✓ | battle wounds, scott m.

chapter fifty nine.

Today was the day that Kira, Malia, Scott, Stiles, And Ella had to take their PSAT's. It didn't worry Ella since she had been studying since forever. She and Malia were the ones who studied the most. Ella blew a piece of her hair out of her face, Scott with an arm around her waist. "Where's Lydia?" Malia asked. "She took it her freshman year," Stiles answered his girlfriend. "Does that mean I could have taken it some other time?" Malia asked. "Malia, you and Ella studied harder for this than any of us," Scott said, glancing in between the two girls. "Doesn't mean we're gonna do good," Malia said, Ella motioning towards her and nodding. "Well," Stiles corrected. "Well, what?" Malia asked. "It's do well, not good," Stiles said. "Oh, God!" Malia exclaimed. "Okay, okay," Stiles muttered.

"You're doing this, because while we're trying not to die, we still need to live. If I survive high school, I'd like to go to college. A good college," Scott said seriously. "It's only three hours. We can survive three hours," Kira shrugged, both Stiles and Ella narrowing their eyes and shaking their heads at her. They were soon let into the classroom, having to place their thumbs into ink before pressing them onto their test sheets and grabbing both the test and answer sheet and two #2 pencils. They then had to place their cellphones into an envelope. Everyone took their seats, Ella taking the seat behind Scott and beside Stiles. "Please do not open the test booklet until you are instructed to do so. This test is two hours and 10 minutes. There will be two 25-minute critical reading sections, two 25-minute math sections and an essay writing portion that will last 30 minutes," the teacher said before turning to Natalie Martin, "There are supposed to be two teachers monitoring this exam."

"I know. It's Coach. He's not exactly punctual. Um, let me just try him again," Natalie said, taking her phone and walking out of the classroom. Ella looked at her brother with a nervous glance, him giving her two thumbs up and a comforting smile. Not that many minutes later Natalie came back in, "I can't find him, but Mr. Yukimura is upstairs grading papers. Do you want me to try him?" "We have to start. We can ask for his assistance during the first break," the teacher said before turning back to the class, "You may now open your test booklets and begin."

Ella let out a breath before flipping open the booklet and beginning, dropping one of her pencils onto the desk when she got to question five. 'We didn't even learn this! I'm failing. I'm failing this test,' Ella thought to herself, rubbing her temples. A loud thud made the whole class turn to see Sydney on the ground. Natalie instantly made her way towards the girl to help her up, "Sydney! Are you all right?" "I'm okay," Sydney said, "I just got kind of dizzy." "Sydney, how long have you had this?" Natalie asked the teen, Ella looking to see a reddish purple mark on Sydney's wrist. "I don't know," Sydney shook her head. "Ms. Martin, do I need to stop the test?" The teacher asked.

"No, um, it's fine. Everybody stay in your seats. I'll, um, be back in a minute. Nobody leaves the room."

Ella banged her head against the desk, letting out a quiet groan, Stiles holding back his laugh. When they heard Natalie shouting in the hall, everyone got up and walked out of the classroom. "Back to your seats. Now. Please," Natalie said when she saw everyone come out. They nodded and headed inside, Scott placing a hand on Ella's lower back as they headed into the classroom.

The CDC soon arrived. They set up a quarantine inside one of the empty classrooms. Ella stood beside the desk that Stiles was sitting on. "Bet they're thinking smallpox," Stiles mumbled. "Not likely," the teacher said, causing them to turn towards him, "Smallpox was eradicated worldwide in 1979. We've only managed to completely eradicate two viruses in history. The other was rinderpest. It killed cows." "So we should be comforted by that, right?" Ella asked as she crossed her arms. "Unless it's something worse," the teacher mumbled. Ella raised her brows and nodded, turning back to her friends. "Whatever it is, they're taking it pretty seriously," Malia said, obviously hearing things from outside, "They're a lot of cars and trucks out there. Your dad's with them." "Hey, I should probably call him," Stiles said, going up to get his phone from the envelope.