—

Austin walked hand in hand with Ryder into school. His usually calm and steady self was replaced by a fidgety version.

The couple had just recently gotten a paper from Scott and Stiles. A dead pool, as they called it. A list full of supernatural creatures in Beacon Hills that were meant to get killed.

Ryder seemed rather calm for someone that held a paper that practically signed her life away.

Ryder Miller-Hale 21m
Ramona Miller-Anders 170k

"How disrespectful can someone be? Honestly." Ryder groaned, "I mean, I get it, they want to kill me, whatever. But they could have at least spared me of the Hale last name."

Upon noticing her boyfriend's silence, Ryder looked up towards him.

"Why are you so quiet?"

"Why—Ryder, someone's full on planning to kill you and your pregnant mother and you seem ridiculously calm." He whispered harshly.

"I'm aware, Austin. The paper is right here." She waved it in his face, "And it's not that I'm calm, you know contrary to popular belief, i'm a rather nervous person. I'm just not showing it. You think I wanna go home and see my mom's head on the floor? No."

Austin watched as she scoffed, "But...if i'm possibly surrounded by people that want to kill me, i can't show weakness. That makes me an easy target."

Ryder placed her hands on his face, squishing his cheeks together, "I don't want to be an easy target."

Austin huffed, his minty breath smacking her face causing her to blink harshly, "Easy target or not, you're a target, Ryder. I don't want you dying."

"I'll be okay." She promised him, pulling away to walking ahead, "And if i'm not, you can take that twenty one million and give me a good funeral."

"I-Ryder, that's not funny!"

•••

"Are you even allowed in here?"

"My sister is dating the Coach's step son, i'm sure I can go wherever I please." Josie rolled her eyes.

Mason chuckled, looking down at Liam, the Dunbar too busy working out to pay attention to what they were saying, "You know how I keep reminding Garrett to give me back my hoodie?"

"Yeah." Liam nodded absentmindedly.

"Well, I remembered you said he lived in that housing development on Spaulding. So I went there and guess what? The housing development is still in development."

"So?"

"There are no houses yet. So unless the dude lives in some backhoe, there's something he's not telling us. And then there's this other dude, man, he's... He's been acting really strange. Running to school for no reason. Disappearing at parties. Used to be my best friend."

"Uh-huh."

"And he was apparently on steroids." Mason crossed his arms.

Josie's eyes grew wide as she looked at the amount of weight Liam was trying to lift. She knew, logically speaking, he could lift it if he wanted. His new abilities gave him that strength but she didn't think it was best if he went around flexing it.

"Liam." Josie called out, successfully gathering his full attention.

"What?"

"You're not actually going to try to lift that, are you? Are you all right? I mean, is it about the game tonight?" Mason asked.

"I'm fine. It's just a scrimmage."

Josie scrunched her brows, "You do know who you're playing, right?"

"Yeah. I mean, no." He took that back, "I guess I missed the announcement."

"Liam, it's your old school. Devenford Prep."

•••

"Economic disparity exists in all forms. Well, take sports, for example. Some teams have better training facilities. Some have better equipment. Unlike Beacon Hills that can barely afford the duct tape to keep our equipment together."

Austin looked down as he snickered quietly, his hands moving skillfully as he braided the ends of Ryder's hair.

"You know, Stilinski, if I could grade you on how profoundly you disturb me, you'd be an A plus student."

"Thanks, Coach." Stiles smiled at him.

"Put those pictures away." Bobby exclaimed in disgust as he looked down at the rather disturbing photos.

From her seat next to Stiles, Ryder sat up, snatching one of the pictures off the Stilinski's desk. Her actions got her an offended 'hey!', but she didn't care.

Her brown eyes narrowed thoughtfully before she called out,

"Hey, Bobby?"

"It's Coach—"

The man was cut off by the Miller teen snatching the lacrosse stick he held.

"What are you—What are you doing?"

"Ry..." Austin called to her softly, confused by her sudden switch in energy.

Her werewolf strength overpowered Finstock, leaving the man both shocked and annoyed that he couldn't get her to let go of the stick. She popped the cup off the bottom, humming slightly.

Scott and Stiles watched as she turned both the picture and the end of the lacrosse stick in their direction before she let go, apologizing to Coach to avoid getting detention.

Stiles' eyes widen in realization, "It's a lacrosse player."

"The killer's on the team."

Ryder gave Stiles back his papers, "You're welcome."

•••

"Liam, wait. What, no, no, no, no. Liam."

"What's happening?" Austin snapped his head at the mention of the Dunbar.

Mason wasn't given the chance to answer as Liam made quick work to confront his former teammates.

"Brett!"

"Ah, here we go."

Liam took a deep breath before shoving his hand forward, "I just wanted to say... Have a good game."

Much to Josie's second hand embarrassment, Brett quite literally laughed in Liam's face.

"That's cute, Liam. Is that what they told you to say in Anger Management? Apologize and everything's fine? You demolished Coach's car."

"I paid for it."

"Yeah, you're going to pay for it. We're gonna break you in half out there. And it's gonna be all your fault." Brett taunted him.

Josie smacked Austin's side, dragging the George's attention to the blood dripping from Liam's hands from clenching his fists in anger.

Austin walked forward, Scott and Stiles right behind him.

"Hey, what's going on prep students? Welcome to our little public high school. How you doing? That's a firm handshake you got there. Uh, we're very excited for scrimmage tonight. Uh, but Let's keep it clean, all right? No rough stuff out there. All right, see you on the field." Stiles rambled, "Go."

Josie went to follow, only to be stopped by her sister,

"I'll make sure he's okay. Stay with Mason."

•••

Liam roared in Ryder and Scott's faces as they held him under the cold shower in the locker room.

"Okay, you calm yet?" Stiles asked him, flinching back as the Dunbar tried swiping his claws at him.

"Okay! Okay!" Liam panted out, slowly dropping to the floor while Austin turned the water off.

"That car you smashed. I thought you said that was your teacher's." Scott said.

"He was also my Coach. He benched me for the entire season."

"What did you do?"

"I got a couple of red cards." He spoke softly.

Stiles didn't seem convinced, "Just a couple?"

"You gotta be honest with us. What else happened?" Scott pushed.

"Nothing. I got kicked out of school. They sent me to a psychologist for evaluation."

"What did they call it?" Austin asked him.

"Intermittent explosive Disorder."

"I.E.D? You're literally an I.E.D?" Stiles seemed appalled, "That's great. That's great. You gave powers to a walking time bomb."

"It's not his fault, dude. Relax." Austin said in a harsh voice. His eyes soften as he looked over at the beta in front of him, "Did they give you anything for it?"

"Risperdal. It's an antipsychotic."

"Oh, this just gets better." Stiles mumbled under his breath.

"I'm assuming you don't take it?" Ryder asked. Liam's eyes traveled to her understanding ones as he shook his head,

"No."

"Obviously."

"Stiles, shut up." Austin and a ryder snapped in unison.

"I can't play lacrosse on it." Liam was quick to explain himself, "It makes me too tired."

"That's because it's supposed to relax you. That's what it does." Ryder said factually. It wasn't unknown that the girl had her own problems with her anger, but she wasn't as bad as Liam. She just had simple anger problems, easily agitated, not IED, yet that didn't stop the doctors from trying to requested the medicine to Ramona.

Of course, the woman said no, chalking it up to her daughter growing into her wolf like nature, that proving to be wrong as Ryder didn't turn until she was sixteen.

Either way, Ryder had a bit of an idea on how Liam was feeling.

Scott sighed, "Okay. I think you should bail out of the game. Tell Coach your leg is still hurting."

"No, no! I can do this. Especially if you're there." His words were directed at Scott but his eyes flickered to Austin. Ryder seemed to be the only person to catch this, eyeing her boyfriend with a gentle smile.

"But, Liam, it's not just about the game. We think whoever killed Demarco might be on our team."

"What?"

Liam frowned, "Who's Demarco?"

"The one who brought the beer to the party. The guy who was beheaded. Remember?" Stiles tried to jog his memory.

"We think the person who ordered the keg killed Demarco. Liam? What, you know something?

"I don't know who ordered the keg. But I know who paid for it."

"Who?"

"His name is Garrett."

Austin suddenly perked up, "Is he blonde? Blue eyes? Oddly cheery?"

"Yeah." Liam nodded, "You know him?"

"I may have met him."

—
A/N: in honor of national boyfriend day, i had the plan of updating all my books with my fav boys but changed my mind two words into this chapter 🤷🏾‍♀️
i've also been thinking about killing off ramona for like a week...