Eve Silver - Push

I follow his lead and tuck my weapon cylinder into the pocket of my vest. The pocket isn’t as big and loose as Jackson’s and Luka’s, and the outline is still clearly visible through the cloth. I poke at it, trying to make the shape less obvious.

“I’m not worried about that,” he says. “I’m more worried about your sword.”

“Crap. Forgot about that. What do we do?”

He walks around behind me and I feel him undoing the sheath; then I feel the weight lift off me.

“Don’t turn around,” he says.

I hear a swoosh, like a belt pulled quickly through a loop. I turn around. Jackson’s standing there with his pants undone, hanging way low on his hips, baring most of his dark-gray boxers. He slides the sheath of my sword down his pant leg. He’s holding the bottom of his T-shirt up and I can see smooth, gold skin and ridged muscle and the thin line of light-brown hair that trails down his belly. With a gasp, I turn away.

“Told you not to turn around,” he says, and I can hear the smile. There are faint sounds as he finishes what he’s doing—I’m guessing buckling the sword to his thigh—then, “I’m decent. Shirt safely in place.”

Echoes of what he said to me the night he climbed in my bedroom window to prove to me he wasn’t a shell. Weeks ago. A million years ago.

I feel like I’ve known him my whole life.

“We’re lucky Glenbrook isn’t a school with a metal detector or we’d be screwed,” Jackson says.

“If we get caught with weapons, Ms. Smith is going to be pissed. We could get suspended. Expelled.”

“That’s your biggest worry right now?” Jackson asks with a short laugh.

“No,” I whisper, thinking of all the things that could go wrong. But they’re too big, too terrible to think about, so I focus on the small, the less important.

“Steer the nightmare, Miki. Clear your mind. Think of this like a kendo competition. We go in. We fight. We win. Doesn’t matter that you’re a girl and they’re boys, faster, stronger. Doesn’t matter that some of them look at you like you shouldn’t be there, like you don’t have a right. You fight. You win.”

He’s right. Doesn’t matter that the Drau are faster, brutal, deadly. What matters is that I’m deadly, too. The fact that I’m still alive proves it. So I do what he says. I take a couple of deep breaths. Focus. Visualize.

“So what now?” I ask. “You said we go in . . . but Luka gave us the all-clear sign. There are no Drau inside the dance.”

“Not yet.” His expression is ruthlessly neutral. And his answer makes my stomach churn.

“Maybe they’ll go somewhere else. The science room. The roof. The weight room. The—”

“They won’t,” he says. “You know that. You feel it here”—he splays his fingers over my abdomen—“and here.” He shifts his hand to my chest, over my heart, over the tattoo of the eagle. “Courage,” he whispers. “You have enough of it to fill an ocean, Miki.”

“Why here? Why are the Drau here at Glenbrook?”

Jackson shrugs. “Maybe coincidence. Maybe they’re going for something that matters to us.”

I swallow and force the words past my too-dry lips. “Maybe the Committee chose this battleground. Maybe they’re trying to make a point. Keep us in line.”

I desperately want him to shoot down that possibility, but he only tips his head toward the open double doors to the dance. “We’ll keep them safe.”

My next exhalation is a shuddering sigh, but the one after that is smoother. I nod.

We stop at the ticket table and Jackson somehow manages to smile at Maylene like the world isn’t about to come apart, like the Drau aren’t about to ramp up their game. Like my heart isn’t slamming against my ribs, my palms damp. He chats with her. Gets our tickets.

And despite the mission jitters, I can’t help but notice the way Marcy’s looking at him. I glance at Jackson. His head’s turned toward her. His expression gives nothing away. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. And it doesn’t matter. Marcy ogling Jackson is so far down my list of issues right now, it barely ranks high enough to scrape mud off my boots.

So why is it giving me the creeps?

My gaze slides to Kathy, sitting at Marcy’s side. Her head’s down as she counts bills from the cashbox, then slips a paper clip on to hold a small stack of them. She’s a shadow eclipsed by Marcy’s light.

I stare at them both, considering impossible things. That Marcy’s a shell. That she scouted the school in advance for her Drau masters.

No time to tell Jackson what I’m thinking as we head into the dance. I’m not even sure I would tell him if we weren’t overwhelmed by sound and the crush of bodies. The whole idea’s so out-there. So crazy. And right now, we need to be dealing with facts and tangible threats rather than wild suspicions.

The music’s loud. The dance floor’s packed. People are clumped in groups, the space limited not just by bodies, but by costumes.

I see faces I recognize and some I don’t because they’re hidden behind makeup or masks. We push our way through the throng, searching for Luka. When we find him, Jackson points to a relatively uncrowded corner. He takes my hand, tucks me behind him, and starts pushing his way through the mass of bodies. I let him take point mostly because he’s bigger and broader and something about him makes people move aside.

I hear a familiar laugh and turn. There’s Carly with Kelley and Dee. They’re dressed in identical skintight bodysuits and coordinating wigs—Carly’s in yellow, Dee’s in red, and Kelley’s in green. They each have a hand-drawn label stuck on their stomachs: Carly’s is Dijon mustard, Dee’s ketchup, and Kelley’s sweet relish. When they told me what they planned to wear, I thought colored spandex didn’t exactly scream condiments . I was right. They look like three girls in spandex bodysuits with cardboard cutouts stuck on their bellies. But they seem happy.

I’m about to lift a hand and wave when I realize I don’t want to get their attention. I don’t want any of them anywhere near me when the Drau attack goes down. I want to tell them to get out, go home, be safe. But I can’t.

The rules.

I don’t know what the Committee will do if I break them. I can’t risk telling my friends information they aren’t allowed to have—as if they’d even believe me—and I can’t imagine they’ll leave just because I tell them to, if I don’t provide one hell of an incentive.

I turn away and follow Jackson deeper onto the dance floor. There’s a cry that carries above the music, awe and wonder and excitement. Jackson stops dead in front of me. People turn and shift, the crowd moving like a wave.

Through the spaces between bodies, I catch a glimpse of a streak of light, impossibly bright, tearing through the dance floor.

In my mind, the whole world slows down, like I’m watching separate frames in a stop-motion movie.

The single streak of light is beautiful and terrifying, a single Drau, a portent of the attack to come.

Three girls, obviously tipsy, squeal in delight. From their gestures, I can tell they think the glowing shape in humanoid form is someone dressed in a fabulous costume. They reach for the Drau, miss, stumble. One girl falls to her knees. They all laugh, and even though I can’t hear the sound over the music, I can see their faces, lips curving, teeth flashing, eyes crinkling up at the corners. With the strobe lights of the dance highlighting their expressions, altering shadows and nuance, they could be caught either in an instant of hilarity, or terror.

Another Drau darts between the dancers. And a third. They zigzag through the crowd: right, left, right. One person stops dancing, looks at the light, frowning. Then another and another.