Everneath (36 page)

“Will you look after my family?” I attempted a smile. “Tommy’s going to need a … big brother. Someone to fish with.” It seemed stupid to be talking about this stuff, but there weren’t any words for the bigger stuff anymore. “He makes his own flies.” Jack already knew this.

“Becks—”

“And make sure he doesn’t play football.” Jack tilted his head at this. “I mean, football’s fine, but it’s dangerous. I don’t want him concussed—”

“Becks, stop.”

“Just tell me you’ll do it.” I closed my eyes. “Tell me.”

There was a long pause, and I wasn’t sure there’d be time for him to answer anymore. But after a few moments, he did. “No.”

My eyes shot open. “What?”

His eyes were tight, his expression on fire with blazing determination. “You watch over Will.”

“What are you…?” My voice trailed off as it dawned on me what was going on. “No!” I tried to wriggle my hands free from his grip. “Don’t you dare, Jack Caputo!”

But I couldn’t break from his strong grasp. I twisted and thrashed but that only made Jack hold on tighter. He closed his eyes and said, “Stay with me, Becks. Dream of me. I am
ever yours.”

“No! I will never forgive you!” I tried to pull back. Tried to get close enough for the Tunnels to suck me away instantaneously. But Jack had to be about twice my weight and pure muscle. “Let me go!”

He ignored me. In the quickest, strongest move I would ever know, Jack yanked me toward him and threw me to the ground behind him. Away from the Tunnels.

By the time I realized what he had done, it was too late. He still held my hand, but the rest of him was covered in the dark smoke of the funnel. He had jumped in, feet first.

“Jack! No!” I screamed as I dug my fingers into his hand. As if I could pull him out. As if I had the power over the light and the dark. The balancing forces of the universe.

But I didn’t. I held on to his hand, and as I did, I caught a glimpse of the mark on my wrist. It didn’t disappear. It just slithered down to my fingertips and then leaped over onto Jack’s hand. I said a prayer inside my head. I begged whatever being was in charge of all this to give me back my mark. But it was gone.

Jack was gone.

He let go first.

I knew the instant his touch left me. Our fingertips separated. Even with all the commotion going on around me, I could only think about how his fingers slipped away from mine, and I didn’t have the strength to hold on and I would never feel them again.

I started counting the seconds. Perhaps if I kept track of the seconds, somehow he would still be connected to me.

But it was difficult to concentrate on sequential numbers, because someone was shouting in my ear. I tried to swat the voice away.

“Becks!” Will’s voice was urgent. “Becks, I’m getting you out of here. Now!”

I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Shhh. Twenty-five. Twenty-six. Twenty-seven…”

Arms circled around me, and my feet left the ground.

Before he was mine and I was his….

“You weren’t in the lunchroom today,” Jack said, coming up behind me at my locker. “Jules says you’re never in the cafeteria on Wednesdays.”

I tried to calm the flush to my cheeks before I turned around to face him. My crush on Jack was getting ridiculous. Pretty soon I would be nonverbal. Just because he noticed, for the first time, that I wasn’t at lunch, it didn’t mean anything.

I tried to keep my tone light. “Sounds like you guys had a very intriguing conversation.”

“Oh, we did.” Jack fell into step beside me, and we walked down the hallway at a slower pace than everyone around us. “She said you avoid the cafeteria on Wednesdays. And she said you like me.”

I heard myself gasp, and I came to a stop.

I’m gonna kill Jules,
I thought.

“So, is it true?” Jack said.

I could barely hear him with the crashing waves in my ears. I started to turn away, embarrassed, but Jack stepped sideways so he was in front of me, and there was nowhere else I could look.

“Is it true?” he asked again.

“Yes. I hate hot-dog Wednesdays, so I don’t go to the lunchroom. It’s true.”

“That’s not what I meant, Becks.”

“I know.”

“Tell me. Is it true? Do you
like
me?”

I tried to roll my eyes, and promptly forgot how. So I just looked at the ceiling. “You know I like you. You’re one of my best friends.”

“Friends,” Jack repeated.

“Of course.”

“Good friends?”

I nodded.

“More than friends?”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t move. Jack reached toward my hand and tugged gently on my fingers. The movement was so small, I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t felt it.

He leaned forward and said, “Tell me, friend. Is there more for us?”

I looked into his eyes. “There’s everything for us.”

Still counting.

T
he sun touched the tops of the Wasatch mountain range behind Tommy’s head, illuminating the errant clumps of his blond hair sticking out in all directions, typical from a day of fishing the Weber River. He cast another line, then another one.

“There!” he said, pointing downstream where the surface of the water broke and a fish darted toward his bait. “That’s ten for me. Eight for you.”

I smiled and sent another cast over the running water. We never fished with hooks anymore. We couldn’t be bothered with the pain of catch-and-release, for us or the fish, so we just counted the number of fish who jumped for the bait.

Tommy eyed my next try. “Ten and two, Nikki. Flick the pole between ten and two.”

He was talking about the first rule of fly-fishing, repeating the same phrase my dad had said to me over and over when I was a little girl.

I sighed. “Hey, I’m the one who taught you how to fish in the first place.”

He gave me a sheepish grin. “I wasn’t sure if you remembered.”

The sun dipped a little lower, and I glanced at my watch.

“We’re not going, are we, Nikki?”

“Sorry, bud. I still have homework to do for tomorrow.” It was partially true. School would be out in a few weeks, and I had several final projects left, one of which was the thesis paper for Mrs. Stone’s class. But really I looked forward to the end of every day, always anticipating the evening, when I could finally close the door to my bedroom and fall asleep. And dream.

Tommy and I packed up our gear, and I drove the car while he recounted every “catch” he’d made that day. I smiled at the simple routine of it all.

Since the night at Cole’s condo, I had tried to stop counting the seconds. But the numbers relentlessly filed past my vision, coming to rest in my head. Eventually, they were no longer numbers. Just flashes. Sparks of light, shooting across the horizon in my mind, ticking away the moments since I had last touched Jack.

And that was how the seconds evolved into minutes. Then hours. Then days.

What Jack did for me splintered me, and I wondered how my body stayed together each day instead of falling apart into the thousands of little pieces it should’ve been. Each time I looked in a mirror, I was surprised the cracks didn’t show on my face. With every smile, I should’ve shattered.

When we turned the final corner to my street, I saw a big black motorcycle parked alongside the curb. The sun glinted off the mirrors, making me squint and question whether or not what I was seeing was really there.

“Who’s that?” Tommy said.

I shielded my eyes with my hand. A figure in the shadow of the neighbor’s oak tree moved, catching my eye.

Cole.

“It’s no one, Tommy.” I pulled the car into the driveway, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Cole take a step forward. “Listen, I want you to go inside and wait for me,” I said as I threw the gearshift into park.

“Why?”

I kept my eyes on Cole. “Just do it, okay? Please?”

I turned off the car, and we both got out. A passing cloud blocked the sun, erasing the shadow of the tree. Tommy threw the gear bag over his shoulder and made a move to grab one of the fishing poles.

“Leave the poles,” I said. “I’ll get them.”

He nodded, and hesitated for only a moment before he walked away. Once he was inside, Cole came toward me. I met him halfway.

Cole looked changed. He still wore the same clothes; his hair was still the same sandy blond. He hadn’t changed in any tangible way. But the difference was there, in the way he walked. No swagger. And the way his lips weren’t pulled up in a smug grin.

“Hey, Nik.”

I stopped a couple of feet away from him and folded my arms. “What are you doing here?”

He shifted his stance, his hands shoved in the pockets of his leather jacket. “We both lost here.”

“So, what, you’re here to commiserate? Don’t even pretend we’ve been through the same thing. You lost some game. I lost…” My voice caught as if on a fishing hook.

“Whether you like it or not, you’re still my future. I have to know…” He stepped closer and grabbed my hand. “You have to tell me, how did you do it? How did you stay young during the Feed?”

I twisted my hand out of his grasp and took a couple of steps back.

“Even if I knew, what makes you think I’d tell you?”

Finally a hint of his smirk danced on his mouth. “Because I have ninety-nine years until I have to Feed again.” He stepped forward. “I have all the time in the world. What, in your infinite knowledge of me, makes you think I’d ever give up?”

I squinted at him in the sunlight. “Cole, do you feel anything for me?” I don’t know what made me ask this, except that Jack had asked him the night of the Tunnels. It obviously surprised him.

He backed up. “What?”

I inched forward, not quite sure where I was going with this. “Do you feel … something for me?”

He was quiet, still as a statue, so I moved even closer.

“Don’t, Nik.” His gaze dropped to the ground.

“If you feel
anything,
please leave me alone. I don’t know why I survived. I don’t have your answer. Shadowing me will get you nothing.”

Then he did something unexpected. He backed down, and as he turned around to his motorcycle, he shook his head and mumbled, “What have you done to me?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But you have ninety-nine years to figure it out.”

He kicked it on and revved the engine, and at the sound, he found his cocky smirk again. “That’s a long time, Nik. Jack is gone, and I’m here. Let’s see who gives up first.”

I stayed there until he drove away, his tires screeching against the asphalt, then I let out a sigh. The sun had set and I felt that familiar tug pulling me to my bedroom. My tether to Jack coaxed me there every night, just like a rubber band drawing me in.

The thing was, I knew exactly how I had survived. Mary had been on to something with her anchor theory, but she was a little unclear on the logistics. Jack told me he dreamed of me every night, and it was as if I were really there. I was in a dark place, and he helped me see.

Now Jack was invading my dreams every night. Not a dream Jack, but the real thing.

I know this because during one of the first dreams, he told me what the tattoo on his arm said.
Ever Yours.
The next morning, I rushed to draw the image from memory, and then I researched it.

The symbols were artistic versions of ancient Sanskrit words. They stood for eternity and belonging.
Ever Yours,
just as Jack had said. There was no way my subconscious could have come up with that explanation on its own.

I’d finally found the connection Meredith had longed for, the tether from an anchor that kept a Forfeit alive. They were bound together through their dreams, sustaining each other during sleep.

When I was asleep, Jack would come to my bedroom and sit on the end of the mattress and face me. He came to me every night, talking about his uncle’s cabin, the Christmas Dance, how my hair hides my eyes, how my hand fits in his, how he loves me. How he’ll never leave. I spent the first few dreams saying “I’m sorry” over and over and over, until he threatened to stay away if I didn’t stop.

My dad wondered why I couldn’t wait to go to bed every night. “You sure you’re feeling okay, Nikki?” he would say. “I’ve never seen someone sleep so much.”

“I’m good, Dad. I’m probably just making up for all those sleepless nights.”

Since Jack left, my dad had been trying to spend more time with me, going out of his way to relate to me. Maybe he was worried I might leave again.

I wasn’t going anywhere. The Tunnels had forgotten about me. Jack’s sacrifice meant that I had my family back, and even though our fractured relationships had a ways to go, my home life was suddenly a stronghold in my otherwise messed-up world.

I had escaped the Tunnels. I had my family back. And in a way, I had Jack, too. The pain of loss was fresh every night, but I no longer begged to have it taken away. I owned it.