Push

CHAPTER FIVE

TYRONE SHOWS UP WITH JAW CLENCHED AND HANDS FISTED. He’s tall and handsome, with smooth brown skin and full lips, his dark, tightly curled hair trimmed close. His eyes—all our eyes—are blue in the game, but mine are the only ones that remain that intense shade of indigo in real life. When we aren’t in the game, Luka’s eyes are brown. I think Tyrone’s and Lien’s are, too. Not sure about Kendra. With her pale skin and fair hair, I’d guess her eyes are blue or gray.

Luka’s next. He arrives looking bewildered, then pissed, his whole body tensing as he registers that, yeah, we’re back here again. “This is bullshit,” he snarls.

“Got that right,” Tyrone says, then glances at me. “Jackson?” he asks, his expression unreadable. He and Jackson have been watching each other’s backs for two years, and their relationship’s complicated—part intense dislike, part respect, part some sort of weird guy version of affection. Tyrone’s still mourning Richelle’s death. Losing Jackson . . .

I can’t think about that.

“I believe he’s alive,” I say.

“Believe,” Tyrone repeats, then shifts his attention to Luka. “You believe that?”

“Yeah,” Luka says.

“Then I’ll believe it, too.” Tyrone walks over and stares down at me, his full lips pulled in a taut line. “You okay?”

I nod, but can’t get a single word past the lump in my throat. I glance over at Kendra. She’s standing to one side, arms wrapped tight around her stomach, shoulders hunched forward. I’m more okay than she is, anyway.

When Lien appears, Kendra runs to her with a cry and they weave their fingers together, Lien lowering her head as she whispers to Kendra. It reminds me of the first time I ever saw them, how they stood so close their shoulders touched, warding off the world by forming a wall of two. Everyone else on their original team was killed. They’re the only ones left. But they’re part of my team now and I mean to make certain we all stay safe.

A tremor runs through me. How did I end up responsible for four other lives?

I hear snippets of their whispered conversation.

“. . . can’t do this . . .”

“. . . then you jump in and take the . . . be okay . . .”

“. . . what if we get caught . . .”

Lien catches me watching them and her expression goes completely blank. She runs her hand through her sleek, dark hair, then shakes off the droplets of water that cling to her fingers. “I just got out of the shower.” She gestures at her yoga pants and flip-flops. “Guess I’m lucky I had time to pull on some clothes. Can you imagine if I got pulled five minutes sooner?”

Luka looks her up and down and waggles his brows. “I’d like to have seen that.”

Kendra shoots him a look I can’t read, but Lien’s glare carries a clear message.

The rest of us laugh even though it wasn’t that funny. Comic relief.

But Lien’s question gets me thinking. I did get pulled five minutes sooner. Why not Lien? Because the leaders get pulled first? Or because the Committee knew exactly what she was doing—exactly what each of us was doing—at any given second? Do they watch us while we sleep? While we’re in the bathroom? The possibility of that sends a shiver down my spine on prickly little centipede legs.

“Got a bad feeling about this,” Tyrone says, crossing his arms over his chest as he bends one knee so the sole of his shoe rests against the boulder. “Last mission sucked.”

“That it did,” Luka agrees.

Kendra nods and Lien huffs a short laugh. Unanimous agreement. I think that’s a first.

The last mission was one of firsts: first time any of us had worked with another team; first time there were so many Drau in one place; first time that the battle was truly a battle and not a skirmish.

My first time as leader.

The first time Jackson didn’t make it out.

It takes me a second to realize I’m clenching my fists so tight that my nails are digging into my palms.

“We come back healed in body but not in spirit. We need some downtime or we’re going to make mistakes. Deadly ones. This is too soon,” Tyrone says.

I shake off the feeling of déjà vu. Tyrone said that when we got pulled for the first time after Richelle died. He was standing by one of the boulders, his voice hoarse and raw from crying, and Jackson told us we had a job to do, that we’d do it. He didn’t need to add, Or we’ll die.

“Doesn’t matter how soon it is,” Luka says. “Obviously they don’t care.” He sounds angry and afraid, and I have zero doubt that he’s mirroring the emotions of the whole team.

I can’t let him sink any lower. His life—all our lives—depends on focus and commitment. The pit of despair isn’t exactly the ideal place for us to be. Luka needs to get his head in the game. We all do. Being angry with the Committee isn’t going to lead to anything good.

“Maybe they don’t have the luxury of caring,” I say. “You think they get to pick when there’ll be a Drau attack? You think they’re choosing the time line of this war? I doubt they get a weekly schedule from Drau high command.”

Lien snorts. I have everyone’s attention, so I forge ahead, spinning an idea as I go, with no clue where I’m going to end up. “They have a mission that needs completing, so they pull a team to complete it. We’re that team. But we’re not alone.” I look at each of them in turn. “How many others were there in Detroit? I lost count, and I guess the actual number doesn’t really matter. What matters is that there are others gearing up right now to head out. They’re going to fight. Just like us. So the world can survive.” I pause. “I know it sounds crazy when I say it. A few groups of teenagers are all that stand against mankind’s annihilation. But crazy or not, it is what it is.”

“Not so crazy,” Kendra says softly. “My great-grandfather was eighteen when he went overseas to fight against Hitler. He was a gunner in World War Two. He used to tell us stories about what he called the boys . . . his platoon, or whatever. They were all young. Just like us.”

“My great-grandfather was too young to fight.” I decide not to mention that he spent part of that war interned in a War Relocation camp. His loyalty and that of his parents was brought into question because of their Japanese ancestry. War has a way of amping up paranoia and hate and prejudice.

“Miki, how do you know there are other teams?” Luka asks.

“You know it, too. You saw them in Detroit.”

“I think he means how do you know there are others gearing up right now,” Tyrone says.

“I can see them. I can see mirror-image lobbies just like ours and I can see the teams moving around in them.”

Luka’s brows shoot up. “Seriously?”

I shrug.

“Wallhacks,” Tyrone says. I lift my brows and he explains, “In Counter-Strike a wallhack lets a player see through a wall, see stuff that’s usually obscured.”

“There’s a name for this?” I ask. “A gaming term? Weird.”

Tyrone shrugs.

Luka cocks his head to the side. “Wait, I remember . . . first time you got pulled, right? You kept asking who they were, and I thought you meant Tyrone and Richelle. But you were asking about the other teams.”

I nod.

“Why you?” Tyrone asks, pushing off the boulder and coming to stand closer as he looks down at me.

“Genetics.” It’s as simple and as complicated as that. Jackson explained it to me the night he climbed in my bedroom window. “We all have some level of alien DNA. I get a double dose because I have a specific set of alleles.”

Tyrone and Lien nod, but the others look confused.

“Alleles are like different forms of the same gene,” I clarify. “So we all have alien genes, but it’s like mine are pumped up on steroids.”

“Why?” Tyrone asks.

“Luck of the draw?” I spread my hands in an I-don’t-know gesture.

“My great-grandfather’s stories were usually about boys who died,” Kendra says, as if we hadn’t moved on from that topic. Her tone sounds odd, sort of singsong, like she’s not quite in the same moment as the rest of us. Uneasiness uncoils in my gut as I study her expression. It’s blank, smooth. Too smooth. I’d like to see a little emotion there, even if it’s fear.

“He told us about how they died. In the trenches. On the beach. On long, cold hikes through enemy territory. They died.” She looks at Lien and continues, her tone devoid of inflection, “I can’t do this again. I’m afraid. I don’t want to die.”

The words don’t wig me out. Afraid is normal. We all feel it. It’s her flat expression and tone that get me. I’m worried she isn’t quite present and that could put us all at risk.

“Kendra,” I say. “You can do this. You can.” You have to. Or you’ll die, I don’t say. I don’t need to. She knows.

Her eyes narrow. Her chin juts forward.

“You’re all still here,” she says, her tone venomous now, “but we lost our whole team. Everyone is dead. You don’t know what that’s like!”

I close the space between us in three steps. Kendra shrinks back like she thinks I mean to hit her. Lien shifts so she’s half in front of Kendra. I sidestep her and move closer still.

“The only things I plan to hit her with are words,” I snap at Lien, then focus on Kendra, my voice low and even. “Do not tell me what I do and don’t know. And just to be clear, we are not all still here. We’ve lost teammates, too. I replaced a boy who died. You and Lien replaced more teammates we’ve lost. Richelle’s dead. Jackson’s gone. And I knew a little something about loss and grief before I ever got to this game.”

Kendra takes another step back. I didn’t mean to make her defensive, but I can see why she is. Damn. My team’s losing it. I need to do something to stop the fracture, but I don’t know what.

I wish Jackson were here for so many reasons, not the least of which is so that I don’t have to do this. I’d have thought that after what we faced together in Detroit, this team would be a tight unit, but, if anything, that experience seems to have driven us apart.

Kendra flinches when I reach for her. I ignore that and take her hand—the one that isn’t clasped in Lien’s—and push my fingers between hers until they’re woven together. I hold my other hand out to Luka. He steps up and we both look over at Tyrone.

“I ain’t holding your hand, bro,” Tyrone says to Luka, brows lifting, head jerking back.

“Afraid of a little skin on skin?” Luka asks with a laugh. He lunges for Tyrone, managing to catch his pinky finger.

Tyrone grunts and turns to throw an arm across Luka’s shoulder as he steps and turns, colliding with him chest-to-chest in a typical man hug. They thump each other on the back. I almost expect them to pull out their clubs and learn to make fire.

“You won’t hold hands but you’ll go all huggy- and kissy-face?” Lien asks.

Luka puckers up and makes kissing noises until Tyrone slams him with a fist to the shoulder.

“Boys.” Lien snorts.

Kendra lets out a watery giggle, then reaches for Tyrone so she’s holding his hand and Lien’s.

The humor’s welcome. They’re all letting off a little steam. But we don’t have much time. Any second now, the scores will show up and then we’ll be pulled into whatever nightmare the Drau have lined up for us.

Luka grabs Lien’s free hand. She glares at him but doesn’t pull away. I reach for Tyrone, closing the circle.

“It’s not about our team, your team.” I hold up my linked hands. “One unit. Get it? All of us are one team.” I give it a second so they can think about that and so I can get my words straight in my head. I need to say this right and I’m terrified I’ll say it wrong. I’m not a leader. I’m not.

I’m a loner.

Even during eight years of kendo, I was a part of the team, but always apart. Because I was Sofu’s granddaughter. Because I was the only girl. But now I’m not just on a team, I’m the one they’re looking at to keep them alive.

I glance at Luka. “I’m not Jackson. I don’t have all the answers. But I’m going to try.”

I press my lips together, searching for the right words. I understand Jackson so much better now, his whole every-man-for-himself thing. He got everyone out alive by telling them to watch their own ass. Then he put himself at risk every time watching it for them. But no matter how good he was—is—Jackson couldn’t save everyone every time. Our battle is with aliens who are faster, stronger, and probably smarter.

“We made it through Detroit,” Tyrone says.

“That was more stroke of luck than stroke of leadership genius.” When I think of it like that, I don’t think we stand a chance.

Which is why I can’t let myself think of it like that. Can’t let myself think of the choices I may be forced to make, just like Jackson had to choose between saving me or saving Richelle.

And I know there were others he couldn’t save before her.

I don’t know how he lives with those losses. And I don’t plan to find out.

“We are going in because we have to,” I say, meeting each of their gazes in turn, taking my time. “The Drau are going down. And we’re all coming back out again. We. Are. All. Coming. Back.” I need to believe that. Just like I believed I’d win in kendo against boys who were stronger and faster than me. Just like I believed I’d survive Mom’s death and the gray fog of depression that followed.

I have to stop the negative flow of thoughts, the conviction that I’m not capable.

I will survive.

My team will survive.

The whole fricking world will survive.