In that way her pain was greater than mine.
I knocked on the door, and when she opened it, she raised her eyebrows. “Nikki.”
“Mrs. Jenkins. Cole’s back.”
She nodded and ushered me inside. While she stayed in the kitchen to brew tea—a mainstay in her home—I brought her up to speed on Cole’s return to Park City and my spontaneous trip to the Everneath.
She emerged carrying a tray with two teacups and a kettle. It struck me at that moment how alone she was. I couldn’t imagine she had an excuse to use the tea tray very much these days.
“So, Jack is still alive?” she asked. She had always been amazed to learn about the dream connection, even though it was her own daughter who had figured out that the Forfeits who survived the Feed were the ones who had anchors on the Surface.
“Yes. Meredith’s theory is still true. I’m Jack’s anchor now, like he was for me. But I don’t know how much longer he can survive.”
I told her about him forgetting things. She got a faraway look in her eyes and stared at her fireplace. “Meredith was so smart to figure it out. I always thought she would be the next one to survive,” she said, inclining her head toward the jar on her mantelpiece. I knew what was inside that jar. The ashes of a Forfeit named Adonia. The last person in Meredith’s family line to have survived the Feed.
Adonia didn’t last long. Apparently, she didn’t want to fight the current queen and try to take over the throne, so—according to Mrs. Jenkins—Adonia’s Everliving betrayed her. Told the queen where she could find her. And the queen sucked out all of her energy until there was nothing left.
I guess that was one reason I had to be grateful to Cole. He never turned me over to the queen.
“Meredith had the numbers,” Mrs. Jenkins went on. “She was the thirty-third female born from the descendants of Adonia’s mother.”
I frowned. “What does that have to do with it?”
“The number three is important with the Everlivings. Symbolic. I thought it would mean something for Meredith. Make her special.”
Her voice had taken on a dreamlike quality. Mrs. Jenkins believed the queen had the power to immortalize entire ancestral lines at her discretion. If Meredith had survived the Feed and taken over the throne, it would’ve meant eternal life for Mrs. Jenkins.
She had a way of drifting off like this, as if her thoughts always revolved around Meredith’s failure and her own missed opportunity. I tore my gaze away from the jar and tried to focus her. “Mrs. Jenkins, I’m going to the Everneath again. With Cole back, I know I can steal another piece of his hair, and—”
“You’d try it again without an escort? Do you want to die?”
This stopped me short. Escort? In all of our talks, she had never mentioned an escort to me. Before I could say anything, though, she went on. “You can’t just go to the Everneath without an escort. The Shades will find you and take you to the Tunnels. I thought you knew this.”
“Wait,” I said, interrupting her. “Did you say escort?”
“Well, yes. I mean, without an escort, your energy will attract—”
“By escort, do you mean an Everliving?”
“Of course. No human who wants to live would venture into the Everneath without an Everliving. Their energy void masks your energy abundance. They absorb what you give off. And then the Shades aren’t so attracted. To go alone is suicide. You knew this. That’s why you needed to find Cole.”
I sigh, exasperated. “I thought I needed him for his hair!”
“Don’t you know your mythology?” she said in a tsk-tsk kind of way. “You need the entire ferryman to escort you to the Underworld. That’s your Everliving. Otherwise, the Shades come circling like sharks who smell blood.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. Part of me wanted to jump up and down at the news that I might be able to hide, and the other part wanted to smack Cole for not telling me. Was it possible that he didn’t know? I only considered it for a moment. Cole was hundreds, maybe thousands of years old. Of course he knew.
He just didn’t want me to know.
“So an escort is the key.”
“Yes.”
“Does the Everliving escort have to be willing?”
She cocked her head as if I were crazy.
“Never mind. I have to go. I have someone I need to talk to.”
She walked me to the door; and as she opened it, she said, “Just remember, if you do go to the Everneath, don’t eat anything.”
I didn’t need to ask her why not. Persephone had eaten six pomegranate seeds, and that was why she’d been forced to become queen of the Underworld.
“Don’t worry. I won’t eat a bite.”
When I got inside the car, I slammed the door shut, fuming. Cole had told me it was impossible to mask my energy, because he didn’t think I’d ever find out the truth. But he didn’t know I had Mrs. Jenkins.
“You lied to me, Cole.” I said it out loud. I was going to kill him. Then I was going to take his lifeless body, drag it to the Everneath with me, and use it as my “escort.”
Deep breaths.
Twenty minutes later, after several calming exercises Dr. Hill had taught me, I was in my room getting dressed for Harry O’s. I was pretty sure that’s where the Dead Elvises would be playing tonight, and now that I knew the truth, I wasn’t about to miss my chance to confront Cole.
SEVEN
NOW
The Surface. Harry O’s.
There were rumblings on the internet about Deads sightings in Park City. According to eyewitnesses on the scene, fans were already starting to line up at Harry O’s.
I pulled off my yoga pants and changed into some dark jeans. I even put on my black leather boots, which Cole had complimented once. Anything I could do to encourage him to give up information. But after our encounter yesterday and then that whole fiasco with the queen, I didn’t know if I was ready to face him again. Every meeting with him brimmed with intensity. It didn’t matter how sure I was of my intentions when I was alone. When I was with him, I couldn’t trust myself. I knew it when he showed up at the graduation ceremony. My reaction was beyond the reasoning mechanism inside my head. It was down to an elemental level. My brain knew to stay away, but every cell in my body reached out to him. A reflex reaction.
I wondered if he could sense it too. I hoped he couldn’t. I needed him to think I wasn’t susceptible to his influence. It would make saving Jack harder if he knew the truth.
My dad had gone back to work after the detective left. Despite his protectiveness today, some of the discrepancies surrounding Jack’s disappearance had to be bothering him as well. But I couldn’t think about that now. I realized how selfish it sounded, but repairing my damaged family would have to wait. Would there ever be a time when my strained relationship with my father and brother wouldn’t be overshadowed by the fallout from my mistakes?
I hoped so.
I got to Harry O’s a few minutes before the band was scheduled to take the stage. The air in the club dripped with sweat and an alcoholic mist. There was no way I’d avoid coming home smelling like beer. One step inside and my clothes had already soaked it up. Hundreds of fans crammed the dance floor and overflowed onto the viewing platforms near the bar at the back. There was a lot more skin showing than the last time I was here, evidence of the summer weather.
Because I was alone, I easily slipped through the congested areas and settled into a spot on the edge of the first riser. The Dead Elvises’ popularity had grown in the past few months. They’d released a couple of new songs, and rumor was they were going to debut one tonight. Since the concert was technically a secret, there was no guest list at the entrance. People would file in until the crowd threatened the fire ordinance.
I couldn’t believe I was here again. I’d met Cole at this very club. Jules had talked me into going with her. She’d been worried about me because the trial of the drunk driver who’d killed my mom was about to start.
I thought
I’d been good at hiding my grief, but Cole could see it.
C’mon, sad girl, he’d said. Dancing makes everything better.
It was the first time I’d realized there was something about him … something more than human. Something irresistible.
It was also the first time I’d acknowledged the strange connection between us.
That connection only grew during our hundred years together in the Feed. It was still there at Jack’s graduation ceremony, when I’d felt him behind me before I saw him.
Even now I could sense his presence. His nearness. The band wasn’t out onstage yet, but I knew he was close. I stared at the stage. Past it. If the curtains suddenly disappeared, I knew I would find Cole in my direct line of sight. My tingling skin knew it as well. The connection would never break.
The lights dimmed, and the MP3s faded out. The anticipation was palpable. I glimpsed movement on the stage, but it was too dark to be sure. Then, in one sudden moment, the stage lit up, reflective light bouncing off chrome instruments, and there was the band.
Max on second guitar, his black hair longer than I remembered. Oliver on bass. Gavin on drums.
And there was Cole. Fierce and beautiful and seizing all the attention in the room with one sure strum of his guitar. His onstage glory hit me fresh, as if I’d been in a rainstorm for the past few months and the sun had finally come out.
I wondered if the other people in the crowd had that same reaction to him when he was playing, or if it was because of our distinct history—our literal tie to each other. The faces of the people around me showed that they felt it too. At least to some degree.
For me it was overpowering. I had to look away. Staying in one place became difficult, because my natural instinct right now was to storm the stage.
But when I felt Cole’s gaze on me, I chanced a look up.
In the sea of faces, his eyes somehow found mine, his face a strange mixture of surprise and something else I couldn’t pinpoint. It had taken him seconds to spot me.
As he played, I could feel a change inside me. The black pit of guilt—the constant ache that had defined me since Jack disappeared—began to ease up. The viselike grip it had on my soul relaxed slightly.
For a split second the relief from my pain felt good. So good, I didn’t think I ever wanted it to end. But something wasn’t right; and, in the back of my mind, I realized Cole was feeding on my guilt.
Feeding on my emotions. Again. It’s what Everlivings did best. Cole was so good at it, he could focus on me from across the room and skim off my uppermost layers of emotions. The worst ones, like my guilt right now, were always at the top.
Cole was draining my guilt, and for a moment I let him. I angled my shoulders toward him to make it easier. The pressure, the weight of my pain—not just Jack, but also the pain of missing my mother, of disappointing my father, of abandoning my brother—began to ease away, releasing its constricting hold on my heart. I closed my eyes, and for a moment I let myself believe that nothing mattered.
I was alone. Surrounded by his music, all the tension in my body assuaged by the melody, each strum of his guitar pressing against the aches. Because that’s what Cole could do. He could make everything that mattered disappear. In a room full of people, he could make me feel as if I was the only one and that I had nothing to worry about.
Someone bumped into my shoulder, jolting me out of the daze.
“Sorry,” the boy dancing beside me said.
I blinked a few times at him, then turned toward the stage. Cole smirked and lifted his head up in a welcome back sort of way.
Ashamed, I tore my eyes away from him; and, with all the strength I could muster, I made my way to the exit, his music following me, reaching for me almost like the Shades in the Everneath had done.
I paused outside the club doors with a hand over my heart. The light feeling left and the full weight of my guilt returned. My guilt must’ve been a powerful emotion for it to come back so quickly. It was my constant reminder of Jack. The pain of missing him was such a part of me now that if I didn’t hold on to it, I felt as if I would disappear. I couldn’t let anyone ever take it away. The guilt was my strongest reminder of what I needed to do.
I pushed off against the wall I’d been leaning on and ran into someone coming into the club. “Sorry—”
“Nikki?”
I glanced up. It was Jules. Looking pretty and light. I almost turned and ran back inside.
Everywhere Jules went, it was as if she brought the sunshine with her. She was with Tara Bolton and Kaylee … somebody. I couldn’t remember her last name. They were girls in our grade.
“Hey,” I said.
Jules looked at the other girls. “You guys go ahead.”
Tara shot me a curious glance, then went inside with Kaylee trailing behind.
When I didn’t say anything, Jules said, “You know, I’m not really in the mood for a concert. You wanna grab a coffee? I’ve been wanting to ask you something.”
Ask me something? I was almost more scared of her questions than I had been of the interrogation by the detective. Jules could always tell when I was lying.
We crossed the street and went into the coffee parlor at Grounds&Ink. Half of the place was dedicated to pool tables and the other half to cozy booths and comfy chairs. We ducked into a booth near the entrance that gave me a good view of Harry O’s and flagged down a waitress.
“Coffee?” Jules said.
She nodded and returned moments later with two mugs.
We sipped in silence. It was hard for me to look Jules in the face. If I had never come back, Jack would probably be with her, and they would be happy.
Jules was so close to both of us, yet she had no idea what had really happened last March. In her mind, Jack had come back to me and then disappeared. How could she not blame me?
She broke the silence first. “Detective Jackson keeps asking me questions about you.”
“Like what?”
She gave a faint smile. “They’re not very flattering questions. He wants to know if you’re mentally stable. If you’ve been seeing a shrink. If you’ve been acting weird. If I knew where you went when you disappeared before. Stuff like that.”
I grimaced. “What did you tell him?”
“That I don’t know anything. Because I don’t know anything.”
I stared at my coffee mug and took a long sip. I could feel her eyes on me. “Jules, I’m really sorry. About everything.”
She nodded. “Will you answer me one question?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where he is?”
How I wanted to tell her the truth. Last year, there wasn’t anything I would’ve kept from her. But the instant I imagined saying yes, I also imagined what I would have to explain, starting with the fact that there is an underworld called the Everneath.
I looked her in the eye and answered without any further hesitation. “I don’t know where he is.”
“I believe you.”
I felt my shoulders relax. “You do?”
She smiled. “If I know one thing about you, it’s this. You would never do anything to purposely hurt Jack. And if you knew where he was, you’d do whatever it took to find him.”
I wanted to leap across the table and hug her.
Jules ran her finger over the rim of her mug. “Do you remember when the Caputo boys and their little gang of thugs used to ride past our houses?”
My fingertips broke out in a sweat at the mention of the name Caputo. We were walking into dangerous territory. Memories. It was the memories of Jack that hurt the most. When I’d first come back from the Feed, I lived inside of those memories with him, because I knew he’d be okay. They were safe spots. But now, memories were just reminders that Jack was beyond my reach. That he’d never be safe again.
Memories were part of what I kept secured in the dam around my heart.
Jules watched me expectantly.
“I remember,” I whispered, hoping that wo
uld be the end of it.
“And you and I would store those spiky chestnuts, and we’d throw—”
I slammed my hand down on the table, startling her. “Sorry. I … don’t remember as much as I used to.”
She shook her head. “You’re lying. You just don’t want to remember.” She could still read me so well. But she wasn’t sympathizing. By cutting her off, I could see I’d crossed some sort of line. She frowned. “And I can only think of two reasons you don’t want to remember. Either you don’t know how to face what happened … or you feel guilty.”
It was as if I were sitting in front of her completely transparent. I looked away, out the window. A lot of time had passed, and people were now trickling out of Harry O’s.
I couldn’t face her anymore. “I have to go.”
Suddenly she latched on to my hand. “Becks. If you know where he is … you have to do something.”
“But—”
“Just promise me. If you know what’s happened to him, even if it’s bad, you have to tell someone. Do you hear me?” Her voice shook with emotion. “No more lies.”
I opened my mouth but couldn’t answer. So much for thinking Jules believed me. She knew I was hiding the truth from everyone. She knew I was responsible for Jack’s disappearance. She knew I was lying.
She lowered her eyes, slapped some bills on the table, and left without another word. Everything she said had added weight in my chest. I sat in the booth for a long time, staring at the checkered pattern on the plastic tablecloth, willing myself to get up.
When I finally stood, I crossed the street as the last few stragglers trickled out of the club. Cole was inside. And he held my only chance for getting Jack back.
Please, Cole. Please give me hope.
EIGHT
NOW
The Surface. Harry O’s.
As I walked in, the lingering smell of sweat and beer hit me in the face. A tall guy behind the bar eyed me. “Are you Nikki?”
I looked from side to side. “Um … yes.”
Everbound: An Everneath Novel Page 6
