Hothead • Liam Dunbar

~Chapter Nine~

Noah sat up abruptly from his slumber, letting out a yell of pure agony. His brain felt like it was about to explode. His hands held the sides of his head, pushing, as if trying to keep it from splitting into pieces. What was causing this splintering pain you may ask? Well the answer to that question would be: voices. What sounded like at least twenty of them. Some screamed at him, some yelled, some talked, and some just whispered. They all repeated the same few lines.

"Trouble. He's in trouble."

"Save him!"

"Follow it!"

"LISTEN!"

The teen let out another pained scream. How could it sound like a dozen voices and just one at the same time? Noah fell off of his bed trying to reach for his phone that rested on the side table. The pain of falling onto the hard wooden floor was nonexistent, the pain in his head dominated everything. The small boy curled into a ball on the cold ground, an instinctual move of protection but it did no good in this situation. The boy let out another yell. The voices then stopped yelling and started shushing each other.

Noah let out a groan of pain. His reddened face now going back to it's usual pale color. Distantly, he heard heavy footsteps bellowing up the stairs most likely coming to his aid. The voices got quieter and quieter until they completely stopped leaving behind a residual pain. Still holding his head and still lying on the floor, he saw his door swing open and the brown dress shoes he knew to be his fathers rush into the room. Noah could faintly hear Greg call his name as he rushed toward him.  As Greg kneeled next to his clearly pained son, a final male whisper rang out in Noah's mind.

"He's gone."

~*~

After Noah's fit that morning, he spent a full hour convincing his dad that he was fine and that it was nothing but a bad migraine. When Greg finally relented Noah practically sped out of the house. He was on a mission to find Scott and to make sure everyone was okay. When he finally got to the school he had missed all of first and second period but he couldn't care less. Noah checked in on every male he cared about through individual text messages each saying the same thing:

- send emoji if you're ok
- it's important

Mason, Levi, Scott, even Stiles answered him. Everyone responded. Everyone except for Liam.

The delinquent scoured the school for the alpha. It took about ten minutes until he spotted the McCall boy who was just hanging up his phone. Almost instantaneously Noah was by his side panting.

"Scott! Something crazy happened this morning there were voices a-and they hurt so bad and I need you to explain and-and have you seen Liam? He isn't responding to my text. I think he's hurt." Scott grabbed onto the frantic boys shoulders, trying to take in everything he was saying. The alpha was stunned by the total panic in the small boys face. He had never seen Noah so discombobulated before. The curly headed boy always seemed so put together, even when he first transitioned.

"Noah calm down. Now tell me what happened." Noah tried hard and did just what he was asked. The boy was able to calm down and coherently telling the story of everything had happened up to this point. Scott clung to every word the boy said.

"So have you seen Liam?" Noah finally finished anxiously. He hated letting his true emotions show but to much was going on for the boy to even attempt to conceal them. Scott shifted his feet before looking over Noah's expression. The junior seemed hesitant to speak.