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“No.”

If the Drau were here, I think Jackson would have noticed. I glance over at Marcy. She’s still staring at us.

“Oh, give it a rest,” I mutter, then to Jackson I whisper, “Maybe it was her all along. Maybe I’m just edgy.”

He smiles a little and leans in to whisper against my ear, “Maybe we should find a way to work off that edge.”

“We are in school,” I point out.

He grins in reply.

Carly and Dee come up the hall, heading for the caf. Carly does a quick assessment of the situation and gives Marcy an are-you-kidding-me-back-off-now look. That’s Carly, always the peacemaker except when someone goes up against a friend. Then she’s Carly-the-poison-tree-frog—gorgeous but deadly.

“I’ll save seats,” she says as she walks past us.

Marcy stalks off, but I can’t help looking around one last time, feeling like something’s still not quite right.

“Aren’t you dying to know what was in that note?” Jackson snags my backpack, slings it over his shoulder, and starts walking down the hall. I take four steps to his two and catch up.

“No.”

“Liar,” he says, then after a pause, “Her phone number and a time.”

Pretty much what I expected. The phone number part, anyway. The time? Not so much. I can’t imagine assigning Jackson a time to call me, as if he’d take orders from anyone.

“Dying to know what I said to her?”

“No.”

It isn’t until I’m tucked in front of him in the cafeteria line that he leans in and says, “I told her I already have what I need. And that any little girl who has to send her friend to pass me a note instead of walking up to me herself isn’t the girl for me.”

“Harsh,” I say, feeling a little sorry for Marcy.

I’m in the kitchen trimming Brussels sprouts when I notice the counter’s completely clear. No bottles. Not even one.

As I pop the Brussels sprouts and cubed squash in the oven to roast, I think back to the past few days and realize that Dad’s started putting his own empties away.

We’ve reached a new understanding, it seems. Ever since the day I told Dad about the AA meetings, I’ve stopped counting the cold ones in the fridge and the empties under the sink. At least, I try to stop. Sometimes I slip and when I realize he’s had five or six or nine, I wish I could go back and unslip.

I’m still working on the whole chillax, go-with-the-flow thing.

When we’re done with dinner, Dad helps me clean up, then grabs his keys.

“Going out?” I ask, trying to sound casual. He’s been going out almost every night, leaving after dinner, coming back after I’m asleep.

“Yep.” He kisses my cheek.

I almost ask where he’s going, and if he wants me to come.

Then I don’t, partly because I can’t be the parent here, can’t control his actions or his choices, and partly because if he’s going to meetings he might not want me there. I don’t want to do anything to make him stop going.

I’m in my pj’s before he gets home—showered, teeth brushed, homework complete, ready for bed but not for sleep. I lie in the dark, waiting for the sound of his car in the drive, his key in the lock, knowing that what I’m doing isn’t good for me. Not knowing how to fix that.

Sometimes, when I’m alone late at night, tossing and turning, my thoughts start to spiral to places I don’t want them to go. To places I inhabited for nearly two years. To the negative self-talk. To the creeping fingers of gray fog that want back in.

Tonight’s one of those nights.

I’m tempted to call Jackson, to let him shoulder the weight of my mood. And that’s exactly why I don’t.

I will not let anyone be my crutch.

At least, that’s what I tell myself.

But then that little voice, the one that’s sibilant and cruel, reminds me everyone leaves.

The only person you can rely on is you.

Better not to fully let down my defenses.

Tonight, like every one of those nights, I cry in my sleep. I know that because I wake up in the morning with tracks along my cheeks.

“I CAN’T HELP FEELING THIS NIGGLING SENSE OF EXPECTATION, like something bad is waiting in the wings. Like the other shoe’s about to drop,” I tell Jackson later that day, trying to explain it.

“Wings . . . shoes . . . that’s quite the mix of metaphors,” he says, taking a bite of his sandwich.

I roll my eyes.

Despite the cold weather, we’re sitting at the top of the bleachers, sharing the lunch I made for both of us. I shiver, partly because talking about this makes me nervous, mostly because I didn’t dress warmly enough for the weather. Jackson shrugs out of his jacket—the brown leather worn and faded to beige in spots—and drapes it around my shoulders.

“You’ll be cold,” I say.

“I have my hoodie.” Last word.

His jacket’s still warm from his body and I hug it close, watching Luka and Carly and Dee race one another up and down the stairs. We haven’t been pulled since the time I almost died—the time I thought Jackson’s dead sister saved my life—and that’s freaking me out.

Jackson bites off half a sandwich, chews, swallows. “I’ve gone up to three months without getting pulled,” he says. “A few weeks isn’t unusual. Be happy for the break.”

“How do you handle the not knowing?”

He shrugs. “I can’t control it. I know that, so I don’t even try. When it happens, it happens. I’m not going to waste my good moments by obsessing about the bad.
The Beast in the Jungle
, right?”

“What’s that?”

He finishes his sandwich and eyes the half of mine I haven’t gotten to yet. “You going to eat that?” he asks, reaching for it.

I shift the container out of his reach. “Yes.” Then I dig through my pack and pull out another container. “But I made extra.” I hand him his second sandwich.

“You are a goddess,” he says around a mouthful.

“Your turn to make lunch tomorrow,” I remind him. “And no cheating by buying crap in the caf like you did last time. So . . .
The Beast in the Jungle
?”

The wind catches my hair, blowing it all around. I reach back and gather it in my fist, then tuck the length under my collar, down the back of my—Jackson’s—jacket.

“It’s a story by Henry James.” Jackson catches a stray strand and tucks it in with the others. “It’s about a guy who’s obsessed with the belief that something catastrophic is going to happen to him, like a beast waiting to pounce, so he wastes his whole life, afraid to do anything that’ll encourage it. Terrified. Waiting for it to happen.”

“So what happens? What’s the catastrophic thing?”

“Nothing. That’s the point. Nothing terrible happens. The catastrophe that gets him in the end is the fact that he didn’t really live. He was too afraid.”

“Sounds like an uplifting read.” And it sort of sounds like my panic attacks.

I put my empty container back in my pack, watching Carly run down the stairs shrieking and laughing, with Luka a step behind.

“Sometimes everything feels too big,” I say. “The Drau. The threat. Knowing that they’ve already destroyed at least one entire species and now they’re after us. The future of the whole world weighing on our shoulders.” Carly shrieks as Luka catches her, then breaks away and darts off. I gesture at them. “Regular high-school life just doesn’t seem important.”

“It’s the most important,” Jackson says. He shifts us both around so we’re straddling the metal bench, my back against his chest, his arms wrapped around me from behind. He rests his chin on my shoulder. “When we beat the Drau, this is the life we’ll still have, Miki. This is what matters most. Our families. Our friends. This is exactly what we’re fighting for. This moment, and a thousand others just like it.”

I twist my head to look back at him over my shoulder. “
When
we beat the Drau? You say that like you have insider knowledge of the exact day and time. You know something I don’t?”

Jackson looks away, like he’s avoiding an answer, and for a second a chill grabs hold of me, turning my blood to ice. What isn’t he telling me?

Then I look where he’s looking to see Dee sprint past Luka and tackle Carly to the ground. Luka trips over them and all three land in a heap, laughing, caught up in their game. Luka lifts his head, catches my eye, and for a second he looks almost guilty. For what? For having fun?

His gaze shifts to Jackson and it’s like the three of us are connected, thinking about another game where it isn’t about fun.

“Two against one. Unfair advantage. Take ’em down,” Jackson yells, and Luka grabs Dee’s ankle just as she gets to her feet. She’s back on the ground, laughing.

Her joy is infectious, pushing past my barriers and doubts and fear, trickling through me like sunshine.

“You’re right,” I say. “This is what we’re fighting for. This moment. That’s what matters.”

I jump to my feet and toss Jackson’s jacket in his lap.

“Race you!”

And then I leap from bench to bench, tearing down toward the field with Jackson hot on my heels.

The ringing of the phone wakes me. I roll over, the last vestiges of a great dream about me and Jackson and a dog and a beach still clinging to my thoughts. I check the time—1:00 a.m.—then check the number. Carly.

Worry uncoils, rattling and baring venomous fangs.

“Hey,” I say.

She doesn’t answer right away.

I sit bolt upright, tightening my grip on my phone as I flick on my bedside lamp. “Carly?”

A gasp followed by a shaky exhalation.

Images flash through my thoughts of blood and death and the Drau darting through Carly’s house like bright reapers.

“Carly, what’s wrong?” I throw back the covers and jump to my feet, ready to wake Dad, to head over there. I reach for my jeans, dragging them on one-handed. I’m struggling to get my second leg all the way in when she lets out a gasping sob.

“Miki.”

“I’m here, Carly. What’s wrong?” I demand, my voice hard and tight with fear. I get my jeans the rest of the way on and pace the length of my room, waiting for her answer.

“Grammy B,” she whispers.

Grammy B is Carly’s mom’s mom. She’s funny and fun, and I have great memories of her from before she moved to Florida to help Carly’s aunt Melanie through her divorce. That was three years ago. She stayed on to help watch Carly’s little cousins while Mel works. She says she likes feeling needed and she was here to help Carly’s mom with her brood when they were small, so it’s Mel’s turn now.

I know Carly misses Grammy B even though they talk on the phone all the time. On the phone isn’t the same as in person, and Christmas visits and a week in the summer just aren’t enough.

“Is she okay?” I whisper back, a reflex even though it isn’t the brightest question. If she were okay, Carly wouldn’t be calling me.

Everyone leaves.

I press the back of my hand to my mouth. Carly stood beside me at Mom’s funeral—Dad on one side of me, Carly on the other. She held my hand. She held me up when my knees went weak. She slept in a sleeping bag on my floor beside my bed for a week afterward, waking up with me every time the nightmares ripped me open, sitting on one side of my bed while Dad sat on the other.

I’ll do the same for her. I’ll go to Florida, go to the funeral, unless they’re bringing Grammy B’s body back here—

“She’s in the hospital,” Carly chokes out. “CICU. They said it’s acute myocardial infarction.”

Hospital. Not dead.

Myocardial infarction is a heart attack. That’s bad.

But people can recover from that. I know they can. Mr. Shomper had a mild heart attack a couple of years ago and he’s still here—still teaching, even.

“That’s good,” I say, fighting my own tears. “That’s great.”

“What?” Carly chokes out.

I shake my head, then realize she can’t see me and my words aren’t making much sense to her.

“It’s great that she’s alive,” I say, all the hope in my heart coming through in my tone. “She’s alive, Carly.”

“You’re right,” Carly says after a few seconds. “She’s alive. She has a chance.”

“A good chance, right?”
Please let her have a good chance.

She sniffles. “They say that if she makes it through the night, that it’s a good sign.”

I close my eyes and silently hope that she makes it through the night. That she doesn’t pass in her sleep without ever waking up like Sofu did.

“They’ll take care of her. They’ll make her better,” I say even though I’m not convinced of the last part. I don’t exactly have the best track record with hospital outcomes. But I want Carly to have hope. And I desperately want my words to prove true.

“What do you need?” I ask. “What can I do to help?”

“We’re heading to the airport in a couple of hours. We’re all going. The whole family. Just in case.” She pauses. I can hear her crying—big, snuffling sobs. Tears prick my lids and I blink against them. “I don’t know how long we’ll be there.”

You’ll be there till she’s well enough to go home. Or until she can never go home . . .
The thought rips me up inside.

“I’ll get your homework,” I say, needing to be able to do
something
. “And I’ll tell your teachers.”

“And Kelley and Dee. Sarah. Amy. I didn’t call anyone. Just you.”

“I’ll tell them.” I feel so sad for her.

“And can you watch my Daimon?”

Daimon. Her fish. It’s a betta—a Siamese fighting fish.

She swears he’s brilliant. That he does tricks. Personally, I think that he comes to the surface when she dips her finger because he’s genetically programmed to attack.

“You know where Mom hides the spare key. Can you come get his bowl and keep him till I get back?”

“I’ll get him first thing in the morning.”

“You need to feed him once a day. I do it right before I leave for school. Don’t overfeed him,” she says, her words rushing together. “Just give him what he can eat in two minutes. No more. Or bacteria will get in the water and that’s not good.”

“Got it. His food’s in the freezer on the door, right?”

“Yes. Take care of him. Promise.”

“I promise.”

A promise I’m destined to break.

Four days later, Carly calls with the awesome news that Grammy B’s going to be okay.