“What would you want to do?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it? I guess I need to figure out where Mom’s ideas end and mine begin.”
We turn onto a quieter street. Richelle’s jogging along beside me, and I shock the hell out of myself when I say in a rush, “My mom’s dead. SCLC. Small cell lung cancer.” On my fourteenth birthday, she was laughing and chasing me into the waves at Atlantic Beach. We’d been going to North Carolina, renting the same oceanfront cottage my whole life. But that birthday everything changed. I remember the wave taking her under. I remember her coming up coughing. And coughing. I don’t think she ever stopped coughing after that. Four months later, she was dead. Four months. Chemo and radiation didn’t help worth shit. “I made my father put a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in her coffin along with the photos he chose of me and him and all of us together.” I pause, remembering that, remembering all the times my parents sat watching TV or reading the paper, a cloud of smoke hanging over them. “I was that angry.”
“Maybe you still are,” Richelle says.
I stop dead, because I can’t believe I’ve told her all this—I never talk about it. Not even with Carly. Never—and because I can’t believe a girl I’ve only just met hit the nail so precisely on the head.
I turned sixteen last month, and it was just me and Dad at Atlantic Beach, running into the ocean with our memories. I pretended the salty streaks on my face were from the waves.
So did he.
I pretended my bathing suit didn’t reveal the small eagle I’d had tattooed over my heart—a symbol of courage: Mom’s as she faced the horror of her disease. Mine as I continue to cling to the edge of the dark pit by my fingernails, trying to move forward, my memories of her slowly curling up at the edges and growing hazier with each passing day.
Dad pretended he didn’t see my ink, because he’d already told me not till I was eighteen.
We get by that way, Dad and me. Mostly honest, but sometimes not.
I stare at Richelle. Maybe she’s right; maybe I am that angry.
Tyrone nudges me on the shoulder. “Focus,” he says softly. I follow his gaze to see Jackson stalking back toward us.
“This isn’t social time,” Jackson says. I told you stay close enough that I could hear you breathe, he doesn’t say. But I swear I hear it anyway.
His words are a reminder that closes around my heart like a fist. For an instant, I’d been lulled into a sense of complacency, pushing aside the confusion and fear and questions about the bizarre turn my life has taken. Instead, I’d focused only on Richelle and the fact that she seems nice, easy to talk to. She seems like someone I want to know.
But this isn’t social time.
Jackson’s already told me that he can’t read my mind, but he might as well be able to because he says, “We aren’t here to make friends.”
“You’re such an asshole.”
“Keeps me alive.”
“You love getting the last word,” I grouse as he turns away.
“True enough,” he tosses over his shoulder, and if it were anyone but him, I’d swear he was smiling as he said it.
We must have been jogging for an hour or so when Jackson holds up a hand, and we slow to a walk. I’m barely winded. I’d like to chalk that up to my excellent physical condition, but the truth is, after a jog like that, I’d usually be drenched and breathing hard.
“You’re not even sweating,” I whisper to Luka.
He nods. “Being on a mission does that. We’re stronger, faster. We don’t need to eat or drink. I think it has something to do with this.” He holds up his wrist to show me his con. “You’re still feeling it a bit because you’re so new. Next time will be easier.”
Next time. “Yay.” I roll my shoulders, then ask, “Why weren’t we just dropped in exactly where we need to be? Why make us run for an hour?”
Even though my questions are aimed at Luka, it’s Tyrone who answers. “Reason one: We need to acclimate to the shift. The time it takes us to get to the objective is the time it takes our bodies and minds to reach optimum performance. Endorphins and adrenaline stimulated by the run aid the transition. Reason two: When a rift is created so we can get dropped, it alerts our targets. The farther away we are, the less likely that they can pinpoint exactly where we were dropped or how long it’ll take for us to reach them. If we’re dropped in a city, the masses of people can help mask us, so we’re dropped fairly close. If we’re somewhere isolated, like a desert, we get dropped farther away. Our cons scramble our signal once we’re here, and that makes it even tougher for them.”
“You know a lot about this,” I say.
“Been in it awhile.” He pauses. “When I first got pulled, I asked a lot of questions, too.”
“So you can apply the info to the game you plan to sell.”
“Damn right.” He grins. “Dollars are in the details.”
“Got any more urgent questions?” Jackson asks.