Chapter Twenty ✧The Helpful Brigade✧

The impact of Hayden's punch and the shock that that was her reaction led to Liam landing flat on him back. My first instinct was to quickly kneel down next to him and check on him, momentarily forgetting about Hayden as she hurriedly got in her car and sped off. 

"Oh, god. You're bleeding so much," I told him as blood gushed from his nose. Admittedly not his best look. 

"I'll heal," Liam groaned. It took him a moment to prop himself up on his elbows, though. As his nose slowly stopped bleeding, he tried to wipe some of it with the back of his hand. Seeing how much he really was bleeding, he let out a long sigh and looked over to me. 

 I tried to bite back a smile, because it wasn't really funny, but it was so ironically just our luck. 

"Well, that could've gone better," Liam finally said. By now, he was leaning himself against me as I sat on the round next to him. I think it was safe to say after what had happened to each of us in the past half an hour, we deserved the momentary break. 

"Yeah, it could've," I agreed. We gave ourselves another moment to revel in our failure, and then we both moved to stand up. Back on our feet, I looked off in the direction Hayden had driven. "We can't just let her go, Liam. You have to go after her." 

Liam didn't look thrilled with the idea. I knew he was thinking about my episode that had just happened inside, but we had much more pressing things to deal with then my potential epic demise. Anyways, he didn't even know half the story, and if I told him now he'd never leave my side and who knows what would end up happening to Hayden. I didn't want to have her blood on my hands, even if Genevieve was sure my blood was going to be on hers. 

"Char, I don't want to leave you," Liam murmured, his eyes flitting around cautiously as if some monster was going to creep out of the darkness. 

I smiled at him gratefully, because honestly, what did I do to deserve him. I leaned forward, kissing the side of his cheek and taking care to steer clear of any blood. Pulling away, I left a hand on his cheek to keep him looking at me. 

"I'll be fine. I'll call Scott or Stiles and see if one of them can pick me up," I promised him. "I can't keep up with you, and you have to make sure we keep Hayden safe. Please, Liam. It's important to me. I don't want to see her get hurt." 

Liam let out a sigh. "Yeah, I know. Okay, I'll get her and meet back at your place, sound good?" 

"Sounds perfect." Despite the seriousness of the situation, I gave Liam another smile. "Be careful, okay?" 

"You too," Liam responded. 

Knowing we didn't have time to chat anymore, Liam turned and took off after Hayden's car. With his werewolf speed, he was out of sight in no time. Once he was gone, I began dialing Scott's number so that I could explain to him that our lives just got a little bit more complicated. 

"Wait so why were you at the club again?" Stiles asked as he drove in the direction of the McCall house. 

I sat in the back of his jeep as Scott and Stiles sat upfront, which was fairly usual for the three of us. What wasn't usual was the night that any of us had with Scott, Theo, and Stiles finding a dead chimera who apparently had been named Josh and then me finding out about Hayden, among other things. A Stiles kept his eyes somewhat on the road, Scott turned his body in his seat so that he could look at me. 

"Bigger picture, Stiles," I reminded him. 

"So your sure Liam's going to bring her back to our house?' Scott asked the more pressing question. 

"Yeah, he just texted me and said they were there," I nodded. "I told him to let himself in and that we're almost home." 

"Alright, good," Scott nodded. "You did good, Charlotte." 

As crazy as the night had been so far, hearing Scott say that made me feel significantly better. Maybe it didn't change the fact that we were currently in the middle of a messy situation, but at least I wasn't spiraling out of control currently. 

Finally, we arrived at the house and all three of us hurried to get out of the jeep. Making our way inside, we were greeted by an urgent looking Liam standing at the top of the steps. Hayden was no where to be seen.

"Where is she?" I asked. I began heading up the stairs with the other two following closely behind. 

"She kind of locked herself in the bathroom," Liam explained sheepishly. 

"Naturally," Stiles murmured under his breathe. 

Now, all four of us were heading into my bedroom, which was connected to the bathroom Hayden had locked herself in. In the back of my mind, I was thankful that I had cleaned up my room the day before. 

Scott was the first one to step up and carefully knock on the door. He put his head close to the door so he could hear everything that was going on on the other side. I waited, starting to feel anxious to see how this all was going to turn out. Suddenly I was having a sense of deja vu from when we, well, kidnapped Liam when he'd first gotten bitten. 

"Hayden, it's Scott," Scott finally said. "I know you're scared, but we just, we want to help." 

We didn't get a response. Scott, who looked quite concerned, stepped away from the door to look at the rest of us. 

"I can hear her heart beating," Scott told us. His eyes then turned to Liam. "She's really fraking out, what happened?" 

"I don't know, she was fine when we got here," Liam admitted. "I went to text Charlotte for two seconds and when I turn around Hayden had locked herself into the bathroom. Then you guys got here." 

"Why did she lock herself in?" Stiles asked in a low voice. 

"I don't know," Liam shrugged, now looking at the other upperclassman. 

"She's definitely a chimera?" Scott asked. 

Liam looked over to me before we both nodded in unison. Hayden being a chimera was one of the few things I could actually be sure about. 

"She said she heard a voice saying, 'your condition improves," Liam recalled. 

"Okay, that's unsettling," Stiles deadpanned. Deciding to try a new approach, Stiles was the next one to step up on the door and tap it with his knuckles. "Hayden? This is Stiles," he called out gently. "Your sister works with my dad down at the station. Look, just open the door. You can trust us, okay?" 

Stiles waited for a second for a response, but one never came. Sighing, he to stepped away. 

"Maybe I could try?" I wondered, looking around at my friends. I really felt like I had a chance of getting to Hayden. Before Genevieve somewhat prophesied that Hayden would cause my death, I felt like Hayden and I had actually genuinely been bonding, which didn't really happen all that often for me. 

On a completely related note, my life was unbelievably insane. 

Scott looked a little surprised by my request, but he slowly nodded. Giving me an encouraging smile, he and Stiles stepped aside so I could make my attempt to talk to Hayden. Now all I had to do was come up with something good to say to her. 

Honestly, I wish I could just draw her a nice little picture and slid it under the door. I'm a lot better at art then I am as talking to people. Still, I had to give this a try. 

"Hey, uh, Hayden. It's me, Charlotte." Okay, so maybe I wasn't starting off super strong. "I hope you're not still mad at me because I would really, really like to tell you the truth. And trust me, it's a lot easier to see the person you're hearing all of this from. Please, just open the door and I promise I will answer every question I can. My friends and I, we just want to help people, you know?"

There was yet another silence as everyone waited to see if this time it worked and we'd gotten through to Hayden. A few seconds passed and my confidence in being able to get to Hayden plummeted significantly. 

Then, the door knob twisted ever so slightly, allowing the door to just barely crack open. 

Carefully, I reached out to push the door open more, both cautious and timid to see what was behind it. I was only mildly shocked when I saw Hayden standing in the middle of my bathroom, claws out, teeth elongated, and eyes glowing a vibrant yellow. 

"Okay, I believe you," She quietly growled, although I do not think growling was her intention. Worriedly, her eyes rested on me. 

Scott moved swiftly between Hayden and I, both to keep me out of harm's way and to coach Hayden into getting herself back under control. I appreciated the gesture, but I wanted to do something to help. 

I tried peering around Scott into the bathroom, but I couldn't see much. When Scott finally moved, Hayden looked like her old self, just a lot more terrified. I completely understood that. 

As curious as Hayden looked, she did actually end up having too many questions. What she really wanted was just to be able to go back to her home. Again, that was something I could understand. Unfortunately, just letting her go wasn't the safest option, so Scott came up with the plan of protecting her. 

First, he and Stiles would have watch and stay outside her house, making sure nothing happened over the night. Then, tomorrow, he would worry about making up a better plan, while Liam and I stayed with Hayden to make sure nothing else went wrong. It wasn't the most vivid of plans, I'll admit, but that only meant it had room for improvement. By tomorrow night, which was surely when the dread doctors would hit, we'd have a real plan on what to do and we'd be able to keep Hayden safe. 

"Is it cool if me and Stiles take you home?" Scott asked Hayden once everything had been laid out and planned. Hayden nodded silently at him in response. 

"What about us?" I piped in before the trio had the chance to leave. "Do you need us to do anything?" 

"Yeah, stay safe and stay out of trouble," Scott somewhat joked. He reached out and wrapped an arm around me to give me a quick hug before he and the other two left for the night, leaving just me and Liam. 

"So, do we pretend to be normal now and study, or...?" Liam questioned once the other's left. He'd already made himself comfortable as he sat on my bed. 

"I think first and foremost we need to get you changed," I confessed, pointing at the remainder of blood that had been left on his shirt from earlier. 

"Oh, gross," Liam said, looking down at the stain. Making a face that was actually pretty amusing, he looked from the stain to me desperately. "Do you think I could borrow a shirt from Scott." 

"Yeah," I nodded, "Let me go get one." 

Quickly, I left the room to go to Scott's which wasn't quite as clean as mine, but still maneuverable none the less. It didn't take me long to find a shirt that I was almost certain was clean, and then headed back to my room. 

At first, I didn't see Liam in my room. Then, upon further inspection, I found him in my bathroom, shirtless and desperately trying to scrub out the blood stain. 

"Um, shirt," I said rather intelligently. 

Liam looked up from his sad attempt to see me, standing in the doorway, looking at the ceiling as my cheeks burned. I didn't need to be looking at Liam to know he had a wide smile plastered on his face. He turned off the faucet and moved towards me, taking the shirt in my hands. 

I finally made myself stop counting the tiles on the floor and look over at Liam, who was already watching me carefully. He held the shirt in his hands but he hesitated in putting it on. 

He caught me off guard by moving suddenly, and the next thing I knew his lips were on mine, moving quickly but softly. My mind could barely process what was happening. It almost felt like I couldn't breath, which I couldn't tell if that was good or bad. I put a hand on Liam's chest, very conscious of the fact that it was still bare. For another second, he kissed me before taking a large step back and clearing his throat. 

"You're hearts beating really fast," He told me, his eyes seemingly determined to watch my every move. 

"Nerves," I admitted. It's not that I didn't like kissing Liam, it's just that I was glad it stopped there. Liam never pushed to do much more then that, and I was grateful because I definitely wasn't ready for anything else. And it wasn't just because of nerves, but because I physically felt a weight press down on my chest at the thought of going any further. 

Liam nodded. Before he spoke again, he slid the clean shirt over his head. When his head was visable again, he moved closer to me. "I'm sorry about that," he said sheepishly. I wanted to tell him that he had done nothing wrong, but he kept talking before I could. "I know I don't know everything that goes on in your head, but I do know what you've gone through. You're not ready for too much and I totally respect and get that. I'm not trying to pressure you to do anything and I'm not ever going to, you know that right." 

The weight that constantly threatened to crash down on me lifted some, and I felt my lungs fill with a refreshed air. Hearing Liam say the things he had made me feel relieved. I never expected to feel so relieved by being so genuinely understood, especially when I hadn't even had to explain how I felt. Liam just... knew. After everything, I kind of needed that. 

"I know," I nodded slowly. "I trust you." 

Liam smiled at me softly. He leaned in again, but this time only to kiss my cheek softly. Then he moved past me to sit back on my bed. Looking up at me expectantly, his happy grin turned into a hopeful one. 

"So as far as studying goes, do you think we can start with Social Studies?" 

Smiling back at him, I went over to my bed and sat next to Liam. Crossing my legs to get comfortable. I nodded. "That sounds great, Liam." 

okay but like liam understanding charlotte is super important because obviously it's not insane for people their age to be doing things, but it's super important for charlotte to be comfortable with it all first. so yeah, just wanted to throw that out there. thank you all for your patience me updating! I know it's not as often as you'd like but i'm trying and I would love to hear all of your thoughts! 

Question - which new character this season do you like charlotte's interactions with the most? Theo, Hayden, someone else that my mind is neglecting to remember?