Liquid Silver

Four

Jem was getting cold, cranky, and starting to doubt her brothers intuition. 

It was half nine and dark outside as she, Stiles and Liam trudged through the woods. A significant part of her wondered who the hell considered this to be a good idea as branches snapped beneath her feet every few steps, making her flinch almost everytime. 

"Stiles are you sure we can't just-" Jem spoke up but was immediately silenced by her big brother.

"Keep your voice down" he hushed her, so she fell back to walk beside Liam, who seemed equally confused,  but also glad to have been brought along for the ride. 

"So guess who's in my history this semester?" He struck up conversation. Apparently they hadn't run out of things to talk about after spending three hours watching Theo play video games. This supernatural stakeout was getting more and more exhuasting. Stiles had already filled them in about three times over on how Theo became a werewolf.

Jem always tripped up on the fact that his alpha was killed by the twins. Her breath caught the first time Stiles mentioned their names hesitantly. Jem still wished Ethan would come back, but she knew Beacon Hills would just remind him of his pain and loss. What happened was so awful for him out of all them. Aiden had literally been a part of him.

Jem thought about it for a second. Judging by Liam's disgust, she had one idea of who it could be.

"Hardly-" she shot him a grin, almost a laugh at his complete discontent.

"Hayden Romero" He whined. Jem couldn't help snort. That had to be the unluckiest combination out of all several hundred students in Beacon Hills. 

"So you guys are besties now?" she joked, to which he replied with a glare. But as soon as he'd made the face at her, he froze. 

"Oh man" He groaned, throwing his head back and taking his phone out. 

"What, what is it?" Jem asked, suddenly concerned. 

"I was meant to meet Liam at the school... An hour ago"

Jem immediately felt a pang of sympathy for Liam's best friend. Jem had never really been in his position, having to hide the supernatural from her best friends. Her best friends had always been involved in it themselves, and Maisie's attention span always seemed too short to ever pick up on the fact that Jem flaked a lot, like suspiciously often. 

Mason wasn't so ignorant. Jem had listened to Liam lie to him over and over, not wanting to involve him in this side of his life. 

"So tell him you can't" Stiles advised, somewhat insensitively from a few steps ahead of them. Jem rolled her eyes.

"I can't tell him" Liam groaned. Jem winced as she caught a glance at his phone screen before he turned it off. There had to be fifteen messages straight from Mason wondering where he was. 

"why not?" Stiles asked, clearly not fully understanding the situation as he continued trudging through the forest.

"Because I haven't told him" Liam confessed. Stiles paused for a minute, finally comprehending the situation with a little bit of empathy for the guy.

"Still?"

"It's not that easy" He shook his head. "It's a lot to accept"

"He watched our dad blow up a berserker with a landmine" Jem reminded Liam. "I think the groundworks been laid pretty thick"

"Look Liam, Scott gave you the all clear" He told him. "I know it's not easy to say, but trust me, it's always better if they know, we've been through it before".