...

Scott, Stiles and Y/n walk down the darkened sidewalk side by side. Stiles looks over at the wolf and notices his demeanor. "What?" Stiles asks him.

"What do you mean, 'what'?"

"I mean 'what'. And you know what."

"'What' what?"

"How many times are you guys gonna say 'what'." Y/n huffed amusedly yet Stiles continued.

"That look you were giving."

"I didn't give a look."

"Oh, there was a distinct look, Scott."

"What look?"

"The look that says that the last thing you feel like doing right now is going to a party."

"It's not that. It just seems a little weird going to different high school's party."

"What? Would you-" Stiles groans in frustration. "Oh, my God, one drink, all right? You'll be fine."

"Look at it this way, Scotty. It's not a 'different high school's party', it's 'a party with fellow teens who want to have fun', okay? It'll be great." Y/n assures with a smile.

"Exactly. I went to nursery school with this girl, okay? She promised to introduce us to all her friends."

"I hope you mean introduce as a friendly type way." Y/n teased the spaz.

"Of course! Of course I mean friendly." Stiles tripped over his words and she laughed. "Tonight, no Allison. Tonight you're moving on."

Scott looked at his phone, looking at the missed call from Allison, before putting it away. "You're right."

"That's right I'm right."

"Moving on."

"Onward and upward."

"Let's do this."

"That's what I'm talking about. No-look me."

"Okay." Scott and Stiles high five and then low five as Scott passes.

"For some strange reason, I love when you guys do that." Y/n smiled at Stiles before she linked her arms with thiers and they walked towards the doors of the party.

"How's my breath smell?"

"We're not smelling your breath."

"Do you have any gum?"

"No. No gum. You're fine." Stiles says.

"Can you at least tell me what kind of party this is?"

"Birthday party." Y/n lets their arms go when Stiles opens the door.

"Stiles! Hi." The pretty birthday girl greets when they walk in.

"Hey. There's the birthday girl." She rushes forward and practically tackles him in a hug.

"So glad you made it."

"Me too."

"Do you think you could come with me for a minute? Help me pick out a bottle of wine."

He nods. "Sure." He turns back to Scott and Y/n. "Moving on." He points to Scott then smiles at Y/n. "I'll be back." She nods and smiles as well as Heather leads Stiles away.

Scott looks at Heather's friend, Danielle. "Hey." He greets. She gives him an unimpressed once over and walks away. He gives an offended look as she leaves, glancing down at himself, and Y/n laughs, patting his shoulder.

"That's gotta sting." She giggled.

"Shut up." But he couldn't help but chuckle either. It faded though when he saw he had a text from Allison.

Heather quickly led Stiles down into the wine cellar, where several shelves were laden with various bottles of the drink. "Hey, remember when we were little kids and we used to come down here all the time and then we would-" He's cut off by her kissing him. It takes him a moment in his shock to realize what's happening and pull away. "What- what are you doing?"

"Kissing you?" She responded unsure.

"I'm- I have a girlfriend. The girl I came here with actually."

"Oh! Oh, I'm so sorry. I had no idea. I just- I turned 17 today and I didn't want to be a 17-year-old virgin. I'm sorry, I should have made sure."

"No, no. It's okay, you didn't know. It's fine. I'm just, uh... I'm gonna go back upstairs. Good luck with the, uh.. Virgin thing. And happy birthday."

"Thanks." They shared an awkward laugh and he made his way back upstairs, slightly panicking on what just happened.

Scott had left and Y/n stood to the side, watching people have fun. She wasn't much of a party person but it was fun sometimes. Y/n raised her brows in surprise when Stiles flailed and nearly fell when he finally stopped in front of her, making her put a hand on his arm to steady him. "Whoa. Easy there, Speedy Gonzales. What's up with you?"

"Heather kissed me." He blurted and then instantly flinched. He didn't mean to say that. Or say it like that. Or possibly say that at all.

She quirked a brow. "She kissed you?" He nodded. "Did you kiss her back?"

"No! No, I would never. I told her I had a girlfriend. She didn't know which is why she kissed me because she thought I was single."

Y/n lightly shrugged a shoulder then. "No harm done then."

He blinked at her. "What? You're- you're not mad?"

"No? Why would I be mad?"

"Because... Because she kissed me?" He trailed off.

She chuckled. "Stiles. She didn't know you were with someone and you didn't kiss her back. There's no reason for me to be mad. Unless you want me to be mad?" He quickly shook his head. He's seen her mad once or twice. It was not a pretty sight and you do not want to be on the recieving end of her anger. "Then I'm not mad." He sighed in relief. "But," he tensed a bit again at that, "we've gotta do something about this. It's not your color." She lightly gripped his chin and gently ran her thumb over his lips and the bit of lip gloss there. Then she leaned in and pressed her own glossed lips to his, kissing him slow and steady in a way that made him light headed. When she pulled away he slowly opened his eyes and she gave him a light smirk. "That's better."

"If you kiss me like that maybe I should get kissed by other girls more often." He joked.

She playfully glared at him. "Don't test me, Stilinski." He chuckled and gave her another peck. She smiled at him but it slowly faded as she got that strange feeling again. The chill down her spine telling her something wasn't right. "Where did you say Heather was?"

"Um, downstairs. In the wine cellar."

"Take me there." Not questioning why he took her hand and led her to the space.

"Heather?" She called as soon as she got down the stairs. "Are you down here?" She looked around but the girl wasn't there, only her shoes.

"Are you okay? What's wrong?"

She furrowed her brows. "I don't know. It was just a feeling I had. Like something was wrong." She bent down and picked up the discarded pink platform, both of them missing the window quietly closing.

"Maybe she just went back to the party."

Y/n turned and looked at the window. "Maybe." Stiles took the shoe from her grip and let it fall before taking her hand, her letting him lead her back upstairs.

...

"I don't see anything." Derek denied. Allison had come to Scott with a bruise on her and Lydia's arms that she says looks like a symbol of some kind and Scott had asked Derek to come look.

"Look again." Scott urged. The girls are holding their arms out side by side to show the marks.

"How is a bruise gonna tell me where Boyd and Erica are?"

"It's the same on both sides. Exactly the same."

"It's nothing."

"Pareidolia." Lydia said. "Seeing paterns that aren't there. It's a subset of apophenia."

"They're trying to help." Scott assured.

"These two. This one, who used me to resurrect my psychotic uncle. Thank you. And this one, who shot about 30 arrows into me and my pack."

"Okay, wait." Y/n spoke up. "I was also a part of bringing back Peter."

"That's different."

She gave him a look. "How?"

"It just is."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"It does to me." Truth was there was something about Y/n that made him trust her more than the others. Whether it was because she was a witch or something else he wasn't sure but it caused him to not be able to be angry at her for the whole Peter fiasco which leads to it being directed at Lydia.

"Okay, all right, now, come on." Stiles interveined. "No one died, all right? Look, there may have been a little maiming, okay, a little mangling, but no death. That's what I call an important distinction."

"My mother died." Allison said to Derek.

"Your family's little honor code killed your mother. Not me."

"That girl was looking for Scott. I'm here to help him, not you."

"You wanna help? Find something real." And then he turned to walk off, Scott following.

"Derek... Give her a chance." Scott asked. "Okay, they're on our side now."

"Well then maybe you should tell her what her mother was actually trying to do that night." And then he left. Scott sighs.

Later as Scott, Stiles and Y/n walk outside Stiles tries to theorize. "Okay, what would a pack of Alphas want with Erica and Boyd?"

"I'm not sure it's them they want." Scott said.

"Okay, what, like Derek? Like they're recruiting?" As two teens pass by Scott and Y/n pause to look back at them. They watched them walk away until Stiles called to them. "Hey, guys." They turned back to him. "You coming?"

"Yeah." Scott nodded then spoke quietly for Y/n to hear. "Did you feel it too?"

"Uh-huh." She spoke just as quietly. "Wolves."

Coach slams a book on his desk as he starts his class. "The stock market is based on two principles. What are they?" Scott raises his hand. "Yes, McCall, you can go to the bathroom. Anybody else?"

Scott lets his hand fall. "Uh, no, Coach, I know the answer."

Coach laughs but then quickly stops when he realizes. "Oh, you're serious."

"Yes. Risk and reward."

"Wow! Who are you? And what have you done with McCall?" Scott laughs. "Don't answer that. I like you better. I like you better. Does anybody have a quarter? A quarter."

"Yep." Stiles says as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a quarter, and also a condom that falls to the floor. Stiles freezes and Coach picks up the wrapper.

"Stilinski, I think you, uh... You dropped this." He hands it back to the teen and takes the offered coin. "And congratulations." Coach didn't really think Stiles had it in him to actually be with someone like that. There's scattered laughter and Y/n has to put a hand over her mouth to suppress her snickers. Stiles glances at her on his left with pink dusting his cheeks and she smirked at him.

"You planning on making a move soon, Stilinski?" She whispered to him.

"I don't know." He mumbled. "I just have it just in case, you know?"

"Oh, I know." She winked at him before turning back to listen to Coach. Stiles almost choked on air. How the hell is he going to survive having her as a girlfriend if he practically dies anytime she does something even remotely suggestive?

"Risk and reward." Coach continues. "Put the quarter in the mug, win the reward." He grabs his COACH RULES mug and places it on the ground. "Okay, watch Coach." He crouches down a few feet from the mug, blows on the coin for luck, and bounces it into the mug. The class claps. "Huh? Huh? That's how you do it. Okay. Danny." He tosses the coin to the teen. "Risk, reward."

"What's the reward?" He asks.

"You don't have to take the pop quiz tomorrow."

"Coach, it's not a pop quiz if you tell us about it."

"Danny, you know, I really expect more from you at this point. Really." He takes the coin and goes to Scott right behind Danny. "McCall. Risk, reward." He sits the coin on Scott's desk. "The risk: if you don't put that quarter in the mug, you have to take the pop- the- the quiz." He corrects with a quick glare at Danny. "And- and you have to write an essay. Risk, more work." He holds up a fist representing risk. "Reward-" He holds up the other, blowing on it and opening his hand in show of the reward. "No work at all. Or choose not to play."

"But isn't this just chance?" Scott asks.

"No. You know your abilities, your coordination, your focus, past experience- all factors affecting the outcome. So what's it gonna be, McCall? More work, no work, or choose not to play?" Scott looks at the coin in his fingers, trying to decide, and finally sits the coin down. "No play. Okay. Who's next?"

"I'll go, Coach." Y/n holds her hand up.

"Atta girl, L/n, let's go." She gets up from her desk and takes the coin from Coach. She crouches down where Coach was and takes a steadying breath. She closes her eyes and tosses the coin, smiling when she heard the clink of success. "No work for L/n!" She straightened up and went back to her desk. "Who's next? Who wants the quarter?" Stiles glances around and drums on his desk. "There ya go! There's a gamblin' man! Come on! Step up, step up." Stiles takes the coin and stands on the designated spot. "All right, Stilinski." When Stiles got ready to toss the coin the door to the classroom opened and in walked the Sheriff and a deputy.

"Stiles." He called

"Yeah, Coach, I got it."

"Stiles." He actually looks up then and sees his dad. He took Stiles out to the hall where he asked about Heather, Y/n and Scott listened in.

"We couldn't find her. I just figured she'd hooked up with her other friends. Has no one really seen her since last night?"

"No. We put out an A.P.B., but, uh, Stiles, all her friends say you were the last person who saw her."

"Me?"

"We hope that it's just a series of bad decisions based on too much to drink. But if you remember anything else, you call me. All right?" Y/n rests her chin on her hand and taps her fingers against her lips. She felt something last night and now Heather was gone. She should have tried looking more. She jumps a bit when the coin rattles loudly in the mug, Danny having succesfully done it.

"Yes! Reward!" Coach yells excitedly. "Okay, who's next? Greenberg, put your hand down. You don't have a chance."

"So you think they kidnapped Heather to turn her?" Scott asked as they walked down the halls.

"Derek says it's easier to turn teenagers." Stiles explained.

"But what would a pack of Alphas need with a Beta?"

"Scott, I don't know. I don't care. All right? This girl... Our moms were best friends before mine died, all right? We used to take frickin' bubble baths together when we were three. I gotta find her."

"We will, Stiles." Y/n assured, taking his hand to comfort him. "We'll find her." He gave her a small nod.

"We need Isaac to remember." Scott said.

"How?" Stiles asked. "Peter and Derek couldn't do it. You know any other werewolves with a better trick?"

"I'm not a wolf, but I learned some new tricks when I was away. I need help to do it, though." Following Y/n's lead they ended up at the clinic with Derek, Isaac, and Alan. Scott, Stiles, and Derek were pouring ice into a metal tub with water.

"Obviously, it's not going to be particularly... Comfortable." Alan says to Isaac. "But if we can slow your heart rate down enough, you'll slip into a trance-like state, making it easier for Y/n to connect to your mind, look for your memories and help you get them back."

"Like being hypnotized." Isaac summarized.

"Exactly." Y/n nodded. "You'll be half shifted. It'll let me access your subconscious mind." Isaac crouched down and rested his arms on the side of the tub.

"How slow does his heart rate need to be?" Scott asked.

"Very slow."

"Okay, well, how slow is very slow?" Derek asked this time.

Y/n glanced at Alan and he answered for her. "Nearly dead."

Isaac touched the water and flinched back at it's temptature. "It's safe though, right?" He looked up at her.

"Do you want me to be honest?"

"No. No, not really." A rubber glove snapping drew everyone's attention to Stiles who had put on an arm length glove.

He looked at the group. "What?" Derek and Y/n raised their brows at him making him take off the glove and toss it away, upset that his fun was ruined.

Isaac stood back up and exhaled. "Look, if it feels too risky, you don't have to do this." Derek assured, Scott nodding in agreement. In answer Isaac took off his shirt, braced himself, and stepped into the icy water. Isaac breathed in sharp gasps from the cold. Scott and Derek each held one of his shoulders and then pushed him down into the water. After a moment he pushed back up with a roar, eyes glowing and fangs bared.

"Get him back under." Alan said and the wolves do as told, shoving Isaac back into the water where he continued to thrash in their grasp. Isaac gripped the sides of the tub and struggled to hold his head above water. "Hold him."

"We're trying!" They eventually get him back under and soon enough he stops moving. They let him go and he gently rises to the surface, taking a small breath. Y/n's eyes glow as she kneels at the head of the tub and lightly puts her hands on either side of Isaac's face.

Alan holds up a finger to keep everyone else quiet as he whispers. "Now, remember, only Y/n or I talk to him. Too many voices will confuse him and draw him out."

"Isaac? Can you hear me?" Y/n asked in a calm tone.

"Yes. I can hear you."

"It's Y/n, Dr. Deaton is with me. We'd like to ask you a few questions. Is that okay?"

"Yes."

"We want to ask you about the night you found Erica and Boyd." Alan asks in the same calm tone. Thunder rumbles outside. "We want you to remember it for us in as vivid detail as possible, like you're actually there again."

"I- I don't wanna do that. I don't- I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna do that." He was getting anxious.

"Isaac, it's okay. Just relax. They're just memories. You can't be hurt by a memory." Y/n assures.

"I don't wanna do that."

"It's all right."

"I don't wanna do that."

"Relax. Relax." Isaac listens and calms a bit. "Good. Now let's go back to that night. To the place you found Erica and Boyd. Can you tell us what you see? Is there some kind of a building? A house?"

"It's not- it's not a house. It's stone. I think marble." Y/n can see it as Isaac does, her eyes staying on his face to keep focus.

"That's perfect. Can you give us any other descriptors?" Alan asks.

"It's dusty, so empty."

"Like an abandoned building?" He doesn't answer. "Isaac? Isaac?"

"Someone's here." He reaches up and grips her wrist. "Someone's here."

"Isaac, relax." She says.

"No, no, no, no, they see me, they see me!" He starts to thrash again and the wolves try to hold him. Isaac screams.

"They're just memories. You won't be hurt by your memories. Just relax. Relax." Her eyes glow a bit brighter as she tries to help keep him calm while also helping keep his memories in reach. His grip loosens a bit. "Good. That's very good."

"Now tell us what you see. Tell us everything."

Isaac climbs up some stairs, stumbling a bit as he looks around. He hides behind a pillar and he can hear Boyd's voice. "But I can't control it. Neither of us will."

Isaac's eyes open, tiny wisps of purple swirling in the blue depths. "I hear him. He's talking about the full moon, about being out of control when the moon rises."

"Is he talking to Erica?"

"I think so, I can't. I can't see her, I ca- I can't- I can't see either of them."

"Can you hear anything else?"

"They're worried. They're worried what they'll do during the moon. They're... Worried that they're gonna hurt each other."

"If they're locked in together on the full moon, they're gonna tear each other apart." Derek spoke quietly.

"Isaac, we need to find them right now. Can you see them?" Alan asks.

"No."

"Do you know what kind of room it is? Is there any kind of a marker? A number on a door? A sign?"

Isaac gasps and sits up, making Y/n jerk forward as her hands keep their place on him. "They're here." She whispers at the same time he does.

"They're here." He says more adamantly. "They-they- they're here." He whimpers.

"It's all right." Y/n tries to calm his increasing anxiety and she manages to ease him to lay back again but he's still frantic. She starts to lose grip of herself as his emotions flow like her own.

"No. They're here."

"Just tell us-" Alan can't finish his request.

"They see me. They found me. They're here!" He starts to yell and writhe again.

"This isn't working." Derek says. "Isaac, where are you?"

"I can't see them! It's too dark!"

"Just tell me where you are."

"I can't see!"

"You're going to confuse him." Alan warns.

"Isaac, where are you?" Y/n's breath picks up as she's pulled further into his memories. He walks on an upper floor, seeing a man with his back to him. "Just tell me where you are."

"His heart rate- he could go into shock."

"Derek, let him go!" Scott yells but the Hale ignores them.

"Isaac, where are you? What did you see?" Derek yells.

He leans around a pillar. "It's a vault! It's a bank vault!" He's caught then by a bare footed woman. The Alpha growls at him as she has him pinned to the floor. Y/n yells in fright, eyes dimming and letting go of Isaac as she scuttles back in fear. Stiles rushes to her side, kneeling by her trembling form as her eyes stayed glued ahead of her, the images burning themselves through her mind. Isaac jumps up from the water free of the trance. "I saw it! I saw the name." He looks up at Alan and Scott before he jumps up, the two helping him out and putting a towel around him. "It's, uh... B-Beacon Hills First National Bank. It's, um, it's an abandoned bank, and they're keeping them locked inside, inside the vault." Everyone's quiet and he notices Y/n gripping onto Stiles. "What?"

"You don't remember what you said right before you came out of it, do you?" Stiles asked.

He shook his head. "No."

"You said when they captured you that they dragged you into a room and that there was a body in it."

"What body?"

"Erica." Y/n answers. "It was Erica."

After a few minutes of Isaac warming up and Y/n recovering from what she did, Derek paced with his arms folded in denial. "She's not dead."

"Derek, I saw it myself. It was her." Y/n said.

"And he said, 'there's a dead body. It's Erica'. Doesn't exactly leave us much room for interpretation." Stiles said.

"Then who was in the vault with Boyd?"

"Someone else, obviously."

"And maybe it was the girl on the motorcycle." Scott thought. "The one who saved you?" He looked at Isaac.

"No, she wasn't like us. And whoever was in the vault with Boyd was."

"What if that's like how Erica died?" Stiles theorized. "They, like, pit them against each other during the full moons and see which one survives. It's like Werewolf Thunderdome."

"Then we get them out tonight."

"Be smart about this, Derek." Alan said. "You can't just go storming in."

"If Isaac got in, then so can we."

"But he didn't get through a vault door, did he?"

"We need a plan." Scott says.

"How are we gonna come up with a plan to break into a bank vault in less than 24 hours?"

"Uh, I think someone already did." Stiles spoke up as he looked at his phone. "'Beacon Hills First National closes it's doors three months after vault robbery'. Doesn't say here how it was robbed, but it probably won't take long to find out."

"How long?"

"It's the internet, Derek. Okay? Minutes."

'Minutes' was actually hours, all night in fact. A cork board was laid on the floor of Stiles' room, papers stuck to it with thumb tacks and a red yarn strung between different things. Papers fluttered to the floor next to snack trash as the printer kept pumping them out. The three teens were passed out around room, Scott in the chair by the desk, Y/n on Stiles' bed, and Stiles himself with only his legs on the bed and the rest of himself on the floor. Noah opens the door dressed for work. "Kids. Hey, time to wake up. Kids. Kids!" They all startle awake. Scott almost falls out of the chair while Stiles does fall off the bed as he pulls off the paper stuck to his cheek. Y/n's legs flail as she sits up making the papers by her feet fly. "I gotta get to work. You three get to school." He goes to leave.

"Dad! Heather?"

"No, nothing yet." Noah leaves the room.

Y/n rubs her eyes as Stiles hits another paper off of himself. "Ten hours and nothing."

"We're gonna find something." Y/n tries to assure.

"Finding something doesn't make Erica any less dead or Boyd any less about-to-be-dead."

"Well, we still have time." Scott says.

"Is this whole, like, 'remain optimistic in the face of complete and utter disaster' thing a part of the 'Be a Better Scott McCall' program?"

"Uh, not if it doesn't work." Scott smiles.

Stiles sighs. "No, it works." Stiles gives a small smile and sifts through some of the papers. He finds an important one and drops the rest. "Oh, dad!" He hastily shoves the paper to Y/n who was closest before bolting for the door. "Dad? Dad!" She looks at the paper and widens her eyes, getting up from the bed and showing Scott. Noah had been part of the arrest of the men who robbed the bank.

The three climb out of the Jeep as they get to school. "All right, so we meet at Derek's at 5:00 to go over the plan, and then we don't get started until dark." Scott informs.

"'Kay. What do we do till then?" Stiles asked.

"For now we have English." Y/n says.

Later that night they meet up at Derek's as planned and Stiles lays out blueprints of the bank on a table with Y/n, Scott, and Derek around it. "Okay. You see this? This is how they got in." Stiles points to a spot with his red marker. "It's a rooftop air conditioning vent. Leads down inside into the wall of the vault, which is here. Okay?" He circles 'vent' with the marker. "One of the robbers was lowered into this shaft. Now, that space is so small, it took him about 12 hours to drill into that wall, which is stone, by the way. Then throughout the rest of the night, they siphoned the cash up to the guys back up on the roof through that one little shaft in the wall. Boom."

"Can we fit in there?" Scott asked.

"Yes, we can, but very, very barely. And they also patched the wall, obviously, so we're gonna need a drill of some kind. I'm thinking maybe a diamond bit-"

"Look, forget the drill."

"Sorry?" Stiles looked at Derek.

"If I go in first, how much space do I have?"

"What do you- what do you think you're gonna do, Derek? You gonna punch through the wall?" Derek folds his arms as they face each other.

"Yes, Stiles, I'm gonna punch through the wall."

"Okay, okay, big guy. Let's see it. Let's see that fist. Big, ol' fist. Make it, come on. Get it out there. Don't be scared." Derek holds up his fist. "Big, bad wolf. Yeah, look at that. Okay, you see this?" He grips Derek's wrist and holds up his other hand about three inches away from his fist. "That's maybe three inches of room to gather enough force to punch through solid co-" He's cut off by his own grunt of pain as Derek easily punches his hand making him fall onto the table from the force. "Ah! He could do it." He walks away holding his arm.

"Really, Derek?" Y/n asks. "I could also break through the wall with my magic."

"I'll get through the wall." Stiles whimpers in the background. Y/n goes over to him to make it stop hurting. "Who's following me down?" He looks at Peter sitting on winding staircase.

"Don't look at me." Peter denies. "I'm not up to fighting speed yet, and honestly, with Isaac out of commission, you're not looking at very good odds for yourself."

"So I'm supposed to just let them die?"

"One of them is already dead."

"We don't know that."

"I saw it, Derek." Y/n said as she and Stiles went back to the table. Derek ignored her.

"Do I have to remind you what we're up against here? A pack of Alphas. All of them, killers. And if that's not enough to scare your testicles back into your stomach, try to remember that two of them combine bodies to form one giant Alpha. I'm sure Erica and Boyd were sweet kids. They're gonna be missed."

"Could someone kill him again, please?" Stiles asked.

"Derek, seriously? Not worth the risk."

"What about you?" Derek looked at Scott and Y/n past Stiles.

Stiles, thinking he was talking to him, shrugs a bit. "Yeah, if you want me to come-"

"Not you."

"Scott and Y/n. Got it." Stiles gestured to the two before looking at them as well.

"I want to help Boyd and the girl." Y/n nodded.

"I don't know about Erica. But if Boyd's still alive, we have to do something. We have to try." Scott said.

"But?" Derek asked.

"Who's the other girl? The one locked in there with Boyd?"

Stiles and Peter wait at the loft while the other three went to the abandoned bank. They find a ladder off the ground around the back. Scott glances at Derek and the Hale notices. "What?"

"There's just something I can't get out of my head."

"The moon's rising, Scott. What is it?"

"Risk and reward."

"Which means what?"

"We're not measuring the risk with enough information. We don't know enough."

"We know time's running out."

"Scott may have a point here, Derek." Y/n agreed. "Think about it. They put the triskele on your door four months ago. What have they been doing all this time? Why wait till now?"

"We don't have the time to figure out every little detail."

"Okay, but what if this detail, the reason why they waited- what if it's the most important one?" Scott asked.

"Then we do nothing. And Boyd and Erica are dead. I know what I'm risking. My life for theirs." Derek then jumps and pushes himself off some discarded things, grips the metal of a barred window, and pushes himself up and over to grab the ladder. He looked back down at them. "And I won't blame you if you don't follow me." Then he climbed up the ladder. The teens look at each other, nodding because they already know they're going to follow him. Her eyes flash as she gives herself a boost up to the ladder, Scott following her like Derek had. Inside the vault the wall trembles before exploding outward. Y/n lowers her hands as her eyes dim. Derek steps in first followed by her and Scott. Derek spots a figure. "Boyd?" Boyd growls and steps more into the light. "Boyd?" He growls more like he's having trouble staying himself. "It's me. It's Derek."

Y/n's phone rings and she answers seeing it as Stiles. "Stiles, not the best time."

"Y/n! Y/n! No, listen to me, okay? Look, you gotta get out of there. Look, the walls of the vault are made with a mineral called hecatolite. It-"

"Scatters moonlight. I know."

"We're here to get you out, okay?" Derek continues to talk to his Beta.

"Then that means-"

"They haven't felt the full moon in months."

Peter jumped in then. "Think of it like the gladiators in the Roman Colosseum. They used to starve the lions for three days, making them more vicious, more out of control. Deucalion has kept them from shifting for three full moons, diminishing their tolerance to it."

"Y/n, they're gonna be stronger-"

"More savage, more blood thirsty, Y/n, they're the lions."

"And we just stepped into the Colosseum." Y/n glanced at the moonlight filtering in through the hole she made. "Derek, we have a very big problem." Another growl goes through the room as the unknown girl steps next to Boyd.

"Cora?" Derek calls.

"Who?" Scott asks.

"Cora?" Derek says softer now and a bit unbelieving.

"Derek, get out. Get out now!" Cora warns. She's having just as much trouble with it as Boyd is.

"Y/n?" Stiles calls out to her. Y/n looks around the edges of the room and finds mountain ash. "Hey, Y/n!"

"Oh, shit." Scott looks at her and follows her gaze just as the vault door opened. Marin leaned down and completed the line of ash. "Marin, don't!" At Y/n's yell the two Betas they came for start shifting, eyes glowing as they growl. And then they charge at the three. Y/n could step out of the room but she's what's tipping the balance in their favor as she helps keep the two raging wolves off of the two others when they get knocked down.

Scott got knocked down by Boyd and Derek shoved him away. Derek was then turned by Cora as she swipes at him but he ducks, Scott knocking her away from behind. Cora and Boyd lunged again only to be yanked back by two bands of purple energy around their necks, Y/n holding them back like they're on a leash as they struggled to get the other two. Scott and Derek leaned against a wall, Scott taking this moment to ask Derek something. "You know her?"

"She's my sister, my younger sister."

"What the hell is she doing here?"

"Like I have a clue. I thought she was dead!"

Suddenly Allison is at the vault door. "Look out!" Y/n glances at her sudden yell. That moment of surprise was enough for the two wolves to yank on the cords and throw her to the side. She thuds to the ground with a groan, blood smearing her face from where her head hit the metal lock box wall. Derek goes for Cora while Boyd grabs Scott and tosses him aside. Boyd gets over him and digs his claws into Scott's stomach, raising him up the wall. Scott coughs and gasps as blood dribbles down his chin. Allison looks down at the ash line and crouches down.

"Don't break it!" Y/n yells.

Allison looks over at her, the blood on her face, Derek barely holding Cora back, and Scott being hurt. She's made up her mind. "Boyd!" And then she breaks it. Boyd drops Scott and rushes for the new escape, Cora breaking from Derek and following just as fast. Derek rushes forward and grabs the brunette's arm.

"Don't touch her!" Scott rushed forward.

"What were you thinking?" Derek yelled at her.

"That I had to do something."

"She saved our lives." Scott defended.

"That may be true, but she might have also just killed others." Y/n said when she stood next to Scott as he leaned against the door.

"Do you have any idea what you just set free?" Derek added to her point.

"You want to blame me?" Allison yelled. "Well, I am not the one turning teenagers into killers."

"No. No, that's just the rest of your family."

"I made mistakes. Gerard is not my fault."

"And what about your mother?"

"Derek." Y/n said warningly.

"What do you mean?"

Derek looked at Scott. "Tell her, Scott."

"What does he mean, Scott?" Scott looks away from her. "What does he mean?"

~~~
Published: 4/7/21
Edited: 4/12/22