𝟑𝟐 , 𝒊𝒄𝒆 𝒃𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒔

✯☾✯

"𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒏, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒏," she paused for breath, "I came over and wopah! I got the ball."

Stiles rolled his eyes dramatically, hands thrown up in exaggerated frustration, accompanied by an exasperated sigh that could rival a gust of wind.

"I know, L. I saw it. I was there."

Lizzie stood on the tips of her toes in the corner of the open space in Beacon Hill's veterinary clinic clad in her high school's maroon, soccer kit. Her jersey was oversized and spotted with many smudged grass stains and muddy patches.

Despite the fatigue that was prominent from her match, her face beamed with excitement, her rosy cheeks telling the story of her game. Enthusiasm radiated through her bright eyes.

"Oh yeah. Sorry," she murmured sheepishly, swaying back and forth, gazing around at the toneless practice.

"When's your unusually large boyfriend getting here?"

Lizzie shrugged, pushing herself backwards into a seated position on one of the reflective, silver surfaces.

The sound of metal scraping across the lamented floor filled the room as uncomfortable to listen to as nails on a chalkboard. Scott, accompanied by his boss, Deaton, dragged, a tin looking bath towards the center of the room, followed by bags of misshapen ice.

As it seemed, Isaac Lahey had a memory of Boyd and Erica's whereabouts entrenched deep inside of him that had been scrubbed from his mind.

Deaton had formed a clever yet dangerous plan in which Isaac would be plunged into the numbing ice water to slow down his lively heart beat just enough for Deaton to gain access to the enclosed space in Isaac's brain dedicated to his memorys.

The plaguing worry that swum at a constant pace around Lizzie was the fact that in order for this to happen, Isaac would be bordering death at a much too curt distance for her to be comfortable.

A distant chime of a bell signalled the entrance of two as Deaton ripped open the fist bag of ice. Lizzie hopped down from her seat on a work top and guided herself towards the hallway of the practice.

Isaac's expression moulded from uninterested to doting, tiny, seraphic hearts dancing in his iris'.

"Hello!" Lizzie greeted her boyfriend and Derek Hale rather loudly. Isaac, who was already making his way towards her through no fault of his own but the magnetic force of attraction the universe had granted himself and Lizzie, clamped a large hand over her mouth.

Lizzie's muffled giggles remerged but were quickly drowned out as Isaac's hand was replaced with his lips.

It was a prolonged moment where air was non-existent and irrelevant and then, three short pecks.

Lizzie's grin up at him was one of the few things in the world that rooted the beating muscle that kept him living. He watched adoringly as her face lit up wondrously, he'd never get used to that. that smile, that beautiful perfect smile.

"Hey, bro," she mumbled and Isaac scoffed.

"Don't call me bro."

Lizzie only laughed mischievously before side stepping around his toned frame to throw her arms around Derek.

The alpha werewolf tartly patted the pixie's back, a content look seeping through the cracks of his sour mask. If it had been anyone else squeezing him so tightly, he'd have ripped out their jugular.

"Isaac," The sound of Deaton's voice made Lizzie shuffle out of her hug. She watched as Deaton beckoned her boyfriend over. "If the rest of you could start distributing the ice?"

Lizzie skipped through the open doorway to Stiles' side, he had in his grasps two large bags, one of which he handed to Lizzie.

The four, Scott, Derek, Lizzie and Stiles, struck up a conversation as they carried out the quick to become tedious task.

"So, you got a quater in your eye?" Derek scoffed as he reached behind him.

"Only because Lizzie has no aim." Scott justified in a high pitched voice.

Lizzie opened her mouth, her lips parted into an 'O'.

"Hey, what the hell were you doing in economics class anyway? You don't even take economics." Stiles piped up from opposite Scott, his dark flannel sleeves rolled right up his fore arms.

Lizzie hummed lightly, "I didn't wanna go to calculus and Coach said i could sit in his class."

"Coach? Coach Finstock let you sit in his class?" Stiles exclaimed disbelievingly.

They were interrupted as Deaton guided Isaac towards the bath es he explained.

Almost disgustedly, Isaac crouched down level with the bath, dipping a finger into the water. The temperature stung him at first connection and he whipped his hand away, hissing.

"It's safe though, right?" Isaac questioned up at the vet.

Deaton pursed his lips, "Do you want me to answer honestly?"

"No. No, not really." Isaac murmured before releasing a long breath and standing at the ready.

A smacking sound cut through the anxious tension like a sharp bladed knife. The group turned to the source of the noise just to see Stiles playing around with Deaton's gloves.

"What?"

Under the pressure of the pointed looks he was receiving, Stiles ripped of the glove and chucked it over his shoulder.

"Look," Derek raised his eyebrows, reassuringly, "if it feels to risky, you don't have to do this..."

The moment passed and as a leap of faith, Isaac removed his shirt, earning harsh jabs in the ribs back and forth, Stiles to Lizzie.

Isaac clutched the sides of the bath, steadied himself and forced himself into the cold water. The moment his skin came into to contact with the fierceness of the liquid, fiery shockwaves spasmed through his veins.

Deaton beckoned each remaining person in the room to gather around the bath as Isaac took his prepared, deep breaths. Scott and Derek clamped their hands around his shoulders, readying their werewolf strength as Lizzie and Stiles stood in waiting.

A mutual agreement was passed signalling Scott and Derek to apply pressure, plunging Isaac into the water. The contents of the bath spilled over the sides and almost immediately, Isaac started to react.

He burst through the surface, gasping for air, only to be thrust within the depths.

With nothing but water filling his lungs, suffocating him, Isaac thrashed around, constantly seeking oxygen.

"Hold him!" Deaton insisted, calling in Lizzie and Stiles to aid the situation.

"We're trying!" Derek yelled out.

Lizzie squeezed her eyes shut as if it would block out what she was doing, as if it would make it all go away. She was drowning him. She was killing him. She could not watched his panicked feature writhe and struggle.

A final push, deep, deep down, a collective mass of everyone's strength and Isaac fell still. Lizzie leapt up in a frenzy.

"Is he okay?"

Stiles rose from his position and noddedhis head, quickly wrapping his arms around the pixie and dragging her backwards.

"Now, remember," Deaton addressed the room, "Only I talk to him, to many voices will confuse him and draw him out."

Isaac's eyes were close, his body had floated upwards, a lifeless weight. Lizzie spotted the soft movement of his chest rising and falling.

"Isaac," Deaton leant over the unmoving boy, speaking softly, "Can you hear me?"

Isaac's lips, tainted with a faint blue, parted, "Yes.. I can hear you,". Droplets drifted down his face and reared off the sharp edges.

"This Doctor Deaton. I'd like to ask you a few questions. Is that alright?"

"Yes."

Deaton's voice was rhythmic, comforting, Isaac's replies were empty and absent.

"I want to ask you about the night you found Erica and Boyd. I want you to remember it for me in as vivid detail as possible, like you're actually there again." Deaton requested.

Something had clicked in Isaac's brain, it was refusing him. The memory that was hidden most definitely did not want to reveal itself.

"I-I don't wanna do that. I don't- I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna do that." Isaac chanted to himself, the muscles in his neck twisting uncomfortably. The main overhead lamps blinking in panic alongside the boy.

"Isaac, it's all right. Just relax." Deaton soothed, the glow of the LED lights around the room acting as a torch, illuminating the spectacle. "They're just memories. You can't be hurt by a memory."

"I don't wanna do that," Isaac stammered her repeated defiance.

"It's al-"

"I don't wanna do that!"

Deaton looked up, his brow furrowed, "Lizzie," he beckoned the girl over.

Lizzie stepped away from Stiles and approached Deaton, gazing intently as he nodded at the boy.

She nodded knowingly and with a slight smile as she dropped to her knees, picking up the cold, limp hand strewn over the side of the tub.

Even in this dream-like state, Isaac could recognise Lizzie's touch. His furiously rapid breathing slowed and Lizzie felt him relax.

"Good, good," Deaton praised, his plan moving smoothly again, "Now, let's go back to that night-- to the place you found Erica and Boyd. Can you tell me what you see? Is there some kind of building? A house?"

Isaac's pale face, scrunched as he concentrated on retrieving the memory, "It's not... It's not a house. It's stone. I think marble."

"That's perfect. Can you give me any other descriptors?" Deaton breathed out his question.

Isaac started to stutter, his teeth clicking with one another as he shivered, "It's dusty... and so empty..."

"Like an abandoned building?"

No response was given, Isaac's lips twitched but no words came out. The lights began to flicker again.

"Isaac? Isaac?" Deaton strained as Isaac grew agitated.

"Someone's here," He murmured. The force of the hold between his and Lizzie's hands grew, he clutched onto her as hard as he could, serrated werewolf claws erupting from the beds of his nails and puncturing Lizzie's soft skin.

"Someone's here!"

Once again, despite Deaton's efforts to calm the boy, it was Lizzie who pulled him back. She placed warm kisses to the back of his hand, ignoring the crimson seeping down her forearm.

"Good. Now, tell us what you see. Tell us everything." Deaton quickly requested before Isaac could freak out again.

The Lahey boy breathed out, submerging himself in his own mind.

"Boyd. I hear him," Isaac's eyes opened but no emotion, no personality, nothing was behind them. He recounted everything to the group in a monotone voice, "He's talking about the full moon, about being out of control when the moon rises."

Deaton asked, "Is he talking to Erica?"

"I think so. I can't... I can't see her, I ca-I can't see either of them." Isaac replied shakily.

"Can you hear anything else?"

"They're worried," Isaac paused, searching, listening, "They're worried what they'll do during the moon. They're... worried that they're gonna hurt each other."

"If they're locked together on the full moon, they're gonna tear each other apart." Derek huffed out quietly, breaking Deaton's rule of no voices but his own.

Said man switched his tone from soft to firm, "Isaac, we need to find them right now. Can you see them?"

"No..."

"Do you know what kind of room it is? Is there any kind of a marker? A number on a door? A sign?"

In a swift movement that startled all of them, Isaac sat up, the water swirling around him, he was gasping for breath, "They're here! They... They..."

"It's all right." Deaton spoke with etched in confusion. He hadn't planned for this.

"Deaton..." Lizzie whispered as she watched Isaac's struggle. She winced as his grip on her tightened if that was possible.

"This isn't working!" Derek announced impatiently, "Isaac, where are you?"

"I can't see them. It's too dark!" Isaac cried out desperately. He was coming back, the memory was fading. It was kicking him out.

"Just tell me where you are!" Derek urged much to Deaton's displeasure.

"I can't see!" Isaac shouted, clawing his way around his subconscious blindly.

Water splashed malevolently like big waves overcoming them and the lights flickered manically.

"Isaac, where are you? Just tell me where you are?" Derek seized Isaac's shoulders, his need and protection for his pack members overruling Deaton's shouts to cease his interrogation.

"Derek, let him go!" Scott boomed over the noise.

Lizzie let out a small yelp as Isaac's claws ripped further into her skin as Derek roared one last time.

"Isaac, where are you? What did you see?"

The next anguished words the flew through Isaac's mouth were the last he spoke in his dream like state before rose up, completely returning the a room in Beacon Hill's vetinary clinic.

"A vault! It's a bank vault!" He blew, climbing out of the bath to the awaiting towel as he began to explain what he saw. "I saw it! I saw the name. It's, uh, B-Beacon Hills First National Bank. It's, um... it's an abandoned bank, and they're keeping them locked inside, inside the vault."

No one spoke. They couldn't.

"What?" Isaac alerted himself to the sombre expressions.

"You don't remember what you said right before you came out of it, do you?" Stiles spoke up, grimly.

Isaac's gut churned uneasily, "No."

"You said when they captured you, that they dragged you into a room, and that there was a body in it." Stiles informed the boy painfully.

"What body?"

Stiles squeezed his eyes shut, "Erica. You said it was Erica."

Lizzie was tucked away in the corner staring through glossy vision at the claw marks on her arm but she wasn't really looking at them. A heaviness weighed upon her heart, crushing it with a taunting, forrever sorrow.

The words echoed through her mind, the realisation. A relentless mantra that would never be silenced.

She clutched her bleeding wrist with a trembling hand, a plethora of emotions churning within her. Grief, like a dark storm, clouded her mind and denial fought her vicously.

And with the hot tears flooding down her face, out came the anguish and the once treasured, now fractured memories.

✯☾✯

Guilt, denial and anger swarmed the clinic, so thick and dictatorial it controlled thoughts.

Lizzie had calmed, and her tears had been wiped away by her ever loving boyfriend.

The couple were seated in the worktop Lizzie had previously been on, her wrist in Isaac's large hands. He'd dried off now and put his shirt back on.

In his grasp was a bandage which he was looping around the small cuts he'd inflicted and apologised profusely for.

"She is not dead," Derek insisted, pacing the course of the room. He couldn't stand the thought of loosing the girl he was supposed to look after. The girl he involved in this life.

"Derek, he said 'There's a dead body. It's Erica.' Doesn't exactly leave us room for interpretation." Stiles quipped sarcastically. Lizzie winced at his harsh tone.

"Then who was in the vault with Boyd?" Derek optimised a circling fact.

"Someone else, obviously."

"And maybe it was the girl on the motercycle, okay?" Scott suggested. The truth was, they had no idea if Erica Reyes was alive or dead, only whispers through Isaac's distorted memory's. Yet, there was nothing inside of Lizzie that fed her good news. She had a feeling. A horrible gut feeling.

"The one who saved you?" Scott threw a glance to Isaac.

Isaac looked up from his doctor duties after he realised he was being addressed, "No, she wasn't like us... and whoever was in the vault with Boyd was."

"What if that's how Erica died? They, like, pit them against each other during the full moons and see which one survives?" Stiles shrugged, "It's like Werewolf Thunderdome."

"Then we get them out tonight." Derek ordered, surveying the group for any objectors.

"Be smart about this, Derek. You can't just go storming in." Deaton expressed his opinion.

"Yeah," Lizzie agreed, "Maybe we need to brainstorm a little first. We don't wanna put either of them in anymore danger."

"If Isaac got in, so can we," Derek crossed his arms, dismissing her.

"But he didn't get through a vault door, did he?" Deaton pointed out, staring hard at Derek.

"We need a plan," Scott said, causing Derek to shake his head.

"How are we gonna come up with a plan to break into a bank vault in less than twenty-four hours?" Derek questioned expectantly.

"Uh, i think someone already did," Stiles called out. All eyed turned to the pale boy as he read aloud, "Beacon Hills First National Bank closes its doors three months after vault robbery. Doesn't say here how it was robbed, but it probably won't take long to find out."

"How long?" Derek barked. Never was the infamous sour wolf satisfied.

"It's the internet, Derek." Stiles sassed but his joke only went so far as he spotted the look on Derek's face. Minutes."

✯☾✯

It did not take them minutes.

In fact, it took the holy trinity quite the opposite. A whole evening and night was spent at Stiles Stilinski's house, cooped up in his room.

Poor, old, Noah Stilinski was the one to step into the aftermath and the bombsite of a room.

Stiles lay face first on the floor among sheets and sheets of crumpled paper that had not been any use to them whatsoever.

A desk chair had been Scott's bed for the night, his head thrown back against the desk and covered in Lizzie's Doritos that had been spilt at such a time, none of the three had been properly conscious.

And finally, Lizzie hung off Stiles' twin bed in her star wars pyjamas, her hair in her face and Stiles' duvet half covering her body.

All the while, a printer was still printing un-needed knowledge and Lizzie's crappy laptop was overheating.

"Guys!"

To Noah's shout, the trio remerged from the land of sleep slightly disorientated.

"I gotta get to work. You three get to school," Noah told them, disappointedly.

"Dad!" Stiles shouted after his father whilst Lizzie and Scott tried they're very best to wake themselves up. "Heather?"

Noah's face fell, knowing how much his son needed the clarity, "No, nothing yet."

Stiles sighed, unsticking a peice of paper from the side of his face, "10 hours and nothing."

"We're gonna find something- Lizzie, what are you doing?" Scott started to reassure the boy but stopped upon spotting the short pixie on the other side of the room.

Lizzie stopped what she was doing, which was holding her left eye open and pouring water on to it, and smiled, "I'm waking myself up."

"Oh."

"Finding something doesn't make Erica any less dead-"

Lizzie froze.

"-or Boyd any less about-to-be-dead..."

"We still have time," Scott pushed, still yet to move from his seat whilst Stiles danced around his bedroom trying to clear every last scrap of paper away.

"Is this whole, like, "remain optimistic in the face of complete and utter disaster"-thing a part of the Be A Better Scott McCall Program?" Stiles asked teasingly.

Scott chuckled bashfully, "Uhm, not if it dosen't work."

"No, it works," Stiles admitted, grimacing, glancing down at the paper in his hand.

After a few seconds, his eyes widened and he sprinted out of the room calling for his dad and thrusting the paper towards Scott.

Lizzie jumped up off the bed, stumbling over a can of coke but desperate to see what Stiles had found so incredible.

It turned out Noah Stilinski knew a whole lot about the situation at the bank and could save them a couple lives.

╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╮
thank you so much for reading
love you all!!