like a whisper

[presleystone]

elleryjackson​:

[ PRIVATE ]

They’re more methodical in carrying out the order than he likes, too calm and collected. His finger twitches on the trigger, wanting to just end it but not before he sees them both suffer at the hands of one another. When Presley finishes, he nods, “Again. Paint me a pretty picture on her arms. Don’t stop until I tell you to.” His gaze finds Ellery, a sneer playing on ‘Codie’s’ lips. Anger flashes over her features as the words hit him. This level of anger doesn’t belong there, and maybe neither does he. But Elias doesn’t fucking care about playing by their rules, not anymore. “It’ll get me hard, beta bitch.” Metaphorically, at least. And it’s spat out in much of the same tone that Ellery bit at him. The rifle inches closer, his stance betraying his itch to just end them. End her. “What you’re not fucking getting–” And his tone is almost teasing. “Is that this is just about you right now. I’ve stewed and stewed for months and it all boils down to.. you and the witches. All those wolves who blindly followed, they’ll get their due. They’ll suffer when the witches turn their back. After all, we’re not exactly wanted here, are we? And you? You’re just the first in line.” He begins to pace now, gun always at the ready, but unable to keep the restless, angry energy bottled for too long. “At the end of the day– we’re just pets, collared and leashed and we’re supposed to die for a cause that none of us even had a say in in the first place. At least I died for something I believed in.” 

[ PRIVATE ]

She doesn’t move her arm, not an inch, only gives Presley a side eye as an okay for her to proceed. She’ll heal. The scar will fade in a week, the pain she can handle; she’s had worse, nothing like the pain of feeling Noah die twice. Everything else would never even come close to it. Ellery watches Codie – or Codie’s body – pace back and forth in the room, still keeping her gaze trained on the gun. But she gives him nothing, not a flinch, not a hint of fear in her eyes. She won’t give him what he wants, so instead, there’s a laugh that gets caught in her throat; maybe she’s trying to provoke him, rile him up, the more damage he does the more likely it is he’ll alert one of their witches, or the more he’ll stall by monologuing his way through. “Goddess, you’ve really got it all twisted, even in the afterlife don’t you? I knew you’ve always been a little pathetic, but you’ve really outdone yourself this time. You could’ve walked out the door any day, Elias. Took your ‘boys’ with you, but you didn’t, because it was never about you thinking we’re some kind of thing to any of them, it was always about your ego. You couldn’t make alpha, because everyone knew even when you were a little boy that you were fucked up in the head. Even when Derrick made you beta to compromise because he knew your’d spiral out of control. Its always been about you, because you’ve always been a selfish, reckless, tunnel visioned sociopath. All of the hurt and the pain you left behind? You spit on the memory of your father, your mother, all of the Irvings. What is it that they say? One bad apple spoils it for the rest? You died for nothing. You died alone and for nothing. Nobody remembers you as nothing but a wolf who went off the fucking rails. Nobody even brings you up anymore. Nobody cares”. 

[ PRIVATE ] 

Presley doesn’t push Elias the way that Eden does. Now that she’s knows it’s him in Codie’s body, her whole focus is on the situation. If Ellery’s going to keep his attention and keep him busy, give him an outlet for all of those monologues he was so good at, then she’s going to do what’s being asked of her, no matter how much it flips her stomach, dragging the dagger in her hand along Ellery’s palms and arms in even slices. They’re deep enough to hopefully satisfying what Elias is looking for but not so deep that blood loss would become some kind of problem. For now. She’s sure this won’t be the end of this. But Ellery’s good at buying time her way, and Presley buys it this way, quiet, pensive. She can’t tell if one of their witches interrupting is the right solution or the wrong one. With Elias standing there holding a gun. They have vampires in the house but vampire can’t heal an exploded head. She’s not sure how many bullets are in the gun and wishes they had Isa. Because Isa would know. Presley regrets not having the foresight to ask. The list in her head of ways to be a better soldier always growing. 

[presleystone]

elleryjackson​:

codiemohren​:

[ PRIVATE ]

“Ding, ding, ding! Bingo, beautiful.” And this time, he twirls the rifle in his hands and points it at her, as best he can, at least with them trying to protect one another. How pathetic. After all the betrayals the pack has suffered, he’s sure it wouldn’t take long for him to push them to their limit. Grabbing a knife, he tosses it to them. “Your prize is something fun. Really play into that whole fuckin’ over your pack thing, you know? Go on. Slice her palms. Just enough to be annoying, not call in the witches.” He shifts, finger on the trigger and pointed at Ellery’s head. “I think you know what happens if you don’t.” 

[ PRIVATE ] 

Once it sinks, once the words leave Presley’s mouth and she looks at Codie in the eyes, Ellery’s heart begins to race. But she’s not afraid, its not in her body language, or in the way she watches him trap them in a circle of ash and spew words she’d heard before. Contempt. Anger. Resentment. She knows why they’re here and why he’d chosen them, and her eyes shift to the door instead of the knife on the ground. And she scoffs, knowing better than to ask questions. “Even in a body that doesn’t belong to you you’re still too driven by your anger and your hatred to see that this is only going to go sideways for you, Elias”. She spits his name out, like a curse, and Ellery gives her palm to Presley with a surprising amount of stoicism, not afraid of the knife, but more concerned about the gun he keeps pointing in between them. “What do you think is going to happen? What do you think any of this is going to do for you? You’ve always been infamous for not thinking your plans through. That’s why you were never able to unseat Derek. That’s why you would have never been able to kill Victoria even if you had really tried. And that’s why, not only will Aemilia or Noah walk through that door the minute they sense something is wrong, but they will hunt you down in that little slice of opportunity you had in the afterlife and make sure your soul never finds the catharsis you’re looking for. And to them? To us? You will always be nothing but hazy memory or a tale of a mediocre boy with a mediocre plan who flew too close to the sun”.

[ PRIVATE ] 

It sinks in more fully as Ellery speaks. Who this is, what he’s doing. Presley’s guess had been only that, a guess. But she’d worked with Codie enough over the last few weeks to know that none of this was Codie. That it was someone else. And it was. The same someone else who had plotted to kill Derrick, the same someone else who had set her and Eden up, tried to kill Victoria, destroyed what little semblance of a pack they had left. She takes the knife, but her eyes stay trained on him and the gun. Ellery’s strong. And Presley has no problem doing what Elias tells her to do, but only because it buys them more time, to figure this out, for a plan, for something. She slides the knife along Ellery’s palms and looks her in the eyes when she does it, turning back to Elias with the weapon in her hands. It’d be so easy to take him out. Even with the gun. If they weren’t trapped. And if doing so didn’t mean losing Codie’s body for good. 

[presleystone]

codiemohren​:

elleryjackson​:

[ PRIVATE ] 

All the while, Ellery’s eyes are kept trained carefully on the rifle, on the movement of Codie’s hands, the stiffness in her arms. She knows this girl has no experience with weapons, but she looks a lot more comfortable around one than she would have ever expected her to. But its the way she says keeper, in a way she thinks she’s heard before but can’t quite place in the back of her head, that almost sends a nervous shiver down her spine, but Ellery stands her ground, keeping her body halfway between the gun and Presley. “We don’t have to talk with a gun between us. We’ll make this conversation a lot easier if you just put it down. You know we don’t want to hurt you”. And she really doesn’t. They could shift, tear this room apart and Codie in the process, most likely survive the rifle shot in their wolf form, but not like this. Not if she has good aim… “We have all the time in the world, okay?”

[ PRIVATE ]

He rolls his eyes almost immediately at their tone, as if they’re so oblivious they can’t see what’s right in front of them. That it’s not this ‘Codie’, that it’s him, back from the dead to make them suffer. “What time?” He almost snaps the words out, feeling as if a growl was forming in the back of his throat. He shifts the gun with ease, and it looks odd in Codie’s body, holding something so dangerous and destructive. “You’re appealin’ to someone who doesn’t fuckin’ care, Ellery.” Even the inflection sounds different, more like him. “Sit.” He doesn’t take his eyes off of them as he shifts the pouch around to spill it on the floor, creating a circle around them. He stays outside, effectively trapping them where he’d led them. The pouch is thrown to the side when he’s done. “I’ve been waiting so long to see you hurt, but you know– I can’t do that now, can I? The bond.” He spits on the ground at it, a show of how disgusting he thinks it is. “Witches owning wolves, the very thing I preached and preached about, and still! No one fuckin’ learns here, do they?” 

[ PRIVATE ] 

Presley does as they’re told, sitting where Codie instructs. Her eyes watch as the other girl drops ash around them in a circle. But something else is getting her attention. The accent to her words, the inflection, the way Codie talks about witches and owning wolves. I’ve been waiting so long to see you hurt. Her eyes go wide, and Presley lifts her head up, looking to Ellery and then to Codie. “You’re not Codie are you?” It sounds crazy. Presley doesn’t know how it’s possible. There’s only one person she can think of who wanted her to hurt. The same one who had given those hunters her name specifically. “Elias.”

[presleystone]

codiemohren​:

elleryjackson​:

[ PRIVATE ]

It’s a gut instinct. The first thing she does when she walks through the door and sees the Rifle in Codie’s hand is to pull Presley behind her, grabbing her swiftly by the edge of her jacket and shielding her away from the line of fire. She stays quiet, stiff, while her eyes travel from the gun to Codie’s face and back and forth as she searches for something in her eyes. Ellery’s not sure what she finds, but it makes her teeth clench. “Codie…” Ellery says, calmly, quietly, stepping back and away slowly and trying not to alarm the girl holding the gun while looking at any opportunity she could to disarm her, but she doesn’t want to bet her life on her speed versus the one of a bullet just yet. “Where did you find that gun? Put it down”. 

[ PRIVATE ]

So that’s her name. The look on his face doesn’t change as he lifts the rifle to aim right at Ellery’s chest. Lucky, lucky. Both of them right here together, ready for him to make them suffer. “Not important, don’t you think?” A glance down to the rifle, he nearly laughs at the position they’re in, but not yet. He hasn’t won yet. “Do you think our ‘keeper’–” And he says it with disgust laced through his tone, “–knows how easily it is to find and take this? I mean.” He shrugs, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world how it could be used against them, and keeps it trained on Ellery.  “Over in the corner. You’re going to listen to me now.” 

[ PRIVATE ] 

Ellery’s in front of her before Presley can stop it. She wants to shove her out of the way right back. Ellery’s the beta, Victoria’s sister, a mother. People need her. But there’s not time to think about and not time to argue. Both of their eyes are fixed on Codie, and then the rifle. Something’s wrong. Like Codie’s personality has been totally shifted to something else, even the way she carries herself is different. But Presley steps forward at the suggestion, with her hands held up, just a little. They could attack. her and Ellery. They’re both strong, bonded wolves. But it seems better if first they find out what this is so that Codie doesn’t end up killed in the process. “Okay,” she nods quietly. “Walking in the direction Codie points. “Codie ... why don’t you tell us what’s going on. If you want us to listen, we’ll listen.” She hopes Ellery gets the message. 

[presleystone]

codiemohren​:

[ PRIVATE ] @elleryjackson​ @presleystone​

Elias had seen the opportunity as soon as the beacon of magic presented itself. Whatever stroke of luck this was, whatever convergence was allowing him a second, last chance– He wasn’t going to turn it down. From his observations on the proverbial ‘other side’, he knew where to go, what to grab, and where to wait. Gun in hand, and bag of ash in the other, he waited for his eventual prey. Somewhere in the back of this girl’s mind, he heard her begging him to stop.

[ PRIVATE ]

The full moon had gone off without a hitch, Ellery and Presley both watching from their usual places, along with Victoria this time around. It had been nice, to feel normal again. Like their routine was coming back but they had to discuss the matter of the barn, of letting some wolves run free as they used to. Presley walked with Ellery toward her room, and pushed the door open as they continued their conversation, only to stop when she saw someone was inside. “Codie?” Presley questioned, before her eyes fell to the long shotgun in the girl’s hand, aimed at both of them. Presley’s heart began to race. This was not their first pack betrayal. And the very reason Victoria had kept that gun a secret in the first place. “Goddess -- what are you doing?”

[lilysjmes]

Florence Pugh for Marie Claire

[iwouldvebeendrake01]

Christian: *speaks* Dani:

[presleystone]

mehtawolf​:

Look, I get that on a logical level, but I know that people don’t run by logic all the time. It’s still my hands, my voice, my words. Would you just… can you just pretend to be mad at me for like a week? Maybe then my logic and my emotions will sync up again.

The only thing I’m actually mad at you about is that you only hit Isa. But it was also how I knew you were on our side.

[presleystone]

codiemohren​:

That’s good, then. I just know that kind of job takes a lot of out of people. I’m feeling.. okay-ish, I think. Sort of discombobulated with it all, but I’m sort of like you, I guess, in that I like being busy. Sentry’s not so bad, either. That’s probably the thing that most reminds me of home, weirdly. Yeah? I’d love that, actually. You’ve been a huge help already, so. 

There was something kind of soothing about it, if I’m being honest. Cool, okay we’ll keep at it then. And be careful -- on sentry. It’s not the safest place to be even if it feels quiet. Sentry means you’re first line of defense but it also means you’re the easiest accessible body an intruder can find. A fact we’ve had to face more than once already. So just .. stay vigilant. 

[presleystone]

mehtawolf​:

And you don’t care that I did any of that? To you and Isa?

You were double agenting. It was an act. I’d be a pretty big bloody dick head to be mad at you for what you did while you were spying. For us. 

[presleystone]

seancewren​:

I’ll keep my eyes peeled. Carmen gets a ‘Miss’ too? She’ll be flattered. I get it - a safehouse has to protect itself. Sorry a few sadists tainted a whole species for you.

Easiest to just give it to everyone, honestly. I know what the rules are regarding witches, figure it’s better to be safe than sorry with Vampires. We protect magic, they’re magic too even if they aren’t witches. It’s okay, I’m not very judgy. 

[presleystone]

seancewren​:

In that case, I will keep an eye out for more Stones. One of them is. Lina Zavala? Her family is pretty prominent, if you track witch ancestry. She’s here to join Thierry’s coven if she’s allowed. The other is the vampire everyone got so up in arms about.

Around here you’ll just find the one. Cash. He’s tall, blonde, hard to miss. Oh -- Miss Carmen. I heard about her. Everyone’s a little jumpy about vampires now, Miss Wren. Especially Miss Aemilia.  I’m sure it’ll settle down. 

[presleystone]

codiemohren​:

It is, yeah. I used to help my mom tend things, so I, at least, know the basics. A lot of stuff like that I can help with. The outdoorsy stuff. It doesn’t sound much different, no, but I just wanted to ask to make sure. And uh, don’t think I didn’t notice you didn’t answer. But it’s okay. You don’t have to. We can talk about other stuff. 

Honestly, I was just focused on the explaining and forgot you asked. I’m okay though. I like staying busy. How are you feeling after everything? And with training starting? Sentry? You’re handling them okay? We should probably get back to training together regularly again. I know Miss Victoria hasn’t said so but the extra practice helps. That I know from experience. We can do some sparring every day after regular training if you want. Just us. 

[presleystone]

mehtawolf​:

All of it? Any of it? Any questions that you have, lingering resentments, literally anything. 

I don’t have any really. I knew something was weird. In the barn. I confronted Ellery and she told me the truth. So  I played mediator. That way nothing got out of hand. 

[presleystone]

seancewren​:

My sympathies, for what was lost. Did he have that same gorgeous head of hair as you? Blonde is such a tricky recessive trait. Presley Stone. Nice to meet you. I’m Wren. I only got here a few days ago with some of my friends. Passing through, really.

Yes I’m pretty sure Stones only come in blonde. My mom and my brother too. It’s nice to meet you too, Miss Wren. Who are your friends? Are they witches too. 

[presleystone]

seancewren​:

That I am. I didn’t know that bought a ticket all on its own, there seems to be a great variance of opinion. What a fun collection of people you have smashed in one place. You two are close, huh? For you to still be mentally checking in on his expectations well into your adult years.

Oh -- he’s dead, Miss. And I didn’t really know him after I was about sixteen. Still, I try to be the kind of wolf he’d be proud of. He cared about witches. Tradition, respect, people. But yeah, I think there’s a pretty cool group here. We try our best at least. I’m Presley. Presley Stone -- may I ask your name?

[presleystone]

caldwells​:

Should we be unfortunate enough to experience more loss in the future… maybe this is something we should do.  It’s only right to be able to say goodbye properly. Give them the… send offs that they deserve.

I think we’ll always try to, Miss Haven. We did for Derrick. We’ll do it now for the people we lost that we couldn’t say goodbye to when the vampires were here. And we’ll do it again. If it happens again. But I hope it doesn’t. It’d be nice to go a little while with ... less death.