—

"Ry—der!"

The shout of her name made her cringe internally, especially knowing who the voice belonged to.

Sharing a look with Austin, the couple glared over at Theo who stopped just before he had the chance to enter the house.

He looked down at the line of mountain ash Stiles placed in front of the door, a smirk taking over his features before he carelessly stepped over and into the house.

"So, you two are still together?"

Austin scoffed, "You thought you would be the one to break us up?"

"I was hoping to be." He shrugged his shoulders casually, peeling his eyes away from them and onto the boy sitting on the stairs, "I guess we're all telling the truth now."

It was silent.

The air grew thick as Theo looked around suspiciously. It didn't take either of them long to realize that he had picked up on Scott's scent that was lingering upstairs.

Theo watched from the corner of his eye as Austin tensed up, his jaw clenching before Stiles grabbed the hoodie that was glued to his side and tossed it to him, tears filling in his eyes.

"You killed my best friend?"

"Let's be honest, Stiles." The Raeken blew out a breath, "Was he still really your best friend?"

Theo didn't give him the chance to respond before he continued, his eyes settling on Ryder and Austin who kept a good distance between themselves and him, "Is that why they're here? Moral support?"

"Are you going to let my father die?"

"If I wanted to let him die, I wouldn't have told you where to find him."

"Then why'd you hurt him?" Austin cut in, "He had nothing to do with anything."

"Would you rather it be you?"

The threat sent a flush of anger through Ryder's veins, her eyes glowing in a protective manner, almost daring Theo to try something.

Stiles, refusing to let things so further from the wrong direction, took the attention off the Ander's girl.

He stood up, "Why are they saying his body is shutting down? That some toxin is poisoning him and they don't know how to stop it."

Austin noticed how Theo swallowed thickly before he sighed, "I'm not a bad guy, Stiles."

A collective scoff was heard.

"I'm just a realest. I'm a survivor. If you guys knew what I know—"

"What do you know?" Austin interrupted him.

"I know what's coming." He started, "I know what the Dread Doctors created. I know what Parrish is."

•••

Josie's eyes darted around the hospital quickly as she kept up with Liam and Mason.

The trio had been on the search for Hayden as the Romero had went missing again. And though she wanted to help, she also needed to make sure that her father wouldn't catch her anywhere but at home.

"No, there have not been any other bodies brought in tonight, thank God." Dr. Geyer, Liam's step father said, his pace not slowing no matter how much the teens struggled to keep up.

"No one named Hayden?"

Geyer turned around slowly, "Mason, take him home. Her too, she looks like she's about to collapse. It's six in the morning."

Mason finally noticed the exasperated look on Josie's face, the girl guaranteed to fall into a deep sleep if given the chance to even sit down.

"Dad, are you sure there have been no other dead bodies?"

Josie sighed, "Liam, i'm sure he'd know if there were."

"All of you. Home. Now."

As the man walked away, leaving them alone in the quiet halls, Josie placed a gentle hand to Liam's shoulder,

"We'll find her, okay?"

The Dunbar didn't respond, leaving Mason to believe only one thing,

"We aren't going home, are we?"

Liam simply shook his head, "No."

"Well, we know where Hayden's body is. And if we want to find her, you're going to have to find the nemeton."

"Okay, let's find the nemeton." Liam perked up, Josie's brows raising as she looked at him,

"My sister knows where it is." She stated matter-of-factly, her mind going back to the sacrifice her sister went through to get their father back. The same sacrifice that involved the nemeton.

Liam grabbed her hand, leading her to the exit, "Call her."

Mason watched them walk away, his shoulders dropping as he reluctantly followed, "I need to learn to shut up."

•••

"Lydia figured it out. I saw it in her memories."

"Right after you drove her out of her mind."

Theo shrugged, almost as if it didn't bother him, "Collateral damage."

A low buzzing could be heard from Ryder's phone, but due to her wanting to keep her full attention on the conversation in front of her, she was going to ignore it.

Austin tapped her thigh softly, a silent way letting her know that if anything serious happened, he'd let her know.

The red head sighed softly, glaring at Theo as she brushed past him to answer her phone.

"But if she's right about Parrish, then things around here are gonna get worse."

"I don't care—"

"You should. Because if your dad does survive he's not gonna be sheriff of anything much longer." With that, Theo began to turn around to leave.

"What's happening to him? Hey, tell me?!"

"Stiles!" Austin called out, watching the Stilinski reach out to grab Theo, only to get shoved so harshly that he landed awkwardly on the stairs, knocking him unconscious.

"Shit." Austin muttered, kneeling down by his body, lifting his head up gently as to not aggravate his injuries any further. "Stiles, get up."

He could hear Scott come out from where he was hiding upstairs, his voice overtaking Austin's,

"Stiles. You gotta get up."

As he began to stir awake, footsteps entered the house,

"What the hell happened to you?" Ryder looked down at Stiles, the teen rubbing his head in pain.

Scott glanced at her, almost in anger, "Why the hell did you leave? Why didn't you stop him?"

"Why are you talking to me?" She snapped back, rolling her eyes at the offended look he gave her.

"He could have been hurt."

"You're not one to talk, Scott." Austin glared at the McCall.

"I'm fine." Stiles interrupted.

"You blacked out."

Scott went on to explain how Theo didn't lie and the only time that his heart rate switched up was when Stiles mentioned his father's current condition.

The Stilinski followed Ryder and Austin out of the house, picking up bits of their conversation,

"Josie and Liam are looking for the nemeton."

Austin's brows furrowed, "What? Why?"

"She wouldn't say why. No matter how much I asked, she refused to answer."

"You didn't tell them anything?" He opened the back door to the car Stiles was renting, allowing her to get in first. He would have sat in the front seat, but with everything that's been going on, he felt the need to be as close to her as possible.

"I don't want either of them getting hurt." She shrugged, looking into his eyes for any indication that she made the wrong decision, "I texted Isaac. Asked him to make sure they were okay."

"Good. You did good, okay? Last thing we need is to worry about Liam and Josie."

"Stiles?"

"I can do the rest myself." Stiles told the McCall, quickly correcting himself at the sound of someone clearing their throat, "With Austin and Ryder."

"You don't even know where to start." Scott tried to tell him.

"I'm sure we'll figure it out." Austin spoke up.

"It's not like we've been doing that this whole time."

"All we know is that it's another chimera. Do you even know where you're headed?"

Stiles ignored him, the engine revving as he turned on the car, taking a quick glance at the couple in the backseat.

"Come on. Let me help. I can find the clues that you can't."

"Why do you think I have these two with me?" Stiles rolled his eyes.

"You need all of us." Scott practically begged, "I can get more help. I can text Liam and Josie."

"No!" Ryder and Austin spoke in unison, refusing to allow him to involved their siblings.

"I can call Isaac."

That only upset Austin more.

"Liam just tried to kill you." Stiles reminded him.

Truthfully, Ryder almost forgot about that. And she was kind of annoyed that the Dunbar didn't succeed in his endeavors, maybe then Scott would have had a bit more sense knocked into him.

"Then at least let me help you guys."

Noticing that he wasn't budging, Scott turned to the only other person that he could have convinced, "Austin, come on."

The George shook his head, refusing to even acknowledge his presence. Even though it didn't happen to him, Austin couldn't get it out of his head that Scott had so easily put so much trust into someone he hasn't seen in years, over his actual best friend.

It boggled his mind.

Then again, Austin was just as close to believing Theo...

"You trusted him?" Stiles' voice cracked, jaw clenched so no tears would fall.

"You trusted him too." Ryder's face twisted. no, he didn't. "Theo got all of us."

Ryder scoffed.

"Theo got you. Just because you're a bad friend, doesn't mean you can bring the rest of us down."

"Ry..."

"No, Austin. He literally does this every time. He doesn't listen to anything Stiles, or anyone else says until it bites him in the ass and suddenly we all fell for whatever ruse was going on at the time? No, he needs to own up to his shit and stop trying to make the rest of us feel bad for catching on ahead of time."

The two boys closest to her silently agreed with what was said. No matter what they've been through, it always seemed like them—along with Isaac, all fell in line and Scott was the lone wolf that ended up being wrong in the end. And when Scott got screwed over, he found a way to turn it on someone else.

It truly made no sense.

"You know, you don't even know the real story."

"I don't need to."

An eye roll.

"All that matters right now is your dad."

Austin's tongue ran against his inner cheek. There was no way he was using his dad as an excuse.

"Come on, Stiles. We survived an Alpha pack, a Dark Druid, professional assassins. We can survive Dread Doctors and chimeras, too."

Suddenly, the car doors we unlocked and Ryder's mood had shifted even more than it was the first time she saw Scott,

"We're not looking for a missing chimera. We're looking for a missing teenager."

—
a/n: if you can't tell, i haaaaaate S5 scott