Destiny [D.H.]

75

Eliana's POV:

I made my way to the hospital and heard growling above me. I heard Scott say fourth floor.

I ran up to the fourth floor and rounded a corner. A flaming man flew past and smacked into a wall. His flames disappeared and the sheriff, Evan and my dad called, "Parrish? You okay? Parrish!"

---

We got to the Animal Clinic and Deaton said, "What I'm about to show you isn't supposed to exist." He pulled out a set of photos. "This is the only surviving evidence of Dr. Valack's time as Chief Medical Officer of Eichen House." He laid out the pictures. "To call it human experimentation would be charitable."

Scott picked up a picture of a girl holding her ears and screaming. "A Banshee," Deaton informed. "She died screaming."

Stiles frowned. "So, he drilled holes into their heads? All of them?"

Deaton turned to him and nodded. "That was the experimentation part. He did it to werewolves, Banshees, wendigos, any creature he could get his hands on. And Valack found that trepanation would intially heighten their powers, but to levels that couldn't be contained."

"So he wants to make Lydia more powerful," Scott said.

I studied the pictures. "Yes, but she'll end up like them."

Deaton caught my eye. "Worse, actually." He looked between us. "Lydia's abilities were already pretty exceptional to begin with. Putting a hole in her head will be like causing a leak in a nuclear reactor. She'll hear everything. Every death, every dying scream, all at once."

"That's going to kill her," Scott realized.

Deaton continued. "Not only that... Her own dying scream could be so powerful that it might kill everyone around her as well."

Scott followed a trail of blood and I chose to help the sheriff, my dad and my brother.

The sheriff turned to me and Stiles. "Officer Hart and I are doing everything we can, Evan's doing what he can, but her mom is her legal guardian. She's the only person who can check her out of Eichen House."

I thought for a moment. "How about a court order?"

My dad sighed. "Technically, trepanation is still considered a medical procedure. A judge would have to declare Natalie unfit, which isn't likely. It could take months."

Stiles said quietly, "So you're saying there's nothing we can do..."

The sheriff interrupted him. "We're saying there's nothing we can do. Legally."

---

We drove to Scott's and met up with Kira, Malia and Liam. We began coming up with a plan to rescue Lydia from Eichen House.

"There's four steps," Stiles told us. "We get into Eichen, we get into the Closed Unit, we get Lydia, get out."

"And we have to do it all while getting past orderlies, guards, electric door locks, and a Mountain Ash barrier," Scott said.

"You have a plan for all of that?" Malia questioned.

Stiles held up a key card. "I stole this last night off an orderly. But it's useless 'cause they reset the codes each night."

"So why did you take it?" Kira wondered.

Stiles shot her a look. "I'm getting to that. The only way to get Lydia out of Eichen is to make that key card work again."

Liam frowned. "How are you going to do that?"

I glanced at him. "Let him explain."

Stiles continued. "I pulled all the history off the key card." He turned the laptop to they could see. "Two weeks ago, there was a brownout and the security system rebooted. During a reboot, all of the key cards revert back to a default code. So if we trigger a reboot..."