Push

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

WE SIT ON THE BRANCH FACING EACH OTHER, QUIET. THE leaves rustle in the breeze.

“I heard you screaming,” I say. I can’t interpret the look Jackson shoots me. “Tell me what happened when you didn’t respawn at the pizza place with me and Luka.”

He reaches over to tuck a stray wisp of my hair back behind my ear. “After Detroit, the Committee pulled me directly to meet with them. They said I was done with the game. Finished. Out.”

“Happy news.”

“Yeah, for all of about a second. But with the Committee, there’s always a catch. Turned out, the catch was that if I go free of the game, the price is you.” He holds up a hand when I start to point out that he knew that already; he knew all along he was trading me for his freedom. That was the whole point. “I don’t mean that you’d have to take my place as leader,” he says. “I mean I’d have to give you up entirely. I wouldn’t get to remember anything about you.”

“Oh . . .” The Committee already told me that, but the fierce expression on his face as he says it puts a different spin on things.

He strokes the backs of his fingers along my cheek, my jaw, my lips, like he needs to touch me. “And if that didn’t suck hard enough,” he continues softly, “they were going to arrange it so my family would move again. You’d be excised from my mind and I’d just . . . disappear from your life.” He huffs a dark laugh. “Guess they didn’t want to risk me seeing you, maybe triggering some memory . . .”

“You think that would be possible? That you could recover memories they took?”

He lifts his brows and turns his hands palms-up in a who-can-say gesture.

“But even if they took you out of my life, I would have remembered you,” I say slowly.

I would have missed him and mourned his loss.

Would my world have gone gray again, or am I stronger than that now?

My gaze locks on his and I get the feeling he knows everything I’m thinking.

“I told them it wasn’t a trade I was willing to make.” His mouth shapes a tight, close-lipped smile. “They told me I didn’t get a choice. Consequences of breaking the rules. Their decision, not mine.”

“That must have gone over well. You being such a complacent, easygoing kind of guy.” I pause. “Then what?”

“Then they pushed into my head. I went a little crazy. Pushed them back out. I think that freaked them out. They pushed harder. I pushed back. It wasn’t pretty.”

“I felt it.” I shiver chases through me as I remember his screams.

His eyes widen. “I didn’t know that would happen. I would never want you to go through that, not even secondhand.” He pauses. “I was thinking about you, holding on to an image of you with everything I am, refusing to let them take that away. That must have made me project my thoughts without intending to.”

Thoughts. Emotions. Agony.

He’d done that before when he dreamed of the car accident that he was in with Lizzie, the one that brought him into the game. He somehow projected it to me so I dreamed it right along with him.

I almost tell him about my hallucination, about thinking I saw Lizzie in the game, then decide not to. Later. This moment is about him and me. “You wouldn’t let them take your memories of me, but then in typical Jackson fashion, you decided it would be okay if I sacrificed my memories of you. You didn’t think I might want to have a say?”

“You weren’t available to have that discussion.”

He did what he thought was best. He’s been part of the game, a leader, for so long, it’s become intrinsic to who he is now.

“And I wanted you out of the game,” he continues. “Out, and safe.”

As if any of us will ever be safe until the Drau are gone.

He leans so close I feel his lips against my ear as he whispers, “I would do anything to keep you safe, Miki. Anything. Remember that.”

I do remember. He almost died taking a Drau hit meant for me.

“So you were going to win my freedom by sacrificing yourself and having them make me forget. That wasn’t your call to make, Jackson.” I reach for him, pull back, clench and unclench my fingers. Finally, I lay my palm against his chest, close my eyes, and just let myself feel the steady beat of his heart, the warmth of his skin. “So what happened after you pushed them out of your head?”

“The Committee tried a different tack. Went all reasonable on me. Tried to coax their way into my brain. Explained that I’m dangerous if I don’t obey the rules, that maybe it’s better for everyone if I’m out. What’s to stop me from draining any one of my teammates to stay alive if my con goes red?”

My breath comes out in a sharp whoosh. “You wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t I?” He bares his teeth in a savage smile. “What do you call what I did to you?”

“You didn’t force me. I offered. I gave it to you. And you didn’t drain me. You took just enough to stay alive.”

“If I hadn’t taken it, then all your offering wouldn’t have been worth a damn. And as for taking just enough . . . is that because I was strong enough to stop or because the Committee happened to pull us before I killed you?” he asks in a hard tone. “Face it, Miki. No one on the team would stand a chance against me if I chose to go Drau on them. That’s the Committee’s fear, and it’s justifiable. I’m a potential killer.”

I laugh then, because it’s all so absurd. “A potential killer? Are you kidding? You are a killer.”

His expression goes blank. “Yeah,” he says, and I know he’s thinking of Lizzie. But that’s not what I mean at all.

“You don’t get it, Jackson. We’re all killers. How many Drau have we taken down? And since we’ve all taken down Drau, what’s to say we couldn’t take you down if you decide to drain a teammate?” Before he can answer, I hold up my hand. “It doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t. It’s not even a question.”

“So much faith in me, Miki, despite all you know?”

“Because of all I know.”

“Not smart,” he says, very soft, but the way he’s looking at me takes the sting out of his words.

“Probably not,” I agree, and mean it. But it doesn’t change the way I feel about him. I take a deep breath. “So . . . the Committee tried to get inside your brain, wipe it clean, send you away. Yet here you are. Still in Rochester. Still in the game.”

“Yeah. I reenlisted.”

“Because you thought they’d let me go? After all the effort you went to so I’d be in the game and you’d get to go free?”

“Yeah.”

What a convoluted mess.

“I want you safe, Miki. Alive and safe. And out of the game.”

“We don’t always get what we want.”

He rakes his fingers back through his hair in a completely un-Jacksonlike gesture. “Am I supposed to be happy that I did this to you? That I found you and told the Committee about you? Am I supposed to be happy that your life’s still at risk? Because of me. The choices I made.”

“Am I supposed to be happy that your life’s at risk?” I ask.

I glare at him, angry on many levels, for many reasons: His reaction to me being here. The things he’s saying. The way that he’s so angry with himself that he’s putting me in the position of defending him rather than blaming him. The ugly suspicion that this is just him manipulating my emotions, turning my thoughts inside out so that I forgive him. The anger at myself for suspecting him.

I am so screwed up.

And I don’t put anything past him. Jackson’s been playing the game for five years, dealing with the Committee, steering his team. He’s a master. And the things he’s learned, he’s brought into his real life. I saw the way he handled Mr. Shomper the day he challenged Jackson about wearing his sunglasses in class. I’ve seen the way he can sit down with any group of kids in the caf and make them feel like he belongs there. I think Jackson doesn’t just twist events to his advantage; I think he knows how to get inside people’s heads.

My head.

And even knowing that, knowing he isn’t lying when he says he isn’t a good guy, I’m still here. Still want to be here. Still want him.

Because he’s the boy who loves me enough to throw himself between me and a Drau weapon, then sign back on to the game so I could go free.

Not his fault things ended up such a mess, with both of us still exactly where the Committee wants us.

“If the Committee’s so worried about the danger you pose, why would they let you stay in the game?”

He shrugs. “Guess they love me more than they hate me.”

Sounds familiar.

“And why would you reenlist when all you ever wanted was to get out? Why would you do that?”

He shifts toward me on the branch until he can’t get any closer unless I climb into his lap. “You know why, Miki.”

I do. For me. Our gazes meet and lock. “Say it,” I whisper.

His lips shape a smile, edgy and darkly playful. “Enough about me. Let’s talk about you. I paid their price. You should be free. But you aren’t. I want to know why.”

I narrow my eyes at him, just so he’ll know I’m on to his evasion. “They played me, too. Guess you could say I reenlisted, just like you.” And because I’d done it of my own free will, their deal with Jackson was made null and void. “We’re both still stuck in the game.”

“It seems nobility doesn’t pay,” Jackson says. Now his smile is just a quick flash of white teeth. “You wanted me to say it, so I am. You, Miki. I did it for you.”

I inhale sharply.

He brushes the pad of his thumb along the crease of my wrist. I remember when he kissed me there, his lips warm against my skin. “I sacrificed to save you. You sacrificed to save me—”

“And we both end up screwed.”

He laughs, a real laugh. I guess the only other option is to cry, and Jackson’s not the crying type.

I take a deep breath. “So what do we do now?”

“We steer the nightmare.”

“I don’t think I’m very good at it.”

“You’re still alive, aren’t you?”

I am, even though I almost died again on the last mission. Given the expression on Jackson’s face, I decide not to mention that little factoid.

I look down and rub my fingertips back and forth along the rough bark. “I feel like an idiot. I let them play me.”

“What makes you think we had a choice?”

My head jerks up and I stare at him.

The smile he offers is pure Jackson, dark and ironic, carving that long, sexy dimple in his cheek. My breath catches. I wet my suddenly too-dry lips. His gaze tracks the movement of my tongue, then slowly lifts to mine. Heat uncoils inside me.

“Aren’t we just a pair of suckers?” I whisper.

I lean forward. Jackson meets me halfway, our foreheads resting against each other, our breathing synchronized.

I close my eyes, trembling as the tip of his nose traces the path his fingers took a moment past, along my cheek, my jaw. I part my lips on a gasp as he pulls back, longing and expectation making me feel like my nerves are on fire.

His brows lift. “They’ll always be a step ahead. And I guess that’s a good thing because maybe it means they’ll always be a step ahead of the Drau, too.” His palms cup my cheeks. “And I’m definitely not complaining about getting to hold you”—he nips my bottom lip lightly—“kiss you”—he drags my hand around his waist; I splay my fingers along the warm skin of his lower back—“touch you.”

“There’s a part of me that’s still angry with you, Jackson.”

He scoots even closer on the branch, his thighs slipping under my knees, one arm going around my waist. “I have that effect on people.”

“I’m serious. How am I supposed to trust you? How can I know you won’t lie to me again? Trick me?”

“I won’t lie to you again.”

I stare at him. “You didn’t even try to sound like you mean that.”

“I’ll try not to lie to you again.”

That, he means.

“It’s a start, but not enough.”

He nods. “We’ll work on it.”

He didn’t dismiss me. Didn’t wave aside my words. Didn’t act like I have nothing to be angry about. We’ll work on it.

My turn to nod, even though I’m not fully satisfied.

His fingertips skim along the V of my neckline just below my collarbone, under the strap of my bra, to the eagle tattooed over my heart.

“Did I tell you I like your ink?”

I can barely think with him touching me like that. I shake my head.

“I like what it represents,” he says. “Courage.”

That’s it exactly. That’s why I had it done. To represent Mom’s courage as she faced the horror of her disease, and mine as I try to figure out how to live, and how to forgive her for dying.

“Not to mention how much I like the placement.” He slowly slides his fingertips back and forth, just below my collarbone. “Wouldn’t mind checking it out up close, with nothing obscuring the art.”

“You mean, without clothes?”

He cocks a brow.

His fingers are warm on my skin. He’s tempting, but I slap his hand. “Not happening anytime soon.”

He laughs, low and rough. “No rush, Miki. I’ll wait.”

His hands slide to my waist, safer territory. I lift my face to his, my mouth to his. He takes what I offer, his lips on mine, his tongue teasing, then slipping away. My lids drift shut. I’m adrift in sensation, in the warm liquid heat he builds in my veins.

He shifts closer.

The branch creaks. The leaves shake.

His fingers ease under the hem of my T-shirt, flattening against my bare skin above the waistband of my jeans.

My world shakes, heat coiling in the pit of my stomach, my breath stolen.

The branch creaks again.

Jackson draws back just enough that the tips of our noses still touch. “It’s going to break,” he says. Then he leans away and bounces up and down.

I wrap both hands around the branch and let out a sound somewhere between a squeak and a yell.

He grins at me as he swings to the next branch over. The cool air touches my skin. I already miss him.

“Jackson and Miki, sitting in a tree,” he says in a singsong voice. “K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

I laugh. He never says or does what I expect. Maybe that’s part of his appeal.

The wind rustles the leaves again, stronger now. I shiver despite my jacket. And Jackson’s wearing nothing but flannel pajama pants. “You must be freezing.”

“Hot-blooded. And you just make me hotter.”

“Oh God,” I moan and roll my eyes.

He looks down at himself and sighs. “I need some clothes.”

“You think?”

“Wait for me,” he says and clambers through the open window.

Forever.