Evertrue

NINE

NOW

The Surface. Parley’s Canyon.

On the drive down Parley’s Canyon, I told Jack about the rock-climbing memory that Cole had leaked to me during the Feed.

“I remember that day,” Jack said. “But I can’t believe Cole was there. You’d think we would’ve noticed the Dead Elvises’ lead singer just hanging out in the corner of the gym.”

I shrugged. “Maybe he was there in his Neal form.” I tried to remember if he had the same tattoos on his fingers in his Neal form that he had in his Cole form.

“The question is, why was he there in the first place? Did he follow you there?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. The rock-climbing field trip was right after I’d met him.”

“He was obsessed from the start.”

I stared out the window. Considering how Cole had felt during that memory, I realized that Jack was probably right.

We were mostly quiet for the rest of the drive to the university campus. My dad was going to give me a lecture if he found out I was already missing my Creative Writing class, but it couldn’t be helped. Once we reached his office, Professor Spears ushered us inside.

“Do you have the documents?” he said by way of greeting.

I turned to Jack, my eyebrows raised. He dug into his backpack, pulled out a manila folder, and placed it on the professor’s desk. The professor opened it. Inside was the most ancient-looking page from Mrs. Jenkins’s collection of documents, the page we never could translate. I didn’t know he’d had it with him. He shrugged. “I wanted to encourage him to hurry, so I scanned the page and emailed it to him. Told him he could see the original if he helped us.”

The professor lifted the folder and brought the page closer to his face, careful not to touch it with his fingers. I didn’t bother telling him we’d already left our prints all over it.

“It’s incredible,” he said, holding it under the light on his desk.

Jack stepped forward. “You said you had something for us?”

The professor kept his eyes on the page when he answered. “After you left my office last time, I decided to contact my colleague, Professor Frank Sheldon. He’s sort of an Akh ghost aficionado.”

I remembered that “Akh ghost” was the term the professor had used before to refer to an Everliving.

“Frank said he had gathered numerous articles and documents. Made notes on the world of the Akh ghosts. He gave me this.” The professor opened the bottom right drawer of his desk and pulled out a large, leather-bound journal of sorts. “All the research Frank’s ever done.” He gingerly flipped through the pages, some of which were completely covered in scratchy writing, others with articles and drawings taped on them. Some showed hastily drawn figures and maps. Some had symbols like the ones on the bracelet Meredith had left me: the five parts of the human soul, as the Egyptians saw it.

And it was all in English.

“Frank says this is the bible of the Akh universe. I went through it. All of it. I decided this would be a diverting exercise in hypotheticals. So, kids, you brought me the ancient text. What can I help you with?”

I looked at Jack. His mouth hung open for a moment. Then he shut it. Then opened it again.

I leaned forward. “Does that book”—I rested my hand on the open journal—“give you a good idea as to what their world looks like? Its structure? Its strengths? Its weaknesses?”

The professor narrowed his eyes. “Yes. Why?”

“Because I . . . we . . . want to destroy it.”

He looked from me to Jack and then to me again. “Destroy what?”

“The Underworld,” I said. “The whole thing.”

A few long moments later. Professor Spears’s office.

“You want to destroy the Underworld,” Professor Spears repeated. He spoke as if he couldn’t understand the words coming out of his mouth.

“It’s called the Everneath,” I said.

He ignored me. “Why?”

“Are we still talking in hypotheticals?” Jack asked.

The professor nodded.

“Then, hypothetically, destroying the Everneath will save lives. Nikki’s included.”

The professor glanced at me. “What’s wrong with Nikki?”

Jack leaned forward. “I’m going to stop saying the word ‘hypothetical,’ just to make things easy. Nikki is halfway to becoming an Akh ghost. We want to save her first and foremost.” I glanced at him sideways, but he ignored me. “Then we want to destroy the Everneath. So please, Professor Spears, tell us what you know about the Underworld.”

The professor looked from Jack to me. “Seriously?”

“We brought you what you wanted,” Jack said.

“I know, I know.” The professor walked over to the whiteboard on the wall and used the sleeve of his tweed jacket to wipe it down. He popped the lid on a dry-erase marker and proceeded to write.

He waved the marker around as he began to explain.

“Let’s talk logistics. The Everneath has a few distinct things that hold its shape.” He drew three concentric circles. “The first is the boundary between the Everneath and the Surface. The membrane between the two worlds. The pressure of the energy inside is part of what holds the membrane together.”

My face must have looked even more blank, because once he had taken in my expression, he waved his hand as if he were wiping an imaginary blackboard in front of him.

“Imagine a balloon. Now when it’s deflated, the latex doesn’t hold any particular shape. But inflated with air, the balloon takes on a three-dimensional shape, held in place by the pressure inside. It’s the same thing with the Everneath. All the energy inside is what gives the world its shape. It’s also why there are only a few entrances. You wouldn’t want to poke too many holes in a balloon, right?”

I nodded.

He got a small smile on his face and shook his head, as if he still couldn’t believe we were talking about this.

“Any attempt to destroy the Everneath would have to take into account destroying the membrane.”

“How do we do that?” I asked.

He frowned. “I have no idea.” He wrote the number one on the whiteboard and then wrote the word membrane beside it.

He let that sink in for a moment. I glanced at Jack, who stared at the board. “So, if we figure out a way to destroy the membrane—”

“Oh, I’m not done,” the professor interrupted. “That’s just the first obstacle. The second obstacle would be beings known as the Shades. Have you heard of them?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes.”

“What about them?” Jack asked.

“They’re connected. Every single Shade is connected to every other Shade, creating a web of . . . power. So imagine our balloon, and then imagine a web-like fibrous layer inside the latex, basically there to make it stronger. Almost like chain mail under the armor of a knight.”

I sighed. “A chain mail balloon?” Maybe we should’ve come up with a different analogy than a balloon. A balloon seemed so . . . poppable.

The professor wrote the number two on the board, followed by the words Shades connected.

“You said there were three things holding it together?” Jack said.

The professor nodded. “I saved the most important one for last. Every Everliving has a Surface heart and an Everneath heart. Does this sound familiar?”

Jack and I both nodded.

“Again, all these hearts are connected. To destroy the Everneath, every heart would need to be destroyed.”

He wrote the number three, followed by the words destroy every heart.

I looked at Jack. “I think I remember Cole telling me the Everneath hearts are kept hidden in the High Court.”

“That may be true,” the professor said. “But according to this”—he patted the journal—“the problem would be with the other hearts. The Surface hearts. The ones every single Everliving has on him or her at all times.”

Jack leaned back in his chair as what the professor was saying sank in. “Shit.” He shook his head. “How could we possibly get hold of every single heart?”

“We can’t,” I said. I closed my eyes and put my head in my hands. “We can’t. He’s basically saying it’s impossible.”

Jack pried one of my hands away from my face. “Look at me.” I kept my eyes squeezed shut and shook my head. “Becks, look at me.”

I raised my head.

“It’s not impossible. This Underworld shouldn’t exist in the first place. It’s an anomaly. Against nature. Which means it’s not meant to be here, and that makes it vulnerable.” He walked over to the board and pointed to the outermost circle the professor had drawn. “We’ll focus our energy on weakening the Shade network and the membrane. By then, hopefully, we’ll have figured out a way to get the hearts.”

I closed my eyes as I realized what he was saying. “We’d have to destroy my hearts.” I turned to the professor. “What would happen then? I’d be human, right?”

“I don’t know,” he said, still looking stunned at our discussion.

I thought back to the story of how Cole had become an Everliving. “Cole once told me that breaking both of his hearts would kill him. But he just meant that it would make him mortal again. Because the woman who turned Cole—Gynna—she turned him so she could use his heart to trade for her own, so she could break both of her hearts. And become human again. Breaking both hearts should just mean that I would become human again.”

Human again. Fully human again. I didn’t want to let myself hope that one day soon I could leave the Everneath behind. It seemed too much to wish for, especially considering that Cole was guarding my Surface heart, and my Everneath heart was tucked away in a vault somewhere in the Underworld.

“You’re only halfway to becoming an Everliving,” Jack said. “What if that means you only have one of your hearts? What if you get your Everneath heart when you Century Feed the first time?”

We looked toward the professor, but he just shrugged.

“I still think we should try to break your compass,” Jack said.

The professor tilted his head.

“It’s her heart. It’s in the shape of a compass,” Jack explained.

“We don’t know if that would cure me,” I said, not caring anymore if the professor thought we were lying. “No, we have to destroy it.”

“Hypothetically,” the professor whispered, as if that word didn’t mean what he thought it meant anymore. “When are you two planning on starting this . . . Everneath coup?”

“As soon as possible. Becks only has until the shackle on her other wrist appears. Then she’ll have to Century Feed or she’ll die. She’s got anywhere from a few days to a week.”

The professor raised his eyebrows. “You have a few days to a week, maybe, to weaken the membrane, undo the Shade network, and find and destroy every Everliving heart?”

Jack nodded. “That’s the plan.”

The professor scratched the back of his head. “Hypothetically, I don’t think that’s enough time.”

Jack clasped my hand. “It has to be.”

After our meeting, Jack rushed me back up the canyon and straight to school so I could make it in time for the last half of Creative Writing. We didn’t want Cole to know we were up to anything, which was the only reason I was going to class. On the way, we discussed the meeting with the professor.

“I think we should tackle the easier stuff first,” I said. I couldn’t believe I was referring to the task of figuring out the bond holding the Shades together and then destroying it as the “easier stuff,” but I knew it would be nothing compared to rounding up thousands and thousands of hearts.

“What do you suggest?” Jack said.

“I say we go down to the Everneath. Rustle up a few Shades. You can beat the crap out of them until they tell us how they’re bound together.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “‘Rustle up a few Shades’? Get them to talk? From what I remember, they don’t talk. Except to each other.”

“I know, I know. My point is, I think any real information about the Everneath will be found in the Everneath. And now that I’m half Everliving, I wouldn’t be leaking energy out everywhere like I did last time, which means I could go unnoticed.”

“What about me?”

I shrugged and then softly said, “Maybe I should go alone.”

He slammed on the brakes—not a very safe move, considering that we were on the freeway.

“Hell, no. As in it will rain fire before I let you do that. As in the sun will rise in the west before that happens.”

“Okay, okay.”

“The NFL will commission the use of Nerf balls.”

“Okay! It was just a suggestion. We will go together. And maybe I can absorb any excess energy you have, just like Cole did for me.”

“Maybe I don’t have any excess energy after my months in the Tunnels.”

I thought about it. They did drain him so dry. . . . What was I thinking? He was so full of emotions right now. But maybe I could absorb his extra energy. Even if I couldn’t feed on him on the Surface, maybe I could in the Everneath.

It was reckless what we were talking about doing. The Everneath was not a place to visit without a lot of planning, but our frame of mind had shifted. We were going up against the Everneath. We were talking about destroying a world. Each step along the way would have to be reckless. If it wasn’t, we weren’t taking the right step.

“We need to get one of Cole’s hairs,” I said. Jack raised an eyebrow. “I don’t have my Surface heart. I can’t move between worlds on my own without it.”

Jack sighed. “When are you going to do it?”

“In class.”

Jack took a deep breath in. “So soon?”

“We don’t know how long we have, but it’s not long. Is there a better time?”

There was no argument from him. And why would there be? We were out of time from the moment we began.

As he pulled up in the school’s roundabout, he opened the door and said, “Remember, don’t let on to Cole.”

I couldn’t help a smile. “I won’t,” I said. “That’s like the only thing on my mind. If I forgot that, we’d have bigger problems, namely that my brain was broken or something.”

I stepped out of the car. Jack grabbed my hand. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine, right now.” Though according to Cole, by tonight I would be weak again.

“Good.” He let go of my hand. “Now, go get that hair.”

I raised my eyebrows. “In what will forever be the strangest send-off ever spoken . . .”

He gave a laugh as I slammed the door shut behind me and waved.

Maybe this would be easy. Everybody sheds hair at school, right? Maybe there would be a little blond hair just sitting there on Cole’s desk, waiting for someone to reach over and grab it, only it would be a dark hair because he would be there disguised as Neal. Would that disguise reach all the way to the hairs that fell out of his head? Would they turn blond as they made their way to the ground? I couldn’t think of a reason why they wouldn’t work the same as Cole’s blond hair, but I never got the chance to find out. When I got to Mrs. Stone’s class, the seat where Cole had sat the day before was empty.

Mrs. Stone paused whatever she was reading. “Miss Beckett? I hope this isn’t the start of a bad habit.”

I shook my head, scanning the rest of the classroom, looking for Cole. But he was most definitely not in class.

“Are you going to join us?” Mrs. Stone said.

I thought about answering honestly. No, because if I can’t pluck a hair off Cole’s head, what’s the point of summer school? “Um, I’m not feeling well. I’ll be here tomorrow,” I said, and turned around and left before she could say anything else.

I ran out of the school and met Jack outside.

“That was fast,” he said as I climbed into his car.

“He wasn’t there.” I shut the door. “It’s inconvenient, but I can get a hair tonight when he feeds me.” I tried not to sound worried, but Jack pressed his lips together.

“He was probably in school yesterday only so he could give me the bad news about feeding on him every night. Now that he’s delivered it, there’s really no reason for him to be here at all.”

Jack nodded. “I know. But it seems like he would take every opportunity to be with you, especially without me.”

“We’ll get it tonight.”

We spent the rest of the day throwing out other ideas for our next step, but everything came back to getting to the Everneath, and whereas last night I was dreading meeting up with Cole, tonight I couldn’t wait to see him.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’d stolen a hair from Cole, and since he was always one step ahead of us, I worried that he would see it coming. So after dinner, when Jack and I were in my room, I made a suggestion.

“I think I should go to Cole’s alone tonight.”

Jack was sitting at my desk, thumbing through Mrs. Jenkins’s papers for the thousandth time. When he heard my suggestion, he froze.

“Hear me out,” I said. “Cole has an annoying habit of anticipating our next moves. He always guesses what we’re going to do. If I go alone, and if we pretend we’re still fighting about whether I should take the throne to save my life—then don’t you think he’ll be more confident?”

“I think you’re overthinking this.”

I clasped my hands together and sat on the edge of my bed, across from his chair. “I’m thinking that every step of the way, we can’t blow any chance to get it right. We might not get another one. And I want to increase our odds any way I can. I think it would be best if we looked like we needed some space from each other. For a night. I’d rather overthink than underthink.”

He frowned. “I don’t like this.”

“Of course you don’t like this. I’m going to spend the night with Cole. Nobody likes this. Well, except Cole. But when I wake up with new energy tomorrow, I want to be able to grab a hair and run without a fight. Take him completely by surprise. I don’t want him on edge because you’re there. I want him to feel safe enough to close his eyes. I want him comfortable and pliant.”

He nodded. “I see what you’re saying, but—”

“You saw how it went last night. I slept through the entire thing. Easy peasy. I’ll just drive there, go inside, feed, grab the hair, and get out. We’ll meet up in the morning.”

Jack smiled. “You have your stubborn face on.”

I put my hand up to my cheek. “I don’t know about that. It feels like my ‘clarity of thought’ face.”

He took a deep breath. “Okay. But you are in my arms until the moment you leave.”

“And in them again the moment I get back,” I said.

For the next few hours I dozed off and on against Jack’s shoulder. At eleven thirty, I kissed his cheek. “See you early in the morning. And get ready, because we’re taking a trip to the Underworld.”

Jack smiled. “It’s a date.”

I scooched out of bed, but when I stood upright, I had to hold the bedpost to steady myself.

Jack shot up next to me. “You okay?”

“Mm-hmm,” I said. “Just a little wobbly. Nothing a little energy won’t fix.”

“Let me drive you.”

“I’m fine. Really.”

I grabbed my car keys, and we both climbed out the window. Jack walked me to my car, kissing me as if he’d never see me again.

The lights were off at Cole’s place. I’d been there before when the lights were off, but usually there was some light coming from somewhere. I scanned the balcony from where I’d parked my car and figured out why it looked so much darker. The porch light outside his front door was off, which was strange because it usually went on automatically in the dark.

It had probably just burned out.

Still, I climbed the outside stairs on my tiptoes, an unexplainable chill running down my back. It wasn’t until I got close to the front door that I knew something was wrong. The door was ajar, the newly repaired lock smashed.

I turned around and ran into the chest of a tall man.

“’Scuse me, I—” My voice cut off when I saw his face. Black eyes. Cracked lips smiling around a black hole of a mouth.

I shuddered. It was the man from the other night.

But this time there was nowhere to run.

I tried to scream, but he clamped a large hand over my mouth, spun me so I was facing away from him, and wrapped his other arm across my chest. He began to drag me toward the stairs. I kicked against the cement, flailing against him. It didn’t do any good. Each failed attempt drained me of more energy, as if I had only one good kick left in each leg.

I opened my mouth and chomped down hard on one of his fingers, but he didn’t even flinch.

I couldn’t breathe with his hand over my mouth. I clawed against the arm across my chest, but he had me by at least a hundred pounds.

Air. I needed air.

I raised my hands above my head and tried to claw at his face, aiming for where his eyeballs should be; but everything around me was getting darker, and whatever energy I’d come there with was now gone.

I went limp in his arms. He didn’t even break stride.