She nodded and mouthed back, You?

He shrugged, grimaced as he rearranged himself and closed his lids.

Nobody else was talking much, either.

Several rows in front of them, Boone sat with his head bowed, a set of Beats helmeting his ears, shutting out the world. He didn’t seem to be able to find a song he liked, his thumb hitting the screen of his iPhone every second or two, the covers of albums flashing briefly before they were rejected. Anslam was asleep sitting up across from him. Novo was closest to the driver, staring out the windows through which you could see nothing.

Axe was all the way in the back, keeping to himself.

From time to time, Paradise shifted her body, and found herself pulling a Peyton with the wincing. She was exhausted; she was aching all over; she was worried about what the next night would bring in terms of tests.

She also kept thinking about what had gone down in Craeg’s hospital room. And then what had been said between them out in the corridor.

“Stop it,” she murmured to herself.

It wasn’t like reliving the stuff was going to change the outcome, and if she was honest with herself, she did want that. It would have been amazing to be free to explore that kind of connection.

Not in the cards, though.

Hoping to distract herself, she looked down at the Bally leather satchel she’d checked with a doggen when she’d signed into the program. She remembered exactly what was in it: the protein bars, the extra socks, the change of clothes and underwear, her wallet, phone, a picture of her parents in an old gilt frame. She recalled quite vividly packing all of those things, too—the drawers she had opened in her walk-in closet, the choices she had agonized over, the stuff that she had wanted to bring but decided to leave home.

The disturbing thing … was that none of what was in there felt like hers anymore.

It was more like it was all owned by some kind of little sister or something, some younger relation who looked like her from a distance, but who, up close, was totally different.

Peyton shifted his feet to the floor and shoved his body across the aisle. This time, when he sat next to her, she was grateful.

“You don’t look okay,” he said softly.

The concern threatened the dam that was holding back her emotions, but she kept that wall in place for fear of losing it in front of her fellow classmates.

Primus, my ass, she thought.

“I don’t know.” She shook her head when the words came out. Not what she had meant to reply. “Actually, I’m all right.”

“Last night was a lot to go through.”

“We made it,” she murmured. “Go, us.”

“Yeah.”

As her friend went quiet again and stared at the back of the headrest in front of him, she could only imagine what he was thinking of: throwing up, getting bagged over the head, the pool … the longest walk of their lives.

That fight with Craeg.

“How are you feeling?” she asked. “You seem better.”

“I’m going to need to feed.”

As he rubbed his face like he was trying to stop more memories of school, she felt a stab of guilt—because unlike Craeg, who she’d been in a big fat hurry to offer a vein to, helping her friend wasn’t foremost in her mind.

Plus also, she wasn’t sure she could go through that with Peyton … if he had the same response Craeg had.

Not that she was some sexpot to males, but because maybe that kind of lust was just a natural by-product of feeding and she didn’t want to cross that line in her friendship.

“I texted my dad.” Peyton patted the front pocket of his coat. “He has someone waiting for me. Gonna be the first time I don’t have sex when I take a vein.” He frowned and glanced over at her. “Sorry. TMI.”

What was he talking about? Oh, right. “It’s okay. I’m not offended.”

You want to cover the TMI bases? she thought. What was really TMI was what she and Craeg had done in that clinic. Or rather … what he had done to himself.

She looked away just to be sure the blush that hit her face didn’t get noticed.

“You’re different,” he remarked.

That brought her head back around quick. “How so?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I remember how great you did.”

As he stared over at her, she knew he was saying sorry again, and without thinking, she leaned in and gave him a hug. “Thank you for that—”

A series of bumps and then a noticeable decrease in speed made her break away. “Are we there already?”

Peyton took out his phone and checked the time. “Forty-five minutes since we left. So yeah, probably.”

The doggen who was driving announced over the loudspeaker that their destination had, in fact, been reached, and one by one, they all stood up, filed out, got off.

The night was cold, very cold—and for some reason, she thought that if the color light blue had a scent, it would be what was in her nose as she breathed in the bracing, dry air.

Turning to the others as the bus left, she found that everybody was just standing around in the open farm field as if no one quite knew what to do.

Anslam was the first to say good-bye, although only to Peyton, and then he took off. Axe didn’t speak to anyone before dematerializing.

“Until tomorrow then,” Peyton murmured as he looked at Novo and Boone.

Before he ghosted out, he came over. “You’re going to be hearing from me in about two hours. I really hope you answer that phone.”