My feet hit the floor—soon followed by my knees. I grab for the counter to try to hold myself up, but my legs are like jelly. “What the hell?” I whisper, looking down at my useless legs. They seem too far away for some reason. And why is the room spinning?

Colt walks past me without so much as a glance, and before long, I hear a lot of voices overlapping. Excited voices, laughter.

Someone crouches in front of me. My head falls back when I try to look up at them, and through my blurry vision, I see Nix grinning. “You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?” he asks, shaking his head. “You’re so fucking gullible. Like we give a shit about what you’re doing in school. Please.”

I can barely keep my eyes open. “I don’t understand…”

“Yeah, that’s pretty obvious. But don’t worry. You’ll be out cold during our party, so we won’t disturb you.” He laughs when I try and fail to speak. “You were right about one thing, though. You made a pig of yourself. I didn’t think you’d eat the whole container, or I wouldn’t have put so much in your food.”

So much of what? I can’t ask, my tongue thick and useless. What did they give me? Why did I trust them?

Colt reappears, followed by a handful of guys I vaguely recognize from school. They were on the football team, weren’t they? And they’re carrying cases of beer and paper bags full of bottles that jangle together. “You’re not going to get in the way tonight,” Colt says as his friends spread out around the kitchen.

All I can do is close my eyes and give up, letting the darkness overtake me. It’s not like I have a choice.

CHAPTER 21

Oh my god.

I’m afraid to move. I don’t want to open my eyes. I don’t even want to turn my head from one side to the other on my pillow.

I’m pretty sure I got run over by a truck at some point. There’s no other explanation I can come up with for how absolutely awful I feel. I should go back to sleep—I must have picked up something, a bug, maybe. That would explain why it feels like I’m dying right now. Even trying to roll over in bed makes my stomach churn, and my head threatens to explode.

What the hell happened last night? I feel like something did, something I should remember, but I can’t come up with anything. Not that I’m trying too hard to think. Concentrating is too much work. Everything is too much work. Maybe I really am sick. Or maybe there was something wrong with my food.

Shit. My food.