A/N: Hey guys! I know it's been a while. I got kind of stuck on this story, but I do have a plan now to finish it. Either this chapter or the next will be the last one, depending on how I decide to split it up. Thank you all for the patience, and I hope you enjoy this!

Sophie

Sophie had a plan.

In all her trouble with Mrs. Wilson, Sophie had forgotten that her favorite day of the year was coming up. Student Day. The day when your fellow students were the ones to grade your performance. It happened every year in every school in Austin, and Sophie couldn't wait. More than one fellow student from her class, tired of watching Mrs. Wilson treat Sophie so badly but not willing to do anything about it for fear of retribution, had all promised to give her an A+ for the day. If Sophie got enough of those A's, it could bring her semester average up enough to get her parents to stop watching her so closely.

That was, of course, assuming that Mrs. Wilson applied the student grades the way every other teacher in Austin did. Which was a big assumption.

Her parents had kept their promise in the week and a half since they'd become aware of Sophie's troubles at school. She was to come straight home from school, do all her homework before going out to play or even doing chores, then have one of her parents or Liam check over her homework. Once her homework was done, she had to go and handle her chores, and then she could go out with any time she had left until curfew at 8:00pm.

As far as her parents and her brother were concerned, Sophie was doing better. As far as Sophie was concerned, things were worse than ever.

Mrs. Wilson seemed determined to make Sophie miserable. When Sophie took notes in class, Mrs. Wilson would grade her down for not participating in class verbally. If she tried to participate in class, Mrs. Wilson would grade her down for participation that day and would sneer at her in a way that led Sophie to feel as if she'd never pass this class.

Then, what Sophie had been afraid would happen, did.

Mrs. Wilson announced that there would be a test on Student Day. A midterm. Sophie had heard of midterms before, but she thought it was something that waited until at least high school. And a test on student day meant that Mrs. Wilson would be the one, like every other day, grading everyone's performance.

Not only would she be doing the grading, as normal, but this test would be half of their semester grade.

Sophie was terrified. She was certain that, even if she studied for the test, Mrs. Wilson would find a way to make sure that she failed. Even the rest of the class seemed to see it. Mrs. Wilson was only giving this test to put another jab at Sophie. If she failed this test, she'd fail the whole class for the first time.

But Sophie felt a surge of determination.

She'd pass this test. No matter what. She had a week to do it, and she'd make sure she was ready.

Mrs. Wilson wasn't going to win.

Liam

Despite what Sophie insisted, Liam knew something was wrong.

His hunch was that she was being bullied. Who it was exactly, he didn't know, but he suspected that her teacher was somehow making it worse. Sophie was still struggling in that one class, so Liam narrowed her problems down to there. Sophie talked freely about her other classes, the ones she was passing, and seemed to actually enjoy them. But any questions asked about Mrs. Wilson's class and she promptly changed the subject.

Liam didn't think that any bullying Sophie was going through was physical. She was small and slightly clumsy at times. She was affectionate with him and their parents, and he hadn't noticed cuts or bruises anywhere visible. After the second try at getting Sophie to talk being met with an everything's fine, Liam, leave me alone and Sophie stomping to her room, Liam enlisted the help of his older brother and sister-in-law. Sophie was close with Emily and Cordell, spending part of most weekends with them to spend time with toddler Stella and baby August. But when Sophie came back from Emily and Cordell's for dinner that Sunday night, Emily shook her head and mouthed sorry as she strapped August into his chair.

But Cordell had an idea that Liam was ready to kiss him for.

It was a mini surveillance camera. Cordell had used it during his deployment to record his thoughts to Emily, which he would transcribe into letters when he had the time. He'd put an empty tape into it and suggested giving it to Sophie to take to school. Liam didn't think she'd go for it, but he decided not to give her much of a choice.

In the middle of dinner, Liam asked to be excused to go to the bathroom. Cordell had figured out what he was going to do and nodded. Sophie, who was distracted holding Stella in her lap and taking bites of dessert the laughing toddler offered her, didn't see Liam sneak into her room. He quietly opened her backpack and stuck the small camera inside. Cordell had shown Liam how to program the recorder to not start recording until he needed it to, and he had already programmed it to record when Sophie went to school.

Then he waited.

He could barely focus at school the next day, worrying about Sophie. He wondered what she was going through, why she wouldn't come to him with exactly what was going on. Finally, he decided that he couldn't do anything about it until he listened to the footage that night, so he would try not to worry about it until later.

That turned out to much easier said than done.

Sophie

Sophie was ready.

She'd studied for this test every single day. She'd gone over everything in her notes and reread all the important sections of her textbook. She'd reviewed everything until she could recite it backwards and forwards. She'd even read ahead in the textbook in case Mrs. Wilson decided to trick them and include questions she hadn't gone over yet. But the test was nothing like Sophie was thinking. The morning Mrs. Wilson gave it out, she announced that everyone's test was different. It had different questions. Sophie wasn't too concerned at first. She just figured that she had done that in order to prevent cheating.

Sophie's test was one essay question, and it was on one of the topics she'd studied backwards and forwards. She was ready. She spent the forty-five minute class session planning out her essay, writing it, revising it, and finally turning it in with ten minutes to spare. She walked back to her desk feeling content with herself. The lunch bell rang, and Sophie started to leave with her classmates, hoping that things were about to turn around.

"Sophie, please stay behind for a minute."

Sophie turned to her friend Ava, who seemed nervous to leave Sophie alone with Mrs. Wilson. Mrs. Wilson hurried Ava out, who waited by the door despite her instructions to go on to the lunchroom. Sophie waited nervously by Mrs. Wilson's desk. Mrs. Wilson slowly and dramatically pulled out Sophie's essay. To Sophie's shock, it was already graded. Her stomach sank and two minutes later, she left the classroom in tears.

Abeline

Abeline was getting just as worried about Sophie as Liam was.

Sophie was even more quiet and withdrawn than she had been the first couple weeks of school. She'd explained that she just had a big test to study for, and if she did well on it, she'd bring her grade up in Mrs. Wilson's class by a full letter grade. Though she knew she should have discussed it with Bonham first, she promised Sophie that if she did well on the test, they would loosen up on her restrictions.

When Sophie came home that afternoon, Abeline's heart sank. Without saying anything, she could tell Sophie hadn't done well on her test. She decided to leave it alone, hoping Sophie would tell them first. She made dinner as normal, making a note to herself to talk to Bonham that night.

If only she actually knew what they'd be talking about.

Liam

Liam had been held up at school that day and hadn't made it home before Sophie like he wanted.

He waited impatiently inside his room for Sophie to leave hers so that he could sneak in and get the camera. He wanted to check it as soon as possible so that he could let his parents hear exactly what was happening. If it turned out that it wasn't something going on at school, Liam wasn't sure what he would do.

Sophie finally left to go to the bathroom, and what Liam heard made his blood boil. Sophie's teacher gave out their tests and gave her instructions. Right away, just from the sound of her voice, Liam had a feeling that something was off about Mrs. Wilson. Since the camera had been hidden in Sophie's backpack, there was only audio, but Liam pictured Mrs. Wilson as a grim looking, stern old lady with a crooked nose who constantly looked over the tip of her glasses glaring at her students. Though his physical picture was off from reality, he was closer to Mrs. Wilson's actual personality than anyone had guessed before.

Liam was about to give up and turn the recording off. Mrs. Wilson had dismissed the students for lunch and the day had been relatively quiet. He had his hand on the button to stop listening and place the camera back in Sophie's bag for another day. Then he heard it.

Sophie was called back to Mrs. Wilson's desk. Mrs. Wilson told Sophie's friend to go on to lunch, the door shut, and Sophie shuffled back. Liam could hear Sophie's feet continue to shuffle back and forth, like they sometimes did when she was at home and was nervous, fidgety, or both. Liam could almost sense the tension coming off Sophie, even through the recording. Mrs. Wilson shuffled some papers on her desk and pulled one out, showing it to Sophie. Since the camera had been in the backpack, and, Liam assumed, the backpack was now on Sophie's shoulder, he could hear her draw in a breath and whimper slightly.

What was on that paper, Liam wondered. But he didn't have to wonder for long.

Mrs. Wilson gave a scathing review of Sophie's test. Apparently it had been an essay, and Sophie, according to her teacher, had done horribly on it. She hadn't thought her answer through, she hadn't organized it well, and had she been in high school, this essay would never have been accepted.

"She's in the sixth grade, you bitch!"

Liam startled himself when he realized that he'd spoken aloud, but no one had heard him. His mother was in the kitchen and his father was still out working. He heard Sophie going back to her room, and hit the pause button on the recording. He heard Sophie sniffle and blow her nose, then shut her bedroom door again. He waited another few seconds, and hoped that the choked sob he heard was only his imagination.

The final hit came, and Liam immediately went to his parents. He asked his mother to follow him out to the barn, where his father was getting ready to come inside for the day, and he played them the recording. He explained to his parents what he had done, then played the recording for them. He skipped through the first forty minutes of class, playing them the last five minutes, with Mrs. Wilson's scathing review of Sophie's essay. With every passing minute, he saw the faces of both his parents grow angrier and angrier.

"Just wait. Here it comes."

In the recording, Mrs. Wilson had just finished tearing Sophie down. The three of them could hear Sophie's breath catching in an attempt to stop herself from bursting into tears. That effort was fruitless with Mrs. Wilson's final cruel words.

"This is one of the stupidest test answers I've ever read, Sophie. Just like all your work so far this semester. Now what are we going to do about it?"

Without answering, Sophie had turned and run from the room. In the barn, Bonham slammed a hand on the wall and Abeline muttered under her breath.

"What do we do?"

"We go take this bitch apart." Bonham said vehemently.

"No. We talk to Sophie tonight." Abeline said. "We apologize to her and get her moved out of that class first thing next week."

Bonham nodded. "Yeah. You're right."

"Then we go take that bitch apart."