Rush (24 page)

“What color are Tyrone’s eyes outside the game?” I ask.

Jackson shrugs. “Don’t know. Not blue. And not Drau gray.”

“Tons of people have blue eyes.” A weak protest, because I know what he’s going to say next even before he says it.

“Not like yours.”

It’s the truth. My eyes always make people stare the first time they meet me.

“Explain,” I say, then add, “Please.”

From the corner of my eye, I see him look around. He’s evaluating the possibility that anyone might be listening. He leans over and pushes my window shut. “Remember I told you about our ancestors. About how they became part of humanity, hiding in plain sight. They had children and grandchildren. . . .”

“Yes.”

“My eyes, and yours, are because we’re rare progeny, ones with a stronger-than-normal strain of a particular set of alleles.”

“Alleles are genes, right?”

“Forms of a gene. In this case, you have a stronger strain of nonhuman DNA.”

“So Tyrone and Luka have alien genes, and you and I have alien supergenes?”

He opens his mouth, closes it, shrugs. “I guess you could put it that way. The genetics of it don’t really matter. What matters is the result. You’re stronger, faster, more resilient than most people.”

“I thought that was because of kendo and my running.”

“In part, but that’s not the whole of it. And you see things the others don’t.”

“By “the others” you mean Luka and Tyrone.”

He nods.

“And the things I see . . . you mean the other sections of the lobby and the other people in those sections. Other . . . teams,” I finish, even though I know he’s always telling me we’re not a team. Every man for himself. But when it comes down to it, he’s more of a team player than any one of us. He’s watched out for me. I feel like he watches out for all of us. “And you see them, too. The others.”

“Yes.”

“So tell me about those teams. Do we ever work with them? Do they know about us? Do—”

Jackson reaches for me and cups my cheeks with his palms. My questions die an abrupt death. His hands are warm against my skin, his palms callused where they meet his fingers. “I have to go,” he says. “And that was more than five questions.”

He leans a little closer.

“Wait,” I whisper, frozen in place, heart pounding, half hoping, half dreading that he’ll close the distance between us and touch his lips to mine. “You can’t go.”

“Yeah”—he smiles a little—“I can.” His thumb sweeps across my lower lip. My breath locks in my throat. “I have to.”

“Why did you come here tonight?” My voice sounds weird, tight and strangled.

“Because you needed some answers. Because it felt wrong to leave you hanging, thinking I was a Drau shell. Because despite the fact that it goes against everything I am and everything I need to be, I can’t stand the thought of you here, alone, wondering and worrying.”

“What do you mean? What do you need to be?”

“Now you’re way past five questions,” he says. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come yesterday or earlier today, Miki. There really was somewhere I needed to be.”

I want to see his eyes. I want to look at
him
, not his glasses when we speak. I reach up, but he catches my wrist and holds it.

“One more reason, probably the most important one,” he murmurs. “I came because I wanted to see you.” He lets go of my wrist and takes a step away. “I have to go.”

“Wait, please, last question, I promise. Why did Richelle die?” I’m not asking the mechanics of it, and I know he knows that. I’m asking why he didn’t save her, but I’m not cruel enough to phrase it that way.

“Richelle was the best at the game. She knew how to get in and get out. She knew that when her con started to go orange, she needed to drop back to defensive position and watch her own ass. She knew not to let it turn red.” He pauses, and I wonder if he’s remembering as I am the way he told me not to let my con turn red. “I can’t be everywhere at once, Miki. I was watching your back and Tyrone’s. Richelle made the choice to attack rather than defend, and I couldn’t get to her fast enough. So she’s dead.”

His tone is completely flat, not a shred of emotion, and that makes what he’s saying all the more heartbreaking. Whatever words he’s used about Richelle’s choices, he blames himself, and it’s eating him alive.

Every man for himself. Except him. He thinks it’s the best way to keep his team alive. I think he’s wrong, but now’s not the moment to tell him that.

“Jackson,” I whisper, my heart breaking for him. Without thinking about it, I step close and flatten my palm on his chest, over his heart. I feel the steady drum of his heartbeat and the tension arcing through his body. I don’t bother to tell him it isn’t his fault. He won’t believe me.

He grabs my wrist and turns my hand, then lowers his head and presses his lips to my palm. Electricity dances through me, making me gasp.

His lips move to the crease of my wrist.

I stand perfectly still, my blood hammering through my veins.

I want him to do that again. I want him to press his lips to my mouth. I want the rush of sensation to fill me. I want—

He lifts his head. He releases my wrist.

Then he pushes up my window and climbs out onto the roof of the porch, and before I can think of an argument to make him stay, he’s over the side and gone. I try to pick him out of the shadows. No chance. He’s disappeared as if he was never here.

And now I’m supposed to sleep. I’m doubtful as I climb back into bed, but as I drift off in a matter of minutes the last thought I’m aware of as my mind grows muzzy is that I have two less nightmares to worry about. Jackson’s not a shell, and he’s not Drau. I saw proof about the first, and for some reason, I believe him about the second.

So maybe I will sleep tonight after all.

I curl my hand under my head and turn my face so my lips rest at the crease of my wrist, the exact place Jackson kissed.

“You want one?” Lizzie asks
.

She has the radio turned up loud, one wrist resting negligently on the wheel, the windows open so the wind whips through the car. We’re going faster than fast. Lizzie likes it that way. She’s been a little wild ever since she was fifteen and something happened. Something that seemed to change her overnight. She never talks about it. I don’t think she even ever told Mom and Dad what it was. I just know that we were sitting there on the couch, watching some stupid show, and then she was all pale and sweaty, looking like she was going to barf
.

She mumbled a lot of stuff about death and killing and dying and then she passed out. Mom rushed her to the hospital. For months after, there were all these tests. There was even a time where Lizzie stayed at a hospital for a while. She was never the same, but she got well enough to come home, to make it through high school, to head off to college
.

She glances at me now and holds out the open box of candy, shaking it to entice me. She’s home from college for two weeks—just got home today—and I’m happy to see her, happy to be with her, happy that despite the six-year difference, she still wants to hang with me
.

I reach for the candy and take it from her hand. She laughs and looks back at the road. I’m watching her face. I see her expression change, her smile freeze, her body tense. Her back arches as she presses against the seat, her right leg slamming hard on the brake, both hands on the wheel now as she cranks it to one side. The car skids, tires screaming. Lizzie, screaming. I turn my head to look out the front window just in time to see two bright lights coming at us and the metal front grille of an enormous truck
.

The hood crumples in what feels like slow motion, the grille coming closer and closer. The sound is like nothing I’ve heard before, metal tearing, the car crushed like a pop can, with us inside
.

I blink, rolling to my side, except I don’t move because I can’t move. My whole body is a single shriek of agony. Cold. So cold. And tired. I want to close my eyes again and just rest
.

She whispers my name
.

I force my eyes open
.

Lizzie’s looking at me, her face all wrong. There’s blood on the side of her head and along her cheek. And her eyes are gray. Swirling, pale, silvery gray
.

But that’s wrong. Lizzie has green eyes. The same eyes as Mom
.

She says my name again, and I look down to see that I’m covered in blood and I can’t move because I’m pinned in place, jagged chunks of metal running through me into the seat behind me. I feel like I’m looking at someone else
.

“I need to hang on. Just till I get pulled,” she says. “I’ll make them pull you. Everything will be okay.”

I swallow, my terror oddly numb, like this is all happening to someone else. I want to tell her she’s right. They’ll pull us out. But my mouth is filled with the taste of metal and rust and salt, and when I open my lips, something warm trickles out
.

Blood?

My eyes close. Tired. So tired
.

I hear Lizzie’s voice, frantic and afraid, calling my name over and over. But she doesn’t sound like herself. She sounds so weak. And the name she’s calling . . . it isn’t mine. . . . She’s not calling Miki. She’s calling Jackson. But that’s not right, is it? I can’t remember
.

I try to force my eyes open
.

“Look at me,” she says, and I can tell she’s in agony. “Open your eyes; look at me.”

A command. So bossy. Always so bossy
.

I open my eyes
.

“Listen to me,” she says. I can hear the strain in every word. “Listen to me. I need you to take something from me. They do it. I think I know how. I can show you how. You need to survive. Look at me. Look at me.”

I blink, trying to focus. Her hand is on my wrist, her fingers at the base of my thumb
.

“I can barely feel your pulse,” she whispers. It sounds like she’s crying. “You have to do it now. Look in my eyes. Think how badly you want to live. Then open yourself to instinct. It’ll tell you what to do.”

I stare at her, focusing hard on what she’s saying, trying to understand. And something inside me does understand. I stare at her. My eyes feel strange—burning and aching. There’s terrible pressure, like someone’s pressing their thumbs into my eyeballs. My vision closes in until all I see is Lizzie’s eyes, swirling gray, fading to grayish green, then just green. Lizzie green, like they’ve always been
.

With a cry, I struggle to get free. Something has me. Something’s holding me down. Something—

“Shh, Miki, everything’s okay. It was a nightmare. Just a nightmare.”

Dad. It’s Dad who’s holding me, dragging me to a sitting position so he can better get his arms around me, stroking his palm along the back of my head. I’m panting, drenched in sweat, my heart still racing. I had nightmares every night right after Mom died. I dreamed I was in the cold ground, and I could hear the dirt falling on me as each shovelful was tossed in the grave. But those nightmares stopped coming a while ago. Months and months. This is the first one I’ve had in a long time.

“Same dream?” Dad asks.

I shake my head. “No. It was different. It was . . . I think it was a car accident.”

Dad reaches over and clicks on my bedside lamp. I blink against the comparatively bright light. His hair is standing up at odd angles, his jaw shadowed by overnight stubble.

“Who’s Lizzie?” Dad asks. “You were screaming her name.”

“Lizzie. That was her name. In the dream. I think she was my sister. She had green eyes. And I had different parents, not you and Mom. And there was a truck. And—”

She died.

The weight comes down on me like a concrete block. That wasn’t part of the nightmare. When I woke up, Lizzie was still alive.

But I know for certain that Lizzie died. And I know for certain that I killed her.

THE BUZZ OF MY ALARM IS ABOUT AS WELCOME AS THE SOUND of a dentist’s drill. I want to roll over, snuggle under the covers, and go back to sleep. Instead, I go for my run. The nightmare’s pretty much faded from my thoughts, but I can’t stop thinking about Jackson. I don’t know what to make of the fact that he came here last night to see me, to give me answers when he’s not an answer kind of guy.

I remember the feel of his lips on my wrist.

I think about him all during my run, but when I get back to find that there are a ton of texts waiting for me, my focus shifts. I guess everyone’s tired of waiting for me to offer info about my fight with Carly, so now they’re digging for it. There are texts from Dee and Kelley and Sarah. There’s even one from this girl we sometimes hang with, Emily. All of them want to know about Luka. Sarah wants to know about Jackson; I guess Carly was at her house when they both saw me with him in the park on Sunday. Dee wants to know why Carly’s mad at me. Every text is about Carly or Luka or Jackson, but none are actually
from
Carly or Luka or Jackson.

My, but Carly’s been a chatty girl—chatty with everyone but me.

She’s so angry with me. Part of me wants to say,
Who cares?
But this is
Carly
. I need to make things right. Besides, I didn’t do any of the things she accused me of, and I have no intention of letting her punish me for stuff she just thinks I did. The taste of her temper I had for the past two days was quite enough. She should win the award for passive-aggressive.