Push

CHAPTER EIGHT

I SKID TO A STOP MAYBE THREE FEET FROM THE DRAU. INSTINCT sends my head jerking back. Our gazes collide. Eyes of endless, swirling gray. I’m drowning in a silvery lake, the eternity of a storm, beads of mercury swelling and coalescing to swallow me, take me.

Pain.

My existence pulled out through my eyes.

My knees go weak, but I lock them, refusing to fall.

Don’t. Look. Jackson’s voice inside my head. But he’s not here. He’s just a memory, and if I let go, just let go, let the cool mercury glide over me, through me—

There’s a thud against my abdomen, like I’ve been kicked. I tear my gaze away. My breath rushes out. I gasp for air, pressing my hand to the wound. My sword clatters to the floor, falling not from my hand but from the Drau’s.

How . . . ?

The Drau looks up, over my shoulder, somewhere behind me. I turn my head . . . except . . . I don’t.

I can’t.

My ears are ringing, my head buzzing with the drone of a thousand wasps. I feel like a pricked balloon, deflating, sagging.

I’m cold.

Shaking.

I look down and everything’s red. My hand. My sleeve. The front of my shirt. Glossy red. The air smells of copper. Of blood. My blood.

I’ve been stabbed. I’m bleeding everywhere, my clothing soaked with it. But I don’t really feel any pain. I don’t feel anything at all.

Why doesn’t it hurt?

I rest my shoulder against the wall, aim, fire, take out the Drau that’s just killed me and another as it streaks up the hall.

Daddy, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you all alone.

Jackson, I’m sorry. So sorry.

I hear a hiss, like someone exhaling through their teeth. A girl with light brown hair loose around her shoulders steps in front of me firing down the corridor, taking out two more Drau.

Her presence means there’s another team here. We’re not on our own like I thought. I slide the rest of the way down the wall, my legs like celery stalks forgotten in the back of the crisper. Then I lie there, too weak to move, my shoulders and head propped up against the wall, the rest of me a splay of limbs on the cold floor.

The girl fires and fires again, then drops to her knees beside me, reaching toward my wound.

She pushes aside the sliced edges of my shirt. Two more Drau, twelve o’clock. I lift my weapon and point it over her shoulder. Panting, I fire, take out the first one, but the second keeps coming. So fast. So bright. My hand shakes, so weak, and drops to my side.

Numb. Useless.

“Drau,” I gasp. I expect her to leap up, turn, shoot. But she does none of those things.

“They’ve got my back,” she says.

Then a shower of light hits the Drau I missed, and it goes down screaming. I turn my head looking for the girl’s teammates, but they must have taken cover out of sight.

The floors and walls spin and dip. My lids drift shut. I feel a tug, like someone’s pulling my shirt off. I drag my hand to my opposite shoulder and realize it’s bare. I’m only wearing my sports tank.

“Why are you taking off my clothes?”

She doesn’t answer. I force my eyes open again. Force myself to focus.

Nothing makes sense. A shower of light took down the Drau that I missed. The girl’s teammate took out that Drau with light.

That’s not right.

Our weapons shoot darkness.

Then I notice the weapon the girl has holstered. It isn’t like mine. It’s metallic and smooth, but it doesn’t look solid. It’s fluid and jellylike: a Drau gun. Confused, I ask, “Why . . . ?”

“Shh. Don’t talk,” she says. “Save your strength.”

The floor moves beneath me, tipping away.

For a millisecond, her eyes meet mine. And they’re not right, either. Everyone’s eyes are blue in the game. Everyone’s. Except Jackson’s. His are always Drau gray, no matter what. But this girl’s aren’t blue.

They’re green. Lizzie green.

I remember the pictures in the front hall of Jackson’s house. I remember Lizzie’s face when I shared Jackson’s nightmare. This girl . . . she’s Lizzie.

She reaches for my wound and I cry out from the pain.

This girl can’t be Jackson’s sister. Lizzie’s dead.

I’m losing it. Hallucinating.

Drau appear to the left of us. I try to lift my hand, to aim, to shoot. My vision wavers and then clears. There are no Drau there now. Only a wall.

“I’m in trouble, aren’t I?” I whisper.

“You’ll be fine.”

Right.

She’s holding a T-shirt in her hands—my T-shirt—and she folds it into a thick square and presses it against my wound. At first I feel nothing. Then I do. I grit my teeth, but a groan leaks out.

“Press,” she orders, laying my hand on the wadded shirt and pushing my fingers flat.

I press.

She grabs her weapon and another off the ground, one that a downed Drau must have dropped, and bounds to her feet. Only then do I realize that the battle kept going without us. That her team members are still warding off the Drau attack. I don’t even have enough strength to turn my head and look for them. She spins and fires, double-handed. Again. Again.

“Hang on,” she calls to me over her shoulder. And then, “. . . Going to lose it if . . .” The rest of her words are lost as she moves to fight off another two Drau.

My blood leaks through the makeshift pad, leaving my fingers warm and slick. I have the crazy thought that this isn’t like they show on TV where the guy with his gut ripped open leaps to his feet and battles the bad guy to the glorious end. I won’t be doing any leaping anytime soon; I don’t think my feet would hold me.

I have the bizarre urge to laugh and laugh.

I want to close my eyes and sleep.

So weak. So tired.

I force my eyes open and will myself to stay awake. I turn my wrist and look at my con. More red than orange. Not good.

Footsteps, moving fast. I turn my head to see Luka running toward me. Behind him are Lien and Kendra and Tyrone.

The girl who saved me turns around. A Drau steps out of a corridor behind her. She doesn’t see it. She doesn’t know it’s there.

I scream, but the only sound that comes out is a gasp.

She can’t die. Not like this. I owe her.

I lift my hand. The weapon cylinder feels like it weighs a thousand pounds.

I fire.

I miss, the Drau moving so fast I never stood a chance.

The girl never stood a chance.

But before it can take her down, a thousand droplets of light rain over it. The Drau falls, writhing, hurt but not dead, a speckling of dark spots marking the places it was hit.

I don’t know who made that shot. I’m too slow turning my head and by the time I do, there’s no one there.

The girl sweeps my sword off the ground, lunges, and pins the Drau through the chest. It arches, shudders, lies still. She tosses my sword down beside me and takes off down the corridor, chasing after a blur of light—a fleeing Drau. She pours on speed. But the Drau are so fast. She shouldn’t be able to catch it. . . .

They turn a corner and they’re gone.

“Miki!” Luka drops and slides across the floor to my side. He jerks my fingers out of the way, and makes a low sound as he stares at my wound. Then he puts the wadded T-shirt back in place, layers his palms, right on left, and presses hard. I scream. Really scream.

“I’m sorry.” His jaw clenches, but he doesn’t ease up. “You’re bleeding out. I need to put pressure. I need to keep you alive.”

“Two Drau. Two o’clock,” Tyrone snarls, his weapon belching black death.

Lien and Kendra zip forward. Lien’s faster, her weapon aimed and steady, but she doesn’t fire. It’s Kendra who takes both Drau down.

“I had it, but thanks for the help,” Tyrone says. He sounds angry, and the way he said thanks made it sound like he meant anything but.

I want to ask him why, but I can’t find the strength. I’m tired. Weak. My side hurts. I pull at the edge of the pad Luka’s pressing down on my wound. The whole thing is sticky, even the edge I’m tugging at.

My head falls back against the concrete floor. I stare at the corrugated metal ceiling, trying to breathe through the pain. My eyes drift shut. I exhale, but can’t seem to find a way to inhale again.

Jackson’s there. I feel his cheek against my lips, then his lips on mine, warm, smooth. His breath is my breath. My lungs fill.

I love you.

Did I say that, or did he?

“Breathe, Miki. Come on! Breathe!”

With a gasp I open my eyes. Luka’s above me, his face inches away.

“Okay,” he says, his voice ragged. “Okay, she’s breathing.”

My vision goes foggy. I hear Tyrone’s voice from a million miles away. He’s talking, but I can’t figure out what he’s saying.

Snap. Luka’s face comes back into sharp focus.

“Miki, answer me! How long till we make the jump?”

“What? Why . . . ?” I stare at him. “Did you kiss me?”

“Yeah. Right. Kiss of life. You stopped breathing,” he says, his voice is tight and strained. “Be happy that I know CPR. How long till we make the jump?” he repeats.

“Thirty,” I whisper as the knowledge gets dropped in my head by the Committee. My gaze drifts away from Luka and I see Tyrone and Lien and Kendra watching me, faces pale, expressions drawn. I try for a reassuring smile, and from Tyrone’s frown, figure I fail miserably. “The girl . . . ?” I ask Luka. “She okay?”

“What girl?”

How did he not see her? He was running toward me as she was running away.

“There’s no girl,” Kendra says, her voice gentle.

“There is . . . was,” I whisper, weak, so weak. “From another team.”

“She’s not here now,” Luka says, and I can tell he doesn’t think she was ever here.

“She—”

A shout of agony echoes in my brain, deep and guttural. I echo the sound, crying out, my whole body tensing, pressure building inside my head as though a vise is crushing my skull.

As the cry in my mind fades, another follows. I arch my back, heels pressed to the floor, screaming. Screaming.

“Miki!”

Hands on my shoulders, holding me down.

“Keep her still!” Lien’s voice. “She’s making the bleeding worse.”

Pain in my gut. Pain in my brain. Something trying to get in.

I can’t—

Get out of my head.

I know that voice.

Jackson.

I can hear him, cursing them, fighting them.

You’ve taken enough. You don’t get to take this from me. He sounds angry, determined.

“Jackson,” I scream.

“It’s Luka, Miki. I’m right here. Hang on. Just a few more seconds.”

I want to tell him I know that Jackson’s not here, that he’s somewhere else, somewhere terrible. I can feel what he feels. Someone’s hurting him. On purpose. Tunneling into his brain.

“Drau . . .”

“We got them. We’re going to jump. Any second now.”

No. He doesn’t understand. I think the Drau have Jackson. They’re cutting open his skull, taking his brain, like they did to the girl in the cold room we found in the caves. They’re going to use him to make an army of shells.

I thrash under the pressure of Luka’s hand. He rests his palm against my chest, just like Jackson did the first time I woke up in the lobby.

“I need to get to him. I need to—”

Jump. The Committee’s inside my head, the word shimmering through all my senses. I taste it. I see it dancing like a halo of light. I feel it skittering across my skin.

A familiar agonizing pain takes root at the base of my skull and pulses outward until it blows me apart.