EIGHT LETTERS || Liam Dunbar [2]

TWENTY NINE

A/N: in honour of me surviving orientation today and managing to switch out of my pre-calc class I had with a nightmare teacher that makes me cry, here's something you've all been waiting for; the chapter

lmao I'm sorry if it sucks I'm mid-life crisising again

Katherine was still holding Hayden's hand when Liam came in.

It was ten minutes after the initial silence had fallen over the room, and she'd forgotten just how gut-wrenching it was to watch a person die. She hadn't forgotten the feeling itself, but healing provided by time had allowed her to downplay what it was like to watch the life leave someones eyes. Now, she wasn't sure how her brain could've let that happen.

Melissa had left to go find Scott after getting a text from Mason to get to the school ASAP, but Katherine had decided to stay. She didn't like the idea of Hayden just being left on a cold slab of metal, alone and vulnerable.

She wouldn't want that for herself, if roles were reversed.

"Allison!" Katherine screamed as she ran through the remains of Oak Creek, a piece of paper clutched tightly in her small hands. "I found—" she watched her friend shoot the Oni with a sliver headed arrow, and smiled. She wasn't the only one who knew. Allison turned to Katherine with her brows furrowed.

She rapidly shook her head, as if she could shake the memory out.

Ever since she'd watched the silvery tear fall from the corner of Hayden's eye, the only thing that had been running through her head was Allison's death, and every other death she'd experienced. She had wiped the tear away, and was still mildly surprised to see that it dried onto her skin with Corey's blood that she hadn't quite been able to scrub off at the Clinic.

Of course, she knew it was a possibility that Hayden could die — probability, really — but it still hadn't really sunk int that it would happen until it did.

She felt her heart stop in her chest as she watched the blade pierce Allison's stomach

The nails of her free hand dug into her palm.

Abruptly, more sudden than a seven year old Katherine could really process, the terrified look on her mothers face as she laid in the hospital bed was replaced with a slackened, blank one, and her eyes became unfocused.

She screwed her eyes shut, not wanting to look at Hayden's body or the back flashes her brain was playing for her like a movie.

Instead, she forced herself to think about something else, but it quickly came full circle as a terrifying realization hit her; you could be the next one on the table.

Her body ran cold, and she stiffened. What do you have to protect yourself with? A bat? What's that going to do against a werewolf? A chimera? Against whatever the hell else is out there?

Her hands began to tremble, but she didn't let go of Hayden.

Not when she'd made a promise.

Tears rolled down her cheeks as she watched the hunter fall to the ground after a bullet had been fired into his back, right between his shoulder blades.

Her eyes snapped open at the sound of footsteps, and forced her bottom lip to stop quivering and her tears to disappear as her eyes met Liam's. The expression on his face was enough to force her to look away.

As he approached, she gave Hayden's hand one last pat on the knuckles and moved so he could sit where she had. Instead, he just lifted her cold body off the table and moved across the room, cradling her in his arms.