Luce has a dream that she’s making out with Daniel while flying.

Last night I dreamed that I got kidnapped in a gas station.  It was actually quite scary and I woke up all out of sorts from it.

Hey, if the book can waste my time reporting on random brain pictures, then I can do the same. 

While dreams can mean things in a fantasy book (or sci-fi, if you swing it right), you still have to establish that fact and you have to play with it.  Make it meaningful, and the way to make it is by actually having said dreams impact the plot.  If someone has prophetic dreams and ignores them, then who cares.  If someone has prophetic dreams and then goes on a quest to scream at every guru around WHY ARE MY DREAMS COMING TRUE, then that means something.

Hell, even if they aren’t prophetic dreams, if the character still acts on them believing that they mean something, at least that’s an impact.  At least that’s characters doing something.

Luce wakes up in a hospital, and it turns out Gabbe is there with her.  Giving her a manicure. 

I know that whenever I feel my world turning upside down, nothing grounds me like a manicure.”

Aaaw, Gabbe is being nice.  Again.  Just like every other time she’s shown up.

They’re at a local hospital.

“They found you passed out from smoke inhalation last night around eleven. It’s standard operating procedure to call for EMTs when they find a reform kid unconcious, but don’t worry, Randy said they’re going to let you out of here pretty soon.

…did they try to wake her up last night?  Because if they found her unconscious, then they should have tried to wake her up, to make sure she could wake up.  And if she’s only just now awake the next day, then she couldn’t wake up the previous night, then that’s actually very serious.

And if they brought in an unconscious girl who had been found next to a fire and they collectively said “eh, let her sleep” then this is a “hospital” in the same way Sword & Cross is a “reform school.”

Luce didn’t know what to make of Gabbe’s sudden kindness toward her.

“Sudden” my ass.

Arriane shows up…wearing roller skates and carrying drinks in coconut shells.  Congrats, book, you win the random award.

Todd died of a broken neck.  Luce is convinced it’s because he saw the shadows.  This makes Luce think back on the aftermath of Trevor’s death.

After Trevor died, not a week had gone by without a hate letter finding its way to Luce. Her parents started trying to vet the mail before she could read the poisonous stuff, but too much still reached her. Some letters were handwritten, some were typed, one had even been cut from magazine letters, ransom-note style. Murderer. Witch.

Seriously, what the fuck is going on here. 

All we know about Trevor’s death is:

1. He and Luce were at a party.
2. They snuck away.
3. A fire spontaneously happened (maybe?)
4. Trevor died…somehow (in the fire?)
5. Luce got blamed for it.

Baring the fact that we still don’t know why anyone thinks Luce is responsible, who the fuck calls someone a “witch” for setting a cabin on fire?  How do you even get from one thought to the other?

Just like before, she’d be expected to have the whole story pieced together. To remember every single detail. But of course, just like before, she wouldn’t be able to.

God damnit, am I going to have to put sarcastic quotes around everything in this world?  What kind of “police” expects someone to have a perfect story right after something traumatic?  Actual police officers should be well aware of the fallibility of a victim’s memory.  And the utter uselessness of eye-witnesses.  In fact, having a perfectly complete story with details is the suspicious thing, not the other way around.

“What is this?” [Penn] asked, looking at the other three girls critically. “Some sort of slumber party?”

Arriane had unlaced her skates and climbed onto the tiny bed next to Luce. She was double-fisting the coconut drinks and laying her head on Luce’s shoulder. Gabbe was painting clear nail polish on Luce’s coconut-free hand.

Seriously, what is with all the Luce-centricity in this scene?  Stuff like this…well, it seems like very immature writing.  It strikes me as the idle daydream of a teenager, over something that anyone would actually expect to happen.  It’s the thought that goes “yeah, well, if I got hurt (but not, like, deadly hurt or ugly hurt) that would show all of you!  I’d have everyone crying in my hospital room!  Even though that makes no sense, but THAT WOULD SHOW ALL OF YOU.  YOU’D ALL HAVE TO LOVE ME THEN.”

Don’t lie, everyone had those thoughts as teenagers.   

They spend many pages talking about the fire and Todd’s death while relaying only sundry and boring facts.  I mean, I guess not the worst thing to include, letting us all know that there will be a memorial service for him and his parents are suing the school over his death.  (I hope they shut the place down.)  But…*yawn.*  I dunno if there’s any way to make this kind of thing actually interesting, but I do know that if the rest of the book were better, a few bits of straight-up reporting like this wouldn’t be so bad because my interest level would start out higher.  That’s really key for a lot of the necessary evils of storytelling.  There’s a lot you can get away with that’s boring on its own, if only you make sure that the reader goes into it entertained. 

In the middle of all this, Luce still finds reasons to obsess over Daniel.

Oh, look, turns out Daniel is there, too.  But he’s outside in the hallway, and we don’t have to deal with him before Randy comes in and chases everyone away.

Next Miss Sophia, her parents, a lawyer, and some police officers come in to talk to her. 

“I was with Penn, my friend. And Miss Sophia was there. Todd was reading on his own and when the fire started, I lost Penn, and Todd was the only one I could find.”

“The only one you could find … to do what with?”

Book.  Book.  Oh, book.  You did not set this up well enough to play this subplot.  There is not enough suspicion around that fire, no reason to think that anyone set it at all, much less that the person was Luce, and this line of questioning makes it obvious that you’re forcing it instead of having an organic plot progression.  No one should be asking these questions.

She took them through it as best she could, speaking slowly and clearly so she would raise no new questions for her parents, so the cops could take notes. She didn’t let herself slide into emotion, which seemed like exactly what everyone was expecting.

Not being emotional after someone dies is also does not exactly scream “innocent.”

Actually, Todd broke his neck, so that is suspicious.  It didn’t read right because the questions were focused on the fire for no good reason.  But the police seem to buy her story that they fell down some stairs while running from the fire, so.  …Then everyone leaves.

And that’s the end of the chapter.

So fucking anticlimactic.  Most of the chapter was just people fawning over Luce, and the only thing that had the potential of being dramatic was the police questioning.  But it wasn’t set up well enough to make Luce’s position actually threatened, because anyone with two brain cells to rub together would know nothing can be pinned on her, even if someone did want to suspect her.  And then, she convinces everyone easily, so even if you were worried about her, whoops, nope, never mind, everything’s fine. 

The structure of this book is just so weird.