Rush (2 page)

A memory hits: me walking across that same crosswalk when I was a kid, and my mother waiting on the far side of the street with a hug and a cookie. I hit back, burying the image because it hurts too much to think about it. Pain’s one of the two things I
do
still feel with a razor’s edge. Anger’s the other. Everything else is muted and distant, like I know I
ought
to feel things even when I don’t.

Right now, I choose anger instead of pain. That little girl shouldn’t be there. Someone should have picked her up after school. Her head’s bowed, and she doesn’t look up when I yell, “Hey,” and again, louder, “Hey!”

There’s something familiar about her. . . .

Crap. She’s Janice Harper’s little sister. She’s deaf. And Janice isn’t here to get her because she’s in detention.

Miki! Now!

The words reverberate in my thoughts, but I’m already moving before the unseen boy finishes barking the order. Because there’s a truck—old, rusted, going too fast—just moving into the blind curve, picking up speed and weaving side to side. The driver’s head is down; there’s a phone in his hand. I can’t be sure, but I think he’s texting.

My heart slams against my ribs.

I don’t think. I just run. My feet hit the ground, but I feel dull, sluggish, like I’m running through waist-deep water and everything in the world—including me—has slowed down to a crawl except that truck.

I’m too far away.

Faster. I need to move faster.

The truck is coming out of the curve now, doing at least double the speed limit, music blaring from the open windows.

I’m screaming at the top of my lungs, my throat already raw. The kid can’t hear me. She can’t hear me.

I run full tilt, chest heaving, terror driving me. And something else. All the anger and fear and grief I’ve been bottling up for two years bubbles to the surface, finding its release in the slim hope that I can control the outcome here, that I can reach her in time.

I’m at the sidewalk now. A single leap carries me over the grass and the curb onto the road.

My shadow falls across the girl and she looks up, her eyes going wide and her mouth rounding a perfect little O. She starts to rise. There’s a terrible shriek of tires on asphalt as the driver sees us and hits the brakes. The truck skids sideways to come at us broadside.

I dive, hands outstretched. My palms connect with the girl’s chest, and I shove her as hard as I can.

She goes flying back with a cry.

I see everything with abnormally sharp clarity, like a series of perfect snapshots capturing each millisecond. I see the girl. I see her tears. I see the blur of motion from the corner of my eye as my friends run along the sidewalk toward us. And someone else shooting past them . . . Luka.

I see the truck spinning again to come at me head-on—so close I can make out the chunks of rust on the grille—and the pavement, flat and gray, coming up to meet me. I hit hard and slide along the rough surface, layers of cloth and skin scraping away.

There’s the endless screech of the brakes and the smell of burning rubber. My head jerks up and I try to scramble out of the way. I can’t find my footing.

Terror clogs my throat.

Then there’s a hand on my arm, tight as a vise, yanking me to my feet.

Luka.

He pulls. I pull. Opposite directions. Our dance is all wrong.

The truck slams us both.

I shouldn’t be able to define each sensation, each event. But I can. I double over forward with the force of the blow. Then I’m lifted. I’m flying. Screaming. Until I hit the ground and my breath is forced out in an obscene rush.

There’s no pain. Not yet. Only shock and the cold knife of my fear.

Sound hurts my ears. My name. People are screaming my name, over and over. I want to tell them I’m okay, but my mouth won’t work, and I have no breath to lend sound to my words.

Turning my head, I see the little girl standing at the side of the road, her face streaked with tears. My friends are standing beside her, screaming, pushing at the air. I don’t understand what they’re trying to do. The roaring in my ears drowns out whatever they’re saying.

The lights flicker like someone flipped a switch, except we’re outside and there’s no switch to flip. Everything goes dark. Then light again. The truck’s right in front of me, the rusted chrome bumper stained red, like finger paint or smears of cherry juice.

I turn my head to the opposite side and see Luka, his body twisted and broken, a puddle of blood forming beneath him on the road. His eyes are open. They’re dark blue, bright and clear as an arctic lake. Like mine. I never noticed that before; I thought his eyes were brown. His lips move. I can’t hear, but I think he’s saying, “Okay.”

He’s wrong. This definitely is not okay.

I look down and feel a sort of distant horror as I see a body that is mine but not mine. My limbs are bent at odd angles. Shards of bone poke out through my skin. When I try to move, I realize that I feel no pain because I feel
nothing
. Nothing at all. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t move anything but my head.

I’m broken, like Luka. Broken and bloody.

The thought feels hazy, as though it ought to mean more to me than it does.

I smell cotton candy and cookies. I smell metal and raw steak.

Then I hear it again. The screaming. But it’s far away, growing fainter. It fades until I hear only the sound of my own heartbeat, growing ever slower. Slower.

Slower.

Stay still. Let it pass
, the boy says in my head.

Sounds like a plan.

I wait for the next heartbeat, but it doesn’t come.

I OPEN MY EYES TO SEE THE BLURRED OUTLINES OF LEAVES and branches and a sky so blue it hurts. As the world tilts and drops, I curl my fingers into the long grass and hang on. The world’s still spinning, but at least if I hold on, I won’t fall off.

The grass . . . it feels wrong, but I can’t say why. Confusion rides me as I try to sit up.

“Wait. Let it pass.” A boy’s voice. Cool. Authoritative.

Familiar?

I feel like I should recognize it. I think there are all sorts of things I ought to know—
would
know—if the knowledge would just stop dancing away from me. But I can’t quite grab hold of it. The thoughts drift away as my vision clicks into sharp focus.

The colors here are too bright. Too blue. Too green. They burn my eyes, straight through to my brain, a deep, agonizing pain. I close my eyes against the glare.

“Just lie still.”

Definitely sounds like a plan. The ground feels like it’s going to fall away, and my head feels like it’s about to explode. Carly gets migraines. I’ve never had one before, but I wonder now if they feel like this. If so, I need to be a lot more sympathetic to her in the future.

Carly. My best friend. I remember
her
. . . but I can’t remember where I am or how I got here.

Fear uncoils in my gut. I know from experience that fear can easily tip down the slippery slope to full-on panic.

Eyes closed, I concentrate on visualizing a sandy beach and slowing my breathing—in through my nose, hold, out through my mouth—the way Dr. Andrews, my grief counselor, taught me. I’ve done this often enough to know it works. I’ve used it to numb the panic and sorrow for the past two years. Problem is, I’ve also succeeded in dulling pretty much every other emotion. There’s always a price.

“. . . scores . . . ,” a girl says, her voice tinny and distant.

“Nice . . . multi-hit bonus . . . ,” a boy says a few seconds later. Neither voice is familiar. Their words fade in and out.

I want to open my eyes and see who’s talking, but my lids are heavy. I feel like I’m being sucked into a murky lake, hearing the words through water. I lose track of their conversation, then the girl says, “. . . didn’t make it back . . .”

“. . . selfish jerk . . . ,” the boy answers. “Put all of us at risk so many times. Hanging back and stealing the hit points . . . all he cared about was himself and getting out. . . .”

“Doesn’t mean he deserved to . . .”

“He put
you
at risk. As far as I’m concerned, that means he deserved . . .”

The girl’s voice changes, becomes softer. “. . . Ty . . .”

The conversation fades until all I can hear is my own heartbeat. I focus on that, only that. But there’s something about my heartbeat, something I
should
know. My thoughts are sludgy. I try to sift through the mess. I’m—

In a sickening burst, I remember. The little girl. The truck. The blood. That’s why the grass feels wrong. Because last thing I remember I was lying in the road.

—I’m dead.

My eyes snap open again. With a gasp I try to push upright, but there’s a hand flat on the middle of my chest, holding me down.

“I told you to wait. Lie still.”
This
voice I recognize. It’s the boy, the voice in my head. Except now he’s not in my head. He’s hunkered down next to me with the heel of his palm on my breastbone and his fingers splayed toward my throat.

“Is this heaven?” The words slide free before I can think them through. I wish I could call them back.

“Hardly.” He sounds amused.

My gaze lifts to his face. Whatever I mean to say shrivels on my lips and all I can do is stare.

Of all the things I ought to notice at this precise moment, his appearance should be the last on my list. But I notice anyway. Not because he’s beautiful, though he definitely is that. He’s about my age, with the sort of wide-shouldered, lean build that makes girls look. His hair is light brown, shot with gold and honey, worn in long, messy layers that fall to frame high, chiseled cheekbones. But the part I most want to see—his eyes—are hidden by mirrored, old-school aviator sunglasses.

That’s why I stare. Because of those glasses. I’m afraid they aren’t real, that none of this is real.

I remember Carly’s description of the hot new guy and his aviator shades, just like the ones this boy is wearing. I shiver. What if I’m not here, lying on the ground under a too-blue sky? What if I’m unconscious in a hospital bed attached to tubes and wires and all of this is conjured by my imagination and wispy memories of Carly’s words?

“It’s real,” he says, his tone flat. I watch his mouth shape the words. He has beautiful lips, the lower slightly fuller than the upper.

“What—” The word comes out as a croak. I roll my lips inward and swipe them with my tongue, then try again. “You can read my mind?” Not a possibility I’d normally even consider, but today’s shaping up to be a day that’s anything but normal.

He smiles, a faint curve of his lips that reveals the barest hint of a long dimple carved in his right cheek. “No, but I can read your expression. And I’ve been doing this long enough that I know what most people tend to think when they first open their eyes.”

“Doing
what
long enough?”

“This,” he says, and nothing more.

A second of silence stretches into two. Though I can’t see behind his glasses, I have the feeling he’s not looking at me anymore, that he’s scanning the area, looking for . . . something. But as I stare at him,
I
see me—tiny distorted reflections of me in the shiny, convex lenses. He leans a little closer and my image sharpens, my skin too pale, my hair too dark. The contrast makes me look like a goth.

This time he smiles with a flash of white teeth, and the dimple carves a little deeper. “A goth,” he echoes.

“I said that out loud.”

“Yeah. Happens to all the new arrivals. Hard to separate thought from speech at first.” He tips his head a bit to the side, studying me. “It’ll pass.”

“I heard you,” I whisper.

“That’s a good thing. Your hearing’s fine.”

“No, I mean I heard you earlier, inside my head.”

“Did you now?” He doesn’t sound surprised, or even curious.

I wait, and when he doesn’t say anything more, I sift through the bunch of questions that are clamoring for release and pick the simplest one. “Where am I?”

“The lobby.”

I glance around at the wide patch of long grass bounded by trees. “Lobbies have marble tiles.”

“Not this one.”

So maybe that wasn’t the simplest question. Or was it just the answer that was complicated? “Who are you?”

“Jackson Tate.” He says only his name, with no elaboration and no follow-up question of his own.

I jump in and offer, “I’m Miki. Miki Jones.”

“I know.”

Right. He knows my name. He’s been calling it all afternoon. In my head.

I’m about to ask how he did that when I register what he said earlier about all the new arrivals. Put that together with his assertion that this is a lobby, and I’m forced to revisit the impression I had when I first woke up. I blurt out, “Am I—”

I can’t finish the question. Not out loud. It’s like if I say it out loud, it’ll make it true. I struggle to sit up.

“No,” he says, but I’m not sure if he’s answering my unspoken question—telling me I’m not dead—or telling me not to move.

With a bit of effort I manage to sit up. He doesn’t help, but he doesn’t stop me, either. Then he touches my wrist. I glance down to see that I’m wearing a bracelet with a black strap and a rectangular screen that’s filled by a shimmering, swirling pattern.