Crash (33 page)

“So . . . Lizzie . . . she's the one who made the lobbies fail? Brought us all here?” he asks.

“She and her team took down the wall,” Jackson says. “But I think it's the Committee who are pulling all the teams here.”

Why? What's their plan? The unasked questions hang between us.

“So what's
our
plan?” Tyrone asks.

“We're aiming for that end of the amphitheater.” Jackson points.

“Why that end?” Tyrone asks.

“It's closer than the other end.”

Tyrone shakes his head. “Lead on.”

Our progress is slow, Jackson holding tight to my hand, Tyrone keeping his finger hooked in my belt loop.

“Tug any harder and my pants are going to come down,” I say over my shoulder.

He waggles his brows. “I wouldn't mind seeing that view.”

“Not if you want to keep your eyes in your head,” Jackson says, pushing through the crowd.

I roll my eyes. “Even in the midst of all this, you're a cocky ass.”

“Ouch,” Tyrone says at the same time Jackson says, “Always.”

I'm struck by how calm we are. Our world's been shaken, but we're holding up against the quake. We're the buildings that sway, not the ones that collapse.

Tyrone and Jackson are shoulder to shoulder in front of me now, using their size and determination to clear a path. I hang close behind them, fingers knotted in the backs of their shirts. No way I plan on losing them. We're a team. We stay together. The three of us make slow progress through the ever-enlarging crowd,

We're almost at the far end of the amphitheater when I hear a scream coming from behind me. I look back but see nothing through the throng of bodies. An unnatural stillness falls over the crowd, silence hanging thick and heavy until someone cries out again. It's like the cue for pandemonium. Noise erupts and the crowd shifts, becoming restless.

Jackson grabs my wrist and drags me the rest of the way until we stand against the high wall, looking up.

“I need to know what's going on,” he says. “Get on my shoulders.” He crouches beside me. Catching on, I clamber up and he straightens, giving me a better view above the heads.

I see clumps of kids pushing each other. “There's something going on at the far end. I can't see—”

“Stand,” he orders and grabs both my hands.

I push down as he pushes up, giving me leverage to get my feet on his shoulders and get myself upright so I have a clear view. And what I see chills me to the core.

Drau light, darting through the crowd.

“Drau,” I call down to Jackson.

“How many?” Tyrone asks.

Groups of kids move to the right, the left, the trajectory of the Drau guiding the direction of the crowd's movements. The Drau aren't all in one place. They're scattered between the teams.

“I can't tell how many. They aren't all in one place.” I glance down. “My gut's telling me the Committee brought them here, not Lizzie and her team.” Which doesn't bode well for anyone trapped in this place.

Kids edge against the wall, pushing, stumbling, fear etched on their faces. Dark surges of greasy black ooze erupt from a handful of weapon cylinders. Voices rise, people yelling, shoving. Anxiety passes through the crowd like a wave, everyone trying to get away, get to safety.

Jackson stands solid against the surge of bodies, Tyrone bracing him, the wall at their backs.

“We need a better vantage point.” Jackson bends and I slide down from his shoulders. He straightens, runs his hands along the smooth surface of the wall and shakes his head.

“There,” Tyrone says and shoves his way through a group of kids, following the curve of the wall. I'm not sure what he's seeing, but after a few seconds Jackson says, “Perfect,” and picks up the pace, shouldering kids aside as we go.

The temperament of the crowd shifts from restless
to frantic. Someone slams my shoulder as they run past, nearly spinning me clear around. Tyrone steadies me and positions himself as a barrier between me and the shifting throng. Our progress slows as we fight against the growing tide. I figure we're a breath away from chaos.

Jackson stops and gestures at the wall. “Handholds. Let's go.”

I squint and see a series of niches in the wall. Decorative? Functional? I guess it doesn't matter.

“Up,” Jackson says.

I tip my head back. Twenty feet with only the handholds. No safety net. No rope. No time to hesitate. I shove my toe in the lowest niche, reach up for the highest one I can get to and start to climb. Tyrone starts up behind me, with Jackson climbing last.

We clamber up the wall, legs and arms at awkward angles. My fingers ache and cramp. Panting, I pause at the top, mustering the strength to haul myself over the edge, then I push on, shoulders screaming, toes cramping, until I roll over the upper limit of the wall and fall at the feet of the faceless soundless watchers in the stands.

I freeze, lying on my back, staring up at them. Tentative, I reach out and drag my hand sideways through the hems of their robes.

My hand passes right through them.

“They aren't real,” I cry, rage streaking through me as I get to my feet.

“They're real,” Jackson says, rolling over the top of the
wall. “They just aren't physically here. They're in a different plane, sitting there, watching.” He surges to his feet. His head rocks back and his arms come up to the sides. “Having fun?” he yells. “Enjoying the show?”

There is no answer. I don't think he expected there would be.

Below us, the crowd shifts and flows like an angry ocean. Flashes of light dart between groups of armed kids who fire on them, the oily threat of oblivion belching from their weapons. The Drau fire back, and kids cry out in agony as the light sears them. Did no one down there—Drau or human—get the memo on cooperation?

The cloaked figures behind me just sit there watching.

“So we're here,” Tyrone says, raising his voice to be heard. “Now what?”

Jackson looks out over the crowd. There are more Drau out there now. I have a feeling they're going to keep coming, that the Committee will drop in as many teams as they can ram into the space and let us kill each other in a mass frenzy. I feel sick at the thought. I wonder that Lizzie and her team didn't anticipate this. Or maybe they did and they counted it as acceptable loss. Sacrifice a battle to win the war.

“Kendra!” Tyrone says, and points.

I look down, following his direction, and I see her, expression set, weapon cylinder held double fisted. But she isn't shooting. She's . . . guarding. There are two kids cowering behind her. They look like they can't be more
than twelve or thirteen, new to the game would be my guess given their wide-eyed expressions of utter terror. Feet planted shoulder-width apart, Kendra stands between them and the panic-driven surge of the crowd, a tiny, brave sentinel.

It's almost like she feels me watching her because for a second, she looks up, sees us, and smiles. I mouth Lien's name and do a double thumb's-up, just in case Kendra hasn't seen her yet. Her smile widens. Then she goes back to guard duty.

“Looks like Kendra grew a pair,” Tyrone says, his tone tinged with both pride and affection.

Directly below us, three kids take out a terrified Drau that tries to escape their weapons.

“We need to stop them,” Jackson says.

“How?” Tyrone asks. “Yell at them to stop? They won't hear you, never mind listen. I can barely hear you and I'm standing right next to you while you yell at the top of your lungs.”

He's right. But we need to do something. We need to make them listen. How? How to get them to listen when beings they've been trained to view as the enemy dart through their midst?

If I could just talk inside their heads—

With a gasp, I whirl to face Jackson. “You've always been able to talk inside my head. And you did it with Luka, too. Can you do that to them? Can you push your thoughts out there into all their heads?”

One side of his mouth quirks in a smile. “Let's find out.” He vaults onto the top of the wall and takes a deep breath, his head tipping back, his arms loose at his side, palms forward.

Miki?
I hear him inside my head.

Words pour from Jackson's thoughts into mine, images, ideas, strong and loud. I watch the crowd, willing them to hear. But they don't. Or if they do, it's like the faintest whisper, the buzz of a fly that they swat away.

“Amp it up,” I yell at Jackson.

His shoulders sag. I wonder what toll this is taking on him. Then he straightens and rolls his head to the right, the left, before sending out another blast, stronger, wider. A few people stop and look around, a hasty glance over a shoulder, a quick turn to look behind. They hear him, but they don't believe.

It isn't working.

It's one thing to talk inside my head, another to reach out to a thousand people or more.

I move to the edge of the wall and reach up, resting my palm against the side of Jackson's thigh. His muscles are stone solid, like every cord and tendon is tensed to its maximum.

And then I feel it, a massive blast of power, his thoughts, his emotions, rolling from him like a giant tidal wave, crashing through the amphitheater at large, pushing into every living thing out there, telling everyone to freeze where they are.

For a second, it seems to work, the noise dying, all movement stopping.

I look over at Tyrone, watching as his expression shifts, eyes narrowing, head tilting.

Hope unfurls, only to be squashed like a bug.

The battle renews, louder, wilder. I can't tell who's firing, who's falling. It's anarchy. Kids run at the wall, clawing at the surface, trying to get out of the crush.

I whirl to Tyrone. “Did you hear him? Could you hear his thoughts?”

“I didn't exactly hear him, but I felt something. Like a nudge, a push, a feeling.”

A feeling. A nudge.

“Make it stronger,” I yell at Jackson. “You need to make them listen.”

He nods, jaw tense, the muscles of his forearms so tight I can see every ridge and dip. I don't know if it's from pain or exhaustion. Part of me wants to pull him down from where he stands atop the wall, to tell him he doesn't need to do this. But he does. No matter what it costs him, he does. And he wouldn't step away from this even if I begged him, because that's who he is.

I lean over the wall and a boy's eyes lock with mine. My heart hammers as he reaches up to me, his face twisted with terror, his lips forming the words, “Help me.” On instinct, I reach down, reach for him, but he's so far away, like I'm on the roof of a three-story building and he's on the ground. He jams his fingers into one of the notches we
used earlier when we climbed the wall, dragging himself up inch by agonizing inch. Three feet . . . four . . .

His eyes hold mine as the crush pulls him under and I lose sight of him, the crowd tearing him away.

Heart heavy, I straighten and turn back to Jackson. His fists clench. His whole body shakes. He tries to reach the crowd below us, another surge of thought and will pulsing from him. I can feel it, taste it. His command to
stop, just stop,
echoes through me, reminiscent of the power of the Committee or the Drau.

Again, the surge freezes for a millisecond, as if everyone down there hears a whisper just beyond their reach. Then the clash resumes, screams and cries carrying up the amphitheater to the night-dark saucer overhead.

I catch sight of a blond head. Kendra. She's surrounded. Where are the kids she was protecting earlier? Safe? Dead?

I look around, sick, horrified. I'm trapped here on the wall, watching, able to do little.

Able to do nothing.

Even if I leap into the fray, what difference will I make?

In the pandemonium, tiny isolated battles erupt, kids firing on the Drau. The Drau firing back. Everyone caught in the crossfire.

The crowd surges to one side as a group of Drau streak through. It's as if they're a plow and the humans are snow, pushed out of their way. Below me a kid falls. Others swerve to try and avoid him. He skitters, crablike, to the side and somehow manages to get back on his feet.

Where's Lizzie? Where are her teammates? We could use some help here. All I can think is that the Committee is blocking them. Because I can't bear to think that the Committee's defeated them.

Below us, I see Kendra again, her bright curls a beacon drawing my eye. Then, directly behind her, I catch a glimpse of the kids she was protecting earlier. She still has them safe, but for how much longer?

With a strangled cry, Tyrone swings a leg over the wall, like he plans to try and climb down the way we came up. I grab his arm and when he turns his head toward me, I see my own torment mirrored on his face.

“You won't make it,” I say.

“I have to try,” he says. “Right now, while I still have her in my sights.”

We stare at each other for a long moment, and then I slowly uncoil my fingers and Tyrone is gone, over the wall, climbing back down into the writhing crowd.

I turn a full circle, searching, searching . . . and then I see it, high, high above us. The floating shelf. The Committee. Looking down on the destruction. Enjoying the show.

My stomach churns. I grab Jackson's arm to get his attention and point. He follows my direction and his whole body tightens, like he's imagining springing up a hundred feet and landing there to face the Committee down, to tear them down, to make them pay.

It's like they're laughing at our efforts, Lizzie's and
ours, like they're saying, “You wanted the Drau and human teams together? Here you go. Enjoy.”

“We have to stop this,” I yell. “We have to stop them. This is a slaughter.” It is.

Kids are falling beneath the Drau weapons, beneath human shots hitting the wrong targets, beneath the crush of bodies. They're dying. And the Drau are dying, too. I hear their screams as the black ooze swallows them whole, or maybe I feel their screams in my heart, in my soul.