From Ashes ✗ Stiles Stilinski - Chapter 3: Chapter 3

The ground was soft and damp beneath Maddie's bare feet as she walked carefully into the forest. A warm, wet breeze that didn't quite feel like a breeze prickled at the back of her neck and the full moon shone down on her, a spotlight in and of itself.
She blinked.
A full moon. That meant something, didn't it?
She craned her neck upward and froze. The moon was massive, taking up a third of the whole night sky. Hanging so low to her that it brushed the tops of trees. She wondered if it was falling. She thought that if it hit the ground, it would crack at its center and she shuddered, fearing somehow a split in the sky that wide and what could crawl through.
That's when she heard it.
A howl.
It was so sudden and so loud that she jumped.
She turned in the direction she of the low, mournful sound. Mournful? Is that how she would describe it? Pained, even? Whatever it was, she started toward it.
Dead leaves and dry twigs crunched beneath her feet like broken bone as she neared the recurring sound and it was no longer one sound. There were several now and the wails became deafening. An eruption of unbearable pain. Her breath caught at that moment and she stopped in her tracks, catching herself from an inevitable fall.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to calm her racing heart.
On the exhale, the howling stopped completely. The woods became so quiet that she could've heard a pin drop.
Her eyes opened, focusing the shadows, and she suddenly had the urge to scream.
Bodies, bloodied and severed. Halved bodies, deep red with entrails dragging through the forest floor.
Bile. She could feel the bile rising in her throat.
She couldn't turn away, searching for faces she knew in the dark. Knowing, somehow, this was her fault.
There was something wrong, though. Something she was just only understanding. In the shadows and the brush, the limbs were moving.
Legless torsos with arms outstretched, fingers grabbing like a child's. Lower halves convulsing.
Severed, rotting bodies moved towards her, reaching with pale, clawed hands. She took a step back, checking her pockets for something - anything - she could use to defend herself. Nothing. They were getting closer, gasping and writhing. Red trailed them.
A claw nearly brushing Maddie's ankle cleared her nerves and she jumped back. She turned on her heel and ran.
The howling started once again. The forest was becoming denser.
"Maddie!" A voice rang out through the howling, close and etched with fear.
Her pace quickened to a sprint and her breathing became ragged as she swerved around the trees and over fallen branches. Her neck brushed with something like a needle. A broken branch, maybe? She didn't have time to stop and check.
"MADDIE!" it roared.
Out of her peripheral, she noted the sky was bright. She glanced up, finding the moon had grown larger, gotten closer, bent the tops of the trees.
Her heart raced as she came to an instant and unsteady halt. The howling grew louder, now behind her. She glanced down at her stomach, where an open gash was now gushing with blood but it didn't concern her still.
As her breathing slowed and a downpour grew loud in her ears, her head snapped forward again. The woods were gone. Cleared, in a way. Maybe burned, with new grass growing on new soil. In front of her was an wide open field with stretching as far as the eye could see. That wasn't what caused her breath to catch.
Far from her were two shadows - a larger one holding the other in the air by the neck. The one on the ground had the sickly yellow eyes of something monstrous. Not the glow of a wolf, but something muted - something that reminded her of the suddenness and silence that death brought. The other was skinny and clawed the hand around its neck.
There was something familiar about them as she wondered why it was raining.
Had it been raining the whole time?
She glanced up at the still cloudless sky and prayed to a god she didn't believe in for it to stop.
She wanted to run. She had to run but she couldn't will her limbs to move. She knew, somehow, that she wouldn't make it. No matter how fast she ran, she knew she wouldn't change the outcome. It would happen.
The hanging shadow had no form but she already knew it.
The vampire smiled and broke the shadowed figure's neck.
Maddie screamed, the word 'no' feeling like it had shredded through her throat but came out as a wordless scream.
Her windpipe closed. A large rough hand gripped her neck so tightly that she couldn't suck in a breath. The breeze that wasn't a breeze prickled on her neck again. Suddenly, the noise behind her had turned from howling to something much closer. Breathing - low, heavy breath right next to her ear. There was a growl.
The beast chuckled menacingly in her ear. "Time's up."
The hand tightened.
Maddie's eyes shot open as she took a sharp, gasping breath in. As her gaze adjusted to the dark, she looked around. Her bags were piled in the corner and the clock next to her read 4:17 AM.
The ceiling above her was cast in blocky, dim light, a tint that reminded her a little of vampire irises. Rancid yellow. Seven hours before, she'd been on a bus from San Francisco. Now, she laid on her stiff bed in a Beacon Hills motel room that smelled almost as bad as the cab from earlier.
This was her new base of operations, her new home - if she could call it that. And today... She groaned quietly and turned over. The covers had their own vaguely rancid stench when she shifted.
Today was the beginning of a new, terrifying mission.
Today, she was starting high school.
☽ † ☾
"Still not talking to me?"
If anything, Scott should've immediately noted the prolonged, icy silence coming from Stiles. This had been an ongoing trend since parent-teacher night and with good reason - Stiles' dad had gotten hurt. Any silent treatment or punishment thereafter he deserved for not being there that night, as far as Stiles was concerned. He could hear the concern in Scott's voice. "Okay, can you at least tell me if your dad's okay? It's just a bruise, right?"
Anger flared in Stiles' stomach.
"Some soft tissue damage?" If Scott wasn't a werewolf, Stiles would've totally kicked his ass. He thought about trying anyway as Scott sheepishly muttered out, "...nothing that big..."
Nothing. Not a glare. Not an angry remark. Stiles was anything but outright stupid and knew just how much his silence would sting. Another uncomfortable pause engulfed them and he could almost see hear Scott shrinking in his seat.
"...You know I feel really bad about it, right? Okay...what if I told you that I'm trying to figure this whole thing out and..." The uneasiness in his stomach grew once again and Scott's lowered his voice. "...that I went to Derek for help?"
Stiles released a loud, irritated sigh, unable to hold his thoughts on the matter in, which happened to annoy him further. "If I was talking to you, I'd say that you're an idiot for trusting him...But obviously I'm not talking to you."
The bell sounded above their heads, followed by a silence that - funny enough - was now unnerving Stiles. Questions had begun buzzing around his head as he imagined what horrible advice the older, much less pleasant werewolf had given Scott.
Seconds ticked away, eating at Stiles before he quickly spun around in his chair. "What did he say?"
Scott smiled at him and looked like he was about to speak when the door to the classroom abruptly interrupted him. Both Scott and Stiles' attention was brought to the forefront of the room, as was everyone else's for the time being.
As he went over to quietly speak to the teacher, a petite girl stepped out from behind him.  A positively joyless face looked around the room curiously, as if she didn't understand what she was seeing. Like she wasn't just a stranger to the class, but a stranger to classrooms. She wore her eye makeup less like fancy window dressing and more like a scar - heavy black shadows and stubby lines, a verified goth or punk disaster. Her clothes were unremarkable though, clearly more for comfort than for school - nothing eye catching aside from a silver necklace that was tucked under her shirt.
She gripped her books tighter, an anxious motion Stiles was all too familiar with, as she examined every face in the room and tapped her shiny, black boots.
"Everyone..." the teacher began in a less than enthused tone as he stood and the principal took his inaudible leave. He stood behind the girl with a flat look. "Please welcome your new classmate, Madeline Hayes."
There was an uncomfortable silence that filled the room as every pair of eyes were set on Madeline. Her eyes grew wide in their black holes and her mouth remained expressionless as the moment painfully stretched on. She would likely be the type to curse like it was breathing and knock someone out for bumping her in the hall. A cliché from a movie jumped out of the screen, if not few a few nervous ticks she clearly wasn't great at masking. If he squinted, she was pretty in a crazy, anti-establishment way, but more on the perturbed and terrifying side.
"Well?" the teacher prodded, giving her his own expectant stare.
Her head turned sharply to the very wide, very red man, her mouth now hung open. What was she doing? Why wouldn't she just sit down? Her gaze turned back toward the class and her mouth clamped shut. Her grip on her books loosened and she lifted up one hand, giving a slight wave. "Yep. I'm new."
Stiles shot Scott a confused look at the same time that his friend mirrored him. There was a small wave of giggles rising up from some of the other students. The large, red man tapped her shoulder and pointed to an empty desk at the far end of the room, next to Stiles. "Well, take your seat. You can introduce yourself on your own time."
She frowned and furrowed her brows, looking as though she was thinking about punching the teacher. Instead, she said, "You don't have to be rude."
More giggling sounded around the room, including from Scott. The man became slightly redder and even Stiles snorted a laugh.
"Sit," the teacher said in a booming voice.
"Okay," she added in a similar tone and just loud enough for the room to hear before she swerved around a few desks to the lone empty one. The teacher had started to speak before she even dropped her books on her desk and her backpack on the floor. As she sat down in the clunky, metallic seat, she quickly dug in her bag, the sound of metal clanking around out of sight prodding at Stiles' curiosity. All the while, she didn't notice there were still two set of curious eyes on her - that is until she set her notebook and pen on the desk.
She slowly turned her head toward them, looking from Scott to Stiles. Her eyes were as dark as her makeup. A brown so dark it was a tar pit, scalding if he looked too long. Everything about her felt bitter and angry and violent, especially the glare she was giving him. All the while, the nervous, reflexive tapping of her boots quickened. A tiny thing that almost made her normal.
"What?" she whispered harshly, causing both him and Scott to shrug defensively and turn back to each other.
Scott's eyes widened as she turned to the front of the classroom and he turned to Stiles, "I'll tell you after class."
Stiles sighed and nodded, unable to shake the strange bit of dread the girl brought in with her.
☽ † ☾
This should have been a lot easier. That was the thought that kept floating through Maddie's head as she walked down the hallway to the cafeteria. This should have been much, much easier.
In the eight years that she'd been a vampire slayer, her 'mentors' made no real mention of their high school experience. Faith didn't seem to have a high school experience at all due to terrible circumstances she didn't see the point in sharing, which was entirely understandable. On the other hand, Buffy seemed to have different motives on the subject altogether. She, Mister Harris, and the few times Miss Rosenberg - their resident authority on magic - stopped by, they made inside jokes but never really delved into their pasts around the slayers in training. On top of that, Maddie couldn't use elementary school as a frame of reference to reliably build on, making this mission in particular not the best fit in retrospect.
Unfortunately, when you want out of a place that does nothing but cause you pain, details get lost.
Madeline grumbled under her breath and entered the large room. Masses of teenagers filed in and out, chatting and laughing so loud that it left no room in her head for her thoughts. It seemed a bit like the mess hall from the training grounds in Scotland, only the people here actually looked happy to see each other. She was a bit hungry but the smell of the food being served - which only managed to remind her of the inside of a microwave after reheating marinara sauce - curbed her appetite altogether. It wasn't like she could just walk down the street and grab a bag of fries from Big Al's or something in place of whatever they served here.
Then again, maybe she was feeling nauseous beforehand; she couldn't tell.
Maddie felt small as people pushed past her but more-so furious that they could make her feel that way considering cliques, homework, and bad food didn't seem all that great, to be honest. Besides, even if she was a student, she wasn't there to simply be a student. She gave herself a moment to strengthen her resolve. I'm a Slayer. I protect people. I'm here to protect people.
Her eyes scanned around the room, analyzing the faces closer than before. She spotted a few of her classmates from earlier that day, including the two strange boys from her first period History class who seemed to be getting stranger by the minute as she noticed one of them ducking behind a textbook. Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion but let it go when she followed the boy's gaze. Maddie's eyes lit up instantly as she was met with the sight of the girl from the photo Xander gave her - Allison Argent.
This would prove to be the tough part. Seeing as she'd spent half of her life with the same group of girls, she had no reason to go out and make new friends. Her best friend, Marie, would tell her how easy it was but Maddie never really caught on. It was tough enough to do that without being supernatural and she couldn't necessarily discuss the process of beheading a M'Fashnik demon or how the best made weapons didn't even come from this dimension. What did high school kids talk about - especially the new ones? Madeline inched her way over to the mostly vacant table, threading together a lie in her head to the best of her ability.
She stopped at the table where a fair girl with strawberry blonde hair continued prattling on about something. The girl seemed almost unapproachable, like she had a force field around her that was both magnetized and electrified.
The leader of her squad, Emery, gave off an alarmingly similar aura and frequently went around calling herself a quote 'boss ass bitch', to which the rest of them would laugh. That didn't make it any easier to talk to the girl, though. People like that were intimidating, like her personality towered over others and left them in shadow.
Of course, when the girl looked up, she gave Maddie an irritated and expectant look. Allison, who sat across the table from the girl, looked behind her, following her friend's stare.
Maddie took a breath and forced a smile, hoping it didn't look painful.
"Hi, ah..." Be polite, she reminded herself quickly. These people can't see what you're thinking. She could argue that with the laser-focused and narrowed look the red head was giving her. "Sorry to interrupt, but there's nowhere else to sit."
She didn't actually know that for a fact but hoped they didn't either.
"Uh, no, it's no problem," Allison replied a bit awkwardly. She glanced back at her friend who gave her a shocked look and subtly shook her head. Allison, having already extended the greeting, smiled over at the strawberry blonde. "Right?"
The girl, clearly put on the spot by her friend, cocked her head to the side and forced her own smile. She held out a hand toward an empty chair, reluctantly obliging the request in silence. Madeline uneasily nodded and took a seat, dropping her leather messenger bag at her feet. She looked up at the two girls, who gave her curious and expectant stares. There was a short pause before Maddie's eyes widened, realizing the first mistake she made. "Oh! I'm Madeline. I'm new."
What had to be a genuine smile took over Allison's face.
"Me too." She gave a quiet, sheepish laugh. "Well, sort of."
Maddie forced her own laugh, although she wasn't quite sure why she was laughing. It seemed to be the best social response she could think of, though.
"I'm Allison," the brunette added and pointed to the other girl who didn't seem quite as enthused. "This is Lydia."
"So. Year?" The question was blunt and somewhat impolite, but Lydia didn't seem to care. Madeline stared blankly at her for a moment before Lydia rolled her eyes and went on. "Sophomore, Junior, Senior...?"
Maddie actually seemed to prefer this to a false smile though. It felt honest.
"Sophomore. Um, I was actually wondering..." She reached in her bag, sifting through the contents - including her hand ax that was wrapped in a thin black cloth but she did well not to let people see that - and pulled out a piece of paper. She wasn't used to thinking on her feet in anything but combat so this was probably the flimsiest thing she could come up with. "Do either of you know where Mister...Finstock's room is? I didn't get that far on the tour."
"Coach Finstock?" Allison asked. She held out her hand and nodded toward the paper. Maddie reluctantly handed it over and waited for Allison to look over it as Lydia continued to pick idly at her food. Allison smiled and gave Madeline the paper back. "Looks like you have Econ with us. I can show you where it is if you meet me outside the cafeteria after sixth period."
"Thanks," she answered a little too quickly, finally feeling like she was getting somewhere. This was probably the best way to keep the youngest Argent in her sights though.
"No problem! Us new girls have to stick together," Allison replied with a grin and nudged Maddie lightly in the shoulder with her own. She then motioned to Lydia who had not been paying attention whatsoever. "And if that doesn't work, we have someone to show us the ropes. Right, Lydia?"
"Hm?" was Lydia's only reply as she looked up, a dull expression resting on her features.
Stiles turned around and examined the three girls sitting at the table - mostly to catch a glance at Lydia Martin but that was beside the point. He looked across the table at the friend he was still cross at. "What the- Do you see this?"
Scott peeked over his textbook at the girls. "What's happening?"
He ducked again and Stiles narrowed his eyes.
"Nothing much, just yet another new girl chatting up Lydia Martin like it's a totally normal thing anyone can do." Stiles stuffed some more food in his mouth and continued speaking. "Which, by the way, is a completely unfair advantage."
"What is?"
"Being the new kid! No one knows your weird baggage or embarrassing Chuck E. Cheese incidents that somehow get around Mrs. Ecklesby's entire second grade class. People spend their entire school careers climbing the social ladder just so girls like Lydia might make meaningful eye contact with them. Myself included."
Scott shrugged but Stiles could barely tell from the propped up book between them. "She just sat down over there. Have you tried that?"
"Nah, too easy." Stiles bit his thumbnail, eyes narrowing on Madeline. She was certainly not the type to want to hang out with someone like Lydia, or that Lydia would allow to sit there. It must've been Allison. Allison was too nice and probably invited her over there. Or something. "Seriously, dude. It's a bad omen."
Scott, still hiding behind his book, groaned. "Okay, could you not talk about bad omens? I've got enough to worry about."
"What?" Stiles responded and looked back at Scott. "Oh. Right."
"So what were you going on about before?" Lydia asked, speaking as if it were only her and Allison at the table and waving her fork around as she spoke.
Maddie sat there quietly, praying for lunch to be done with. She wasn't hungry and now she seemed to be becoming more and more bored by the second. She could've spent the time doing something useful, like working out in the gym. Of course, she didn't know where the gym was yet.
Allison's head perked up from the book she was reading.
"Huh? Oh yeah! That." She glanced over at Madeline, a bit embarrassed. "I'm doing this history project and -"
"Sweetie, lunch is over in like fifteen minutes," Lydia interrupted with a plastered on smile. "You might want to speed this up."
Allison gave her a knowing and slightly chastising look before directing her attention back to her book. "Well, um...In here there's this excerpt about the beast of Gevaudan."
There was a pause. Madeline gave Allison a confused look for more than one reason. Lydia, who seemed to be only half paying attention at that point spoke up. "The what of who?"
"The beast of Gevaudan," Allison repeated without missing a beat or even getting mildly annoyed. "Listen. 'A quadruped wolf-like monster, prowling the Auvergne and south Dordogne areas of France during the year 1764 to 1767."
Madeline's head unintentionally perked up. Something was certainly off about this. This couldn't be right; normal teenagers don't talk about monsters during lunch and she didn't need social skills to know that.
"'La Bete killed over a hundred people, becoming so infamous that the King Louie the 15th sent one of his best hunters to try and kill it.'" The pale brunette looked up at her best friend almost expectantly.
"Boring," Lydia replied instantaneously. Maddie withheld a relieved breath.
Allison leaned in closer as if she was revealing a secret. "Even the church eventually declared the monster a messenger of Satan."
"Hmm..." Lydia tilted her head, as if she were actually thinking her answer over. "Still boring."
Allison continued to read aloud, regardless of her friend's tiresome remarks. "Cryptozoologists believe it may have been a subspecies of hoofed predator, possibly a mesonychid."
"Slipping into a coma bored," came Lydia's next comment.
This time, Madeline let out a small laugh. It wasn't forced, but it certainly didn't sound natural either. It was nervous, like a hiccup forcing its way up.
Allison looked up at the newcomer, slightly disheartened. Lydia gave Allison a pointed stare, using her fork to point at Madeline. "See? She agrees with me."
Maddie paused, frozen in horror at the sound she'd made. She pushed through her embarrassment and grabbed at the first thought like it was a balloon drifting further away. "What? No. I- I didn't mean..."
The rest shriveled in her throat and she doubted that even a resurrection spell could bring her pride back from where it laid dying in front of her. This was far from how she imagined her first meeting with the girl would go. She assumed it would have been during a class or something much less conspicuous. Instead, Allison was talking about werewolves during lunch and Maddie was, of course, making an ass of herself. Lydia's smile was almost smug when she looked back at Allison. Maddie took that as a cue to shrink away from the conversation again, which she was relieved to take advantage of. She wasn't aware of how difficult it would be to talk to normal teenagers. It was exhausting.
Allison seemed hardly phased by the comments altogether, persistent as she pushed forward. "Hold on, hold on! While others believe it was a powerful sorcerer who could shapeshift into a man-eating monster."
Maddie was probably grimacing without even realizing it, unable to hold in her looming sense of dread. She expected a girl without the slightest idea what went bump in the night but here was possibly the most clueless Argent talking about monsters over lunch. It was almost like being back at headquarters, only a million times more awkward and stressful.
Lydia raised a questionable eyebrow. "Any of this have anything to do with your family?"
"This," Allison continued, clearly enthralled in the book again. "It is believed that la Bete was finally trapped and killed by a renown hunter who claimed his wife and four children were the first to fall prey to the creature."
She looked up at the two girls.
"His name was Argent."
The shock on Maddie face was something she could not fake when panicking was so very easy. It obviously wasn't for the same reasons as Allison's own shock but it was certainly a real emotion.
Maddie was starting to understand fully the issue she was presented with and what the rest of the Argents wanted her here for. This wasn't protect Allison from what she didn't know; it was to protect her from what she was already on the cusp of discovering. Maddie was supposed to be what? An impenetrable wall? Was she supposed to close the book on the table as Allison continued to read it?
Of course, she tried to hide her reaction; she by all counts was supposed to have no idea that was the girl's last name. Be normal, she scolded herself. For once in your life, be normal.
Lydia's stare, though, was still genuinely blank. "Your ancestors killed a big wolf. So what?"
"Not just a big wolf," Allison replied as she turned the book and propped it up for her friend to see. "What does it look like to you?"
As if her time at that table hadn't been odd enough, she examined the look on Lydia's face. The girl had gone sickly pale and her eyes widened in what could only be described as horror. There was something else though that Maddie had to take a second or two to pinpoint. Was it...familiarity?
"Lydia?" Allison looked at her friend worriedly. "Lydia."
The strawberry blonde's eyes snapped up to Allison's brown ones and she spoke, her voice on edge despite being perfectly level. "It looks. Like a big. Wolf."
At that, Lydia smiled like someone flipped a switch in her head and she stood.
"See you in History."
Lydia didn't seem to deem it necessary to say goodbye to Maddie as she left but it didn't seem to bother the newcomer in the least. In fact, she was still processing the information she'd just been handed.
Allison sighed heavily and set the book down again. She glanced over at Madeline, embarrassment written all over her face. "Oh god, I'm so sorry."
Maddie didn't know how to react or what part of all this Allison was apologizing for. Maybe Maddie was just that bad at hiding her emotions.
"This must be super weird. I don't know what I was thinking." Allison laughed quietly at herself. "I swear, I'm not always this much of a freak."
Maddie gave the girl a blank stare, trying to decide on what emotion she was supposed to give in return. After too long of a beat, she decided on something passive. Anything far from panic.
"Oh! No, no, it's fine. There's nothing wrong with weird." Maddie smiled at the girl, attempting to reassure her. "I can handle weird. Besides, I've heard weirder."
Both curious and appreciative, Allison replied with a meek, "Really?"
"Definitely. Like, everyday." As if on cue, warning signs began flashing in Maddie's brain. Too much information! Alert! Mayday! After a short pause, she blinked and quickly added, "I just...have a really weird, nontraditional family."
Allison gave a laugh and a knowing smile. "That makes two of us."
Maddie tried to hide her wince at the reply. She couldn't help but wish she hadn't sat at Allison's table for lunch.
A grating voice spoke loudly over the few students left in the cafeteria. Maddie's eyes flicked over to the direction of the voice, finding the pale, scrawny boy from her History class looking increasingly annoyed and taking a book out of the other boy's grasp, leaving him out in the open.
Allison's eyebrows furrowed. "Scott?"
Scott's eyes darted over to Allison as he began to make a hasty escape, following his friend out of the cafeteria. Maddie looked over at the scene, recognizing the boy almost immediately.
"Sorry, I gotta go." Without waiting for a response, Allison hurriedly grabbed her things left the cafeteria as well. "Scott, wait!"
"S'okay..." Maddie muttered to herself. She exhaled loudly as more and more questions filled her head. She gathered her things and took out her phone as she strolled out of the room. "I gotta make a call anyway."