Evertrue

FIFTEEN

NOW

The Everneath. Ashe’s house.

The air rushed out of my lungs. “What?”

“I love you,” Cole said. “Right now, despite all the things you said I’ve done and all the ways we’ve tried to get my memory back, loving you is still the only thing I know.”

I looked at Jack, who was frowning—but in pity, not anger. I turned back to Cole. “I’m sorry. For what I said.”

Cole frowned with his entire body; then a strange, wild look appeared in his eyes, and suddenly I worried what he would say next. He took a deep breath. “The truth is, Ashe, the entire reason we’re here is because we want to take down the Everneath.”

I froze, my mouth hanging slightly open. Jack sprang up from his chair. The one thing we were supposed to keep secret, and Cole blurts it out. To a part Shade, no less.

Ashe looked from Cole, to me, and back to Cole again. “No way.”

Cole gave him a blank stare. “No. It’s time. Don’t you think? How many centuries have you been alive? Don’t you want to see what’s on the other side?”

“Are you insane?” Ashe looked at me again and then at Jack, desperately searching for someone to validate him. “Is this a joke?”

“No,” Cole said. He motioned with his hand for Jack to sit back down. Jack did, but his expression looked murderous. “Look at the life you’re living right now, if you can call it a life. You have nobody. And literally no body. You lost the love of your life. Both of them. What do you have to live for now? You want to be a Shade? You want your only reason for existing to be to work for the survival of the Everneath?”

Ashe still looked at him as if he weren’t talking normally. I just sat back, worried that our plan was all going up in smoke. Why would Ashe ever be convinced to end his own life? And if he felt as if Cole was telling the truth and his home was in danger, would Ashe’s loyalty to Cole be enough to prevent him from turning us in to the queen?

Cole gave me a look as if to say Trust me. But how could I trust someone who didn’t even know his own name? Who didn’t even really know what it meant to be an Everliving? And now he was talking like everyone would agree with him. It would be like me going to my neighbor and being all Hey, let’s destroy the world! We’ve lived long enough. Are you in?

“Tell me, Ashe. What do you live for?” Cole said.

“Immortality,” Ashe said. “It’s what we all live for. We chose this life because immortality is the only important thing. It’s the everything.”

Cole softened his voice. “Immortality is time. It’s not something you live for. That’s like saying you live for living longer. Don’t you see the fault in that thinking? You just told me when you live for. But I want to know, Ashe, what do you live for?”

Ashe froze for a moment, his eyes on Cole’s face. Maybe he was waiting to see if he would crack a smile. Maybe he was waiting for some Candid Camera crew to come in. Whatever he was waiting for, it didn’t happen. Nobody did anything.

“I don’t know,” Ashe said. “Do I have to have an answer?”

“Yes!” Cole nodded. “Yes, everyone who is alive has to have an answer to that question. What are you living for?”

“I’m living to live.”

“That’s not enough. It’s not enough anymore, is it?”

Jack and I exchanged glances. This didn’t sound like Cole. This sounded like something I would’ve said to Cole while we were trying to find Jack. Could his amnesia have given him a new soul? A new reason for being?

I didn’t know. But it would never work on Ashe. At least, I assumed it wouldn’t. But then Cole said, “What if you could have Sheree back? What if she’s waiting on the other side for you to follow her?”

“What if she’s not?”

“So then she’s not. If there is no afterlife, what will you care? You’ll be dead and gone then. But here’s what I can promise you: You’ll never find her in this world. And you won’t have to miss her for one more day. You won’t have to live with that gaping hole in your chest. You know the one I’m talking about.”

A giant, oily black tear escaped one of Ashe’s eye sockets. Was it working? I couldn’t believe it.

“I think there’s another place for us, and another way.” Cole looked up at the ceiling momentarily, as if he were just figuring something out. “And the only way we can reach it is through a mortal death.”

At this point my mouth dropped open as I stared at Cole.

Ashe stood up. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got to go for a walk or something.”

Cole reached for his arm, but he couldn’t grab onto anything; Ashe was that close to being a full Shade. “Just promise you’ll ponder it. If you can’t think of a reason to live, will you consider dying with me? Can you promise me you’ll really think about it?”

Ashe nodded. Then he walked out the doorway.

When we were alone, all I could do was just stare at Cole. “What was that?”

Jack picked up his chair and threw it against the wall. It shattered and fell to the floor in pieces.

But Cole ignored both of us. The second the door closed behind Ashe, he got up and went to the window.

“Answer me, Cole!” I said. “You gave away our plan. How could you do that?” I put my hands on my head and pulled at my hair. “I knew it. I knew you weren’t on our side. This whole amnesia thing is bullshit, and I let you trick me again!”

Jack crossed the room and stood in Cole’s face. He clenched his hands into tight fists. “Say something, Cole.”

I shot out of my chair and stood next to them. Cole didn’t even seem to notice Jack. He just stared out the window.

“Cole! What’s going on?” I asked.

Finally, he looked at us. “Ashe turned right at the end of the street. He’s going to turn us in.”

“Of course he is,” I said. “And it’s your fault!”

“Do you want to follow him to see how he communicates with the rest of the Shades?” Cole asked. “Or do you want to sit here yelling at me?”

“Sit here yelling at you,” I said before his words had completely sunken in. “Wait. Did you say follow Ashe?”

Cole nodded.

In the blink of an eye Jack was two steps ahead of us, opening the door and shooing us out into the street.