“That’s one of the things I love about you, Miki. You’ve got balls of steel. And a sense of humor.” He pauses. “So I guess that’s two things.”
His words make me freeze. Things he loves about me? He says that so easily, but I can’t quite decipher his tone. There’s an undercurrent there I don’t understand. Still, heat rushes through me, burning away the last of the chilly numbness in my limbs. I slant him a glance, but he isn’t looking at me. He’s standing with his thumbs hooked in his belt loops, one hip cocked, his head tipped back as he looks up and up and up. Or maybe his eyes—hidden by those perpetual shades—are closed and he isn’t looking at anything at all.
He seems relaxed. Truth, or a pose for my benefit, to make me relax? Hard to tell.
Curiosity gets the better of me. I turn full circle and stop dead when I see three figures set apart from the others, equally shadowed, equally eerie. They appear to be sitting on some sort of floating shelf, like three judges or like a commi—
“The Committee?” I whisper, remembering what Jackson said when we were sitting on the bleachers.
“Yes.”
He’s answering me, and he’s not telling me to be quiet, so I figure that it’s okay to talk, to ask questions. I cut an uneasy glance at the surrounding audience, which sits eerily still and silent, cloaked in darkness. “Why are we here? Where are Luka and Tyrone?”
“This isn’t a mission. Luka and Tyrone weren’t subpoenaed.”
He’s not whispering, so I don’t either. “Not a mission? Then what is it? Wait . . . you said subpoenaed. Like a trial? Am I on trial?”
Jackson says, “No—” at the same time as an unfamiliar voice intones, “You may address any questions directly to us.”
Us . . . us . . . us . . .
I clap my hands against my ears, but it doesn’t relieve the sensation of sound tunneling into my brain, my muscles, my bones. I hear the voice not only through my ears, but I feel the sound of the words vibrating through every receptor on my skin. I taste them on my tongue; I smell them. The experience is both terrifying and wondrous. It’s a little like Jackson talking inside my head that first day, only amplified by a thousand. A hundred thousand.
“Is—” My entire body cringes from the sound of my own voice. It’s like I’ve been hooked up to a loudspeaker that’s aimed directly at my brain. I’m thinking it and saying it and hearing it at a level far above normal, and the sensations gouge my senses like a thousand jagged knives.
“Too much?” the voice asks, and the intensity of the sound playing over my senses lessens.
“Um . . . thanks?” The sensations are softer now, blossoming inside of me, but muted, not painful like before. I take a second to get used to the weirdness of inhabiting my words, then offer the questions I tried to ask the first time. “Is that why I’m here? To ask questions?”
“If you wish.” Again, the sound fills my nostrils, bursts on my tongue, shimmers along my touch receptors. Weird, weird, weird.
“If I wish?” I laugh at the absurdity of that, and then stop abruptly at the experience of feeling my laughter in my toes. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. This is all just a little overwhelming. And, yes, I wish to ask questions.” I’ve done nothing but wish for answers since the first day. Since the second Jackson started talking in my head.
I’m startled when Jackson reaches for my hand and weaves his fingers with mine, the familiar calluses on his palm rough against my skin. He’s holding on to me almost tight enough to hurt, tight enough that I know he has no intention of letting go. I have the strange thought that he isn’t holding on to me now to offer support, but because he doesn’t want to lose me, like I’m going to float away from him in this strange, dim place, like a balloon, up and up until I disappear in the darkness.
I lift my eyes to the raised figures. “Who are you?”
“You may call us Committee,” the voice says.
“But that doesn’t answer my question.” I don’t know where my bravado comes from, but I figure I have nothing to lose. Whatever reason they have for bringing me here, they’re the ones in control, the ones calling the shots. Since they said I could ask questions, I might as well go ahead and do exactly that. “I asked who you are, not what I can call you.”
If their laughter could be described, then it’s warmth and light rushing through my veins, dancing in my limbs. The experience is like nothing I’ve ever known before.