┌─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┐
chapter thirteen!
BATES MOTEL
└─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┘

( motel california, pt. i )

+ trigger warning: heavy mentions of suicide

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

"ISN'T IT OBVIOUS?" Dominic asks, rubbing his hand over his chin in thought. "Harris is the Darach."

Stiles has spent most of the bus ride catching the rest of the group up to date with his supernatural discoveries and conspiracy theories— namely Lydia, Vera, and Dominic, who have been listening intently to his ramblings the entire time. Vera is incredibly grateful that she's being kept in the loop this time. Stiles hadn't started trusting her until halfway through their plight with the kanima last school year. In fact, Vera has the sneaking suspicion that he'd thought she was the kanima at some point.

The cover of twilight has already fallen over the bus, spilling shadows over the exhausted students and making their surroundings seem even eerier. There isn't another car in sight. They've been driving for hours; the traffic jam had taken an incredibly long time to get out of.

Vera and Dominic sit in front of Stiles and Lydia, twisted around in their seats so they can have a proper conversation without the rest of the bus hearing. Scott and Allison are sitting in the last row. Vera admits that she's glad to see them on speaking terms again instead of the painful awkwardness that had started off the school year.

Stiles' brows shoot up his forehead in interest at Dom's words. "Well, he was one of my suspects, but please inform the rest of the group why you seem so certain about this."

"Dude, you said the guy had 'DARACH' written on his graded papers," Dominic points out. "How can it not be him?"

"I mean, Matt didn't exactly have 'I AM THE KANIMA MASTER' spelled out using all the creepy photos he took of Allison, did he?" Vera retorts, keeping her voice low. "It doesn't mean he is the Darach, just that he's somehow connected."

"And conveniently missing."

"He was in the military like the other people who were found dead— like that kid Kyle."

According to Stiles, the first three sacrifices had been virgins. Then the Darach moved on to people with military connections. Vera, in spite of herself, is grateful that Dark Druid doesn't only want a bunch of virgins— it means that Stiles will stop pestering her about screwing someone for her own safety.

Dominic shakes his head. "I don't trust it. The man was evil."

Vera doesn't have an argument for that.

The bus eventually stops in the full cover of darkness, coming to a halt in the parking lot of a seemingly deserted motel. Vera glances out the window across the aisle to see a neon sign stating its name as the Motel Glen Capri. It's the kind of tiny motel where all of the doors are outside, arranged in an angular U shape with two floors connected by a few sets of rickety stairs. The entire place looks like it belongs in a ghost town.

They climb off the bus and wait in the puddle-ridden parking lot while Coach retrieves enough room keys for everyone. Strange, Vera thinks as she taps her sneaker-clad foot in the shallow water, because she doesn't remember it raining over here. The wet asphalt reflects the searing light of the neon sign, scattering colors over the ground and bathing them in pink.

"I've seen worse," Scott says, taking a cursory look around. His eyes trail over the chipping paint on the doors to each room and then shift to the dim lights that scarcely illuminate the open corridors. A few of them flicker as if threatening to fizzle out at any second.

Stiles rears his head back in shock. "Where have you seen worse?"

At that second, the screech of Coach's whistle brings all of their attention to him. "Listen up! The meet's been pushed till tomorrow. This is the closest motel with the most vacancies and least amount of good judgment when it comes to accepting a bunch of degenerates like yourselves. You'll be pairing up— choose wisely."

Vera and Dominic glance at each other, coming to an unspoken agreement to room together. Dom walks forward and takes a key from Coach with the number 220 on it. That puts them on the second floor.

"And I'll have no sexual perversions perpetrated by you little deviants," Coach reminds them, shouting after the few kids who have already headed toward their rooms. "Got that? Keep your dirty little hands to your dirty little selves!"

Dominic and Vera share an exasperated look before heading toward the metal staircase that will lead them to the second floor. Vera notices that the handrail is grubby and wet, her nose wrinkling in disgust as she forces herself not to touch it for balance on the slippery steps. She walks extra carefully to make sure she doesn't fall and eat shit on the way down.

He unlocks the door to room 220 and puffs a sigh. The room consists of two full-sized beds with orange covers, a tiny box television that looks like it hasn't been updated since the '70s shoved in the corner, and a small bathroom to her right. She notices with dismay that the shower curtain is nearly sheer and the basin of the sink has mildew on it.

"Home sweet home," Dominic sighs as he plops onto the nearest bed, tossing the key onto the mattress as well. He flops down so his head is on the pillows. Then he sits straight up and cringes. "We should probably check for bed bugs."

He gets to work pulling back the sheets and checking them for bugs with the help of his phone's flashlight. Vera sets her duffle bag on the red carpet and does the same with the other bed. She doesn't find anything, thankfully, but it doesn't stop the uneasy sensation that snakes down her spine. Something about this place gives her the creeps. Maybe it's the fact that they're practically in the middle of nowhere and this dingy place isn't the slightest bit comforting. She honestly wouldn't be surprised if the owner pulled a Psycho and murdered her in the shower.

She glances in the direction of the bathroom. There is no way she's using that thing.

Dominic perches on the side of his bed with his hands in his lap, the color of his sweatshirt clashing terribly with the orange bedspread. She notices that he hasn't looked at his phone since the Charlie incident. Heaving herself onto her own bed so she's opposite from him, she swings her legs and sends him a concerned glance.

"You okay?" she asks.

Dom laughs a bit, though it doesn't reach his eyes. "Me? Yeah, I'm great. Derek's gone, we almost lost Scott on the way here, Charlie turned out to be a dick, and now we're stuck here all night." He sighs, running a hand through his hair like he tends to do when he's upset. "Sorry. We all have things to worry about."

"Dom," Vera says, "don't apologize for having feelings. We're all struggling, but that doesn't invalidate your own hardships."

He manages a small grin, looking up at her. "You sound like a therapist."

"Yeah, well, I took a few notes from mine, though I don't always practice them."

Vera understands exactly what he means. This place is foreign, no part of it recognizable, and the world feels so wrong. It seems like Vera's not even in her own skin. Like this is a parallel universe and they have yet to find their way back home.

She recalls Lydia telling her about liminal spaces over the summer. They're supposed to be waiting places— ones positioned between time, intended to be between one point in time and space and the next. That's what this motel feels like to her. It's a place between worlds, an area where they're all on the verge of something. What that something is, Vera doesn't know.

Then she remembers what Cora had told her a few hours ago. She hasn't heard any updates from her sister since then, but she also hasn't found the courage to ask for any, either. She prefers to cling onto the minuscule shred of hope they have instead of learning of no new leads.

"Cora texted me earlier," Vera says.

"Yeah?" Dom questions. "How's she doing?"

"Erm — she didn't say." She starts to feel guilty about not asking. The conversation about Charlie had distracted her, and then Scott almost dying had left her shaken. Her panic attack nearly drained all of her remaining strength. "But she did say that when she went back to the mall, both bodies were gone. She and Peter are trying to figure out what happened."

Dominic crinkles his nose in disgust at the mention of her uncle. "Gross."

"I know. She didn't seem too happy to be working with him either, but two Hale heads are better than one."

He twiddles his thumbs for a moment longer, staring at his hands as if his next question is stuck in his throat. He manages to ask it after swallowing painfully. "Do you think...?"

"I'm not sure," she admits quietly. She would love to be certain that her brother had crawled out of that escalator alive, but she's learned the hard way that hope loves to play wicked tricks on them. The universe has a funny way of twisting their lives on a railroad track that only ends with heartache.

"I'm showering," Dom announces abruptly, standing up and retrieving a change of clothes from his bag.

"Ew," Vera replies. Her eyes trail him as he moves around the room. "That thing is disgusting."

"I know, but I need to wash off." He leaves his bag on his bed and carries the clothes into the small bathroom. "If you need to use the toilet or something, go to Allison and Lydia's room– I think they're a few doors down in 217."

He closes the door behind him. A few seconds later, she hears the muffled sound of the water running as he turns on the faucet. Alone for the first time in over twenty-four hours, she continues swinging her legs for a moment before deciding that she should charge her nearly-dying phone. Lifting herself from the bed, she reaches for her bag and rifles through it until she finds the cord.

Something looms in the corner of her eye. She jumps to her feet with a gasp, snapping her head in the direction of the shadow, only to realize it's Isaac standing in the doorway.

She releases a slow breath, placing a hand to her chest to calm her racing heartbeat from the scare. "Mierda. I think I just had a heart attack."

Except Isaac doesn't move. He merely continues to stand there, the few lights in the parking lot behind him casting elongated shadows over his sharp facial structure. His posture is odd. She's never seen him so tightly-strung, like a puppet being held taut by its master. The expression on his face is abnormally blank as he stares at her without blinking.

Vera tilts her head to the side in confusion. "Can I help you, Lahey?"

"Get out of my head," he spits in reply, voice full of so much venom that it catches her off-guard.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

He takes a step forward into the room. As soon as he does, it seems to shrink in size, becoming even smaller than it already is as he continues to stalk toward her with that unreadable expression twisting his features. When the dim light on the ceiling catches his face, she can see that his ice-blue eyes are shimmering with malice.

She's never been afraid of Isaac, per se. She could be wary of him when he couldn't control himself during the full moon at first, but she'd never outright feared him. Right now is a different story. Her eyes rapidly search him from head-to-toe, desperate to find a part of her pack member that she recognizes, but she doesn't find anything. It's like it's not even him, a cruel stranger wearing his face as a mask.

Vera's heart pounds, sending a burst of adrenaline through her limbs and increasing their weight until they tremble. He's blocking her only exit aside from the small window behind her. He continues taking slow steps toward her even as she backs away, her eyes briefly flickering to the closed bathroom door. Dominic has never seemed so close and yet so far.

"Almost every waking second, you're there," Isaac growls in a voice that isn't his. It's deeper, almost demonic, contorting his face into an expression of pure fury as he raises his voice to a shout. "I can't — I can't think!"

Her back slams against the wall. She swallows down the fearful pants that burst from her lips, her heart thundering so intensely that she can hear her blood roaring in her ears and an ache spreads through her ribs. Her entire body tenses in preparation for her fight response to activate in case she needs to overpower him.

His eyes flash a threatening gold. When he opens his mouth to speak again, now close enough to crowd her against the wall, his voice is low and almost sinister. "I need you out of my head."

In that instant, she realizes he is going to tear her — or someone else — to shreds if she doesn't incapacitate him now. Phasing through him and running isn't an option. He'll only chase after her, and then she'll be putting other people in danger as well as risking his secret being out. No, this is between them and them only.

Vera moves as fast as lightning. She reaches her right arm up to jab him in the back of the neck, the location of the pressure point that would bring any person to their knees, only for him to snatch her by her uninjured wrist. Her other fist darts forward to punch him in the face. He catches it in his palm, chuckling darkly as if this is some sort of an amusing game.

"Isaac, whatever you're talking about, this isn't you," she says, straining against his supernatural strength that holds her firmly in place.

Isaac merely grins, the motion more like an unnerving stretch of his lips. His fangs glitter in the moonlight that streams through the window as he draws her in toward him with their arms on either side of their bodies. They're pressed chest-to-chest, so close she can smell his aftershave. He's warm against her and yet the contact makes her skin crawl. His claws scrape against the skin of her fist in his hand. Though she's been pack members with him for months, she doesn't recognize the murderous gleam in his eyes as she peers upward. This isn't him.

So she copies his smirk for a second and shoves down the fear threatening to immobilize her. "Thanks for the leverage."

Before he can react, she uses his sturdy figure to grip onto as she smashes her knee into his groin. Vera doesn't feel particularly bad as his hold on her breaks and he collapses to his knees with a cry. She wastes no time in knocking him fully to the ground and placing a foot on his chest to keep him there.

As soon as his head smacks against the carpet, his eyes seem to clear. Isaac blinks, the malicious expression on his face morphing to one of confusion as his gaze flickers around the room like he's seeing it for the first time. He appears more puzzled when he meets her eyes and notices her foot pressing him to the floor. His fangs and claws have vanished, leaving him completely human.

There's a beat of stunned silence on both of their ends. Slowly, she removes her shoe from his chest and flicks a stray piece of hair from her eyes. "What was that?"

But Isaac doesn't seem to have answers, either. He merely blinks, cringes slightly at the pain in his groin, and pushes himself to a sitting position.

"I need to go lie down," is all he says, quickly getting to his feet and leaving the room.

Vera stares after him in immense confusion at what the hell had just happened. She's never seen Isaac look like that before. Come to think of it, she's never seen anyone look like that before. The way his eyes had glittered with malevolence and how totally unlike him his voice had been. The only thing she can compare it to is how Jackson looked while being controlled by his master— but Isaac isn't a kanima, nor does he have a master.

She steadies her breath and plops down on her bed, the phone charger laying forgotten on the carpet. Whatever horror movie shit had just transpired better stop at that. She'd only been joking when she'd mentioned Psycho.

— ✯✯✯ —

Vera drags Dominic to Lydia and Allison's room, the boy still towel-drying his hair as they walk. She reaches the door and raps her knuckles on it, waiting impatiently with her lips pressed into a thin line. Her eyes skitter around the motel's exterior for any sign of suspicious activity. The incident with Isaac had left her shaken— so much so that she'd yanked Dominic out of their room without explanation as soon as he'd emerged from the bathroom, saying she'd had to talk to the girls immediately and wasn't comfortable going alone.

Allison opens the door a moment later. Vera instantly notices that her guard is up, revealed in her tense shoulders and pinched eyebrows that relax when she recognizes the pair standing outside. She opens the door wider to let them in.

Lydia is busy shoving all of her belongings into her purse as if she's planning on leaving. Dominic watches her in confusion, still rubbing his towel through his brunet locks. She pays them absolutely no mind as she frantically packs her things.

"What's up?" Allison questions, securing part of her short hair into a half-up style with an elastic.

Vera sighs. She tightens her hands into fists at her sides, struggling to find the words to explain what had transpired ten minutes ago.

"Have you noticed anything... weird about this place?" is what she settles on asking.

Lydia's attention snaps to her. Whereas she'd been lost in thought a moment ago, she's now staring at the shorter girl with an unusual amount of interest. She places her makeup bag on her bed and walks toward her earnestly. "Weird, how?"

Allison sighs for some reason. Vera ignores it and tries to find a way to arrange her thoughts coherently. "Well, Dom was in the shower when Isaac just appeared in the doorway."

"Isaac was there?" Dominic questions, chucking his towel into the girls' bathroom and causing Lydia to glare at him.

Vera fixes him with a stare of her own. "If you'll let me finish. Yes, he was there. But... he also... wasn't? It was like it wasn't him. He told me to get out of his head."

Allison wrinkles her brow. "That just sounds like hormones."

"No," she says exasperatedly, putting a hand to her temple and cringing at the burst of pain from her bruised wrist. "Look, I'm telling you that something wasn't right. He kept looking at me like I wasn't a person, like I was something in the way. It almost seemed like he wanted to kill me. It wasn't until I kneed him in the crotch and knocked him to the floor that he snapped out of it and left. He didn't seem to remember even coming to the room."

I need you out of my head. Isaac's words play through Vera's mind like a broken record, glimpses of his malevolent smirk flashing in his mind. His claws and fangs had told her enough: he had been willing to go to the extreme in order to succeed at his wish.

Lydia shifts her gaze to give Allison a pointed look, her eyebrows raised high on her forehead. "See! I'm not crazy!"

"Is there something we don't know?" Dominic asks. He runs his fingers through his damp hair to smooth it, preventing himself from looking like a porcupine.

"The woman in the office said this place is infamous for its annual number of suicides," she explains almost breathlessly. "Every year, they average about four to five. That's 198 since they opened. And they mount the number on their wall for everyone to see."

Dominic blinks in surprise. Then he heads toward the door, reaching for the handle as he says, "Fuck, I'm out."

Vera reaches out without looking and curls her fist around the sleeve of his black t-shirt, yanking him back. He resumes his previous spot next to her with a dismayed sigh.

"You know, something is seriously wrong with this place," Lydia continues, reaching for her makeup bag to zip it up. "We need to leave."

"Leave? We have a cross-country meet tomorrow," Vera reminds her. "We can't."

"Plus, they were suicides, not murders," Allison adds. "And it's not like this place is haunted, right?"

Lydia's hand drops to her side in exasperation. "Maybe it is. You know, I bet that couple made their suicide pact in that very room. Maybe that's why they're renovating. Maybe they've been scraping brain matter off the wood paneling!"

"Maybe we should find out."

Dominic squeezes his eyes shut, rubbing them for a moment before asking, "Hi, sorry, what? I feel like we skipped over something because I have no idea what you're talking about."

The strawberry blonde turns to him with a grave expression. "I heard something. A couple — male and female — talking about how they loved each other. And then I heard gunshots, but when we looked in the room... it was full of nothing but tools."

Dom and Vera share a knowing expression. Last year, Lydia had gone completely off the rails under Peter's influence and had not only seen him everywhere, but also helped to bring him back from the dead. Not to mention that she'd poisoned everyone at her birthday party with wolfsbane and made them go insane. Vera hadn't been there — she was helping Derek get the pack through the full moon — but she'd heard from Scott how awful it was.

As if she can read their minds, Lydia's brows furrow in outrage as her green eyes flicker between them. "I'm not crazy!"

"Okay, Lyds," Vera says, placing a hand on the girls' shoulder. "Let's just head to the office and ask the lady you saw, okay?"

Lydia nods, uncertainty and desperation clinging to her pale features as the four of them leave the small motel room. The air outside is unusually cold for a Californian night in early September. Dominic hugs his bare arms as they walk briskly toward the office on the ground floor. The chill seeps through Vera's cardigan and causes her to shudder, tugging the knit material closer. Everything is eerily silent except for their footsteps. She finds herself glancing around the darkness for any sign of a strange-acting individual, heart still thumping hard in her chest from a mixture of fear and dread for the things they'll find out.

Or won't find out. They reach the office, only to find a sign that reads Be back at 6 a.m.! stuck to the glass near the desk. Lydia sighs in disappointment and thumps a frustrated hand on the wood. "Well, there goes that."

"Didn't you say the sign said 198?" Allison asks.

The three others look past the desk and at the opposite wall. A proud number 201 taunts them from its position against the green wallpaper, the numbers pure red as if they'd been printed in blood.

"It was 198," Lydia insists in a wavering tone. "I swear to God it was 198."

Allison shakes her head in perplexity. "Okay, so what does that mean, that there's been three more suicides?"

"Or three more are about to happen."

Vera stares at the number on the wall with trepidation coursing through her veins. Three. Three tonight? That's close to how many there are at this motel in a single year. Why now of all times?

Her messy thoughts are cut off by the sound of Allison's phone ringing, a sound that makes all four of them jump. She quickly digs it out of her pocket, the contact name STILES flashing on her screen before she holds it up to her ear. "Hey, what's up?"

The volume is loud enough for Vera to hear the boy's response. "We need to talk. Can I meet you guys in your room?"

"Yeah, of course," Allison replies, giving the others a nervous glance. Stiles' panicked tone does nothing to ease their already-present fears.

"Okay. Bring Vera and Dominic, too."

"They're already here with us."

"Good. See you in a few."

He hangs up. Allison holds the phone to her ear for a few more seconds as if she hasn't yet realized the call has ended, her face more stricken than Vera has seen it all night. It's as if all of these strange events have suddenly seemed real to her. More than Lydia's off-the-wall ramblings, more than a number on a wall and people acting strange.

Maybe this is a liminal space, after all. Maybe what they're waiting for is death.

_________

a/n:

isaac was really standing in vera's doorway like 👁_👁

i both love and hate this episode. i love it because of the cinematic techniques used that make it so terrifying, but also hate it for what it did to the wolves :(

i had a lot of fun writing this episode and i hope you guys like the next chapter. a LOT happens in this single night, so everyone is in a constant state of movement the entire time. give these kids a break 2k20.

—kristyn

TRANSLATIONS:

Mierda: Shit

( word count: 4.3k )