Evertrue

FOURTEEN

NOW

The Everneath. Outside Ouros.

When the turmoil finally stopped, I opened my eyes and stared at a sky that was too blue, as if it had gotten itself confused with the sea. Instinctively, I raised a hand to shade my eyes from the sun, but of course there was no sun, because this was a fake sky. A sky I’d hoped never to see again.

I turned my head. Jack was flat on his back on one side of me. Cole was on the other, sitting up, his knees drawn against his chest and his elbows resting on them as if he were sitting somewhere on a beach. He was staring straight ahead, frowning.

“What’s wrong?”

He flinched at the sound of my voice and shook his head. “Nothing. I keep waiting for something here to click.”

I sat up and squinted my eyes at him. “Does anything look familiar?”

“No. But I’m still hoping.”

He smiled at me, but something about the smile seemed sad. I reached for his hand, then caught Jack watching right before I closed my fingers around Cole’s. I stared at Cole’s eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Cole said, pulling his hand away.

“Where are we?” Jack said. His face looked tense.

That’s when I noticed a faint, colorful mist coming from Jack. His energy was leaking out around him, although it wasn’t very strong. Maybe that was because of all the time he’d spent in the Tunnels. I realized this was his first time coming back to the Everneath since that day he’d clawed his way out of the Tunnels.

I put my hand on his cheek. “Do you feel well?”

He nodded and closed his eyes. “I’m not sure.” He opened them again and looked around. “What’s with the air here?”

“That’s your energy. Leaking out. Stay next to Cole, because he’ll soak it up.”

Jack eyed Cole and then looked at me again. “Why can’t you soak it up?”

I stepped close to him, but the energy only floated around me too. I didn’t absorb any of it. “You know why. I can only feed off Cole.”

Jack sighed and scooted closer to Cole.

I looked around. We were at the base of a giant gray wall. I knew that wall. It surrounded the Common areas. Opposite the wall were flat, single-level, ancient-looking buildings.

As long as this was Ouros, we were on our way to finding Ashe. I looked at Cole and smiled. “You did it, Cole. I think we’re inside Ouros. I think we’re good.”

“We’re not quite good,” Jack said.

He was looking at a poster hanging on the nearest building. Cole’s picture was front and center on the poster, and underneath it were the words:

ESCAPED

THREAT TO THE QUEEN

REWARD:

TWO DAYS IN THE ELYSIAN FIELDS

Cole looked at the poster with a clueless smile on his face. Jack pulled Cole’s hoodie up and forward, covering as much as he could.

He turned to me. “Which way do we go?

I looked down the several passageways that branched out from where we stood and, with a sinking feeling, realized that nothing looked familiar. “I don’t know. The streets all look the same. I don’t even know if we’re starting in the same place I did before.”

Jack pulled me aside. “Sometimes, during football practice, Coach would leave it to me to call the plays. I struggled in practice because there wasn’t anything on the line. But during the games, when the adrenaline was high and victory was at risk, I always made the right call. Maybe Cole needs a little bit of adrenaline.”

“What did you have in mind?”

He glanced toward Cole to make sure he wasn’t looking and then gave me a tiny nod.

“I think I hear something . . . ,” Jack said.

“What is it?” Cole asked, starting to turn around.

“Shades!” Jack shouted.

Cole flinched and then just took off in a flat-out sprint. We followed as close as we could. He darted right and left, down alleyways and narrow spaces between buildings, and I realized that his instincts were directing us toward the most clandestine route.

Finally, Cole pulled up outside a familiar door. He raised his fist and pounded on the door.

“Where are the Shades?” he asked, panting.

Jack smiled. “Nowhere. I was just trying to jog your memory.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You know what happened to the boy who cried wolf too many times. . . .?”

Cole waited with an expectant look on his face. “What happened?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Remember,” Jack said to Cole. “Don’t let on about our plan.”

“What plan?” Cole said.

Jack took a deep breath and gritted his teeth. “The one about destroying the Everneath.” We’d gone over this countless times. “I didn’t think the amnesia affected the short-term memory,” he muttered.

“Oh, yeah. The plan,” Cole said just as Ashe’s door swung open.

When I caught sight of Ashe, my mouth dropped open. He had changed. He’d looked strange before, with his gray coloring and smoky texture. But even in the relatively short time since I’d seen him last, his coloring had settled into a deep-black hue. Black hair lay flat against matching black skin on his head and face. I could no longer discern any white in his eyes. Every part of his body was black. It was as if he was now made of oil. I knew the Everneath ran on a different time frame, but the extent of the change was shocking.

He must be closer to a Shade now than ever. The sight sent chills down my neck and back. He so resembled the Shades that had attacked me in the Ouros square the first time I’d come down on my own. Suddenly I wasn’t sure this was a good idea. But at least Ashe was still shaped like a man and not like the fluid forms of the full Shades.

As for Ashe, he couldn’t stop staring at Cole. As he spoke, strands of an oil-like substance connected his upper and lower lips, and his voice sounded like he was speaking under thick water.

“Cole,” he said. “You’re okay.” He sounded relieved and surprised, and then he glanced nervously down the street. “Come in, come in. Quickly.”

We filed in, one by one; and as I passed by, Ashe finally seemed to realize who I was. “Nikki. I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again,” he said. I couldn’t tell how he felt about the prospect.

“It’s a long story.”

“I bet.” He shut the door behind us. Cole couldn’t stop staring at Ashe’s strange appearance, and I wondered if he would all of a sudden run away.

Ashe ushered us toward the table in the middle of his room. His place hadn’t changed much. The long rectangular room was broken up by the large round table in the middle and several rugs lining the ground in the corners, and there was a back door in the middle of the opposite wall.

Once we were all seated at the table, he stared at Cole. “How did you escape?”

Cole glanced at me nervously before answering. “Escape what?”

“The queen.” Ashe looked at me with a questioning expression.

“He has amnesia,” I explained. “He can’t remember.”

“Amnesia,” Ashe said. He looked at Cole again, this time a little critically. “You’re lucky.”

“Why?” I asked. “Do you know what happened to him?”

Ashe sighed, then stood and grabbed some glasses from his cupboard, turned a spout that emerged from the wall, and filled the glasses with water. I remembered the water here wasn’t ordinary water. It had powers to make you forget. He poured four glasses and set down one in front of each of us.

I pushed mine away. “No, thanks. I want a clear head.”

“Keep it nearby,” Ashe said. “You might change your mind once you hear what I have to say.”

Neither Jack nor I touched our glasses, but Cole—the one who needed a clear head the most—took a giant gulp and set the empty glass down with a thud.

Ashe sipped his own water and then set it down. He turned toward Cole. “There’s been a bounty on your head ever since your run-in with the queen. When you were here with Nikki. At the end of the maze.”

Cole turned to me with raised eyebrows.

“It’s a long story,” I said.

“Nobody knew who you were, and I didn’t tell anyone.” Again he glanced at me. “But apparently a Delphinian ratted you guys out. He traded the information so his exile could be revoked. Does any of this make any sense to you?”

Cole frowned and shook his head.

“What’s a Delphinian?” I asked.

Ashe looked at me. “The Delphinians were banned from the Everneath centuries ago, and they live in hiding on the Surface. They’re a scary group. You don’t want to mess with them.” He gestured toward his window and addressed Cole again. “You know those posters plastering the streets? Well, those used to show pictures of you and your band. Once the Delphinian gave them a name to go with the face, they sent bounty hunters after you specifically. I guess they found you.”

“Bounty hunters?” Jack said.

Ashe nodded. “Ten-Shade bounty hunters. Shades aren’t very strong on the Surface because of their makeup. So ten of them will join together and find a human body to inhabit.”

Jack and I exchanged glances. His eyes were wide. “The man with the black eyes,” he said.

I nodded.

Ashe looked from Jack to me. “You ran into a bounty hunter and survived?”

“Jack’s strong,” I said.

“Still,” Ashe said, seeming impressed. “Anyway, the bounty hunters brought you and the band to the queen.” At this point in the story, Ashe paused and looked intently at the wooden table. “The queen . . . she tortured you. And the others. Trying to find out about Nikki. I only know because the Shades share certain knowledge among themselves, and as you’ve probably guessed by the change in how I look, I’m part Shade. I saw the torture through their eyes.”

He shook his head, refusing to look up.

Cole leaned forward. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t remember anything. Not anymore.”

Ashe raised his head and squinted his eyes, in an almost-disbelieving way. “You’d better hope that memory never comes back.”

My stomach turned at the thought of Cole being tortured. How bad must it have been if he had blocked out everything before and after?

“What about the band?” Cole asked. “Does the queen still have them?”

I was ashamed I hadn’t thought of the other band members.

Ashe shook his head. “I don’t know. If she does, she’s keeping it quiet. The Shades don’t know either, because I haven’t heard or seen any solid information. There were some rumors coming from the more criminal element here—rumors that the band escaped and were arranging for an illegal accelerated Feed; but I haven’t been able confirm anything. Since I’m part Shade, nobody seems to want to talk to me about criminal activities.”

I took in a breath. “But if that’s true, the band could already be bulking up for battle?”

“I don’t know for sure.”

“And you don’t know how I escaped?” Cole said.

Ashe lowered his head into his hands. “That information was kept from the Shade network.”

Shade network. The first words that sounded as if they could have something to do with the link between the Shades.

“What is the Shade network?” I said, avoiding eye contact with Jack.

Ashe sat up but hesitated before answering. “In the simplest terms, it’s like a hub where information is shared.” He shook his head. “I didn’t believe you had escaped, even when the posters appeared. I didn’t believe it until I saw you at my door.” He looked at Cole again.

“This Shade network,” I said. “If the queen’s looking for Cole—”

Ashe put up a hand. “The Shades’ loyalty is to the Everneath, not the queen. I can keep Cole’s presence here a secret. So why are you here? Do you want to try to get your memory back?”

I looked at Cole warily, hoping he would say yes and remember not to divulge the real reason why we had come.

Cole nodded toward me infinitesimally. “There’s a professor on the Surface who thinks I might be able to kick-start my brain if others share memories they have of me. Do you have any of these?”

Ashe lifted his head. “I’ve got a million.”

“It would help if it was something with some sort of emotional attachment,” I said.

Ashe nodded. “I have the one. It happened a long time ago, when I was in South Africa. . . .”

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

The Surface. South Africa.

Ashe looked down at the river from more than seven hundred feet above it. He stood at the center of the Bloukrans Bridge—one of the highest bridges in the world, or at least in South Africa—and leaned out over the ledge.

Every Everliving would eventually suffer the equivalent of a human midlife crisis. It was inevitable in the life of an immortal. When the price of immortality was as low as finding a Forfeit every hundred years, one could be in danger of growing bored.

Except boredom for an immortal felt more eternal, and more constricting, than it did for his human counterparts.

But this was no typical midlife crisis.

“Mr. Campbell?” A man with headphones and a clipboard said.

Ashe blinked and then nodded.

“Ready to jump?”

Ashe nodded again, his toes venturing beyond the edge.

“In three . . . two . . . one . . . Go!”

Ashe stepped off the ledge and went into a free fall, and the only thing on his mind was the face of the woman he was trying to forget. She had blond hair and blue eyes, and looked like sunshine after a summer storm.

When the bungee contracted, so did his heart. Or it would have if he had had one.

Safely back on the surface, Ashe climbed in his car just as his phone rang. A big, clunky phone. Not like the kinds they have now.

Ashe pressed the green button. “Hello?”

“Did it work?” The voice on the other end of the phone asked. Ashe knew that voice. It was Cole. “Did you forget her?”

“No,” Ashe said. “I’ve climbed the pyramids, I’ve walked hundreds of miles across Spain on the Camino de Santiago, I’ve climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and dived the Great Barrier Reef. I didn’t forget her. I don’t know why I thought throwing myself off the world’s highest bridge would be any different.”

“Maybe that’s because the Bloukrans Bridge isn’t the world’s highest bridge.”

“Or maybe it’s because Sheree is unforgettable,” Ashe said. “I thought we weren’t supposed to be able to feel this way about a human.”

“Obviously, there are some exceptions to the rule.” Cole sighed on the other end of the phone. “You could always go to the Everneath. Drink from the Fountains of Lethe. Forget her completely.”

Ashe was silent as he thought about this. He was about to agree when Cole cleared his throat.

“Or you can admit that you haven’t felt this way since Adonia, and you’d be stupid to let her go.”

“She’ll never come over to our side,” Ashe said. “She’ll never become an Everliving.”

“Then go be with her for a human lifetime.”

NOW

The Everneath. Ashe’s house.

“And I did,” Ashe said. “I stayed with Sheree until she died of cancer. When she left me, I stayed in the Everneath for a long time. I didn’t leave my house. That’s why I missed the last Feed. Missing the Feed is what started my transition into becoming a Shade.”

I was watching Ashe, but all I could think about was the fact that an Everliving had just admitted he’d been in love with a human. And Cole supported that love. He’d always told me it was impossible for Everlivings to love. For him specifically to love. And now to hear his part in what was essentially a love story? To know that at one point in his life, he recommended that his friend choose love?

These stories didn’t seem to fit the Cole I knew, but they were real. Why had he been so determined to hide this side of himself? Did it scare him to be vulnerable to human emotions?

Cole sniffed beside me, and I finally looked at him. His eyes were wet.

“Do you remember something?” I said.

“No,” Cole said, sniffing again. “But that story is so beautiful.”

I pressed my lips together. I didn’t know what to do with this version of Cole, and the uncertainty of how I should treat him was unbearable. Were these stories supposed to make me feel sorry for him? Could I be stupid enough to trust him again?

I chose anger. “The old you hated love. Hated it. Those who made decisions based on love were weak. Those who wanted a life surrounded by loved ones were ignorant. To you, it wasn’t beautiful at all. It was never beautiful!”

“Becks,” Jack said, his voice calming.

“Don’t pretend you know anything about love,” I said.

Cole’s face cracked and crumpled before me. I could see what my outburst had done to him. I immediately regretted everything I’d said.

“If that’s true,” Cole said, “then why, after I’ve forgotten everything . . . everything . . . why do I still know I love you?”