We drove in silence for a while before we ended up stopping at a dingy looking motel making me crinkle my nose in disgust. As we all stepped out of the bus with our bags.
"I've seen worse." Scott said hesitantly.
"Where have you seen worse?" Stiles asked.
"Listen up! 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! You'll be pairing up-- choose wisely. And I'll have no sexual perversions perpetrated by you little deviants! Got that? Keep your dirty little hands to your dirty little selves!"
Rory and Taylor both grabbed a room key we could split between the four of us.
"I'm with Taylor," Destiny was quick to call dibs making Rory laugh.
"It's because Bella talks in her sleep, isn't it?"
"I do not!"
"You definitely do." Taylor told me.
"Lydia...?" I heard Allison say making me turn to look back at them.
"I don't like this place." She spoke softly her eyes darting around the rooms.
"I don't think the people who own this place like this place. It's just for a night." Allison said with a small shrug.
"A lot can happen in one night..." She said.
I walked over to Allison getting a good look at their room number. "Lyd's we're all right near each other in the rooms. It'll be alright."
We all headed up to our separate rooms, I saw Rory grimace as we walked in.
"It could be worse. Could be a whole lot worse," I muttered setting my bag down on top of the dresser.
I collapsed onto one of the beds, the springs groaning at the action. It was comfortable enough that I could easily sleep through the night.
"You could sleep anywhere," Rory said as though she could hear exactly what I was thinking.
"You're not wrong," I was quick to shoot back at her.
I had only started to doze off when my phone buzzed, I thought about ignoring it, but it buzzed twice more. I sat up looking at Rory who just shrugged at me, not knowing what it was about.
You and Rory get to mine and Allison's room now.
Grab Destiny and Taylor on your way.
Hurry.
I shrugged flashing the text to Rory who grabbed our room key and we headed out of the room.
"One hundred and ninety-eight?" Rory asked after Lydia told us what the lady at the desk had said.
"Yes, and we're talking forty years. On average, that's... four-point-nine-five a year, which is... actually expected. But who commemorates that with a framed number? Who does that? Who?" She asked sitting on the bed.
"All suicides?" Allison asked.
"Yes-- hanging, throat-cutting, pill-popping, both-barrels-of-a-shotgun-in-the-mouth suicides. I don't know about you guys. But me, I-" Lydia trailed off, her eyes darting back and forth before she asked. "Did you guys hear that?"
"Hear what?" I asked looking at her confused.
She stood up turning towards the vent up on the wall. Before she stepped up onto the bed and began walking closer to it.
"Lydia?" Destiny asked walking towards her a moment as I began straining my ears to hear what she was hearing.
I heard two loud simultaneous bangs that sounded like gun shots, making me clap my hands over my ears and drop to my knees.
"Bella." I heard a muffled voice say as I felt hands on my shoulder.
"Bells look at me." This voice coming out clearer making me look up. "Bells talk to me, what happened?"
"You didn't hear that?" I asked looking between Destiny and Taylor noticing the three older girls were gone.
"Hear what Bella?" Taylor asked looking worried.
"Gunshots there were two of them at the same time. You didn't hear them? It was so loud." I said shakily as they pulled me to my feet.
"We didn't hear any gunshots. But Lydia she said, she said the two people in the other room shot each other." Destiny told me.
"But neither of you heard anything?" I looked between the two of them again.
"None of us except you and Lydia heard anything."
"Where'd they go?" My eyes darting around the now partially empty room.
"Lydia went to go find them, and Allison and Rory followed her to make sure she was okay." Destiny said softly. "Are you okay?"
"Besides feeling that I might actually be going crazy, I'm fine." I reassured her.
"You're not going crazy," Rory spoke from the doorway. "Whatever is happening to you, is happening to Lydia as well. And I have the suspicion that it's supernatural."
Just a moment later Lydia and Allison walked back into the room, Lydia looking confused and worried.
"You know, there is something seriously wrong with this place." Lydia told us as she began packing her toiletry bag. "Hey, you guys? We need to leave."
"But they were suicides, not murders, and it's not like this place is haunted, right?" Allison spoke up making me shrug indifferently.
"Maybe it is?" I offered not really knowing at this point.
"You know, 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." Lydia said close to tears.
"Maybe we should find out." Rory shrugged, earning an approving nod from Allison.
We all left the room heading down towards the office, to ask the lady Lydia had spoken with earlier. I saw a sign hanging on the window that said Back at 6am.
"Well, there goes that..." Lydia said tapping her hand against the wooden ledge.
"Didn't you say the sign said one-ninety-eight?" Destiny asked her eyes trained on the sign.
"It was one-ninety-eight. I swear to God it was one-ninety-eight." Lydia reassured us.
"Okay, what does that mean? That there's been three more suicides?" Taylor questioned looking perplexed by the turn of events.
"Or three more are about to happen." I said, something about this place was off.
"I'll text Stiles. We need to figure out what's going on, and we need to do it quickly." Rory said pulling out her phone and sending a quick text as we headed back to the room.
Allison finished telling us what had happened between her and Scott, "The last time I saw Scott act like that was during the full moon."
"Yeah, I know... He was definitely a little off with me, too. But actually, it was Boyd who was really off-- I watched him put his fist through the vending machine." He motioned with his hand that wasn't around Rory's shoulders.
"See? It is the motel! 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." Lydia grabbed the bible out of the nightstand drawer.
"Okay, just hold on, all right?" Stiles told her. "What if it's not just the motel? The number in the office went up by three, right?"
"You mean, like three sacrifices?" Allison asked.
"What if this time, it's three Werewolves?" Stiles shrugged.
"Scott, Isaac, and Boyd." I muttered listing them off.
"Maybe we were meant to come here." Stiles said in realization.
"Exactly! So, can we get the hell out of here now? Please?" Lydia asked almost hysterically.
"Wait, hang on. Let me see this." I said grabbing the bible from her hand.
"What is that?" Rory asked.
""Twenty-eight-year-old man hangs himself at the infamous Glen Capri."" I read pulling out a newspaper article.
I set it down on the bed before turning a few pages and finding another article. So, I held the bible over the bed and began shaking it, watching old clippings fall out from between the pages.
"Look at these two. They both mention room two-seventeen. These are probably all the suicides that happened in this room." Destiny smoothed two of the pages out to read them better.
"So, if every room has a Bible..." Allison trailed off.
"There could be articles in all the rooms." Rory confirmed making me grimace.
"That's a beautiful thing. Most places leave a mint under the pillow-- this one leaves a record of all the horrible deaths that occurred." Stiles let out a sigh.
"What if the room next door has the one about the couple?" Lydia pointed out and almost blank look on her face.
Stiles was the first to move running towards the door, Rory hot on his heels. The rest of us followed him to the door, he tried the handle, but it was locked.
"No, that was not locked before..." Lydia turned to us.
"Forget it. We need to get Scott, Isaac, and Boyd out of here." I told her, no longer caring about the articles.
We started to move away from the door, when a whirling noise started from inside the locked room.
"I'm not the only one who heard that, am I?" Lydia asked.
"It sounds like someone turned the handsaw on." Destiny moved back towards the door.
"Handsaw???" Stiles asked exasperatedly. "It's still locked."
"Move Stilinski," I growled kicking the door open.
"Hey, no! Ethan, don't!" Stiles yelled running towards him, trying to pull the saw out of his hand.
I hurried into the room just the saw dropped to the carpet and Lydia moved to unplug it. Stiles's face stopping a fraction of an inch away from it as Allison walked over and pulled him away from it.
Ethan flipped his nails out and went to rip his own stomach open. "AHHHHHH!"
I let out a groan before I grabbed his wrists fighting with him. Trying to figure out how to get him to snap out of it, when an idea popped into my head, seeing the heater. I grinned to myself twisting under his arm and shoving him towards the heater. His hands landing palm side down making him yell in pain as he landed on his back.
"What just happened?" He asked standing up looking at us.
"Why don't you tell us?" Taylor snapped at him.
"Ethan!" Stiles yelled running after him as he started to leave as we followed them out.
"Didn't you hear what I just said? I don't know how I got there, or what I was doing." Ethan snapped pulling his shirt shut.
"Okay, you could be a little more helpful, you know? We did just save your life, more specifically Bella did."
"And you probably shouldn't have." Ethan said matter of fact disappearing into a room.
"What now?" Lydia asked looking around at us.
"We need to split up." Rory said.
"I'll find Scott-- you guys grab Isaac and Boyd. The best thing we can do is get them out of this place."
"At least take Bella with you," Rory gestured for me to follow Allison making me nod. "Taylor, Destiny why don't you two get all the bags and put them back on the bus."
We all split, Allison and I going to the room Scott and Stiles were staying in. We looked through every hiding spot possible int the room and came up empty.
"He's not here," Allison turned to me worried.
"We have to keep looking," I told her before I stopped hearing Stiles, Rory, and Lydia talking.
"He blocked it. He blocked the drain with something, I can't get to it." Stiles voiced echoed with panic
"What do we do? My magic, it isn't working," Rory's voice was border line frantic.
"Here, help me--" His voice was strained.
"Is he dead? How long can a Werewolf stay underwater?" Lydia asked.
"Bella what is it?" Allison asked making me snap my head to her.
"It's Boyd, He's drowning, and they can't get the safe off of him."
"Go! I can find Scott." I nodded running out of the room.
I reached the door just as Stiles did. "Road flares." he held them up for me to see.
"I got 'em. What do I do? How do I do this?" Stiles asked as we both came into the room.
"The cap-- it's like a match. The cap's a match." Rory told him as he began striking it trying to get it to light.
"Stiles!" Lydia yelled at him.
"Yeah, I'm trying." He snapped before he got it to light. "Ooh!" He tossed me the other one, "For Issac."
I struck it, it catching immediately before kneeling down and moving the blanket. "Hey Isaac... got something for ya..." He let out a growl his eyes flashing gold.
"Go. I'll stay with the two of them. I'll get there stuff together and get them to the bus." I told the three of them.
"What happened?" Issac asked covered in a thin layer of sweat as he sat on the ground.
"Earlier Lydia was at the office and there's a framed number for the number of suicides in the hotel. When we went back the lady was gone but the number went up by three, we made the connection to the three sacrifices."
"Like we were meant to come here," Issac said making me nod.
"Stiles and Allison told us how Scott and Boyd had been acting weird and we figured it had to be something to do with the werewolves. We split up to find all of you." I finished as I packed their bags up. "Now were just concerned about getting the three of you out of this hotel."
"And where?" Boyd asked.
"Hope you two aren't opposed to sleeping in a bus." I smiled softly at them, making Boyd crack a smile.
"Let's get out of here," Issac said standing up.
"NO!" I heard Lydia and Rory yell at the same time, making me run out of the room. Just in time to see a ball of fire erupt near the bus, seeing a cloaked figure in it. the face distorted and ruined.
Both boys followed me out quickly, my steps not faltering as I moved as fast as I physically could.
"We're okay," Rory assured me as I reached them. "Let's get on this bus."
Issac, Boyd, and Scott took their own seats sprawling out, Allison and Lydia paired up. Rory was curled up against Stiles, and I took my own seat as well.
"I don't want to know. I really don't want to know. But, in case you missed the announcement, the meet's cancelled, so we're heading home. Pack it in. Pack it in!" Coach's voice jerked me awake in my seat making me look around still tired.
Ethan sat down next to Scott, "I don't know what happened last night, but I'm pretty sure you saved my life.
"Actually, Bella saved your life. But not that it matters that much. It's just, it's a minor detail..." Stiles trailed off being ignored.
"So, I'm going to give you something. We're pretty sure Derek's still alive. But he killed one of ours. That means one of two things can happen: either he joins our pack--"
"And kills his own--" Scott interrupted him.
"Or Kali goes after him, and we kill him. That's the way it works." Ethan finished getting up as Stiles spoke up.
"You know, your little code of ethics there is sort of barbaric, just FYI...
"Hey Ethan, I wanted to..." Coach started before Lydia cut him off.
"Coach, can I see your whistle for a second?"
"What's that? Hey, Eth--" She pulled the whistle off him anyway. "I'm gonna need that back. Ethan..."
She walked towards us sitting down next to me she cupped her hand over the top of the whistle and blew on it. "...Wolfsbane." She showed up her hand.
"So, every time the coach blew the whistle on the bus, Scott, Isaad, Boyd--" Stiles said.
"--And Ethan--" Lydia interjected.
"We all inhaled it." Scott realized.
"You were all poisoned by it." I spoke glancing back at Taylor and Destiny who were still curled up against each other asleep.
"So, that's how the Darach got in their heads. That's how he did it." Stiles looked between the whistle and the wolfsbane in Lydia's hand before grabbing the whistle, opening the bus window and throwing it out.
"Hey, hey, hey, hey! Stilinski." Coach yelled as the bus pulled away.