Evertrue

SEVEN

NOW

The Surface. In Jack’s car.

I stayed in his arms for I don’t know how long, with my ear against his chest, listening to the rhythmic rise and fall of his breathing. As he expelled his breath, his chest shuddered.

I wondered about his temper, his instant anger from a few minutes ago. It seemed so un-Jack-like. I glanced at the steering wheel and disentangled my right hand to run my fingers over the divots there. I closed my eyes and shook my head. One supernatural problem at a time.

“I have to go,” I said. “I left my book in Mrs. Stone’s classroom.”

His grip around me eased slightly. “Hurry back.”

“I will.”

“When do you have to feed off him again?”

I cringed. “Tonight.”

I left Jack sitting in his car, listening to his iPod. By now the students were streaming out of Mrs. Stone’s class, so I darted inside and found a note sitting on top of my book. It had Cole’s handwriting on it.

I’ll be at your window tonight. Midnight. Wear something comfortable. I’m blushing just thinking about it.

I crumpled the paper and tried to keep myself from sinking to the ground.

I was so wrapped up in the note that I didn’t notice Daphne Bentley sidle up next to me.

“So, Nikki, how do you know that Neal guy?”

I looked at her with what I’m sure was a blank expression. She tilted her head. “That is his name, isn’t it? Mr. Tall, Dark, and Obvious Hip Dents?”

I shook my head in a clearing-the-cobwebs kind of way. She was talking about Cole-as-Neal.

“Yes, that was Neal. Sorry, Daphne, my brain is . . .” I made a hand gesture near my head, my best impression of a brain made of macaroni.

“No problem. I was just wondering if you knew Neal.” She paused. “And more specifically, if you know whether he’s seeing someone.”

Seriously? Was she asking me to set her up with an immortal from the Underworld who sucked the life out of humans just for fun?

I closed my mouth, which had apparently been hanging open. “I think he is seeing someone,” I said.

She frowned. “Who?”

I wasn’t expecting further questions. “Um, a girl. Nancy.” Were girls named Nancy anymore? “She lives in . . . Canada.”

She looked like she was trying to raise a single eyebrow, but she didn’t have the ability. “Well, Canada isn’t here, is it?”

She stared at me, waiting. For what, an answer? “Um, no. Canada is . . . north of here.”

She gave me a curt nod and stalked away.

“Glad we established where Canada is,” I muttered under my breath. I guess if you knew nothing about Cole, he could be attractive. Even in his Neal form, which wasn’t as dazzling as his natural form, he was still more magnetic than any other guy at school.

I shook my head and hurried toward Jack’s car. When Jack saw me coming, he leaned over and opened the door.

I slipped inside and blurted, “Cole left me a note saying he would be at my bedroom window at midnight.”

Jack put his hand over his mouth and rubbed.

“Breathe,” I said.

He nodded, but I couldn’t hear any air being expelled. He finally lowered his hand, with enough force that I thought he would tear his lips off as well.

His gaze met mine. “No,” he said.

“Um . . . no what?”

“No. No letting him in your bedroom.”

I was silent for a moment. “I don’t think you’re grasping the necessity of the nightly feeding.”

“No, I am.”

“So you’re just tired of me being all, you know, in and of this world?” I said it as if being alive were overrated.

His lips twitched. “I’m not saying that. But Cole’s looking for control. He always has been, and now he thinks he has it. He thinks he has access to your bedroom. Don’t let him have it.” At my alarmed expression, he squeezed my hand. “I’m not saying never feed on him. But don’t let him in. We’ll do it on our terms. At his place. He wants this chance to get intimate with you.”

I blushed.

“I don’t mean it that way, although I’m sure he wants to be intimate with you like that too.” His voice was soft. “I mean that he wants to be the closest person to you. He needs you to be dependent on him, like he’s dependent on you. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen. He wants access to your bedroom, but we won’t give it to him. He wants you alone. We won’t let that happen. We’ll go to him, and we’ll make it clear that wherever you go, I go.”

I eyed him, thinking about the logistics of feeding off Cole. “You know I have to get near him to feed off him.”

“I can handle that,” he said.

I looked pointedly at the dents in the steering wheel. “Can you handle it?”

He sighed. “It’s either that or I have to leave him alone with you, and that’s not going to happen.”

I nodded, knowing exactly how he felt. “Okay. We do this by our own rules.” I grabbed my phone and began typing.

We will not be meeting in my bedroom. Jack and I will meet you at your condo at midnight.

Two minutes later there was an answer.

Sounds kinky. I’ll break out the whips and chains. You wear that pair of black boots I like.

I rolled my eyes, already dreading midnight. I was going to feed on Cole. There wasn’t any way around it that I could see. If I didn’t feed on him, I’d get weaker and weaker until I died. Would it take a day without feeding for that to happen? Two days? I didn’t know. But judging by how quickly I’d lost all my energy and how quickly I’d regained it when Cole fed me at school, I knew it could happen fast.

I could do this. I would feed on Cole for . . . for how long? Days? Weeks? Until I actually took another human to the Feed, which would never happen, because I would never do that to someone.

So I would feed on Cole until I found a way to become human again, or until I died. Whichever came first.

Jack nodded, his lips forming a thin, tight line. He put the car in gear and turned in the opposite direction of home.

“Where are we going?” I said.

“Jules wanted to meet us for coffee. I told her we would. It will be good to get our minds off tonight.”

I grimaced. I was pretty sure it would take more than coffee to get our minds off it.

Inside the coffee shop, Jules and I sat on one side of the booth and Jack sat on the other. Because of everything the three of us had been through, we weren’t about to fall into the old conversational patterns of good friends; but after two cups of coffee, the moments of silence were slightly less awkward. Still, that was more mending than we’d done in the past six months combined.

Jules got us caught up on the latest summer gossip, but since all I could think about was feeding on Cole tonight, I didn’t pay much attention until she mentioned the Dead Elvises.

“I heard that Ariel Hughes is seeing the Dead Elvises’ drummer,” she said.

“Gavin?” I said, surprised.

Jules nodded.

“But I thought Ariel was still with Luke Davis,” I said. “They’ve been joined at the hip since the eighth grade. You couldn’t walk down the hall without seeing them jammed up against some locker making out. They’ve been a couple for years.”

“I know,” Jules said, seeming relieved that I was finally intrigued by the speculation. “I wouldn’t have believed the rumors if I hadn’t seen her myself, backstage at the Deads concert last night. She made sure the audience could see her waiting in the wings.”

I glanced at Jack, whose eyes were narrowed. The Dead Elvises didn’t date. They only ever searched for their next Forfeits. Everything else was left to meaningless one-night stands. What did it mean that Gavin was suddenly in a relationship? With a girl who was supposed to be taken?

“Jules, what happened between Ariel and Luke?” I said.

The intensity of my voice took her by surprise. “I’m . . . I’m not sure. I heard that Ariel accused Luke of cheating, but Luke denies it.”

I shook my head, instantly flashing back to when I’d thought the same thing about Jack—that he had cheated at football camp—but Cole was really to blame for the misunderstanding. He had manipulated my emotions to make me more suspicious of Jack. Could Gavin have pulled the same trick?

I faced Jules straight on. “Luke would never cheat on Ariel. Never. There has to be something more to it.”

Jules gave Jack a confused look, then put her hand over mine. “It happens, Becks. People break up all the time.”

I sighed. “That’s not what I’m worried about.” I stopped short of saying anything more.

“Then what are you worried about?” Jules said.

Jack leaned forward. “The Deads are dangerous, Jules. Becks would be concerned about anybody dating them.”

“Why?” Jules asked.

“We can’t say—” Jack started, but I interrupted.

“Cole is why I disappeared last year,” I said. There were too many lies. It was time to talk about the truth, especially now that another girl might be involved. Maybe not the whole truth, but at least a version of it. “Cole’s why Jack disappeared. The entire band is bad news, and anybody associated with them gets hurt. This is the truth, Jules. You saw what happened to me. You might not know all the details, but you saw how changed I was. How broken. The band has ways to influence people. Make them do dangerous things they wouldn’t normally do.”

Jules looked to Jack, who nodded. “It took everything we had to free Becks from their world. It nearly killed both of us.”

I wasn’t sure Jules would’ve believed just me, but having Jack corroborate the story was enough for her.

Then the color drained from her face. “Oh no,” she said.

“What?” I said.

“Tara.”

“Tara Bolton?” I said. “What about her?”

“This morning she was going on and on about how she had a date tonight. With Maxwell Bones.”

Maxwell Bones. Second guitar for the Dead Elvises. Another Dead Elvis on another “date.” What was going on?

Worry lines showed in Jack’s forehead. He took Jules’s hand. “We need a favor.”

“What?” Jules said.

“We need you to text Tara and find out where she is right now.”

He said the words running through my mind. He obviously felt the same urgency I did. Jules nodded and pulled out her phone. She typed in a message to Tara, and then we all waited.

Nobody spoke for a few moments. I took Jules’s hand and squeezed. “I’m sorry to lay all this on you.”

She shook her head. “Do you know how long I’ve waited to hear something from either of you? Something that’s not a lie?”

I glanced at Jack, who looked at me with a faint smile. “So you believe us?” I said.

She nodded. “I know it’s not the whole story, but I knew what happened to you had to be something really bad.”

Really bad. To say the least.

Jules’s phone rang with a new text.

“Tara says she’s at Grounds&Ink,” Jules said.

Jack and I both stood up, and Jules slapped a ten down on the counter.

“I’m coming with you,” she said.

Jack shrugged at me.

“Okay,” I said.

Jack drove fast to Grounds&Ink, a café in town that was part pool hall, part coffee shop. When we got inside, we scanned the crowd.

“There,” I said, pointing to a booth in the farthest corner.

Max and Tara both sat on the same side of the booth. Max had his arm draped on the backrest behind her. The scene was cozy. Intimate. I’d only ever seen him that way with one other person.

Meredith Jenkins. His last Forfeit.

I stalked over to the table.

Max glanced up at me and back at Tara; and then when recognition hit him, he looked back at me, eyebrows raised.

“Nik?” He took in the two faces behind me: Jack’s and Jules’s. “Cole’s not here,” he said.

“I don’t care about Cole,” I said. “What are you doing here with Tara?”

“Hey!” Tara said, frowning. “That’s none of your business.”

Max just smiled. “What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m getting to know her a little better.”

“Why?” I said. “She’s not a Daughter. It hasn’t been ninety-nine years.”

Tara slammed down her cup. “What do you mean I’m not a daughter? Of course I am.”

I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t going to get anywhere with Tara listening to every word.

“Can you please come outside and talk to me?” I said to Max.

Max shook his head.

Jack and his biceps took a step closer to Max. “Pretty please,” he said in a deep, gruff voice that infused more threat into those two words than they’d ever had before.

“Fine,” Max said. “So happy we were able to save you from the Tunnels.”

Max stood and started to follow us out.

Tara raised her hands. “What the hell, Nikki?”

Jules sat down in the seat Max was formerly occupying, put her arm around Tara, and waved us away.

Thank you, I mouthed to her.

I led us out of Grounds&Ink, followed closely by Max and then Jack behind him. When we got outside, Max threw up his hands.

“Okay, you got me alone. What’s the problem?”

Jack stood there, folded his arms across his chest, and nodded at me.

“The problem is, Dead Elvises don’t casually date,” I said. “So what are you doing with Tara Bolton? And why is Gavin messing around with Ariel?”

Max smirked and shrugged. “Maybe we changed our ways.”

“Cole made it clear Everlivings never change,” I said. “I may only have weeks until I have to feed, but for you the next Feed isn’t for another ninety-nine years. And even then, you should have plenty of Daughters of Persephone lined up for the privilege of becoming your Forfeit. So why are you getting mixed up in ‘relationships’?”

Max lost his smirk, glanced at Jack and then me. “I don’t have to answer you.”

He turned away, but I put my hand on his chest and stepped in front of him. “Yes, you do.”

A couple who had just come out of Grounds&Ink stared at us, but they didn’t stop. Max smiled. “Look at you. You’re going to make a great queen.”

“I’m not going to be queen,” I said, a fierce growl in my voice.

“Not without our help,” Max said. “You’re why we’re doing this. You’re why we’re looking for Forfeits.”

“Why?”

He stepped toward me, towering over me, his face grim. “Because if we’re going to take down the throne, we’re going to need all the energy we can get. And Everlivings are never more powerful than directly after a Feed.”

“But . . . that’s ninety-nine years away.”

Max sighed. “The band and I are going to participate in an underground Feed. And when I say ‘underground,’ I don’t mean in the Feed caverns; I mean ‘underground’ in that the queen doesn’t know about it. The kind of Feed that takes place on the outskirts of the Everneath, at the discretion of the criminals in our world. It’s an accelerated Feed for those of us who waste too much energy between Feeds, or, in this case, for those of us mounting a revolution.”

My mouth dropped open. A raindrop hit my cheek. The dark clouds above were about to open up. I looked skyward, trying to understand what he was saying.

“So you were planning on taking Tara. And Gavin, Ariel. And Oliver . . . ?”

“Brooke Chase,” Max filled in.

“Huh. Brooke. You were planning on taking these girls as Forfeits in your accelerated Feed, to, what, bulk up for battle?”

He nodded. “That was the general idea.”

“Why not take more Daughters of Persephone? Why look for innocent girls?”

“It’s an accelerated Feed, outside of the rules. The Daughters don’t get mixed up with that, although there are other groups of Forfeits who would be willing to go. But we want to find the strongest.”

My heart sank as I realized what he meant, and when I spoke, I looked at Jack. “You’re looking for people with earthly attachments. You want them to survive.”

Max nodded.

“If one of them survives, then why can’t you use her to take over the throne?”

“Because it’s an accelerated Feed.” At my confused expression, he elaborated. “Imagine a marathon—it takes years of intense training. Surviving the accelerated Feed would be like depending on a sugar rush to get you through the race. They wouldn’t be strong enough to take over the throne because it’s not a full Feed. But they’ll add to the strength of our army.”

“That’s . . . that’s despicable.” I held my stomach for fear I would lose my coffee. “Will they have to go to the Tunnels after the Feed?”

“Unless we take over the throne, they’ll have to go to the Tunnels like every other Forfeit. Well, most every other Forfeit.” Max put his hand on my shoulder, which was more voluntary contact than he’d ever made with me before. “But that’s not going to happen. This is how much faith we have in you. You will be our queen.”

Jack swatted Max’s hand away. “Don’t touch her. Don’t ever touch her.”

Max held up his hands. He started to walk back into Grounds&Ink, but Jack stepped in front of him. “Turn around and go somewhere else. Anywhere else. Now.”

Max narrowed his eyes and hesitated for a moment. “I’ll see you soon,” he said.

I shook my head as he walked away. He crossed the parking lot to his motorcycle, kicked it to life, and roared away. As soon as he had disappeared from view, I turned to Jack.

“You know what this means?”

“I know, Becks.”

“They’re going after innocent girls. Girls with earthly attachments. Girls like Ariel, who has a boyfriend.”

“But Tara doesn’t have a boyfriend,” Jack said.

“It doesn’t have to be a boyfriend. The tether between a mother and a daughter could probably save a Forfeit just as easily.” I pressed my lips together and shook my head. “Innocent people are going to die, all to make me queen.”

Jack took me in his arms. “It’s not your fault, Becks.”

“Then why does it feel like my fault?” I stepped back, looked at the ground for a moment, took a deep breath, and raised my eyes to meet Jack’s. “We’ve got to go find Ariel. Jules will take care of Tara, I think. Now we have to find Ariel and get her back together with Luke, who I’m sure never cheated on her. And then we have to find Brooke Chase, because she’s going with Oliver. . . .

“We have to find the girl he’s homed in on and get her away from him. Then we have to watch them to see who they’re going to go after next—”

“Becks,” Jack interrupted.

“We have to.” I looked away toward the mountain, blinking rapidly.

He put his hands on my shoulders and leaned down so we were eye to eye and I would have to look at him. “We can’t do it all. Maybe we can save Tara and then Ariel, but what’s to stop the Deads from going somewhere else and finding more girls?”

I sniffed. “You’re right. There will always be more girls. Even after this, word will get out about how to survive a Feed, and there will be more innocent lives lost, and Everlivings will prey on ordinary human beings with all sorts of attachments and . . . and . . .” I grabbed my hair, pulling at it, and paced to the end of the parking lot, where I turned around. “We have to destroy it.”

“What?”

I walked back to him. “We have to destroy the entire thing. It’s the only way.”

Jack dropped his hands. “No. We have to save you first. We have to focus on finding the cure for you.”

“That’s not as important.”

Jack grabbed my shoulders again, strong enough to make me wince. “Don’t you dare say that. Saving you is the only important thing.”

Slowly I brought my hands up and placed them on either side of his face. “But I can’t live with blood on my hands. I can’t live knowing I’m the reason that girls like Tara and Ariel will become targets of the immortals. I can’t. Saving me will mean nothing if more people die. The only way to save me . . . really save me . . . is to destroy the Everneath.”

He closed his eyes and then hesitantly released his grip on my arms. “Okay. Then we destroy the Everneath.”