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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I BEAT JACKSON ON OUR LORD OF THE FLIES ESSAY FOR MR. Shomper, an A to his A-. He takes it in stride, vowing to beat me next time.

“Seriously? I worked on mine for weeks, outlining my arguments, planning every paragraph,” I say. “You banged yours out the night before it was due.”

“You have a problem with that?” he asks, his arms crossed over his chest, his shoulder propped against the doorframe of our English class, his black-on-black Oakleys hiding his eyes.

“No problem. I’m still the one with the better grade.” I sashay past him, my grand exit ruined when he lets out a low whistle and catches up to me to whisper, “I love watching you walk away.”

“Me? Or a certain part of my anatomy?”

“Anatomy,” he says and, when I shoot him a look, continues, “Hey, I’m all about education.” Then he slides his fingers into my back pocket, grabs my hand, and guides my fingers into his back pocket, and we walk down the hall, appreciating each other’s . . . anatomy. I haven’t told him about the nightmare or the now-healed burns I woke up with. Maybe I think it’s too weird or crazy or strange. Maybe I don’t want to tell him I’m dreaming about his dead sister. I don’t know how it would make him feel and I don’t want to hurt him. I do know the marks are gone now, as if they had never been, and there are a million ways I could have hurt my shoulder without realizing it, ways that don’t involve Drau weapons and the game.

A couple of days later, I’m heading to the caf when I see Jackson, fingers curled over the door of an open locker, head bent as he talks to Kathy Wynn. She hands him a folded slip of paper, closes her locker, and scurries up the hall to where the Queen Bee and her friends are waiting. Marcy smiles at one of them and nods, her gaze locked on Jackson as Kathy says something to her.

Guess I know why they’ve been hanging out at the picnic table after school whenever Jackson decides to run laps with Luka.

Marcy tosses her hair back over her shoulder, taking her time, running her fingers through the shiny strands. Her teeth catch her lower lip. Her eyes never leave Jackson’s face.

In health class last year we had to break into groups and discuss self-esteem and the media. Marcy was pretty frank in her self-assessment, saying that she isn’t exactly pretty. She claimed her eyes are too small and too close set, her nose pointed, her lips thin. She wasn’t fishing for compliments; it was more of an explanation of why she didn’t try for the career in modeling her friends were always saying she should go for.

Pretty or not, between hair and makeup and clothes, she knows how to work it, and she does—not too much skin, not too much makeup. Just enough.

And Marcy’s a girl who knows what she wants and never fails to get it. She does as she pleases, especially where boys are concerned.

In the past, I’ve actually been a little awed by her single-minded determination and the way she carries herself, like she’s the most confident girl in the world.

The way she steamrolls over anything, or anyone, in her way, not so much.

But I have a philosophy about relationships based on something Mom told me when I went steady with Sam Pitt in eighth grade: no one can break up a couple unless that couple’s already got some problems, whether they recognize them or not.

Marcy’s group starts whispering and giggling as Jackson unfolds the note and reads it—all except Marcy. She just watches him, confident and poised and expectant. I stay where I am, curious. And if I’m honest, just a little wary. I know what she wants. I’m almost a hundred percent certain that Jackson won’t give it to her.

But there’s this very tiny ridiculous part of me that worries he might. Because Jackson and I do have a problem or two. Having him in my life comes with a hefty price—the game—and he’s the one who set that price. Our relationship is predicated on the way he betrayed me for his own gain. All of which suggest that I’d be the one doing the leaving, not him. But that doesn’t seem to matter any more than the fact that he couldn’t follow through in the end, that he stayed in the game so I could go. I can’t quite forgive him for that, can’t quite let go of the possibility that he might betray me again, no matter how hard I try. Stupid. I know.

I suck at forgiveness. Dr. Andrews has told me a million times that I need to work on letting go, but there’s a part of me that holds a grudge like it’s superglued.

I’m not proud of that part, but it is what it is.

Jackson refolds the note and saunters over to Marcy, his back to me.

He holds out his index and middle fingers, the note sandwiched between them. I think he says something.

Marcy’s face flushes red and her cat-got-the-cream smile disappears. She snatches the note and, with a flip of her hair, she turns and marches off, her ladies-in-waiting skittering in her wake.

Jackson turns, catches me watching, and heads in my direction. I duck my head, embarrassed.

I want to ask what that was all about, but I don’t, because Jackson really could go out with pretty much any girl he wants.

I have to believe that the fact he’s with me means I’m that girl.

If we don’t have trust, we don’t have much.

Ugh. Moments like this, when my own insecurities rear their ugly heads and test me, when I’m the girl who was mourning while everyone else was learning the dating dance . . . these moments make trust the hardest. But is it Jackson I don’t have enough faith in, or me?

“Checking up on me?” Jackson asks as he plants his palm flat against the wall just above my left shoulder.

I cut him a look through my lashes, go up on my toes, and whisper in his ear, “If she can get you, she can have you.”

He laughs. As he draws back, I know he’s studying my face from behind his opaque lenses. “She can’t get me, Miki. You know that. It’s been you all along, ever since Atlantic Beach.”

I hear the crash of the waves, feel the water on my skin as a memory comes alive. Mine? Jackson’s? He has this weird ability to talk inside my head, and a couple of times he’s even pushed one of his memories to blend with mine. I taste salt on my tongue, feel it stinging my eyes. There’s a boy on the beach, his hair flashing gold in the sun. Then I’m not seeing him, I’m seeing me, seeing what he sees. I dive, the water closing over me, my hair trailing behind me sleek and dark. I come up, blinking water from my lashes. There’s the tattoo of an eagle over my heart, only partially covered by my bathing suit. I turn and look at him, my eyes blue. Indigo blue. And I feel his shock, his interest.

He’s torn. He doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t want to drag someone else into the game. But here I am, a gift dropped right in front of him, a way out. He wants me even as he plans to betray me.

Then his emotions undulate and shift, different now. The catch of awareness. Attraction.

His.

Mine.

Powerful.

He wants to kiss me, touch me. . . .

Snap. I’m back in the hallway, the noise from the caf pouring through the open double doors.

I aim for a cocky expression. He laughs again, soft and low.

My skin tingles. For a second, I think it’s from the way the sound of that laugh winds around my heart.

But the tingle grows stronger, sharper. It isn’t pleasant. The hairs at my nape prickle and rise. A shudder crawls up my spine.

“What?” Jackson asks, suddenly alert.

“Creepy feeling,” I say. “Like someone watching me, or walking over my grave.”

“I hate that expression,” Jackson says. Then he juts his chin to my left. “That someone?”

I turn to look, and there’s Marcy, the expression on her face as sour as month-old milk in the back of the fridge. Kathy stands beside her. And, yeah, they’re both watching us. I remember the nightmare, Marcy growing and growing and Kathy shrinking. I almost tell him about it, but I can just imagine the smug look he’d give me and the way he’d ask if I’m jealous.

“Not them,” I say, careful with my words. Not any of the kids walking along the hall. After my first mission, Luka told me that we don’t talk about the game outside the game. I didn’t get it at first. Then I found out it’s because the Drau can watch us anywhere, using human satellite technology. And they create armies of shells—human forms that house Drau consciousness. I’ve only ever seen their failed attempts at those, but what if they’ve succeeded? The shells could be anywhere. Anyone. Any kid walking past.

Marcy.

Kathy.

Mrs. Tilson, carrying her mug of steaming tea. Any one of the lacrosse guys shoving one another and laughing as they walk.

“Not them,” I say again, but I’m not so sure anymore.

“Someone else?” Jackson asks.

“Something else.”

It’s as if Jackson dons a different persona. Gone is the teasing and the flirtation. His posture changes, not a lot, but enough that I notice. He scans the perimeter, watching, weighing.

“You still feel it?” he asks.

I think about that for a second, then shake my head. “Not now. And I’m not even a hundred percent certain I felt it to begin with. It was just for a second.” I pause. “You didn’t sense anything?”

“No.”

If the Drau were here, I think Jackson would have noticed. I glance over at Marcy. She’s still staring at us.

“Oh, give it a rest,” I mutter, then to Jackson I whisper, “Maybe it was her all along. Maybe I’m just edgy.”

He smiles a little and leans in to whisper against my ear, “Maybe we should find a way to work off that edge.”

“We are in school,” I point out.

He grins in reply.

Carly and Dee come up the hall, heading for the caf. Carly does a quick assessment of the situation and gives Marcy an are-you-kidding-me-back-off-now look. That’s Carly, always the peacemaker except when someone goes up against a friend. Then she’s Carly-the-poison-tree-frog—gorgeous but deadly.

“I’ll save seats,” she says as she walks past us.

Marcy stalks off, but I can’t help looking around one last time, feeling like something’s still not quite right.

“Aren’t you dying to know what was in that note?” Jackson snags my backpack, slings it over his shoulder, and starts walking down the hall. I take four steps to his two and catch up.

“No.”

“Liar,” he says, then after a pause, “Her phone number and a time.”

Pretty much what I expected. The phone number part, anyway. The time? Not so much. I can’t imagine assigning Jackson a time to call me, as if he’d take orders from anyone.

“Dying to know what I said to her?”

“No.”

It isn’t until I’m tucked in front of him in the cafeteria line that he leans in and says, “I told her I already have what I need. And that any little girl who has to send her friend to pass me a note instead of walking up to me herself isn’t the girl for me.”

“Harsh,” I say, feeling a little sorry for Marcy.

I’m in the kitchen trimming Brussels sprouts when I notice the counter’s completely clear. No bottles. Not even one.

As I pop the Brussels sprouts and cubed squash in the oven to roast, I think back to the past few days and realize that Dad’s started putting his own empties away.

We’ve reached a new understanding, it seems. Ever since the day I told Dad about the AA meetings, I’ve stopped counting the cold ones in the fridge and the empties under the sink. At least, I try to stop. Sometimes I slip and when I realize he’s had five or six or nine, I wish I could go back and unslip.

I’m still working on the whole chillax, go-with-the-flow thing.

When we’re done with dinner, Dad helps me clean up, then grabs his keys.

“Going out?” I ask, trying to sound casual. He’s been going out almost every night, leaving after dinner, coming back after I’m asleep.

“Yep.” He kisses my cheek.

I almost ask where he’s going, and if he wants me to come.

Then I don’t, partly because I can’t be the parent here, can’t control his actions or his choices, and partly because if he’s going to meetings he might not want me there. I don’t want to do anything to make him stop going.

I’m in my pj’s before he gets home—showered, teeth brushed, homework complete, ready for bed but not for sleep. I lie in the dark, waiting for the sound of his car in the drive, his key in the lock, knowing that what I’m doing isn’t good for me. Not knowing how to fix that.

Sometimes, when I’m alone late at night, tossing and turning, my thoughts start to spiral to places I don’t want them to go. To places I inhabited for nearly two years. To the negative self-talk. To the creeping fingers of gray fog that want back in.

Tonight’s one of those nights.

I’m tempted to call Jackson, to let him shoulder the weight of my mood. And that’s exactly why I don’t.

I will not let anyone be my crutch.

At least, that’s what I tell myself.

But then that little voice, the one that’s sibilant and cruel, reminds me everyone leaves.

The only person you can rely on is you.

Better not to fully let down my defenses.

Tonight, like every one of those nights, I cry in my sleep. I know that because I wake up in the morning with tracks along my cheeks.