“If I hadn’t taken it, then all your offering wouldn’t have been worth a damn. And as for taking just enough . . . is that because I was strong enough to stop or because the Committee happened to pull us before I killed you?” he asks in a hard tone. “Face it, Miki. No one on the team would stand a chance against me if I chose to go Drau on them. That’s the Committee’s fear, and it’s justifiable. I’m a potential killer.”
I laugh then, because it’s all so absurd. “A potential killer? Are you kidding? You are a killer.”
His expression goes blank. “Yeah,” he says, and I know he’s thinking of Lizzie. But that’s not what I mean at all.
“You don’t get it, Jackson. We’re all killers. How many Drau have we taken down? And since we’ve all taken down Drau, what’s to say we couldn’t take you down if you decide to drain a teammate?” Before he can answer, I hold up my hand. “It doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t. It’s not even a question.”
“So much faith in me, Miki, despite all you know?”
“Because of all I know.”
“Not smart,” he says, very soft, but the way he’s looking at me takes the sting out of his words.
“Probably not,” I agree, and mean it. But it doesn’t change the way I feel about him. I take a deep breath. “So . . . the Committee tried to get inside your brain, wipe it clean, send you away. Yet here you are. Still in Rochester. Still in the game.”
“Yeah. I reenlisted.”
“Because you thought they’d let me go? After all the effort you went to so I’d be in the game and you’d get to go free?”
“Yeah.”
What a convoluted mess.
“I want you safe, Miki. Alive and safe. And out of the game.”
“We don’t always get what we want.”
He rakes his fingers back through his hair in a completely un-Jacksonlike gesture. “Am I supposed to be happy that I did this to you? That I found you and told the Committee about you? Am I supposed to be happy that your life’s still at risk? Because of me. The choices I made.”
“Am I supposed to be happy that your life’s at risk?” I ask.
I glare at him, angry on many levels, for many reasons: His reaction to me being here. The things he’s saying. The way that he’s so angry with himself that he’s putting me in the position of defending him rather than blaming him. The ugly suspicion that this is just him manipulating my emotions, turning my thoughts inside out so that I forgive him. The anger at myself for suspecting him.
I am so screwed up.
And I don’t put anything past him. Jackson’s been playing the game for five years, dealing with the Committee, steering his team. He’s a master. And the things he’s learned, he’s brought into his real life. I saw the way he handled Mr. Shomper the day he challenged Jackson about wearing his sunglasses in class. I’ve seen the way he can sit down with any group of kids in the caf and make them feel like he belongs there. I think Jackson doesn’t just twist events to his advantage; I think he knows how to get inside people’s heads.
My head.
And even knowing that, knowing he isn’t lying when he says he isn’t a good guy, I’m still here. Still want to be here. Still want him.
Because he’s the boy who loves me enough to throw himself between me and a Drau weapon, then sign back on to the game so I could go free.
Not his fault things ended up such a mess, with both of us still exactly where the Committee wants us.
“If the Committee’s so worried about the danger you pose, why would they let you stay in the game?”
He shrugs. “Guess they love me more than they hate me.”
Sounds familiar.
“And why would you reenlist when all you ever wanted was to get out? Why would you do that?”
He shifts toward me on the branch until he can’t get any closer unless I climb into his lap. “You know why, Miki.”
I do. For me. Our gazes meet and lock. “Say it,” I whisper.
His lips shape a smile, edgy and darkly playful. “Enough about me. Let’s talk about you. I paid their price. You should be free. But you aren’t. I want to know why.”
I narrow my eyes at him, just so he’ll know I’m on to his evasion. “They played me, too. Guess you could say I reenlisted, just like you.” And because I’d done it of my own free will, their deal with Jackson was made null and void. “We’re both still stuck in the game.”
“It seems nobility doesn’t pay,” Jackson says. Now his smile is just a quick flash of white teeth. “You wanted me to say it, so I am. You, Miki. I did it for you.”
I inhale sharply.
He brushes the pad of his thumb along the crease of my wrist. I remember when he kissed me there, his lips warm against my skin. “I sacrificed to save you. You sacrificed to save me—”
“And we both end up screwed.”
He laughs, a real laugh. I guess the only other option is to cry, and Jackson’s not the crying type.
I take a deep breath. “So what do we do now?”
“We steer the nightmare.”
“I don’t think I’m very good at it.”
“You’re still alive, aren’t you?”
I am, even though I almost died again on the last mission. Given the expression on Jackson’s face, I decide not to mention that little factoid.
I look down and rub my fingertips back and forth along the rough bark. “I feel like an idiot. I let them play me.”
“What makes you think we had a choice?”
My head jerks up and I stare at him.
The smile he offers is pure Jackson, dark and ironic, carving that long, sexy dimple in his cheek. My breath catches. I wet my suddenly too-dry lips. His gaze tracks the movement of my tongue, then slowly lifts to mine. Heat uncoils inside me.
“Aren’t we just a pair of suckers?” I whisper.
I lean forward. Jackson meets me halfway, our foreheads resting against each other, our breathing synchronized.
I close my eyes, trembling as the tip of his nose traces the path his fingers took a moment past, along my cheek, my jaw. I part my lips on a gasp as he pulls back, longing and expectation making me feel like my nerves are on fire.
His brows lift. “They’ll always be a step ahead. And I guess that’s a good thing because maybe it means they’ll always be a step ahead of the Drau, too.” His palms cup my cheeks. “And I’m definitely not complaining about getting to hold you”—he nips my bottom lip lightly—“kiss you”—he drags my hand around his waist; I splay my fingers along the warm skin of his lower back—“touch you.”
“There’s a part of me that’s still angry with you, Jackson.”
He scoots even closer on the branch, his thighs slipping under my knees, one arm going around my waist. “I have that effect on people.”
“I’m serious. How am I supposed to trust you? How can I know you won’t lie to me again? Trick me?”
“I won’t lie to you again.”
I stare at him. “You didn’t even try to sound like you mean that.”
“I’ll try not to lie to you again.”
That, he means.
“It’s a start, but not enough.”
He nods. “We’ll work on it.”
He didn’t dismiss me. Didn’t wave aside my words. Didn’t act like I have nothing to be angry about. We’ll work on it.
My turn to nod, even though I’m not fully satisfied.
His fingertips skim along the V of my neckline just below my collarbone, under the strap of my bra, to the eagle tattooed over my heart.
“Did I tell you I like your ink?”
I can barely think with him touching me like that. I shake my head.
“I like what it represents,” he says. “Courage.”