Chapter 3 ✧Burning Flowers✧

I would've felt a lot safer if we weren't going over the speed limits through winding roads with a storm thundering around us. Sadly, sensible speeds weren't a possibility when a certain Stilinski was behind the wheel. 

I guess he had an excuse, though. He was in a hurry to pick up Malia, who he was now honking at as he pulled up next to the werecoyote and her adoptive father. 

"Sorry we're late!" Stiles shouted to the pair. Malia didn't seem to quite mind the fact that we weren't on time, because she ran up to Stiles and firmly kissed him. Stiles let out a very pleased moan as he kissed the girl back, and I wasn't sure whether to feel disgusted or moved by the fact that his romance life was still going strong. 

When the couple finally pulled apart, Liam leaned forward with a boyish grin on his face. "I guess we should be late more often, then?" 

"You boys do remember I own a gun, right?" Henry Tate questioned, his eyebrows tugging upwards in a testing manner. 

"Vividly." Stiles stated. 

I felt a small shiver down my spine as I remembered the close call we had with Mr. Tate and his gun, not to mention the fact that one of his traps almost took off my brother foot. Isaac was truley lucky he was a werewolf that day. 

Nodding his head approvingly at Stiles' answer, the older Tate began backing away from the group of teenagers, but not before shooting his daughter a quick wink. I felt something tug at my heart strings, like a yearning to have a father as accepting and faithful as Henry Tate, but then I remembered that he wasn't Malia's biological father. Peter Hale was and, like my own father, Peter was a heartless maniac. 

Still, I couldn't help but wish there was some kind of fatherly figure in my life. Maybe that would fix the fact that I was an abused orphan, and that I might even have a chance at a normal life. 

I let out a tired sigh, choosing to stop thinking about being normal because I knew that it wasn't even an option for me anymore. Instead of dwelling on the impossible, I scooted over to give Malia room in the backseat with Liam and myself. Once we were all uncomfortably crammed together in the suddenly small seat, everyone's eyes turned to Malia. 

"What?" Malia asked all the expectant gazes. 

"You find out yet?" Stiles asked, turning awkwardly to look back at Malia. 

I looked at everyone in confusion. "Find out what?" 

Instead of answering me, Malia nodded her head in determination. "They're going to e-mail me." 

"Is this about summer school?" Liam asked the werecoyote. Gears churned slowly in my mind as I remembered a conversation from months ago about summer school being the result of Malia's unwavering lack of success. 

Malia stared at Liam in disbelief for a moment before turning her gaze to Stiles. "You told him?" 

Stiles cringed slightly, realized he probably messed up. But as he began throwing out an excuse, Liam cut him off. 

"Oh, no. All they said was that you had to go to summer school because the principle said your test scores weren't good enough and you might have to repeat junior year." Liam clarified, not that it made anything better. 

Things grew silent, leading to me internally cringing as tension made the air hang heavy. Malia let out an unhappy sigh, turning her head to look out the window. Stiles narrowed his eyes slightly, looking like he was contemplating on strangling Liam before he turned to look to Scott. 

"We should've left him chained to the tree." 

~~~~

Showing up at the hospital brought back a thousand different memories, most of which I would've been happy with forgetting. But at the same time, I knew forgetting them wouldn't be the answer. All the events that had gone down here, all the evil I had fought off with my friends, has helped mold me into what I am now, whatever that may be. 

Liam walked up to me and Scott with his hands shoved into his pockets. The crestfallen look on his face told me he'd gotten news about his step father. 

"What's the verdict?" I asked gently. 

"My dads in the middle of surgery, they said he's not going to be out for hours." Liam explained. Scott nodded as he began heading to the elevator, leaving me and Liam to trail behind him. "So I'm either stranded here or I could still go with you guys." 

Scott reached out and pressed the elevators button before slowly turning to Liam. "Show us your hands." 

I frowned, looking over to Liam. Why would Scott possibly need to see Liam's hands? 

Liam seemed to know why, though, because he shamefully looked over his shoulder before pulling his hands out of his pockets. I held backa  surprised gasp as I realized they were stained with blood. It was Liam's blood, he was allowing his claws to dig into his palms in order to keep himself anchored. That was a technique I wish I could say I'd never seen Isaac or the others use. 

"Okay, so I'm still having trouble." Liam admitted in a low tone. 

"No, you're just learning, Liam." I corrected gently. I took a step towards the werewolf whose eyes were determined to stare at the tiles on the floor instead of looking at me. I knew how Liam could get, how he felt like he was either hopeless or dangerous or both, so I reached out and touched his arm softly. I didn't care what he was, or even how he viewed himself, and I needed him to know that. 

"What do you do to stay focused when your changing?" Scott asked his beta. 

Liam sheepishly tugged on his earbuds that were dangling from his shirt, his eyes still not meeting mine, which I found odd. "But it's not working." 

"It's working enough." Scott assured him, a kind smile on his lips. "Listen, Derek told me you were one of the strongest he'd seen at your age. Now, that coming from him, that means a lot." 

"So maybe that means things are going to be harder for you for a while." I added, trying to ignore the sharp pain I felt in my heart as it remembered the lack of Derek Hale that was now in my life. His 'death' had, in a way, changed me. It's where everything that was going on with me had started, and that just goes to show how much the leather wearing former alpha had come to mean to me. He was as much as my family as Scott was. 

Scott had backed into the now open elevator, his hand on the door to keep it from closing. "But it also means something else, doesn't it?" 

"That I'm really strong?" Liam guessed. 

"Hell, yeah." Scott agreed with a grin. His puppy dog eyes then turned to look at me. "You still want a ride home." 

"I'll stay with Liam." I decided immediately. "I'd be home alone anyways, so I might as well stay here with Liam as he waits for his dad." 

Scott nodded understandingly, withdrawing his hand from the door so the elevator could close up. Then, it was just me and Liam in a hospital buzzing with people. 

After a moment of silence, I said. "Why don't we sit down?" 

Liam nodded and the two of us sat down in the nearby hospital chairs. Things fell silent between us again, but this time Liam had his hand wrapped tightly around mine. 

"Why didn't you tell me you weren't okay?" I asked softly. 

Liam let out a long sigh, apparently not knowing how to answer the question. "You just came back and you seemed so untroubled for once, I didn't want to be the one to ruin that." 

"Liam, we live in Beacon Hills." I reminded him, almost daring to let out a laugh. "Out of all the things that could have ruined my boringly ordinary day, I'm glad it was you." 

The young werewolf stared at me for a moment a small smile etched across his lips. As I began to smile back, Liam leaned in pressing his lips against mine softly. This kiss was much shorter then our last one, but that didn't mean it didn't feel just as perfect. 

Even though Liam was no longer kissing me, he hadn't bothered to move away much. With our fingers still intertwined and our heads lightly touching each other, I didn't think there was much else we could do to get any closer. Especially since we were both in separate chairs. 

"You know, you being here works a lot letter then listening to music." Liam stated, his lips still shaped in that smile of his that felt so good. 

"But music seemed to work pretty well for you when I wasn't here." I pointed out. I hadn't meant to let my eyes flutter shut, but I felt to content and comfortable to bother opening them. "What exactly would you listen to." 

Liam let out an embarrassed laugh. "Uh, you remember that night just before you left? The one where Mason made us go on a random hike through the Beacon Hills park?" 

I nodded, still not opening my eyes quite yet. "Yeah, of course." 

"You know how we accidentally lost Mason, so we just laid down in the grass and waited for him to come find us again?" Liam continued. My eyes were now open, looking into Liam's as he reminded me of one of the best nights of my life since I'd met him. "You probably don't remember this, or maybe you couldn't even actually here it, but there was a bar nearby and they played this song while we were waiting for Mason. I had it stuck in my head for the rest of the night." 

I smiled softly, finding it completely adorable that he remembered something like that. "What song was it?" 

Liam looked more embarrassed then ever, though I found his confession anything but embarrassing. "Iris by Goo Goo Dolls." 

My smile widened automatically. "When you're wolfing out on the full moon you listen to Goo Goo Dolls?" 

"Well it's not 'cause I like them. It's just becuase it reminds me of that night, how happy I was." Liam clarified. He shrugged his shoulders as he shot a small grin at me. "I'm just always happy when I'm with you." 

This time, I was the one who felt embarrassed, the blush on my cheeks surely telling Liam that. But before I could come up with a response to say to him, Liam suddenly tensed up, the grip he had on my hand tightening ever so slightly. 

"Liam?" I questioned, worried that his sudden change in behavior had something to do with the full moon. "What's going on? Are you okay?" 

Instead of answering me, Liam stood up. Pulling me up out of my seat, Liam began dragging me down the hallway. 

"Somethings happening." 

Liam apparently didn't have time for any more questions, because he continued to pull me behind him as he wordlessly rushed down the halls. Eventually, we came to a stop outside of the morgue. Looking in through the small window on the doors, we saw Jordan Parrish, Melissa McCall, and Sheriff Stilinski. 

"What's going on?" I asked when I realized Liam had started using his enhanced hearing to pick up on what they were saying. He didn't answer right a way as he was too busy concentrating on figuring out what was going on, and I found myself wishing I could've had super hearing too instead of having to wait at the side lines for answers. 

"Scott's in trouble." 

"What?" I asked worriedly. How could he already be in trouble, he had practically just left the hospital. 

"I need to meet him at the school." Liam decided, letting go of my hand as a serious look settled in his eyes. 

"I want to come too." I told him. 

Liam shook his head. "Charlotte, this really isn't something you can get into, okay? I need to leave now, anyways." 

With that, Liam gave me a hurried kiss before rushing down the hospital halls, leaving me in the dust, metaphorically speaking. 

I let out a frustrated sigh as I slowly began walking down the halls with no particular destination in mind. Once again, I was left behind because I was too useless to do anything. My friends couldn't drag me around because I wouldn't do anything but get in the way. 

I hated that. 

My walking sped up, Liam's words running through my head over and over again. He couldn't even afford to take me with him because I couldn't keep up with Liam and the others. I didn't even know why he had to take off so suddenly either, I was so irrelevant that I didn't need to know what was going on until after it happened. 

A random burst of light made me stop walking dead in my tracks. With wide eyes, I took a slow step back, looking into one of the hospital rooms to see the bouquet of flowers next to the patients bed had caught on fire. 

"Oh, my god." I breathed out fearfully, my eyes staring at the burning flowers in disbelief. 

Just as suddenly as the fire seemed to start, the flames died down. For a moment, I just stared at the now charred flowers. The blackened portion of mother natures world still smoked, and the grey smoke seemed to waft towards me ever so slightly. 

I took a quick step away from the room. Then I took another step, followed by a brisk stride to the nearest exit. 

It was a good thing the patient in the room with the burning flowers had been asleep (or possibly in a coma) because I didn't need anyone knowing that I was the one who started that fire. 

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Slight range of emotions, am I right or am I right? My baby girl Char is going through some things. Now it's not unusual for Char to get down on herself about being weak and helpless, but her views on just how weak she feels she is are evolving, which, in turn, is changing her. 

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Its been a year since I brought Charlotte Lahey to life, and whether or not you guys have been here from the start or just binge read this and Scared to Death in the past few days, I just want to thank you all for giving her your love! I would've deleted this story long ago if it wasn't for all of your support!

Question - I've asked this before, but I want to see if your ideas have changed so, What do you think Charlotte Lahey is?