CHAPTER 31

Fire, Meet Gasoline

She walked back to the Stilinski's. The wounds from her forest run reopened, begging her to walk on the grass. She didn't, she continued walking down the middle of the paved road, each step stinging with cold more than the last.

Dreading the moment she would have to see Sheriff again, she tried to think of another place to go. But there was nowhere. Stiles was her home. Sheriff was her home.

It became more and more difficult to stay mad at him the more she thought about the night at the station. He'd just been doing his job, she'd backed him into a corner, she knew that, she kept reminding herself of it… but she couldn't allow herself to forgive him. If she did, she'd have to change, and she wasn't ready.

Despite her promise to him, her promise to Stiles, she wasn't ready.

The only thing holding her over until she could get another fix was the booze. She felt like her brain was growing too large for her skull as it throbbed. She took a swig of the stolen vodka bottle.

Though she couldn't forgive Sheriff, she also couldn't blame him. After all, she did have quite the track record, and what the fuck was that freak out? Was Stiles' research right? Was she going insane? Maybe that was why she couldn't stop making all those terrible decisions, maybe it was a chemical imbalance or whatever.

And what on Earth was she thinking sleeping with Marks again? Why didn't she just call Don? Don was a good guy, she should give Don a real chance one of these days.

She knew she wouldn't do that.

Mars downed what was left in the bottle and tossed it into some random lawn where it landed with a thud. "Stupid fucking bitch." She cursed herself, arms crossed over her chest protectively. She shouldn't have gone back to Marks. Her libido wasn't that raging. Well. Maybe it was.

Sure, 'Jason' was hot- but he was degrading, everything about him made her feel sleazy, and that was an extremely hard thing to make her feel. Even if she was a willing and enthusiastic participant, he himself was still a sleaze, fucking an underage girl- three times now.

She could still hear him, "I knew you were that kind of girl." He'd said after slapping her ass. "Knew it." He'd pulled her hair to kiss her neck. At the time, she'd liked it. The way he spoke to her, touched her.

But now? With the clarity of impending alcohol poisoning? Repulsed wasn't a strong enough word. Violated, dirty... those weren't quite right either. She'd never felt that before, sex was fun, carefree- or it was until now. Maybe everyone was right about her. Good for nothing kid, going nowhere, wasted potential; she was seeing less and less of where they were wrong. Mars believed them, whole heartedly.

They were probably right about where she was headed, too. Some said she'd end up a hooker, homeless, selling her body for her next hit, stealing their hard-earned tax dollars. Others thought maybe she'd marry some old biker, pop out a few good for nothing kids like herself, die young from lung cancer...

Mars raised a hand to her mouth and covered a strangled sob as she walked. She couldn't imagine what she'd look like to anyone that looked out the window.

Running was the only thing on her mind. But running away from all the bad meant running from Aje; from the Stilinski's- whose house she found herself in front of when the sun just began to make an appearance.

She took the key from around her neck and unlocked the front door, drying her eyes so she'd have a small chance of no one asking her questions. After a bit of stumbling about, Mars collapsed onto the makeshift bed on the couch, trying to calm what she'd built up in her head.

"Fuck." Sheriff jumped as he rounded the corner from the kitchen. He hadn't heard her come in.

"Sorry." She mumbled. "Didn't mean to scare you."

"It's fine." Sheriff took notice of her sloppy hair, red eyes, and heavy scent of alcohol. Of her disheveled men's shirt and missing pants and missing shoes and bleeding feet. His stomach turned in knots, immediately assuming the worst.

"Did something- happen- to you?" He questioned through clenched teeth, ready to make heads roll, not yet paying any mind to the obvious drunken-ness of it all. He knew he had a lot to make up for.

Mars waved him off. "Nothing non-consensual, you don't need to worry." She said, monotone, looking ahead with a dead gaze. "I just fucked up again, like I always do. It'll pass." Mars paused, but found herself unable to bear the silence.

"Is Stiles home yet?" Logically, she knew he'd still be at Scott's, but it was worth asking so she could get out of the room. Sheriff was usually ready to go to work and heading out the door by now.

"No, he's still at Scotts. I thought you all were." He was clearly wrong about that part. "I'm here. If you need me." He tried, knowing she was still angry with him. Little did he know, she was too stuck in her mind to care even slightly about the arrest. Not so deep down, she understood why he did what he did- and that made the way she felt so much worse.

"Thanks." She smiled as he turned away.

She didn't deserve the Stilinski's, deserve Sheriff. He was trying so hard to do right by her and she couldn't be bothered. She didn't deserve his kindness. She looked over him as he began to walk away, from his graying hair down his back to his feet.

In a fit of self-destruction, Mars stood.

She decided this was the moment she would make everything crash around her.

This was the moment she would incinerate every bridge.

This was the moment she couldn't ever come back from.

This was how she was going to escape the cycle of guilt and misery that suffocated her every moment of every day, with every breath she tried to take in.

The air around her wasn't thick, but slick, like a poison moving in waves and closing in. She felt her control slipping from her with every heavy tick of the clock. Each tick like a gunshot in her ear, sending her off to the races.

It needed to end.

Without permitting herself one single thought, Mars grabbed Sheriffs hand and turned him to her.

"Mars? Are you- o- oka-" He drifted, feeling himself become lost as her hand lifted to his cheek. She ran her thumb against the grain of his stubble and looked down from his eyes to his lips.

Where her skin touched his was on fire, on his hand and on his face, it felt like a deadly and addictive drug was released from her fingertips. Her hand made her way to the back of his neck. Then, roughly, she pulled him down to her, kissing him with all she had, all she'd ever had.

His mind went blank, his ears rang to drown the world away, and that strange feeling that came from her touch changed him from a man of reason into a man without will, without thought. He pressed a hand to the sixteen-year old's lower back and pulled her against him tightly.

Their mouths continued to intertwine. His mind screamed at him to pull away, but she'd stolen his agency. Neither any longer aware of who they were, or who they were with. Sheriff pushed Mars against the wall, kissing her chin down to her neck, satisfied when he heard the soft moan that escaped her mouth. The sound that had escaped from her affected him deeply, like a song that infects your mind for weeks on end. It was poison.

She was poison.

The moment that Mars felt her back pressed up against the wall, something sparked alive in her. There was a hunger that could only be fulfilled by him in her life. Her hands were just as hungry as her lips, as they slid over Sheriff's back, feeling the tense muscles underneath his shirt. One hand dipped down and grasped firmly onto the waistband of Sheriff's thin sweatpants.

Mars' head rolled back as Sheriff's mouth and tender kisses trailed up her neck and to her lips. Without opening her eyes, she felt him recapture her lips. She sighed into him, relaxing slightly, and she grasped his hands - that held her far too delicately - and moved them to where she wanted.

She, with very little effort for a girl that weighed just over 7 stone soaking wet, flipped them over so that the Sheriff had his back to the wall. She grasped the waistband again and started to push them downwards. Sheriff grabbed her wrists and brought her back to her feet, she'd jumped at his touch.

"I-I." he stuttered, trying with all his might to be rational, to reject her. The moment that Mars had gone to her knees, Sheriff broke one of the strings she'd been pulling, he knew that he was about to go to a place he could never come back from - one that would destroy his son and himself. For more reasons than one.

It felt like all the air had been stolen from his lungs. What the fuck is happening? Sheriff didn't understand, he very literally could not control himself. "I can't." His head throbbed, the more he pulled from her, the more distance placed between them, the more pain he felt.

Mars looked directly at him, stare unwavering, and in her most sultry voice she could produce, she asked, "Why not?" Her lips were swollen and she looked up at him through long lashes.

The same song that infected him when she'd kissed him rang in his mind, and much like what had happened to his son last night, he found himself in a trance- the very one he had just managed to break. The only way he could describe it (though he would not remember it) was complete surrender, complete mind control- she isn't human. His mind told him, but the thought was ridiculous.

It took everything in his power to force his eyes to close and push her to the side, a little more forcefully that intended. She hit the wall with a thud. He started walking away.

It infuriated Mars.

Sheriff hadn't even known she'd moved until she appeared in front of him. Something was different about her this time. He couldn't place it exactly, all he knew was the dread washing over him when she materialized from thin air.

It's a trick of the light. He told himself at the sight of her eyes. The iris looked as if they were actively swirling pools of green and blue.

She made a move to kiss him again, he stopped her before she could. His hand covered her lips and the other held tightly on her arm. "No, Mars," He said, through clenched teeth.

Though he sounded angry, that wasn't it. Not following through was causing him genuine, physical pain. Like someone was trying to rip his intestines out through his mouth. "This. Can't. Happen." He put her to the side, and she began to breath heavily, meeting him back in reality.

What have I done? She watched him walk upstairs. He refused to look back, as he was convinced that he'd return to the young girl and do what he knew he shouldn't in fear of the excruciating pain that faded with every step away from her.

Mars followed him up the stairs, stopping outside his room in a panic at the closed door. Unable to make herself knock.

She'd got what she wanted, right? Alienated him? Calm down Mars, calm the bloody fucking hell down! But she couldn't, she couldn't.

The instinct to run she mistakenly thought this would invoke disappeared, and she walked into Stiles' room, locked the door, and shattered into infinite pieces.

She found her jean jacket and felt around her pockets frantically, there had to be something in there, anything. She didn't care what it was. She dug for a plastic bag or a joint or a pill.

"Please, please, please." She begged the heavens in wet and ugly sobs.

She checked her shoes, she stripped down all while she choked. Was this withdrawal? It seemed late for that, but she'd never felt it before, she'd never felt the pain of going without this long.

With violently shaking hands she went through her winter coat hanging over the doorknob and found some pot, but that wasn't strong enough, it wouldn't do fucking jack shit. "think, Mars, fucking think." She whispered.

She went over to the dresser where she'd hid Sheriff's old Vicodin and found there wasn't much of anything left, but she dry swallowed what she could. She tripped over her bag, surely there would be something in there. She found a couple pills, she took them, not even knowing what they were, and she found a half-smoked pack of cigs and a lighter in it. Then she found it, beautiful in its blinding white glory.

There wasn't much left, but she poured it onto Stiles' laptop and made a line with his student ID. She rolled up a dollar, snorted it and wiped her nose. She'd forgotten about the repulsive aftertaste.

She remembered Stiles hid booze in the laundry basket under his bed, and she chugged the third of the handle that was left, needing that familiar burn down her esophagus. After barely opening the window she lit up. Waiting to be knocked out, for the dark, waiting for the euphoria.

It didn't come.

The feeling of needing her stomach pumped though?

That did.

She grabbed the rubbish can and stuck her fingers down her own throat, forgetting it was made of metal mesh and everything oozed out onto her and the floor. Eventually she collapsed completely, clutching her stomach, still spewing on the floor in front of her but unable to lift herself up to get to a bathroom.

She was choking.

Turn on your side. She commanded her body. Turn!

She'd heard Sheriff leave a while back, she knew she was completely and utterly alone. She was scared, and she didn't want to die, but she was eerily content. She wasn't sure how, but she managed to turn on her side, she gasped violently for air.

The only coherent thoughts she could form was: If there is a God, don't let Stiles find me like this.

She'd put him through so much, finding her dead body naked in a pile of her own vomit in his room wasn't the very last thing she wanted to do. She stuck her fingers down her throat once more, desperate to get out of the situation she'd put herself in. Just to spare him, to spare Stiles.

It had blood in it now. A decent amount of it. How long had she been down there? She looked at the red chunks sticking to her hand for a moment, unable to comprehend it, or do anything about it. But she was aware enough that broken sobs quickly became uncontrollable. She was too tired to keep her eyes open.

She shut them, and in her heart she knew it was the last time she would.