From Ashes ✗ Stiles Stilinski [#𝟏]

𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲 𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐞 .𝟓 [ the road. ]

Phil Larson loathed driving but it was an inherent fact of the universe that no one really knows when they're about to meet their proverbial finish lines and it's only in hindsight that you see the irony of the life you chose.

As it happened to be, his life was one long road trip up and down that same strip of concrete that wound around the forests and truck stops between San Francisco and Beacon Hills. 

He didn't even like Beacon Hills, after gaining some distance from it after high school. Moving to the city gave him a different perspective on his hometown and towns like it. Something about it was too quiet, too tucked away. His childhood didn't seem what his friends would consider normal because small towns managed to function almost in another reality from the rest of the world. A bubble where the horrors of the outside never quite reach the way they should but daily troubles amplify into town-wide calamities. Everyone knows when you got scared during the second grade spelling bee and cried on stage just as well as everyone knows most of the Sheriffs on a first name basis. Walking down the street was practically an invitation for your neighbors to gossip to you and about you.

Beacon Hills, in particular, was an unsettling little town in the middle of Nowhere, California, a place plagued unsettling little towns. 

It was already getting late, he noted as he looked down at the blue digital screen of his dashboard. 10:25 PM. Just late enough to justify a break. A groan rumbled in his throat and he ran a hand through his copper hair. He'd have to stay the night in Beacon Hills, not that that would be any inconvenience for anyone but him. He would sneak into his parents' house and collapse on his old bed for a good five hours before hitting the road again. Just a few more minutes.

That was when he found an odd sight on the side of the road in the distance. A car was just off to the side of the blacktop, hood open as smoke billowed out. Beside the vehicle was a girl, hunched over with her head in her hands. Her long dirty blonde tresses curtained over the rest of her face and her arms were covered by an over-sized ivory cardigan but he could tell she was frighteningly pale from her exposed legs from her short, floral printed dress. Who wears short skirts in late February? He found himself ignoring the question and pulling over to the side of the road only a few feet away from her. As he exited his car, he noticed that her clothes and skin were covered in dirt.

The sound of his car door slamming shit seemed to call her attention as her head snapped up and her bright, teary blue eyes found his hazel ones instantly. She opened her mouth to speak and it took for more seconds before her words followed. "Oh...oh my god! Thank you for stopping!"

"Er, uh..." Phil started, scratching the back of his head and trying at a more concerned look. She was stunning, so much so that it had caught him off guard and distracted him for a moment. "Are you okay?"

"Not really," she answered quickly and gasped between sentences. "Well, I'm fine. It's just my car..."

She began babbling, her voice strangled with sobs. He could hardly understand a word but he'd already resolved a plan of action. If he was lucky, perhaps she'd be grateful enough to give him her number - maybe more. It didn't hurt to try, after all. "Hey, it's okay," he cut in, "We're almost to town. We just need to call a tow truck and I can give you a ride or something."

She rushed over to him, an astonished smile spreading across her lips despite it making her expression crumple again. "Y-you would do that?"

He grinned back at her and shrugged, incredibly aware of how close she was standing him. "Uh, yeah. Sure."

She smiled another second before it dropped back into shock and then despair. "...I...I can't."

"What? Why? It's not that far."

"It's just that..." She sighed. "It's a long story." As he blinked, her eyes widen and her weepy smile returned, although it was smaller this time. "But there is something you could do!"

He was just about to ask what when he watched her face. Maybe it was a trick of the light, however little of it there was as his headlights were the sole source of it. Her face had shifted. Her elegant, gentle face had been gnarled and twisted. Her eyes faded from blue to a sickly yellow. She smiled again and her canines had extended and sharpened. He tried screaming as she growled.

She gripped his neck and yanked it down to her level as she sunk her teeth into the pallid flesh. Blood trickled down her chin and onto her dress and his shirt. Even still, she didn't take much; he was still conscious although his eyes were half-lidded. The boy had been reduced to sobs of 'please don't kill me' just as she retracted her fangs and grinned, leaning in close to his ear. "Deliver a message. Pretty please...for me."