Chapter One: Crimson and Clover
"Ah, I don't hardly know her. But I think I could love her."
- Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Crimson and Clover
His mom has always told him that he often doesn't think before he acts. Of course she is right in saying this, and his track record has definitely been proof of his reckless behaviours over the course of his life. However this time, his actions could get him into more trouble than getting kicked out of school or having to pay a fine for the damage he caused to someone's property during one of his anger spells.
It has only been halfway through his freshman year and he has already been transferred to a different school, been kicked off his old lacrosse team, joined a new one, got into a fight with a couple juniors, injured his leg and now has been turned into a werewolf by one of said juniors. Plus his name has now ended up on a dead pool and he is fighting for his life.
For someone inexplicable reason his head has now decided to have a complete mind of its own when it came to Kira Yukimura. It started the day he saw her seductively walk down the stairs like some sort of Asian Rock Goddess; with her floral sweater, short black skirt and boots. This then led to her tripping, which strangely he found adorable. You could imagine his surprise when she invited him to a party. He was only a freshman after all, and she was a very pretty junior, who he thought was dating the captain of the lacrosse team.
Turns out he was right about the dating someone else thing and she was only the bait to lure him into an intervention of supernatural proportions. He may have not shown his complete disappointment that she wasn`t actually interested in him. When he went home that night after spending all evening as a werewolf in the woods, he dreamed about the beautiful kitsune who couldn`t be his.
They didn`t talk much after that, unless you count their showdown with the berserker on the hospital roof. Now this wasn`t just some girl who had a boyfriend, this was some girl who was the girlfriend of his alpha. If Kira was off limits before, she now burned at the touch.
"Liam, dude, where were you last night? I tried texting you seven times?" his best friend Mason asked him while they were getting their books from their lockers the day after the hospital showdown as he liked to call it.
"Oh…uh, I had to help my stepdad with some filing at the hospital," he lied quickly, shutting his locker with a slam.
"Look, you have been acting really weird lately. We hardly ever hang out anymore. I feel like I am losing my best friend here. I always see you with Scott McCall and his weird spastic friend who flails a lot," Mason complained, blocking him from avoiding the question.
Liam sighed, "They just feel bad about what happened at try-outs. McCall is just helping me settle into the school. And our parents both work at the hospital. Nothing big. Look we will hang out this weekend. We can even go to that music store so you can stalk that guy you like there."
Mason thought about the offer for a second but then smiled at his friend and nodded.
"Yeah alright, and by the way I do not stalk him. I am merely admiring from afar,"
Liam laughed, "Yeah sure, whatever."
The two of them headed to Calculus and Liam let out a sigh of relief that he at least got Mason off his back for the time being.
Liam walked to the animal clinic for the pack meeting where Lydia was going to explain what she discovered at her grandma's lake house. He had told his parents that he was job hunting, to which his mom was pleased as his anger management coach had told her that it would be good for him to do other things, not just school and lacrosse.
When he entered the clinic he found Scott, Lydia, Stiles, Derek, Deaton and Argent in the back room. He then noticed Kira wasn't there, which made him a little disappointed. It then came to his attention that Malia also was not there.
"Where are Kira and Malia?" he asked, sitting around Deaton's examination table.
"Kira is with her mom in Palo Alto and Kira is off with Peter," Lydia explained to him while she placed some pictures on the exam table.
"Isn't Peter the psycho ex-alpha that reigned terror on the town?" he asked, confused to why the were-coyote would be off with such a dangerous guy on her own.
"You've got some keen observation skills there Liam, now can we please just get to the lake house issue," Stiles said to him. Liam wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic or not, but he decided that Stiles was one of those people that you could rarely take seriously, so he decided that yes, Stiles was being a jerk. Rightly so.
"Okay, so this picture is of the banshee room in the lake house," Lydia explained pointed to a picture of a wall. "This is a picture of Meredith, standing in the same room, who knows how long ago."
"So are you like, related to Meredith?" Scott asked picking up the picture to look at more closely.
"I am not really sure, my mom recognized her and told me that she was in Eichen House with my paternal grandmother. She then told me that my grandma wanted me to be the one to spread her ashes onto the lake when I turned eighteen. So, she gave me the urn and it wasn't ashes in the jar but mountain ash. And it turns out the whole shed is made of mountain ash," Lydia went on.
"Was your mom sure your grandmother was dead?" Deaton asked her.
"I know she isn't," Lydia said.
"How do you know?" Derek questioned.
"She left a note…or another part of code at least. I used a cypher key to unlock the names again and my grandmother is on the list," Lydia insisted.
"That doesn't prove anything! She could have been assassinated already," Argent reasoned.
"That's not the point, the point is that she knew about the dead pool!" Lydia exclaimed, obviously frustrated and stressed.
"Lydia, what did you use to break the code?" Stiles asked her.
Lydia frowned and hesitantly handed over the translated code. Stiles began to read, and soon his eyes widened at what was written.
"Lydia, why did you write another name," he yelled. "Why did you write my name?"
"Your name was the last cypher key," she muttered sadly.
"Okay! Everyone, we can't just jump to conclusions about this. Lydia, do you think there could be any information on your grandmother anywhere else other than your lake house?" Scott asked her.
"Well, as I said before she stayed at Eichen House," Lydia suggested.
"The basement! There were tons of files and documents down there when I found the nogitsune semi-dead corpse thing with Malia," Stiles exclaimed.
"Lydia, Stiles you two should check that out," Deaton advised. The two of them nodded and Lydia followed Stiles to his jeep to leave to Eichen House.
"Liam, you and I are going to pick up Kira at the bus station on my bike. And then you and Kira are going to take her car back that we left in the bus parking lot. No one should be alone. I will be right behind you guys on the way back," Scott ordered.
It didn't take any persuading to get Liam to go. He was going to get to spend an hour in a car with Kira on his own. He was excited at the prospect of actually getting to talk to her.
"Yeah okay," he agreed.
"I am going to try to find Kate," Argent let everyone know before leaving out the back door.
"Braeden and I are going to meet up with Satomi to see if we can get some of her remaining pack out of Beacon Hills safely," Derek stated.
Liam didn't expect his life to turn so upside down in a matter of days. Yet at the same time for once he feels like he has someone looking out for him at all times. It also however made him feel horrible about the feelings he felt for the girl that belonged to the guy who was welcoming him proudly into a pack that symbolized friendship and trust.
He decided that he would just have to deal with the reality of Kira Yukimura never being his. At least for the time being.