With a hunter's arrow still sticking out of his chest, Brett Talbot runs through the woods of Beacon Hills. He knows he's being pursued by both Tamora Monroe and Gerard Argent. He stops to catch his breath and looks at his phone, no service.

Brett attempts to pull the arrow from his chest, but, realizing he can't, he presses himself up against the tree to drive the arrow further into him and out his back. With more of the pointy end of the arrow now protruding, he's able to reach around, grab it, and rip it from his body.

~~~

Tamora Monroe is impatient with Gerard. She says they're allowing Brett to gain too much ground. The old man calls her an amateur. She brags that she killed a hellhound and "took out" a werewolf, but he points out that Halwyn and the werewolf in question were both wounded and alone at the time. He warns her not to mistake luck for skill.

They bicker about tactics. Gerard says the longer they wait, the weaker Brett will become. She counters that the extra time will give him a chance to find help. He offers up a quote, "The greatest victory is that which requires no battle." She recognizes it as Sun Tzu.

Brett's phone rings. Gerard and Monroe set off to follow the sound. They find the phone lying on the ground still ringing. Brett throws Gerard's arrow back at her but the old man pulls her out of the way just in time, and it hits a tree instead. Monroe catches sight of Brett in the shadows and raises her rifle to fire. He dodges the shots and runs away into the night.

~~~

Mason and Liam play video games in Liam's bedroom. Liam wins. Mason doesn't want to leave and suggests a sleepover. Liam wants to know why since they've not had a sleepover since they were 10. Mason says that he keeps seeing the bloody, faceless lump of a body they found in the locker room earlier.

He explains about after images and an extreme version called Palinopsia. It means "seeing again" and the image doesn't fade. Liam wants to know where Mason sees the body. "Everywhere," he replies. Just over Liam's shoulder, near the door, we can see the arm and lower torso of the bloody faceless lump.

~~~

Melissa McCall bolts the doors to the hospital morgue. She pulls out the drawer containing the bloody lump of a body intending to take a tissue sample. She hesitates and chides herself to "get it together." She pulls back the sheet covering the body and gasps. She is afraid and quickly covers it back up.

Managing her fear but still breathing heavily, she pulls the sheet back once more. She retrieves a scalpel and reaches out to cut away a piece of flesh. As the tool comes close to the body, all the lights in the room flicker. She reaches forward again, almost makes contact with the blade, and the lights go out completely.

Melissa manages to get her phone light on. It appears that the body is no longer lying in the drawer. Fear takes her as she runs for the exit and out into the hall, knocking into Reed as a result.

~~~

Scott and Selene sit down into the car when Scott halts his movements to look at Selene.

"What?" Selene asks, not meeting his eyes.

"You know what." Selene sighs signaling she does know what he means. She leans her head back against the car seat.

"I don't know Scott. It's just... something is wrong." Scott gives her a sympathetic look before starting the car. As he looks behind him to check the driveway, Lori runs behind the car. Scott shoots Selene a look with his eyebrows raised but the girl isn't looking. She unfastens her seatbelt and jumps out of the car. "Lori, what's wrong?"

"It's Brett," Lori replies and Selene visibly pales. "I found this. It's his, and he's missing, and I heard gunshots." Selene looks over her shoulder towards Scott who has also gotten out of the car.

~~~

"I thought you were hanging out with Liam tonight," Corey comments as Mason walks up to him and Liz in the courtyard.

"Brett's missing," Mason says without missing a beat.

"What?" Liz asks, immediately paying attention to the conversation.

"'Missing' as in no one can find him and they're really worried?" Corey asks hopefully. Liz shoots him a look as if to say 'Do you believe that yourself?'

"'Missing' as in his sister found blood all over his lacrosse stick," Mason replies.

"Why's our 'missing' always involve blood?"

"Because it's Beacon Hills," Liz scoffs.

Mason nods in agreement. "Come on, we're meeting Lydia."

"How come?" Corey asks.

"Because we're gonna go find him,"

~~~

They meet Lydia in the Bio lab. Corey looks at Mason concerned while Liz is staring at Lydia's piece of paper and red pen.

"You all right?" Corey asks his boyfriend.

"Yeah, why?"

"Just checking."

"No, it's okay. I don't see anything."

"Huh?"

"Nothing."

"Quiet! Please." The banshee demands.

"Sorry." the boys apologize.

"She ever tried this before?" Corey asks and Liz shoots him an annoyed look.

"Initiating a premonition? A few times. They usually find her," Mason replies and pushes Liz's face away.

"How will it help us find him?"

"Depends on the premonition," Liz says. She realises something and straightens her shoulder. "But if he were dead, she'd already know,"

"Do you think it's working?" Corey asks.

"It might if you stop talking," Lydia complains.

"Sorry," the three of them apologize.

Corey can't help himself, he reaches out for the Newton's cradle sitting on the lab station. He plucks at one of the steel balls. Mason realizes what he's doing just a second too late, there is a loud "click" before he can stop the kinetic energy toy from moving. They both apologize.

Lydia begins to hear something, a school bell ringing, and footsteps in the hall. The Bunsen burner flame blows out. Lydia beings to write.

~~~

"Here. I think he set a trap," Liam says as he hands Selene the arrow he just found. She glares at the weapon before smelling it.

"He's fighting back," Scott says, putting his hand on Selene's shoulder for comfort.

"And now we know he's alive," Malia adds. Selene glances at Lori and decides not to say what's on her mind.

"But he's still hurt. We need to find him-- he needs to know we're here," Lori explains and prepares to roar.

"You want the Hunter to know we're here, too?" Malia stops her.

"He's new. We can take him," Liam protests.

"Brett might not be able to right now. What if he howls back?" Selene shakes her head and drops the arrow. "It's too risky,"

"We'll lead the Hunter right to him," Malia agrees.

"No, we could find him first. There's no human that can track sounds faster than we can, and we're got the advantage. We've done this before. We know what we're doing, guys," Scott counters.

Selene snorts. "That's nice and all but we don't know where the hunter is. I'm quite certain they can walk one mile faster than we can run fifty,"

"How come I can't catch his scent?" Malia suddenly asks.

"He's masking it," Lori and Selene reply in unison.

"Can someone tell him not to?" Selene sighs and shakes her head. Liam finds some tracks and runs to follow, Lori close behind.

Selene turns to Malia and Scott. "His trap didn't work,"

"Maybe this Hunter is not such an amateur," Scott proposes.

"Or maybe he's learning," Malia offers.

Selene turns to follow behind Liam and Lori. "Or this person isn't just one person anymore,"

~~~

"Does anyone speak Chinese?" Corey asks as he looks at one of the things Lydia has written and recognises the language.

"Sixty-eight," Liz says making all three other turn to her confused. "What? We all have hobbies... mine happens to be learning languages,"

"Lux-vee..." Corey tries with another one of the scribbles.

"No, it's a Roman numeral. Sixty-eight," Lydia corrects with a look towards Liz.

"E-R..." Lydia thinks while pointing at one of the words.

"Erbium," Liz realizes with a look at the periodic table behind Lydia. She closes her eyes and sighs. She turns to the older girl. "The atomic number for erbium is sixty-eight."

"What if this whole thing just says 'sixty-eight.'" Corey asks.

Liz lets her eyes scan over the page quickly, trying to recognize the languages. "The ones I can translate do,"

"Sixty-eight what?" Mason asks and looks over to Lydia thinking she must know.

"I have no idea," Lydia says.

"Okay, so what do we try next?"

"I'm going back to where my last premonition was... And I'm going alone." She shoots them a glare.

~~~

Brett, who is still injured, painfully shoves his fingers into the arrow wound in his shoulder before spilling his blood purposely over a patch of rocks on the ground. He then rips off a strip of fabric from his shirt and uses it as a tourniquet to staunch the bleeding from his shoulder. After a moment, he sees another pile of rocks on the ground and crouches down to pick one up, getting an idea.

~~~

"I'm surprised you called me," Argent says as he joins Melissa and Reed in the hospital. Reed turns to Melissa with a raised eyebrow. The older woman just raises a hand to shut him up.

"Well, someone had to call someone. I need a tissue sample from a body. I was hoping you would go in there and get it for me," Melissa explains handing Argent the scalpel. Argent looks at Melissa and then at Reed who smiles innocently.

"...It's a dead body... right?"

"Mostly,"

"Mostly?"

"Mostly," Reed confirms. "Maybe you should just go see for yourself."

Just inside the morgue, Argent begins to feel something is off. He is shaking and sweating by the time he reaches the draw with the bloody lump. He removes his coat and wipes his brow. As he reaches forward with the blade, the plastic wrapping on another table begins to rustle as the corpse inside appears to breathe.

Chris quickly rejoins Melissa and Reed in the hallway

"...That's not just a dead body!" He says pointedly.

"You felt it, too, didn't you?" Melissa asks.

"Yeah."

"Fear?"

"Terror."

~~~

Gerard and Monroe reach the end of Brett's blood trail. Gerard reminds her what he said about tracking, to look for signature prints, heel marks, and she realizes that they've been following a false trail. She suggests that Brett feels them closing in on him and wants to escape the pressure. Gerard says she shouldn't think of Brett not as a teenager but as an animal. Wounded animals hide, which leads Gerard to believe Brett's gone underground.

~~~

Lydia walks down the row of lockers counting her paces. She stops when she reaches 68. The locker she stops in front of has a combination lock with a red cover. (is the same lock we see on Stiles' locker back in Season 3). Realizing the lockers all have numbers, she races to locker number 68. She opens the door but it's empty.

~~~

Nolan jerks awake at one of the desks on the upper floor of the library. He looks down and sees Corey and Mason trying to figure out what significance the number 68 might hold. He is joined at the railing by Aaron who starts plucking at the threads of Nolan's beliefs about his Corey. He points out that Corey seems to "show up out of nowhere." Nolan says he's not sure what he's seen to which Aaron says there's a way he can be sure.

~~~

They come to the end of the blood trail.

"The trail's gone," Malia announces.

"Uh, maybe he just stopped bleeding?" Scott offers hopefully.

"Or maybe he finally realized he's leaving a very obvious trail as well as losing a lot of blood and made a tourniquet," Selene voices her thoughts while seeming to search for something in the leaves.

"Guys, I think we should split up. Lori and I go this way, you guys go that way," Liam proposes.

"Or maybe we go in five directions?" Lori adds, desperate to cover more ground.

"No," Selene says without looking up. She turns to Liam. "We should stick together. I'm not going to be part of some divide and conquer game. Last time that happened, you almost killed Scott,"

"We have the advantage. It's five against one," Liam ignores her last sentence.

"Not if we split up," Malia points out.

"I've been doing this the past three months without your help. I think I can make a decision," Liam defends himself.

"There were no problems the last three months," Selene points out annoyed. "Now, we don't have time for this. I'm not prepared to let you or Brett die so we're not splitting up."

"It's one Hunter-- one amateur--who doesn't know what they're doing." Selene sighs in exasperation and grabs Liam's shirt. She pulls him down to her face level and points at the ground.

"Selene-" Scott tries but then notices what she pointing at. "The Hunter. He's covering his tracks."

"They," Selene corrects and the others notice the different footprints.

"There's another."

"Two of them?" Malia asks.

"Maybe more," Selene answers and stands upright.

"How many Hunters have you seen out here before?" Lori asks anxiously.

Selene and Scott share a look. "A lot."

"Still wanna split up?" Malia asks Liam.

"We can deal with it. We just need to find Brett's trail," Liam replies. Then Selene notices something in the corner of her eye and a slight smile cracks onto her lips. She crouches in front of the stack of rocks.

"Rock balancing," Lori realizes and also smiles. The other three stare at the two girls in confusion.

"My mom taught us. We know where he's going," Selene explains.

~~~

"He's been poisoned," Selene says once they enter the tunnel. They all turn to her. "I smelled it on the arrow." She frowns as if it's a clue she can't quite figure out.

"That's why he's not healing," Scott realizes and Selene confirms with a nod.

"What if he only has a few hours to live?" Lori panics.

Selene puts a hand on her shoulder and turns the girl to face her. "Do not think like that. You can't think like that." She looks away to not look in Lori's eyes, making it clear she's thinking about it. She turns back to the girl. "We'll find him and he'll be fine." She nods at Lori and Lori nods back.

"If we howl, we can find him," Liam proposes.

"That's too risky," Malia points out.

"Who cares about the risk? He could be dying!" Lori argues.

"He's still moving," Malia counters.

"I need him to know that I'm here, that I'm coming for him,"

"Stop." All of them freeze and turn to Selene. "We're moving too fast, not thinking clearly. We need to realize that whoever these hunters are, they seem to be ten steps ahead of us but we're too busy looking around us to realise where exactly they are,"

"We don't have time for that, Lori's right. He has to know we're here," Liam is and roars before any of them can stop him. Selene slams him against the wall.

Liam turns to face the others. He flinches when he meets Selene's icy eyes. "Congratulations, you've accomplished nothing. He can't howl back because that would cause the hunter to find him, not that it would matter because down here everything echoes too much to pinpoint the location. The only thing you did was announce that someone is coming to help him to the hunters." She pushes past him harshly.

~~~

Brett is lying across a pipe high above the tunnel floor. He hears the howl and struggles to lift his head. Just below, Monroe and Gerard are talking. The counselor wonders how Brett managed to get behind them. Gerard says the roar came from another werewolf "making a mistake."

Monroe is nervous about facing a whole pack. Gerard chides her for thinking from a place of fear. She says she's thinking logically and mathematically because there are only two hunters and "too many of them." Gerard urges her to think strategically because that's Scott's Achilles' heel. The old man says that Scott, like most teenagers, thinks with his heart. He points out that while mostly Selene balances it out, right now she might be more emotional than Scott. Gerard says their strategy will be to divide and conquer.

Above them, a single drop of black goo drips from Brett. He manages to catch it before it falls too far and alerts the hunters below.

~~~

"Okay... There's a perfectly logical explanation for this, but if it moves..." Melissa says as they prepare to take the sample.

Argent tightens his grip on the gun. "I'll empty a clip into it,"

"Right..." Reed says as he grips the scalpel. He flinches back. "Talk." He says wanting to distract himself.

"What?"

"You said there's a logical explanation. Tell me what it is," Argent offers, realizing what Reed means.

"You mean to distract yourself?"

"All of us,"

"Okay. Okay. Okay, sure. It could be a toxin or gases-- chemicals released by the body,"

"This thing?"

"Yeah. Carbogen-- carbon dioxide and oxygen gas mixed-- can, uh, make your brain think that you're suffocating, and then your body reacts with intense anxiety and fear."

"Right," Reed starts as he comes closer to the body. "And any noxious smells can induce fear, or even infrasounds-- sounds below twenty hertz." He swallows harshly while eyeing the thing.

"Just do it."

"Yeah..."

"Reed, now!"

Reed quickly cuts off a part and they immediately close the drawer. "I got it... I got it," Reed breathes as he nearly slides down to the ground in exhaustion from the fear.

~~~

"Why didn't he answer?" Lori asks.

"Probably because the hunters are too close or..." Selene cuts herself off. "Or the poison has left him too exhausted to answer." She shakes her head and strides forward.

"Selene, no!" Scott suddenly yells and pushes Selene out of the way. The trick wire Selene had triggered was connected to a morning star. Scott, slides down the wall, having been hit with the weapon.

"Shit, Scott," Selene curses and drops down in front of him, pulling the weapon out and putting pressure on the wound. "Oh god, I'm so sorry,"

"They knew we were coming," He groans.

"Don't talk. Just heal and let us figure this out," Malia says, taking over from Selene by pressuring the wound.

"Selene is right, they've been a step ahead of us the whole time,"

"I'm sorry, but I can't wait around. We have to go," Lori urges.

"We still have the numbers-- four to two. We're faster, and we're stronger," Liam points out.

"They're smarter," Scott warns. He looks at Selene as she paces the small passageway. As if she can feel his gaze she looks up at him.

"I feel like we're running right into a trap so the smartest thing would be to stop and think but Brett could be..." She can't seem to get the word over her lips and sighs. She runs a hand over her face and meets Scott's eyes with a pleading look. "We can't wait. Malia, stay with him, make sure he doesn't try to do anything stupid that potentially kills you."

"But-"

"I'll think while searching. Come on,"

~~~

"I think the scary part's over. This is just the boring science part," Melissa says to Argent as Reed puts the sample into a centrifuge.

"I'm not gonna leave you alone with that thing," Argent counters.

"Thanks, dude," Reed says, signaling he's listening to their conversation.

"I bet you wanna know what scared the hell out of you," Melissa ignores Reed.