#right after the lady killed the woman in the motel room she randomly walked over and farted off screen wtf

[catdemontraphouse]

Ok… this is the first horror movie I’ve ever seen where the killer just randomly farted off screen idk wat to say… 🤨

[tw-anchor]

30. Motel From Hell

Anchor

Stiles Stilinski x Original Character

Episode: 3x06; Motel California

Word Count: 8,782

Warning(s): Mature language, canon violence + gore, attempts and mentions of suicide, blood

Author’s Note: Hope you enjoy! Make sure to reblog and like!

Masterlink in Pinned Post!

There was something about the motel that didn't sit right with Olivia. Her skin crawled and her mind itched and she didn't know whether it was the lingering scent of cigarette smoke, the stained sheets covering the beds, or the creepy lady at reception that stared at her for a little too long. She hated that out of all the motels and hotels in the area, Glen Capri—aka, motel horrifying—was the one who had the most vacancies and were willing to put up with a cross country team, this obnoxious coach, a bus driver, and three stragglers.

Olivia didn't want to blame this miserable experience on the fact that cross-county was one of the most useless sports...but, let's be honest, it really was. She hated cross-country and now the hatred was worse since they were stuck in the middle of nowhere piled into small, smelly rooms like sardines.

She sighed heavily and plopped her leather satchel on the bed closest to the window. Allison was stronger and more skilled at protecting herself so if someone broke into their room, at least she'd be able to protect them.

"At least the beds don't look bad," she tried to be optimistic. By the tone of her voice and the look Allison gave her, she had failed. "Lydia, is the right side all right for you?" her cousin didn't reply and when Olivia turned to her, she saw that she was still standing by the locked door. "Lydia?"

Lydia grimaced, her eyes slowly looking around their room. "I don't like this place."

Allison laughed lightly. "I don't think the people who own this place like this place," she tried to cheer her up. "It's just for a night."

Lydia didn't look amused. "A lot can happen in one night."

Well, that was true and it had happened to them a lot of times—like three weeks before when Boyd and Cora were out of control, Lydia randomly discovered a dead body, and Stiles figured out that someone was sacrificing people all in one night. Olivia shared Lydia's hesitance the more time she spent in the motel. The crawling on her skin had turned into more of a tingle and her mind was buzzing, differently than her normal abilities.

Despite her own worry, she needed to comfort Lydia. She walked over to the door and wrapped an arm around her cousin, hoping to calm her down some. If she kept on fretting, she wouldn't get any sleep and like Olivia, Lydia was a monster if she didn't get her beauty rest.

"Let's watch TV," she suggested, slowly leading Lydia to their bed and picking up the remote where it laid on the nightstand in between the beds in order to turn the television on. "What do you want to watch?"

"I'm fine with anything," Allison shrugged as she set her bag down on her bed and pulled out a change of clothing. "I'm gonna take a shower."

Olivia wished that she had the thought to bring a change of clothes—she was stuck in a maroon shirt with Stiles' number on the front, a leather jacket, and a black skirt—but how could she have known? Still, she wished that she was getting comfortable in some pajamas like Allison was.

Allison wandered into the bathroom while Olivia and Lydia settled on watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians (Lydia was obsessed and Olivia was known to get into it from time to time). They could hear the shower turn on, but only seconds later, the door opened and Allison's head popped out.

"Hey, can you guys get new towels?" she asked. "These smell like smoke."

"Sure," Lydia was quick to jump to her feet and make her way over to the bathroom, taking the towels that Allison offered. "We'll be right back. Come on, Liv."

Olivia glanced at the television, where Kim and Khloe were having drama, and sighed reluctantly. She got to her feet and grabbed the key for their room before exiting and locking the door behind them.

"Liv," Lydia spoke up as they made their way down the set of stairs to the parking lot. "can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Are you feeling something?" she asked hesitantly. "Like, you know, when you know when one of us are in danger?"

Olivia gave her a surprised look. "A little but it might be because this place creeps me out," she confessed. "Why? Are you okay?"

"I have a feeling too," Lydia admitted. "Remember when you told me that you just get these whispers out of the blue and they tell you things?"

"Yeah," Olivia recalled the conversation that she and Lydia had once she studied up on what she was and what she could do in both the Argent and the Hale bestiaries. "You're experiencing that?"

Lydia nodded.

What did that mean? Was Lydia like her but without the werewolf connection? She supposed that made sense—they were related, after all. Maybe Olivia's mom inherited something from her family and then she and Thomas passed it down to her and Lydia. It wasn't a far-off theory.

"All right," Olivia sighed; she didn't want this for Lydia. The experience she had with her abilities were exhausting; she constantly had headaches, her ears always hurt, she blacked out sometimes, and she had voices in her head that would make her look crazy if anyone other than the people who knew about the supernatural world found out. "Just don't panic, okay? I'll help you and we'll figure it out."

"Okay," the vulnerable look on Lydia's face broke her heart.

Her cousin had always been the strong one; from the moment Olivia was born to the present, Lydia had been protective over her and made sure to stay strong. Before Olivia and Stiles started dating, she and Lydia were really only vulnerable around each other and they didn't let other people see how they felt on the inside. Still, every time Lydia was sad, Olivia was sad with her and both of them hated when they couldn't cheer each other up.

Right now was one of those times. It didn't feel good to see someone you loved scared of something that they couldn't control.

They were quiet for a moment and soon they entered the main office where they had rented a room from the creepy receptionist.

Lydia plopped the towels on the little ledge next to the glass that separated the lobby from the desk. "Excuse me?" she called through the tiny circle that customers were supposed to talk through. "The card on the dresser said that we have non-smoking room but somehow all of our towels reek of nicotine."

The creepy receptionist turned around with a pleasant smile on her face. "Sorry about that, sweetheart."

"It's fine," Olivia said quickly when Lydia was taken aback by the breathing technology that helped the woman breathe after years of smoking. "If we could get some more towels, though, that would be great."

"Sure thing," the woman poked her hands through the long rectangular hole at the bottom of the glass by the ledge and grabbed the towels.

"What's that?" Lydia asked before the woman could turn around, her eyes on a framed number on the wall behind the receptionist. "The number?"

"It's a kind of inside thing for the motel," the woman told them. "My husband insists on keeping it up."

Olivia furrowed her eyebrows, confused. "What do you mean?"

"It's a little bit morbid, to be honest. You girls sure you want to know?"

She was clearly baiting them but they rose to the challenge.

"Tell us," Lydia insisted.

The woman looked pleased that she was going to be able to tell this supposed inside story. "We're not gonna make the top of anyone's list when it comes to customer satisfaction—"

"Obvious," Lydia muttered under her breath, allowing only Olivia to hear it; the younger Martin smiled slightly in response.

"—but we are number one in California when it comes to one disturbing little detail," the woman continued. "Since opening, more than any other motel in California, we have the most guest suicides."

Olivia bit the inside of her cheek as her eyes darted to the framed number. One hundred and ninety-eight suicides in one motel didn't seem like much. It was actually an average number per year (almost five) depending on when the motel opened in the first place.

"One hundred and ninety-eight?" Lydia was more disturbed than Olivia was.

The woman nodded. "And counting."

-

-

"All right, so I have four," Stiles declared as he plopped onto his selected bed, the mattress only bouncing once or twice.

From the bed near the door and in the same position as Stiles, Scott looked over at him. "Four?" he asked, shocked. "You have four suspects?"

"Yeah, it was originally ten," Stiles admitted. "Well, nine technically, I guess. I had Derek on there two times."

"So, who's your number one? Harris?"

"Just because he's missing doesn't mean he's dead," Stiles confirmed.

"So, if he's not dead, our chemistry teacher is out secretly committing human sacrifices?"

Stiles paused and looked over at him. "Yeah, I guess that just sounded way better in my head."

"Well, what if it's somebody else from school?" Scott mused. "You remember Matt? We didn't know that he was killing people."

Stiles lifted his head to look at his best friend in disbelief. "Excuse me?" he scrambled to his feet, determined to remind Scott that, yes, he did think it was Matt and he had told Scott that it was but he didn't believe him. "I'm sorry, what? Yes, we did. I called that from day one, actually."

"Yeah, but we never seriously thought that it was Matt," Scott sat up and raised his eyebrows at Stiles.

"I was serious," Stiles insisted. "I was quite serious, actually. Deadly seriously. No one listened to me."

Scott didn't bother to say anything more on the Matt subject and Stiles was glad. He didn't want to get into a whole debate that ended up with him losing his temper and Scott placating him.

"Who were the other three?"

"Derek's sister, Cora," Stiles told him. "No one knows anything about her and she's Derek's sister."

"And Liv's cousin," Scott pointed out. "and you had sex with her."

"Yes, I know I had sex with her, could you stop bringing that up?" Stiles hissed at him. "God."

Scott smirked at him, amused.

"Next, your boss," Stiles moved on.

"My boss?"

"Yeah, your boss," he repeated. "I don't really like the whole Obi-Wan thing he's got going on, you know. It freaks me out."

Scott stared at him blankly and suddenly Stiles was craving Olivia's presence because she would know exactly what he was talking about. But, then again, she would probably disagree with him because she trusted Deaton as he had been the Hale pack's adversary before most of them died.

"I can't believe you still haven't seen Star Wars," Stiles complained.

"I swear, if we make it back alive, I will watch the movie," Scott promised.

"Scott, there's six movies!" Stiles bounced on the balls of his feet in frustration. "The originals and the prequels!"

"All right, I'll watch them all," Scott shook his head. "Okay, who was the last one?"

Stiles sighed heavily, his mood darkening. "Lydia," he said quickly as he sat back on his bed; it didn't exactly bring him pleasure to accuse one of his friends of sacrificing people behind her back. "She was totally controlled by Peter and she had no idea, so..."

Scott's face fell in realization as he thought about what Stiles said. Both of them exhaling deeply, they fell back on the bed once again and stared silently at the ceiling.

-

-

"Are you sure you're all right?" Olivia quietly asked into her phone as she paced up and down the pathway outside of the room she shared with Allison and Lydia. "Because I can feel you and I know you're in pain."

"I'm healing," Derek's voice was coming out in pained gasps. "I have someone helping me."

"Who?" she furrowed her eyebrows. "Is Cora even at the loft?"

"No, she's not," he told her. "You remember that teacher on the night of the full moon?"

Olivia paused for a moment, trying to figure out what he meant, and then cringed. "You have my English teacher at the loft?" she hissed. "I thought you said she didn't know, Derek."

"Yeah, well, she does," her cousin let out a grunt and then a hiss. "and she's helping me. Where are you, anyway?"

"Some gross motel, it's not important," Olivia said quickly. "Look, Cora told me that Ennis died. Do you know what that means for you?"

"That I have to join their pack or they kill me," Derek seemed to calm about the threat on his and his betas lives. "I'll figure it out. I have to go, Ollie."

"Wait, wait—" the dial toned; she groaned and locked her phone. "Dickhead."

She huffed, composing herself, and went to go back into the room when she a sharp but quick pain flashed through her head. She pressed her fingers to her temples and inhaled deeply as faint whispers started. The warnings were unintelligible; something was happening but it wasn't focused enough that she could figure out what it was.

The whispers died down only slightly as she entered the motel room. Allison was out of the shower and dressed, drying her hair with a clean towel that did not smell like smoke, as Lydia explained what they had discovered at the reception desk.

"One hundred and ninety-eight?" Allison repeated, furrowing her eyebrows.

"Yeah, and we're talking forty years," Lydia stressed and did a quick calculation in her head. "On average that's 4.95 a year..."

"Which is perfectly average," Olivia finished for her as she sat down next to her.

"Well, still," Lydia huffed. "who commemorates that with a framed number? Who does that? Who?"

"All suicides?" Allison checked.

"Mmhm," Lydia nodded, distressed. "Hanging, throat-cutting, pill-popping, both-barrels-of-a-shotgun-in-the-mouth suicides. I don't know about you, but me, I—"

Lydia abruptly stopped talking, her head cocking toward the wall on her right side. Olivia watched her curiously, wondering why she had paused.

"Did you hear that?"

Olivia didn't hear anything, other than the faint buzzing in the background of her head. One look at Allison told her that she didn't hear anything, either.

"Hear what, Lyds?" she asked, concerned.

Lydia didn't answer; she turned her head back toward the wall, a horrified expression covering her face. She slowly stood up and as if she was in a trance, stepped onto the bed, shoes and all. She got as close to the wall as she could, maintaining her balance with a hand on the headboard, and eyed the vent at the top.

"Lydia?"

Shuddering gasps started making their way out of Lydia's mouth as tears slipped from her eyes. Olivia's hand shot up to her head, where she was now hearing her own warnings. Warnings about Lydia and what she was going through.

Lydia, Lydia, Lydia. She can hear them. Both of them. They did it together and she can hear them. Lydia, Lydia, Lydia.

"Oh, my God. Oh, my God," Lydia whimpered as she continued to hear whatever it was that Olivia and Allison couldn't.

Having gotten to her feet, Olivia reached for her cousin's hand. Just as her skin touched Lydia's, two gunshots echoed through her head, causing her to flinch back and screech slightly. The noise she made harmonized with the strangled gasp that came from Lydia.

"What is it?" Allison hovered anxiously behind them, grabbing Lydia's other hand to help her down. "Guys?"

Lydia whipped around to face Olivia, eyes wet. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"I heard the ending of it," Olivia told her cousin, both of them ignoring Allison for the moment. "When I touched your hand, I heard it."

"Guys!" Allison exclaimed, getting their attention; when the both of them looked at her, she repeated her question. "What did you hear?"

"The two people in the next room, they shot each other," Lydia told her before tearing over to the door and ripping it open so she could leave the room.

Olivia and Allison immediately followed after her. The room to their right, number 216, where Lydia and Olivia heard the shots come from looked normal from the outside. But the door was unlocked and when Lydia pushed it open, the whole room was shrouded in darkness. Olivia flipped the light switch to turn on the light but the light bulb must have been worn out.

Lydia started walking into the room and Olivia followed after her, much to Allison's protest, turning on the flashlight from her phone in order to find some kind of light.

"Hello?" Lydia called.

Thanks to the small light from her phone, Olivia located a lamp. She switched it on and when the light flooded the room, they saw that it was in total construction. There was no one there; there were no guns, no blood, and certainly no bodies.

Lydia blinked in confusion, more tears falling down her cheeks, as she walked toward the middle of the room. "It had to be right here," her voice trembled. "It was a guy and a girl and, I mean, they sounded younger but—but they were here."

"I know," Olivia assured her, grabbing her hand and clasping it tightly in her grip. "We believe you."

Allison nodded in agreement. "After everything we've been through, we believe you."

They ended up back in their room only moments later. Lydia rushed around the room, collecting their belongings—in her case, it was just a tube of lip balm and a small bottle of perfume—while Olivia sat on the end of their bed, lost in her thoughts, and Allison paced by the window.

"You know, there is something seriously wrong with this place," Lydia hummed. "Guys, we need to leave."

"But they were suicides, not murders," Allison tried to be the voice of reason. "and it's not like this place is haunted, right?"

"Maybe it is," Lydia shrugged helplessly. "You know, I bet that couple made their suicide pact in that very room. Maybe that's why they're renovating. Maybe they've been scraping brain matter off the wood paneling."

"Maybe we should find out," Allison offered.

The three of them went down to the main office but when they got there, the receptionist was gone and a sign told them that she'd be back by the morning.

Lydia sighed in frustration. "Well, there goes that."

Allison's eyes were glued on the sign on the back wall. "Didn't you guys say that the sign said one-ninety-eight?"

Olivia and Lydia looked over at the sign. 201.

"It was one-ninety-eight," Lydia insisted. "I swear to God it was."

Out of nowhere, Olivia heard the crumbling noise of ice cubes falling over another. She looked back at Lydia and Allison to see if they heard what she did but they were looking at each other; their mouths were moving but no sound was coming out. She couldn't hear their conversation.

The noise sounded again; she turned her head to the office door and silently walked over to it. Her mouth moved mechanically and she said something to Allison and Lydia but she couldn't hear what it was. She couldn't hear anything but the crushing of ice—and then, there was a single whisper:

Alicia...?

She walked out of the office and let the feeling inside of her of head guide her wherever it was supposed to take her. She was only a few feet away from the ice machine, where ice was scattered all over the concrete, a bucket laid on its side, when more noise crowded her head.

There were fists banging on some sort of metal and there were whimpers of fear and cries of desperation.

Dad...!

She walked away from the ice machine and toward one side of the motel, passing many rooms on the ground floor. When she got to the nearest staircase, she climbed the steps and reached the second floor when more sounds attacked her.

This time it was the slicing of claws against delicate skin, a cry of pain, gurgling blood, a dial tone, and mournful cries.

Mom...!

A horrible ache shot through Olivia's head, so painful that it had her crumbling to her knees. Her eyesight went from normal to purple to a blinding white within two seconds. She crawled blindly toward the wall of the stairwell and gripped her head in her hands, clenching her teeth so tightly together as waves and waves of disconnected voices washed over her.

Alicia? Dad! Mom! He's healing, she's healing him. Alicia? Dad! Mom! Derek? Derek? Derek? Scott, Scott, Scott. Isaac, Isaac, Isaac. Boyd, Boyd, Boyd. He's in danger, they're all in danger!

Olivia, Olivia, Olivia...OLIVIA!

-

-

"Last time I saw Scott act like that was during the full moon," Allison told Stiles and Lydia, finishing up her story of how Scott had come into the bathroom while she was showering and acted like a creep.

Stiles stood in the girls' room, his arms folded over his chest as he thought about what Allison had said. He witnessed Scott gazing out the window, which was weird, but his encounter with Boyd was more worrisome.

"Yeah, I know, he was definitely a little off with me too," he agreed. "but, actually, it was Boyd who was really off. I watched him put his fist through the vending machine."

What worried him more than Scott and Boyd put together, though, was Olivia. Lydia and Allison had called him, both of them upset, and told him that Olivia was acting weird and that she all of a sudden disappeared and that they couldn't find her. He had immediately met them at the main office and they did a quick sweep of the ground floor where she had wandered off but there was still no sign of her.

He was going out of his fucking mind with worry and fear but he had to be strong right now and keep a level head. Lydia was scared out of her mind and Allison couldn't figure this out by herself. Scott wasn't an option and Olivia was somewhere more than likely having one of her episodes, so it was down to him.

"See, it is the motel," Lydia said, her voice a little shrill. "Either we need to find Liv and get out of here right now or..." she stomped to the table between the beds and grabbed the nondescript bible in the drawer, showing it to them. "someone needs to learn how to do an exorcism ASAP before the werewolves go crazy and kill us."

"Okay, just hold on, all right?" Stiles gestured at her to take a breath as his mind raced with theories of what could be going on. "What if it's not just the motel? The number in the office went up by three, right?"

Allison understood his train of thought. "You mean like three sacrifices?"

Stiles nodded. "What if this time it's three werewolves?"

"Scott, Isaac, and Boyd," Allison mused. "and that's why Liv is freaking out. She's experiencing whatever they're going through."

"I think we were meant to come here," Stiles declared.

"Exactly!" Lydia pointed at him. "So can we get the fuck out of here now?"

Stiles glanced at her but a paper sticking out of the bible she still held in her hand caught his attention. "Wait, hang on," he took the bible from her. "Let me see this."

He flipped through the many pages and came to a stop when he located the paper. It was an old newspaper clipping about a suicide that had happened in the very room where they were.

"What is that?"

"Twenty-eight-year-old hangs himself at the infamous Glen Capri," he read aloud and handed the paper to Allison before going through the rest of the bible.

He pulled out four more clippings and tossed them on the bed. Lydia picked two of them up and quickly read through both of them.

"Oh, no, look at these two," Lydia handed them to Allison and Stiles. "They both mention room 217. These are probably all the suicides that happened in this room."

"So, if every room has a bible..." Allison trailed off thoughtfully.

"There could be articles in all the rooms," Lydia finished for her.

Stiles wrinkled his nose. "That's a beautiful thing," he mumbled cynically. "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?" Lydia wondered.

The three of them shared a look and then, all at once, they ran out of the room and to the one being renovated next door. Stiles tried to turn the doorknob but it wouldn't budge; he grabbed it with two hands and shook it furiously, trying to get the door opened.

"No, that was not locked before!" Lydia exclaimed.

"Forget it," Allison said urgently. "We need to find Liv and get Scott, Isaac, and Boyd out of here."

Stiles agreed with that plan; he let go of the doorknob and pushed past the girls to run to the stairs, only to stop when he heard a loud mechanical buzzing.

He turned back to the girls just as Lydia asked, "I'm not the only one who heard that, am I?"

Allison shook her head. "It sounds like someone turned the handsaw on."

Stiles jumped back over to them. "Handsaw?" he repeated in disbelief as he started throwing himself at the door. To say that it was difficult was an understatement. "Jesus-fucking-Christ!"

Finally, after a couple more pushes, the door flew open. At the other end of the room, Ethan stood with a running saw in his hands. He slowly and deliberately went to press the saw's running blade to his stomach.

"Hey, no, Ethan, don't!" Stiles shouted.

He lunged forward and didn't spare a second to think as he grabbed the other side of the handle. He pulled with all of his might as Ethan fought him for control of the power tool. Ethan was obviously stronger—alpha werewolf, remember? —so the fight wasn't evenly matched. When Stiles let go of it in order not to get himself disemboweled and kicked Ethan's leg at the same time, the saw dropped to the ground. His action of pulling himself away from the alpha sent him to the ground, right in the direction of the saw.

His life flashed in front of his eyes but death didn't come, thankfully. Lydia had pulled the saw's plug from the outlet just in time and the saw came to a complete stop when Stiles caught himself only two or three inches away from the blade.

Allison grabbed him and pulled him away from the saw but he didn't get time to have a second of relief. Ethan flicked out his claws and brought them to his stomach like he did the saw; Stiles and Allison rushed to him and each grabbed one of his arms, using all of their strength to keep him from killing himself.

Ethan fought them once again and pushed past them, only to fall on the small space heater only a few feet away. His skin audibly singed and he grunted in pain as he fell to the floor. The pain seemed to take him out of whatever trance he was in. He quickly rolled to his feet and glowered at Stiles, Allison, and Lydia.

"What just happened?"

They didn't have time to answer him before he was running out of the room.

"Ethan!" Stiles, Lydia, and Allison ran after him, going down the stairs two at a time to keep up with him. "Hey, what happened back there?"

"Didn't you hear what I just said?" Ethan snapped at him while trying to do up the buttons on his shirt. "I don't know how I got there or what I was doing."

"Okay, you could be a little bit more helpful, you know," Stiles snarked back at him. "We did just save your life."

"And you probably shouldn't have!"

Stiles turned away from the alpha as he stomped back to his room and faced Lydia and Allison.

"What do we do now?" Lydia asked.

"I'll find Scott and Liv," Allison volunteered. "You guys grab Isaac and Boyd. The best thing we can do is get them out of this place."

Stiles grimaced as Allison turned away from them and climbed the stairs back to the second level. He didn't know what to do; Olivia was missing, the werewolves were freaking out, and Lydia just happened to be hearing things at the same time? It was a little too much of a coincidence...

Lydia caught the look on his face. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Oh, no, I—" he scrambled to make an excuse but Lydia called him on his bullshit.

"Stiles."

Stiles sighed and gave in. "All right, Lydia, I didn't want to say anything but this—everything we're going through," he winced and just bit the bullet. "we've kind of been through something like this before. A lot of like this."

"What do you mean?" Lydia asked, confused. "When?"

"Your birthday party, the night you poisoned everyone with wolfsbane."

Lydia scoffed, offended, and turned to stalk away from him.

"Lydia, I'm sorry, okay," Stiles chased after her; he hadn't wanted to offend her but he had a reason to be worried. And, no offense to her, but they didn't have time for her to have a tantrum; Scott, Isaac, and Boyd were doing whatever they could to hurt themselves and Olivia was still missing. "I didn't mean that you're trying to kill people. I just meant that maybe you're somehow involved in getting people to kill themselves, which doesn't really sound much better now that I've said it out loud."

He hadn't even noticed that Lydia had stopped walking. He would have passed her by if she hadn't grabbed his arm and asked, "Stiles, do you hear that?"

"What?" he said hurriedly. "What did you hear?"

Lydia glanced at the ice machine only a few feet away from them and then back toward the motel. "I hear Liv. I hear her."

"What?"

But she was already running toward the nearest staircase. Stiles' heart raced anxiously as he followed her, quickly climbing the stairs to the second floor. He almost ran into her as she came to an abrupt stop but managed to stop himself.

That was when he heard Olivia. Desperate whispers and soft pleads were spoken with her hoarse voice. They followed the sounds she made to an incave where vending machine was placed. She was there, sitting against it with knees to her chest and her forehead resting on them. There was blood slowly dripping down her legs and it made the air leave his chest in one whoosh.

Fuck, fuck, fuck! He cursed himself as he dropped to his knees in front of her.

"Olivia? It's me," he said softly, placing his hands on her legs, just under her kneecaps; her legs were freezing. She didn't react but kept on whispering under her breath; there were too many words for him to understand what she was saying. "Livvy. Baby, please look at me."

With no reaction, he carefully grabbed her chin and gently lifted her head. Her irises were deep purple and the whites around them were bloodshot. She was staring in his direction now but she wasn't looking at him and the blood he had seen on her legs had to be from her nose, which was still dripping. It was the worst he had ever seen her during one of her episodes. It had to be because she was feeling Scott, Isaac, and Boyd at one time.

"Olivia," he tried to get her attention as Lydia hovered nervously behind him. "Livvy, come on. It's Stiles. I'm right here. Come on, baby."

One second, Lydia was pushing him away from Olivia and the next, she was slapping her cousin in the face.

"What the fuck, Lydia?" he glared at her.

"She was out of it," Lydia gave Olivia most of her attention as she blinked rapidly and slowly pressed a hand against her stinging cheek. "Look, it worked."

"What the hell did you do that for?" Olivia groaned.

"You were having one of your episodes," Lydia told her gently, her voice a sharp contrast to how she was talking to Stiles earlier—granted, he did kind of blame her for what was going on. "Are you okay?"

"Not really," Olivia answered with a wince; Stiles helped her to her feet and wrapped an arm around her, taking on most of her weight. "My head's killing me. What's going on?"

Stiles and Lydia gave her a quick run-down on what had happened since she disappeared out of nowhere. The number on the sign had gone up by three, they figured that the number meant there would be three more sacrifices, the werewolves were freaking out—and so was she—and they had stopped Ethan from killing himself.

Toward the end of Olivia's catch-up, Stiles was the only one speaking. Olivia wasn't paying attention, her eyes blinking back to purple, as Lydia stared off in the distance.

"Hello? Are you guys even listening to me?"

"Someone's drowning!" Lydia declared as she snapped out of wherever she had gone to.

"It's Boyd," Olivia quickly followed up.

The three of them took off down the hallway and to Boyd and Isaac's room. The door wasn't even shut all the way, which allowed them to keep their speed all the way to the bathroom. All that Olivia could hear as she weakly fell to her knees at the head of the tub was the pounding of her heart and Boyd's name.

Boyd was completely underwater, with the room's safe keeping him still. While Olivia pressed her hands to Boyd's head, trying to get him to react, to do something in order to save his life, Stiles prodded around the drain.

"He blocked it," Stiles' voice sounded as panicked as she felt. "He blocked the drain with something. I can't get to it."

"What do we do?" Lydia asked quickly.

Olivia didn't bother answering Lydia, Stiles had that under control. She focused the rest of her energy on worming herself into Boyd's head to get ahold of him and keeping out the whispers that told her that Isaac and Scott were in trouble, too. It was hard to do both; Boyd's mind was impenetrable, which was odd. She usually only had a little difficulty getting into her pack mates' heads and Boyd was no exception. He wasn't keeping her out, someone else was.

She opened her eyes just in time to see Stiles and Lydia straining to get the heavy safe off of Boyd's chest. Unfortunately, it was too heavy and even when she joined in with the lifting, they were unable to do it.

"Is he dead?"

"He's not dead but he's going to be," Olivia told Lydia quickly, her voice panicked and her eyes stinging. She turned to Stiles, who was trying to lift the safe by himself at that point, and asked, "How long can a werewolf stay underwater?"

"You think I know that?" his voice trembled under the force he was using.

He finally let go of the safe and got to his feet, backing away from the tub. Olivia didn't question his odd action and took his place, her knees slipping in the water that slopped from the tub. Lydia joined her and they both continued to try to pry the safe off of Boyd.

"Ah!" Stiles hissed in the background, catching Olivia and Lydia's attention. He had burnt his arm on the wall heater. "Wait a sec," he said thoughtfully and turned to Lydia, who had been there for Ethan's breakdown. "The heater, Ethan came out of it when he touched the heater?"

Olivia gave them a look of frustration; what did Ethan touching a heater have to do with Boyd? "What?"

"It's heat, heat, fire," Stiles gestured wildly as he tried to get Olivia to understand. "Heat does it, all right? We need something...We need fire."

"He's underwater!"

Stiles glared at Lydia. "Yeah, I'm aware of that."

Despite being confused only seconds earlier, Olivia was all caught up. Knowing that Boyd depended on them to keep him alive when he couldn't, she couldn't be slowed down by confusion.

And she wasn't anymore. As soon as Stiles had said that they needed fire to knock Boyd out of whatever mess he was in, her mind had started to race. There were only a couple of things that could make fire underwater and flares were one of them.

"Run to the bus," Olivia urged Stiles, who quickly gave her his attention. "The bus will have emergency road flares. They have their own oxidizers. They can burn underwater."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, go!"

Olivia turned back to the tub as Stiles left the room and took another shot at trying to get inside Boyd's mind. Pressing her hands against both of his temples, she closed her eyes and began focusing, repeated his name over and over again in her head. From the sheer force of her will and all of the strength in her, she slowly began to feel the wall keeping her out of his head starting to crack.

Come on, Boyd, let me in...Boyd, I'm here...It's Liv...Let me in so I can help you...She was almost there...a little bit more...

A gasp flew out of her mouth as she was mentally propelled back from Boyd's mind. She opened her eyes, totally worn out, and wiped away the blood from her top lip.

Why did that happen? It wasn't supposed to happen!

"Liv!" Lydia called from the bedroom, catching her attention. "Isaac's freaking out under the bed."

Olivia rested her forehead against the lip of the tub, inhaling deeply.

"I know," she said wearily; out of the two werewolves in the room going through something, it was Isaac that was doing better. Yes, he was hidden under the bed—she knew the moment she walked into the room—and he was terrified, which broke her heart, but he wasn't suicidal. Boyd was the priority at the moment.

This whole thing terrified her. She was the pack's anchor, she was supposed to keep them from trouble, and here were her two friends, out of their minds with whatever was happening to them. She couldn't get through to Boyd and she could feel him slipping away from the bond that she had with the pack...and she was alone. Derek wasn't here to help her and it wasn't his fault but...she still felt alone.

She wasn't alone, though, not really.

Stiles burst back into the motel room and rushed to the bathroom, with two emergency flares in his hands. "I got them," he quickly told Olivia as he dropped down next to her; Lydia hovered nervously behind them. "What do I do? How do I do this?"

"Strike it against the cap, like a match," Olivia advised him. Stiles rapidly took off the cap and struck the flare against it, over and over again; it wasn't catching and Olivia was beginning to panic. Boyd, Boyd, Boyd... "Stiles!"

"Yeah, I'm trying."

With one last strike, the flare lit up, bathing the room with a red glow. Stiles huffed in satisfaction and stuck the flare into the water of the tub, pressing it firmly against Boyd's arm. Having enough forethought, he grabbed Olivia and heaved them both to their feet, jumping away as Boyd reared forward with a roar and the huge safe dropped to the floor right where they were sitting.

Olivia gasped in relief and burrowed her forehead into Stiles shoulder, taking deep breaths. She almost lost Boyd. He was her pack and she almost lost him...Her pack...Isaac...

Compared to Boyd, Isaac was easy to bring from the brink of the Darach's hold over him. Stiles got him with the flare—which Olivia suspected he liked a little too much—and they quickly explained everything that they thought was going on. Now, that Isaac and Boyd were safe and their names were no longer in Olivia's head, it was just Scott.

They set out of Isaac and Boyd's room and made their way back to the girls' room. Allison was there waiting for them, without Scott by her side.

"I can't find Scott anywhere," Allison told Olivia, Stiles, and Lydia as the four of them rushed down to the ground level in order to continue their search for Scott.

"It's happening to him too, isn't it?" Stiles directed his question to Olivia.

She nodded; Scott was the only pack member left who was in danger at the moment. But it didn't matter if he was the only one, his name was loud in her head. Scott, Scott, Scott... "It is," she confirmed. "Was there another flare on the bus?"

"Yeah, there was," Stiles reached the end of the stairs, Olivia, Lydia, and Allison following his lead. "I'll get it—"

Stiles stopped speaking as the four of them came to an abrupt stop, shocked at the scene in front of them. Scott was standing in the middle of the parking lot, soaked head to toe with gasoline (the extra gas can from the bus was emptied at his feet), and a lit flare in his hand. He didn't move at all, his head bowed toward the pavement beneath his feet, as they approached him quietly, nervously.

Olivia glanced at Stiles and when she saw the stricken look on his face, gripped his hand tightly. Taking a deep breath, she spoke up, hoping that she could get through to Scott, "Scott? Scott."

Scott lifted his head, looking at his friends with sad, yet faraway eyes. "There's no hope."

Olivia bit the inside of her cheek at the sheer pain in Scott's voice, her heart breaking a little. Sure, her and Scott weren't the best of friends, but they were still friends. Even if they weren't, this whole situation would still be heart-breaking and mind-boggling. She hadn't experienced hopelessness before, where she couldn't see a way out other than death, but she knew that it was a tough spot to be in and she was fully sympathetic. She didn't want to see Scott end his life, not just for his sake, but for the people who loved and cared about him.

"What do you mean, Scott?" Allison shook her head, eyes wet. "There's always hope."

"Not for me. Not for Derek."

Olivia just wished that Scott would listen to her for once so that he wasn't in danger. Derek was not dead and even if he was, Scott would not be at fault. He didn't need to carry around any guilt for something that didn't even happen. Olivia knew that arguing wasn't the best thing to do at the moment, though. She needed to be supportive and kind and she would do that because Scott was her friend and her pack.

"Derek wasn't your fault," she said sternly, trying to reach some part of his mind. "What happened to Derek was not your fault, Scott."

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

Stiles squeezed Olivia's hand. "Scott, listen to me, okay?" he addressed his friend, his voice cracking with sadness. "This isn't you, all right? This is someone inside your head telling you to do this, okay? Now—"

"What if it isn't?" Scott cut him off. "What if it is just me? What if doing this is actually the best thing that I could do for everyone else?"

Tears started to sting Olivia's eyes; she couldn't feel Scott's emotions with her abilities but she didn't need to. She could see them on his face and in his body language, she could hear in his voice...She had never claimed to be an empathetic person but this was different. Scott couldn't do this; didn't he know how important he was to everyone?

Scott, listen to me, she pleaded mentally, trying to get past the defensive wall that the darach put in his head. Listen to Stiles. This isn't you. You don't want to do this. You mean too much to the people you love. You are not a screw up.

"It all started that night," Scott looked into Stiles' eyes as he went on, showing no evidence that he was hearing Olivia's pleads in his head. "the night I got bitten. You remember the way it was before that? You and me, we were—we were nothing. We weren't popular, we weren't good at lacrosse. We weren't important..."

You are important, Scott. You are something. Please, please just listen to me.

"We were no one," Scott finished, his voice trembling. "Maybe I should just be no one again. No one at all."

He lifted the flare higher, intending to release it. Please, Scott, don't do this. Scott...Scott...Scott...Please.

Olivia looked over at Stiles as he released the tight grip he had on her hand. He had tears in his eyes as he stepped toward his best friend. "Scott, just listen to me, okay? You're not on one, okay?" he said firmly, coming to a stop only a step away from Scott. "You're someone. You're...Scott, you're my best friend, okay?"

Scott stared at Stiles, tears now running down his cheeks as he sobbed quietly. Combined with Olivia's repeated efforts in getting into Scott's head, Stiles words seemed to be working. It was touching that Stiles and Scott has such a close friendship. They were family as much as Olivia and Lydia were, even if they weren't blood related.

"...and I need you. Scott, you're my brother, all right?" Olivia bit back a gasp as Stiles stepped into the gasoline puddle and reached for the flare in Scott's hand. "So...so, if you're gonna do this, then I think you're just gonna have to take me with you, all right?"

Scott, please don't do this...You need to save yourself and Stiles right now, all right? You need to take control and you need to live. Please, you and Stiles have to live. SCOTT!

Scott's grip on the flare loosened, allowing Stiles to take it from him. Olivia, Lydia, and Allison didn't have time to take a breath of relief as he threw it a few feet away; the wind blew—too much to be a coincidence—and the flare started rolling right back to the puddle of gasoline.

"NO!" Olivia and Lydia screamed together.

The Martin cousins threw themselves at the boys, knocking them out of the puddle and onto the dry concrete. As soon as they hit the ground, the flare hit the gasoline and blew up, an explosion of flame going higher than the top of the bus.

Olivia buried her head into the back of Stiles' shoulder and let out a deep sigh of pure relief. They're okay, she reminded herself as she reached over and patted Scott on the back, hoping to give him more relief. They're okay. We're all okay.

-

Stiles was a lanky guy. Sure, he had muscles—very delicious muscles, thank you—but he was still tall and skinny. Olivia had fallen asleep on his shoulders many a times and it was always uncomfortable because his shoulder dug into the side of her face painfully. But this, right now, with his arm around her, head leaned back on their seat, both of them draped in Stiles' wonderful-smelling sweatshirt, it was heaven.

Of course, his should was digging into her face again but she felt safe. After the night that everyone had, safe was important. Safe was nice. Safe was comforting.

She furrowed her eyebrows when she heard the slight noise of the bus door opening. Still asleep, it didn't bother her much. It was the loud blaring of Coach's whistle that made her want to throw the man off of the bus and run him over.

"I don't want to know," Coach said loudly as she, Stiles, Scott, Allison, Lydia, Isaac, and Boyd startled awake. "I really don't want to know but in case you missed the announcement, the meet's cancelled, so we're headed home."

"Cross-country is overrated, anyway," Olivia sighed sleepily, a smile growing on her face as Stiles pressed a messy kiss to her forehead as a good morning.

"Shh...go back to sleep," he rubbed her bare arm slowly; he loved her and all but Olivia was a massive grump when she didn't get enough sleep.

Olivia closed her eyes and tried to follow Stiles' advice but then Coach opened his big mouth again and all urge to fall asleep went right out the window.

"Pack it in, pack it in!"

The rest of the cross-country team ambled up the bus stairs, down the aisle, and sat in their seats. Ethan was the first one on the bus and he took a seat in the empty spot next to Scott, who was in the seat in front of Olivia and Stiles.

"I don't know what happened last night but I'm pretty sure you saved my life," Ethan stated calmly, looking over at Scott.

"Actually, I saved your life," Stiles piped into the conversation; why did Scott get all the glory? Not that he needed glory but the alpha twins were assholes, so...When both Ethan and Scott glared at him, he faltered. "Not that it matters so much. It's just a minor detail."

Ethan lifted his chin in acknowledgement and turned in his seat a little, so he was facing Olivia, Stiles, and Scott all at the same time. "So, I'm gonna give you something. I'm sure you know that Derek's alive—"

"Yeah, we've known," Olivia gave Scott a pointed look; he rolled his eyes with a slight smile. "I can feel him, he's healing."

"Then you know he killed one of ours," Ethan gave her an appraising look. "That means one of two things can happen. Either he joins our pack..."

"And kills his own," Olivia spat, narrowing her eyes at him.

Ethan nodded. "Or Kali goes after hi and we kill him. That's the way it works."

Olivia bristled at his threat and leaned toward him, furious. "Ethan, remember how I made you transform back into a human? If you touch Derek, I will find some way to make that permanent."

"Yeah, you hear that? She'll make it permanent," Stiles backed her up, giving Ethan his own glare. "Your little code of ethics, by the way? Sort of barbaric, F.Y.I."

Ethan gave the both of them a blank stare before getting up out of the seat and heading toward the back of the bus where Danny had saved him a spot.

Stiles frowned and faced Olivia. "We should probably practice being more intimidating."

Despite her bad moon, Olivia couldn't help but smile at him and pat his cheek affectionately.

"Hey, Ethan!" Coach started walking down the aisle, trying to get the alpha's attention. "I want..."

"Coach, can I see your whistle for a second?" Lydia interrupted him as he walked by her and Allison's seat across the aisle from Olivia and Stiles. She took the whistle from around his neck without an answer but Coach didn't seem affected by it as he continued walking toward Ethan.

"I'm gonna need that back," he warned her, not even bothering to turn around.

Olivia, Stiles, Scott, and Allison gave Lydia questioning looks as she put the whistle to her mouth and cupped her other hand around the end. She blew into it silently and then pulled her cupped hand away. In her palm was a powdering of bright purple wolfsbane; that was what had been affecting Scott, Isaac, Boyd, and Ethan and let the darach get into their heads.

"Wolfsbane."

"So, every time Coach blew the whistle on the bus, Scott, Isaac, Boyd—"

"And Ethan," Lydia added.

"We all inhaled it," Scott realized.

Allison nodded. "You were all poisoned by it."

"And it's how the Darach got into their heads," Olivia finished. "That's how they did it."

Stiles frowned and ripped the whistle out of Lydia's grasp. He reached over Olivia to pull down the window and quickly threw the whistle out of it, just as the bus started rolling out of Glen Capri's parking lot.

"Hey, hey, hey! Stilinski!"

(Gif is not mine)