From Ashes ✗ Stiles Stilinski - Chapter 22: Chapter 22

Days had passed in a chaotic blur – days of training, impromptu hunts, and silent dinners. Days of only communicating with outside world through her phone – and no word from headquarters. In fact, Scott, Allison, and Stiles had become Maddie's most frequented contacts. She had almost immediately discovered that Scott and Derek had been in the woods the night of the ...first hunt, as Derek made it abundantly clear that he did not trust her. Of course the feeling was indeed mutual.
That wasn't the worst part though. With having only those in town to talk to, she knew no one would get why it upset her like it did. No one understood. No one could. They hadn't ever had their innocence ripped away like she did at such a young age, only to be replaced with one single, solitary thing – the need to protect. And if she couldn't do that, what was the point? Why go through the trouble of stripping everything else away?
Maddie rested her forehead against the glass as trees passed in blurs of brown and green. Her half-lidded eyes struggled to stay open the morning light shone through the car window, making her typically dark gaze shine an iridescent cherry wood and gold. Alas, it was only the daylight that made her eyes particularly bright that morning, as her mood hardly matched the cloudless sky or the girls chattering away ahead of her.
Although, it was a bit of a comfort in a way.
That wasn't the point.
The point was that Maddie had been worked into the ground the last several days, which didn't help her chronic insomnia – then again, neither did the nightmares. It was always the same thing: trees, severed bodied, the open field, and a hand around her throat. And something else, she thought. Something she couldn't pinpoint that seemed important. Whatever it was, not know what was only looming over her and putting her in an even worse mood.
She couldn't count how many times she had woken up in a cold sweat on the foreign mattress of her temporary bed, trying to catch her breath desperately. It certainly meant something, what with finding the same exact field and watching Gerard cut that man in half. Her senses were telling her something important but she didn't want to be told something important by the universe; she wanted figure out exactly why vampires weren't setting foot in Beacon Hills and get the hell out of dodge with time to spare.
That...didn't seem to be in the cards, though.
The car finally stopped and the sound of the engine left Maddie's ears. She didn't move quite yet though – not until someone shook her. "Don't you dare fall asleep!"
The slayer cringed at the voice and only slightly turned to see a pair of mildly annoyed green eyes peering at her. She grimaced at Lydia and groaned as she sat upright. "I wasn't falling asleep. Calm down."
"I am calm," the strawberry blonde shot back, receiving only a pointed look from Maddie in response. Her eyes shot over to Allison in the passenger side seat, who was also giving her a deadpan stare. "What? I am."
Despite the urge to point out Lydia's defensive tone, Maddie simply shook her head disapprovingly and patiently waited for one of the girls to move their seat to let her out of the car. In the end, it was Allison who did so and the three girls began the short walk to school building.
"So, let me just make sure I've got all of this," Maddie began slowly, adjusting her burgundy top under her leather jacket. She had successfully reminded herself to actually wear the nice clothes Lydia had picked out weeks ago, something she was secretly quite proud of. The petite brunette feigned confusion as she looked over at her. "You were somewhere in the woods for two days..."
"And you really don't remember anything?" Allison finished, looking at Lydia as well.
The began climbing the concrete steps as Lydia spoke. "They called it a fugue state, which is basically a way of saying 'we have no idea why you can't remember running through the woods naked for two days'." She sounded so nonchalant about the entire thing that it was almost like it had happened to someone she barely knew instead of her. "But personally, I don't care. I lost nine pounds."
Allison let out a small, appeasing laugh and Maddie stayed silent for a while, giving her friends a strange look before merely shaking her head. The stare Allison gave Lydia suddenly turned worried. "Are you ready for this?"
The confidence on Lydia's face was paper thin, matching her voice. "Please. It's not like my Aunt's a serial killer."
Maddie and Allison exchanged concerned glances as Lydia pushed open the heavy front door of Beacon Hills High School. The three walked in, both Madeline and Allison trailing behind their friend before Lydia came to a halt. Both brunettes stopped in their tracks as well as every single person in the halls stopped and looked at Lydia. For a second, and only a second, she looked positively mortified. Allison leaned toward her to say quietly, "...maybe it's the nine pounds."
"I thought it was the whole 'naked in the woods' thing," Maddie responded rather bluntly, receiving a nudge to the ribs at the comment. She looked over to see a chastising half-glare from Allison, which she promptly responded to with an eyeroll.
Only a handful of seconds passed before Lydia did a defiant hair flip and power walked through the masses of people, followed shortly by Allison and Maddie.
The feeling of the school day had become like many others and suddenly Madeline found herself dragging herself from class to class like any other student. As it turned out, she seemed to excel at History and Math, but didn't quite have the same grasp on things like Chemistry and Economics. The reading part of English was simple enough, it was the drawing conclusions from what she read part that seemed to trouble her. Gym was the easiest, by far - and for obvious reasons. Although, she did tend to down play her abilities, whether that was by keeping pace with her slower classmates or choosing partners who needed more assistance.
For instance, she found herself going out of her way to partner up with Erica, the blonde girl from before. They weren't necessarily friends or anything, but they did have a silent understanding that generally consisted of Maddie allowing Erica to do most things on her own.
Alas, gym had ended and Maddie found herself waiting outside of the boys' locker room for Scott and Stiles. She'd received a strange text from Scott only moments before that had only said 'More problems', which was just about enough to make her panic. Leaning idly against the brick wall, she picked at her finger nails and attempted to look as casual as possible. Unfortunately, it looked more as if she was manically cleaning out her nails than anything else.
Minutes passed by slowly before she caught sight of Scott bolting out of the locker room - and nearly flattening her with the door. By the time, she shouted "Scott! What's going-", he was gone. Her brows furrowed as her forehead creased in confusion. She was about to run after him before she actually was shoulder checked by the locker room door swinging open. It wasn't massively painful, but annoying nonetheless - just like the person who had opened the door. She moved from behind the door fully and glared at the boy.
"Holy -" Stiles began, cutting himself off when he saw what - or more appropriately who - the door had hit. His eyes widened. "Oh god! Maddie! Are you alright?"
Maddie rolled her shoulder, vaguely remembering her first encounter with the Alpha and the dislocated shoulder she walked away with. The door hurt only slightly, especially in comparison. "I'm fine. It's just a door."
"Sorry, I was-" Once again, he seemed to cut himself off. "Did you see Scott?"
Maddie nodded, adjusting her backpack. "Yeah, he nearly killed me with that door."
"Wait, what?!"
"He came barreling out of the locker room and I apparently made a bad call standing there," she said, nodding to the wall by the door. She folded her arms and her expression almost immediately returned to concern. "So, what's with the ominous text? What's going on?"
"Aside from Gerard Argent running the school and Derek's abuse of his Alpha powers?" He shrugged, although the look on his face told a different story altogether. He was panicked and tense - possibly even mildly accusatory with the look he was currently throwing her. "Not much."
Maddie had been keenly aware of Gerard new position as principal of the school; in fact, she had been furious when she was told by Allison's dad. Of course, she didn't show it to the old man. Something about him was absolutely terrifying, aside from his fanatical hatred of werewolves. She had not felt safe in that house before, but now she felt even worse - she felt caged. She narrowed her eyes at him. "Allison's father knows I affiliate with you and Scott. There was no way they were going to tell me beforehand."
He hesitantly nodded. "I guess we have bigger things to worry about anyway."
"The Derek thing?" She folded her arms and lowered her voice. "What did he do now?"
"He turned someone - at least we're pretty sure he did." Stiles replied quietly as well. He looked around quickly, scanning the hallway before his eyes landed back on Maddie. "There's another werewolf in the school. He might've killed his dad but we're not sure. All we know is that he's on his way to the station now."
"What?!" she blurted out, instantaneously clasping her hand over mouth. She looked around again and quietly repeated herself. "...what? Wait, who? A student?"
Stiles half-shrugged at the question. "Some kid named Isaac. He's on the lacrosse team."
"Isaac?!" she cut him him off immediately. "You mean quiet, cemetery kid Isaac?"
There was a short pause from Stiles as his light brown eyes narrowed slightly. "Whoa, hey – you know him? How do you know he works at the cemetery? Have you two met?"
"Obviously," she said with an eye roll. At Stiles' confused expression, she deadpanned, "It's a cemetery, dumb ass. If vampires starting popping up out of nowhere, where do you think I'd start looking?"
Stiles opened his mouth to say something but quickly closed it again and begrudgingly nodded in understanding. He began walking away from the locker room door finally, with Maddie keeping up the pace. "Okay, so you do know the guy."
"Just barely," Maddie replied quietly with a shrug. It wasn't a lie; she had only spoken to him once - something she was quickly regretting and mentally kicking herself for now.
He gave her a strange glance as they turned a corner. "Wait, what do you mean just barely?"
Maddie glared at him once again and adjusted the strap of her messenger bag. "I mean I kept showing up in the cemetery every night with a bag of weapons and he'd be there. What was I supposed to say?" There was a prolonged silence that fell between them as they walked. The slayer took the moment to wonder about this kid - Isaac. She was already kicking herself for not saying more to the boy, for knowing nothing more than his name. "So what do we do?"
Stiles sighed and stopped finally in the center of the corridor. "You go back to the Argents. Something tells me our sword toting principal isn't going to give him a slap on the wrist and friendly warning if they find him." That's when he paused for a brief moment and eyed the girl beside him cautiously. "And did you just ask me for advice on what to do?"
Maddie stopped as well, looking taken aback and possibly a bit horrified. "No," she shot back defensively. They both stood there in awkward silence for another several seconds. The petite brunette drummed her finger impatiently on the strap of her bag before finally speaking again. "So. The Argents. I'll stick with them for the time being, slow them down if I can."
"...Right, yeah. Okay." He shifted uncomfortably and began to walk off when suddenly he turned back around. "We'll text you if anything new comes up."
Her arms fell to her sides as she raised any eyebrow at the boy. "Wait, what exactly are you doing?"
"Taking the fall," he replied rather bluntly before walking off yet again and into Mister Harris' classroom. "Yet again."
Maddie watched him enter the room and let out a frustrated sigh before shaking her head and heading towards the exit of the school. She wasn't entirely sure what he meant by that or why she cared to give it a second thought for that matter. She shook her head and pushed her thoughts toward more pressing matters. Tailing the Argents had been practically all she'd been doing the past few weeks and it was certainly becoming losing battle. Going with them was doing nothing good; perhaps there was another way to go about it.
She slowed her pace for a moment as she found herself back outside. The cemetery was probably fairly empty at the moment and the Argents wouldn't say a word if she did a little digging of her own. After all, I'm their prized pet.
She smirked as she descended the stairs of the school and walked in a direction that most assuredly was not towards Allison's house.
Her phone buzzed several different times but she still refused to look at it.
She searched the cemetery top to bottom with no luck, no clues. The soil was still soft and wet from the weather the previous night and made her boots sink lower in the grass and her nose filled the scent of rain. It was peaceful but made her trip there utterly pointless.
She had already resigned to leaving the graveyard and heading back to the Argents when she happened upon a crime scene several blocks away. Police tape barred off the alleyway from the public but anyone who had been on the scene investigating had since left. Without hesitation, she ducked under it and took a breath as she searched the area. At the far end of the alley was another street with shattered glass littering the curb. Maddie knelt down and gingerly picked up an interesting shard that was dotted with dried blood.
It was then she noticed something else strange on the ground – dots of white, or at least something that had dried into tiny specks of white. Something about them was unsettling but she couldn't quite place why, even as she studied them closer. She leaned in to touch one when a voice shot her back to reality.
"Hey! What the hell are you doing?!"
Maddie spun around to see a uniformed officer fast walking towards her. She instantly dropped the piece of glass and ran as fast as she could away. Once she got a decent distance away, she finally slowed and headed in the direction of her temporary residence.
The sun had since set when she finally neared the large house with several equally large cars in the driveway, including one she didn't quite recognize. She frowned deeply as she found herself in front the entrance, hesitating to open the door.
In the distance, she vaguely made out the sound of Chris and Gerard's voices speaking in low, angry tones.
She made out Chris' voice first. "...Is the next step killing him?"
"The next step is eliminating the threat," came Gerard's reply. "Do we have proof?"
"I haven't been in history class for a while but I'm pretty sure straight up genocide hasn't worked out too often."
"Do we have proof or not?"
"Not irrefutable...but not insignificant."
"The driver's side door of Lahey's car was pried off."
"Pried off?"
"...Ripped off."
Maddie felt her stomach drop. The crime scene...that had been it. The shards of glass were... but the stuff on the ground... She had already been reaching for the doorknob when she stopped altogether. There it was – the hesitation. It was so tiny that she almost ignored it altogether but her memories caught up to her almost instantly, plaguing her with words she had hoped for so long would never resurface.
"Trust your instincts."
"But what if my instincts are total crap and I screw up?"
"We're slayers! Our instincts are our strongest trait, Mads! You know it and I know it. If you're using too much of that brain of yours and not of slayer instincts, that's when you hesitate."
She wanted to fight it but her hand still backed away from the doorknob once again and she took a step back. This wasn't right. This wasn't what she should be doing. She couldn't stop them by joining them, even just for appearances. Her thoughts were spinning around her head still, meshing with unpleasant memories. She took another step backwards, away from the Argents' home.
"Is that bad?"
"It's the worst – like, the worst thing you could do."
She heard someone coming just on the other side and finally had the sense to run around the corner of the house, jumping over the porch rail and out of sight. From the bushes, she watched someone come out in a very similar uniform to the deputy that had chased her away from the crime scene.
"Ya see, when you hesitate before you do something but do it anyway, your slayer senses are basically telling you somethin's wrong and you're betraying them. You know what happens when you betray the best instincts in the whole wide world?"
"What?"
The man got into his car and sped away, allowing Maddie to finally stand up again and take a deep breath. She watched as he rounded the corner, squinted at the license plate. Memorizing it.
"People die. Innocent people. All because you weren't sure. And you don't want that, right?"
"No," she muttered to herself through her tightened jaw, balling her fists. In a flash, she began sprinting, following what was left of her instincts and the car that was quickly getting away.