From Ashes ✗ Stiles Stilinski - Chapter 46: Chapter 46

Dry, cool air shot around Max's head and through her coat in a gust as she stepped out of the cab and shoved her wallet in her compact purse. She was already regretting not choosing jeans over her airport attire if not for the warmth, at least for the convenience of pockets. She'd tipped Shawna, the kind and quiet cab driver with grayish-brown dreadlocks and the brightest smile she'd ever seen in her life, more than she'd meant to but felt generous. She lugged her rolling suitcase out of the popped trunk that had a musky-sweet scent to it. Once she closed the trunk, the taxi rolled lazily away from the curb of the large white building that was connected to a row of other businesses.
Before she could even get a good look at the building, something large and wonderful bloomed inside her chest. She couldn't count the number of hours she spent learning about demons or practicing magic or reading the journals of those who came before. She couldn't remember a moment where she didn't know what she wanted to do with her life and now, here she was, a Watcher of the New Council. She was going to be assigned a Slayer and, maybe even someday, she might help save the world. There was as much fear in her head as excitement and she couldn't stop herself from wondering what her Grandfather would say, if he'd be proud of her.
She didn't know what to expect when she arrived in San Francisco, having only really seen the picture that wholesome prime time television painted. This was no pleasant row home overlooking a park or a large orange bridge. It wasn't even sunny today.
This couldn't be the right place, not with around forty girls living inside.
The white paint on the outside was ancient and badly chipped and the entrance must've been a corner store once, complete with large plate windows which were now boarded and cracked in some places and a blank sign in between the first and second floor. The ghost of words were still present there, but all she could make out was 'Willy's' and 'clearance'. She squinted at the rows of windows above the abandoned store, counting the number of floors and noting the glass was clean, free of cobwebs and yellowish tint of age, unlike the windows on the first floor. Some blinds were drawn and others gone completely but no one was in the windows.
Max anxiously rubbed the soft material of her jacket between her thumb and two fingers as she repeated the address from memory and her resolve surfaced again, slowly but stronger than before. Of course it's not obvious. Headquarters would be a secret. She blew her bangs from her eyes and strode to the shop door, the obvious entrance. Her luggage swayed violently a few times as it attempted to topple into the pocks in the old sidewalk. She steadied it and reached with her other hand for the door handle marked 'PULL'. She did and the door didn't budge. She tugged again and again, determined. The tugging turned into yanking and she began muttering at the door.
"Don't you dare-" Yank. "I did not fly-" Tug, tug, big pull. "-all this way-" And one final huge but failed pull. "-for this!"
"What the hell are you doing?"
The voice was harsh but curious and it startled Max to hear anyone's voice at all, considering the state of the neighborhood. She let go of the door as if it shocked her and nearly stumbled back but caught herself, whirling around on the toe of her brown and navy leather oxfords. She was silently commending herself for not choosing her heeled boots, even if the decision took fifteen minutes.
Before her stood a girl, possibly around her age, with short black hair, tawny brown skin, and wide, dark eyes. Her mouth was a thin line and she was wearing an over-sized black sweater with gray slacks and shiny, black heels, like she was coming from an office - an important office where they probably did important things, like financial advising or realty. Still, she gave off an entirely different vibe, one that felt less like a stranger coming across a silly girl trying to break into a boarded up store and more like a bear guarding its cubs.
"Oh," Max started, her lips keeping the shape of the word an extra second longer as she thought of what to say. She tried a smile, large and dimpled and toothy, but the girl's face remained the same - that was to say she remained cold and expectant. Max was only in America a day (and only in California an hour or so) and already she was feeling horribly out of place, like pushing a puzzle piece not only into the wrong spot but the entirely wrong puzzle. "Um, sorry. I, ah...Do you by any chance...live here?"
She was pointing her thumb behind her, towards the unbudging door.
The girl, or woman most likely (the longer Max eyed her, the more mature she looked), quirked one well-groomed eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest. "You want to know if I live in the abandoned convenience store?"
Max opened her mouth to speak but probably looked like a fish gasping for air, which was actually fairly accurate to how she felt - like a fish gasping for words, not air, hoping the right ones would fill her head. She never had this much trouble finding them, but she'd also found herself surrounded by like-minded people most of her twenty-three years. Slayers were not something that she had the chance to be around, regardless of her wealth of knowledge on them. She wasn't even sure if this woman was one of them. In her absence of words, she smiled again, this time sheepishly. "...Yes?"
"Do you not know what abandoned means?" the woman said, her tone growing bored.
"...that there's no one there," she answered, even though she felt the question was rhetorical. She knew this was the address, though. What other building in that neighborhood could house nearly forty people at once? She took a deep breath quickly, like she was the big bad wolf about to blow down the straw house. "But, no! I..."
The black haired woman's expression didn't change in the slightest.
Max huffed. "My name's Max- er, MacKenzie Travers. I need to find Buffy Summers."
The woman blinked a slow blink, like the words that Max was saying were gibberish. She didn't say anything before she turned around and began walking away, towards the back of the building. Max's shoulders slumped and, for a moment, she felt a surge of panic. Her eyes were glued to the pavement, looking for a sign or a clue, before the woman's voice sounded again. "If you don't follow me right now, I'm locking you out."
Max's head shot up and she looked at the woman who was almost rounding the corner. She smiled a slow, wide smile and ran to catch up, her rolling bag bouncing and teetering from side to side with every crack in the sidewalk.
She looked up at the cloudy sky and whispered, "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
☽ † ☾
The room was too bright - filled to the edges of her vision with blinding, white light - and, for a second, Maddie thought that she was dead.
She'd wondered what it'd be like, of course. Dying. In fact, she thought about it much more lately. It wasn't that she wanted to, as far as she'd let herself think about it. (She couldn't think about it; she never trusted herself enough to say no.) She, like any normal person, wondered how and what would happen after. Then again, she wasn't a normal person. She'd thought about what death would be like a lot to begin with because anyone who knew what a slayer was knew the deal. Death followed them from the moment they're called; a slayer's existence was always a short one. Buffy and Faith were lucky to make it out of their twenties alive - and the same could not be said about many of the other girls along the way.
Buffy died and, astoundingly, came back but none of the girls were brave enough to ask about it. Buffy was special though, the girl that changed the whole world. Maddie was just another girl destined for an early grave.
She couldn't hear anything at first, in that room filled with white light. Was it a room? Was she outside? She wasn't cold but she wasn't really anything else either, at least for those first few moments. Silence and static filled her ears until mumbles and echoes faded in. It was a slow process at first - sounding more like her ears needed to pop but wouldn't - but, as she became more aware of her surroundings and the numbness in her head, torso, and limbs was abruptly cut off as sharp, throbbing pain hit her all at once, the noise faded in like a high whine from a malfunctioning speaker.
Even wincing hurt and a groan rumbled in her throat. Her eyes finally adjusted to the light - although everything still looked blurry like saran wrap was blocking her vision - and Maddie found herself staring at a white ceiling with a simple, overhead dome light. The mumbles of a voice became much clearer, as did the sound of a shower. Someone was singing in the shower just a room away and it wasn't terrible, just a song she didn't know.
"One of these days, these boots are gonna walk all over you.."
The twang of the guitar even hurt Maddie's head. She struggled to sit up and the world tilted all at the same time when she did. A wave of nausea passed over her and the pain, which was all over, grew and sharpened on her left shoulder.
A memory focused in her head. That shoulder hit the bookcase and the door frame. She dodged a tackle and Allison hit her head. That's when the blood started to flow.
The water in the bathroom shut off and the music stopped, along with the singing from stranger. The voice was feminine but unrecognizable.
Maddie weakly threw the blanket off of her and looked down at her clothes. It was the same outfit from the night before, but the jeans were covered in dirt and the side of the shirt was ripped. She touched where the rip was and her nerve endings screamed in pain. It didn't hurt to breathe so it (hopefully) wasn't broken ribs, but definitely bruised and possibly bleeding. She withdrew her hand and found a thin smear of blood.
Glass table, downstairs. Maddie and Allison brought the fight downstairs and Chris had tried to stop it. He couldn't. The two were rabid dogs, bred to fight, starved, and taking it out on each other. Maddie, aware of her lack of power, still got in a punch to Allison's jaw and a few swift kicks when she managed to dodge.
Something happened though. A misstep. A stumble. Something she couldn't quite remember but she knew what it led to. Allison had her by the collar and started hitting Maddie in the cheek and in the jaw. She was lifted up, tossed. She felt the weightless sensation of flying through the air, unable to stop.
There was a shout and then, nothing.
Maddie touched her jaw and searing pain shot through the whole area. It was probably purple again. She assumed that she hit her head pretty hard too, maybe on a wall, which would explain the blackout and the dizzying ache.
A doorknob turned and Maddie half expected to see Buffy or Willow. Maybe she just hoped for it.
Instead, in black skinny jeans and a loose floral top with a towel twisted atop her head, was a smiling pale girl. Someone she knew.
The girl smiled. "Hey there, sleepyhead. Did I wake you?"
Maddie shook her head, not in response but to shake out the cobwebs in her brain. This couldn't be happening. When she spoke, her voice was scratchy and softer than expected. "What the...Why..."
"One question at a time there, Slayer. Calm down." The familiar girl tugged the white towel from her head and whipped her wet, platinum blonde hair back over her shoulder. Blue eyes met Maddie's, even though they were still bleary from sleep. "Would it be better if I called you Maddie? That's what your friends call you, right?"
"Who..." Maddie began, powering through the throbbing pain in her head.
"Shouldn't you know? I mean, I met you a while back, before anyone." Her stare went from Maddie to the far, shadowed corner of the room. "I guess you don't know though. We haven't been formally introduced."
Maddie's brow furrowed and she turned to her far right, the furthest part of the room from her. In a uncomfortable looking desk chair sat Lydia, dressed in the last outfit Maddie saw her in the night before but much dirtier. Her knees were caked with mud, her hair was slightly disheveled, and her makeup was faded. She didn't say anything, but looked straight at Maddie in horror and something else. Something that Maddie couldn't identify in her current state. A jolt of rage shot through Maddie as she looked back at the girl standing just beyond the foot of the bed.
"So, for those of you who don't know, or never cared to ask, I'm Sadie." Her gaze turned to Maddie's again and she smiled. "And I just saved your sorry ass."
☽ † ☾
Last Night
Sadie's mind was spinning, coursing with the words of the stout, bearded man known as the Father and spindly, silent figure veiled in black he had referred to as the Mother. Lilith, the headcase with the dirty - as in literally gross and unwashed - blonde hair, had remained silent from that point on and left with the two like she had been their actual child. The whole vibe was too Manson family for Sadie. It was the words that interested her, anyway.
"You know where the power source is? Really?"
"We know what you seek and where to find it."
"Okay, that's a non-answer."
"It hums, you know. It...beats with their blood. Once dead, it's gnarled heart craves sacrifice."
"Can we not do riddles?"
If there was anything she couldn't stand more than vampires, it was this Deliverance rip off. There was something that even unsettled her, a blind devotion twisted up in untempered thoughts. Sure, she loved chaos and he was nothing compared to what she was, just another hungry rat. Still, his drive was unfaltering and built on the one thing that had power over Sadie's psyche - the only thing that could invite fear into her withered heart: faith.
The great thing about vampires was that they inherently denounced religion from the moment they realized holy objects could sear their flesh just as easily as sunlight. They shunned the idea of god because whatever they see as god no longer looks on them favorably. They were soulless parasites that crawled out of the ground, clawing their way out of hell. They rarely ever lasted long in groups because nothing bound them together. No real love without a soul. No family. No faith. It meant they were easily handled. When they ran in packs, they could throw their own to the wolves with a clear conscience (pun very much intended).
The vampires she encountered tonight felt wrong. They weren't just giving titles to each other - Father, Mother, Sister - they were connected. They were devoted. They bonded. The pale girl ran to the others with her wounds like a child and they cooed over her, gently guiding her away. They became a family, in their own sick way. Even worse, they found faith in that bond. They spoke, like her own long-dead parents, of god. They spoke like those who had condemned her and put innocents on the end of a noose. They believed in something.
Yes, she hated vampires. She loathed them - but there was nothing she found more disgusting than the death of individual thought - the mob mentality - that was organized religion.
Still, this was useful, or she could at least make it into something useful. She couldn't fathom working for a vampire, even the one so inelegantly named 'the mother'. She knew her real name and it was an infamous one, but she was a child compared to Sadie. A homeless child at that, one that was afraid of something other than Sadie. They didn't just want an all you can eat human buffet, they wanted a fortress. They would take back that power source and Sadie was certain they weren't looking to share.
Suddenly, she was regretting revealing herself to that Slayer, Madeline Whatever, even more than before. She needed to find a way to have the girl trust her. Slayers slay vampires and two slayers would be perfect to have on her side, until she got her amulet back. Of course, it felt like something was missing, a piece of the puzzle, a gaping hole in her plan.
Ah, yes. The barrier. It had to be reinforced or built upon in some way. There was no way she'd let those overgrown mosquitoes take her only shot at getting out of here and wreaking some havoc elsewhere.
She didn't know how long she drove, but it had to be at least an hour and she was straining to remember where Allison lived. She hadn't been there to visit the girl, but she remembered hearing something on the wind, worlds away. She remembered being bored and restless. Arash'Maharr was hardly what she would call her home, only a place to be when there was nowhere else to be. When she felt a girl's pain across planes of existence, it hit her with such force that she clutched her chest because she could feel her own heart break. It was a pain so vivid and raw that she fought to be the one to quell it.
Only, it wasn't Allison's pain. Not initially.
Maddie was always on the move, always had somewhere to be and something to fight. Her heart must've hurt to keep beating the way it did. It started as a crash, the feeling of hope dying in one horrible instant. Maddie probably didn't even remember the day Sadie had first introduced herself - in a coffee shop in San Francisco. She'd pushed past Sadie and acted like she hadn't said a word.
It was infuriating the first time but she let it slide. She could practically see the trail of blood coming from the gaping hole in Maddie's chest, but there was something stronger inside her. This girl was a slayer and Sadie couldn't quite forgive slayers. Not after Anyanka and Halfrek, not for what Buffy Summers did to them. There was no helping this girl. Besides, some people didn't want help seeking vengeance. They had nothing to wish for and that was the most horrible part.
Of course, nine months later, nothing had changed but location. Maddie was still walking around, every step screaming with loss and hurt, so much so that Sadie couldn't help but try again. To at least approach her. That time, Maddie had a biting response before walking away from Sadie again. Of course, that was when Sadie heard it - the meek cry under the slayer's scream of pain. Someone unnoticed, spiraling.
Meeting Allison Argent had been, in every sense, a mistake.
That was even clearer now, as she stood in front of the house where they both resided. She could hear crashing and shouted words. She could feel the anger and hatred pulsing and rolled her eyes. "Shit."
Sadie ran into the house just as Maddie hit the wall and crumpled to the floor. Before she could go any further in, Allison was above Maddie, raining down blows in quick, hard succession. The house was wrecked, the glass table in the living room was shattered and the railing at the second floor landing had been broken through.
Sadie remembered the sweet girl with the infectious smile who wished to be just like Maddie. A girl who was sick of being weak. She could find something to like about most of her clients and Allison was no exception. She was good, kind - and Sadie had made a mistake. Slayers were not always good; in fact, many that Sadie knew of were horrible. If they ever were good, it was only in spite of what they were. More often than not, goodness couldn't overcome the monster inside.
She pulled Allison from Maddie's unconscious form. "Ally! Allison, stop!"
Allison tried to pull away and go back, even going as far as trying to elbow Sadie in the face. Sadie used her free hand to catch Allison's elbow, which caused the girl to look back. Sadie gaped at the girl and felt a wave of pity. Allison's eyebrow was bleeding and her jaw was starting to swell. Her stare was impossibly dark and she looked like she was snarling.
She didn't care for Maddie, honestly. Her emotions were bound to swallow her up and she wasn't going to ask for help. She'd probably die this way. Allison, on the other hand, wasn't meant to bear this. It was like an animal was trying to claw its way out of her body, like it didn't fit inside her. Sadie said again, this time much more softly, "Allison. Stop."
It was in that moment that Allison recognized Sadie, her eyes growing wide as something else faded in them. She turned back to Maddie, unconscious on the floor, bruised and bleeding. When Allison's stare returned to Sadie, her eyes were still large and now they were watery. She didn't cry though; instead, her mouth was a line and she gently pulled away from Sadie, surveying the damage done to the house and the two men watching, one on the floor in pain and horror and the other standing there in wonder.
Allison couldn't seem to look at Maddie anymore and walked over to the man on the floor, probably her father. She helped him up and mumbled something to him before heading upstairs. The man ran over to Maddie, kneeling down and checking her pulse. He released a relieved sigh and covered his mouth as he stared at her and then back to Sadie. Piercing blue eyes studied her, like he was trying to decide whose side she was on or what she knew.
He looked back down at Maddie before scooping her limp form up and walking over to Sadie.
"Christopher," the old man said, his voice full of authority and warning. "We have bigger problems right now. We need to go."
"Bigger problems?" Chris' jaw was set hard, teeth clenched as he took a warning step toward the older man. "You're granddaughter almost killed someone! An innocent! This isn't what we do!"
Allison's grandfather raised two unkempt eyebrows, the wrinkles on her forehead deepening. "I'd hardly call that an innocent. It's barely a person."
Chris was seething, clearly about to say something else but instead closing his mouth and breathing out his nose. The voice Sadie heard next was so calm and clear, that Sadie must've been the only one to hear it waver. "...Grandpa's right."
Sadie looked to the staircase, where Allison was descending slowly. She'd fixed her hair and cleaned the cuts on her face, but they were still a deep red. The word 'grandpa' sounded odd the way she said it, like the word was unnatural and tasted bad in her mouth.
"We have bigger problems," Allison said, and it sounded forced. Like there was no choice.
Chris looked at his daughter, stunned. Allison simply walked past and towards the door. She looked at Sadie for a moment and then away, like she was ashamed.
As Allison and Gerard left the house, Chris walked over to Sadie. "Do you have a car?"
Sadie nodded.
He didn't wait for her to offer it when he started out of the house and waited for her to follow. Sadie's car, a nice silver Audi, was right at the curb, past the SUV in the driveway that Allison and Gerard were getting in. Chris waited by it as Sadie sped up to unlock the doors and opened the back passenger door. Chris placed Maddie in the backseat and breathed out a breath that he'd probably been holding for a while. Once Sadie assisted him in tucking her legs inside the car, she closed the door and started toward the driver's side when he caught her arm.
"Get her to the hospital as quickly as possible. She should be fine, but..."
"Yeah," Sadie said, sounding as hassled as she felt. She sighed. "Yeah, I got it."
Chris looked at her, beaten down and unsure but unafraid. The look was a threat. "You stopped Allison."
"No problem-"
"With her adrenaline running that high, no one could've done that," he cut her off. Sadie frowned and narrowed her eyes as he added, "No one human."
"Whatever. I just saved her life." She nodded toward the car. "You're welcome."
"I don't know who you are but if you care at all about Allison, you'll make sure that girl survives." As Sadie processed the words, she looked back at the SUV in the driveway with windows so dark, she could hardly see Allison. Of what she could see, Allison was looking away, probably not really looking at anything. "She's lost enough tonight."
Sadie's brow creased and she almost wanted to ask what he meant but she was done with this whole situation and wanted to head back to the motel as soon as she could. "She'll be fine."
Chris looked back at Maddie, passed out in the backseat and exhaled just before heading to the SUV.
☽ † ☾
"Allison was going crazy and I stopped her."
"Why?"
"Out of the goodness of my heart?"
Maddie turned to Lydia. "We need to get out of here."
Lydia opened her mouth like she was going to reply, when Sadie cut her off. "Sure, leave the person who saved your life. Not even a thank you."
Maddie hauled herself onto her feet, a new, fresh pain setting her left calf on fire. She almost cried out but bit her lip to mute the sound. She had a bit of a limp when she took a few steps and spotted her boots by the door and her jacket in a small heap on the dresser, beside the small television. She took one more step but another jolt of pain coursed through her leg and it buckled under her weight. She heard clumsy footsteps on either side of her just before an arm hooked under her right one and then the same on the other side of her. She looked over on one side to see Lydia, her face changing from frightened to concerned and something else Maddie couldn't identify immediately.
Fear. A scene bled into her head slowly, in small bursts. It wasn't a misstep. She remembered something horrible. The memory of grabbing for her ax faded in and out of her brain, like the tide coming in. She remembered the brief instance she had Allison on the ground and her ax raised. For a moment, she saw fear in Allison's eyes as she looked into Maddie's. In that moment, she saw a thousand deaths, reliving the nightmares she had in the weeks after she was expelled from school as a child. Seeing the look of every slayer in the moment of death, the finality, the peace. That wasn't what she saw on Allison's face though. She saw Trista, her bully, just eight years old with her caved in eye socket. She saw her own small, bloody fist.
Something gripped her so tightly as her grasp loosened on the ax and it fell to the floor with a loud 'clack', in which Allison took the moment and she did not stop. Maddie shook the memory away, but it was still hovering there, in the space between consciousness and sleep.
On the other side of her, she saw Sadie eyeing her and wrenched her arm away from the girl - or whatever she was. Sadie rolled her eyes and raised her hands defensively. Maddie begrudgingly allowed Lydia to guide her to the dresser, where she could support her own weight and grab her jacket.
"You might not want to leave."
Maddie's eyes shot back to Sadie, raw pain and anger flowing through her, as she narrowed her stare and fumbled to put her jacket on. "Is that a threat?"
"It's a suggestion. Calm yourself."
"Why?" The question came from Lydia and it seemed to surprise both of them. "Is there more to this whole thing you're not telling us?"
"Actually-"
Maddie raised one index finger to quiet her. "Stop. One minute, you're threatening my life and the next, you're saving me? I'm done. Whatever you want, I don't have."
"Not true. You slay vampires. I need a slayer." Sadie shrugged as if it were the simplest answer in the world. She took a few lazy steps over to the nightstand and grabbed the cellphone that had been charging there, unplugging it. She didn't even bother looking at it when she handed it to Maddie, who realized it was her phone. "The vamps are coming and, unless you let me talk, they're going to get in very soon."
Maddie snatched the phone out of Sadie's grasp and unlocked it, finding it already opened to her texts, specifically to Stiles.
Stiles ➔『Mads, where are you?』
Stiles ➔『Please get here when you can』
Stiles ➔『Matt's here SOS』
Stiles ➔『Please call when you get this』
Stiles ➔『Something's happened』
『Emergency』
『Meet me at the motel 6 on 3rd, room 244 ASAP』
She didn't remember sending the last two texts or reading the five before it. Terror rose in her chest again when she noticed that she hadn't gotten another text since about 3 AM, flooding over her anger that Sadie had read her messages and used her phone. "What-"
A loud, heavy series of knocks sounded from the door and echoed off the bare walls. Whoever was outside wasted no time trying the doorknob and swinging the door so hard that it nearly hit Sadie in the face. She narrowly avoided it and all three girls looked over at the threshold where two figures stood. It was so bright outside compared to the inside of the room that they were nothing but shadows for a moment and Maddie winced as the sun blinded her for a moment.
Just as quickly the door was shut and the silhouettes faded into Scott and Stiles, both looking panicked. Maddie gaped at them and then at Sadie, who looked smug as she leaned against the wall. "About time you boys showed."
Maddie's eyes shot back over to Scott, who looked baffled and exhausted and empty. There was blood on his knuckles and shirt, the same shirt from the night before, which sent ice through her veins. Something was wrong. Everything was wrong.
Her eyes shot over to Stiles, who was looking over at her, surveying the damage. She wanted to wrap her arms around her stomach, feeling exposed in a way she had never considered. There was a fear in her gut that hovered with the thought of them seeing her as the monster she saw herself as last night. The beast that would bury an ax in his back one day. She felt far away from Stiles, miles and worlds away. The searing pain in her leg and torso and the aching in her head felt like a reminder of something large and terrible.
She fought Allison last night and they had both nearly killed each other and she wasn't sure if she had the guts to tell Scott. She forgot why she was even at the Argents' house, that she was there to plead to Allison's humanity. Instead, she gave in to her most primal instincts with hardly any hesitation. She knew that, for a split second, she had the most terrible thought as she held her weapon high above her head. If Scott or Stiles had seen her...
The memory of Marie standing above her was as real and vivid as if she was eight years old all over again. She could hear the older girl hiss the same venomous words into her ear like no time passed at all.
"You're never going home. Never."
Beacon Hills was just another town on a map, identical to any other. Probably not that different than what any other town was for any slayer in history. Temporary. These people, Scott's pack... Their world wasn't hers. It never was. It never would be. She was shocked for a moment that she even wanted it to be.
A feeling settled at the pit of her stomach, something sharp and heavy like a large jagged stone against the soft lining.
She couldn't meet Stiles' eyes any longer and looked back at the blank box tv, wishing it was on so she had something to stare at and it wasn't so obvious that she wanted to look away. She turned around and limped back to the bed, Lydia keeping close - possibly to catch her if she stumbled. Maddie sat down, the pain in her leg easing.
Scott's attention finally went over to Sadie, his worry still etched on his face, now with confusion. "Wait, who -"
"Sadie," the blonde girl said with a smile and a wave. "Hi."
Maddie made brief eye contact with Scott. "Allison's friend."
Both Scott and Stiles looked at the girl, now with alarm.
"Why'd you have to say it like that?" Sadie asked, frowning. "I'm allowed to be friends with people."
"She's the one that texted you, not me," Maddie added, eyes flicking over to Stiles and back at the tv as quickly as possible.
Sadie shrugged dramatically and gestured to the boys. "Yeah, well, one of 'em sounded worried. I was helping."
"Just so we're clear on who you are," Stiles began, eyes narrowing on Sadie, "you're the same person that threw Maddie into a wall a week ago, right?"
At this point, everyone in the room was glaring at Sadie, who didn't seem bothered by it. "And I'm kinda sorry about that."
"Kinda? You're kinda sorry?" Stiles repeated.
"I don't like insincere apologies." Sadie looked over at Maddie with a hard stare. "You were insincere."
Stiles was looking at Sadie as if she were missing a head. "And don't you think that's a little bit of a double standard?"
Regardless of the oddly light banter, Scott hadn't wavered in his glare. "What are you?"
This question seemed to suck all of the humor out of the air - the little of it that there was. Maddie knew what Scott really meant, though. What did you do to Allison?
"Right!" Sadie said, like she was only just remembering something. "None of you know, do you? I'd say 'I thought you were smarter than that', but that would indicate that I thought of any of you for more than two seconds and there are just some lies I can't stomach."
"Nice. That's nice," Stiles said.
Sadie nodded and smiled to herself. "I thought so."
"Is this a spell?" Maddie asked suddenly just as the question surfaced in her brain.
Sadie looked over at Maddie, brows furrowed. "What?"
"What's going on with my power?" Maddie asked, her voice raising slightly. She hadn't simply said the words out loud before; everyone else had done that first. Finally, now that they were out, her head was flooding with words. "What did you do? Is it a spell? Did you give Allison my powers?"
When Maddie looked up, Sadie's full attention was on her. She was examining Maddie closely, squinting as if that would make her look clearer and she'd find what she was looking for. Sadie's smile started to grow. Maddie felt the blood drain from her face as her eyes grew wide with the sudden, stupid realization: Sadie didn't know her power was even gone.
Sadie's grin was so wide, she looked like she was about to burst out laughing. Before she could, however, Scott interrupted with an even more urgent tone. "What did you do to Allison?"
"Exactly what she wanted," Sadie said, visibly annoyed at that interruption. "She asked. I delivered."
As Sadie said the words, a single thought came crashing into Maddie's head. She knew this. She'd heard of this. Witchcraft was an equivalent exchange, energy that already existed elsewhere. This was something that tore a hole in reality itself, that made the universe feel unbalanced. It didn't feel like she wasn't a slayer anymore; she was still healing faster than a normal person, even if it wasn't quite as quick as before.
A spell would be easy. A spell couldn't do this much damage, it couldn't take from what doesn't exist.
Maddie shot straight up, unsteady on her feet. Her stare darted to Sadie and she couldn't help but wonder what the world did to her to make her into this. Maddie's eyes were hard, unyielding. "Allison didn't ask."
It sounded less like an epiphany and more like an accusation. A smile crept over Sadie's lips, answering a question Maddie no longer needed to ask.
"She wished for it." Maddie felt sick as she slowly directed her stare to Scott, who looked confused and distraught. She nodded in Sadie's direction. "That is a vengeance demon. They grant wishes to scorned women, which would mean...Allison wished to be vampire slayer."
"Actually, she was super vague about it..." Sadie added, but then shrugged and grinned. "But yeah. She totally did."
"You tore a hole in reality!" Everyone in the room was startled when Maddie shouted at Sadie, including Maddie. "Not just anywhere either! Did you ever think that's the reason why the vampires might get through?!"
"Will," Sadie corrected. "Why they will get through."
"What?!" Scott and Stiles both shouted this time.
Sadie's hands went up defensively. "Unless I get your help. We know why there's a barrier and we know how to fix it."
"We?" Maddie asked, analyzing Sadie - whose stare traveled to Lydia. Maddie, looked at Lydia as well, confused as the girl in front of her looked terrified. "Lydia? You-"
Lydia shook her head, horror and guilt in her wide, green eyes. When she spoke, it was only at a whisper. "I'm sorry. He didn't give me a choice."
"He?" Maddie echoed.
Three knocks came at the door, these ones slow and measured. Everyone looked to the door at once, except Scott who must've turned moments before. His stare went from dark and wide in horror to glowing an angry, blazing yellow as he began to growl.
"Come in!" Sadie sing-songed.
Once again, the door creaked open and washed the room in sunlight for a moment, making the person in the threshold a tall, blurry shadow.
"Am I late?" a familiar deep and almost chipper voice rang out. "I'm probably late."
Maddie knew that voice; it was the voice from her nightmare, long before it started to evolve. That first night in Beacon Hills, she could almost feel the hand around her throat and that voice dripping with malice.
She felt her entire body stiffen and remembered the smell of burning flesh. She remembered looking into the blood red eyes of a monster that could've killed her and hesitated.
The door shut softly with a click and the shadow took form. In front of the group, with a cheeky grin on his face, was a very alive Peter Hale.
☽ † ☾
Last Night
The drive to the motel felt longer than usual, but that might've been because Sadie was hoping the slayer in the backseat wouldn't bite it before they got there. It was only a few minutes and she was already annoyed with the entire situation. Allison had nearly killed her bargaining chip and 'the family' (the term made her cringe) seemed to want her alive. She left the radio off to make sure Maddie was still breathing, which made the trip even more unnerving.
The stretch of road ahead was perfectly straight for a far as she could see, with not a bit of traffic. She took the opportunity to look back at Maddie, dirty and bruised and still unconscious. She wanted to pull over and toss her out, maybe even finish the job and be done with it. "Dude, you are so lucky this undead hillbilly family wants you."
Sadie looked back at the road and a girl, stock still and pale, stood in the center of her lane.
Every muscle clenched at once as Sadie swerved a hard left into the oncoming traffic lane. The whole car spun out, the world outside Sadie's windshield rotating too fast, until she slid into the dirt on the side of the road. The car came to an abrupt stop as she slammed on the brake pedal, launching her forward until the seat belt slung her back into the the seat. Her head snapped back against the headrest, pain shooting through it and her neck.
Grateful for her own immortality, she remembered who was in the back seat. She turned around quickly, seeing Maddie there, tussled around but mostly still on the seat. Sadie unbuckled her seatbelt and crawled halfway through the seats to get close enough and check that she was still breathing.
The momentary stillness even frightened her, until she finally focused enough to see the girl's chest rising and falling. Sadie exhaled loudly and tried to turn back around in her seat when the pale figure appeared in her peripheral, just outside her window, causing Sadie to jump and grab her chest like she was about to have a heart attack.
Fear ebbing and raging replacing it, Sadie roughly pushed open her door, causing the girl to move. She quickly climbed out of the car and slammed the door. "What in the hell is wrong with you?!"
Sadie finally could get a good look at her, recognizing her pretty face and strawberry blonde hair, both now covered in dirt. The girl looked from Sadie to the backseat but didn't speak.
"Lydia, right?" Sadie asked, annoyed. "Lydia Martin? Allison's friend?"
"They're not that bad, you know," Lydia answered, sounding slightly hassled and not glancing up at her. "Humans, I mean. Simple, sure. Obviously. I mean...they're humans."
A chill rolled down Sadie's spine. Her head must've gotten rattled a bit harder than she thought because Lydia couldn't have said that - or she couldn't have said it just like that. It sounded like a recording, an exact recording of another moment Sadie had already lived, dubbed over with Lydia's voice. "What did you say?"
"All this time, all these years and can you really say you've only ever found one person?" Lydia lifted her head and glanced over at Sadie. "One mortal that made life worth living? Really living?"
"Stop it," Sadie snapped. She knew this and she wanted no part of it. She didn't want to relive this.
Lydia smiled with only one corner of her mouth, identical to Sadie's memory. She waved a nonchalant hand, her voice so infuriatingly matter-of-fact. "You're still young. Three centuries? Pfft! The lower beings have longer blinks. It took me a thousand years of non-stop vengeance-ing before - poof! - there they are. My people. They're good, Sadie. Tiny, stupid mortals who want to do good. And maybe I want to do good, too."
"I said stop." Sadie's voice was a warning, rattled and horror struck and through gritted teeth. Lydia was disappearing behind the person she was mimicking, every gesture and tick and up-tick. She could almost see Anya. She didn't want to see Anya.
Suddenly, Lydia looked shocked, then hurt, and then - worst of all - disappointed. Her forehead was creased and she looked away. What had Sadie said that day? She couldn't quite remember. "You really do think you know everything. You know, if Hallie were here-"
"Shut up!" Sadie shouted and moved to slap Lydia when someone caught her raised wrist. She turned and found a man towering over her, older, with electric blue eyes. He was smirking like he knew the secrets of the universe and he was just dying to gloat about it. Speaking of dying, while he looked clean and had very nice clothes, Sadie could smell something rotten under the heavy after shave. Something dead. This man, though, was clearly alive - moreover, he was clearly a wolf.
"While I realize my companion may have overstepped her boundaries, you don't just go around breaking someone else's toys. Have some common courtesy," the man said, his tone smooth and calm. He tilted his head as he examined Sadie, who was no longer stunned by his sudden appearance. His nostrils flared and his nose wrinkled in disgust just as she wrenched her arm away. He sighed.
"Touch me again and I will tear off your arm and club you to death with it. Just for funsies." Foul mood wouldn't even begin to cover what Sadie was feeling. She was annoyed over the accident and furious over the moment that Lydia made her relive. Now, there was a smug werewolf telling her what to do? She didn't even care that her threat horribly generic. Her eyes narrowed on the man, who became much less interested in her and was now looking inside her car. "And at least I don't smell like a corpse, buddy."
"The stench of death is a particularly difficult smell to escape if you had the last several months that I've had. But that is not nearly tantamount to the real issue at hand." He folded his arms and looked from the backseat of Sadie's car to Sadie. "That issue being why you, my dear, don't smell remotely human and you have a vampire slayer unconscious in your backseat."
"I don't think that's any of your business." Sadie cross her arms as well, but it felt a bit more childish.
"Oh, so you're not heading towards the outskirts of Beacon Hills to hand over a slayer to whatever flavor-of-the-month vampire nest comes knocking at our gates." He looked at her with that smug grin again. "I assumed that if Miss Hayes was still lurking around months later, the vampires have been getting restless. I can almost smell them from here."
"That's great and all. I mean, I'm super happy for your keen sense of smell but I don't have time for this." Sadie shoved past Lydia and then the older man by her car to open the driver side door. "This town is about to become very dead very quickly thanks to those 'flavor-of-the-month' vampires and I don't want to be stuck here for an eternity."
Ha. There was no way Beacon Hills would last the rest of the year, much less a centuries, if the vampires made it through. Meanwhile, Sadie would live forever with no amulet and no clients and no purpose.
"What are you talking about? The vampires can't get in." He sounded so sure.
"You keep thinking that, grandpa."
"Hey!" he snapped, pointing a threatening finger at Sadie, who remained unimpressed. "Grandpa? Really? At the very most, I'm a strapping young uncle."
"Right. Sure. Whatever. Just get out of my way."
"Can't do that."
"Why not?"
"One: because you have something extremely important that I need." He nodded to the car. "And two: my companion, while not the most stable at the moment, has a way with the dead. You might've noticed. Now, if I'm not mistaken, I think I heard the word vengeance."
"Is it just that you like hearing yourself talk? Is that it?" She tried to deflect the comment, but he didn't waver.
"I'll consider that a confirmation. I haven't come across a vengeance demon in a while," Peter replied with narrowed eyes and a faint smile. "And yes. I find my voice quite soothing."
Sadie wanted nothing more than to get away, but not until she liberated this wolf's head from his neck.
"Maddie?" the sound of Lydia's voice was so quiet and fragile that she sounded like she was just waking up. Sadie and the man across from her turned to Lydia with equally exasperated looks. She was standing at the window of the car, her expression horrified as she peered in. Her head snapped up and to Sadie so quick that she was almost startled. The stare held recognition, but not the same as before; it was vague, a look that passed between strangers that took the same train every morning. "You. What are you doing? Where are you taking her?"
"Shall I tell her about the vampires?" the man chimed in.
"I'm not taking her to the vampires, alright?!" Sadie said in a harsh, low voice.
Lydia took a step forward, her mouth gaping and her eyes too wide. "The vampires?!"
Sadie focused in on Lydia as the girl shook her head furiously.
"They- they're watching. They want in. They're going to take it." She was blinking rapidly, brows furrowed as her eyes unfocused. Whatever she was remembering was out of her control, too big for a girl her size.
It was all beginning to click in Sadie's head.
Lydia faintly shook her head as if she had no idea what to make of her own words. "The Mother...she's coming for us."
"What did you just say?" the wolf asked, seized suddenly.
Lydia looked up at Peter, horror and disgust written all over her face. She turned to Sadie. "Please. Something horrible is coming."
The man's jaw clenched. "That can't be right."
Sadie tilted her head and looked at Lydia. It'd been a good century and a half since she'd come across a banshee, let alone one that actually found a Slayer. Well, I'll be damned. This might still be my lucky day.
"You said the vampires might get into Beacon Hills, right?" the man's voice was far away, a shell of what it was moments ago.
"Yeah..." Sadie said, quirking an eyebrow in his direction.
The man looked at her, his eyes glowing that same unnatural icy blue.
"The Mother and her..." He paused and grimaced. "...children are not ordinary vampires. If you're right and they're almost through..."
"What, you don't think the Devil's Rejects'll wanna hold hands and sing Kumbaya?" Sadie asked, curious at the change in his entire demeanor.
"If they get in, we're dead. And today's lucky day because I'm the only person in the whole wide world who can stop them."
☽ † ☾
This wasn't happening. As far as Stiles was concerned, it couldn't be happening.
"So, this is the ragtag group that's going to save our little town from certain death and destruction..." Peter started, looking each person in the eye momentarily. He turned to Sadie. "The word 'doomed' comes to mind."
Peter. Peter Hale. Peter Hale was alive and in front of them and making jokes like he hadn't been dead - literally dead - for months. Stiles felt a bit ill.
The blonde girl - who emphasized that her name was Sadie like they were going to forget in ten seconds - already stepped between Peter and Scott, who had tried to attack each other and got thrown across the room - by Sadie. Stiles instinctively looked at the second strongest person in the room, Maddie, but found himself remembering that she hadn't been one hundred percent in weeks. He looked away, not so much out of guilt for reminding her that her powers weren't back, but instead because she wouldn't look at him at all since he and Scott first showed up.
Everything just felt...wrong.
Every teenager in the room (except for Sadie, who Stiles was already sure wasn't a teenager at all) was sitting and watching Peter in horror. He already started going on about their proposed alliance and no one was buying it. In fact, everyone was too on edge to even think about working with someone who previously tried to kill them.
"While I understand that you all have screwed up beyond belief by allowing a kanima to go around killing twenty-somethings and alienating an Argent so effectively that she wished herself into being an emotionally unstable vampire slayer, those are somehow the least of our problems," Peter said, his stare travelling around the room. "There is a vampire cult ready to kill every single one of us and take back what they think is theirs."
"Which you'd know all about," Stiles cut in from the other side of the room, his senses so much so on high alert that he forgot about his fear for a moment. It didn't last long; Peter turned to him with narrowed eyes and an expression that was equal parts annoyance and nostalgia.
Stiles suddenly remembered the last time he spoke to Peter and the offer he was given. He could still see Maddie out of the corner of his eye but didn't turn. Her cheek was bruised and there was a somewhat thick, red line cutting across her bottom lip - and that was just what he could see. It was no surprise who did this. Being a wolf and being a slayer weren't the same thing, but Stiles found himself thinking that maybe power like that wasn't something to be handed out.
Peter sneered, "I would, actually."
Stiles felt a surge of confidence again and nearly said something, but Maddie beat him to the punch. "How do you know? How can you know?"
"Seriously?" Peter quirked an eyebrow and his nonchalance prodded at Stiles' nerves. "There's a giant, almost mountain ash-like barrier keeping only vampires out of Beacon Hills, a town that once had a large, thriving werewolf pack and you still don't see the connection?"
Maddie, much like everyone else in the room, looked unimpressed. "So this is your fault."
Peter's eyes grew wide and even that seemed false. His whole expression was void of any sort of sincerity. "I am shocked and appalled, Madeline. I was barely an adult. I had nothing to do with it. At the time, I would've preferred to watch this town burn."
"In hindsight, do you ever kick yourself for being a little too on the nose with that one?" Stiles asked, as if his nervousness opened a floodgate of comebacks in his head.
The look Peter was giving him was nothing short of murderous. "Stiles, post-mortem or not, I don't need a tenth of my supernatural strength to rip out your throat. Play nice."
"If you didn't put up the barrier," Scott began in a low voice, eyes still dangerous and focused on Peter, "who did?"
"Technically, Kate Argent, but I suspect you'd like a straight answer." Peter looked from Scott to Maddie again, as if the conversation had been between them the whole time. Something about it made Stiles uncomfortable. "Just under nine years ago, some time around the end of May, I remember feeling a tremor. We all did, every person in the town. A small earthquake, nothing out of the ordinary, but sister didn't seem to agree. That night, she urged the rest of us to watch the news with her, off of nothing more than a bad feeling. We found out that, about an hour from here, something catastrophic had happened. Do you know what happened in California almost nine years ago, Madeline?"
Maddie was holding her stomach and glaring at Peter again, but it was entirely different. It was as if she was a little kid who had just broken a rule that was never explained to her. Stiles, on the other hand, searched his memory for what they could be talking about.
"It wasn't an earthquake." He looked over at Stiles like eye contact somehow could convey the same understanding. "I heard my parents talking about it when I was a kid. It wasn't an earthquake. There was a sinkhole or something, right? Took a whole town. No one knew what happened."
Something in Stiles' head clicked and he remembered his dad leaving the paper on the dining room table one morning with the photo of a crater on the front page so long ago that he could've been getting the fact wrong. Even then, Stiles was accustomed to snooping and something like that you don't forget. There was a black and white photo on the front page, a crater in the middle of nothing with a headline. He thought it was a photo of the moon, it was so big - but the sky was pale instead of black. Earthquake Sinks Ghost Town, the headline said - or something along those lines. It was something people would read in the National Enquirer or The Sun, not a normal everyday newspaper. "Right! The story was everywhere for weeks..."
"It was, indeed," Peter said, still looking at Maddie. "But I can't quite remember the name of the town."
Stiles was still straining for more information, for something concrete that sounded...well, real. No one ever really said the name of the town in the article or on the news - or maybe they did one day and just stopped. No one ever talked about it again. A dot on a map that disappeared forever. He pulled out his phone and hesitated when the search bar appeared - just for a second - before typing "may 2003 California town sinks".
"It was..." Scott began, but his voice trailed off. "I know this."
California Town Plunges Into Sinkhole
Ghost Town Disappears
Rescue Teams Will Search for Survivors, Governor Says
Town Evacuated Weeks Before Sinking
No Survivors Found, Rescue Teams Missing
Crater of Former Town the New Area 51?
5 Missing at Sink Hole Outside of San Diego
Lost California Town Closed to Tourists
One after the other, each article title becoming stranger and stranger. His eyes scanned through all of them quickly, looking for a name. Nothing. He was so wrapped up in his own curiosity that he nearly didn't hear Maddie say something.
"Sunnydale."
A jolt traveled through him when she said it, a chill as if something passed through him. A ghost.
There was a short beat of silence before Lydia stood up from her chair so quickly that it fell to the floor with a loud clatter. Stiles didn't know what was going on with her and still didn't know what to do with the information that she might've had something to do with Peter being alive. Her green eyes were unfocused but horror struck as she began to back into the corner, hands clenching and unclenching over and over again.
He moved in Lydia's direction to go check on her but Scott beat him to it. "Lydia? Lydia, what's wrong?"
She didn't say anything, just shook her head rapidly as Peter began to speak again.
"Nine years ago, Sunnydale, California was destroyed...and there was nothing left to draw in the vampires. No humans. No hellmouth. Nothing."
Stiles pictured the massive hole in the earth with large, sharp teeth. "Hellmouth?"
"A centre of mystical energy, mostly evil. It draws supernatural creatures to it," Maddie said as if it had been practiced.
"Therefore drawing them away from here," Peter said.
Something in the back of Stiles' brain kept pushing and prodding. Towns don't just disappear. "What happened to the town? Did it get, I dunno, eaten or something?"
"Stiles, I mean this sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, that is the dumbest question I've ever heard." Peter glared at him with the same self-important expression he always wore.
"Buffy," Maddie cut in as she looked at the floor, but the name sounded sour in her mouth. "Her and her friends. They destroyed the hellmouth and the town."
Stiles noticed Sadie's locked jaw, like she was trapping Maddie's words and forcing herself to digest them. He didn't necessarily care how she felt about any of this and focused back on Maddie. "Why?"
Maddie sighed but it seemed to be more out of relief than exasperation. "To save the world."
"The world?" Stiles asked. "As in, the whole world - like, planet earth?"
Maddie didn't answer, as if the question was so frivolous, it wasn't worth entertaining.
The statement was so small and so massive at the same time. The world. The whole world. No terrible thing he could conceive ever encompassed the whole world. There was no way anything could. His world was something small in comparison. A kanima threatened Beacon Hills, not the world. Peter Hale didn't try to destroy the world like some cartoonish villain. It was all so minuscule.
Was that what slayers really did? Save everyone from unfathomable threats so that the rest of them could focus on werewolves and kanimas and whatever else? In retrospect, the Argents wanting to use a slayer as a bodyguard was overkill.
"Suddenly, a pack of wolves had to defend their home from masses of vampires. Droves. Before that? It was maybe a handful a month. Talia, my sister, she knew that we couldn't handle hunters and vampires on our own forever. She knew..." Peter paused and he face twisted into grief for a split second. "...that one side would eventually catch us off guard."
Scott slowly turned from Lydia to Peter. "The fire."
At that last word, Peter finally looked at Scott.
"I went with Talia and few others to Sunnydale before the state banned visitors. We went into the pit." Peter rolled one shoulder then the other in quick succession as if her were shrugging something off. "Down there are the remains of a one-of-a-kind beast. The oldest vampires in recorded history."
"The Turok'hans?" Maddie said.
"The what?" Stiles asked. So much was going right over his head and he didn't like it one bit.
"The largest group in the history of this world amassed there just before the town went under, every single one of them killed in what was only a rumor at the time. All we had to do was collect the ashes," Peter said, ignoring Stiles. Again. Probably on purpose. "Enough for a spell."
"Did you see anything else down there?" Maddie asked.
"Enough to know that you can't destroy a hellmouth with brute force. You can't punch and stab the bad energy to death," Peter snapped at her. "Evil like that never leaves. That thing...is still a hellmouth and it's still hungry."
Maddie didn't flinch; she just kept staring at Peter with cold, black eyes. "What about the spell?"
"It wasn't a spell at first. It was a will. We all learned the words, probably just in case. My sister had the ashes consecrated and spread them for miles around the outskirts of town. The idea was to..." Peter clenched his jaw and looked like he was about to vomit. "...activate the power in the ashes and say the words. If the hunters started killing us off one by one, it wouldn't matter. The town would be safe."
There was a horrible silence that filled the room and for a moment, Stiles almost pitied Peter who looked like he couldn't say what happened next. Stiles swallowed and said it for him, his voice softer than before. "Then Kate started the fire."
"I can still hear it, in my nightmares," Peter said, his voice thinning along the edges. "Talia, muttering the words of a spell as she laid on the floor, dying. Until she couldn't anymore. Her words became screams and I couldn't reach her. She was unconscious from the pain and the smoke before she could finish the incantation. So I did."
Stiles gaped at Peter, stunned into silence with the rest of the room. There was no doubt that Peter wouldn't want any sort of sympathy or that Stiles would want to give him any, same with anyone else around him. Even Sadie looked slightly less annoyed. Even so, there was no way to know it was the truth, any of it.
"How are the vampires getting through now?" came the soft, unsteady voice of Lydia from the corner. "If you completed the spell, how is it getting weaker?"
"You'd be surprised what religious fanatics can do with enough belief," said Sadie, her tone bitter.
"I personally blame lack of maintenance," Peter said. "You can't just do a protection spell once and expect it to hold up for millennia."
Stiles shrugged. "A decade would be nice."
"You know, there's one thing that's always been able to bring Beacon Hills to its knees and that is a powerful family." Peter scanned the room like a teacher giving a lecture to his very worst students. "The Hales. The Argents. And now, we have a devout group of vampires right on the edge of our little town. A cult of them so big that they can afford sacrifice and they're willing to give their lives for each other. I can't imagine how many have died already to get in, mixing their ashes with the ones that we laid. These vampires are crazy enough to break that seal."
"Then what do we do, oh wise one?" Sadie asked. "How do we stop them?"
Stiles eyed Sadie, unsure of her intentions. There had to be something in it for her. There was no other reason for her to do this.
"Maddie, you know already." It was a whisper that came from Lydia and Maddie turned to her. Stiles recognized that look on her face, the one that showed how stubborn she was. Her eyes were resolute, dark irises with brick walls behind them. Lydia spoke again. "You know what we have to do."
We? Stiles didn't quite understand the link between Maddie and Lydia but there certainly was one. People like Maddie don't become fast friends with people like Lydia, he said so from the beginning. There was something he was missing.
Maddie stood up then, weakly. He could see the dried blood on her shirt from this angle, a wide, splotchy stain that took up a quarter of the fabric. Something cold and painful filled his stomach and he fought not to rush over to her. Now wasn't the time.
"It's your only shot. If not, we're all dead," Peter said and Maddie looked at him for only a moment before shooting her eyes to Stiles and then Scott.
All eyes focused on her and a horrible realization hit him as she stood there. He couldn't think of a worse way to end the horrific twenty four hours he had.
"We have to go to Sunnydale."