Everneath. Part 6

"I pulled back. "Do what okay?" It hit me then that this was my first dance since my mom died. I felt a little guilty that I hadn't realized it before. It was just that the night was so perfect. Before he could explain, I said, "Yes. You did great."

"Night, Nikki."

The next morning, I found a note in my jacket pocket. I unfolded it and read two words, written in Jack's handwriting.

Ever Yours.

SIX.

NOW.

My bedroom. Four and a half months left.

I walked into my house after school with a smile on my face. Even the smallest interaction with Jack, and the fact that he noticed my blush, was enough to send me into orbit.

But as I got closer to my bedroom, the mark on my shoulder began to tingle.

Cole was here.

I opened my bedroom door slowly.

"It's been over a month, Nik." Cole was sitting on my bed, strumming his guitar. And as usual, I tried to ignore him. There was nothing I could do about his visits, but that didn't mean I had to make it easy for him. Without looking at him, I took my books out of my bag and placed them on my desk, turned the lamp on, and opened my notebook.

I scratched my mark.

He strummed a little louder, but I still didn't turn. "You won't last. You must see that."

"Find somebody else to entertain you," I said.

"There is no one else."

I turned a page in my notebook and started writing again. "There's always someone else. You've been Feeding off Forfeits for hundreds of years. Get a new one."

"You don't give my job enough credit. It's really hard to convince a girl to follow me. The average pickup lines don't work so well. 'Hey, wanna get coffee? And then spend an eternity getting the life force sucked out of you?' They don't go for it. Think about it, Nik. Would you have come with me if it weren't for Jack being such a-"

"Don't blame Jack," I said, even though I wondered if deep down, a tiny part of me wanted to blame him too.

"You're still defending him?" His voice bounced off the walls, seeming extra loud. And then he started strumming again. "He left you before you ever left him. He'd never take you back."

The words stung. "I don't want him to take me back."

"You don't have to lie to me," he said. He knew me too well.

I swiveled around in my chair. "I'm serious. You're right. He deserves better."

"You expect me to believe you? You would choose the pain of a Return, and for ... what? Just to see him? For a few moments? Not to get with him?"

I nodded defiantly. Besides, Jack wouldn't want to get with me. Cole was right. He'd left me first.

Cole sighed. "Then you'll get hurt. Again. And so will he. You were broken before I ever took you to the Everneath. Remember how you were when you showed up on my doorstep? That had nothing to do with me. You came broken and that was the fault of this world. Not mine."

I nodded again, a little less aggressively. "Why do you care if I get hurt?"

All he said was, "I hate to see it. Whether you go with me or not, I don't like you getting hurt." But his face seemed to say more. As if there were something he wasn't telling me.

Before I could ask him about it, his iPhone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out, read the screen, and then walked over to the window. "We'll finish this later."

"Tell me why you care," I said.

He put his hands on the windowsill. "Because it's you. Despite what you think of me, your pain will always be my pain."

"There has to be more to it than that. What aren't you telling me, Cole?"

He grinned. "How are you so good at reading me when you can't read anyone else around you?" He sighed, and as he climbed out the window, he said, "I love it."

He pulled the window down before I could say anything.

I slammed my book shut, frustrated. He practically admitted he was keeping something from me, but what was it? Why did he care if Jack hurt me? Why was he hiding something from me when my fate was already sealed?

I closed my eyes and put my head in my hands. Cole's visits drained me, but right now he held all the cards because he had all the information, and I didn't know anything.

I raised my head. That was my problem-I didn't know enough about the Everneath and the Everlivings. Cole obviously had secrets he was keeping from me, and I could only think of one reason he would do that-he had a weak point. Cole valued his power. I had to a.s.sume he would conceal anything that posed a threat to that power.

I put my books away and grabbed my coat. I didn't know if finding out more about Cole and the Everneath would get me anywhere, but I had to take a chance.

I decided to follow him.

There was only one way out of our neighborhood, so it wasn't hard to guess which way Cole went.

The evening air had an early winter bite to it, and I wondered how Cole could stand riding his bike in this cold. Once I got out to the main road, I looked toward the left, the direction that would lead to town, and saw the unmistakable narrow taillights of a motorcycle. It had to be him.

I kept my distance. I wouldn't learn anything if Cole saw me. The road was long and straight, and I didn't have trouble until we got closer to town and he made a few sharp turns, one right after the other. I lost sight of the motorcycle, but I kept going in the direction of Main Street, keeping my eyes glued to every side street and every alley, so I almost missed his bike. It was in plain view, in the parking lot of a convenience store right off Main.

Not just any convenience store. My convenience store.

The Shop-n-Go. The same place where the Everneath had spit me out. I flipped my car around and pulled over about a block down the road, then killed the engine and crossed the street on foot. I was so concerned about being seen, I actually tiptoed.

As I got closer, I could see Cole through the store window, near the entrance. I crouched down behind a wall that separated the shop from the dry cleaner's next door, and watched.

Cole pushed the door open and came outside, and I ducked down even further. But I could still see him. He leaned back against the brick wall of the store as if he were waiting for something. He took the guitar pick out of his pocket and stared at his hand as he rolled the pick over his fingers. It was a typical Cole move. I'd seen him do it many times since the night we met.

I was close enough to hear him breathe. What was he doing here?

The door opened again, and I heard a man's voice.

"It's done." He was talking to Cole. The voice was familiar. I couldn't see him-he was behind a pillar.

"Good." Cole's voice. "Keep it up."

"Why?" The other voice sounded exasperated. "We're already ahead of our quota. And it's not getting easier. This guy took a lot more persuading than usual. Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d was clinging to life. Was convinced he had a granddaughter somewhere out there."

"I don't care. If we fall behind, the queen's people will start asking questions," Cole said. "And if that happens, that means more attention on us, and a better chance someone will find out about Nikki and report back to the queen."

At the mention of my name, I took in a quick breath, and then covered my mouth so they wouldn't hear me.

"Won't it look suspicious if we flood the queen with food?"

"No. She'll be too high on energy to question anything. It's only when she's hungry that she gets curious."

They were quiet for a moment, and I silently prayed they would keep talking.

"Fine," the other voice said. "It had better pay off."

"It'll be worth it."

I heard one of them sigh but didn't know which one. "So when's it going to be your turn to bring an offering?"

I heard Cole's unmistakable chuckle. "When you find someone as strong as Nikki, I'll do the same for you."

"You saying Meredith isn't strong?"

They both laughed at this.

Meredith. She'd been a year older than me at school. She'd dated Maxwell-the Dead Elvises' second guitarist-and become his Forfeit. What had happened to her?

Their voices were growing softer, and I realized they were probably walking away toward the parking lot. Then the engines of two bikes roared to life, and they peeled away. One went up the street, and the other pa.s.sed me on the way down. I pressed even farther back in the shadows but I could still see his face when he went by, confirming what I'd already guessed.

It was Maxwell.

Once I couldn't hear their bikes anymore, I stood up and looked at the shop. What did they mean, Meredith wasn't strong? I wondered where Meredith had ended up, if she was still alive, if she had come back to the Surface, or if she was deep in the Tunnels. And why didn't Maxwell make her the same offer Cole made me?

Right now my only clue was the Shop-n-Go.

I went inside. The clerk at the register looked like he was a couple of years older than me. He didn't even glance up from the paper he was reading.

I walked toward the back, trying to see anything out of place, any clue as to what they were doing. The only thing I noticed was the strong smell of liquor. When I rounded the final corner, to the place where I'd landed when I'd returned, I found nothing. No person covered in sludge. No doorway going down. It looked the same as before. It could've been any spot in any convenience store, except the smell of alcohol seemed to be strongest here.

I crouched down and touched the tile, wondering how in the world I'd pa.s.sed through it when I Returned. It felt dry and cold, just like it looked.

But as I was close to the ground, something caught my eye on the floor under the nearest rack of goodies. A brown bag, concealing what looked like a bottle. It was turned on its side, surrounded by a puddle of light brown liquid. The last of the contents dripped slowly out.

I stood up and searched the shop. It was empty of customers, except for me. I crouched back down and looked at the bottle, which had to have been dropped recently. Someone was just here, minutes ago. It couldn't have been Max's or Cole's. They rarely drank anything harder than beer. They didn't need to.

I didn't know what it meant, if anything. But whoever dropped the bottle, he wasn't here anymore. I walked up to the counter, to where the clerk was still reading his paper, sucking on a lollipop. His name tag said EZRA.

"Excuse me. Did you see anybody in here?"

He took the sucker out of his mouth, but he didn't look up. "When?"

"Just now? In the back?"

"Nope."

I watched him. I probably could've broken out in a full-on tap dance right then and he wouldn't have noticed.

"Are you sure? Maybe a guy with a paper sack, with a drink in it?"

He finally looked up, totally bored with the conversation. "You mean the old homeless guy?"

Now we were getting somewhere. I tried not to sound crazy. "I don't know. Did he have a bottle?"

He gave me an exasperated smirk, like I wasn't making sense, which I guess I wasn't. "There was an old guy, came in with another guy a few minutes ago. But they left."

Another guy. Maybe he meant Maxwell.

"Was the other guy younger? And tall? With black hair? And a black jacket...?" My voice trailed off as the guy slowly wrinkled his forehead.

"What are you, a detective or something?"

Yes. A seventeen-year-old detective. I smiled and tried to look normal. "I'm just looking for my friend."

He narrowed his eyes, then went back to his paper. "They came in and looked around. Then they left. Didn't buy anything." He put the sucker back in his mouth.

"They both left?" I'd only seen Maxwell come out of the shop. No old guy.

"You don't see them here anymore, do you?" The guy was definitely done with me. He put in his earbuds and pulled out an iPod.

"Thanks for your time," I said, even though it was obvious the guy couldn't hear me. I left the store and climbed back into my car, my breath coming out in foggy puffs.

An old man who may or may not have disappeared, and Maxwell talking about an offering. It sounded so ominous. Or it sounded like nothing.

My brain was spinning as I drove home. I tried to make sense of it all, but there were still so many questions, and I didn't know if anything I'd learned could help me, but what had I expected when I followed Cole? That he would lead me to a magic key that would unlock my salvation?

I wished I knew exactly what I was looking for.

One thing I did know-Cole didn't want the queen to find out about me. I tucked this piece of information in my back pocket. Maybe it would come in handy.