I let go of the harness and push myself to keep up, just to prove the point.
He reaches over, catches my wrist, and settles my fingers back on the harness. “No, I mean how do you feel when you’re here, underground, walking into the unknown? How did you feel in Vegas? How did you feel a little while ago facing down the Drau? How do you feel when you get pulled?”
I open my mouth, then close it. How do I feel? “Scared. Out of control. Freaked out.”
“And?” That one word pushes me, challenges me. It’s like he wants to climb inside my mind. But he’s already there. From the second he started talking inside my head, calling my name, Jackson Tate’s been front and center in my thoughts.
“How do you feel?” he asks again, forceful, insistent.
For some reason, I think of Tyrone and the way he seemed better down here, more focused, more— “Alive,” I whisper. It hits me then. When I’m on a mission, I don’t feel the gray fog weighing down every thought, every action. “I feel alive and it’s a rush.”
“That’s what I mean. You have no choice about whether to be part of this or not. You’ll be pulled no matter what. But you can choose to make the best of it.”
I recoil, appalled. “The best of it? We kill things and run the risk that they’ll kill us. Whoever I replaced is dead. Richelle is dead. We had no choice about that, no say. How do you make the best of that?”
“By grabbing hold with both hands and steering the nightmare instead of just huddling in the corner and watching it unfold.” The words are low and intense. He knows what he’s talking about. He knows what I’m feeling.
Does he know that just being with him is a rush, too? Does he know what he does to me?
“You call what happened on our last mission steering the nightmare?” I ask.
“What I could control, I controlled.”
I have a flash of memory: Jackson kicking the weapon out of the Drau’s hand. Richelle’s scream. Is that what he means about controlling what he could? Did he choose between us because he couldn’t save both? A terrible possibility.
“Your definition of control was watching my back, keeping me alive.”
“Yes.”
“How long have you been steering your nightmares, Jackson?”
There’s a long pause. I hear the faint scuff of our footsteps as we keep moving, and I think he isn’t going to answer. Then he says, “Too long. Forever.”
“Then why don’t you get your score to a thousand and get out?”
Another long pause. “There’s only one way out for me, Miki.” Every syllable is nuanced and laced with meaning, but what that meaning might be, I can’t say. I almost ask, but at the last second, I hold back. If he wanted to tell me, he would have. Instead, I ask, “Do you ever think of giving up? Just saying ‘No more’ and giving up?”
He stops and turns to face me, his expression fierce. “No, and you won’t, either.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you haven’t given up, no matter how much shit’s been dumped on you. You’re a fighter. You fought to be the best at kendo. You fought for your mom. You fought your grief. You fought to be normal.”
I stare at him, stunned. “How do you know all that? How do you know things about me?”
He steps closer. Then slowly, so slowly, he lifts his hands and curls his fingers around the back of my neck so they meet at my spine. He cups my face, his palms resting against my cheeks. I freeze, heart pounding, my mouth going dry. My skin tingles everywhere he touches.
“I know you,” he whispers. He sounds so certain that I almost believe him. I almost believe that I know him, too, that there’s something in each of us that clicks with the other, like two pieces of a puzzle.
I shake my head. “You don’t. You can’t.”
I don’t know how long we stand like that, so close I can feel his holster pressed against my hip, feel his breath touch my lips.
He lowers his head a fraction of an inch.
I’m breathing too fast, heart slamming against my ribs, blood rushing, leaving me light-headed.
My lips part. My gaze drops to his mouth. He’s going to kiss me, here in this underground labyrinth, far from the world, far from reality. And I’m going to let him. Electricity dances along my nerves, lighting me up.
But the kiss never comes.
His mouth tightens into a hard line, and he lifts his head and turns his face away. I almost grab him and drag him back. His whole body is rigid. Controlled. I suspect he’s purposely looking somewhere over my shoulder, somewhere other than at me. His jaw is set, his expression harsh.
The moment is lost. Or, more likely, he gave it up on purpose.