Chapter Text
Stiles P.O.V.
Stiles is panting heavily. Breath rushing in and out and in again far too quickly. The trees around him are a blur as he pushes himself further. He doesn’t know how long he can run for, but he must keep going. Blood is running down his bare back, chest, and arm, further staining the waistband of his already-ruined jeans. Stiles is certain that he looks more feral than any of the wolves he runs with.
He’s running through the preserve, tripping over the occasional root, but for the most part, he’s surprisingly graceful. He knows these woods. He’s spent long enough running to or from one threat or another to know his way. That’s his only asset now. He’s not running for a specific spot, just dodging and weaving around trees and the underbrush in a frantic bid to escape.
Eventually, his clumsiness gets the better of him, a large root tripping him up. He crashes to the ground, barely having enough time to cover his head with his arms in a poor attempt to prevent further injuries. He falls onto his bad side, the cut across his hip screaming at him; rolling to his back to alleviate the pain is worse, the cuts there also protesting. But it’s as though the whole night has caught up with him; as his body trembles with pain, he finds he cannot move, as though all the adrenaline has been sucked from him.
Stiles is still panting, trying to catch his breath, looking up at the canopy. He closes his eyes; he doesn’t know where the hunters are but can’t hear them nearby. Stiles thinks maybe he can rest, yet sprawled on the ground as he is, he does not believe he will get back up. He lets his arms fall to his side, fingers pushed into the dirt, his body giving up any fight and relaxing. If he doesn’t get up now, he won’t get up ever again. He knows his injuries are bad. Knows that falling asleep is a very bad idea. But he just can’t keep going. There’s nothing left in him.
His breathing slows, and he hears a voice whisper, “Up.”
Stiles’ eyes fly open, looking around as much as he can without moving his body too much, turning his head slowly from side to side. There’s no one here.
“Up.” The voice whispers again. It sounds old, ancient even, and stern.
Stiles opens his mouth to explain that he literally can’t, and can’t the stupid voice let him die in peace, but no words come out.
“Up. Up. Up.” The voice demands, getting louder and louder.
Stiles decides that if he could move, he would get up so he could find a different part of the preserve to die in, one without a demanding disembodied voice.
“Get up. Get up. Get up.”
Stiles groans and slurs out “No,” in protest, sounding for the most part like a petulant child who’s been told to go to bed, which is precisely what he’s trying to do right now, sleep. His fingertips dig into the ground in frustration.
“Get up!” This time the voice is demanding, shouting at him almost, and he thinks the leaves above him shake with it, but he’s too out of it to be sure.
“I can’t.” Stiles shouts at it. Finding his voice, he breaks off in a sob, “I can’t.”
The voice is silent for a while. Stiles thinks maybe it is letting him win this and granting him some peace while he bleeds out.
“I will help.” It whispers finally.
“What?” Stiles slurs out, eyes closing again. He is so, so tired.
“I will help. I will help.”
Suddenly he feels something pushing against his fingers, something old, strong. Energy travels up his arms and across his chest before bursting outwards and traveling through his body. Stiles jolts up to a sitting position, suddenly not feeling so tired. In fact, he feels downright energetic. He looks down. The wounds on his hip and arm have started to clot, the wound on his chest is still bleeding sluggishly but not at the same rate, and he doesn’t feel any more blood running down his back. The wounds aren’t magically knitting together like with the wolves, but he is not losing as much blood as he was.
Stiles stumbles to his feet, remembering why he was running in the first place, feeling shame that he basically lied down to die.
“What? What did you do?” Stiles asks the voice, looking around at the trees, unsure if the voice had been a hallucination or not. But, on the other hand, the energy coursing through his body feels pretty real.
Surprisingly the voice answers him, “I awoke what was already there. Go.”
“Go where?” Stiles asks dumbly. He cannot tell where the voice is coming from. It feels all-encompassing, coming from every direction.
“Go.” It repeats, “Goodbye.”
“What the fuck?” Stiles whispers to himself, looking down at his shaking hands, a crash from behind him brings him back to the moment. It sounds like people are approaching. Right hunters. Time to go.
And he is running again, jumping over tree roots and stray logs as though he hadn’t just had a conversation with some unknown voice. He can hear the hunters closing in behind him. Whatever lead he had on them was lost when he laid down. So he just keeps running straight into a clearing.
He realises his mistake when he hears the cock of a gun behind him, a mix of instinct and fear causing him to stagger to a stop.
“Don’t move.” One of the hunters grunts at him. He recognises his voice from earlier, in the basement, and thinks the others had called him Harrison. No. Hudson maybe. “Turn around, put your hands up.”
Kinda hard to turn around and not move, Stiles thinks to himself but bites his tongue. It won’t get him anywhere here. He turns slowly, raising his hands as he does so.
Maybe Hudson is the one pointing the gun at him. He is who Stiles sizes up first. Hudson is thin but not weak; his arms are all lean muscle, and Stiles knows from earlier that his fists pack quite the punch. Stiles couldn’t take him in a fight unless he could grab the gun himself. Maybe Hudson is pale, tall, and blond. But he is young, not much older than himself if Stiles must guess, and he wasn’t as enthusiastic as others in Stiles’ torture. Perhaps he can be reasoned with. The dark grin and hungry look in his eyes say otherwise, though.
Behind Maybe Hudson stands two others. To his right, a female. Short but athletic frame, dark hair, dark skin, mean eyes. She hadn’t been involved with Stiles’ torture, but she had come in during it a couple of times. Her name starts with a T…Tara? Teri. Yes, Teri. Her gun is still holstered. To Maybe Hudson’s left stands Dave. Tall, light-skinned, and muscular. Stiles knows Dave. He had taken too much of a liking to Stiles, enjoying his torment far more than any sane person should. Though Stiles supposes they all must be fucked if they are chasing a sixteen-year-old through the woods. Dave’s gun is also holstered, but unlike with Teri, it does not put Stiles at ease.
Stiles tries desperately to recall the lectures his dad had given him as a kid. His dad had always stressed the importance of gun safety for as long as he could remember. Even taking him to the range and teaching him how to shoot since he was ten, knowing Stiles would go looking for his guns and figure it out himself otherwise. But now, staring down the barrel of one, he can’t remember what his dad had said to do when ones pointed at you, fear coursing through him like a living thing that wanted out of his body, one way or another.
Don’t panic. That had to be a thing, right? Stiles’s hands are shaking, and he is finding it harder to breathe. Don’t panic. Thinking clearly and panicking do not work well together. And he needs to think clearly to get himself out of this. He is definitely panicking.
“Shoot him already,” Teri grunts, grinning manically. Then, she glances up and sighs, “Besides, it is about to rain.”
Stiles chances a glance at the sky too, seeing big dark clouds rolling in.
“Just wait a second,” Dave says, turning his head slightly to address her. “No need to rush, kids not going anywhere, may as well have some fun. Besides, a little rain never hurt anyone.”
Stiles doesn’t want to discover Dave’s definition of fun, but he can hazard a guess from all the straying hands earlier. His brain screams at him to move, hands shaking even more than they already were, but he tries to calm his breathing some. In for five beats and out for five, in and out, in and out. He needs to think, and the longer they talk, the more time he gets to do so. He can’t waste that.
Teri rolls her eyes and huffs, more agitated than disgusted. Stiles thinks she needs to get her priorities sorted, “we don’t have time for your kind of fun. It took too long to track the little bastard down. Let’s just shoot him and dump his body at the sheriff’s doorstep like the boss wanted.”
It starts to rain.
“Exactly, we spent so long running after him, we shoot him now all that’s wasted. The boss said I could do whatever I wanted to the kid, and I draw the line at fucking corpses.” Dave argues back to her, raising his voice as the rain pelts down heavier.
It starts to pour.
Lovely, they might be down to kidnap, torture, and rape a child, but at least they were gonna leave the corpse fucking to someone truly despicable. Stiles is going to throw up, or at least have the panic attack he’s trying to starve off. The memory of Dave’s wandering hands and touches filling his head far too quickly. No. No. He needs to focus on this moment and how to escape this situation. Then, he can process everything later on. Think. Think. Think. The sudden storm is making it harder to piece his thoughts together. Where is that stupid voice when he needs its help now?
Thunder rumbles overhead.
Maybe Hudson huffs a laugh, gun, and eyes still trained on Stiles, “Don’t you guys get it?” He calls back to them, “The chase was the fun, hunting him down like the dogs he runs with, and now we have him cornered, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. And we get to put him down. Leave him on their doorstep so they know exactly how much they have failed; the guilt will eat them alive. And then we will get to kill the rest of them, one by one, as they scream and beg for death.” Definitely no reasoning with maybe Hudson then.
It hits Stiles suddenly that this is where he will die. In these woods, carried back and left on his front porch for his dad to find, left wondering what had happened to his son, never understanding. And Scott, Scott who right now is probably out somewhere looking for him, would feel so guilty, wondering what would have happened if he had found Stiles before it was too late. Anger courses through him, hot and fiery, more anger than he’s ever felt at one time before. His family would suffer because of him because he was too weak to fight, too weak to get away, and too weak that he got taken in the first place.
Lightning flashes and the clearing is illuminated by it briefly. The shadowed faces of the three hunters make Stiles angrier.
Stiles resents the voice. He could have died peacefully, looking up at the trees. But, instead, thanks to it and whatever it had done to him, this would be how he dies. A gunshot to the chest, three maniacs grinning at him, bleeding out as it thunders around him.
The fight leaves his body, and his hands stop shaking, panicking stopping altogether. No plan could get him out of this. He couldn’t throw up now, even if he wants to. His feet are rooted to the forest floor. All he has is anger and no way to use it up. He balls his fists and waits.
Hudson fires the gun. There are no more arguments or snide remarks, he is grinning at Stiles, and then he just pulls the trigger. All Stiles wants is for it to stop. He feels like the world is in slow motion. He wonders if his life will flash before his eyes when the bullet hits him and wonders if it will hurt. It will kill his dad. To come home and find Stiles’ body on the front steps. He doesn’t want him to go through that. He doesn’t want his dad to live with that guilt and grief. He just wants it to stop.
And it does.
Stiles doesn’t move or throw his hands out in a lame defence. Instead, he stands completely still as the gun goes off, glaring at Hudson as he pulls the trigger.
And yet the bullet stops mid-air about a foot from its intended target.
Stiles has just enough time to whisper, “What the fuck?” Before the bullet drops to the ground, completely and utterly harmless.
Stiles looks at the hunters.
They look at him.
“Well,” Teri finally breaks the silence. She tries and fails to hide her shock behind a glare, “This just got a lot more interesting.”
Dave grins psychotically, licking his lips in a downright creepy gesture as he replies, “I’ll say. I don’t think we should kill him now. Gerard might want him back.”
Hudson looks murderous. Stiles doesn’t have to guess; he knows Hudson’s pissed. Furious about the power being taken away from him. “You little fucking shit,” he growls, moving forward, gun raised, looking more animal than anything supernatural Stiles has encountered before. Dave and Teri move with him, guns both drawn, determined looks in their eyes. Stiles isn’t sure if they will kill or try to take him back. Hudson certainly looks as though he is out for Stiles’ blood.
Stiles staggers a step back, and this time as Hudson takes aim, Stiles raises his hand, hoping for something, anything to intervene.
Lightning fills the clearing, striking the ground.
Stiles squeezes his eyes shut against the light.
He can feel the electricity buzzing around him, but he doesn’t get hit. The hunters do though. Blood-curdling screams fill the space, along with the smell of burnt flesh. But they don’t last long; the screams die out within seconds.
When the light fades, Stiles cracks open his eyes. The three hunters charred remains lie on the ground before him, barely recognisable. The whole clearing is burnt, the grass dead, and the earth scorched in a perfect circle around Stiles, the grass beneath his feet the only green patch.
Stiles’ arm is still outstretched.
It stops raining.
He can feel it now, the energy the voice said it had awakened. He feels it swirling in his gut, a well he doesn’t know the depth off. Feels it brushing against his bones, thumping under his skin as though it is trying to comfort him.
Stiles staggers backward out of the clearing and into the tree cover, eyes still on the charred remains of his tormentors. He braces himself against a tree and throws up, bile rising up his throat, spilling on the tree’s base. Once finished, he dry heaves, resting his forehead against the trunk, trying to regain his breath.
Stiles just killed three people.
He somehow has magic lightning powers, and he just killed three people.
He takes another breath. In and out. Inhale exhale. In and out.
He could process this later. Much, much later, when he isn’t in the middle of the woods at night. Preferably when he has his laptop and can research the crap out of it. Right now, he needs to get somewhere safe and treat his wounds. Those three weren’t the only hunters sent after him. He is still in danger. He still needs to run.
He straightens, stepping back from the tree. He glances at the clearing again and sees something shining in the grass. Walking back there, he bends and picks up the bullet Hudson had fired. The one that stopped mid-air. The one Stiles had supposedly made stop mid-air. He pockets it.
Stiles feels as though, come morning, he will need the reminder that this wasn’t all some crazy nightmare.
He walks forward. Out of the clearing and keeps running.