Evertrue

EIGHT

NOW

The Surface. In Jack’s car.

Jack and I dropped off Jules and Tara at Tara’s house. Tara didn’t say anything on the way, but Jules sat next to her and told her that everything would be okay. I wasn’t sure if she believed us or if she thought we were all crazy, but regardless, Tara was safe for now. Jules was going to stay with her.

Once we were alone, Jack pulled over to the side of the road. He threw the car into park. I wasn’t sure what he was doing.

He looked into my eyes. “We will try to take down the Everneath,” he said.

I gave him a confused look. “I know.”

“But promise me, Becks. Promise me it won’t get in the way of keeping you alive. Promise you will do whatever it takes to survive.”

“Why are you saying this?” I said.

“Because I can see the switch in your eyes. The second you found out about the accelerated Feed, you went from survival to martyr mode.”

“I’m not planning on martyring myself,” I said, shaking my head.

“I know you,” Jack said. “So here’s the deal. You make it through this. You feed on Cole. We both make it to the other side of this. Okay?”

I nodded, knowing this was a promise that I couldn’t guarantee, but also realizing that, at this moment, it was a promise I needed to make to Jack.

“I swear. I will.”

Since it was nearly dinnertime, Jack dropped me off at my house. He wouldn’t have left me alone, but it was Monday night, and my dad had this archaic rule that Monday nights were strictly reserved for family. Heaven help the telemarketer who dared interrupt family night.

That night my dad brought home Chinese takeout for dinner. I picked at the ham fried rice, anxious about where I was going tonight. Luckily, Tommy was excited about an extra-credit summer project for school for which he had to bake a cake in the shape of Utah and decorate the geography of it using brown sugar for the deserts and chocolate Kisses for the mountainous regions.

It was enough of a distraction that my father didn’t notice I was preoccupied with something else, namely the fact that at midnight, Jack and I were going to Cole’s condo so Cole could feed me. And tomorrow I was going to start my mission to blow up the Underworld.

But for now I had to focus on surviving a night with Jack watching while Cole fed me. Suddenly this feat seemed the more difficult of the two.

The Surface. My bedroom.

I climbed out my window and ran down the street to where Jack’s car was parked. Jack was leaning against the driver’s-side door, waiting for me. When he saw me, he opened the door wide.

I climbed in. “Have you been waiting long?”

“My entire life,” he said.

I smiled. He used to say that all the time, that he had loved me ever since he’d known me, and until we got together he was just waiting. Then I would make a joke about how he spent his time waiting by dating everything in a skirt.

But I didn’t make those jokes anymore.

We were quiet on the drive to Deer Valley. Jack’s hold on the steering wheel was relaxed, and I wondered how many trees he had pummeled to reach this state of zen. I stayed quiet, not wanting to do anything to mess that up, especially by talking about what was going to happen tonight.

If I could feed off Cole without our lips touching . . .

If I could feed off Cole from across the room . . . even better.

From across the Earth . . . best.

I knew that what we were doing would save me, but I couldn’t help feeling as if I were participating in a death march.

When we got there, we stood in front of the door for a while. It looked like it had been recently repaired. Jack looked at me and grabbed my hand.

“We’ll be okay,” he said.

I leaned toward him, and he put his arm around me. “Sometimes I actually believe it,” I said.

“We will,” he insisted. “We survive until we can strike.”

He pulled me close. “Hold on to me. This storm will pass, and until then I’m leaning into the wind.”

I settled into his chest, inhaling his clean-boy smell. “Are you going to be okay tonight? I mean, my lips have to get really close to his.”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Jack said. “Nothing will convince me it does.”

Too soon, and before we had a chance to knock, the door swung open, and Cole stood in the threshold. He saw our embrace, and for a moment his confident smirk faltered, but he recovered quickly.

He looked at Jack. Took in the sheer size of him. “Damn, you’re huge,” he said. “I mean, I knew that would happen, but—”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “What did happen to him?”

Cole raised an eyebrow. “He climbed out of the Tunnels. The energy it took to do that was massive. Each inch would’ve been the equivalent of, I don’t know, say a hundred weight-lifting sessions. So someone who was beefy before would become . . . extra beefy.” He seemed suddenly bored with the explanation. “So, Nik,” he said. “On to more exciting things than Jack’s biceps. Where do you want to . . . consummate—”

Jack stepped in between us, effectively cutting Cole off. “Say ‘consummate’ again. Please.” He clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white.

“Anywhere,” I said. I reached for one of Jack’s hands and urged it open, and then laced my fingers through his.

If he was this tense now, how would he last the night?

We followed Cole into the living room, and that was when I saw that we weren’t alone. Gavin was there, on one of the chairs; and sitting next to him, running her fingers through his hair, was Ariel Hughes. Jules was right.

Yesterday she’d been head over heels for Luke, but tonight she was groping an immortal from the Underworld. She had no idea what she was getting into.

“Hi, Nikki,” Gavin said. Ariel didn’t even bother looking up from Gavin’s neck.

“Hey, Gavin,” I said. “I thought that latest STD test came back positive?” Ariel’s head shot up. Good, I had her attention. I kept my eyes on Gavin. “I’m happy to be wrong, though.”

Ariel pushed herself up off Gavin and stood there.

“It’s not true,” Gavin said, a disbelieving smile on his face. “I’ve never even been tested.”

“I’m out of here,” Ariel said. She grabbed her purse and stalked past me and Jack and out the front door.

Gavin shot me a dirty look. “Thanks a lot, Nikki.”

Cole’s lips twitched, obviously amused at what had just happened.

“You’ll find someone else,” Cole said. He gestured for us to follow him. “Let’s go to my room. Privacy.”

The last place I wanted to go was Cole’s bedroom, but no setting would make what was about to happen less awkward. Jack and I followed Cole down the hallway. As we walked in, I noticed there was still a giant hole in the wall where Jack had ripped the safe out.

“Don’t worry,” Cole said. “I’ll cover the expenses.”

He sat on the edge of his bed, but Jack and I stayed standing.

Crap. We were finally here, the moment I’d been dreading. Neither of us moved. I knew I needed to feed off Cole. I could feel it in my weak muscles; the exhaustion that had been building all day had reached all the way to my bones. I could only imagine how I’d have felt if a full day had gone by. And now that I was so close to getting energy, my body could no longer support itself.

“You’d better put your arm around her, Jack,” Cole said.

Jack turned toward me, surprised. He hadn’t realized I was sinking. He put his arm around my waist and held me up, and yet he made no move to help me get over to Cole. I tried to assemble my frayed thoughts enough to give Jack my speech about how this was the only way to keep me alive, but I couldn’t get the pieces together to form the words.

“Look,” Cole said, leveling his gaze on Jack. “I know you love her. I know what that looks like on a person. You would do anything for her. You want everything for her. And so do I. The problem is, we disagree on what her future should look like. But no matter which path she ends up on, she needs to survive the night. Right here. Right now. That’s something we both can agree on, right?”

Jack frowned and closed his eyes. I couldn’t believe it. Cole was making perfect sense, and he had said probably the one thing that would make Jack move.

Jack hesitated for just a moment and then helped me over to the bed. I collapsed next to Cole, unable to keep my eyes open.

“Just sleep, Becks,” Jack said, running his fingers over my closed eyelids and down my cheeks “Sleep through the whole thing. I’ll be here the entire time.”

I couldn’t have stayed awake if I’d tried.

SOPHOMORE YEAR

The Surface. Rock Garden Climbing Gym.

One blink. That was all it took, and suddenly I was somewhere else. A place I recognized. It was the cavernous inside of the Rock Garden Climbing Gym. The cement floors matched the cement ceiling, and rock-climbing walls stood at different angles for all levels of climbers.

I’d been here once before, for a PE field trip sophomore year. I remembered it vividly because I had been dreading it. I’d always had a slight fear of heights, but the fresh loss of my mother had somehow increased the terror for me.

I remembered standing at the base of the beginner’s wall, staring up the shallow slope as if it were the face of Mount Everest.

I turned toward the beginner’s wall and saw a girl in black yoga pants and a green tank top with a negative photograph of the Beatles walking across Abbey Road on the front.

I knew that tank top. My dad had given it to me for my birthday. I was looking at . . . myself. But if that was me, then . . . I glanced down at the hands by my sides and saw black tattoos encircling each finger. These were Cole’s hands. This was Cole’s memory. I’d had no idea he’d been there that day, probably because I was so consumed by my fear.

He watched the memory-Nikki staring up at the top of the wall. The harness was attached to her waist, the rope strung through the pulley. Nate Pinnock, a junior, held the other end of the rope, ready to belay. He watched the frozen girl in the green tank top and rolled his eyes impatiently.

I could feel what Cole was feeling as he watched it all unfold. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. He had to find out if the frozen girl would ever gather the courage to try.

Suddenly Jack appeared behind the memory-Nikki. Cole took a few steps toward them so he could hear what they were saying.

Jack placed his hands on her waist and put his lips to her ear.

“Don’t look at the top, Becks. You don’t have to figure out how to get way up there. You only have to figure out how to get here.” He placed his hand on the foothold nearest her right foot. “Never focus on the end. Only focus on your first step.”

She took a deep breath, unable to tear her eyes off the highest platform. “And then what?” the memory-Nikki whispered.

From Cole’s perspective, I could see Jack’s face. The way he closed his eyes as if my fears were his fears. The way he held memory-Nikki’s waist as if he were holding something more precious than his own life.

He leaned closer to her. “Then you take the next step.”

Nate waved the rope back and forth. “Please, give me something to do.”

Jack turned and glared at Nate. Nate stopped moving the rope and sank a little lower against the floor.

Memory-Nikki hadn’t even noticed Nate’s impatience. She closed her eyes, took another deep breath, and whispered, “Just one step.”

She stepped closer to the wall and placed her hands on the two nearest rocks; but when she went to lift her foot, Jack’s hands at her waist got in her way. “Um, Jack?” she said.

“Yes?”

“Do your little bits of wisdom include a part about you actually having to let me go?”

He gave a wide smile and kissed her shoulder. “You take the first step, and I’ll let go.”

She turned her head slightly toward him. “You let go, and I’ll take the first step.”

He sighed, and with a reluctant expression that he kept hidden from her, he dropped his hands. She climbed.

Cole backed away, carrying a heaviness in his chest that I couldn’t quite understand, but the only word that came to mind was wistfulness.

NOW

The Surface. Cole’s bedroom.

I woke the next morning to hushed voices and the lingering images from the memory Cole had shared with me. I wondered if he could control what he did and didn’t share; the more I thought about it, the more I believed Cole couldn’t control them. He’d shared memories purposely before, such as his perspective on our first meeting at Harry O’s club. But last night’s memory . . . it showed our love. Mine and Jack’s. I had a feeling he wouldn’t have purposely shared it.

I didn’t get much of a chance to focus on the memory, though. Jack’s and Cole’s voices began to cut through the sleep, and I listened in.

“There could be a place for you,” Cole was saying. “Once she’s queen, we’ll make you an Everliving in the High Court. You two could be together forever.”

Jack scoffed. “You’d stand aside and let us be together. Ruling the Underworld.”

“Not ruling together,” Cole said. “She and I would rule together. But there’s no reason the two of you can’t . . .”

I opened my eyes briefly just in time to see him wave his hands in a finish-the-sentence kind of way. I wasn’t awake enough to actually finish it.

“I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. It’s all pointless,” Jack said. “First off, I would never become an Everliving. But more importantly, when it comes down to it, Nikki will never feed on another human being. You may have your band, and whoever else you can recruit to your side, and maybe they’ll feed on innocent girls to bulk up for battle. You might have all the other pieces in place, but Nikki will never do the Century Feed.”

Never do the Century Feed. My eyelids fluttered open again as that phrase triggered a memory. Cole had once told me that one of the reasons he wanted to rule the Everneath was because it would mean he’d never have to do the hundred-year Feed again. His search for Forfeits would be over. His “subjects” would do it for him. The Everneath itself would provide all the sustenance he would need.

An important piece of Cole’s puzzle had just popped into place in my head.

“That’s part of his plan,” I mumbled.

Cole and Jack turned toward me. Jack rushed to my side. “Becks, you’re awake.”

I tried to sit up, but my head felt like a balloon.

“Here,” Jack said, handing me a cup of water. “Cole said it would be like you had an energy hangover.”

He was right. I might be a little lightheaded, but I felt as if I could pummel a few trees myself.

I gulped the water, slammed down the cup, and wiped my lips. “Me refusing to feed is part of his plan.”

Jack crinkled his eyebrows. “What?”

Cole’s face was blank, but he didn’t deny it.

“Because the queen doesn’t have to feed.” I shook my head. “All this time, you and I thought I had two choices. Century Feed on a Forfeit or die. Which would mean there’s only one choice for me. To die. But Cole is giving us a third choice. If I become queen, I won’t have to Century Feed. And I won’t die.”

I kept my eyes on Jack’s face, and I saw it. The tiniest reflection of a smile.

And then I realized what I had just done. I had given Jack motive to make me queen. I frowned. “Don’t even think it, Jack.”

“What?” Jack said.

“I’m not becoming queen.”

“Of course not, Becks.”

But I could see it in his eyes. I could see it on his face.

“But . . . ?” I said, waiting for him to fill in the rest.

He shook his head. “But if it comes down to it, if it comes down to your life, then you becoming queen might buy us some time.”

I closed my eyes, my breath caught in my throat.

Cole clapped.

I opened my eyes and narrowed them at him.

“I’m sorry,” Cole said, obviously not sorry. “I just thought this monumental occasion, when Jack and I both agreed on your future, should be marked with some sort of applause.”

I put my head in my hands. “This can’t be happening.”

“I don’t agree with you,” Jack growled. “I only want to keep her alive.”

“Me too!” Cole said, excited. “I want to keep her alive forever and ever. Just like in the fairy tales. Happily ever after . . . forever!”

“Enough!” I said, standing. I held up a finger. “You two don’t get to decide. I’ve made my decision. Listen closely. I. Won’t. Do. It.” I took a step closer to both of them and enunciated my next word carefully. “Ever.”

With that, I stormed out of the condo.

Jack chased me down the stairs and across the parking lot. When I reached his car, I turned on him, and he nearly ran into me.

I shoved my hand into his chest. “You do not get to decide how I stay alive!”

“I know. I know.” He took my hand off his chest and pulled me close. “I’m with you. You will never be queen. We’ll destroy the Everneath.”

“But . . .” My lower lip trembled against his shirt. “But what you said—”

“Cole doesn’t need to know how I really feel now, does he?”

I tilted my head back to look at him. “You mean . . .”

He shrugged. “I’d say Cole’s feeling pretty confident right now. He thinks that if it came down to it, I’d try my best to force you to become queen rather than see you die. If we’re going to destroy the Underworld, we need him believing he has the upper hand. Don’t you think?”

I let out a giant sigh of relief and leaned my head all the way back, letting the morning sun shine full on my face.

“I thought I’d lost you in there,” I said.

Jack pressed his lips against my forehead. “Never,” he said. I nodded, and we got into the car. Before he started it, though, he opened his phone and checked his email. Once the most recent ones loaded, he smiled.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Professor Spears,” he said.

“What?”

“I’ve been emailing him every day, hoping to convince him it wasn’t all one big joke. I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to get your hopes up. But early this morning he said he’d found something that might help us. I asked to meet with him, and he just said yes.”

I threw my arms around Jack’s neck.

“It might not be anything,” Jack said.

“I don’t care. It’s hope.”