From Ashes ✗ Stiles Stilinski - Chapter 5: Chapter 5

"Really? Damn." A short, mirthless laugh escaped Kate's lips. "Those little girls know how to work quick, don't they?"
"And you're sure it was her?" Victoria asked, clutching the glass in her hand.
Chris flipped through the pages in the manila folder. They attached a cheaply copied picture to the sheet of paper. The girl wore a deep frown and a dull stare – a very different face than she wore for show earlier that day.
"Madeline Hayes. Sixteen." He threw the pages on the table in front of the two women. "It was her."
The redhead picked up the paper that had the photograph copied onto it, scanning the information before throwing it back down. "She should have checked in with us first before introducing herself to Allison."
"And ruin the element of surprise?" Kate chimed in with the same amount of malice etched in her voice. "We couldn't have that."
The graying man eyed his sister for a moment before turning to his wife. "Look, we wanted fast results and here she is. I don't like this any more than you do – "
"You sure about that, big brother?" Kate stood, now eye level with him. "Cause the way it's looking is you don't trust your family to get the job done, but you'll bring in a complete stranger."
"We have no reason to think the Council isn't on our side. Besides, it isn't the first time one of us has called on them for help, is it?"
Kate's nostrils flared and her jaw clenched as she glared at her brother. "Wake up, Chris. That was nine long years ago. We knew what we were up against."
"We? If I recall, nine years ago you were shouting about not wanting to be a part of this family." Chris's voice was growing louder the more his sister's comments needled him. "You had no idea what we were up against."
Kate folded her arms and laughed, her canines showing.
"You mean just like Allison?" At the mere mention, she saw a blaze of anger in Chris's eyes. Pleased with herself, her own gaze narrowed on the man. "Face it, you trust a bunch of demons over your own blood. If you haven't noticed, they're not kept on a leash anymore. The Council you knew died."
Victoria's glass slammed down on the tabletop, calling both hunters' attention. There was a pause as the woman stared down at her drink, her stare distant and murky. She drew in a shaky breath and raised her eyes to her husband. "I would like to meet this girl by the end of the week if you insist she spend time with our daughter."
Guilt crashed down on Chris's shoulders as he curtly nodded. He sent one more scathing glance to his sister and left the room.
Both panicked boys held the doors sealed. Her classmate with the black floppy hair turned to the other, eyes wide with fear. "Lock it! Lock it!"
"Does it look like I have a key?!"
"Grab something! Anything!"
Madeline stood there, frozen by the event that had gone down and locked in place by the sudden appearance of two of her classmates. She wanted to ask what they were doing there this time of night, but worried they'd throw the same question back at her. She wanted to ask if they heard that noise - the howl. Did they see something? Did they even know what they saw? Regardless of the things the girl had seen in her brief life, including werewolves, it didn't mean things like this didn't still put her off guard. She stared at the boys and the color drained from her face as one of them stood and looked out the small window in the door.
Scott stood as well and braved a glance out the window. He looked at his friend, horrified. "No."
The other boy whose name Maddie couldn't remember passed his friend something. It was like they could read each other's minds - and, for all she knew, maybe they could. "Yes."
"Stiles, don't!" Scott shouted as the other boy pushed open the door and left.
Maddie's breath caught and her eyes widened as she rushed over to the doors to look outside. She considered pushing open the door to go after him. The last thing she needed was a dead body on her first night. She momentarily stopped herself from running outside and quickly glanced over to Scott, still mulling over how to play this scenario. "What's he doing?"
Scott swallowed, the words caught in his throat. "The pliers. G-grabbing those pliers."
Her gaze only grew more confused as she looked out the window again. "For what?!"
Scott didn't answer as they watched Stiles kneel and grab the pliers on the ground carefully. That was when something caught Scott's attention and he began banging on the window. "Run! Run! Stiles!"
Madeline looked up farther to find what had Scott so terrified. Hunched over and moving from behind the jeep in the parking lot was a large, snarling, red eyed...thing. It's fur-covered, elongated arms launched it forward towards Stiles. Her mouth hung open, static filling her head, and she took half a step back out of instinct. No. It's too early. It's only been a day. One day.
The door opened again and Stiles quickly fastened the pliers in the door handles. The two boys checked outside once more, even using the flashlight once over.
"Okay, what's going on?!" Maddie asked, and it was mostly an impulse. A hell of a hiccup in what was a smooth day. "What are you doing here?!"
The boys turned to her with equally horrified expressions, shining the flashlight on her face and blinding her momentarily.
"What are we doing here?!" Stiles asked. "What are you doing here?!"
Damn it. What was she doing there? She swallowed and gave the two an indignant glare as her grip tightened on her bag and purple spots floated across her vision. "I went for a walk. I heard a noise."
"Oh, so you went for a walk at night by yourself around the school." Stiles gave a shrug. "For what? The fun of it?"
"I. Was. Bored. So yeah, I went for a walk. At night. By myself. So what?"
"...Around the schoo-"
"Yes, around the school!" said Maddie, her voice giving away her jagged nerves. "I'm new, remember?! I know about two places in town and this is one of them!"
"You heard a noise?" Scott asked.
Maddie glanced over at him, trying for the first time in her life to effectively lie during a crisis. She steadied herself with a quiet breath. "...Yeah. It sounded like it was coming from the school speakers."
"So you go towards it?" Stiles asked, slowly becoming the personification of all of Maddie's self criticism.
She couldn't recall wanting to punch someone so badly in months at least. "It sounded like something was dying! So yeah, I went towards it."
"Like something was..." Stiles glanced over to Scott, who was looking increasingly sheepish at that moment. "...Yeah, we heard it too."
Scott glanced at Maddie worriedly. "Did you hear anything after that?"
"Yeah." She tried to sound casual again and hoped it was working. "It was like...this roar? Or, maybe a howl? Like a wolf, I guess. I'm not really sure."
"...We heard that too," Scott said, giving his friend an indiscernible gaze.
"I, um..." Madeline paused, choosing her words carefully. She adjusted the strap on her shoulder reflexively and caught the curious look Stiles sent her. "I was in the school already and looking for the way out. Got kind of freaked. That's when I ran into you two."
Scott nodded and gave her an understanding look.
"Guys, I hate to break this up, but we should probably be – I don't know – moving," Stiles said, his eyes set on the pliers stuck in the doors.
The boys began backing up from the double doors, as did Maddie. Scott glanced over at Stiles, eyes wide. "That won't hold, will it?"
Stiles looked over at his friend with the same fear in his eyes. "Probably not."
The three turned towards the dark, empty hallway. Madeline considered her odds of getting away from the two while avoiding suspicion, but a rumble cut off all of her grievances. In the depths of the school, another howl rose, the sound reverberating off the metal lockers.
Scott and Stiles took off while Maddie found she had no choice but to follow. That's what slayers do. They fight the monsters and save the innocent. The reminder did nothing to inspire such compassion or heroism. Her less than glowing attitude toward Allison and the sheer enjoyment of the fight last night only proved it.
They made their way into an empty classroom and Scott immediately went over to the teacher's desk, pushing it towards the door. Stiles got in his way quickly. "Stop, stop! The door's not gonna keep it out."
"What is it anyway?!" Maddie asked. Sure, she knew what the hell a werewolf looked like, but the question was more if they had any idea.
The boys glanced up at each other, mouths gaping, and then over to Madeline.
"Ah..." Scott's eyes darted from Stiles to Maddie. "...a mountain lion?"
Like guessing at a pop quiz, giving Maddie no assurance.
She sent them both a hard, guarded stare, expecting a better answer. Even if these two idiots actually knew nothing about what was chasing them, there was no way anyone could see that monster outside and think it was a mountain lion. What was more curious was how Stiles rolled his eyes at Scott's uneasy answer.
Maddie pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes as she turned away. After making one loop around a row of desks, she stalking back over with folded arms. "Since when do mountain lions howl?"
Stiles looked over at her and sighed. "We don't know what it is."
"Obviously."
Scott glanced up at his friend, his expression still holding concern. "So what do we do?"
"We get to my jeep, we get out of here," Stiles said and passed Scott on his way to the windows.
Madeline eyed the two, wondering what exactly led them here tonight, but followed them over to the windows all the same. There was something off about them she couldn't quite place yet, and it would bug her until she found out what it was. It didn't matter at the moment though; what mattered was that she made sure they got out of the building unscathed – which would prove harder than she thought.
Scott began pushing at the window when Stiles caught his attention. "No, they don't open; the school's climate controlled."
"Then we break it," Scott said, although his tone didn't seem to have much confidence behind it. Maddie imagined the two trying to smash tempered glass and in any other situation, she might've laughed at the image of a chair or desk bouncing back to meet them head first. In another situation, she would totally out herself and break the glass for them. Neither of these solutions seemed at all helpful at the moment, if they didn't know where the wolf was.
"And make a lot of noise," said Stiles.
"Then we run really fast." Scott looked out the window, scanning the area.
Maddie eyed the blue jeep in the parking lot - which even from there looked like a piece of junk - her sense of urgency only heightening as she noted how far off it was.
Scott turned to Stiles with an uneasy expression. "Really fast."
Maddie groaned to share her annoyance with the entire room, walking away from the two and back. Pacing did nothing to calm her nerves, but at least it was something to do.
Stiles gave the girl an extremely offended stare and looked like he was about to say something when Scott spoke up. "Stiles, what's wrong with the hood of your jeep?"
Stiles' attention instantly tore away from Maddie and back to the window. "What do you mean? Nothing's wrong."
"It's bent!"
"Like, dented?" Stiles asked, panic rising in his voice as he got closer to the window.
"No, I mean bent!"
Maddie's brows furrowed at Stiles and Scott, then out the window, but she couldn't see the car from the angle she was at now.
Stiles flicked on the large flashlight and pointed it out the window. "What the hell – "
Before he could finish what he was saying, something came crashing through the tempered glass above their heads. Scott and Stiles ducked close to the ground as shards showered down on them. Maddie, who was on the other side of the room, jumped at the noise and stumbled back into a desk, which slid about a foot from impact.
As silence filled the room again, Maddie hesitantly stood and walked over, discovering what the two boys were staring at in horror.
"...That's my battery," Stiles said, his voice distant and almost disbelieving. He tried to stand when Scott pulled him back down to the floor.
"Don't," he said.
Madeline stared at the battery a second longer before her stare went to the boys. There was nothing she could do from here. Maybe there was nothing she could do at all. All she had was her weapons bag with nothing that could take down a werewolf that size.
Her primary goal was to... Her mind went blank. What? To get killed holding it off? To be the human meat shield between a monster and some stupid boys who wandered into a deathtrap?
She paused, unable to say no. So why not start now, eh?
"That's it." Her hands flew up defensively. "I'm out of here."
"No!" Scott lowered his voice. "You don't know – "
"What I know," she said as she backed out of the room, "is that I've been going with the plans you two made up. And they've sucked so far."
It wasn't a lie. All of this was a bad idea, but the actual point was to get them off her trail. Get away from the two infuriating teenage boys and run headlong into a brawl. She walked out of the room and into the hall once more, looking around and listening closely for unusual noises. Time to fight this thing, not hide from it.
"No! Maddie, wait!" Scott called out.
She heard Stiles mumble, "Seriously?"
They both got up and rushed into the hall. Scott jogged over to her, frantic. "What are you doing?"
"Leaving," she said, knowing that was the biggest lie she'd told all night so far.
Stiles exchanged a shocked glance with Scott before stepping in front of Madeline. "You can't just leave! There's – "
"There's what?" She stopped in her tracks and gave him an expectant stare. There was a tense silence in which Maddie wondered again just how much they knew.
Stiles cleared his throat. "There's...a thing out there and if you haven't noticed, it destroyed the only mode of transportation we have! Leaving's not really an option at this point!"
"Hiding in classrooms isn't working either!" It was looking like they weren't about to let her lose them, which only annoyed her further. Let me save you, damn it!
'Saving' was a stretch, but it was easier to explain to herself than, Let me barrel into danger so I can pummel something.
Scott sighed. "...We just need to find some place safe to make a plan."
"You know what? Great idea. Let me see your phone real quick." She held out her hand.
"Why?"
"Mine's dead and I need to check something."
"Mine's kind of broken..."
Maddie and Scott looked over at Stiles, who glanced back and forth between the two. "Wait, what?"
She held out her hand in front of him. "Your phone, I need to use it."
Stiles didn't move for a second or two, but finally and begrudgingly dug through his pocket. He pulled out his smartphone, handing to Maddie with a sour expression on his face. She took out her own and began typing on both quickly.
"Hey! You just said – "
"Yep, and I lied." Something about that felt like a small victory, but she tried not to show it. She finished typing on both phones before turning Stiles' around to face the boys.
Madeline - EMERGENCY
"I have your number and you have mine," she began as she put her phone away and handed Stiles' phone back to him.
Stiles took the phone and shoved it back in his pocket while Scott gave the girl an odd look before asking, "But why?"
"Because we're splitting up." Maddie gave them both an impassive stare. In that instant, both teenage boys gawked at her as if she had just lopped off her own head. She didn't go back on it either, even when she knew it didn't sound like a brilliant plan.
"Can I just say how terrible of a plan that is?" Stiles' eyes wide with alarm.
"He's right," Scott said, panic rising in his voice again. "You can't just wander off by yourself! You don't know what's out there!"
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you?"
"Well...okay, no. But-"
"Exactly," she cut in, swerving around the two and walking off. "If you think of something or need help, call that number. I'll do the same if I run into trouble. Don't contact me for any other reason."
"Yeah, because I was actually planning to call you just to talk about my day," Stiles said.
She didn't answer but kept walking, steeling herself again.
"Maddie!" Stiles shouted, and she could still hear the annoyance there.
There was something about it which made her stop for a moment, like she'd heard her name just like that before. Déjà vu? She shook it off and looked back at the two boys.
"No. You two go. Figure something out. We can cover more ground this way. Y'know, try more exits and all." She squeezed the strap of her messenger bag and headed down the hall. "And don't follow me!"
Scott and Stiles exchanged a worried looked as the girl disappeared down a corridor.