Rush (30 page)

She stares at the phone for a long time. Her lips pinch, then relax, and she says, “Your bad.”

At least she’s talking to me.

We go to a place on Mt. Hope. It’s not very busy. Probably because we’re past the lunch rush and too early for the dinner rush. Maybe because it’s pretty new—slate tiles, bright yellow walls, shiny counters. We head for a booth. Jackson gestures for Carly to slide in. She does and he sits beside her. Luka slides in across from her, which leaves me across from Jackson.

I expect small talk. Sports talk. Something. But Jackson goes in a different direction. He turns his head toward Carly and says, “If the world ended right now, name one thing you’d be proud of and one thing you’d regret.”

“What?” She looks as startled as I feel.

“Seriously,” he says. “Name one of each. Fast. Before you have too much time to think about it.”

“I don’t know.” She cuts me a glance, clearly confused. “Someone else go first.”

Jackson says, “Luka?”

“I’d regret betrayal and be proud of friendship,” he says, not losing a beat. “And having some sort of ethics. I’d be proud of that.”

“Carly?” Jackson says.

She rolls her eyes. “I don’t know. I’d regret not having legs like Stephanie Ling. You know who I mean. She sits in front of you in Spanish. The one who always wears the really short skirts? Which she should, with legs like that.”

“Never noticed,” Jackson says with a small smile. Chivalry at its best. He’s noticed, all right.

“That’s the best you can come up with?” Luka asks Carly, and reaches over to tug gently at the pink streak in her hair.

She presses her lips together and ducks her head so she’s looking at him through her lashes.

“Seriously, Carly?” Luka laughs.

“Carly has tons to be proud of,” I jump in. “Loyalty. Brains.”

“Beauty,” she interjects.

“Miki?” Jackson says. “Your turn.”

Carly smiles at me, bigger and brighter than she’s smiled at me in a while.

I try to smile back. I
mean
to smile back. But suddenly, the smells of melting cheese and tomato sauce and grease wash over me, not appetizing . . . nauseating. The room spins. My focus fades, then snaps back, too sharp.

Luka’s talking, then Jackson, but I can’t make out the words. I think they’re asking questions. Asking me? Asking Carly? I don’t know.

I press the tip of my tongue against the backs of my top teeth, breathing through my mouth, trying to ignore the smells. I can’t. My stomach churns. My chest rises and falls, too fast. My head spins. There’s something wrong. Really wrong.

The world feels too slow. Sounds are too loud, smells too strong, colors too bright.

Then I recognize the sensation and fear uncurls inside me. We’re being pulled. I turn my head, expecting Luka’s eyes to be blue. He’s looking at me questioningly, his brow furrowed. But his eyes are brown.

Not blue.

It takes me a second to process that because my brain feels like its gears are grinding and going nowhere.

If we’re not getting pulled, then what’s wrong with me?

My breathing speeds up even more, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t make it slow down. Terror sinks rows of jagged teeth into me.

Feeling dizzy and sick, weak, trembling, I push to my feet. Anxiety surges and swells. I’ve had panic attacks before, just after Mom died. There’s an edge of panic to whatever’s going on here, but that’s not it. This is something more. I can’t stay here. I have to get away. The yellow walls are too bright, burning my eyes. My jaw aches, my eyes burn, even my skin hurts.

“I have to—” I stumble forward. I need to get out of here.

I hear Carly behind me, her voice coming at me from very far away. “Jackson, move! Miki’s sick.”

She must be telling Jackson to let her out of the booth. I try to turn my head, to tell her to stay put. Whatever’s wrong with me, I don’t want it to touch her. But I can’t speak, can’t move. I’m frozen in place halfway to the door, the fresh air and sunshine just beyond the wide front window. Just beyond my grasp.

I have to get out. I have to get out
.

Anxiety flips into full-on panic.

I’m not going to make it.

MY LIMBS PRICKLE WITH THE UNCOMFORTABLE NUMBNESS OF too little blood circulating through them. Terror is a lead ball in my chest, cutting off my airway.

“Deep breath, Miki.”

“Jackson?” My fear scales down a notch.

“Deep breath,” he says again. He sounds tense. Angry.

I do as he says and take a deep breath, but my chest won’t expand all the way. That’s when I realize that I’m bent forward at the waist, my back to his front, his arm around me. The backs of my thighs rest against the fronts of his, and I’m sort of sitting on him even though we’re both standing.

It’s actually not the ideal position for deep breathing, but with my legs numb, it isn’t like I have a ton of options. I don’t think they’d hold my weight if I tried to pull away. I flex and release my fingers, and do the same with my toes, drawing blood back into them with a painful surge. Leaning back against him, I let Jackson take most of my weight as I lift one foot to draw a figure eight with my ankle. I switch and do the same on the opposite side. My muscles come back to life with a bright agony that makes me gasp.

“Why is it so dark? Are we back in the cave?” That doesn’t make sense. We should have stopped in the lobby first to get scores and weapons. I hope the game isn’t changing on me right when I’m getting used to it.

“No.” Just that. No explanation of where we are. Typical Jackson. I can feel the leashed energy in his body, but his touch is gentle as he strokes the back of my head, my neck, down to my shoulder. He’s still holding me. I don’t want him to let me go. “You okay?” he asks.

“I thought I was getting better at being pulled.”

“This is different. Better now?”

I think about that, running a quick checklist. The nausea I felt in the pizza place is gone, along with the panic and the dizziness. My limbs feel almost normal now, with just the faint vestiges of prickling dancing along my skin. But I still feel off.

“Better, yeah. I’m not about to hurl. And I think I can stand.” I straighten, and I notice the hesitation as he loosens his hold but doesn’t fully let me go. His arm stays looped around my waist.

Jackson supports me for another second as I straighten fully, then lets go and steps away from me. For a guy who swears it’s every man for himself, he takes an inordinate interest in my well-being.

“You’re taking care of me again,” I murmur.

“Again?”

“You’ve been doing it all along,” I say, remembering the first time I was pulled. It was Jackson kneeling by my side as I came to.

“Every man for himself,” Jackson whispers, but there’s something wrong with the words. They sound off, like he feels pain just saying them.

My eyes adjust to the dimness as I look around, expecting to see the grass, the trees, the boulders. Luka and Tyrone. But nothing is the way it should be. Jackson and I are standing in the flat bottom of what amounts to a giant, narrow bowl lined by row after row of seated figures that extend so high I can’t follow them all the way to the top. There’s a bit of light here at the bottom of the bowl, but it fades the higher I look. The figures are shadowed, faces and features obscured, but I know they’re staring at us. How can they not be? It isn’t like there’s anything else here to look at.

We’re in a stadium. A coliseum.

I feel like I’m on display. I’ve had to do a hundred kendo competitions in front of judges and crowds, but this isn’t like that. There’s something about this place, these people, that frightens me. I edge closer to Jackson, until my arm presses against his.

“When are they going to let the lions loose?” I mutter.

“Lions?”

“Haven’t you ever watched any shows about gladiators? Lions, tigers, bears . . .”

“That’s one of the things I love about you, Miki. You’ve got balls of steel. And a sense of humor.” He pauses. “So I guess that’s two things.”

His words make me freeze. Things he loves about me? He says that so easily, but I can’t quite decipher his tone. There’s an undercurrent there I don’t understand. Still, heat rushes through me, burning away the last of the chilly numbness in my limbs. I slant him a glance, but he isn’t looking at me. He’s standing with his thumbs hooked in his belt loops, one hip cocked, his head tipped back as he looks up and up and up. Or maybe his eyes—hidden by those perpetual shades—are closed and he isn’t looking at anything at all.

He seems relaxed. Truth, or a pose for my benefit, to make
me
relax? Hard to tell.

Curiosity gets the better of me. I turn full circle and stop dead when I see three figures set apart from the others, equally shadowed, equally eerie. They appear to be sitting on some sort of floating shelf, like three judges or like a commi—

“The Committee?” I whisper, remembering what Jackson said when we were sitting on the bleachers.

“Yes.”

He’s answering me, and he’s not telling me to be quiet, so I figure that it’s okay to talk, to ask questions. I cut an uneasy glance at the surrounding audience, which sits eerily still and silent, cloaked in darkness. “Why are we here? Where are Luka and Tyrone?”

“This isn’t a mission. Luka and Tyrone weren’t subpoenaed.”

He’s not whispering, so I don’t either. “Not a mission? Then what is it? Wait . . . you said subpoenaed. Like a trial? Am I on trial?”

Jackson says, “No—” at the same time as an unfamiliar voice intones, “You may address any questions directly to us.”

Us . . . us . . . us . . .

I clap my hands against my ears, but it doesn’t relieve the sensation of sound tunneling into my brain, my muscles, my bones. I hear the voice not only through my ears, but I feel the sound of the words vibrating through every receptor on my skin. I taste them on my tongue; I
smell
them. The experience is both terrifying and wondrous. It’s a little like Jackson talking inside my head that first day, only amplified by a thousand. A hundred thousand.

“Is—” My entire body cringes from the sound of my own voice. It’s like I’ve been hooked up to a loudspeaker that’s aimed directly at my brain. I’m thinking it and saying it and hearing it at a level far above normal, and the sensations gouge my senses like a thousand jagged knives.

“Too much?” the voice asks, and the intensity of the sound playing over my senses lessens.

“Um . . . thanks?” The sensations are softer now, blossoming inside of me, but muted, not painful like before. I take a second to get used to the weirdness of
inhabiting
my words, then offer the questions I tried to ask the first time. “Is that why I’m here? To ask questions?”

“If you wish.” Again, the sound fills my nostrils, bursts on my tongue, shimmers along my touch receptors. Weird, weird, weird.

“If I wish?” I laugh at the absurdity of that, and then stop abruptly at the experience of feeling my laughter in my toes. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. This is all just a little overwhelming. And, yes, I wish to ask questions.” I’ve done nothing but wish for answers since the first day. Since the second Jackson started talking in my head.

I’m startled when Jackson reaches for my hand and weaves his fingers with mine, the familiar calluses on his palm rough against my skin. He’s holding on to me almost tight enough to hurt, tight enough that I know he has no intention of letting go. I have the strange thought that he isn’t holding on to me now to offer support, but because he doesn’t want to lose me, like I’m going to float away from him in this strange, dim place, like a balloon, up and up until I disappear in the darkness.

I lift my eyes to the raised figures. “Who are you?”

“You may call us Committee,” the voice says.

“But that doesn’t answer my question.” I don’t know where my bravado comes from, but I figure I have nothing to lose. Whatever reason they have for bringing me here, they’re the ones in control, the ones calling the shots. Since they said I could ask questions, I might as well go ahead and do exactly that. “I asked who you are, not what I can call you.”

If their laughter could be described, then it’s warmth and light rushing through my veins, dancing in my limbs. The experience is like nothing I’ve ever known before.

“You are brave, Miki Jones. And brash. We are everything and nothing. We are the collective consciousness of those who came before. We are the arbiters, the judges, the negotiators, the keepers. We know what was and we guide what will be. We are those who guide you. We have waited for you, though we would not have taken you under ordinary circumstances.”

I remember Jackson mentioning something about the Committee waxing philosophical. He wasn’t kidding. I take my time figuring out what their words mean. When I can formulate a clarification, I say, “So you’re the collective consciousness of those who came before. You mean the aliens who fled their home planet to escape the Drau? The original ones who came to Earth?” My ancestors.

“Yes.”

Now I know where Jackson gets his monosyllabic nature. “And by collective consciousness, you mean the thoughts and memories. But you’re not really here. You’re . . . some sort of memory bank?”