Once in a Lifetime

24

Stiles sat by his dad's bedside and heard him ask, "Is that my laptop?"

Stiles continued typing on the laptop and said, "Yep."

"Do you have my password?"

The sheriff's son raised his eyebrows. "I have all your passwords. You know, they just brought in another body from last night?"

"Yeah, I was hoping you wouldn't find out. Now give me my damn computer."

He shied away from his father's reach. "Hang on, hang on." The sheriff groaned and Stiles continued. "I think there's some footage missing. Or something missing in the footage."

"I think there's something missing in your head," Sheriff Stilinski retorted.

"You need your rest," Stiles said in an absent-minded tone as he continued looking through computer footage.

---

Tabitha blinked a few times as her eyes opened. She stood and tried to focus on actually waking herself up but when she glanced back at her bed, she saw that she was still comatose on her bed. Lydia was standing beside her, also still comatose. The two grabbed hands and walked to the room where Lydia saw her grandmother's trepanation when she was young. Lydia stepped closer to the black tub to see that it was full of black goo. A figure rose from the goo and crawled along the floor towards the girls. Tabitha pushed Lydia back and the girls grasped each other tightly. They turned to leave, but were stopped by the door slamming and locking.

The figure stood. It was none other than Meredith Walker. "Don't be afraid," she told them.

Lydia began to scream and Tabitha narrowed her eyes.

---

Stiles found Scott in his bathroom nursing his wound. "Hey. Still not healing?"

His eyes shifted down for a moment. "Sometimes it just takes a little longer. What are you doing here?"

"Ah, you heard about the guy who got killed out at the communication towers, right? I think I may have figured something out."

Scott stared at his friend in surprise. "What, you want my help?"

Stiles shrugged. "Yeah, well, you said you can find the clues that I can't. And since Tabi's not here..." He pulled out his phone as Scott put on a shirt. "Here. Take a look." Stiles pushed play on the video from a security cam he'd pulled up. "This is where the technician first arrived. You see him going in? Then Deputy Clark goes in. Then something really big and really fast comes charging out. And now comes Clark. Eventually, technician's body is carried out by paramedics."

Scott frowned. "Okay, what am I missing?"

"Two people go in. Three come out. I checked all the footage. Not a single person enters that building before the technician the entire day. So where does that something really big and really fast come from?"

"There's another way in."

The boys made their way to the Telecom building. Stiles silently vowed he'd do everything to rescue Lydia and Tabitha, but first he had to deal with the matters at hand. They found a grate on the floor with words of a different language.

"You see that?" Stiles asked Scott.

"I see blood," Scott noted.

Stiles followed his flashlight across the blood and glanced to Scott. "Look where it leads to."

---

Nurse Cross came into the girls' room. She rolled her eyes at the girls. "I have been here a long time, you two. You think I haven't seen this before? I know when patients are pretending. Manipulating to get what they want. You two aren't getting out of here. Someone as dangerous as the two of you are? We can keep you two here for the rest of your lives."