Maddie closed her texts and logged in to the ValleyStart portal. The private messages section was alight with news of the party and how “RT” showed up. “RT”—like if word leaked no one would be able to crack the code. She scrolled back, noticing a posting on the Pulse-a-palooza thread. Someone had asked if Emma could get them in since she was one of the 10s playing. The last comment read: “No dice on entry. RIP Crushing It Emma Santos. She’s a peon like the rest of us now. Comatose.”

Comatose? Hadn’t Sadie said she was a 4? Now she was a 1? Maddie thought back to what Sadie had said about how unusual it was for a 10 to fall so fast. Maddie had been so sick of Pulse and Ryan Thompson that she hadn’t wondered why. Until now.

*   *   *

By the time Lucy came back, Maddie was hyped up on cashew cheese Hot Pockets and iced coffee left over from the party in the common room.

“Look,” Maddie said, shoving her phone in Lucy’s hand and forcing her to drop her shopping bags.

“Maddie, can I get in the room first?”

“You’re in, now look.”

Lucy looked. “YouTube. You really are getting the hang of this newfangled thing they call social media, aren’t you?”

“Emma’s on it.”

“Along with ninety percent of the world. And I’m starting to get a complex, here, Maddie. You’re more obsessed with a departed team member than your own.”

“It’s just that her following’s pretty decent. Same as on Snapchat and Instagram and even Facebook. Her fan page has a crap-ton of likes.”

“From creepy old dudes, most likely.”

“Including Ryan Thompson.”

“Ryan’s not creepy.”

“Is that what you learned last night?”

“We were just talking.”

“What was that you said to Delia? ‘Just talking doesn’t walk you to your door’?” Maddie joked.

“He didn’t.”

“Close enough.” Maddie eyed Lucy. “I saw you together.”

Lucy moved to her side of the room and delved into one of her shopping bags. “I fell. I was in my monster heels and I tripped. Lucky he was there, otherwise I’d have gone headfirst into the quad.”

“You didn’t look like you were falling.”

“Because he stopped me.”

“If he stopped me like that, I’d report him,” Maddie said.

Lucy dropped the black dress in her hands and spun around. “For saving you from, oh, I don’t know, certain death?”

“For putting his hands where they shouldn’t be. If you were doing more than ‘just talking’ then it’d actually be better. But since you weren’t . . .”

“We weren’t.”

“You should mention it to Nishi then.”

“Maddie, it was nothing. I was drinking. Three beers. I had three beers.”

“So?”

“So stumbling’s entirely my own fault.”

“The stumbling, but the catching . . .”