Evertrue

SEVENTEEN

NOW

The Everneath. The crawlway to the Shade network.

The only illumination came intermittently from Cole’s lighter behind me. And even when it was lit, I was blocking most of it.

“Just keep it off,” I said. “It doesn’t help.”

Cole clicked it off. I could see, far up in the distance, a spot of light moving up and down. But the more I focused on it, the more I realized that it wasn’t the light moving. It was the wave of the tunnel moving me up and down.

“What are we going to do when we get there?” I said.

Cole grunted as he navigated through a particularly narrow part of the passageway. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the moment I thought about spilling the beans about our plan to Ashe, I assumed that getting him to believe us would take longer than it did. It wasn’t part of the plan for Ashe to actually take the bait so quickly.”

“So, what, your plan was to, A, get Ashe to take the bait, and then there was no B?”

“Basically.”

“Suddenly I don’t want to be first in the tunnel.”

We kept crawling. The waves started to take a toll on my stomach, and pretty soon my goal was not only to emerge at the end, but also not to puke along the way. It didn’t help that I kept picturing digestive juices along the walls and floor. Juices that were slowly disintegrating my skin.

But the light got closer. And the air in the tunnel became colder.

“When we get there,” Cole said, “don’t do anything. We’re just going to get a glimpse of where their headquarters is located and see if we can see anything that will help. Don’t take any chances.”

I rolled my eyes, even though Cole couldn’t see me. “What did you think I was going to do? Announce our arrival?”

As we approached the opening, I could see that the light wasn’t coming from outside. Instead, it was coming from a giant, glowing ball shaped like an egg. Shadows danced back and forth in front of it. Shades. Gathering around the ball as humans would gather around a campfire.

The walls of the room were round and pulsating. If the tunnel had been the esophagus of the snake, this was the stomach.

“What do you see?” Cole asked.

“A glowing ball. In the center of . . . a cavernous . . . stomach.”

“What?”

I focused on describing the scene. “It’s as large as the Feed caverns. The Shades are gathered around the ball, touching it. And where they touch it, the light from the ball condenses against their fingers. It’s like they’re drawing power from the ball.”

Suddenly a denser figure approached the ball and placed a more defined hand on its surface. Instead of drawing the light toward his hand, the contact thrust the light farther away.

“It’s Ashe,” I said. “He’s touching the ball. But the light is going away from his touch.”

Ripples of light emanated from the point of contact, and suddenly, above the ball, an image appeared. Three dimensional, like a hologram.

At the sight, every Shade in the place froze. They turned toward the hologram expectantly, as if whatever was about to appear would be big news.

Inside the image a face began to take shape. Someone with short hair. Blond.

It was Cole’s face. Then my face. Then Jack’s face. There for every Shade to see.

“We’ve got to get out of here. Now!”

I started to crawl backward, my feet smushing into Cole’s face.

“Watch it, Nik!”

“Move, move!”

We crawled backward until we reached a place that was large enough for us to turn around. Maybe it was because I was so much smaller, but I was moving faster than Cole could. I pushed against his feet, trying to give him extra leverage to springboard from.

The light from behind us grew faint, as if someone were blocking the exit point.

“Faster!” I said. “I think someone’s coming.”

That lit a fire under Cole. He scrambled onward. Since the entrance at the other end was closed, we couldn’t tell how close we were until Cole actually fell into the dirt anteroom.

He threw his shoulder upward against the door, and we fell in a heap outside on the ground. Jack wasn’t there, but I didn’t have time to wonder where he was. Whoever was behind us was right on our tails. Dark tendrils of oil-like fluid reached around the edge of the door.

Shades. I desperately wanted a railroad tie or something to throw across the entrance, to lock them inside.

The second I thought of it, a stream of mist emanated from my chest, forming a large, rectangular object. It floated toward the entrance, and as it solidified, I could see it became a railroad tie. It lay across the entrance in slots on either side, bolting it shut.

Cole staggered to his feet, looked at the railroad tie, and then helped me up. We both started running.

“How did you do that?” he said.

I shook my head. “Keep running!”

The signs around the streets changed to show both Cole’s face and my own, and underneath the image were the words Traitors to the nation.

Cole grabbed my hand roughly and closed his eyes, and it took me a split second when my feet lifted from the ground to realize what he was doing.

“No!” I yanked my hand away. “We’re not leaving Jack.”

He looked as if he might try to grab my hand again, but then he closed his eyes and nodded quickly.

We bounded down the street. A couple of Everlivings saw us coming and jumped out of the way. I took my first right and then a left and then another right, trying to make our movements as random as possible. Why hadn’t we discussed another meeting place?

I concentrated on Jack. His face. His cheekbones. His shaggy brown hair. The lines of his body. The way he moved. The way he flicked his ring finger. The divot on his forehead.

A small rod appeared at my feet, exactly like the tether that had led me to Jack when he was stuck in the Tunnels.

“This way!” I shouted to Cole.

We darted around corners, going whichever way the tether pointed us. Brushing past Everlivings, most of whom gave us strange looks. Obviously, the change on the posters hadn’t quite sunk in, because no one tackled us.

At one point we saw a couple of Shades blocking our path, so we cut through a dark alley. But when we reached the end, there was no way out. We turned around and nearly ran smack into Ashe.

He had us trapped. There was nowhere to go and no way we could outrun him. Panicked, I turned to Cole.

“Ashe,” Cole said, a pleading tone to his voice.

Ashe reached for a door in the building on the right wall. He shoved it open. Was he going to lock us inside?

“Follow the hallway, then take a right,” he said. “You can get past the Shades that way.”

I stared at him, suspicious.

Ashe noted my expression. “If I wanted to turn you in right now, I would. And there’s something else,” Ashe said. “When I shared your intentions with the network, that was before I thought of something that could help you. If you get your hands on—” His voice cut off, and he froze midsentence. His mouth hung open as if he were in pain. I almost looked behind him to make sure someone hadn’t stabbed him or something.

“Ashe?” I said.

He shook his head and started again. “Find the—” Again he stopped. Closed his eyes. “I can’t say it.”

Cole stepped forward. “Because it would betray the Everneath?”

Ashe lowered his head, took a deep breath, raised it again, and said, “Cronus.” He gritted his black teeth, and the next word came out as an almost indistinguishable grunt. “Tantalus.” The moment the word left his lips, he collapsed onto the ground.

Cole grabbed my hand. “We’re out of time!” He pulled me into the building. We followed Ashe’s instructions and stumbled out into an empty street, at the end of which was Jack, tearing down one of the thousands of posters of Cole’s face.

“Jack!” I said.

He saw us barreling toward him, and he held out his hands. Cole grabbed one and I grabbed the other, and we froze, waiting to leave the ground.

And nothing happened.

“Cole,” I said, staring at the way we’d come. “Do something.”

“I know,” Cole said. “I’m trying to concentrate. I’m thinking upward.”

He raised himself up on his tiptoes.

Tentacles of black oil appeared around the edge of the building that stood on the corner we’d just come from.

“They’re here!” I said. Jack tried to let go of my hand, and I knew he was going to charge them. “No!” I said, grabbing him even tighter. “You won’t be able to touch them. Stay still.”

The Shades moved like a cloud, or more like a tornado, coming down the road.

“Cole!” I dug my nails into his hand.

“I’m trying!”

“Think of a place. A calm place. If you can picture it, then I’d bet it’s a real place you’ve been. Think of it. Put yourself there.”

Cole’s eyes were closed. I would’ve closed mine, but I couldn’t help staring at the Shades coming for us. We were moments away from being swallowed.

“You know how to do this,” I said. “You just have to remember.”

At the possibility that this was the end, I had one thought.

“I love you guys,” I said. I had only an instant to realize, with surprise, that I indeed loved both of them, in their own way.

A rush of cold wind washed over my face.

“Hang on,” Cole said.

Just as the first Shade wrapped a swirl of oil around Jack’s arm, our feet lifted simultaneously off the ground. And then we were tumbling upward, the Shades screaming behind us.

We crashed into the earth, a heap of limbs and torsos. Cole’s arm had fallen across my face. I couldn’t see a thing.

“Ow,” I said.

“Sorry,” he said. He removed his arm, and daylight, real daylight, blinded me. Above me was clear blue sky. I pushed myself up into a sitting position and looked around. We were on a dirt road surrounded by green fields for miles and miles. The land was flat, the horizon distinctly clear on all sides of us. The place didn’t look familiar at all.

“Where are we?” I said.

Cole was sitting beside me. He shook his head as if he had a headache. “I don’t know.”

Jack was already standing. He turned around in a full circle. “I don’t see anything, besides—What are those, cornstalks? No people. No structures.” He looked at Cole and narrowed his eyes. “Where the hell are we?”

Cole frowned. “I’ll tell you where we’re not. We’re not being chased by Shades.”

“The Shades wouldn’t have been chasing us if you hadn’t given up our real plans to Ashe.” Jack’s nostrils were flaring.

Cole didn’t back down. “We wouldn’t have found out anything if I hadn’t followed my instincts.”

“It was a gamble! With my life and Nikki’s!” Jack’s fists were clenched tightly. “If I were placing bets, I’d say you just got away with a nice bit of sabotage back there.”

“Hey, I didn’t have to bring you here. I could’ve just grabbed Nik and zoomed away, leaving you to deal with the Shades.”

“Yeah, we all saw how well you zoom.”

I stepped between them. “Okay, boys, settle down. It wasn’t all for nothing. We saw the Shade network, and Ashe helped us at the very end—he gave us our next step.”

“How?” Jack said.

“He said there was something that could help us.” I looked to Cole for confirmation. “A Cronus Tantalus.”

Cole nodded.

Jack narrowed his eyes. “What’s a Cronus Tantalus?”

Cole and I both shrugged. “We’ll work that out later,” I said. “We’re safe, for now. We just have to figure out where we are.”

Cole looked around too. “This place feels familiar.”

Jack folded his arms. “Can’t you just . . . zap us somewhere else again?”

Cole shrugged, but I actually knew the answer to this one. “He would have to take us to the Everneath again first. And in the shape he’s in, we’re not guaranteed we’d get any closer to home. And not only that, it takes massive amounts of his energy.”

Cole nodded. “Yeah. What she said.”

Jack sighed. “So what did you guys see down there? What did the network look like?”

I explained to Jack about the giant glowing egg-like thing we’d seen Ashe touching, and the Shade convention that seemed to be going on.

Jack squinted one eye in a thoughtful kind of way. “I think I saw something like that in Mrs. Jenkins’s papers.”

“What did it say?” I said.

“I don’t know. At the time, I wasn’t sure a glowing egg would mean anything. The papers are in the back of my car.”

Cole looked from me to Jack and back again. “So, what do we do now?”

Jack sighed. “We start walking.”

“Which way?” Cole said.

Jack squinted as he turned slowly around. He stopped. “There. Something on the horizon. It’s a ways from here, but probably a farmhouse or something. Let’s just hope we’re in the United States. We didn’t exactly pack our passports.”

We started walking toward the black dot. I began to wonder if Cole had ever really been here. It seemed very remote, and cornfields weren’t exactly Cole’s scene.

I watched Jack out of the corner of my eye as we walked. His face was smooth and unruffled, and I was amazed by how well he was dealing with all the crazy. A girlfriend who’d left him to spend a century in the Everneath with another guy. A girlfriend who was always on the verge of dying. A girlfriend who basically had to kiss another guy every night, while all he could do was watch.

It took me only a second to realize—or remember—that all the crazy revolved around me.

Jack saw me staring. “Don’t even think it, Becks.”

“Think what?” I said.

The corner of his mouth turned up. “I know that look. It comes in the quiet moments, like this one. I know you’re thinking that this is all your fault and that I would be better off without you. But here’s the thing you need to understand.” He stopped walking and grabbed my shoulders. “You are my peace and my home. You are the everything. The pain isn’t real. The hearts are.”

I held my breath. I blinked rapidly. If I’d had a heart, it would’ve sprouted wings and flown out of my chest and into the blue sky.

“Breathe, Becks.”

I breathed. “How were you ever a football player?”

His lips twitched. “Not all football players are stupid.”

Then the words spilled out, like they always did when my pulse was racing. “But they’re big, and they tackle each other, and they smack bottoms, and say things like ‘pigskin’ and ‘blitz.’”

Jack stepped closer and raised an eyebrow. “And ‘forward pass.’ And ‘holding.’” He wrapped his arms around me.

“Ugh.” Cole made an actual gagging sound.

We both turned to look at him.

“Sorry,” Cole said, looking horrified. “I have no idea where that came from.”

“I do,” Jack said. “I think your natural instincts are getting stronger.”

Cole frowned, and the lines around his mouth became tight.

“What is it?” I said.

Cole tried for a smile, but the effort was faint. “You both have these histories, and you can cling to them at times like this. But me . . . I’m just feeling a little homesick for my memories.”

I glanced at Jack, who tilted his head and nodded. I sighed. “How about I tell you a story?”

Cole stopped walking. “I would love it.”

I nodded again. Memories. So many memories, many of which I would’ve liked to forget forever, such as waking up after a century of Cole feeding on me.

“What do you want to know?”

Cole chuckled. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have this problem. Do you have any memories that would tell me about . . . myself?”

I wasn’t sure I could objectively tell a story about my history with Cole. Every memory was tainted with all the stuff I knew about him now but didn’t know then. Not making things any easier was the fact that Jack was listening, and many of the more positive memories I had of Cole took place during the time Jack was away at football camp and ended with me following Cole to the Underworld. I didn’t think any of those stories were safe.

But I knew other stories. In particular, I knew the memory that had accompanied that first kiss in the courtyard during Creative Writing, when I discovered exactly how Cole would keep me alive. I hadn’t thought about it since then, but now that I focused on it, the entire story came into my head with such clarity, it was as if I’d lived it myself.

“You used to live on a farm, in Norway,” I said. “Imagine a young man working a field.”

1186

The Surface. Norway.

A young man with blond hair raised an iron-shod spade above his head and thrust it downward into the ditch. The summer sun shone behind him, giving his hair a haloed look. During these months the sun wouldn’t set until late in the evening, making the work hours long.

The man was young to be working the fields on his own, and his shoulders ached from the new weight of responsibility placed upon them after his father had succumbed to the fever. As the elder male, the young man took his place in the fields, his younger brother, Edgar, assuming the farm apprentice position that the young man vacated.

The young man set the spade aside and grabbed a pick. He plunged it into the hard dirt, softening the soil as he went.

“Coleson!” Edgar’s voice sounded out of breath.

Coleson looked up to see his sixteen-year-old brother running toward him. He plunged the pick into the dirt and left it there, standing upright.

“Edgar. What’s wrong?” He picked up the spade again.

“They’re coming.”

Coleson stood up straight. He brushed the dirt off his trousers and shook his head.

“Which one did they send for the skora a hólm?” Coleson asked his brother. Skora a hólm. The official challenge to a duel.

Edgar looked down. “Gunnar.”

Of course. Gunnar was the largest of the Hólmgang pack. They’d probably heard of Coleson’s father’s passing. They preyed on the families left behind, who were most vulnerable. It was easy to challenge survivors to a duel to steal their property.

“Hólmgang is supposed to be outlawed,” Edgar said.

“Tell that to Gunnar.”

Coleson stalked off toward the house, throwing the spade aside.

“What are you doing?” Edgar asked. “You might need that.”

Coleson’s frown was set. “No, I won’t.”

He entered the house and reached for the largest satchel he could see. “Mother!” he called out.

A striking woman with long, blond hair braided at the nape of her neck appeared from the kitchen.

“Mother, we’re leaving.”

Coleson set about packing the most valuable items into his satchel.

“What? Why?” his mother asked.

Edgar burst through the door. “Gunnar is coming, Mother. He’s coming for the duel. And if Coleson wins, we’ll get everything Gunnar owns. Those are the rules of the Hólmgang.”

Coleson grunted as he shoved the last of the silver goblets into the satchel. “I’m not fighting.”

Edgar and his mother stared.

“What do you mean?” his mother said.

“I mean if I fight, I’ll lose. And you both know Gunnar’s history. He won’t stop until I’m dead and he has the farm. And then where will you both be?” He shoved a plate into the satchel. As the new man of the house, Coleson knew his first obligation had to be to his family. “No, we take what we can and we run.”

Edgar’s mouth hung open for a moment. “What about family honor? Honor demands that we stay and fight. Without it, we will be shunned everywhere we go.”

Coleson dropped the bag and turned on his brother. “This is not like the brawls that you get into at the tavern! This is sure death.” He grabbed his brother’s hand and brought it to his chest, just above his beating heart. “This is life. No matter if we are on the farm or . . . somewhere else.”

Edgar yanked his hand away. “There is no life without honor. I will not abandon our land. And if you will not fight, then I will.”

Coleson turned toward his mother, who was slowly inching her way toward Edgar. Coleson held out his hand. “Mother. You understand we have to run.”

She shook her head. “I understand this is our home. And we will not flee simply because a band of thugs challenges us for our land. I will stand where your father would stand, were he with us.”

Coleson looked from his mother to his brother and hesitated. It was simple for them to talk about words such as honor when it was Coleson’s life on the line.

His brother would not make the same stand if he really had to fight.

“I’m leaving,” Coleson said. “And you are both welcome to come with me. Or you can stay here and die, with your honor.”

Coleson knew that if he left, his family would soon trail after. Everyone would know that they were forced to follow. That way they would be able to keep their honor. The disgrace would then rest on Coleson alone.

He hoisted the satchel high up onto his shoulder and left, but he did not go far. Instead, he hid out just beyond the trees bordering the Stockflet property and waited. As soon as his mother and brother appeared, he would run to meet them.

But for two days they didn’t appear. The only activity came from a band of four men on horses, who stormed toward the farmhouse.

Edgar came out to meet them, an ax in his hand. Coleson was not close enough to hear any of the words spoken, but he was close enough to see Gunnar’s sword run through his brother’s chest.

Coleson turned away, stifling a shout. And then he ran.

Two days later, word of a terrible tragedy reached the inn where Coleson was lodging. The entire Stockflet family was murdered during a Hólmgang. The older brother’s body was never found.

When Coleson heard the news, he left the town and changed his name. He used the money from the valuables he’d collected to purchase an apprenticeship. He never spoke again of the family he’d abandoned.

NOW

The Surface. Still no idea where we are.

Cole stared at me, transfixed. I brushed my hair out of my eyes and waved him forward. I continued on with the rest of the memory Cole had shared with me. “You became obsessed with the myth of Hercules, particularly the part where he was cursed with the inability to discern right from wrong. You believed that would be a blessing.”

The revelation explained so much about Cole.

Cole squeezed his eyes shut. “How do you know this story? Were you there?”

“No. It was a memory from your mind before the amnesia. You shared it with me when I fed on you. But I didn’t know the details of it until I started telling it to you just now.”

“I thought you said the Everlivings killed my family.”

Oh, crap.

“They did,” I said, flustered. “Your extended family. Not the immediate family.”

For a moment I felt a little guilty about the fake backstory I’d given him for my own selfish reasons. It was becoming more difficult to remember all the reasons I hated Cole, especially now that I’d gotten this glimpse into his tragic past.

Jack was so quiet on the other side of me. I wondered if he felt sorry for Cole or if the story made him hate Cole even more.

“How could I have left them like that?” Cole asked. “It’s despicable.”

I cleared my throat. “You used to say that there was no such thing as good or evil. There was only life and the absence of life.”

In light of this memory of Cole’s, I thought that maybe I understood a little bit more about his motives. I could understand the yearning to forget. The urge to focus on something as simple as life and death, and not on wrong or right.

“Forget the past,” Jack said softly from behind me. “The question is, did the memory spark any sort of recognition in you?”

Cole closed his eyes, as if he were searching his brain for something. He shook his head. “No. But somehow I know in my bones that the story is true.”

We were quiet as we walked toward the dot, which now that we were closer we could tell was a house. A farmhouse.

The faint sound of running farm equipment reached us through the air. A man steered a tractor through one of the fields adjacent to the farmhouse.

Cole’s eyes went wide, like a kid’s eyes in a candy shop.

Ten minutes later, we were riding on a hay-bale trailer connected to the back of the tractor. The farmer had agreed to give us a ride into the nearest town, Blue Hill.

We were in Nebraska.

The tractor stopped in front of a small grocery store set back off the desolate Main Street.

“We have to call Jules,” I said, hopping off the bale of hay. “If the queen knows who the Dead Elvises are, she’ll find me. And that means she’ll find my family. Jules can help. She can get them out of the house.”

Jack’s phone was dead. He flagged down a man on the other side of the street, jogged over to him, and talked for a moment. The man nodded and handed him a cell phone.

Jack ran back and handed me the phone.

I dialed Jules’s number.

“Jules,” I said. “It’s Becks.”

“Becks! Where are you? Are you okay?”

“Yes. We’re in . . . Nebraska. It’s a long story. But I need your help.”

I explained enough of the situation so that she would know I was telling the truth, and then we devised a cover story she could use to get my dad and brother out of the house.

When we had settled on it, she asked, “Are you really okay?”

I looked at Jack. Well, I was stranded in Nebraska with an amnesiac Everliving and a claustrophobic boyfriend, having escaped nearly being smothered to death by an army of Shades. “Everything’s fine,” I said. “I’ll explain it all later. But Jules?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. Thank you.”

When I hung up, I breathed a sigh of relief. “She’ll take care of it,” I said. “Though I think it’s safe to say that when this is all over, I’ll have to go to rehab indefinitely.”

Jack got a bright twinkle in his eye, and I realized that I’d made reference to a future in which both of us were whole and alive and not fighting for survival.

But in order to reach that future, there couldn’t be an Everneath. And right now there was very much an Everneath.