EIGHT LETTERS || Liam Dunbar [2]

TWENTY FOUR

They all wound up gathered in the change room.

Katherine had finished the Dread Doctor book after she'd left Mason's, since she wasn't nearly as confused about everything as she had been. He'd explained to her that Liam had basically been head over heels for her since he'd stopped her from getting a broken nose the previous year, though hadn't felt confident with himself to actually admit it out loud.

He had apparently felt bad about hitting her with a chair, but couldn't think of any other distraction he could use to escape her idiot brothers. After that, he hadn't really expected her to want to be around him — which he'd guessed correctly — but then the fake party that turned into a real party happened, and he was thrown for a bit of a loop.

At first, he thought she'd just be one of those small, brief crushes that lasted a few weeks, maybe months depending on how many classes they had together. But then they became best friends, and he didn't quite know how to tell her. She'd internalized how cute she found the knowledge that he was nervous because he liked having her as a friend way too much to lose her over what was probably a stupid crush.

The stupid part hurt, sure, but she got over it.

He also stated that, since there hadn't been much time to talk with everything that was going on, he had no clue on where Liam stood with Hayden. Even though she'd figured that was the case, it still kind of sucked. She'd been hoping she was wrong, and that the two had already had a late night conversation over text about what the hell was going on in Liam's head. Maybe a really awkward conversation in the middle of biology.

But apparently, no luck.

Scott, and Lydia all seemed to have everything under control with the plan and she almost had hope it would work. Liam and Hayden had used one of the change room hanger spots to block off the door, Scott, and Lydia were making sure nothing could go wrong with the cell phone jammers, and Malia and Parrish were waiting at the front of the school to keep an eye out for any possible not-so-good activity.

Katherine had made herself comfortable in the back corner of the change room with her bat on the floor next to her, her knees pulled up to her chest as she thought about her current situation. She almost wished she could go back to France and continue living with Isaac to get away from the anxiety-inducing town what was Beacon Hills, but dismissed the thought quickly.

She couldn't leave Stiles and her Dad, or Scott and Lydia, or Malia and Mason.

And she definitely couldn't leave Liam.

As much as she hated to admit it, he was easily one of the most important people in her life — whether he returned her feelings or not — and the idea of leaving him to face the crappy world they'd gotten themselves into was enough to make her want to throw up.

"Everything okay, Kat?"

Speak of the Devil and he shall appear.

Or think.

Whatever.

Liam was in the middle of the room, looking at her with the expression she'd always thought looked vaguely puppy-like. Like it was worried but couldn't quite figure out why. She wanted to yell at him, mostly because she was angry with herself for not noticing things sooner and for being so unbelievably oblivious.

But found that all that irritation disappeared almost at the exact same moment she noticed the tiny little black feet belonging to Dark Vader hanging just below the hem of his shirt sleeve.

She forced a smile onto her face when she noticed Hayden watching them in the sink mirrors on the opposite side of the change room, and nodded. "Yeah, I'm all good,"