Rush (11 page)

“Neither. I headed him off at the pass. Got to you before he could.”

“Why?”

He doesn’t answer right away, and when he finally speaks, I feel like he’s holding a lot back. “I trust myself not to screw this up.”

Which tells me everything and nothing. Because he already told me that he’s not good at explaining, so he must mean that he trusts himself more than he trusts Luka to give answers that don’t break the
rules
. Or maybe—

“So do the rules apply to everyone equally, or are you exempt?”

“Depends on the rule.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Ask a different question.”

The first one that jumps into my head is: Why does Luka have Jackson’s number if we’re not supposed to have contact? I almost ask, but I can’t think of a way to do it that won’t make me sound like maybe
I
want Jackson’s number, too, so I let it pass.

But thinking about that makes me wonder how Jackson got to me so quickly. Richelle said that people don’t get pulled from the same geographic regions, so how could Jackson be close enough to get to me before Luka?

I remember the weird feeling I had yesterday when I was standing at my window, and a chill crawls up my spine. “Oh, no, no, no. Please tell me you are not some creeper guy.”

“I am not some creeper guy.”

I huff a sharp exhalation and narrow my question. “Were you watching my house yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“Spying on me?”

“One of my responsibilities is ensuring the acclimation of new recruits.”

“‘Ensuring the acclimation,’” I repeat. “You’re supposed to do that without making contact or offering any explanations?”

“Pretty much.”

“That’s the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I doubt it’s the
most
asinine.”

I don’t want to play word games or argue about semantics. “Are you in charge of the game, Jackson?”

He scrubs his fingers along his jaw. “When we’re on assignment, there are things I know that others don’t. In charge of the game?” He gives a dark laugh. “No.”

“You’re in charge on assignment? So isn’t it your responsibility to keep your team alive?”

I don’t even see him move, but he’s suddenly right in front of me. His hands fist around the chains of the swing as he bends close, his face inches from mine. He smells faintly of citrus shaving cream, and I have a crazy urge to lean a little closer and breathe him in.

“No team,” he whispers. “Every man for himself, remember?”

I do. And I ought to hate him for throwing it in my face again. But there’s . . . something . . . his tone, or maybe the hard line of his mouth . . . Something makes me think he doesn’t like saying it, that he doesn’t believe his own words. That Richelle’s loss is his torment and his responsibility.

“Tell me what happened to her.” I hold up my hand, palm forward. “Don’t tell me she died.” There’s a knot in my throat that makes it hard to speak. “What I need to know is how and when.”

“First tell me how you figured it out. You didn’t realize it before we got pulled back. I saw it in your face. And Luka wouldn’t have told you.”

I almost refuse. After all, he’s not exactly being forthcoming. A little tit-for-tat might be a worthwhile lesson for him to learn. But I just don’t have it in me. Not right now. So I tell him about the memorial page. Then I tell him how I cleared my cache and erased any possible trail.

“Did you now?” he asks, and smiles, white teeth and that dimple carving deep in his cheek. Jackson Tate’s full smile is something to behold.

I swallow and look away. “Your turn,” I say. “Explain the missing seven months.”

“She went back to the place where she originally exited.”

I digest that for a second. “Richelle went back to the moment she was first pulled.” A moment that in some alternate reality ended in her death rather than her inclusion in the game. Even in my thoughts, I stumble over that word. It isn’t a game. We’re not playing there. Some of us are dying there. “As if she had never been pulled at all, never . . .” I hesitate, wondering if I’m breaking all the rules now, if he’ll stop me. He doesn’t, so I keep going. “As if I had never met her, never almost had the chance to be her friend. But I did meet her. I remember the time I spent with her. What about all her family and friends? From the comments I read, they don’t remember her as alive for the past seven months.”

“No.”

“My outcome would be the truck,” I say.

I would save Janice’s sister. I’d get hit by the truck. It would kill me.

No aliens. No battles.

No coffee with Carly. No pancake breakfast with my dad.

No moment here in the park with Jackson.

“And everything after that would just . . . disappear? Like it had never been? People wouldn’t remember anything about me after that?”

“Pretty much. Except for those of us who met you elsewhere.”

By
elsewhere
, he means in the game that isn’t a game at all. “How is that possible?” I force the words out through tight lips. “What is it? Some sort of time paradox?”

Tangled, impossible threads of time that merge and diverge.

Thinking about it makes my brain hurt.

Jackson takes his time answering, and when he does, there’s definitely a thread of humor in his tone. “Time dilation. Time passes more slowly the closer you are to the speed of light.”

The words sound familiar, and suddenly I’m certain he’s amused. He’s playing me. “Laughing at my expense, Jackson? I saw the same show last Thursday night. That theoretical physicist was interviewed, right? I watched it with my dad. But according to the expert, time dilation only accounts for movement forward in time, not back. Nice try. Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.” I play sleight of hand every day of my life, pretending to be like everyone else. I can recognize when I’m being played.

His lips curl in that barely there smile, dark and sardonic and sexy. Why does it make me want to reach over and touch him? I curl my fist to keep from doing exactly that.

“You’re right. I watched the same show, but it could only cover what
people
know.” The way he says
people
makes me think he means humans, but he’s being careful like I’m being careful.

“It couldn’t cover what people don’t
yet
know.” Or what
aliens
already know.

“It’s a combination of time dilation, mass, gravity, and a positional wormhole.”

I narrow my eyes. “Do you even know the answers? Everything you’re saying could be bullshit.”

“But I make it sound so good you can’t be sure it’s not the truth.”

“Is it?”

He goes quiet, and then shocks me when he reaches out and strokes a strand of my hair back off my cheek. My skin tingles where he’s touched. I want to jerk away. I want to lean closer and ask him to do it again. The rush of confusing emotions takes me by surprise.

“Do answers help?” he asks, and the moment is gone.

I don’t even need to think about it. “No. Especially not when they’re coming from you.”

“Because?”

“Because you aren’t really saying much of anything, and I don’t know if I should believe what you do say.”

“Trust me, the how and why don’t take away the pain.” His tone is cool and even, the words flat. Yet, for some reason, I think he knows a bit about pain.

JACKSON AND I ARE SIDE BY SIDE, FACING OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS as we swing. We’re quiet. We’ve been quiet for a while. Twenty minutes. Maybe thirty. Oddly, the silence is a comfortable one. I pull out the little water bottle at my waist, take a drink, then hesitate. Cutting him a sidelong glance, I think about his lips on my water bottle, then mine, then his. I look down at my lap and take a slow breath. Then I turn my head and hold the bottle out toward him.

He smiles a little, like he knows what I’m thinking. I feel that smile shimmer through me all the way to my toes. His fingers brush mine as he takes the bottle from my hand. He tips his head back and takes a drink, and I watch the muscles of his throat move as he swallows.

“Thanks,” he says, and hands the bottle back, our fingers brushing once more.

I’m breathing faster than I should be. I’m glad for the excuse to look away as I settle the bottle back in its holder at my waist. Maybe he senses my discomfort and confusion, or maybe he just decides to move. Either way, Jackson gets up from the swing, takes a few steps, and looks around, not nervously or shiftily, more of a casual scan of the area, just like he did back in the lobby. I realize that he did that while we were running, too. He’s always on alert.

“So, can I ask some more questions?”

He turns to face me. “We shouldn’t talk about this here.”

“We already did, so it shouldn’t matter if we do again. Besides, there’s no one else anywhere near us. Who’s listening? The grass?” Frustration punches through my carefully manufactured facade of calm. “And we’d see
them
coming from a mile away. They’re not exactly easy to miss.” I can’t help but notice how he grows unnaturally still. I rewind what I just said, and a chill crawls across my skin. “We
would
see them, wouldn’t we?”

“Not necessarily.”

Oh, I did not want to know that. Does he mean that the Drau could be here, right now? I swallow.

“Where can we talk? Is there anywhere safe?”

He paces a few feet, then turns and paces back. It hits me then that cool, icy Jackson Tate isn’t so cool at this moment. “Depends on your definition of
safe
.” He tips his head back, his face toward the cloudless sky. “Satellites can see you anywhere.”

“Now you’re just trying to freak me out.” Isn’t he? I’m getting nowhere on this topic, so I do a quick switch. “Who were the other people in the clearing?”

“Richelle. Tyrone. Luka.”

“I thought we weren’t supposed to say their names.”

“Did I say that?”

I frown and think back. “No, I don’t think you did. I think you just sort of avoided answering. Was that a test?” When he doesn’t answer, I sigh. “Tell me about the people in the other clearings.”

“You see them.” He sounds both pleased and wary. “Not everyone can.”

“Yeah, I figured that out. Luka can’t, but you can, and I can. So who are they?”

“You’d call them other teams.”

“You can use a different word if it makes you feel better. What would you call them?”

“Let’s just say they’re others just like us.”

“Do Luka and Tyrone know there are other teams?”

“In the abstract, yeah. But they’ve never seen them.”

“Why can I see them and they can’t?”

Jackson shrugs.

“I could hit you. I really could.” I’m so angry in that moment, so sick of his nonanswers, that I almost do hit him. I’m appalled by that. How does he do this to me? How does he break through my control so easily?

“You could try,” he says, and his smile is all white teeth and amusement. For a second, all I can do is stare. He’s enjoying this, and if I’m honest with myself, so am I. I’m angry at Jackson, at everything and everyone. I’m resentful that he’s here. And I’m so glad he’s here, that he didn’t leave me to struggle through alone. How’s that for contradictory?

He pulls emotions out of me that I’m not used to feeling. For some reason, when I’m with him, the things that drag me down feel thin and weak, and I feel strong.

I’m enjoying matching wits with him, and that realization makes me feel horrible because the only reason we’re together right now is because Richelle is dead.

Jackson reads the change in my expression. “She’s gone,” he says, his tone gentle. “You can’t change that, and you shouldn’t feel guilty because you’re alive.” There’s something off in his tone. Something that makes me think he wants me to believe those words even though he doesn’t quite believe them himself.

I look away, unsettled that he can read me so easily, that he gets it. I do feel guilty. About Richelle. About Mom. And Gram and Sofu. How am I supposed to go on living when they don’t get that chance?

“We did the mission. We made it through,” I say. “So we were all supposed to go back to our regularly scheduled lives. She was supposed to get to go back.”

“Not all of us made it through. Only the ones who did can come back. Remember what I told you about . . .” He taps his wrist.

The bracelet’s your con. The color’s your health. Don’t let it turn red
.

“It’s because her—” I stop myself before I say the word
con
. “Because of the color change.” Because her con turned red.

Jackson takes a step closer. “Health points, damage . . . you know what they are?”

I nod. I play sometimes with Carly and her brothers. “They’re gaming terms. They measure how much damage a character can withstand.”

“So you know that when the life bar . . .” He pauses, to make sure I’m still following.

“
Health
bar,” I interject, seeing the pattern.

“Health bar. Or just health,” he agrees. “When the bar changes color fully, it’s game over.”

Game over. Death.

Horror sluices over me like a bucket of icy water.

So that really is the answer. I’d suspected, but a part of me thought it should be something else. Something bigger.