True North

16

Stiles rushed to the station due to the fact that Tracy had been seen there. Scott had gone off to help the sheriff and Stiles saw Lydia lying on the ground with Kira and Lena applying pressure to her wound. Stiles hesitated and Theo called to him. He pulled off his belt and wrapped it as a tourniquet around Lydia's wound.

Stiles heard ambulance sirens in the distance and Lydia said with a nod, "Stiles, I'm fine. Help Tracy. Find Tracy. Go."

Theo reassured the panicking boy. "It's okay. She's all right."

Stiles didn't want to leave her lest something more happen to her.

"Come on, Stiles. You too, Lena," Scott said as Stiles got up and followed him down to the basement.

When they got there, they saw Malia standing over Tracy's body. The first thing she said was, "It wasn't me."

"What the hell happened to her?" Scott asked.

Malia hesitated a moment before saying, "There were these people... They had masks. Um, there... There were... Three of them. I think there were three."

"What... What are you talking about?" Stiles asked in a slightly impatient tone.

Malia continued stammering. "They were strong, Stiles. They had a weapon. Stiles, I didn't do this."

"Okay." He nodded.

Deaton looked at them. "She's not changing back. We're going to need to get her out of here."

Sheriff Stilinski shook his head. "What, hey... Absolutely not. This is a crime scene. We call the coroner."

Deaton glanced at the sheriff. "I think the coroner might be very confused by this girl's severed reptilian tail."

"I don't care..."

"You should. Unless you're prepared to hold a press conference announcing the presence of supernatural creatures in Beacon Hills."

Stiles looked at the sheriff. "Dad, he's right."

"Maybe at the clinic we can figure out how to change her back, then call the coroner? There's a line... There's a line we have to draw."

"Dad, you've already crossed it. More than once."

"Sheriff, please," Deaton said. "Let me help. I've dealt with things like this before."

Sheriff nodded and relented. "Just do it fast."

The moment Stiles was able to leave, he rushed to the hospital. "Melissa! How-"

"Stiles," Melissa replied. "Calm down."

"How bad is it?" Lena asked, moving further from Theo.

"Could have been worse. Theo, nice going on that tourniquet. You probably saved her life." Melissa looked to see Scott and Liam appear and then said, "All right. They're about to go into surgery. So it's going to be awhile. Any other supernatural details that I need to know about or do we just stitch her up and hope for the best?"

Kira stepped closer to Melissa. "It was the tail."

Scott nodded. "Yeah, Tracy cut them with the tail, if that makes a difference."

Melissa nodded. "Okay."

She walked away and Malia said, "But it wasn't just Tracy. There were others. The guys in masks."

Stiles turned to his cousin. "You're being weirdly scared. What happened?"

Lena's gaze flicked to Theo, then back to Stiles. "He tried to hurt me."

Stiles balled a fist. "I'm gonna kill him."

"No, Stiles, just take me home. I-I don't want to be anywhere near him."

He nodded. "Let's go." He glared at Theo before leading Lena away.

---

The cousins made their way to Stiles' house and Malia followed. When they got there, they got up to his room and he walked over to his murder board. He wrote "Masked" and "Tracy Stewart" on the board.

Malia noticed something and erased the part about the Desert Wolf.

Eventually, Malia left.

As though everything suddenly crashed down on her, Lena's breaths quickened and she clumsily gripped her cousin's shirt as she gasped for air. "I can't... I can't..."

Stiles took Lena's fingers. "Hey, Lena, we're gonna count to ten, okay? I want you to try to count with me in your head and aloud when you're ready, okay?"

As he began counting, he gently pulled up each finger. Lena's hands and breaths shook violently as Stiles counted.

Lena's breaths slowly evened and when she was able, she counted aloud to ten with Stiles.

Once they'd gotten to ten again, Stiles said, "I'm so sorry, Lena. Are you okay?"

Lena met his eyes and shook her head.

"I know it's scary, Lena, but Scott, Lydia and I have all been there, and we're with you every step of the way."

---

The next day, Stiles made his way to the school. He met his friends in the library and Scott asked, "Did you get in to see Lydia?"

Stiles shook his head. "I tried using my free period, but she's still in the ICU and no one outside family is allowed in."

Malia slammed a book on the table and said, "We got one thing." It was the Bestiary.

Kira looked at Malia. "Anything in here about half-werewolves, half-kanimas?"

"The Chimera," Scott said.

"Um, what?" Stiles asked with a frown.

"Chimera," Scott repeated. "It's a creature made of incongruous parts. And if Liam said he and Lena found two burial sites, it means Tracy's not the only one."

"Who's the second one?" Kira wondered. "And why would they bury them?"

"Deaton thinks it's part of their process."

"The people in masks," Malia stated, remembering what she'd seen the previous night.

Stiles felt his eyes closing and he didn't fight oncoming sleep.

Malia woke Stiles up and after giving her a nod of thanks, he headed out to his Jeep.

The engine began smoking and Stiles lifted the hood. He wrapped duct tape around another hose. Suddenly, he felt something slam onto his shoulder and let out a cry of pain.