Evertrue

TWENTY-SEVEN

NOW

The Surface. The hotel.

The sun was setting and once again I was feeling the exhaustion. It hadn’t been that long since Cole had fed me, had it? I wondered if the appearance of the second shackle meant I would need more frequent feedings.

Or maybe more frequent feedings wouldn’t be enough.

I tried not to think like that.

“We’ll find something else,” Jack said, glancing at me sideways. “I’ll send an email to Professor Spears. See if he has any ideas. Maybe we’ll just risk it, without the pendant.”

I nodded, wishing I had the energy to sound more enthusiastic.

“You need to eat,” he said.

“Let me shower first,” I said. It had been two days. “I think that will perk me up a bit.”

“Okay.”

I went straight to the bathroom and started the water running. The water turned warm, and I took a deep, steamy breath.

When I got dressed and came out of the bathroom, Jack was alone, on the computer.

“Where’s Cole?” I said.

He didn’t look up. “Playing with the ice machine.”

I snorted. “I’m going to miss this side of Cole if he ever gets his memory back.”

I walked over to the window to close the drapes, but a figure down by the roundabout in front of the hotel caught my eye. I squinted my eyes to get a clearer look.

It was Cole. Standing at the curb. It looked as if he were waiting for someone.

“Jack,” I said.

He could hear the worry in my voice. He rushed over to me, and I pointed down at Cole.

“What’s he doing?” he said.

It hit me. “He’s getting a taxi. He remembers something.”

Jack and I exchanged looks, and then we took off. Jack grabbed his keys on the way out the door.

We ran down the stairs. My first thought was to confront Cole, but just as I was about to burst out through the front doors, Jack pulled me back.

“If he’s going somewhere, let’s follow him.”

I nodded. Following him would be the only way to know what exactly he remembered. My biggest fear was that he would remember his mission to make me his queen. And if he did remember, he would hide that from us, wouldn’t he? Again, I was faced with the fact that I was putting a lot of trust in Cole right now. He knew our plan. And at any moment he could easily thwart it.

We ran quietly to the parking lot and reached Jack’s car just as a taxi pulled up to the curb where Cole was standing. Jack waited until Cole was inside to turn on the ignition, then pulled out after the cab, his lights off.

We kept a safe distance behind the cab and followed for four or five miles out west of the city toward a more industrial part of the valley. It turned into a side road surrounded by warehouses.

“Where’s he going?” I said.

Jack shrugged and turned in behind him.

The taxi stopped outside a metal gate, which opened into an asphalt parking area surrounded by storage units.

We pulled over down the road and watched as Cole entered the property.

Jack frowned. “Very deliberate move for someone who doesn’t remember anything. Wait here.”

“No way am I waiting,” I said.

Jack sighed, but there was no time to argue. We ran across the street and made our way up to the entrance. Cole was already turning down one of the rows of units. Jack pushed through the gate and held it open for me, and then we took off to follow.

Cole stopped in front of unit 677, paused only for a moment with his finger over the keypad, and then punched in a bunch of numbers. Something metallic clicked, and Cole pulled the storage unit door open.

Cole knew the code. He knew the existence of a storage locker. Unless he had rented it in the last twenty-four hours, he hadn’t been telling us the truth about remembering nothing.

“Bastard!” I said.

Cole jumped and then turned around. A wide grin broke out on his face. He looked genuinely excited to see us. “Hey! I was just about to call you.”

“Bullshit,” Jack said, stalking toward him, his fists clenched at his sides.

“No, I’m serious. I was going purely by instinct, telling the cab where to go as we drove. Left here, right here, that sort of thing. I swear.” He put his hands up as if he couldn’t figure out why Jack was angry. “Without you guys there, it was easier for me to focus.”

We were all standing on the threshold of the locker at this point, Jack’s nostrils flaring but his fists remaining by his sides.

“Seriously,” Cole said. “I was pulling my phone out to call you. Let’s go inside. See what’s here.”

“Why don’t you tell us what’s here?” Jack said.

“I told you. I don’t know what’s here.”

I’d already glimpsed the inside, because part of me wondered if this was the type of place where the old Cole would’ve hidden my compass heart. But at first glance there didn’t appear to be any jewelry boxes or anything that would hold a small jewelry item like my heart. Instead, it appeared the entire place was filled with old musical instruments. A couple of guitars with the signature Les Paul on the wooden bodies leaned against metal stands nearest the door.

As we stepped farther back, the guitars got a little bit older. There was one drum set, wrapped in plastic sheeting. A mandolin leaned against a banjo.

“Well, we’re set if we wanted to start that bluegrass band we’ve always talked about,” Jack said. “Otherwise, I don’t see anything that would help us.”

Cole stepped over the drum set. “I still think there’s something here. Something to do with that Devon guy that Mildred mentioned. You were right, Nik. Something clicked. I just didn’t want to get your hopes up without knowing for sure.”

I froze, a mini-harp-like object in my hands. “You think the Helmet of Hermes could be here?” I said incredulously. “In your storage locker.”

“I know; it sounds crazy. And maybe it’s not the actual pendant that’s here, but something that could lead us to Devon. Either way, we have to look.”

Now that we knew what we were looking for, we began to tear through the contents of the locker. After twenty minutes we’d barely made a dent in the place.

“Don’t break the lutes,” Cole said to Jack. “Hey! I know what a lute is.” He sounded so triumphant, I had to bite back a smile.

A pair of bright lights swept through the place.

We all turned toward the entrance. Jack, who was closest to the door, said, “It’s just a car pulling up to the gate.” He bent down again and reached for a package, but then he froze. “Wait a minute. Cole, if this storage locker is yours, does that mean it’s registered under your name? Or any band members’ names?”

I sucked in a breath. “If one of their names is on the register . . .”

“Bounty hunters might be watching the place,” Cole said.

“If they are, why wouldn’t they have just broken in?” I said.

“Maybe they’re not after your heart anymore,” Cole said. “Maybe they’re just after me.”

We heard the clink of the metal gate opening for a vehicle.

“Hurry!” Jack said. He went to stand by the door while Cole and I turned manic in our search. “It’s a big black truck. Gate’s opening slowly.”

From the pictures Jack had found on the internet, the pendant was large, but no larger than the palm of my hand, so I skipped over any packages that looked too big. But really, we would have to rely on Cole’s instincts. Otherwise we’d be here forever. We climbed up and down the piles of boxes and instruments. While I was stepping over another drum set, I accidentally put my foot through an ancient-looking bongo.

“Careful,” Cole said, still showing his affinity for all musical instruments, even in his amnesiac state.

“Shut up and look!” I said.

“The gate’s open,” Jack said. “The truck’s coming in.”

“Maybe they’re not for us,” Cole said.

“They’re turning down this row.” Jack pushed up his sleeves and flexed his hands.

I heard the screech of tires.

“I’ll hold them off,” Jack said softly.

I saw him reach for a saxophone and step behind the front corner of the storage unit so he was out of sight of whoever was in the truck. He kept the saxophone behind his leg.

I caught sight of the driver and passenger, and there was no question they were ten-Shade bounty hunters. One of the hunters looked to be at least six and a half feet tall and as thick as a boulder. The other was only slightly shorter, and just as muscular.

Probably thinking they had us cornered, they walked side by side toward the unit. And the second they crossed the threshold, Jack stepped out from his dark corner and swung the saxophone at the hunter closest to him. The saxophone made contact with the hunter’s leg, smashing his kneecap backward, turning it inside out, forcing his leg to bend ninety degrees in the opposite direction legs were supposed to bend.

The hunter dropped, an alien screech coming from his mouth. “Um, can the ten Shades escape the body?” I asked.

“No!” Cole said. Then he paused in his search. “At least no is my initial reaction, but I’m not sure—”

“Keep going!” I commanded.

With one move Jack had effectively taken out one of the hunters. Or so I would’ve thought. But the one-legged hunter struggled to straighten up on his good leg as if the only thing in his way were the logistics of a busted leg and not the pain of one.

I frantically turned up my search as I heard, rather than saw, the other bounty hunter collide with Jack. The unmistakable sound of fists crunching against jaws reached my ears, and—not wanting to waste any time looking—I could only hope it was Jack’s fists and the bounty hunter’s jaw.

I dived into the next pile just as Cole held up a brown paper package.

“Got it!” he said.

“The pendant?” I said.

“Yes!”

I checked on Jack. The second bounty hunter had him from behind, an arm around his neck. I grabbed the nearest weapon I could find, a ukulele, and scrambled over the piles of boxes and instruments. Jack hunched forward and then exploded backward, his head cracking against the nose of the bounty hunter.

I jumped off the last pile just as the bounty hunter collapsed behind Jack, and as I landed, I brought the ukulele smashing down on the bounty hunter’s black smile.

The instrument shattered into hundreds of pieces. And it didn’t even wipe the black smile off the bounty hunter’s face.

“You’re welcome,” I said to Jack as he grabbed my hand and whisked me into the passenger’s side of the truck. Cole scrambled out after us and hopped into the bed of the truck just as Jack peeled out of the parking lot.

The bounty hunters, one with an extreme limp, continued after us; and even though they had no hope of catching us since we’d stolen their mode of transportation, they just kept coming.

“They’re not stopping,” I said.

Cole spoke through the open window that separated the cab from the bed of the truck. “They’re made for one purpose. They’ll never stop.”