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chapter two:

⤵︎ SECOND CHANCE AT FIRST LINE ⤹
⤷ ⤶
01 x 02

❝ UH . . . DO YOU REMEMBER ANYTHING ABOUT LAST NIGHT ?? ❞

❝ NO, SHOULD I ?? ❞

❏❐❑

AFTER STILES had taken Cordelia to his house last night, quite a lot had followed those events. Including but not limited to Scott transforming into a wolf for the first time, Allison being left stranded at the party, Derek then gave her a ride home, Scott being attacked by hunters and much much more.

So it was safe to say that the poor boy had a lot on his mind. And to make matters worse, he hadn't seen his friend since he'd told him what happened at the party, which had led to him going after Derek.

The boy had cooped up in his computer chair while occasionally reeling backwards so far he almost fell off. His neck ached and back hurt, but still least, he knew that Cordelia was safe. Especially with this 'monster' she keeps seeing.

A knock on his bedroom door startled the boy out of the chair fully this time, and a crash sounded out through the room. Stiles quickly got back up and rushed to the door, opening it slightly. The sheriff peered through the small gap, and his eyes widened a smidge. Though could he really be that shocked? His son was at that age.

"Care to tell me why there's a girl sleeping in your bed?" The man questioned. What the hell had his son been getting himself into these past couple of days?

"Uh . . . You know what, that is a great question." Stiles strung out slowly, clearly trying to think of an excuse but when he couldn't think of one, he just decided to tell his dad the truth ( for once in his life that is ).

"Well, she got drunk. And so . . . I took her here because I didn't know where she lived." The teen boy replied. "I left you a note!" He added in a quick and high tone in an attempt to justify himself.

The sheriffs arms were folded across his chest in a disgruntled manner but said nothing right away, which only made the boy more nervous. "Right . . ."

Stiles pressed his lips together as he and his dad remained eye contact with each other, neither of them saying anything.

"I'm going to get going now." The older man spoke, wanting to break the silence.

Stiles nodded. "That's good . . . that's a good idea. I will see you later."

The man shook his head and sighed but said nothing, already beginning to walk down the stairs and to his car.

The boy silently groaned and put his head in his hands. Man, he was in a lot of trouble.

◤━━━━━━━━━━━◥

A GOOD two hours had passed, and yet the brunette was still fast asleep in his bed, and the more he looked at his phone, the more stressed the pale boy was feeling. Scott had not yet answered any of his frequent phone calls and not a word from Derek either. It was like he wanted to cause the boy permanent torment. Suddenly, this whole 'werewolves are real' thing didn't seem so cool anymore.

The teen had taken to making some breakfast for himself and the girl, though halfway through attempting to flip a pancake, he realised that he didn't actually know how to cook. The bacon was burnt severely after being long forgotten about while he was on pancake duty, and he'd accidentally nicked his finger while cutting some strawberries into flowers. So, in the end, he'd just settled for some cereal for her ( Stiles had let her have the last of the cheerios like the respectful gentleman he is while he settled for a banana with yoghurt ).

He'd put the bowl in the fridge and wandered back upstairs only to see that Cordelia had now woken up and was scanning the room curiously. He peered at her through the crack of the door, only to silently curse himself for acting like a creep. The boy hyped himself up and walked inside slowly, making the brunette's head shoot up quickly. Stiles was sure she'd have got whiplash.

"Hey, you okay?" He'd asked, repeating his words from the previous night.

Cordelia peered through lidded eyes at him. Her mascara had somewhat smothered her eyes, and soft pink lipstick had faded slightly, but overall, she still looked gorgeous. Stiles stood there, mouth agape for a split second before realising what he'd actually come in there to do.

"Stiles?" She questioned, feeling the memories of when they'd met and from last night coming back to her all too rapidly.

"Yeah, that's me." He trailed off nervously with a small wave.

The girl nodded stiffly before adjusting herself in the bed before glancing at him again. When she didn't say anything, however, the sixteen year old he moved closer while he asked the question that plagued his mind. "Uh . . . do you remember anything about last night?"

"No, should I?" The only things that she could remember was running through the forest and bumping into Stiles. After that, she'd marched straight over to the drinks table and downed anything she could. Comically, the only thing she could remember was the one thing she'd tried to forget desperately. It's like the world was just laughing at her problems and giving the brunette shitty solutions. And oh, how she hated that.

"Well, after you got pretty drunk, I decided I should probably take you home. But uh . . . I didn't really know where you lived. So, I took you here. To my house. To my bedroom. In my bed." The buzzcut haired boy continued to add, getting increasingly more nervous with each addition ( as if that was even possible ).

Cordelia blinked but said nothing. This only added to Stiles' constant feeling of pure anxiety that hadn't faded since last night.

Needing to fill the silence, he moved closer to the bed where she was sat and offered the girl a small yet hesitant warm smile. "I uh . . . I made breakfast. But it kind of went wrong . . . So I hope you're okay with cereal. It's the last of them." The boy with the buzzcut added on while not tearing his gaze away from Cordelia.

The woman in mention nodded slightly in recognition, and what he assumed was a silent thanks. Stiles assumed that was all he was going to get, so he rushed back down the stairs to the fridge, almost sliding a little too far to the left in only his socks.

Quickly, he grabbed the bowl, nearly dropping it when he realised how condensated it had become from the short amount of time in the cold air.

The frantic teen then ran up the wooden stairs two at a time in a hurry only to immediately halt once he saw that the brunette was now sitting on his bed and buckling her heels up once more. The boy stood there as he watched as she then threw on the thin black jacket thar had paired with the striped zebra like pattern on her top. The boy only said something once he noticed her rummaging through the contents of the red leather bag her mother had gotten her no doubt.

"Uh . . . Where are you heading?" He'd questioned in a meek tone.

Cordelia stopped and looked to her left to Stiles, who was stood with the bowl of cereal ( now in both hands to prevent any more close calls ) and chuckled lowly. "You do know I have a home to get back to, right?"

By now, the tanned teen had fished out her compact mirror and was removing any evidence of the makeup previously applied the night before and then proceeded to re apply some cherry scented lip balm and light black mascara.

Again, Stiles stood there and watched her actions, only this time to be brought out of it when her mirror snapped shut and the zip of her bag sounded out the otherwise silent room. It seemed she was ready to go, and now only the girls phone was in her hand.

"Thank you for bringing me here last night, Stiles. I really appreciate it, truly. But I should really get going. My mum will be wondering where I am, and she's no doubt called my brother all frantic and worked up."

Ah. Her brother. Adrian Madden. Only the best lacrosse player Stiles had even seen. He had girls swooning over him, yet he remained as humble as ever. His only real goal in life being to keep his mother and sister safe. What a man.

"Yeah, it's no problem." The Stillinski boy trailed off, putting the bowl of cereal down on his computer desk, wincing at the loud noise it made.

Cordelia sent him another smile before walking past him. He could smell her warm vanilla scented spray and hear the click! of her jewellery as they collided from her movements. Lastly, perhaps the loudest of all, he could hear the clack! of the black heels on her feet hitting the hollow ground.

The boy turned around sharply and offered a little too sharply, "Would you want me to drive you home? It's uh . . . It's pretty cold out." He reasoned.

Really?

Was that the best he had? Man, he definitely needed to up his game.

The Madden girl sweetly declined his offer, claiming it'd be best if she showed up to her house alone and not with a boy whom she'd only known for less than a day. Crystal was most likely already in hysterics over her daughters short disappearance, and Cordelia didn't want to give her yet another reason.

◤━━━━━━━━━━━◥

THE WALK back to her house was thankfully uneventful, and Cordelia found herself thanking any God up there for a little relief. The glaring bright red eyes had seemingly taken a break from their usual presence, her for which she felt an undeniable weight lift off of her shoulders.

The girl continued onwards to her destination, not even stopping when she felt a pair of eyes on her side. Only this time, they didn't belong to a huge beast, but a friendly teen wolf who'd caught his crushes friend's gaze while peering out his window. He offered a small wave to which she reciprocated but otherwise moved on down to the house just a couple of blocks away from his.

The sound of keys rattling interrupted Crystal's frozen state. She immediately stood up and shook off Richard's supporting arm from her shoulder.

The door was swung open, and Cordelia was met with Richard's disappointed gaze and her mother's worried one. She didn't know what was worse.

"Where have you been!?" She demanded with wide eyes. Cordelia could tell she was angry. Yet terrified. Though the anger was clearly stronger. 

"I was just ━━━" She began but was cut off by Richard himself.

"━━━ Do you have any idea how worried your mother was? How worried we were?"

"I know, but ━━━"

"━━━ But nothing, Cordelia. Especially with the body that was found in the woods. What did you want us to think?" He cut the girl off once more.

Annoyance started to fill up the teen as she glared up at the man who was bound to be her stepfather soon enough.

The brunette scoffed and rolled her eyes slightly. Though, noticing her mother was about to speak, Cordelia stopped her.

"You know what, Richard, I've had it up to here with all of your bullshit and lies!" The tone in which his name left her mouth was a new type of disdain and hatred that both Crystal and surprisingly even Richard hadn't heard before. "Don't you think I know how worried she was? And don't you think I would have called if I could!? So yeah, I did know. And no, I don't give two shits about what you think. So I'm sorry for not coming home last night. I am. But you? Never." By now, the girl had inched even closer to the man whose eyes had considerably widened immensely during the tense situation.

Even Crystal appeared shocked but didn't have a chance to say anything before her daughter pushed past them and up the stairs to her bedroom.

It was clear that the pair would have a chat about it later on.

◤━━━━━━━━━━━◥

NOTHING MUCH had happened over the weekend. Breakfast was filled with heated glares from Cordelia to Richard and the occasional scornful remark when he'd asked for the salt.

The brunette preferred to go out during lunch, so that was not a problem. On Saturday, she'd gone to the mall with Lydia, which had ended up with the pair buying a copious amount of new items, which ranged from outfits and jewllery to makeup and shoes.

On Sunday, it had been Allison's turn. Not that the three girls didn't like to hang out altogether. It was just that their strawberry blond friend was busy with Jackson, so they decided to go without her, which wasn't minded by the Queen bee herself. Allison had told her all about how Scott had left her stranded at the party, and she couldn't have been more furious. It seemed the anger she had been feeling for Richard had now grown into something more deep. It was now aimed at Scott McCall.

◤━━━━━━━━━━━◥

"TRYING TO get out of the game, are we?" Cordelia mused. Of course, she knew the answer, having overheard the better part of the student and Coach's conversation.

Scott jumped backwards, not having expected the Madden girl to be stood right outside the door.

"How come?" She prodded with a curious and teasing smile. She knew anger wasn't the real reason he was trying to back out. Her arms were crossed, and a faux smile was placed on her face. Somehow, Scott felt as though she was mad at him.

"Uh . . ." Scott fumbled for the right words to say.

"Scott!" Allison's chirpy voice came from behind the brunette, making the pair turn around in unison. Cordelia gave one last knowing glance ( glare ?? ) to the lacrosse player and walked back to wait by her locker for the chesnut haired girl.

The teen opened the blue door with her chosen combination and peered in the mirror plastered on the inside. Though she couldn't help but shake the re occurring feeling of being watched. Cordelia turned to the side only to see what appeared to be a beast on all fours, glaring at her with the prominent red eyes. Then, it slowly stood up, so it took on the form of a man. An ordinary man. In an instant, he was gone. The teen glanced around but frowned when there was no sign of the monster. Man? Oh, she didn't know anymore.

Slowly, Cordelia closed her locker and watched as Allison walked back over to her, Scott having gone to class at the ring of the bell.

"So, you've forgiven him, I see." The brunette mused though despite her stature, she was not happy.

Allison nodded, beginning to unlock her locker. "Yeah, I mean, he said he had a good reason, and I just need to trust him."

The Madden girl just merely rolled her eyes and adjusted her position of leaning on the wall of blue metal. "I don't know why. He left you there, Allison. Without even an explanation as to why, and you're just supposed to trust him? I don't think so."

The brown haired girl sighed and turned to face her friend. Of course, she understood her concern and undeniable annoyance at Scott, but if Scott could convince her, he could convince anyone. "Look, I'm just asking you to trust me on this, please. I just have this feeling that he's . . ." Allison trailed off in an attempt to find the right words.

"The one?" The tanned girl questioned with a raised brow and crossed arms.

"Yes!" Allison sighed. "Once you get to know him, and I mean really know him, you'll like him just as much as I do."

Cordelia groaned inwardly but agreed nevertheless. "Fine."

The female hunter beamed widely. "Thank you."

The brunette said nothing and merely nodded.

"So, how'd you get home last night?" She inquired with a teasing smile, assuming maybe a cute boy had driven her home. Well, in a way, she was right, she supposed.

"Oh uh, I got a ride home." She replied, recalling when she'd woken up in Stiles' bed. Oh, how she'd just wanted to disappear at that moment.

"Anyone we know?" Allison questioned as she put her locker combination in.

"Uhm . . . somewhat." Was the reply she gave. But before the Argent girl could pick up their conversation, something caught her eye. The teen pulled the jacket that she'd thought she'd lost or left at the party. Who'd put it there?

Noticing her friends apprehension, Cordelia gained her attention once more. "Hey, you okay?"

Allison nodded, though it seemed it was to convince herself more than the brunette stood next to her.

"It's just, I thought I lost this." The blue ━━ eyed girl commented confusedly.

Cordelia hummed slightly. "Maybe Lydia put it there. After all, she knows everyone's locker combinations. Even mine."

The brown haired teen nodded, thinking that that must be it.

"Cmon, we're already late enough." She spoke while the bell rang for a second time, making the pair jump simultaneously.

◤━━━━━━━━━━━◥

SCOTT FOUND himself having incredibly bad luck today. I mean, what with Allison's dad literally being a hunter that hunts werewolves, his coach and Cordelia chiding him on why he doesn't want to play the game, and now he was forced to the front of the class. With Lydia.

So, here he was now, attempting to work out his math problem while Lydia was standing next to him when she suddenly spoke to him in a quiet, snide voice while rapidly writing her math equation.

"Why is there a rumour going around that you're not playing tomorrow?"

Okay, Scott was beginning to get a little tired of debating this with everyone. The boy sighed in frustration and stopped writing.

"'Cause I'm sort of not."

Lydia continued to sneer at him in irritation as she quickly wrote more of her math work onto the board.

"I think you sort of are ━━ especially when you brutally injure my boyfriend by ramming into him."

Scott, visibly appalled, made a face as he turned to look at Lydia. "He brutally injured himself ramming into me."

She ignored him completely as she only continued to make her point. "Jackson's gonna play tomorrow... But, he's not gonna be at his peak . . . and, I prefer my boyfriend . . . at peak performance."

The lacrosse player raised an eyebrow, clearly not understanding what this had to do with anything.
"Okay . . ."

The red head frowned, and a dark look appeared on her face. "I date the captain of the winning lacrosse team. And, if they start off the season losing, I date the captain of the losing team. I don't date losers."

Slowly, the McCall boy was beginning to lose his patience with the queen bee. "Losing one game isn't gonna kill anyone.

Except it appeared that Lydia did not like this answer as she returned to her work on the blackboard, and Scott's voice became softer and more quiet.

"In fact, it might even save someone . . ." He muttered under his breath.

Though the girl clearly realized that debating him wasn't a successful enough tactic and decided to switch to threats instead, her tone became even more rude than it had been the whole conversation.

"Fine. Don't play. We'll probably win anyway. Then, we'll go out after, like we were planning, and me and Cordy can introduce Allison to all the hot players on the team . . . and Scott McCall can stay home, surfing the net for porn." She said in a spiteful tone, smirking slightly when she saw the reaction she was gaining from the boy.

Lydia finished her math problem with a flourish and gave him a boastful look before flipping her hair over her shoulder, wiping the chalk dust off of her hands, and sashaying back to her seat.

Scott glanced back to where Lydia had sat and watched as she conversed with Cordelia. Said brunette glanced to Scott and gave him a little wave and smiled at him as he only looked defeated.

"Mr. McCall, you're not even close to solving your problem . . ."

Scott sighed heavily, though he could appreciate the irony of the double meaning in those words. "Tell me about it."

◤━━━━━━━━━━━◥

TRUE TO her words, Lydia had, in fact, gotten herself and Cordelia to introduce Allison to some different lacrosse players just to spite Scott and making sure he was nearby when they did it.

The brunette moved Allison in front of her to introduce the girl. "This is Allison."

Now, usually, the brunette was incredibly kind and not spiteful at all. But Scott McCall had seriously pissed her off, and Cordelia had a feeling that it would only continue to grow deeper and more twisted as the more their relationship would develop.

The lacrosse player smiled at the chesnut haired girl. "Nice to meet you."

Allison smiled bashfully. "Hey."

"She just moved here." Lydia added.

"Oh really? How you liking it so far?"

The teen nodded and grinned. "It's nice." 

Scott McCall could only attempt to hide the jealousy he was feeling as Allison came his way. And boy, would it be tricky.

◤━━━━━━━━━━━◥

AS HER luck would have it, Lydia had managed to drag Cordelia along to the hospital so Jackson could get his shoulder checked out. As you can imagine, it wasn't a fun trip.

Jackson had been complaining almost the entire time in the back with Lydia as the brunette had somehow managed to convince him to let her drive his car ( it had been a gruelling process ). However, she had been able to play her own music from the speakers as everyone knows the driver gets to pick the music. Obviously.

So now, here they were, sat in the most uncomfortable seats known to man, while waiting for Jackson. Though she did have to admit it did beat being back at home. So, who was she to complain?

The girl was scrolling through some messages from her brother that they'd had the other night with a small smile on her face when she noticed Stiles come over to them. At first, he'd tried not to be seen, but once he'd noticed that Cordelia had, in fact, seen him, the boy accepted his defeat and walked over.

"Hey, Stiles." The teen girl greeted with a smile, far happier to see him than his friend.

Stiles gave a small wave back in response. "Hey Cordelia . . ." He winced when he realised how awkward he sounded.

"So, what brings you here?" He asked in an attempt to diffuse and perhaps even uplift the tense situation.

"I'm here with Lydia and Jackson. You know, because somebody rammed into his shoulder during practice today."

Stiles winced once more. Of course, she'd be here with Jackson. Why else?

He also took on her tone of annoyance at the mention of his friend. Man, she really did not like him.

"I just hope Scott knows that we're all relying on him now since Jackson's out."

Shoot!

Could their situation get any worse?

"Yeah . . . he knows." The lacrosse player replied timidly. That'll be some fun news to deliver, huh?

"So, why are you here?" By now, she'd shifted in the white plastic seat slightly to face him properly.

Crap!

"Uhh . . ." There were no words in his head. When did he ever not have something to say!?  He rubbed his hand on the back of his head so he wasn't just standing there like a total weirdo.

Cordelia's brows furrowed in confusion as she watched the boy. Was her going to say anything . . . ?

"It's personal." Was the only thing that he could think of.

She nodded. "Right . . . Okay. Well, I'll let you get to it then." The Madden girl stood up and smoothed out the skirt she was wearing while grabbing her phone and jacket in the process. Lydia was still sitting there too distracted to notice her absence to she figured her friend wouldn't mind.

"Woah, where are you going?" The pale teen questioned frantically as he tried to get her to sit back down by blocking her path.

The aspiring actress froze. What the hell was he doing? "I'm going to walk around or something." The girl shrugged off. "It's better than just sitting here doing nothing. I mean, knowing Jackson, he's probably giving the doctor a hard time, so it could be a while yet." She laughed at her own words at the mention of the Whittemore boy.

Inside, Stiles was panicking. After all, one of the last conversations they'd had she'd talked about a huge monster with red eyes stalking her. Now she wanted to go wander off in this huge building by herself?

But outside? He tried not to let it show.

"Do you want me to come with you or . . . ?"

"Stiles." She scoffed. "It's a hospital. I think I'll manage." 

Cordelia frowned at the genuinely concerned look on his face. She sighed and pulled out his hand and placed her phone in his. "Here, add my number. If I'm ever in any danger at all, you'll be the first person I call, okay?"

The sheriffs son agreed and quickly typed in his details before passing her phone back and watched while she typed in hers. It was a quick exchange, and he found that his stomach fluttered slightly at the warm smile she sent his way.

And with that, he could do nothing except watch her walk away.

Oh, what was Cordelia Madden doing to him?

◤━━━━━━━━━━━◥

SINCE THEY were originally on the ground floor near the entrance, she had decided to take the lift rather than walk up the stairs, not wanting to fall down in the heels she was wearing.

Of course, since it was a hospital, there wasn't anything particularly interesting. It was just white wall after white wall.

Though she had noticed that she'd wandered up to where the more severe injuries were. But at the uneasy feeling that came upon her, Cordelia hurried down the hall to where the lift was. Surprisingly enough, nothing had happened yet, and the brunette couldn't help but feel all too relieved. Especially with those blood red eyes that she'd been seeing night and day and which plagued her nightmares.

The teen pushed the button to the lift and waited all too patiently for it to come down to her floor. She could hear the ding! it made as it stopped on each one and watched above as the numbers began to slowly increase in speed. She furrowed her brows at this.

A deep and ominous growl echoed throughout the hall, and the girl felt dread settle in her stomach instantly. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and goosebumps made home on her skin.

Quite frankly, the Madden girl didn't want to look at what was beside her down the hall, but what else was there to do. She wanted to see what this thing was that was taunting her.

And low and behold, it wasn't human. Or course it wasn't. No human she knew had red eyes.

Though Cordelia didn't suppose it was human. For it was hunched over on all fours almost like a . . . mountain lion . . . ?

Oh god.

Now, it was starting to move towards her.

It was running. Pounding from wall to wall continuously. As though getting to her was the most important thing it could do.

Cordelia cried out as she pushed the button repeatedly in a useless attempt at getting the elevator to hurry up and open already.

In what the brunette assumed was fate finally being on her side, it opened, and the teen barrelled inside and watched as the metal barriers separated her from the monster shut.

She leaned her head back against the mirrored metal and let out heavy breaths of both fear and relief.

What was that thing?

Why was it chasing her.

And what did it want from her?

Those were the three questions running through Cordelia Madden's mind as of right now. They were three questions she wouldn't get the answer to until one fateful night.

Once the doors opened, the teen rushed out and didn't stop even when she bumped into a certain teen duo. Both Scott and Stiles peered to each other in concern as they watched their classmate practically book it down the hall. And of course, Stiles didn't hesitate to follow after her.

Ever since that night where she'd admitted to witnessing a monster, and with the newfound knowledge he had of werewolves, it's safe to say he was concerned. Big time.

The boy rushed out after her in an attempt to see if she was okay but the brunette had seemingly already gotten in her car and abandoned her two friends at the hospital. Stiles stood from afar as he watched Cordelia's car drive off ( most likely breaking the speed limit of the area ).

What the hell was going with Cordelia Madden?

◤━━━━━━━━━━━◥

CORDELIA HAD come straight home from the terrifying incident at the hospital. She'd ignored Richard's incessant complaints as she'd trudged up the stairs and slammed the door in his face. And she'd ignored Lydia's multiple phone calls and text messages about why she'd ditched them both at the hospital.

Even Allison had attempted to reach out to the girl but those were left unanswered as well. Cordelia really didn't want to talk to anyone about what was happening to her right now.

After all, they'd all probably deem her crazy. But could the brunette really blame them? No. Absolutely not.

I mean, this monster was a thing of nightmares. What with its deadly and hunched over stature, long sharp talons, dark black fur and not to mention the cold, deep blood red eyes that practically pierced into her soul.

Yeah. She was going to need some serious therapy after this.

Anyway, she digresses. The lacrosse game was tonight and the blue eyed teen had promised Allison that she would go in an attempt to be supportive of Scott ( who she still thought was a little weird ).

"He was literally trying to get out of playing tonight!" Cordelia had mentioned to Allison on the bleachers that night. Her dad was beside the girl as well seeing as he had seen it fit to watch the game of the boy who had captured his daughter's affection. "I mean, who does that?" She questioned in an annoyed tone.

Allison sighed but knew her friend was being pretty reasonable. Scott hadn't mentioned to her that he was trying to not play tonight which she thought wad odd. "I'm sure he had a good reason." She defended while rubbing her gloved hands together for warmth.

Cordelia scoffed.

The chesnut haired girl looked to Cordelia in confusion. "What?"

"Like how he had a good reason for ditching you at the party? Like he had a good reason for freaking out on you over a jacket?" She spoke in a harsh tone but in no way was her annoyance directed to Allison.

The girl seemed to be about to defend the boy once more but Lydia interrupted her by shoving her way through the row of people currently sitting down. Cordelia smiled and shuffled over to make a spot for her friend.

"What are we talking about?" The strawberry blond asked as she sat down, smoothing out her coat and straightening her hat.

"Scott trying to get out of the game tonight." The Madden daughter replied quickly with a hint of distaste in her tone as her eyes narrowed on the boy in mention.

Lydia too glared at him. "Oh." She muttered tight lipped. "Well I hope he had a good reason."

"Allison here sure seems to think he does."

Lydia glanced to Allison but didn't say anything as she had now moved on from glaring at Scott to ogling at Jackson.

They watched as the game went on. And not a single player had passed to the McCall boy despite him almost always being open. Weird.

"So . . . what happened at the hospital today? You ditched us." The Martin teen drawled as she raised a perfectly manicured brow in suspicion.

Cordelia glanced to the ground, suddenly finding the zipper of her jacket more interesting than either the lacrosse game or the question being presented to her right now. She was only brought out of it when she felt the Argent girl nudge her shoulder and nod over to Lydia, who was still waiting for an answer with her arms crossed.

"Uhm . . . my mum . . . she called me. Said I had to come home."

Admittedly, it wasn't a great excuse. But it was all she had.

"Really?"

"Mhm." The aspiring actress nodded.

"How come?"

"Just . . . family stuff. You know how it is." Cordelia waved off with suggestive dismissive hand.

"Right." Lydia sighed. "Well, you cold have at least let us know. We were stranded there for a good half an hour because you wouldn't pick up the phone to tell us where you'd gone!" By the end, her voice had raised considerably, and Allison and Chris had a hard time not overhearing the whole argument. Dispute? Who knows what it was.

Cordelia tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and sighed, watching as her breathe fogged out in the cold winter air. "I'm sorry. I really am. I've just had a lot going on right now."

Now that wasn't technically wrong. What with a red eyed monster taunting her ever waking step and the constant arguments between she and Richard, it seemed to never stop.

Oh, those eyes that seemed to plague her nightmares non stop almost every day. The eyes that surely belonged to a monster because no human she knew had eyes like that. The monster that Cordelia Madden couldn't tell anyone about for they would call her crazy. The monster that was standing across the pitch right now, breathing heavily and glaring at her with those eyes.

Oh, those eyes.

They'd surely be the death of her.

A loud trilling sound echoed throughout her ears. The bodies of other watchers of the game stood up around her in seemingly slow motion as the clapped and cheered for the winning team.

But Cordelia? She couldn't tear her gaze away from the beast stood across the field. She only looked away when the a boy from the lacrosse team blocked her field of view, only for it to be gone.

The aspiring actress stood up immediately, trying to peer over the heads of everyone circling the team only to fail miserably. Cordelia hurried down the bleachers and past the team in the hopes to see where it had gone, but she was left unsuccessful. The brunette stared into the woods with tired and fearful eyes.

Whatever was after her, was for sure out for blood. And it would get it. No matter who tried to stop him.

Even if it was in the form of a rather pale and skinny boy who relied far too heavily on sarcasm.

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ODI SPEAKS ━━━━ HELLO EVERYONE ! So, it's been so long since I've posted a chapter for this fic but here it is ! I hope you all enjoyed it and look forward to the next chapter.

( a gif manip will soon be provided here. It will show just who the 'love interest' is. Though I suppose you can take a rather good guess as the chapters go on :  ) )

coast_by_coast