From Ashes ✗ Stiles Stilinski [#𝟏]

𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲 𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 [ advice. ]

A/N: Alrighty! If you've been keeping up with my profile posts, I said we'd been done this story by summer. Act Two literally has taken forever. Excuse my use of the word 'literally'. Filler is always tough to get through! Alas, it's super important.

Anyway, the girl at the beginning of this chapter is played by Samara Weaving (previously Britt Robertson). Is she important? Is this a giant distraction to throw you off? Enjoy!

Song Recommendation ["Bullet With Butterfly Wings (cover)" - Tribe Society]

NOTE: For the full experience, I do personally suggest seeking out each song rec.

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If you lie on federal documents, at least study your answers here and there.

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Much like the last several weeks - or months if she thought about it - Madeline found herself waking up in a cold sweat, gasping for air. The dreams were beginning to feel real. It was as if she could smell the severed corpses of a field of dead wolves or even hear Lydia's scream. She could almost feel the hand wrapping around her throat. The entire thing was dizzying. Maddie breathed slowly and put her head in her hand for a moment before willing herself out of bed. That was when something strange happened.

When she stood she actually did feel dizzy. She felt the world tilt slightly and she stumbled, gripping her forehead. Maybe she got up too quickly. Yeah, that had to be it. In seconds, the dizziness left again and she shook her head violently to rid the last of it.

The rest of her time before school went in a blur, with only a few speed bumps. For instance, the amount of time she spent outside the close bathroom door needing to pee while listening to the hair dryer blasting. This wasn't anything new but an irritated sigh still passed from her lips. Things, in theory, seemed patched between her and Allison but she still felt that something was off. Especially the night they had trained together for the first time.

"Stop holding back so much!"

"Are you crazy?"

"No, but I'm not made of glass either. I need you to take this seriously."

"You mean you need me to take you seriously."

She wasn't quite the ideal sparring partner yet - and, in reality, Maddie felt more like a trainer than a trainee. In a way she felt as if that was the reason Allison's father allowed that farce to continue, even when Allison was floored the first time.

There was a tension still between the girls and it felt as though nothing had been resolved, regardless of Allison's attempts at amiable conversation afterwards. Everything about Maddie's response was false - the smile, the nod, the short answers - and the older girl wasn't so stupid to not figure that out. It made next few days to and from school increasingly awkward. Neither seemed to want to talk about it and settled for turning up the radio instead.