...

Following behind three speeding police cars, Stiles, Y/n, and Scott listened in to the police radio as Stiles kept the Jeep at top speed. "Unit 5 heading northwest on Crescent reporting an incredibly large... Something." Clark spoke over the radio, sighing in frustration when she couldn't identify what she was seeing.

"Unit 9 to Dispatch, I think I've got eyes on the same thing. Some kind of rabid animal."

"Unit 5 to 9. Trust me, that's no animal."

"Unit 6 to Dispatch. We have a situation downtown. Multiple fatalities."

"Copy, medics on the way. Do you have a perp in sight, Unit 6?"

"Negative. Looks like a 10-91E. Animal attack."

"10-4. Can you say what kind of animal?"

Stiles gripped the reciever and held it up to speak in to. "All units stay back. Do not engage. I repeat, do not engage."

"Stiles, get off the radio." Noah ordered making Stiles put the receiver back down with a clatter. "All unit alert. Wait for backup. Repeat, no one goes near this thing."

"Unit 5 reporting a sighting on Hill Road southbound."

"Unit 9, I've got it turning off Oakridge, southbound on Beachwood."

"All units, this is Dispatch. We've got a 911 call with additional sighting on Mitchell."

"Beachwood to Mitchell?" Y/n repeated. "Isn't that-"

"It's headed right for the hospital." Scott finished her sentence.

"Dad?" Stiles urgently spoke over the radio again.

"Stiles, get off this channel."

"Dad, just listen to me, okay? He's headed for the hospital, all right? He's headed for Beacon Memorial. You hear me? He's headed for the hospital." Stiles shifted gear and turned, heading for the hospital as fast as the Jeep's little wheels could take them. Y/n's eyes scrunched closed for a moment as she rubbed her temple, the pain in her head from earlier in the night was still there, but thankfully not as sharp as it had been. Stiles glanced over at her seeing the gesture. "Does your head still hurt?"

"A little. Definitely not as bad as when it first hit me." She answered as she straightened in her seat again.

"What happened?" Scott asked, neither of them having told him what had happened yet.

"Y/n collapsed earlier, gripping her head like it was going to come apart."

"Are you okay?" Scott turned to his friend in worry.

"I'm fine." She promised.

"You really didn't look fine-"

"I'm fine." She insisted, an edge to her voice that left no room for argument, and a lilt to her words that made the boys glance at each other. She took a breath, trying to reign in her emotions which seem to be a little stronger lately. "What I mean is, I'm not the most important thing right now. We can figure out whatever caused the migraine later, after we save Lydia, okay?" She gave them a pleading look, and while Stiles was silent, Scott answered for both of them in the form of a nod.

When they arrived at the hospital they walked through the ER entrance, finding it completely devoid of people, only lit by emergency power. A gun cocking behind them startled them, but they relaxed when they saw Noah. He shushed them with a finger to his lips right before the building shook and a roar echoed through the walls. "Fourth floor." Scott pinpointed the source of the sound. They went through the stairwell, going up to the fourth floor and found small patches of fire on the walls and the floor, and even an abandoned wheel chair at the end of the hall. Noah took the lead, gun aimed for any threat in front of him. When they were about to turn the corner a flaming body was thrown in their path and crashed into the adjacent wall.

The hellhound's fire went out as he landed, and he sat against the wall, hand pressed to one of the several slashes on his chest and sides. Y/n and Noah went to check on him while Scott carefully turned down the hall. Y/n kneeled next to the soot covered man, putting a hand on his shoulder as her eyes glowed and she helped him heal his wounds faster. "Y/n, don't." Stiles fretted, remembering how healing severe wounds could affect her, but she was already done by the time she looked up at him, looking as if she hadn't done anything at all.

"I'm alright. I didn't even really feel it." She assured before she turned her attention back to Jordan who was staring off into space.

"Parrish, you okay?" Noah asked as he crouched by him.

"Jordan?" Still no response.

"Deputy!" Noah's raised voice finally shook Jordan from his blanked out state. He panted for a moment as he took in his surroundings. "Okay, okay." Noah muttered to ease the deputy. When Jordan looked past them again they all turned to Scott who was following a trail of bloody, clawed prints, watching as they got smaller and changed into a regular set of shoe prints in the next step.

...

Standing in the back room of the animal clinic Y/n, Stiles, and Scott waited for Alan to come back from grabbing something he had to show them. Alan moved to stand opposite the three on the other side of the exam table. "What I'm about to show you isn't supposed to exist." He reached into the yellow envelope he held and pulled out a stack of photographs, beginning to lay them on the metal surface. Each one depicted a horrible sight, each worse than the last. "This is the only surviving evidence of Dr. Valack's time as Chief Medical Officer of Eichen House. To call it human experimentation would be charitable." Scott picked up one of the pictures, a woman lying on a bed, hands pressed to her ears and mouth stretched impossibly wide in a silent scream. "A banshee. She died screaming." He laid out more pictures, and Stiles noticed a common theme.

"So, he drilled holes into all of their heads? All of them?"

"That was the experimentation part. He did it to werewolves, banshees, wendigos, any creature he could get his hands on. Even a witch." Y/n's hand lightly trembled as she held a picture of a woman with violet eyes glowing so brightly they almost looked white. Blood trailed from the hole drilled into her head behind her ear, and she had marks all over her body that glowed from the inside making it look like lightning across her skin. "And Valack found that trepanation would initially heighten their powers, but to levels that couldn't be contained."

"So he wants to make Lydia more powerful." Scott said.

"Yeah, except she's going to end up like them." Stiles added.

"Worse, actually." Alan corrected. "Lydia's abilities were already pretty exceptional to begin with. Putting a hole in her head will be like causing a leak in a nuclear reactor. She'll hear everything. Every death, every dying scream, all at once."

"That's going to kill her." Scott frowned.

"It won't kill just her." Y/n shook her head. "Her dying scream could be so powerful it would kill everyone around her." Y/n looked at a close up of the screaming banshee's face.

...

"I'm doing everything I can," Noah assured as he led his son and Y/n into his office, "But her mom is her legal guardian."

"Yes, and what lovely choices she's made for her daughter." Y/n's voice dripped with sarcasm.

"She's the only person who can check her out of Eichen House." Noah continued as if Y/n hadn't spoken.

"Can we get a court order or something?" Stiles asked.

"Technically, trepanation is still considered a medical procedure. A judge would have to declare Natalie unfit, which isn't likely. It could all take months."

"All right, so you're saying there's nothing we can do."

"I'm saying there's nothing we can do... Legally."

"Looks like we need to break out our ski masks." Y/n quipped as she exited the Sheriff's office with Stiles right behind her.

The couple gathered the pack at Scott's house so Stiles could go over the plan that he had come up with the night before. "There's four steps. We get into Eichen, we get into the Closed Unit, we get Lydia, get out."

"And we have to do all of this while getting past orderlies, guards, electronic door locks, and a mountain ash barrier." Scott added.

"You have a plan for all of that?" Malia asked.

Stiles held up the key card. "I stole this last night off an orderly. But it's useless 'cause they reset the codes each night."

"So why'd you take it?" Kira wondered.

"I'm getting to that."

"The only way to get Lydia out of Eichen is to make that key card work again." Y/n said.

"How are you gonna do that?" Liam asked next.

"We're getting to that, okay." Stiles quickly shushed as he turned his laptop to face the three. "Just listen. I pulled all the history off the key card. Two weeks ago, there was a brownout and the security system rebooted. During a reboot, all of the key cards revert back to a default code. So, if we trigger a reboot-"

"The card goes back to the default code. It works again." Liam smiled at the idea while Kira had abother question.

"How are we going to cause a brownout?"

"That's your part." Scott informed. "You're going to draw power from the main line. But only enough to cause a brownout."

"Not a blackout." Stiles specified. "Do that and you send Eichen into a lockdown which would be bad. Very, very bad."

"There's an electrical room behind the reception counter. The main power line goes into two breakers that run power to all of Eichen."

"Okay, slight problem. I don't know how to do that." Kira fretted.

"That's okay. You have time to practice."

"But why does it have to be me? Y/n can channel electricity too, can't she?"

"It's dangerous for me to try and draw power from a main line, the energy could kill me. You're a thunder kitsune, electricity practically runs in your veins."

"Let's say all this goes perfectly." Malia spoke up. "How does a brownout get us into the Closed Unit of Eichen?"

"The system takes five minutes to reboot." Stiles explained. "In that five minutes all the alarms will be turned off, the key card should work."

"Liam, you and I get Stiles and Y/n to the gate of the Closed Unit. But after that, they have to go on their own. We can't get past the mountain ash barrier. And when we're gone, all anyone's going to think is that it was a reboot of the security system caused by a brownout."

"Uh, any questions?" Liam, Malia, and Kira all had questions.

"How do we get into Eichen House in the first place?"

"What's our worst-case scenario?"

"What if I can't do it?"

"Okay, admittedly, a lot could go wrong." Stiles agreed.

"Everything could go wrong." Liam corrected.

"Listen," Y/n started, "if we don't do this, Lydia will die in there. Tonight. And she'll take a lot of people with her."

With that made clear, Kira and Malia went to the school so Kira could practice drawing power, Liam and Scott went to the hospital to get body bags from Melissa, and Y/n and Stiles went to the station to get their driver. Jordan slid the keys back to them in dismissal. "That's the worst plan I've ever heard." He claimed.

"Okay, the plan is perfect and it'll work perfectly, especially if you agree to drive the van." Stiles defended as he pushed the keys back to the deputy.

"Is the Sheriff on board with this?"

"How do you think I got the keys?"

"I thought you stole them."

"While that's a perfectly reasonable assumption, I did not steal them." Jordan made a face, still not on board with this himself. Stiles turned to his girlfriend and gestured towards Jordan. "Y/n, will you please just do your compelling thing and get this over with?"

She chuckled at him, but shook her head before she turned to Jordan. "All of the Eichen guards know the Sheriff's deputies, so we can't use a fake one which means we need you, a real deputy. One who knows what's going on and won't ask questions."

"It's not safe to bring me along. I'm dangerous."

"I don't believe that. But if it makes you feel better, if you get out of control, I'll stop you. And even if you were dangerous-"

"Even if you were dangerous," Stiles cut in, "so is the giant murdering werewolf that's killed over 30 people, but somehow didn't kill you." Jordan looked between the couple, and seeing their looks of confidence he finally picked up the keys.

Y/n and Stiles later met up with Scott in the library. "My dad's got the lab working on the shoe prints." Stiles told him. "But, uh, we're both kind of mystified about how giant clawed werewolf feet turn back into a pair of sneakers."

"Argent said it would be unlike anything we've ever seen before." Scott said.

"Did he say it was going to defy the laws of physics?"

"Logic and physics don't always apply to the laws of the supernatural." Y/n commented. But all conversation stopped when they passed some bookshelves and saw Theo leaning against one of them, flipping through a book.

"What are you doing here?" Scott asked.

"I still need to graduate."

"No. No." Stiles shook his head. "What you need is to be beaten severely with a lead pipe wrapped in barbed wire-"

"Okay, I admit that mistakes were made." He pushed himself off of the shelf to properly stand in front of them.

"Murders. Some murders were made."

"You know how the Soviets helped us win Word War II? They knew how to make it through a Russian winter."

"That it? Okay. Thank you, Theo. Very informative."

"If you're planning to break Lydia out of Eichen House, you still need to get past the mountain ash." He looked at Scott. "We can make it through. You can't, Scott."

"In case you forgot, I can." Y/n reminded with a glare at Theo, still very much upset with what happened the last time they were in the library together. "And I think a witch is worth more than a ragtag 'pack' of chimeras."

"What do you really want?" Scott interjected.

"I know you saw the fresco. Two seriously pissed off creatures, the hellhound and the Beast, fighting over a pile of dead bodies. I don't want to be one of the bodies, it's that simple. I can help get you to Lydia. Or we can see who gets to her first." He closed the book in his hands and put it back in it's place on the shelf before walking away. Y/n had to use what little self control she still had to not attack Theo then and there.

"There's no way he knows what Valack's doing. Why's he so interested in her?" Stiles asked as soon as Theo was gone.

"He probably thinks what we're all thinking." Scott answered. "That Lydia's got something bigger to do with this. That maybe she's the one who can actually save us." The pack later met back up at Scott's house where Malia and Kira informed them of the kitsune's progress. "She took out the whole school?"

"She took out the whole grid." Malia corrected.

Kira shook her head. "Look, I failed every single practice try. This isn't going to work."

"How far can we get without the brownout?" Liam asked.

"The front door. Maybe further if Y/n does her magic thing." Stiles said.

"We're going." Scott insisted.

"Scott, we went through boxes of lightbulbs." Kira argued.

"It doesn't matter. You can do this."

"The key card won't work without a reboot. And there's no reboot without a brownout."

Scott stepped closer to Kira, gently holding her arms as he spoke. "I know you can do this." He turned to the others. "Anyone here think she can't?"

"Not me." Liam said after a beat of silence.

"I was the one who put you in the plan." Stiles added.

"I believe in you, Kira." Y/n gave Kira a smile. "You just need to feel it."

They all looked to Malia who still had yet to say anything. "What?" She almost whined.

"'I believe in you too, Kira'." Stiles whispered his suggestion for Malia's encouraging statement.

"I'm the one who's going to be locked in an electrical room with her." Malia said as if that was encouragment enough.

"This is one of those moments we talked about, Mal." Y/n muttered to her.

Malia almost sighed as she turned to Kira. "You can do it." Her voice was a little strained, but she still did it. Malia looked to her sister for approval, and the witch gave her a thumbs up.

Kira shook her head. "You guys are all crazy. We're gonna die."

...

That night the plan was set in motion. Kira and Malia snuck in with a group touring the facilities while Y/n, Stiles, Scott, and Liam were hidden in body bags in the back of a police van being driven by Jordan. The deputy pulled up to the southgate and stopped by the security guard. "Delivery to the morgue."

The guard checked his clipboard. "I don't see you on the list."

"You heard about the animal attacks, right? The hospital ran out of refrigerated drawers and Eichen's got the only other up-to-code morgue in the county."

"Let's have a look."

"I don't think you wanna do that. The stench back there almost made me pass out while driving."

"Open the back of the van, please." The guard insisted, and Jordan had no choice but to climb out and open the back like he was asked. "I'll need to log the names off of the toe tags."

"There's significant decomp. They were found in the county tunnels way past rigor."

"Open them up, please." Jordan did as asked, reaching over and opening the bag revealing the body that they did bring in case this happened. The guard gagged from the smell as Jordan slowly reached for another bag. "No, no. Go, just go." The guard stopped him before he could open it more than an inch. Jordan smiled to himself as he closed up the body bag and shut the doors, climbing back into the drivers seat and driving to the back of the building. The body bags were taken into the morgue and laid on exam tables while Jordan waited in the van.

Once they were alone Scott was the first to emerge, gasping for air from the stuffy plastic he was trapped in. Liam was next followed by Stiles and finally Y/n. "Oh, my God." Stiles gasped as he got fresh air. "Never again." He looked at Scott who nodded.

Scott then checked his phone. "Fifteen minutes, starting now." While the three wriggled out of the bags fine, Stiles, in Stiles fashion, flailed around with his legs still trapped and ended up falling off of the table. Y/n was quick to help him up and out of the bag, and once everyone was freed they waited by the door for Scott to listen for their chance to sneak by. Once he heard footsteps approach and recede he nodded and led the three through the door. They snuck through the halls, ducking around corners when orderlies walked by. All seemed clear as they made their way towards the gate to the Closed Unit, that is until they spotted two orderlies just by it and had to hide behind a corner again. "What are they doing there?"

"I don't know. Their rounds should've ended five minutes ago."

"I can take them." Liam decided after he got another look at them. The three older teens looked at him.

"No one's taking anyone." Scott denied.

"How much time?" Y/n asked.

Scott sighed as he checked. "Three minutes."

"I'll just knock them out and hide the bodies." Liam insisted.

"Oh, my God, please stop." Stiles quietly begged.

A sudden thump brought their attention directly across from them to a young man who had hit the glass with his fists. "Did you take the doctor?" He asked.

"What?" Liam whispered in confusion.

"Did you take the doctor?" Scott glanced down the hall, seeing the orderlies had heard the patient and are interested in the sudden commotion. "I haven't had my medication. I need ten milligrams at 8:00 AM, 15 milligrams at 1:00 PM, and no more than 20 at dinner." He frantically explained.

"We'll get the doctor." Scott quietly promised, hoping the young man would go back to being silent.

"Dr. Fenris. Dr. Fenris. They took Dr. Fenris." He suddenly sobbed and banged on the glass again and kept hitting it. "I haven't had my medication. I need to see the doctor. They took Dr. Fenris."

"Okay, somebody shut him up." Stiles requested after seeing the orderlies start to head in their direction.

"I need to see the doctor."

"Shut him up."

"We don't have time for this." Y/n finally declared, her eyes shining brightly as she looked at the patient and uttered one word. "Bed." The young man suddenly quieted, and the boys could see a flash of violet in his eyes as her magic worked to make him do what she wanted.

"Wait, where are you-" Stiles cut himself off as Y/n stepped out of their hiding spot and headed straight for the orderlies, leaving the boys no choice but to watch.

"Leave." Y/n moved her hand as if to dismiss the men, and they scurried off through another door.

"What was that?" Scott asked Stiles.

"I don't know." Stiles admitted. He had seen her hypnotize, or compel, people before, but never this fast and not with so little effort.

"Well? Are you coming or not?" Y/n asked them, now standing by the gate. Scott and Stiles shared another look before the three followed after her. Y/n ignored the looks and the comments, not wanting to worry about how easy that was, how she practically took hold of their consciousness with just a moment of eye contact. She didn't want to worry about how that shouldn't have been possible, or about how she thinks she knows why it was and how much it scares her. All she wanted to worry about for now was getting Lydia out of that hell hole.

As the boys walked up to her there was a hum and some of the lights went out. "She did it. Kira did it." Liam cheered.

"Five minutes to get to Lydia." Scott reminded.

Stiles walked up to the gate with the key card, reaching up to swipe it in the reader, but stopped. "Where's the card reader?" They looked around the perimeter of the gate, but all they saw was a simple lock. "It should be here. It has to be here."

"They must have taken it out when the Dread Doctors got through."

"Are you telling me we came all the way down here just to be stopped by an ordinary key? Are you kidding me?"

"Don't worry, I've got a skeleton key." Y/n assured.

"You do?" Liam tilted his head a bit.

"Course I do." She moved to stand a little in front of the door. If this had been a few weeks before she would have suggested the wolves break it down with her aid, she wouldn't have tried it on her own, but maybe there is some good in her recent boost in power. Rearing back she raised her leg and kicked the door, her magic working to give the action extra power. Maybe a little too much as the hinges squealed in protest as they give way and the door fell a few feet away from the frame. "See? Skeleton key."

Liam looked at her with wide eyes. "That was really cool."

"Hey, eyes to yourself. She's spoken for."

"Don't worry, Stiles. He's got eyes for someone else." Y/n smiled at Liam who suddenly seemed a little shocked and a smidge bashful.

"Guys, you need to go." Scott urged. The couple went forward, skirting around the fallen metal door and down the halls. Scott glanced at his phone again. "Only a few minutes left."

Y/n and Stiles jogged through the halls, not coming up to any more orderlies or obstacles. They got to another gate and this time there was a card reader that Stiles could use the key card on. Y/n pushed through the gate first and hurried through Lydia's open door, but hesitated when she saw Lydia herself on the bed, blood on her pillow from an ugly red mark behind her ear caused by the bloody trepanation drill on the nearby table.

"Oh, my God." She muttered.

"Y/n. Stiles." Lydia called, almost unbelieving that her friends were there. Stiles stood at the door in an equal amount of shock as Y/n as the witch knelt beside Lydia, hand hovering over her rain and sweat drenched hair. "You can't be here. You're going to die if you stay. All of you." She warned.

"So are you if I go."

She went to reach for the cuffs keeping Lydia to the bed. "Y/n, he's coming."

"We're not leaving you here." Y/n insisted as she fiddled with the cuff.

"You have to." A buzzing from a gate further down another hall alerted them to someone's approach. "Y/n, go. Please." She begged.

"I came all this way just to get you, I'm not leaving now."

Lydia turned to Stiles then, knowing he would be the only one who could get Y/n to move. "Stiles, please, you need to go." He didn't like it, but he knew it had to be done. He went to Y/n and stopped her hands from messing with the cuff further before grabbing her arms and pulling her away. She weakly tried to pull away from his grip, her eyes blurring from frustrated tears as he pulled them back through the gate and hid around the corner.

Valack entered the gate at the other end of the hall before coming to Lydia's door and entering her room. They sat and listened as Valack asked her questions, probing for information about Theo and what he did to his sister. He guided her through a mental tour of the bridge where Theo's sister died, trying to figure out why. Valack grabs a clean piece of gauze from the small table beside him and dabs at the bloodied wound behind Lydia's ear, making her wince from the sting. "Stay focused, Lydia."

"What did you do to me?" She asks.

"I've amplified your abilities. Something that might just save the lives of your friends." He told her to focus on the bridge, asking why Theo let her die, and when Lydia said she didn't know he just said she hadn't found it yet. After a moment Lydia told him it was her heart that Theo wanted. Theo didn't need a new heart, but having a transplant would make him a genetic chimera like the others, but the new question was why 10-year-old Theo. Lydia asked why Valack cared and he said it was because there was a reason they chose Theo, a step in the right direction to create the perfect killer. When Lydia mentioned Theo didn't know who the success was he claimed it didn't matter because the reason the Dread Doctors finally succeeded started with Theo. "When did you know for sure? That the Dread Doctors had succeeded?"

"Scott, Stiles, and Y/n found out that night."

"The night of the Supermoon."

"But they really didn't know it yet. There was too much going on. Liam had almost killed Scott. Y/n had been taken. Kira was still gone. Malia was trying to find The Desert Wolf."

"You were missing."

"And Sheriff Stilinski was dying..." When Lydia mentioned 'Y/n had been taken' Stiles looked to the witch in question, but her head was turned towards Lydia's door. She could feel his burning gaze, the confusion undoubtedly coloring the chocolate pools, but she ignored it for now. She was thankful he didn't ask her questions right then, but she knew she was going to get an earful later. Valack continued asking questions about what had happened since then, and with Lydia's expanded sight, she was able to answer. "Theo and Hayden. They found it. They were looking for Noah, but they found a symbol. A circle inside another circle, carved into a wall. The symbol of Scott's pack."

"It was more than a symbol, wasn't it? It was a promise to reunite them."

"Yes."

"But has Scott done it yet? Will he be coming for you?" A buzzer went off down the hall drawing Valack's attention.

"Someone's coming. But it's not Scott."

Valack left Lydia's room to face Theo who was followed by Tracy, Josh, and Corey. "You don't want to do this, Theo. She's safe in here. The Dread Doctors don't know how important she is yet." Tracy lunged forward and shoved Valack into the wall, claws poised to slash his neck at any given word.

The other three went into Lydia's room. "She doesn't look good." Josh commented as soon as he got a good look at her.

"She has a hole in her head. It's not a good look for anyone." Corey pointed out.

Theo went over and turned her head a little to look at the wound better. "I can't believe this is actually a medical establishment. Pick her up." He looked at Josh. "We're getting her out of here."

"Now what would a pack of chimeras want with a banshee?" Valack wondered.

"I don't want a banshee. I'm looking for a hellhound." Growling alerted them to the hellhound himself at the gate the chimeras had come through. His flaming hands gripped the metal, instantly heating it to almost white hot and bent the now malleable material off of it's hinges and let it clatter to the ground.

"You wanted a hellhound... I think you found one." Jordan growled again before he started walking towards them. Y/n and Stiles had been silently watching all of this transpire, waiting for the right moment to step in, when suddenly they heard Scott roar. They turned towards the sound, Y/n's eyes shining in response to the call.

~~~
Published: 8/10/22
Edited: 8/11/22