Still reeling from sickness, Alice lets Colin help her toward the dorms. She tries to be polite and disentangle herself, but he keeps close. Outside near the dorm, nausea and disorientation worsen. When Alice asks to lie down, Colin blocks her, presses her against a tree, gropes her, and forces a kiss. Alice bites his lip hard enough to draw blood.

The moment blood hits her tongue, Alice experiences a violent rupture of consciousness: the night "tears" and she blacks out. She regains awareness fully dressed in a running shower, drenched, with pink-tinged water spiraling down the drain and the taste of blood in her mouth, certain it is not hers. She scrubs herself raw, noticing her symptoms easing even as her teeth ache dully.

Examining herself in the mirror, Alice initially looks normal, which feels wrong. Suddenly she weeps tears of blood and flashes jagged, fragmentary memories: she and Colin on the ground, Colin begging her to stop, his throat open, his crimson sweater soaked. The images vanish as she forces herself calm.

Alice tests her breathing and pulse and realizes she is not breathing involuntarily and cannot find a heartbeat. There is a profound stillness in her chest. Panicking, she leaves the bathroom, avoids Rachel in the suite, and retreats to her room. There she inspects her body for injuries or marks and finds none beyond old scars.

She performs a deliberate test: nicking her thumb with a razor. The cut wells dark blood, then when she reflexively bites it, her teeth gouge deeply. Before her eyes, the wound seals closed rapidly. In the mirror, she catches two white teeth sliding back behind her upper lip.

Alice acknowledges the impossible signs—lack of breath and pulse, blood tears, rapid healing, and fangs—yet refuses to say the word that would define her condition. Treating it like a logic problem, she lists known facts: she went to a party, brought a girl home, went to bed fine, woke up sick. She decides this can be solved and targets the most immediate lead: the girl, Lottie. She retrieves Lottie's "Goodbye, Alice. xo Lottie" note and opens her laptop to search the school directory.