CHASING PHANTOMS // TEEN WOLF [bxb]

DESTRUCTION IMMINENT

***

       Forty-eight hours had passed without any sign of Stiles apart from a text message to his dad that read I'm okay, be back soon and one to Jake that cryptically read love you.

       It was sickeningly reminiscent of when Jake's father went missing and he couldn't fathom losing Stiles the same way. On top of that, Isaac was still in the ICU and hadn't improved according to Scott and Allison's morning visit to him.

       Please just tell me where you are, we can figure this out — Jake stared at his unanswered response to Stiles as he stood near Scott, Aiden, and Ethan in the locker room before they were set to leave for cross country practice.

       He would normally be with them but soccer was in season so he wasn't dressed to run. Even if he had been in the off season, he wouldn't have wanted to practice with all this going on. He was too preoccupied with wondering where on earth Stiles was.

       Had he not been worried out of his mind, he would have been amused by Coach outwardly expressing worry in yelling at everyone in the locker room to keep an eye out for Stiles and also write Isaac a heartfelt love letter in the card on his desk.

        "Do you hear that?" Aiden asked suddenly once everyone dispersed to either get their things or leave the locker room to head outside for the run.

       "It's one of Argent's emitters," Scott frowned as he caught the same sound. "It's coming from the basement," he said, beckoning them to follow with a motion of his head.

        Once downstairs, the sound led them straight to the end of the corridor where Stiles was standing with an emitter in his hand. "I know what you guys are thinking, but it's me. I swear to god, it's me," he pleaded and raised his hands in surrender.

       Ignoring his assurances, Ethan and Aiden attacked with their claws and teeth already out.

       "Wait, stop!" Scott yelled and lunged forward after them, easily crossing the distance and throwing Ethan off Stiles just when he lifted him up against the wall threateningly. When Aiden turned around to growl in his face, Scott roared louder to force him to back down. "I said stop," he said sternly.

       "It's me," Stiles repeated sincerely now that he was facing Scott, his gaze softening when he glanced behind him at Jake who stared in fear. Whether in fear for him or of him, he wasn't quite sure. "I don't know where I've been or what I've been doing but it's me," he promised. He watched their expressions anxiously and prayed they believed him.

       Maybe it was because he really wanted it to be true that Jake readily believed him, but he was just too relieved that he was standing across from him and not somewhere in the wind. 

       "If you disappear like that again, I'm getting Sheriff to put a tracker in you," Jake threatened seriously. It was well worth it to see the relief wash over Stiles's face. He would have hugged him, after first calling him an asshole, of course, but Ethan had other plans.

        "Do you know what you did at the hospital?" Ethan demanded instead as he pulled himself up from the floor where he'd landed after Scott threw him haphazardly into a cabinet.

       "I know a lot more than that," Stiles sighed and walked to the bag on the floor to show them its contents. He first pulled out the blueprints of the hospital's electrical wiring with his handwriting all over in red marker. "I know I caused the accident, but I'm also afraid I did something worse," he said gravely as he dumped out the contents onto a nearby table.

       Rope, chains, wires, tools— nothing good.

       "What the hell have you been up to?" Aiden asked incredulously while lifting a handheld electric power saw in disbelief.