“And it’s the middle of the night,” I continue.
“I know.”
“And the test group is only the bus kids, and—”
“I know!” Mason shouts. He flips around and stares at me. He looks angry, but somehow I know it’s not really directed at me. “Don’t you think I know all of this? The program is supposed to be controlled. It’s not supposed to be like this. Now he expects us to…” He stops talking midsentence and takes a deep breath. “It’s going to be fine, Daisy,” he says. “We heard on the scanner that the locals are on the way. If we don’t make it before they do, we won’t be able to try it.”
I watch as Mason goes through the process that opens the Revive case, as his hand moves to choose five vials from the fifty. Wildly, my eyes flit over the vials. Forty-nine of them might save this man; the one filled with water most definitely will not. My temperature rises. I don’t remember which one it was. I think it was somewhere in the—
“Don’t take that one,” I blurt out without thinking. Mason’s hand freezes in midair. Cassie and Mason both turn to face me, their expressions shifting from confusion to shock to anger.
“Why not?” Mason asks.
I don’t speak.
“Why shouldn’t we take that one?” he asks again.
I’m frozen solid.
“What did you do?” Mason snaps. I recoil. He’s never talked to me like this before.
Strangely, Cassie is the one who rushes to my side. “Daisy, as you know, time is of the essence here,” she says calmly. “We can talk about this later,” she continues, shooting Mason a look. “But if we need three vials right now, which part of the storage box should we take them from?”
I point to the leftmost row, and the row on the bottom.
“You’re sure there’s nothing wrong with those?” Cassie says as Mason starts grabbing vials.
I nod, not wanting to betray myself by speaking. In truth, I’m only pretty sure. Not a hundred percent sure. Not bet-my-life-on-it sure.
Bet someone else’s?
“Go upstairs,” Mason says flatly as he closes the travel container. He doesn’t meet my eyes when he moves past. I listen to him storm out to the car. Silently, Cassie goes, too.
thirty-three
A few hours later, I walk through the doors to Victory High a completely different person than I was just a few weeks ago. I haven’t showered, and I’m wearing the T-shirt I slept in. My untamed dishwater curls are wrapped into a knot. I don’t have on any makeup, not because I might cry and wash it away, but because it takes too much energy to put it on in the first place. I had three bites of a banana and a Coke for breakfast. I can’t remember whether I brushed my teeth.
Inside school, it’s too loud. Too bright. People are staring at me, whispering behind my back. They look like the unfocused background in a photograph: They’re there to show contrast, but for nothing more.
I walk up the flight of stairs to the second level and work my way to my locker. Some girls are chatting at the locker next to mine. They stop talking when I approach and step aside so I can get through.
“Hi, Daisy,” one of them says quietly.
“Hi,” I say. I don’t know her name.
I swap out my books and try very hard not to look at Audrey’s locker as I walk away, but it doesn’t work. I see it, and I imagine her standing there, smiling at me on the first day of school. Complimenting my shoes. Asking me to lunch.
Breathing.
Living.
As if I have emotional food poisoning, all of my tears and snot and even a shrill scream come out of me at once. Everyone in the hallway stops and stares. I run to the nurse’s office and get excused from school.
The hall pass reads, “Distressed.”
I block out the world for two days, or at least I think I do. When Mason’s had enough, he picks the lock on my bedroom door.
“You have a visitor,” he says. I have a pillow over my face so I can’t see him or anyone else.