“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble,” Savannah mumbled through dry, cracked lips.

“You won’t,” I assured her. “We just need to know where you got them.”

“I bought them,” she coughed. “I was only supposed to take one a day but I took three. They were supposed to make me stronger.”

Chloe frowned. “Like steroids?”

Savannah nodded weakly. Chloe stared at me. “Hunter, these aren’t the pills I was taking. Mine were yellow and huge.”

“I know,” I answered, frowning back. “People don’t know there’s two different pills, I guess. Who told you they’d make you stronger?” I asked Savannah.

She glanced away, coughed again. I handed her the glass of water on her nightstand. “You won’t get in trouble,” I told her.

“Some guy was selling them out of the eleventh-grade common room,” she answered finally. She swallowed the water but her throat constricted violently, as if she was sipping from a glass of razor blades. She whimpered. “I don’t feel good.”

“There’s a nurse on the way. He’ll make you better.”

“I’m scared.” She clutched my hand. Her grip was pathetically weak and damp.

I didn’t know what to say. Chloe didn’t know either because she just sat there. “You’ll be okay.” I said it again for lack of something more convincing. “You’ll be okay.”

She closed her eyes, lips wobbling.

“I mean it, Savannah,” I snapped, terrified she was about to slip into a coma. She had to stay awake. She half opened her eyes. I smiled encouragingly. “Just stay with me. Okay? Stay with me.”

“I’ll try.”

Courtney and Lia rushed into the room. I’d never been so glad to see Courtney as I was right then. She had pillow creases on her cheek and she was blinking furiously as if she couldn’t focus. When she finally did, she gasped. She looked scared.

“Not again.”

I nodded gloomily. “Theo’s on his way.”

Lia shifted from one foot to the other. “She’s going to be okay, isn’t she?”

“Of course she is.”

“She looks kind of gray.”

Courtney took a deep breath and forced herself to stop staring at Savannah. She touched Lia’s shoulder. “Lia, why don’t you get her a cold wet cloth? And tell everyone else to go to their rooms and stay there.”

“Okay.”

We sat around Savannah’s bed in a silent vigil, listening to the harsh rattle of her breath. I couldn’t help but think of Spencer lying in quarantine. Chloe squeezed my hand, her eyes wet with tears.

“I know,” she said quietly. “But Spencer’s strong. And he didn’t … you know.”

She was right, Spencer was an accident of time and place. He wasn’t the type to take pills. He was going to be fine.

The three of us leaped to our feet when Theo came through the door. He looked capable and confident and I could have kissed him. He lifted Savannah’s wrist to feel her pulse.

“Is she lucid?” he asked.

“She was,” I confirmed.

“How long has she been like this?”

“I don’t know. Not too long, I don’t think. Her roommate came to get me just before I called you.”

“Okay.” He lifted her eyelids, felt her forehead. “We’re taking her to the infirmary.”

Another nurse wheeled a stretcher into the room. One of the doctors and a security guard pushed in behind her. The doctor’s mouth thinned when she saw Savannah.

“Let’s move quickly,” she ordered.

The room emptied in minutes and the guard stood in front of the door, arms folded. Lia blinked at him.

“But my stuff’s in there,” she said.

“The doctor said she wanted the room sealed off now, just to make sure it’s not contagious,” Courtney explained. “Come on, we’ll find another bed for you.”

Courtney led her away as Chloe and I hurried after the others. Students in pajamas gathered on each floor, craning their heads to see what was going on. Floor monitors tried to shoo them back. York barreled into the building and marched past us, blowing his whistle, practically right in my ear. “Everyone back to bed! NOW!”

The sound of scurrying feet echoed on every floor.

By the front door, I grabbed Theo’s arm. “Wait,” I said. “She took these.” I handed him one of the white pills. He scowled at it. “What are they?”

“I don’t know yet.”

He shook his head, slipping them into his pocket. “This year just sucks.”

Chapter 26

Hunter

Tuesday night

Most of Tuesday went by in a blur. I slept through all my early classes, but none of my teachers said anything. Everyone was subdued and solemn. Campus felt as if it were covered in ashes.

I loved this place and I loved the League. I’d been raised to think the League was better than Christmas and Halloween candy and birthday presents. And now I suddenly felt like a six-year-old finding out there was no such thing as Santa Claus. I didn’t know what to think; I just knew it felt awful.

I went to the infirmary after dinner with Chloe and Jenna, even though Jason had already been and told us they weren’t letting anyone in the door, especially with Savannah sick as well. Theo wasn’t there so we were stopped at the threshold. The doctor shook her head sternly at us. We might have tried to argue with her, but we could hear Spencer’s mom sobbing from behind the curtain so we slunk away. We kept to our schedule because there wasn’t anything else to do.