Jackson shrugs.

“I could hit you. I really could.” I’m so angry in that moment, so sick of his nonanswers, that I almost do hit him. I’m appalled by that. How does he do this to me? How does he break through my control so easily?

“You could try,” he says, and his smile is all white teeth and amusement. For a second, all I can do is stare. He’s enjoying this, and if I’m honest with myself, so am I. I’m angry at Jackson, at everything and everyone. I’m resentful that he’s here. And I’m so glad he’s here, that he didn’t leave me to struggle through alone. How’s that for contradictory?

He pulls emotions out of me that I’m not used to feeling. For some reason, when I’m with him, the things that drag me down feel thin and weak, and I feel strong.

I’m enjoying matching wits with him, and that realization makes me feel horrible because the only reason we’re together right now is because Richelle is dead.

Jackson reads the change in my expression. “She’s gone,” he says, his tone gentle. “You can’t change that, and you shouldn’t feel guilty because you’re alive.” There’s something off in his tone. Something that makes me think he wants me to believe those words even though he doesn’t quite believe them himself.

I look away, unsettled that he can read me so easily, that he gets it. I do feel guilty. About Richelle. About Mom. And Gram and Sofu. How am I supposed to go on living when they don’t get that chance?

“We did the mission. We made it through,” I say. “So we were all supposed to go back to our regularly scheduled lives. She was supposed to get to go back.”

“Not all of us made it through. Only the ones who did can come back. Remember what I told you about . . .” He taps his wrist.

The bracelet’s your con. The color’s your health. Don’t let it turn red.

“It’s because her—” I stop myself before I say the word con. “Because of the color change.” Because her con turned red.

Jackson takes a step closer. “Health points, damage . . . you know what they are?”

I nod. I play sometimes with Carly and her brothers. “They’re gaming terms. They measure how much damage a character can withstand.”

“So you know that when the life bar . . .” He pauses, to make sure I’m still following.

“Health bar,” I interject, seeing the pattern.

“Health bar. Or just health,” he agrees. “When the bar changes color fully, it’s game over.”

Game over. Death.

Horror sluices over me like a bucket of icy water.

So that really is the answer. I’d suspected, but a part of me thought it should be something else. Something bigger.

“She’s gone because of that? Like this really is a game? It isn’t. You’re the one who said that. It isn’t a game. And she’s dead. Forever dead.” Because if you die in the game, you die for real. Of course. I should have seen that right from the start. I should have seen all of it.

I surge off the swing and step closer, breathing hard, my face inches away from Jackson’s.

“In a game, you get to respawn. You get to go back to the spawn point.” A designated reentry point. That’s what Luka and I did. We went back to the moment it started, the instant before the truck hit us. “That’s what we did, isn’t it? We respawned. Why didn’t she?”

“I just told you why.”

Because her con turned red. I remember the battle in flashes and blurs. Richelle’s scream. Jackson kicking the weapon out of the alien’s hand. He protected me. Why didn’t he do the same for her?

“Why didn’t you help her? Keep her safe? Why did you let her die? Why?” I’m screaming, raising my fists without even realizing I’m doing it, pounding them against Jackson’s chest.

And then I’m not. He catches my wrists and holds them, just tight enough that I can’t hit him anymore, but not so tight it hurts. I freeze, heart slamming against my ribs, because I’m angry and afraid, and because he’s touching me, his hands on my wrists, our faces inches apart.

My pulse races; my cheeks feel hot. Lots of people touch me, and it never feels like this.

“So now you know,” he says. “Happy?”

I pull my wrists free. “No,” I say. “Not at all.”

“I know.” He lifts his hands and closes them on my upper arms. I stand there, too numb to jerk away. Slowly, he pulls me closer. I let him. I let him wrap his arms around me. I let myself rest my cheek against his chest. And for a few moments, I just breathe and listen to the steady beat of his heart.

“I’m still an asshole,” he whispers, his breath fanning my hair.

“I know,” I whisper back.

“Good.” Last word.

Luka is sitting on my front steps when I get home. He’s hunched over, head down, forearms on his knees. At the sight of him, warmth kindles in my chest. Not like the butterflies I felt with Jackson. Something else. A feeling of the familiar, the known and safe.

He lifts his head at my approach, his dark eyes wary and assessing. “I waited for you.”

I stop a few feet away. “So I see. Thanks.”

“For waiting?”

I nod. “For waiting. For coming at all. I know you’re breaking the rules.”

“Yeah.” He offers a lopsided grin, easy and open. “Seems like everywhere we turn, there are rules. I wonder if we’ll ever just get to make our own.”