my personal devil in prada // lydia martin

Strike me down so I can't get up again. Please.

The weekend had come and gone with little to no interruptions. And by no interruptions I mean Derek hasn't come to kill us all... yet. Which was good because I had Chemistry homework to hand in and if I didn't, I'm pretty sure Harris would drag me up from the depths of hell just to berate me.

Scott and Stiles were waiting for me by the front doors to the school when I arrived.

"What's up?" I asked and then Scott started to tell us about his nightmare last night. A totally normal and totally rational nightmare where he made out with Allison on the school bus at night, wolfed-out and attacked her. You know, just totally normal teenage problems.

"So you killed her?" Stiles opens the door.

"I don't know. I just woke up. And I was sweating like crazy, and I couldn't breathe. I've never had a dream where I woke up like that before," Scott explains, looking at the pair of us.

"Really? I have. Usually ends a little differently," Stiles comments nonchalantly which is, of course, what everyone does when giving way too much detail about their perversions to the wrong people.

"Gross." I settle on the simpler reply, because if I give it too much thought, I'd get images. Horrifying images; ones I'd need bleach eyedrops for. Or maybe I'd just carve out my own eyes entirely. That'd work too.

"A, I meant I've never had a dream that felt that real, and B, never give me that much detail about you in bed again." Scott shares my sentiment.

Stiles huffs out a breath, "Noted. Let me take a guess here-" Stiles began to decode Scott's dream.

"No, I know: you think it has something to do with me going out with Allison tomorrow, like I'm gonna lose control and rip her throat out."

"No, of course not." Stiles states unconvincingly.

"Yes, that's exactly what he thinks." I correct, "But don't worry dreams are essentially just simulations the brain puts us through -- worse case scenarios, like... zombie apocalypses, all our loved ones dying horribly. Our brain does it so we're prepared when it does actually happen. Not to mention, we dream about things that worry us. Which means that-"

"I'm worried I'm going to kill Allison."

"Yeah, even on an unconscious level. But don't worry: you're gonna be fine. I mean, so far, I think you've handled it amazingly." I offer a smile. Because I am a supportive friend. And also the fact that if Scott got too stressed then he would snap easier and might shift and kill us, but mainly because I'm a good friend.

Stiles continues my pep talk by adding: "You know, it's not like there's a lycanthropy for beginners class you can take or anything."

"Yeah, not a class, but maybe a teacher," Scott suggests.

"Who, Derek?" I punch Scott in the arm at unfortunately -- well, more like fortunately, because he deserves it for being an absolute idiot -- the same time as Stiles clips him around the head.

"Are you perhaps forgetting the part where we got him locked up? Or the fact that he threatened to kill you if you played the game, which you did? Or the fact that both of these combined gives someone like him enough motive to want to murder us all one by one? I'm talking stringing us up, tearing off our skin one chunk of flesh at a time agonisingly slowly to send us off to a tortuous eternal sleep? Or-"

"Okay, Charlie. We get it." Scott interrupts my tirade of exactly why I've been so jumpy lately, "but chasing her, dragging her to the back of the bus, it felt so real."

"How real?"

"Like it actually happened."

We reach the end of the corridor and open the outside door and holy mother of all fuck. The back door to the school bus has been ripped off its hinges and lies in a twisted state of mangled metal. And not to mention, there's blood. Everywhere. It coats the seat, the door, the ground. Everything. Looks like that dream wasn't just a dream.