I stand perfectly still, my blood hammering through my veins.
I want him to do that again. I want him to press his lips to my mouth. I want the rush of sensation to fill me. I want—
He lifts his head. He releases my wrist.
Then he pushes up my window and climbs out onto the roof of the porch, and before I can think of an argument to make him stay, he’s over the side and gone. I try to pick him out of the shadows. No chance. He’s disappeared as if he was never here.
And now I’m supposed to sleep. I’m doubtful as I climb back into bed, but as I drift off in a matter of minutes the last thought I’m aware of as my mind grows muzzy is that I have two less nightmares to worry about. Jackson’s not a shell, and he’s not Drau. I saw proof about the first, and for some reason, I believe him about the second.
So maybe I will sleep tonight after all.
I curl my hand under my head and turn my face so my lips rest at the crease of my wrist, the exact place Jackson kissed.
“You want one?” Lizzie asks.
She has the radio turned up loud, one wrist resting negligently on the wheel, the windows open so the wind whips through the car. We’re going faster than fast. Lizzie likes it that way. She’s been a little wild ever since she was fifteen and something happened. Something that seemed to change her overnight. She never talks about it. I don’t think she even ever told Mom and Dad what it was. I just know that we were sitting there on the couch, watching some stupid show, and then she was all pale and sweaty, looking like she was going to barf.
She mumbled a lot of stuff about death and killing and dying and then she passed out. Mom rushed her to the hospital. For months after, there were all these tests. There was even a time where Lizzie stayed at a hospital for a while. She was never the same, but she got well enough to come home, to make it through high school, to head off to college.
She glances at me now and holds out the open box of candy, shaking it to entice me. She’s home from college for two weeks—just got home today—and I’m happy to see her, happy to be with her, happy that despite the six-year difference, she still wants to hang with me.
I reach for the candy and take it from her hand. She laughs and looks back at the road. I’m watching her face. I see her expression change, her smile freeze, her body tense. Her back arches as she presses against the seat, her right leg slamming hard on the brake, both hands on the wheel now as she cranks it to one side. The car skids, tires screaming. Lizzie, screaming. I turn my head to look out the front window just in time to see two bright lights coming at us and the metal front grille of an enormous truck.
The hood crumples in what feels like slow motion, the grille coming closer and closer. The sound is like nothing I’ve heard before, metal tearing, the car crushed like a pop can, with us inside.
I blink, rolling to my side, except I don’t move because I can’t move. My whole body is a single shriek of agony. Cold. So cold. And tired. I want to close my eyes again and just rest.
She whispers my name.
I force my eyes open.
Lizzie’s looking at me, her face all wrong. There’s blood on the side of her head and along her cheek. And her eyes are gray. Swirling, pale, silvery gray.
But that’s wrong. Lizzie has green eyes. The same eyes as Mom.
She says my name again, and I look down to see that I’m covered in blood and I can’t move because I’m pinned in place, jagged chunks of metal running through me into the seat behind me. I feel like I’m looking at someone else.
“I need to hang on. Just till I get pulled,” she says. “I’ll make them pull you. Everything will be okay.”
I swallow, my terror oddly numb, like this is all happening to someone else. I want to tell her she’s right. They’ll pull us out. But my mouth is filled with the taste of metal and rust and salt, and when I open my lips, something warm trickles out.
Blood?
My eyes close. Tired. So tired.
I hear Lizzie’s voice, frantic and afraid, calling my name over and over. But she doesn’t sound like herself. She sounds so weak. And the name she’s calling . . . it isn’t mine. . . . She’s not calling Miki. She’s calling Jackson. But that’s not right, is it? I can’t remember.
I try to force my eyes open.
“Look at me,” she says, and I can tell she’s in agony. “Open your eyes; look at me.”
A command. So bossy. Always so bossy.
I open my eyes.
“Listen to me,” she says. I can hear the strain in every word. “Listen to me. I need you to take something from me. They do it. I think I know how. I can show you how. You need to survive. Look at me. Look at me.”
I blink, trying to focus. Her hand is on my wrist, her fingers at the base of my thumb.