Evertrue

THIRTY-THREE

NOW

The Everneath. In the vault of hearts.

Cole!” I couldn’t help saying it. He didn’t move.

At the sound of my voice, the queen turned to me. “You,” she said. “I remember you. The girl who showed me my soldier. The girl who made me think I could have everything I wanted and then made it disappear. I’ve been hoping to run into you again.”

Cole stirred behind her. And beyond him, down one of the corridors, Will crept forward. Quietly, so the queen wouldn’t notice him.

The queen held up the compass. “He told me this belongs to you?” How did she have my compass, and why did Cole’s heart come to me and not him?

I thought fast. What had I been thinking about when Cole’s pick came to me? I was literally thinking about Cole’s heart.

“So tell me, girl who survived the Feed . . . girl who conjured a person out of thin air . . . girl who wants my throne . . . why shouldn’t I snap your heart in two right now?”

Snap my heart in two. What would that mean? Would that mean I would no longer be in this halfway limbo between human and Everliving?

“I don’t want your throne,” I said. “I never did.”

“Yet you destroyed my Shade army, and you broke into my vault of hearts. Quite unusual for a girl who doesn’t want the throne.”

“Then break my heart. You’d be doing me a favor.”

She narrowed her eyes and let up on her death grip on my compass. “If I break your heart, all you’ll need to do is feed on your Everliving again three times in the Everneath to get another one.” She brought a finger to her cheek. “Instead, I think I’ll keep your heart for myself. Until I kill you.”

She started toward me.

Cole had worked to a standing position. I flashed him a glimpse of his heart in my hand. Jack showed up next to Will. He looked as if he had been running. Obviously his barricade at the door had given way.

They seemed to be waiting for something.

I backed away from the queen.

“Now!” I screamed.

The three guys rushed toward me, tackling me all at once, and in a split second we were in the air, the queen’s angry face spinning away.

We landed on the Surface, on asphalt in the parking lot near the Shop-n-Go. And I kissed the ground.

“See?” Cole said. “All part of the plan.”

It was a miracle no one hit him as we made our way to Jack’s car.

I experienced only a moment of relief before I realized the queen held my Surface heart. Which meant only she could feed me.

Which meant we had to get back to the Everneath before nightfall or my energy would be gone. I was sure the others had realized it too, but they weren’t talking.

“Say it,” I said.

They all looked at one another questioningly, as if they couldn’t imagine what I was referring to.

“Say it,” I said again.

“What?” Jack said.

“Don’t pretend like you all haven’t reached this conclusion,” I said.

Jack took one hand off the steering wheel and put his arm around me. “We don’t have to think about it now,” he said.

“Yes, we do. The queen has my heart. In order to destroy the Everneath, I have to kill the queen. And I have to kill her tonight. Because only she can feed me now that she holds my heart, and I don’t think she’ll want to feed me.”

“Don’t think about that,” Jack said. “We’ll kill her before it comes to that.”

Cole grabbed my hand. “Jack and Will, you guys go get explosives ready and then do any research you can about the queen. Nikki and I are going back to the Everneath.”

“Why?” Jack and Will said simultaneously.

“Because I’ve got to train Nikki how to conjure a fuse that will explode the bombs.”

After Cole packed a bag—he was very secretive about the contents—he took me to the Shop-n-Go and we went under.

We landed in a place that looked like a clearing in the middle of a forest. “Where are we?” I asked.

Cole shook his head. “I’m not sure. In my head I thought of something remote, away from the five Commons. We’re probably somewhere along the Ring of Earth. No-man’s-land.”

Cole gathered up a bunch of objects: sticks, stones, branches. . . . He put them in a pile on one end of the clearing.

“Go stand over there,” he said, pointing to a spot on the other side.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I’m not telling you. But . . . defend yourself.”

He wound up and threw a rock at me. My first instinct was to duck, so I did, and the rock went flying overhead.

“Don’t duck,” Cole said.

“I can’t help it.”

Cole took a step closer, cocked his arm back, and threw another rock at me. I racked my brain for something to conjure that would help me, but the only object that came to mind was the last thing I’d seen on the Surface. A fountain drink at the Shop-n-Go. And the only thing that appeared out of that image in my head was a straw.

The faint outline of the straw appeared in front of my face, but the rock tore through it as if it were smoke. Again, I dived out of the way.

“Don’t move!” Cole commanded.

“I can’t help it. Someone throws a rock at you, you’re gonna move.”

Cole sighed. “I thought that might be the case.”

He dropped the backpack that had been slung over his shoulder and unzipped the largest pocket. He pulled out a bundled length of rope. It wasn’t very thick, but it looked strong.

“What are you doing with that?” I said.

He didn’t answer. He unwound the bundle. I could see that the rope was pliable and not stiff.

“Why are you carrying rope around with you?” I asked skeptically.

“Stop asking me dirty questions,” he said with a smirk. I was totally confused until I imagined what someone would do with rope.

“Uh . . . that’s not why we’re here,” I said.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” Cole said. “I don’t have that sort of thing in mind.”

“Wow,” I said.

“What?”

“Nothing. You’re starting to sound like the old you.”

He held my gaze. “Maybe it’s all coming back to me.”

For an instant I wondered how much he knew. Had enough of his memory come back to make him realize we wanted different things?

After all, at this very moment he was training me to kill a queen. We were closer to his original goal than ever.

I almost laughed. After everything that had happened, we finally wanted the same thing. I guess it didn’t matter if he had his memory back or not. It would only have changed his motives, not his objective.

He walked over to me, the rope clenched in his hands, and I instinctively took a step back.

He rolled his eyes. “Stand still, Nik.”

With the deft fingers of someone who at least subconsciously had experience tying up people, he bound my feet together, tight enough that any movement would cause me to fall to the ground.

“Now your hands,” Cole said. “Put them behind you.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said emphatically. “There’s no way I’m letting you tie my hands together.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “You let me tie your feet, but you draw the line at hands?”

I put my wrists together in front of me. “I won’t be able to keep from falling.”

“That’s the point.”

I sighed deeply. Was there any bigger sign of trust than letting someone tie your hands and feet together?

And I was doing it with the guy who had totally betrayed me just weeks ago.

Cole looked at my face. “I know you don’t trust me because of that guy I was before. But I’m not him.”

I still hesitated. “But for how long? Your memory’s coming back.”

He put his hands on my shoulders and leveled his gaze with mine. “Memory or not, I’m not him. If I wanted to hurt you, I could’ve done it before now.”

I closed my eyes, nodded, and put my hands together behind me. I heard his footfalls as he walked around behind me and gently took my hands in his. And then he wrapped the cord around them, tightly.

“Ow,” I said. “A little looser?”

He answered by tying it off.

“Now. Again. Conjure a shield. And know that if you try to duck, you’ll fall, and it will hurt worse than the rock.”

I pressed my lips together and nodded.

He stepped back, but not as far as his original position. It worried me, because now that he was closer, I wouldn’t have as much time to react.

I pictured a shield in my head before he even cocked his arm, which I guess was cheating a little, but I’d probably need a shield no matter what kind of fight. He let the rock loose, and I wasn’t fast enough. Even worse, I couldn’t stop myself from flinching, and I fell to the ground on my side, my hip crunching against the hard ground. I felt my bone grinding against the rocks.

“Ow!” I said.

Cole came over and pulled me up by my bound hands.

“Again,” he said.

After each of the next three attempts, I ended in a similar heap against the ground. When I stood up the last time, I felt something liquid run the length of my thigh and down my leg. A trickle of blood appeared at the hem of my jeans.

Cole glanced down at the blood, but only quickly, as if he didn’t want me to see that he was concerned. He hoisted me up once more.

“Again, Nik,” he said softly.

He walked back. I hadn’t felt this frustrated in a very long time. I was bleeding. My hip felt as if it were broken. I couldn’t even bring my hand around to wipe the tears that were now falling down my cheeks.

Cole leaned down and picked up a particularly jagged stone.

“Wait,” I said, my voice coming out much weaker than I’d meant it to.

Cole acted as though he didn’t hear me.

He cocked back his arm.

“Wait,” I said louder.

He froze for a split second but then continued with the motion. “The queen’s not going to wait.”

“Wait!” I screamed.

Just as he was about to release the stone, I squeezed my eyes shut, and when I opened them, a small, white, stick-like object shot across the air from me to him. It hit him in the head. He grabbed his face and turned, doubled over and groaning.

“Cole!” I said. I hopped toward him, trying to free my hands as I went. “Are you okay?”

He straightened up, turned toward me. Impaled in his cheek was a plastic straw.

“Ooh. That looks like it hurts.” I took a little bit of triumph in the damage I’d caused.

He frowned at me, and I couldn’t help grinning. With a quick movement, he loosened the rope at my wrists and I shook it away. Gently, I raised my hand and grabbed the straw and plucked it out of his cheek. A drop of blood bulged out of the tiny hole the straw left behind.

He rubbed his cheek. “What’s with the plastic straw?”

I shrugged. “It was the last thing I saw before we came here.” I smiled.

“Don’t smile. The queen is going to come at you, and she’s going to conjure up a . . . machine gun, and you’re going to counter with a plastic straw. You can’t kill with a straw.”

I tried to frown, but my emotions were upside down, and instead I smiled a little bigger. “I could kill someone with a straw.”

“How?”

I bit my lip and squinted one eye. “Secondary infection. It would take a long time but . . .”

Cole’s lips twitched, and he pressed them together. “This is serious, Nik. This is your life.”

“Okay, maybe I can’t kill with a straw, but I can maim.” I touched his cheek, wiping off a drop of fresh blood with my thumb. He closed his eyes at the contact, and I immediately took my hand away.

I nodded.

“Now,” Cole said. “Let’s try to transition from plastic straws . . . to sparks and flames. Will’s explosives won’t mean much unless you can set them off.”

We worked for what felt like hours, but I was reassured knowing they were only Everneath hours.

By the time Cole took me back to the Surface, I had conjured up an ordinary Fourth of July sparkler. Without him even having to throw a rock at me.

Now all we could do was hope that Will had actually built devices that could be lit with a sparkler and that he and Jack had found something in their research that would make Adonia weak.