▬▬▬▬ Trigger warnings: suicide, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts.
GLEN CAPRI
"I'VE SEEN WORSE." said Scott as all five teenagers got off the bus, arriving at a motel that Coach insisted they stayed at for the night.
"Where have you seen worse?" Stiles scoffed, turning his nose up at the building.
Aspen currently stood with Allison and Lydia, continuing her routine of avoiding the boy she loved— it was killing her, but being around him killed her more, knowing the impending fait that awaited her.
"Listen up!" Coach Finstock yelled, "The meet's been pushed 'til tomorrow. This is the closest motel with the most vacancies and the least amount of good judgement when it comes to accepting a bunch of degenerates like yourselves!"
Stiles was now looking over at Aspen, praying that any second now she would lift her head up, her emerald eyes would meet his hazel ones, and he would find reassurance that the two of them were okay.
But he was only kidding himself— and she did not look up.
"You'll be pairing up-- choose wisely." Coach continued, "And I'll have no sexual perversions perpetrated by you little deviants! Got that? Keep your dirty little hands to your dirty little selves!"
"Can I join you guys?" Aspen said to Allison and Lydia, forcing herself not to look over in the boys' direction.
"Course you can." Allison said with a smile, as her and Lydia went over to coach to grab a key for a room.
She was about to turn around and follow after th girls, when she was stopped by a hand on her shoulder.
Aspen turned around to face whoever had stopped her, coming face to face with Scott-- just Scott.
"Scott, hey." she said with a smile, but immediately noticed he was looking at her with worry.
"That's funny..." he said vaguely as he tilted his head at her, making her brows furrow at him.
"What?"
"You smiled at me..." Scott began, "You're looking at me for more than three seconds..."
"Scott—"
"Why can't you even look at him?"
Aspen did not want to cry— nor did she want to talk about it. She was picking up the habit of running away from her problems— not confronting them, hoping they would magically disappear.
But this wasn't one of those situations, she was just unsure of how to handle this one.
"You know it's killing him right?" Scott said metaphorically, "He's going out of his mind thinking he's done something wrong."
The words were like the daggers was being twisted even further into her already shattering-heart.
She was hurting Stiles as well as herself.
"He hasn't." Aspen replied in a soft voice, turning her neck to the side to see the very brown-haired boy they were talking about, conversing with Isaac and Boyd.
"Then why are you avoiding him?"
"Scott it's complicated—"
"We're gonna find out eventually." Scott cut her off, "It would just be nicer for him if it came from you."
Scott left it there, giving her a weak nod as he walked off to go find Stiles— as the two of them made their way to their room, as Aspen let out a prolonged sigh, and turned around on her heels, making her way to the girl's room.
▬▬▬▬▬▬
"This room reeks of nicotine." Aspen pointed out as she walked into the room she was sharing with the girls.
"Can we even be surprised?" The strawberry blonde sighed, as she sniffed the towels that stank of smoke too, "I mean, I don't think this is the type of motel that's getting five stars on trip advisor."
"We're gonna need new towels." said Allison, "I need to take a shower, and I'd rather not smell of cigarettes afterwards..."
"We'll go get some." said the Carter girl to Lydia.
"Yeah, let's go." said Lydia, "We'll be back in a few minutes, K Ali?"
Allison gave the pair a nod as she walked into the bathroom. Lydia and Aspen headed out of the room, making their way to the front desk. On their way, they happened to stumble across Boyd making quite the scene at the vending machine-- and Stiles was there too.
Boyd had smashed his fist through the glass, leaving the Stilinski boy cautious and confused. Aspen suddenly took a hold of Lydia's wrist, forcing the two of them to go the other way to the front desk— which sparked Lydia's following question.
"Why on earth are you ignoring him?" she whispered as the two girls hurried off in the other direction.
"Don't wanna talk about it..." Aspen answered, keeping it vague.
Lydia was tempted to press her on the matter, but by the time she was going to open her mouth to ask another question, the pair had arrived at the front desk.
"Excuse me?" Aspen said to the woman behind the glass, "The card on the dresser says we have a non-smoking room, but all of our towels reek of nicotine, and the room smells like a cigarette factory..."
"Sorry about that, sweetheart." the grey-haired woman spoke.
Lydia's eyes were focussed on something behind the lady, peaking the brunette's interest also.
"What's that?" Lydia asked, "That number?"
"It's kind of an inside thing for the motel." said the old lady, "My husband insists on keeping it up."
"What does it mean?" asked the brunette, her brows furrowing at the three-digit number.
"It's a little bit morbid, to be honest..." the woman replied, "You sure you want to know?"
"No, I asked a question that I don't want the answer to." Aspen retorted sarcastically, "Of course we want to know."
The receptionist laughed a bit at the young girl's humour, before explaining. "We're not gonna make the top of anyone's list when it comes to customer satisfaction..."
"No shit." Aspen muttered under her breath.
"But we are number one in California when it comes to one disturbing little detail-- since opening, more than any other motel in California, we have the most guest suicides."
Both teenage girls were evidently made uneasy by the explanation, as their eyes fixated on the number.
198
"One hundred and ninety-eight suicides?" Lydia said out loud for confirmation, as her and Aspen shared a terrified glance.
"And counting!"
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"One hundred and ninety-eight?" The Argent girl repeated as Aspen and Lydia returned to the room with one extra disturbing detail about the motel.
"Yes, and we're talking forty years." Lydia replied, sitting on the edge of one of the beds, "On average, that's... four-point-nine-five a year..."
"You just did that in your head?" Aspen asked with wide eyes, while Lydia shrugged, "Anyone ever tell you you're like... a human-freakin'-calculator?"
"Yeah," Lydia shrugged, "my GPA."
Aspen hummed, rather impressed, as she sat against the headboard of one of the beds, unconsciously fiddling with the cuffs of the dark green flannel she was wearing— the one that belonged to Stiles.
"But who commemorates that with a framed number? Who does that?" Lydia spoke exasperatedly, with furrowed brows.
"And all of them were suicides?" Allison asked.
"Yes— hanging, throat-cutting, pill-popping, both-barrels-of-a-shotgun-in-the-mouth suicides."
"I don't get why they wouldn't do it the painless way," Aspen shrugged as her eyes fixated on a patch on the ground, "I mean, jumping off the roof? It would be over in seconds, no agonising pain type-stuff..."
Aspen was just voicing her internal thoughts, not realising how... dark, they sounded to her two best friends who were looking at her a lot more concerned than they were a few seconds ago.
"I just meant—" she added, looking up at the two who looked wary, but she didn't know how to finish that sentence. What did she mean?
Suddenly dividing all of their attention away from Aspen's rather-dark thoughts, Lydia began to stand up on her bed, her eyes fixated on the vent near the ceiling— her eyes narrowing like something was confusing her.
And then she said, "Did you guys hear that?"
Allison and Aspen shared wide eyes as they watched the strawberry blonde, who appeared to be in some kind of trance.
"Hear what?" Aspen asked her.
A couple more seconds passed where Lydia failed to respond— edging closer towards the vent.
"Lydia?" Aspen spoke again, watching the strawberry blonde intently.
"Oh, my God, oh, my God—"!Lydia spoke in terror, adding to Aspen and Allison's concern. "Oh, my God!"
"Lydia? What happened?" Allison spoke up.
"Did you not hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"The two people in the other room—" Lydia said horrified, "they shot each other!"
The three teenage girls bolted from their room, Allison and Aspen following Lydia's lead to the room next door-- not quite sure what they were expecting to find there.
The door was already open, which was weird.
"Hello?" Lydia called out into the empty room.
"Lydia, what are you doing?" Allison asked her as her and the Carter girl continued to exchange confused glances.
"Hello?" Lydia called out again, "It had to be right here. It was a guy and a girl, and, I mean, they sounded younger, but... they were here."
"We believe you, Lyds." Aspen said softly, even though she was terrified of this place already.
"Yeah," Allison added, "after everything we've been through, we believe you."
▬▬▬▬▬▬
Back in their room, Allison, Lydia and Aspen were all pacing on the floor, each of them nervous about the motel Coach had arranged for them.
"There is something seriously wrong with this place." Lydia spoke. "We need to leave."
"But they were suicides, not murders," Allison pointed out, "and it's not like this place is haunted, right?"
"Maybe it is." Lydia countered, while Aspen remained in the corner of the room—quieter than usual for some reason.
"You know," Lydia continued, "I bet that couple made their suicide pact in that very room! Maybe that's why they're renovating—maybe they've been scraping brain matter off the wood paneling."
"Maybe we should find out." Allison suggested, and the three girls made another trip to the receptionist's office— while the Argent girl and the Martin girl failed to pick up on how Aspen had suddenly gone quiet.
"Well, there goes that..." Lydia sighed as the three girls arrived at the front desk— which was now vacant.
"Didn't you say the sign said one-ninety-eight?" Allison pointed out, her eyes fixated on the three-digit number, making both Aspen and Lydia look too.
201
"It was one-ninety eight." Lydia said, starting to panic, "I swear to God it was one-ninety-eight, right Asp?"
Aspen just nodded.
"Okay, what does that mean?" said Allison, "That there's been three more suicides?"
"Or three more are about to happen..."
▬▬▬▬▬▬
"The last time I saw Scott act like that was during the full moon." Allison said nervously after explaining how Scott had walked in on her in the shower, not acting himself.
Aspen went back to keeping to herself in the corner of the room-- Allison and Lydia having decided to text Stiles to come over, who was struggling to take his eyes off of her.
"Yeah, I know... He was definitely a little off with me, too..." Stiles muttered, thinking that Scott wasn't the only one being off with him.
"But actually, it was Boyd who was really off—" he added, which made Aspen's head lift from where she stood, recalling how her and Lydia walked past Boyd smashing his fist through glass, "I watched him put his fist through the vending machine."
"It is the motel, see!" Lydia shrieked, "Either we need to get out of here right now, or... someone needs to learn how to do an exorcism ASAP, before the werewolves go crazy and kill us."
"But what about..." Stiles' voice trailed off as he looked longingly at his brunette, not knowing whether the other girls in the room knew about her.
Aspen could sense his hazel eyes on her, which was enough for her to actually look at him again, as Stiles tried to communicate to her with his eyes.
Do they know?
Aspen sighed, this being one of the many things in her life that she wasn't set on keeping a secret— and she didn't have the energy to keep any more than she had to.
"I'm pretty sure I'm a werewolf..." she announced to Allison and Lydia who looked beyond confused. "Long story... but the last full moon—I sort of, you know... grew fangs and claws and all that stuff."
"Weren't you gonna tell us?" Allison asked folly, trying to hide her hurt that Aspen hadn't opened up to her about this.
"We've had bigger problems to deal with," Aspen said quietly, "I didn't want to burden everyone."
The sound of her saying that always tugged at Stiles' heartstrings— he wished he could get her to understand that her problems were just as valid as everyone elses, but every time he tried to tell her that, it never stuck— case and point.
"Okay..." Allison sighed, rubbing her forehead from confusion and worry, "Do you... do you feel any different?"
Aspen shook her head, kicking off of the wall she leant on and walking over to actually join where the other three stood, placing herself between the two girls— opposite Stiles.
"What if it's not just the motel?" Stiles spoke up, "The number in the office went up by three, right?"
"You mean, like three sacrifices?" said Allison.
"What if this time, it's three Werewolves?"
"Scott, Isaac, and Boyd..." Allison pieced together, "We'll just need to keep an eye on Asp, make sure it's not affecting her, too."
Aspen nodded in agreement, even if that meant spending the rest of the night glued to Stiles' side— maybe that's what she needed to be doing: making the most of the time she had left with him.
"I think we were meant to come here..." Stiles said worriedly.
"Exactly!" said Lydia hysterically, "So, can we get the hell out of here now? Please?"
"Wait, hang on." Stiles said, sidetracked by a bible left in the room, "Let me see this..."
He shook it so that pieces of paper fell from between the pages, he picked them up to read them as the three girls crowded around him, reading them too.
"Twenty-eight-year-old man hangs himself at the infamous Glen Capri." Stiles read aloud.
"Look at these two." said Lydia, picking up another article, "They both mention room two-seventeen. These are probably all the suicides that happened in this room..."
"So, if every room has a Bible..." Allison spoke.
"There could be articles in all the rooms." said Lydia.
"That's a beautiful thing." said Stiles, "Most places leave a mint under the pillow— this one leaves a record of all the horrible deaths that occurred..."
"Suicides." Aspen corrected him in a weak, dull voice.
"Right..." Stiles mumbled.
"What if the room next door has the one about the couple?" Lydia asked the group, all of which dashed back into the other room, trying to get to the bottom of this.
But the door was locked.
"No, that was not locked before..." Lydia pointed out.
"Forget it." said Allison, "We need to get Scott, Isaac, and Boyd out of here. Aspen too, just incase."
All four of them were about to take off, before they heard the sound of something being switched on— something that sounded an awful lot like,
"Is that a fucking handsaw?" Aspen gasped.
"Sure sounds like it..." Allison agreed in a wary tone.
Aspen was able to break the door down with her heightened strength, and the four of them found Ethan— with a handsaw in his hands, nearing his stomach.
"Ethan stop!" Stiles yelled, dashing into the room to try and pry the weapon away from the boy.
He struggled, and Aspen felt her heart rate nearly drop as she watched Stiles be that close to the harmful weapon.
"Stiles be carfeful!" she yelled as Stiles practically wrestled Ethan for it.
A couple moments later, Stiles was successful in retrieving it away from him, at the same time as Aspen turned it off at the power outlet— the both of them having just collectively saved Ethan's life.
Not for long though, because Ethan was quick in ejecting his claws from his fingernails— and tried to claw away at his own stomach.
"Ethan!" Aspen shrieked, running forward to stop him, using her own supernatural strength to stop him from killing himself.
She accidentally threw him onto a heater— which burned away at the skin of his arm.
Ethan toppled to the floor, immediately flying his free hand to his burn as he winced, appearing to have snapped out of whatever trance he was in.
"What the hell just happened?"
▬▬▬▬▬▬
After successfully saving Ethan, the four teenagers decided to split up in search of the others-- but this time, Allison and Lydia weren't so sick to grant Aspen an out from avoiding Stiles.
The Argent girl and the strawberry blonde split away from the couple, leaving the pair in an unwavering awkwardness.
"You ever gonna tell me what's going on with you?" Stiles asked bluntly as the pair walked around the motel in search for Boyd or Isaac or Scott.
"I told you—"
"Yeah you told me it's nothing," Stiles cut her off, "and guess what, I don't buy it."
"Stiles, please, I don't want to talk about th—"
"Why not?"
"Because I can't!" she snapped, just wishing that he would stop pressing her for the answer she didn't want to give him.
How was she supposed to just tell him that the reason she can barely look at him anymore was because his entire safety relied on her leaving her home behind for her fucked-up family? And that every time she tried to tell herself there would be another way—a way that she wouldn't have to leave with them— that Stiles' life would be on the line.
"Just answer me this." Stiles said calmly, lightly grabbing her wrist and forcing her to stop walking, forcing her to look at him. "Have I done something? Have I... have I hurt you?"
"No." she answered without a slight moment of hesitation, and Stiles could read it on her face that it was the truth— which gave him a small sense of relief.
"Then what is it?" he practically begged, "What is it thats so bad thats making you shut me out?"
She couldn't answer that. So she didn't. She started walking again, and Stiles was losing the energy to fight her on this— he didn't know how many times he could ask the same question— it was obvious she didn't want him to know whatever was off with her.
That almost hurt more than if it was him that had done something— because this just made him think one thing: that she didn't trust him.
Stiles was snapped out of his depressing thoughts when his phone started to ring, causing Aspen to stop in her tracks as well. He looked down at the caller ID, seeing it was Lydia who was calling.
"Hello?" he said as he answered, putting it on speaker phone as Aspen walked back over to him.
"Someone's drowning!" Lydia's voice shrieked through the speaker.
Aspen's emerald eyes widened in horror as Stiles' did too.
"Wh-what do you mean? How do you— how do you know?" Aspen spoke into the phone, her bones beginning to shake out of fear.
"I just do!" Lydia shrieked vaguely, but somehow—Aspen didn't doubt her for a second.
Aspen was able to focus her supernatural hearing on command, hearing the sounds of running water— confirming Lydia's thoughts.
She heard it from one of the bathrooms, and didn't waste a second before bolting up the stairs and following where the noise came from.
She heard Stiles converse with Lydia quickly before he hung up, following behind her as she ran for the room where the running water was coming from.
She stopped when she came to room 213, of which the door was already open, Stiles was right behind her. She dashed straight for the bathroom— finding Boyd under water in the bath tub, with a weighted safe resting on his chest.
He was trying to drown himself.
Stiles quickly tried to lift it off of his body, but it was no use-- it was too heavy. He tried reaching his hand under the water to pull the plug, but that failed too.
"He blocked it." Stiles spoke nervously, "He blocked the drain with something, I can't get to it."
"Here, let me try." Aspen said, making her own attempt to lift the safe using her extra strength, but even that didn't work.
She fell back from losing her balance, resulting in her arm brushing a heater in the wall— burning her skin slightly.
"Ow!" she said in reflex, rubbing her arm.
"Wait a sec—" Stiles spoke, "the heater. Heater. Ethan snapped out of it when he touched the heater..."
"What do you mean?" Aspen asked, not getting what he was hinting at.
"It's heat— heat, fire... " Stiles reiterated, "Heat does it, all right? We need something... We need fire."
"In case you haven't noticed, he's under water!" Aspen shrieked-- not meaning to lash out on Stiles.
"Yes, I am aware of that, thank you." Stiles said back in a similar tone.
"Wait..." Aspen said like she had an idea, "I think the bus has emergency road flares, you know, the ones that heat under water?"
"Are you kidding?" Stiles said, hope in his tone.
"No!" Aspen snapped, high strung from everything going on around them, "Now go!"
Stiles dashed out of the motel and to the bus, grabbing the flares, and was back in Boyd's bathroom in no time.
Aspen grabbed one out of his hands impatiently, sticking it under the water, coming into contact with Boyd's skin— snapping him out of his trance, and seconds later, his eyes were glowing their beta-yellow, and he was able to push the safe off of his chest, and raised above the water surface.
There was no time to celebrate the victory though— as Aspen grabbed the other flare and bolted into the bedroom, figuring Isaac had to be in here somewhere too.
She searched behind the curtains, no luck, in the closet, no luck, and then she looked under the bed— finding Isaac in frightened sweats, like something similar was happening to him.
"Hey, Isaac?" she said softly, reaching her hand under the bed, "This might hurt like a bitch..."
▬▬▬▬▬▬
"We can't find Scott anywhere." Allison announced to Aspen and Stiles as the four teenagers met back outside the motel building.
"It's gonna be happening to him too..." Aspen muttered panicked.
"It has to be." said Lydia.
"Hey," Aspen said, turning to Stiles with panic in her eyes, "Is there any more flares on the bus?"
"Yeah, there's one more, I think..." Stiles said, his arms shaking out of fright, "I'll go get it..."
Stiles' voice trailed off as all four of them set their eyes on the same heart-breaking sight.
Right in front of them stood Scott, doused head to toe in gasoline— with the third and final flare gripped in his hand.
It was enough to spark immediate teas to brim in Aspen's eyes. Scott was more of a brother to her than Ace ever could be now, and seeing him like this— it broke her heart.
"Scott...?" Allison said shakily, as the four teenagers slowly walked around him.
"There's no hope." the McCall boy spoke drolly, no trace of anything light in his voice— like he was defeated, truly given up.
"What do you mean, Scott?" Allison spoke gently, "There's always hope..."
"Not for me... Not for Derek..."
"Scott, listen to me." Aspen said softly, letting tears fall without even trying to keep them at bay, "Derek wasn't your fault. He wouldn't want this, he wouldn't want you to blame yourself... you know Derek wasn't your fault..."
"Every time I try to fight back, it just gets worse." Scott spoke, the flare burning in his grasp, "People keep getting hurt. People keep getting killed."
"Scott," Stiles spoke this time, "This isn't you, all right? This is someone inside your head, telling you to do this. Okay?"
"What if it isn't?" Scott countered, and those words hit Aspen harder than they did the other three— because deep down, she thought there was a part of her capable of doing what Scott was doing.
She just wouldn't admit that to anyone.
"What if it is just me?" Scott continued, "What if doing this is actually the best thing that I could do for everyone else?"
"Scott—"
"It all started that night— the night I got bitten, remember?" he spoke, looking up, his eyes flicking between Stiles and Aspen who's hearts were breaking in equal measure. "You remember the way it was before that? Us, we were... we were... we were nothing. We weren't popular. We were nobodies... We weren't important. Maybe I should just... be no one again— no one at all."
"Scott, just listen to me, okay?" Stiles' voice broke a bit and he took a step forward, as Aspen tried to wipe away the tears from her face, "You're not no one. Okay? You're someone. You're— Scott, you're my best friend. Okay? And I need you.
Scott, you're my brother."
Now it was Aspen's turn to step closer, so she was by Stiles' side as they faced probably the hardest thing the trio of best friends have ever had to face before.
"Scott," she spoke softly, "You're the person who taught me that family doesn't always have to be blood— that we can choose it. You're more my family to me than my real one ever was, or ever could be."
Stiles and Aspen turned their heads to look at each other— silently asking the other if they were thinking the same thing, which they were.
"So if you're gonna do this..." Stiles said warily, swallowing a lump in his throat as he instinctively intertwined his fingers with Aspen's.
"You're gonna have to take us with you..." Aspen finished his sentence for him, as the pair took a step forward, the soles of their shoes now hitting the puddle of gasoline.
Scott's eyes flickered between the two people in this world that had been with him through it all— Aspen, Stiles, and Scott.
No matter how bad things could get, no matter how hard— they went through it together.
Until now, that is, now Aspen was facing something alone— by choice.
Aspen and Stiles stared intently at their best friend, as Stiles made the move to try and carefully retrieve the burning flare from Scott's grip.
He slowly was able to take it from him, as Scott had given in— letting him take it away.
Stiles threw the burning stick away to the ground, as the three of them cried silently, their hearts racing from the fear and relief all in one.
But the relief was short lived when the burning flare rolled on the ground after a gust of wind gave it a push, and Lydia was the only one to notice it before it rolled straight into the pool of gasoline.
"No!" Lydia screamed, and what happened next felt in slow motion.
Lydia dashed forward, pushing all three of them that stood in the gasoline to the ground, protecting them from the fire that would erupt any second.
The gasoline went up in flames, once Lydia had said the three, and Aspen found herself laid on the concrete ground on her side, opening her eyes to find Stiles' hazel ones looking right back at her.
The part that unsettled her the most is that she would've been okay with what could have just happened—
If it was just her.