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“Pokémon rules.” She offers one of her rare smiles.

“We’re cosplayers,” Kendra adds. “We made these for Anime Expo last year.”

“You went together?”

“Uh-huh.”

That surprises me. Not that it’s impossible for people to know each other from outside the game—Jackson and Luka and I do. But I’m a little surprised that I’m only just figuring this out now about Lien and Kendra, on our third mission together.

My gaze collides with Kendra’s. She’s watching me watching them. I can’t quite read her expression.

“Did you meet in the game? Or did you know each other before and both get pulled?” I ask at the same time Luka says, “Pikachu, I choose you,” and winks at Lien as he mimes an overhand throw.

“Pikachu? I’m all about Charizard,” Lien says with a sniff, choosing to ignore my questions.

“Makes sense. Fire-breathing lizard with a bad attitude?” Luka lifts his brows. “Suits you to a
T
.”

Lien sends him a dark look.

And Luka looks back at her like he’s . . . interested. Wow. Obtuse much? He and I have to have a little talk.

“We’re really gonna have a conversation about Pokémon?” Tyrone asks, sounding disgusted.

“We’re not having any conversation,” Jackson says. “This isn’t social time. We aren’t here to make friends.”

“Have you practiced that speech?” I ask. “Because it sounds a lot like the one you gave me the first time I got pulled.”

“Who the hell are you?” Lien asks. From the expressions on her and Kendra’s faces, this is about to get interesting.

In typical Jackson fashion, he’s about as friendly as a post. “Jackson Tate,” he says by way of introduction.

“Lien. That’s Kendra.” She’s barely civil as she says it.

“I know.”

Luka’s brows shoot up. I’ll tell him later about the Committee dropping info into Jackson’s head. I’ve had enough of the whole we-don’t-talk-about-the-game-outside-the-game. I’m more certain than ever that knowledge is power, and the more we know, the better we’ll be able to do this job.

“Gear up,” Jackson says.

I wince at the militant expression on Lien’s face. This is not going to go well.

Kendra crosses her arms over her chest and cocks a hip out to the side. “What makes you—”

Jackson’s right in front of her and I barely even saw him move. Lien tries to get between them, but Jackson sidesteps her easily.

“My team. My rules,” he clips out. “This is not a democracy. You follow my lead. Do what I say when I say it and I will get you both out of this alive.”

Lien glances at the knife strapped to Jackson’s thigh. Her expression’s mutinous, but it’s Kendra who answers back.

“Who died and made you king? Miki’s still alive, still in the game. That means she’s still leader. You’re the new guy. You don’t get to just waltz in here and take over with all your macho shit.” Then she stomps over and stands beside me, shoulder-to-shoulder.

Tyrone lets out a low whistle. “Mutiny.” He crosses his arms over his chest and leans back so his butt and the sole of one boot rest against the larger of the two boulders. “Let the show begin.”

Lien shoots him an ugly look. “I don’t think I like you,” she says to Jackson as she flanks my other side. I’m a little stunned by the show of solidarity. She and Kendra haven’t exactly been fan one and fan two up to this point.

“You don’t need to like me,” Jackson says. “You just need to take orders.”

Beside me, Lien tenses.

Was there ever a boy who was more adept at pushing people’s buttons?

“Actually,” I interject before this degrades any closer to nuclear meltdown, “Jackson’s the leader of our merry little band. I was just filling in for the last couple of missions. But he’s back. And trust me, he has way more experience than I do.”

“Yeah?” Lien gets too close, right in his face. Jackson doesn’t move a muscle. “How much experience?”

“Five years.”

Lien’s jaw drops and Kendra gasps. “I’ve never . . .” Lien snaps her mouth shut and shakes her head. “Five years? Longest I’ve ever heard anyone being in is two. Five years and you still haven’t hit the thousand? You must suck.”

The thousand. The magical number of points that’s supposed to guarantee an exit from the game. According to the scores that came up last time we got pulled, none of us is anywhere close. And none of us has actually met someone who hit the thousand and got out. When I asked the Committee about the thousand-points-and-you-get-to-go-free rumor, they didn’t really give me a straight answer. They danced around it, saying that no one on the planet would ever really be free until the Drau threat was neutralized.

I cut a glance at Jackson. For team leaders, the thousand points really is just a rumor. The only way out for a leader is to find a replacement, and neither Jackson nor I even have that option open anymore. We’re in the game for life, married to it, till death do us part—as in, either the Drau are dead or we are.

“Save it,” Jackson says to Lien, his tone harder than I’ve ever heard it. “Save that anger for the Drau.” He waits a beat, then continues, “Here’s my philosophy. Adopt it, and you’ll make it out alive. Every man for himself. You watch your own ass. Your con goes orange? You fall back to defensive position. No heroics. And no stupidity. Got it?”

“That makes no sense. We’re a team,” Kendra says with a wary look in my direction as she and Lien grab their harnesses and gear up. “What do you mean, every man for himself?” at the same time as Lien says, “You are some kind of asshole.”

Tyrone snorts a laugh. “Not
some kind
of asshole. The consummate asshole.”

Luka cuffs Jackson on the shoulder. “Nice way to make friends, Jack.”

This all feels so familiar. Jackson said a lot of these things to me the first time I got pulled. I didn’t understand any of it then. I didn’t understand
him
. But now I do. He’ll tell each of us to be selfish, to watch our own backs and no one else’s, but
he’ll
be wholly unselfish, watching out for all of us, expecting no one to watch out for him.

I consider explaining that to Lien and Kendra, then decide against it. Even if they believe me, which I’m not certain they will, Jackson will deny it. So why waste my breath? They’ll see soon enough.

Instead, I clarify his philosophy because I figure understanding it might mean they follow it. And that actually might help them at some point. “In Jackson’s opinion, if you’re trying to keep an eye on someone else, it splits your focus. That could get both of you killed.”

“It’s not just an opinion,” Tyrone says, his eyes locked on mine in a frozen instant of mutual understanding.

Richelle was killed because she was watching Tyrone’s back. At least, that’s what Tyrone believes. He thinks it was his fault.

“Scores,” Jackson says.

Kendra catches my eye and jerks her head in Jackson’s direction. “What’s with the shades?”

I smile a little, despite my nerves. “He likes to think he’s cool.”

Tyrone and Luka laugh.

“I don’t get the joke,” Lien says, snippy and pissy and dripping attitude.

“You will. Patience, grasshopper,” Luka says with a teasing grin.

Lien punches him in the shoulder. Hard.

She steps closer to Kendra and takes her hand. They exchange a look I can’t read and when Lien glances up and catches me watching them, her expression closes.

Then we all turn to face the screen hovering in the center of the clearing. The 3-D digitized rendering of Jackson appears, making him look like a character in a video game. He’s wearing the clothes he had on in Detroit. It’s like a snapshot of the last time he was in the game, the last seconds of that mission. I wince as I study the image. He’s lying on his back, his face chalk pale. His eyes are closed.

The emotions I felt in that second—hopeless, desperate, half-deranged—bite at me now. I tamp them down, refusing to set them free of their chains. I need to stay calm. I need to focus. One mistake could cost lives, and despite Jackson’s mantra, I’m not all about me. I’ll keep an eye on everyone on this team. We are all coming back.

The picture of Jackson flips end over end, then shoots to the top left corner of the screen.

Luka’s next. He has on the clothes he was wearing during our last mission. He’s down on one knee, leaning over something, his hands stained with blood. I’m guessing that’s my blood because there’s a clear view of my arm and my con, almost fully red.

“Something you forgot to tell me?” Jackson asks against my ear, his tone low and rigidly controlled. A sure sign he’s majorly pissed.

“I’m fine,” I mutter.

“But you almost weren’t.”

What am I supposed to say to that?

Luka’s picture flips over and over and zooms to the top left corner, knocking Jackson’s down a notch.

Tyrone’s next. He’s running, his expression intent, his focus complete. Up and over he goes, then zips into place above Jackson, below Luka.

The next picture’s Kendra. The black frame forms and her picture shimmers into place. Her eyes are squeezed shut, her mouth twisted, her arms raised before her, the black ooze from her weapon obscuring half the screen.

It’s a weird angle to have captured. Not for the first time, I wonder exactly where these pictures come from and how the Committee creates them.

Lien’s picture comes next. She’s pulling back, like she was about to take a shot and then didn’t.

My picture’s enough to make Jackson hiss through his teeth. I’m on the ground, wearing my sports tank, blood everywhere. Great. I tip my head back and stare at the sky for a second before looking back at the screen.

The two columns of numbers appear.

“What’s with your score?” Lien asks. “I know you lost points to injury penalty, but . . .”

My gaze skids down the list to the bottom.

My picture’s second last. Jackson’s is last. Our scores are set to zero.

“We got reset,” Jackson says.

“Never seen that before,” Luka says at the same time Lien demands, “What does that mean?”

“Leadership snafu,” Jackson says, his tone making it clear that the subject’s closed.

Tyrone squeezes my shoulder. Kendra shifts her weight from her right foot to her left, arms wrapped around herself, palms rubbing up and down, up and down until Lien reaches over and stills her. But no one says anything more. How does Jackson do that?

“We jump in thirty,” Jackson clips out.

“If he’s the leader, how come you get a sword?” Kendra asks, pointing.

I follow the direction of her finger and see my kendo sword placed neatly beside the weapons box. I cut a glance at Jackson. He shrugs.

My sword shouldn’t be there. Only the leader carries an extra weapon. Jackson’s is the long-bladed black knife strapped to his thigh. He did combat application technique training when he lived in Fort Worth, and he brings that knowledge into the game.

“Bring it,” Jackson says as he picks up my scabbard and tosses it to me. I snatch it out of midair, mentally counting down seconds to the jump. Tyrone reaches over and helps me get the sword strapped to my back, the handle between my shoulder blades, perfectly positioned so I can reach back and grab it.

As I turn, the screen catches my eye. I stare at it, stare at the scores. Kendra’s second from the top. That means her cumulative score is second highest. I frown, thinking back to what the scores looked like before the last mission, before we respawned in the elevator. I was so focused on Jackson, finding him, saving him, that I really didn’t pay attention. Was Kendra that close to the top last time? For some reason I think it was Tyrone, then Luka, then Lien, then Kendra. So either I’m wrong or she’s gained a ton of points in a single mission.

Luka makes an odd sound. I glance at him. He’s staring at Kendra, his expression closed.

My stomach twists. Something’s off. Something’s wrong.

And then the jump takes hold and turns me inside out.

WE RESPAWN IN A WIDE HALLWAY. BEIGE LOCKERS LINE ONE wall. A large, glass-fronted case full of pictures and trophies and plaques takes up the opposite wall. Sports stuff. We’re in a high school. I glance at the name and don’t recognize it.

I wait for the feeling of urgency, the sense that the Drau are near, and get nothing. Looks like they’re late to the party.

A pounding bass beat carries from a distance. There’s a dance going on here, somewhere not too far away. I glance at Jackson. “This is not good. There are civilians nearby.”

“Civilians?” Luka asks, his brows shooting up. “What are we? Special Forces?”

Lien snorts.

“Vegas,” Jackson answers me, typically verbose, reminding me that we’ve been in a position like this before. When we went after the Drau in Vegas, they were in a warehouse in a populated area. I remember jogging along a crowded street, groups parting to let us through, sensing us but not seeing us, as if we weren’t there.

The reminder settles my nerves a little.

“So if we run into anyone, they won’t see us, right?”

“Never have before,” Tyrone says.

Not wholly reassuring, but the best I’m going to get. I’m more than curious about how this all works. Different dimension? Different plane of reality? Maybe I’ll try to get answers out of the Committee next time I see them.

Good luck with that.

I glance at Jackson, waiting for his confirmation. He doesn’t say anything more, which isn’t unusual for him on a mission. So why does his silence leave me uneasy?

Lien and Kendra hang back, close enough that their shoulders touch, hands resting on their weapon cylinders. The whole we’re-one-big-happy-team thing I was aiming for last mission has definitely fizzled.

Suddenly Jackson holds a finger to his lips, then draws his right hand palm down across his throat in a slicing motion. I don’t need to know anything about military style games to read the message:
danger
. The Drau are near. He can feel them.

So can I.

I sense their presence, some primitive part of my soul reacting to the threat. My pulse ramps up.

Enemy.

We all feel it. Genetic memory. Instinct. The urge to flee the Drau is blueprinted into our DNA.