Next to the picture was a painted rock from a grade-school art project. Jack had a real problem with throwing things away. Next to the rock sat a folded picture that looked like it had been crumpled up and refolded several times.
I pointed at it. “Is that—”
“Your picture,” he finished for me. “I showed it around when I used to look for you.”
“Oh.”
Above the desktop, on a shelf, were several books, most of which had Zen in the title. The one that didn’t was called What the Buddha Taught. I’d never seen any of them before.
Jack answered my unasked question. “They helped. When things got really bad.”
“Oh.”
He rubbed his eyes under his glasses, and then he opened the drawer in the nightstand and took something out, but I couldn’t tell what.
“You deal,” he said. He tossed me the deck of cards. They landed in my lap. “Then when you’re ready to talk, talk.”
Jack slid out of his bed and walked over to the closet to get a sweatshirt. His black T-shirt clung to his body and he was wearing cotton pants with the San Francisco Giants logo. His favorite team. Once he’d put the sweatshirt on, he sat on the floor across from me.
I’d been watching him, holding my breath, so I hadn’t even taken the cards out of the box.
“Do I need to review how to shuffle?” he asked.
I didn’t answer. I shook the cards out of their box, cut the deck, and then shuffled them back together. He cut the deck again and I dealt.
I couldn’t count all the times we’d done this before, from the time we were kids and my dad caught me in my backyard playing poker with Jack and Will under my trampoline.
Jack had told him the losers would volunteer at the home for the elderly. He knew my dad would go for that. Jack and I lost that day, and we kept our word. It was the one game I remember him losing.
Jack pulled a tin box full of old poker chips out from under his bed and gave us each a handful. The same poker chips we’d always played with. Red and black ones, from a casino in Wendover.
He put a toothpick in his mouth to chew. So Jack.
“Do you remember—” I started to say.
He watched me. Didn’t say anything. I wondered why he didn’t press, then I realized he was waiting for me. Everything out of my mouth tonight would be offered on my own.
I fanned my cards out in my hand and put them in front of my face, grateful for the barrier to Jack’s searching eyes. I could do this. I could do this. “I’ve been gone a long time,” I said. “Longer than anyone knows.”
I didn’t know if it was the draft that made me shudder, or the sudden release of a burden of secrecy, even though Jack couldn’t possibly guess the full meaning behind my admission.
He studied his cards, arranging their order. “How long?” he asked.
My answer came out in a sigh. “Years and years. I know how it sounds.”
But he didn’t question me on the time discrepancy. Instead he asked, “Were you hurt?”
The sheer innocence of the question made me sad. “A little.”
“Have you told anyone else?”
“No. I … don’t know how … really.” My voice started to waver, and I buried my face in my hands. I shivered again, and he reached behind him to pull the top quilt off his bed. The quilt his mother had made for him when he turned twelve. He sat beside me and put the quilt over me.
“Shh. It’s okay. You’re okay now. You don’t have to talk anymore. Just close your eyes.” I curled up on the floor, and he lay down next to me, staying on top of the quilt while I was under it. He rubbed the back of my hand. “I’m here, Becks. Whatever it is you’re scared of, I’m here.”
I lost the ability to dream long ago. Dreams can’t exist where so much energy has been taken away.
I had dreamed during my first few years—or maybe decades—in the Everneath. But as my own supply of energy dwindled, the dreams became shorter and shorter, until they disappeared completely. Along with all of my memories.
But that night with Jack, I dreamed.
Senseless dreams at first, as if my brain had been kick-started after a long winter in the garage. No defined shapes, no awareness of location.
But then my dreams held meaning. I dreamed I was thrown into a shallow grave, with layer upon layer of dirt piled on top of me, crushing my chest until my heart exploded.
But I couldn’t dream. It was supposed to be impossible.
I jerked awake.
My face was so close to Jack’s. Almost touching.
Still asleep, Jack tilted his head toward me, and his lips brushed against mine. At that moment, I felt something rush through me, like a surge of power. Jack’s eyes opened wide. I leaped back and we both froze.
“Whoa,” he said. “Were we…?”
“About to,” I answered. Then I thought about how I was dreaming, even though I wasn’t supposed to be able to, and it hit me.
I’d stolen energy from him.
When our lips were so close, I stole enough energy to Feed, and that put me over the dream threshold.
I shot up and backed away until I was in the far corner of the room. “I’m so sorry. I never should have… I should go.”
“No. No more running away, Becks.” He held his hands out in front of him, palms down. His calm voice couldn’t mask his confusion. “What was that?”
“Um… I’m so sorry.”
“Stop apologizing. Just talk.”
“Okay, but you stay over there.”
He nodded, as if he weren’t even considering coming any closer to me.
“I don’t know where to start.” I hugged my knees into my chest and rested my chin on top. “I think of the words I would have to use to explain everything, and I don’t believe them myself.”
“I’ll be straight with you. Up until that kiss, I thought it was drugs. Now I don’t know. So try me.”
I took a deep breath. “That kiss felt different?”
“Yeah.”
“Good different?”
He paused. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry, Jack. I know exactly how you feel, because I felt it too my first time.” When Cole fed off me. I couldn’t believe I’d just done the same thing to Jack. How did I let it come to this?
“Your first time?” He grabbed his glasses off the nightstand and wiped them with the sleeve of his shirt. “Then start there. Tell me what happened.”
“I’ll try. You remember leaving for football camp?”
“Yeah.” Jack rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and put his glasses on. “It was the last time I talked to you. You were standing with Cole. Is that when you started to hang out with him?”
“Yes. Going to concerts. Stuff like that.” I bit my lip. “Look, I’m just going to try to keep talking, and it may not make sense at first, but if I stop, I won’t be able to start again.” Jack nodded. “Cole took me rafting one day, with the rest of the band. They wanted to shoot the Tube, and they invited me.”
Jack shook his head. “Shooting the Tube after the spring runoff?”
“I know. Not the smartest move.” I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. “We hit a rock and I fell out.”
He drew in a sharp breath. “He never should have taken you. You’re not big enough. Were you hurt?”
“The current dragged me under, and as I kicked to the surface, my leg caught on a branch or rock or something. I couldn’t get it free. I practically had to rip my leg off to get to the surface again, and when I did I was bleeding. A lot.”
I closed my eyes, remembering strong hands pulling me to the bank of the river. “Hang on, Nik. You’ll be okay,” Cole said.
“Keep talking. What happened next?” Jack said.
I opened my eyes. “I was lying on the bank. Pressing on the gash.” Red liquid had seeped between my fingers.
“I can make it go away,” Cole said. “Do you want me to take the pain away?”
Jack placed his hand on my ankle and urged my leg straight. He pushed the hem of my jeans up. The raised skin of my scar twisted from my shin around to the back of my calf in a jagged line.
“Oh,” Jack said. He lightly touched the scar and traced the line. “It’s deep.”
I nodded and watched his hand on my leg, his callused fingers on my skin. Goose bumps appeared and I shivered.
“Are you cold?”
I shook my head and tucked my leg back in, pulling my jeans leg down in the process.
“What happened next?”
“Cole said he could make it feel better. And I let him.”
LAST YEAR
The shore of the rapids. One week before the Feed.
The shivers were violent enough that my teeth bit into my tongue several times. I could taste blood. But I didn’t care, because all I could think about was the pain in my leg. It was so bad, I wondered if the leg was still attached, or if it had been ripped off and was floating down the river somewhere.
“She’s in shock,” a voice said above me.
“My leg,” I said. Speaking made me choke. There had to be some river water down my throat. I coughed, throwing up water.
Strong hands helped turn me over, so I wouldn’t puke lying on my back.
“You’re okay, Nik.” Cole’s voice.
I needed someone to tell me if I still had my leg. I tried to point to my leg, but my arms flailed about.
“Whoa. Settle down.” His voice was soothing. “You’re fine.”
“Dude, it’s gushing blood.”
“Shut it, Gavin,” Cole growled. “Take off your jacket.”
I heard fabric tearing and felt pressure on my leg. “This might hurt a little,” Cole said.
Then the real pain hit. Like a hot poker jabbing through the skin and muscle of my leg, burning as it tore its way to my bone.
I screamed. I had to get away from the poker. I thrashed and twisted, trying to free myself.
“Nik! Stay still.”
I screamed again and shook my head. Two hands clenched my shoulders, and I heard Cole’s voice.
“Nik. Open your eyes.” I did. Cole’s face was inches from mine. “Do you want me to take the pain away?”
“Cole!” Maxwell said from somewhere behind him.
Cole kept his eyes on me, but he shook his head. “It’s not your decision, Max.”
“But the exposure,” Max said.
“Enough!” Cole growled. “It’ll work out.”
Maxwell didn’t say anything else. I could barely keep my eyes open; the pain in my leg was making everything else blurry, but Cole wouldn’t let me move.
“Do you, Nik? Do you want me to help with the pain?”
I nodded, keeping my mouth shut so I wouldn’t scream again.
“Tell me. Tell me what you want.”
“Please,” I said, and then I gasped and tried to grab my leg, but Cole had me pinned. “Make it go away.”
Cole leaned even closer, and for a moment I thought he was going to kiss me, but I didn’t have the presence of mind to turn away. His lips didn’t touch me, though. He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath, and with that, the sharpest edges of the pain in my leg dissipated.
He took in several more deep breaths, and each one made the pain less and less, as if I’d been bitten by a snake and he was sucking the venom out. I could finally breathe without wincing, and when Cole asked me if I was okay, all I could answer was, “Keep going.”
NOW
Jack’s bedroom.
“So, what, he had drugs or something?”
I shook my head. “The drugs were just a rumor. He…” I couldn’t finish. Putting it into words was harder than I thought it would be, and it was only a fraction of the whole story. I wanted to give up.
“Tell me, Becks. Just keep going.”
“He sort of kissed me, and he was right. He took the pain away.” I skipped the part about the century underground. I had to see how Jack would react to this small piece of the puzzle. “And now I can sort of do the same thing. But I don’t need to. I can survive without it.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes. I couldn’t look Jack in the face, even though it was dark in his room, so I looked out the window. There were no stars tonight, or maybe the clouds were blocking all of them.
“Is this some sort of metaphor? Are you messing with me?”
“No.”
“Show me,” Jack said.
I jerked my head around to look at him. “Show you what?”
“Kiss me.”
“No.” I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until I let it out. “I can’t.”
“You have to.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it will help me understand. If I hadn’t felt it before, I wouldn’t have believed a word. Do it again, so I know it wasn’t all some weird dream.”