She’s laughing so hard, she’s gasping for air as her pillow smacks me upside the head. I get her on the arm. She gets me flat across the back.

In the end, we’re both gasping and snorting as we let the pillows drop.

“I love you,” she says. “There, I said it.”

Everyone leaves.

She almost left me tonight, almost died. I never would have had these moments with her, never would have had the chance to tell her. Just like I’ll never again have the chance to tell Mom. But I have the memories of a thousand times I did tell her, and the thousand times she told me. Those memories matter. “I love you, too, Carly,” I say.

She puckers up and makes kissy-face noises. “I really do forgive you for killing my fish,” she says.

“I really do forgive you for bringing that up yet again,” I say.

She shrugs. “You deserve it.”

“You plan to milk it for eternity.”

“Pretty much.”

“Okay.”

She grabs me and hugs me, and I hug her back, holding tighter than I probably should, the memory of her lying on the floor covered in blood too fresh, too raw.

There’s a tapping at my door. “Miki? Carly?”

We both flop on the bed. “Come on in, Dad.”

He looks at the pillows on the floor, then at us. If I look anywhere near as bad as Carly, whose hair is standing out in all directions from static electricity, then Dad’ll have no trouble figuring out what we’ve been doing.

“I’m heading out to get milk,” Dad says. “Do you want a ride home, Carly?”

“Yeah, thanks, Mr. Jones. My mom’s not speaking to me. Again. So calling her for a ride probably isn’t my best plan.”

“Right. Okay.” Dad holds up his index finger, punctuating each word. “Ready to go when you are.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

I STAND AT MY BEDROOM WINDOW AND WATCH THE EXPLORER pull out of the drive. Carly opens the window and hangs her arm out to wave wildly. I wave back, feeling like the whole night was surreal, but it isn’t until the car disappears around the corner that I slump against the wall.

It’s like Carly took all my energy with her when she left.

Between the Drau, and Carly almost dying, and the fight with Jackson, there just isn’t much left of me. I should take a hot shower or flop in front of the TV and watch a show or maybe just crawl into bed and sleep for a week.

But I don’t do any of those things. I stay where I am, my cheek resting against the window frame as I unpack the crazy that’s crawling around in my head like a bunch of centipedes.

I start with the things I know.

The Drau pushed through into my world, my real world.

Everything the Committee said about how big of a threat they are is true.

Carly almost died.

Someone healed her, but Jackson doesn’t believe it was him. Which leaves the possibility that the respawn did the trick. Except, Carly isn’t part of the game. She doesn’t respawn. And even if she did, it wouldn’t explain the hint of Drau gray I saw flash in her eyes.

Which brings me to all the things I don’t know: Who healed Carly? Exactly how trustworthy is the Committee? If the green-eyed girl is a shell, why does she keep helping me? Because the Drau want to use me as an original donor?

I guess Jackson could be right about that, but if that’s what she wants, she could have fought my team the first time I met her, when I was lying on the ground, bleeding, dying. She could have fought them and killed them—maybe—and taken me then. But she chose to run away.

A quick tapping snares my attention, and only then do I realize I’m drumming my fingertips against the windowsill. I force myself to stop. Then I force myself to mentally catalogue what I know, starting from the beginning. I end up with questions and more questions, like an infinite circle spinning around.

But at least I have a few answers now, too. I know more about the game and about the Committee and their limitations. I know more about myself, my weaknesses, my strengths.

The chill from outside penetrates the glass. I shiver, but I don’t move away. It’s like I’m waiting for something but I don’t know what.

Lie.

I do know.

I’m waiting for the prickle of awareness that will tell me Jackson’s there, on my street, watching my window. I’ve felt it before, more than once. Not in a creeper way. He had good reasons. I kind of wish he’d find a reason right now.

Once, he left me a gift—a copy of my favorite manga, wrapped in a plastic bag to protect it from the weather—on the flat roof of the overhang that covers the front porch.

Once, I looked out my window to find him sitting cross-legged on that same porch roof, his honey-gold hair gleaming in the moonlight, shades firmly in place, even at night.

That was the night he snuck in my bedroom window. The night he lifted his shirt and bared his abs—and his navel—to prove to me he wasn’t a shell.

The night he kissed me for the first time.

Not on my lips. That came later. The first kiss was something else entirely.

I remember it. I remember the way he grabbed my wrist and turned my hand over, then lowered his head and pressed his lips to my palm.

I remember the shock of electricity that danced through me.

Then he moved his lips to the crease of my wrist. I stood perfectly still, my blood hammering through my veins.

I remember the way he made me feel; I’d never felt like that before. I wanted him to do it again. Instead, he climbed out the window and took off into the night.