Author's note: Not beta'd.

Disclaimer: I own nothing relevant.

Waking up was nothing like trying to swim ashore through an ocean of mud. He woke up with a start, only his body wasn't quite as fast, which resulted in him rolling over to the side, gasping and blinking frantically to make the stars he was seeing disappear, and trying to make his tingling limbs do what he wanted them to (stand up, get out, kill someone).

A few heartbeats later, he shook his head and stood up on shaky legs. Reached out to steady himself on the bloody glass next to him, and at the same time as it registered that there was blood on the glass, he noticed that the cells in front of him were empty. No Stiles. No Scott. And, a quick look over his shoulder revealed that Jackson was also gone.

Panic crept up his spine and set up camp in his throat, when he dragged his hand over the bloody glass and realized that the blood was on the other side; in Stiles' cell. There was a lot of it. Smeared on the glass, then splattered over the floor, leading to the door. The door, which was ajar.

The door in Scott's cell was also partly open.

Derek's mind whited out for a second, and before he was even aware of it, he was at the door in his own cell, ripping it open with clawed hands – and startling in surprise when it was almost ripped off its invisible hinges with the force he used.

He was … free? What was going on?

He had expected a hallway, with easy access to the other cells, but this was nothing like that. He stood in the doorway, in a small closet-like room with a staircase only two steps away from the door. Shelves lined one wall, but he didn't care; the stairs were the way out of here.

The stairway ended in a deserted corridor, kind of like the one he had been expecting. The corridor was fully lit and lined with doors, all of which were open – some halfway to being ripped apart. There was blood leading from the door next to him and down the corridor, but Derek suddenly didn't really mind, because it didn't smell like Stiles' blood.

Still, he followed the trail. Everything was silent – too silent – and the only thing he heard was the hum of the electricity in the walls and the fluorescent lights overhead. No heartbeats, no-one breathing. It was way better than being in a cell, though.

Being out of the cell meant that he was bombarded with smells that he hadn't felt in a long time; smells of other people. It made him growl, though, because they were all unfamiliar to him. He was on high alert when he rounded a corner and saw that the blood trail ended at a pair of closed elevator doors. He pressed the button to open the doors and noticed absentmindedly that he was still sporting claws.

The soft ding of the elevator when the doors opened made the sight in front of him even more unreal, and for a second he wondered if he was experiencing some kind of drugged hallucination.

The elevator looked like a slaughterhouse. Two white-clad bodies were lying face-down on the floor, in a pool of their own blood. Only a few corners of their clothes were still white; the rest was red – red like half the surfaces of the elevator. Even a big part of the ceiling was covered in (and still dripping) blood.

Derek knew he should probably have been horrified. By the sight of two dead bodies, by the overwhelming smell of blood, by all that he'd been through. But something in him, something that had been thirsting for blood, just settled down somewhat at the sight of it, content for the time being. So he simply stared at the mess for a couple of seconds, and then he stepped into the elevator and pressed the only button there was. Mindful of not touching the bodies, he placed himself in the middle of the elevator, facing the door. Not caring that his bare feet were standing on a floor covered with still warm blood.

He wiggled his toes and resisted a strong urge to hum to himself as the elevator moved upwards.

Another soft and friendly ding, and the elevator doors opened to the sight of another dead body, this one wearing a blood-soaked suit. Derek barely glanced at it, focusing instead on the bloody footprints – two sets, from bare feet – that were leading down the hall. He followed them; when he glanced back he saw that he had left his own trail. He wasn't worried, though. If anyone came after him, they'd die, too.

It was strangely calming, in the surreal situation he was in, to imagine murder in the near future, and a small part of him was worried that he'd gone insane. The larger part of him didn't particularly care either way.

The other footprints were further apart from each other, and some were blurry as if the person leaving them had been in a hurry. Derek didn't feel any need to rush though. He dimly realized that perhaps he should speed things up since he didn't know what was going on, but he took his time. There were a few doors lining the hallway, doors that the other people had ran past. Derek opened every single one of them.

A lab, empty.

Another lab, also empty.

A supply room, empty.

A bathroom, empty.

Another lab, smaller than the others. Also empty.

An office. Derek inhaled sharply. It wasn't the sight of anything unusual that made him gasp, because it was an ordinary office with a desk and two chairs and a computer and some shelves and a window with ugly curtains. It was the sight of the window – Derek walked towards it and looked out. He saw trees in the dim light outside, he saw gravel, he saw the back part of a parked car. Slowly, he put his hand on the glass, and pushed on it slightly. A crack appeared, and he grinned.

Freedom.

He didn't break the window – knowing that he could was enough. He had a way out of here. First, though, he needed to find –

He heard something, and was instantly alert. Footsteps, coming closer. He slid to the door of the office and pressed his body to the wall. Someone breathing; someone's heartbeats, the sound of fabric against fabric.

Crouching down, eyes flashing and claws and fangs ready to tear into whoever came at him, Derek leapt out into the hallway and roared. Jackson, because of course it was Jackson skidding to a halt there, hissed (were his hands claws, too?) and said, quite unnecessary:

"It's me."

He straightened up, and seemingly uncaring of Derek being wolfed-out, he nodded towards where he came from.

"We need you."

He turned and started walking back, without a hint of hesitation; as if he knew that Derek would follow. And somehow, this was what got to Derek and made him realize that yes, this was really happening. It was not just a hallucination – they were really out of their cells, those people were really dead, and his feet were really covered with other people's blood – because Jackson's arrogant assumption that he would just follow, without question, was so Jackson, and nothing he could hallucinate. It had to be real.

"What's going on?" Derek asked, and there was a pleased feeling in his chest when Jackson twitched at the sound of his voice and looked over his shoulder at him.

"It's Stiles." The pleased feeling disappeared. "He … We found him."

Cold dread settled in Derek's stomach as he was assaulted with the memories of what he'd seen just before he'd passed out; Stiles, unmoving and not breathing, face lax, unseeing eyes staring straight ahead. Dead to the world, dead to … Dead.

"-erek. Derek."

A hand on his shoulder, and his growl (because apparently he was growling) turned into a snarl as he swiped at the owner of the hand with a clawed hand. Jackson jumped away before he got clawed, and glared at him.

"Listen, Derek!"

Derek waited. Jackson said nothing. Derek's eyebrows drew together, and Jackson raised his.

"Listen!"

Derek suddenly realized what Jackson meant, when he heard a voice in the distance. Scott's voice. Scott's voice, saying:

"Hey Stiles, hey, hey … it's okay, it's gonna be okay, Stiles, come on …"

And Derek was running. He didn't know what he expected to see when he rounded a corner and jumped over a door that had been ripped off the frame and thrown to the floor – but it wasn't this.

This, being what had to be a break room, with four people in it. A woman, lying on the kitchen counter with a snapped neck. A man, in a still-growing pool of blood by an overturned table. Scott, crouched low and not even looking up when Derek entered, reaching out with his hand towards the corner, where …

what

… Stiles. Stiles was in the corner, hunched in on himself and shaking his head. He was holding his head, not looking up, and his hands and arms – most of him, actually – were covered in blood.

Derek let out a loud breath – in relief to see Stiles alive or in shock of seeing the blood, he couldn't tell. It made Scott glance back and give him a warning glare, and growl. Or, wait. The growling wasn't coming from Scott.

Derek could feel Jackson's hand on his shoulder again, holding him back when he made to take a step forward, but this time he didn't shake it off. Instead he watched as Scott turned back towards Stiles, and inched a little bit closer, hands in front of him and unthreatening.

And then Stiles looked up.

Derek couldn't help gasping. Stiles eyes were yellow, and he snarled to show off fangs, and when Scott didn't halt his slow approach, Stiles swiped out his hand – which had claws on it – and would have clawed Scott's face off, if Scott hadn't had the presence of mind to back up at the last second.

For a few moments, no one moved.

Derek was back to feeling like this had to be a dream, or a hallucination, or … whatever, just not real. This couldn't be real. Stiles wasn't a werewolf, Stiles was human, Stiles was …

Actually, Stiles still looked human, apart from the claws and the fangs and the eyes. And when he looked closer, he saw that the eyes were actually not quite like a werewolf's; there was something off, something like …

He surreptitiously glanced to his side, where Jackson stood.

Something like the slitted pupils that Jackson had when he was transformed.

But the fangs were werewolf, and the claws were werewolf … and the rest of it? The rest of it was just Stiles, who had drawn himself into the corner again, with a clawed hand out, warning Scott not to come any closer.

Derek thought fuck it, and took a step closer. "Stiles?"

His voice was louder than Scott's had been, and he winced. Stiles, though, didn't – but he focused his (unnervingly yellow) eyes on Derek and hissed.

Derek paused. And then he snorted out a laugh.

Jackson and Scott stared at him as if he'd put on a tutu and declared that he was a pineapple. That made him snort again, and he put a hand over his mouth and closed his eyes for a second.

"Sorry, sorry … it's just …" A very uncharacteristic and slightly distressed giggle. "It's been a weird couple of days."

He shook his head slowly and decided to just roll with it. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and opened his eyes, ready to deal with whatever this was … and was met with the unlikely sight of Stiles – still with fangs and claws and freaky lizard eyes – smiling.

Not a big smile, and kind of shaky, but a smile nonetheless. A second later:

"Tell me about it."

Scott's head whirled around and he met Stiles' eyes, and a second later he had thrown himself at his friend. Derek took a step forward to stop him, and Jackson made a noise of protest, but Scott just threw his arms around Stiles and held on while burying his face in the crook of Stiles' neck. When Stiles didn't bite his face off or put his hand through his chest, Derek relaxed.

A few seconds passed in which no one moved, and then the moment was – as usual – ruined by Jackson:

"Okay, we get it, you're gay for each other – get a room."

Scott (and Stiles, which – weird) turned to Jackson and growled, but it was half-hearted and honestly the most normal thing to happen in a while, so Derek just lifted an eyebrow.

"Stiles", he said. "What happened?"

He gestured around himself in the little room, managing to encompass everything from the overturned table and the dead bodies, to the whole compound. Stiles hissed and made a face, and gently pulled himself out of Scott's embrace. Scott settled down next to him, though, their shoulders bumping together, and Stiles smiled a little at him before he met Derek's eyes and said:

"I'm not sorry. About them."

He jutted his chin out at the bodies, but his voice was unsteady and he didn't look at them.

"I am", said Derek and watched Stiles flinch. "I'm sorry that I didn't get to kill them myself."

Stiles relaxed into Scott's shoulder again, and his eyes seemed less yellow. Derek asked again:

"What happened?"

Stiles had looked down, and was watching his claws slowly retract into normal fingers, and he seemed fascinated by it, so Derek turned his questioning eyes to Scott, who shrugged and said:

"I woke up, and there was blood in Stiles' cell. I panicked, and went for the door, which was open … and I heard a scream, so I ran up those stairs, right? And, um, there was blood and the elevator was closing and … Well, I had to wait for it, 'cause there were no stairs. I checked. Anyway, Jackson showed up, and we took the elevator, which was … you know."

"Gory", Jackson supplied. Scott nodded and continued:

"We got up here, and heard … someone … and that led us here, where we found Stiles and … well, he wasn't himself at the moment –"

Stiles snorted.

"– and he didn't seem to recognize us, so we figured we'd go and find you."

"I volunteered", Jackson added.

"And here we are", Scott finished with a shrug.

That didn't clear things up, and Derek frowned. "Stiles …"

Stiles made a face. "I don't know! I …"

He kept staring at his hands, now back to normal (although still red with blood) while he continued:

"They took me from the cell and strapped me to a table. Gave me a few injections, I don't know what was in them but my guess? Some part of you guys, which … ew. Anyway, there was … I don't remember, I was pretty fuzzy there for a while. I know I yelled at them but then I was on the floor and just yelling, and it …"

His voice got quiet. "… it hurt."

Derek and Scott glanced at each other, both remembering Stiles' screams.

"Um, so I woke up", Stiles continued, "and there were people there and everything hurt so badly and I didn't want them to touch me so I … I killed them."

He stared straight ahead, and nothing showed on his face. "They got out through the door and tried to do something … maybe lock it, or call of help or something, but I kinda ripped the thing from the wall and. I killed two of them there. Another one was injured, but he ran up the stairs. I followed. He met someone else up there, they ran for the … for the elevator. I caught up. And, the elevator … well, you saw."

"Yeah."

"Anyway, there were two people outside the elevator. One got away. I followed her. It was that one."

He pointed at the dead woman without looking at her.

"And then you guys showed up."

His smile was brittle, and he was shaking. Derek prepared to say something soothing, but Stiles spoke again:

"The funny thing is that I was kind of aware of what I was doing. Sure, I mean, I went all grrr like you guys do, and everything fucking hurt and I was scared shitless, but I was also so angry and I meant to go after them, I think. I didn't …"

He glanced over at Scott, and said, apologetically: "I'm not sorry. I'm sorry."

Jackson huffed beside Derek. "That doesn't even make sense. And even if it did, do you think we could postpone this until we've out of here? We are still in the same building we were held captive in, you know."

Derek glanced around. The clock on the wall showed 4.45. Probably in the morning, judging from the lack of people around. He squared his shoulders. Finally, something that could be done.

"He's right. We should get out of here. There's a car outside, we could –"

"Wait." Stiles' voice. He stood up from the corner, and Scott followed his example. "We have to destroy this place. Like, really."

"What? Stiles, we don't have time, we have to get out of here … We can call the …"

Scott trailed off when he realized that maybe there wasn't anyone they could call. Stiles shook his head and tried to wipe his bloody hands on his pants. "No, you don't get it. They have a ton of research and shit. Samples of, I don't even know what. They've done this before, it just hasn't worked before. That woman, she was a human just like me, but she wasn't the first, um, human. You guysweren't the first non-humans."

Suddenly frantic, as he couldn't get the blood off, he went for the door. "We have to … stop them. We have to destroy them, make sure they can't do this again. We have to … we have to!"

Jackson, Derek and Scott looked at each other. Then Derek sighed, because yeah, why the hell not? "Right. Okay. Um, Jackson, could you go outside and find the car? Bring it to the exit, then keep watch. If anyone shows up, stop them."

Fully expecting Jackson to refuse or make a scathing comment, he was surprised when Jackson just nodded. Encouraged by this, he turned to Scott:

"Go with Stiles. Check the labs and offices on this floor. Take what you think may be important, destroy what you can. If anyone shows up …"

He didn't have to tell them; Scott nodded.

"I'm checking the cells."

Derek went with Scott and Stiles through the corridor on the floor they were at. There were no stairs leading up or down, and there was only one exit, right outside the break room. They checked all doors, and all spaces they could find. When they found no other humans, Derek left them for the elevator.

This time, he actually cringed at the bloody mess, and he had to force himself to get in. Trying not to think about Stiles doing this, and consequently what had been done to him to make him do it, he resolutely stared at the elevator doors until they opened.

It was uncomfortable to know for sure that he was below ground, and wouldn't find any windows anywhere. It was even more uncomfortable to start checking the doors of this floor.

Down one set of stairs, he found the entrance to what had been Stiles' cell, with two dead bodies – one crumpled against the wall, and another halfway up the stairs. He didn't have to go all the way down to know that they were dead; he couldn't hear any heartbeats, but he went anyway. Looked into the cell. It looked identical with the one he had been in, but it smelled differently, and there was blood on the floor and the glass. He didn't go inside.

The other cells, and the stairs leading down to them, were empty. The ones after Jackson's smelled new; unused, or scrubbed clean. They filled him with discomfort, and he ripped the locks from the doors so that the doors couldn't be closed properly. It wouldn't matter, but it made him feel a little better.

At the further end of the hall, there were more doors. One of them led to a … lab? No, not a lab. But a room, filled with equipment that made Derek's blood run cold. There was a metal table in the middle of a room, a chair in one end, and both of them had leather straps, and Derek realized that this was where Stiles had been taken. There was a whole lot of medical equipment, and some kind of refrigerators filled with what must have been the samples Stiles were talking about. In each corner of the room, by the ceiling, there were the same kind of cameras that had been in the cells. Derek shuddered.

The next room was worse. It was … a morgue. Derek only opened one of the containers, to find the body of a man in his 40s, and was hit with a realization; people were dead because of what had happened here. They could have ended up dead. Stiles almost did.

He didn't need to know how many there were. He didn't need more nightmares, and besides, they were short on time, so he quickly left the room.

The last room was kind of like an office, but with several screens (showing the cells, the labs, the hallways, the outside…) on one side and filing cabinets on the other. In a corner was a metal cabinet that, when opened, revealed electronics. Derek wasn't the most technical guy out there, but he ripped out the hard drives and put them away by the door, before he took out his frustration and anger on everything else in sight.

He left the room in shambles.

When he got up on the second floor, with his arms full of hard drives and files, Jackson met him and grinned.

"What?"

"I brought presents. There's two more by the door."

He held up his hands, which each held a metal jerry can.

The cans, which he had found under the same roof where he found the cars (plural, although Derek had only seen one), contained gasoline, and while they probably weren't enough to burn the whole place down, they were at least enough to make some serious damage. Derek stopped Scott in the corridor when he passed.

"You guys almost done?"

"Yeah, I mean … we took the computers and stuff, so …"

"Good. Take the cans by the door, pour it over everything that looks important. Then get ready to leave. Jackson, you're with me."

Once again, Derek went down in the elevator, this time with Jackson by his side. Neither of them spoke, but when Derek dragged one of the bodies from the elevator, Jackson bent down to grab the other.

They put a body in each of the cells they had been in. Four bodies, four cells. Then they each took a jerry can and went to work. Gasoline on the bodies, up the stairs and into the hallway. Derek went into the lab – he'd seen some canisters in there with a familiar warning label on them – and he took great care in pouring the contents over everything in the room. Before they went back to the elevator, they did the same to the last room in the hallway. Neither of them went inside the morgue, though.

Back in the elevator, Derek had a second to wonder how they were going to light it when Jackson fished a lighter out from his pocket. At Derek's raised eyebrow, he explained:

"The woman in the break room. She was a smoker."

They got into the elevator, and Jackson bent down towards the floor. He had barely set fire to the puddle on the floor before Derek pushed the elevator's button. The last thing they saw before the doors closed was the flames that spread along the corridor.

Derek was half worried that the elevator would stop – if it did, they were dead. But wonder of wonders, they reached the top, and when the doors opened, Jackson ran smack into Stiles.

"Okay, hurry, hurry!" Derek said and turned them both around. "Light it up!"

"Where?" Jackson asked, and Stiles pointed.

Scott and Stiles had put the gasoline mainly in the labs, and Jackson lit them on fire as they hurried out. Suddenly a loud boom sounded somewhere beneath them, and the whole building shook.

"Out, out, out!" Derek chanted and pushed them down the hall. Scott was waiting outside, the car they'd taken already running. They jumped in, and Scott drove off before they had even closed the doors.

There was only one road, and it was bumpy, especially since Scott wasn't going slow. It was maybe ten minutes later – during which no one spoke a word – that they came out on a road with asphalt. Scott didn't hesitate, just turned the car towards the left, and kept driving.

Maybe twenty minutes had passed before Derek felt safe enough to relax a fraction. They hadn't met a single car so far, and they hadn't seen a single building. He looked around the car. He was seated in the back with Jackson, and Stiles was sitting in the front with Scott. They all looked … well, weary, which wasn't a surprise. And tense. So, so tense.

He looked back, and saw that the back of the car was full of things they had taken from the place they had hopefully destroyed for good. He sighed loudly and put his hands over his face.

That seemed to be the signal that it was okay to start talking, because Scott said:

"Wow, guys. That was … Wow. I can't believe we did that. I can't believe that happened to us. This is so weird."

"This is fucked up, you mean", Jackson said with a waver in his voice. Derek glanced over. Jackson's eyes were red-rimmed and he blinked several times. Derek looked away, and found that he himself was shaking a little, and couldn't stop.

"Yeah", he said. "Fucked up."

Stiles made a choked sound from the front seat, and they all turned to look at him. Scott's eyes widened, and he pulled the car over to the side of the road. As soon as they'd stopped, he was out of the driver's seat and ran around the car to open the door on Stiles' side.

"Stiles? Stiles? It's okay, Stiles, it's okay …"

Derek also exited the car, and pulled Jackson with him. He went to the passenger side, where he found Scott sitting on the ground, holding a shivering Stiles, whose eyes were back to yellow. Stiles watched his hand, where claws emerged and retracted, emerged and retracted, and the sound he made was half hysterical laughter, half sobs.

Derek nudged Scott with his foot. When Scott looked up, he motioned back to the car.

"We need to keep going. Take the backseat. I'll drive."

It felt good to be in the driver's seat. It was almost as if he had regained some kind of control over things. This was something he could do, and yet nothing complicated was asked of him. He only needed to drive; to continue taking them further away from that place.

Jackson was in the passenger's seat next to him, his forehead to the glass and eyes closed. He could have been sleeping, if it wasn't for the tension in his shoulders and the way he clenched his teeth together.

It was still early morning. Light outside, and trees on each side of the road. They had passed a couple of houses, but nothing that indicated a community.

In the backseat, Scott and Stiles were talking in low voices. Stiles had apparently just realized that he had actually killed other human beings, and he wasn't taking it very well. Scott's voice got hard when he said:

"Don't, Stiles. Don't feel that way. What they did was … that wasn't human at all. If you hadn't done what you did, we'd still be there."

"But I … I killed them. I killed them. I … oh holy god, I killed them."

"If you hadn't, I would have", Derek muttered, which caused a paus in the conversation.

"They said …" Stiles started. Hesitated. "They said that I should be grateful."

No one else spoke, but they all listened when he continued:

"They were trying to make a … a hybrid, with all the strength from other species, but without the weaknesses. They said …" He swallowed. "… that if I survived, I'd be the first one. That I should be grateful for the opportunity."

Derek's hands tightened on the steering wheel when he remembered agonized screaming and unseeing, staring eyes. A paus, then:

"… I survived, but …" And here, his voice cracked. "… I don't feel very grateful."

Scott moved in the backseat, and started talking in a soothing voice, when Stiles seemed to get close to hyper-ventilating.

"Shit, shit, shit … I'm … oh god. What do we do now?"

"We'll figure it out, Stiles."

"How? We're two werewolves and a lizard and a whatever-the-hell-they-turned-me-into who's been kidnapped, and I've killed, like, seven people, and we burned down the lab and who knows how many people knows about that place? Who knows how many people are involved in this? We have to find them and stop them, but we're in a stolen car in the middle of nowhere, with a trunk full of evidence that we can't show anyone who doesn't know about werewolves! And … oh shit."

Derek looked in the mirror, to see Stiles lose all colour. "What?"

"I have to call my dad. Shit. I have to tell my dad."

At this, Jackson – without moving his head from the window – put his hand in a pocket and dug out a phone, which he tossed into the backseat. When he noticed Derek looking at him, he shrugged and said:

"The smoker. She had a phone on her."

He then straightened up in his seat and took a deep breath. Glanced over at Derek, and then into the backseat.

"He's right, though. What the hell do we do now?"

Derek inhaled. Exhaled. Kept driving.

"First, we go as far away from that place as possible. Then we get help, and we find the people responsible for this, and we put a stop to them."

Jackson snorted, unamused, as they both heard Stiles dial from the backseat. The phone rang once …

"How?" Jackson whispered.

… the phone rang twice …

"One step at the time", Derek answered.

… and then someone picked up. Derek saw a sign in the distance, where the road split into two. He dragged a hand over his face and exhaled. They were free. They were okay. All he had to do for now was to keep driving. He could do that.

From the back, he heard Stiles' voice:

"… Dad."