Chapter Fourteen
****
"Stiles I–"
"Autumn!" Lydia yelled, rushing over to where Stiles and I were standing.
I let out a sigh as my eyes squeezed shut, "Yes, Lydia? Now really isn't–"
"I think you need to come with Allison and I." She said with wide eyes, grabbing onto my wrist. "It's important. Come on."
I glanced towards Stiles who had a look on his face that was begging me to stay, "I'm Sorry...there's some stuff going on and I um...I should probably go with them...We can talk about this soon, okay?"
A look of defeat spread across his face as his head slowly nodded, "Yeah...Yeah, Okay. I'm um, gonna go see what Scott's doing."
I nodded as he made his way back up to his room. As much as I wanted to scream for him to come back and continue the conversation, my emotions were all over the place. And with what just happened with Lydia and I something is obviously going on here, so this probably isn't the best time for Stiles and I to start digging into our feelings. "Okay, Lydia. What's so important?"
"The number changed."
"The number changed?" I asked with a raised brow.
She nodded quickly, "Yes. The number of suicides is no longer one ninety eight, it's two hundred and one."
"So what does that mean? That three more suicides have happened since we've been here?"
Lydia nodded, "Yes, or there's gonna be three more...."
"Look I think we need to be a little concerned, okay? Scott was acting extremely weird when I was showering, he literally walked into the bathroom and it was almost like I wasn't really talking to him...ya know?"
"Well you heard him, Stiles just went up to see what he was doing."
Allison turned towards me, "Text him....we need to figure out what's going on."
"You guys literally just let him walk away, why didn't you just talk to him before he left?"
"Doesn't matter! Text him!"
I let out a small groan, "Okay."
Need to talk. Just you
My eyes widened as the text sent. I would bet anything that he's gonna think we're gonna talk about us instead of what we're really going to talk about.
Lydia, Allison, and I need to talk to you. Meet us in room 217.
****
I awkwardly sat on the bed as Lydia and Allison explained to Stiles what had been going on, of course including what happened with Lydia and I. He was listening to every word they were saying, but then it was like he was just staring straight at me. Like he was trying to put pieces together. Trying to figure out what's going on. Trying to figure out what I am.
"Last time I saw Scott act like that was during the full moon." Allison said as she paced around the room.
"Yeah I know, he was definitely a little off with me." Yeah, well Scott's not the only one feeling a little off right now. "But actually, it was Boyd who was really off. I watched him put his fist through the vending machine." Stiles mentioned, as he punched the air in front of him.
Lydia stood up from where she was seated next to me on the bed, "See, it's the motel. Either we need to get out of here right now, or..." She rushed towards the drawer in the nightstand, grabbing a Bible out. "someone needs to learn how to do an exorcism asap, before the werewolves go crazy and kill us."
"Of course Coach picks a hotel that causes problems for the supernatural. Just our luck, right?" I muttered as I fiddled with my fingers.
"Okay, just hold on, alright?" Stiles said towards Lydia, his hands up in front of him. "What if it's not just the motel? The number in the office went up by three, right?"
I stood up from the bed, "You mean like three sacrifices? I guess that would make sense..."
Stiles nodded, "What if this time it's three werewolves?"
I don't know why this stuff is happening to us, but I seriously wish it would stop. And it sucks because deep down inside I know it'll never stop, especially now that I'm...well...something dealing with the supernatural.
"Scott, Isaac, and Boyd."
"Maybe we were meant to come here..." Stiles said in a low voice.
"Exactly!" Lydia exclaimed, "So can we get out of here now? Please?"
I watched Stiles closely as his eyes landed on the red Bible in Lydia's hands, "Wait, hang on. Let me see this."
As Stiles flipped through the pages his hand stopped, and he pulled out a piece of paper. Looked like a newspaper clipping from where I was at. "What is that?" Allison asked as she stepped closer towards where Lydia and Stiles were standing.
"Twenty eight year old man hangs himself at the infamous Glen Capri." He read from the clipping. He quickly placed it on the bed, and began shaking the pages causing multiple clippings to fall next to the one he had just put down seconds before.
I stepped closer to the group, accidentally brushing up against Stiles, releasing the butterflies in my stomach just from his touch . "Sorry–" I quickly muttered.
Stiles' eyes glanced towards me, "Don't apologize..." he whispered back, before turning his gaze back to the clippings spread out on the bed.
My eyes wandered over the different news stories when one thing caught my attention, "Um, guys. Look at these two." I said as I grabbed the papers off of the bed. "They both mention the room 217. These are probably all the suicides that happened in this room." My stomach flipped as I thought about it, "Some probably happened right where we're standing."
Allison looked towards me, "So if every room as a Bible–"
"There could be articles in all the rooms." I finished.
"That's a beautiful thing." Stiles said sarcastically as he nodded his head. "Most places would leave a mint under the pillow. This one leaves a record of all the horrible deaths that occurred."
"What if the room next door has the one about the couple?" Lydia asked, keeping her eyes on the newspaper clippings.
Before another word could be said Stiles took off towards the door, I'm assuming heading next door where Lydia and I heard the couple take their lives. I rushed out after him, Lydia and Allison following closely behind me. As I got out of our room I noticed Stiles attempting to open up the door, but nothing was happening.
My eyebrows furrowed as I approached him, "It's locked? It wasn't locked before..."
"Well, someone definitely locked it." Stiles replied, as he frantically pulled on the doorknob.
"Forget it." Allison spoke up, "We need to get Scott, Isaac, and Boyd out of here."
As Stiles, Allison, and Lydia began to head down the hallway I just couldn't get myself to move. It was like something was pulling me towards the room. I hesitantly took a step back and glanced towards the others right before the sound of an electric saw overtook my eardrums. My head shot back in the direction of the door, and I could feel my eyes getting wider by the second. "Guys. Please tell me you hear that."
Lydia rushed back over towards me, "I can hear it. Allison? Stiles?"
Allison rushed over also, nodding her head quickly. "It sounds like someone turned the handsaw on."
"Handsaw?!" Stiles asked, his head popping up between Lydia and I. He shoved his way between us grabbing the doorknob once more, but this time the door flew right open. No idea how it's just magically unlocked now, but whatever.
As we all clambered into the room we noticed Ethan standing right in the middle with his shirt ripped open, slowly bringing the handsaw towards his abdomen. That's one wolf we seem to have forgotten about. "Hey, no, Ethan, don't!" Stiles screamed as he ran towards the middle of the room. He got a grip on the tool, but then they just began to wrestle for it which had me an absolute nervous wreck.
"Stiles! Please be careful!" Then suddenly the tool went sailing to the floor along with Stiles, and his face came right at the blade. But just in time the blade came to a stop as Lydia unplugged the machine from the wall. "Oh thank God." I muttered under my breath as Stiles flopped himself onto his back. I made my way over to him, kneeling beside to make sure he was okay. We may be going through a rough spot right now, but that doesn't matter right now. "Are you okay?"
He nodded quickly keeping his eyes on Ethan, "Y-Yeah, I'm fine. But what about him?" Stiles asked, nodding towards the boy who was standing in the same spot with a blank expression on his face.
I rose slowly onto my feet now keeping my eyes locked on him, "Ethan? Are you okay?" Nothing. No blinking, no speaking, I don't even know if he's breathing...Absolutely nothing. Then as if something just completely cracked inside of him he whipped his claws out and they went straight towards his abdomen. "Ethan!" I ran over to him, grabbing one of his arms as Allison and Stiles came over to help me. He was definitely too strong for me to deal with on my own. "Stop!" He was still attempting to dig his claws into himself as we fought with him, and I could only seem to think of one thing while all of this happened.
Jackson.
The memory of when he clawed himself to death on the lacrosse field flooded my mind.
I shook the thought from my head, trying to get myself to only focus on Ethan and not the past. He was fighting us off hard, but we finally got control of his arms which made him fling forward and resulted in his hands landing straight onto the heater. The sizzling noise that came along with the impact made me cringe as he fell to the floor screaming in pain.
We all just stared at him as he began to get up off the ground, unsure what was going to happen. "What just happened?!" He asked, frantically looking between all of us.
None of us could speak a word, we just stood there making sure he was truly okay and not about to fly off the handle again. Then just like that he took off, rushing out of the room faster than we could process.
"Ethan!" Stiles was once again the first one to dart out of the room after him, the rest of us following close behind.
"Ethan you need to tell us what you remember. How did you get into that room? Why were you trying to cut your insides to pieces with the handsaw?" I asked, now right next to him.
He shook his head quickly as he approached the stairs, buttoning up his shirt as he walked. "I can't tell you anything."
"Ethan–"
"Didn't you hear what I just said? I don't know how I got there or what I was doing." He replied as we rushed down the stairs.
Stiles' arms flung out to his sides as Ethan continued on his way back to his room, "Okay, you could be a little more helpful, you know? We did just save your life."
"And you probably shouldn't have!" He retorted, before finally walking away from us.
My sister let out a heavy sigh from beside me, "What now?"
"No idea." I shrugged, "We still have three werewolves around here somewhere."
"I'll find Scott." Allison said as went up a few of the stairs, "You guys grab Isaac and Boyd. The best thing we can do is get them out of this place."
I took a couple steps towards the stairs, "I can come with you."
"No, I think you need to stay with Lydia just in case something else happens like the whole couple situation, okay? I'll be alright. You know I can take care of myself."
I nodded hesitantly, not thrilled of one of us going off by ourselves right now. I knew I couldn't stop her, even if I really wanted to. She was brave and independent, nothing I could say would stop her.
"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" My sister asked, snapping me out of my thoughts. I realized she was talking to Stiles, and if he was looking at me the way he was looking at her, I would be asking questions also.
"Oh, no, I wa–"
"Stiles?" I questioned, taking a step towards him.
He let out a heavy sigh, "Alright, I didn't wanna say anything, but this–everything we're going through–We've kind of been through something like this before, a lot like this."
My sister crossed her arms over her chest, "What do you mean? When?"
"Your birthday party, the night you poisoned everyone with wolfsbane."
My sisters mouth gaped open, "I–" She didn't say anything else, just took off strutting away from Stiles and I.
"Lydia, I'm sorry, okay?" Stiles yelled as we followed her. "Look, I didn't mean that you're trying to kill people, okay? I just–I just meant that maybe–maybe you're somehow involved in getting people to kill themselves, ya know?" My eyes glared towards him as I began to catch up with my sister. He better watch what he says. " Which now that I say that out loud, it just sounds really terrible, so I'm just going to stop talking."
"That sounds like I wise idea. Maybe–" Before I could continue my sentence my words came to a stop, at the same time as my walk. My ears began to pick up on a noise, which sounded like a baby crying its head off. "Do you guys hear that?"
"What?" Stiles asked, looking at me in confusion. I'm just gonna assume he doesn't hear the screaming baby.
Lydia nodded quickly, "I hear something..."
"Stop. Please, just stop." A woman cried out, "What do you want? I don't know what you want!"
I looked down towards my feet, noticing that I was standing directly in front of a water drain. I knelt down closer because I could swear the noises were coming from there. "Autumn? Lydia? What do you hear?"
My sisters body knelt down next to mine, "A baby crying."
"Quiet!"
"I can hear that, and now I can hear water running." I said, still completely focused on the drain in front of me.
"It's time to sleep."
My head began to shake, "No.....No this can't be happening. Not again!"
"Oh, my God..." Lydia muttered.
"Off you go to sleep now."
"She's drowning the baby!" I screamed, unable to move away from the spot I had taken on the ground as tears began to flood my eyes.
My sister shot up from the ground, pulling me up with her. "Someone's drowning!"
"It's Boyd!" I yelled, "We have to get to Boyd!"
****
Stiles, Lydia, and I sprinted as fast as we could to Boyd's room. I'm just hoping that for once we aren't too late.
As we busted through the door we all rushed towards the bathroom, since that's the only place we could think of where he would be drowning himself. This crappy motel didn't have a pool. I let out a gasp as the sight of Boyd lying under a safe in the bathtub full of water came into view. Stiles yanked the sleeves of his jacket up, and went straight into the water for the drain.
"He blocked it! He blocked the drain with something. I can't get to it!"
I rushed towards the bathtub, dropping to my knees next to Stiles. "What should we do?!"
"Here, help me." He said, gesturing towards the safe. I nodded in agreement and grabbed ahold of one of the sides, as Stiles grabbed onto another.
"Lydia, come help." She nodded quickly, and immediately grabbed onto one of the sides.
We each tried to lift it up with literally everything we had, but it was so heavy it wouldn't budge. Only someone with werewolf strength would be able to lift this thing off of him. "Is he dead?" Lydia asked as her eyes stared at Boyd who was of course still submerged under water. "How long can a werewolf stay underwater?"
"You think I know that?" Stiles asked as he stood back on his feet, backing up towards the wall. "Ow!" he yelped, causing me to jerk my head in his direction.
"Are you okay?"
He nodded slowly as he looked back and forth from Boyd to the heater that was located on the wall. Something was clicking in his head, he always figures these things out. "Wait a sec, the heater."
"The heater?" I questioned rising to my feet.
Stiles nodded, "Ethan came out of it when he touched the heater."
"What?" Lydia asked, clearly not understanding where Stiles was going with this. But I sure was, he was making perfect sense to me.
"It's heat, heat, fire." Stiles exclaimed as his hands flung around everywhere. "Heat does it, alright? We need something–We need fire."
"He's underwater!" My sister yelled in frustration.
I turned towards her, "Lydia. Stifle, okay? He has a plan."
"I'm aware he's underwater." Stiles replied, sounding just as frustrated as she was.
"Wait! Wait! The bus!" She exclaimed, "One the bus, they'll have emergency road flares. They have their own oxidizers. They can burn underwater!"
Stiles looked at her with wide eyes, "Are you serious?!"
"Lydia, you're a genius!"
"Yes, okay! I know! Now, go!" She yelled.
Stiles didn't hesitate before taking off out of the room. I dropped back down onto my knees, attempting once again to move the safe. "Come on, Boyd. You have to survive."
"If Stiles hurries that may happen."
I walked out of the bathroom no longer able to stare at Boyd underwater anymore, and Lydia followed. Then the sound of crying filled my ears, it was coming from this room. "Lydia?"
"Yes, I hear it."
I turned around slowly, my eyes landing directly on the bed. The crying was coming from underneath it, this has to be Isaac. Who else would it be? And did Boyd really scare him so bad that he's hiding under the bed?
My body found it's way to the floor, and I hesitantly lifted up the bed sheets that were blocking my view of under the bed. Immediately after I pulled away the sheets, an extremely terrified looking Isaac came into view. I couldn't help but jump back a bit as he did, it was almost like he was afraid I was going to hurt him or something.
"I got them!" I heard Stiles say as he ran into the room, "What do I do? How do I use this?"
I lifted myself quickly off of the floor, turning my attention to him instead of Isaac. It didn't really look like he would be going anywhere any time soon anyways.
"The cap! It's like a match!" Lydia explained. "The cap's a match."
My hands ran through my hair as I watched him attempt to light the flare. "This has to work. Stiles!"
"Yeah, I'm trying!"
The flare finally ignited and Stiles darted into the bathroom, Lydia and myself running in after.
The moment the flare hit the water, the safe literally flew out of the water. I grabbed ahold of my sisters wrist pulling her into me, as Stiles pulled me into his chest. Boyd was sitting straight up in the water, halfway into his werewolf form. As much as I wanted to let out a breath of relief, I couldn't take in a breath at all because I was against Stiles' chest, with him still holding me closely.
"Um....he's okay, now we need to handle Isaac." I said awkwardly.
Stiles then realized he had protectively pulled me into his chest, and slowly let me go. "Isaac?" He asked, rubbing the back of his neck. "Where's Isaac?"
"He would be the one hiding under the bed..."
****
As Stiles, Lydia, and I walked out of Boyd and Isaac's room we ended up running into a distraught Allison. I hated every single moment of this, well...maybe not every single moment....being in Stiles' arms for just that short bit wasn't too bad...
"I can't find Scott anywhere!" Allison said as we all rushed down the stairs once again.
"It's happening to him too, isn't it?" Stiles asked.
"It has to be!" Lydia replied, "Didn't you say there was another flare on the bus?"
Stiles nodded quickly, "Yeah, I'll go get it."
As we all landed at the bottom of the stairs, the sound of a flare burning caught all of our attention. But when I saw who was holding the flare, my body completely froze.
Scott was standing there completely still, gripping onto the flare. Without even knowing I was moving my body ended up closer to him, and the strong smell of gasoline attacked my nostrils. He had drenched himself in gas. And not only was he drenched in the liquid, but he was also standing in a puddle of it.
"Scott..." Allison said through a shaky voice. "Scott."
"There's no hope."
"What do you mean, Scott?" Allison asked, with a shake of her head. "There's always hope."
Scott just stared towards us with sorrowful eyes, "Not for me. Not for Derek. Not for Stiles and Autumn."
My heart literally shattered inside of me as the words fell out of his mouth. He really felt like he was to blame for all of this...and now he's contemplating burning himself alive because something is seriously messing with his head.
"Derek wasn't your fault." Allison explained, tears now streaming down her face. "You know Derek wasn't your fault."
I quickly wiped my tears off of my cheeks, before grabbing ahold of Stiles' hand. "Look, Scott. Look at our hands. It's okay. Listen to me, everything's okay. This wasn't your fault, I promise you, Scott. Please. I need my best friend, I'm begging you.... don't do this." I said, tightening my grip on Stiles' hand, which he returned.
"Every time I try to fight back, it just gets worse. People keep getting hurt. People keep getting killed."
Stiles slowly let go of my hand, and stepped a little closer towards our gasoline covered best friend. "Scott, listen to me, okay? This isn't you, alright? This is someone inside your head telling you to do this. Okay? Now–"
"What if it isn't?" Scott interrupted. "What if it is just me?" He asked, as sobs began to escape from his mouth. "What if doing this is actually the best thing that I could do for everyone else? It all started that night, the night I got the bitten. You remember the way it was before that?" Stiles nodded, " You and me, we were–we were–we were nothing. We weren't popular like Autumn. We weren't good at lacrosse. We weren't important. We were no one. Maybe I should just be no one again. No one at all."
At this point I was covering my mouth trying to mute the sobs that were falling out of my mouth. I couldn't handle this. I couldn't handle him saying these things.
Scott moved his hand that held the flare, and I was terrified that at any moment he was going to drop it and be engulfed in flames before our eyes. I would run straight into that fire to save him...He's Scott, my best friend since we were just little kids. He's more than my best friend, he's my brother.
Stiles took a few more steps towards him, "Scott, just listen to me, okay? You're not a no one. Okay? You're someone, You're– Scott, your my best friend." He said through his trembling voice, he was literally shaking like a leaf. "Okay? And I need you. Autumn needs you. We all need you." He took another step closer, tears pouring out of his eyes. "Scott, you're my brother. Alright, so..." I watched as he took one last step right into the puddle of gasoline that surrounded our best friend. My heart felt like it had literally stopped, and I couldn't tell if I was breathing or not. "So if you're gonna do this, then...I think you're just gonna have to take me with you. Alright?" Stiles finished, grasping his hand firmly around the flare slowly taking it out of Scotts hands.
All of us were sobbing at this point, not really sure what was going to happen. A breath I didn't even know I was holding escaped from my mouth as Stiles threw the flare behind him. But just when I thought everything was finally turning around, a gust of wind blew and I watched the flare creep its way back towards the puddle of gasoline. My sister noticed also, and we both ran towards the boys simultaneously. "No!" I jumped in top of Stiles tackling him out of the puddle, as Lydia did the same to Scott.
I lifted my body up and took a look behind me as the explosion erupted into a large ball of fire. My eyes then squinted as it looked like something was coming from the middle of it..looked just like a body. Then as the figure became more visible my hand flew up over my mouth, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The same figure that I had drawn the other day as I waited for Stiles, was standing right in front of me.
****
My eyes fluttered open as footsteps stomping onto the bus brought me out of my little nap. We had only been on the bus for a couple of hours, but each of us probably only got about thirty minutes of sleep if we were lucky. There was no way we were sleeping in that motel after everything that went down. Heck to the no.
"I really don't want to know." Coach said as he noticed us all on the bus. "I really don't wanna know, but in case you missed the announcement, the meet's cancelled, so we're heading home. Pack it in. Pack it in!"
"Did we seriously go through all of this for nothing? You've got to be kidding me!" I muttered. As the bodies began flooding into the bus I realized my hand was stretched out to the seat next to mine, my fingers intertwined with Stiles'. I awkwardly pulled away, "Sorry, I must have done that in my sleep." I said as I crossed my arms tightly over my chest.
Stiles shook his head lightly, his adorable sleepy eyes staring into mine. "No, it was me..." He admitted in his extremely attractive half asleep raspy voice. "I'm sorry–"
Before anything else could be said between us, we were both distracted by Ethan who plopped himself into Scott's seat. "I don't know what happened last night, but I'm pretty sure you saved my life."
"Actually, I saved your life." Stiles spoke up from the seat behind them, "But not that it matters that much. It's just–It's minor detail."
"So I'm gonna give you something." Ethan continued, ignoring Stiles. "We're pretty sure Derek's still alive. But he killed one of ours. That means one of two things can happen. Either he joins our pack..."
"And kills his own." Scott finished.
Ethan nodded, "Or Kali goes after him, and we kill him. That's the way it works."
"Well that's stupid." I mumbled.
Stiles got a little closer to the seat, "You know, your little code of ethics there is sort of barbaric, just f.y.i."
As Stiles finished his statement, Ethan stood up from the seat and made his way towards the back of the bus not saying anything else. As Stiles switched his seat next to Scott, coach began to make his way down the aisle. I stared blankly ahead ready to fall back asleep, when a purple dust on Coach's shirt under his whistle caught my attention.
"Hey, Ethan, I wanted to–"
"Aye, Coach, can I see your whistle for a second?" I asked interrupting him, slipping the whistle off of his neck.
"I'm gonna need that back." He said sternly towards me before heading to the back of the bus.
I examined the whistle in my hands, before blowing air into it keeping my hand over the back of it as I blew. I pulled the whistle back down, and opened up my hand only to find a nice powdery purple substance covering my palm. I turned it around to show Stiles, Scott, and Allison, "Wolfsbane."
"So every time the coach blew his whistle on the bus, Scott, Isaac, Boyd–"
"And Ethan.." My sister added.
"We all inhaled it..." Scott said.
Allison leaned forward, "You were all poisoned by it."
Stiles nodded, "So that's how the Darach got into their heads. That's how he did it."
I nodded slowly. My thoughts zoomed back to the explosion that happened last night, and the figure that was standing right in the middle of the fire. That was the Darach....I drew the Darach without even knowing it.
Without warning Stiles snatched the whistle out of my hands, and rushed to toss it out of the window. "Hey, hey, hey, hey!" Coach yelled, "Stilinski!"
I completely ignored the lecture that began happening as the bus started moving again. All I did was snuggle next to my sister, and let the sleep take over.
This was the longest trip of my life.
****
Hey guys, due to the material in this chapter I just wanted to say a little something aside from my normal little note. As you obviously know Motel California deals a lot with suicide, nd I just want to put it out there that if you EVER need someone to talk to, my inbox is there and open for you at any time. Seriously, no matter what time it is, you guys can always message me. If you have a problem, need advice, anything...I'm here. I've personally had someone I was close to take their life. I never want any of you to believe that suicide is the answer to anything, because it isn't. Things may get bumpy and seem horrible, but those hard times won't last forever. I promise you can get through anything, and you're not alone. You matter, and you're freaking awesome. If you have a friend who's going through a rough time, be there for them. Check up on them. And if it comes down to it, help them get help. They may be angry at you at first, but they'll thank you in the end. So PLEASE, I'm begging you...talk to someone, talk to me. I promise you I'll listen, and I won't judge in any way.
If you guys enjoyed the chapter comment and vote! Let me know what you think. :)
Love you all so much!
xx