“That I’ll always be twelve years old. Going on eleven. He doesn’t know.”
“He knows,” Jack said, always reading my mind. “He just refuses to see.”
I shrugged. “He’d kill you if he knew.”
“He knows, Becks. He’s just trying not to lose you again.”
We drained our cups, and I rinsed out the first one and put it in the sink; but as I was cleaning the second one, I accidentally dropped it and it shattered in the sink. Jack came up behind me and put his arms around me.
“Don’t be nervous,” he said.
I shook my head, confused. I wasn’t normally a klutz. The coffee cup hadn’t even been slippery. “About summer school? I’m not. It must’ve . . . slipped or something.”
He dipped his head toward my neck; but before his lips could make contact, the door connecting the kitchen to the garage swung open, and my dad rushed in. Another one of his “surprise” visits that worked almost as well as a chastity belt.
Jack sprang away from me as if I’d given him an electric shock.
“I forgot my travel mug,” my dad said. “I trust I’m not interrupting anything.”
“No, Mr. . . . Mayor,” Jack said, his voice shaky.
Mr. Mayor? I rolled my eyes. Could he be any more formal? “Actually, Dad, we were just about to leave for school,” I said.
My dad raised an eyebrow. “Great. We can all walk out together.” My dad looked at his watch. “I have to get to the office.”
I nodded and pulled out my own phone to check the time.
My dad stared at the hand that held the phone. “What’s on your wrist?” he said. “Did you hurt it?”
Confused, I looked down. Right along the wrist line there was the faint shadow of a dark band. It wrapped around the entire circumference of my wrist, as if a watch band had rubbed some of its color off on my skin.
But at first glance it looked like a light bruise.
I pulled down my sleeve, glimpsing Jack’s suddenly wide eyes. “It’s nothing. I think my bracelet just left a mark.”
I smiled and kissed Dad’s cheek, grateful once again that my dad wouldn’t have noticed that I didn’t wear jewelry.
I grabbed my bag, and Jack followed me out the door, staring intently at his phone as he walked. Once we were in the car, I jabbed my elbow into his ribs.
“You seemed enthralled with the blank screen of your phone back there,” I said.
“What’s on your wrist?” he said. The effort he used to force his voice to sound calm had the opposite effect. He sounded devastated. “Did I do that? Did I grab your wrist the other night?” He sucked in a deep breath. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” I said. “No. I don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t hurt.” I held out my hand in front of his face, twisting my wrist back and forth. “It’s not anything.”
Jack closed his eyes and nodded. “Okay.” The second he turned on the ignition, my phone buzzed with a text.
I checked the screen. “From Cole,” I said.
“What did he say?”
I took a deep breath as I reread the message on the screen. I involuntarily looked at the mark on my wrist before I read the text out loud. “He’s asking if my shackle has appeared yet.”
Jack pressed his lips together, and his nostrils flared. “Is he talking about your wrist?”
I shrugged.
“How would he have known?”
“It’s probably a coincidence,” I said, but the way it came out didn’t sound very convincing.
“Text him back. Tell him we need to see him. Now.”
I texted and got an immediate response. “He says he’ll see me at school.”
Jack sighed. He gunned the gas and then let up off the pedal as if he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to get me to school faster or never take me there at all.
FOUR
NOW
The Surface. On the way to summer school.
Jack took the corners tight. Fast. As if he’d decided on speed over turning in slow circles.
I was happy he was paying so much attention to driving that he didn’t see my face, because my reaction to Cole’s text was a little more baffling.
It was exhaustion. I fought to keep my eyelids up. My head kept tilting to the side as I started to drift off. I thought maybe some fresh air would help, but when I went to raise my hand to open the window, nothing happened. My hand didn’t move from its position on my thigh.
I stared hard at the hand, willing it to go up, but Jack pulled in front of the school before the hand actually moved.
It was as if I were on a ten-second delay.
Jack threw the car into park and then turned to say something to me, but whatever it was he wanted to say got caught in his mouth once he saw my face. His eyes grew wide.
“What?” I said.
“You’re so pale. And the circles under your eyes are even darker than they were. You look . . .” His voice faded away as he seemed to catch himself from saying something else.
“I look what? Say it.”
He frowned. “You look worse than when you first came back from the Everneath.”
Without hesitating, Jack leaned forward and kissed me. Still, there was . . . nothing. No exchange of energy. Our kiss was just a kiss.
He pulled back. “It’s still not working. I didn’t feel any energy leave me.”
“Me neither.” I sighed. “So maybe this weakness is a human thing, not an Everneath thing.”
Jack frowned again and looked as if he didn’t believe me. “Maybe we should go to a doctor.”
“Hah!” The exclamation was involuntary, as if I didn’t have the energy to control my immediate reactions. For a moment I felt a burst of energy, and it showed itself through words pouring out of my mouth. “Sorry. I just . . . suddenly I thought about how that visit would go. The doctor pulls out a stethoscope, holds it to my chest, and asks me to breathe deep. Then he gets a really confused look on his face. He puts the little listener thingy on another spot. Then another. He’ll be speechless. And then we’d have to act all surprised and be all ‘What? No heartbeat? Huh. Funny. Moving on, the bigger problem is why do I have circles under my eyes?’
“And he’d say, ‘Wait a second. Did you hear me? No heart!’ And we’d be all ‘Yes, yes, we heard you. But other than missing a major organ, what’s wrong with me?’ And then he’d go on and on about the whole no-heart thing, and then I would try to distract him by doing that dance I do—you know, the one that looks like the running man. . . . But before I finish my entire routine, the doctor would be texting the CIA to tell them about my lack of heart, and the rounds of involuntary government testing would begin. And then—”
Jack leaned forward and cut off my next word by covering my lips with his. It was a few minutes before we stopped, and by then I’d forgotten everything except the feel of Jack’s lips pressed hard against mine.
When he stopped to breathe, he said, “It’s not the CIA.”
“What?” I said breathlessly.
“It’s not the CIA who would conduct the government tests. That’s just silly.”
I squinted one eye. “That was the silliest part of my whole Nikki-at-the-doctor scenario?”
“Well, the dancing was kind of silly.” Jack’s smile faded slowly into a frown as he touched the circles under my eyes. “I just hope you’re right. I hope it’s a human thing.”
“It is,” I said, the exhaustion settling back in.
Jack got out of the car and opened my door. I stepped out and stood up straight, and that’s when everything went black.
I came to a few moments later, on the ground looking up at the sky. And Jack’s face.
“Becks! Are you okay?”
I nodded and sat up.
“Take it easy,” Jack said.
“I think . . . I just stood up too fast.”
Jack’s brow furrowed.
“I’m okay,” I said, struggling to speak. “Really. That’s all it was. I didn’t eat very much this morning; all I had was coffee. I’m fine.”
I grabbed his hand, and he helped me up. He didn’t let go of my fingers.
“I’m fine,” I insisted. “I’m going to go to class. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure. I’ve got a granola bar. I’ll eat it on my way in.”
He pressed his lips together and sighed. “Okay. I’ll be here.”
I left him standing there. I tried to walk with purposeful, steady steps; but the entire time, I knew that this was a symptom of my missing heart, and that nothing on the Surface would fix it.
I entered through the glass doors, a completely different person than I’d been one year ago, although you wouldn’t think it to look at me.
And that’s what the few people in the halls were doing right now. Looking at me.
I could understand why, after Jack’s disappearance last spring and my rumored involvement. I think the story went something like this: I had drawn Jack into my web of crazy, and then just when I’d had him in my trap, I’d chased him out of town.
I didn’t care as much about the rumors this time, though.
I was still skinny. Skinnier than I’d been when I’d returned to school last year. But back then my soul was weak. Now it was strong. I didn’t look it, but I knew what I was capable of. I’d traipsed through the three elemental rings of the labyrinth to reach the heart of the Everneath and save Jack. The trip had nearly killed me.
Rumors were nothing in comparison.
But I lowered my head as I remembered what the trip had cost me. Cole had tricked me into feeding on him three times in the Everneath. So in a way, maybe the trip did kill me.
I shoved my backpack farther up on my shoulder and wound my way through the halls to Mrs. Stone’s summer Creative Writing class. I turned a corner and nearly ran headfirst into Jules.
“Becks,” she said in that breathless voice she used when she was unsure about something. She was probably unsure about a lot of things when she saw me, starting with the fact that both of us knew I was keeping secrets from her. Secrets such as where I’d been when I’d disappeared last year. Where Jack had been when he had disappeared in the spring.
I had so many relationships to mend, and Jules was at the top of my list.
“Hey, Jules,” I said. “You look great.”
She instantly smiled, and I remembered how easily Jules could forgive, if she felt as if someone was willing to meet her halfway.
“Thanks. You look . . .” Her voice trailed off as she got a look at my face. “Are you okay?”
I nodded and turned to look down the hall, partly so I could check for Cole and partly so she couldn’t get a clear look at my face.
“Didn’t get much sleep. Are you doing Creative Writing?” I said.
She nodded.
“Do you want to sit together?” I asked.
“Great!” she said. I couldn’t tell if her enthusiasm was forced or genuine.
We walked together in silence the rest of the way. Things were nowhere near normal, but it was a start.
In Mrs. Stone’s classroom, I went down the second row, she went down the first, and we took two desks next to each other. Tara Bolton walked in moments later, and Jules waved to her, motioning to the seat in front of her. When Tara sat down, she smiled hesitantly toward me, then turned around to talk to Jules.
I caught maybe every third word she said, but I smiled as if I knew what was going on. Where was Cole?
The rest of the class settled in. My suspicions had been right: the students there were all the main competitors for valedictorian.
There were no bells since it was a summer class, but the moment the clock above her desk read ten o’clock, Mrs. Stone turned to the blackboard and wrote the words The Twelve Labors of Hercules.
“Welcome to summer school,” she said in that voice that sounded as if she were in a Shakespearean play. As a side job, she gave private voice lessons for aspiring actors at night, so she always enunciated her words clearly. “This is Creative Writing, and just because it’s a summer class, that doesn’t mean you won’t have homework tonight. So if you are not in the mood to work—”
She didn’t get to the threat part, because right then the door swung open.
If I had had a heart, at that moment it would have exploded in my chest. Cole had just walked in the doorway, only it didn’t look like him. Instead he was taller, darker haired. His alter ego, Neal. It was a disguise he used only when he needed to pass as a high school student. It took a lot of energy for him to change his appearance, so he used the disguise only when he really needed to.
But why would he need to today? I hadn’t seen Neal since before the Tunnels came for me, when Cole had enrolled as a student at Park City High just to get closer to me.
I wasn’t surprised he was appearing as Neal. It was my reaction to seeing him that shocked me. That spiral of hate that I’d been nurturing suddenly burst in my chest, running through my veins and reaching my fingers and toes. It was all I could do not to run at him, head and shoulder first, as if I were a linebacker or something, despite the fact that I knew that if I tried, I’d collapse in an exhausted heap on the floor before I even reached him.