After Rebirth My Class Beauty Led Cheating and I Stayed Silent Chapter 06

After Rebirth My Class Beauty Led Cheating and I Stayed Silent Chapter 06

The next day. June 8th. The second day of the SAT.

The comprehensive blocks was scheduled for the morning, and Literature for the afternoon.

The class group chat had been buzzing through the night.

Sienna had sent a long voice note in that sweet, steady voice of hers.

“Day one went perfectly. Tomorrow’s the last day, so stay focused. Don’t get careless, and don’t get cocky. Keep your face under control in the testing room. Don’t smile. Don’t keep touching your ears.

Just sit normally and write normally.”

The replies below it were nothing but flower emojis and thumbs-ups.

Only Delaney and I didn’t respond.

Delaney said nothing because she wasn’t part of this.

I said nothing because I didn’t need to.

That morning I got to school as usual, went through security as usual, and walked into Room 201 of Building C as usual.

The comprehensive exam was packed.

Four major multiple-choice blocks, plus extended-response questions drawing from three core

subjects.

The test was dense from start to finish.

It took me two hours and fifteen minutes to work through everything, leaving forty-five minutes to

review.

When I closed my eyes, I could hear pages turning all around me and the constant scratch of pens against paper.

Then a sound foreign to the testing room cut through the quiet.

Very faint. Almost too faint to notice.

But I heard it.

Footsteps in the hallway. Multiple people.

Controlled, measured, deliberately quiet.

i didn’t open my eyes.

The footsteps passed Room 201 without stopping and kept going.

Toward Building A.

[They’re here.}

My heartbeat stayed steady.

When the bell rang, I capped my pen, stood, and walked out.

In the hallway, I noticed two unfamiliar faces now standing near the entrance to the corridor that connected to Building A, both middle-aged men in plain clothes.

They had badges clipped to their chests, though the angle hid the lettering. Each one held a radio.

I lowered my head and walked past without giving them a second look.

At lunch, the students from Building A came back later than they had the day before.

Grant was the first one into the room, and his face looked different this time.

The smug grin was gone.

In its place was something tighter, something uncertain.

He sat down, his leg bouncing under the table without him seeming to notice.

“What’s wrong?” Ethan leaned in.

Grant lowered his voice.

“Security felt stricter today. the proctor used the handheld scanner around my ear longer than yesterday.”

“And?”

“And nothing. It didn’t go off.”

“Then you’re fine.” Ethan let out a breath.

“Yeah, but…” Grant dragged a hand through his hair.

“Something feels off. There were extra people in the hall today. They didn’t look like school staff.”

Three rows away, I flipped through my math notes.

And listened.

Brielle came rushing in, looking tense too. She made a beeline for Sienna, only to realize Sienna

wasn’t there yet.

“Where is she?” Brielle looked around the room.

“No clue. Maybe she went to the bathroom,” Macy said.

Five minutes later, Sienna finally appeared in the doorway.

Her expression had settled back into its usual calm, but the color on her lips was lighter than it had been that morning. Her lipstick was gone.

She’d been biting them.

“Everybody calm down,” she said as soon as she came in, her voice steady.

“I just checked with my cousin. He said everything on the signal side was normal and the

transmissions never cut out. Those people were probably just from the district, doing one of those

routine inspections they do every year. Nothing more than a formality.”

Grant’s shoulders eased a little. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” Sienna sat down, pulled a piece of bread from her bag, and took a bite. “Literature is the

last section this afternoon. Once it’s over, we’re free. Stop psyching yourselves out.”

Her voice was so certain it was almost hypnotic.

One by one, the others started relaxing.

Brielle sat back down and pressed a hand to her chest. “You scared me. I really thought something had happened.”

I turned a page in my notebook.

My eyes drifted to Sienna’s hand where it held the bread. Her knuckles were faintly white.

She was gripping too hard.

She wasn’t nearly as calm as she sounded.

But she had to sound calm.

Because she was still their sun. And whether the planets stayed in orbit depended on entirely on the perceived stability of her gravity.

In the afternoon came Literature.

The final section.

i sat in Seat 07 with two and a half hours left before the whole exam was over.

Once the section started, everything proceeded normally.

The audio played. Pens moved over paper.

I was halfway through the second reading passage when I heard something again, something soft

enough to be mistaken for nothing.

Not from the hallway this time.

From farther away.

It sounded like many doors being pushed open at once, muffled and coordinated.

From the direction of Building A.

It was too far away for anyone else in the room to notice.

My pen paused over the page for one second.

Then I kept writing.

Two and a half hours later, the bell rang.

The SAT was over.

I handed my answer sheet to the proctor, stood up, packed my things, and walked out of the room along with the unfamiliar students around me.

When I stepped out of Building C, the sunlight had turned into the warm orange of late evening.

The field was full of students hugging, screaming, tossing books, and flooding the air with the wild

noise of release.

That chaos hit me all at once.

But my gaze moved right past the crowd and toward Building A.

No one was coming out.

The doors were shut.

Two black sedans were parked in front of the building, vehicles that hadn’t been there before.

I lowered my eyes and looked away.

Then I turned and headed for the school gate with Building A at my back.

Behind me, I heard footsteps hurrying closer.

“Tessa! Tessa, wait!”

Delaney ran up beside me, breathing hard. “Did you see Building A? The doors are closed and nobody’s come out. Do you think maybe…”

“Maybe they’re collecting materials by room,” I said. “Different buildings can have different procedures.”

“Really?”

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go home.”

I looped my arm through hers.

Her fingers were cold.

So were mine.

But it wasn’t the cold of fear.

It was only the cool touch of a June evening wind against my skin, light and thin, as if nothing at all had happened.