The two columns of numbers appear.

“What’s with your score?” Lien asks. “I know you lost points to injury penalty, but . . .”

My gaze skids down the list to the bottom.

My picture’s second last. Jackson’s is last. Our scores are set to zero.

“We got reset,” Jackson says.

“Never seen that before,” Luka says at the same time Lien demands, “What does that mean?”

“Leadership snafu,” Jackson says, his tone making it clear that the subject’s closed.

Tyrone squeezes my shoulder. Kendra shifts her weight from her right foot to her left, arms wrapped around herself, palms rubbing up and down, up and down until Lien reaches over and stills her. But no one says anything more. How does Jackson do that?

“We jump in thirty,” Jackson clips out.

“If he’s the leader, how come you get a sword?” Kendra asks, pointing.

I follow the direction of her finger and see my kendo sword placed neatly beside the weapons box. I cut a glance at Jackson. He shrugs.

My sword shouldn’t be there. Only the leader carries an extra weapon. Jackson’s is the long-bladed black knife strapped to his thigh. He did combat application technique training when he lived in Fort Worth, and he brings that knowledge into the game.

“Bring it,” Jackson says as he picks up my scabbard and tosses it to me. I snatch it out of midair, mentally counting down seconds to the jump. Tyrone reaches over and helps me get the sword strapped to my back, the handle between my shoulder blades, perfectly positioned so I can reach back and grab it.

As I turn, the screen catches my eye. I stare at it, stare at the scores. Kendra’s second from the top. That means her cumulative score is second highest. I frown, thinking back to what the scores looked like before the last mission, before we respawned in the elevator. I was so focused on Jackson, finding him, saving him, that I really didn’t pay attention. Was Kendra that close to the top last time? For some reason I think it was Tyrone, then Luka, then Lien, then Kendra. So either I’m wrong or she’s gained a ton of points in a single mission.

Luka makes an odd sound. I glance at him. He’s staring at Kendra, his expression closed.

My stomach twists. Something’s off. Something’s wrong.

And then the jump takes hold and turns me inside out.

CHAPTER TWENTY

WE RESPAWN IN A WIDE HALLWAY. BEIGE LOCKERS LINE ONE wall. A large, glass-fronted case full of pictures and trophies and plaques takes up the opposite wall. Sports stuff. We’re in a high school. I glance at the name and don’t recognize it.

I wait for the feeling of urgency, the sense that the Drau are near, and get nothing. Looks like they’re late to the party.

A pounding bass beat carries from a distance. There’s a dance going on here, somewhere not too far away. I glance at Jackson. “This is not good. There are civilians nearby.”

“Civilians?” Luka asks, his brows shooting up. “What are we? Special Forces?”

Lien snorts.

“Vegas,” Jackson answers me, typically verbose, reminding me that we’ve been in a position like this before. When we went after the Drau in Vegas, they were in a warehouse in a populated area. I remember jogging along a crowded street, groups parting to let us through, sensing us but not seeing us, as if we weren’t there.

The reminder settles my nerves a little.

“So if we run into anyone, they won’t see us, right?”

“Never have before,” Tyrone says.

Not wholly reassuring, but the best I’m going to get. I’m more than curious about how this all works. Different dimension? Different plane of reality? Maybe I’ll try to get answers out of the Committee next time I see them.

Good luck with that.

I glance at Jackson, waiting for his confirmation. He doesn’t say anything more, which isn’t unusual for him on a mission. So why does his silence leave me uneasy?

Lien and Kendra hang back, close enough that their shoulders touch, hands resting on their weapon cylinders. The whole we’re-one-big-happy-team thing I was aiming for last mission has definitely fizzled.

Suddenly Jackson holds a finger to his lips, then draws his right hand palm down across his throat in a slicing motion. I don’t need to know anything about military style games to read the message: danger. The Drau are near. He can feel them.

So can I.

I sense their presence, some primitive part of my soul reacting to the threat. My pulse ramps up.

Enemy.

We all feel it. Genetic memory. Instinct. The urge to flee the Drau is blueprinted into our DNA.

But we don’t flee. We’re going to head straight for them, swallowing the horror and fear that bubbles inside. It creeps me out that the battleground’s going to be a high school with a bunch of oblivious kids dancing in a gym somewhere close. The selfish part of me is grateful it isn’t my high school.

Jackson taps his con. I hold mine up. All green. So is everyone else’s. His con’s got the live feed and the map and the moving triangles. That means the Committee wants us to stick together and follow Jackson’s lead.

Weapon cylinders drawn, we proceed down the hall in a column. Jackson gives the halt signal and he and Luka check a door. Locked. We keep moving. Something’s off. It isn’t just the Drau alarm clanging in my gut. It’s something else. Something I haven’t felt before.

I catch Tyrone’s eye. He frowns and offers a half shrug, and I get the feeling that he’s getting the same weird vibe I am.