Rush The Game

her multitude of brothers can’t find out what sites she’s been to. She’s the one who told me that my operating system could cache entries, even when I’m set to private browsing. And she’s the one who taught me the command to clear it. Not that I’ve ever needed it before, but she was insistent that one never knew when something like this would come in handy.
    I type the command: Terminal: dscacheutil—flushcache.
    All evidence wiped clean.
    “Good-bye, Richelle,” I whisper.
    I feel like a robot as I lock the front door, then run down the driveway. My music. I forgot it. I spin toward the house but can’t face going back inside. I spin back toward the road and slam into something hard. Hands close on my upper arms, steadying me. My head jerks back, I look up a good six inches, and my breath locks in my chest.
    “Hey,” Jackson says.



CHAPTER NINE
    I RUN. JACKSON RUNS BESIDE ME. WE DON’T TALK. WE DON’T even look at each other. No, that’s not quite true. I sneak sidelong glances, not trusting myself to speak yet.
    He’s not wearing the aviator shades anymore. He’s switched them out for a pair of wraparound Oakleys, black on black, the lenses so dark that I wonder how he can see through them even in the sunlight.
    We’ve done a mile before I ask, “What are you doing here?”
    “Running.”
    “Just once, can you be something other than an asshole?” I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to hurt anyone as much as I want to hurt Jackson Tate in that moment. I imagine punching him in the head.
    “You want to punch me in the head,” he says, and when I stop dead and turn to stare at him, he shakes his head. “No, I can’t read your—”
    “Mind,” I finish for him. “So you’ve said. More than once, I think. I’m not sure I believe you. After all, I could hear you in my mind. What’s to say you can’t hear me in yours?”
    “Me. I’m saying it. And I’m telling you the truth.”
    “The truth? Would you recognize it if it bit you on the ass?”
    He smiles a little but says nothing.
    I sigh. “Why are you here, Jackson?”
    “I’m here for you, Miki. To try and help you figure things out.”
    My breath catches, then rushes in to fill my lungs. “Only if I ask the right questions.”
    He gives a short nod. “True enough.”
    I start running again, afraid that if I don’t, I really might hit him. Or dissolve in tears. Neither option will lead to anything good. I’m out of control and I don’t like it. My feet pound the sidewalk, the rhythm familiar. I cling to that familiarity, letting it ground me. I think that if I don’t hold on to something, my sanity will slip away.
    Richelle’s dead. I want to know how and why. I want to know how it’s even possible. Those are the questions I need to ask, along with dozens of others. I need to do it in a way that doesn’t break the rules Luka alluded to. And since Jackson’s so fond of nonanswers, I need to do it in a way that’ll get me what I want. I center my thoughts, using every trick Dr. Andrews, my grief counselor, taught me. Breathing. Visualization. Distraction.
    “Plotting my demise?” Jackson asks, turning his head toward me for a second as we run.
    “Something like that.”
    “I’m not good at this, Miki.”
    “At what?”
    “Explaining.”
    My laugh is short and hard and dark. “No shit.” I feel a little bad as soon as I say it. He’s trying. Sort of. I should meet him halfway.
    “Does it break the rules if I say her name?”
    “It breaks the rules for me to be here at all. But there are breaks”—he pauses—“and there are breaks .”
    We run side by side, keeping a steady pace. After a few minutes, I ask, “Who makes the rules?”
    “Let’s just say . . . they’re decided by committee.”
    He said something like that before, when I asked him who decided on the name for the con.
    “Are you on that committee?”
    He makes a sound somewhere between a grunt and a laugh. “No.”
    He slows to a walk, and I slow with him.
    “What happens if we break the rules?” I ask.
    He doesn’t answer, either because he doesn’t know or because he doesn’t want me to know. Whatever the consequences are, they worry Luka enough that he won’t even talk to me. Or not. Maybe there are no consequences; maybe it’s just an amorphous threat that’s holding Luka hostage. I’m not brave enough—or maybe it’s that I’m not foolish enough—to take the risk. So I come at things from a different angle. I