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After a second I duck my head, pull away, and bolt.

Luka has his backpack slung over one shoulder, mine over the other. I don’t say a word. I just start walking and he falls in beside me.

“I thought of something while you were inside,” he says after we’ve walked a couple of blocks. “That thing I couldn’t remember earlier.” He rakes his fingers back through his hair. “Tyrone told me about a guy on the team who didn’t come back.”

“Nothing unusual about someone not coming back—not in our world.”

Luka waits a beat and then adds, “Yeah, but then he did.”

I stop walking. “What?”

“Tyrone said he thought the guy broke some rule and he got put on trial or something, and they decided to send him back in the end.”

Broke a rule and got put on trial—that’s why Jackson’s law text triggered the memory.

“Put on trial by the Committee?”

“The Committee,” he echoes. “Weird hearing you say that. So . . . every time Jackson made some snide comment about decision by committee, he wasn’t just being an asshole.”

“That about sums it up.”

“So there actually is a committee—”

“With a capital
C
.”

“And you’ve already met them.”

I nod. “You haven’t.”

He shakes his head. A kid’s high-pitched shriek of laughter cuts the quiet. Luka’s lips thin as he glances around. “Let’s go.”

My turn to look around. There are other people on the street. Some kids playing basketball in a driveway. Some other little kids riding their bikes up and down the sidewalk while two moms stand on a lawn, talking and watching. Luka doesn’t want to be overheard. Can’t say I blame him.

“This guy,” I say once we’re out of earshot, “is he the one who . . . I mean, did I take his place?”

“No.”

“Did you ever meet him?”

“No, he was before my time.”

Which means he either died in the end or got transferred to another team. Or earned his thousand points and made it out.

“Who put him on trial? And why? What else did Tyrone say?”

“Don’t know. Don’t know. And, not much.”

“Could you be less helpful?”

Luka shrugs.

We walk for a few minutes in silence as I mentally run through scenarios. “So you think Jackson broke one of the endless stupid rules and now he has to pay the price? That there’s going to be some sort of trial?”

“Makes sense, right?”

It does.

“But what rule . . . ?”

Luka shrugs again.

“Wait . . .” I skid to a stop, worry uncoiling like a cobra. “If the Committee tries Jackson and finds him guilty, they won’t be able to keep him imprisoned indefinitely in some sort of alternate dimension prison. His parents will notice him missing. They’ll freak out, look for him. Call in the cops. Our teachers, our friends, they’ll all notice he’s gone. I don’t think the Committee wants that sort of attention.”

Luka makes a chopping motion with one hand. “He’ll be another statistic. Another kid who ran away.” He shakes his head. “But it won’t come to that. If they decide he’s guilty, decide not to send him back, they’ll just make certain that everyone forgets.”

Forgets all memories of him from the time he was conscripted to the game. Like everyone forgot Richelle. Because she was dead.

And that terrifies me. But it terrifies me less than the possibility that the Drau have him.

And then it terrifies me more.

“You think they’ll kill him?” I ask. I know what the Committee’s capable of. They take kids—
kids
—to fight in a war against aliens. Their explanation is that adult brains have fully formed neural connections, which means getting pulled—making the jump into the game—is too difficult for them. But still-developing teen brains handle the shift much better. Makes sense, sort of. Doesn’t change the fact that the Committee’s ruthless. Any decisions they make are colored by their single-minded determination to defeat the Drau.

“If they think the rule he broke is worth killing him for, then, yeah, I think they will,” Luka says.

I picture Jackson lying cold and lifeless, his gold-tinged skin gone gray, the tiny muscles that make his face so expressive gone slack. Dead. People don’t look the same once the spark that powers their cells is gone. They’re not really that person anymore, just the wrapping left behind.

I trip over the edge of an uneven paver and grab Luka’s arm. “We have to find him. We have to—” Words fail me. I tip my head back and stare at the sky, fighting tears, feeling helpless and impotent and angry.

“Yeah.” Luka sounds broken. He sounds like I feel. “And how the hell do we do that?”

I meet his gaze. “I need to see the Committee.”

Luka starts walking again.

Stop, start, stop, start. I feel like we’re on a malfunctioning conveyor belt—which pretty much reflects my life right now.

“How do we get to see them?”

“I think
I
have a better chance than
we
. But I don’t know how I get to them. I don’t have a clue. I have to—” I exhale in a rush. “I’ll figure it out. I just need to think.”

Luka says nothing.

Finally, I break the silence. “No suggestions? No questions?”

“No to the first. As to the second, would it be safe for me to ask? Would it be safe for you to answer? Are you allowed to tell me about them? Jackson never did.” He doesn’t sound bitter, just curious, and a little concerned.

It’s a reminder of the whole cone-of-silence rule. No talking about the game or the Drau in the real world. I remember how earnest Luka was the first time he told me that.

Guess we’re breaking all the rules now.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s better that you’re not asking. I don’t want to break any
rules.
” Luka might not sound bitter, but I do.

Rules and rules and rules. The ones Jackson told me about. The ones he implied. The ones that make no sense because they keep all of us in the dark when bringing us into the light—illuminating us with knowledge—would surely serve our mission far better than having us stumble around without a clue.

“What rule did the guy Tyrone told you about break? What was bad enough to get him put on trial?”

Luka shrugs. “Tyrone didn’t say. Probably doesn’t know.”

I think about that for a few minutes, sorting through all the rules I’ve broken personally, all the ones I know other people have broken both in and out of the game. “You and Tyrone tried to sneak stuff out to try to prove the game’s real, right? And nothing happened to you. You and Jackson both talked to me about stuff outside the game, explained things, answered my questions. Rule breaking without consequences.”

“Okay. Yeah. So where are you going with this?”

Where
am
I going with this?
“You and I are talking about it right now and we’re not getting arrested, or whatever. And when we were alone in the caves, Jackson told me a ton of stuff about the game and the Committee and the”—I lower my voice—“Drau. So if he’s in trouble for breaking a rule, it has to be bad. Worse than any of that.”

“Jackson told you stuff?”

Is he angry? Hurt? His tone’s completely neutral so it’s hard to tell.

“He told me about . . . them. About their planet. About our ancestors. But none of that’s the reason he’s missing, not that I can see, because he told me all of that
before
my first meeting with the Committee.” And, if anything, they’d been even more forthcoming when I questioned them. So if that was the rule he’d broken, why didn’t they discipline him back then?

“So it has to be something more recent,” Luka says. “Something that happened in that building in Detroit.”

Detroit.

Jackson shouldn’t even have been there. He’d already traded me for his freedom, so he should have been out of the game.

But he wasn’t.

He was there.

He took the Drau hit meant for me.

And now he’s gone and I have to find him before it’s too late.

AT THE CORNER, LUKA HANDS ME MY BACKPACK AND SAYS, “My place is that way.” As if I didn’t know that. “You going to be okay on your own?”

Usually my hackles would go up at a question like that, but the way Luka asks, the understanding in his eyes, the fact that I know he’s as freaked out as I am, makes me accept his concern with grace. I bump his shoulder with mine and say, “My dad should be home pretty soon. You?”

“Won’t be on my own. My sister’s having this nail-and-hair thing tonight with a bunch of her friends.”

I can’t miss his aggrieved tone. “Tell me you aren’t the chaperone.”

“Are you kidding?” His eye-widening grimace screams horror and disbelief. “Ten twelve-year-old girls under my supervision? Not gonna happen.”

“I was babysitting by the time I was twelve. Do they really need supervision?”

Before he can answer, his phone vibrates. He drags it from his pocket and listens, his face going expressionless. He says, “Yeah,” and then, “Fine,” before he ends the call and looks at me. “My dad. I have to go.”

I nod. I don’t ask why. It doesn’t matter. We’re teenagers. We don’t always get a say in what we do or where we go. Our parents have expectations, make demands. It’s just the way it is. In this case, I think his dad’s demanding Luka supervise those girls. I guess I’m not a very good friend because I’m secretly smirking and I’m definitely not offering to come over and help.

As I round the corner of my street, a gust of wind catches a paper cup off the ground and sends it swirling along the road until it disappears around the side of the Sarkars’ garage. Usually September in Rochester means temperatures that start out high and drop quickly—you can go to school at the start of the month wearing a T-shirt, and by the end of the month you need a parka. Well, not quite. But close enough.

My arms prickle with goose bumps, and I walk a little faster. The chill feels all the more intense because I’m exhausted, like I’ve lived a year in the span of a day.

All I can think of is the way I held Jackson as he lay dying from the Drau hit.

I clench my jaw.
Dying
, not
dead
. He’s alive, and I’m going to find him.

Despite my resolve, my shoulders sag—not from defeat but from complete energy drain. I came back from Detroit fully healed . . . physically, anyway. But the fatigue I feel is in my bones, my heart, my soul. I’ve never been a fan of energy drinks, but for the first time, I can truly understand the appeal. Right now I either want to down about five of them or just crawl into my bed and sleep for a month.

But I can’t. I have to figure out a plan, figure out a way to get to Jackson. On my very first mission, the one to Vegas, he told me he was going to watch out for me and just hope it didn’t get him killed. I remember what I said in return:
Eight years of kendo. I won’t let you get killed.

I meant those words, then and now. I’m going to find him and I’m going to bring him home. I just need to figure a way to get in front of the Committee to argue his case. I know Jackson could communicate with them when he was in this reality. There must be a way I can, too.

I tip my head back and whisper, “Requesting an audience here, guys. Please.” I swallow. “Please.”

Then I climb the porch steps and drag my key out of my bag . . . and drag . . . and drag . . .

My movements are too slow, like I’m pulling my key through syrup. All my senses explode: sounds too loud, colors too bright. The weight of my backpack on my shoulder is like a ten-ton boulder. The cold air pricks my skin like tiny needles, digging deep. Sensation overload.

I’m being pulled. Panic surges. Again? So soon? I can’t. I don’t have it in me to fight again. Not yet.

Then another possibility hits me and the panic morphs into anticipation. The Committee. They must have heard me. I guess it was the
please
that did it.

Something bounces off the top of my foot, a sharp flick that quickly dulls into numbness. I glance down to see that it’s my key ring. My backpack slides from my nerveless grasp and lands beside my foot with a thud.

The world tips and tilts, my front door falling slowly to the side. Or maybe I’m the one falling.

Dizziness slams me and I sink down onto my knees, arms outstretched, palms planted flat to break my fall. But I don’t hit the wood slats of the porch. I hit grass, soft and long. I look up, knowing what I’ll see: a wide, grassy clearing surrounded by trees.

I’m in the lobby.

“No,” I yell. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be in front of the Committee, getting answers that will help me find Jackson.

Instead, I’ve been pulled to fight the Drau. Another mission.

What happened to rest and recovery?

Rage spills toxic waste in my soul.

That’s one thing the game’s done for me: pushed through the muting gray fog that’s shrouded my emotions since Mom died. Anger and pain always broke through the gray, but now they’re so bright and sharp, they make me gasp. Be careful what you wish for.

I let my head fall forward between my outstretched arms, fighting the urge to just lie down and say, “No more.” The black strap around my wrist snares my gaze. My con. It just appears whenever I get pulled. The con measures health in the game—a portable life bar. Right now it’s glowing dark green, shot with swirls of blue and turquoise and light green, sort of like the black opal Kelley’s dad brought her from Australia when his company sent him there for a month.

The more damage I take in the game, the more the green will bleed to yellow, then orange, then red.

Full red, I’m dead.

I shove that thought to the bottom of the dark well that holds all the terrors and monsters that would love to crawl free and gnaw at my sanity.

Steer the nightmare. That’s what Jackson told me to do. Control what I can and let go of what I can’t.

It’s the letting go part that doesn’t come so easy.

Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be taking Jackson’s advice to heart. Look where it landed him.

I laugh, a dark, ugly sound. I feel wild and out of control, and hate every second of that. I don’t want to be this girl.

I pull out the bag of tricks Dr. Andrews, my grief counselor, taught me: Breathe. Visualize. Focus.