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

Chapter 1

FEBRUARY 5, 2016
FRIDAY
3:15 P.M.

Making it out of Beacon Hills High School alive was almost as much of a struggle as facing off against a vampire. The moment the final bell rang, chaos erupted. Students and teachers rushed to escape to the false safety their homes provided. Truthfully, no one was safe, and they all knew it. Stiles Stilinski and his best friends Allison Argent and Scott McCall walked down the front steps of the school, side by side, watching with nonchalance at the commotion around them.

Horns honked and tires squealed. Students rushed to the bus stop or to their parents' cars, and scared parents yelled at their children to hurry up if they lingered, talking with their friends. There were some people, of course, that walked to their destinations with the same bored expressions on their faces as Stiles - but, also like Stiles and his friends, they were terrified on the inside. They were just good at hiding it.

"I don't understand why everyone still gets so scared," Allison said, struggling to be heard over the noises around them. "It's been this way for over two hundred years. It's all we know."

"Because you never know what day will be the day that everything changes," Stiles replied. "Maybe today is the day you drop your keys, or your car breaks down. And those few moments are all that stands between you and death."

    Allison held his gaze for a second, looking away when Scott pulled her into his arms. "School ends at three, Stiles," Allison said. "Curfew isn't until seven and it doesn't even get dark until, like, seven-thirty. There's plenty of time to get home before they come out."

    Stiles scoffed. "You make it sound like their schedules are incapable of changing. You know as well as everyone else that if they can exist in the first place, anything is possible. That includes them being able to walk in the sun."

    "That's ridiculous. How could that just suddenly happen, them being able to walk in the sun? It's unheard of."

    Stiles shrugged. "Vampires were unheard of, too. Until they weren't."

    Allison fell into silence and refocused her eyes to her shoes as she tucked a strand of her dark brown hair behind her ear.

    Scott rolled his eyes at Stiles. "Shut up, man, you're scaring her."

    Allison sighed angrily and yanked herself out of Scott's arms. "I'm not scared. And I don't need you to speak up for me. I can take care of myself."

    "I didn't mean-"

    "I'm going to go find Isaac. We'll meet you at Stiles's in fifteen minutes."

    Allison turned around and started fighting her way back through the crowd. Scott watched her for a moment, a sad but unsurprised look on his face, before turning back to Stiles.

    "She's been getting that way a lot lately," he said. "She always thinks I'm calling her weak or treating her like a child."

    "Are you?" Stiles asked.

    "No."

    Stiles shrugged. "We both know how independent she is. It must be hard for her to be treated like a defenseless animal. No freedom, always scared..."

    "We aren't the animals," Scott said, voice tight with sudden anger. "They are. Those things. The vampires. They're the animals."

    Stiles nodded in agreement. Scott didn't say anything else, so they walked the rest of the way to Stiles's home in silence. Ten minutes later, the white two-story house rose up in front of them. Allison and Isaac Lahey sat on the front porch, talking quietly to each other. They looked up as Scott and Stiles neared and stood in unison. The three friends fell behind Stiles as he hopped onto the porch and pressed his finger to the white circular fingerprint scanner beside the door, disguised as a doorbell.
 
     After a moment, the scanner flashed a bright green and faded back to white.