"Theo, I'm scared."

"You want a cuddle to comfort you?" he laughs.

"Rude." I trail after him, looking behind me every few seconds. "So, uh, what exactly are we doing?"

"Looking for the scrawny human with the weird name."

"Oh, come on, Theo! Stop teasing Stiles."

"That's it. Stiles. He sounds familiar now."

I roll my eyes, grinning. I didn't know that being in Eichen House could ever seem comical, but Theo has put me at ease with the constant banter.

He strolls casually, swinging his arms as he saunters down the corridor. "We're going to Victoria's Secret tomorrow, yeah?"

I raise my eyebrows at the random plan. "Huh?"

"You know, the big charity lacrosse thing is coming up. I want to spoil you instead of making you watch your ex play lacrosse."

"And?"

"Are you seriously questioning my niceness?" He chuckles softly.

"Shut up," I grumble. "You are an evil psychopath who shouldn't have an interest in buying a new bra for his girlfriend."

"You know, that's where you're wrong," he says. "Yeah, I'm evil and yeah, I'm a psychopath, but I'm your evil psychopath. I'm an ass to everyone else, but you're my girl, so I have to tone it down a little bit for you."

"I'm glad," I say with a slight laugh. I jump slightly at the sight of a figure materialising from the shadows.

"Stiles," Theo says, raising his eyebrows. Before the boy can say anything back to Theo, Theo speaks. "I want her out of here, too. I've got her scent."

"What do you want?"

"I want Lydia safe," I interject at the same time as Theo speaks.

"What's the difference?" Theo says. "I can find her. You can't."

Theo's body language goes stiff as if he's just found something. He jolts forward and makes a start towards a metal door. He hauls it open and steam pours from it. He seems slightly shocked and even after Stiles follows him in, I find myself hesitating.

Even so, I will my legs to move towards the door. I pause momentarily as I see what the room is, but I try not to pay it too much heed. It seems to be a type of shower room, and although the men in the room have towels around themselves, they look scared to death of us and shrink away from us.

I clear my throat and fall into step beside Theo, who is inspecting a drain flung open at the back of the room. "It leads to the tunnels, doesn't it?" I murmur.

Theo furrows his eyebrows slightly, clearly distressed. "There's miles of them."

Stiles swears under his breath. "They could be anywhere by now."

"That's why we have to get down there. Now," Theo says.

"That's a sewage system down there!" I argue.

"Lydia's down there," Stiles says.

"You go first, then. We all know how much you love your five foot three strawberry blondes."

"You lead the way, Arden," Stiles says. "We all know how much you love being around pieces of shit." He looks pointedly at Theo who shrugs half-heartedly in response.

I roll my eyes. "Fine," I hiss. "You guys are a bunch of pussies anyway." I lower myself into the narrow hole, stepping down onto the first rung of the ladder and sighing.

Theo grabs my wrist just as I'm about to go down further. "I'm right behind you, baby. You're safe."

Stiles makes a gagging motion. I frown at him before wriggling my arm out of Theo's hold and dipping down lower into the darkness, yelling up at the pair of boys above me. "I don't even know how you guys have survived this long. Grow a pair." The stench of dirty water and sewage meets my nostrils and I almost gag. "Make the girl go first," I mock. "Who said chivalry was dead?"

My feet land onto the cement below me with a smacking sound and I look around me. Huh, so far I haven't witnessed any creepy giant beasts lunging at me. There are only tunnels leading in every which way, and I feel a knot in my stomach. It's like a labyrinth. "Hey, guys. It's all good. Come down."

A few seconds later, Theo comes down and almost immediately after him, Stiles lands.
Stiles scrunched up his face. "Oh my god. I think I'm going to be smelling crap for the rest of my life after this."

Theo wordlessly begins to walk down one of the tunnels and I trail after him, Stiles falling into step beside me. "Remember that time when you knocked me out using a gun?" Stiles asks. "Ahh, good times with my favourite Psycho Bitch."

"Look," I sigh. "It was one time."

"What about all the other times you've just so happened to be caught up in a certain somebody's diabolical plans?"

"She loves me, Stiles," Theo says, looking back at us. "She does it because we love each other. You'd do anything for Lydia, wouldn't you?"

He bites his lip. "Don't bring Lydia into this," he says.

Theo stops suddenly. "I have no idea where I'm going," he says.

"I thought you had her scent," Stiles demands.

"I lost it," Theo says.

"So find it again!"

Theo raises his eyebrows, folding his arms over his chest. "What do you smell down here, Stiles?"

Stiles shrugs. "Chemicals and faecal matter," he says. "Although, I'm pretty sure that the faecal matter is you."

"Stiles!" I say. "Why are you so mean?"

"Why is he so evil?"

Theo narrows his eyes just slightly. "I smell it, too," he says calmly. "It's all that I can smell. Which is why I'm trying something else. So can you shut up and let me concentrate?"

"I'm gonna find her," Stiles says, restless and impatient. He has a sort of anxious bounce in his step and his whole body is jittery and won't stop moving.

"You know you won't, Stiles," Theo says. "You're gonna have to trust me."

"Trust you?" Stiles asks. "The guy who murdered his own sister when he was nine?"

"Yeah," Theo says, raising his voice a little. "I was nine years old. I also believed a guy in a red suit came down the chimney to deliver presents. So when three people in leather masks showed up and said that my sister wanted me to have her heart, I believed them, too."

I feel a lump in my throat. The sister incident wasn't something that Theo and I talked about and hearing about it made me feel slightly uncomfortable. Like I was intruding on something I shouldn't.

"So then together you gutted and killed her together," Stiles remarks. "That's a beautiful story."

"I watched her fall into the water and freeze to death in minutes," Theo says. I go rigid, gnawing on my lip and listening intently. "Do you think I had any idea what was going on?"

Stiles pauses. "I think you pushed her," Stiles says. "And I think you liked it."

"That's not true," I interject.

"Huh?" Stiles says. They both turn to me as Stiles continues. "Where in your twisted little mind did you think of that?"

"He has a heart, you know," I point out.

"Yeah, one that he ripped out of his sister's chest," Stiles says, gesturing with his hands.

"Stiles," I scold. "You can't say that about him. You don't know him well enough."

"I know he's a sociopath," he says.

"No, he's not. He has feelings."

"Why are you defending him?" he demands, falling into step beside me.

"I will defend Theo as long as he is with me," I declare. "Don't you and Scott understand? We look out for each other."

We wander around for a little bit more in silence, until Stiles finally musters up an actual conversation starter. "So how's that Vinceret stuff going?"

I pause. In all the havoc surrounding Lydia and the Beast, I hadn't really thought about it. "My half brother tried to kill me in a car crash. What do you think?"

"Do you know who the alpha is?" Stiles asks.

Theo replies before I get a chance to. "It always ends in a dead end," he says. "We have a name and no face. How do you trace someone who doesn't exist?"

Stiles looks at me, hard and long. "You're not thinking about it the right way," he says. "This person exists, and just like any person, he has flaws. What are his flaws? His power, for one. What happens when you take down the foundations of a building? The rest of it comes down with it."

"So?"

"Think about it. Lucien Caraway was abandoned by his father and then had his mother put into an asylum. That's his Achilles' Heel, I think. His parents never loved him."

I roll my eyes. "That's deep and all, but what am I supposed to do about his tragic childhood?"

"Freaking hell," Stiles says wide-eyed under his breath before speaking louder. "You have to draw him in with that. Love. You're his family. You can bring down the wall. Pretend that you want in the pack because he's your brother. Wait for him to come to you.

"From everything that's happened, this guy is keeping some freaking good tabs on you. Make it clear that you want in. Talk about it to Theo in public. They'll hear and they'll come."

"One thing, dumbass," Theo interjects. "What happens when he does come and find her?"

"I thought you guys would've figured that out by now," Stiles says. "You get on good terms and then you rip his pack apart from the inside." He pauses. "And then, finally, you kill him."

I nod curtly, promptly changing the subject. "Hey, any new traces on Lydia?" I ask Theo.

He leans towards a pipe that lines the wall, focussing on what I'm guessing is sound — or lack of sound. "Nothing."

"Great," Stiles says. "Now you're just as useless as I am."

"I'm trying to help save her life," Theo growls.

Stiles slits his eyes, glaring at Theo. "Would you just drop the altruistic crap? You want Lydia because she gets you to Parrish, you want Parrish because he gets you to the Beast."

"So what?" I point out. "He wants it dead, too."

"After you take its power, right?" Stiles demands. "We know why you got the talons and we know why you're looking for Deucalion."

"I found Deucalion," Theo corrects. "You're right. I'm going to help Parrish stop the Beast. I'm going to take its power. And then I'm going to break its neck." Theo pauses, staring straight at Stiles. "So I might not look like the good guy in your eyes, but I might end up being the guy that saves all your asses."

Stiles looks like his thinking about something hard. Finally he says, "Break it."

"What?" I ask.

"The sound travels through the pipe, Theo," he says. "You'll hear better, dumbass. Break it."

Theo looks at the pipe and hesitates just for a second before bringing his hand down in an arc towards the metal pipe. It shatters into a thousand shards of metal before Theo looks up, satisfied. He leans down towards the pipe, his eyebrows slightly furrowed as if he's studying something.

When he finally straightens up again, he says, "I can hear them. He's talking about amplifying her abilities."

"Do you know where they are?" I ask.

"Yeah," he says. "And we better get there quick before Valack kills her."

He takes off at a run, darting down the tunnel. I make a start after him and, as I run at a slow pace, I don't feel as bad about my lack of fitness. Maybe because Stiles is struggling a few metres behind me.

"I freaking hate running," Stiles says between breaths. "I hate it. I hate it. I hate it." He seems to speak a lot while running — although it's mostly just whinging. He says things like, "Holy son of a motherfreaker, I'm going to faint," or, "Maybe I shouldn't have eaten all those McNuggets for lunch."

I realise that I sort of do miss Stiles. He's hilarious, for one, and even when he gets on my nerves, it's a brotherly type of irking. I find myself giggling when he speaks even though I'm short of breath and I think about how I could never hate him, not really. I don't think I'd ever be able to hate Scott and the pack, too, regardless of how we're supposed to be on opposing sides.

The first sign of speaking is little more than a whisper in my ears, but it feels earsplitting. This will lead me to Lydia. This will save her. I just hope that we're in time.

The doors to the room are solid and tall, and I have a feeling that no matter how hard I try, I wouldn't be able to burst through them. There's a small him of sound on the other side and I can make out the last few words Valack says before Stiles starts panicking. "...The mask can help you see," Valack says in his clinical, emotionless voice.

Stiles begins pounding on the door, screaming. "Lydia! Lydia!"

"What the hell are you doing?" I demand to Theo. "Get the door."

"I'm trying," Theo grunts back. He sends his shoulder into the door, a loud thump echoing the halls.

When Valack speaks again, my blood goes cold. "I'm sorry," he says. "But time's up."

Stiles continues yelling and Theo continues trying to get the door open. For a second, I can do nothing but stand there frozen. Lydia is going to die probably no more than a few feet away from me and there's nothing I can do about it.

It happens suddenly, the calm before the storm. The scream that comes from the room is painful — a sharp bloodcurdling noise that swallows up every other sound. I hold my hands over my ears as the banshee's wailing bounces off the walls and makes it feel like the walls are going to fall.

And then it stops.

Theo gets the door open, shoving it forward and it opens with a bang. Lydia lies on the bed, wide-eyed and mouth slightly ajar. She looks like she's in a daze, but she doesn't look scared at all.

And then I see why.

Valack lies on the ground, motionless. Half of his head is missing, a large cavity causing a dent in most of his skull. I feel bile rising in my throat. There's blood everywhere and where Valack's eye and forehead should be, it's nothing but a gory mess.

I step over his body and help Stiles undo Lydia's restraint. When her eyes flitter open, she looks at him like he is her sun, her stars and the galaxy in between. Her eyes search his face: every hollow, every valley. "You came back," she says quietly.

"We're getting you out of here, okay?" Stiles says. He touches her gently, as if he's scared that if he touches her any roughly her skin would shatter beneath his fingers.

I do feel a pang of hollowness. Their love seems so pure. I mean, it's not as if I don't love Theo, it's just that sometimes I wish that we'd met under different circumstances, instead of amongst all the chaos.

"You can't," Lydia says. "It's too dangerous."

"Lydia," Stiles begins, slightly annoyed. "Please shut up and let me save your life."

He gently guides her off the operation table and lowers her to the ground. "You'll be okay to get her out of here safe?"

"Arden," he says. "I wouldn't ever put Lydia in danger, you know that right? She's going to get out of here safe even if I have to sacrifice myself."

As he staggers away with a weak Lydia leaning on him for support, I turn to Theo. He seems preoccupied with something on the table. I crane my neck to look over his shoulder. He's looking at a metal mask on the table. It's a grotesque, heavy lump of metal, seemingly created by sticking many different scrap pieces together. I suck in a breath as I realise where I've seen something like it before.

"It's from the Dread Doctors," I breathe. Theo turns halfway to me as I continue. "Why is it here?"

"Who cares," Theo says. "All that matters is that we have it now."

"Theo," I say. "What exactly does that thing do?"

"Well, it kills for one," he says. "But it'll also show us who the Beast is, so we'll take our chances."

* * *

SPOILERS AHEAD READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

OH. MYFOD I CANT THEO IS IN THE FIERY DEPTHS OF HELL RN AND IM NOT SURE IF I CAN GO ANY LONGER KNOWING MY DADDY/LOML/BAE IS IN DANGER I WILL LITERALLY FIGHT HIS SISTER OMH. BUT FEAR NOT I HEARD CODY CHRISTIAN IS CONFIRMED FOR NEXT SEASON SO IM GLAD THAT MY FAVOURITE DASTARDLY OWNER OF SHORT SLEEVE HOODIES WILL LIVE ON. ALSO,,, IM MAKING A SEQUEL TO SIRENS BECAUSE ITS MY LIFS AMD I WANT TO PUBLISH IT RN BUT JUST WITH A QUOTE AND PLAYLIST SO IT DOESNT GIVE MUCH AWAY IDK WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK
#WEWANTTHEOBACK

Until next time, Georgina

P.S I feel like I'm leading an army of Theo fanatics into battle bc now I have to be the mockingjay to the #wewanttheoback movement (self elected tbh) but yeah honestly I will meet with Jeff Davis and tell him my views on this important matter