Evertrue

THREE

NOW

The Surface. In the mountains.

Who was that guy? Jack said, driving way too fast down the mountain switchbacks. “Or maybe I should ask, what was that guy?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it. Maybe we didn’t get a good enough look at him. We only had a glimpse. Maybe he was dressed up for some . . . costume party.”

“Right. Costume party. In June. On a balcony. By himself.”

I glanced in the side-view mirror several times over the next few minutes, even though I couldn’t think of a reason the man in the trench coat would’ve been following us.

When I was sure we were in the clear, I said, “The bigger problem is, Cole anticipated us.”

Jack sighed and flipped on the signal to turn into my subdivision. “So what do we do now?”

“Move to Tahiti,” I said. I stared out the window as Jack pulled up in front of my house.

“That would look suspiciously like running away from our problems.” Jack grabbed my hand and brought it to his lips. “Meet you in five?” he said.

I nodded. “I’ll leave the window unlocked.”

I ran inside, straight past my dad’s study. As I walked by, he looked up from his laptop.

“It’s a little late. How was your date?” he asked.

“Fine.” We broke into an immortal’s condo, looking to steal my heart, which is now a compass. But we came up empty-handed. “Um . . . the usual boring stuff. Good night,” I called out over my shoulder.

“Next time, you’re home by midnight,” my dad said back.

As I got ready for bed, I could no longer keep my disappointment at bay. We didn’t have my heart, so we were no closer to turning me back into a human. Not only that, but tonight showed that Cole had anticipated we would search his apartment. He wasn’t just one step ahead of us; he was several.

He’d predicted we’d go for the safe.

I shook my head as I put toothpaste on my toothbrush. Cole had always known me too well. It was how he’d convinced me to go to the Feed with him in the first place. It was how he’d been able to trick me into feeding on him three times in the Everneath.

I washed my face and then looked at myself in the mirror and yawned. There were dark circles under my eyes, the kind that had only ever appeared when I’d been out all night, and my face was paler than usual.

Maybe I wasn’t sleeping very well.

I went to my room and opened the window for Jack.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

My hand flew up to my face. It must’ve been more noticeable than I thought. “Yes. I just suddenly felt really exhausted.”

Jack frowned. “Are you sick?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m sure I’m just tired from breaking and entering. Nothing more.”

Jack pressed his lips together as if he were reluctant to give up on the subject, but I pulled him toward my bed and wrapped my arms around him.

“We’re never going to find my heart if Cole doesn’t want us to,” I said, my eyelids drooping. “Now that he’s back in town, I say that tomorrow we confront him.”

Jack smiled. “Tomorrow you have summer school.”

“Ugh,” I said. “Okay, after summer school.” I could hear the exhaustion in my voice.

“Just sleep for now, Becks. We’ll figure it out.”

When I could no longer keep my eyes open, I fell asleep entangled in Jack’s arms. There was nowhere else I’d rather be. I just had to find a way to stay there.

At night. My bedroom.

I’m running down a series of hallways. Something, or someone, is after me. The walls of the hallways begin to close in. Hands reach out from deep within the walls, grabbing at my hair, my arms, my legs.

I turn a sharp corner and run into a tall, regal woman with fiery red hair.

The queen of the Everneath. Adonia. My heartbeat speeds up at the sight of her.

“I see you,” she says.

“No,” I try to say, but no sound comes from my mouth. I scramble backward and trip over something at my feet.

It’s a body. Lying on its stomach. I grab the shoulder and turn the body over, and there is my own face, staring back at me. Lifeless. I try to scream, still unable to make a sound.

The queen crouches down beside me. “I see you. You will try. You will lose. You will die.”

“I don’t want the throne!” I try to scream, but it comes out in a whisper. “I don’t want it!”

I woke with a start, my hand pressed against my chest. I knew it was a dream. Only a dream. But dreams had a funny way of being connected with the Everneath. I was scared the queen really could see me: the girl who threatened the throne. What was worse, I was scared the queen would find me.

It took me several long blinks to wipe the cobwebs from my eyes, and even then the world seemed smoggy, as if I’d taken a sleeping pill last night.

Jack wasn’t in bed, so I hoisted myself up and went to the kitchen looking for him. Movement from the window caught my eye. There he was, standing in front of the chestnut tree, his feet apart in an athletic stance, his shoulders hunched, his fists in front of his chest, ready to throw a block. He cocked his arm back and then punched the trunk of the tree over and over, his knuckles becoming bloody and torn. Shards of wood exploded from the tree each time his fist made contact.

I grabbed the windowsill for support. I’d never seen anything like it. Yes, he’d punched through the wall last night, but this tree was a solid oak.

He wouldn’t let us focus on the mystery of why he’d come back the way he had, because he said we had more pressing matters, such as my immortality. But watching him right now, I wondered if we were focusing on the wrong thing.

I leaned closer to the window. “Jack!”

He didn’t turn around for a moment. His shoulders relaxed and lost most of their rigidity from just seconds before. But no matter how he tried to compose himself, I knew he was upset about our failed attempt to retrieve my heart. Even more upset, probably, that I had told Cole I’d rather die than become queen of the Everneath. After everything we’d been through, I knew that Jack would prefer I stay alive no matter the cost. It was the one point we’d never agree on. I would never become an Everliving if it meant feeding on other people. At the same time, he would rather become my Forfeit than see me die.

I’d given up hope that we’d ever agree. Now I could only hope it would never come to that.

He finally turned around and flashed me a dazzling smile.

“Hey, Becks,” he said. “I didn’t know you were awake.”

“I didn’t know you hated trees so much.” I frowned. “What are you doing?”

He looked down at his hands, his bloody knuckles. He stretched his fingers wide and clenched them again. “I don’t know. I was trying to see just how much pain I could withstand.”

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “A lot, apparently. Do you feel better now, knowing?”

He nodded, about as out of breath as if he’d just jogged for a block. I’d exerted more effort climbing out of bed. There was no wincing or tightness in his eyes. No sign that he’d felt any pain at all, even as a small drop of blood ran down his hand and off his finger. He wiped it on his jeans.

A folded piece of paper at his feet caught my eye. “Did you drop something?”

Jack looked down and quickly scooped up the paper, putting it in his pocket.

“What was it?” I asked.

“Your note.”

He didn’t have to specify which note. I knew the one. Last year, after the Christmas dance, he had left a note in my pocket with two words written on it.

Ever Yours

When I’d gone to the Everneath to save him from the Tunnels, I had brought the note and left it in his hand. He’d literally used it to find his way back to me. Now he never let it out of his possession.

“Come inside,” I said. “I’ll make us some coffee before school.”

He nodded again and walked away in the direction of my front door, using the sleeve of his hoodie to wipe the sweat from his brow. Beating up trees must’ve been quite a workout.

Jack came in, and I started the coffeemaker. He sat down and absentmindedly reached for the watercolor painting on the kitchen table, a summer art project by Tommy.

When he finally looked up at me, his mouth dropped open a little. “Becks, you look worse now than you did last night.”

I put my hand up to my cheek. I hadn’t had a chance to look in a mirror. “I don’t think I slept very well. Bad dream.”

He came over and put his arms around me, pulling me close. “What about?”

“The queen. She had me trapped in a hallway with thousands of hands sticking out. She kept saying that she sees me. I couldn’t hide.” I left out the part about the dead body at my feet. I didn’t want Jack to worry about my state of mind. “Doesn’t mean anything.”

“You’re right,” Jack said. “It doesn’t. She doesn’t know you exist, and the good thing about Cole is that he will guard that knowledge to the grave. But the sooner we confront him, the better.”

“It’ll have to wait until after school.”

Jack’s phone buzzed with an incoming call. As he pulled it out of his pocket, I glimpsed the caller ID.

“Does your mom know where you spend your nights?” I asked.

“Everyone knows where I spend my nights,” he said, pressing the ignore button and putting the phone back in his pocket.

“Then why doesn’t she do anything about it?”

“She’s not about to do anything that might push me to ‘run away’ again. So I guess my time in the Tunnels turned out to be a good thing.” I sat down, and his hand trailed down my shoulder and my back. I shivered into him. “Why?” he said. “What does your dad think?”

“That I’ll always be twelve years old. Going on eleven. He doesn’t know.”

“He knows,” Jack said, always reading my mind. “He just refuses to see.”

I shrugged. “He’d kill you if he knew.”

“He knows, Becks. He’s just trying not to lose you again.”

We drained our cups, and I rinsed out the first one and put it in the sink; but as I was cleaning the second one, I accidentally dropped it and it shattered in the sink. Jack came up behind me and put his arms around me.

“Don’t be nervous,” he said.

I shook my head, confused. I wasn’t normally a klutz. The coffee cup hadn’t even been slippery. “About summer school? I’m not. It must’ve . . . slipped or something.”

He dipped his head toward my neck; but before his lips could make contact, the door connecting the kitchen to the garage swung open, and my dad rushed in. Another one of his “surprise” visits that worked almost as well as a chastity belt.

Jack sprang away from me as if I’d given him an electric shock.

“I forgot my travel mug,” my dad said. “I trust I’m not interrupting anything.”

“No, Mr. . . . Mayor,” Jack said, his voice shaky.

Mr. Mayor? I rolled my eyes. Could he be any more formal? “Actually, Dad, we were just about to leave for school,” I said.

My dad raised an eyebrow. “Great. We can all walk out together.” My dad looked at his watch. “I have to get to the office.”

I nodded and pulled out my own phone to check the time.

My dad stared at the hand that held the phone. “What’s on your wrist?” he said. “Did you hurt it?”

Confused, I looked down. Right along the wrist line there was the faint shadow of a dark band. It wrapped around the entire circumference of my wrist, as if a watch band had rubbed some of its color off on my skin.

But at first glance it looked like a light bruise.

I pulled down my sleeve, glimpsing Jack’s suddenly wide eyes. “It’s nothing. I think my bracelet just left a mark.”

I smiled and kissed Dad’s cheek, grateful once again that my dad wouldn’t have noticed that I didn’t wear jewelry.

I grabbed my bag, and Jack followed me out the door, staring intently at his phone as he walked. Once we were in the car, I jabbed my elbow into his ribs.

“You seemed enthralled with the blank screen of your phone back there,” I said.

“What’s on your wrist?” he said. The effort he used to force his voice to sound calm had the opposite effect. He sounded devastated. “Did I do that? Did I grab your wrist the other night?” He sucked in a deep breath. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” I said. “No. I don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t hurt.” I held out my hand in front of his face, twisting my wrist back and forth. “It’s not anything.”

Jack closed his eyes and nodded. “Okay.” The second he turned on the ignition, my phone buzzed with a text.

I checked the screen. “From Cole,” I said.

“What did he say?”

I took a deep breath as I reread the message on the screen. I involuntarily looked at the mark on my wrist before I read the text out loud. “He’s asking if my shackle has appeared yet.”

Jack pressed his lips together, and his nostrils flared. “Is he talking about your wrist?”

I shrugged.

“How would he have known?”

“It’s probably a coincidence,” I said, but the way it came out didn’t sound very convincing.

“Text him back. Tell him we need to see him. Now.”

I texted and got an immediate response. “He says he’ll see me at school.”

Jack sighed. He gunned the gas and then let up off the pedal as if he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to get me to school faster or never take me there at all.