This chapter is another flashback. This time, it’s Mara waking up in a patient room at the old abandoned asylum where her group of friends decided to spend the night. (You’re in a haunted asylum on a lark and you decide to…nap?) Surprise!sexual assault as Jude wants to make out, Mara doesn’t, and Jude decides…

As Mara and Noah are hiking through the swamp, they end up having to cross an alligator-infested creek. So naturally they end up surrounded by a fuckton of alligators that are all just rarin’ to chomp on some tasty humans. Because of course. They “pop up out of nowhere” and then swim/run closer to the…

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–…

Absolutely nothing comes out of that whole “huh, you’re burn healed in a suspiciously fast manner, or so I claim because I did no research” incident and we skip right on to Mara complaining about how annoyed she is that her boyfriend has been suspended and her best friend expelled and now school sucks. At…

Mara goes to school the next day much subdued and distracted. When she gets there, Jamie makes a smartaleck comment about Noah, and Mara decides she’s had enough. But I was sick of listening to Jamie whine about Noah, and today we were going to have it out. I narrowed my eyes at him and…