♡ 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 ♡
𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 fifty-two

killer queen

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

DALLAS STOOD IN THE BASEMENT OF THE SCHOOL, MALIA AT ONE SIDE AND SCOTT AT THE OTHER. 

They had spent the last hour looking for any sort of way in. A door. A passcode. Anything. That's when Stiles pulled the stock shelf aside and stepped back to examine the giant symbol that was etched into the wall. 

Scott and Stiles ran their hands across it while Dallas cocked her head to the side. "Look at the cracks in the wall," Stiles mumbled. "It's like the entrance outside, it only opens with claws."

"Anyone's claws.. right?" 

The two boys shared a look that Dallas didn't quite understand. She could easily read their minds - however - she wasn't too comfortable with that either. She had heard a lot of things she'd rather forget through that. 

Abruptly, they both turned to look at Malia. "Malia, can you try?"

Giving an unsure glance to Dallas, Malia flickered her eyes back to the two boys. "Why me?"

Kira had that same look. Guilt. "I don't have control." he lifted up his palm to show his claws - or rather, lack thereof. 

The Tate nodded along with a slow pace. "Okay, I'll do it." she stared between them and at the wall. "But first tell me what you've been hiding from me."

They both stuttered at her request which caused Dallas to cross her arms rather defensively. The last time she checked, nobody was hiding anything. That was the unspoken rule between the pack. Sure, she kept her mother a secret - but only to give herself time to adjust. This wasn't like that. This was cowardice. 

"I know you think you're trying to protect me, but I can handle it." Malia's voice grew a little louder and she turned to Dallas. "I promise!"

Dallas was at a loss for words. What was so hard to say?

"I know I'm on the list," she spoke to Scott who avoided her look. Yet, his head snapped up to the teenage she-wolf. 

"Yeah.. yep." Stiles turned to the girl after sharing a look with Scott. 

She hummed in satisfaction before stepping forward and pushing past the two boys and sliding her nails into the puzzle. Her palm switched left to right before the door buckled open. As the group descended into the vault, Dallas walked beside Scott and mumbled lowly to him. 

"You know I could easily find out what you're hiding by peering into that little head of yours, but I didn't." she watched as he turned to look at her with a twinge of concern and guilt. "Be thankful for that. I gave you a choice. Don't take that away from me."

He didn't respond, but rather, pulled the phone into his pocket and hid away what words spilt across the screen. 

LIST UPDATED.

DALLAS GARCIA - 28 MILLION. 

"I'm not hiding anything." Scott shook his head.  Dallas gave him a sceptical look but ignored his heavy sigh. "But you are."

"What?" She directed her look to him, and eventually, Kira, Malia and Stiles stared between them. 

Dallas stumbled back as he abruptly turned to face her. "I had another look at the list. Who the hell is Sybil?"

Dallas raised an eyebrow. "Scott, you have no idea what you're talking about-"

"No, I do. Is there another siren we have to worry about?"

Dallas grew quiet while her look fell sour. "What do you mean 'worry about'?" she spoke with a scoff. "Scott, she's not gonna eat you."

"She's a killer, Dallas-"

"She's just like me, Scott!" She spoke over him before dropping her hands to her sides. "If she's a killer, then what am I?"

He pulled her aside and spoke quieter. "You're different, okay?" he frowned. "I know you, I don't know her - and I'll take her down If I have to."

"That doesn't even make any sense-"

Scott shook his head in dismay. "I'm not asking for your permission, Dallas. I'm just letting you know. You, I know how to deal with-"

 Kira took a step back away from the shelves of membrane and water as they all came to a slow boil. "Deal with?" Dallas knitted her eyebrows. "What do you mean, deal with?"

He ran a hand over his mouth. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah, it sounds an awful lot like control." her shoulders drooped with disappointment. 

Scott avoided her look. "Some people need to be."

Dallas shook her head from side to side with knitted eyebrows. "You sound like Peter," she spoke with a bitter tone. "Thing is, Peter didn't pretend to be my friend."

The McCall swallowed down the hurt in his throat. "I am your friend-"

"Then why would you even entertain the idea of hurting my au-" Dallas stopped herself mid-sentence. She didn't want him to know that much. "-someone like me."

Stiles wanted to get involved, to pull both of the people he cared deeply for apart and give them time to cool off. But when he tried to, Kira pulled him back by his arm. She gestured to Dallie's scales that waved over her skin and Scott's claws and red eyes that cracked through his cheery demeanour. 

Someone was gonna get hurt. 

"Can you promise me she wouldn't hurt us?" Scott stepped forward with glowing eyes while she fell silent. "I can deal with you, but not another. Not more of them."

She dropped her shoulders in a sense of disappointment and mumbled lowly. "An abundance of werewolves and it's fine, but one too many sirens and suddenly it's a problem?" she scoffed and took a step back. "You know what? Take a hit at Sybil. Take one at my mother if it really pleases you, but don't say I didn't try and stop you." she tried to push past but he took a grasp at her arm.

While his eyes flickered to Stiles, who shook his head from side to side. Then to Kira, who held a sympathetic look on her face. Then finally, to Malia, who just seemed really confused.

He tore his eyes away and lay them on Dallas. "We got your number wrong." he paused.  "It's not in the thousands. Its Million. 28 Million. Higher than Sybil's." Scott swallowed. "They want you dead more than any of us. Why?"

"I don't know," she responded, but deep down, she knew that her entire being was for destruction - and that could prove itself just as useful as the Kanima was. 

"Truth is, Scott, you can't deal with me either. You never could." Dallas responded coldly. "No matter what I do, you're never gonna see me as part of your pack because of what I am."

Scott felt the tension linger in the room like a lost ghost. "Dallas, you're like a sister to me."

"Even when I'm just like them?"

Stiles stepped forward and tried to ease that very tension. He didn't want to see his best friend and girlfriend fight. "This is what they want. They want us to turn on each other."

Dallas ignored the words of her true love and instead narrowed her eyes at Scott McCall. "Don't need them to do that." she taunted Scott. "Just admit it, Scott, you're still scared of me."

"Fine, yeah, I am!" Scott finally snapped. He tried his best not to say it - to write it off as something else, but he couldn't. "You eat people, for god's sake. You can do things with your mind that even Peter can't fully understand. What happens when you become a threat-"

Something tore at Dallie's heartstrings right then and there. She put everybody she cared about in danger. And even when she did everything in her power to protect those she loved, they'd throw it back in her face with those very words. "What do you mean, when?"

Scott froze. "I mean.. I meant if." 

Dallas breathed heavily. "You said when." she paused. 

He dropped his gaze to his feet. "You're dangerous, Dallas. I've always gotta be prepared."

"So are you." she spat. "Difference is, I own it." 

And with that, she shoved past his shoulder and headed for the vault door. The tension was like a heavy blanket of snow that sat on the shoulders of the pack - freezing them in place and restricting them from speaking. 

Malia broke the icy silence as Dallas reached the door. "Where are you going?"

Dallas didn't look back at any of them. While her voice was confident and posture high, her eyes stung with tears she didn't want them to see. She cleared her throat slightly and swallowed. "Out." Dallas breathed in the fresh air and stepped outside the vault door while not bothering to look back.

Scott McCall flickered his eyes to Stiles who held the same look of worry. Worry for Dallas. Worry of Dallas.

After all, Dallas Garcia was an enigma. 

She was caring, protective and effortlessly passionate - but also intelligent and manipulative. A shark in their small pond.

However, the enigma herself didn't feel so high. She left her friends behind and the water was the only one to follow. Dallas, deep inside, wished she had stayed dead sometimes. 

The Stilinski boy glanced between them all before finally muttering under his breath. "Fuck this." he cursed before leaping out the vault door too. "Dallas, wait up!"

She didn't wait up. The Siren did anything but lower the distance between them as she rushed through the school halls and into a classroom to catch her breath.

The Maneater found herself running away from her problems again. Perhaps she was more like her mother than she'd like to admit. But it was an effective solution. She needed space - and she wasn't gonna get that in the Hale vault.

"Hey, come on, stop."  he pulled her arm gently and watched as she returned around with a heavy sigh and slightly wet eyes before running his thumb across her bare skin. "Scott.." he paused while taking a moment to choose the right words. "Scott's just trying to help."

Dallas ran her hands over her eyes. "So is everybody but they never actually do, Stiles." she dropped her hands to her sides. "If he even approaches Sybil, she's not gonna think twice about killing him - and then that's on me. All of it's on me-"

"He won't." He spoke over her while running figure eights over her skin in an attempt to calm her down. "He's just protective of the pack. Which includes you."

Before she could speak once more, Dallas cocked her head to the side while glancing away from his eyes. Behind the two was a mustard-yellow cup stamped with inky fingerprints. Stiles picked it up and examined it while took a step forward to him. 

"Careful, Stiles, you don't know what's on that." she stood behind him while he nodded at her concerned warnings. 

Although, before she could comment further on it, a voice broke their silence. "I was wondering how that idiot got sick." 

Both teenagers turned their heads to him and almost instinctively, Stiles stood in front of Dallas with his hand stretched out. Stood in the doorway with a distasteful smile was their test teacher. "I'm also wondering where the rest of your friends are."

He ran his hand against the gun he held in his hand. "Since in order to get paid by The Benefactor, I need proof they're dead." 

Stiles felt her pull away from his arm and instead stand beside him with a bitter look. "I'm not afraid of your little toy gun." 

The maneater had endured her throat being torn out, neck snapped, being beaten down and an entire bomb eruption. A few bullets were child's play. 

The assassin's eyes then lay on her. "No, but I have a little toy of my own for you." he then reached behind him and glistening under the fluorescent light was something Dallas felt drawn to. Something missing from the floorboards of Sybil's warehouse. 

The Tuning Fork. 

He slammed it roughly against the desk and watched as Dallas fell helplessly to her knees while clutching her temples. Her brain frazzled underneath the echoing and just like that, stunned her to her very core. 

But for the assassin, it was almost poetic how a creature of such power fell powerless so quickly. Hisses and cries of pain slipped out her mouth while Dallas internally begged for the pain to stop. For everything to stop. 

Stiles attempted to drop by her side and help whatever part of her hurt the most. However, the buckle of the gun caught his attention and with a swift knock to the side, forced him to back away from her until he lifted his hands in surrender. 

"You want visual confirmation." Stiles spat while clenching his jaw at his girlfriend's helpless cries of agony. 

A smirk toyed the man's lips. "Exactly."

☆ word count: 2,222. ☆

a/n: i have something planned for the villain arc i think yall are gonna love