Evertrue

TWENTY-FIVE

NOW

The Everneath. Lake Tantalus.

I put the sickle against my back in the band of my jeans and scrambled over the edge, frantically feeling for handholds as beetles from the top of the platform began falling over the edge, pelting me on my head, my shoulders, my eyes. Several got tangled in my hair, scratching against my scalp and forehead and cheeks.

I tried not to scream. I didn’t want any to fall in my mouth.

I reached for my next handhold and slipped. My hands scraped along the rock as I fell a few yards. Then I did scream. I used every ounce of strength to nab a divot in the rock, and finally I slowed down the fall.

But I had accidentally put my hand on a beetle inside the divot.

Startled, I yanked it out and lost all control. I sailed through the air for what seemed like a long time and landed flat on my back.

My lungs collapsed. And a swarm of darkness and scurrying feet surrounded me.

I had the sickle. But it was the beetles that had beaten me.

I lay there for a few moments. Tried to move but nothing happened. Maybe I’d broken my back. Hundreds of beetles found their way under my shirt, down my pants, nibbling as they went. None of the bites alone would’ve been painful. But hundreds of bites at once . . .

The sound of splashing reached my ears, and suddenly a wall of water crashed down on me. The beetles screeched and floundered in the waves.

Maybe I would drown before I was eaten alive.

The water covered me, and within moments my face was submerged. I pressed my lips together, trying to make sure no water got inside my mouth. The last thing I needed, while drowning, was to forget who I was.

“Becks!” Jack’s voice came from somewhere above through the water. “Move your arms! Paddle!”

I tried to move, and this time my arms swung a little bit, and my mouth broke the surface for only a split second. I gasped in a lungful of air before I pressed my lips tightly together and went under again.

And then strong arms grabbed me around my waist and brought me to the surface. I sucked in the air. The glorious air.

I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t open my eyes.

Jack squeezed my cheeks. “Becks. Talk.”

“Hi,” I said weakly.

“Do you remember who you are?” Jack said.

I nodded. “Nikki Beckett.”

I heard him sigh, and then he was on the move, with me in his arms.

We collapsed on the beach, soaking wet and panting. Cole was there. He’d taken off his shirt and was using it to dry off my face. When he pulled it away, it was bloody.

“Damn beetles,” I whispered.

Jack took the shirt out of Cole’s hands and resumed wiping me down. Something under my left eye caught his attention, and he gingerly pressed the shirt against the spot. “That was a gouge,” he said.

I let him fuss for a bit, then remembered why we were there in the first place. My hand flew to my back, and I felt the metal handle of the sickle.

“We got it,” I said.