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Step by Step, We'll Get There	By : Sasunarufan13 Category: S through Z > Teen Wolf Views: 4674 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Wolf nor profit of it. Jeff Davis owns it.

Chapter List
- 14
- 15
- 16
Author's note: My life's pretty hectic now, so I still had to finish the chapter today. For future reference: it can happen that a chapter ends up being posted later, but that's because I've been too busy that week then to finish the chapter on time. Just know that I'm working on this story - and other projects - as much as I can; sometimes I just succeed better in making progress than other times.
Warnings: Hm, nothing in particular, I think.
I hope you'll like it!
Chapter 15
Somehow Stiles managed not to give anything away during the entire time he was with Theo. He wished he'd just imagined Cora's scent clinging to that son of a bitch, but no, he would recognise that scent everywhere.
Theo had Cora.
Either him abducting her was for a personal reason, like a vendetta against the Hales – but what kind of vendetta could he have when the only interaction between him and a Hale had happened with Derek and he'd emerged as the 'winner' in that one? Or he was the one conducting the ritual, the one who'd killed those six people and was planning on killing Cora next.
Stiles didn't know which option scared him the most. He couldn't just leave it like that, however. If Theo had Cora, no matter the reason, he needed to save her. The only problem was: how? He should go to his dad with the information, he knew, even if the information was nothing more than the barest hint of a scent, but what after that? They could ask for a warrant to search Theo's house, but what if she wasn't there? What if he'd hidden her somewhere else?
Somehow he very much doubted Theo would just spill the beans if he was interrogated by the police. They couldn't hold him indefinitely, especially when he refused to talk. They would need solid evidence for that, but they would have to find that first. Once Theo was free again, Stiles feared what he would do next. He'd been more than clear what would happen if Stiles went against him again. The memory of tires screaming and steel being crushed was still too fresh and Stiles opened his eyes with a shudder, staring at his laptop screen.
After Theo had dropped him off at his home, he'd immediately called Erica to give him a ride to her place. She'd been understandably confused, considering he'd left her place with his car and had growled when he'd explained what had happened. She'd offered to drive him to his car in the morning, so that he could pick it up.
He'd worry about something happening to his precious Jeep, but well, even he wasn't blinded enough by adoration to know that his car was considered junk in the eyes of other people. His Jeep would be safe at the edge of the forest and while she might act up in the morning when he started her, he knew he didn't have to worry about anyone vandalising her.
So here he was now in the room which he'd made his own over the course of a couple of weeks, trying to figure out what he could do to save Cora. He couldn't risk his dad's life before he had any actual solid evidence as to where Theo had hidden her. Without that, Theo wouldn't be locked up for long and he wasn't ready yet to find out what would happen when Theo truly got pissed off.
The only thing he could do at this point, he figured, was check Theo's house first. Wherever he'd hidden her, it was a place he'd visited before coming to pick him up, so it stood to reason that his house could be the place where Cora was kept. He knew the address and could drive to it anytime he wanted, but how would he explain his presence? He could ask Theo whether they could hang out at his place, he supposed, but that wouldn't really give him any leeway to inspect the rooms. Theo would start asking questions if Stiles insisted on looking through each room.
The only way to search his house was without the Alpha being present, but that was also a huge risk to take. He didn't know that bastard's schedule, couldn't even guess what he was up to when he didn't insist on seeing Stiles – well, aside from apparently murdering people and setting up a ritual, of course. But Stiles didn't think that the ritual filled up all his time, so that still gave him quite some time that would either have him out of the house or stay at home.
He couldn't risk going into Theo's home, only for the man to show up unexpected. He might be excelling in the art of bullshitting, but he doubted he'd be able to explain his presence without Theo getting suspicious.
Fuck, what could he do? In order for the police to detain him, they needed solid evidence – Cora herself alive preferably – and to get that solid evidence, the house needed to be checked first, just in case she was there. No real evidence and Theo would walk free.
If he could just be sure that he could walk around the house freely for at least an hour if not more, without worrying that Theo would come home, that'd be great. The problem was: how to assure himself of that safe timeframe? Something would need to keep Theo occupied for at least a while, but what could possibly –
Wait. There was a way to ensure that Theo would be detained for a while, but … Did he really want to drag her into this? Gnawing at his lower lip, he glanced at his phone, which was resting right next to him on the bed. He wanted to keep his friends out of this whole mess with Theo, because they definitely didn't serve being tangled up in this shit. She was his only chance, however, at actually having a shot to search through Theo's house without the Alpha interrupting him.
"Shit, don't have much choice," he hissed and snatched his phone from the mattress, scrolling through his contacts to find her name.
She picked up at the second ring. "This better be good, Stiles, because I was just about to get into a nice, relaxing bath," Lydia warned him primly.
"Does helping me find Cora sound good enough?"
That got her attention. "You know where she is?" she asked urgently; the hint of a growl leaving her voice.
"I've got a strong suspicion, yes," he admitted, running a hand through his hair. "But I need to confirm that first before I can tell my dad and I need your help with that."
"My legal or illegal help?" she inquired, not sounding particularly bothered by the latter option, which should probably be a bit concerning, but he couldn't bring himself to care about that now.
"You'd be doing the legal part of the plan," he said and cleared his throat. "Although, of course, it's not like my part will be that highly illegal, you know. Just a bit on the illegal side. Like just a smidgen."
"Just don't get caught."
"That's actually why I need your help," he said, chuckling weakly.
She paused. "Tell me your plan. The whole plan," she added warningly.
"I will, but I need you to just be quiet and listen, all right?" he said, taking a deep breath.
"I'm not going to like whatever you're going to tell me, huh?" she said quietly.
"No, you probably won't. Which is why I need you to not to do anything stupid," he warned her. Out of the two of them, he was the more impulsive one, yes, but he was worried how she'd react once he told her of his suspicions. As much as he would like to see her raise hell – and by god, that would be a glorious sight to behold, he was sure – he didn't want her to be in danger.
If he could have left her out of this, he would have, but he didn't have much choice.
"When have I ever done anything stupid?" she shot back and he could imagine her arching her eyebrow in that condescending way of hers that never failed to make the recipient of it feel like a worthless bug.
"Never, but what I'm going to tell you is pretty bad," he said and closed his laptop, shoving it to the end of the bed for now.
"I promise not to do anything stupid," she said impatiently. "Now tell me: where do you think Cora is, what do you need me to do, and how bad is it overall."
"I think Theo has her."
His confession was met with silence. If he couldn't hear her soft breathing on the other end of the phone, he would have thought she'd disappeared. She said nothing for a moment and uncomfortably he shifted around until he ended up with his back braced against the wall and the sheets twisted around his ankles.
"Why do you think that?" Her voice was flat, almost monotone even.
"He took me out for bowling tonight and when he – got close enough," he couldn't bring himself to say 'kiss', because the memory of it alone was enough to leave an awful taste behind and made him want to brush his teeth all over again, "I could smell Cora on him. Her scent wasn't that strong, more like a faint whiff even, but it's something - "
"We need to look into, I agree," she said clipped. "You said you needed my help; where do you think he's keeping Cora?"
"My best guess at this moment is his house," he answered, sucking his lower lip between his teeth for a few seconds. "I want to go in there and search for her or at least try to see if I can find anything that would lead us to her whereabouts."
"And you need me to distract that son of a bitch," she concluded briskly.
"Yeah, I hate to ask this of you, but I don't know his schedule and I'd rather not be caught while searching through his home," he said sourly.
"You getting caught would definitely not be a good outcome," she said primly. "How much time do you need?"
"At least one hour, two if you can manage it," he said slowly, rapping his fingers against his knee. He hadn't exactly thought about how much time he would need, but a window of two hours max should be enough, shouldn't it? "You think you can give me that?"
"Of course I can, leave that up to me," she said decisively. "Have you told your dad about this?"
"No," he admitted begrudgingly. "He'd want to arrest Theo as soon as possible and while I would be absolutely jumping in joy if that happened, they can't hold him for long if they don't have any solid proof that he has Cora."
"You think he's the one conducting those rituals? That that's why he needs Cora?" she questioned quietly.
He swallowed and licked his lips. "I think that if he has Cora, there's a strong possibility he's the killer the police has been searching for months now, yeah."
"If he's the murderer, then going into his house could be very dangerous, Stiles."
"I know, but do you have any other idea how to get proof of his involvement with Cora's abduction?" he snapped, lashing out harsher than he intended to. "Because if so, I'm all ears! If we want to see him behind bars, we need some serious proof and just a whiff of scent won't be enough. Especially not if she isn't even in his house! Then we're back to square one and he'll do – " he cut himself off before he could reveal more than he had planned on.
He wasn't ready yet to tell her that Theo had been the one to mess with his suppressants and had even assaulted him during his forced heat. Didn't want to confess that Theo would be forcing him to continue their 'relationship' unless he wanted something bad to happen to his family and friends if Stiles couldn't find something to strike against him safely.
If he told her all that, she'd fly into a fury and would probably try to kill Theo. She'd bring herself into danger because of him and he couldn't allow that to happen. All he needed to do was find Cora or at least a clue as to where she could be hidden and that would end everything.
Theo would be gone, he'd be free, Cora would be safe and he could finally live his life like he wanted to: studying at university, start a relationship with Derek and just be happy in general.
He could forget all the shit that had happened the past couple of months or at least ignore it hard enough that he wouldn't think about it anymore. Ignoring something until it eventually went away – that was his personal motto.
"I can guarantee you one hour. I'm going to try to give you two, but I can't promise that," she said brusquely. "And I need you to keep your phone with you at all times. When I call you, you need to get the hell out of that house, no matter what you found, you understand me? Immediately, Stiles. I mean it. I don't want to tell your dad why you were at the house of a murderer and didn't leave despite me telling you so!"
"I swear I'll leave the second you call me," he promised.
"No matter what you find?"
"No matter what I find. You call, I'm out of there, I promise," he said solemnly. "You've got an hour in mind that you're calling him away? I'll go to his house by that hour then, so that I won't waste too much time."
"Be there by ten; I'll make sure he leaves then. And Stiles, don't do anything stupid." With that clipped remark she ended the call.
He lowered his phone with a wince, getting the feeling that he would get an earful from her at a later date. She had agreed to help him without too much fuss, but he didn't think she would just let it go like this. That wouldn't be her, especially not when it concerned something as serious as this.
That was something to be concerned about in the future, though. For now he would just worry about getting into Theo's house without the man knowing about it.
Most of all, though, he worried about what exactly he was going to find there.
Theo lived rather secluded at the edge of the town with his small garden bordering against the woods. Stiles considered that to be some kind of lucky break, because it allowed him to remain hidden behind the trees while he waited for Lydia to get Theo out of his house. As he waited there, keeping an eye on the driveway next to the house, he started gnawing at a hangnail on his thumb.
For the umpteenth time this morning he wondered whether he shouldn't call his dad after all, tell him his suspicions and leave it up to him. Searching through the house of a suspected abductor slash killer was definitely more the work of the police than of a future university student. Dad would believe him, he was sure. He'd believed his explanation about the ritual and how Cora might tie into that, so he would believe him about Theo too.
What if they didn't find anything in the house, though? Theo wasn't stupid; he'd know who'd sent the police after him. Stiles still had yet to figure out how Theo had managed to land his dad in an accident – an accomplice most likely, but that accomplice still hadn't been found – so he most definitely didn't want to find out what Theo was capable of doing if the police tried to detain him without actually having real proof.
So in the end it would be up to him to gather the necessary evidence to get that sleezy bastard thrown behind bars.
Fuck, let there be something in this house …
He'd tried sniffing the air when he had just arrived, to see whether he could pick up Cora's scent here, but all he could smell were the regular scents of the woods, the animals wandering through the trees like ghosts and the chemical scent of the asphalt after it had rained last night. The lack of scent didn't mean anything of course. He could have brought her into the house from the street side and scents never lasted that long anyway. If she'd been inside this entire time, naturally her scent would have faded away already.
That meant he would definitely have to get inside the house, though, if he wanted to find even the slightest clue as to where she could be right now.
At exactly ten o'clock – he checked his phone – Theo appeared in the driveway, heading to his car. Even with the distance between them, Stiles saw he looked bemused as he slid behind the wheel. Whatever Lydia had told him, it had been convincing enough to get him out of the house.
Yes, I knew I could count on you!, he thought, a sliver of excitement slithering through his body as he waited impatiently for Theo to leave.
When the sound of the car started fading away, he shot out of the woods and hurried to the back door. At most he would have one hour to search the house from top to bottom so he would have to make it count.
Praying that Theo hadn't installed any alarms, he got an old hairpin out of his pocket and started to work quickly on the lock after trying the doorknob. Obviously Theo would lock his doors, especially if he had something to hide, but Stiles wasn't a sheriff's son for nothing and it only took him thirty seconds to unlock the door and slip inside.
He ended up in a small kitchen and a quick look around told him he wouldn't find much here. There were some notes pinned on a bulletin board, but those turned out to be nothing but phone numbers of some local take out places and a grocery list.
Dismissing the kitchen he walked into the short hallway, opening the first door he encountered. That turned out to lead to a simple broom closet with regular cleaning supplies. It didn't really look like a place where one could hide somebody, so he closed that door and went on to the next one.
That door opened into a living room with some bookcases, a large television, two armchairs and a small couch. The books were just some sci-fi novels, with a couple of historic dramas thrown into the collection; nothing indiscriminating there. A look underneath the dark blue rug revealed no hidden ledges. He went through the small stack of magazines, but didn't expect anything from that; he doubted Theo would put information about rituals or his victims between some magazines about games and nature inspired ones.
The living room being a bust as well, he left it and closed the door again, making sure everything was in place like before. There was another door a couple of feet in front of the staircase but it had a complicated lock and when he tried the door knob, it didn't budge. He stood there for a few seconds, wavering and biting his lip. The presence of the extra lock seemed to indicate that there was something important there – maybe even Cora?
Should he chance wasting time on trying to open the door instead of checking the other floors? A part of him believed that this door hid something that could lead to Theo being busted, but … What if he was wrong? What if he wasted time trying to open the damn lock when upstairs the actual proof was hidden?
"Shit," he hissed quietly, glaring at the door. He felt torn, a part of him wanting to work on the lock here while another part told him it would be smarter to check upstairs first.
Checking the time he had around forty minutes left of the first hour. Depending on the amount of rooms upstairs that would either be enough to go back to this door or it wouldn't be. Was he going to risk …
Fuck it. Swiftly he turned around and carefully ascended the stairs, the wood releasing the occasional soft creak underneath his weight. He would do a quick but thorough check upstairs and then he'd hurry back to that door and see if he could pick the lock. That way he'd cover all his bases.
As he set foot on the landing, he couldn't supress a wave of unease which washed over him all of a sudden. There was just something about how silent the house was that set his teeth on edge and made him have the ridiculous urge to start shouting and talking loudly to himself just to fill up the space with some noise. There was the soft humming that all electric stuff gave off, of course, but that was about it. The heavy silence seemed to press down on him as he went from the bathroom to a plain bedroom to a study.
Theo's laptop was on the desk here, but of course it was password protected and he didn't have the time to start guessing it. For a few seconds he debated about calling Danny, but one, he was already involving Lydia in this, no need to involve even more people and two, even if Danny would be willing to come over, that would take him far too long. Time that Stiles didn't really have right now.
So even though there was a good chance there was something interesting saved on that laptop, he left it behind, not wanting to lose any more time than he already had. If he found some kind of proof, dad could get a warrant for that laptop anyway.
There wasn't any sort of attic so with the upper floor examined completely – and finding absolutely nothing, because naturally that was his shit luck – he went downstairs again, frustration brewing in him.
His only chance at finding real proof was behind the door with the lock and he had exactly, he pulled out his phone again, thirteen minutes to pick the lock and examine whatever was in there before his guaranteed hour would be over. Thirteen minutes wasn't a lot when he studied the heavy lock more carefully and realised to his great frustration that it would take him several minutes to figure out how to pick the lock – if he even managed to pick it.
Lydia had promised she'd try to keep Theo there for two hours, but he couldn't allow himself to count on that. When she called, he needed to get out of here immediately; she would kill him if he didn't, he was sure.
So how was he going to do this? Take a leap and try to pick the lock anyway? It was the only room in the house he hadn't searched yet and also the only one which had such a heavy lock on the door. That had to mean something, didn't it? Whatever was in there, Theo considered it serious enough to keep it locked up tightly.
Nodding to himself, he grabbed the locket and started working on it carefully with the pin, bending it into different shapes to see which one would fit the best. He hadn't found any keys laying around the house, so unless Theo had hidden them very well, he must kept all his keys with him at all times. Which was very fucking frustrating because that damn lock wasn't giving in, no matter what he tried.
Sweat started to prickle the back of his neck as the seconds ticked by and he still didn't get closer to picking the lock. He couldn't pick up any sounds from behind the door either, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. Most rooms were soundproofed, because of their super hearing; most people weren't interested in knowing what the other person was doing or saying at all times in their home.
At this moment, though, Stiles cursed the soundproofing companies to hell and back. Without them, he might actually have been able to discern whether someone was stuck behind this door.
"Fuck this all to hell!" he snarled, letting the lock drop back loudly against the door when he released it. Running his hands through his hair, he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, forcing himself to take steady breaths. Losing it now wouldn't help him at all.
The lock refused to budge, though, so what was he going to do now? He couldn't leave this place without at least knowing what was behind this door. What if Cora was indeed there? He'd forever hate himself for having been so close, but not having been able to make any real difference for her.
What could he do, though? The lock remained firmly on the door, the pin didn't work, there were no keys inside the house …
How much time did he even have left? The numbers on his phone had his stomach doing a nasty flip: four minutes of the initial first hour.
Shit.
If he only had four minutes left, what else could he do? Was there maybe another way to get into the room aside from the padlocked door? There was a staircase on one side and no other rooms on the other side of the door, so he couldn't bank on another door connecting this room with another one. So that option was out.
What else … His head shot up and he narrowed his eyes when he thought about the outside of the house. When he'd arrived here, he had made a large circle around the building, taking in where the windows where and how many doors led outside, just in case he was forced to make a quick getaway. He remembered seeing a small window near the ground, thinking it must lead to some kind of basement. Where exactly was that window again?
He closed his eyes and stood completely still, recalling the layout of the house. He'd been looking at the backdoor before he'd gone to the right of it. He'd spotted one window on the upper floor and when he'd looked down, he'd seen the smaller window at ground level. The window upstairs had turned out to be one in the study and the study was right –
Above the room with the locked door.
His eyes snapped open and he practically raced out of the house, barely remembering to close the door behind him. He practically skidded on the ground when he rounded the corner, kicking up dirt, nary keeping himself from slipping and falling down.
There!
Panting, he stopped right in front of the small window and stared down at it; his heartbeat loud in his ears. He hadn't thought of looking inside when he'd been here earlier, figuring he would search the room when he got into the house. The one time he should have given in to his curiosity …
Well, here goes nothing, he thought, his heart pounding as he lowered himself down, lying flat on his stomach. He crawled closer to the window and pressed his face against it, peering inside.
The room was rather dark, but the daylight creeping inside allowed him to see a couple of steps of a staircase – probably the one that led to the door – a sturdy table with a bunch of tools on top of it and …
A pair of brown eyes – darker than his own – met his before they flashed golden. They belonged to a figure mostly hidden in the shadows but he had no issues seeing the heavy shackles acting as a restraint.
Gold flashed again in fear and he felt faint all of a sudden.
He'd found Cora.
AN2: Does this count as a cliffhanger? I honestly don't know *throws hands up*
Please leave your thoughts behind in a review; should you spot any mistakes, please point them out to me.
I hope to see you all back in the next chapter! Shit's about to go down in that one *hums*
Cuddles
Melissa
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