Chapter 32

Six Weeks Later

"Go fish," I say, using my splayed cards as a fan even though it's freezing in this hospital room.

Jacey growls and reaches for the draw pile.

I pretend to study my hand another moment. "Chains, give me all your queens."

Alex's head tilts as he squints at me. "Did you peek at my hand?"

I grin deviously over my cards, and he turns to Jacey with his mouth open.

She shrugs. "Just give her the cards."

Begrudgingly, he plucks out one queen and flings it at me. Then he picks out another, and I throw up an elbow as a shield. "Such a sore loser."

Slamming what's left of his hand down on the tiny table, he stands and stretches. "Break time. Who wants one of those frozen coffee things they sell downstairs?"

Jacey and I raise our hands. "The cookies with the sprinkles too," I add. "Pretty please?"

I bat my lashes dramatically, and his eyes narrow at me in a way that makes my stomach do a little flip. He shakes his head. "Don't you dare look at my cards," he says before slipping out the door.

"He likes you," Jacey says, wandering over to Piper's bedside. "It's so obvious."

"Shut up." But I bite my lip to contain my smile.

Sometimes I think Alex could be more than a friend. Sometimes I remember the way he looked at me on the mountain, his brown eyes searing through me, seeing every blackened corner of my soul. I see you, Savannah Sullivan. He said it like he could witness those tarnished edges being filed away to something clean, something new.

I get up, yawning and dragging my chair over to join her. "You know I'm not thinking about boys."

She rolls her eyes, but she gets it. Neither of us is thinking about boys. While Piper is here, she's our focus. Jacey's trying to be a best friend in whatever capacity she can. And I'm trying to be a big sister. A good one. Right now, that means coming to the hospital every Saturday to be with her. She might not be able to beat us at Go Fish, but I like to think she hears us. That she understands she's part of every game and conversation.

It didn't start off this way with Jacey and Alex. The first Saturday visiting hours after the hike, we all just showed up here at the same time. Things progressed from there. An awkward conversation. A game of Scrabble.

Piper's prognosis remains the same. The doctors don't believe she'll wake up, but my parents refuse to let go.

"How are applications coming?" Jacey asks, straightening Piper's linens.

"Ugh, don't remind me." Trying to fill out community college applications without Piper's guidance has been a nightmare.

After the hike, I got home to find my parents livid. When I turned on my phone that day on the mountain, I really did find a ton of missed calls from them. Only they weren't about Piper; they were about me. Mom had called Jessica's parents after I didn't come home Saturday and discovered I was MIA.

Apparently, Jessica caved and told them about the hike to keep them from reporting me missing. But for a few hours, they really thought I was gone. After everything with Piper, they had to worry about losing another daughter. I felt horrible, so I told them about the chemistry tests, about how I couldn't face them.

It wasn't comfortable, and it didn't solve my problems with my parents overnight. But they listened. They cried with me—for my mistakes, for Piper. They also grounded me from doing anything but going to school and the hospital for eternity.

On Monday morning, I went to Principal Winters and confessed to stealing Mr. Davis's password and changing the grades. Then I handed over Piper's audio recorder so the administration could decide how to handle all of us. And boy, did they handle all of us.

Mr. Davis was fired for trying to cover up the fact that some of his players had tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. Not even Detective Breslow, who we learned went to college with Mr. Davis, could ignore the facts this time. The team's championship from last year was revoked, and they were banned from the preseason tournament. This season, they have a new coach, and the players are being tested regularly.

They're also back to losing almost every game.

I've been punished for my crimes as well. Not only did I have to miss the soccer tournament that had me resorting to despicable behavior in the first place, I was kicked off the team. I was also suspended from school for two weeks; I was lucky I wasn't expelled. Due to my family's circumstances, the administration chose to be lenient regarding its cheating policy.

Still, my chance of getting into MLC was obliterated. I barely cared. I'd only wanted to go there to be with Grant, and after everything in Survival Club, I broke up with him. It's still raw. When I see him in the halls, my first instinct is to rush over and slide my hand into his like before.

But things will never be like they were before—not after the way we deceived each other. The only way to build myself back up was to get rid of the rot. And Grant, despite his blindingly gorgeous veneer, was part of the decay that consumed my life.

We haven't told anyone about what Noah did. Jacey begged me to keep it a secret, and I didn't have it in me to crush her any further. More than that, I think Piper would've wanted me to show grace. She would've given Noah the life he nearly stole from her. He still calls me sometimes; I don't answer. He tries to snag my gaze in the halls, in the parking lot. In my heart, I've forgiven him. His conscience is punishing him far more than the law ever could.

And then there's Jacey. She and Noah were in love—at least, their twisted, selfish version of love. Now, he can't get her to look at him.

Two months ago, I never would've imagined spending time with Jacey like this. I never would've believed we could get past our differences. Yet here we are again, side by side in this sterile room, strung together by our darkness.

Or maybe it isn't darkness anymore. The darkness was reaching past what was right in front of me for something I never needed. This—whatever this is, with my sister in front of me and my former archnemesis at my side—feels different. Painful, but new. Uncomfortable, but full of possibility. Like the first day of preseason training, when your muscles hurt so bad you just want to soak in a hot tub all day, but somehow, you welcome the pain. Because it's making you stronger.

"Hey, did you bring a brush?" Jacey asks, running her fingers through the ends of Piper's knotted hair.

"Piper never cared about her hair when she was awake." But I turn around and rifle through my purse, which is slung over the back of my chair. "Remember when she gave her award-winning speech in seventh grade? My mom forced her into that fancy velvet dress, but when Piper got on stage, half of her hair was all gnarled and matted with twigs?"

"Literal twigs ," Jacey says, laughing. "Like, what had she been doing?"

"Who knows." I pull out my brush and spin around, standing over the bed, looking down at Piper's hands. Her fingers are spread out over the sheet. Two months ago, they were battered, the pale skin marbled with bruises. They've all but healed now. It's so strange to think that my sister, whose body can heal, may never regain consciousness.

Reaching down, I start to brush out the dry ends of her hair. "Maybe the stick crown was a fashion statement. Definitely better than her fedora phase."

"She probably found some new species of plant behind the school and fell into it." Jacey rubs her eyes. "Where is Alex with our coffees?"

"Must've gotten his chains caught in the elevator."

"Whatever. You think those chains are hot."

I twist my lips, focusing on working out another knot. "We should definitely check his cards before he gets back, though, right?"

Jacey waggles a finger at me, and I tuck the brush back into my purse. When I turn around again, something grabs my attention.

Piper's hand—the one I was staring at a minute ago. The fingers that were spread flat—they're curled now. Did Jacey move Piper's hand? No, Jacey's been sitting there, whining about coffee and teasing me.

My pulse pounds in my ears until I'm certain I imagined it. Piper's fingers must've been curled to begin with.

My heart sinks, and I sit down. Voices from the hall seep through the door—probably Alex chatting up one of the nurses. He takes his mom's advice about making friends very seriously.

I lean back in my chair, and that's when I spot it again.

My gaze whips to Jacey. "Did you just—" But I see it in her eyes, too, wide as open windows.

My sister's fingers.

They just moved.