shouldered his backpack and took two steps forward when the hair on the back of his neck stood straight up. It might have taken him longer to climb a tree, but Chris Argent was still lightning fast when it came to unsheathing his gun. He pointed it at the tree he'd just left, at the man now standing in front of it.
Alan Deaton raised his hands in surrender. "Easy, Mr. Argent," the veterinarian said, "you and I are on the same side tonight."
•••
Inside the cave, werewolves and humans alike sat in a circle around the wooden crate. Lydia plucked out a vial of red liquid, provided a rough translation of the Latin on the label, then handed it to Scott. He sniffed it and immediately his nose wrinkled, but out of surprise rather than displeasure. "That, too?" Allison asked him.
Scott nodded. "This is definitely the same stuff Deaton keeps in his back closet. I saw him rub it on a dog's open wounds, but only once."
"Does that mean..." Isaac struggled to put his thoughts together. "Does that mean he's a Druid, too? Like the girl who saved me?"
"He's the Darach," Peter growled. "He's the killer." He slammed another book onto the growing pile at his feet.
"No!" Scott all but shouted. "He's a good man, I just know it. Maybe... maybe he and Isaac's friend are good Druids. He and Miss Morrell are brother and sister, maybe that girl was related to them, too?"
"Three good Druids..." Allison muttered, "...one bad one."
"I trust Deaton," Derek agreed. "He's saved Scott's life, helped me... Laura trusted him." The younger Hale rubbed his hand across his scruffy face. "Okay, let's talk about this later. We need to get out of here. Scott and I will check the perimeter and—"
"Scott—!"
Violent coughing interrupted everyone's train of thought. Stiles struggled to sit up straight so that he could breathe easier, but he'd lost the strength. Derek and Scott rushed over, the Alpha on Stiles' right, the beta on his left. They propped him up and Scott immediately started drawing more pain out of his best friend. Black shadows crawled up his arm, across his chest, up his neck. Scott winced and then swayed, briefly. Derek suddenly yanked Scott's hand away from Stiles' skin.
"Careful!" Derek warned. "Don't take too much. It'll just weaken you, too."
Isaac stepped over the crate and joined his pack mates. "I can help," he offered.
"I got it." Derek sandwiched Stiles' hand in both of his. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and the black color went from Stiles to Derek at double the speed Scott had.
Stiles' breathing evened, calmed. His face went from blotchy red to a damp pale. The movement ripped open the shallow scabs that had formed over his injuries and more of his blood dripped to the cave floor. "Oh, man," he gasped, staring up into Derek's green-brown eyes, "thanks... just taking the edge off... helps..." Stiles squeezed the werewolf's hand and Derek returned the gesture.
Derek kept his grip on Stiles and turned to Scott. "I'll stay with him," he said, "take Peter with you and..." Derek looked over his shoulder but his uncle wasn't there. He twisted left, looking around. "Peter?"
Peter Hale stood several yards away with an armful of Druid texts cradled in one elbow. Before any of them could react, he bent over and emptied half a bag of mountain ash into the hole Allison made in the original line. Peter grinned, turned on his heel and headed towards the mouth of the cave.
"Kali," he called, "it's showtime!"