No Judgement , Stiles Stilinski ⁴ ✓

[ 21 ] once an invasive species is introduced

021. ONCE AN INVASIVE SPECIES IS INTRODUCED

ASPEN had lived through many times in her life where words had failed her.

Being speechless at something wasn't new to her, not with the life she lives. Things that have seemed beyond impossible have time and time again happened to her, so with all the experience you'd think she'd be used to it. But what was new to her—was the feeling she had right now. Like time had literally been put on pause, along with her heartbeat.

"Asp, what is it?" Stiles' voice tried to break her out of her trance, as the hazel eyed boy saw the state of shock she was in from whatever text had lit up her screen in that moment.

She didn't reply—her mouth opened, but her voice failed her.

"Aspen, what's going on?" Scott asked this time, "Wh— who is it? Who texted you?"

She still made no reply. Her hand began to shake with her cellphone inside it, and Scott and Stiles gave each other a very concerned look. They had no idea what to think.

When Aspen still couldn't find the words to speak, she simply held out her shaky hand in front of her, passing the phone to the two boys in front of her. But before they could take it from her, the shakiness from her hand caused her to drop the phone on to the hard, wooden floors—and the three of them watched as the screen cracked with a loud noise, and then dimmed to black as pieces from it smashed all over the ground.

"No—" Aspen whispered in a panic, "No, no, no, no..." and then in immediate denial, she picked up the phone with her hands which were still shaking, and she tried to turn it back on, wiping away the smashed pieces of the screen, pricking her fingers and drawing blood as she did it, but she could barely feel the pain that the shards of glass from the screen cut her skin.

"Hey," Stiles said in a calming voice, taking the broken phone from her and cupping her hands in his, trying to make her look at him and calm down enough to explain what happened.

Her head snapped up to look at him with slightly beady, widened eyes, and her arm immediately froze, stopping the shakiness. Her eyebrows furrowed, and her gaze dropped down to her phone again, then she met Scott's eyes instead.

"We can worry about the phone later, okay?" Scott said, also trying to calm her down, "Just—just tell us what happened, what was the text?"

"It was Allison—" Aspen blurted out, and then failed to even acknowledge the look that was exchanged between the two boys after those three words. "She—she said she needed help, but... but this isn't possible, right? I mean—we buried her phone with her, along with all those other things, like—like her silver arrow, a-and her necklace. She— sh-she's dead!"

Of course, she now had no proof of this text. But that didn't worry her—Scott and Stiles would believe her, wouldn't they?

Wouldn't they?

Stiles then tried to get her to stand up with him, while Scott tried to clear up the broken shards of glass from the smashed phone. He tried to think of something he could say to her, something that would calm her down, something that would put her at ease.

"Say you believe me—" she said with a tone of pure desperation, staring into Stiles' eyes of pity with her own glossed over in a threatening layer of tears, "Stiles—say you believe me!"

"I believe you," Stiles said without hesitating, knowing that's what she needed to hear.

Even if it wasn't necessarily true.