𝗧𝗔𝗦𝗧𝗘 𝗢𝗙 𝗬𝗢𝗨 ── 𝘚.𝘚𝘛𝘐𝘓𝘐𝘕𝘚𝘒𝘐

♡ 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗘𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧𝗬-𝗢𝗡𝗘 ♡

♡ 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 ♡
𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 eighty-one.

angel, he calls me, does he know I'm falling?

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

  "IS SHE GROUNDED?"

The sides of Jim's lips folded upwards as he heard Derek's voice. With an ice pack pressed against the back of his head and a glass of liquor in hand, he focused on everything but the silhouette of the man before him. 

"Grounded?" He huffed, "Til retirement."

Waking up in the nurse's office of a high school wasn't how he expected his day to go. Neither was realizing with a wife still widowed in the eyes of everybody else, his emergency contact was passed on to Derek Hale.

They didn't pester him with too many questions at least. How'd you hit your head? Oh, my daughter is a rolling pin-swinging maniac. Why is your suit stained red? I've been carrying a dead body inside a carpet for the last couple of hours. Who's Derek Hale to you? ... None of your business.

Compulsion was fun.

Almost hearing his thoughts, Derek crossed his arms. "I hope that new trick of yours works well. The school is swarmed with police, some still slightly untrustworthy of me ever since Scott accused me of murder that one time." He paused. "Thanks for helping me out with that, by the way."

They both knew he did no such thing.

James didn't bother to hide his laugh as the werewolf took a seat beside him, gelled hair a certified mess and silver rings lining his fingers barely shining as a hand ruffled through it. "Like you could afford me."

There was a silence neither of them could fill afterward. As the quietness of the nurse's office set in and a reminder of the past few days lay with it, there was a string of words left unsaid. 

"James, why am I your emergency contact?"

A miswriting on his documents. A spur of the moment decision by his younger self. A simple sentiment that may have meant a little more than he imagined. 

Derek had his eyes forced forward, not daring to move his head barely an inch in the vampire's direction. "If it means nothing, tell me. Don't make me believe there's something if there isn't."

There was something. An unwritten tragedy, perhaps. James watched a seashell in the form of his wife wash up in his life years before - only to see her fizzle out into seafoam that became too tiring to swim in. If that could happen with Marilyn, the mother of his child and the proclaimed love of his life, who's to say he and Derek ever had a chance?

"Everything has always been just me and Dallie, Derek." The words were pained, spoken through heaps of heartache. "She's me, you see? We're a packaged pair."

"Jim-"

"And when everything falls apart, which it will, it's just me and her again. I won't let her lose something else because I wanted it too." 

James leaned his elbows against his knees and slouched forward as the words piled out. "There's nothing there, Derek because it can't be."

Derek chewed on the inner sides of his cheeks and stiffened up his face hard enough to ache the bones. "Right." He nodded coldly while looking everywhere but his eyes. "You're right, it's nothing. You'd have to have a heart for that."

James felt a pain slice into his chest, snug between the gaps of ribcage and muscle, and spread an infectious melancholy into his bloodstream like poison. There was no point arguing with that, Jim had a heart, just hidden deep within his chest and heavily guarded until cobwebs covered the casing.

His heart stopped being used the moment it stopped beating.

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Dallas walked between Scott and Stiles, taking turns narrowing her eyes at her alpha and her boyfriend with displeasure. "Either of you tells anyone, I won't eat you. My aunts will."

Stiles was the first to speak. "So you're just gonna pretend like it never happened?"

"What happened? I took a pill, I was sick, and I feel fine. There's nothing to overthink." 

Scott butted in. "Yeah, but it was a cure. It kind of -- you know, -- cures."

Dallas Garcia was an endless wave of denial. A river, perhaps. Tainted by delusion and discontent with her current situation. Taking a cure didn't make you cured -- just like taking an antibiotic didn't make you miraculously better -- or how a painkiller wouldn't heal the injury. 

Surely she'd feel.. different. There was no difference in her bones, bulk, and body. The Siren was there, maybe, swimming beneath the surface in what felt like punishment.

Pulling her by the arm, Stiles nodded to Scott to walk on until out of earshot. He was more gentle with her skin as he pulled at it; fingers softer than how she usually liked them. "Dallie, what if you are? Do you realize how many people hate you? Who'd love to hurt you? I do, I can't stop thinking about it."

"Then don't. I love avoiding my problems that way." 

He faked a laugh before cutting off into a blank, deadpanned look. It made the butterflies in her stomach swarm a little. "Are you going to take this seriously or not?"

"Coming from the guy who compares me to Aquaman?"

Another deadpanned look. Dallas eyed him suspiciously before quirking a brow. "Fine, if I do will you stop scolding me?" She rolled them playfully. "I'm not your precious little princess, Stiles."

He drank up her silhouette with his eyes. 

"Aren't you?" he asked, his voice low and husky. He took another step closer to her, cutting the distance between them. 

His step was somehow enticing. Stiles had always been a tad overprotective -- or protective in ways she'd always refuse that she needed - but the thought of losing her to something as common as a bad fall made him want to stick to her side like glue. 

Especially his hands.

"You're not gonna drop this, are you?"

The warmth made her knees melt until they threatened to buckle when stepped forward to tuck the hair behind her ear in one swift move. His hand was gentle on her skin. Fingers barely brushed against her cheekbone as his lips tutted dryly.

"Look, I won't tell anyone," he promised. The conflict in his voice was evident as it wavered along the fragile framework of his words. "But I have to look out for my girl when she needs it."

Heat spread across her nose and hid beneath the freckles as she heard it. It was something that made the fire burning inside feel less scorching and more soothing; like the sun had nestled in her chest and called it home.

She studied his features momentarily before relaxing her shoulders. "I can assure you, she doesn't need it."

"She does," he countered playfully. "Especially when she's this stubborn.

His tone was soft, but there was an underlying strength to his words that promised her more than his lips ever could.  There was a sincerity in his eyes that made her believe someone other than herself could actually stop the hurt.

Even as a Siren, she got hurt. As a human, the world around him practically dared to. He couldn't punch the globe in her defense but he could accompany her around it just to ensure it treated her well.

Brushing past her, he mumbled in her ear with a low tone. "After you, princess."

Dallas swallowed thickly. If the shoe fit.

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Malia Tate stood over a thicket of photographs, half security footage and half aerial. Braeden stood beside her with a sour look - more so at Theo than anyone else - and placed her shotgun shells individually on the table.

"What's the problem?"

"Besides the fact I've never seen this place beyond a few aerial photos," she began to load the shells in carefully. "And we're basically going in blind?" 

Braeden aimed it right toward Theo's chest. "Him."

He shrugged innocently. Somewhat innocent, anyway. "Would you mind not pointing that thing at me?"

Malia winced tightly. Theo wasn't a choice she would've initially gone with, but due to circumstances, he was the one she was left with. Scott couldn't encourage fixing her problems with murder. Dallas probably would've, but even she had her hands tied in knots with her long string of issues. Stiles was the only person she'd let help untangle it. Lydia was bedridden. Kira was barely containing the Kitsune within. 

Theo was.. available.

 "He's coming with us."

Braeden widened her eyes and spat her words until they hurt her throat on the way out. "He tried to kill Scott."

"Technically, I did kill Scott."

"I should kill you." She gave him a glare.

"Won't happen with a shotgun."

Malia raised her voice over the two. "Stop. Both of you."

Theo stood up. "I did what I had to survive. The Dread Doctors wanted everybody dead. I convinced them it could just be Scott."

Braeden turned to Malia with distaste. "You could still tell Scott."

"When we have Deaton back." The were-coyote promised. Guilt overtook her. It was consuming in a way she had never understood once before. It made all the food she ate sickening. All the nights sleeping alone ended in light naps and endless tossing and turning. She wanted to puke it out until her stomach held nothing but feminine rage. 

"He's not going to blame you for the Desert Wolf taking him." 

"but he might stop me from killing her." She turned to the Chimaera, eyeing him carefully. "Theo won't."

"Actually, I'm planning to help."

Braeden scoffed harshly. "Don't be so confident. She's known to carry pretty heavy firepower."

Theo flickered his gaze between them. "But, what do were-coyote need with guns?"

"there's a story." Braeden began. "I don't know all the details, but something happened a long time ago. Somehow, she lost part of her power. She's not as fast or as strong as she used to be -- but she can still pull a trigger and she's a perfect shot."

Malia felt her look linger. "The sun's going down. We need to go." She eyed her impatiently. "Are you coming or not?"

Braeden grabbed the rest of her shells with a stiff nod. 

"Don't say I didn't warn you."

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Dallas usually felt like she could confide in Derek Hale in a way she never could with her father. He wore the same traits as him; the same scolding tone whenever she did something wrong and the same caring stare that made her feel a little less judged in a world of juries.

Her knuckles brushed against his door and shook from the weird feeling of anxiety that she tried her best to ignore. If she was human -- sensitive body and all -- he'd be the only one to treat her the same.

Except, he wasn't answering. 

"Derek?" Her fist gently tapped the door once more. "Hello?"

Her fingers fumbled for the spare key he'd given her, only to be used in dire emergencies if her parents became too much or wanted to drop by to say hello to her favourite (and only) godfather. 

The mud clung to her boots as she stepped in. The doormat was soft underneath the soles until she kicked one side of her heel and allowed the soil to clatter to the floor like dirty rainfall. Her oversized jacket, another that belonged to Stiles and quickly became hers instead, dampened from the rain that had slid down the tips of her hair. Her shorts clung to her legs while goosebumps didn't bother to appear on her legs as they stepped forward.

"Is anyone here?"

She noticed how cold it was inside, so much so, that when Peter stepped out the kitchen with a mug of tea in hand his face lit up with steam. It almost frosted up in his eyes until they blinked suspiciously at the girl before him. "You have a key?"

Dallas placed it between her teeth as she kicked the door shut. "You're still alive?"

Just as he was about to snap back with a sarcastic response, Dallas Garcia finally saw the tired eyes of Derek Hale. His hair was messy, his eyes sunken and his attitude heartbroken. He'd either not slept in days or spent days doing nothing but. "You look like you barely are."

"It's been a long week." His voice seemed just as unbothered as his charisma.

"It's Tuesday."

He took a large breath. "Did someone die or are you just here to insult me, Dallas?" 

She gave the two Hales a hesitant look. "Not yet, I suppose, but one day. Eventually."

Peter butted in. "Ah, you must be on a hunger strike, then."

She gave him a glare, wondering how one of her best friends could come from someone she despised so passionately. "Do you have to be here? Don't you have some teenagers to traumatize?"

"Is that not what I'm already doing?"

"Bite me." A scowl in his direction.

"I did."

Derek watched Dallas spit back at his uncle fondly. Then, as her words twisted into sarcasm and dry humour, she sounded a little too much like James. She looked a little too much like him, too. It was uncanny how similar they were in body, spirit, and mind. Dallas Garcia was a living, breathing reminder of the vampire he'd tried to hate.

James had made him sick. Feverish, even. His heart was on fire but it left his body nothing but cold. He couldn't be haunted by his face.

Derek stepped away with a thick swallow. Avoiding her face, he allowed himself to bask in the sunlight of the large windows that lurked behind. He'd focus on the sunrise, the sunset, and the stars that made up the sky before he ever gave a second thought to the people who sat underneath it ever again.

She appeared behind him with brows folded into a furrow. "I am here for a reason, I promise." 

He didn't look at her. Dallas noticed. "Can I talk to you about something?"

"Go for it." He mumbled, eyes narrowing slightly as the sunlight blinded him.

Dallas gave a quick glance to Peter who raised an eyebrow at her hesitation. "No, like you, on your own." She noticed how ignored her tone of voice and instead focus solely on the words. She sounded like him, too. "Fine, uh, whatever, just promise you won't tell my dad? He'd.. freak."

Derek refused to look at her. Dallas wondered if she'd done something wrong -- or said something that upset him enough to resent her completely. It was like a steel knife was cutting through the lining of her stomach and chopping up her insides.

He laughed bitterly. "No chance of that."

Dallas felt her jaw clench hard enough to give herself a headache. Maybe it was her faulty genetic code, or her persistent flaw to never leave things alone, but she pulled at his arm and forced him to finally look at her. "Derek, can you just-"

"Jesus, Dallas, what?" He snapped, tone sharp and eyes wide.

The words were scolding. Hot and blistering to the ears as they were spoken with such strife. Dallas didn't understand the way he looked at her - heart-ached and hellish - like she had pulled at his heartstrings instead of his arm. It took her a few minutes to adjust to his tone and the sickening glare he gave that made the child inside of her want to apologize for simply existing.

Dallas silenced it inside with harsh thoughts. Those words would never leave her mouth. "Forget it." She spat. "It's not important."

Even though the knife split her open and left her insides shuddering at the cold floor, hot rage crept up behind her the more he spoke. It made the wind whistling through the fresh hole in her stomach comforting.

"No, I'm listening. I always did listen, but nothing is ever important unless it's about you, is it?" His words fell misplaced, saying things he'd wished to say to James to the closest thing instead. 

Derek could barely register who stood before him. One moment, it was Dallie. The next, it was James Garcia with his bleeding heart in his hand. 

 Feeling like feel Peter's stare burn into her cheeks as they fell red, she clenched her fists until they stamped nail marks into her palms with each unsteady breath. Her eyes felt like cold stones in their sockets as she blinked uneasily. Dallas never dealt well with rejection. "That's not fair-"

"It's not, is it?" He paused. "You Garcias do nothing but hurt and that's all I feel when I look at you."

The Garcia wasn't sure if the pain in her head came from the toothache of gritted teeth or from the handful of breaths she forgot to take. Either way, it was hot enough to blare sirens in her head for the thunderstorm that was yet to come.

Gloss, shining like real diamonds, coated her eyes as they narrowed angrily. Her eyes, reflecting a stormy sea, had a bolt of lightning as her brows furrowed thickly. The tension between them crackled in the air like impending doom. 

Dallas wasn't sure when she lunged for him. All she knew was that Peter pulled at her arms and forced her to the floor. It was like she was sixteen again, watching the glimmer of the headlights in his teeth and realizing too late how much bigger he was than her. He looked the same. She, for a split second, felt it.

The gnawing of her younger self pained her stomach even more when he offered her his hand. She could drink oceans dry. She could paint riverlands red. She could build fear in the heart of those who dared to wrong her with nothing but her teeth and tongue. It wouldn't matter. Peter would always remind her of the time when she was not strong enough. 

Instead of taking it, the girl stood up independently and brushed the dust from her shorts. Her hair dangled inches over her shoulder and fell messily before her eyes while grey fingerprints coated the sleeves of her jacket. Her feminine rage was everpresent whether her blood was tainted black or ran clear as water. It was permanent. Visceral. Red-hot.

She blew the hair out of her face with a burning look of hatred melting her features into a face Derek finally didn't recognize. Only then, did the haze lift from his eyes, and did he remember Dallas was not James.

"Dallas, I-"

"Go fuck yourself, Derek." Her voice was coarse and tone sharp. "I came to return your key, I won't need it."

He fell silent as the metal key clattered to his feet with her mean throw. Bent and misshapen.

Her steps felt heavy as she left. Stepping back into the mud she kicked off on her way in, Dallas wished there was enough of it to form a grave - as her godfather was dead and she didn't know the man standing in his place.

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

"No guards. No lights." Braeden eyed up the building through her telescope. "This place looks completely abandoned." 

Malia stood beside her. "That should be easier for us, right?" 

"Not necessarily. Especially if she knows we're coming." Her tone spilled anxiety over her lips until she could taste it. "You're sure this is the place you saw?"

"Unless there's another Fort Jewett." 

Unsurprisingly, Theo stood beside her, too. "Maybe she left." He noted her silence and watched her eyes fixate on the building with unshaken rage. "Maybe Deaton's already gone."

"I'm not walking away on a maybe-"  She turned to Braeden who almost finished the sentence for her.

"-And I'm not walking in on so much uncertainty." 

Malia furrowed her brows until her eyes could barely see through the dinted lash. "You said you've been after her for years."

"And why do you think it's been years? Because she knows what she's doing. She took Scott's boss for a reason. We don't know what it is. We don't know if she's back in Beacon Hills because she's missed you all this time and can't wait for a mother-daughter reunion or if she's planning to put a bullet in your head." 

Braeden sighed. "We don't know anything."

Malia interrupted. "We know one thing. We know where she is."

"I'm going in.. I have to."

Malia was never one to take orders -- or suggestions, in any case -- and had no obligation to please anybody but herself. This was her mess. Her mother was her problem. She'd solve it whether it was with her words or her fists.

The two connected eyes as she jumped orward in a strut dedicated enough to shake brick. Cocking her gun, Braeden walked beside Theo. Something told her this would end in more than just fists.

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Lydia Martin was a body of broken parts. Her vision was blurred and Meredith spent more time in her mind than any rational thoughts. Pain engulfed her spine until it felt like it was made of twine and string rather than blood and bone. 

"Meredith, please." She pleaded through the glass that separated them. "Tell me how you did it." 

The hazy figure of Meredith placed her hand on the glass with a gentle yet dangerous tone. "You have to find your own way." 

Lydia panted breathlessly. "Why can't you tell me yours?"

Her hand slid down the glass until it hung shakily by her side. "Because, my way, people got hurt." She watched as the Banshee could barely stand her voice. "Some days it was quiet for me. On other days, all I could hear was screaming. People dying."

The Martin inched closer to the glass with a ghostly look. "What people?"

Meredith could barely look her in the eye. "Everyone. Everywhere." She whispered. "I was at Chemistry class when it happened. I had my hands over my ears-" Meredith copied the same action there and then. "The teacher was trying to figure out what was wrong. I took my hands and I started hitting the desk until I couldn't take it anymore and I just screamed."

Lydia's face remained blank but her eyes held all the black ink in her tear ducts. "What happened?" 

"All the windows shattered... I saw kids with glass in their arms, in their faces. Some of them even had blood coming out of their ears." Her breaths became as shaky as her body. "They said it was an explosion.. caused by chemicals.. but everyone knew it was me."

She leaned her forehead against the glass until their eyes were but an inch apart. "Find a better way, Lydia." 

"My voice is like a bomb going off. Yours needs to be a bullet." 

A gun cocked in the distance.

Lydia froze, body tensing up and locking her joints in place.. "Did you hear that?" 

Meredith didn't answer but stared blankly behind her. Outside the glass, it wasn't Eichen House she saw. It was Malia perched in the grass with nothing but a shadow accompanying her.

"Malia?" Lydia hit the glass harshly. "Malia!"

The shadow pointed a gun at her face. 

Lydia turned to Meredith. "Is this real? Or is it in my head?"

She gave her an answer she didn't like. 

"I think you know what a Banshee premonition feels like." 

"She's going to die."

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Dallas couldn't stand the blank look on Lydia's face. As vibrant as she knew her, in her darkest colours and brightest, she was nothing but the body of her now. She wished she could do something. She prayed, to gods she believed in and gods she didn't, that the Siren would appear one last time to hear just one thought. Just to hear one of Lydia's.

Dallas didn't deserve the cure. She deserved so much less.

Still, she sat beside the bed and talked as much as her mouth would let her. "The cheer team dropped another girl last week. 3 girls up. One of them is swearing she saw a bone sticking out of her leg, but come on, she also swore she didn't stuff her bra in seventh grade, so."

Dallas sighed heavily as the redhead's face remained still. "God, you don't wanna hear about this stuff as much as I want to say it." She rested her head against the wooden chair. "You'd rather be here and call her out yourself."

There was no laughter from the other end. 

"When you wake up we can-" She cut herself off, words piling up in her head until it became heavy on her neck. "When the doctors, you know.."

Her hands fumbled together until they seemed joined at the fingertip. Telepathically merged like conjoined twins, Dallas couldn't help but feel like sipping the cure resulted in the Siren abandoning the Banshee in the end days. Even if it wasn't her choice -- which nothing ever was, though she liked to pretend -- it was like watching the Martin drown in shallow water she could've easily fished her out of.

"Like they're any fucking use." The tone turned sharp yet rickety. "I heard you, you know? When you called out? I heard you. I'm here."

Her teeth gritted as her emotions danced along a rickety fence. "Or I was, thanks to the cure." 

"I thought last week, maybe when I'm here I could hear something from you. A whisper. One of our thoughts, or something. I can't. It's all too quiet. I hate it."

She took ahold of her hand, squeezing hard enough to see her own veins bulge from beneath the skin. "I'm gonna get it back, Lydia. I promise I'll hear you again."

Her tone fell as shaky and as wild as unanchored boats. "I know a witch who could help."

Footsteps echoed behind her and Ms Martin's perfume soaked her nose. Dallas lowered her tone as Stiles Stilinski's muttered cursing caught her attention. 

"No out of hours, visits. I've told you this." Lydia's mother appeared in the doorway. "She needs her rest."

Dallas glanced at the limp body of the Banshee and back at her mother. "That's all she ever does."

"Can't you give us another hour?" Stiles pleaded as he approached Lydia, glancing uneasily between the women in the room. "We'll take care of her, look her hairs in knots-"

He stiffened. So much so, Dallas could almost hear the heartbeat he skipped. "Her hair.." Stiles pulled it aside with his finger. 

Dallas practically leaped forward. "What is it?"

Stiles turned to her. "It's all shaved." He matched her look of horror. "What are they doing?"

Ms Martin approached the two with quickness Dallas didn't know she held. "All right, you two need to go."

"And leave you here with her?" Dallas spat. "What, are you gonna drill holes into her head?"

She sized the teenager up with a step forward. "Are you crazy?"

Dallas blinked. It felt that way, sometimes.

She pushed them both aside and stroked the side of Lydia's face. "It's for E-C-T. Electroconvulsive therapy. They shave small portions of the scalp. It's done under general anesthesia and it's perfectly safe."

"Look at her." She watched as Dallas and Stiles shared an uneasy look. One more murderous than the other. "She's my daughter. You don't think I'm trying everything I can to bring her out of this?"

Stiles pulled at Dallie's arm subconsciously. "Thats-.. That's not E-C-T."

They both barely had enough time to register the nurse corner them from behind. "Is everything all right in here?"

"It's fine." Ms Martin nodded.

"It's not." Dallas challenged. 

What act of love left her with chains on her wrists and tears in her eyes? What act of love would be so violent? Weaponized worry became cuffs you could never feel until it was too late to slip out.

The fruits of her labour were squeezed dry and her body was left to rot like pomegranates past ripe picking. Cherry lips were just poisoned berries. Red hair was coming out in clumps like leaves on a dying pine tree. Her green eyes shone like church windows and she became an amalgamation of fractured humanity as her body became another object of Earth rather than a home for her soul.

Dallas blinked dryly, her ribcage splitting open to cast wind on her cold heart. She couldn't stop herself from pushing over ivory towers and hurting herself in the process. But she could climb amongst the shards and dig the Siren out from beneath the rubble if it gave Lydia a chance at survival.

Her mother's eyes narrowed paper thin. "Our guests are leaving." She paused, taking a deep breath that inhaled impatience into her lungs. "Go or neither of you will ever come back."

The nurse took a step forward but Stiles' arm pulled over Dallie's stomach and kept her in place. "We're going."

Dallas wasn't sure if it was to stop the nurse or to stop her. She didn't like either idea.

"Dallie," He pulled her closer to his ear by her waist as they walked through Eichen halls. "Cause a scene, will you?"

She didn't have to know much more than that. "How big?"

"Big enough to attract guards."

Dallas nodded along. "Okay." She paused. "Then I'm really sorry about this, baby."

"What-" 

Her hand slithered out of his and collided her hand with his cheek.

 Dallas was quite the good actor, she'd spent her younger years pretending not to care what people thought of her. In her older ones, she'd grown to do it for real. Years of acting gave her a quick tip on how to fake a thing or two.

"Are you fucking serious?" She spat in his face. It was nice to feel her tongue was still as sharp as her teeth. "You were totally staring at that nurse as we left!"

Crazy jealous girlfriend it was.

His face began to sting. It wasn't hard at all, but it was enough to make him stretch out his jaw and wipe his lower lip with his thumb. A steady stare stationed at her before a smile spilled beneath it -- Stiles was already working on how'd she make it up to him. 

"I wasn't-" 

"No, her head was just stationed in the middle of her chest instead, right?" Her eyes rolled sarcastically as the venom in her voice hurt her throat. "Want to me to wait so she can give you a quick check-up? Or rather, you check up her?"

He glanced away as his tongue traveled across his teeth. "Really?"

Jealousy wasn't a colour Dallas wore a lot. Even if it was for a fake, fleeting moment, it was amusing to see how the shades looked on her. "I'm pretty sure I was looking at her clipboard."

She hyped up her own hysterical act. 

"Oh, don't give me that!" Her hands shoved against her chest as security guards approached them. "You don't know how to read anything but boy."

"Hey!" One pulled at her arm which earned a real glare from the Stilinski. "Want to yell any louder, kid, or did you turn yourself deaf?"

"Not sure," Dallie yelled in his face a few octaves higher. "Could you say it again?"

He gave her a controlled scowl. "You know what happens to smartasses in here?"

She gave him an unimpressed look.  "No, but I think you're about to tell me."

Stiles didn't like the way he towered over her. The way he gripped her arm was enough to remind him of his own time in Eichen. How he, a former patient, knew the answer to that question. A tight grip on the arm was only the beginning. "You haven't gotta fucking grab her."

He tried to step forward but another guard pushed him back. Dallas gave him a quick look - it was fine. She was fine. Her biggest foes weren't control freaks wearing unflattering uniforms.

 "They'd start by drying out those annoying vocal cords with yours." He spat. "Keeps the loud women quiet."

She chuckled. "So they can't tell you how pathetic you are?"

"Screaming like that is worrying." He gripped her tighter. Dallas was more into squaring him up and spitting in his face than caring about the marks he felt on her forearms. Someone who did, though, balled his fists at the redder her skin got. "How 'bout I make you stay for a quick evaluation, hm?"

"You little b-"

Stiles slid his way between them, pushing Dallas behind him with more force than she'd expected from him.

 "Now, I said don't fucking grab her, what's so hard to understand?" He spoke down to him like a child with his sarcasm pumped up to the brim with venom. "Are you dumb or have you just got a death wish?"

Dallas noticed how the keys dangled inches away from his fingertips as Stiles stepped closer. 

"Listen, I-"

"You what? You're gonna reassign me? Give me ten minutes with my dad and this place will be swarming with cops. Now keep your hands to yourself before his gun accidentally misfires through it, understand?"

Dallas could see the heavy breathing shake his torso as she stared curiously at his back. Turns out she wasn't the only one who spit words like throwing knives. Veins climbed up his arms through his balled fists. His teeth dug down onto his bottom lip until Dallas swore she could smell the minted scent coat his lips when he spoke.

 Dallas watched him with a look so consuming that she had forgotten which part of her body did the breathing.

"Understand?" Her eyes flickered to the guard as Stiles leaned closer to his face. "Good. I'll make sure to keep it quiet next visit. You'll make sure to switch shifts."

The security guard, now stiff and unnerved, grit silent teeth.

Dallas could see the heavy breathing shake Stiles' torso as she stared curiously at his back. A plaid pattern was all she could stare at. That and the whiteness in the security's guards face -- which, for once, she didn't cause. 

She didn't have to look at Stiles' face to know which one he was pulling. Narrowed eyes, knitted brows, and a ladykiller smile that made the word feral lose meaning. "Understood."

His stare kept steady til the image of the guard burned into his irises. 

With reluctance, Stiles finally released the tension in his muscles and pulled his gaze away from the security guard. His lips parted until he was left grinning like a damned devil thriving in the fire that sat on his tongue. He always liked being right. 

Glancing over his shoulder with a singular stygian hair strand falling before his eyes, Stiles softened his tone for Dallie. 

"Are you okay?" he asked with genuine concern.

She didn't realize she had been silent the entire time. It was rare people defended her with such passion. Firstly, because she really had it covered. Secondly, there was few people who could mean better than her. Stiles Stilinski was a new addition, though. Sleek sarcasm and fire breathing from his lungs, she'd never seen his teeth bare before. 

She'd kissed him a million times before she'd notice he had any sharp ones at all - but maybe that's because she was more enamored by the taste of him than the shape.

Dallas chewed on her bottom lip. Butterflies with bladed wings swarmed her stomach in the strange euphoria and uncertainty of their dynamic being slightly flipped. "Yeah, still breathing."

He tossed his sharp gaze back to the guard. "Lucky guy."

Rolling her eyes but wearing a signature smile, the Garcia chewed on her bottom lip as he pushed past the guard -- his hand on her back and slithering up her shoulder like a snake right out of Eden. 

Dallas couldn't help but steal another glance at Stiles. His face had softened as the adrenaline faded from his system, but she couldn't shake the feeling she might've given him a little too much smack talk than he deserved. 

"I didn't have time to grab his keys," Stiles muttered. "I lost my way, a little bit."

The girl rode her own train of deep thought. His hand sitting around her neck was the only thing anchoring down to Earth and stopping the sun from absorbing her whole. 

"It's okay." She promised, silent. 

The silver danced between their faces, shining mirrorballs onto their skin with each sway. As the reflection changed from her to him in each spin, Stiles swore he could see white eyes in one of them.

 "Because I did."

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

 Scott and Liam scuttled through the underground tunnels of Beacon Hills, following a hunch placed in his head by none other than Malia Tate herself. It was a pretty far-fetched move on his behalf -- like a fizzled group of teenagers searching for lost treasure  -- but Liam refused to give up.  

Scott lifted his hands up to his mid-drift with a curious glance. "Do you feel that?"

"Like something's vibrating."

Pressing his lips tightly together, the Alpha flexed his knuckles and watched the shadow spill across his feet. "I can't tell where it's coming from."

Liam was quick to kneel, pressing his bare hands against the puddles and drips of the abandoned tunnel. "It's coming from everywhere."

He sighed heavily as Scott gave him a disheveled look. "I was just trying to do something right."

"You do a lot right."

"Yeah, but I did one thing really wrong." 

Scott's voice turned soft. "Hayden's alive." he nodded. "Everything before that doesn't matter."

"It should." His breathing turned unsteady. "I feel like I had to do more than just say sorry."

Scott quirked a brow. "Actually, you still haven't done that. I've had more off Dallie, which is a new record."

"Back at my old school -- at Devenford, I got into a fight with this kid. I knocked two of his teeth out. They made me write a letter of apology. We both knew it meant nothing, we both knew that sooner or later, we were gonna get into another fight." He kept his heavy stare at the reflection of dim light in the puddles. "I can't just.. say I'm sorry. I feel like I have to do something. Like maybe, somehow, I have to save your life." 

Scott knelt beside him. "Don't worry. I'm pretty sure you'll get a chance."

Liam scoffed. "Well, not down here. We've been walking around for hours and all we've been able to find is some stupid snake sculpture on the wall."

Scott nodded with a held laugh before furrowing his eyebrows thoughtfully. Taking a stand, he eyed it suspiciously. "You think it's important?" Liam watched. 

Wiping his hands against the dust, he didn't pay attention to how the boy stood behind him eagerly. Instead of spiderwebs sticking to his fingers, the circular symbol spun to the side like a handle. The two shared a look before Scott twisted it until mechanical whirring was all that soaked up the silence in his ears. 

At the end of the hall, a handle appeared in sight. It didn't take Scott to muster up much courage before stepping inside.

He just didn't expect to see the end of Chris Argent's gun meeting him on the other side.

Scott clenched his jaw weakly. "You didn't."

The man didn't bother looking at Liam. "I had to."

Appearing from the darkness and meeting him at his side, stood Gerard Argent, 

"Hello, Scott."

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Marilyn Jane Garcia. A horror, in most eyes. Her knees were brought up to her chest and her hands were cradling a picture of her very messy, very complicated family. Or, the most complicated two out of the bunch they gained, apparently.

Seline took a seat on the armrest. "Give them time. He'll come around."

Marie shook her head. "You don't know James as I do." She sighed. "He cut his own parents off just because they were disapproving of us. Each year, he used to sit and write their birthday cards to Dallas just so she wouldn't feel like it was her fault. He's more stubborn than me."

"And she's convinced I'm the devil in a wig, so, not much luck there either."

Sybil, knife in hand as she skinned another fish, pressed her palm angrily against the thin metal from the kitchen. "You haven't done much to prove otherwise."

Seline gave her sister a stern look while Marilyn blinked offendedly. "And what does that mean, exactly?"

Her lips pressed together as she chose her words carefully. "Maybe she'd like you a little more if you weren't so hard on her all the time. You'll attract more ships with songs, not shouts."

"Pretty sure the term is flies and with honey, not vinegar."

Sybil leaned against the counter, pointing her knife in Seline's direction. "I know what I said."

Marilyn didn't care about the correctness of her analogies, just about the bones behind them. Her own mother was much more of a saint than her, it seemed. Marilyn would run to her when things got sticky. Without her, she would just run endlessly. 

And endlessly she ran.

"I suppose there's no harm in a little mother-daughter bonding time."

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Scott's eyes blinked into a bright red as he stared at Gerard, fists clenched at his side.

"I haven't seen that colour on you," The Argent taunted. Even with time passing and new foes emerging, Scott still felt rage build up at the sight of him."It suits you."

Liam gave him a peculiar look. "Who's the old guy?"

Gerard answered instead. "Uh, at the moment.. they would call me a necessary evil -- but you can call me Gerard."

Scott managed to tear his eyes away and settle them on Chris." "What were you thinking?"

"That we need him."

"He's right. If you want to catch a werewolf like the Beast of Gevaudan, you're going to need more than one Argent." Gerard commented, even more infuriating when he was right than when he was sociopathically wrong.

Chris gave Scott a pleading look. Not one he wore often, either. Gerard still acted by the old rule of the Argents. He didn't protect - he just simply killed. Yet, right now, that's what they needed. 

He just hoped the Garcias were out of his sights nowadays.

"He knows all the stories. All the folklore. Everything written and everything passed down."

Scott stepped closer, mirroring his actions in a combination of respect and sincerity. "You sure about this?"

Chris nodded to the wall to a mural of two wolves tearing each other apart. One tall, on fire almost. The other was bigger and hazy like fresh smoke. "The one on the right is the Beast. Do you know what the other one is?"

Scott shook his head. 

"The Hellhound," Gerard spoke first. "The guardian of supernatural places. They're both creatures of the night. But you may know them as ordinary people during the day."

"And most likely neither of them knows what they are." 

Scott shared a knowing look with Liam, who silently shook his head no. If only the Argents didn't notice. "What is it?"

"We.. we found a message in Latin... Damnatio Memoriae." 

The Argents shared a look themselves. "They want it to remember itself." The older one muttered. 

"-That might give us time-"

"-Time for what?"

Chris didn't skip a beat in answering Liam. "To prevent this." 

Kicking at the tiles of the mural, paint chipped the walls and revealed something much more sinister. A plethora of bodies beneath them.

"Who are they?" Liam could feel the panic in his throat. 

Scott clenched his jaw as the words spilled out like a steady red stream -- like the blood that stained their painted corpses. "Us. It's all of us."

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Malia stepped courageously before her two friends, glancing around at the empty warehouse. The leader in her was howling - yet the loner shuddered at the sound.

"Something's wrong." 

Braeden whispered back. "Is it a scent?"

"I don't know."

They dodged plastic sheets and mechanical tech as they peered around inside, the worry growing in Braeden's stomach with each step. Underneath a bright light in the heart of the room, barely conscious, sat a man no older than her. 

Except, it wasn't any man. It was Deaton. 

His mouth was taped and his tears threatened to spill at the sight of them. Braeden relaxed her shoulders and leaped forward - but not before Theo lunged a chunk of sharp wood at her stomach.

Her reflexes were quick and her strength was just barely enough to wrestle it to arm height. Kicking him in the side, she watched as he stumbled to a crouch before feeling her collar scrunch up in his hands as he tossed her into the side of an army van. 

Taking the gun from her hands, he didn't mind whacking the end of it in her face just for a little irony --

And shooting a pump of lead right into Malia's stomach. 

'It was me, wasn't it?" He scolded as she buckled to her knees. "You picked up a Chemosignal. Probably regret.. because I really didn't want to do this but I didn't have a choice."

He tossed the gun to the side, sliding right across the room until it clasped underneath the boot of Malia's mother. Of course, he'd betray her. It was his nature. Of course, her mother went along with it, it was hers too.

Malia had trusted two killers and mixed it up with kindness.

She blinked desperately as a bottle of blue shards was tossed his way, eyes gleaming a too-innocent shade of gold in his eyes at the sight. As his eyes faded back brown, so did they. 

He watched her gasp painfully. Her stomach bled profusely and her eyes widened despite tiredness pricking her bones.

"You should've listened to Braeden." 

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Dallas could feel a pit linger in his stomach. It was the only signal she had to rely on since the cure. Her ears heard no pleading thoughts or raised heartbeats. Her eyes didn't whiten at the sound of thunder.  It was just her and her five senses against the world. 

Her and her token human, anyway.

"We have the keys. Just not a plan."

"We break in at sundown. We get a warrant -- or your dad's compulsion--"

"I mean for when we're already in, Stiles." Her lips turned into a frown. "The cure severed any connection I have. I'm no use without it."

"--That's not true--"

"In this circumstance, it is." She shook her head in dismay. The answer was on the tip of her tongue; sitting and waiting to be spoken. Dallas found it hard to spring it between her words. He wouldn't like it. No, he'd hate it. She'd admit to her list of sins and find more mercy than she would if she spoke the treason she pondered. 

The cure had been in her system a matter of hours and already, she wanted to claw her skin from her bones and wash it out.

"Stiles." She leaned her head to the side softly with a gentle tone.

"No." 

It was as if he could read her mind instead just by looking at her. 

"Stiles, it's not up for discussion."

"Yes, it is. That's exactly what we're doing right now and the answer is no. You're not-- no, -- you're not poisoning yourself again."

She pressed her lips tightly until she could feel the outline of her teeth form beneath them.

 "That isn't the poison, this is." Her tone was as sharp as the ivory shards she tried to piece back together. "Do you think I don't want you to protect me? I'd love nothing more than to step back and let you fight my battles but you're not armed for them."

"I can help save her, Stiles -- but I need you." She paused, eyes fluttering beneath sympathetic brows. "My anchor."

 His jaw clenched conflictedly. He'd say no, again. Dallas being human kept her out of harm's way. It kept her emotions steady and it kept the guilt from piling up into mountains she couldn't move.

But it pushed beneath a glass ceiling. It was like clipping the wings of an angel just to keep them caged -- or forcing a god down to Earth just to witness it die. It was selfish of him to love a higher power and drag it down to his plane. 

It was selfish to fall in love with a gift and tell the sea it couldn't have her back.

So long as her kisses were as constant as waves on the shoreline, he'd take the terms.

"Where do we start?"

Dallas inhaled sharply. "With Kai."

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Kai Parker felt battered and bruised. So much so, he could still feel his ribs mending themselves behind his shirt. He, unusually, had carpet burn from his shoulders down to his ankles. Klaus had gotten what he wanted from him - unsurprisingly -- and didn't utter another word to him since that. 

As he poured the bourbon he drank onto his wounds for a little extra sting, a voice cleared their throat. 

The silhouette of her wings was a staple in his mind. Her halo, metaphoric, adjusted nicely to her brown hair. The acute idea of love was so annoying, as was she because it was a pain to be happy to see her.

"Kai."

He beamed a smile. "Freya."

☆ word count: 7,739. ☆

A/N: 'whos freya' okay gonna go cry now