♡ 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 ♡
𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 fifty-eight
siren call
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
THE SIREN'S SHOULDERS WERE SLUMPED BACKWARDS INTO THE CHAIR, HER WRISTS CHAINED DOWN AND ANKLES BOUND TO THE FLOOR.
Her eyes wavered underneath her eyelids while pain settled over her young muscles. She could hear the faint swishing of swaying water against her ears like holy echoes and motherly lullabies singing her back into reality.
A diluted blue danced across the walls and floor. Then came the cold glass that morphed and mangled each light source into an amalgamation of rainbows and muddy browns.
Her eyes winced at the sight. They began stifling open, as her fists and closed lips did, Dallas spoke for the first time in more than a few hours.
She noticed how coarse her throat seemed and how each word felt like swallowing nails, but she insisted upon voicing it anyway.
"Where am I?" The Siren's voice bounced from the walls and carried through the air like distant butterflies begging to escape. Something Dallas couldn't seem to do no matter how hard she tried.
A voice replied rather flatly.
"Deaton's Aquarium."
The words made her feel queasy to her stomach. She wasn't somebody's sick goldfish they could throw in a tank and forget about.
Dallas chewed on the inner sides of her cheeks and tore at the chains they had tied around her wrists.
Hearing the chains jingle and her breathing pick up, Derek turned his head to the girl. He then glanced to Peter Hale who cocked a single brow before walking over and kneeling to her slouched height.
"I thought you'd appreciate being surrounded by all your little fishy friends."
She bowed her head forward to stare down at the chains on her ankles. Then Siren finally looked up, meeting the gaze of the two Hale werewolves. "You think I can't get out of these?"
That tone was to be expected of her. To inflict fear and uncertainty. Sparkling that bittersweet salt wherever she went.
"I'm actually betting on it." Derek crossed his arms with a blank look. "Which is why I have this." He then lifted his hand with his fingers wrapped around the rim of the Tuning Fork.
Dallie slumped back in her chair with discomfort. Her hands gripped the armrests while her nails dug into the material and chipped her nailbeds and red nail polish. Her eyes, which was usually filled with vanilla ecstasy, had rotten.
"Where's Stiles?" Her tone held urgency. Desperation. A small chunk of her still managed to feel betrayed that he had a part in her capture.
Peter scoffed at her question and didn't give Derek the chance to respond. "He doesn't want to see you."
Derek gave him a questionable look which Peter ignored. "What?"
Peter leaned closer to her face. "Nobody's coming to see you, Dallas. Not after what you did. You're a monster, Kiddo. Welcome to the club."
Dallas would be lying if she said the words didn't hurt. They did. Like a steel knife to the gut, swishing her insides around and killing all the butterflies he once gave her. Stiles didn't want to see her.
She stiffened and scowled his way. "Why don't you unlock these chains and tell me that?"
He chuckled gruffly before stepping away and leaning against one of the tall fish tanks.
"You're not going anywhere until you flip that switch, Dallas.
Her soft expression melted away and underneath was the rocky tide of her infectious glare. A laugh erupted from her tinted-rose lips and peachy cheeks.
"Is that supposed to be a threat?" She dragged her feet against the concrete and leaned forward despite the chains pulling her back like hands of copper and steel. "Cause, you know, in order to deliver a threat.. you've actually got to be threatening. Not two has-been werewolves who get off on terrorising teenage girls and store clerks." She spat.
Derek didn't reply. He didn't need to. Dallas seemed like a woman possessed. The way she spat, clawed and cried wolf was unlike her. But with eyes becoming globes of pearlescent light, skin cold and a diluted red spreading underneath her tear ducts, he knew it was.
Peter, on the other hand, couldn't help but laugh. It wasn't his fault, it was funny. He spent so long trying to throw her off the rails when she was just as capable of doing that herself.
"Does Malia know you're here?" Dallas cocked her head to the side as the words oozed out like a stream she couldn't stop. "I mean, it's not like you were there for her any other time. Why's today any different, right?"
Peter's laughing came to a halt and he returned her glare.
"Ooh, I think I hit a nerve."
He then stepped away from the glass and ripped the fork from his nephew's hand, slamming it hard against the oakwood and watching as it's soundwaves wavered through the tanks.
Dallas bit back the reptilian hissing of pain and tightly clasped her eyes shut. Her shoulders clenched and grip tightened while the mind-splitting headache seemed to leak into every crevice of her brain. The breath escaped from her lungs and clawed its way up her throat while her ribs collected the dust she inhaled.
But just when she was confident she'd see the welcoming darkness once more, Peter's rough fingertips held the edge of the fork's edge and the buzzing came to a sharp halt. "This thing's fun." Peter let a small grin of wonder before kneeling back down in front of her chair. "I couldn't give two shits if this thing melts your brain. You cause problems for Derek, those problems become my problems, and trust me, Ariel, you don't wanna play with me."
Dallas would've usually snapped back with another snarky comment. To spit venom in his face and challenge him for daring to speak to her like that. But she couldn't. She was in pain. She was always in pain. Mentally or physically.
She was tired and angry, but the more she settled on those emotions, the more she realised she had a right to be.
The Siren furrowed her eyebrows together and gave him a deflated look from underneath her eyelashes. They had coated with salted tears and smudged mascara but were still empty holes filled with brown pigment and little humanity.
He hummed as she silently obeyed. "Good girl." Peter mocked. "We're gonna play a game, okay? I ask a question, you answer honestly. You attempt to lie, or don't answer.. Well, you know what happens."
Dallas soured outwardly. As did Derek. As someone who originally didn't bother wanting to help with the Siren, Peter was very clearly infatuated with using the fork against her - or atleast the idea of the fork as a whole.
Maybe this wasn't such a good idea to begin with.
"The fire. That was you, wasn't it?"
She smirked slightly. Her eyes perked up and their brown swirls reflected into wild flames. "Depends on which fire you're referring to, Pete."
"You know damn well which fire." The eldest Hale pointed at her with the edge of the fork - something she recoiled back at.
Dallas pretended to think for a moment. She leaned back in her chair and shook the strands of her out of her face. "I feel like I should have a lawyer present-"
Peter didn't give her time to finish before slamming the fork against her chair once more. Watching as she cried out in pain and anguish, the werewolf met her gaze. "Yes or no."
Dallas lifted her head from the floor and tried to regain her blurred sight. "Yes. Yeah, that was me." She groaned out as her brain felt like putty in his hands.
Derek stepped forward to intervene but
Peter hushed him and turned back to the maneater's glare at him. She noticed how he narrowed his eyes and sat still, almost trying to predict what she would do next.
Her heartbeat thumped wildly in her chest and created the beat for her words to glide with like a sweet fatalic song.
Dallas leaned forward, straining on the handcuffs and chains. "You're never gonna know what I'm thinking, Peter." Her nose crinkled and eyebrows knitted as let the tasteless words drip from her tone. "That's my trick. Not yours."
He stepped back and turned his head swiftly to the side, taking a long look at his nephew. "I think someone needs to cool off."
Dallas rose both her eyebrows at his sudden disinterest, but then - only then, did she notice the ring of black ash that Derek had almost finished circling around her.
Mountain Ash.
They were trapping her.
"Okay, now wait-"
Derek interrupted her. "Sorry, Dallas. You had your chance to play nicely."
She snapped the cuffs from her ankles and tore at the ones around her wrists before leaping up out of her chair. Dallas had her flaws, and perhaps they were more deadly than everybody else's, but she refused to be caged.
She lifted her hand, which bloomed with an iridescent white, and tried to pass it through the seal. It crackled back at her fingertips before building a dome from dust around her.
Dust, domes, forks, pills, chains - they were all the same. A safety blanket for those around her whenever she got a little too wild for their liking.
The two men left through the doorway. She heard them speak, probably muttering out some bullshit apology or meaningless excuses, but she didn't listen.
Instead, Dallas fixated her gaze on the emptiness of the room. The Tuning Fork barely out of reach and left aside on the mantle. A ring of ash at her feet. She felt - and was - completely alone.
And who's fault is that?
She ignored the voice at the back of her head and clambered her way back up from the floor until her boots scraped across the concrete and hands ran through her hair.
She lifted the chained chair from the floor and threw it aside in frustration. It passed through the dome and shattered into small broken fragments on the floor while the tanks of water and it's fish circled around like underwater tornadoes that slammed against the glass.
She emitting chaos again.
Oh, how her temper got the better of her sometimes.
⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰
"Let me deal with it."
"That's all he said?" Stiles glanced up from his textbooks in the library. Derek wanted to deal with Dallas alone - or more accurately, as alone as possible. Without her humanity, Dallas would dig her claws into anybody closest. Derek didn't want that to be the people actually closest to her.
"Derek's not really known for his in-depth detail." Scott sat before the bestiary, flicking through the pages of Chimeras and Wendigoes.
Stiles pulled at the edges of the paper and tapped his fingers against the wood. It was a simple plan. The pack tracked down any sight of Tracy and Derek Hale would wager the chaos of Dallas.
But personally, it sucked.
Scott McCall ran his thumb across the bare screen and his phone. "Keep researching, will you? My mom needs me at the hospital."
Stiles nodded along as he watched his best friend gather his belongings and jump up from the table. "And uh, He told me not to let you visit her."
"Why?" The human knitted his eyebrows together.
"She tried to kill me, Stiles. God knows what she'd do to you."
Leaning back in his chair, the Stilinski muttered out profanities before bowing his head into a hesitant nod. "Okay, yeah, whatever."
Scott noticed his hesitancy. "Stiles." He spoke with a slightly stern warning tone. "Don't. We need you."
He clenched his jaw and forced an unfazed look to plaster across his face. "I know."
That wasn't a lie. He knew the pack needed him - but unfortunately, so did Dallas.
⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰
Melissa McCall scurried down the halls of the hospital, a heart monitor around her neck and her hair pulled back into a ponytail. She ushered behind her to where Scott McCall and Kira Yukimura followed. "This way," She winced. "He came in about fourty-five minutes ago."
Anguished screams erupted from the medical room which caused Kira and Scott to share a nanxious look.
One stray doctor approached her with a worried frown. "Melissa, I'm gonna find an anesthesiologist covering acute pain. See what you can do." He nodded toward the teenagers before disappearing down the hall with a huff and a clipboard tucked deep into his chest.
The screaming continued until the werewolf stepped forward. "Mom, what's happening to him?"
"It's the pain." She frowned, her back still turned and chest heavy. "Nothing's working. We've already pumped him full of morphine."
The yelling was harsh enough to make Kira scrunch up her face and take a step backwards. "Can't they do anything to help him?" Kira spoke softly.
Melissa nodded. "All we can do is put him in a medically induced coma. It's how we help burn victims deal with the pain." The McCall then turned back to her son, who stood with his back turned and face contorted into deep thought.
"Let me see if I can help."
Pushing through the door and widening his eyes at the teenage boy cuffed to the hospital bed, Scott watched helplessly as his eyes squeezed shut and back arched in horrific pain. Sweat droplets coated his head while he connected eyes with the Alpha. "Please, make it stop."
He grasped his shaky hand and slowly but surely, felt the pain climb up through his veins and stain the skin atop. Yet, the pain was too great. Atleast, for Scott. Groans erupted from his throat and the veins stuck out from his neck before they too had begun to blacken.
"Scott!" Melissa's tone was laced with fear and urgency. Before he knew it, both his mother and girlfriend appeared at his side to pry his hands from the teenager's. "Let go!"
When his hand finally slipped from his, Scott stumbled backwards and let out heavy, sharp breaths. "I'm okay." He managed to blurt out as the pain faded from his skin. "Let me see it. Let me see his arm."
Sighing anxiously, Melissa had no choice but to unbuckle the locks placed around his stitches and tear off the bandages. Underneath lay broken flesh, infection and all sorts of muddy reds. Kira squirmed at the sight. "What is that?"
"The lab says Scorpion Venom."
Scott knitted his eyebrows together. "Scorpion?"
She met his gaze, seemingly just as confused. "I know. But that's not the weirdest part. A sting this bad means that he should've been dead ten hours ago.. And the Scorpion that stung him would have to be ten feet tall."
Kira stood beside Scott and fumbled with the buttons of her jacket. "Please don't tell me there's a giant Scorpion running around Beacon Hills."
"Lucas." The boy spoke out through weak breaths. "It was Lucas."
⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰
Dallas Garcia sat slumped forward. Her blank stare was shot ahead while her hood was pulled over her head. Dust still sat at her feet and she hadn't seen, nor spoken, to anybody in hours.
Stiles Stilinski, on the other hand, ignored every warning Derek Hale had left him. He stood alone at the side of the road with his phone pressed up against his ear and duct tape stuffed in his hand.
His jeep was pulled to the side and its hood was propped up to let out the waves of steam erupting from the pipes.
Dallas turned her head at the diluted ringing that echoed throughout the room. It was distant. As her phone had been placed just metres away on the wooden table, the Siren cursed as it was just outside of her reach.
Her voicemail came to a harsh ding before Dallas heard her boyfriend's voice echo out into the room. It was muffled and breathless, but her humanity crept up with the presence of it anyway.
"Hey-" he coughed dryly at the smoke that surrounded him. "Hey, Dallie. I uh, I don't know why I'm calling to be honest. I probably shouldn't be. Derek told me to stay away.. But I can't, you know?"
Her head snapped up. He doesn't want to see you.
Dallas soured outwardly. Another lie on their part.
"But I need to see you, okay? I know this isn't you. You'd do the same for me. So, this is me getting you back-"
His voice came to a halt. "What are you doing?"
Dallas knew he wasn't talking to her anymore as she heard the phone clatter to the ground. What she didn't know, though, was how Stiles turned his head to a young boy approaching swiftly behind him. The palm of his hand became contorted with teeth and gums before it buried deep on the Stilinski's shoulder.
A thrilling scream erupted from the phone - one that belonged to Stiles. Each moment she heard it, the worse it got. Her hands clasped over her ears and bowed her head inbetween her knees to escape the torturous sound.
But it didn't help. No matter what she did, She heard Stiles' painful screams bounce off every wall and bury themselves inside of her ears.
Her humanity crept up until tears pricked her eyes and stained her hot cheeks. Dallas was alone, trapped and unable to do anything but listen to the horror erupt from her cellphone.
Her knees brushed against her forehead and her ears had became sore underneath her forceful grasp on them. She couldn't take any more of it. So much so, that when she curled up inside of herself, a frustrated yell etched up her throat and spewed out beyond her control. The walls shook violently and the sickening sound of cracking glass barely became audible.
The glass shattered in sync with her and the brickwork had began to fall apart from just her voice alone.
Gleaming light emitted from her palms and her eyes clouded over into an infectious white. A heavy wave of water swept across the floor and thrashed against the furniture as it carried broken glass within its stream and destroyed everything in its path.
The steam pipes above had busted open and shot out hot air before the lights around her came to a sinister flicker.
Deaton's Aquarium shook at its core from the Siren Call, falling into debris and remnants of what it once was.
Dallas lifted her head and wiped away the tears that hung on her eyelashes. At her feet, soaked in chlorine and glass, sat the slump of wet Mountain Ash.
She reached forward and ran her hands through it, ignoring the crumbling walls and waves of electricity diving through the water. There was no blue light. No dome. Just freedom beyond.
Stiles' screaming had come to a stiff halt, but even so, she could still hear it linger throughout her brain.
It felt like something that would haunt her forever. Her very own torture device.
Her muddy footprints stained the floor and the ring of solitude behind her became washed away by murky water. It was bad enough to lock her up. Now, she was pissed off.
She glanced back at her phone and the fork that Derek had left beside it. Apparently, he knew better than to carry it with him. But he didn't know any better to think she could escape. How wrong he was of both things.
The Siren then stared out at the open door. Whoever had lay their hands on Stiles.. she'd make them scream just as much as he did.
⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰
Derek Hale approached Deaton's Aquarium, one hand wrapped around a blood bag for Dallas and the other in his car keys. Just then, he froze at the swinging open door of the building. One he didn't remember leaving open.
Stepping inside, He dropped his hands to his sides at the sight. The blood bag dropped to its dreary descent and the sticky red liquid splattered out onto the floor.
The lights were barely hanging into the last cord as they swung with the heavy wind. The tanks, now empty, just boxes of broken glass. The walls had crumbled and the ring of ash was being carried around the room by the chlorine current.
"Dallas?" He called out with a shaky breath. "Oh, no." The Werewolf saw the absence of both her and the fork before leaping back to into the wide door.
"Dallas!"
☆ word count: 3,500. ☆
a/n: yes, deaton's vet clinic is lined with mountain ash but the pack can still pass through whereas direct mountain ash stops the person from moving all-together. atleast, thats what teen wolf wikipedia says lmao. if not, then uh, don't think about it too hard.