Evertrue

by Brodi Ashton

Page 12

  He stopped only for a moment to peek around the corner and make sure there weren’t any more black-eyed crazy people. When he seemed sure the coast was clear, he took us to the door.

  I raised my head from its cushion against his chest and followed his gaze. The door to Cole’s condo still lay ajar. Wooden splinters jutted out in all directions where the lock had once been.

  Jack set me down, his eyes looking right and left, cautiously. I took a step toward the door; and with an exasperated grunt, Jack picked me up again, turned around, and placed me behind him, as if he were moving a fragile piece of art out of the way of a wrecking ball.

  “Stay behind me, Becks. ” His eyes burned.

  I took in a deep breath. The man who had broken in had to have been someone from the Everneath, but what kind of someone? Everlivings didn’t have black eyes, and he wasn’t a Shade or a Wanderer. What if he was still here? What if he wasn’t alone? Jack took care of him, but he had taken a good beating and was still coming after us. If he had had a friend last night . . .

  I shook my head violently, but it came off as a mild tilt. Jack still knew what I meant. His lips quirked up.

  “I can take care of anything waiting for me in there. But you will stay safe. ”

  Jack crept toward the door and stepped lightly over the threshold. Despite his size, Jack could move like a cat. It’s what made him a good quarterback.

  He disappeared into the condo, and the moment he was gone, the hairs on my arms stood on end. Something dark in the shadows of the courtyard caught my eye; but when I turned to look, I couldn’t see anything unusual. Except that the shadows themselves seemed to be bigger and blacker than they should.

  Was it the direction of the sun that made the shadows feel so out of place? I squinted, still seeing nothing. Maybe it was the state of Cole’s condo, but my stomach twisted with the feeling that we weren’t alone.

  We were being watched.

  Jack shouldn’t have left me outside by myself. At this moment I believed any danger here was no longer inside Cole’s apartment. It was outside.

  With a final glance toward the darkest shadows in the northeast corner of the courtyard, I ducked inside the condo after Jack. When I saw the living room, I gasped. Chunks of what had once been Cole’s couch lay shredded all over the floor. Someone had broken the coffee table into five or six pieces. Whoever it was had ransacked the place, looking for something. But what could they be looking for that was small enough to fit in the leg of a coffee table?

  Nothing longer than a foot in length was left intact. Whoever had been here left no object untouched.

  “Becks!” Jack stood in the hallway that led toward the bedrooms. “I told you to stay outside. ”

  I couldn’t put into words the sudden fear that had washed over me in the courtyard, so I took a few shaky steps and buried myself in Jack’s chest. What I wanted to say was that I’d just gotten him back, and I couldn’t lose him again. We’d promised each other we wouldn’t be apart.

  As if he could hear my thoughts, Jack wrapped his arms around me. “Okay, okay. There’s nothing here anyway. ”

  I realized he was whispering, and his eyes darted back and forth as if he were expecting something to jump out of the shadows.

  He held my face, simultaneously brushing some strands of hair out of my eyes. “The band’s not here. And whoever trashed this place didn’t hold back. ” Jack grabbed my hand and navigated us through the carnage of the living room and out the door.

  “What were they . . . ?” I couldn’t finish the question, but Jack did.

  “What were they looking for? I have no idea. I didn’t see anything that could give me a clue. Everything was destroyed. Even the clock on the nightstand. It was shattered. ” He sighed. “Whoever was here did a thorough job, and they probably got what they came for. There wasn’t one square inch left untouched. ”

  Thorough job. Not a square inch left undisturbed. If the intruders had actually found what they were looking for, wouldn’t they have stopped searching at that point? Which would mean that unless they’d found it in the last place available, there would be at least one corner of the condo untouched.

  Jack seemed to reach the conclusion at the same time I did. “They didn’t find it, did they? Whatever it was they were looking for?”

  I shook my head and stumbled over the threshold of the door, hitting the ground before I had a chance to right myself. Jack swept me into his arms again. He set me down gently on the floor.

  “I’m going to look for a stray hair of Cole’s. Just in case. ”

  He left me for a few long moments, which could have lasted seconds or hours, and then returned.

  “What do they do? Scrub the place down every time they leave?” He sighed. “I didn’t find any stray hairs. Let’s get you out of here. ”

  He carried me down to his car, opened the door for me, and gently placed me inside. He buckled me in, and I weakly rolled my eyes at the gesture.

  “Hey, I’m not going to defeat the Underworld only to lose you in a car accident. ” He got in on the driver’s side and started the ignition. I shivered, and he switched on the heater. He kept the car in park and shook his head. “Cole’s place . . . it’s the level of destruction that has me confused. I’d sooner believe someone had a vendetta against him and just wanted to trash the place instead of someone looking for something. I mean, what would Cole have that’s valuable but small enough to hide in an alarm clock?”

  Something valuable. Something small. Everlivings didn’t place very much value on Surface things, such as money or diamonds; but Surface things weren’t the only small things of value.

  I’d seen Cole protect one small thing in his life. So had Jack. His eyes narrowed, and he became as still as a statue.

  I managed one word. “Hearts. ”

  “Everliving hearts,” he said. “Cole’s heart is a pick. Max’s is—what did you tell me? A guitar string?”

  I nodded.

  “But why would anyone go after their hearts? I mean, why now?”

  Jack had a point. The only time I’d heard of conflict or fighting among the Everlivings was at the hands of the queen. Or when someone was trying to take over the throne.

  I closed my eyes. Is that what this was about? Did someone find out what Cole had planned? Did someone find out that I had survived the Feed?

  “Jack. ”

  “What?”

  I took a deep breath and put together two sentences. “What if they weren’t looking for Cole’s heart? What if they were looking for mine?”

  Jack’s mouth went slack. His eyes got a manic look.

  I gathered the energy to speak. Energy I didn’t have. But the words still came. “Don’t worry,” I said. “Cole said they kept my identity a secret. He made sure there wasn’t any connection in the Everneath between him and me. ”

  “But people on the Surface know you’re connected to the Dead Elvises,” he said, bitterness lacing his voice.

  “But most other Everlivings don’t know about the Deads. ” Cole had told me they made sure they spent most of their time up on the Surface. “He wanted to stay anonymous. ”

  “Obviously it’s not working!” Jack snapped. “Someone found him. It’s only a matter of time before they find you too. ”

  Jack took his eyes off the steering wheel and glanced at me as if to say more; but seeing my face, his stony expression immediately softened.

  “Sorry, Becks. ”

  “It’s okay,” I said quietly. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. Someone has found Cole. ”

  And with those words, I put voice to the very thing we were most scared of. Cole was gone. My salvation, my lifeline, had disappeared; and if we didn’t find him by tonight, or sooner, I would probably die.

  Jack grabbed my hand and brought my fingers to his lips.

  “I’m not going to let that happen, Becks. ”

  “But what if we don’t find him?” I sa
id the words before I could stop them, an audible desperation in my voice.

  Jack didn’t answer right away. I turned his hand over and caressed the lines, the calluses, the knuckles . . . skin to skin. I’d been close to death before, and it always amazed me how there was a moment of realization when all the extraneous things melted away and my awareness became only about simple things. The details of Jack’s skin. The sound of his breath. The way Jack’s lips bent around his words.

  These were the things that transcended death. These were the things I was sure the real afterlife was made of.

  But was I ready to find out if I was right?

  No. I was ready to fight for life. My own, and the countless future Forfeits who would succumb to the Tunnels if we didn’t destroy the place.

  “We’ll find him,” I said.

  “We will,” Jack said. “We’ll look everywhere. We’ll find him. ”

  “And if we don’t, we’ll go all Thelma and Louise and drive off a cliff together. ”

  He didn’t even smile. In fact, he frowned. And then nodded. “Let’s just make sure it doesn’t come to that. ”

  ELEVEN

  NOW

  The Surface. Searching for Cole.

  Jack drove all around Park City as we tried to remember all the places we’d seen Cole before. He stopped by Harry O’s and bounded up the steps, but returned to the car shaking his head. We went to the Dead Goat Saloon, but nobody there knew anything about the whereabouts of the band. We tried the usual blogs that always seemed to have the pulse of the Deads, but there was no news.

  “Give me your phone,” Jack said once he was back in the car. “We’ll call him again. ”

  I handed it over, knowing no one would answer. When the silence confirmed my suspicion, he handed it back to me. “Text Jules,” he said. “Just to make sure Cole wasn’t in class today. ”

  I raised my eyebrows. “He disappears last night, his apartment is ransacked, but he shows up for school?”

  “We have to check everything. ”

  I nodded and typed in the text to Jules. She responded moments later. No, Neal hadn’t been in class.

  Jack pulled over to the side of the road and looked at me with a resolute expression.

  “Can you think of anywhere we can look?”

  “The Everneath,” I said.

  “We can’t get there without a hair. ”

  “Maybe we don’t need a hair of Cole’s. I’m half Everliving. Maybe if you eat one of my hairs . . . ”

  Jack nodded and put the car in drive, turning toward the Shop-n-Go.

  When he pulled into the parking lot of the convenience store, my heart sank. The lights were off, and a black-and-red CLOSED sign hung on the inside of the door.

  “It’s never closed,” I said. “It’s open twenty-four hours a day. ”

  Jack turned into a parking place and shut off the ignition. “Let’s go in anyway. ”

  “How?”

  He held up his fists. “These babies. ”

  Apparently he wasn’t joking, because he got out of the car. I followed him. With two shoves of his shoulder, he forced the door open.

  “Quick,” he said, taking my hand.

  Jack ran, and I stumbled, to the back, to the spot where I’d ingested Cole’s hair before to get to the Everneath. The place where I’d first seen that sad woman sink through the floor.

  Jack took my hand. “Try it on your own first. ”

  “I don’t know what to try,” I said. I closed my eyes and pictured the two of us sinking below the ground.

  When I’d eaten Cole’s hair before, I’d felt an immediate, distinct pull. Same with when I’d grabbed Cole’s hand and he’d taken us both under.

  Right now there was no pull. There was nothing except our feet standing on the hard industrial-tile floor.

  “It’s not working,” I said.

  Jack engulfed me in his arms, and I rested my head on his shoulder. “Just relax,” he said. “Think of the Ring of Earth. Think of the streets of Ouros. Imagine yourself there, with me. ”

  I did as he instructed, picturing the tall gray wall that surrounded the Ouros Common, remembering the mad dash we’d made through the alleyways when Cole, Ashe, Max, and I were trying to get to the labyrinth.

  I willed there to be a pull at my feet. But there wasn’t.

  I imagined the sound of the thousands of Everlivings cheering in the central square at Ouros while the queen ordered Shades to vaporize a line of criminals.

  But I heard nothing except the sound of sirens. “The police are coming,” Jack said.

  I opened my eyes and plucked out a strand of my hair. “Eat it,” I said.

  He took the hair, placed it on his tongue, and swallowed purposefully. His grip around my hand tightened.

  I held my breath, but nothing happened. The sirens got louder.

  “It’s not going to work,” Jack said. He rubbed his forehead, frustrated, and then lifted me in his arms and ran out of the store. We drove out of the parking lot just as the first squad car came around the corner.