Never (The Ever Series Book 2)

by C. J. Valles

  “Arrêtez! Levez les mains en l’air!”

  The man’s intent is clear—hands up, or else. I begin to lift my hands in the air until Ever turns his eyes in the man’s direction and raises his arm. Instantly, the guard is blown backward into the door behind him with a dull thud. Without pausing, Ever turns his attention to the closest car, and I hear the locks pop up. When he opens the passenger side door, I jump in without question. The next thing I know, Ever is in the driver’s seat with the engine running, and we’re suddenly hurtling back the way we came on the gravel road. When we reach a small, unmarked intersection, several cars race past us as Ever pushes the gas even harder. The car rockets forward, pressing me into the leather seatback. Biting my lip and staring out the window, I try to keep myself from coming apart at the seams.

  Am I safe? Is the nightmare over? When I turn to face Ever, his flawless features are serious and unflinching. The tires skid onto asphalt, and I turn and watch the early morning bustle of what looks like a village ripped from another time. The buildings are ancient, their stone faces hundreds of years old. The car tears around another corner, expertly weaving around the people probably on their way to the outdoor market I glimpsed. Then, almost as soon as we’ve entered the town, we’ve left it again. We’re now speeding along a narrow, winding two-lane road. To one side of us, there’s a steep rock face; to the other, a meandering river with long ribbons of seaweed-looking plants streaming just beneath the surface.

  I look through the windshield and see a large tour bus. My eyes widen as Ever slices into the opposing lane and we hurtle directly toward a compact vehicle. Closing my eyes and gripping the armrest, I bite my lip. By the time I open my eyes again, we’re in the right lane again, like nothing happened.

  I stare out the window at the passing farmland and try to collect my thoughts as Ever pulls out a cell phone and begins speaking rapidly in French. I don’t catch anything except for the word papiers. Papers. Exhausted and lulled into a trance by the hum of the engine, I close my eyes. When I wake from my half-sleep, we’re pulled off to the side of the road. For several seconds I think that the French police have found us. My eyes dart to the window, and I see Ever towering over a short, balding man. From all the gesturing, I can tell they’re in the middle of a heated conversation. Ever, sensing I’m awake, turns and looks at me through the glass before returning his attention to the man.

  A moment later, Ever pulls a thick envelope out of his jacket. The man opens it and begins counting the bills. Then he begins arguing again with Ever, who immediately pulls out another stack of crisp bills. The man hands over some documents and begins walking away, turning once to say something else to Ever. Seconds later Ever is back behind the wheel, and we’re pulling onto the road again. He looks over at me and reaches for my hand. When he brings it to his lips, I shiver at the heat.

  “You’ll be home soon.”

  I smile, but I’m very tired still. I close my eyes again, only waking when someone unfastens my seatbelt and lifts me from the seat. When Ever smiles down at me, for a brief second everything feels right again. I blink as he begins speaking very quickly in French to a uniformed man. He hands the man something and then begins climbing a set of stairs. As he sets me down, I look around in confusion. We’re standing at the entrance to an aircraft.

  “It’s okay,” he says, gently moving me forward.

  There’s no one else on the plane; it’s just the two of us.

  “We only have clearance for a few minutes,” he says, steering me toward a bank of seats.

  The plane is smaller than I expected and in no way resembles the crowded, stuffy air travel I remember during trips with my mom to visit my grandmother. The seats of the plane are leather, not vinyl, and one of them is reclined into a small sleeping area. I sit down in one of the upright seats as Ever sits across from me. It feels like we’re in a flying limo, a fact that, under different circumstances, would be funny or awesome. Maybe both. I jump at the sound of a voice over the speaker system, and seconds later the plane begins moving.

  “We’re leaving Bordeaux–Mérignac Airport in southwestern France,” Ever says, answering my first question.

  I nod. I was expecting something like that, but it still causes my breathing to speed up. I’m in France. I pause before speaking again.

  “How long have I been gone?”

  “Only two days.”

  Only! My heart begins beating faster again.

  “My mom!”

  “She’s safe. And everyone else thinks you’ve been home sick with the flu,” he says.

  “But if I’ve been gone for days, then …”

  “She won’t even remember your absence.”

  “Well, I guess that makes two of us,” I say with a small, pained smile.

  Ever frowns.

  “You remember nothing?”

  “The first thing I remember is waking up feeling like I had been hit by a truck.”

  Ever’s eyes cloud over, and I remember that day in the rain and how close that had come to happening, if it weren’t for him.

  “I woke up, and that old woman helped me clean up. She fed me. She was … nice.”

  I stop, feeling choked up thinking of this elderly French stranger who had taken care of me. Something about the old woman, maybe her motherly nature, reminds me of my mom and makes me miss her even more. When I look up, Ever is watching me carefully. I swallow and continue.

  “Then she told me that someone named Alexandre was waiting for me …”

  I pause as Ever’s bronzed hands flex on the armrests, afraid he might snap them off. After a moment, he nods for me to continue.

  “So I walked outside, and he was there, but I didn’t remember who he was. … It was like he had erased my memory.”

  I shiver when I think of my mental fog slowly lifting before I recognized the person I was with. Ever suddenly leans forward, his green eyes shining in their intensity.

  “What did he say to you?”

  “Something like, ‘Imagine having to live alone forever.’ No, wait.” I shake my head. “No. He said, ‘Imagine being cursed.”

  Before that moment, I had thought of him, Iago … Alex, as a monster, an anonymous villain. But in those few seconds he had seemed human and vulnerable. It’s strange thinking of him this way. I flinch as Ever makes a sound in the back of his throat, like he heard my last thought and was disgusted by it.

  “Cursed?” he growls. “His is a self-imposed isolation.”

  I shake my head again.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “You’re safe now. That’s all that matters.”

  I sit up straighter and look Ever in the eye.

  “No! Everything matters now. I need answers. He could have killed me …”

  I shudder. Or worse. But he didn’t.

  “You need to sleep,” Ever says, his voice calmer.

  He gestures to the sleeping area, but I resist even though I know he’s right. I can barely keep my eyes open despite being unconscious for the past two days. Two days! I try to recapture snippets of my life from before this all happened, but everything seems so far away now, like I just floated away from reality. Part of me is still terrified that I’m going to fall back into my nightmare. Forcing myself to stay awake, I stare drowsily at Ever.

  “I thought I was never going to see you again,” I whisper.

  I blink, and a tear slides down my cheek. The touch of Ever’s lips on mine causes an instant flush of heat to spread across my skin. His hands wrap around my waist, and he pulls me easily from my seat, drawing me into his lap. He kisses away my tears before tracing my lips with one finger. When I tremble, his other hand comes around to the back of my neck and his mouth touches mine again, his lips slowly parting mine. I stop breathing, and he pulls back, his eyes a deep, darkening emerald color. He whispers my name and my thoughts begin to spin.

  ***

  The murmur of familiar voices causes me to sit up. Rubbing my eyes, I look around and see
Mr. Hannigan’s antique desk. My backpack is sitting on top of my chair like I just got home from school. There’s a ray of sunlight cutting across the room and slicing my bed in half. I look for the clock, which reads a little after four, which means it must be afternoon … definitely not morning.

  “She’s been asleep all day, but her fever has finally broken, and I think she might be ready for school tomorrow. I’m sure she’d love to see you, Ever—and it was very nice of your sister Audra to come by with Wren’s assignments. Hold on, let me check to see if she’s up.”

  The door to my room swings open a second later, and I hold my breath as my mom’s face comes into view. She smiles wryly as she walks toward me, her blue eyes twinkling.

  “Welcome back to the land of the living, sweetie! Are you ready for a visit—”

  I’ve already thrown back the covers and jumped out of bed. My legs feel like jelly as I rush toward her, flinging both arms around her as soon as I’m close enough. I hug her for several seconds until she pulls back and examines me like she thinks I might have gone crazy. She puts a cool hand to my forehead the way she used to when I was a little kid, and that’s when I realize that I’m crying. I don’t even care.

  “Mom, I love you.”

  “Oh, Wren,” she laughs. “I know, honey. Are you okay?”

  I smile and swipe at my cheeks.

  “I’m great.”

  She smiles again, but the lines in her forehead don’t completely disappear.

  “Good. Then I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  She reaches back and swings open the door. My heart thuds at the sight of Ever’s face. He smiles and nods at my mom as he passes her, but by the time he reaches me, his eyes are serious again.

  “How are you feeling?” he asks after my mom leaves.

  “I don’t remember getting here,” I whisper.

  “You needed sleep.”

  “Haven’t I been sleeping for almost three days now?”

  Ever guides me back toward the bed, and I sit down.

  “Not sleeping,” he says in a low voice. “He suppressed your memory and was moving you around constantly, making it difficult for me to find you. It was a strain on your body. The only reason he let you go was that it likely would have killed you to shift again.”

  “Shift?”

  I frown as I remember Ever saying something similar just after he appeared in the garden.

  “Travel between dimensions. Even if you’re shielded from the trauma, it still takes its toll on the human body.”

  I swallow and nod, thinking how Alex must have done the same thing to Ashley. My blood begins to boil, and I look down at my hands, which are clutching the comforter cover so tightly that my knuckles are white.

  “He must have done it hundreds of times to keep me from finding you,” Ever says, his face a mask of loathing.

  “Will he leave me alone now?” I whisper.

  Ever exhales.

  “No.”

  “But he said, ‘There will be others’ …”

  I shiver at the memory. The implication was obvious: that I’m expendable. I search Ever’s face.

  “Is there something else you’re not telling me?” I demand quietly.

  “Wren?” my mom asks, poking her head back in the door. “Are you up for dinner? I’m making your favorite—spaghetti and meatballs.”

  My stomach churns at the reminder of food, and I realize I’m starving, having had only two meals in a three-day span.

  “Definitely!”

  My mom smiles.

  “Ever? Are you staying for dinner?”

  “If that’s all right with you, Caroline.”

  Looking up at him, I wonder how he’s going to get out of eating yet again.

  “Great!” my mom says. “Wren? If you get all bundled up, it might be good for you to get outside for a little bit. You’ve been cooped up for almost three days!”

  I nod and stand, stretching up on my toes. It feels good to move, and as soon as my mom and Ever leave, I grab a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt from the dresser. Then I remember the outfit I had been wearing in France. What happened to it? Who changed me into my pajamas? My face goes pale as I remember my mom saying Ever’s sister Audra came by. Audra, who hates me.

  I pull on a pair of jeans, my eyes flitting to the corners of my room, like someone is going to jump out at me. I wince when I realize that I’m actually afraid to be by myself. Pulling a sweater over my head, I hurry out of my room and down the hallway. At the landing, I don’t look at the mirror on the wall. Instead, I skip down the stairs as fast as possible, haunted by dark memories of what I thought were going to be my last moments alive.

  My mom is in the kitchen, chopping tomatoes and onions and throwing them into a pot on the stove. She’s also telling Ever the story about me being afraid of the dark until I was ten. When she turns around, I give her a withering look. Then I rush over and hug her again.

  “Don’t be gone too long. You don’t want to stress your system too much after the flu,” she warns. “And take a coat!”

  At the closet, I pull on my waterproof boots, and Ever helps me with my jacket. As we step outside, the air feels icy against my lungs. I take several deep breaths, reveling in the sensation.

  I’m alive.

  For the first time since I woke up in an unfamiliar bed in a foreign country, I can finally appreciate that fact. Keeping my hands in my pockets, I start walking toward the end of the street. Neither one of us says anything, and without thinking about it, I continue until we come to the same bench where I was sitting when I found out—with absolute certainty—that Ever was more than human. I sit down, unable to look at Ever. It feels like an entire lifetime has passed since that night.

  “Would you have killed Ashley?” I ask bluntly.

  I need to know, and I harden myself to survive his answer. When several seconds pass, I finally bring myself to look up at him and find his features resigned yet pleading.

  “After everything that has happened, you may not believe me, but no, I would not have harmed her,” he says quietly. “I would do anything to protect you, but I knew it would kill you if I sacrificed someone you cared for, even to save you. I knew there must be another way.”

  I remember the glimmer of hope I felt as I reached into the blackness.

  “Thank you,” I whisper.

  Deep down, I know that if Ever were truly capable of destroying my friend, my mom—or anyone else—to save me, then I would have had nothing to come back to. I look up into the trees where the sun’s last rays are shining between the needles. It would have been dark by now when we first moved here. The fact that it’s still light means that spring, which Ashley called the season of storms, is coming.

  The next morning when I wake up, I feel almost normal. Almost. I get out of bed and collect my clothes. I’m still a little tired, having spent half the night catching up on homework assignments that Chasen had collected for me while he was busy babysitting my friends. During my absence, Audra ended up being the one to watch over my mom, which makes me nervous. The last thing I want is to owe her.

  Downstairs, I have a breakfast consisting of overly sweet orange juice and cold cereal with milk. I can’t help comparing it to my meal in France. Ever showed me last night on the Internet where I had been—a small town a hundred and thirty miles east of the Bordeaux airport. My memories of it are bright and surreal. An orange sunrise setting the town ablaze, the green of the garden, the crystalline blue of the stone pool—its water the same color as Alex’s eyes when they weren’t black as night.

  The scenery would have been idyllic, if I hadn’t just woken into a nightmare.

  Putting on my coat, I walk to the front door, stopping to look up the stairs toward my mom’s room. Ever promised me that my mom would be safe, and I have to believe him, or I’ll go crazy. Whatever sliver of faith I had felt as I stepped into the unknown was justified. Ever may not be the hero from the fairy tales—faultless and unerring—but I got my ha
ppy ending, or at least my life back.

  Maybe being alive is my happy ending.

  I zip my jacket as I lock the door behind me. Then, turning, I look toward the street and see Ever waiting in front of his car. As I approach him, I realize his history with Alex may be more complex than I first thought. And right or wrong, my few moments spent with Ever’s enemy left me with a different view of him. A more humanized one. He’s no longer a dark shadow, an unknown danger.

  “What were you thinking of just now?” Ever asks, his brow arched in uncharacteristic confusion.

  I blush as I remember what—whom—I had been thinking of. Then my embarrassment quickly turns to anger.

  “Were you searching my thoughts?”

  Ever smiles broadly at my fury, and I would want to slug him if I didn’t want to kiss him so badly.

  “Hmm. … The thought about kissing me came through loud and clear,” he says, leaning toward me and taking my face in his hands.

  He touches his lips lightly to mine, and the blood rushes through my veins. I grip his jacket as he pulls back and opens the passenger door.

  “I didn’t know making you angry would reap such rewards this early in the morning,” he says from the driver’s side as I buckle my seatbelt.

  I smirk at him.

  “Could you really not hear my thoughts before?”

  “It’s difficult not to be aware of the thoughts around me at some level, whether I’m intentionally listening for them or not. But a few moments ago yours went offline. Just nothing. I would have been worried if I hadn’t been able to see you just in front of me.”