Riven • Stiles Stilinski [Three]

Reishi

Chapter Fourteen

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Within twenty minutes our school had been swarmed with mounds of people in hazmat suits and pod looking things with beds located on the inside, I'm assuming for those they thought were infected with whatever they were assuming was contaminating the air.

We were obviously still extremely clueless. 

"Okay, mom...can you please just explain what's happening? Please?" I asked, standing outside of one of the pods with my mother as Scott stood on the inside talking to Sydney. 

She let out a sigh before turning towards me, "We isolate the sick and then we wait for instructions. If I'm wrong, they'll be out of here pretty quickly, and then I'm the crazy biology teacher who panicked for nothing. But, if I'm right then this could get interesting real quick...."

Her words trailed off as one of the hazmat suit covered investigators approached us quickly, "Excuse me, could I have a word with you Mrs. Martin?" 

"Of course." She nodded before turning towards me, "I'll be back in a few minutes, please stay out of the way and out of trouble, okay?"

I let out a puff of air before scrunching my face together, "Me? Trouble? Pshhhh...I'll be good, promise." My mouth tugged into a small smile as her brow raised in my direction. She gave me one last look before rushing towards whoever needed to talk to her. 

"I bet they're thinking smallpox." 

My hand flew up to my chest as the voice behind me took me by surprise, "Oh my God." My body flung around to find Stiles standing with a semi guilty look on his face. "You scared me half to death." 

"My bad..." He winced, a small chuckle slipping from his lips. "Like I was saying, I bet they're thinking all of this is smallpox." I would be lying if I said him talking to me didn't put me into shock considering we had barely said two words to each other in the last few days, but that was to be expected after what had gone down between us. 

Before I could reply Simon decided to jump into the conversation, "Not likely. Smallpox was eradicated worldwide in 1979. We've only managed to completely eradicate two viruses in history. The other was rinderpest. It killed cows." 

Stiles' brow furrowed, "So we should be comforted by that, right?" 

"Unless it's something worse." 

"Well, that's just peachy." I muttered, my attention being drawn from Simon to Malia who was rushing over. 

She stopped directly in-between Stiles and I, "Is he bothering you? I can take care of him if you want–" 

"No..." I replied softly, shaking my head with a small smile. "He's fine, Malia..." 

Her eyes darted in his direction, she was visibly unsure of what to think. "But you guys broke up–" 

"We're both well aware of that, thank you for the reminder." Stiles said, biting the inside of his cheek while his arms crossed over his chest. 

Malia let out a huff of air, "When coyotes are done with their significant other we usually drag their bodies to–" 

"How about we focus on something else?" I chimed in, "Like trying to figure out exactly what's happening?" 

"Fine..." She shrugged, "Whatever it is, they're taking it pretty seriously. There's a lot of cars and trucks out there." Her eyes focused on Stiles, "You're dad's with them, and so is Lydia and Parrish." 

"I should probably call him." He rushed over to where the phones were being held hostage, and as soon as he was a little ways away Malia focused on me once again.