“Tyrone’s our resident expert,” Luka says unnecessarily.
“Yeah. I get that,” I say.
Richelle laughs. “If you can actually understand what he’s talking about.” She cuts him a sidelong look through her lashes. “He has this idea that someday he’s going to turn all of this into a game and sell it for the big bucks.” The way she says it tells me she doesn’t think that’s such a crazy plan. She sounds proud.
We keep moving. People flow around us like water, not looking at us, but parting to let us pass.
I follow Jackson right through the center of a group of women who are laughing and talking about girls’ night and some guy’s abs. We’ve cut through a few large groups, but this time it hits me. “They don’t see us,” I blurt.
He slows just long enough for me to catch up. “No, but somewhere in their subconscious, they sense our presence.”
“Wow. You strung more than ten words together and offered information voluntarily.” I don’t know why I say it. There’s just something that makes me want to needle him. Maybe because it distracts me from being afraid. But I regret the lost opportunity to ask more questions when he clips out, “I’m already regretting it.”
He doesn’t look at me when I mutter, “Dish it out but can’t take it.”
“Ten,” he says.
“What?”
“You said I strung more than ten words together. But I didn’t. I strung together precisely ten.”
My jaw goes slack and I can’t think of a single snappy comeback.
I jog in silence for a few seconds before I hear, “Give me a
j
.” I glance over to see Richelle beside me, doing a high V, moving her hands like she’s holding pom-poms. She repeats the movement and trills, “Give me a
k
.” Her brows lift. “I’ll let you fill in the two letters in between. Try
e
and
r
.”
I mentally add the letters and huff out a laugh.
“That’s our Jackson,” she says with a wink.
“You’re on the squad.”
“What gave it away?” She gestures at her outfit and grins. “My mom wanted me to be at the top like she was, but I’m a base. That means I’m the one on the bottom, lifting the flyer into her stunt. Which is actually fine with me. I wouldn’t want to be the one at the top. I’m scared of heights.” She looks me over, then asks, “You?”
I shake my head. “No squad for me. I run.”
There’s a surreal quality to this conversation. It’s so ordinary. And our situation . . . isn’t. We’re jogging along the Vegas strip on a mission to hunt aliens. It hits me then that I’ve accepted that fact. I know I’m not dreaming or fantasizing. This is
real
.
“Track team?” Richelle asks.
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m not much of a team player. That’s Luka’s thing. I run just for me.”
She laughs, but there’s an edge to it. “Good for you. Sometimes I think I’m so busy trying to make my mom proud, doing everything exactly as she wants me to do, I forget to do anything for me.”
“What would you want to do?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it? I guess I need to figure out where Mom’s ideas end and mine begin.”
We turn onto a quieter street. Richelle’s jogging along beside me, and I shock the hell out of myself when I say in a rush, “My mom’s dead. SCLC. Small cell lung cancer.” On my fourteenth birthday, she was laughing and chasing me into the waves at Atlantic Beach. We’d been going to North Carolina, renting the same oceanfront cottage my whole life. But that birthday everything changed. I remember the wave taking her under. I remember her coming up coughing. And coughing. I don’t think she ever stopped coughing after that. Four months later, she was dead.
Four months
. Chemo and radiation didn’t help worth shit. “I made my father put a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in her coffin along with the photos he chose of me and him and all of us together.” I pause, remembering that, remembering all the times my parents sat watching TV or reading the paper, a cloud of smoke hanging over them. “I was that angry.”
“Maybe you still are,” Richelle says.
I stop dead, because I can’t believe I’ve told her all this—I never talk about it. Not even with Carly.
Never
—and because I can’t believe a girl I’ve only just met hit the nail so precisely on the head.
I turned sixteen last month, and it was just me and Dad at Atlantic Beach, running into the ocean with our memories. I pretended the salty streaks on my face were from the waves.
So did he.
I pretended my bathing suit didn’t reveal the small eagle I’d had tattooed over my heart—a symbol of courage: Mom’s as she faced the horror of her disease. Mine as I continue to cling to the edge of the dark pit by my fingernails, trying to move forward, my memories of her slowly curling up at the edges and growing hazier with each passing day.
Dad pretended he didn’t see my ink, because he’d already told me not till I was eighteen.
We get by that way, Dad and me. Mostly honest, but sometimes not.
I stare at Richelle. Maybe she’s right; maybe I am that angry.
Tyrone nudges me on the shoulder. “Focus,” he says softly. I follow his gaze to see Jackson stalking back toward us.
“This isn’t social time,” Jackson says.
I told you stay close enough that I could hear you breathe
, he doesn’t say. But I swear I hear it anyway.
His words are a reminder that closes around my heart like a fist. For an instant, I’d been lulled into a sense of complacency, pushing aside the confusion and fear and questions about the bizarre turn my life has taken. Instead, I’d focused only on Richelle and the fact that she seems nice, easy to talk to. She seems like someone I want to know.
But this
isn’t
social time.
Jackson’s already told me that he can’t read my mind, but he might as well be able to because he says, “We aren’t here to make friends.”
“You’re such an asshole.”
“Keeps me alive.”
“You love getting the last word,” I grouse as he turns away.
“True enough,” he tosses over his shoulder, and if it were anyone but him, I’d swear he was smiling as he said it.
We must have been jogging for an hour or so when Jackson holds up a hand, and we slow to a walk. I’m barely winded. I’d like to chalk that up to my excellent physical condition, but the truth is, after a jog like that, I’d usually be drenched and breathing hard.
“You’re not even sweating,” I whisper to Luka.
He nods. “Being on a mission does that. We’re stronger, faster. We don’t need to eat or drink. I think it has something to do with this.” He holds up his wrist to show me his con. “You’re still feeling it a bit because you’re so new. Next time will be easier.”
Next time. “Yay.” I roll my shoulders, then ask, “Why weren’t we just dropped in exactly where we need to be? Why make us run for an hour?”
Even though my questions are aimed at Luka, it’s Tyrone who answers. “Reason one: We need to acclimate to the shift. The time it takes us to get to the objective is the time it takes our bodies and minds to reach optimum performance. Endorphins and adrenaline stimulated by the run aid the transition. Reason two: When a rift is created so we can get dropped, it alerts our targets. The farther away we are, the less likely that they can pinpoint exactly where we were dropped or how long it’ll take for us to reach them. If we’re dropped in a city, the masses of people can help mask us, so we’re dropped fairly close. If we’re somewhere isolated, like a desert, we get dropped farther away. Our cons scramble our signal once we’re here, and that makes it even tougher for them.”
“You know a lot about this,” I say.
“Been in it awhile.” He pauses. “When I first got pulled, I asked a lot of questions, too.”
“So you can apply the info to the game you plan to sell.”
“Damn right.” He grins. “Dollars are in the details.”
“Got any more urgent questions?” Jackson asks.
“I’ll let you know if I think of any.”
“Fair enough.”
We follow as Jackson leads us away from the lights and the people, down streets that look dingy to an alley that looks downright scary. There’s a line of garbage bags up against a brick wall. At the far end of the alley is a single vertical sign with only one letter lit up: a
p
. There’s a Dumpster to the left. Jackson leads us around it, into a narrower alley bordered by buildings that look deserted.
The smell of rotting garbage slaps me, but more than that, the air
feels
wrong. Too thick. Too heavy.
My pulse is pounding. My mouth is dry. My palms are slick. And I don’t even know why I feel so afraid.
“There,” Jackson whispers. He points first at Tyrone, then at Luka, then at a shadowy doorway.
Tyrone moves up so that he and Jackson flank the doorway. Luka turns his back to us, keeping an eye on the alley. Richelle looks ready for . . .
something
. They’ve done this before. Everyone seems to know their place. Except me.
As if he senses my uncertainty, Jackson turns his face toward me and gives his head a tiny jerk, beckoning me closer.
My fear ramps up as I will myself to take the few steps to close the distance between us. There’s something here, behind that door. Something I don’t want to be anywhere near. I can feel it on my skin, taste it on my tongue.
Enemy
.
That certainty burns in some primitive part of my soul.
“Weapons,” Jackson says, so low I almost miss it. From the corner of my eye, I see Luka pull out his cylinder from the holster at his hip. I do the same, mostly because I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know what’s coming, but I know that I’m terrified. More scared than I was when I jumped in front of that truck. More scared than I was when I woke up thinking I was dead.
My fingers don’t quite reach all the way around the cylinder, which is cool and hard in my hand. Pointing and firing this thing is going to be awkward. I’m used to holding the hilt of my kendo sword, but that’s a whole different motion.
No sooner do I process that thought than the cylinder changes. It shifts and melds, taking on finger ridges, forming to my hand, as if it’s an extension of my body. I can
feel
it there, like it’s just part of me. I gasp and my gaze jerks up, searching for the others. But of course, this isn’t the time to chat about the wonder of my new discovery.
Luka gives a last scan of the alley, then moves closer. Richelle inches forward and stretches her fingers toward the door while the others raise their weapons and cover her.
The feeling of horror in my gut curdles into an icy mass. I can’t let her go in there. I can’t let any of us go in there. If she goes through that door, we all die. I don’t know how I know that, I just do.
I slam my palm against her shoulder blade, shoving her out of the way. She stumbles a couple of steps to the side. I dance back, away from the door and the horrific fear it drags from my soul.
Luka rests his hand on my arm and leans in. “We all feel it.” His voice is low and reassuring. “You get used to it.”
“I’ll take care of this.” Jackson’s tone is terse. I read surprise in Luka’s expression, then a hint of mutiny. He wants to argue. I can see it. A silent undercurrent I can’t decipher passes between them. Finally, Luka nods and steps away.
Jackson’s so close that the length of his arm presses against mine. We’re lined up like a T, with my body at ninety degrees to his. “You’re doing great, Miki,” he says, very soft. “Better than great. You’re focusing on the task and saving your confusion and questions for later, and that’s exactly what you need to do. When you get in there, you’ll fight. You’ll win. And the world will survive.”
“I’m afraid,” I whisper, the words too small for what I feel. Not afraid. Terrified. Petrified. Bone-numbingly scared.
And Jackson gets it.
“That feeling inside you, it’s inside all of us,” he says, his voice calm, soothing, luring me to trust what he’s saying. “It’s in your cells. It’s in your DNA. You were born knowing them”—he juts his chin toward the door, and I know he’s talking about whatever’s inside there—“knowing what they’re capable of, knowing that they are the enemy.”
Yes
.
“They hunted our ancestors. They were the predators. We were the prey. They chased our ancestors from their home world. They turned it into a barren, frozen mass. Now, they’re here, looking to conquer another planet. Earth. This planet.
Our
planet. That feeling of fear inside you is justified. It’s been bred into your genes. Into all our genes.” He gestures toward the others, who stand ready and alert. “But you have to master it. Beat it down. We’re not the prey anymore.”
His explanation is so far beyond believable that I want to discount it out of hand. But I don’t. For the first time, his cryptic assertions actually make perfect sense to me.
But you have to master it. Beat it down
. It’s a conundrum I know well: the need to stay when every instinct is screaming for you to go. I faced it every time I went to the hospital with Mom. I wanted to run as fast and as far as I could. From the tubes. From the machines. From the smiling nurses who hooked up bags of poison that drip, drip, dripped into my mother’s veins in an effort to kill the thing growing out of control inside her. But for her, for Mom, I stayed.
“My instinct is to run, but you’re telling me I can’t. And you’re telling me that somewhere inside of me, I know what’s waiting in there. Genetic memory.” At his raised brows, I clarify, “We talked about it in bio.”
“Genetic memory.” His lips shape that barely-there smile. “Yeah, that about sums it up.”
“But why me? How am I supposed to do this? I’m not trained. Shouldn’t there have been boot camp or something?”
“Or something. This is it. You have your genetic memory, your instincts. Trust them. Besides, you are trained, more than most who get pulled. Kendo, right?”
I swallow and nod. He’s just added about a million questions to the billion already buzzing around in my brain. “You owe me answers when we’re done,” I say, reminding him of his earlier promise.
“When we’re done.” Jackson brushes the backs of his fingers against the backs of mine, the touch so fleeting I almost think I’ve imagined it. I
feel
his approval, his admiration, even though his expression doesn’t change.