CHAPTER FOUR:
"Hell is empty and all the devils are here"
- william shakespeare
This time, it wasn't hers.
But it was still her hands - pale and shaky in the darkness of wherever the hell she was, but she would recognize them anywhere.
She could recognize them even as they gripped a thin line of string in each shaking fist, cutting into the smooth flesh of the throat below her.
Isaiah didn't want to kill him. He was beautiful. Slender, with smooth skin dotted with moles and dark hair that stood in place on his head. But his eyes didn't fit. His huge brown eyes, glittery with tears and red staining them unnaturally. He was terrified.
Of her. He was terrified of her.
What threw her was they were both screaming. His fine pink lips were tore open in a soundless scream, his voice gurgling with the blood that sprouted from his mouth and stained his teeth as the string bit into his throat, inch by inch, cutting his windpipe into pieces.
The other scream was unfamiliar, but Isaiah could feel the raw burn it left behind in her throat. It was almost animalistic, bouncing off their surroundings and back to her ears. It echoed endlessly, overlapping itself in a continuous loop.
Isaiah hated it, but it didn't stop. Neither do her hands, even after the string was well coated in the beautiful boy's blood. A thick river of it ran from the mole dotted throat, the column of skin severed.
It didn't stop until shadows crept over their bodies - hers, shaking, and his, still as a statue, cool as marble.
By the time she woke up, Isaiah was already hoarse and slumped in front of her toilet, retching up the nonexistent contents of her stomach.
Her hands shook in her lap, but felt warm and slick with blood.
Claudia drank it all in at a distance, silent.
James and Delilah Montgomery were not family-oriented people.
She wasn't asking for a modern spin on Full House or anything that drastic. Hell, she knew that even God himself couldn't make a miracle like that happen. But would it kill them to at least pretend like she wasn't still locked up?
It was possible they didn't mean to be so isolated. Maybe they couldn't help it, because of the way they were raised.
Isaiah didn't know much about either of her parents' pasts, which was the way she saw it staying until their deaths.
Sometimes, she hated it this way. She wanted to know where they hung out, if they had cars or hooked up with that one person their parents' couldn't stand. She wondered if they had good or bad grades, were popular or one of the normals. She thought about if they were ever bullies, or one of the people who casted judging glances from a distance and let a person succumb to the whispers around them.
But most times, she knew it was better if she remained in the dark.
That was the main reason why Isaiah kept quiet about Dana, her first and, by default, closest friend at school. Dana wasn't bad - quirky, at best, but still good. Good grades, good attitude, good friends, good social ranking. Just naturally good, inside and out.
She didn't want her parents' fangs sinking in and draining her of it.
Fortunately, Isaiah didn't have to worry about queries on her first week of school, because they never came.
Instead of sitting at their enormous dinner table and discussing mundane breakfast conversation, Isaiah munched on her apple and banana nut muffin in silence, glowering down the corridor that led to her mother's shut up study. Her father lacked the idea of being at home on a Friday morning altogether, choosing to lurk around one of his many office buildings instead.
Sourly, Isaiah bit into the juicy green skin of her apple, and debated throwing it out the long wall of windows to the right of her, just to hear the glass break.
"You're never truly alone, pathetic little child," Claudia chided from where she stood against the wall. The dirt covering her frail body seemed more prominent than the last time Isaiah had seen her pop up. As if she brushed on a fresh layer, like she was applying powder.
The woman smiled, her teeth like a shark's. "You have me."
"You're staring."
The redhead didn't refocus her gaze, but instead looked harder, staring into the distance as if it held the answer to all of life's questions. As if she didn't know them already, practically.
"It's creepy," Malia added to Stiles' comment, biting into her Sloppy Joe with vigor.
"He's acting unusual," Lydia said in response once she finally tore her attention away.
Scott turned to see what she was talking about.
Her gaze had been settled on Liam's table, where the freshman sat with Mason and few of the other members of the lacrosse team. He was looking at a bigger guy intensely, focusing as he spoke of something with exaggerated hand gestures.
Other than the fact Liam's plate was already empty and it wasn't even ten minutes into the lunch hour, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
"I don't see it," the alpha confessed with a shrug.
Lydia gave a sigh, rolling her eyes in her typical manner. "Well, not now. But before, he was staring her down." She nodded her head toward a table to over from the beta's, where a small group of girls sat, all talking at the same time.
Scott tilted his head enough to observe the small trio. A blonde and brunette sat across from another brunette, each poised with a plastic spork in their hand.
The blonde looked almost out of place amongst the other two, her eyes bouncing back and forth as her friends talked. It seemed apparent she was more comfortable with just observing, running the tongues of her spork on her food lazily.
"Hey, isn't that the Montgomery girl?" Kira piped up, looking up from her nachos - stale tortilla chips with brown meat and artificial cheese. Scott resisted the urge to chuckle at her cute obliviousness to the glob of yellow sitting on the corner of her mouth.
"Shit, yeah," Stiles exclaimed, taking a look for himself.
The girl didn't look anything like the banshees Scott had encountered. She didn't hold Lydia's self-confidence, but she didn't appear to have any of Meredith's blatant fear either. In all honesty, Isaiah Montgomery couldn't look any more like a regular freshman girl. The only thing Scott could immediately point out to be different about her was that she had the money to dress with all the top brands. But not even that she showed off.
"She looks pretty boring," Malia summed up, her chewed straw bit between her teeth.
Lydia tossed them all a bland look. "What did you expect? A blinking neon sign?"
"Well, it's not like you and Meredith don't stand out in a crowd," Stiles rebuttled.
She tossed him a sneer. "Funny."
"When do you think Liam's going to make his move?" Kira asked. The small tip of her tongue poked out, wiggling as it tried in vain to reach the cheese blemish.
"This isn't a John Hughes movie, Yukimura, this is a pack mission," Stiles snorted.
"For God's sakes, Stiles, it's not like she's going to stand up and give a death prophecy right here," Lydia snapped.
Despite agreeing that his friend's accusations were slightly above ridiculous, Scott knew that it was just because they weren't getting anywhere.
Liam claimed to have broken off all contact with Isaiah and her family when she went to Eichen, and that showing up out of the blue would only get him a door in his face. And since he refused to build up the nerve to approach her at school, here they were, back at square one.
Scott focused on the blonde girl once again. He wondered what his beta was so afraid of. The alpha had found Lydia way more intimidating from afar than Isaiah appeared to be.
Whatever it was that was keeping her away, her friends obviously didn't see it. The brunette sitting beside her grabbed her arm, excitedly talking as their other friend nodded along, looking much like a perky bobblehead.
It was hard to imagine there being anything different about her at all.
She waited. She bottled up the icy fury inside her chest until she was locked in the safety of her soundproof room, alone and unbothered.
Isaiah felt her close by all day. Lurking outside her classes, trailing around the school's packed hallways, watching from afar as she sat with her friends at lunch.
Claudia was getting stronger now. Her presence had grown somehow, and continued to.
"What do you want from me?" She shouted into the emptiness of her room. She felt the bottle in her chest, the cork flying off as its contents spilled into her arms, making them shake, making her fingers curl into slender fists. So pale against the dark fabric of her jeans that it could be mistaken for snow.
She was not a killer.
She was not a monster.
Isaiah Montgomery was a girl.
A freshman in high school.
Just barely fifteen.
"Burn in hell!" Isaiah screamed.
She imagined Claudia's son, the one with the chopped windpipe, his blood on her hands, his death a weight on her shoulders for eternity.
The dead woman appeared as if she had already been there.
She smiled, her gums gray and gruesome as they supported yellow teeth.
"We're already there," she sing-songed, looking happy.
Isaiah spent the rest of her night in her closet, armed with nothing but her sketchbook and backpack full of homework, trying to blink away the numbers that illogically swam in front of her eyes.
Claudia hated small spaces.
"Are you going to the lacrosse game tomorrow?"
"I thought you hated sports."
Dana shrugged, her hair moving with the action. "Well, yeah, I guess. But I can't stay cooped up in my room forever. My parents might begin to think I want to spend time with them!"
Isaiah snorted as Dana's body rolled in a shudder, her face contorting as if the thought of bonding time with her parents was worse than eating a bucket of dead insects.
She hadn't had the pleasure of meeting Dana's parents yet, but she knew the gist of their relationship - high school sweethearts, engaged during their last year of college, both with enviable job positions at a law firm in the town next door.
And blessed with an intelligent and energetic social butterfly of a daughter.
The Albrights' couldn't get any closer to picture perfect if you framed them and hung it on a wall.
"Doesn't our lacrosse team suck, anyway?" Isaiah argued, pushing the cap back on her yellow highlighter.
Dana shrugged, smiling with all her teeth. "Absolutely. But that doesn't mean we can't go and enjoy the view, right?"
Isaiah sighed, looking up at the clock.
Dana had forty-seven minutes left to sell why going and gawking at sweaty, helmeted boys would be an awesome way to spend a perfectly good Thursday night.
"Besides," her friend hurried to add, "we always play against Davenforth. One of these days, they're going to pity us enough to forfeit a couple of points, and why would we want to miss such a fantastic piece of Beacon Hills High history?"
"Winning a game?"
"No, getting ten points closer to a possible tie."
Isaiah breathed in deeply through her nose, inhaling a big whiff of chalk and Dana's strawberry shampoo.
Earlier, the morning announcements had reported that the entire school's sixth hour would be extended to a seventy-five minute period due to all administration needing to be in a meeting during that time block, which also meant the entire school would be let out early.
Instead of killing herself in the weight room under the watchful eye of Coach Bailiff, Isaiah would be able to spend her time with Dana in an old Life Skills classroom along with the rest of her Phys Ed class. Taking the time to "study and increase the amount of attention they paid to their more lackluster sections of education," according to the rest of the morning announcement in first hour.
"Come on, you can't tell me you aren't the least bit interested in a guy on the team? Loads of freshmen hotties are on it this year, including that blonde fella that's been catching your eye. What's his face - Liam Something?"
At this, Isaiah nearly snapped her just picked up pen in half. She knew that her wandering eye had been landing on her old friend a lot, but she hadn't accounted on Dana picking up on it. That just went to show how much more careful Isaiah had to be around her, to protect her sane status while it was still intact.
There was also the issue of MSD.
Whoever the hell they were.
Isaiah had some suspicions of who the S and D belonged to, but the M was a total mystery, and Claudia was offering no hints to if Isaiah's crack-of-dawn research was getting her any closer to figuring it out.
"I won't know anything about what's going on," Isaiah tried one last time, but she could already feel her weak restraint cracking.
Dana could sense it too, and smiled brightly, sitting up as she tapped her red pen against the chair she was currently straddling. "Don't worry, most of the game is Coach Finstock yelling and a lot of booing. You'll get used to it."
Isaiah highly doubted it, but said nothing.
Instead of working on the twenty pages she was supposed to read from her World History textbook, Isaiah spent the rest of her extended hour creating a list of why it was horrible idea to agree to attend a lacrosse game:
Claudia.
Liam is probably for sure on the team.
Sports are boring.
Claudia.
It's probably going to be freezing.
Nothing to wear.
Claudia.
Liam.
Claudia.
When they were finally released, Isaiah parted ways with Dana saying she'd meet her at the game and a promise to send her a picture of her outfit for the game. Apparently there was a dress code for sitting in the bleachers and watching their team lose. Awesome.
She didn't bother calling for her driver because of the early release. It was only a ten minute city bus ride to corner of town where her house was, and she had worn boots, making for good walking footwear.
She could brave a little bit of self-transportation for once.
For the first time in years, Isaiah felt an odd sense of calm washing over her. It was pleasant, like the right amount of sunshine on a cloudless blue sky day. She hadn't experienced that kind of day in forever either, always seeing the empty ceiling of Eichen or drawing-covered walls of her own room.
The outside was nice for once. It felt good.
Besides the usual lull of the staff moving around the house, it was quiet when Isaiah arrived home. The chandelier in the foyer shook as she slammed the door shut, and Gretchen called out a warning about the just mopped floors and for goodness sakes, my child, please no slammin' doors!
To stay on the Scottish maid's good side, Isaiah paused at the door long enough to pull off her boots and tuck them under her arm, hurrying up the stairs before she could slip and fall on the shiny clean floor in her socks.
Not even Claudia showed up to disintegrate her peaceful mood.
The young blonde took advantage of her privacy by pulling all her drawers open and flicking the light on in her open closet, making sure all of her options for proper clothing were within her reach.
Isaiah never found herself being good with knowing what to where. Often, when she was little and carted to all of her family's fancy galas, her mother had maids pick out her outfits for her. They were usually as over the top and flashy as the event was, but this was different. This was school thing. Not even that, really. It was just going to be her and a friend, sitting on bleachers and watching cute boys run around in the cold.
Nothing special.
But she would like to think her years in Eichen House - two years of slippers and sweats and long sleeves - had not dulled her sense of fashion too much. What she wore seemed to be the only thing about her her peers found to be socially acceptable.
Tentatively, she fingered a thick pair of tights. She was a little tired of jeans; it was all she had been wearing all week - jeans and sweaters. Even Isaiah knew wearing the same thing over and over again was a bit tacky.
With a decisive nod, Isaiah pulled the tights out, along with a gray pair of over the knee socks before quickly switching from her dresser to her closet, making a beeline toward her rack of skirts.
It a minute, her eye still not use to having to locate specific hangers yet, but she managed to pull free a navy blue circle one and deciding that the gray cross sweater she currently sported would be just fine.
She made the change quickly, wiggling in her tights and socks first before hopping into her skirt and adjusting it a bit.
Isaiah glanced into the mirror and ran a hand through her hair.
She felt jittery, as if she was about to go on a date.
But that was ridiculous.
It was just a lacrosse game. The only one there to impress was Dana, and she would probably be too intently focused on the players to notice her past the first five minutes.
She was freaking out over nothing.
Isaiah turned fully to her reflection in her full-length mirror.
"Quit being such a weird fucker," she told herself sternly, then spun on her heel to grab her favorite leather jacket.
She was suddenly freezing.
Her prediction about the game was pretty much spot on.
When she arrived, Isaiah couldn't even find Dana at first. It took a couple minutes of feeling like a complete idiot and a lot of aimless wandering for her to finally locate her friend's cheerful face underneath a baby blue beanie, her hair flying in the nippy breeze. She looked ecstatic, and the game was only two minutes in.
"Hey, you made it!" The brunette dove to drag Isaiah forward in a bone-crushing hug when the duo met on the stairs, quickly pulling away to yank her down in the seat next to her.
"What'd I miss?" Isaiah asked, even though she had a hunch it was nothing.
Dana had already turned back to scanning the field. She flapped a hand in her friend's general direction. "Oh, nothing much. Finstock yelling, but he does that as often as he breathes."
Isaiah turned to the game as well, trying not to admit how quickly she began scanning the BH players for the name DUNBAR written across the back of their jersey. Liam had always been a star at whatever sport he played, unfairly so.
Within a glob on players on the farther side of the field, she finally spotted him, DUNBAR, with an equally bold 9 underneath.
It was hard to read him with such a distance between them, but even Isaiah could tell he was intently focused on his small group around him, looking to be made of no more than three other players.
She tilted her head at this, confused. Isaiah was no expert on sports, but that big a cluster during the middle of a play seemed odd.
Coach Finstock didn't look as curious about as she was, seeming to ignore the other side of the field entirely. He looked too busy shouting, "get the hell on defense ladies!" at the defense line.
Isaiah kept her focus trained on Liam and his group until they broke apart, squinting at player 15. Were those braids?
Quickly, she turned to Dana. "Hey, is that a girl on the field?"
The brunette followed her friend's finger, squinting as well. "Oh, yeah," she said mildly. "Kira Yukimura. The first girl player in two decades. Impressive."
Dana was quick to turn her attention back to the rushing bodies of the opposing team, but Isaiah focused a little more on 15.
The first girl player in two decades?
Impressive wasn't the word for it.
The first half continued for another twenty minutes or so, BH behind by a record 30.
Dana was rambling off about how there should be cheerleaders for more sports—like lacrosse, for instance—when Isaiah noticed something.
Claudia, looking murderous. She stood next to the bench, right next to a bigger, totally unsuspecting player. All of Claudia's focus and anger targeted toward the field with a certain kind of vengeance. Her dress seemed more torn, her filth-caked body more gaunt. But that didn't seem to matter to her. She only had eyes for the player with the 24 on his back.
And STILINSKI printed in large, bold white letters above it.
Isaiah tried her best to sustain a gasp, digging her uncut nails into the thinly covered skin of her thin, shaking Dana by the arm.
Her friend abruptly stopped in the middle of her long-winded sentence.
"What?"
"Who is that?" Isaiah demanded, taking her hand from her friend's arm to point to 24, who still stood with his back to them, in the process of taking his helmet off as the coach called for a time out.
Dana's forehead crinkled. "Stiles Stilinski? Why're you asking about a junior?"
Junior.
Isaiah stood suddenly, nearly knocking Dana off the bleacher.
"Where are you going?" her friend called out to her, but Isaiah's too focused on weaving her way through the crowded stands that she didn't bother responding.
It can't happen here. It can't it can't itcan't.
Claudia couldn't strike. She couldn't be strong enough to do anything now, only a few hours since Isaiah saw her last.
Claudia couldn't kill him at a stupid lacrosse game.
She couldn't.
She won't.
Momentarily triumphant, the blonde jumped from the last step, taking a moment to adjust her clothes before running to the players' bench.
Briskly, she tapped him on the shoulder, mentally preparing herself for the worst.
When he turned, he look shocked to see her standing there, as if she had suddenly popped into existence wearing a toga and sandals with wings.
She would have thought the stunned look on his face was cute, if Claudia wasn't slowly inching closer to the players' bench, ready to pounce if one was to judge her by her stance.
"We really need to talk," Isaiah told Liam urgently.