“Tried it. Twice,” Tyrone says from behind me. “They disappeared, just like Luka’s pics and his weapon.”
“And if you did succeed?” Jackson asks, his tone soft. “Have you forgotten the rules? The fact that we can’t tell anyone about the game? What makes you think you’d survive long enough to divulge a thing?”
The way he says that makes me shiver.
As he moves off, I see what he meant earlier. The shadows are weird and disorienting, dancing and weaving, then ending abruptly as they’re swallowed by the dark.
In Vegas, Jackson said that the Drau were sluggish in the dark. I wonder why they chose these eternal-night caverns to set up camp. I wonder how our arrival gave us away. I wonder where we are and exactly what our mission is. I hope I live long enough to find out.
The longer we walk, the more I think. The more I think, the more out of control I feel. There’s no Richelle this time to chat with me and keep my mind from going along a dangerous path, one that has any number of not-so-pleasant outcomes.
The air is cool, but we’re moving fast and I’m too amped to feel really cold. Still, I worry about what we’ll do if the temperature drops. “I don’t think we’re dressed for this.” The words run together in a rush. “And the caving environment . . .” I’m babbling now. “I saw this show about how spelunkers have to be careful because the environments are fragile. Even a touch can destroy—”
Jackson stops and turns to face me, the light on my harness reflecting off his ever present über-dark lenses. Which he’s wearing even in a cave. I start humming: I wear my sunglasses at night. . . . Then I start laughing, a little too loud. The sound bounces back at me.
He steps closer, close enough that I’m staring straight ahead at his chest, remembering how it felt to rest my cheek against it in the park. “Miki, you can’t control this,” he says.
“I—”
“We’re here. It is what it is. We don’t get a choice about that.”
“You make it sound like we get a choice about anything.”
His fingertips skim the back of my hand, just like they did that night in Vegas. “We could sit down here and refuse to move. That’s a choice. But I don’t recommend it.”
“Then what do you recommend?”
He’s so close that I feel his breath against my cheek. “That you hang on and enjoy the ride.”
Jackson leads us through a maze of tunnels. Everything is disorienting: the darkness, the restricted field of vision, the ever-changing shadows that have nothing to do with sun or moon. I can barely tell which way is up. There’s no real color here, only shades of gray cast in a greenish glow by the lights we carry. The textures blur and fade. Passages branch and change directions. I have a hard time knowing for certain if we’re moving on the horizontal, and I have an even harder time knowing how long we’ve been at this. Sometimes we can walk. Sometimes the tunnels narrow and dip so much we have to crawl, the rocks scraping my sides and back. Each time the passage branches, Jackson doesn’t hesitate. He goes right. He goes left. And we follow.
Every so often, he stops and turns and studies what’s behind us. “What are you doing?” I ask.
“The path is going to look different on the way out than it does on the way in. I’m doing a look-back. Memorizing the landmarks.”
“But we won’t have to find our way back. We’ll be pulled when we’re done.”
He stoops and takes some loose stones in his hand, then arranges them in a neat pyramid. This is the third or fourth time he’s done that.
“Just in case. Better safe than sorry,” Luka says, stepping up, positioning himself between Jackson and me. He studies my face. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I nod, then turn and take a good, long look at the tunnel behind us, memorizing the outcrop high on the wall that looks like a bird’s beak.
Jackson saunters over. He makes a big show of looking at me, then Luka, and back again. His lips twitch as he shoulders his way between us.
Luka narrows his eyes at Jackson. Jackson holds his ground till Luka steps back. I’m starting to feel like a raw steak between two pit bulls. The thing is, it’s pit bull nature to fight, even when the steak isn’t there.
Then Luka juts his chin toward a group of large boulders ahead of us in the tunnel positioned perfectly at a fork in the route. “Good place to camp,” he says.
“Camp?” I ask.
“Hunker down and pick off the enemy as they run past,” Tyrone says from behind me. I glance at him over my shoulder. “In a game, it’s a good way to get a lot of points very fast.”
“Right.” I nod. “I’ve done that.”
Luka’s brows go up.
“Mostly Carly and I camp in paintball.”
“Makes sense.” Luka grins. “Carly and running are words that do not belong in the same sentence, even when you’re talking about paintball.”
“She doesn’t believe in achieving sweat unless the activity involves dancing.” And/or a guy. “So we usually just end up lying in wait.”