Crash (26 page)

He tips his head back, and I realize that somewhere in the craziness, his glasses were torn off. His eyes meet mine.

I effing love you, Miki Jones. Don't ever forget it.

With a roar I surge to my feet, blindly firing on the Drau, my gaze locked on Jackson. And I watch in sick despair as the flaming remains of the bridge carry him down, down into the gorge toward the jagged rocks that reach for him.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I RESPAWN ON MY KNEES, HUNCHED FORWARD, SCREAMING. The pain inside me mushrooms like a nuclear cloud.

“Miki!” Strong arms close around me.

My head jerks up and I stare at Jackson, not daring to believe he's real, that he isn't some cruel trick conjured by my imagination. He looks calm and unflappable, shades in place. Then he shoves his sunglasses up on his forehead, his eyes molten silver, and I know he's anything but calm. He doesn't speak as he traces his fingertips along my brows, my lashes, my nose, my lips, like he's memorizing me. Or proving to himself that I'm real.

“I thought—” I shake my head. It doesn't matter what I thought. It just matters what
is
.

Laughing, I throw my arms around him and hold on
tight. He isn't dead. He's here, right here. I pull back to look at him, to follow his lead and trace my fingers along his jaw and the seam of his lips. I touch his hair, the scar that bisects his eyebrow, the curve of his ear. Then I lean in and press my mouth to his, ebullient, my joy bubbling and bright. We bump noses, shift, bump chins, shift again, and I laugh against his lips at the awkward perfection of this moment.

“You came back to me.”

“I will always come back to you, Miki Jones. As long as I'm breathing, I'll find the way back.”

“Don't say that,” I whisper. “It's too much like tempting fate. Just tell me again that you love me, for now, right now, and that's enough. Not just enough . . . perfect. Don't say it in my head. Out loud, say it out loud so I can hear it.”

“I love you,” he says, his voice gravel rough.

He could have died on that bridge and I would have missed the chance to tell him, would have missed the chance for all the wrong reasons. Not because I don't love him, but because I'm afraid. Afraid to love. Afraid to lose. Afraid to mourn again. The thing is, not saying
I love you
wouldn't have changed the outcome, but saying it would have. Because he'd have heard me say it. They're worth something, the words. He deserves them.

I swore the next time I said it would be in a moment of pure joy, a moment just for us. This is that moment. I won't squander it. “I love you, Jackson Tate.”

His lips curl just a little. “I know,” he whispers and
drags me against him to kiss me, his mouth fitting to mine like they are two parts of a whole, once separated, now joined.

I fist my hands in his hair, my body pressed tight to his, desperate to get him even closer than this, to feel his breath as my own, his heartbeat in time with mine. His hands splay across my lower back, pulling me to him, then he tumbles me onto the grass, his weight coming over me, heavy and welcome. Thigh to thigh. Chest to chest.

He kisses me like I am the moon and stars, the sun and blue sky, the whole universe. His universe.

All I know is his kiss. It consumes me, endless and deep and so beautiful it makes me shake. My arms loop tight around him, my hands press against the solid, smooth planes of his back, drawing him closer and closer still, running up and down the ridges of muscle that flank his spine. I want to kiss him forever, live here forever, in the warmth of his embrace.

But I can't, and he can't, and my heart breaks a little when he drags his lips from mine. Slowly, he pushes up, away from me, and already I feel cold without him.

Or maybe I feel cold because of the expression on his face. Pain. Regret. Loss.

He takes my hand and pulls me up so we sit facing each other on the grass. The cut on my leg's gone—no blood; no pain. Despite being hit repeatedly by Drau shots on the bridge, Jackson's unhurt, his clothes exactly the way they were before we went on the mission, his weapon back in
its holster. The trees rise around us, the familiar boulders off to my right. Suddenly, this strikes me as odd. We've respawned in the lobby, which makes no sense. After a mission, we don't come back here—we go back to our lives, our real lives.

Jackson cups my cheeks and stares down at me, and my heart clutches as I read his expression, so serious and sad. The effervescent euphoria of finding each other alive and safe leaches away, replaced by cold truth and numbing despair.

“Luka,” I whisper, refusing to believe.

Jackson's lips thin and he shakes his head.

“You're wrong,” I say, surging to my feet, pacing away then back. “
You're
here. He will be, too.”

“Miki . . .”

I blink against my tears and look away, at the grass, the trees, the familiar boulders. We're alone here, just Jackson and me. No one else from our team.

“No one else has respawned, either,” I point out as he gets to his feet. “Not yet. But when they do, Luka will be with them.” I want to believe he survived. If there was even the faintest hint of orange edging his con, then he survived.

Again Jackson shakes his head. I clench my fists and slam them against my thighs.

“You can't know,” I say. “You can't know for sure. Look! Tyrone's not here, either, or Lien or Kendra. Just because Luka didn't respawn yet doesn't mean he isn't okay. They'll
all be incoming any minute. You'll see.” But even as I blurt my assertions, I know I'm lying to myself, because in my mind's eye, I can see Luka as he was pulled under the water, and the bloodstained rocks that broke him.

The loss sledgehammers me, leaving me breathless. Jackson catches me as I weave, closing his hands around my wrists, and we just stare at each other, the horror of what's happened tunneling through us.

I drop my chin to the side, lids lowered. The image of Luka staring sightless at the sky, the river raging all around him, fills every corner of my mind. I try to think of his grin, the way he laughed the day he chased Carly at the bleachers, the awkward look on his face that day we both reached for the groceries at the same time, our hands bumping, our renewed friendship too fresh for easy comfort with such physical closeness. The way he poked at Carly's dead fish. The way he raked his fingers through his hair when he was nervous or worried. But every image I call up melts away until all I see is Luka's slack features, animation and life stolen from them, and the rocks stained crimson with his blood.

“We couldn't figure out what the point of the mission was,” I say, anger lacing every word. “The Committee dumped us there with no maps. No instructions. They weren't talking in your head. Why the hell did they send us there if there was no task for us to complete?” Jackson opens his mouth to answer, but I don't give him the chance. I barrel on, my voice rising. “Because
Luka
was the
mission. That's why we respawned as soon as he died. I can see their whole plan now.” I swallow. “They killed him.”

Jackson doesn't answer, but I can feel the tension radiating from him in waves, and it hits me that he probably thinks I'm talking about the Drau.

“The Committee,” I say. “Not the Drau. Don't you see? The Drau were just the weapon, but it was the Committee that pulled the trigger.”

“They might be listening,” Jackson says, low, leashed rage and pain in his tone.

“Let them.” I tip my head to the sky and yell, “Are you listening? Can you hear me? I know what you did. You sent us there to get Luka killed.”
That
was the point of the mission. To murder him. Because he'd served his purpose to the Committee, and once we figured out they were using him as a spy, they decided he had no purpose at all anymore.

“He was a danger to them,” Jackson says. “He knew too much. They didn't want to risk him telling us all about it.”

I press my palm against my lips, the horror of it all overwhelming me. “We figured out he was a spy.
We
killed him,” I whisper.

“No.” Jackson slides his hands to the base of my skull, tipping my head back so he can look into my eyes. “No, Miki. We didn't. They did.” He looks away, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “You're right. The Drau were the weapon but the Committee had their finger on the trigger.
There was no other way that mission was going to end. They meant for Luka to die, and if that meant the rest of us went with him . . .”

“No.” I shake my head. “The Committee isn't that arbitrary. They meant for Luka to die and us to live. They still have a use for us.” I pause, then continue bitterly, “Team leaders aren't that easy to replace.”

I lean forward and rest my head against Jackson's chest, focusing on each breath, only each breath, in, out, blocking out the pain, the rage, the hate that threatens to swamp me.

“None of this makes sense,” I say. “None of it. I'm not just talking about Luka dying. I'm talking about the whole thing. The Drau. The Committee. If this is all about fighting off the Drau invasion, all about saving mankind, why send us on that useless mission just to kill a valuable soldier because they're pissed we found out what they were doing? Why use Luka to spy on us in the first place?” I exhale, trembling. “What if we're making a mistake? What if—”

“Go on,” Jackson says. “What if . . .”

“What if . . .” Do I dare say it out loud? The Committee is no doubt listening to every word we've said. They know what I think of them. So does it matter if they hear me confirm it? I wet my lips and whisper, “What if the Drau aren't the enemy?”

Lightning doesn't strike me down. I don't get whisked to the amphitheater. It's still just me and Jackson standing in the lobby. So maybe the Committee doesn't care what I
think. Or maybe they're just sitting back and seeing where this goes.

“Were you not just on that bridge?” Jackson asks. “Did you not feel the sting of the Drau's weapons?” His jaw clenches. “They saw Luka hanging there. They shot the rope knowing exactly what the end result would be. I think that spells out pretty clearly that they aren't exactly friends or allies, and if it doesn't—” He curls his fingers in the neck of his shirt and yanks it down to bare the top of his shoulder and the scars there, testament to his life-or-death fight with the Drau that followed him back from the game.

“It isn't that clear-cut.” I shake my head, my thoughts spinning too fast. “You killed someone that Drau cared about right after they killed Lizzie. The Drau followed you back into our world and attacked you out of grief. It was life or death for both of you.”

“If we weren't in a war with them, a war
they
started, the life-or-death situation wouldn't have existed.”

Again I shake my head and demand, “But how do we know? How do we know any of it is true? The binary star system the Drau supposedly come from . . . their attack on the Committee's home planet . . . the motives behind the Drau's actions . . . Everything we know comes from the Committee. They told us the version they want us to believe. Who started it? Who really started the war? The Committee says the Drau. Is that the truth? What if the Drau believe it was us?”

Jackson just stares at me, brow furrowed, and I can see
he isn't discounting my question. He's considering it, trying to come up with an answer. It must be impossible to reconcile everything he's believed for five years with the evidence pointing to the possibility that it's all lies.

“It sure as hell wasn't the human race that started it,” Jackson says. “Most people don't even have a clue the Drau exist.” He pauses. “What are you looking for here, Miki? Some sort of reason in the chaos? There isn't any.” He looks away and swallows, then looks back at me. “Five years.
Five years
, I've balanced never knowing where I'll be when I open my eyes, never knowing who'll die, who'll live, who'll lose it. Dealing with the Committee. Dealing with kids who have no clue, who wouldn't believe me even if I told them, who are probably going to die before their next birthdays. I survived it because I thought I was serving a cause bigger than me.” He pauses again, then finishes softly, “I have to believe that.”

I wrap my arms around his waist, my cheek against his shoulder. “The only knowledge I have of the Drau, other than what I've seen in the game, is what you told me or the Committee showed me in my head the first time I encountered them. The same information they gave you.” I lean back, holding his forearms. “What if they lied? The Drau want to conquer us, want to use us as a food source. That's what the Committee says.” I swallow and stare up at him. “You don't think that's cliché, like some sort of creepy sci-fi movie? Like something too out there to be true?”