Now two.

One.

Still I couldn’t rise. I couldn’t face Patrick any more than I could face the world without him.

Again I thought of that private conversation I’d overheard between him and Alex in the picnic area.

Let’s spend it the best way we can.

There has to be something.

I could stop breathing, but that probably wouldn’t help me much either.

The first part stuck in my mind: I could stop breathing. An idea was there just beneath the surface, glittering like a half-buried jewel.

It sailed through the jumble of my thoughts, and I grabbed it. My eyes flew open.

I knew how to save Patrick.

Entry 24

ENTRY 24

I barreled up the empty corridor, my footsteps echoing off the lockers. Skidding on the tile, I swung onto the stairs and took them down three at a time. I shouldered into the nurse’s office so hard that the door flew back and clipped my hip.

Some of the cabinets and drawers were open, most of the basic medical supplies already moved to the supply station.

But I wasn’t looking for basic medical supplies.

I searched the remaining cabinets, dug through the closet. My swollen eye started throbbing, but I paid it no mind.

Twenty-three minutes.

Twenty-two.

Panic clenched my chest when I didn’t see it. What if it was gone? What if it had been used up already or Chet’s mother had taken it back home?

I hurled an empty cardboard box over my shoulder, and there it was, hidden in the back of the closet. When I yanked it out, it clanked against the floor.

The portable oxygen tank was heavier than I’d imagined. The mask hung from the valve, its clear tubing coiled up neatly. The meter showed full, the needle pegged at the limit in the green zone.

Chet’s oxygen for his asthma attacks.

Hefting the tank, I sprinted out, slipping on the slick floor. Back upstairs, my boots pounded down the hall, my blood racing as fast as I was. The front-door lookouts raised their heads in unison, their faces pivoting as I flew by toward the gym.

I kicked through the double doors, shouting for Patrick. Kids popped up from their cots and looked over from the bleachers.

“Quiet,” Ben hissed, coming off his chair.

“Where is he?”

“Out looking for you.”

Of course.

“But don’t worry,” Ben said. “He’s due back any minute. He swore it to Chatterjee. So we can handle him before he … you know.”

I set down the tank and mask. “Keep this here. Do you understand?” My wild gaze found Eve. “Keep this right here until I get back.”

She nodded.

I sprinted back out, passing the lookouts. “Patrick—have you seen—where is he?”

Dezi Siegler flicked his head toward the corridor. “He said he was gonna look for you in the picnic area.”