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before my time.”
    Which means he either died in the end or got transferred to another team. Or earned his thousand points and made it out.
    “Who put him on trial? And why? What else did Tyrone say?”
    “Don’t know. Don’t know. And, not much.”
    “Could you be less helpful?”
    Luka shrugs.
    We walk for a few minutes in silence as I mentally run through scenarios. “So you think Jackson broke one of the endless stupid rules and now he has to pay the price? That there’s going to be some sort of trial?”
    “Makes sense, right?”
    It does.
    “But what rule . . . ?”
    Luka shrugs again.
    “Wait . . .” I skid to a stop, worry uncoiling like a cobra. “If the Committee tries Jackson and finds him guilty, they won’t be able to keep him imprisoned indefinitely in some sort of alternate dimension prison. His parents will notice him missing. They’ll freak out, look for him. Call in the cops. Our teachers, our friends, they’ll all notice he’s gone. I don’t think the Committee wants that sort of attention.”
    Luka makes a chopping motion with one hand. “He’ll be another statistic. Another kid who ran away.” He shakes his head. “But it won’t come to that. If they decide he’s guilty, decide not to send him back, they’ll just make certain that everyone forgets.”
    Forgets all memories of him from the time he was conscripted to the game. Like everyone forgot Richelle. Because she was dead.
    And that terrifies me. But it terrifies me less than the possibility that the Drau have him.
    And then it terrifies me more.
    “You think they’ll kill him?” I ask. I know what the Committee’s capable of. They take kids— kids —to fight in a war against aliens. Their explanation is that adult brains have fully formed neural connections, which means getting pulled—making the jump into the game—is too difficult for them. But still-developing teen brains handle the shift much better. Makes sense, sort of. Doesn’t change the fact that the Committee’s ruthless. Any decisions they make are colored by their single-minded determination to defeat the Drau.
    “If they think the rule he broke is worth killing him for, then, yeah, I think they will,” Luka says.
    I picture Jackson lying cold and lifeless, his gold-tinged skin gone gray, the tiny muscles that make his face so expressive gone slack. Dead. People don’t look the same once the spark that powers their cells is gone. They’re not really that person anymore, just the wrapping left behind.
    I trip over the edge of an uneven paver and grab Luka’s arm. “We have to find him. We have to—” Words fail me. I tip my head back and stare at the sky, fighting tears, feeling helpless and impotent and angry.
    “Yeah.” Luka sounds broken. He sounds like I feel. “And how the hell do we do that?”
    I meet his gaze. “I need to see the Committee.”
    Luka starts walking again.
    Stop, start, stop, start. I feel like we’re on a malfunctioning conveyor belt—which pretty much reflects my life right now.
    “How do we get to see them?”
    “I think I have a better chance than we . But I don’t know how I get to them. I don’t have a clue. I have to—” I exhale in a rush. “I’ll figure it out. I just need to think.”
    Luka says nothing.
    Finally, I break the silence. “No suggestions? No questions?”
    “No to the first. As to the second, would it be safe for me to ask? Would it be safe for you to answer? Are you allowed to tell me about them? Jackson never did.” He doesn’t sound bitter, just curious, and a little concerned.
    It’s a reminder of the whole cone-of-silence rule. No talking about the game or the Drau in the real world. I remember how earnest Luka was the first time he told me that.
    Guess we’re breaking all the rules now.
    “I don’t know. Maybe it’s better that you’re not asking. I don’t want to break any rules. ” Luka might not sound bitter, but I do.
    Rules and rules and rules. The ones Jackson