A/N: WE'RE BACK BITCHES!!! I'm feeling more like myself so I started writing again, and I'm actually happy with how this turned out??? Happy pride month!!! Also enjoy some Dylan content above.

From the moment Katherine stepped out of the school councilor's office that morning, she'd been in a bad mood. She'd gotten a ride in with Liam as he had agreed to do every morning until she decided to get her license, and had wordlessly tossed a pop tart at him before grumpily doing up her seatbelt.

It was still warm out, so she put on a cute top and a skirt because it's too early to be a person and fuck the patriarchy, but hadn't worn heels in case she needed to kick ass. As was always something to think about when living in Beacon Hills.

He'd blinked at her. "So I take it we're getting coffee then?"

"Yes," she had mumbled through a rather aggressive bite of her own pop tart. "I'm going to need it if the goal is to not murder the wannabe-therapist-lady."

"...that usually is the goal, yeah," Liam snorted, a fond look on his face as he glanced her over.

But he'd taken her to get coffee since she would need it for the first day of classes, anyway, even if it was just orientation; the new student councilor wanted to have a conversation with everyone about their schedules before settling into a proper routine. Her timeslot had been last of her friend group, since she knew she would need to get the hell out of there as fast as she could before she punched something.

Or someone.

Katherine was proven right the moment she stepped out of the stuffy little window filled room, the fake smile on her face so tense it was painful. She was gripping her coffee cup to the point her knuckles had turned white, and stepped aside so the next student could go in before the door closed.

Off to the left, Mason, Liam and Corey were all waiting for her, the former two looking unbearably tense while the latter of them was just confused. When she heard the door click shut the stepped over to them, and took a swig from her mouth. "I'm going to commit a crime," she decided aloud, lips rolling.

Corey frowned. "What?"

"No you're not," Liam huffed.

"She means she's going to commit a murder," Mason clarified for his boyfriend as they made their way down the hall, "except she's also not going to do that."

Katherine just snorted. "You underestimate my rage, Mr Beast Mode. I watch crime documentaries; I'm not saying I'm going to put on a Derek Hale inspired ensemble of all black tonight and go outside with a chainsaw, I'm saying that I'm a patient woman...when I want to be."

"Do I want to know who Derek Hale is?" Corey asked awkwardly.

Gently, Liam tugged her hand into his and gently kissed the inside of her wrist; she remembered leaving the boys changeroom with him in freshman year while Scott spoke with Derek inside, and she grinned as he muttered out a, "no."

"Dealing with him is...an experience, I guess you could say," Katherine hummed while stifling a laugh. She hooked her fingers through Liam's as Corey and Mason said their goodbyes to them to head off to their first class of the day. "Derek actually isn't that bad, you know."

"He hurt you," was all he said, tapping her wrist as if to remind her. "So as of right now, I don't like him."

"Fair enough," she hummed. They wandered towards the art room where their first class was, and she glanced over at him. "Did you know that from the 80's to the 2000's in Vancouver BC, Robert Pickton murdered several women and fed their bodies to the pigs on his farm, which makes them omnivores?"

Liam blinked once. "No, I didn't know that."

"And did you know that it's actually legal to own a pig here in California?"

"Katherine oh my god."

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After spending her morning in Art, Math and Law, Katherine met up with Liam and Mason at the front of the school. She couldn't remember where Corey had to be for his next class, but since the three of them had a study period they decided on spending it in the library. The entire way there the boys had been talking about the strange experience with the wolves that night, while Katherine shuddered her inputs about the spiders and cringed.

"There's this book," Mason mumbled, lost in thought as Katherine shoved the library doors open for them. "American Cryptozoology, and they have this entire chapter on spiders; they even have an entire section on scarabs, too."

Liam made a face. "What's a scarab?"

"You don't wanna know," Mason sighed.

But Katherine was grinning. "You know the movie The Mummy? Those beetles that ate human flesh?" When he blanched, she snickered. "The movie lied, they're just big ass beetles."

"You...irritate me," he muttered.

"God damn right I do."

Before Liam had the chance to snark back at her, they stopped in front of what she guessed was supposed to be the shelf they were looking for. She wasn't sure, because it was completely emptied of all books. "Where'd all the books go?" He then frowned, and she turned to look at him slowly.

"The scarabs ate them obviously...how are we supposed to know, dude?"

"Did you give her watered down coffee this morning or something?" Mason asked with raised brows, amusement written all over his face.

Liam pinched the bridge of his nose. "I had them put three espresso shots in there...apparently that's not enough."

She just rolled her eyes.

"Maybe someone's writing a paper on mythology and superstition," Mason offered finally, lips pursing into a thin line. "Or like...a hundred papers."

Katherine opened her mouth to respond, only to be cut off by a scream that definitely wasn't hers. She glanced at the two of them, and then they were running. Liam was in front of the two of them, naturally, but they were close behind him.

When they finally stopped at the science room, Katherine was met with the sight of all the current senior students standing on top of their desks while dozens of either mice or rats wandered across the floor. One girl, Sydney, made eye contact with her through the doorway and squeaked out, "why does this keep happening to our school?"

"This is concerning," Katherine breathed out, eyes wide. "Very much concerning...I'm concerned."

Someone in the other doorway at the other end of the classroom moved and caught her attention briefly, only for her to pause. The man was much too old to be in high school, and while he looked to be around Parrish's age give or take a few years, something made her believe he was much older than that. His hair was cut close to his scalp and stubble grew along his jaw so for a moment she thought he might be a substitute teacher, until she realized that the class teacher was up on his own desk.

He ducked out the door before she had the chance to approach him, and Mason drew her out of her confused staring with a nudge. "Looks like we're gonna need a book on rats, too," he grinned breathlessly, pointing over to the loose vent the rats were coming out of.

She made a face. "Now isn't that just wonderful."

They went on with their day as they normally would, but the moment the final bell rang they were in Liam's car driving to a pipe plant so they could sneak under ground with Mason providing them with directions. Katherine followed behind Liam as he carried their flashlight so she could walk in the back with her bat firmly set on her shoulder.

"You know, it's not as irrational as you think," Mason hummed as he wandered next to her with his own flashlight. "There's actually an evolutionary advantage of having an innate fear of spiders, snakes, and rats."

"So why do we humans not get the evolutionary advantage of being elastagirl so we can carry these fuckers to a remote location with arms that are forty feet long," Katherine grumbled, cringing as something squished under her food. "Nobody tell me what that was or I swear I'll bash your kneecaps in."

"How do you know they came from here?" Liam cringed, apparently agreeing with what she'd said.

"Well, they came clawing through the vents," Mason shrugged, "and those pipes lead directly down here."

The tunnel they'd been walking in lead them to a small open room, and Katherine had the brief memory of falling into a space like this with Lydia and almost breaking her ankle the year before, and she grimaced. It was dimly lit and smelled musty, but she forced her shudders aside to look around. Then Liam paused. "What is that?"

At the opposite end of the room, in front of a loosely meshed over grate was what she thought was a clump of hair for a moment, until she realized she was also seeing legs and tails coming out of it—

She turned her head so she wouldn't throw up.

"It's a rat king," Mason breathed out, sounding somewhere between amazed and disgusted.

"Hmm, okay, that," Katherine muttered, waving her hand in the general direction of the grossness at the other end of the room. "Yeah I don't like that, so that needs to seriously stop...Jesus that's gonna be added to the list of things I'm never going to be able to explain to a therapist," she cringed.

"We should call someone," Liam grimaced.

"Definitely."

Without another word, Katherine pulled her phone out of her pocket and and pressed her current emergency contact.

"What," Malia muttered over the phone, grumbling unhappily.

"You know how you love me right?"

After five minutes of bargaining, mild threatening, and finally agreeing to make cupcakes for her next 5 birthdays, Malia agreed to come out and help them. While they waited for her, she sat down at the opposite side of the room with her back turned, and she huffed.

"So what did the councilor say that made you hate her so much?" Liam asked softly as he sat down beside her, bumping her arm with his elbow. "Because it takes a lot to send you into serial killer mode."

She bit down on the corner of her lip, frowning. "She told me she doesn't think law enforcement was a good idea for me because she thinks that, with the fact that I'm on anxiety medication, it would put too much stress on me." Her mouth twisted bitterly. "The lady said to my face that if Dad was pressuring me to make this choice, I shouldn't listen to him."

He didn't say anything as he put his hand over her face, successfully stopping her from chewing on her lip before he smoothed it over her forehead and moved all the hair out of her eyes. Then, he set her head down on his shoulder and put his on top of hers. "She doesn't know what she's talking about, and she doesn't know you," he told her quietly, pressing a kiss to the top of your head.

"I know she doesn't," Katherine grumbled. "That's why I want to feed her to pigs."

She felt his breath hit her hair as he laughed at her, and it was enough to make her smile. Without thinking about it she took a glance over at Mason, and immediately cringed. "Dude, I love you, but stop poking the pile of gross with a stick; please."