Beacon ⌲ Stiles Stilinski [1] EDITING

five

Four thousand, two hundred, and seventeen....four thousand, two hundred, and eighteen...

Groaning, I slapped my hand against my forehead in annoyance.

I had been laying there for the past hour trying to sleep, but no matter how many fluffy sheep I imagined jumping over a fence in my head, I wasn't having any luck. What was frustrating was that I felt exhausted, feeling the need to shut my eyes, but my body had decided to side with insomnia on this one; as if it didn't trust my brain to allow me a night terror-less sleep.

I ripped out my headphones that had been playing non-stop 'gentle ocean noises', and glanced over at my empty mug of what used to be chamomile tea. The internet had told me that if I followed all of those steps, as silly as they seemed, I was sure to fall asleep eventually. 

Well, I wasn't asleep. I just really had to pee.

Grumbling to myself, I sat up and tore back my comforter. Navigating through the dark room by dragging my hand across the wall, careful not to trip on any laundry I had promised my mom for days that I was going to clean up, I managed to find my door and walked out into the moonlit hallway.

However, halfway to the bathroom door, I heard a rustling coming from downstairs that made me freeze in my tracks. Considering my level of alertness, and my pajama clad attire, I didn't think I was in any shape to fight away a robber, but yanked one of my slippers off anyway and held it up tensely. Like a knife, but a knife that wasn't actually sharp at all and one that would probably just confuse an attacker.

I tiptoed across the floor and to the balcony at the top of the stairwell, ignoring the plea from my bladder to let the robber steal whatever they wanted and to just turn back to the bathroom.

Suddenly, my eyes focused on a figure walking through the foyer beneath me. To my luck, it wasn't a bad guy. Just my dad.

Breathing a grateful sigh of relief, I noticed the fact that he wasn't wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt (his usual sleeping wardrobe choice). Instead, he was dressed in his jacket and jeans, and heading for the door.

"Dad?" I called to him in a hushed tone, trying not to wake Allison or my mother who were asleep down the hallway.

He jumped and whipped around, briefcase in hand.

"What's going on?" I whispered, eyeing him suspiciously.

He hesitated for a moment before replying with a casual shrug. "Your Aunt Kate just texted, I'm heading out to pick her up."

I hadn't seen or heard from my Aunt Kate in a year. Which was a shame, considering the fact that both Allison and I loved her to pieces. Although it was unfortunate to consider, she was easier to talk to than Mom because of the way she carried herself. Instead of our Aunt, Kate seemed like a kind of intimidating but still really cool and charming older sister. 

Unfortunately, neither Allison nor I got to speak with her a lot because of her super demanding job. She had a similar career to my dad as far as I knew, but we didn't talk about it much since it was apparently in a separate and more classified branch of work than our father's. I guess it was fine because I respected her passion, but this also meant that she had a severe case of Argent-itis, and was constantly too busy to call or chat.

"It's two in the morning," I worried. "Is everything okay?"

Dad nodded and waved it off. "Yeah, yeah, she's just having car trouble."

"Not serious, right?"

"No, no," he grinned, reassuring me. "Just a flat tire. Go back to bed, Ellie."