Everbound: An Everneath Novel (8 page)

My dad had gone back to work after the detective left. Despite his protectiveness today, some of the discrepancies surrounding Jack’s disappearance had to be bothering him as well. But I couldn’t think about that now. I realized how selfish it sounded, but repairing my damaged family would have to wait. Would there ever be a time when my strained relationship with my father and brother wouldn’t be overshadowed by the fallout from my mistakes?

I hoped so.

I got to Harry O’s a few minutes before the band was scheduled to take the stage. The air in the club dripped with sweat and an alcoholic mist. There was no way I’d avoid coming home smelling like beer. One step inside and my clothes had already soaked it up. Hundreds of fans crammed the dance floor and overflowed onto the viewing platforms near the bar at the back. There was a lot more skin showing than the last time I was here, evidence of the summer weather.

Because I was alone, I easily slipped through the congested areas and settled into a spot on the edge of the first riser. The Dead Elvises’ popularity had grown in the past few months. They’d released a couple of new songs, and rumor was they were going to debut one tonight. Since the concert was technically a secret, there was no guest list at the entrance. People would file in until the crowd threatened the fire ordinance.

I couldn’t believe I was here again. I’d met Cole at this very club. Jules had talked me into going with her. She’d been worried about me because the trial of the drunk driver who’d killed my mom was about to start.

I thought I’d been good at hiding my grief, but Cole could see it.

C’mon, sad girl
, he’d said.
Dancing makes everything better
.

It was the first time I’d realized there was something about him … something more than human. Something irresistible.

It was also the first time I’d acknowledged the strange connection between us.

That connection only grew during our hundred years together in the Feed. It was still there at Jack’s graduation ceremony, when I’d felt him behind me before I saw him.

Even now I could sense his presence. His nearness. The band wasn’t out onstage yet, but I knew he was close. I stared at the stage. Past it. If the curtains suddenly disappeared, I knew I would find Cole in my direct line of sight. My tingling skin knew it as well. The connection would never break.

The lights dimmed, and the MP3s faded out. The anticipation was palpable. I glimpsed movement on the stage, but it was too dark to be sure. Then, in one sudden moment, the stage lit up, reflective light bouncing off chrome instruments, and there was the band.

Max on second guitar, his black hair longer than I remembered. Oliver on bass. Gavin on drums.

And there was Cole. Fierce and beautiful and seizing all the attention in the room with one sure strum of his guitar. His onstage glory hit me fresh, as if I’d been in a rainstorm for the past few months and the sun had finally come out.

I wondered if the other people in the crowd had that same reaction to him when he was playing, or if it was because of our distinct history—our literal tie to each other. The faces of the people around me showed that they felt it too. At least to some degree.

For me it was overpowering. I had to look away. Staying in one place became difficult, because my natural instinct right now was to storm the stage.

But when I felt Cole’s gaze on me, I chanced a look up.

In the sea of faces, his eyes somehow found mine, his face a strange mixture of surprise and something else I couldn’t pinpoint. It had taken him seconds to spot me.

As he played, I could feel a change inside me. The black pit of guilt—the constant ache that had defined me since Jack disappeared—began to ease up. The viselike grip it had on my soul relaxed slightly.

For a split second the relief from my pain felt good. So good, I didn’t think I ever wanted it to end. But something wasn’t right; and, in the back of my mind, I realized Cole was feeding on my guilt.

Feeding on my emotions. Again. It’s what Everlivings did best. Cole was so good at it, he could focus on me from across the room and skim off my uppermost layers of emotions. The worst ones, like my guilt right now, were always at the top.

Cole was draining my guilt, and for a moment I let him. I angled my shoulders toward him to make it easier. The pressure, the weight of my pain—not just Jack, but also the pain of missing my mother, of disappointing my father, of abandoning my brother—began to ease away, releasing its constricting hold on my heart. I closed my eyes, and for a moment I let myself believe that nothing mattered.

I was alone. Surrounded by his music, all the tension in my body assuaged by the melody, each strum of his guitar pressing against the aches. Because that’s what Cole could do. He could make everything that mattered disappear. In a room full of people, he could make me feel as if I was the only one and that I had nothing to worry about.

Someone bumped into my shoulder, jolting me out of the daze.

“Sorry,” the boy dancing beside me said.

I blinked a few times at him, then turned toward the stage. Cole smirked and lifted his head up in a
welcome back
sort of way.

Ashamed, I tore my eyes away from him; and, with all the strength I could muster, I made my way to the exit, his music following me, reaching for me almost like the Shades in the Everneath had done.

I paused outside the club doors with a hand over my heart. The light feeling left and the full weight of my guilt returned. My guilt must’ve been a powerful emotion for it to come back so quickly. It was my constant reminder of Jack. The pain of missing him was such a part of me now that if I didn’t hold on to it, I felt as if I would disappear. I couldn’t let anyone ever take it away. The guilt was my strongest reminder of what I needed to do.

I pushed off against the wall I’d been leaning on and ran into someone coming into the club. “Sorry—”

“Nikki?”

I glanced up. It was Jules. Looking pretty and light. I almost turned and ran back inside.

Everywhere Jules went, it was as if she brought the sunshine with her. She was with Tara Bolton and Kaylee … somebody. I couldn’t remember her last name. They were girls in our grade.

“Hey,” I said.

Jules looked at the other girls. “You guys go ahead.”

Tara shot me a curious glance, then went inside with Kaylee trailing behind.

When I didn’t say anything, Jules said, “You know, I’m not really in the mood for a concert. You wanna grab a coffee? I’ve been wanting to ask you something.”

Ask me something? I was almost more scared of her questions than I had been of the interrogation by the detective. Jules could always tell when I was lying.

We crossed the street and went into the coffee parlor at Grounds&Ink. Half of the place was dedicated to pool tables and the other half to cozy booths and comfy chairs. We ducked into a booth near the entrance that gave me a good view of Harry O’s and flagged down a waitress.

“Coffee?” Jules said.

She nodded and returned moments later with two mugs.

We sipped in silence. It was hard for me to look Jules in the face. If I had never come back, Jack would probably be with her, and they would be happy.

Jules was so close to both of us, yet she had no idea what had really happened last March. In her mind, Jack had come back to me and then disappeared. How could she not blame me?

She broke the silence first. “Detective Jackson keeps asking me questions about you.”

“Like what?”

She gave a faint smile. “They’re not very flattering questions. He wants to know if you’re mentally stable. If you’ve been seeing a shrink. If you’ve been acting weird. If I knew where you went when you disappeared before. Stuff like that.”

I grimaced. “What did you tell him?”

“That I don’t know anything. Because I
don’t
know anything.”

I stared at my coffee mug and took a long sip. I could feel her eyes on me. “Jules, I’m really sorry. About everything.”

She nodded. “Will you answer me one question?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know where he is?”

How I wanted to tell her the truth. Last year, there wasn’t anything I would’ve kept from her. But the instant I imagined saying yes, I also imagined what I would have to explain, starting with the fact that there is an underworld called the Everneath.

I looked her in the eye and answered without any further hesitation. “I don’t know where he is.”

“I believe you.”

I felt my shoulders relax. “You do?”

She smiled. “If I know one thing about you, it’s this. You would never do anything to purposely hurt Jack. And if you knew where he was, you’d do whatever it took to find him.”

I wanted to leap across the table and hug her.

Jules ran her finger over the rim of her mug. “Do you remember when the Caputo boys and their little gang of thugs used to ride past our houses?”

My fingertips broke out in a sweat at the mention of the name Caputo. We were walking into dangerous territory. Memories. It was the memories of Jack that hurt the most. When I’d first come back from the Feed, I lived inside of those memories with him, because I knew he’d be okay. They were safe spots. But now, memories were just reminders that Jack was beyond my reach. That he’d never be safe again.

Memories were part of what I kept secured in the dam around my heart.

Jules watched me expectantly.

“I remember,” I whispered, hoping that would be the end of it.

“And you and I would store those spiky chestnuts, and we’d throw—”

I slammed my hand down on the table, startling her. “Sorry. I … don’t remember as much as I used to.”

She shook her head. “You’re lying. You just don’t want to remember.” She could still read me so well. But she wasn’t sympathizing. By cutting her off, I could see I’d crossed some sort of line. She frowned. “And I can only think of two reasons you don’t want to remember. Either you don’t know how to face what happened … or you feel guilty.”

It was as if I were sitting in front of her completely transparent. I looked away, out the window. A lot of time had passed, and people were now trickling out of Harry O’s.

I couldn’t face her anymore. “I have to go.”

Suddenly she latched on to my hand. “Becks. If you know where he is … you have to do something.”

“But—”

“Just promise me. If you know what’s happened to him, even if it’s bad, you have to tell someone. Do you hear me?” Her voice shook with emotion. “No more lies.”

I opened my mouth but couldn’t answer. So much for thinking Jules believed me. She knew I was hiding the truth from everyone. She knew I was responsible for Jack’s disappearance. She knew I was lying.

She lowered her eyes, slapped some bills on the table, and left without another word. Everything she said had added weight in my chest. I sat in the booth for a long time, staring at the checkered pattern on the plastic tablecloth, willing myself to get up.

When I finally stood, I crossed the street as the last few stragglers trickled out of the club. Cole was inside. And he held my only chance for getting Jack back.

Please, Cole. Please give me hope
.

The Surface. Harry O’s
.

A
s I walked in, the lingering smell of sweat and beer hit me in the face. A tall guy behind the bar eyed me. “Are you Nikki?”

I looked from side to side. “Um … yes.”

“Follow me. Cole’s in the back.”

Cole must have known I’d be here. I took a deep breath and followed the bartender back behind the stage and through a small hallway that led to a beat-up wooden door marked
GREEN ROOM
.

The bartender knocked three times. I read some of the messages carved into the door.

LB + TK + FR = AWESOME TRIFECTA

Before I could decipher what it meant, the door opened and Gavin’s face appeared. The last time I’d seen the Dead Elvises’ drummer was when I was sneaking around trying to figure out what was so special about the Shop-n-Go. He’d almost caught me there. “What?” he demanded.

Then he recognized me.

“Oh.”

He closed the door, and a few seconds later it opened again and Gavin walked out, followed by Oliver and lastly Max. I watched them, quiet.

Max paused as he passed by. He leaned down to talk to me, and I remembered how much taller he was than Cole. “Nik, be gentle. Cole was doing so much better until that stunt you pulled last night. Don’t screw him up again.”

I looked at him incredulously. “Me screw
him
up?”

Max just walked away. Cole had destroyed six months of my life, most of my soul, and the boy I love, and Max was worried about me hurting him?

Okay, so maybe some of that had been my own doing, but still.

I went inside and shut the door behind me, feeling more riled up by the second. Before I turned around, I heard an intake of breath.

“Nik,” Cole said. “Those boots. You
do
care.”

Turn around, Becks. Turn around
. Why was it so hard to be in the same room with him? I took a deep breath and faced him. He was sitting on the corner of an old brown leather couch. It was worn in the center seat, where a large chunk of leather was missing. His guitar sat beside him like a constant, faithful companion; and he flipped a guitar pick over the knuckles of his fingers, passing it from finger to finger like he always did.

I must have been staring at the pick, because Cole froze it midflip, then tossed it into the palm of his other hand and held it out to me. “It’s not what you think it is.”

“I think it’s a pick,” I said, even though I knew what he was talking about. I’d never look at a pick again without wondering if it was Cole’s heart.

He cocked an eyebrow. “But the look in your eyes was murderous. Do you have a thing against guitar picks, or were you hoping I’d be stupid enough to still carry my heart around with me?”

Cole watched my reaction carefully, deliberately taking a sip from a water bottle. The last thing I wanted to talk about was my feeble attempt to kill him moments before Jack disappeared.