Now I know he was probably feeding off every last drop of it.
Today he wore his regular uniform of black jeans, black T-shirt, black jacket. His eyes were still dark. His hair still blond.
His hair. His hair. My ticket to the Everneath, right in front of me. I looked at his face, but all I could think about was the last time I’d seen him, and how he’d promised to never give up trying to make me an Everliving and take over the throne, together.
My head was spinning.
“Nik? You okay?”
I tried to take a step away, but it was more like a lurch, and Cole reached out a hand to steady me.
I shook my arm free. “Don’t touch me.”
He pulled his hand back, palm outward. “Fine.” He raised his eyebrows in a question, which made me want to gouge out his eyes. As if he should question why I’m so upset.
“Do you know what I’ve been through?” I said. “I lost …” I wanted to say Jack, but somehow it felt wrong to utter his name in front of Cole. In fact, I never said it anymore. And why was I talking about this? Wasn’t I supposed to be asking Cole how to get to the Tunnels? But now that he was here, I suddenly needed him to understand my pain. To feel it. Because he looked so fine, as if he had been through nothing, and I knew how I looked.
Broken.
“Yes,” Cole said.
“Yes what?”
He frowned and inclined his head toward me. “Yes, I know what you’ve been through. I know loss.”
I shook my head and looked away.
“You may not believe me, but I do,” he said, his voice quiet.
I faced him. “Why are you back?”
“We have some unfinished business.”
“You or the band?”
He gave a soft smile. “Both. Maybe. In fact, I learned a few things in my travels. Things that might interest you.”
“Like what?”
“Like how you survived the Feed.”
My whole body tensed. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I know that Jack saved you, through his undying love for you while you were in the Feed.”
My face went blank. If Cole knew that Jack was my anchor, did he also know that now I was keeping Jack alive? I didn’t want him to know about my connection to Jack, or anything else that he could use against us.
Cole studied my face. “I can see this is not brand-new information. You already know how you survived, don’t you? You’ve known all along.”
“Not all along.” Not until Meredith made the connection for me. “A friend helped me figure out about the anchors.”
“Yes, well, I couldn’t stop there. I had to find out more, but I couldn’t think of a mythological precedent to go with the anchor theory.” His forehead wrinkled as if he was working out a math problem. “Which is strange, considering how much of our real history is hidden in the myths. I was frustrated until some friends pointed me to the most obvious source.”
“Which is?”
“Morpheus. The god of dreams.” He let the name hang in the air for a moment before he continued. “Do you remember how I told you that mortals are consistently exchanging energy? How a smile can be infectious? And a bad mood can spread? Well, the same is true in dreams. The dreamer can provide energy to …” He waved his hand as he seemed to search for the right word.
“The dream-ee?” I offered.
He quirked an eyebrow. “The subject of the dream. This happens all the time. The Greeks simply created a god who embodied the connection between dreamer and … dream-ee.”
“Morpheus.”
“Yes. It’s an even stronger connection when one mortal is in the Everneath, because the Everneath is fueled by emotions and therefore is closer to an actual dream state than anything on the Surface. I think that’s how Jack kept you young during the Feed.” He said this triumphantly. When I didn’t respond immediately, he added an exasperated “Ta-da.”
“So he kept me alive through his dreams.”
He nodded.
I waited for him to go on, but he remained silent. “I’m happy you found your answers, but what was the point?”
“Well, on the off chance things don’t work out between the two of us—”
I couldn’t help snorting, and he gave me a faux-offended look.
“May I continue? If we don’t work out, I’m going to have to find another Forfeit in about ninety-nine years. And I’d like to find one who has the same sort of attachment to the Surface. Of course, it will be infinitely more difficult to convince a Forfeit who is still attached to someone to come to the Everneath with me.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You can be very persuasive though.”
“Quite.” He gave me a mischievous grin, and my mind flashed to how easily he’d persuaded me to give up everything.
I hurried to change the subject. “So why are you telling me this?”
“Because, Nik.” He seemed to choose his words deliberately. “Haven’t you figured out why? Now I know it’s your turn to keep Jack alive.”
I could feel my eyes go wide, and he grinned, satisfied that he finally had my undivided attention.
“How do you know he’s still alive?” I said.
“Because you’re still standing.” He tilted his head in a knowing sort of way. “You’ve been dreaming about him, haven’t you?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Not your business.”
“Yes, but …” He tugged at the sleeve of his jacket. “This limbo state you and Jack are in, it can’t go on indefinitely. And you’ll know when it’s over. Because …” He hesitated.
“Because he won’t be in my dreams anymore.”
“Has that happened yet?” he asked.
“No,” I said, my hands squeezing into fists. “He’s still alive.”
“But not for long. And when that happens, maybe you’ll reconsider. Being with me.” He shifted his stance and looked away.
My mouth hung open for a moment. “You’re saying, Hey, when the love of your life dies, give me a ring?”
He frowned, and his voice grew soft. “Jack’s as good as gone.” I started to protest, but he stepped forward and grabbed my hand. His eyes looked forlorn, as if it hurt him to say what he was saying. “That pain you’re feeling, it will get worse. And you know there’s only one way to escape it.”
“Death.”
“No. Life. Eternal life. With me.”
I closed my eyes. Cole had a way of showing up at my most desperate moments with the easy way out.
“I’m not a bad person, Nik. You changed me.”
“How?” I demanded, skeptical.
“You showed me that relationships are worth sacrifices. I used to think they were fleeting, but I know better now.” He took a deep breath. “You made me a better person. I mean, a better immortal.” He said the last part with a wink.
I didn’t believe what he was saying, but I decided to use it. “If you’re such a better immortal now, then help me.”
He raised an eyebrow. “With what?”
“I need to get to the Tunnels.”
He froze for a moment, then gave a sarcastic laugh. “You kill me.”
“He’s still alive. I have to find him.”
He frowned, all evidence of laughter gone. “Don’t be stupid.”
“I can get to the Tunnels. You said that woman who took the pill in the Shop-n-Go would be taken there.”
“Yeah, by the Shades. And they weren’t taking her there as part of some Everneath bus tour. They were taking her there to bury her alive and drain her.” He spoke as if he were scolding a child.
“But at least she made it there.” I could hear the desperation in my own voice.
This stopped him short. He looked at me as if I’d lost my last marble.
“Please help me.”
He grabbed my shoulders, digging his fingers in. “Jack is beyond help. Jack is as good as dead. And if you go there, you will be too.”
“But at least I would’ve tried,” I said stubbornly. “Because I can’t spend my whole life, let alone the eternity you want, like this.”
He pulled me even closer, our faces inches apart, and I felt that familiar electricity between us, that unmistakable draw from one to the other. The feeling that we belonged next to each other, limb to limb. Skin to skin. The result of spending a century intertwined. My legs touched his, my hip was against his; and at the contact, my body breathed a sigh of relief, as if it were whole once more. That feeling of being complete with Cole reached my brain too. It was suddenly hard to think.
His dark eyes pierced mine. “If you go to the Tunnels, that wouldn’t be trying. That would be giving up. Giving up your life. The one that Jack saved.”
His words faded away, because when I was this near to his lips, he couldn’t help but feed off my top layer of emotion, which was my guilt. Just by breathing in he could make me feel better.
But he knew what I was doing, and he released me, taking a step back. The look on his face told me he was surprised I’d let him feed off of me. “I would never help you go to the Tunnels.” He glanced away and seemed to deliberate for a moment. When he turned back, his shoulders were set and his jaw was tight, as if he had just decided his next move, and it wasn’t what he had expected. “I can’t stay here. This was a mistake.”
“What?”
He sighed and shook his head. “I’m leaving. I’ll see you again when it’s over.”
He meant when Jack is dead. “Wait!” He couldn’t just disappear on me again. “Where will you be?”
He paused and looked over his shoulder. “I’ll leave town again. Go someplace where I can be alone for a while.”
Alone? That meant I wouldn’t even be able to track the band, not that I’d been successful at that.
“But you just got here.” My voice sounded frantic.
He shrugged. “I came alone. Told the guys I needed a break. But you’re obviously not in the right state of mind to talk. It’ll be easier if I go someplace and wait it out so I won’t have to see your face when it all goes down with Jack. Believe it or not, I can’t watch you go through it.”
If he disappeared on me now, I would lose Jack. I had no idea where the rest of the band was, and I didn’t know any other Everlivings. “Wait!”
He started walking again. My chance to save Jack was walking away.
“Cole, wait!”
He didn’t stop.
So I did the one thing I had control over. I sprinted for him, and when I caught him, I grabbed a handful of hair on the back of his head. And yanked.
Hard.
“Ow! What the hell, Nik?”
Then I ran.
Rain pelted my windshield as I tore through the streets and toward the Shop-n-Go.
There was nothing in my rearview mirror. Did Cole have any idea what I was doing? Even if he did, did he care?
I thought about the last time I’d had Cole’s hair at the Shop-n-Go. How I’d been so close to swallowing it and letting the floor of the store swallow me. If I’d had the courage to do it then, Jack would be here. Alive.
I hadn’t been brave enough.
But today I had something I didn’t have then. Now Jack’s life was on the line, and I had nothing to lose. When I first Returned to the Surface, I’d wasted so much time thinking there was nothing I could do to escape my fate. I’d waited too long to act. I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
I tried not to let thoughts of my dad and my brother convince me otherwise; and before I knew it, I was rushing past Ezra, the Shop-n-Go cashier, on the way to the back of the store—the same corner where, months ago, I’d seen a tired, worn-out woman give up on life and choose the slow decay of the Tunnels. The exact spot where the wall between the Surface and the Everneath was at its thinnest.
And before I could think about failing, I placed Cole’s hair on my tongue and swallowed. Hard.
As the floor turned liquid and covered me in a clear, slimy film, I heard shouting. Probably from Ezra. It sounded as if he was screaming through water.
It was too late. I was going to the Everneath.
FOUR
NOW
The Everneath.
The only way to describe the next feeling was like being caught in a washing machine. On spin cycle. The sensation of falling and never touching the ground. No light.
I threw my arms out, trying to find some sort of balance, but there was nothing I could grab on to and no way to right myself. I began to think this was the Everneath, and I would spend the rest of my days churning and twisting, when suddenly it all stopped and I landed somewhere solid. I blinked my eyes open and took in a sharp breath.
I shouldn’t have expected the Everneath to be as dark as the Feed caverns. Cole had always told me that most of the Everneath was a place of light, but I wasn’t expecting the extraordinary brightness of the place I had landed in. But it wasn’t a true light; it was more like a film that had been overexposed.