Push

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

MY SENSES ARE HEIGHTENED, THE FEEL OF THE BANNISTER under my palm sharp and clear, the sensation of my feet pounding the stairs jarring and stark. My heart rate’s amped. My breathing’s fast and shallow. Adrenaline rush.

Deep inside me the writhing awareness of the Drau ramps up, like a nest of snakes. They’re somewhere ahead of us. I can’t see them, but they’re here. I feel it in every cell of my body.

And it’s me, Luka, and Jackson against an army. I’m not liking the odds.

We follow Jackson to a door, then down more stairs to the basement. I’ve been down here once before, last year, when the drama teacher had me and Carly help go through some boxes to find costumes.

The walls on either side are painted white, the stairs here narrow and steep. At the bottom is a long corridor, dim, empty, shadowy doorways marking the walls.

The Drau could be anywhere, in any one of these basement rooms.

“Trap?” I whisper.

“Maybe,” Luka answers.

“What do we do?”

“We go in,” Jackson says.

I open my mouth, then close it. I already know what he’ll say: What makes you think you get a choice?

He’s right. My gut’s telling me this is a bad idea, that the Drau are playing us, leading us into a trap. Why run through the dance like that? Why create pandemonium only to hide here?

And why be here at all? Why Glenbrook High?

Again, the ugly possibility that the Committee planned it this way, that they’re sending a message to me, to Jackson, worms through my thoughts.

Doesn’t matter. I have to keep going. We have to keep going. And not just because that’s the instruction the Committee’s feeding Jackson.

It’s because the Drau pushed into my world, my real world. They are threatening my friends. I have to stop them.

Jackson holds a hand up to signal a halt when we come up on the first door. It’s open. The room beyond is dim but not dark, a single naked bulb hanging from the ceiling. It’s more a large closet than a room, and it’s empty.

We move to the next door. He signals Luka, then me. We flank the two sides of the door, weapons ready.

I hold Luka’s gaze, feel eerily calm despite the thud of my own pulse and the energy pushing me to move.

Jackson gives the signal.

Luka and I round the doorjamb into a crouch, weapons aimed. And there it is: the kick of my heart, the depth of my breathing, the singular focus, my eyes taking in every detail, my ears straining for sounds. I’m in it now. Scared. Agitated. Exhilarated. In it with everything I am.

Game on.

There’s nothing here. No movement. No threat.

But they could be hiding.

We go in, me right, Luka left, Jackson straight ahead. The concrete floor’s gray and discolored. The far wall has four thick, black pipes sticking out of it. There’s a pile of stained and frayed cream-colored cushions tied together with rope in the middle of the room. But there are no Drau.

Jackson gives the thumbs-up: clear.

We continue along the hall, clearing rooms, tension drawing tighter as we go.

Another door opens to a huge room with two black metal boilers and tons of thick pipes sticking out of the walls, the floor, spanning the ceiling. Lots of places the Drau could lie in wait.

We fan out exactly the way we’ve done every other room so far. Luka left. Me right. Jackson straight ahead.

I check behind the boilers, behind three thick pipes. Nothing.

Jackson gives the thumbs-up again.

We turn to go.

A wave of fear and bone-deep revulsion hits me, violent, shocking, like ice in my veins. It comes out of nowhere, intense and powerful.

Drau.

Here.

I spin. Spin again.

Where are they?

Trap! Move! I hear Jackson’s voice inside my head as we sprint for the door.

Light comes at us from both ends of the hallway. The Drau are everywhere.

My weapon cylinder hums to life, obeying my will, the dark, deadly stream catching a Drau in the chest. I switch it to my left hand, the shape changing subtly to account for the differences. I shoot. Shoot again. Not even taking time to aim.

I throw my weight forward onto my left foot, kick back with my right, my heel connecting with the bottom of the sheath hanging between my shoulder blades.

The handle of my sword flies up and I grab it and clear the scabbard, bringing the blade into position. I crack it down on a Drau’s forehead, yank it back, and slam it down a second time.

Hiraki-ashi: pivot.

I take out two Drau that come at me from the side.

My skin burns where their weapons hit me, droplets of pain that sink into every part of me.

I fire. Fire again. My weapon cylinder is like a living thing, like a part of my arm. I realize that instinctively Luka, Jackson, and I have arranged ourselves in a tight group with the wall at our backs.

We’re surrounded.

There are so many of them.

And it isn’t just our lives at risk. Everyone who hasn’t yet evacuated the dance is only a floor away.

They have no clue what we’re up against.

I don’t want them to have a clue.

I’m just praying Carly and Kelley and Dee made it out. Maylene. Aaron. Shareese. So many kids I’ve known almost my whole life.

I have to win. Have to take out the enemy.

Lives depend on me.

I surge forward, my blade sweeping across my attackers. Shards of light fall on me, penetrating skin and muscle, pain bright and sharp clear through to bone.

Black ooze pulses from my weapon in a powerful stream, eating a Drau, pulling it in headfirst. The way it screams is familiar now. I cringe, then lock those feelings away.

Them or me.

There’s a commotion to my left. I can’t see what it is.

“Reinforcements!” Luka yells, but I’m shorter than him and I can’t see what he sees.

Jackson leaps forward and cuts a Drau in this freaky underhand sideways maneuver that leaves the Drau’s throat slit open, head lolling back. I catch a glimpse of white bone and very dark blood, and then the Drau’s gone, digested by the surge from Jackson’s weapon cylinder.

That Drau was inches from me.

“Focus,” Jackson snarls.

I yank my cylinder up and fire over his shoulder, taking out the Drau that was coming at his back.

“Focus,” I snarl back.

I lunge, thrust, making up moves as I go because this sure as hell isn’t anything I ever learned in kendo. This is a miserable, wretched slaughterhouse where I hack at limbs and chests and heads, stab at torsos—anything to hold them off.

Sweat trickles along my spine. My arm feels like a thousand-pound weight is dragging it down. I can’t stop. I can’t rest. I lift my sword. I pull everything I’ve ever learned and funnel it into each move. I time my strikes, taking advantage of the Drau’s forward movement, using its momentary focus on its own attack against it.

But I’m tiring. Fading. We all are.

How long have we been down here? How long can we go on?

“Now would be a great time for a plan,” Luka yells.

A plan. We can’t go in either direction along the hall. The Drau are coming at us from both sides like converging swarms of locusts. The only place we can go is back into the room with the boilers.

I shoot a split-second glance in that direction. No chance. They’ve herded us away from the door and we’re stuck here against the wall, a tiny island of three in a churning sea of Drau.

“The reinforcements . . . is it Tyrone?”

Luka shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Can’t be sure. I caught sight of a human head, but I can’t say whose.”

So another team’s here. Maybe we can coordinate somehow, strengthen our position.

“Can you still see them?” Jackson asks, which means that even though he has height advantage, he hasn’t caught sight of them, either.

Luka shakes his head again, dashing my hope for a coordinated team effort.

Jackson steps and turns so he’s at ninety degrees to the wall as he shoots a Drau dead ahead, while at the same time flipping his knife blade up and jacking his fist back over his shoulder like he’s throwing salt, slamming a Drau right between the eyes.

His expression is set in grim lines. He seems leaner and harder than I’ve ever seen him, his cheeks hollowed, his jaw taut. His lips draw back from his teeth in a snarl as he turns his body and takes a spray of Drau fire across his back, sheltering me from the worst of it.

“Every man for himself,” I remind him as I lunge and hack at his attacker.

Jackson doesn’t say anything back. I don’t really expect him to.

We fight until my brain is numb. My entire being is comprised of my hands, my sword, my weapon cylinder.

The Drau keep coming, wedging us apart. Every move we make to try to stay together, they counter. Exposed, outnumbered, we don’t stand much chance. Then I think of my friends, my teachers . . . and not just them. The whole community’s at risk if we don’t stop the Drau here. The whole damn world.

It seems ridiculous, a handful of teens against a monster invasion.

And thinking like that might get me killed.

So I don’t think. I just lean against the wall, not bothering with footwork anymore; my rubbery legs aren’t up to the challenge. My whole body feels like it’s on fire, pinpricks of pain bursting bright as the Drau shower droplets of light—droplets of agony—on us. I’m breathing too fast, too hard, and I can’t slow it down. My movements are growing sluggish, sweat dripping in my eyes, blurring my vision. I don’t dare look at my con.

I don’t know where Jackson is. He was separated from us. I can’t see him. But I know he’s alive. He has to be alive.

Luka grunts and jerks. He presses right up against me. At first, I think it’s because he’s trying to protect me. Then I realize it’s because I’m helping to hold up his weight.

He’s in bad shape.

We’re in trouble.

I hack at bodies.

There’s movement to my left and I turn, aim, shift my weapon at the last second as I see a human head bob up beyond the sea of Drau.

Too short to be Jackson. Someone else. The reinforcements Luka saw earlier. They must have been fighting one end of the mass of Drau while we tackled the other.

I almost shout in relief.

There’s a spray of light so bright it makes me see spots. Pinpoints of pain erupt on the side of my face, my neck, my shoulder. Luka’s body jerks against mine; then he stumbles, almost falling. Almost taking me down with him.

I get my shoulder under his, panic biting at me.

“Got him,” Jackson says, coming up on Luka’s other side. Before he can take Luka’s weight, he spins to the left, throws his knife.

It plants solidly between a Drau’s eyes.

Jackson leaps forward and pulls the blade free, then comes back and gets his shoulder under Luka’s.

“The boiler room,” he says, and I realize that somewhere in the past few minutes, we’ve worked our way back toward that room.

“We’ll be trapped.”

“We can pick them off as they come through the door.”

He half drags, half carries Luka backward through the door. I stay in front of him, offering cover, shooting, hacking, one step back and another until we’re all in the room.

Trapped.

I check Luka’s con. Dark orange tinged with red. His eyes are closed, his breathing shallow. Where’s he hit? Where’s he bleeding?

Everywhere.

Jackson stands in front of us and covers me as I unzip Luka’s vest, check his chest, his abdomen. Wounds, but nothing that’s bleeding too much. Then I see the shine on his black pants at the very top of his thigh.

“There’s an artery there,” Jackson says, tossing me his knife, hilt up. “Cut his pants. If the blood’s spurting, we’re in deep shit. If it’s oozing, it’s not as bad.”

I slash Luka’s pants, terrified of what I’ll find, expecting a spray of blood.

Instead, I find a trickle.

I exhale sharply. Then I set about slicing off a piece of his shirt, forming a pad, slicing off a second length, and tying it all down.

Luka’s lids flutter. His gaze sharpens. He glances down at the location of my hands.

“Hey,” he says. “If you wanted me that badly, all you had to do was ask.”

I snort.

He lifts his hand and shoots, taking out a Drau that was charging the doorway.

“Any closer and that shot would have hit my hip,” Jackson says.

“You’re welcome,” Luka says, trying to pull himself up to a sitting position against the pile of ratty cushions. Third try’s the charm. Panting, he sends me a pained grimace.

I leave him there and move to Jackson’s side, my weapon cylinder humming as we take down any Drau that fill the doorframe. We may be trapped in here, but it’s a pretty good bet we can hold them off out there, at least for a while.

Stalemate. I’ll take it, for now.

“We need a location on the other team,” Jackson says. “It’d be nice if I knew how many there are and exactly where our backup’s positioned.”

“The Committee’s not telling you anything?”

“No.”

I cover Jackson as he peers around the doorjamb, then steps through, motioning me to move forward.

There’s a girl just to the right of the door. Her back is to us, light brown hair falling over her shoulders. She takes out a Drau with a spray of light, the weapon in her hand smooth and metallic and jellylike.

“That’s the girl who helped me on the last mission,” I say, recognizing her posture, the way she moves, the set of her shoulders.

“Go,” he says. “I’ll cover you and Luka from here.”

I dart forward so I’m with her, side by side.

A Drau comes at me, moving too fast. Terror claws at me. I fire. It fires. Pain erupts all the way up my arm. My fingers go numb and lax and my sword clatters to the floor.

I lift my cylinder, but the Drau’s gone.

Point for Miki.

I squat, retrieve my blade, and realize the hall’s clearer now. Three Drau run away toward the far end. The girl sprints after them. She’s close enough to shoot, but she doesn’t. Just like last time.

The pain in my arm makes me feel woozy. I force my unresponsive fingers to close around the hilt of my sword. With a groan, I lift it, but I won’t be using it—not with this hand, not anytime soon.

“Miki,” Jackson says, grabbing my good arm and dragging me back toward the room where Luka’s holed up.

“Is it over?” I whisper. “Do we make the jump now?”

He shakes his head.

So there are more Drau here somewhere. We need to smoke them out.

Jackson stops in the doorway and aims his weapon down the hall at the fleeing Drau. They’re almost at the end now. He doesn’t shoot. The girl’s in the way.

He curses under his breath.

She stops dead, spins back toward us. Her hair obscures her face, then settles to her shoulders.

“No,” she says, the inflection familiar.

My world jerks to a stop.

I’ve seen a close-up of that face framed in brushed nickel.

I’ve seen those features on rows and rows of clones as I pulled out tubes and turned off machines.

I’ve spoken to this girl in my dreams.

I’ve seen those eyes. Green. Lizzie green.

Jackson makes a choked, horrified sound.

“Miki! Miki!” Carly’s voice, behind me.

I turn, a reflex. Jackson turns with me.

“You have to leave the building.” Carly’s standing at the end of the hallway next to the stairs we originally took to come down here. Her body’s tense, her face pale. I stare at her in horror, words locked in my throat. Get out. Get out now. Get away. Go! “They’re evacuating,” she says, oblivious to my panic on her behalf. “Everyone out. Didn’t you hear the fire alarm? You’re lucky I saw you duck out and come this way.”

Carly followed me. To keep me safe.

She waves her hand in a frantic, beckoning motion. “Come on! We have to go.”

She can’t be here. I don’t want her here. I don’t want her anywhere near the Drau.

Now I understand what Jackson felt when he saw me outside his window. He wanted me gone. He wanted me out of the game. He wanted me safe.

That’s what I want for Carly. But here she is.

Because she wants me safe.

Only, she has no idea what monsters lurk down here.

“Go,” I yell, finally rediscovering my voice. “Carly, get out. Go!”

My words sound strange in my ears. Slow. Heavy. Like I’m underwater.

I shake my head, completely disoriented. It’s like this whole scene is playing out in slow motion. But it isn’t just that. It’s like time’s passing differently in different compartments of the same reality.

How long did it take Carly to get down here?

It feels like we’ve been battling the Drau for hours and hours. But Carly’s acting like I just ran down here moments ago.

There’s a sound behind me. Running footsteps.

I turn my head, my torso, looking back over my shoulder. The movement takes an eternity.

The green-eyed girl’s gone. Jackson’s halfway up the hall, running after her.

Again, the sensation that time is distorting hits me. The hallway must be as long as three football fields for him to still be running.

“Miki! Come on!” Carly yells.

I turn back toward her.

Light flares behind her.

Light shaped in human form.

A red flower blossoms on the yellow spandex of her suit, just below the Dijon mustard label she has tacked to the cloth.

Her eyes widen. Her brows rise. Her mouth forms a round O.

She looks confused, startled. Afraid.

The moment hangs suspended.

She doesn’t drop to the ground. It’s more of a long, slow crumple, like a coat sliding off a hanger.

Or a final exhalation.