𝗧𝗔𝗦𝗧𝗘 𝗢𝗙 𝗬𝗢𝗨 ── 𝘚.𝘚𝘛𝘐𝘓𝘐𝘕𝘚𝘒𝘐

♡ 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗦𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗬-𝗙𝗜𝗩𝗘 ♡

♡ 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 ♡
𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 seventy-five

decode.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

A POOL OF BLOOD leaked across the dining room floor, soaking into the bare wood and staining it a dark red. Some of it clung to the suit jacket that lay with it. Other speckles sitting atop a face that never moved. Veins sat empty and cold, all connecting to a heart that would never beat again. 

There was a musky scent of cologne running through the air. A lifeless hand clutched desperately at a picture of two. The first, a young girl. The second, a father. It was crumpled and faded like it had been taken everywhere with its carrier. 

James Garcia lay in a halo made up of nothing but red. 

There was a slash in his throat. Pulling from one ear to the other. Dragged across by the sharpest teeth and drained out onto the floorboards like it was nothing. Like he was nothing.

Meanwhile, his daughter - his very own blood - felt the sun burn her skin and mind numb. "I offered you a cure with the small price to pay being a flimsy little fork." He paused. "But you couldn't even manage that, could you? That's the cost for insolence."

His own words clouded up the atmosphere and made the world feel much too tight while Kai grinned in excitement at the Tuning Fork between his fingers. "Not small enough, I think."

"You won't take the cure because you like being this way, don't you? You're bad. Badder than me, maybe." Klaus taunted. 

"Your father is just as bad, Dallas. I'd say that's your punishment." He spoke down to her. "But beneath all the names, the twists and turns of the family tree, you have Mikaelson blood -- and that blood is black and poisonous."

Shadows fell across his face. "You're not good. Maybe if you stopped pretending to be - your father would still be alive." He paused. "I hope this helps you understand that if you ever play with forces you don't understand.. expect to lose." 

Her eyes fell bloodshot. It felt like somebody had taken a sledgehammer to her chest. Broken fragments of bone pierced her heart and caused it to ache terribly. So terribly, in fact, she'd rather they had just ripped it from her body instead. 

She shook her head. "I didn't do this." Her chin had begun to ache between the grits of her teeth. "You did this. You killed him." 

His figure drew closer to hers and lips seethed before her face. "He's a Mikaelson." Klaus snapped. "Your family's name made him soft. It made you all soft. I gave him the push he needed."

"And what push was that?"

"I turned him."

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Dallas headed to the Garcia family home, converse stepping against wet sand and curled hair blowing in front of her eyes. Two boys followed a similar path across town, although, with sneakers stepping against gravel and janky blue Jeep steps.

"Do you think she'll be mad at us for showing up at her house?" Scott slammed the Jeep door shut, eyeing up the darkly lit home like it was a camouflaged beartrap. 

Stiles dropped his keys into his pocket and adjusted the blue hoodie that sat comfortably atop his shoulders. "Tsk, Nah." he waved away the question as if it lingered in the air. "Probably not."

 Scott mustered up a deep laugh, however, it lodged in his throat the moment he stepped towards the front door. For him, there was a shift in the air. An aroma he didn't quite recognize. An undeniable sense of danger that just filled him up with nausea. 

It didn't take long for Stiles to notice. "What's up?"

"Something feels.. off."

"Off?" The Stilinski scoffed. "What do you mean, 'off'?"

Scott couldn't explain the feeling. It rarely ever came. Only when faced with something too hard to handle. "Like something's wrong, Stiles.. like we shouldn't be here."

"Maybe your spidey senses are just paranoid."

"Stiles."

The boy instinctively turned as he heard two voices call his name at once. Both deep. Both held the same sense of urgency. Only one, however, holding a sweet tone atop an accent he couldn't seem to place. Eyes instantly met scuffed italian leather shoes, climbing up a disheveled suit and loosened tie, to tired eyes that didn't seem to hold much life. 

A cigarette was hanging from his lip and gelled hair rustled up into a mess. The blood that was previously swimming across his pores seemed wiped away and replaced by the bitter scent of alcohol. 

James Garcia stretched out his frozen lips into a smile. 

"How can I help you, boys?"

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Dallas Garcia couldn't stop her feet from sinking into the sand even if she wanted to. The steps were controlled. Forced by something other than her bizzare brain. She could hear her mother struggling to keep up with her from behind, but not even that could stop her rampage. 

That was until she grabbed her by the shoulders. "Hey!"

The Siren was forced to face her mother. "He's wrong. You're not a Mikaelson. You're a Garcia. You're my family." Marilyn rubbed her thumbs against her bare skin. "You're just like me."

"That's no better."

The sickness settled in Dallie's stomach like a parasite when she walked. It clung to her legs and arms like a brain-sucking tick that she couldn't shake off. Now? When Marilyn gripped her arms like separate lifelines? It was positively screaming at her to move. 

"Let go of me." She mumbled out, barely audible over the whistling of the trees.

Marie flexed her jaw. "No."

Dallas glanced from the hands on her forearms to her mother's uneasy stare. "He's right, though." She swallowed. "This town really has destroyed us. It deserves to suffer. I suffered, why shouldn't everybody else?"

"Because that's not you. You don't see things like Klaus does. Or how Theo does." She tried to pull her daughter back from the edge. "You don't want to hurt people."

The Siren could hear her heart thump wilding in her chest. She could hear birds chirp in nearby trees and the off-shore crashing of lake waves. She could hear thunder grumble in cities miles away, to conversations in languages she didn't understand. Dallas Garcia could hear the earth rotate beneath her very feet.

And eventually, she could hear her mother's hands slowly peel from her skin.

"You're right. I never wanted to." Dallas softened her eyebrows. "Scott will keep fighting against it until he has nothing left. But me? I can't lose anything else."

"Maybe Theo's right."

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Stiles knew it would've been inappropriate to ask James Garcia if he had been drinking - especially since a man old enough to have a teenage daughter would surely have control over atleast that thing - but he seemed too odd to be stone cold sober. 

"We were just stopping by to see if Dallas was around." Scott spoke from him. "I needed some.. spooky Siren insight on some pack stuff." He wore a fake puppy-dog smile, seemingly as freaked out as his bestfriend.

"Ah, well, she's not here." James cracked his neck to the side. "Sorry to disappoint."

Scott nodded. "We'll just come by another time."

"Or call her!" Stiles butted in. "Definitely call.. instead.."

James looked between them. A smile tugged at his lips and eyes clouded with mischief before he took a glance at his watch. "She should be home pretty soon. You should wait."

Scott opened his mouth to object but felt James toss the door shut behind him with a slam. He placed the cigarette between his teeth, picking up a bourbon glass with one hand and gesturing the boys over with another. "Sit down." He spoke through a incoherent mumble. "Tell me about this pack stuff you're so desperate to solve."

Scott and Stiles shared a look before swallowing a spoonful of pride and taking a seat on the thick leather couch.

When James disappeared into the kitchen to retrieve a bottle of bourbon, the two shot eachother a panicked whisper.

"Dude, we definitely not be here right now." Scott scolded his bestfriend with a low tone. "There's something seriously wrong with him."

Stiles gave a grim look towards the kitchen. "Maybe he's just.. drunk?"

"Are you sure that isn't Elijah?" Scott recalled how the doppelganger was slightly mentioned in passing - as was the whole disastrous family dinner that Stiles seemed quite fond of - just not what happened afterwards. "One hundred percent?"

"Yes, Scott, one hundred percent." He breathed heavily. "Elijah was.. nicer. Taller, maybe?"

The Alpha turned to jutter out another accusation but sunk into himself when James returned, bottle in hand and eyebrow raised.

"It's Theo, isn't it?" Jim met the Alpha's eyes - who stuttered in response. "Your pack problems. It's all Theo, isn't it?"

"Some." Scott pressed his lips together. "Most."

James huffed. "Ah, I never liked Theo." He spoke into the glass. "Not when Dallas introduced me. Not now either." He then watched as Stiles stiffened slightly and hid his grin against the tip of the cup. "They were good together, though."

Stiles swallowed. ".. Cool.. well, uh, he's a raging psychopath now, so uh, maybe not."

The newly-turned vampire scoffed. "Yeah, well, so is my daughter."

Scott furrowed his eyebrows. He'd never heard James talk about Dallas that way. Talk that way about any of them in general, actually. He always had a soft, accepting aura that made everybody's edges soften out a little. Until now, atleast.

Stiles opened his mouth to speak but simply sat with parted-lips as the door came swinging open and Dallas Garcia shuffled through. Keys sat between her teeth. A cap was pulled over her curled hair while her eyes, strained and puffy, kept their cold stare to the floor.

James sat up. "Speak of the devil." He leaned forward. "Dallas, sweetheart, you have company."

She knitted her eyebrows at her father's voice. It sounded the same. Usual. Perhaps his taunting of turning him into a vampire was just another cheap trick.

Yet, when she entered the living room, the putrid stench of death hit her solely in the jaw. His eyes were nothing but pits of emptiness, skin sickly pale. There was no sign of James when he looked at her. No loving father. Just the vampire.

Her eyes then fell to Scott, who gave her the weirdest, most quizzical look she had seen all day. 

Just when her shoulders couldn't stiffen anymore, Stiles Stilinski gave her a quick smile. "Hey."

Dallas could immediately feel the hunger the moment she set eyes upon him. She expected it to creep up on her -- to be an underlying sensation that she could fight off. She blinked. It wasn't. It was all consuming.

Scott glanced between the vampire and the siren. Steadily, like time itself had slowed, pieces of the puzzle stitched themselves back together underneath the werewolf's nose. He lifted his head with knitted brows before feeling the wind sweep behind him and bared teeth come slashing his way.

Scott's hand met James' chest and tossed him backwards into the messy dining table. It was a spur of the moment decision. An instinct, perhaps. Yet, as James Garcia collapsed into the wood and split it underneath his weight, the Alpha felt the immediate regret seep into his bones like poison.

"Dad!" Dallie could help but mutter out as she instincitevly fled to her father's side. Her hands clutched his and eyebrows furrowed into a mean look that burned towards Scott. 

"Get away from him, Dallie. He's been bit."

James Garcia rose to his feet, ripped fabric seams and broken wood littering the floor, while settling a deadly gaze on the two teenagers. Blood soaked into his white button down while a large chunk of wood poked out from his sides.

Dallas felt uneasiness clot her bloodstream and stiffen her joints from beside him.

His hand ripped it beneath his skin, wiping the bloodied edge against his slacks before pointing the jaggered edge towards Scott. 

"That.." he breathed. "Was very dumb."

Dallas didn't let go of his hand and answered Scott. "I know." She spoke through gritted teeth. "If you'd have just let me kill - he wouldn't have been."

She felt anger replace that uneasiness. James brushed the dust from his shoulders and buttoned up his blazer as he lingered his stare between them.

More anger. More hunger. It all made her hands shake and shoulders tense.

"Dallie," The Stilinski pulled at that them and furrowed his brows at how they felt cold underneath his touch. "You're not a killer. You know you're not."

Her eyes softened at Stiles. 

"I had Theo's heart in my hand, Scott. I could've ended all of this." Dallas took a daring step forward, kicking the broken furniture away. "I didn't because I wanted to be good. I wanted to be good enough for this pack. For both of you."

Stiles wanted to run to her and hug her. To squeeze her tight enough that all of her doubts smothered underneath his touch. He wanted to remind her that she was good. She never had to try. Even on her worst days, when red tainted her fingernails and salt scented her hair, she was delightfully, inexpliciably good. 

"But Theo was right. This packs too soft." She paused. "We could be better. Stronger."

Stiles leapt from behind Scott and reached for her, but Scott wouldn't let him get too close. "No, no, Dallie?" He could barely touch her hand. "He's not. He hurt you, remember? He'll do it again if you trust him-"

"Everyone's hurt me." Dallas croaked out. "If I started burning bridges with people because of that, I'd have nobody left."

Stiles blinked away the glossiness that drowned his eyes. "I haven't."

Dallas stepped forward and placed her hand against his cheek. "Which is why It'd be you that I'd lose next." She felt pain as she said it. "I would never let him hurt you, Stiles. You know that, don't you?"

"Come with me." She ignored how Scott sent bewildered stares into the sides of her face. "I can protect you. You said it -- we're in this together."

Stiles had never really thought about it before - but not one time had he ever felt unsafe in her presence - especially considering he was her exact appetite.

That was until now.

"Not in this, Dallie." He swallowed, pulling her hand from his face and keeping it in his hand. Fingers swept across her hand before interlocking with hers. "He put my dad in the hospital."

A wedge had settled between the two. On opposing sides of the coin, Stiles felt the girl he knew slip from his grasp and felt helpless in getting her back. 

"This town killed mine." She inhaled sharply, fidgeting her cold hand in his warm one. "Just like it killed me. It's not fair. Nobody else plays fair so why should we?"

"Because then we end up just like everbody who hurt us, Dallas." Scott tried to console her with a soft look. "You'd end up just like Peter." 

Dallas blinked away the white glaze that threatened to overtake her eyes. James appeared at her side, staring down at Scott as his gaze became the barell of a gun. The blinks became his reloads. His sudden tense breathing the flicker of the safety switch. All it took was his next movements to become the shot.

"I'm better than Peter."

And for a moment, it almost was.

James attempted to speed forward and tear Scott limb from limb but his tie gathered up in the Siren's hands and her unbrindled strength easily slammed him sideways into the wall. Wheezed coughs entered her ears and pains erupted in Jim's chest. It made her forget that he wasn't still human - and made hurting him much harder than it already was.

Scott and Stiles kept their stares directed at her as eyes fizzled between brown and white. Scott had come to the grim realisation that Dallas had her own agendas - and they no longer aligned with him and his pack's. "Go." She bit back the hunger and compulsion with shaky fists. "Go!"

The two boys didn't need to be told twice. Sneakers slid against wooden flooring and bolted through the door with petrified gasps. Slowly but surely, the Garcia named had became tainted with blood and it's family tree posioned at the root with curses they couldn't escape.

No human remained -- and between James and Dallas -- it became so very sad to see the two see eachother as the monsters they once feared.

James winced angrily as he straightened his posture. 

"That's your old man you're putting your hands on there." He spat out a pool of blood onto the floor. "You talk awfully big about accepting that you're not good.. just to save Scott. Again."

"I won't hurt anybody I care about." Dallas circled around the broken furniture, as did he. "Just those I don't. That is the difference between me and Scott."

No warm flames of emotion flickered behind his eyes. "So you think Theo can give you everything you want?"

 Her teeth sank into her bottom lip until blood coated the tips and hands clenched into fists. "No." She swallowed. "He's right about some things but that does not make him my Messiah."

"Then what does that make him?" 

"Convenient." Dallas took a step backward. She glanced at his bare fingers. "Looks like you still need a daylight ring, though."

Brown eyes widened with realisation. James Garcia tried to speed towards her but leapt back with a hiss as sunlight draped in through the open door. Fangs sprouted over his lips and veins struck his undereyes like blue lightning bolts. The newly turned vampire had only hunger and mischief on his mind - and with hours left until sundown - Dallas realised it wasn't too long until he turned Beacon Hills into a big dinner plate.

She felt the sun burn into her jacket and warm up her skin. "I'll come back for you." 

"Dallas-" He hissed as she freely stepped through the glares of sunlight. "Dallas, don't leave me here!"

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

"Sorry, he's what?"

"Vampire." Scott stood before Derek Hale, leaning against the door of Stiles Stilinski's jeep. His hands dug deep in his pockets while his eyes stared holes into the other wolf. "I couldn't smell it at first. He just reeked of.. death. Like Dallas does.. but it smells different. It is different."

Derek clenched his jaw as eyes widened. "Sirens eat men. Vampires eat everyone." 

"Seems like that family just gravitates towards darkness." He ran a hand through his hair. "And Dallas?"

Stiles Stilinski gripped his steering wheel until veins pertruded from beneath the skin and knuckles stained a deep red hue. His jaw clenched hard enough to chip the edges of his teeth and radiate headaches through his membrane. "Agrees with Theo." he spat.

"Why? When? How?" Derek widened his eyes. 

"Scott that doesn't mean she's gonna start slaughtering people." Stiles slammed his hands against the wheel. "She just.. doesn't agree with us."

"No, she just agrees with the person who is." Scott slithered his way to the window. "Stiles." he called out. "Stiles, we can fix this. All of it. Don't lose focus."

Stiles had regret lacing his features as he turned to Scott. "How? Cause right now, Scott, I don't see a way to fix any of it."

There was a long reign of silence that forced shudders upon their shoulders. "Keep following Theo's moves. I'll deal with James.. and I'll talk to Dallas." he felt a pang in his chest. "Before you make any hasty decisions, Scott, remember how much they've lost. Sometimes that does things to a person."

"I know. She's hurt." Scott paused. "But we all are." 

Stiles ran his finger against the golden initial necklace wrapped around his wrist and sighed heavily. For the first time - in a long time - they weren't in this together.

And it hurt like hell.

☆ word count: 3,346. ☆

a/n: she is not a villain!! but an anti hero!! 

also prepare for james x derek having vampire vs werewolf flirts and dallas x stiles having hero vs anti-hero flirts. and also... rip james garcia ig.