I stare at Jackson, and in my peripheral vision, I see other clearings filled with people, on and on ad infinitum.

“Who are they?” I ask softly, my question aimed at Jackson, but it’s Luka who answers, “Who?”

I shift my attention to him, and at the edges of my vision are the others. “Them.”

“Them who?” Luka’s brows draw together, and he pulls his head back. “You okay, Miki? We’re the only people here.” He makes a big show of looking around the clearing and spreading his hands. “You see anyone else?”

So Luka doesn’t see them. But I do. And Jackson does; he knows exactly what I’m talking about. I can feel him watching me, even though I can’t see his eyes. Before I can question him, he says, “Gear up,” talking to the others even though he’s still facing me. They move off, out of my line of sight, and I’m left alone with him, almost as confused as I was when I first woke up.

He reaches toward me. I jump back.

Again, that barely there hint of a smile that I saw earlier. Not a nice smile; not warm or friendly. Dark and feral and inexplicably appealing. I feel it all the way down to my toes. “Good reflexes,” he says. “That’s a bonus.”

“Eight years of kendo.”

“The way of the sword.” His tone is speculative. “Are you any good?”

“Yes.” I was taught by a master—my grandfather. “Mess with me and I’ll mess right back.” I can’t believe I just said that.

Jackson’s brows shoot up.

“Good to know,” he says, echoing what I muttered after him earlier. I hadn’t thought he heard, but now I think he must have.

I glance over at where the others are gearing up. They’re on the far side of the boulders, strapping on holsters like Jackson’s. “Who are the others?”

“Tyrone and Richelle already introduced themselves.”

He knows I wasn’t asking about them. Annoyance surges, but I tamp it down. I need to redirect, come at the problem from a different angle. So instead of pursuing that line of attack, I ask, “Where’d the weapons come from?”

This time, Jackson’s smile is wider. Obviously he approves of my approach. Like I care what he thinks.

“They’re here waiting for us whenever we arrive,” he says.

“Right-handed?” he asks.

“Yes, why?”

“Now lift your arm. I’ll show you how the holster works. Next time, you do it for yourself.”

I lift my arm and he slides the straps over my shoulder. It’s a complicated layout, with a strap going diagonally across my chest and a second loop resting on my hips. I pay attention to the way he settles the buckles and snaps down the holster. If there is a next time, I definitely want to be doing this myself. I don’t like feeling like a toddler who needs help putting on her coat.

“You want your weapon on your dominant side. You don’t want to cross reach. It’ll slow you down.”

Jackson holds out a metal cylinder that’s about eight inches long. It looks like the handle of the toy light saber I used to play with as a kid.

“Please tell me a glowing blade doesn’t leap out of the end of this.” I hear a snicker to my left. I glance over and catch Richelle’s wink, then turn back to Jackson.

He’s not smiling. “You point this and you fire at anything that comes at you.”

“Anything?” I ask. “Bees? Wasps? Lost puppies?”

His lips thin, confirming what I already suspected. “You have no sense of humor,” I point out.

He ignores my observation. “Anything non-terrestrial.”

“Non-terrestrial? As in . . . extraterrestrial?”

He gives a short nod.

“Of course. I died today, and now I’m going to fight aliens with a light saber. Maybe after that we can look for mermaids. Or unicorns.”

“No,” he says. “Just aliens.”

Was that the barest hint of humor in his tone? I narrow my eyes. “What if I don’t want to go on this alien-hunting mission?”

“What makes you think you get a choice?” The words are harsh, but his tone is oddly gentle, like he knows I’ve been pushed almost as far as I can go. It’s the gentleness that undoes me.

Words flow like water before I can muster the will to turn off the tap. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to do this. I woke up this morning and I was just a normal girl,” I say softly, my sarcasm deserting me.

Jackson goes very still. After a long second, he says, “No, you weren’t. You were never just a normal girl.”

I gasp, his words cutting me like a scalpel.

“None of us were ever normal,” he continues, either oblivious to my pain or purposely ignoring it. “That’s why we’re here. We’re anything but normal.” One side of his mouth curls in a dark smile. “Some of us being less normal than others.”

I open my mouth to protest, to ask—

“Don’t ask,” he cuts me off before I can say a word. “We don’t have time for the answer.”

I can almost hear the clock ticking.

His tone turns fierce. “Make it through this, Miki Jones, and I’ll give you all the answers you want.”

“Now, there’s incentive,” I murmur. Make it through this. The only thing that keeps me from freezing in terror is what Luka and Richelle said about being miraculously healed at the end of whatever it is we’re about to face. As impossible as their assurance seems, I believe them because I know what happened to me when the truck hit, but I woke up here with all my injuries gone. Is that the respawn Richelle was talking about?