EIGHT LETTERS || Liam Dunbar [2]

FOURTY FIVE

OKAY I FEEL BAD LEAVING YOU GUYS ON A CLIFFHANGER AND IDK IF THIS ID ANY BETTER BUT ???

The very first thing Katherine could register was someone tugging her up off the ground.

She immediately knew it was Stiles, because she'd know him anywhere, but it still took her a second to realized that she was still, in fact, a member of the living. Her face was pressed into the grassy field below her with her hands covering her neck like she were in an earthquake drill. "Are you hurt?" He demanded, hands flitting over her in a quick check for injuries.

"Just my ear," she uttered out, but it sounded strange to just have muffled ringing on the right side, and the other side be perfectly fine. "I think my ear drum ruptured when the vans did the screechy thing."

He grimaced but quickly dusted her off. "You seen Liam?"

She blinked slowly, processing the question, before she pointed behind her. "They were both...they jumped and started fighting mid air over the bus, so I'd guess he's behind it somewhere..."

"Wait here."

Katherine nodded and continued to pat at her ear in an attempt to hear literally anything from it, but was left with no luck. She shuffled over so she was as close to the bleachers as she could get, and waited for him to come back. Moments later he came stumbling over with a bloody Liam hanging between him and Hayden, whom she couldn't remember seeing since the game started.

She immediately pushed her hearing problem aside when she saw the bloody slashes covering his chest and staining the remnants of his jersey. Immediately she led them over to the nearest school entrance, knowing they had to find somewhere he could heal before moving again.

Her first choice was the nearest empty classroom, and she had to shoulder the door open stumbled to the side so Hayden and Stiles could deposit somewhere with the confines of the room, but a sea of fleeing students and faculty were in the way.

They screamed and sprinted through the halls as the Beast's growls chased after them, and Katherine felt her blood all but freeze in her veins; everything was still muffled in her ear, so she would barely be able to hear if it was approaching over all the noise. But she noticed Hayden and Stiles had picked up on her plan and found an empty classroom, so she went after them.

As soon as she had the door closed, she turned around and noticed Liam had been left for Hayden to hold up while Stiles found somewhere to put him, so she darted under Liam's other arm as he groaned out in a pain and started to double over. "You're really stupid, you know that?" She whispered to him, hoisting him up slightly while Stiles swiped everything off the desk.

"I wasn't — it was—" he cried out in pain, chin tucking down to his chest "—it would've killed you, Katherine, and don't you think for a second I wouldn't — I couldn't let that—" She smiled weakly at him, but was quickly helping Hayden get him up onto the desk while Stiles' tried to keep from flailing his hands around too much. "I'm okay. I'm fine," Liam choked out, but Katherine knew he definitely wasn't, because stiles pealed a strip of his bloody jersey off with ease, and it revealed a long gash in his skin. "What? Is it bad?"

"No," Hayden promised him weakly.

Katherine winced at it, not even bothering to hide the expression on her face, "well, it's not great."

"Bad, very bad," Stiles confirmed with a small gag.

"Okay, okay," Hayden whispered frantically. "Um..." she turned to them. "What do you guys usually do when this happens?"

Stiles blinked once. "Oh, I usually pass out—" he spared one glance at Liam's stomach and paled "—and I think I still might do that." He watched the two of them carefully pull at the remains of Liam's jersey, and his eyes rolled back.