Push

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THINGS ARE PRETTY CALM OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS. Jackson and I hang out. Carly and I hang out. Sometimes the extended group hangs out after school under the giant oak at the end of the field, but usually it’s just me and Carly and Kelley and Dee meeting there for our after-school recap.

Despite the sun and clear, blue sky, the air’s cold. I zip my hoodie, then my jacket, but the chill remains. I shiver and glance around, waiting for Kelley and Dee to catch up, trying to convince myself that the goose bumps on my skin are just from the cold and not from the feeling that . . . something’s out there.

Which is kind of silly because something is out there: the Drau.

But this feeling is more immediate, more personal.

I push the thought aside and watch as Kelley pulls a checkered blanket from her backpack, snaps it open, and spreads it on the ground. She catches me watching her and says, “The ground’s too cold. It makes my butt ache.”

Carly flops down and gets comfortable. “If you’d put on a couple of pounds, it wouldn’t be so much of a problem,” she teases. “Or maybe start running, like Miki. She has a little muscle padding.” She reaches up to slap my butt. I dance out of her reach just in time.

“Jealous?”

“Insanely. I could bounce a quarter off your butt.” She grins slyly. “Or Jackson could.”

“So start running with me.”

She does the Carly eyebrow thing. “Not that jealous. I value the extra hours in bed.” Her gaze slides past me to where a group of girls clusters around one of the picnic tables near the side door of the school. “Queen Bee and her drones,” she says. “Again.”

The Queen Bee being Marcy Kern with her head lady-in-waiting, Kathy Wynn, by her side.

“Weird,” Dee says. “I wonder why they started hanging out after school. Seems like lately they’re here every time we are.”

“Weird,” Carly agrees, then glances over at the track, where Jackson, Luka, and Aaron are doing laps. “Maybe they like the scenery.”

Dee laughs.

I study Marcy’s group a moment longer, trying to shake off the impression that they aren’t watching the guys, they’re watching us.

“So did you hear about Aaron and Shareese?” Kelley asks. “They broke up.”

“What?” I ask, my attention snared by the news.

“Oh my gawd.” Dee’s eyes widen. “They’ve been together forever. They can’t break up. They’re, like, the perfect couple.”

“Are they?” Kelley asks. “They’ve been together for, what, two years? And Aaron’s parents still didn’t know they were dating. He snuck around behind their backs because he knew they wouldn’t approve. Supposedly, he even went on a date with some girl who’s the daughter of his father’s friend just to placate them.”

“Seriously?” Dee asks. “That’s horrible. Poor Shareese.”

“I know, right?” Kelley shakes her head. “Perfect couples are also perfect friends, and perfect friends don’t lie and hide things.”

“In a perfect world, no they don’t,” Carly says, shooting me an unreadable look. Guilt scampers onto my shoulders. I’m still lying to her about the game, or if not exactly lying, evading. Then she surprises me by continuing, “But sometimes people can’t share everything. They just . . . can’t.”

And if the guilt doesn’t exactly go away, it shrinks to a more manageable weight.

My shoes are pink with green laces. They look nothing like my sneakers, nothing like any shoes I would ever own, but I know they’re mine. Just like I know they have to be tied exactly right before I can take a single step. I stare at the shoes and tip my head. It’s the pink-and-green combo that makes me think I’m dreaming, one of those dreams where you know it’s a dream but don’t try to wake up, just go along for the ride to see where it leads.

I do up the laces, undo them, try again and again and again until finally the bows are perfectly even, the knot dead center, the feel just right. It matters that everything be just right, lined up and perfect and . . . just right.

I straighten and bounce on the balls of my feet. The ground feels spongy, like I’m standing on memory foam. Each bounce pushes me deeper, until I can’t see my feet anymore. I’m sinking, the ground swallowing me, confining me. I shift and sway, certain that if I move just right, I’ll get myself free.

But I only make it worse. I lose my ankles, my shins, my knees, parts of me disappearing. How long until there’s nothing left?

My grandfather reaches down and takes my hand. That’s another clue that this is a dream, because Sofu’s dead. Gone. He can’t be here.

“Do you miss them?” I ask, touching the yellowed picture of my grandfather’s parents in its simple wooden frame. My fingers are small, my hand plump, my voice that of a little girl.

Sofu smiles down at me, his hair more black than gray, his face less lined than I remember. “I miss them, but their spirit is never far from me. They watch over me.” He touches the tip of my nose. “And you.”

His hand grows cold in mine. His features fade and begin to disappear.

“Sofu!”

“I am here, Miki. Right here. Always here.”

Icy fingers touch my skin. Gray. Gray. Gray. Then Sofu’s hand is back in mine, warm and comforting and familiar, like he never left at all.

“Hey,” Jackson says.

I look up to see him standing at the edge of my driveway wearing black-on-black shades and black running gear that hugs the long lines of his muscles. I don’t know why, but I toss my head back and twirl in circles, laughing and laughing until I collapse on the ground.

But I’m not on the ground. I’m running, the air bright and cold, the sky blue and clear, and Jackson’s running beside me. He turns his head. He smiles. Not just with his mouth, his beautiful mouth, but with his eyes. His mercury eyes.

They change, growing darker, brighter, grass and leaves and Mom’s little emerald earrings.

Not Jackson’s eyes.

Lizzie green, like they’ve always been.

“Run,” he says. “Faster. You can get there. You can find it. Faster, Miki. Come on.” But it isn’t Jackson’s voice. And it isn’t Jackson running beside me. It’s a girl, her honey-brown hair streaming out behind her.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“Running.”

Typical Jackson answer. I roll my eyes at him.

No, not him. Her. I recognize her face and her smile, just like in the pictures. “I’m trying to help,” Lizzie says, looking sad.

“I know.” I do. I feel it inside. She wants me to know something. “Are you dead?” I swallow. “Is my mom there with you? She left me.”

“She didn’t. She’ll never leave you.”

I shake my head. “Can you find her? Can you tell her to come home?”

“We aren’t in the same place.”

“What does that mean?”

She doesn’t answer. I’m alone, running and running, my legs pumping, but I’m going nowhere. If I could just run faster, harder, I’d get there. I’d see what I need to see. Find it. Fix it.

I run until I hit the wall, the point of exhaustion, the point of I-can’t-take-another-step.

I push through.

“I’m here for you, Miki,” Jackson says. “To help you figure things out.” Jackson who isn’t Jackson. Jackson who is Lizzie. “It’s important. You need to understand. They’re watching. You have to hurry.”

Marcy tosses her hair and laughs, her mouth growing bigger and bigger, the sound growing louder until it’s all I can hear. Beside her Kathy shrinks to the size of a thimble. It’s funny, but Kathy, tiny Kathy, is the one I watch even though Marcy swells to fill my field of vision.

“You don’t get it!” Lizzie says, looking at me, wanting me to get it. But I don’t. I don’t get it. I run faster, harder. I need to make it to the end.

I’m not running for the run.

I’m running for the finish line. And that’s so unlike me that I stop. Just stop.

“Don’t trust them. They’re poison. Do you understand?”

The world tips and tilts. Time slows. I can hear the rush of my blood in my ears, drawn out so it takes a thousand years for a single beat of my heart.

I respawn in a place that’s blinding and bright, so white it tears at my eyes. This feels different. Real. Not like part of the dream. I blink. Blink again. There’s no floor, no walls, just a gaping black square straight ahead of me. I don’t want to walk through it, even though I know I should. I don’t want to see what’s on the other side. I’m afraid. It’s something terrible. Something I can’t bear to know.

I walk through, heart pounding, and there she is, Lizzie, watching me with Drau eyes.

She lets out a little laugh of relief. “You’re here.”

“Where’s here?”

She’s holding something metallic and smooth. Fluid. Jellylike.

Her mouth tightens. Her eyes flick to a point above my shoulder as she raises her hand and shoots, sending a thousand pinpoints of bright agony speeding toward me, burning my left shoulder as they overshoot the mark.

I jerk awake, disoriented, afraid, heart slamming against my ribs like a caged bird. It’s dark. I’m cold. Shivering, I reach for my comforter.

There’s a tap at my door. “Miki?” I glance at my bedside clock. It’s just after midnight. “You okay?” Dad pushes the door open and light from the hall spills in, leaving him a dark silhouette in a dark frame, surrounding by a soft, yellow glow.

“Nightmare,” I croak.

He frowns and takes a step into my room. “The usual?” The usual is the one where I dream I’m being buried, clumps of earth hitting the lid of the coffin that holds me.

I shake my head.

“The car accident?” he asks, taking another step into the room. The car accident is the one where I shared Jackson’s dream about Lizzie and the night Jackson first got pulled into the game.

I shake my head again. “Neither. Just a regular, run-of-the-mill nightmare.” But that’s a lie. There was nothing regular or run-of-the-mill about it. That last part where I respawned in the white room—it felt real.

Dad starts to back out of the room, pulling my door shut as he goes.

“Wait . . .”

He ducks his head back inside.

“Just . . . um . . . leave the door open, ’kay?”

He nods, and I’m grateful that he doesn’t comment.

Once the door to his room is closed behind him, I ease the neckline of my pj top over to one side, baring my left shoulder and the healing burns that mark my skin.