Push Read Free Page B

make an army of shells. Like that girl in the cold room. The one he”—I break off, then force myself to finish—“killed.”
    “Terminated,” Luka whispers, then says, louder, “No.” He shakes his head rapidly from side to side. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think they have him. They don’t need to keep him alive to make shells. They just need his body, hooked up to machines. If they took him, they’d have—” He breaks off, swallows. “He wouldn’t still be alive.”
    “You’re right.” I desperately want him to be right. “And since Carly remembers him, that means he is still alive . . . somewhere.”
    “Exactly. So what are the chances that the Drau have him? Slim to none, right?”
    I nod. The weight that’s been crushing my chest lifts a little, but I’m afraid to hope, afraid of the hard crash that’ll come if we’re wrong.
    Luka touches my forearm, then puts his hand back on the wheel. “We don’t have much if we don’t have hope.”
    I stare out the window, thinking about that, wondering if it’s true.
    As soon as we’re out of sight of Carly’s house, I say, “Pull over,” determined to follow the one possible lead we do have.
    “What are you doing?” Luka asks, following me when I get out and head for the trunk.
    I drag out Jackson’s backpack and start going through the pockets. “Looking for clues.”
    Luka sighs. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to.
    “I know the chances of finding anything are slim, but I have to try,” I say, pulling out an empty water bottle and a ten-dollar bill. I shove them back in and move to the next pocket.
    “There won’t be anything, Miki. We can’t bring anything back with us when we respawn.”
    “Got a better idea?” I glance at him.
    His mouth compresses in a thin line. He shakes his head and mutters, “Knock yourself out.”
    I pull out Jackson’s textbooks one by one, fanning the pages in case there’s something hidden in between, then stacking the books in a neat pile. “There might be something in here that helps us find him.”
    Luka’s quiet for a minute. I think he’s going to offer up more objections. Instead, he moves closer, picks up a book from the top of the pile, and double-checks in case I missed anything.
    I move to the smaller front pouch and find a paperback copy of Andrzej Sapkowski’s Blood of Elves. My copy. The one I lent him.
    It’s the last thing in the bag.
    “There’s nothing here.” I start to shift everything back into Jackson’s pack when Luka reaches over and taps his finger on the textbook at the top of the pile. “What?” I ask.
    He stares at the book, his dark eyes unfocused.
    “Luka?” I ask. “Something special about Jackson’s law text?”
    “No, it’s just—” He shakes his head. “I swear I thought of something, but it’s gone.” He waves a hand. “Poof.”
    “Don’t focus on it.” I push the rest of the books back into the pack, then shove it deeper into the trunk, wishing I could shove aside my disappointment with it. “Think about other stuff and it’ll come to you.”
    “Yeah.”
    “You were right,” I concede as he gets the Jeep moving. “That was a waste of time.”
    “Now what?” Luka asks, sounding bleak.
    Good question. One I can’t answer. But I have to find an answer. Jackson’s life may depend on us.
    “We talk it out,” I say. “We list everything we know, every possibility. We look for a pattern, or something that doesn’t fit the pattern.”
    “It’s gonna be a short list.”
    “It’ll be an empty list if we don’t at least try. So what do we know?”
    “That he didn’t respawn with the rest of us.”
    “And that he’s alive,” I say, needing to affirm it as fact.
    Luka cuts me a sidelong glance. “If we figure out why he didn’t come back with us, maybe we can figure out where he is.”
    “Maybe because he wasn’t with us in the first place,” I say. “He was on a different team.”
    “And if his team’s