Chapter five
Motel California
(Tw: suicide, Self-harming)
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Lydia and Flora exchanged a disgusted look when they stepped out of the bus. They didn't expect a luxurious motel when Coach told them that they had to stay in one, but they also didn't expect something like...that.
Motel Glen Capri was an old hotel that had its best years behind and even though Flora liked retro vibes, she didn't like this one.
Someone definitely filmed a porno in one of the rooms in the 70s.
An unsettling feeling settled down in her stomach as she watched the glowy sign. She felt a mix of feelings coming from the building and none of them were happy ones.
"I've seen worse." Scott tried to uplift the mood.
Both Flora and Stiles looked at him as if he had a brain injury. "Where have you seen worse?" The duo said, blushing when they found out that they said it at the same time.
Their blushing moment ended when Finstock blew his whistle. "This is the closest motel with the most vacancies and least amount of good judgment when it comes to accepting a bunch of degenerates like yourselves."
Flora rolled her eyes and leaned her head on Lydia's shoulder, too tired to even think of a good remark.
"You'll be paring up. Choose wisely." Coach started handing out the keys but then he saw Flora and Stiles and sighed. "No sexual activities, so you two are not sleeping in the same room." He warned them and handed the last key to Allison.
"Coach, it's not like th-." Stiles tried to explain while Flora was blushing behind Lydia.
"Yeah, I don't really care." He shrugged and walked away from the group.
Scott was trying to hide his smirk as he patted Stiles' back before the two of them left.
Allison was about to leave as well but when she noticed that Flora and Lydia didn't move she turned towards them. "Guys?"
Lydia looked at Allison and then at Flora. "We don't like this place." She said for both of them.
"I don't think the people who own this place like this place." Allison joked as she looked around. "It's just for a night."
Flora put her bag closer to her chest. "A lot can happen in one night." She mumbled and started walking towards the motel.
🥀
The brunette girl jumped on the bed with a loud squeal. A small whine left her mouth when her back met the harsh mattress of the motel room. Her nose wrinkled in disgust when she noticed that her fingers were covered in a layer of dust.
"So Isaac lives with you now?" Allison asked as she sat next to the girl.
Flora nodded and took a bite of the apple she found in her bag. "Yup." She popped the 'p' before swallowing. "He's a cool roommate though and I think that my dad enjoys having a guy around, just yesterday he helped him with fixing something in the kitchen."
The two girls nodded before speaking up. "So we're here for a night, in the middle of nowhere, it's like people have the opportunity to confess their feelings to some people." Allison hinted and Lydia smirked, both of them showing Flora that she should come to Stiles.
Flora choked on her apple when she heard their advice. "How did you go from talking about Isaac being my new roommate to my feelings for Stiles?"
Lydia shrugged and started pushing Flora out of the room. "This is a very creepy motel and neither of you can run from here, so go." She smiled and quickly closed the door in front of Flora's face.
"Bitch!" Flora yelled and angrily turned away.
The girl stood in front of the closed door for a couple of seconds before signing and turning away. She marched to the room Stiles shared with Scott but when she wanted to knock on the wooden surface...she just couldn't.
The girl knew how she felt but did Stiles know? Flora remembered how the girls told her that he was lying about his feelings towards the girl. She wanted to believe their theory but the unsettling feeling in her stomach and the fear of rejection was still holding her back.
"Fuck it," Flora whispered after she felt the cold air brush her skin and knocked on the door to their room.
Scott smirked when opened the door and saw the brunette in front of the door. "Flora?" He smiled which made the boy who was resting on the bed stand up.
"Hey, can I come in?" She pinched her lips nervously and pushed her hair behind her ear.
Scott looked at his best friend who was showing him that he didn't want the girl inside. "Sure, Stiles was about to tell me about his suspects." He smirked and moved so the girl could come in.
Flora nodded and stepped into the room, she looked around, noticing that the room was similar to the one she was sharing with the girls. "Hey." She waved at Stiles.
"Hey." He said back with an awkward smile. "What do you need?" Stiles asked as he scratched the back of his neck.
Flora bit the inside of her cheek as she looked at Scott, who was moving back and forth with crossed arms and a wide smile. "Well, you have some suspects?" She asked and sat on the second bed, trying to ignore the memory of her own dust-covered bed.
Stiles let out a shaky breath and patted his knees, nodding. "I have six suspects." He announced.
"You have six suspects?!" Scott and Flora screeched. "Who's number one?" Scott asked.
"Harris?"
Stiles eagerly nodded. "Just because he's missing doesn't mean he's dead." He pointed out.
Flora hummed in agreement - Harris was a sketchy asshole.
Scott scrunched his eyebrows in confusion. "So if he's not dead, or chemistry teacher is out secretly committing human sacrifices."
Stiles looked at his best friend. "Yeah, I guess that just sounded way better in my head."
Scott sat up straight and ran a hand over his face, thinking about other possible suspects. "Well, what if it's somebody else from school? You remember Matt?"
Scott's question earned him snorts from the two teens. "Of course we remember Matt." Flora rolled her eyes and shivered at the thought of the psychopath.
"We didn't know that he was killing people." Scott pointed out.
Stiles lifted his head. "Excuse me?" He asked, offended that his best friend didn't remember how he was the first one who suspected the criminal. "I called that from day one, actually." Stiles reminded him as he stood up from the motel bed.
Scott shook his head. "Yeah, but we never really seriously thought that it was Matt." He argued.
"I was quite serious, actually." Stiles pointed at himself in disbelief. "No one listened to me."
"Just tell us your other suspects." Flora stepped in, not wanting to talk about Matt anymore. She wouldn't admit that even after his death, the mention of his name still sent shivers down her back.
"Cora." Stiles continued. "No one knows anything about her, and she's Derek's sister."
Flora grimaced at Stiles' argument, she thought that the teenage Hale was quite cool.
"Next, your boss." Stiles pointed at Scott.
Flora rolled her eyes at the boy. "Remember when we thought that he was the Alpha? Yeah, we were wrong Stiles." The girl reminded him of the 'simpler' times.
The boy shrugged. "I don't really like the whole Obi-Wan thing he's got going on, you know. Freaks me out." He explained, earning a confused stare from Flora, she still didn't understand any of those Star Wars references.
Stiles' mouth opened in shock when he saw the confused expressions on Scott's and Flora's faces. "Have you still not seen Star Wars?"
Flora and Scott exchanged a guilty look. "We will watch it if we survive this." They promised the boy.
"Who were the last two?" Scott asked.
Stiles looked at Flora nervously and bit his lip, not sure if he wanted to say it. "Lydia and Flora." He mumbled and with a loud sigh sat back on the bed.
A heavy silence entered the room as Flora stood up from the old bed. She chuckled nervously, hoping that Stiles would say that he was just messing around. After a couple of seconds of silence and Scott's dull stare at the teenage boy, Flora realized that Stiles was being serious.
She couldn't believe that Stiles would think that she or Lydia would be the ones sacrificing people. Her heart ached by the thought of the boy thinking that she was capable of doing such a thing.
"What the fuck Mieczyslaw?" She spat, every thought of her telling him how she felt disappeared as she felt herself getting angry.
The guy she fell in love with thought that she was a killer, sacrificing innocent lives.
Scott clicked his tongue nervously when he heard Flora use Stiles' real name.
The skinny boy blinked. "How do you know my name?" He questioned, knowing that he never told her.
Flora whipped her hair angrily. "Oh please, I talk to your dad all the time, of course, he told me." She explained angrily and looked out the window, not knowing what to say next. "Well, I'm waiting for an explanation!" She raised her voice when the boy stayed silent.
The girl had to blink a couple of times to push her glowing eyes away, the rage running through the blood that was moving in her body.
Stiles sighed. "Lydia was controlled by Peter, and she had no idea." He pointed out to the teens with a quiet voice.
Flora gasped and while her back faced the boys, she quickly managed to wipe away the frustrated tear that fell out of her eye. "What about me, huh?" She asked and angrily turned at the boy.
Stiles looked at the old, moldy carpet and licked his lips nervously. "You know what Deaton said, Flora, Vila's can be bad, we don't know what you're capable of." He tried to explain, but he was too scared to look the brunette into her eyes.
He wouldn't admit that his own theory frightened him but he needed to have every possibility open.
Flora scoffed and looked at Scott, who was trying to look any other way. "How could you think that I would kill a bunch of people in cold blood, and then pretend to find their bodies?" She shouted and pointed at herself. "God, Stiles." Flora hiccuped and left the room with a loud door slam.
"Yeah, I think you fucked up man," Scott whispered into the silence, which made Stiles groan and fall on the squeaky bed.
🥀
Flora caught up with her strawberry blonde friend as she raged out of Stiles' motel room.
She only said a quiet 'hi' when she started walking next to her, not in the mood to spark up a serious conversation.
The brunette felt strange ever since they arrived at the motel but the feeling was growing stronger.
"I want new towels, these are full of smoke," Lydia explained to Flora, which made the girl nod as if she was paying attention. The strawberry blonde knew that something was wrong but she also knew that her oldest friend would spill the drama if she wanted to.
"Ugh, how many cigarettes do you have to smoke for it to smell like that?" The brunette asked when she smelled the yellowish towels. Yes, she had some experience when it came to smoking but she never saw something so affected by cigarettes.
Flora's question was answered thanks to the old woman that was sitting behind the counter. Her throat had a tube in it and her voice was almost robotic (probably thanks to the cigarettes she smoked during her early years).
"What's that?" Lydia asked when she was the number '198' on the wall behind the woman.
Flora looked up from the towels to the numbers when she heard Lydia's question. She tilted her head when the woman said that it was an inside thing for the motel. "You can tell us, we won't tell." The young girl winked at the old woman, trying to make her tell the story.
The gray-haired woman sighed and looked the girls up and down. "You remind me of my friend." She acknowledged as she looked at Flora. "You have a similar style but she had beautiful long, blonde hair. Sadly, she died." The woman pointed out with a cough. "70s were wild but you would fit right in." She joked as she noticed Flora's outfit.
Flora took an uncomfortable step back. "Could you please tell us about the numbers?" She requested, trying to make the woman talk. Normally, she would take it as a compliment since she loved almost everything about that decade but everything about the place and the woman made her feel uneasy.
The old woman creepily smiled. "We're not gonna make the top of anyone's list when it comes to customer satisfaction..."
"Obviously." Lydia and Flora whispered, looking at the smelly towels in Lydia's hands.
"But we are number one in California when it comes to one disturbing little detail. Since opening, more than any other motel in California, we have the most suicides." She spilled with a large grin on her face.
Flora gulped, she suddenly understood the strange and overwhelming feeling she felt the moment she stepped out of the bus.
"Lydia? Can we go, please?" She asked when Lydia tried to find more reasons to talk to the creepy lady. The brunette was grateful for calling her father earlier because she wouldn't be able to lie to him even more after the creepy news.
After the two girls arrived at their room, Flora wasn't even able to tell them how she felt or what Stiles said because she felt dizzy. 'What the hell is going on.' She thought when her hands were holding the side of the bathtub for dear life. Her whole body felt odd, she tried to listen to the discussion that was going on between the two girls in the next room but her sweaty palms made her mind focus on the weird structure of the tub.
The tub was...filthy. Old, yellow lines all over the material of the space and the harsh structure of the tub scratching her fingertips.
"Flora? We're going to talk to Stiles and Scott, are you going with us?" Allison yelled at the girl locked in the bathroom.
Flora let out a shaky breath. " I think I ate something bad, I'll come as soon as possible." She promised, hoping that the girls would go away - and luckily they left.
Maybe they had some arguments on why they should keep her close, but Flora only pushed them away. She never felt the urge to look out after herself.
The teenage girl started to feel anxious.
Who would brag about their suicide numbers? Who died in their room? Was that the reason for the strange voices?
She wouldn't want to sleep in a room where someone decided to end their life.
"We deserve to die, we don't belong here." A strong accent behind the girl announced.
"What?" Flora asked quietly when she saw a young blonde girl in the bathtub, she looked like she stepped out of the 70s. For a second Flora thought that she looked like the description of the girl that the owner was talking about. "What the hell." She mumbled and fell to her knees, sudden shortness of breath catching up with her.
The green-eyed girl turned at the brunette in front of her. "We're bringing chaos into this world, we can't be here." She whispered, showing the razor in her pale hand. "You don't belong here, Flora."
Flora shakily took the razor as the girl helped her with getting into the tub. She had no idea what she was doing but the sentiment of a sudden disruption in her veins made her feel pointless and exhausted. She wanted to let that demon inside.
She needed something to guide her.
And as if Stiles felt that something bad was happening to Flora, he rushed to the room she shared with the girls behind him. The teenager forgot about everything that was happening at the motel and just wanted to find the girl.
"How could you leave her alone?" He shouted, too scared to calm down. After they saved Ethan, Isaac, and Boyd he found it weird that Flora still hasn't come out. The girl shows up even when she's mad and Stiles knew that very well.
"W-we thought that only werewolves were involved." Allison stuttered, scared that her oblivion would kill one of her best friends.
Not one of the girls knew that their friend would be affected.
Stiles ignored the girl and pressed his right ear to the dark wood.
"I can't do that, I can't make Stiles do this."
That was the last thing he heard before he kicked down the old door. He was grateful that the old wood was rotten from the inside, so kicking it down wasn't a problem. Of course, he wouldn't show that his whole body ached after he hit the wood with his body weight.
"Flora always kept a lighter in her purse, I'll go find it," Lydia announced when she saw her childhood best friend with a razor in her petite hand.
The, now brunette, was sitting in the bathtub, shivering and shaking her head.
"Flora?" Stiles whispered when he saw the love of his life in the bathtub with a sharp object in her hands.
Flora hiccuped, her clothes were cooking wet from the water that was pouring from the showerhead. "I'm sorry." She cried. "I need to keep you safe Stiles."
Stiles and Allison looked at each other, not knowing what to say. "What do you mean Flora?" The boy asked with his hands in front of him, as he tried to show that he meant no harm.
The girl tried to take a step back before pushing the razor against her skin but failed thanks to her back hitting the cold wall.
"Neither of you deserves this and I can make it stop." Flora sobbed and tossed a sad look at the two.
Stiles took a big step towards the girl. "Flora, please put it away, we will be fine." He promised as the girl kept looking next to him as if she saw a ghost.
Flora squeezed her eyes shut, as more and more tears ran down her face. "No, we won't." She whispered, scared that her voice would break. She saw nothing but a threat and regret in front of her.
"Flora you can't do this to them, you can help them with one cut." The blonde girl with a strong accent whispered behind Stiles and ran a hand through his hair.
She hated seeing her so close to him.
Flora trembled and closed her eyes, ready to break her skin with the razor she was holding. "I'm sorry." She whispered as she started dragging the razor across her skin.
"No!" Lydia screamed and lighted the lighter in front of the brunette's face, making her snap back to reality.
"What happened." Flora gulped when she saw herself sitting in a bathtub fully clothed with a rusty razor in her hand.
Stiles let out a shaky breath and quickly grabbed the brunette. "Nothing, we just need to grab some flares from the bus." He lied and tightly hugged the girl. As he hugged her, he quickly looked at the two girls, showing them that they needed to stay quiet about that moment.
Flora was confused but hugged the boy back, she didn't know what happened in the past couple of minutes but she was happy that the boy forgot about his theory about her being the killer. "Let's get the flares then." She announced, ignoring her wet clothes as she walked away from the bathtub.
Allison, Stiles, and Lydia nodded at each other before following Flora out of the room.
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Flora's mouth went dry when she saw drenched Scott standing in the middle of the parking lot. Her eyes moved to the empty gasoline barrel next to him as she tried to push away the bad feeling when she saw the flare in his hands.
"There's no hope." The boy stated when he noticed the friendship group in front of him.
Allison nervously chuckled at her former lover. "What do you mean Scott? There's always hope."
Scott shook his head, not even looking at the girl he loved so much. "Not for me. Not for Derek."
Flora covered her mouth when he mentioned Derek. "Derek wasn't your fault."
Scott didn't look up from the ground. "Every time I try to fight back, it just gets worse. People keep getting killed."
Stiles took a deep breath before stepping closer to his best friend. "Scott, listen to me, okay? This isn't you, alright?" He held his hands up and took another step. "This is someone inside your head telling you to do this."
"What if it isn't?" The shaggy-haired boy asked quietly. "What if it just me?"
Flora blinked the tears away, she knew Scott ever since he was an inexperienced werewolf but he was always a good guy and that made it even harder to watch.
He was such a good guy that seeing him wanting to kill himself was gut-wrenching.
"What if doing this is the best thing that I could do for everyone else?" Scott hiccuped. "It all started that night, the night I got bitten."
Flora's chest ached from Scott's and Stiles' pain but she decided to ignore it, tonight wasn't about her. It was about them, the bond they shared.
"You remember the way it was before that?" Scott asked his best friend as if the girls weren't even there. "You and me. We were nothing. We weren't popular. We weren't good at Lacrosse. We weren't important."
The brunette tried to cover the guilt that crept in her stomach, she knew about Scott and Stiles but her social status used to be important to her so she never acknowledged the fact that someone ached for the thing she had.
"We were no one. Maybe I should just be no one again."
"Scott, just listen to me, okay?" Stiles begged and took a big step forward. "You're not no one." He took a step closer again. "Scott, you're my best friend. I need you."
Flora couldn't even keep the tears in her eyes when Stiles started his speech.
"Scott, you're my brother," Stiles announced and stepped into the pool of gasoline.
Flora hiccuped when she saw Stiles and Scott in the pool. 'No.' She cried. The teenage girl never had a brother but Scott felt like one and she loved Stiles, she couldn't afford to lose both of them.
"So if you're gonna do this, then I think you're just gonna have to take me with you." Stiles cried and grabbed the flare from Scott's grip.
The emotions of the group made Flora even more vulnerable as the tears were falling out of her eyes. 'Please no." She thought when she saw the two teenage boys in the pool of gasoline.
"No!" Flora and Lydia shouted when they saw the flare that Stiles threw away slowly rolling back to the puddle of gasoline.
Stiles tightly hugged his best friend as the two girls pushed them down from the flame.
Both, Flora and Lydia were left speechless when they saw a disturbing creature with scratches all over its face in the fire.
The teens refused to go back to the motel after everything that happened so the school bus was their new motel.
"You can sit next to me," Stiles whispered when he saw that Flora was still awake, looking around when everyone was asleep - well, almost everyone.
The girl looked at him with a small smile and with a little nod sat next to him. The two teens fell into a comfortable silence, both of them enjoying the calming atmosphere - even with the small snoring that was coming from Boyd's nostrils.
"I'm sorry." Stiles apologized quietly and looked at the girl. He saw her so many times but her beauty always grew when she was under the moonlight, something about the moon shining made her seem even more magical. "I know that you wouldn't kill anyone, I don't know why I said that."
Flora's smile grew as she let out a small laugh. "It's okay I guess, but I will kick your ass next time." She teased the boy and listened to his chuckle. "Can you forgive me? I hate what's going on between the two of us." She admitted nervously, hoping that Stiles would drop his asshole personality.
"Yeah." He nodded. "I'm sorry for acting like that, you're here now and that's what matters." He squeezed her shoulders and let her head fall on his shoulder. "Love you." He whispered after Flora fell asleep and softly kissed her forehead.
🥀
"Have you...?" That was the last part of a conversation that Flora heard before Coach's voice rang through the bus.
"I really don't want to know." He sighed when he saw a bunch of teenagers sleeping on his bus. "But in case you missed the announcement, the meet's canceled, so we're going home." The middle-aged man announced and started shoving teenage boys back to the bus.
Flora cracked her neck, sleeping on Stiles' shoulder on a school bus wasn't the best idea for her bones but the teen loved the warmth coming out of Stiles, so she tried to ignore the pain.
"I don't know what happened last night, but I'm pretty sure you saved my life." Ethan sat down next to Scott, ignoring the presence of Stiles and Flora behind him.
Stiles looked at the werewolves. "Actually I saved your life, but not that it matters that much." He mumbled when he saw that the Alpha werewolf ignored him.
"We're pretty sure Derek's alive," Ethan announced without a warning. "But he killed one of ours. That means one of two things can happen."
Flora rolled her eyes but leaned closer, not wanting to miss something.
"Either he joins our pack or Kali goes after him, and we kill him," Ethan announced before getting up and sitting next to Danny.
Flora gulped when she saw Lydia borrowing Coach's whistle, suddenly Ethan's 'small' threat didn't matter. "Please don't tell me that it is what I think it is." The brunette pleaded when Lydia showed her purple-covered hand after blowing the whistle.
"Wolfsbane." The strawberry blonde announced and showed the purple dust on the palm of her hand.
Stiles swallowed. "So every time the Coach blew the whistle on the bus. Scott, Isaac, Boyd, Ethan..." He nervously looked at the girl who had her head on his shoulder. "And Flora...."
"We all inhaled it," Scott answered.
"We were poisoned by it." Flora acknowledged the moods she had last night.
Stiles nodded. "That's how Darach got into their heads ." And before any of the teenagers could say anything, Stiles was already throwing the whistle out of the bus window.
"Stilinski! You owe me a new whistle!"
Flora chuckled and closed her eyes, ready to spend the rest of the way home asleep on Stiles' shoulder.
Hello babies! I promise that everything in this chapter will make sense later! Love you, stay safe!❤️