𝗧𝗔𝗦𝗧𝗘 𝗢𝗙 𝗬𝗢𝗨 ── 𝘚.𝘚𝘛𝘐𝘓𝘐𝘕𝘚𝘒𝘐

♡ 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗘𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧𝗬 ♡

♡ 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 ♡
𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 eighty.

cara mia.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

SULKING through dingy tunnels was not how James Garcia expected his morning to start. At least, not with an unconscious heretic slouched over his shoulder and a half-smoked cigarette pressed between his lips. As he trekked through muddy puddles and thickets of moss, he couldn't help but subconsciously avoid the strips of sunlight poking through the ceiling. 

He could feel the bones in Kai's neck slowly mend themselves against his shoulder pads. It was an eerie feeling; even eerier than the fangs positioned in the back of his gums sharp enough to catch his own tongue every now and then.

There was a tint of nostalgia that coated his tastebuds. A Garcia was easy to spot over the crowds of monsters in town. Familiar fangs and a dastardly cannibalistic hunger that seemed to plague the family tree like root rot.

Sometimes nostalgia was a tad bit too ironic. 

"What you are doing with that body, James?"

James stiffened as if Medusa's gaze had settled her grievous gaze on his body. Limbs shuddered into stone. Snake tongue fell dry. 

Chris Argent stood before him, hiding behind the barrel of a gun that pointed toward his chest matched the ricketiness of his forced breathing. Shadows crept into the crevices of his face until he could barely recognize him at all. James wasn't a stranger to the end of an Argent's gun - and he certainly wasn't a stranger to death either. 

Still, this wasn't what it looked like.

Chris didn't recognize him either. His suit wasn't tailored and fitted to his torso as usual, instead, replaced it with a thin white shirt with leather pulled over his sleeves. His hair had grown messy. His sophisticated demeanor burned alongside the cigarette that cast a halo of smoke behind his head.

James breathed steadily. "Chris-"

"Put the body down. Now."

His aura shifted. A black mass engulfed his bone-white dress shirt while stern eyes caused his own to shudder. James fiddled with his daylight ring, wincing as if his own words hurt, and spoke lowly. "No, I don't think I will."

Chris swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat as no warmth came from his voice. No heartbeat thumped steadily in his chest anymore. No heat thickened the crevices of his body. This was not the man he previously knew.

The Argent clicked away the safety and tightened his grip around the gun. "James, don't make me shoot you."

James didn't respond. He took a step forward and tempted fate like an old friend. "I'm unarmed. That's hardly fair."

"You have a dead body over your shoulder." He hissed. "Don't make me ask you again."

Another step. "Not even if I say please?" 

In the blink of an eye - and the flash of a gunshot - James felt a warm stickiness coat his left shoulder. He could feel the heat of the blood dripping down his arm like liquid embers. He stumbled back a few steps, pain radiating through his shoulder, while clustered groans sprang from his parted lips. 

His cigarette had fallen from his lips and spilled ash across the expensive leather on his shoes. James didn't fall, though. Legs refused to give way from underneath him and hands didn't jump to cradle his wound.

He was rigid. As tall and unsteady as an old church ready to crumble to its own sacred ground.

Chris lowered his gun as he watched fingernails dig into his shoulder and fiddle with the buried bullet. He stared in mortal horror, watching the only other man like him tear spheres of scrap metal from his body like doll parts.

He inspected the bullet in his fingertips before tossing it towards Chris' chest, the tiny drops of blood painting a macabre picture on the floor. 

If James wasn't already intimidating enough, he wore immortality like expensive jewelry. He left his wounds open just long enough for them to shimmer before straightening out his jacket over now blood-stained skin. "Now, can we talk like adults?"

"Like monsters, you mean?" He spat. "What bit you?"

James tutted lowly at Chris. "Put the gun down and I might just tell you."

"Who's that?" He nodded to Kai's unconscious body. 

James held his hand out for the gun. 

Chris didn't place his gun in the vampire's hand. Instead, he buckled it into the hemline of his jeans and gestured him to walk with a nod of his head. "I don't care about whatever you are, one wrong move and a bullet to the head is all it takes."

"And leave my daughter without a stable role model? You wouldn't."

The Argent scoffed. He seemed as stable as a rickety picket fence.

"Now, you're done shooting me, I'd love to pick your brain. What do you know about Original vampires-?"

Freezing in place, Chris interrupted. "Shut up."

"Rude. You could've just said nothing-"

"No, James, be quiet. Do you hear that?"

James didn't hear much other than the racing heartbeat of the man next to him, the low breathing of his chest, and the total absence of both in his own body. Yet, his ears focused and his body inclined towards the stench of death that wasn't his own.

Crittering bugs tapped tiny melodies through the tunnels. Slow clicking and chattering of their tiny bodies drew closer as their steps never ceased. "Step back." Chris narrowed his eyes at the grid James stood upon. "Do you smell anything?"

"Death." James felt his face grow white. "Lots and lots of death."

His eyes set between the gaps of metal while his gun found itself nestling between his fingers once more. This time it wasn't aimed at James. It was aimed at whatever lurked beneath them and made their home in the darkness. 

Insects. Tiny, million bodies of scattering insects. 

James covered his mouth as a rotting stench entered the air. Contaminated, it felt as if the oxygen itself poisoned his lungs and made it much harder to breathe. That was if he still could. 

Chris lit up a flare, not bothering to wince at the heat and smoke that warmed his face, and dropped it between the ridges of the grid. He counted how long it took to fall. Each second became around an inch or so. 

Beetles screeched and scattered when the heat scorned the floor into molten concrete. Although, it wasn't concrete the flare landed on. It was bodies. Rotting corpses of half of Beacon's missing and presumed dead stacked against each other neatly.

It wasn't a murder. It was a hidden massacre.

James swallowed thickly. 

"Now, that wasn't me."

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Dallas was never created perfectly. Physically, she'd give herself a fair score, but emotionally she seemed a little half-built. It felt like a muddled jigsaw muddle inside that had everything but the main pieces of the picture.

Or, in the words of others, like a man-eating psychotic nutjob that had better luck figuring quantum science out rather than herself.

The elevator was quiet. Stiles merely glanced at the freckles that coated her shoulders - the same ones he counted with his lips the night before - and hummed silently. His eyes then traveled to the warm cardigans she wore over pretty sundresses.

 Another thing, which she was cautiously good at, was converting her body from a lion's den into a place of worship. In any regard, with either the touch of priests or predators, Stiles always seemed to look forward to being torn apart.

He could see the thoughts racing behind her eyes, see the way she was constantly calculating and planning. It was both impressive and a little intimidating.

But he also saw the warmth that lurked beneath the surface, the kind of warmth that would boil anyone else alive. It was enough to suffocate his lungs just by standing next to her.

Dallas wouldn't look back at him. She couldn't. 

The gel in his hair did little to stop the strands from falling while early morning light blinded his eyes. His flannel slipped over his shoulders and sent shivers shuddering down his spine like a blistering autumn wind.

He was quick to smile, even quicker to smirk. Architecturally tall with eyes like thick clouds that nestled the storm inside, each glance he gave her made thunderbolts prick her stomach. 

Breathing was an exceptionally hard thing to do. Especially for Stiles - and previously Scott, more so due to his asthma than anything else - but specifically Stiles at this moment.

He had to count the seconds between them. He worried if they were too shallow or too quick. Dallas worried if hers would finally stop altogether. 

Wrapping up one body in sheets was far better than disposing of another in a carpet - and as of right now, Dallie's mind flipped between the two with each passing second.

 The elevator doors practically poured the teenagers out onto the hospital floor once it opened. If the tension didn't suffocate her enough, Dallas hissed at the eerie stench of death lingering in the air. 

Stretchers of bagged bodies wheeled past. One right after the over. Neverending, it seemed. 

The sight certainly didn't unsettle Dallie.

Kira, however, grew paler than the strips of ceiling light that shone down on her. 

Linking arms with her, the Siren watched as Stiles approached his father.

His eyes narrowed underneath slants of thick brow as he spoke. "Who found them?" 

"Argent." Noah paused. "Garcia."  Silence consumed the quartet as Dallas felt Scott's quick glance burn into the side of her face. "Chris said the doctors were down there - he also said you guys might know what this thing is."

Scott pressed his lips together gingerly. "We've, uh, got a theory."

Her eyes traveled back to Stiles who chuckled a wince. "It's a slightly terrifying theory." 

"Sherlock and Watson need a little more information it seems." Dallas fiddled with Kira's sleeve while ignoring the side-eyed looks from both boys. 

"The M.E. said that victims were killed somewhere else and then dumped in those tunnels. We're still trying to figure out fingerprints.

"You're not gonna find any." Scott lowered his voice a few octaves. He turned to Stiles, a new theory settling atop his tongue. "You think the Dread Doctors are hiding the bodies?"

"Why would they do that?" Kira glanced between the two. Sometimes it seemed like Stiles and Scott spoke a different language completely. They could always tell what the other was thinking.

Kira wondered if it was because they were brothers in a past life - or if Dallie's taunts about them sharing a brain cell were actually true. 

Stiles nodded along. "They're covering for it." He thought aloud. "Protecting it like a parent would."

Noah cleared his throat. "Protecting what?"

Scott met eyes with the Sherriff, phrasing his words with ease. "A Werewolf."

Kira nodded. "They call it the beast."

Dallas wouldn't call it beast. After all, aside from the claws, what made it beastly? What had it done that she hadn't already?

Their only difference was it wore fur and fangs while Dallas wore designer and denial.  

Caught up in her own thoughts, Dallas didn't realize Sheriff Stilinski was staring right at her and awaiting her input. "Yeah, very murder-y."

Stiles noticed the lost expression clouding her features. He noticed the way she looked at him. She held a piercing gaze, sharpened thinly through webbed lashes he could easily get caught up in if he wasn't too careful.   

Dallas always felt sympathy for the monsters. She'd seek out the holiness in a demon, the restraint in werewolves, and the sobriety in vampires. She wasn't a maniac, she promised, but sometimes the lines between intimidating and inviting blurred.

He turned back to his father hesitantly. "We know. Horrifying." 

Noah glanced between the teenagers. "We better figure out what we're gonna call Parrish." He swallowed. "Because it looks like his dream is coming true." 

Maybe monsters were a little more complicated than that.

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Elijah Mikaelson didn't usually have the heart for guilt. It was something he wore only once - along with rubies of condescension and taunting - while never letting it truly sit in the jewelry box of his mind too long to infect everything else he held dear.

Strangely, guilt was all he felt nowadays. Even stranger, his brother never even held it a second thought.

"Kai should be here by now." Klaus glanced at his reflection through the silverware that cluttered the diner table. "Oh, I'd kill the witch if his spells weren't so useful."

"Maybe you shouldn't jump so quickly to things like that," Elijah muttered, tone slightly scolding.

Niklaus rolled his eyes. "Like what? Killing your lesser half? It was tactical. Spurred up quite the reaction, I found it fun-"

"It was cruel."

"It was tactical." Klaus leaned back in his seat. "I suppose turning James into a vampire only made him more similar to you. Atleast he was somewhat fun."

Elijah tutted silently. "You can continue tormenting them as you like. Just know, Niklaus, I'll have no part in it."

Klaus couldn't get a word in before his brother came to a stand, brushing off his jacket as if their conversation were dust particles he could swat away.

He'd openly admit it only to himself; the differences between James Garcia and Elijah Mikaelson were slim.

He didn't know why he cared about the offspring who shared similarities to his own face, or to the man he'd only ever become in another lifetime.

Elijah began to wonder if having a doppelganger was a mere convenience for most vampires. If they were nothing more than alternate versions of oneself parading around in different clothes and cities just to become useful. James Garcia wasn't that. He was so much more.

James Garcia, cautiously, was a friend.

"Seems you need a backup witch, brother." Elijah taunted. "It's not me taking Jim's possessions, it's him taking yours."

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

"You're kidding, right?" 

Malia watched her reflection glint in the tip of the syringe. It wasn't the sharpness that made her queasy but the sadistic look on his face.

"You.. you're kidding, right?"

Theo shook his head in dismay, fighting back a smile. "I promised I'd help and I will."

She leaned away from the syringge with distaste. "That's supposed to help me find Deaton?"

He gave her a deadpanned look.

"Something in the Dread Doctors' opening theater is going to do that." Theo paused. "I can take you there, but I can't let you see where it is."

"Ever heard of a blindfold?"

"Not one that works on a coyote."

She glanced uneasily at the liquid that coated the syringe seams. Theo wasn't an easy person to trust. With his distrust in her also, they trekked in nothing but circles. "What's in it?"

"Wolfsbane." He held it carefully. "The same kind they used on Liam. It won't last and there's no permanent side effects." 

"Why should I trust you?"

"You shouldn't. But you will. Because the Desert wolf could already be here... and Scott's boss could already be dead."

"You want to give Scott the bad news? Do you want to tell him it's your fault Deaton's dead? Because you pretty much dared the Desert wolf to come after you?"

Malia fell silent. She took an uneasy step forward.

Theo chuckled at her gingerly. "You're gonna have to come closer than that." 

She took another. Hesitantly. "Closer." 

She took the final step, shuddering as his warm hands pressed against her neck. Theo brushed the hair out of the way and gently pressed the sharp edge above her veins.

"Do it." 

He shoved the syringe beneath her skin, pressing out on the wolfsbane and injecting the serum into her veins.

Malia had never felt such excruciating pain in her life. It didn't just make her change. It made her scream.

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Scott McCall found himself in a dreary haze as he walked through the school hallways. The lights seemed a little too bright for him. The walls? A little too close. Just as the noise became too much to handle, the speakers bleared out beside his ears.

"By order of the Sheriff, a county-wide curfew goes into effect tonight at sundown. All after-school activities are canceled until further notice. Students should go directly home at the end of the school day." 

He brought his eyes upward lazily. It wasn't until he saw multiple officers carrying heavy firearms nonchalantly did he widen his tired eyes. Indinsct radio chatter fought over the worried conversations of his peers. Scott didn't  which to listen to -- or if he should even listen at all. 

Luckily, in the midst of the crowd, Stiles Stilinski was questioning an officer of his own. "You don't think this is a bit much in terms of firepower for a high school?" 

"Your dad's the one that issued us these things and he wouldn't officially say why."

Scott interjected. "Did he say anything unofficially?"

The officer planted his hands against his belt. He held as much decorum as he could while the two boys eyed him suspiciously. "No, but everyone's got a theory."

The duo shared a look. A Sherlock and Watson-type theory?

Stiles nodded toward him. "What's yours?"

The officer felt the questions become less broad and more intrusive. Folding his arms, he puffed out his chest respectively. "I shouldn't be talking to you guys. Don't you have class?" 

Stiles groaned aloud. "Oh come on, Strauss. What's your theory?"

Glancing around for listening officers, he leaned in.

"Do you guys believe in the supernatural?"

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Mr Yukimura stood before his daughter, eyeing her carefully as he pulled a blade out from beneath his desk. His breath caught up in his chest and restricted his breathing somewhat when his reflection stared back through the blade.

"Dad, are you sure about this?" She leaned forward and whispered. "I mean, how am I supposed to help my friends if I can't fight?"

He tutted disapprovingly. Kira held high expectations of herself. Sometimes too high - the perfect height for a nasty fall. "You still know how to fight."

Though the falls wouldn't hurt, they'd always leave a big bruise on the ego.

"But I'm better with a sword." 

Mr Yukimura frowned at his daughter before spreading a comforting smile he hoped was infectious. Kira was always harder on herself than anyone else - and maybe that made him form a tendency to be softer.

"Then, as a teacher and a lover of history, maybe I can inspire you with a quote." 

"Oh, god-" She dropped her head in embarrassment.

"Napoleon said, 'There are only two forces in the world.'" He lifted the blade. "The sword and the spirit. In the long run, the sword will always be conquered by the spirit."

Kira slouched her shoulders in disappointment. "I thought it was the spirit I was trying to conquer." 

"Your spirit, Kira. You're still stronger than the fox. Remember that."

"But I'm useless without a weapon," she muttered, self-doubt shivering up her spine like cross-stitched spiderwebs. "I'm useless to my friends."

"You always have a weapon. The most powerful weapon of all-"

Kira tutted silently. "If you tap me on the forehead and say, 'Your mind is your most powerful weapon,' I'm going to scream." 

"I wasn't going to tap you on the forehead. But.. The sword is a gateway to the Fox - and the Fox is too dangerous." He sighed. "Your mind is a weapon, Kira. Trust yourself. You can outfox the Fox."

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Dallas Garcia was, proudly, absolutely unhinged.

Standing behind the countertops, nails tapping against the white marble, she watched her father stumble through the door with a suspicious-looking carpet hoisted over his shoulder. He didn't expect her to be there. Especially when she cleared her throat and almost dropped said carpet to his feet.

"Redecorating?" The teenager hummed, cocking her head to the side just enough to allow curled hair to slide down over her arms. 

James Garcia avoided his daughter's look. He told her he didn't seek revenge; he made her promise that she wouldn't either.

Now he had a dead body hoisted in his arms and a handful of questions with no good answer.

"No?" She furrowed her eyebrows and took a step closer. "I heard you and Mr. Argent found those bodies -- and I remember thinking: wow.. what the fuck is my Dad doing with an Argent?"

"Who's in the rug?" Her words were hasty. Angry. Manic. 

James knew his daughter. Hell, he raised her. He was her, in some ways. He knew what was like her and wasn't.

Dallas and The Siren were often seen as two different entities to him. They shared their striking similarities, sure, but he could always tell which was in the driver's seat on her train of thought.

This time, though, they seem merged.

He placed the carpet down gently and lifted a surrendering hand. "I'm dealing with it."

"You kidnapped his witch, didn't you?" Dallas gripped the marble and stepped out from behind the counter. "Klaus is gonna blow his lid when he finds out you did this. You can't beat him, you know?"

"I can protect us."

Dallas frowned. He really thought that to be true. James had bark and bite, definitely, but it wasn't enough for Klaus Mikaelson.

He'd put a stake through his heart before he could even begin his starting argument.

James stepped over the carpet slowly, leaning down to unroll the body hidden inside.

"You can't, Dad." She frowned while picking a dough roller from the countertop. "But I can."

The wood cracked slightly as Dallas hit him in the back of the head. She watched as his unconscious body slumped across the floor and lay beside the temporarily-dead Kai Parker.

She made sure not to hit too hard - although, whatever injury caused would surely heal within a couple of hours.

Dallas didn't mind feeling Klaus Mikaelsons wrath as the ferocity of it matched her own. What she did mind, however, was her father painting himself red to taunt the bull even more.

The Siren sighed heavily. "Now, I just have to make sure it's me he comes for."

Dallas was the expected psycho. The she-devil with horns as high as her ponytails. That was fine. At least when people came with torches, she'd find the fire comforting. 

Dallas Garcia was, undoubtedly, a thicket of a beast laid over a female silhouette.

Her head cocked to the side at Kai. "Now, what the hell do I do with you?"

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Malia Tate awoke to a rusted lamp swinging ever so silently above her face. Her hands were bound to her sides and her ankles were tied with a thick slab of rope. She recognized Theo's leather-clad back and how his hands fumbled with tools beside her. 

It wasn't his first time having a girl tied up. Innocently.

Malia grunted as she attempted to break free from the fickle chains. "What the hell is this?"

"Safety first." His hands rummaged through the drawers of metal equipment. "I said I'd help you find the Desert Wolf." 

The Coyote mustered up a glare as he approached her. "I didn't say it was gonna be easy. the restraints are to keep you from hurting yourself." Theo tossed a pair of steampunk goggles between his hands. "Or me." 

His fingernails pulled a lever through the goggles while Malia watched spikes poke out from the eyeholes. 

"Oh, come on!" She pulled frustratingly at the restraints.

"This is what the Dread Doctors used to keep track of the Chimeras. It seeks out and hones on a certain frequency. They gave the Chimeras their own unique vibration." 

Malia spat through gritted teeth. "So, how is that going to help me find Deaton?" 

"It won't." He offered an understanding smile. "It's going to help you find a were-coyote."

Malia nodded. "My mother."

"Because supernatural creatures also have their own frequency."

"What? Now you're teaching me physics?" She breathed heavily through a tensed chest, heart ready to beat itself out of her ribcage. "Or are you going to put your little torture device on my head and get this thing started?"

"You have to concentrate on exactly who you want to find," Theo spoke lowly, making sure she heard and understood each word clearly. "You have to make a connection to a memory of her." 

"I don't remember a thing about her."

"Then think about something else. Think about the crash. Think about the gun firing at the car. Anything that brings you back."

Malia took a deep breath and stared down at the goggles.

"This is gonna hurt." He smirked. 

"I don't care."

He placed the goggles over her head, careful to keep them tight enough from slipping but loose enough to keep the circulation flowing in her head.

Theo's fingers hesitated above the clasp before pressing down on it firmly, sending spikes daggering into her head like shards of glass scuttling their way beneath the skin.

Her screams muddled into the same frequency as her roars. They shook the room around them until cracks lined the walls and chipped brick dusted down on their shoulders.

Her hands gripped the edge of the trolley to relieve some of her pain - but there was too much of it. So much pain overcame her until it felt like screaming was all she could do.

Blood trickled down from underneath the goggles and tinted her cheeks with a tortured blush. "Don't close your eyes." Theo warned. "Keep them open."

Malia could barely speak through the cries of agony. "I can't!" She shrieked. "I can't. It hurts."

Theo shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His hands remained by his side even though anxiety roared through his veins like an easily spread forest fire. "Malia, open your eyes." 

The Coyote struggled. Tears pricked the frontal lobes and the whites fell bloodshot, but she did it. She could finally see.

The view was hazy and incomplete - like a television frequency with terrible signal - all gritty and blurry that it made her eyes hurt. 

Malia watched the Desert Wolf fiddle with restraints and chains. Not her own, but to bind another man in. "The Full Moon-" Voices muddled in and out of her ears. "I'm telling you.. It has to be the full moon.

His face warmed into an unhealthy shade of red as he groaned painfully. Behind his head, though, a sign hoisted against the wall. 

Fort Jewett.

Malia barely had time to register before the goggles were ripped from her face. Blood had soaked her lower face and a red hue coated her vision. She barely recognized Theo Raeken kneeling beside her. 

He wore a worried look, however, quirked a brow when Malia's panting turned to a laugh. 

"I know where she is." Malia huffed quick pants of breath. "She's here."

Her tone lowered a few octaves and her look turned menacing.

"She's in Beacon Hills."

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Dallas sat alone in her living room. She fiddled with her father's daylight ring, sliding it over her finger and tilting her head to the side. Dallas couldn't help but wonder, in the far distant future, what type of wife she would make.

Would she the ball and chain? Would her relationship fall apart like her mother's? Would she be the type to kill her husband?

Considering how she'd had to call Derek to help her move not one, but two bodies - and him agreeing with little to no context - all evidence pointed towards yes.

How she even had a boyfriend was beyond her.

Stiffening, the Siren heard the doorway creak behind her. Leather shoes sank into the frame, expensive cologne lingered in the air and the unholy stench of death clung to the figure like musk. 

Dallas couldn't see his face from the sunlight spilling out from over his shoulders. He had the physique of a Mikaelson, though. The same damning tallness she could never emulate. Picking up a stake she had spent the last hour sharpening, the Siren lunged toward the man with nothing but fury lighting up her eyes. 

He stumbled back, wrestling for the stake in her hand tirelessly before gripping the teenager's wrist hard enough for muscles to spasm. The stake clattered to the floor, as did Dallie's confidence until a firm push shoved her to the floor beside it. 

Dallas propped herself up on her elbows and glared up at the figure as it stepped through the doorway. Her ego felt a little shaken. Her heart began beating loudly in her chest as the figure stepped an inch closer. 

Klaus was toying with her. He'd kill her in the comfort of her own home just for the irony. 

He stepped out of the sunlight, offering her his hand and his face finally coming into view.

"Elijah?"

"If that stake was meant for Klaus, you'd be doomed." The vampire muttered, helping the teenager to her feet with a stern tone. "What on earth were you thinking? Is putting yourself in danger a hobby of yours?"

Dallas brushed the dust from her jacket. "That's big coming from the guy who let his brother take a chunk out of my dad." She spat. "Why are you even here?"

Elijah's shoulders sank in guilt. "Klaus knows Kai's missing."

"I've got time to prepare better before he comes for me, then."

Elijah gave her a quizzical look. "Dallas, it's not you he's looking for. It's James. He knows he did it."

Dallas spat. "How?"

"Because I told him." 

Dallas stepped back with wide eyes. "Where is he?"

The teenager could barely speak. "Where I thought he'd be safe." Dallas swallowed. "The School."

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Dallas was unsure what it was about her that made everybody else treat her like she was inadequate at dealing with her own problems. It was teenage boys with saviour complexes. A demon with white knight syndrome. A vampire, who no matter what, could not take the hint. 

"I don't need your help, Elijah."

"What's your plan?" He kept up with her, a cap pulled over his head and eyes barely poking out from the sun visor, "Cause right now you seem to be doing a whole lot of stomping and not a whole lot of thinking."

"I don't know." Dallas swallowed thickly as she approached the school. "I.. I don't have one."

"You don't know him like I do," he argued, pulling at her arm and forcing her to face him. "He'll be expecting you. It's a trap!"

"I don't care!" Dallas shrugged his grip from around her forearm. "You can sit out here and shudder in his presence if you like, but I'm gonna save my fucking Dad."

The Siren noticed he wanted to say something else. He parted his lips grimly, eyes wearing an emotion she couldn't read.

"I-"

"Sorry, sir." An officer stood between them, readjusting his belt and presswreckage from her shaky chest and ing his gun against his chest. "Parents are encouraged to wait until the end of the day to voice their opinions on the Sheriff's lockdown decision. Until then, you can't be on school grounds."

Elijah gave her a pleading look. "Dallas, think about this."

"I'll see you after school," Dallas wore a fake smile and stepped behind the officer. "Dad."

Turning away from the two men, her smile fizzled beneath crashing waves of mania. Her hands balled into fists; tight enough for the knuckles beneath to almost split.

The sound of each footstep against the pavement was like a hammer blow to her broken heart, caving in her chest and scuttling the pieces across the floor.

Dallas could feel the imprint of crescent moons sink into her skin. She could feel every nerve in her body, each one lighting up with a fire that made her eyes glimmer maliciously.

Scott was right - she'd be the first to take it that step too far. But Dallas was no longer stepping. She was lunging.

Her ivory tower of a loving family had shattered and she refused to sit underneath the rubble to wither away in her own pain. D

allas could deny her own instability, her hysteria, and even her own fickle grip on sanity. Alas, she couldn't deny the Siren inside that craved madness like a meal.

Students steered clear of her path. It was no odd sight seeing Dallas thunder down the halls with menace in her eyes. She had done it with boys following, boys running and boys avoiding looking at her at all. 

Although, one lit up at the sight. 

Her arm wrapped up in a warm hand. "Hey,"

Dallas didn't want to look at Stiles. Not when her crazed sight made it feel like she was staring straight out of a kaleidoscope. "I just was just telling Scott we have to be tactical now, my dad has officers swarming the school. We should be safe, for now."

"We will be." The Siren hummed. She kept a steady eye on the passing students and slanted her eyebrows in a suspicious glance. "Stay here, okay? Don't follow me."

Flickering an icy stare between the two boys, she spoke as if she weren't asking but demanding.

It probably came out a tad meaner than she would've liked, but Dallas was protective. She couldn't wager Klaus wouldn't hurt them - or force her to do it for him.

Scott stepped in front of her as she tried to leave. 

"Okay, now I feel like I definitely should." He took a momentary glance at Stiles. "Dallas, what's going on?"

The teenager rose her head in a frustrated fashion. Scott, annoyingly perceptive, was one of those white knights too.

Dallas would burn down the house of cards, throw gasoline on the playing field and wear the red armor herself if it made people see her for what she was. Capable.

Scott wished she could rewrite those words and see herself for what she actually was. Stubborn.

The girl tried to step beside him but felt Stiles block the other side of her path. "Dallie."

"Plainly?" She cocked her head to the side and dragged her heavy peer between them. "I'm gonna go kill Klaus Mikaelson."

Her hands wedged between the two boys and pushed them to either side harshly. When the winds were harsh enough and the thunder hot enough to sear skin, Dallas Garcia's storm was an unstoppable force. A wall of flesh and bone couldn't stop her no matter how prettily they were sculpted.

The two boys shared a look. That included the officers that would get in her way.

The Siren loved psychotically. Anything - anyone - who dared to hurt what she held close would feel the pain twice as scorching. It was her greatest strength and worst weakness.

Klaus Mikaelson and Dallas Garcia were two sides of the same coin. The two paths split from one pavement built on constant damage and a need to somehow make it all worth it. They were each other's worst nightmare - themselves.

Dallas, even over the smell of muddled perfumes and cologne of the student around her, inhaled the chimeric scent of Klaus. He made no effort to hide it.  Instead, parading it on each and every student she passed like a trail of breadcrumbs.

Her boots came to a stiff halt at the empty natatorium. It was the only room not bound by police officers and deputies. Abadoned, mostly, if not used for the very little swim lessons they had.

 It as the perfect place for prey to hide. The lights dimmed around that part of school, the students becoming harder to come by and the faint whispering of thoughts in her head becoming ever louder. Stepping through, though, entailed a sight she didn't expect to see.

"Don't move."

A cluster of officers - ten or twelve - rose their guns towards her face with blank expressions coating their impressionable faces.

She knew the safety was off. She could smell the gunpowder in the barrels and the sweat bucketing from their foreheads as they looked at her.

They were compelled.

"I was wondering how long it'd take you." 

Klaus sat behind them. Sitting on a wooden bench like a throne, his leather shoes used a stray body as a footrest and laid his heel against the skull. 

Dallas didn't cower at the guns pointed her way and took a step forward.

"I'm right here, uncle."

The Hybrid bared a toothy smile at the nickname. "Yes, you are."

His eyes then glittered excitedly as he looked behind her. "Not the only one, it seems."

Stiles swallowed the lump in his throat as a gun settled beneath his jaw. The cold metal sent shivers creeping around the back of his neck and choke him with uncertainty.

An officer stood behind him, eyes stricken forward at Klaus while another readjusted his shotgun against Scott's head. Both were pushed forward through the natatorium doors roughly and forced to their knees.

Klaus held a piercing stare on the Siren. So much so, her skin started to feel the many daggers he sent her way. 

"Where's my witch?" 

"Where's my dad?"

He chuckled humorlessly. 

"Is this what you came here? To Haggle me?" Klaus' voice turned stern, pouring salt into her wounds with his sour tone. "Don't test my patience, I do love a good school massacre."

Dallas stepped forward, brushing up close enough to the officers that the guns pressed into her body. It wasn't them she was looking at though, it was Klaus.

"I want the cure you promised." She answered flatly. "I want you out of my town. I don't ever want to see another Mikaelson for as long as I live."

Her cold, pealescent white eyes eyes settled on the officer who blocked her path. "But right now, I want these guns out of my face."

All at once, the officers dropped their firearms to their feet and blinked a pearly glaze over their irises.

Altering their surroundings with compulsion and mind control really did  make the two cannibals seem too much alike.

"Sorry, uncle, you were saying?"

Puddles gathered beneath her feet as she walked towards him. Toying. Daring. Doing whatever she could to make him feel as little as he did her.

Stiles watched her spit in the vampire's face the way she did teachers during their first semester together. Dallas hadn't changed one bit but only evolved into someone even stronger than she was before. 

She was terrifying.

Man, what a woman.

Klaus snapped his head up. "Shoot them-"

Dallas tossed her head sideways to the officers. "Do not."

The armed officers froze in place. With conflicting echoes misting their cloudy minds, their bodies turned rigid and eyes darkened almost lifelessly.

Just as Dallie looked away, Klaus used the spare time to pull the back of her hair and force her up against the wall.

"Do you think I have time to indulge in your pathetic little mind games?" He hissed. "I assure you, I do not. I can reap terror you can't even begin to comprehend."

Dallas could barely breathe from his tight grip around her neck.

"Really?" She taunted, whispering right above the lowest octave. "Cause from where I'm standing, you're no more powerful than I."

Dallas watched doubt tint his face.

"That's it, isn't it?" She laughed. "The taunts, the intimidation, the killing of my father - you can't stand that I could be better than you."

"You want the cure so badly?" Klaus taunted, pressing his hand over her mouth. "Take it."

Her muffled yells didn't cease as a glass pill was shoved on her tongue. She clawed, fought and scratched away his hands from around her.

Her fingers fiddled into her sleeve and jolted out a sharpened stake. Her hands were no longer shaky.

Her ego, never bruised. She aimed straight for the heart deep enough for the tip to poke out the other side. Klaus' grip on her loosened. His face, glaring down at her, fell pale and inanimate.

He could feel the sticky warmth of his own blood seeping through his fingers as he pried at the splinters.

Klaus stumbled and fell to his knees, gasping for breath that wouldn't come.

Slowly, painfully, he slumped to the ground as veins clawed up his face.

Dallas knew it'd take more than that. A stake made of white oak - or mountain ash clogging up the insides.

She knew whatever she did to him wasn't permanent.

Dallas widened her eyes at the broken glass in her mouth and the sour taste of the cure on her tongue.

Whatever he had done to her was. 

Stiles Stilinski had finally broken free from the officer's rigid grip and instantly dropped to her side. Dallas was stiff, mind racing faster than her feet could, while dropping to her knees in complete disassociation.

She took the cure. She'd be human again.

She wished he'd killed her instead.  Stilesdidn't need to ask her how she was feeling. From the tears gathering in her eyes, to the way she spit the glass out like it was poison. Dallas Garcia never saw herself as anything other than the Siren. How could she be anything else?

Stiles would love her human. Just as he did before. Just as he did after. The state of which condition her mortal body in was no matter to him. She'd cut out his heart and give it to her whether she'd eat it or not.

Wrapping his arms around her waist and tightening her into a hug, he felt her eyes burn into Scott's from over his shoulder. 

This wasn't what she wanted.

☆ word count: 6,956. ☆

a/n: put down the torches I still have a few tricks up my sleeve ;)