┌─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┐
chapter fourteen!
SAD WEREWOLF HOURS
└─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┘

( motel california, pt. ii)

+ trigger warning: multiple suicide attempts

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STILES PACES THE room restlessly as Allison recounts the strange encounter she'd had with Scott while she'd been in the shower earlier in the evening. Vera is half-listening to her friend talk, half trying not to bump into Stiles as she paces as well. Her anxiety makes her hyperactive nerves worse. She feels like she could sprint through the entire cross country meet tomorrow and not feel the least bit fatigued. However, right now, the safest place to be is in this room while the five teenagers strive to find an explanation for what's going on.

"He kept asking me if we were still friends and if I wanted to be more than that," Allison informs them. "Then he just... snapped out of it."

"Like Isaac," Vera mutters. "Ally, why didn't you say anything when I told you how weird he was acting?"

She shrugs. "I didn't make the connection at the time. The last time I saw Scott act like that was during the full moon."

"Yeah, I know," Stiles says, rubbing his chin with trembling fingers. "He was definitely a little off with me, too, but actually, it was Boyd who was really off. I watched him put his fist through the vending machine." He mimes the action and Dominic raises his eyebrows.

"See! It is the motel," Lydia exclaims. "Either we need to get the hell out of here right now, or" – she reaches into the bedside drawer and pulls a red-covered Bible out of it – "someone needs to learn how to do an exorcism ASAP before the werewolves go crazy and kill us."

"I don't think they're going to kill us," Dominic argues. "Like Allison said before, this place is infamous for suicides, not murders. We probably have to make sure they don't kill themselves."

"That still doesn't explain why the hell they're acting like this, though," Vera cuts in, nearly crashing into Stiles when they both start to walk in opposite directions. She allows him to steady her with a hand on her shoulder before they're both moving again. "Punching through a vending machine, barging in while your ex-girlfriend is showering, and telling your pack member to get out of your head aren't signs you're gonna off yourself."

"Okay, hold on," Stiles says. "What if it's not just the motel? The number in the office went up by three, right?"

"You mean like three sacrifices?" Allison questions.

Stiles stops in his tracks, flickering his gaze between all of the others with a grim expression on his pale face. "What if this time it's three werewolves?"

Allison's appearance turns pensive. "Scott, Isaac, and Boyd."

"Maybe we were meant to come here."

"Exactly!" Lydia shouts, causing all of them to whirl around and face her in surprise. "So can we get the hell out of here now? Please?"

"Wait, hang on, let me see this." Stiles takes the Bible out of her grip and opens it using a small paper that had been jammed between the pages. The four others gather around to peer at the makeshift bookmark. Vera stands on the tips of her toes to read the heading at the top of the yellowed newspaper clipping: 28-YEAR-OLD MAN HANGS SELF AT THE INFAMOUS GLEN CAPRI. Stiles mumbles the words aloud, trepidation lacing his tone.

He sets the page down on the mattress of the closest bed. While Allison bends down to inspect it more closely, Stiles notices another clipping sticking out from the top of the Bible. He holds the book by the front cover and shakes it vigorously over the blankets, causing numerous clippings to fall out and scatter over the striped sheets. The unceremonious action likely would have made Vera's extremely Catholic abuela faint.

Dominic picks one up with furrowed brows, reading the title for everyone to hear. "'Two Teenagers Bleed to Death at Glen Capri, Appear to be Suicides. Jesus."

"Look at these two," Lydia says, snatching two of the pieces and placing them beside one another. "They both mention the room 217. These are probably all of the suicides that happened in this room."

Vera swallows painfully. The action makes it feel like needles are sliding down her throat, shredding her insides as they slowly go down her esophagus. She scans the carpet as if expecting to find puddles of blood where the teenagers had bled out as a haunted chill snakes down her spine. It's difficult to believe that the invasive stench of copper filling her nose is a figment of her imagination.

"So if every room has a Bible..." Allison trails off.

"There could be articles in all the rooms," Lydia finishes.

Vera's gaze involuntarily drifts to the scraps of paper. Another heading catches her eye— one about a boy who was only six years old when he stabbed himself.

"This is sick," she declares in a thick voice. "What kind of monsters advertise this stuff like memorabilia?"

"It's a beautiful thing," Stiles says sarcastically. He glances back at the clipping still clutched in Dominic's hand, their shoulders pressed together. "Most places leave a mint under the pillow. This one leaves a record of all the horrible deaths that occurred."

Lydia is silent for a moment, her eyes shifting out of focus as she ponders something. "What if the room next door has the one about the couple?"

Allison turns to her with alarm flashing across her face. Stiles is the first to crack into motion. Without warning, he sprints out the door, limbs flailing spastically as he flees in the direction of the neighboring room. The others rush to catch up with him, leaving the Bible and newspaper articles forgotten on the mattress. Vera finds him struggling with the knob, rattling the doorframe with the force of his movements.

Lydia sputters in confusion. "Wha— that was not locked before."

"I'll go in and open it from the inside," Vera volunteers. Before she can move, though, Allison places a hand on her shoulder.

"Look, forget it. We need to get Scott, Isaac, and Boyd out of here."

Stiles gives a reluctant nod of agreement. Just as they begin to walk away, the sound of an electric saw whirring from within the room makes them screech to a halt. The piercing noise is so shrill that it's hardly muffled by the insulated walls and locked door.

Vera doesn't waste a second. Her body goes half-transparent, Dominic blindly reaching for her as he anticipates her movements. When his hand closes around air, he shouts a desperate cry of, "Vee, wait!"

She doesn't listen. One moment, she's in the darkened exterior of the motel, and the next, she phases through the wall and emerges within the room. It's nearly pitch black except for the dim, orange light emitting from the space heater. It illuminates a male figure's face in a warm glow as the saw's screeching grows louder. It almost looks like—

"ETHAN!" she screams, his name bursting from her lips once she realizes what he's doing. The hand saw is gripped firmly in his hands. He's arching it down, down, down, closer to his bare abdomen where he'd unbuttoned his shirt and exposed his bare skin to the circular blade.

The door smashes open so wide it busts off the hinges and slams into the wall. Dominic stumbles in first, the light from the ceilings outside making it easier for them to see the catastrophe about to happen when the rest file in. All of their eyes widen in horror.

Stiles' voice rises above the shriek of the electric tool. "Hey, no, Ethan, don't!"

"Hold on!" Vera commands, restoring her intangibility before using a short burst of flight to reach Ethan more quickly. The spinning blade of the saw goes right through her. Ethan's empty gaze doesn't seem to recognize her, even as she passes through him and pops out on his opposite side. She can't grab the saw when she's like that, but she can get close enough to hold him down.

She leaps onto his back like a monkey. Wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his throat, she fits his neck into the crook of her elbow and squeezes. His body thrashes in a wild attempt to shake her off. A growl escapes his lips, fangs snapping in a struggle to sink them into her arm.

Stiles races forward and seizes the handles of the saw, trying to wrestle it away from him. Vera tightens her grip around Ethan's throat every time he manages to get the upper hand. In the end, he releases the electric tool, but Stiles goes down with it at the sudden loss of leverage. Lydia yanks the plug from the outlet just as he lands with his face inches from the circular blade.

Dominic and Allison rush forward to help him up. For a moment, Vera thinks it's over and slackens her chokehold. Then Ethan flicks out his claws on both hands. Instead of using them to shred her arms and make her let go, he moves to rake them across his stomach as if trying to claw his own insides out.

Vera reaches one hand down and latches it onto his wrist, attempting to pry it away from his abdomen, but she can't get a proper grip on him from her position on his back. Stiles and Dominic quickly realize what she's doing. Both boys dart closer to the Alpha and grab either one of his arms, straining to pull them away. Ethan stumbles forward at the loss of balance it causes. He instinctively catches himself on the space heater before he can fall, then crashes to the floor with Vera still on his back once he registers the pain of the heat. She manages to release him right before they hit the tarp covering the half-finished floor, her body smacking against it with a grunt.

Ethan cries out in pain at the burns blistering his hands. His chest heaves with heavy pants that begin to subside as he glances wildly around the room. Pushing himself to his feet, he seems more lucid now as he snaps his accusatory gaze from person to person. "What just happened?"

He doesn't wait for a response before darting out of the room. Stiles chases after him with a cry of, "Hey, Ethan!"

Allison picks Vera up off of the floor and brushes off some of the paint chips from her sweater. Vera gives her a nod of thanks, grimacing at the ache spreading across her back. At this rate, she's going to be sporting bruises from head-to-toe.

"It was like he wasn't even in control of himself," Dominic muses, his stare locked on the saw that had been inches from slicing Stiles' face in half. "Almost like... possession."

Vera nods in agreement. Ethan hadn't recognized her at all when she was directly in front of him. Just like Isaac, he'd had that blank, ghastly glaze over his eyes. And he'd been determined to slice open his stomach. She doesn't recall that being a common form of suicide. So why? Why had he done that of all things?

"Come on," Allison urges softly. She keeps her arms around Vera's small frame as she guides them out of the room. Dominic hastily shuts the door behind them. Instead of clicking back into place, another one of the hinges busts and the entire piece of wood goes crashing down. They scurry away faster in case someone comes to investigate the loud noises.

"There has to be a reason, though," she hears Stiles pestering from down the corridor. The three of them rush in that direction to see Ethan fastening the buttons on his shirt as he storms down the staircase, Stiles and Lydia hot on his heels.

"Didn't you hear what I just said?" the Alpha snaps, his higher-pitched voice laced with fury. "I don't know how I got there or what I was doing."

"Okay, you could be a little bit more helpful, you know?" Stiles says as he reaches the bottom of the stairs. "We did just save your life."

Ethan halts so suddenly that his sneakers scuff against the asphalt. He whirls around, still fastening one of his buttons as he replies scathingly, nothing kind in his brown eyes, "And you probably shouldn't have."

The five of them stare at him in shock as he stomps away. Vera scoffs, not caring that he can probably still hear him when she grumbles, "Remind me not to save him ever again."

Because, yeah, she's definitely not Ethan's number-one fan. She had wanted to beat his face to a pulp earlier had Isaac not done it for her, but she couldn't let him kill himself right in front of her. Her instincts had kicked in to help him. However, he doesn't seem the least bit grateful for them risking their necks to keep him from spraying his guts all over the walls.

Lydia raises her hand and lets it smack against her thigh in exasperation. "What now?"

"I'll find Scott," Allison offers, still halfway up the stairs. "You guys grab Isaac and Boyd. The best thing we can do is get them out of this place."

Dominic starts walking in the direction Ethan had gone, then stops and turns toward Vera. She creases her eyebrows when he looks at her expectantly. Walking closer to him and leaving Stiles and Lydia to engage in their own quiet conversation, she folds her arms across her chest. "What?"

"Do your thing," he says. When she merely stares at him, he moves his hands in a pedaling motion. "You know, your thing. Your supernatural thing. The thing where you guys always seem to sense where your pack is."

Vera shakes her head. "It doesn't work like that. I can't just turn it on like an Isaac and Boyd GPS."

Dom groans, moving his hands as if he's about to absentmindedly fix the strings of his hoodie, only to realize belatedly that he's only in his black t-shirt. His hands return to his sides with more aggression than usual. "Of course it isn't that easy. But just — try. See if you can feel anything."

Vera huffs through her nose before closing her eyes. She inhales a deep breath and releases it slowly, concentrating on whatever she feels inside. There's a multitude of physical pain– the ache in her arm from where Boyd had grabbed her and now the one in her back, but also something new. It's like a weight is settling over her chest and restricting her breath. For a moment, she thinks she's on the verge of her second panic attack of the day and snaps her eyes open, but there isn't the familiar rush of terror or rapidly-increasing body temperature that usually accompanies her attacks.

She wets her lips; her mouth has gone dry. "I only feel a weight on my chest."

"That could be anxiety," Dominic says with a hint of sympathy in his voice. "Let's see if— oh, no."

His gaze is locked on something over Vera's head. She turns around to see Lydia angrily storming away from Stiles, her heeled ankle boots clicking on the asphalt of the parking lot as he follows quickly after her with flailing hands. "Look, I didn't mean you're trying to kill people, okay? I just meant that maybe you're somehow involved in getting people to kill themselves, you know? Which — now that I say that out loud, it sounds really terrible, so I'm just going to stop talking."

Vera faces Dominic again with an exasperated expression that he mirrors. They hurry after the pair before Stiles can say anything else that's stupid and dig himself deeper into the hole he's already in.

By the time they reach them, Lydia has stopped in the middle of the lot. Her voice trembles when she asks, "Do you hear that?"

Vera listens. There's nothing except the distant hum of electricity coming from the lights in the motel. "Hear what?"

The strawberry blond crouches down on her knees in front of the manhole near her feet. She places her hands cautiously over the grate, leaning her head down as if she's trying to press her ear to it.

"Lydia, what—" Stiles stammers in confusion. "What do you hear?"

Dominic makes a circular motion by his ear with his index finger, silently expressing his idea that Lydia has gone nuts, only for Stiles to smack his hand down with a glare.

The weight on Vera's chest doubles the longer Lydia holds her ear to the drain. She places a hand near her collarbone in discomfort, a slight cringe twisting her face as she struggles to take a deep breath. Her friend's behavior has her so thoroughly freaked out that it feels like she's choking.

"A baby crying," Lydia responds quietly. "I hear... I hear water running."

Vera can hear no such thing. Dominic decides to helpfully add, "That may be because you have your ear to the sewer," which earns him another smack on the arm from Stiles.

"Oh, my God," Lydia gasps, her voice turning more panicked than before. "She's drowning the baby!" She shoots to her feet. "Someone's drowning!"

"Where?" Stiles demands. "Lydia, where?"

The girl shakes her head to clear it, her long waves spilling over her shoulders at the movement. She squeezes her eyes shut as fearful pants escape her lips. Then she's running, dashing toward a sound that only she can hear, giving the three others no choice but to follow.

They climb the stairs two at a time. Vera is certain she's never seen Lydia move so fast. They pass room after room until she points firmly at a door labeled 212, only for Stiles to twist the knob and discover it's locked.

Vera turns toward Dominic, who already seems to be gearing himself up to break down another door. "We can't afford to break any more of the motel's property. I'll do it."

She doesn't give him a chance to respond before she phases through the wall and solidifies as soon as she's inside the room. Her hands slightly tremble when she unlocks the door. As soon as it's open, the others burst inside, sprinting like hell toward the bathroom.

What Vera sees makes her cover her mouth in horror. Boyd is lying in the tub with an enormous safe on his chest, his legs sticking out of the tub and vacant eyes staring up at nothing. Stiles wastes no time in yanking up the sleeves of his maroon sweatshirt, reaching into the tub to drain the water, and pulling with all of his might. His arms strain with effort, but he can't pull out whatever's keeping the water in.

"He blocked it," he reports. "He blocked the drain with something."

Dominic whirls his head toward Vera and points at the safe on his chest. Her hand travels up to her restricted windpipe, understanding his silent connection. She'd known. She'd felt it, but she hadn't realized—

"Vera!" Stiles exclaims, making her jump as she snaps back into focus to see him staring at her. "Can you do your ghosty thing? Put your arm through the safe and pull him out?"

She shakes her head, struggling to speak now through her panic as it jumbles the coherent thoughts in her brain. "No, I won't be able to grab him if my arm is through the safe, and I can't turn other people intangible."

Stiles curses violently and tangles a hand in his raven hair.

Dominic steps forward, bending down so he's behind Stiles. "Hey, what if I pull you backward while you try to get the drain—"

"Just do it!" the boy commands impatiently. Dominic loops his arms around Stiles' abdomen as he grips onto whatever's blocking the drain, both boys pulling with all of their strength. Whatever Boyd had stuffed in there does its job exceptionally well. Stiles' hand slips and both of them topple back onto the bathroom tile.

Their next idea is to try to lift the safe from Boyd's chest. Even with all of their combined efforts, they can't raise the thing more than a few inches as if he had stuffed it with rocks. Vera can feel hope draining from her heart like the water is supposed to be draining from the tub. It makes her mind whirl, desperation clouding her judgment. All she can think about is how she can't lose another person today. She'll do whatever it takes to get Boyd out of this alive.

"Is he dead?" Lydia questions. "How long can a werewolf stay underwater?"

"You think I know that?" Stiles quips back. He backpedals toward the wall, only for his bare forearm to graze the exposed heater. He yanks it back with a pained yelp. Realization dawns on his face a moment later, words spilling from his mouth as he pieces the clues together. "Wait a sec, the heater. Heater — Ethan came out of it when he touched the heater."

"What?" Lydia asks.

"It's heat! Heat, fire. Heat does it, alright? We need something—"

"He's underwater!"

"Yeah, I'm aware of that."

"Guys!" Vera exclaims, cutting through their argument and causing both of them to look at her. She points at Boyd's legs that are sticking out of the tub. "Not all of him is in the water."

"Okay, so, what do we do? Do we grab the space heater from the other room and bring it over here?" Dominic wonders. "But it's not plugged in anymore and it might take a while..."

Lydia's face brightens with an idea. "Wait, wait. On the bus, they'll have emergency road flares. They — they have their own oxidizers. They can burn underwater just in case."

Stiles blinks. "What — are you serious?"

"Yes! Go!"

Stiles sprints out of the room as fast as he can. Sure her fear is going to eat her alive, Vera bends down and loops her arms around the safe again. She uses all of her strength to heave it upward, her lungs beginning to burn at the effort, but she's simply not strong enough. Her heart thunders even harder until it feels like it's bruising her ribcage. It tries to spread oxygen that she cannot get, the sensation becoming worse the closer Boyd inches to death until her face is red and hot with strain.

"Vera! Vera!" Lydia exclaims, yanking her away from the safe after her third attempt to lift it. Her arms wrap around the shorter girl's shoulders to hold her in place. "You're going to hurt yourself."

She shakes her head, staring at Boyd's motionless body with tearful eyes. "I can't wake up tomorrow and be the only member left of my original pack."

A thought strikes her so forcefully that she forgets to breathe for a moment. She stands up, her veins going cold and vision turning until she can hardly see anything but a confusing mess of colors. It causes her to stumble. She barely catches herself on the doorframe.

"What?" Dominic asks.

"Where's Isaac?"

Images assault her brain, each of them more gruesome than the last. Isaac bleeding out somewhere like those teenagers in room 217, him hanging, him with a knife sticking out of his chest. What if, while they've been trying to rescue Boyd, they're too late to save him?

She backs into the adjacent bedroom to get some space. Her eyes slam shut, searching her body for another message it could be sending her, but all she can feel is the nearly-unbearable crushing, collapsing sensation in her chest. It feels like she's suffocating.

A strange noise makes her eyes snap open again. Lydia is standing in the doorway of the bathroom, her frightened gaze filled with concern. Vera can tell she can hear it, too. It's a sniffle. No, a sob.

Both of their eyes drift to the right-side bed. The faint sobbing grows a bit louder, sounding like it's coming from beneath it.

Suffocating.

Vera doesn't register the burst of pain until after she's slammed to her knees. She has to nearly lie on her side to see beneath the metal frame, shifting the bed skirt to the side and gasping at what she sees. Isaac's head snaps up the moment she moves the cloth. His wide and panicked eyes fill with more fear at the sight of her, scrambling away and pushing himself deeper beneath the bedframe. It's a tight fit– the more he puts himself beneath it, the less he'll be able to breathe.

"Isaac?" she asks, hesitantly stretching a hand out toward him like he's a rabid animal. "Isaac, hey—"

A hand on her back nearly causes her to slam her forehead on the frame in fright. The voice of Stiles stammers, "Sorry. Here," as he shoves a road flare into her other hand.

"H–How do I light this?" she asks, retracting her hand and momentarily letting the skirt fall back down.

"The cap," Lydia tells her. "It's like a match. The cap is a match."

Vera uncaps the flare and strikes the wick against the cap, her hands shaking so badly she can barely scrape it hard enough. She's distantly aware of Stiles experiencing similar struggles. After her fourth try, the wick ignites, spreading pink flames close to her face and bathing her with heat. She squints against the nearly-blinding fire and shoves it under the bed frame, rolling it toward Isaac as hard as she can.

She scrambles away before he can react. To her absolute relief, she hears the sound of Boyd's roar as he rockets himself into a sitting position, tipping the safe off of him and causing it to crash to the floor along with the other flare. A tidal wave of water spills over the tub and soaks the tile. Dominic immediately assists in calming him down, coaxing him through his confusion.

A yelp sounds from under the bed. The flare rolls back out, closely followed by Isaac as he scrambles out to safety. Stiles snatches the flare from the carpet before it can catch anything else on fire and then smashes it on the ground to break the wick and extinguish it. Lydia does the same for the other one in the bathroom.

Vera turns to them. "Go find Scott and Allison. We've got these two."

Stiles nods, beckoning Lydia to follow after him as he runs out of the room. She's close behind him. The door closes, leaving Vera and Dominic alone with the two werewolves.

Isaac's chest heaves as he gulps down air. It's moving too rapidly, his bewildered gaze flashing around the room as he struggles to place his surroundings. Vera crawls closer and places a hand on the side of his face in an attempt to turn his head. His skin is slightly slick with sweat, his curls a bit damp, as terror sweeps him from head to toe. All of the color has been leeched from his cheeks.

"Hey, Isaac, look at me," she commands. Eventually, he does, blue meeting brown as he seems to recognize her. At the sight of his pack member, something in him clicks. His breathing starts to slow enough for him to force something out of his mouth.

"What—?" he stammers, swallowing before attempting to speak again. "What—?"

"It's okay," she tells him, a steady rock among the hurricane in his mind. "You're fine now."

Isaac reaches up to grasp the hand still on his face as if grounding himself. Though she'd been about to pull away, she can tell he needs the physical contact right now, so she lets her palm linger on the curve of his cheekbone. He stares at her like he's trying to memorize her features— or like all of the answers to his questions are written across her tan face. His breathing is almost completely even by now.

"Dom, how's Boyd?" she asks in the direction of the bathroom, scarcely daring to look away from the terrified werewolf before her.

"He's good," Dom calls back. "I gave him a towel. He's sitting on the edge of the tub."

Vera heaves a sigh of relief that makes her realize she can breathe again, too. The weight that had been smothering her chest is gone, allowing the appropriate amount of oxygen to pass into her lungs now that her fellow Betas are safe.

She slips from Isaac's grip and collapses beside him on the carpet in exhaustion, closing her eyes and hoping to God that the others had found Scott. So many people had come within inches of death today. She lets out slow exhales to provide her body with the air it had been lacking before, placing her hands on either side of her. It doesn't register how disgusting the floor is or how many times blood must have been scrubbed from the carpet. She's too utterly exhausted to care.

Isaac's fingers brush her own. The touch is hesitant, a feather-light contact that makes her wonder if he remembers what he'd tried to do earlier. How the last time he'd been within arm's reach, he'd clearly wanted to rip her throat out.

He manages to say through his still-trembling voice, "Thank you."

Maybe at any other point in her life, she would have pulled her hand back and scooted a few inches away to put space between them. Maybe she wouldn't have said anything to him in response. But something has changed— a sort of strange, electric pull has been forged between them that's unlike their pack bond that Vera has gotten used to after all these months. She can't tell what it is, but she can feel it settle deep in her bones as he grapples with what has just happened. What he'd tried to do.

Maybe, if she'd been paying closer attention, she would have noticed that his descent back to calm had begun as soon as he'd registered her presence there with him.

Vera opens her eyes and stares at the ceiling. Though she hasn't practiced religion in a long time, she finds herself sending a quick thank-you to God that her pack is safe before replying, "No problem."

_______

a/n:

imagine writing this really painful chapter, but the entire time, you have that tiktok audio that goes "interior crocodile alligator" stuck in your head. that was me. that's my brain.

anyway... that last bit... 🔍🧐 i've been dropping hints for a while now 🤔 what could it mean, i wonder?

also JDJSJSIDJ GUYS TEEN WOLF VIRTUAL REUNION JUNE 5TH!!! CHECK THE TEEN WOLF INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT FOR TYLER'S VIDEO. IF WE GET DANIEL AND ARDEN I WILL S O B.

–kristyn

TRANSLATIONS:

Abuela: Grandmother

( word count: 5.1k )