Argentine | Stiles Stilinski (Book 1)

Chapter Thirty-Two: Frayed

I was curled up on the back seat of the school bus, my head resting on Stiles' knee as he tested Scott on some vocabulary. I was still in shock from what happened the night before.

'Yo, Scotty. Hey, yo, Scotty,' Stiles called to Scott as he began to zone out.

'Yeah, sorry. What's the word?'

'"Anachronism."'

Scott thought about it for a second, 'Something that exists out of its normal time.'

'Nice,' Stiles swiped the tablet to the next lide, 'Okay, next word, "incongruous."'

'Um, can you use it in a sentence?'

Stiles huffed, 'Yes. Yes, I can. It's completely incongruous that we're sitting on a bus right now on our way to some stupid cross-country meet after what just happened, incongruous.'

'Out of place, ridiculous, absurd,' Scott replied. I frowned when I noticed that his words were slightly slurring and he still smelled of blood.

Stiles nodded, 'Perfect. Okay, next word. Um, Darach... Darach, it's a noun.' Scott looked at him incredulously, 'We have to talk about it sometime, okay? And we're gonna be stuck in this thing for, like, five hours, so why not? Next word... "intransigent."'

'Stubborn, obstinate,' Scott answered. The bus went over a bump in the road, making the whole vehicle shudder. Scott groaned, clutching to his stomach in pain.

I sat up a little, 'Scott, you okay?'

'We shouldn't have come. I knew it, we shouldn't have come.'

'We had to, there's safety in numbers.'

Stiles scoffed, 'Yeah, well, there's also death in numbers, okay? It's called a massacre, or bloodbath, carnage, slaughter, butchery, wow, that's...' Scott groaned again and Stiles rolled his eyes, 'Alright, Scott, I'm telling Coach that-'

Scott cut him off, 'No. No, no, no. I'm alright.'

'Well, you don't look alright, you reek of blood and grief and confusion.'

Stiles brought a hand forward to lift Scott's shirt, 'Would you just let me see it?'

'I'm okay.'

'Just let me see it, okay?' Stiles wouldn't take no for an answer, concerned for his best friend.

Scott nodded, oulling his shirt up slightly to reveal a three large gaping claw wounds that still hadn't healed, 'Oh, dude...'

'I know it's bad, but it's because they're from an Alpha. It'll take longer to heal.'

I looked over at the two Betas sat a few rows in front of us, 'How come Boyd and Isaac are fine, then?'

Scott stayed silent for a while, looking out of the window. 'I can't believe he's dead. I can't believe Derek's dead.'

Coach began to shout again, 'Jared, again, car sick? Every... how do you even get on the bus? Look at me. No, don't look at me. Look at the horizon. Keep your eyes... keep your eyes on the horizon.' The boy nodded and Coach turned to see Scott leaning his head against the window, 'McCall, not you, too.'

'No, Coach, I'm good,' Scott rasped.

I looked at his shirt to see more crimson liquid, 'Scott, you're bleeding again. And don't tell us that it's just taking longer to heal, okay. Because I'm pretty sure that still bleeding means not healing, like, at all.'

Scott nodded over to Ethan, 'He's listening.'

'Is he gonna do something?'

'Not in front of this many people'