Chapter 8

"I need to talk to him." Scott insisted, trying to catch my eye as I rifled through my locker for my peer mentoring binder.

"I understand that," I said, taking a deep breath through my nose as I tapped my phone to life and scowled down at the empty screen. "But you're—" I hesitated, and he blinked at me, totally clueless. I glanced away. "How do I put this?" Phone still in my palm, I reached out to take him by the shoulders and kept my voice light and sincere as I said, "Scott, I love you—I really do, but you're kind of a moron."

He scoffed, throwing his hands up in denial. "That's—true!" I smirked at him and he sighed, deflating a bit. "Fine… but he's my responsibility now, Simone."

"Actually, he's our responsibility now." Stiles chirped, stepping up beside Scott. Flanking him to his right was Malia, and I gave both of them a brief nod of acknowledgement before putting my two cents in.

"Look, so far, all of you are completely helpless," I gestured between them unabashedly as they all gave me varying looks of offense. "And if I let you handle this the way you've been handling it, you're going to fully muck up any progress I've already made."

"Okay, so what's the plan then, Gidget?" Stiles scoffed. My eye twitched at the nickname he'd given me almost the day he'd met me. He must have assumed that he could get away with calling me that, that I wouldn't know what he was referencing—but I did. Gidget is a book about 'the little girl with big ideas.' He seems to get a kick out of the fact that the name is a combination of girl and midget, and I refused to admit how well it applied to me. Especially since he usually says it like it's an insult.

"Tonight's the full moon." I said, and Malia tensed with frustration and dread, exchanging a quick glance with Stiles while I shrugged a shoulder and checked the time on my phone again. "Which means that he needs to be contained, because we've all seen his temper."

"Contained?" Scott frowned. "How are you going to do that?"

I sighed heavily and closed my locker, turning to give them all a tight-lipped smile. "I haven't figured that out yet," I said, and Stiles threw his head back

"Why are we letting her handle this!?"

"Because I'm the only one who doesn't have someone else to watch tonight!" I was careful to keep any literal terms like phase or werewolf out of my words. I paused, glancing briefly at Scott as I quickly amended, "Or something to do."

"Why are you trying to do this alone?" Malia frowned like it was all pure logic, and I had to appreciate her simplistic views on life. "We're offering you our help."

"I know that, and I appreciate it." I paused and glanced around the halls. "Right now the biggest problem is that none of us have heard from him since last night. I sent him a text this morning, but he's not responding…" I think I did a pretty good job of keeping the offense off my face because actually, no. I'm not offended. I barely know him. I don't care that I was checking my phone every time I rolled over in bed, the guilt I felt literally poisoning my physical well-being, and unable to keep the images of what happened at the hospital out of my head. Sleep was a joke. I basically tossed, checked my phone, turned, closed my eyes for a bit, tossed some more, and then checked my phone again. All night and all morning. And still. Nothing.

But it's fine. I'm fine with it. No big deal. He's probably okay.

It's fine.

"Uh oh," Stiles' eyes were darting over my face, and I narrowed my eyes at him. "I know that look… You know what guys, we don't have to worry, because she's gonna kill him anyways—"

"Stiles!" I reached out and smacked his shoulder, rolling my eyes. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"You reek of anxiety and frustration." Malia bluntly stated. My eye twitched again.

"Well, if you two are done psychoanalyzing me—"

"That's not what I'm doing. I can just smell your pheromones—"

Stiles hand came up to cover Malia's mouth, and he gave her a sweet smile as he quietly shook his head no at her. She blinked at him and scowled, and I took the opportunity to step away.

A flash of blue caught the corner of my eye, and I whipped my head around just in time to see Liam's form retreating rather quickly in the opposite direction of us. My heart took off at a gallop, and I wasted no time in barreling after him.

Praying that the others would respect my wishes and not try to follow me, I reached out and grabbed his shoulder to wrench him around. He started to snap at me, but when his eyes caught sight of my face he clamped his mouth shut and settled for taking a step back.

"No!" He put his hand out as a warning. "Leave me alone!"

"Is that really what you want?" I retorted, a frenzy of emotions whirling in my heart as he hesitated. "To go through this alone?" I stared at him intently as he looked away from me and clenched his jaw, his bright blue eyes darkening like stormy skies. "Or do you want me to be here?"

Chin still lowered, he lifted his eyes to me and I took another step forward. The silence was good. At least he wasn't running away. Now that the hostility seemed stymied—at least for now, I took in a deep breath and looked pointedly at his wrist where his hand hung at his side. He'd changed clothes from the night before, to a dark blue shirt with grey sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and it looked like the sort that baseball players wear. The white bandage wrapping his wound looked to have bled through a bit, and the stain was dark. So dark that it worried me.

"How are you?" I asked, my voice gentler than usual. Following my gaze, he started to hide his hand behind his back and opened his mouth, and somehow I knew he was going to try lying to me. The expression on my face must've said it all because he clamped his mouth shut and sighed before answering.

"It's fine," He ground out, shifting on his feet, and my eyes narrowed. Liam suddenly breathed out an almost inaudible snort and the smallest grin tugged at the corner of his mouth as he looked away again. "You're determined, aren't you?

"That seems like a nice way of saying harassing," I teased, and this time a full-blown grin ate away the anger on his face. He sighed and lifted his hand up to look at it with a troubled gaze.

"It's—it's fine. I mean it. It's totally fine." Turning to glance around the hallway, he took my hand and I tried not to react to that as he dragged me to a corner of the hallway. I furiously fought a blush that threatened to rise to my cheeks as he leaned in closely to whisper to me, his warm hand still wrapped around mine. "Look," He let go of my hand and I took a breath of relief as he began to unravel the bandage from his wrist.

I blinked at the smooth skin that was hidden under the bandages. Completely, totally devoid of blood or even so much as a scrape, his wrist was just as tanned and normal looking as the rest of his arm.

"What does this mean?" He worriedly whispered, standing so close to me that I could feel the heat rolling off of him.

I pulled a taut smile onto my lips in an attempt to convey relief. "You accepted the bite."

"Well," He scrunched his face dubiously at me. "I wouldn't say that. I'm still pretty pissed."

Snorting, my heart warmed a bit as I reached out to put a hand on his shoulder. "No, Liam." I steered him down the hall a little ways and pushed him into an empty classroom so we didn't have to worry about passing students anymore. "I mean your body didn't reject the bite."

He paused, his face curiously unchanging as he stared at me. "The werewolf bite."

"Uh, yeah…" I looked at his flat expression and frowned a little. "You still don't believe me, do you?"

"Do I believe that I'm going to sprout hair and howl at the moon tonight?" He angrily snapped, taking a step towards me as his eyes flashed in the slightly darkened classroom. "No, Simone! I don't believe that!"

"Well, stop!" I pathetically argued, my mind grasping at straws with how to convince him at this point. "Look at your arm! How do you explain that?"

"I—I don't know! Maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought!"

"Oh, okay, how about your shattered ankle, then?"

He froze, slowly looking down at his foot that he had no trouble standing on. The same one he'd been hospitalized the day before over. "I… don't… know." He'd grown still as he became more and more distressed, freaking out for obvious reasons, and I panicked as I realized he was about to get pissed and leave.

"Liam, please listen to me!" I took a desperate step forward and tried to lock gazes with him, stepping in his path every time he tried to dodge me. "This is serious, okay? Now, I promised that I'd never lie to you!"

"Oh yeah? You kept this a pretty big secret, didn't you?" His voice was the most biting tone he'd used on me so far, and I fumbled as I tried to regain my footing with him.

"What was I supposed to say? You think I don't know how this sounds? You think I don't know how crazy this is? Of course I know, Liam! I live with it every day. My life is overflowing with shit that doesn't make sense! Nothing about my life is as it should be!" My mind flashed to Allison, and I suddenly lost my voice as I sucked in a steadying breath and broke off. I'd gotten my feelings on the matter under control, but last night Chris forced all of the demons I thought I'd buried back to the front of my mind. I was battling them, along with everything else today. Liam had grown quiet as he watched me, his anger dissipating as I looked anywhere but at him. "I'm not telling you this to fuck with you, or to scare you. I'm trying…" Rolling my eyes to the ceiling temporarily, I willed the burn in my eyes away and looked back at his face. "I want to help you. You deserve to know everything, Liam. You deserve the truth."

"The truth is, I'm fine. Okay?" He backed towards the door, his face screaming with frustration and his eyes tortured with hidden fear. "Nothing is wrong with me; my wrist is fine, my ankle is better, and I am fine." He turned his back to me and set for the door.

"No." Anger welled inside me as I crossed the distance between us, getting between him and the door as I gave him a rough shove farther into the classroom. Liam stumbled back and gawked at me, fury evident on his face as he quickly planted his feet on the ground and squared off at me like I was a lacrosse player and we were on the field. "You're not! You're not fine, Liam!" I tilted my head and got closer, and his jaw clenched. His nostrils flared a bit as he visibly controlled his anger when I took another step and cornered him. "Don't you get it yet? You're not fine anymore! And it's okay to feel afraid, or angry, or whatever you feel like you need to feel! Stop pushing it down. Stop denying the truth! You're not okay, and you need to own up to that and look it in the face, or else it's gonna take control and you won't be able to stop it."

"I don't know what you're talking about!" He exclaimed, taking a step forward and almost running straight into me. It forced me to step back, and he loomed over me as he continued. "You want the truth? The truth is, I'm trying to start fresh here! I really screwed up at my last school, okay?" His eyes flashed with guilt and he looked down at his feet, still clenching his fists, but for a different reason now. "…I'm just trying to be better now." I wanted to do something to help him because he's talking about this like he has a choice. "So the last thing I need is for something else to get in the way of that."

My fingers came up before I could stop them, running a trail down his healed wrist, and I felt his pulse jump as I wrapped my fingers around it and locked my gaze with his. My heart hammered in my chest and I murmured, "It won't get in the way, Liam. I promise. I won't let it."

I stared up at him through my bangs, which had fallen in my eyes when I looked down to grab his wrist. His eyes burned into mine and I felt lightheaded as I watched his hand come up to brush some hair out of my eyes, frowning as he looked at me like I was the most difficult poem he'd ever tried to read.

He stood so close that I felt the heat radiating from his chest to mine, and we both held our breath as we waited for something—something to happen. What? What was happening? It felt like a magnet was pulling us closer, drawing me into him. The closer I got, the more I could feel him; sense his anxiety even as it melted away when his blue eyes relaxed.

I felt like my heart was in my throat, and every time his eyes flitted between mine my heart would stutter, and all I knew was that whatever intoxicating effect he had on me, I needed more.

"Simone, I just…" He'd dropped his hand from my hair to his side, but it came up and landed on my hip, his fingers gripping me tightly. His palm warmer than I'd anticipated, it surprised me and made me jump back. Somehow, he'd turned us, and I felt the wall at my back as I waited with bated breath for him to finish what he was saying—

The bell rang, signaling that we had a minute to get to class, and like that our gaze broke and we both looked away to draw deep, steadying breaths. Liam stepped away from me, his hand sliding off my hip.

"I need to go," He frowned absentmindedly, apparently flustered as he adjusted the strap of his book bag on his shoulder. He didn't even look back at me as he suddenly rushed out of the room.

Not good, not good, not good!

I'd stood in the classroom for probably another thirty seconds—max—before I was able to rein in the intense torrent of emotions that I was high on.

Once I felt steady on my own two feet, I realized Liam had taken off. Again. And I was no farther than before. Hell, if anything, I was only more confused and desperate to get him to listen. It seemed like the harder I tried, the farther he slipped away.

Or the faster he ran. But that's just too bad, isn't it? Because I'm not about to let this go.

Stiles was right when he said I could use my advantageous position as a peer mentor to our benefit. I'm not sure if Liam decided to go to class, because all he said was that the 'had to go'. That could mean that he'd left the school. The only choice I have right now is to head to his next class and see if he's there—if he's not, I'll text Scott and he can go to look for him.

It's not the best plan. But it'll have to do. As I stepped into the class, Mr. Harris—who teaches the majority of the science classes here at Beacon Hills—turned to scowl at me until he caught sight of my face.

Now, that's not to say that he smiled and welcomed me in with a parade or anything, but his scowl lost its venom, and his gaze wasn't quite as acidic. He liked me because I was his 'star pupil'. I think it also has something to do with the fact that even though I've been notoriously involved with Scott and Stiles, I don't fawn over them or make excuses for them. I'm different from Lydia because as petty as it sounds, she's had her fair share of break-downs in school before, and I think because of that Mr. Harris is weary of the red headed banshee. He doesn't want to do anything to set her off. He's not the best teacher, but he's still a caring man, and I believe that it takes a certain type of person to become the mentor of teenagers—he's got to care about us in some capacity, after all. He can be intimidating and cold, but I do believe that he cares. So seeing Lydia's little melt-downs is not a fun experience for him.

But me? In Mr. Harris's eyes, I'm just a really smart girl, with a really tragic background that no one seems to know, plenty of manners, and a bit of a reputation. But hey! I always turn in my homework.

"Ms. Argent," He greets, turning on his stool at the front of the class to raise an eyebrow at me. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" His hand still held a red grading pen, and as I approached I could see that the paper he was marking didn't have much white left on it. I pressed my lips together and looked back at him.

"Good morning, Mr. Harris." I decided maybe a little brown nosing couldn't hurt. He raised his eyebrows and nodded at me, so I continued. I set my binder down so he could see the page I'd printed out and stuck in the cover, marked PEER MENTOR, and comprehension flitted through his eyes before I could utter a word. But I continued anyways. "I was wondering if you might need a little help this morning?"

"Ah," He smiled darkly at his class before turning back to me. "Yes, it seems that the Jr. High is spending too much time on musicals and reciting poetry." My hand tightened on my binder. "These new freshman are even more hopeless than the last group! The majority of them have absolutely no idea who Charles Darwin is. Their pretests are physically sickening. I've spent half a year already trying to beat the concept of Gregor Mendel's work into their hormonal little minds, but perhaps hearing it from someone their own age will warrant more of a response."

I lifted a corner of my mouth into an attempt at a smile, but it might've come out as more of a grimace. "That's what I'm here for," I chirped, quickly swiping up my binder and turning to face the class.

Most of the tables were occupied by now. The bell to start class had rung about thirty seconds before I entered, but it seemed that Mr. Harris had been taking attendance. "You can sit at this front desk until we're ready to begin, Ms. Argent." Mr. Harris pointed at the desk that's usually served for disobedient students, since it's litearlly pressed right against his own desk and facing away from the class.

I didn't say a word as I scanned all the faces. The majority of them were familiar, as they gossiped and quickly tried to fill out last night's homework. It was painfully obvious which ones were cheating off someone else who'd actually done the work because they would rush to jam their papers into hiding places when Mr. Harris turned his head their way.

I bit my lip when I looked over every head in the class twice and realized that Liam was nowhere to be seen.

Crap. Not good, not good, not good!

I flipped my binder open and busied myself with shuffling useless papers around, trying to look like I was doing something as my mind battled against itself. Should I just text Scott?

No! Liam deserves a chance. He still has time.

Class has started, and he's not here.

It's not even been five minutes.

Fine. I'll give it five minutes…. But if doesn't show up soon, I'm texting Scott! I flitted my gaze over all the faces of my would-be class and sighed again before shuffling my papers some more.

Ten minutes.

You're pathetic.

I clenched my teeth and tried to focus on Mr. Harris. I might've come here to try and talk with Liam, but I'm still a peer mentor. It'd probably be good if I knew what was going on today in class.

"How many of you do the grocery shopping?" Mr. Harris meanly taunted, knowing full well that most of these kids probably only go to the store to throw useless junk food in their mom's carts and give them pouty faces until they'd won.

Dead silence fell over the class, as a couple of cheaters passed homework back to their rightful owners. Mr. Harris either didn't notice or simply didn't care, because he rose from his seat and began to make his way around the desk. He held a yardstick in his hand as he spoke—probably an intimidation tactic—and began to absently smack his open palm with it. "None of you?"

Three breaths passed, and I watched as one small, hesitant hand towards the middle of the room crept up. Mr. Harris latched onto that student and jabbed his yardstick in their direction. "Mr. Hewitt!"

Ah. It was the hand of Mason Hewitt, one of the nicest people I'd ever met in the school. Mason seemed regretful for having spoken up. He quickly dropped his hand as well as his gaze, glancing up at the unforgiving teacher periodically. "It seems that not all of you are inept parasites, after all. Mr. Hewitt, what do you buy when you go to the grocery store?"

Mason shrugged a shoulder. "I don't know, um… eggs. Milk. Cereal." Mr. Harris raised an eyebrow, bidding him to go on. "Uh… Laundry detergent. Bread, bacon, biscuits—"

"Aha!" Mr. Harris exclaimed, pointing his yardstick out to silence Mason. "Bread, you say? Now that's interesting. When you buy this bread, do you look at the ingredients? Is your family partial to white or wheat?"

Mason scrunched his face up and glanced around at his classmates, who were just as clueless as he was. "Um… Mr. Harris?"

"White bread contains a disturbing amount of sugar, as most of you probably are already aware." He paused, glancing down at a student who was a bit on the pudgy side. "…Or maybe not." Continuing down the aisles, he tapped his yardstick on the floors as he went. "What else is bread made of?"

"Flour." Spoke up one brave soul.

"Yes! Good, go on."

"Salt?"

"Probably milk."

Mr. Harris sent that last one a withering look. "Yes, probably milk. You copied that answer from your neighbor just like you did last night's homework." The kid stiffened and sank in his seat. "Yes, I noticed. Detention. What else would you say is probably needed to make bread?" Silence reigned again. Mr. Harris's beady eyes swept over the room as he waited for an answer. "Think! What's the one ingredient that bread needs in order to bake properly?"

He waited an absurdly long time. It became evident that no one would answer, save for one poor student who weakly suggested food coloring, and Mr. Harris sighed heavily before turning to face me for the first time. "Ms. Argent, would you be so kind as to put these incompetent farrows out of their misery?"

"Yeast." I said, my voice quiet as the other students turned to peer curiously at me.

"Thank you, Ms. Argent." He turned back to the class and folded his hands together. "Ms. Argent will be mentoring you today. Perhaps she will have more luck imparting you than I."

He went on to ask if the students they knew what yeast was, and at their tentative confirmation, he snidely asked if they thought it was a living organism. When they immediately said no, he all but fell to the floor in exasperation before finally explaining that they'd be putting that very theory to the test through a series of labs today.

As he split everyone into teams, I set about preparing the test tubes and packets of yeast. My phone weighed heavily in my pocket, and while Mr. Harris was distracted with handing out more detentions to the cheaters in his class, I quickly checked the screen.

Blank. It's been a little under ten minutes, and still: no Liam. I reluctantly pulled up Scott's contact and typed out a short message conveying that the guy was MIA, and sent one last lingering look towards the door.

But it was never opened. With a heavy heart, I pressed send and turned back to the task at hand.

Seven minutes later, Scott had quickly responded that he was 'on it', and the class had been divided and supplied with the necessary materials to continue. They were being their typical high school selves, playing with the goggles and making jokes about rising yeast, when the door suddenly opened.

I was so relieved and surprised that my pen actually fell from my fingers as Liam stepped into the class.

"Mr. Dunbar!" I quickly sank to the floor behind the teacher's desk to pick up my pen, peering around the corner tentatively. My heart raced as Liam clenched his jaw and turned a hard, dreadful gaze to the teacher. "Late again?"

Liam remained silent and sent a quick glance over in the direction of Mason before finally responding. "I had trouble with my locker."

I frowned at that lame excuse as I typed out a frantic new text to Scott reassuring him that Liam had finally shown up to class. "As weak and mundane as that excuse is, I actually don't care. Since you're late and I'm too annoyed with you to go over all the instructions again, you'll have to work with Ms. Argent." Shit!

Liam's face shifted into that of complete shock and confusion. He suddenly glanced around the room and I rocketed to my feet, knocking into the stool Mr. Harris sat in earlier.

My face flamed and I took in a quivering, nervous breath as I blinked at Mr. Harris and nodded sharply. Liam gaped at me and did not look happy about my inexplicable presence in his classroom, his eyes narrowing a bit as Mr. Harris continued to lecture him about being late.

To my surprise and Liam's relief, Mr. Harris didn't give him a detention. He simply scolded him and sent him on his way towards me.

I felt like my heart was in my throat. I shifted nervously as Liam made slow, measured steps towards me, his face conveying about sixty different emotions as he made his way over.

He looked like he wanted to yell at me. At the same time, his face was tinted a bit red with anticipation, mirroring my own sentiments—because where had he truly been? Why did it take so long for him to get to class? Why did he run away? What—what's that look on his face!?

He came to a puttering stop at the desk in front of me and I was overwhelmed with the smell of his fresh, dizzying cologne. He opened his mouth and I smacked my pen down on the desk.

"Ahh," I choked out, all but stumbling around the corner of the desk. "I'll get the lab supplies!"

And with that I scrambled away from him and began to rifle through the required equipment with shaking hands. Shit, shit, shit, shit!

Stop being a wuss! Get over there, and demand to know where he's been!

But did you see his face?

Get a grip! You're an Argent. You can handle one inconsequential expression from a cute boy.

…But did you see his face?!

I groaned quietly to myself and pressed my fingers into my eyes for a moment. When I felt a little more under control, I lifted the box of supplies and made my way back to the desk.

I missed the fluff that this story has :) I needed a quick little break from my other fic, so I headed on over here to write another chapter! I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the fact that this fic has already garnered over 3,000 hits (!) and has been put into a community! :D Seriously!? You guys are awesome!

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