*ARCHIVED* Truth Or Dare (Sciles | Dark Descent, Book 1)

Chapter 4

FEBRUARY 11, 2016
THURSDAY
10:32 A.M.

After the dream, Stiles couldn't go back to sleep, as hard as he tried. He ended up sitting on his bed, legs curled up to his chest. An icy feeling of dread lodged itself in his chest. The feeling that something terrible was coming, something he couldn't even begin to imagine. His eyes never left the window. He kept waiting for another thump, for an ivory hand to pull the bars back and push the window in. He kept waiting for a flash of red eyes. But it never came.

Once again, the fact that the vampire had had the perfect chance to kill him and didn't almost scared him more than it would have if he had killed him. His thoughts kept jumping between Scott and the vampire and the dream. It had felt so real, so emotional.

Stiles didn't fall asleep again until the first rays of morning sunshine glared through his window, and his eyelids were too heavy and his eyes burned too much to keep them open. He woke up again not long after, the sound of his father's voice drifting up the stairs. Stiles sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, looking over at his bedroom door to see, as he'd expected, that it was open a crack.

John must have checked on him when he'd gotten home from work, as he frequently did, thinking he was asleep. Normally, Stiles was asleep, but some nights he would be awake to hear the door open, to feel the weight of his father's worried gaze on his back. He wouldn't move as his father crossed over to the bed, the floorboards creaking, and gripped his shoulder lightly. Every time, without fail, his father would let out a long sigh as he closed the door, and Stiles would lie awake for hours afterward, agonizing about what he could do to take this weight of his father's shoulders.

Stiles slid out of bed, creeping out of the room and down the stairs. He paused at the swinging kitchen door. There was a strange tone to his father's voice, something that made him feel like this wasn't a conversation his father would want him to hear. But there was something inside himself that told him he needed to hear it. His father was in the middle of speaking when he reached the door.

"...when David arrived. None of them survived. I haven't seen anything like it since...These bodies, they were...torn apart. There was not one inch of that house clean of blood. The bodies were staged, Melissa. Like theatre props."

Stiles swallowed. What the hell was his father talking about? There was a moment of silence, and then John continued speaking.

"I don't know. But if he's back, Melissa...Stiles and I are leaving Beacon Hills. And I'd advise you and Scott and their friends and their families to do the same. We won't survive this."

John spoke with certainty, more than a little fear, and a surprising tone of familiarity, as if he'd been through this before. John paused again. And then, "Yeah, I know. He's dead. You're right." A sigh. "Yeah. I'll call you later, Melissa. Goodbye."

Stiles stood there for a moment, heart racing, palms sweating. What, who, was John talking about, and what did Melissa have to do with it? Who was dead, and why was John so scared that they might not be, after all? Faking disorientation from waking up, Stiles stumbled inside the kitchen, rubbing his eyes and yawning theatrically. He stopped abruptly, as if he was surprised to see John sitting at the kitchen table, twirling his cell phone in his fingers absently.

"What are you doing home?" Stiles asked. "I thought your day off wasn't for another couple days."

John looked up, eyes wide, like he hadn't heard Stiles enter. "Oh. Um. Yeah, about that...We gotta talk."