Everneath. Part 31

He took my silence to mean it was safe. We held our lips together, tentative and still.

But he didn't let it stay that casual for long. He pressed his lips closer, parting his mouth against mine. I s.h.i.+vered, and he put his arms around me and pulled me closer so that our bodies were touching in so many places.

He pulled back a little. His breath was on my lips.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I dreamed of you every night." He briefly touched his lips to mine again. "It felt so real. And when I'd wake up the next morning, it was like your disappearance was fresh. Like you'd left me all over again."

I lowered my chin and tucked my head into his chest. "I'm sorry."

He sighed and tightened his grip around me. "It never got easier. But the dreams themselves." I felt him shake his head. "It's like I had a physical connection to you. They were so real. Every night, you were in my room with me. It was so real."

I tilted my head back so I could face him again, realizing for the first time how difficult it must've been for Jack. I kissed his chin, his cheek, and then his lips. "I'm sorry," I said again.

He shook his head. "It's not your fault I dreamed of you, Becks. I just want to know if it was as real as it felt."

"I don't know," I said. But I told him about the book I'd read on Orpheus and Eurydice, and my theory that it was her connection to Orpheus that saved her. When I finished, I asked him what he thought.

"It would make sense, I guess." He got a faraway look on his face. "I dreamed you were somewhere dark and you couldn't see."

I thought of the Cavern, and the alcove, and the Shades that bound us and shut out any light. "I don't know. So much of what happened has been wiped away." But not enough. The truth was, I couldn't see. My encounter with the Everneath had left scars on my brain, and hearing Jack talk about the darkness made them burn a little.

Jack touched his forehead to my forehead, his nose to my nose, and gave me a sad smile that was so sweet I almost forgot the spark of memory that had just been dredged up. Almost.

LAST YEAR.

The Feed... the forgetting.

Once I'd decided to go with Cole, things happened quickly. I stayed holed up in his room for a few days, and each time I started to consider changing my mind, Cole would Feed off that top layer of energy, taking away my doubt, my pain, my foreboding, and my hesitation disappeared.

Soon, the Everlivings from the band had all gone under with their Forfeits, and Cole and I were the only ones left. Cole said this was because he needed time to prepare for the trip, and since he hadn't planned on taking me, we would be a couple of days behind. I never asked what kind of prep work he was talking about.

At the time, though, I waved aside any explanations. I was in this room of forgetting, and if the Everneath was anything like this, I never wanted to leave. He helped me out of my jacket, exposing the black tank top beneath, grabbed my hand, and I think he said, "Ready?"

I don't know if I responded, but he took my hand and pulled me under.

Like a coc.o.o.n.

The beginning of my century in the Everneath is a blur. The middle is gone entirely.

At first, I remember seeing a giant s.p.a.ce, like an underground cave. In the rock walls were hundreds, maybe thousands, of tiny holes carved out. They reached upward, farther than my eyes could see in the dark.

I breathed in, expecting a stale, musty odor, like the Timpanogos caves near Park City, but instead there was no identifying smell at all.

The sheer size of the place overwhelmed me, and I remembered wondering why I felt claustrophobic in a place so large. It was like the darkness itself was a physical ent.i.ty, and just as that thought formed in my head, I saw the shadows on the walls begin to ripple and sway, as if a candle were flickering nearby. But there was no candle. In fact, there was no light source I could see. I moved closer and squinted, and that's when the shadows peeled away from the walls. They came over to me, snaked around my back, and guided me until I was standing in front of Cole.

Dark splotches of fluid ran down the wall where the shadows had been, as if little bubbles of oil had burst there. I reached out to touch it. Whatever it was, it didn't feel cool like liquid. It felt like air.

I turned to Cole to ask him what it was, but I didn't get a chance. The shadows surrounded us, pus.h.i.+ng us closer together. "Just relax," Cole whispered.

The shadows began to move in circles around us, swirling, accelerating to the point where they looked like blurs of black, transforming into shrouds against my skin. They coc.o.o.ned us, and the tighter they wrapped, the tighter my chest felt. But I guess I didn't need to breathe, because I didn't feel myself fighting for air.

Cole's face was at my ear. "They're Shades, Nik. They control the energy. They bind us together and they protect your energy from spilling out and wasting any."

"I don't care." And I didn't. Whatever this netting was that surrounded me, it lifted me up off the ground and held me suspended in the air, in a place where sorrow couldn't reach me. I was protected from everything that ever had, or ever would, hurt me, and I couldn't imagine ever wanting to leave. I was safe.

The Shades constricted against us, so Cole and I were as close as possible, our limbs pressed together, our arms around each other.

Looking back, I'm pretty sure we ended up inside one of the alcoves in the wall. Me, Cole, and our coc.o.o.n of shadows.

At first, my memories of the Surface began to change as I started forgetting the most recent events of my past. My mom wasn't dead anymore. She was there in our kitchen, making coffee and pancakes on a Sunday morning. And my dad wasn't forgiving the drunk driver who killed her. He was with her in the kitchen, his arms around her waist as she turned the eggs over with the spatula. And Jack wasn't with someone else. He was waiting for me beneath the trampoline, a deck of cards in his hands.

Eventually, though, my mom was in the kitchen alone, and I couldn't remember what she was doing. And Jack wasn't waiting under the trampoline. He was floating in a sea of nothing-no setting, no home.

And then there was no Mom, no kitchen. Jack's face was there, but there was no name to go with it. Everyone stopped existing. Everyone except for Jack, and even the memory of him was something I had to reach out and touch every so often, so as not to lose it.

Cole would ask me what I remembered of my former life. My answer was always the same.

"Nothing."

TWENTY-EIGHT.

NOW.

My bedroom. One week left.

Kissing Jack was like forgetting.

Forgetting the mark on my arm. Forgetting the Tunnels coming for me. Forgetting Cole. I realized it was probably the same for him, because he was kissing me like his lips couldn't remember how to do anything else. I was sure there would never be a reason for us to stop.

He kissed away the Tunnels, and he kissed away my doubts.

Our hands were all over each other, as if we were committing to memory every texture, every curve of the other. Jack pushed my jacket off my shoulders and down my arms and tossed it aside, revealing my tank top and my bare arms. Instinctively I tried to cover the mark on my left arm with my hand, but he wouldn't let me.

"Let me see it," he said.

I closed my eyes and rolled onto my back, but I let him hold my arm. He traced his fingers from my collarbone down my arm to where the mark stopped. He kissed my shoulder, where my mark was darkest, and then he lay down on his side next to me, facing me, his hand propping his head up.

"I'm going to kill him."

I sighed and mirrored his position. "You can't kill him. He's sort of immortal."

"Who says?"

I shrugged. "He's been around since the time of ancient myths."

"But when he's here, he's made of flesh and blood. Whatever form he takes, he is flesh. And blood."

"Even so, I don't think it's as simple as that."

His shoulders sagged a bit. "I know." He glanced down at my arm. "Do you know how much time you have?"

"No. Not exactly. A little over a week, maybe."

"What about Meredith? Wouldn't she have the same amount of time?"

I thought back to the few days I'd spent in Cole's apartment, just before he took me underground. By the time we left, none of the other band members were on the Surface. They'd all been ready with their Forfeits. "She left before me. That means she probably Returned before me."

"And the Tunnels will come for her first." Jack gave a grunt of frustration.

Something hit me right then, and a split second later I made sure the burst of intuition didn't show on my face. Even if Will returned with Mary, and even if she did know how to kill Cole, I had no idea if my debt would be destroyed as well. What if the Tunnels were coming for me no matter what?

Jack looked like he was about to ask me what was wrong, so I brought his face to mine again.

For the first time in a hundred years, Jack's lips were against mine in a real kiss. He was mine again, and in that moment, I made a decision.

I had to find a way to stay. And I wouldn't stop searching for a loophole to my fate, until the moment the Tunnels dragged me away.

The next morning, Jack called and said Will was having trouble coaxing Meredith away from the cabin. He wanted to pick me up and take me to her.

"I can't leave right now," I said, cradling the phone.

"Why?"

"The election's tomorrow. I can't leave my family. I can't risk these last moments. I promised myself I would prepare them."

He was quiet.

"I don't mean tell them I'm leaving. But last time I disappeared in the middle of a fight with my dad. I can't leave him like that again."

"It's okay, Becks. I'll go, and I will bring her back, even if I have to force her."

I grimaced, but I knew he was telling the truth.

I promised Jack I'd do as much research on the internet as I could while they were gone, but there were only so many ways I could type "how to avoid the Tunnels" into the search engine.

As my days dwindled, it was like I was living two lives. The hopeful side of me raced around, frantic to find an answer, and the reasonable part of me had settled into savoring the last moments with my family.

Trying to get alone time with my dad would be impossible until after the election, so I contacted Percy Jones and did whatever task he told me to do-pa.s.sing out flyers, making phone calls-knowing the effort would eventually get back to my dad.

Cole was giving me s.p.a.ce. I was sure he thought I was at the tipping point. He had left me alone to contemplate my future. He didn't know Jack had come back. If he did, he would've been at my window, whether he promised to leave me alone or not.

After two long days, Jack called me and said he and Will were on their way home.

My dad won by a wide margin, so when the polls closed, there was no question.

His campaign held the victory party at the Silver Lodge Hotel near the ski resort, and I put on the same black dress I'd worn to the Christmas Dance, and I cheered at the right times and hit the balloons as they fell from the net in the ceiling.

I don't know how I missed it, but I did. Even as Percy was making the announcement in the microphone, introducing the victory band, I still didn't quite get it. Even as the last of the balloons fell lazily to the floor, and the older supporters made way for the younger ones, I still didn't get it.

The Dead Elvises were about to play at my father's victory party. Surprise. I was standing there, in the center of the crowd, frozen.

One of the campaign contributors next to me said loudly to her friend, "Percy did it. He got the band to play!"

There was only one reason they'd play a stodgy election party, and it wasn't because of Percy. They were here for me. They took the stage one by one. Cole was the final one out, his entrance delayed for impact. The entire band believed what Cole believed: that I would lead them to the throne in the Everneath.

Maxwell backed Cole up, and fans who I'm sure couldn't give a rat's a.s.s about politics swarmed the dance floor.

My dad had done it. He'd shown everyone he was the hip answer to our town's stagnant tourist industry. The Dead Elvises were playing his party. Op-ed piece be d.a.m.ned.

But this time I was not a starstruck fan. When the band ratcheted up the energy, I could see the traces of emotion from the people on the dance floor hanging in the air like a buffet.

As the band finished one song and began another, Cole's voice boomed over the crowd.

"This one's for the mayor's daughter." Cole used the neck of his guitar to point toward me from the stage.

A few attendees turned their heads in my direction, and I automatically backed up until I hit the wall.

Cole began to pick out a slower, discordant melody. One that almost begged for resolution. As he played, some of the lighter shades of emotions-the pleasant ones that you'd find at a victory party-wafted through the air, as if attracted to the sounds of his guitar. Cole and the band were sampling from every single person there.

The colors that sought his guitar were soft, gentle hues, and as they gathered strength above Cole they began releasing droplets, like a storm cloud's first hints of rain. The droplets danced and swayed above him and his guitar, as if they were obeying the instrument.

I glanced around at the faces in the audience. It was obvious none of them saw the colors as I saw them.

Looking back at Cole, I realized the drops were acc.u.mulating on the guitar. He made sure I was watching as he tipped his head back and inhaled deeply, sucking in much of the electric mist surrounding him.

Seeing him gorge himself on stolen emotions made me realize I was still so empty. I felt the hunger, so I started toward the exits to get away, but then something changed. Something was pulling me back. Pulling me down. My eyes lost focus, and the noise from the band was replaced by a ringing sound in my ears.

A group of campaign contributors saw that I was leaving. One of the women pulled me to her, saying she wanted to introduce the mayor's daughter around.

My heart was beating fast. Too fast, as if the blood were spilling out of me and it couldn't keep up. As the strangers shook my hand, their faces blurred together. Somebody was asking me about college but I couldn't hear above the m.u.f.fled ringing in my ears.

"Are you okay, dear?" the woman who had dragged me over asked.

"Um... I'm fine. I just..." I noticed a fog above me, larger and denser than the one from the Christmas Dance. Cole was directing it. But the energy cloud wasn't from other people ... it was from me. The entire band was feeding off me.

Everything was blurry. I tried to reach my hand up to my head, but it wasn't obeying me. As I looked up, I lost my bearings. I stepped backward to try to balance, but I'd really stepped forward, and the red carpet came rus.h.i.+ng at my face. Just as I expected to slam into the floor, two arms caught me around my waist.

"Okay, Becks. You're okay. Stay with me." Jack's voice in my ear. Then louder, "She's just a little hypoglycemic."