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CHAPTER TWENTY

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.

But we don’t flee. We’re going to head straight for them, swallowing the horror and fear that bubbles inside. It creeps me out that the battleground’s going to be a high school with a bunch of oblivious kids dancing in a gym somewhere close. The selfish part of me is grateful it isn’t my high school.

Jackson taps his con. I hold mine up. All green. So is everyone else’s. His con’s got the live feed and the map and the moving triangles. That means the Committee wants us to stick together and follow Jackson’s lead.

Weapon cylinders drawn, we proceed down the hall in a column. Jackson gives the halt signal and he and Luka check a door. Locked. We keep moving. Something’s off. It isn’t just the Drau alarm clanging in my gut. It’s something else. Something I haven’t felt before.

I catch Tyrone’s eye. He frowns and offers a half shrug, and I get the feeling that he’s getting the same weird vibe I am.

I focus on it. Dissect it. Can’t quite put my finger on what it is that’s bothering me. I just feel off, like I didn’t respawn here quite right, like my molecules aren’t totally in sync. It makes me think of a transporter failure in an old Star Trek episode. Beam me up, Scotty! The thought sparks a really inappropriate urge to laugh. My nerves are wound so tight that one more turn of the screw will make them pop.

Jackson and Luka check another door. Same result. We move down the hallway, Lien and Kendra bringing up the rear. Every door we try is locked. The rooms beyond the doors are dark. And with each step, the music gets a little louder.

We turn a corner and a wave of vertigo nearly knocks me to my knees. I slap my hand against the wall and close my eyes. Doesn’t help. Everything still feels like it’s spinning, or maybe I’m the thing that’s moving. I press harder against the wall, using it as my anchor, focusing on the rough texture of painted brick beneath my fingers. When I open my eyes, I see that whatever hit me hit us all. Except maybe Jackson. Hard to tell with him. He always looks like a hard-ass.

I take a step forward, keeping my palm flat to the wall for balance, sliding it from brick to the cool metal of a bank of lockers.

Wait . . . the lockers are a different color. They were beige. Now they’re dark blue.

A color shift shouldn’t bother me, but it does.

My stomach gives this weird little flip.

I shoot another look at Jackson. His jaw is set, his attention focused. Even though I can’t see his eyes behind his mirrored lenses, I can sense him scanning the perimeter, always vigilant. Whatever’s setting me off, he feels it, too.

Or . . . maybe he already knows what it is. Did the Committee warn him, give him a heads-up about what to expect? If they did, why didn’t he tell me?

Jackson points at Luka and Tyrone. They move ahead, check the next few doors, and we follow behind.

The music’s louder, closer. I can hear voices and laughter.

People. The dance. The auditorium.

It’s just along this corridor and to the left.

How do I know that?

I close my eyes for a second, not wanting to admit what I’ve already figured out: I know where the dance is because I’ve been in that auditorium hundreds of times, because I walk these halls almost every day.

We’re not at the high school we respawned at.

We’re at Glenbrook.

The Drau are at Glenbrook.

At my dance. With my friends. People I love.

But they can’t be here. That’s the whole point of the game. To keep them away.

My skin crawls and I turn to look behind me, certain I’ll find a Drau, a dozen Drau, a hundred. But there’s only Kendra and Lien.

I shake my head and spin back, muscles tightening, ready to sprint. Jackson grabs my upper arm, stopping me as I take a step forward.

I gasp. I don’t even know what I was thinking. That I’d run into the dance, weapon cylinder drawn and blazing, kendo sword at the ready? I get myself under control, holding tight to the knowledge that while my school may be offering the backdrop, my friends and teachers are safe. We’re here but not here. Same with the Drau. We’ll pass through the throngs of people, but they won’t see us. And they won’t see the Drau, won’t be subject to their attack. Just like the people we passed in Vegas. The tension knotting my muscles eases a little.

“Luka,” Jackson says, no longer bothering to stay silent. “Scout the dance.”

“They know we’re here?”

“Just like we know they’re here.” Jackson snags Luka’s paintball visor off his vest. “Leave this.”

Luka turns his hand palm up in a what’s-up gesture.

Jackson cocks his head in Tyrone’s direction and says, “Tyrone might need it. Student-only rule.”

The rule Ms. Smith made that says only Glenbrook students are allowed at the dance. Kendra and Lien will probably be able to sneak through thanks to their costumes. It’s kids at the ticket table, not teachers. Usually no one checks ID.

But Tyrone’s wearing regular clothes and he looks older than high school. He’ll definitely get stopped at the door.

He takes the visor and slips it on, leaving it on top of his head for now. Not much of a costume, but better than nothing.

Then it hits me: Why does he need a costume? No one can see him. No one can see any of us.

“He doesn’t need a costume,” I point out. “It’s like Vegas, right? We’ll sail through the crowd.” Unseen. Unnoticed. In an alternate version of Glenbrook High. “He doesn’t need a costume,” I repeat, the words tense and low.

Jackson’s lips thin as he reaches over and moves Luka’s weapon cylinder from his holster to one of the big, baggy pockets at the front of the vest he’s wearing.

“Go,” Jackson says. Then to me, “Yeah, he does.”

We hang back and watch as Luka strides toward the auditorium doors.

Maylene George is sitting behind the ticket table, along with Kathy and Marcy. I stare at them, at Marcy, wondering if she knows, if she’s one of them.

I expect Luka to walk past, unseen. Like Vegas.

But this isn’t like that at all.

Actually, I don’t expect it to be. Not anymore. Something’s different. Something’s very, very wrong.

Maylene tips her head and smiles as he approaches. “Hey, Luka. I thought you were bringing Sarah and Amy.”

Maylene can see Luka. She knows he’s here. Which means he’s in the same reality as she is.

And so are the Drau.

They’re not in a parallel place that doesn’t touch anyone who isn’t part of the game. They’re here.

Really here.

Right now.

My fingers dig into Jackson’s forearm. I feel dizzy, sick, my anger and fear and confusion swamping my thoughts until I think I might throw up.

I look at the walls, so familiar, the top third painted white, the bottom two-thirds beige. I look at the rectangular florescent lights. The ceiling tiles. The banks of lockers lining the walls.

This is my school, and they are here.

In my world. My real world.

The boundaries have failed.

The Drau have pushed through.

Horror tastes like ashes, dry and desiccated.

I step forward. Jackson snags my hand, holding me back. I tug. He tugs back. The rational part of me rears its head and he wins.

Luka says something to Maylene about Sarah and Amy being on their way. He hands over some cash and Kathy hands him a ticket, her fingers grazing his as she looks up at him through her lashes. Either he doesn’t notice the way she looks at him or he chooses not to notice. He heads into the dance.

Seconds ooze past. Ten. Thirty. Ninety.

Then Luka appears at the auditorium doors and signals us. No Drau inside. Not yet.

My heart’s pounding so hard that it’s all I can hear. It takes me a second to realize that Jackson’s talking to Tyrone.

“. . . rule about students only. Don’t want to take a chance on drawing attention. You three head outside. Go around back. Find the rear doors. I’ll crack them open from the inside. Be careful, take your time, and don’t take any risks.”

“Take our time? Guess that’s gonna cost us the time bonus,” Lien quips.

The time bonus for getting the mission done at warp speed. It starts out as triple points and decays by increments of point five. There are a ton of options to score bonus points in the game. Stealth-hit bonus points. Multi-hit. Head-shot bonus points. Tyrone explained it all to me the very first time I was pulled. But I rarely think about points and scores, and in the heat of battle, I never think of my score. I just think of staying alive.

“Are you serious?” I ask, my whole body vibrating tension. “I get that you want to earn your thousand, that you want out. But you’re talking about scoring bonus points when these are people, real people, my friends—” She looks at me, her eyes wide, surprised. She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know.

And then she does. I see the change in her the second that it hits her. She holds up both hands in front of her like she’s warding me off. Her expression reflects all the worry and distress I feel. She might not know my friends, but she knows what this means: If the Drau can come into my real world, they can come into hers.

“Sorry. We good?” she asks.

“Yeah.” I nod, recognizing how close to the edge I really am.

Kendra’s strangely quiet, hanging back a couple of feet, pale, shaking, sort of huddled into herself. Not good. I’m worried she’s going to freak out again, like she did before the last mission.

Holding Lien’s gaze, I cock my head in Kendra’s direction. Lien sinks her teeth into her lower lip and shakes her head as she falls back to talk quietly in Kendra’s ear.

I glance at Tyrone. He’s watching them, narrow-eyed, and then he looks over at Jackson. He mouths a word, but I’m at the wrong angle to catch what it is.

Some silent agreement passes between them, but I have no idea what.

I walk over to Kendra and Lien and take both their hands in mine so we’re a little circle. “We are all coming back. Remember?”

Kendra lifts her eyes and whispers, “I remember.” But her expression’s vacant.

“Jackson,” I say, wanting to tell him I don’t think she’s all here. And I think that in her current state, she just might get herself—or someone else—killed.

I’m on it.

I gasp. I’d forgotten what it was like to have him push his thoughts inside my head, his voice right there, part of me.

“Go. Get them outside. Back doors,” Jackson says to Tyrone.

Lien shoots him a glare, but doesn’t argue and I have a feeling that’s for Kendra’s sake.

As the three of them jog down the hall, back the way we came, I realize Jackson knew before I did that Kendra was in trouble. That’s what this whole rear-door thing is about. He sent Tyrone to babysit. Which means it’s me and Jackson and Luka. Three of us against who-knows-how-many Drau.

Awesome.