NIGHTMARE | Scott/Stiles

Something Smells Rotten

"Has she spoken to you yet?" Theo's soft voice spoke out to Cora as they two sat together on the couch in the loft.

Cora's eyes found the hallway where Marisa's bedroom door was.
"No." She told him, closing the book in front of her and leaning back against the couch with a sigh.

Theo drapes his arm over the back of the couch behind her, pulling her closer with a gentle tug, making Cora smile to herself as she nestled into his warmth.

"She'll come to you eventually." He told her.

"I feel like she's keeping something from me. Something big. She's been acting like this since we had to read the dread doctor book. What if she had a bad memory, and it's messing with her..."

"Hey." Theo nudged her before reaching his other hand up closer to her, brushing her hair off her shoulder and out of his face. "All you can do is be there for her. She'll come to you when she's ready."

Cora let out a deep sigh, resting her head into his shoulder.
"Marisa's the kind of person who could keep something from someone forever. She likes to go through the things alone and...I'm afraid she won't ever come to me."

Five days was enough to get everything Marisa needed for the ritual, except the nemeton, which she was still unable to find, and she refused to ask the others. She refused to get them involved at all. They'd think she was crazy, but she didn't much care about being crazy anymore, only that she knew they'd tie her down or something if they knew.

"I'm worried about you." Everything Marisa needed was in a bag hidden under her bed. The very bag she had just stuffed under her bed just as her bedroom door opened. "Malia's worried about you too." Cora told her, taking another step further into the room.

Marisa ran her fingers through her hair, sitting down on her mattress. She didn't even have it in her to pretend anymore, her mind was so busy, so just avoided everyone. "Scott's worried too. He keeps asking why you're not answering his calls, why you keep avoiding him at school." Cora paused, watching the way Marisa's legs bounced, the way her fingers tapped on the edge of her mattress. Her eyes were straying off toward the window above her dresser. They didn't move from that place until Cora stepped into her path. "Marisa. Are you even listening to me?"

"You're worried about me. Scott's worried, Malia's worried. Blah. Blah. Blah. I'm fine." She moved to her feet, picking her school bag up off of her bed. "Is it too much to ask that you all just give me some space?"

"Well, there's a lot going on right now, Marisa, and giving you space isn't really a top priority here. The dread doctors are still out there, the chimeras. And everything has been really freaking quiet lately, which is worrying Scott, and quite frankly, it's worrying me too, but the fact that it hasn't even phased you is freaking me out even more." Marisa threw her bag over her shoulder, starting for the door. "Marisa, if you don't start talking to me, I'm gonna call Derek, and I'm gonna tell him to come home." Marisa stopped, turning to face her sister.

"So call Derek. Tell him to come home." She shrugged before turning for the door again. "I don't care."

Marisa placed her books inside her locker one by one, listening to the footsteps of every person who walked up and down the hallway, who shut their lockers, who opened them, who spoke, but barely anyone did. Nobody had really spoken or laughed communicated with one another over the past week. All except Marisa's sisters trying to get through to her. That, and she knew Cora had been hanging out with Theo a lot lately. Too much, in her opinion, but she was too preoccupied to act on it.

"Hey." She didn't turn at the voice, but saw Malia in the corner of her eye, lean against the locker beside hers with her books pressed to her chest. "How is...everything?"