chapter forty
"motel glen capri"

"THIS PLACE IS A SHITSHOW stuffed into a hellhole."

      Lynn had to practically shut off her supernatural smell just so she could breath again — she could never believe that oxygen could be so dirtied just by an old and revolting, basically living off the scraps, motel.

      She cringed up her face as she could just imagine the rats trickling under the beds and the mold blossoming on the walls. Clearly, she wasn't the only student disgusted, and all the children of Beacon Hills seemed to have repulsive expressions or annoyed attitudes.

      "I've seen worse," Scott stated optimistically, earning perked eyebrows from both of his best friends on either side of his shoulders.

      "Exactly, I've seen worse, in hell," Lynn shook her head dramatically, and Stiles glanced back towards the she-wolf with a bobbing up and down head.

The puppy trio was interrupted as Coach's whistle echoed throughout the area, and Lynn annoyingly rolled her eyes at how pestering that metal whistle had become lately.

"Listen up, the meet's been pushed till tomorrow," Coach explained, and Lynn reluctantly sighed while taking another peak at the motel, and it didn't seem to look any better than the first. "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."

"Alright, boys, aren't you excited for our slumber party?" Lynn squealed dramatically on purpose, swinging both arms to collapse them over both Scott and Stiles' shoulders. "So, do we start with the boy talk, paint each other's nails, or pillow fight first?"

"Talk about boys? What boys?" Stiles rambled quickly, and Lynn pointed a suspicious eyebrow in the boys direction. "You know, what about girls? We like girls."

"Yes, we all like girls, Stiles," Lynn stated with a simple nod of her head, and then she ran her hand through the back of Stiles' hair playfully. "But do we like boys too? Because obviously, I like boys too."

"Boys, uh, let's see—"

Stiles was quickly cut off because just as he tried reaching for one of the maroon colored motel keys, Coach yanked them all back. The puppy trio came to a halt, suddenly confused as to what was wrong.

"Oh, no, you three can't be in a room," Coach explained with a warning tone, pointing his index finger solely at each and everyone teenager. "Two to a room. Um...here, Evelynn, you go off with Ethan."

Lynn clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth as she glanced over to Ethan with utter disbelief, and then back towards Coach with a simple tilt of her head.

"Uh, Coach, you do remember I tried to murder Ethan earlier, right?" Lynn fake smiled in the man's direction, and his lips seemed to form into a wide "O". "Look, really, I can just go with Scott and Stiles—"

"—Absolutely not! Only two to a room," Coach replied, and Lynn had to grit together her teeth in order to keep calm, and both of her male best friends seemed to notice the way she was beginning to unravel. "Here, LAHEY! Get your ass over here!"

Lynn practically gasped but tried to cover it as slickly as possible with a cough, and then she switched back over to Coach with a whisper as Isaac started to walk over in their direction.

"Coach, you know, I might actually be okay with Ethan if—"

"—Isaac, you are being paired up with Evelynn for the night, yeah? Perfect!" Coach spoke quickly as he clamped his hands on the backs of both Lynn and Isaac, and the two teenagers looked awfully awkward at each other and then back at Coach. And just as both werewolves peeled open their mouths to surely protest, Coach rose his palms to silence them. "It's settled, you two get your asses in 217!"

Lynn licked her dry, unamused lips as she snatched the key out of Coach's grip — mumbling plenty of choice words under her breath as she hooked her fingertips over her backpack to pick it up from the ground.

Ever since Derek's death — everything with Isaac was even more confusing than before. She was sure it was just some stage of grief, finding a supposed friend overly attractive and wanting to immediately jump into bed with them was a normal step in accepting grief, right?

"You don't seem too happy to share a room with me," Isaac shrugged his shoulders, and Lynn gazed over hers to make eye contact with him, and she rolled her eyes simply. "I mean, we've shared a bed before, completely naked, mind you—"

"—Things are different now," Lynn immediately swung on her heels, slamming the key into Isaac's chest with anger, and she adjusted her shoulders in an attempt at cooling herself down.

The last thing she needed was to become overheated like earlier. As Lynn tore her eyes from Isaac, they had accidentally drifted past his body and landed on someone standing in front of the parked yellow school bus.

Her face twisted in confusion as she swore the girl looked exactly like Lizzy, she looked exactly like her dead sister.

"Lynn? What're you looking at?" Isaac questioned as he followed Lynn's eye of sight, and when he didn't recognize a single other human outside, he rose an interested eyebrow.

Lynn rubbed her eyes for a second, figuring something was just lingering in her contact, and when she glanced back by the bus — there was no longer any girl standing beside it.

"Nothing, I was looking at nothing."

———

"Hey, I was gonna stop by the vending machine, you want anything?"

Lynn stopped brushing her growing locks of brunette hair as she peaked her head outside the bathroom — tossing her brush on the counter.

"No, I'm good," Lynn replied with a somewhat louder voice than usual, not spotting Isaac but figured he would still be able to hear her.

After a minute of Lynn throwing her hair up in a ponytail, she had heard the door swung closed and footsteps leaving the upstairs room. Lynn squeezed some of her own toothpaste — not allowing herself to trust the one the motel offered, onto her toothbrush and just as she was about to finish up, a noise from inside the room echoed out.

"What'd you forget?" Lynn playfully smirked as she set her toothbrush on the sink, and she peeled open the door to the bathroom only to have that grin instantly fade.

There wasn't a single person in the motel room with her.

"God, I must be going crazy — first Lizzy, and now some ghost?" Lynn thought to herself as she shook her head, raising both of her index fingers to rub the side of her temples. "I need sleep."

"You do need sleep, I never see you sleep."

Lynn jumped in her own bones as she heard the sickly familiar voice ringing throughout the air — and she desperately exhaled a shaky breath. She slowly peeled over her shoulder, and her jaw practically hit the ground as she saw Lizzy standing in the damn motel room with her — but unlike before, she wasn't drenched in blood from that night.

She was normal. A normal fourteen year old.

"What? Seen a ghost?" Lizzy grinned faintly with a loud chuckle, and Lynn squeezed shut her eyes as she sucked in a deep breath. "C'mon, I thought you'd be happy to see your little sister."

"You're not real," confirmed Lynn as she reluctantly peeled open her eyes again, but she was utterly surprised to still see Lizzy standing in front of her.

"Of course I'm real," Lizzy smiled, jumping a foot or so to envelope Lynn in a hug, and the brunette girl's chest caved as she felt the younger girl's arms wrap around her shoulders. "I missed you, sis."

"This can't be happening," Lynn frantically pressed her palm into her forehead, maybe she was begging herself to wake up from this dream shifting into a nightmare. "You're not real, Liz, I-I..."

Lynn stopped herself from finishing the sentence, instead flicking her tongue over her increasingly dry lips. She exhaled, just ignoring the nagging voice in the back of her head, and she instead headed for the bathroom.

      "I'm going crazy, aren't I?" Lynn wryly laughed to herself, glaring at the reflection staring back at her.

      "You've always been so dramatic, haven't you?"

      Lynn released a shaky breath as a new voice echoed throughout the air, but even though it was a new voice didn't mean that she didn't recognize it.

      Her eyes flickered back out the door, and none other than Erica was stretched on the bed Lynn had aimlessly tossed her backpack on. She rose her eyebrows towards the snarky blonde, and she just stared at the girls in her room — Lizzy and Erica.

       "Oh my God I've officially lost my mind," Lynn breathed out with a scoff, and her face was almost written with unamusement mixed with utter and complete shock.

      "I almost forgot what it was like to be alive again," chuckled Erica — who looked just as beautiful as before, other than her body being decomposed by the time they found out. She had dark eye shadow and an even darker lip look, and her blonde strands were curled outward. "How about you, Elizabeth?"

      Lizzy smiled as she collapsed onto what would be Isaac's bed, stretching out her arms over her head with a delighted sigh, "I sure have missed it, that's for sure."

      "Hey! I heard you and lover boy finally got it on," Erica smirked as she flashed the brunette a girly expression, and Lynn just stood there with confusion exploding all over her face. "Of course, you've slept with half of Beacon Hills so how would you know which one I'm talking about?"

      "You're not real," Lynn repeated while accusingly pointing her index finger in the girls direction. "I saw your body, Erica, you're not real."

      Lynn switched on her heels in an attempt at evading the two girls who seemed to be haunting her from the grave — and that was when her body unconsciously slammed into another strong chest.

      Lynn didn't even have to glance up at those emerald green eyes to be able to recognize him.

      "Yeah, you're right, Evelynn, we're not real, but you know what we are?" Derek smirked with the question, but there wasn't anything sarcastic or playful about it — it was like there was a different type of evilness growing in it. "Dead. And somehow, we're all conveniently dead because of you."

Lynn gulped anxiety as she switched to the two girls sitting on both of the queen sized motel beds. She tried her best to hide the emotion written on her face, the absolute ache in her heart from the menacing words dripping with venom from Derek, the sting of that fact she was beginning to believe them.

"No, no," Lynn shook her head repeatedly, backing a foot or so away from Derek, and she waved her finger at him threateningly. "The real Derek would never say something like that to me."

"Real Derek?" The man scoffed, and there was something about the sly smirk spreading on his cheeks. He took another step forward just as Lynn placed her other heel down, and usually this was when the excitement would bubble throughout her veins, but there was only fear stretching on her face now. "There isn't a real Derek, anymore. The real Derek is a lifeless, bloodied body that can be found at the bottom of an escalator — due to you, actually."

"Shut up," Lynn clasped her eyelids together as she silently begged herself to wake up from this nightmare, that that was the only logical thing that could explain this. "Shut up, shut the fuck up!"

Lynn dug her knuckles into both sides of her head, sucking in deep, shaky breathes through her lips — where her back unknowingly hit a wall.

"I, uh, I didn't say anything."

She jerked from her coiled position to face the now open door, only to spot a confused Isaac with furrowed eyebrows, his forehead stress lines creasing. Lynn exhaled heavily as she scanned the room frantically, but came to no avail to the three deceased.

"Evelynn? Were you talking to someone?" Isaac questioned, and then he fished out a bright red package of skittles, lightly tossing them in Lynn's direction. "I got your favorite, figured you needed it."

"I'm fine," Lynn cleared her throat as she dabbed right underneath her eyelids, some desperate tears that had threatened to spin when she seemed to see the ghosts of friends. She then glanced down to the bag of candy she had managed to catch, and flashed the boy a tight smile. "Wow, Isaac, you really didn't have to."

"It's no problem, Lynn."

Isaac proceeded to enter the room and lightly drop his coat on the bed where Lizzy had just been previously sitting — and Lynn had to tear her eyes away so it didn't seem like she was staring at him. She was delighted to no longer be haunted by the dreaded ghosts of her past — but there was a part of her frightened.

It wasn't a dream, she had been awake the entire time.

a/n: YALL HAVE NO IDEA HOW EXCITED IVE BEEN TO WRITE THIS AHHH