"𝒾 𝒹ℴ𝓃'𝓉 𝓌𝒶𝓃𝓃𝒶 𝒹𝒾ℯ, 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓉'𝓈 𝒶 𝓁𝒾ℯ"

𝘛𝘞: 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘥
𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦

After leaving Allison and Lydia to go to the reception desk to do... something (hopefully not question about the room under construction, because then they would be admitting to having committed a felony to get inside it), Ophelia races back to the girls' room that they had left unlocked upon receiving a response from Stiles, explaining that he was there and waiting, yet Scott was nowhere to be seen. The Stilinski flinches as the door swings open a little too violently, resulting in it banging loudly on the wall behind it. "Jesus fucking Christ," he exclaims, placing a hand over his racing heart.

Ophelia snorts and closes the door in a manner that is the complete opposite to how she had opened it. "Happy?"

Running a hand through his hair, Stiles scowls at her as he double checks his phone for anything from Scott. "Hardly." He looks back up to her. "What the hell has been going on?"

She clears her throat and takes a seat on Lydia's bed, her eyes following the movements of the male as he paces impatiently around the room. "It's a long story, and I think it would be better if we wait for the person it revolves around to get here."

Stiles' eyebrows furrow in confusion as he stops walking, his lips pursed as he tries to figure out what she meant. "Person? Did something happen to Allison?" His face falls in horror. "Is Lydia okay?" Ophelia hesitates for a second, which in hindsight wasn't the smartest thing to do. "Is Lydia okay?" Stiles repeats more firmly, his voice filled with desperation as he goes through the countless different scenarios of what might have happened.

"Physically, yes. Psychologically, it's a definite no. But then again, all of us are psychologically damaged. I mean, we all need to see a bloody therapist, it's getting out of hand. Specifically, Derek. I don't have enough time in the world to start on how many issues that guy has-"

"Ophelia."

She smacks her lips and nods. "I stand on my original point, which is to wait for her to get here. It's nothing we can't figure out. I promise."

Right on cue, the door opens, and the breath of relief that leaves the boy's lips when spotting Lydia Martin alive and well almost makes Ophelia chuckle. Almost. "Oh, thank God," he murmurs to himself. "Okay, will someone tell me what the fuck is going on? I'm in suspense here, lots of it."

"First things first," Allison declares, her eyes settling on the blonde. "The number at the office... It's not at one-ninety-eight anymore."

Ophelia's eyebrows furrow. Then it clicks. "Oh, shit."

Quickly, Lydia gives the short version of what had happened earlier; how she had heard a couple talking in the room next door before taking their lives with one another, then how when the three had burst into said room, it was completely empty aside from construction materials. With the help of Ophelia, Allison and Lydia try to give a simple explanation about the number in the reception area, about what it represented, then how the newly discovered information is quite unsettling because the previous number has now gone up by three. Then, Allison shocks everyone by revealing that whilst she was having a shower, Scott had entered the bathroom without being invited in. "The last time I saw him act like that was during the full moon," she adds with worry.

"Yeah, I know," Stiles agrees with a nod. "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."

Two out of the three girls look at him in surprise, although Lydia's expression is one that screams 'I told you so.' "See, it's the motel! Either we need to get out of here right now, or-" She turns around to open the nearby bedside table and takes the red Bible out. "-someone needs to learn how to do an exorcism ASAP, before all the werewolves go crazy and kill us!"

Allison suddenly connects the missing dots, and her eyes flick over to land on the silent one out of the group. "Hang on, if it's all the werewolves, why isn't she like them?"

Ophelia tilts her head to the side and meets the brunette's challenging gaze. "What, crazy? Or feeling like I need to kill somebody? 'Cause I hate to break it to you, Allison, but I've been feeling both of those things for a long fucking time."

"It doesn't matter," Lydia interrupts, having zero energy to witness yet another petty argument between the two short-fused girls. "For whatever reason, if Fi isn't like them, we're taking it as a win." Ophelia gives Allison a smug smile and quietly chuckles to herself when she hears a blip in her heartrate out of frustration.

"Okay, let's just hold on, all right?" Stiles draws all the attention to him, like a spotlight had been placed upon him. "What if it's not just the motel? You guys said the number in the office went up by three, right?"

"You mean, like three sacrifices?"

His head inclines at Allison's assumption. "What if this time, it's three werewolves?"

"Solid theory, Sherlock." Ophelia heavily sighs and lays back on her bed, closing her eyes as if going to sleep for a few minutes would suddenly erase all her problems. "Wake me up when someone dies."

"Scott, Isaac, and Boyd..."

With her eyes still closed, Ophelia clicks her tongue at Allison and adds in, "Don't forget about half of the wonder twins."

"Maybe we were meant to come here," Stiles hesitantly says.

"Exactly!" Lydia exclaims. "So, can we get the fuck out of here, now? Please?"

The hybrid opens one eye. "What the hell are we waiting for?"

Stiles remains staring at the book in Lydia's hands. "Wait, hang on." With his eyebrows furrowed, he snatches it out of her hands. "Let me see this..."

With a soft groan, Ophelia screws her eyes shut once again as she tries to ignore the bloodlust from earlier returning in waves. It doesn't work very well. All she wants to do is drink. "Come on."

He flicks through a few pages before finding one bookmarked with a clipping of a news article. Both Lydia and Allison crowd around him to get a better look. "'Twenty-eight year old man hangs himself at the infamous Glen Capri.'"

The green eyes snap open and Ophelia speeds over to snatch the clipping out of his hands, her eyes widening slightly in disbelief when she lays her sight on the paper. "Who puts this shit in a Bible?"

Flipping through more pages as he expects to find another, Stiles ends up shaking the book, resulting in, as he predicted, multiple articles falling out that share a specific pattern with one another. "No, no, look at these two," Lydia points out two, placing the pair of clippings side by side. "They both mention room two-seventeen. These are probably all the suicides that happened in this room."

Ophelia throws her head back and sighs. "Does every room have a Bible?"

Lydia nods grimly and meets her friend's eyes for a brief second. "Which means there could be articles in all the rooms."

"That's a beautiful thing," Stiles comments sarcastically. "Most places leave a mint under the pillow; this one leaves a record of all the horrible deaths that occurred."

"What if the room next door has the one about the couple?"

"What if the room next door has the one about the couple?" Glancing back over to the strawberry blonde, Ophelia opens her mouth to say something, only for Stiles to break away and run out the door. Not far behind him, the girls watch him struggle with the handle and meet each other's eyes. They all share the same surprise and confusion as the other. "That was not locked before," Lydia says, her voice raising with alarm.

"Okay, we need to get Scott, Isaac, and Boyd out of-"

The Stone tunes out Allison's nervous rambling as her enhanced hearing picks up on a heartbeat racing erratically behind the wall to the adjoining room. She doesn't get the chance to push Stiles out the way as he's already turned away to go and find any one of the aforementioned werewolves. "Fi, what are you-" Lydia's question never finishes with it interrupted by the deafening crash of Ophelia effortlessly kicking the door open right as a loud electric whir starts up from inside the room.

Everyone's eyes widen when they find Ethan standing with his shirt open, the handsaw they had heard hovering above his exposed torso. However, the hybrid hesitates as she contemplates just letting him die right then and there. But the shove she gets from Lydia and the fearful protests from Stiles causes her to sigh as she makes her decision. Stiles and Allison are thanking her vampiric abilities in this very moment, both rather relieved that they themselves wouldn't have to risk getting injured by the power tool. Although, they would never admit it.

Ophelia snarls at the Alpha werewolf and bares her canines as she darts forward and rips the saw out of his hands, throwing it blindly to the side without a care of where it would land.She hopes that someone would have the brains to find the power switch and turn it off for her. Instead, she busies herself trying to knock Ethan unconscious before he can create a deadly wound in his chest with his now unsheathed claws.The will to cause himself harm is so strong that it provides him with a rush of adrenaline, resulting in him giving a rather good fight. Grabbing onto his wrists tightly, Ophelia only needs to squeeze slightly until she hears the crunching sound of bone in her ears, Ethan crying out in pain as his eyes burn a dangerous ruby.

Neither notice that Lydia has pulled the cord for the handsaw, taking out one of the hazardous objects in the room.

Even with the injuries, he still tries to fight her, leaving Ophelia to forcefully send her knee up into his groin. Ethan collapses onto the ground, but he surprises everyone by raising his very broken hands to try and use his claws again, like he no longer feels the excruciating pain.

"Mate, as much as I want you to die, my friends won't let you kill yourself." Ethan groans again as her fist connects with his nose, and blood immediately trickles down his lips as he falls onto his side. Ophelia's nose scrunches up in confusion when he yelps again, but this time it's far too delayed of a reaction to have come from herself. Her eyes follow the sizzling sound that had suddenly appeared, and she finds the heater in the middle of the room also powered on. "Youch," she murmurs.

Ethan scrambles to stand whilst taking deep breathes through his mouth as his broken bones and cartilage begin their healing processes. He looks between the four teenagers watching him cautiously, alarm etched across his expression. "What the fuck just happened?"

"Well, I had to punch you, sorry about the bones by the w-" Ophelia sighs when the werewolf runs out the room, and she shrugs when she catches the glares from the three opposite her. "What?"

"Ethan, wait!" Stiles huffs a sigh in frustration and runs out to catch up to him, Lydia having to forcefully drag the hybrid with herself and Allison.

Hearing the thundering of shoes behind him, Ethan briefly glances over his shoulder to then roll his eyes at the group quickly catching up to him. "Didn't you hear what I just said? I don't know how I got there, or what I was doing."

"Okay, you could be a little more helpful, you know? We did just save your life." Stiles grunts quietly when he receives a gentle elbow to his side and goes to correct himself. "Ophelia saved your life."

Ethan finishes buttoning up his shirt and gives the group one final look. "And you probably shouldn't have," he says bluntly, turning around and heading back to his assigned room.

Sighing through her nose, Lydia purses her lips together. "What now?"

"Still a bit pissed he didn't thank me," Ophelia mumbles.

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

Lydia waves her hand toward the brunette, looking at Ophelia pointedly. The hybrid shakes her head. "Oh, no, I'm not leaving you after what happened earlier. She'll be fine on her own, no offence."

Allison nods in agreement, the shared worry over their mutual friend taking a higher priority than the grudge she holds against the girl. "None taken."

As she walks up the stairs, Lydia goes to follow, ready to start looking for Isaac and Boyd. Ophelia is right behind her. But the strawberry blonde sighs when she notices that Stiles isn't following them, his eyes intently trained on herself. "What?" Lydia questions sceptically. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Ophelia's eyes narrow as she looks between the two, trying to decipher what he is thinking. "Oh, no," he dismisses quickly. "I was-"

"Stiles."

The second she realises what is going on, a streak of panic flashes through her. The last thing Lydia needs right now is to be accused of committing the sacrifices, or someone aiding the Darach in them. Ophelia's eyes dramatically widen, and she turns her death stare onto the boy, silently communicating her protests.

"All right, Lydia, I didn't want to say anything..."

"So, don't," Ophelia responds firmly.

Stiles purses his lips together and contemplates listening to her, but then he realises that surely the repercussions of sharing his theory with Lydia can't be that bad. After all, they had lied to her about the supernatural before. It was better to keep her in the known. "This... Lydia, everything we're going through? We've kind of been through something like this before. A lot like this."

Folding her arms over her jacket, Lydia's eyebrows furrow. "What do you mean? When?"

Only then does Ophelia understand that what he is trying to say isn't precisely what she had thought he was. Even though she hadn't been present for Lydia's infamous birthday party earlier in the year, she knows that it was the night when everyone had been poisoned with wolfsbane that had been mixed through a cocktail by Lydia whilst under the control of Peter Hale. It was also the night she eventually resurrected the man. "Your birthday party," Stiles answers hesitantly, his eyes flicking between the two girls. "The night you poisoned everyone with wolfsbane."

Yeah. It's not looking great.

Lydia takes one look at Ophelia who has remained silent with a solemn expression on her face, and scoffs before turning her back on the two and walking away. The hybrid huffs a sigh, sending a final disapproving scowl to Stiles before chasing after her best friend who seems determined to be anywhere but within their presences. "Lyds, just- hang on!"

"I'm sorry, okay?" Stiles grimaces as he tries to think of how he can get out of the hole he had dug himself into. And of course, to try and reassure Lydia. "Look, I didn't mean that you're trying to kill people, okay? I just... I just meant that, maybe... maybe you're somehow involved in getting people to kill themselves, you know?"

"Stiles!" Ophelia hisses, not bothering to hide how her eyes glow red, a small threatening gesture to get him to stop before he somehow makes things any worse than they already are.

Upon looking back to Lydia, he sees her tearful expression and internally curses at himself for his poor choice of words. "Which now that I say that out loud, it just sounds really terrible, so I'm just going to stop talking."

Shaking her head in incredulity, Ophelia glances to her side to give him one last look of exasperation. Her eyes soften when they land back on the distraught girl. "Lily, we just mean-"

"Guys," Lydia interrupts. She abruptly stops walking in the middle of the parking lot. "Do you hear that?"

Stiles' eyebrows furrow and he looks over to the hybrid who has some sort of an understanding on her face. "No," Ophelia quietly replies. "Lydia, what do you hear?" Whatever is happening is round two of the couple and the gunshot.

Conveniently having stopped right before a drainage grate in the ground, Lydia doesn't provide an explanation to either of her friends, fully engrossed in whatever auditory experience she is having. But when she drops onto her knees to get closer to the drain, Stiles finally asks, "Okay, what are you doing?"

Rolling her eyes, Ophelia moves so she is crouching beside the girl, hoping that being at eyesight will make it better to comfort her. "Love, what can you hear?"

Lydia doesn't meet the pair of watchful green eyes, instead, intensely focused on trying to get a clearer sound. "A baby crying," she murmurs. Ophelia briefly looks to Stiles when she feels his eyes on her, and she shakes her head subtly, confirming to him that whatever Lydia is hearing, she definitely isn't. "I hear... I hear water running."

Watching her with worry, Ophelia pulls her bottom lip into her teeth to chew on it, her eyes not leaving her friend for a second. She hears the girl's breathing become shallower once more and her eyes are slowly widening by the second. "Lydia, what's going on?"

A broken, strangled sob leaves her throat as she looks over to the blonde. "She's drowning the baby," she says in a panic, the few tears that had been watering in her eyes involuntarily dropping down her cheeks. Lydia quickly stands up with fear, and her eyes dart between the two that haven't heard a single thing she just did. "Someone's drowning."

Ophelia and Stiles don't need to question anything. They don't question or even begin to start the thought process of how Lydia could possibly be hearing these things, because based on their recent experiences, right now someone really could be drowning. And if their theories are right, it's going to be one of the remaining werewolves. "Okay, where's Boyd's and Isaac's room?" Ophelia questions, her voice steady with authority.

"A few doors down from ours," Stiles informs.

She nods once and gives them both an apologetic look. "Hold on, this won't be fun." Ophelia doesn't give them a chance to question her as she tightly wraps either of her arms around their waists and speeds through the parking lot to get to her room.

The instant they stop, Stiles braces himself on the nearby wall, his skin a sickly pale. "Oh, God, what the fuck was th-"

Pushing down the nausea in her stomach, Lydia quickly shakes her head a few times to compose herself before pointing down the hall to where she had seen Boyd and Isaac disappear earlier that night. "This way."

Thankfully, Ophelia doesn't have to break into another room tonight as the door had been left unlocked. Herself and Lydia don't make sure that Stiles is okay because they can hear his laboured breathing and reluctant footsteps behind them. Racing into the bathroom, they freeze in horror upon finding Boyd fully submerged in the built-in bathtub, the occasional stream of bubbles leaving his lips and floating up to the surface. But that's not what scares them the most. It's the incredibly heavy safe positioned on top of his body that is keeping him anchored underneath the water.

Now sobered up from the vampiric paced travel, the switch in Stiles' brain flips on panic mode. "Ofi, can you-"

"Yes," she replies without a hint of doubt. "But if we're going off the heat thing, we need something, anything." Lydia's eyes widen in realisation as her hands fly to her jacket pocket and a second later, she pulls out a metal lighter. Ophelia chuckles. "You're like Mary bloody Poppins."

"Fi!"

"Right, sorry, sorry." Taking a deep breath, she grabs onto the safe and quickly gestures a hand to Lydia to go down by Boyd's feet that are hanging over the edge, the only parts of his body that aren't covered in liquid. "When I say go, burn him." The girl curtly nods, flicking the catch a few times until the flame burns brightly. Closing her eyes, Ophelia lifts the safe up, surprising herself and her friends at how easily she does it. It's much lighter than she assumed it would be, maybe because there's nothing inside it. "Now," she directs to Lydia. Just as she utters it, she spins around and lets safe crash onto the floor. The tiles crack and splinter upon impact.

The second the words leave her tongue, Boyd's eyes are snapping open and glowing golden. The werewolf lurches up out of the bath in a panic, and a deafening roar fills the room as he gasps in pain. Immediately leaving whatever trance he had been in, his face morphs into one of surprise at the three teenagers standing before him, and his eyes finally find the safe tossed in the corner.

Ophelia gives him a small smile and holds her hand out for him to grab onto. "C'mon, it's a long story that we still can't fully tell you."

Pulling himself up, Boyd breathes heavily as water cascades down from his soaking clothes, leaving large puddles on the tiles as he steps out of the bath. "W-what the hell just happened?"

Stiles hands the boy a dry towel hanging off the shower screen, and Ophelia goes to give him all the information that they know but pauses and falls silent. Both Lydia and Stiles share a look. "What is it?"

She softly sighs and holds her hand out to Lydia for the lighter. Even though the girl is still confused by her friend, she gives it without asking a question. "Isaac," Ophelia says. As she approaches one of the beds, the whimpering and quiet sobs become clearer. Crouching down, she looks underneath and sighs once more finding the Lahey boy shaking, his body pushed up against the back wall. "Hey, dude, you wanna come out of there?"

She shuffles around the bed until she is close enough to grab onto one of his hands, not letting go despite his protests and terrified exclamations. "No! No, stop!"

As soon as the flame touches his palm, Isaac cries out in pain, yet calms down considerably. "C'mon, Iz," Ophelia coaxes softly. "You're okay, no one's gonna hurt you. It's just me, Fi, your friend. Remember me? I'm not gonna hurt you."

After a few moments, Isaac reluctantly gets out from underneath the bed, his hands still trembling as his right palm begins to heal from the burn. Ophelia doesn't hesitate to pull him into a hug, recognising the incredibly familiar signs of a PTSD episode. Tears continue to stream down his cheeks as he clutches onto the girl like she is his anchor, Ophelia rubbing soothing circles on his shirt that is now completely drenched in sweat.

"You're okay, I got you."

⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡ ⋆

So far, the night had been physically and mentally draining. A lot of both. She couldn't remember how long it had been since she last drank blood, and her bones were aching. Ophelia felt like someone had set fire to her lungs, the constant urge to just rip into one of her friend's necks the most prominent thought in her mind. But she can't. She knows she can't. She has to put aside the crippling bloodlust and focus on finding Scott. They have to find Scott. No one had seen him and based on what had occurred over the last hour, it's becoming more and more evident that that means bad news. Really, really bad news.

"I can't find him anywhere," Allison stresses as they meet up on a stairwell.

Stiles shakes his head, trying not to think of the worst-case scenario like Ophelia already is. They quickly run down the steps that lead to the parking lot, and all of their eyes dart around for any sign of their friend. "It's happening to him too, isn't it?"

"It has to be," Lydia replies.

First, she smells the gasoline. The litres and litres of gasoline that have been poured somewhere; somewhere close. Next, she hears his shallow and panicked breathing. When her alert eyes finally lock onto his figure in the distance, Ophelia swears her heart actually stops beating. She swears that just for a few split seconds, she dies again. Because, she hadn't admitted it to herself before, but Scott McCall means a hell of a lot more to her that she initially thought he did. "Oh, fuck," she whispers in terror.

The trio beside her look at her in confusion, unsure of why she is suddenly so petrified. So petrified that they're all unsure whether they are looking at the Ophelia Stone they know. However, the moment they follow her line of sight, that same fear encases their bodies like someone has suddenly cut off their oxygen supply.

A few metres away from the parked yellow bus, Scott stands drenched in the flammable liquid, the empty red gasoline containers thrown off to the side. Tightly clutched in his hand is a flare, the flames licking the air as they try to find something to latch onto. He is so out of it that he either doesn't hear the group cautiously approach, or he simply doesn't care.

Ophelia attempts to swallow the thick lump in her throat, but it's not use. Tears quickly prick her eyes as she walks toward him like she is treading on eggshells. Any second he could snap. She just has to figure out a plan. Perhaps the best thing would be to dart over, rip the flare out of his hand and speed him away from the gasoline. Or to take an entirely different approach. To try and convince him to step away, like one would do with someone standing on the edge of a cliff. Like she doesn't have supernatural abilities.

"Scott?" Allison calls out, her voice breaking as she follows behind the hybrid, Lydia and Stiles following.

As they move around so they are all facing one another, only now does Ophelia find the defeat etched upon the face of her friend. Her best friend. The boy who is slowly edging closer and closer to becoming a brother. "Scott," she says, trying to make her words as clear and steady as she can. His eyes trail up to meet hers, and she gives him the best smile she can muster given the circumstances. "Hey there, buddy. Do you wanna tell me what's going on?"

The flammable liquid drips off his hair, adding to the sizeable puddles by his feet. The three words he says next breaks every single heart there with him. "There's no hope."

Shaking her head in disbelief, Allison gives him a tearful resemblance of a smile. "What do you mean, Scott? There's always hope."

He continues to stare emptily into space, like he hasn't fully registered that his four friends are with him. "Not for me... Not for Derek."

"No," Ophelia cuts in, taking a small, calculated step toward him. "You don't know that. Ennis was fine, and Derek's going to be fine because it's Derek. None of this was your fault, okay?"

"Every time I try to fight back, it just gets worse. People keep getting hurt. People keep getting killed."

With his eyes locked onto his brother, Stiles swallows. "Scott, listen to me, okay? This isn't you, all right?" He takes those few steps closer to the werewolf, just now passing Ophelia and Allison. "This is someone inside your head, telling you to do this. Okay? Now-"

"What if it isn't?" Scott interjects. "What if it just is me? What if doing this is actually the best thing that I could do for everyone else?" He occasionally stutters, the sobs coming up to break his words.

Finally, the unshed tears fall straight from Ophelia's eyes onto the concrete below her. What he reveals is like a kick straight to the gut, because once she had thought the same for herself. Until she found her own form of hope. Or more like Niklaus Mikaelson found her. She steps a little closer to Stiles so that she is able to speak straight into his ear. "I can get him out of here, just say the word." The subtle shake of his head makes her close her eyes in defeat, but she doesn't protest any further. He has to have some sort of plan.

"It all started that night; the night I got bitten. You remember the way it was before that?" Now, Scott is looking directly into Stiles' eyes. "You and me, we were... we were... we were nothing. We weren't popular. We weren't good at lacrosse. We weren't important. We were no one. Maybe I should just be no one again. No one at all."

The flare in Scott's hand shifts slightly, and something in Stiles flips. He casts one brief glance to the blonde beside him, and they speak through silence, his eyes searching hers for support. A shaky exhale leaves Ophelia's lips and she knows that she has to let him try. That's all the confirmation he needs, and his gaze falls back to the boy. "Scott, just listen to me, okay? You're not no one." A step forward. "Okay, you're someone." Another few steps. "Scott, you're my best friend. Okay? And I need you. Scott, you're my brother."

Lydia grips tightly onto Ophelia's hand as they watch the two boys silently cry. "You-"

"I know," the hybrid whispers to her. "Just wait a minute." She would be the backup. However, when Stiles' foot lands in the puddle of gasoline, she begins to rethink all of the decisions she had made in the last sixty seconds.

Stiles looks up to meet his best friend's eyes again, his lips trembling as tears continue to drop down his cheeks. "S-So, if you're gonna do this, then..." One hand grasps around the flare. "I think you're just gonna have to take me with you, then." Stiles gently grabs onto the flare and slowly pulls it out of Scott's grip that is loosening.

His mistake is that he blindly tosses it away.

It lands far too close than he would have wanted it to.

Scott breaks down as he finally comes out of whatever trance that had been binding the werewolves all night, and his tears mix with the gasoline coated on his skin.

Ophelia is the one to spot the flare move. It flinches once, just a few millimetres. Although it's enough for her to jump into action. A second later, it properly rolls, heading straight toward the two boys that are about to embrace each other into a tight hug. Her eyes widen in terror and her heart gets to a pace where she's slightly worried her ribcage would fracture.

"No!"

Her loud shriek collects everyone's attention, and before they can blink, she has Scott and Stiles safely away down the carpark, then going back for Lydia and Allison. Milliseconds later, explosions reach their ears, and the group of five watch as the area they had been crowded around erupts into a huge burst of roaring flames.

⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡ ⋆

The remaining four hours without light consisted of Ophelia isolating herself from the others. After whatever the fuck they had just been through, it was the last thing she wanted to do, but she was thinking about the safety of her friends, and that's all that really mattered. She hated to admit it to herself, but her control had slowly been slipping away over the last couple of weeks. She wasn't sure why, though she knew for a fact that it wasn't benefiting her or anyone around her. For a little while, the girl had managed to find various ways to help manage the predatory hunger she felt every second of the day; also known as her Ripper side.

She got around an hour of sleep, it only being interrupted by Lydia knocking on her door. Ophelia could hear from the racing heartbeat that something had her best friend worried. She just didn't realise the worry was focused on herself, until Lydia offered to be her temporary human blood bag.

Right then, she realised that she had found her platonic soulmate. The fact that Lydia would bravely suggest it in the first place meant more to her than the human would ever know. It took some convincing, but Ophelia finally gave in, reassuring herself and Lydia that she would only take a few mouthfuls.

It took a shitload of restraint, but she did.

After offering her blood to heal the puncture marks on the girl's neck, Ophelia had agreed to go stay the rest of the hour in the bus with everyone else. It wasn't much, but even just a few gulps of the scarlet liquid did absolute wonders. There were some moments where Lydia would have to warn her that the veins under her eyes had appeared involuntarily, but aside from that, the hybrid would be able to manage the drive back to Beacon Hills without killing anyone.

She and Lydia are playing a game of cards they had found when the door to the small vehicle is yanked open and the fresh morning air flows inside. None of the others awaken, that is until the shrill whistle blasts into the vehicle. "I don't want to know," Coach yells out, his eyes narrowing as he looks between the two girls that are wide awake and the other five that are slowly stirring. "I really don't want to know. But in case you missed the announcement, the meet's cancelled, so we're heading home." Turning to the side, he gestures for the rest of the students to come inside. "Pack it in! Pack it in!"

Ophelia giggles as she shares an amused look with Lydia, then turns around to check on her friends. Scott and Stiles are seated on either of the two rows behind and Allison is on the other side of the aisle. Boyd and Isaac are at the very back at the bus, both just as eager as each other to be so rudely awoken.

The blonde's small smile quickly drops as Ethan walks past her and takes the empty seat beside Scott so he can talk to herself and the boys. Lydia gives her a reassuring glance before heading over to Allison so that they can have a private moment. "I don't know what happened last night, but I'm pretty sure you saved my life."

"To be honest, I'm looking at it like it was more of a group effort," Stiles tries, his lips pursing together when he receives exasperated looks. "Sorry."

Ethan's eyes flick to Ophelia, and after a moment of silence she replies to him with an eerily calm voice. "I'm not entirely regretting it right now, but it doesn't mean I won't later."

He rolls his eyes in response and hesitates, seemingly arguing with himself on whether he should say something or not. "So... I'm gonna give you something. We're pretty sure Derek's still alive."

Now it's Ophelia's turn to roll her eyes. "I could've told you that. The guy has nine lives." But Scott seems to take him seriously, not finding any part of the girl's reply to be humorous. She scoffs. "You won't believe me, but you do with him? Fuck me."

"But he killed one of ours," Ethan continues. "That means one of two things can happen. Either he joins our pack-"

"And kills his own-"

"Or Kali goes after him," the Alpha interrupts Scott. "And we kill him. That's the way it works."

Ophelia's eyes subtly narrow when she catches Scott's gaze briefly move to her, the boy thinking back to how she had casually slipped out yesterday that she had been the one to murder Ennis. Although she trusts that Peter and Cora wouldn't say a word (they seem far too intimidated by her to risk spilling the secret), she isn't as sure about Scott, even though she wants to be.

Ethan doesn't notice the exchange as Stiles unintentionally saves them both from any potential questioning. "You know, your little code of ethics there is sort of barbaric, just FYI..."

When Ethan walks away and they are out of earshot, Ophelia turns to Scott. "If you say a single word-"

"Yeah, I know," he whispers back. "We'll deal with it later."

Stiles' brows furrow as he jumps into the seat next to Scott and looks between the two in confusion. "Deal with what later?" He slowly nods when Ophelia points to her ears, understanding that whatever it is can't be told whilst having the risk of being overheard. "Got it."

"Coach, can I see your whistle for a second?" Lydia doesn't give the man a chance to respond as she stands up and takes the whistle off his neck, inspecting it closely before returning to her previous seat beside the hybrid. The boys, Allison, and Ophelia watch in interest as she blows the whistle, the usually shrill sound muffled by her hands covering any openings.

The shock on her own face is then mirrored by the four as she turns her palm around to show them what has come out of it. Ophelia closes her eyes briefly and leans her head back onto the window. "Wolfsbane," she murmurs.

With wide eyes, Stiles continues to stare at the violet powder. "So, every time Coach blew the whistle on the bus, Scott, Isaac, Boyd, Ethan, and Fi-"

"We all inhaled it," Scott finishes.

"You were all poisoned by it."

"Explains why it didn't work on me," Ophelia adds, grimacing as she gently pushes Lydia's hand away from her. "I'm so sorry, I should've recognised the smell yesterday..."

"No, it's not your fault," Scott quickly reassures her, giving her a pointed look that only partially washes away the guilt she feels.

"So, that's how the Darach got in their heads," Stiles concludes. "That's how they did it." Making a split-second decision, he grabs the whistle out of Lydia's hand and leans over Scott to open the window and chucks it out onto the road.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey, Stilinski!"

𝘏𝘪 𝘮𝘺 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘴!!

𝘐 𝘏𝘈𝘋 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘴' 𝘮𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦. 𝘓𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘰. 𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘢 𝘩𝘶𝘨𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘰𝘣𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘪𝘯 𝘚𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘰𝘯 6, 𝘴𝘰 𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘖𝘧𝘪 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘴𝘩 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘺 😭

𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘐 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘮𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘭, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘺 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘦𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘭𝘦.

𝘏𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘬𝘢𝘺 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘰𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳,
𝘓𝘪𝘷 𝘹𝘹