I frowned and shook my head. “What are you talking about?”
He grabbed my shoulders. “It’s important, Nik. Look around and tell me if there’s anything out of place. Any new object that you don’t recognize.”
His eyes were wild.
“You’re scaring me,” I said.
“Everything will be okay once you find it.”
Apprehensive, I looked all around for whatever he was talking about, frantically searching every surface for something foreign. The darkness made it difficult to see, but even so I thought everything seemed fine. But when my gaze got to my desk, I froze. There, next to my laptop, was a small gold object about the size of a pocket watch. I’d never seen it before.
Cole followed my gaze.
He held up his hand, warning me not to move.
“What’s going on?” I whispered.
“I’ll explain,” he said, his hand still up. He was creeping sideways, toward the desk. “Just give me … a … minute.…” He snatched the object as if it were a mouse about to run away.
Once he had it in his hands, the tension in his body disappeared. He opened it, checked out the contents, and then gave me a smile that could only be described as triumphant.
“Cole, please. Talk to me.” I don’t know why I was worried. I had Jack. We’d both made it out alive. “What’s wrong? It worked. We saved Jack.”
His eyebrows shot up. “What?”
He was surprised? “Look.” I pointed to my bed, where Jack was buried deep under the covers and sleeping soundlessly. His exhaustion was otherworldly, and I wasn’t worried that we would wake him.
Cole frowned. “How did he … ?”
“It was the token. The note. I’d left it in his hand.”
“But I told you to hang on to it.”
I shook my head in confusion. “Yes, but if I had, he wouldn’t be here.”
“How is he here?”
“He climbed out using the note. I know it sounds crazy, but …” Cole’s face told me the news was entirely unwelcome. “Wait. I thought you would know this. Why don’t you know this? What happened to you in the Tunnels?”
He gave me a look. “Nik, I never wanted to save Jack.”
“I know. But you helped me anyway. You were my hero.”
He shook his head. “I told you. There are no heroes.”
How could he believe that now? What loathing ran so deep inside him that would block out anything good? I stepped closer. “I don’t care what you think of yourself. I think you’re a hero.”
“Then you’re blind.”
I flinched. He seemed so unfeeling. So distant. I’d thought we were past the point where I had to convince him of his worth. I closed the distance between us and put my hands on either side of his face. “Tell me what’s going on.”
He sighed and leaned his head down toward me. “I don’t want to yet. I have this one moment … and only this one final moment … to enjoy how you see me. It’s in your eyes. I’ve done what I thought was impossible. I made you love me, but not in the way I needed. You love me as your friend.”
I nodded, still lost. “After what you’ve done, you are a friend.”
He leaned in, bringing his lips close to mine. Surprised, I pulled back and glanced at Jack to make sure he was still sleeping. “Cole, don’t,” I said.
Cole pressed his lips together. “Only ever a friend.”
“You know how it is,” I said, glancing at Jack again. “You know how it’s always been.”
“I know. That’s why I did what I did.” He released me and pulled away.
“Please tell me what you’re talking about.”
He took my hand and brought it to his lips, kissing it briefly before pressing it against my own chest. “Feel,” he commanded.
I felt. Nothing. I felt nothing.
Where my heart should be, there was nothing. Blinking rapidly, my eyes darted around the room as if I’d misplaced something.
Cole backed up toward the window, and when he was at the farthest point away from me, he folded his arms.
“Isn’t it amazing how well the Everneath knows what’s inside you? It takes three full days, but my world can transform your Surface heart into something that epitomizes you, right down to your very soul. And when you get your heart, you realize that object is so appropriate—so right—it could never have been anything else. The whole process is quite extraordinary. The power of the Everneath makes it happen, but it’s always seemed magical to me.”
There was a heaviness in my chest that I couldn’t explain. “Why are you telling me this?” I said in a low voice.
He brought his hand forward, showing the metal object he had grabbed from my desk. “You’ve completed your first step to becoming an Everliving. Your Surface heart is a compass. Your Everneath heart is vaulted.”
I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed.
My heart. My heart. It was gone. It wasn’t beating under my hand. That’s what was different.
My mouth dropped open, and I fought for breath. “You did this to me?”
“Actually, you did it to yourself. It was your choice to feed on an Everliving. In the Everneath. Three times, Nik. You chose it. All three times. In fact, that was the hardest part of this whole thing. The rules for creating an Everliving are very specific. The mortal has to ask to be fed by the Everliving. There was no way I could offer to feed you or even suggest that feeding you was a possibility. I have to admit, there were times on our little journey when I wondered if I’d ever get the chance to show you how feeding you would energize you. Was it too much to hope you would initiate a kiss? You gave me mouth-to-mouth, but unfortunately I wasn’t awake for it. I decided to find another chance to drown or get knocked out, but there weren’t a whole lot of opportunities.
“Then I saw you with your Siren. I only caught a glimpse, but I saw you kiss him. I thought, Maybe, just maybe … I ran back to my Siren—yes, Nik, I’d already figured out she wasn’t you—and I waited for you to find us. And voilà. The magical kiss to save me from the Siren.”
“I saved your life,” I said, incredulous.
“Yes. After I put myself in jeopardy. See, once you had a taste of what a kiss from me could do, I finally allowed myself to hope. There had to be at least two more times when you would be weak enough to beg for another kiss.”
I racked my brain, trying to remember.
Cole smiled. “The second time was when the Wanderers attacked you. The third time was in the Tunnels.”
It didn’t make sense. None of it made any sense. Cole had gone to the Everneath to help me, hadn’t he? I thought of the ultimatum I’d given him, when I threatened to ingest his hair and go back by myself.
“I had to beg you to come with me,” I said.
“If I had instigated the whole ‘let’s go to the Everneath and search for Jack’ scenario, you never would’ve trusted me. You would’ve always been looking for my ulterior motives. And I needed your trust. Your unquestioning, implicit trust.”
“But Max warned me to stay away from you! Why would he do that if being with you was part of the plan?”
“We knew if Max looked too eager, you would get suspicious.”
I shook my head. He’d played me. He knew me so well, and he’d played me. That was the real reason Ashe had followed Cole. Why Max had never gotten so frustrated that he abandoned us. They were in on it.
I glanced quickly at Jack and then lowered my voice. “Mrs. Jenkins warned me not to eat.”
Cole frowned. “Yes. Mrs. Jenkins was the wild card. I had no idea how much she really knew. She knew enough to warn you not to eat in the Everneath, but she didn’t know what was really meant by ‘eating.’”
“She’s dead.”
Cole’s face remained blank. “I know.”
“Did you kill her?”
Cole smiled wryly. “No.”
I let out a small sigh of relief.
“Max did. With the help of the rest of the band.”
&
nbsp; My mouth dropped open. “But … why?”
“She knew about you. She was a loose end.”
I put my hand on my stomach and sank to the ground. Cole watched, but he didn’t make a move to comfort me. I put my head in my hands. “No. This can’t be right. Tell me this is a dream.”
“It’s a dream come true,” Cole said with a smirk. Then his face became serious. “You’re safe, Nik. Nobody knows about you except the band now. The queen doesn’t know you survived the Feed. She doesn’t know a threat even exists. We’ve made you safe.”
“You’ve made me one of you!” I hissed.
“I know. I’m sorry.” He stood next to the windowsill, knees slightly bent, coiled and ready to spring.
He was leaving. “Wait!”
“What?”
“Give me my heart. Please. It doesn’t matter if I break it since my second heart is in a vault in the Everneath, right? So give it to me.”
Cole looked from his closed fist to my face. He slipped the compass into his pocket. “Sorry, Nik. I’m really sorry. But there are certain … perks for the Everliving who holds your heart. And I hold yours. Now we’re even.”
“How?”
His face went soft. “You’ve always held mine.”
He swung one leg over the side of the window.
“I trusted you,” I said, my voice shaky with anger and exhaustion.
“I know,” Cole said simply. He jumped out the window and leaned his head in for one last moment. “And now I have all of eternity to earn your forgiveness.”
When Jack opened his eyes the next morning, I was sitting with my back against the wall, watching him. He looked at the bed next to him, put a hand on the pillow, and turned.
When he caught my gaze, his eyebrows furrowed.
“Becks. Are you okay?”
I nodded.
He stretched his arms above his head. “What time is it?”
“It’s eight thirty.”
He looked at me again. “What’s wrong?”
I tried to smile. “Nothing.”
He grimaced. “Do you honestly think I’m gonna buy that? Tell me what’s going on.”
There was no avoiding it. What I had planned, Jack would find out eventually. It would be better if he knew now. Then maybe he could help me.
I pushed off the floor and returned to sit by him in the bed. I took his hand in both of mine.
“You know the Everneath?”
He smiled and gave a small laugh. “Uh, yeah, I think I’m familiar with it.”
“Good. Because I’m going to destroy it.”
His smile faded.
“I’m taking the whole. Damn. Thing. Down. Are you with me?”
He brought my hand up to his lips and kissed the space between my thumb and fingers. “Always. Forever.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to my agent, Michael Bourret, who deserves to be knighted for his hard work and patience on my behalf.
Thank you to the rest of the DGLM staff, especially Lauren Abramo, who has my back on every other continent.
Thank you to my amazing editor, Kristin Daly Rens, who worked tirelessly on draft after draft after draft of Everbound, always pushing me a little bit further to make the book shine and ensure that the world of the Everneath came alive. Now you know this world better than I do! I hope you liked the healthy dose of Cole.
Thank you to the rest of the HarperCollins team, especially Sara Sargent, Caroline Sun, Emilie Polster, countless “smoke” designers, mapmakers, and all the other people behind the scenes.
Thanks to the SIX: Bree Despain, Emily Wing Smith, Kimberly Webb Reid, Valynne Maetani Nagamatsu, and Sara Bolton, a.k.a. the best critique group a girl could ask for. Without you all and our weekly writing days, the Everneath would’ve been a bland, boring world.
Thank you to all of my friends who have supported me on this crazy ride. If I named you all, I know I’d leave someone out.
Thank you to my mom and dad. Despite everything going on, you read my pages like you have nothing else to do in the world.
Thank you to my family: the Erin and Dave Gubler family, the Jacksons, the Johnsons, the other Johnsons, the Ellingsons, and the Otts. Together, you are responsible for at least half of my book sales.
Thank you to my boys, Carter and Beckham. You have been so patient, even though you think I live in my study.
Thank you to Sam. No words.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BRODI ASHTON is also the author of EVERNEATH. She received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Utah and a master’s degree in international relations from the London School of Economics. She has an active following on her blog, which can be found at www.brodiashton.blogspot.com. Brodi lives in Utah with her family.
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CREDITS
Cover art © 2013 by pixelspace
Photo of girl © 2013 by Howard Huang
Cover design by Ray Shappell
COPYRIGHT
Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Everbound
Copyright © 2013 by Brodi Ashton
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ashton, Brodi.
Everbound : an Everneath novel / Brodi Ashton.—1st ed.
p. cm. — (Everneath)
Summary: “Now that Nikki Beckett’s boyfriend has been sucked into the Tunnels of the Everneath, Nikki must journey down to the underworld to bring him back before he is lost forever.”—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-06-207116-3
EPub Edition © DECEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780062071187
[1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Future life—Fiction. 3. Love—Fiction. 4. Hell—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.A8276Eum 2013
2012028327
[E]—dc23
CIP
AC
Map illustration by Jordan Saia
12 13 14 15 16 LP/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
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Everbound: An Everneath Novel Page 26
