Push

CHAPTER TWO

LUKA UNLOCKS THE DOOR OF THE JEEP.

“Miki, you take shotgun.” Carly the magnanimous. “Last thing we need is you having another panic attack.”

“Bossy, much?” I mutter, mostly because she expects it. Yeah, she’s bossy and unpredictable, argumentative, pissy, sometimes even bitchy. But she’s also the friend who steps up when I need her, imagined wrongs forgotten, arms ready to hold me up when I feel like I’m going to fall.

She smiles at me and I want to hug her—for sacrificing herself to the cramped space of the backseat, for being safe and here, in the real world. For being exactly who she is, the friend who’s been there for me through it all.

So I do. I throw my arm around her shoulder and rest my cheek against her hair. She rubs circles on my back.

“I know,” she whispers.

But she doesn’t. She can’t.

“Thank you,” I whisper back. “For always being there.”

She hugs me hard. “Right back at you. BFFs, right? Remember when I got my tongue pierced? You sat there next to me and held my hand.”

“And almost threw up.”

“All the more reason that your attendance at the event was valiant.” She kisses me on the cheek and steps back.

“Hey, I was just about to get in the group hug.” Luka waggles his brows.

“You snooze, you lose,” Carly says, climbing into the backseat. “So . . . where’d you say Jackson went?”

Luka shoots me a look. “He, uh, went out the back door. To the alley.”

“That explanation is majorly sketch. You know that, right?” Carly pops the seat forward again and leans out to look at him. “Who’s he meeting there?”

Luka shrugs.

“Luka?” she says as I push the seat back and climb in.

He still doesn’t answer, just closes my door and rounds the hood to the driver’s side.

I stare out the window trying to come up with something plausible to say.

Undeterred by the heavy evasion vibe hanging in the air—or, more likely, spurred by it—Carly keeps right on going as soon as Luka starts the car. “He managed to disappear without a trace in the few seconds while I got up to follow Miki? That’s weird.”

She has no idea.

“Can someone answer me?” She unhooks her seat belt and leans forward.

Luka meets her eyes in the rearview mirror. “Seat belt.”

Carly flops back and I hear a snap. “Who was he meeting in the alley, Luka? His dealer?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger. Great. The second we drop Carly off, she’ll text Dee and Kelley and Sarah about her suspicions. She’ll swear them to secrecy. But they’ll tell two friends, who’ll tell two friends. Carly won’t mean for it to balloon, but rumors have a way of doing that.

“Seriously, Luka . . . what’s Jackson into?”

“Nothing,” Luka says at the same time I say, “The queen of trying crazy shit is actually asking that question?”

I reach back to give Carly’s knee a shove to let her know I’m kidding.

She flicks my shoulder and says, “Is he in trouble? Should we do something?” She pauses, then asks, “Is he dealing? Maybe he’s getting his shipment in that alley. We really don’t know him that well—”

“I know him that well,” Luka cuts her off. His tone’s not like anything I’ve ever heard him use before. It’s a threat and a warning and an implacable statement.

“Okay. Fine. But I’m just saying—it’s weird.” Something in Carly’s voice makes me turn. She’s looking at Luka with this narrow-eyed, sort of predatory look. Then she sees me watching her and her expression goes neutral.

I press my fingertips against my temples. I need to get things under control. I need a plan. That’s the priority right now. Find Jackson. Get answers. Figure out what his absence means in the big scheme of the game. Figure out why things are escalating so quickly, why there were so many Drau in Detroit.

“Hey, you okay?” Carly rests her hand on my shoulder. When I nod she says, “You’re right, Luka. I’m sorry. You know Jackson better than I do. If you say he isn’t dealing, I’ll take your word on it. Sorry. Really.” Carly the peacemaker’s back online.

“No hay problema.” He grins at her in the rearview mirror and she grins back. Then he says, “Jackson took off with some guys he has a group project with. There was no parking on the street so they pulled in back. He asked me to get his car home because they’re going to drop him off.”

Even I almost believe him. I hadn’t realized Luka could improvise with such aplomb. I always thought his inner Boy Scout kept him honest.

“Well,” Carly huffs out. “Why didn’t you just say that?”

“I just did,” Luka says.

We’ve been driving for a few minutes, music on low, when Carly taps Luka on the shoulder. “What is that?” she asks.

“The music? Dubstep.”

Carly nods. “I’ve heard dubstep before, but this is darker, sort of experimental.”

“These tracks are old,” Luka says. “Maybe from the nineties? Jackson turned me on to them.”

“I like.” She taps my shoulder next. “You look better. You have some color back.”

“I’m better.” So much better. Because Jackson’s alive.

He might not have made it back from the mission, but he’s alive somewhere. The question is: Where?

Then I remember the cave, the gurneys, the clones lined up like cuts of meat in a butcher’s case. I gasp as my little euphoric bubble of hope bursts: What if the Drau have him? What if they’re going to use him as an original donor, create an army of clones from his DNA? I think of the girl in the cold room, her brain removed, the shell of her body kept alive by machines.

My fingers clench, digging into my thighs.

Luka cuts me a sharp look. I turn my face back to the side window, not wanting him or Carly to catch the resurgence of my panic.

Jackson isn’t going to die like that.

I’m going to find him. I’m going to bring him back. I’ve lost so many people I care about. I won’t lose Jackson, too.

This time, I will get a say in how things pan out. This time, the ending of the story won’t shatter me. I won’t let it.

A few minutes later, Luka pulls up in front of Carly’s house. I climb out, pull the seat forward, and hold it as she untangles herself from the backseat. She stares at my face for a few seconds.

“You wanna come do the Friday night dinner thing?” she asks, not even trying to disguise the plea in her tone. Her mom has this thing about the whole family being together for dinner on Friday nights. She doesn’t mind if they have friends over or head out after. But she’s non-negotiable on anyone skipping out on it.

Doing the Friday night dinner thing with Carly’s family would go a long way toward closing the distance that’s been growing between us for weeks, a crack that’s becoming a chasm. I hate to disappoint her, but every minute that ticks past could be putting Jackson’s life at risk. Getting Luka alone to brainstorm a plan has to be my priority right now, and Carly’s just handed me a golden opportunity.

“Maybe tonight’s not the best,” I say. “I’m not sure I can handle the crowd.” Truth. I may be ditching her, but at least I’m not lying. I try to ignore the feeling that I’m letting her down.

Carly skews her lips to the side but doesn’t argue. She looks disappointed but not pissed. My explanation’s plausible. I never want much company on the tail of a full-blown panic attack. Mostly, I just want my bedroom and my music.

Then she glances at Luka and I have the crazy idea she’s going to ask him to dinner. With her parents. And her brothers. Is she kidding? A boy who isn’t related to her at family dinner night? They’ll chew him up and spit him out. I guess she has the same thought because the invitation never materializes.

“You sure, Miki? I know Mom would love to see you.” That’s as close to begging as she’ll get.

I almost cave. Then I think of Jackson, trapped somewhere in the game, and I say, “Sorry. Call me after, ’kay? Maybe you’ll come over?”

She brightens a little. “’Kay.” Then she gives me a quick, one-armed hug. As she does, I catch sight of my backpack, rammed into the corner of the seat. I freeze.

Jackson’s backpack. It’s in the trunk. I have a place to start, the seeds of a plan.

As Carly heads for her front door, I expect Luka to start talking. When he doesn’t, I ask, “Do you know where he is?”

“No.” He looks at me, then back at the road, his knuckles white where he grips the wheel.

Disappointment and worry sit in my chest like an unchewed chunk of cold, greasy pizza.

“But he’s alive, Miki. I know that much.”

“Alive for how much longer? I keep thinking they have him. That they’re going to use him to make an army of shells. Like that girl in the cold room. The one he”—I break off, then force myself to finish—“killed.”

“Terminated,” Luka whispers, then says, louder, “No.” He shakes his head rapidly from side to side. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think they have him. They don’t need to keep him alive to make shells. They just need his body, hooked up to machines. If they took him, they’d have—” He breaks off, swallows. “He wouldn’t still be alive.”

“You’re right.” I desperately want him to be right. “And since Carly remembers him, that means he is still alive . . . somewhere.”

“Exactly. So what are the chances that the Drau have him? Slim to none, right?”

I nod. The weight that’s been crushing my chest lifts a little, but I’m afraid to hope, afraid of the hard crash that’ll come if we’re wrong.

Luka touches my forearm, then puts his hand back on the wheel. “We don’t have much if we don’t have hope.”

I stare out the window, thinking about that, wondering if it’s true.

As soon as we’re out of sight of Carly’s house, I say, “Pull over,” determined to follow the one possible lead we do have.

“What are you doing?” Luka asks, following me when I get out and head for the trunk.

I drag out Jackson’s backpack and start going through the pockets. “Looking for clues.”

Luka sighs. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to.

“I know the chances of finding anything are slim, but I have to try,” I say, pulling out an empty water bottle and a ten-dollar bill. I shove them back in and move to the next pocket.

“There won’t be anything, Miki. We can’t bring anything back with us when we respawn.”

“Got a better idea?” I glance at him.

His mouth compresses in a thin line. He shakes his head and mutters, “Knock yourself out.”

I pull out Jackson’s textbooks one by one, fanning the pages in case there’s something hidden in between, then stacking the books in a neat pile. “There might be something in here that helps us find him.”

Luka’s quiet for a minute. I think he’s going to offer up more objections. Instead, he moves closer, picks up a book from the top of the pile, and double-checks in case I missed anything.

I move to the smaller front pouch and find a paperback copy of Andrzej Sapkowski’s Blood of Elves. My copy. The one I lent him.

It’s the last thing in the bag.

“There’s nothing here.” I start to shift everything back into Jackson’s pack when Luka reaches over and taps his finger on the textbook at the top of the pile. “What?” I ask.

He stares at the book, his dark eyes unfocused.

“Luka?” I ask. “Something special about Jackson’s law text?”

“No, it’s just—” He shakes his head. “I swear I thought of something, but it’s gone.” He waves a hand. “Poof.”

“Don’t focus on it.” I push the rest of the books back into the pack, then shove it deeper into the trunk, wishing I could shove aside my disappointment with it. “Think about other stuff and it’ll come to you.”

“Yeah.”

“You were right,” I concede as he gets the Jeep moving. “That was a waste of time.”

“Now what?” Luka asks, sounding bleak.

Good question. One I can’t answer. But I have to find an answer. Jackson’s life may depend on us.

“We talk it out,” I say. “We list everything we know, every possibility. We look for a pattern, or something that doesn’t fit the pattern.”

“It’s gonna be a short list.”

“It’ll be an empty list if we don’t at least try. So what do we know?”

“That he didn’t respawn with the rest of us.”

“And that he’s alive,” I say, needing to affirm it as fact.

Luka cuts me a sidelong glance. “If we figure out why he didn’t come back with us, maybe we can figure out where he is.”

“Maybe because he wasn’t with us in the first place,” I say. “He was on a different team.”

“And if his team’s still fighting—”

“Then he’s still there.”

I’m allowed a millisecond of hope before Luka shakes his head. “Our team wouldn’t have respawned until the mission was complete.”

Which means that even if he was on a different team, Jackson should have come back with us once the mission was done. “What if he got pulled on another mission?”

“Without coming back at all?” Luka frowns. “I’ve never heard of anyone going directly from one to another.”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t possible.” Luka opens his mouth to answer, but before he can say anything, I contradict myself. “Yeah, it does. We always respawn at the exact second we left.”

“And the world moves on from that second,” Luka says. “Which means Jackson would have come back exactly when he left, at the pizza place, before getting pulled again.”

“Which means we still know absolutely nothing.” I slump in my seat, deflated.