The bells jangled, and footsteps made their way to the back.
“Nikki!” Will rounded the corner and scooped me up in his arms.
I buried my head in his chest. “I had him, Will. I had him in my hand. And I lost him.”
As Will helped me out of the store and into his car, the tears came. Fast and hard. I wondered how many more times I could fail Jack before it was too late.
Will offered to drive me home, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to face my father yet. I’d been missing for twenty-four hours since I’d disappeared from Dr. Hill’s bathroom. I hoped it just looked as if I’d slipped out through the window or something.
As we drove to the city park, I told the whole story to Will. How we had made it so far … How we were so close …
And how, then, Cole had kicked me.
Will leaned back into his seat. “Maybe Cole sensed some sort of danger.”
“But he would’ve said something to me first.” I shook my head. “And we were alone. I would’ve seen Shades. Or at least felt them.”
“Maybe it was something other than Shades. I mean, he’s come with you so far. There’d be no reason for him to risk so much only to kick you at the end. It wouldn’t make sense. Why would he have gone with you in the first place?”
“I don’t know.”
Will took my hand. “No. I’m sure he was protecting you from something. You’ll see a hand soon. I’d bet on it.” But he didn’t sound convinced. Maybe he wasn’t willing to face my failure.
I nodded. “That has to be it.” I guess you never give up on the people you love. Which reminded me. “Can I borrow your phone?”
Will handed it over, and I called my dad. When he realized it was me on the phone, he said a few lines with such practiced perfection that I suspected he’d tried them out in a mirror a few times.
“Nikki. I don’t care where you’ve been. I don’t care why you left. Just come home. We’ll deal with the rest later.”
When I got home, I expected an interrogation from my dad, but it didn’t happen. There were no threats of emergency therapy sessions. No mention of my escape from Dr. Hill’s office. No mention of my appearance, although I’d hidden what was left of my hair under a baseball hat borrowed from Will, and my hoodie was zipped up, covering the burns.
There was only the smell of takeout from Café Trang. Stir-fried veggies and crispy chicken over steamed rice, in white boxes on the kitchen table.
Dad and Tommy had started without me. Maybe that’s why the interrogation hadn’t begun. Tommy held a heaping spoonful of chicken and rice halfway between his plate and his mouth. My dad was navigating the kung pao chicken with a pair of chopsticks. He had tried to teach me how to use chopsticks when I was twelve, but I never got past the kiddie sticks with the rubber band and the rolled-up paper as the fulcrum.
When he saw me, his face relaxed and he blinked at the sudden moisture in his eyes. “Nikki.” He spoke my name quietly, but the two syllables were filled with love. “Come help yourself.” He gestured to an empty plate on the table. “Hungry?”
“Yeah.” I sat down, and he scooped a spoonful of chicken onto my plate. I watched his face, looking for some sort of hint as to what he was thinking, but there was nothing. “Dad, aren’t we going to talk about what happened at Dr. Hill’s office?”
He sighed. “No. Not tonight.”
“But—”
“Just let it be, Nikki.” He leaned toward me, staring into my eyes. “Dr. Hill wants you in a treatment center. Especially after yesterday. But you said to give you forty-eight hours.” He searched my face again. “I’m not sure what the next step is. I told myself that if you didn’t come home tonight, I would consider the in-patient treatment. But you came back.” He looked down. “I didn’t react well the last time. I shouldn’t have put Valium in your water. Dr. Hill said that I had broken our trust, and she wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t come back after that. But you did. So for the next few days, let’s both take a step back from our mistakes. Let’s regroup. Let it simmer. And then we’ll reevaluate.”
I smiled at his word choice. It sounded exactly like something he would say in a meeting with his top advisers.
But I would take it. My dad was offering me grace, which was more than I deserved. “Thanks, Dad.”
“And, Nik, if you’re going to lie to me, there’s no need to make up fanciful stories about alternate realities. I’d rather you just didn’t tell me anything.”
“Okay.”
That night I slept.
There was no sign of Jack.
The next morning, I put the hat on again and then told my dad I was going to get some coffee, but instead I drove up to Cole’s condo. I knocked on the door. Pounded. The lights were off, and there was no noise coming from inside.
I sat on the porch with my back against the door. I sat there for three hours. Nobody came. Not Gavin, not Oliver. Not even Max. Hadn’t he come back to the Surface after he disappeared in the maze?
I couldn’t stay any longer. I couldn’t test my dad’s anxiety levels.
When I walked back through the doorway, carrying a coffee for him, he couldn’t mask the relief on his face.
I handed him the coffee and then went to my room. Stared at the floor. Waited for Cole’s hand.
Twenty-four hours. Cole had never let it go this long without taking me back under.
I kept replaying the events in my head. We had made good progress digging out Jack. We had been alone in the Tunnels. Hadn’t we? There had to be more to the situation. There was something I wasn’t grasping.
Or maybe it was something I didn’t want to face. Did Cole betray me? Did he hate Jack so much that when it came down to the moment of his salvation, he couldn’t see it through?
Was he hiding from me now, in shame?
Was he watching me from the Everneath?
“Cole,” I said, my voice sounding loud and crazy in my quiet bedroom. “If you’re watching me, it’s okay that you freaked. Just take me back. Take me back, and we’ll pretend it didn’t happen. We’re so close.”
I got off the bed and crouched by the carpet, staring at the fibers until I thought I’d go blind.
Twenty minutes later, I was still waiting.
Nothing.
That night, I slept. It was a sleep full of darkness. Empty of any sounds or images.
It was a lonely sleep.
How had this happened?
How had I gotten so close … wrapped my fingers around his again … and failed? All I could do was sit on the side of my bed and stare at the floor.
How had I lost him again? The dam around my heart was gone, and my emotions coursed through me in waves. One moment it was as if I were back in the Tunnels, with everything drained except for the memory of the touch of his fingers. Then I would remember his face, his kiss … and it would all flow through me again.
But there were too many holes in me. Too many places the Wanderers had ripped apart. Too many leaks the Tunnels had made. I couldn’t keep myself together this time. If Cole didn’t come for me soon, no amount of glue would ever fix me.
I shook my head and knocked it against the wall a couple of times. I hadn’t lost him. He wasn’t gone. Cole would come back. His hand would appear, and I would grab it, and he would drag me back to the Tunnels and explain what happened.
He was only waiting for when it was safe again.
I closed my eyes and buried my face in my knees. Time was passing slowly, or maybe it was flying by, and all I could do was sit in a ball on my bed.
Rocking back and forth.
My dad knocked on my door. “Nikki? I’m headed to work.”
Pause.
“Are you okay?”
I mustered my cheeriest voice. “Yep. Just reading. Have a good day!”
He probably didn’t buy it, but he left. Maybe he was just relieved I was home.
Sometimes I could almost picture myself, as if I were out of my own body and watching myself from t
he corner.
The girl on the bed looked wide-eyed. Wild haired. And a little bit crazy. Her nails were bitten down to nubs. The right side of her head was missing most of its hair.
But if I was sane enough to recognize how crazy I looked, was I really crazy?
Oh boy. I needed to get out. But where to go?
Will had left me several messages, none of which I answered. Maybe he assumed I was already back in the Tunnels. I couldn’t face telling him the truth. I was still on the Surface. And I was beginning to think Cole would never come back.
Then I remembered Mrs. Jenkins. She’d said she would look in some of the old books she had in the basement. Maybe if I told her what had happened, she would have an idea of why Cole kicked me out. What he was scared of. And what I should do now.
Someone had to know what I should do now. I would do anything, if someone would just tell me what to do.
“Get up,” I whispered to myself, my lips against my kneecaps. I had wallowed long enough. I owed it to Jack. I imagined him speaking to me. “Get up, Becks. Get up now.”
Finally, in one last push to get myself off the bed, I dug my teeth into my knee. Hard enough and long enough to draw blood.
A tiny drop formed at the site, growing bigger until it began to run down my leg. I watched it go, gravity pulling it down my shin, my ankle, all the way to my foot. When it was about an inch away from reaching the quilt, I sprang off the bed.
I could wallow for days at a time on my bed, but I wasn’t about to spill blood on the sheets.
My reasoning sounded ridiculous even to me. But I was standing. And headed to the shower.
Two full mugs of coffee later, I drove to Mrs. Jenkins’s house.
There was no answer on my first knock. I stepped back and glanced at the windows. There were no lights.
She was always home, wasn’t she?
I walked around the side of the house to the garage. There, parked in front, was an old Honda Civic. The same one that was usually parked there.
Had someone picked her up? I didn’t think she had any friends.
I started toward the front again when an outline of a figure caught my eye through the translucent curtain. A silhouette of someone … Mrs. Jenkins, I would guess from the outline, sitting on the couch.
Why was she ignoring my knocks?
Peering in the window, trying to get a clearer look, I knocked again. But the person didn’t move.
“Mrs. Jenkins! It’s Nikki,” I called out. Still no movement. I went to the front of the house and pounded on the door; and surprisingly, it creaked open, as if it hadn’t been closed all the way.
I pushed it farther open.
“Mrs. Jenkins? It’s Nikki. Are you okay?”
There was no response. I looked around. The place felt … different. Quiet. I shook my head. Seriously, Becks, get a grip.
“Mrs. Jenkins? I’m coming in.”
I made the familiar walk past the foyer and into the living room. Mrs. Jenkins was sitting on the couch, her back to me. I knew it was her, because her silver-gray hair was pulled into the same loose ponytail.
Papers were scattered on the coffee table in front of her. Maybe she had found something in the basement. Something that could help me.
“Hello?” I said.
My voice seemed loud. Too loud. And then suddenly my breathing was too loud.
I tiptoed toward the side of the couch; and as I rounded the corner, everything seemed to freeze.
It was Mrs. Jenkins sitting there. Only it looked nothing like her. Her skin hung loosely from her skeletal frame. Her eyes were sunken back and dried out, and her head looked as if someone had papier-mâchéd a skull with gray paper and attached a wig on top. Her fingers were wrapped around the handle of one of her teacups, the saucer balanced precariously on her lap.
“Mrs. Jenkins?” a soft voice said. It took me a moment to realize it was me. I would never have consciously tried to speak to her considering the way she looked.
I don’t know why, but I went to take the teacup out of her hand. In that instant, her body deflated even more, as if the rest of the air holding her shape had escaped.
Mrs. Jenkins was dead. Deader than I’d ever seen anyone.
People don’t just spontaneously … shrivel up. She had been fine two days ago. That was when I last visited, wasn’t it? When she’d given me Nathanial’s medal? Someone did this to her. Someone strong. Someone who could still be around.
Instinctively, I backed up and ran into the end table, toppling it over onto the tiles, one of the figurines smashing on the floor.
I had to get out of here. Whatever had happened to her, it wasn’t caused by another human being.
An immortal, perhaps. But not a human.
I set down the teacup and started to wipe it off in case of fingerprints, which I quickly realized was a ridiculous thing to be worried about. My fingerprints weren’t on record or anything. And I’d done nothing wrong.
The sound of a car’s engine outside made me freeze. The ignition cut off, and a door slammed.
“Crap,” I breathed.
I looked at the books and papers on her coffee table. This might be my last chance to grab them. Without thinking, I scooped up as many as I could into my arms, then I bolted out of the living room and toward the front door, threw it open … and ran headfirst into someone with a familiar beige jacket. The papers went everywhere.
It was Detective Jackson.
Our eyes met, and for a moment I considered running. But I didn’t do anything wrong. I told myself over and over that I didn’t do anything wrong.
Detective Jackson grabbed me by the shoulders. I hadn’t realized I’d been saying the words out loud. “Nikki, are you okay?”
“Call 911.”
THIRTY-TWO
NOW
The Surface. Mrs. Jenkins’s house.
Detective Jackson looked behind me, into the house, then said, “Stay here.”
I nodded, and as I sank to the step, he charged inside. I gathered the papers and stacked them neatly, lining them up perfectly, as if that would help everything that had happened make sense. Then I held them against my chest.
The street was quiet. Empty. I felt exposed sitting there on the porch, but I had no idea what, exactly, I should be scared of.
Mrs. Jenkins. Dead. Not just dead. Drained. Was there any other explanation? No. I’d never seen anything like it. But I’d heard about something like it.
It sounded like the way everyone thought Adonia had died: all of the energy sucked out of her so fast that there was nothing but a shell left. Had the same thing happened to Mrs. Jenkins? But who could do something like that?
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said again. But I couldn’t help feeling responsible. “Cole,” I said out loud. “What’s happening?”
Nobody answered.
Detective Jackson came out of the house and sat down next to me.
“Did you call 911?” I asked.
He sighed. “I called the police. There’s really nothing an ambulance can do at this point.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes.
“What have you got there?” he asked, noting the papers and book in my arms.
Everything that I had taken had an old look to it. The parchment was dyed and rough around the edges. The book’s spine was cracked in a hundred places, and the title had long ago been worn away.
I thought quickly. “Just some stuff I was bringing to show her. She was into antiques.”
The wail of sirens sounded in the distance. Maybe that’s why he didn’t ask me anything more about it. The police station was nearby down the canyon, so the mountain walls carried the sound.
“Am I in trouble?” I asked.
“Did you kill her?”
I jerked my head up. “No!”
He put a hand on my shoulder, and I realized he was smiling. “I know. I followed you from your house. Besides the fact that I don’t think you have it in you to take a l
ife, you also didn’t have the time. She’s been gone for a while, it looks like. I don’t think you had anything to do with … what happened here.”
“What did happen?”
“I don’t know.”
The sirens got louder, and a few moments later the first patrol car came into view. Detective Jackson looked at me. “We’ll face them together.”
“I thought you hated me.”
“Nikki, I’m investigating the disappearance of a boy, and you were the last one to see him. But it’s an investigation. Not a vendetta.”
I answered their questions. Explained how I found her. How the door was open. Detective Jackson backed up my story, especially the timeline, which wouldn’t have allowed for any involvement in possible foul play. For once it was lucky the detective had been following me.
I heard the police officers giving their theories. Mrs. Jenkins was a quiet woman. Private. She’d probably been dead for weeks, considering how decomposed her body was.
I knew she hadn’t even been dead for days. I’d only seen her two days ago.
But nobody knew that. Not even the detective.
I didn’t tell my dad about what had happened. If the police had any more questions, he’d find out then. But I didn’t think they would. They had already explained away what had happened.
Now I was left with only my own thoughts as to the truth about what happened. But what was the truth?
Someone had drained Mrs. Jenkins, to the point where her body looked like a centuries-old mummy. But who was powerful enough to do it? The queen, probably. But could other Everlivings do it? Destroy somebody so completely?
Could Shades do it?
Did she die with the false hope that one day she would be granted eternal life by a future queen?
I couldn’t think about it anymore. My body was shutting down. I put the book and papers that I’d taken from Mrs. Jenkins’s house on my desk and then collapsed on my bed, curling up and tucking the quilt underneath my chin. My brain couldn’t take any more. Just when my father and Dr. Hill were giving me space, for the first time in my life, I felt as if I were snapping.
I folded my knees to my chest, pressed my head farther into my pillow, and closed my eyes. I must’ve fallen asleep, because Jack’s voice came to me.
Everbound: An Everneath Novel Page 24