𝟑𝟕 , 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭

                                           ✯☾✯

Lydia Martin became enveloped in unease the second she stepped off the bus. Emotions. Emotions she could not fathom or decipher surrounded her. They whispered in her ear, begged her turn back, screamed.

All the chaos wound up inside the redhead, the confusion weaving within it and pooling in her tear ducts.

"I don't like this place," She murmured quietly, unable to divert her transfixed gaze from the motel before her.

It was a shabby building of two stories. The brickwork dipped in and out, a gaping hole embedded every few meters.

A large, flickering sign hung on for dear life to a jutted out pole of metal.

Hotel. Glen Capri.

A darkness seemed to swirl around, invisible to the eye but prominent in the soul. It was invasive, sickening and had certainly had an effect on Lydia.

"I don't think the people who own this place like his place." chuckled Lydia's best friend, Allison, a faint smile playing on her pink lips, "Besides, it's just for a night."

Allison was calm, shrugging off any worries emitted and Lydia opposed her completely, her unexplainable fear forcing her rigid.

"A lot can happen in one night." She gulped. The wrenching lure of the building was one of past tragedies hidden from it's residents.

✯☾✯

"This place gives me the creeps." Lizzie commented, following her boyfriend and Boyd like a small, lost puppy. She eyed the dimly lit hallways with its peeling walls.

"Yeah.." Boyd hummed, glancing at the girl. She, unfortunately, was in a room on her own as of the circumstances and was trying her best to stay away from it for as long as possible.

"What the hell is that?" Boyd suddenly shrieked, pointing past Lizzie, his arm shooting out fast. Lizzie jumped with a yelp spinning around to see...nothing.

Boyd then burst into manic laughter at the girl's reaction to his joke. Lizzie, however, stood staring at the empty space awaiting something to happen.

When Boyd eventually calmed down, his laughter dribbled into a sigh and he turned the pixie back around by her shoulders, pushing her forward to continue walking.

Lizzie smiled at him, blinking obviously and obliging like nothing had happened. She hummed to herself, filling gaps of silence in between the buzzing of lights above.

"And if a double decker bus. Crashes into us. To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die..."

Shaking his head, Boyd clamped his larger hand around her mouth and dragged her gently by the arm along the hallway.

He let go promptly as the pair caught up to Isaac, the tall boy quickly wrapping his arm over Lizzie's shoulder.

"As much as i'd love for you to come with," Isaac leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cheek, "Your rooms that way."

Lizzie sighed, her head twitching left along with Isaac's gesture, slightly disconnected at the darkness of the hallway ahead.

Their lips met in a tender embrace, the soft warmth of the kiss lingered on her lips as she reluctantly pulled away, a faint smile playing on her features. She glanced back at her boyfriend with a mixture of love and longing before turning to face the narrow, dimly lit hallway.

As she walked away, the ambient glow of the hallway lights cast shadows, creating an intimate yet eerie atmosphere. The sound of her footsteps reverberated, harmonizing with the distant murmur from the rooms. The walls seemed to whisper horrific secrets, and the air held a quiet intensity, amplifying the solitude of the passage and bouncing off the doors.

Room 216 came into view.

Cautiously, Lizzie turned the key in the rusty lock, the door creaking open to reveal a dimly lit, eerie motel room. The flickering light barely illuminated the worn-out furniture, casting long shadows that danced across the peeling wallpaper.

A chill ran down her spine as she stepped into the room, the air heavy with the musty scent of old memories. The silence was broken only by the distant hum of an air conditioner and the occasional creak of the aging floorboards beneath her. A flickering bedside lamp struggled to chase away the darkness, creating pockets of shadow that seemed to taunt her as they'd taunted everyone.

She rolled her overnight bag off her shoulder and it fell with a thud against the faded sheets spread along the rough and squeaking mattress.

On the wall, lazily attached with wires sticking out, was a square TV.

"Sweet!" Lizzie exclaimed, unknowingly brushing over the state of the room.

Punching as many buttons as she could on a weak remote, Lizzie sat on the bed, although it could have been mistaken for a table.

The TV flicked on. The news. Unusually, the reporter seemed to mouthing, no sound emitted.

A soft whisper, reminiscent of a comforting voice, echoed in the air. The cadence, the warmth, the unique tone wrapped around Lizzie like a comforting embrace.

Hope readied within the pixie, gleamingly desperate.

However, it was the haunting echo that bounced off the walls that made Lizzie release the voice was only a mimic of Amelia Brown's.

The room darkened and movement stumbled in the corner, shifting grotesquely around the bed.

The spectral presence bore hollow eyes and a mournful gaze, casting a chilling pallor over the room. The air grew heavy with sorrow, and Lizzie recoiled, trying to escape the clutches of this unsettling watch.

"Hi, baby.."

✯☾✯

Humans that led average, normal lives slept soundly and indifferently as the night drew on, blissfully oblivious to the terror evoked within the supernatural residents of Glenn Capri.

The driving force for suicide attempts was something that had affected the McCall pack.

Boyd, Isaac and even Ethan had fallen victim to  the unfathomable reoccurring push that had pressured them.

The parking lot beyond the motel was stricken to only the sounds of nature. Sparse, gnarled trees line the edges, their branches reaching out like skeletal fingers.

Air thick with a sense of forbidding wrapping around Allison, Lydia, Stiles and Scott, choking them.

"Scott...", Allison was the first to speak, slowly walking towards a dripping Scott.

The smell of gasoline surrounded the boy, a lot flare in his hand. A puddle formed around his feet and a broken expression was planted on his face.

"There's no hope," He croaked.

"What do you mean, Scott?" Allison questioned, softly through the hopeful facade of a smile, "There's always hope."

"Not for me," Scott defied, his voice slowly cracking into a drawl bleeding with grief. "Not for Derek."

"Derek wasn't your fault. You know Derek wasn't your fault." Allison tried to comfort the wolf, too scared to move an inch in case her actions caused the flare to fall and Scott McCall to be lost within the flames forever.

"And everytime i try to fight back it just get's worse. People keep getting hurt. People keep getting killed-"

"Scott, listen to me," Stiles suddenly gained the courage to step forward and reach out a hand to pull Scott from the darkness, "This isn't you. Okay, this is someone inside your head telling you to do this."

"What if it isn't? What if this is just me?" Scott asked, his gaze permanently planted on the floor.

His mind was a maze of horrific thoughts that he'd been forcefully suppressing for a long time. He was confused. Somehow, they had escaped the cage he'd built. Somehow, they had battled their way to the forefront of his mind.

"What if this actually the best thing that i could do for everyone else," Scott stuttered, his hand trembling, the flare slipping.

"It all started that night, that night i got bitten. Do you remember the way it was before that, you and me?" Scott asked Stiles.

Stiles nodded, blinking rapidly to keep the collection of forming tears at bay. They'd saved lives tonight. They'd done so much good. They'd fought so hard against the unknown catalyst of every attempted suicide.

Stiles was not going to let Scott do this.

"We were...we were nothing," Scott continued, the biting temperature colliding with the liquid running over him and causing him to shiver uncontrollably.

"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."

Scott finally tugged his chin upwards, meeting Stiles' eyes through a wistful, alien vision that the Stilinski boy couldn't recognise.

"Scott, just listen to me, okay?" Stiles whispered, taking a further step forward, "You're not no one. You're someone. Scott, you're my best friend. And i need you. Scott, you're my brother. Alright, so-"

Stiles joined Scott in the puddle of gasoline, throwing himself right into this mess with his best friend, proving to him that the boy was not going anywhere without him.

"So, if you're gonna do this..." Stiles closed his hand around the flare, holding it with Scott. "Then, you're just gonna have to take me with you."

Scott heaved a heavy sob as the red stick of fire was pulled away from his grasp and was tossed aside, the real, untainted version of himself beginning to re-surface.

"No!" Lydia suddenly yelled out, jumping forward to push the boys out of the way as the river of gasoline was set alight. The fire shot up ferociously.

The group lay on the ground, recovering against the billowing breeze of the burning, their heart rates slowly returning to normal.

Scott was with them. Safe and Sound. Everything was okay.

Until, Lydia screamed. The sound pierced through ear drums and hammered against heads.

Allison, Stiles and Scott each frantically searched through Lydia's vision until they could follow along her line of sight.

On the edge of the roof stood a figure, shrouded in darkness, so close to the edge. The pack could only pick out the glint of butterfly hair clips and the brief flashes of pink wool.

The figure so high up, so far away from them, was unmistakably Lizzie Brown.

✯☾✯

"Why did no one check on her?" Scott shrieked as the quartette raced up the narrow stairwell towards the roof.

No one had ever experienced what it felt like for Lizzie to be in danger.

Emotions swirled in a tempest of anxiety, love, and desperation, leaving the teens feeling raw and vulnerable, clinging to hope like a lifeline in the storm.

And, the guilt had become extreme.

The pixie had become a character in tonight's events that had been brushed over, unthought of and left from the plans and goings on that had played out.

Throughout the hell the pack had been through, Lizzie had been on her own.

Stiles was first to reach a sturdy, metal door, crashing through it onto the roof with the others on his tail.

Isaac and Boyd were already there, having realised what was going on a lifetime before everyone else.

The wind shook through Lizzie's wavy hair, carrying the pleas of her boyfriend who was kneeled at the foot of the ledge she was stood on.

"Lizzie, what are you doing?" Allison screamed through nature's harsh fury, all four of the newcomers sprinting to a stop behind Boyd and Isaac.

Lizzie breathed out slowly. As she stood beneath the vast expanse of the sky, her focus purely remained on the serpent on her ear.

Amelia stood next to her, holding tightly onto her hand, begging her.

"Come on, Beth. I need you. I miss you."

Lizzie's blurry, tear stained vision prevented her from truly recognising the group that had formed in front of her, their voices coming out muffled in comparison her her mother's crisp, sweet one.

"Lizzie!" Boyd.

"L, you need to come down. Please!" Stiles

"Someone get a flare!" Allison.

Loud sobs. Lydia.

"We had five, i swear we did!" Scott.

"Please, baby...come down." Isaac.

Yet, despite the shouts that seemed so far away, there was a sense of serenity up there on the rooftop for Lizzie, where the wind carried away the noise and chaos of, leaving behind only the soothing rhythm of its own gentle song.

Amelia hummed along with it quietly, staring up at the night sky. The tune floated delicately through the air.

As Lizzie listened, the melody drew her in, wrapping around her. There was something sinister about the sound that twisted Lizzie's heart as if it was poison, infecting it's way into her mind. Part of it was a reminder of her mom but it didn't align with the way Lizzie remembered her.

She glanced to her right where Amelia stood a few inches taller than her.

"Come with me." Lizzie watched her whisper, her song dancing to an end.

She had the same face, same mannerisms, same voice. But, she was not her mother. Only an evil shadow that falsely mirrored the face of the woman she once was.

Something gently pulled on her conscience like a persistence tug on her sleeve. The trance began to loosen its grip, gradually releasing its hold on Lizzie's thoughts and senses.

Orange glow. Warmth. A pair of arms.

Isaac jumped up as the girl he was besotted with began to faintly fall forward, away from danger. He clutched her close to him, breathing heavily as he took in the sweet smell of strawberry that he knew as his home.

✯☾✯

Coach Finstock's brows furrowed as he stepped onto the bus, his eyes scanning the scene before him. Seven students, sprawled out across the seats, their heads lolling against the windows, their breathing slow and steady in the rhythm of sleep.

With a sigh, the coach shook his head, a mixture of frustration and concern clouding their expression. He knew not of the horrors each and everyone one of them had endured throughout the course of the night.

"I don't wanna know." Finstock groaned loudly, "I really don't wanna know but, in case you missed the announcement, the meet is cancelled so, we're headed home."

The group stirred, groaning and rubbing their eyes as they slowly roused from their slumber, their expressions a mix of confusion and sheepishness. But as they began to regain awareness, memories came crashing back.

Isaac and Lizzie helped each other to sit up, Isaac's back leant against the window, Lizzie between his legs that stretched along the back seat, her head resting against his chest.

Their bodies fit together like pieces of a puzzle. As the bus began to rumble to life, Lizzie pressed a kiss to Isaac's cheek as he raked his fingers through her slightly messy hair.

Both were quiet, neither had spoken of their experiences to anyone but they would. They'd talk about it together at some point. But, right now they were simply gasping tightly to each other, afraid one of them would slip away.

Lizzie tilted her head backwards to look up at the boy, sticking her tongue out before her attention fell to Lydia in the seat diagonal from her.

In one hand, the redhead held Coach's whistle and in the other was a lilac powder.

"Wolfsbane." She realised, her jaw falling slack.

"So, you're telling me every time Coach blew the whistle on the bus.. Scott, Isaac, Boyd..."

"And Ethan."

"We all inhaled."  Scott said.

"You were poisoned by it." Allison clarified.

"So that's how the Darach got in your heads." Stiles met each pair of eyes, everyone attempting to comprehend what this meant.

The boy acted fast, briskly yanking the whistle from Lydia's palm and hurling it out the bus's window and ignoring Coach's angry shouts.

It landed on the hard concrete of the parking lot and the bus set off leaving the whistle and Glenn Capri behind. Forever.

"Wait, wolfsbane still doesn't explain why Lizzie was affected." Allison nodded.

"It does." Lizzie spoke emptily. Her sweetly famous smile back on her face, much to everyone's delight.

Isaac gave his girlfriend a slight nudge to prompt her into the realisation that everyone was awaiting an explanation.

"Oh! Wolfsbane affects pixie's too. Something to do with the bond, maybe?"

Stiles rolled his eyes and Boyd shook his head.

"You're just telling us this now?"

                        ╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╮
hey guys!! thank you so much for reading and being patient. i hate this chapter :(

wattpad is being silly and not letting me out stuff in the middle so apologies if the markers are a bit off, i've had to put them there myself

hope you enjoyed this chapt!! let me know ur thoughts

here are some manips i made: