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“Good morning, Stiles Stilinski.” A voice said as Stiles woke up, the voice crackling with static over a speaker somewhere overhead.
He froze when he heard it, eyes opening to find himself in a nondescript room, lying on an uncomfortable cot low to the floor. Surprisingly, he wasn’t strapped down, though. He sat up slowly, noting a chair in front of a large screen on the far wall. “Where am I?” He asked, glancing around as he moved off the bed, noting a few cameras stationed around the room.
“You will find out in due time. Please, have a seat.”
Stiles peered suspiciously at the chair but did as asked, wondering where the others were. The last thing he remembered was walking through the preserve with Scott, Malia, and Lydia before there was a bright light, and he woke in the room.
“I’m sure you’ve realized that I have your friends now too.” The voice told him, and Stiles flinched a little at the amusement creeping into its tone. “In fact, that’s why you are here.”
“What do you mean that’s why I’m here?” Stiles asked. He didn’t get a direct answer, but the screen in from of him turned on.
Cold fear settled into his stomach as the large screen showed him three separate video feeds. In one, Lydia was tied to a chair, looking listless as she hung her head. The second showed Malia, the werecoyote’s eyes glowing blue as her chest heaved and sweat poured down her face. And the third showed him Scott, the alpha howling in pain as a gloved hand cut into his stomach with a sharp dagger. Blood covered his stomach, but Stiles could see other, smaller cuts in his skin that were already healing.
“You’re here to save them, Stiles.”
“How? How do I save them?”
“Ah, the question is not how, but who. Who do you save first?” The voice asked, and the video feed flickered to show only one screen at once. “Do you first save Lydia, the banshee who’s running out of air? Malia, the werecoyote trapped in a room with the temperature steadily rising? Or Scott, the true alpha, who can’t heal fast enough to prevent himself from bleeding out? You can save all three, Stiles. But only if you save them in the right order.”
Stiles frowned as he watched the videos switch from one to the next, his mind already spinning through the possibilities and statistics of saving them all. “Okay. I’m guessing you have rules as well.”
“You are the smart one, Stiles. There is only one rule, however. You must do this alone. No friends, no police. If you have anyone help you, I’ll kill them all immediately. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” Stiles said, nodding his head.
“Very well, then. Your door is unlocked. You will find a piece of paper with the locations of each of your friends taped to it. Good luck, Stiles.”
Stiles was at the door and out of the room before the voice could even finish.
☪
Malia panted as the heat in the room grew even hotter, her muscles aching in response to the never-ending rising of the temperature. She’d stopped sweating at this point, her skin dry and her mouth feeling like it was stuffed with cotton. She desperately needed a drink. Even a single sip of water would be a relief at this point.
The heat had gotten to the point where she didn’t even care about the cameras anymore and had stripped her clothes off. It helped a little to cool her down, but only for a minute or two before the heat rose, and her entire body felt like it was drying out like sundried jerky. The cot beneath her, which had soaked up the sweat from her skin, was now dry as well, the material of the sheets stiff and uncomfortable beneath her.
She felt dizzy, and the walls seemed to bend in and out of proportion as she watched them. Her eyes flickered between glowing and their normal blue. Was she dying? It felt like she was dying.
☪
Malia was the first stop. She was the one placed furthest away from him, and by the time he reached her, he knew that she’d be entering a delirious state, having seen the excessive sweat and muscle spasms she was having in the video feed. She wouldn’t have long before the heat reached a point where it started to cause brain damage.
It took some doing to pick the lock of the door separating them, and the sight he saw when he entered the room was enough to make his blood boil. Malia was lying on a cot, her clothes thrown to the floor, and her head rolling slowly to stare at him, no sign of recognition in her glowing eyes.
“I swear, I’m going to kill whoever’s behind this.” He murmured as he stalked into the hot room, already sweating profusely in response to the intense temperature.
With gentle hands, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her out of the room. He placed her in the back of his jeep and covered her with a long overcoat of Lydia’s that the banshee had left in his car. “You’re going to be okay, I promise.”
☪
Lydia’s head ached as she sat tied to a chair, her chest heaving slowly as it tried to drag in enough oxygen to sustain her body. Her heart was pounding away in her ears, and she wished she could just scream her way out of this. But she’d tried that when she first woke up, screaming and screaming at the wall she was facing. But she was only wasting oxygen, and the thick stone wall was too strong, and her efforts barely made a crack in it. The other walls were too far away for her screams to work, and she couldn’t turn around enough to try for the door behind her.
She felt cold and was sure that her lips and fingertips would be blue if she could see them. Her headache was moving into migraine territory, and she could hardly keep herself awake at this point. She almost wanted to give in and drift off…
☪
When Stiles reached Lydia, who had to be next because the size of the room he’d seen her in wouldn’t hold enough oxygen for her by now, the door wasn’t even locked. It was sealed, but easy enough to open, and a rush of oxygen flowed into the room with him. “Lydia!” He rushed forward, gripping her head in his hands. She was unconscious, and her lips were a frigid blue. But she was breathing, and as he untied her, her breathing steadied.
“I’ve got you, Lydia. I’m getting you out of here.” He whispered, picking her up like he’d done with Malia and carrying her to the jeep. She was placed in the passenger seat and buckled in by his hands, which were starting to shake with nerves. He had one last person to save, and he could only hope he wasn’t too late.
☪
Scott whimpered in pain as the masked man standing over him cut into his wounds once again, reopening them to let more blood out before they could fully heal. His head was spinning, he felt lightheaded, and he knew that he should know what was going on, his thoughts felt slow like molasses, and he only got more confused as he tried to think about it.
His heart felt like it was racing in his chest, but it felt slow at the same time, like a marathon runner trying to run with a limp. He just wanted to sleep, but the pain in his stomach prevented him from doing so. He just wanted it to stop. He wanted everything to stop.
☪
Scott was the last one on Stiles’ list to save, and it was only because of the single rule that had been given him that he had chosen him for the final rescue. Because Scott had been the closest one to his location from the very start but had Stiles chosen to save him first, the alpha would have helped regardless of their captor’s warning, and the lives of the others would be forfeit.
Still, this meant hours of enduring torture and losing blood for Scott, and he could only hope that the alpha’s healing was up to the job of keeping him alive for so long.
The thing he was most worried about, though, was the man who was torturing Scott. So, Stiles made one detour to his house before heading to his location.
The door to Scott’s room was locked, and this time Stiles didn’t bother to pick the lock. He raised his recently acquired gun and shot the lock off, bursting into the room and raising his pistol again to shoot at the masked man standing over his best friend. He wasn’t sure where the bullet hit, but the man went down and stayed down, so Stiles got to work setting Scott free.
“Stiles?” Scott murmured as he helped him off the table, seeming to regain a little awareness as he stared at his face. “How- The others? They okay?” He asked, leaning heavily on him as they moved towards the door, completely ignoring the body behind them.
“Yeah, they’re okay, Scotty. Everyone’s going to be okay now.” Stiles reassured him.
“Thanks to you, Stiles Stilinski.” That same voice from earlier came over the speakers in the room, and Stiles froze, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for this to be an elaborate trap just to mess with them. “You chose correctly, so you are all free to go. But rest assured, we will meet again someday.”
“Yeah, and when we do, you’ll pay for hurting them,” Stiles said, staring directly into one of the room’s cameras. He held his gaze there for a moment before pulling Scott’s arm more securely around his shoulders. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”
☪
By the time he got them back to Scott’s house where Melissa could tend to Scott’s slowly healing wounds and look the two girls over to make sure they would be okay, Stiles had called his father and placed an ‘anonymous’ tip about the man he’d shot at the last location.
Later he would find out that the man was gone before they arrived, and whether he was dead or injured would be anybody’s guess. Later he would find out that any and all evidence of his friends’ torture had been erased. Later he would start searching for their captor, planning on how to take them down.
But for now, Stiles would take care of his friends, helping them all to recover and withstanding their subsequent teasing as they started calling him the pack mom. He didn’t mind the moniker as much as he let on, though. Because just like a mother, he was there, dutifully caring for all their needs and ensuring that they came through this ordeal, hurt and healing, but safe and unbroken.