Anna sat down at lunch, trying to pretend like everything was ok. But she still caught herself sneaking glances across the cafeteria. Rudi was talking to her friends a few tables away. Anna breathed a small sigh of relief, glad that at least one person didn't seem to care too much about what she was doing. Slowly, she looked a few tables to the left. Summer gave her a knowing nod, and Anna dipped her head back down to the history book she had out in front of her. She knew she'd told both Summer and Rudi that she'd break up with Luke, but she hadn't quite gotten around to it yet. Still, she knew she was going to have to do it soon. This weekend, she promised herself firmly.

"Everything alright?" Luke asked somewhat stiffly, sitting down across from her. Anna tried not to feel guilty; he hadn't actually sat next to her since she'd started hinting she might not want to see him so much – after the movie just over a week ago.

"Of course." Anna looked up at him with what she hoped was an innocent expression on her face.

Luke turned, trying to see what she'd been staring at. Anna sneaked a glance out of the corner of her eye, trying her best to be subtle. Summer wasn't looking at them anymore, leaving Luke unsure of what had been bothering her. Anna breathed a small sigh of relief. She knew he was starting to get suspicious. And if he asked her, Anna knew she'd break down and tell him; she always had been terrible at keeping secrets. But he didn't say anything, and Anna was glad she wouldn't have to be admitting anything right now. Mia came up to the table, and Anna was grateful for the distraction.

"How are you?" Anna asked a little too brightly. Mia paused for a minute, as if trying to figure out some hidden meaning in Anna's question.

"I'm fine." Mia said finally. "I told you that – everything's taken care of."

"Really?" Anna asked, suddenly realizing Mia must be talking about Rudi.

"Yeah." she said, setting her backpack down on the ground and taking the seat next to Luke. She lowered her voice as she added, "Actually, if last night's anything to go by, I should be doing great."

"Well...that's good." Anna nodded, suddenly wishing she hadn't said anything at all.

Mia was looking just a little too excited about something, and it was making Anna nervous. It wasn't that Anna thought Mia was lying exactly. It was just that Mia had promised her at least twice that this was all sorted out, so her comments didn't exactly have a lot of weight at the moment. Besides, Anna really didn't want to think about any of that right now; Rudi stalking Mia was the whole reason Anna was in this situation in the first place. The only reason she'd even said anything was to avoid having to actually have a conversation with Luke.

Anna took a deep breath, trying to calm down. She could still see Summer out of the corner of her eye, so she angled herself away. There – that should help. Now, she just had to think about something else. If she could just ignore Summer and put Rudi out of her mind, maybe she could stop feeling so guilty about sitting here with her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend. At least the rest of her friends showed up not too long after. With the table full, she didn't feel quite so awkward. She could pretend that maybe she was sitting here with a friend of her friends, even though that obviously wasn't true.

Zev sat down beside Anna, and Carmine passed him her sandwich, just like she did almost every day. Anna watched as he took it from her and started to unwrap it. She stared at it a minute, trying to figure out what Carmine had actually brought. Peanut butter and jelly, Anna thought. She started running through what kind of jelly was that color, mostly as a distraction. Apricot, maybe?

"Everything ok?" Zev asked, leaning away from her just a little as he eyed her suspiciously.

"Oh...yeah. Sorry." Anna hadn't realized until that moment that she'd actually been staring at him a little too hard. Maybe she should find a distraction that wasn't one of her friends.

"...Did you want to share?" he asked slowly. He had a tone that said he knew she didn't actually want it, but he couldn't figure out why else she'd be so interested.

"No, that's ok." Anna said automatically. "I'm just...tired."

"You? Really?" he asked. If he wasn't suspicious before, he definitely was now.

Anna sighed to herself. Tired was an excuse she'd learned when she first started going to school – half the people here were constantly saying it. And Anna had discovered that it usually worked really well to explain why she might say something that wasn't quite what others expected to hear. Of course, Zev was one of five people in the entire world who knew that excuse couldn't possibly be true in her case. She really was going to have to think up something else for her friends; something believable hopefully.

"Anybody else smell that?" Luke asked suddenly. He looked around the table for confirmation.

"No, what?" Carmine asked.

Anna just stared down at her history book, not answering. She was glad for his distraction, but she wanted to avoid actually talking to him as much as possible. She didn't want him to get the wrong impression or anything.

"I don't know exactly." he said, thinking. "It's not rotten oranges, but...something like that."

"I don't smell anything." Carmine told him. Out of the corner of her eye, Anna saw Mia shake her head.

Luke looked at both Zev and Conner, but neither of them noticed anything either.

"Must be just me." Luke shrugged. Still, he didn't look completely convinced.

"Did anybody do the math homework last night?" Conner asked.

"Yeah, why? You forget again?" Luke asked, shaking himself out of whatever thought he'd been having.

"I left my book in my locker." Conner told him. "And if I don't turn in all my things for like the next two weeks, Mr. Lowell's going to kill me."

"I've got it in my backpack." Luke told him. He leaned down, rooting around in his bag. When he finally handed his book to Conner, Anna couldn't help noticing he looked a little pale.

"Homework's in there." Luke said. He wrinkled his nose and closed his eyes for a second as he handed the book over.

"...Thanks." Conner said.

Anna looked carefully at him; he was looking almost as bad as Luke.

"Yeah...no problem..." Luke said slowly.

"Are you ok?" Anna asked. She peered closely at him, forgetting that she was supposed to be ignoring him.

"Yeah...I'm fine." he told her, swallowing hard. He closed his eyes for a minute.

"What's wrong?" Anna asked.

He might be trying to hide it, but she could see that something wasn't right. Or was this just another one of those things he wouldn't tell her about? she caught herself wondering. But as soon as the thought entered her head, she felt guilty for it.

"...Just a little nauseous." Luke told her after a minute.

"Head feels a little...weird." Conner supplied. "Not dizzy, but..."

"No, dizzy's a pretty good way to describe it." Zev told him, clutching the edge of the table – apparently for stability.

"Why?" Anna asked.

"...Not sure." Luke told her. He was looking worse.

Conner suddenly looked up from the table, focusing as intently as he could on Carmine given the circumstances. He had a weird look on his face.

"What did you do?" he asked, sounding strained.

"I didn't do anything!" Carmine snapped, obviously insulted. "Why would you just assume I did something?"

"I'm going to be sick." Zev announced suddenly. He pulled himself away from the table and staggered towards the door. He got about three feet away before he fell onto the cafeteria's linoleum-tiled floor.

"Need help?" Conner asked. But he didn't exactly look like he'd be in any condition to get up any time soon.

Luke made a move to go help Zev, but he didn't get far. He stood up, closed his eyes, and gripped the edges of the table before sitting back down hard on the bench.

Carmine gave one last indignant look at Conner before hurrying over to Zev. Mia just sat there, a strange look on her face. Anna wondered if she was in shock, and Anna couldn't say she blamed her. She'd never seen any of the boys get so sick before – and so fast, too. Suddenly, Mia's eyes went wide and she jumped up.

"I'll be right back!" she practically shouted.

She grabbed something from her backpack. Anna only caught a glimpse of it before Mia crushed it in her hand – a small plastic baggie with leaves in it. Mia practically ran out of the cafeteria, leaving Anna alone with Luke and Conner.

"Is there anything I can do?" Anna asked worriedly.

"Just kill Carmine." Conner mumbled, resting his head on his arm.

"Why? What did she do?" Anna asked.

She knew Carmine wouldn't have done anything to them on purpose. And Carmine knew way too much to do something on accident.

"What did who do?" Mia asked, coming back up to the table, and trying really hard to look nonchalant. "I didn't do anything."

"Why would you have done anything?" Anna asked, bewildered. What was going on here?

Anna heard a peal of laughter from across the room and instantly turned to look. Summer was sitting there, watching the table. She didn't even try to disguise her obvious excitement at whatever was happening with Luke and Conner. And Summer's friends looked almost as happy.

Anna just stared over at them for a minute. Suddenly, she wondered if Summer had something to do with this. Anna remembered her saying that Luke had been acting out lately, and that some people might be reminding him of his place soon. Could this be part of what she meant? Could that really be why she looked so smug sitting there? Anna tried to think of another reason, but she couldn't come up with anything. Well, this settled it. If things were going to start happening at school in addition to whatever happened at the full moons, Anna had to put a stop to it; it looked like she was going to have to break up with Luke a lot sooner than this weekend.

Anna had been ready to leave almost as soon as she realized that Summer – or maybe even one of Luke's group – was responsible. But she couldn't do it; she just had to make sure Luke and Conner were all right. She cared about both of them – especially Luke. After all, she wasn't breaking up with him because she didn't like him anymore; she was breaking up with him because she did. So of course she was going to make sure that whatever this was wasn't too serious.

It took about fifteen minutes, but finally both of them seemed to be feeling better. They still didn't look great, but at least neither of them looked like they were going to throw up anymore. And Conner had managed to pull his head up off his arm.

"Are you ok?" Anna asked.

"I think so." Luke said finally.

Mia looked incredibly relieved to hear that. When she'd come back, she'd seated herself in between the two boys, but she hadn't actually said anything.

"Conner?" Anna asked, since he hadn't responded.

"Uh, yeah. I mean – not really. But better than I was." he told her.

Anna nodded in relief. At least whatever it was seemed to be clearing up. And five minutes later, both of them were looking almost normal again.

"I'm glad you're both feeling better." Anna told them, but she was looking at Luke. She hoped he'd understand what she was about to do. Slowly, she stood up. "I have to go – I have to check on something."

"You do?" Luke looked like he thought he must have heard wrong.

"I'm sorry." she told him.

He looked shocked, and Anna almost lost her nerve. Still, this was something she had to do. If she didn't, who knew how bad things could get? But as she passed by him, she leaned down to him. "Don't worry – I'm going to fix this." she said.

And with that, she hurried out the cafeteria doors to spend the rest of the period alone in the library.