Mara just stares at the dead teacher in shock, until another student comes up dragging a teacher and crying about how Morales was choking to death but she didn’t know what to do.

Vera blew a snot bubble as she cried, and the mucous dribbled down past her lips. Nasty.

Why you little shit, how–

People were crying and shoving and generally annoying the hell out of me, so I backed out of the throng.

What the fuck, why would–

I dropped to the ground beneath a tree at the far corner of the campus, laughing madly and twisting on the grass, gripping my sides because they hurt, damn it, but it was just so funny.

…is…wha…huh?

You have to admit, the paranoia was humorous. What could the detective possibly know? That I thought Morales should die and she died? Crazy. That I wanted the dog’s owner punished for what he did to her and he was? Laughable. Thinking something does not make it true.

…

“It’s almost four.” Noah’s voice was quiet. “And last period was canceled. I’ve been looking all over for you.”

Two hours. I’d lost more than two hours. I felt like I was falling, like someone pulled the ground out from underneath me.

Okay, I started off pissed as hell, but then the scene kept going and it is so perfectly creepy that I’ve completely changed my mind. Bravo. I love it. Excellent reaction to trauma.

Honestly, if this book had just done a modicum of research into mental health, I think the depression/trauma aspects could have been beautiful. Pretty much everything up to the point of actually getting help is pretty strong.

In the middle of Mara’s hysteria, a detective comes by to ask her questions like “did you know your teacher was allergic to anything,” and Mara refuses to answer. Then Daniel and Noah show up and…and…

And the conversation turns to the fact that it’s Mara’s birthday tomorrow? Kind of random. Noah says he’ll do something special for it and pick her up at 11 tomorrow, then Mara and Daniel go home.

When they get home, they overhear Mom and Dad talking. Mom wants Dad to pull out of the murder trial because she’s worried it’s putting too much stress on Mara. …how? Mara’s not involved at all, she barely knows anything about it, barely ever thinks about it, and not having her dad around hasn’t exactly put a crimp in her thoughts, either.

“Is it worth me being disbarred?”

My mother paused. “We can move back to Rhode Island if that happens,” she said quietly.

Seriously, what is up with this family? Are they just fabulously wealthy and have tons of savings that they can make two moves at the drop of a hat like that? Both of them are highly specialized professionals, and you can’t just uproot your practice to a new state at the drop of a hat.

Besides which, Mom hasn’t tried to do anything else before asking her husband to literally quit his job for the sake of some tenuous, unlikely benefit. She hasn’t done anything for Mara but take her to a therapist once; she’s barely even talked to her daughter at all!

Dr. Dyer is a shitty psychologist.

But Mr. Dyer for some reason agrees anyway. Because he’s pretty shitty, too.

“Hello, Leon? It’s Marcus, yes, how are you? I’m not so great, actually.” He then proceeded to give him the rundown. I caught the words “unstable,” “traumatic,” and “psychiatric care.” My eyes bored into Daniel’s head.

No, really, why do you think your daughter is unstable? I’ve been in her head for over forty chapters and even I don’t think she’s that bad. (Definitely in need of some proper care, but still pretty fucking stable, all things considered.) What is wrong with everyone in this book?

Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if Mara is actually the sanest character we’ve got.

Mr. Dyer gets off the phone and says his boss is “thinking about it,” so Daniel tells Mara to act extra happy so they can convince their dad not to actually quit his job. The kids go in and talk excitedly about Sophie’s birthday party and how Mara has been helping Daniel plan it so that everything appears to be goody happy.

Mara goes to her room and gets an overwhelming sense of paranoia, and she can’t remember if she took her Zyprexa pill that morning so she takes another. She goes to bed, and in the middle of the night–

Wait, Sophie’s party was supposed to be that evening and she’s got to attend in order to make their parents think she’s all hunky-dory, so…?

She wakes up in the middle of the night to knocking on her window, and at first she thinks it’s a hallucination of Jude again, but it’s really Noah.

Noah is at her window in a panic asking where Joseph is, saying that they have to go find Joseph, etc. Earlier Mara’s parents said he was at a friend’s house. Noah claims Joseph texted him saying the friend cancelled and asking for a ride, but when Noah showed up Joseph was nowhere to be found.

So many questions, so little time.

Why did Joseph contact Noah instead of his parents?

When Joseph wasn’t at the appointed place, why did Noah not call the adults?

Why did Noah wait until midnight to do anything about this? Did just shrug it off for the past eight-ish hours?

Why do Noah and Mara have to go find him instead of, you know, the police?

Why is Noah discretely knocking on Mara’s bedroom window instead of kicking down the front door and telling the entire family “I think your youngest son is kidnapped”?

Why doesn’t Mara try to call her parents and tell them? Doesn’t she think they’d want to know their child is in danger?

What the hell is going on?

Oh, apparently Mara’s parents are out for the evening, and Daniel is off at the party. I guess that’s how Mara got away with not going to the party; her parents didn’t see her stay home. Still doesn’t excuse why these two apparently can’t interrupt their date in order to say “hey, Joseph might be missing.”

Panic coursed through my veins. “Why?” I whispered. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening.

“I don’t know.”

My throat was full of needles. “Who took him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why do you think he was kidnapped?”

“Reasons.”

Noah’s voice pierced through my free fall. “What would you think if someone told you they thought they might know where a missing child was?”

I would think that person was hiding something.

“They’d ask me questions I couldn’t answer.” I noticed for the first time that there was an edge to his voice. An edge that scared me. “It can’t be the police. It can’t be your parents. It has to be us.”

Appropriate responses to the above:

• I don’t care if it’s awkward or uncomfortable to explain, call the fucking police.
• Hey, you’re right, that is fucking suspicious as hell, why do you think you know where he is?
• MY BABY BROTHER IS MISSING, START EXPLAINING YOURSELF, DIPSHIT.

They drive for an hour and reach the edge of a swamp. Noah seems to have really specific ideas about where Joseph is, as he says they have to walk about half a kilometer into the wilderness.

And still Mara doesn’t ask any questions, such as “why did you pull me out of my room in the middle of the night with a pretty flimsy story that has no proof whatsoever and then give kind of shitty excuses for why we can’t call my parents and now are trying to drag me into some untraceable part of the woods where no one will find my body?”

I don’t care how cute Noah is, this is every single kind of unsafe.

Noah acts like something deadly dangerous is about to go down (still no questions from Mara) and gives her his car keys so she can run away if anything happens to him. Then they start hiking.