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I take it down, but not without a price. Pinpricks of pain erupt across my shoulders and upper chest. With a cry, I stumble back, shoot, retreat. I try to catch site of Luka and Lien. But they’re gone.

I’m alone, cut off from my team by the sheer number of Drau that fill the space as they surge into the gaps created by their downed comrades. I feel like they’re herding me in the direction of their choice, and each time I try to veer aside, they force me back the opposite way.

There’s no chance to assess or plan. All I can do is keep moving, keep killing, because the option is to stand still and die here.

I stay close to the wall so they can’t get behind me. My weapon cylinder hums, black sludge eating my enemies whole. I hack at sunlight-bright bodies with my sword, not even pretending to maintain proper stance or form. There’s no honor in this. Only ugly, raw death.

My arms burn in all the places that their light droplets hit me, leaving scorched holes in the sleeves of my shirt and open wounds in my skin. Blood trickles down my arms, drips off my fingertips to the floor.

There’s one of me and maybe ten of them. They could take me down anytime. They don’t. They’re toying with me. Playing with their prey.

Fear is like an avalanche, a heavy, crushing weight, tumbling and roaring until there’s nothing but blinding, white terror.

A burst of pain explodes above my eye. My vision blurs as I fire again and again, aiming at nothing, reckless and desperate.

I won’t die here. I can’t.

Instinct takes over, honed by eight years of kendo training. Sofu’s voice echoes in my thoughts.
Your opponent strikes and you do not merely defend. You counterattack.
Oji waza.
But better that you do not wait. You initiate. You attack.
Shikake waza.

With a
kiai
shout, I run directly at them instead of away, adrenaline pushing me to a place I never would have imagined. Pinpricks of light rain down on me, pain so bright it blurs my thoughts. It isn’t like in the movies. I don’t run up the wall or leap ten feet in the air and do aerial cartwheels. My soles slam against the floor; my heart slams against my ribs.

I fire, up close and personal, the lightning-fast black ooze eating my opponents while their screams flay ribbons from my psyche and the light from their weapons flays my skin. I don’t look into their shimmering eyes—mercury gray, indescribably lovely, terrifying, and deadly. I don’t give them the chance to suck out the electrical action potentials that power my nerves, my muscles, my brain. My life.

From the corner of my eye I catch a flash of movement. I spin, feeling like the whole world’s slowed down and there’s just me and the Drau standing an arm’s length away, lowering its weapon to firing position. This close, the blast will blow me away.

I lift my sword so it’s pointing back and up at a forty-five-degree angle; then I step forward and swing at the Drau’s forehead.
Men-uchi—
the move is as familiar to me as breathing. The black blade sinks deep in the Drau’s skull. With a cry I tighten my hold on the silk-wrapped handle, yanking the weapon free as I shoot lightning-black ooze to my left, annihilating yet another enemy.

Glowing forms fill my field of vision, too many of them, all firing at me. All wanting me dead.

I wish I had a shield. I wish—

A Drau comes at me, a blur of light. I feint left, right, surge forward, and duck.

I cry out in rage and desperation, forcing all my strength into a
tsuki
thrust, sending my sword through the Drau’s chest, through its back, impaling it. I hold the squirming body before me as a shield, bracing my elbow against the arc of my hip bone to help me bear the weight. Adrenaline and terror make me strong.

Them or me.

My mantra.

Grunting and gasping under the weight of the Drau pinned at the end of my sword, I back up step by step. It stops struggling. The tops of its feet drag along the floor. The shots of the other Drau fall on their comrade, making his corpse jerk and twist as I shoot a stream of black death that swallows them whole.

My arm and shoulder are on fire, screaming under the weight. Nausea curls in my belly at the horror of what I’ve become. I push it down, lock it away.

There are fewer Drau now. I lower my sword and let the body slide off as I back into another corridor. They follow. I cut them down with my weapon cylinder, shooting anything that moves, sweat trickling down my spine.

I’ve lost any sense of orientation. I don’t know where my team is or if they’re okay. There’s no chance to look at my con and see if there are still five green triangles in place.

Please,
I whisper silently.
Please.

Opportunity presents itself in the form of a door. I shove it open and slam it behind me, panting, shaking. A lock. I turn it, nearly sobbing with relief. They’ll get through it. I know that. But at least I’ve bought myself some time.

Minutes.

Seconds.

I glance at my con. Two green triangles somewhere to the left of me, so close together they almost overlap. Two more triangles a bit to the left and behind, touching at a single vertex. My team’s alive and still paired up. The frame of my screen’s dark yellow edging to orange. My health bar’s not looking so healthy.

Tears drip down my right cheek. I lift my hand to swipe at them and it comes away red. Not tears. Blood.

I jump as something slams against the door. It shakes on its frame, but holds. For how long? I hear a sizzling sound, like bacon in a hot pan, and I figure they’re trying to fry the lock. I need to find a place to make a stand.

The room is massive. Rows of metal shelves stacked with black barrels run a grid with aisles in between. I run down the first, stop, turn left, keep running, turn right. My one thought is to get as far from the door and the Drau as I can. Is there another exit? I try to picture the corridor and fail. But I do remember that when we first left the elevator, I noticed that there weren’t many doors along the hallways.

I’m almost at the far wall. The sound of Drau bodies slamming against the door carries to me.

I dart right again.

Hide? Keep going?

Terror clouds my thoughts.

I keep running and at the last second veer left.

Good choice.

There’s a door on the opposite wall, one with no Drau slamming against it. Chest heaving, I skid to a stop, press my ear to the metal. I don’t hear anything on the other side.

I grab the handle . . . slowly . . . turning . . .

Sounds of battle carry to me, muffled, distant. I dart into the empty corridor and quietly shut the door behind me. No lock on this side, but maybe they won’t find this exit right away.

Run, or hide?

I glance up. There’s ductwork running along the ceiling, and vents. I can’t reach them, and even if I could, they’re too small for me to fit through. I try to remember which way I moved when I was cut from the rest of my team, which corridors I took in the heat of the fight.

Two options: right or left. Only one will take me back to Luka, Tyrone, Kendra, and Lien. It should be an easy choice: pick the one that runs in the direction of the green triangles on my con. But it isn’t that easy because all the corridors here branch and angle, so even if I run left now, I might end up running right in a few turns.

I’m alone. And I’m lost.

I’m no fricking leader. I don’t even have eyes on my team.

“Pull it together, Miki,” I mutter.

A crash echoes from behind me, the slam and rebound of the first door against the wall. They’re through. They’ll find me.

I run.

Straight into a Drau.

I SKID TO A STOP MAYBE THREE FEET FROM THE DRAU. INSTINCT sends my head jerking back. Our gazes collide. Eyes of endless, swirling gray. I’m drowning in a silvery lake, the eternity of a storm, beads of mercury swelling and coalescing to swallow me, take me.

Pain.

My existence pulled out through my eyes.

My knees go weak, but I lock them, refusing to fall.

Don’t. Look.
Jackson’s voice inside my head. But he’s not here. He’s just a memory, and if I let go, just let go, let the cool mercury glide over me, through me—

There’s a thud against my abdomen, like I’ve been kicked. I tear my gaze away. My breath rushes out. I gasp for air, pressing my hand to the wound. My sword clatters to the floor, falling not from my hand but from the Drau’s.

How . . . ?

The Drau looks up, over my shoulder, somewhere behind me. I turn my head . . . except . . . I don’t.

I can’t.

My ears are ringing, my head buzzing with the drone of a thousand wasps. I feel like a pricked balloon, deflating, sagging.

I’m cold.

Shaking.

I look down and everything’s red. My hand. My sleeve. The front of my shirt. Glossy red. The air smells of copper. Of blood. My blood.

I’ve been stabbed. I’m bleeding everywhere, my clothing soaked with it. But I don’t really feel any pain. I don’t feel anything at all.

Why doesn’t it hurt?

I rest my shoulder against the wall, aim, fire, take out the Drau that’s just killed me and another as it streaks up the hall.

Daddy, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you all alone.

Jackson, I’m sorry. So sorry.

I hear a hiss, like someone exhaling through their teeth. A girl with light brown hair loose around her shoulders steps in front of me firing down the corridor, taking out two more Drau.

Her presence means there’s another team here. We’re not on our own like I thought. I slide the rest of the way down the wall, my legs like celery stalks forgotten in the back of the crisper. Then I lie there, too weak to move, my shoulders and head propped up against the wall, the rest of me a splay of limbs on the cold floor.

The girl fires and fires again, then drops to her knees beside me, reaching toward my wound.

She pushes aside the sliced edges of my shirt. Two more Drau, twelve o’clock. I lift my weapon and point it over her shoulder. Panting, I fire, take out the first one, but the second keeps coming. So fast. So bright. My hand shakes, so weak, and drops to my side.

Numb. Useless.

“Drau,” I gasp. I expect her to leap up, turn, shoot. But she does none of those things.

“They’ve got my back,” she says.

Then a shower of light hits the Drau I missed, and it goes down screaming. I turn my head looking for the girl’s teammates, but they must have taken cover out of sight.

The floors and walls spin and dip. My lids drift shut. I feel a tug, like someone’s pulling my shirt off. I drag my hand to my opposite shoulder and realize it’s bare. I’m only wearing my sports tank.

“Why are you taking off my clothes?”

She doesn’t answer. I force my eyes open again. Force myself to focus.

Nothing makes sense. A shower of
light
took down the Drau that I missed
.
The girl’s teammate took out that Drau with light.

That’s not right.

Our weapons shoot darkness.

Then I notice the weapon the girl has holstered. It isn’t like mine. It’s metallic and smooth, but it doesn’t look solid. It’s fluid and jellylike: a Drau gun. Confused, I ask, “Why . . . ?”

“Shh. Don’t talk,” she says. “Save your strength.”

The floor moves beneath me, tipping away.

For a millisecond, her eyes meet mine. And they’re not right, either. Everyone’s eyes are blue in the game.
Everyone’s.
Except Jackson’s. His are always Drau gray, no matter what. But this girl’s aren’t blue.

They’re green. Lizzie green.

I remember the pictures in the front hall of Jackson’s house. I remember Lizzie’s face when I shared Jackson’s nightmare. This girl . . . she’s Lizzie.

She reaches for my wound and I cry out from the pain.

This girl can’t be Jackson’s sister. Lizzie’s dead.

I’m losing it. Hallucinating.

Drau appear to the left of us. I try to lift my hand, to aim, to shoot. My vision wavers and then clears. There are no Drau there now. Only a wall.

“I’m in trouble, aren’t I?” I whisper.

“You’ll be fine.”

Right.

She’s holding a T-shirt in her hands—my T-shirt—and she folds it into a thick square and presses it against my wound. At first I feel nothing. Then I do. I grit my teeth, but a groan leaks out.

“Press,” she orders, laying my hand on the wadded shirt and pushing my fingers flat.

I press.

She grabs her weapon and another off the ground, one that a downed Drau must have dropped, and bounds to her feet. Only then do I realize that the battle kept going without us. That her team members are still warding off the Drau attack. I don’t even have enough strength to turn my head and look for them. She spins and fires, double-handed. Again. Again.

“Hang on,” she calls to me over her shoulder. And then, “. . . Going to lose it if . . .” The rest of her words are lost as she moves to fight off another two Drau.

My blood leaks through the makeshift pad, leaving my fingers warm and slick. I have the crazy thought that this isn’t like they show on TV where the guy with his gut ripped open leaps to his feet and battles the bad guy to the glorious end. I won’t be doing any leaping anytime soon; I don’t think my feet would hold me.

I have the bizarre urge to laugh and laugh.

I want to close my eyes and sleep.

So weak. So tired.

I force my eyes open and will myself to stay awake. I turn my wrist and look at my con. More red than orange. Not good.

Footsteps, moving fast. I turn my head to see Luka running toward me. Behind him are Lien and Kendra and Tyrone.

The girl who saved me turns around. A Drau steps out of a corridor behind her. She doesn’t see it. She doesn’t know it’s there.

I scream, but the only sound that comes out is a gasp.

She can’t die. Not like this. I
owe
her.

I lift my hand. The weapon cylinder feels like it weighs a thousand pounds.

I fire.

I miss, the Drau moving so fast I never stood a chance.

The girl never stood a chance.

But before it can take her down, a thousand droplets of light rain over it. The Drau falls, writhing, hurt but not dead, a speckling of dark spots marking the places it was hit.