♡ 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 ♡
𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 fifty-four

don't blame me.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

STILES STILINSKI LAY HUNCHED OVER HIS JEEP while Scott sat slumped on the hood. It was the night before their new semester and they spent it discussing colleges under the pattering rain.

"We could try Nob Hill," he scratched the pen against the paper and huffed silently. "But the Jeep would probably burn through a lot of clutches."

Scott raised a brow. "You're bringing the Jeep?"

The human glanced up. "You know the plan, okay?" he paused. "No one gets left behind. That's the plan. Lydia's not gonna have a problem getting into Stanford. Kira's thinking USF. Malia.. Malia's still grasping the thought."

"And Dallas?" Scott watched as he grew silent. 

Stiles tapped his pen against the paper. "She always wanted to go Harvard, you know?" he spoke through a reminiscent smile. "But she hasn't talked about it since. Not since this whole fork thing." Stiles shrugged.

He understood why. She wanted to better herself. However how selfish it sounded, he wanted to be there with her when it happened. 

"You ever see her brush her hair with it?" Scott joked while Stiles snickered. 

"She'd kill you if she heard you say that."

Scott nodded along with a glimmer of a grin. Dallas probably wanted to kill him regardless. He then frowned at the reality of it. He hadn't heard from Dallas either. A big part of him felt guilty for saying the things he did. He shouldn't have accused her family like that - or made out she was a menace to society. Scott knew how that felt during his first change and never meant to make her feel the way he had. 

Scott didn't listen to any more of his rambling and instead directed his gaze to the full moon that had sprawled out from behind the clouds. Stiles tapped his pen against his jeep and directed his look to it also. "You all right? You starting to feel it?

Scott shook his head in dismay. "No. Just thinking."

"About what?"

"Senior year." the boy muttered with an anxious look.

Stiles rolled his eyes. "Senior year? Come on, that's.. that's nothing. That's going to be easy."

The werewolf gripped the edge of the hood. "It's more like something Deaton told me once. You ever hear of the regression to the mean?"

The human cocked a brow. "No, I don't think so."

"It's basically his way of saying that life can't ever be all bad or good. You know, that eventually things have to come back to the middle." Scott recalled. "So, think about the last few months. Things have been good, right?"

Stiles nodded. 

"But not amazing?" He noticed his slump look. "At some point, the scale has to tip one way or another. Things are either gonna get really good again.."

The Stilinski dropped his gaze. "Or really bad."

Even though the rain had come to a halt, thunder crackled the sky which caused both boys to share a look. "You think it's been long enough?"

The strained voice of Liam Dunbar called out behind them and their heads dashed his way. Tied to a tree and worn out, he watched Stiles give him an unimpressed look. "Hey, trying to have an adult conversation over here."

Liam rolled his eyes. "You're like, two years older than me." he fixated his gaze on Scott. "And I'm fine. Just let me go."

His chains rattled against the tree bark. "It's not that we don't trust you-"

Stiles butted in. "It's that I don't trust you."

Scott gave him a scolding look. "But after that last full moon.." he slipped the key into the lock of his chains.

"It was one slip up!"

Stiles butted in once more with crossed arms. "Slip up? A dozen calls to the Sheriff's department about a 'monstrous dog-boy running the streets of Beacon Hills naked.' That was a slip up?"

Liam narrowed his eyes. "Probably more fixated on the calls of an alarming rate of missing men in the next town over, but you don't wanna scold Dallas about that, huh?"

Tension grew between the two before Scott spoke up. "Hey," he warned both of them. "Why were you naked, anyway?"

The newbie werewolf shrugged. "It was really hot out that night, okay?" he watched as they stood in silence. "Let me go."

"You sure you're okay?"

Liam nodded. "It won't happen again." However, when the chains dropped to the floor and the boys turned their back to him, blood dripped from his palms from his clenched claws.

Dallas wasn't the only one without control.

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Dallas Garcia knitted her eyebrows together at the smell of whiskey and cigarette smoke. A short, white cropped winter jacket was pulled over her black dress as she stared out into the bar before her glistening eyes.

Sybil elbowed her lightly in the ribs. "Come on, look alive, Dallas."

Dallas had spent hours upon hours with her aunt's perfecting her every movement- every emotion. However, the one emotion she couldn't control was the guilt.  Dallas had a kill count now. One that seemed to grow by the second. One out for a bit of late-night fishing - the other pointing a gun to a boyfriend.

It was a coin toss between the two. You'd say one deserved to die and the other didn't. But who were you to play God?

More importantly, who was Dallas?

Dallas didn't step inside but instead wrapped her arms around herself and stared down at her destructive hands with teary eyes. "I can't." She glanced out at the innocents who stood idly in the bar glancing up at its inhabitants like eye candy. "You know what Scott said-"

Sybil snapped at her niece. "Scott said this, Scott said that. You don't have to please anyone but yourself." She gripped the side of her shoulders and pulled her aside. "Now, stop the tears."

Dallas clenched her jaw. "I can't!" She grew disgusted. "Don't you get it? It's all I see when I close my eyes. It's all I think about. God, do you realise how sickening it is to have intrusive thoughts about eating your friends?"

Sybil spoke through clenched teeth. "You can't handle it?"

Dallas swallowed and ran her hands over her face. "I don't know if I can."

The siren grew quiet, leaning her wet hair back and taking a glance at the teenage disaster. "I just.. for one day I wish it would stop. I eat someone alive and the guilt eats me right back." she snapped. "I can't focus, I can't even sleep without thinking about it."

The rock music pumped from the bar and her teary eyes caused the fairy lights to blur into an iridescent red. "Then make it stop." Sybils voice barely buzzed over the loud music.

Dallas wiped away one tear and swallowed down the sob. "What?"

"It would've saved you so much trauma if you just knew how to turn it off." She tucked a strand of hair before wiping away a rogue tear with her thumb. "Vampires call it a switch. Hopping in-between a state of empathy and sociopathy."

Her words were jumbled to Dallas. "That's not funny, Sybil." She hissed and slapped her hand away. "Stop being mean." the siren wiped a tear away.

Her aunt slapped her hands on the side of her shoulders and held a blank expression. "Emotions make you human, Dallas." She lifted her hand to the barmaid to call for a drink. "That's your problem. Your entire being is linked to emotion. You cant be a wreck and expect no fallout." Sybil shrugged.

"I'm not a wreck-"

"You're the biggest wreck I've ever seen, Dallie." Sybil huffed. "And I used to sink ships to make a living."

Dallas felt sour words drip from her lips but swallowed them down when she turned back to her.

 "Listen," Sybil spoke once more and dropped to her knees in front of Dallas, who had taken a seat on the bench outside. "You can sit here, and you can cry all you want about it, but you can't take back what you are. And you haven't gotta apologise for it. You just gotta live with it."

Dallas toyed with her rings that lay on her dainty fingers. "What if it's not just the murders.. but everything else?"

"Like your mom?"

Dallas dropped her gaze. "Like everything." she laughed humorlessly with teary eyes. "I feel like I know myself and then there's another big secret nobody told me about. It messes with you after a while." she swallowed. "Like how it's always just been me and my dad. Now.. there's just people everywhere. Some are supposed to be family but how can I trust anyone but myself when it's all I've ever known?"

Sybil was silent which made Dallas frown. She was oversharing. She never really spoke about things like that to be people in fear of doing that very thing. 

She looked up with knitted eyebrows and a conflicted look. "What if Peter picked the wrong person for this kind of stuff?" she frowned. "What If I can't live with it?"

Sybil tilted her head to the side and pursed her lips. "Then you turn it off until you learn how."

Dallas scoffed dryly and brushed her hair out of her face. "I wish I could."

Sybil gave her a stern look and narrowed her eyes. "You can," Sybil's voice was now louder over the music around them as teats streamed down the teenager's face. "I've seen it. I've done it. Just take that little switch," she pressed her finger in between her ribs, "And turn it off."

"But when they come back on.. it's ten times worse." She warned her with a heavy sigh. "And it's never worth it," Sybil spoke to Dallas with ease.

Dallas didn't respond but swallowed down the tears. "We're all wrecks, you know? You just gotta know when to ditch the ship and when to rebuild." she wrapped her arms around her shoulders, embracing her niece in a hug and mumbling into her jacket. "I hope you choose the latter."

Dallas didn't know what that meant - or why Sybil was repeating it at her, but before she knew it the tears had stopped. Her sobs had died down and all the mellow feelings inside of her had melted away while her eyes became drifted out and dry shorelines. 

She wrapped her arms back around Sybil's and lay her chin on her shoulder before sighing beside her ear. "You should've said that first." her words caused Sybil to knit her eyebrows and instinctively turn her head. Although, before she could, Dallie's hands dropped to her neck and snapped it swiftly to the side. 

With her unconscious body leaning against the Garcia's, she shoved her backwards and watched as she fell to the floor. "God, how you blab on." Dallas tapped her body with the heel of her boot. "I just.. I heard the ship metaphor and I just had to kill you. It was torture."

She then stretched her arms out and breathed in the cold air while eyeing out the groups of bystanders outside the club. "So, who wants to get me a drink?"

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

"Your friend, is she alright?" 

Dallas glanced up at the barmaid who had his dishrag stuffed into his back pocket and his hands leant against the countertop.

She mustered up the sweetest smile she could and picked out the cherry from her cocktail. "Oh, she's fine." Dallas took a look back at Sybil who was unconsciously slouched in a booth while a pair of sunglasses lay on her face. "She just can't handle her drink." the Siren mumbled before placing the cherry between her teeth and pulling at the stem. 

He watched idly before clearing his throat. "You, uh, you sure you're old enough to be here?" the man knitted his eyebrows. "Let me see your ID."

Her expression visibly drooped. "Okay, okay," she held her hands up in defence and chewed on her bottom lip. "I may have told a little white lie."

He attempted to shake his head in dismay but froze when she leant over the countertop and ran her fingers up the veins on his arm. "But before I go, can I tell you a little secret?"

With a clenched jaw and impure thoughts, he felt her breath fan against his ear. "You've been eyeing up every girl in here like eye candy for the past hour. You got a wife and kids, Connor, what are you doing?"

His face drained of all colour as she patted her hand on his chest. "You gotta put a filter on those thoughts of yours," she glanced back over to her glass and took a heavy swig. "I mean, you don't want the wrong person to hear them, right?" she covered her mouth with the side of her hand and bit back a ruthless laugh. 

Connor clenched his jaw. "Who sent you? Was it my wife? I-"

Dallas shushed him. "Quiet, I'm talking." she knitted her eyebrows with another swig. "But no, not your wife. She is a looker though, isn't she? You're lucky I don't have a taste for women."

"What do you want from me?"

Dallas quirked a brow and leant back beside his ear. "I want you to stop talking." her voice hummed beside his skin before her teeth buried into his neck and tasted the sticky liquid that poured over his attire. She pulled away, her fangs digging into her bottom lip and blood coated over her cheeks as he stumbled back with a panicked hand pressed against his wound. 

Oddly, the surrounding bystanders didn't pay much notice but laughed and drank over his tiresome cries. He glanced to Dallas, spitting blood and widened eyes. "Oh, they don't care." she leant against the bar and flicked the umbrella out of her cocktail. "I'm quite the outgoing type, Connor, it didn't take me long to wiggle my way into the minds of a few drunks."

She slapped her hands against the countertop before laying her hand on her palm. She watched him lose both blood and consciousness and tapped her finger against her lip. "You know, It's my first day of senior year tomorrow. I wanna look my best. I have this whole outfit planned with these new boots," she took a step back and tried to replicate how it looked with her hands. "But I'm a little too pale for it right now. Like, Wednesday Addams pale. It's so not cute."

"You're insane," he managed to blurt out through blusters of blood. 

Dallas frowned. "You're right." she fiddled with her hands and turned away. "Maybe I should go with some heels-"

Her head turned back to him and he slid against the cash register and dropped to the floor in a puddle of his own blood. He clambered and clawed at the floor away from her while her heeled boots took a momentary step closer each time. 

"You smell that?" Dallas asked rhetorically, crouching beside him and pulling back at the strands of his hair so he looked up. "Fear. It always tastes better when they're scared."

He gave her a sour look while she chuckled lightly. "And you Connor? well, you're terrified."

Before he could muster up a reply through his bloodied coughs, her nails sunk into his skin and tore it away from his bones. Yelps of anguish and pure terror echoed through the night before loud music and laughing overpowered him. Instead, splotches of red liquid covered the walls and splattered over the cocktail glass. 

As Dallas fed, her bites become harsher and ruthless. Her claws sunk deep enough into his skin that they carved out into the wood beneath him. While she tasted his flesh on her tongue and washed it down with the fluid that coursed through his veins, the Siren drew her head back and felt it run down her chin and seep into her chest. 

Sybil, however, fell in-between stages of consciousness. Her eyes would stifle open for a few seconds to see Dallas feeding upon another poor soul, then another, and eventually, littering the bar with liverless men. 

When they opened for a final time and adjusting to the light, Dallas stood with a cocktail in one hand and a jerrycan in the other. Gasoline wavered through the air and gave Sybil a bigger headache than she expected. 

Leaning forward, Sybil gripped the edge of the table at the sight of many corpses that lay beside her. On the chalkboard behind the bar, the specials were wiped away and a number was instead painted across it in chalk. 

14.

Dallas glanced between her and the board while pouring the gasoline over the almost fleshless corpse. "It's my tally." she hummed. "So far."

"You killed fourteen men?"

"I ate fourteen men," she corrected her, taking a sip of her cocktail which now had a much deeper red hue to it. "I saved you one, though."

Sybil couldn't utter a word before a mind-drunk and wasted middle-aged man was shoved towards her. He stumbled over the gasoline-soaked floor and fell into the booth behind her with a rough grunt. 

"What are you doing?" She took an experimental step forward while Dallas dropped the canister to the floor. 

Meeting her eyes, utterly remorseless and dead, Dallas flicked open the lighter she had stolen from one of their pockets. "Burning the evidence, duh."

"What?" was all Sybil could muster up. 

"My boyfriend's dad is a cop. I'm not doing dinner dates in jail," she spoke with an obvious tone while the flames licked the edge of the lighter. "Besides, orange washes me out."

"You turned it off, didn't you?" her voice echoed through the empty bar. 

Dallas fell silent. "I'm better this way, you'll see." 

When the teenager stepped outside, Sybil at her side and streetlights soaking up their presence, she tossed the flame into the puddle of gasoline and watched as the flames climbed the brickwork of the bar. Its electric sign engulfed into hellfire and bust the glass windows that surrounded it. With the flames reflecting in her eyes and blood splashed over her white jacket, Dallas' face stretched out into a sickening smile. 

Sybil would see. Just like everyone in Beacon Hills would. They all thought they had seen the worst of Dallas Garica - but she reigned down Hell when she brought her humanity with her. Without them? she would turn Beacon Hills into the place. 

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Dallas started the morning on an unusual high. When she jumped out of bed, she immediately sat at her vanity and ran her fingers across her porcelain skin. Her eyes were brighter and her cheeks much less sunken in. Like magic, her lips became a deeper pink and her face had softened overnight. 

Dallas placed two fingers on her lips and placed them back onto the mirror before turning aside. She had truly never felt better. She wasn't overcome with insecurity, pain or regret. Just following her basic instinct to do whatever it was she wanted. 

When she walked through the school hallways, her boots echoed with every step. Her hair bounced over her shoulders and a thick pair of sunglasses rested on her face. While she chewed on bubblegum and ignored the stares, Dallas found Lydia at her side. 

"I've been calling you all morning," Lydia linked her arm with hers while the teenager stared blankly ahead. "It's like trying to contact the CIA. Where the hell have you been? I need total fashion advice this morning." she joked dryly. 

Dallas, although, gave her an unamused look. "I know, I can tell." she hummed humorlessly. "I was out last night." 

Lydia brushed off the slightly mean comment and cleared her throat. "Stiles didn't say anything about going o-"

"Cause I don't need his permission." Dallas scrunched up her face. "You know, Lyds, if you're just distracting me so Scott can walk this way to chat me up about responsibility, I'm gonna kick him in the face."

Malia appeared at her side and glanced between them. "Kick who in the face?"

Right down the hall, Scott McCall, Kira Yukimura and most importantly, Stiles Stilinski slipped into the school's accommodation too. "You don't find it highly suspicious?" Stiles turned to his best friend.

"I'm kind of more concerned about the guy who just tried to kill me."

Rolling her eyes, Dallas crossed her arms as Scott met her eyes and narrowed them. "Woah, it's icy today, are you on your period or something?" Lydia mumbled.

"Oh, it's not that." Malia hummed and readjusted the strap of her bag. "It's Scott."

Dallas held a bored look. Lydia quirked a brow. "Oh, right, I heard all about that little squabble you guys had. Seriously, Dallie, when have you cared what Scott thought?"

Malia shrugged. "Squabble?" She shook her head. "It reminded me of hunting season."

Dallas dropped her hands. "Yeah, I would like to put his head on a wall mount, actually."

Lydia watched the group descend behind them. "Might wanna erase that thought cause Scott and Stiles are coming right this way."

Dallas narrowed her eyes and just as she suspected, the small group of girls became much larger. But as Stiles entered her view, she cocked her head to the side and hummed idly. His arm slouched around her shoulders and his eyes became directed ahead while he didn't seem to notice the odd look in her eyes. 

"My dad gave me a heads up about the pop quiz today." Kira eased up the tension between the group. "Any of you guys study?"

Lydia huffed dryly. "Feels like that's all I ever do." she cleared her throat. "What about you, Dallie?"

Scott turned to the siren. "Yeah, you had lots of time when you left Beacon, right?" he not so subtly hinted at how she moved away with her aunts. 

Dallas held back the instinct to rip him apart right then and there before letting out a bitter laugh. "Lots of it." she mused. "Are you looking for a demonstration, Scooby?" her voice was bitter.

He noted that something was off about her. She seemed meaner than usual. But not wanting to add gasoline to the fire, he brushed it off. 

Stiles, on the other hand, quirked a brow. He noticed how his girlfriend looked a tad different. Ethereal, almost. But as usual, he couldn't pinpoint how exactly. When she caught his look, she allowed a grin to split across her face and ran her hand up his arm. She wasn't too sure whether she wanted to eat him or not. 

When the bell rang, dozens of students poured through the halls. While the group moved ahead with the other students, Dallas walked beside her boyfriend with a sour taste on her tongue. "You.. you seem different today. You okay?" he watched as she cocked a brow. "It's just that.. your dad gave me a call. He thought you were with me, which heh, you obviously weren't.. so I guess I got a little worried."

Dallas hummed with a sweet tone. "Don't worry, I'm perfectly fine." she scrunched up her nose. "You don't have to worry about me."

"Oh, no, I'm very worried. You haven't practised for lacrosse like.. at all this week."

"I'm naturally good, what's the problem?" Dallas quirked a brow. Even with her humanity off, it clawed its way back in with Stiles. And for that slight moment, she let it. He scoffed and turned away which she scoffed back at. 

Dallas clutched her bag to the side and watched her path through the dark-rimmed sunglasses. "I'm great at lacrosse," she crossed her arms. "Tell me I'm great at lacrosse, Stiles." 

He glanced between her and the hallways. "Then I'd be lying, Dallie." When she rolled her eyes, he snickered. "What, is praise like your thing now? Yeah, you did so well, baby."

Running her tongue over her teeth and narrowing her eyes, she hummed back. "You see this look?" Dallas referred to her face. "This is me regretting talking to you."

"Oh yeah?" He lifted both eyebrows. "Hey, you're the one who wanted praise. Is calling you a good girl going too far?"

Dallas jolted her elbow back into his gut lightly with the roll of her eyes. He barely dodged it before giving her a stern look. "Woah, not cool! Bad girl." Stiles ended his sentence with a knowing smirk. 

Dallas slipped past him towards her class and turned to give him a look of dismay. He snickered before leaning against one of the lockers outside. However, before he could tell her he loved her, he noticed the red stains underneath her nails and blinked a few times. 

He had only ever seen that once before and that was -

He shook the thought away. 

Did Dallas eat someone?

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Dallas picked at the blood that had settled underneath her cuticles and lay her head on her palm until her name was called out. She stared boredly ahead while the storm inside of her craved chaos.  "Dallas Garcia?"

She flickered her eyes up. "Here." the teen replied to the teacher rather bitterly.

The teacher tried to call out another name but the classroom door shot open. In the doorway, another senior, one Dallas didn't recognise, had his backpack slumped over his shoulder and a coy smirk on his lips.

"Sorry," his voice was rather deep and didn't hold any true compassion, but rather, formality. Below thick eyebrows were striking blue eyes that stopped at Dallas for a moment while he gave a slight nod. He lifted up the paper in his hands. "Still getting used to this new timetable."

The teacher nodded along and gestured him to the empty seats at the back. "Enough interruptions. Where's Greenberg?"

While he slipped through the door and stepped in between the lined desks, Dallas kept her gaze to the floor and worked on her running tally. Then she heard his bag drop beside her and just like that, the empty seat beside her was now taken up.

She pulled at her lower lip with the edge of her pencil and took the first look at him. He wore leather, of course, and slouched back in his seat. His breathing was slow and almost as if he sensed her look, his lips curled into a smug smile.

Her heart almost stopped - which wasn't uncommon for her - as she met eyes with someone she thought she'd never had to see again. 

"Dallas Garcia," he hummed. "And my days gets that much better, huh?"

Dallas squinted her eyes and lay her hand underneath her chin, "And mine, evidently worse." she responded after a few moments. 

His smile fell into a gruff chuckle. "Don't act like you didn't miss me."

Dallas Garcia knew of Theo Raeken. More than she'd probably like to admit. Before Stiles, Dallas never labelled herself as a relationship person. Theo, however, was a slight expectation. He was a fling. A flame, even. One that had fizzled out as abruptly as Theo decided to pick up and leave. 

He wasn't the first to leave. And he wasn't the first to return. This time, though, Dallas wouldn't hesitate to chew him up and spit him out like old bubblegum. 

Now, it was his turn to stare at her.

His eyes lingered on her skin and up her body. His pen tapped against his desk and his tongue ran over his teeth momentarily. "I don't get a hello, for old time's sake?" he gestured to her silence.

"It was like, three years ago, Theo. You barely get an acknowledgement."

He leaned to the side slightly. "You haven't changed one bit."

She flickered her eyes back to him. "Wouldn't bet on that."

His tongue ran over his lips before they parted into a submissive smile. One of his favourite parts of Beacon Hills was the infamous Dallas Garcia. Unfortunately, he wasn't aware of just how deadly the bubblegum bitch had become.  

Still, he remained intrigued.

"Theo Raeken."

"Here."

☆ word count: 4,739. ☆

a/n: void.. dallas? no humanity dallas? ripper dallas? anyway, before i get any comments about how mean she is, that's the whole point. shes not herself !!