NOW
In my dream.
I can hear him, but I can’t see him.
“Hi.” The voice sounds as if it comes from right next to me, from his usual place beside me on my bed.
I hold my breath. He sounds so real. I don’t know why I can’t see him. Is he still alive? Am I dreaming of being in the Tunnels with him?
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” he says.
How can I tell him how close I was, only to have failed? Better not to say anything. If this is really him and not just a regular dream about him, I don’t want him to lose hope. Even though my own hope was obliterated.
“I’ve missed you,” Jack says. “So much. I don’t know how I got here.”
“I know,” I say. Has he forgotten how he took my place? “You’re there because of me.”
“You don’t sound surprised.”
I grimace. “Surprised at what?”
“That I’m here.”
“You’re always here.”
“I am?”
“Of course.”
“What do I say?” He sounds curious.
“Stuff.”
“Like what?”
“You always say you miss me.”
He gives a soft laugh. “That’s obvious. What else?”
“You talk about the time Jules told you I liked you.”
“And?”
My words flow out. “You tell me that you love me. You tell me that you’ll never leave.”
“Can you at least face me, Becks?” he says.
I open my eyes to discover I am facing the wall next to my bed. Which is weird, because in my dreams I am always automatically facing the center, to see Jack.
That’s why it’s dark.
What the …?
NOW
The Surface. My bedroom.
I turned over and faced him. And gasped.
Jack wasn’t back in my dreams. He was here. He was alive. And he was covered in what looked like a thick layer of soot. Nasty red gashes blanketed his face, and they continued down his arms and legs. His clothes were mere rags, covered in soot and blood.
His eyes were barely open, dark slits on his swollen face. His feet hung off the edge of the bed, and for a brief second I thought he seemed too big to be my Jack.
I moved to touch his face but held my hand just above where I would’ve made contact if he’d been real.
“What happened to you?” My breaths came hard and fast. “Are you hurting? Are you dead?”
He smiled. “Dead? I’ve never felt more alive.” He opened his hand, and inside it was a note. Our note. Ever Yours.
Without thinking, I went to reach for it. And grabbed it.
I froze. The paper was in my hand. I’d taken it. The note was real. It was tangible, and it was in my hand. I dropped it and grabbed Jack’s hand. His real hand.
I looked at his eyes. “What … ?” I saw the window in the corner of my room. It was ajar. As if someone had just come in.
I tried to speak, but the breaths were coming too fast.
“Put your head between your knees.” He urged my head down, and traced his fingers up and down my spine. He was quiet as I slowed my breathing. “There. You okay now?”
I sat up gradually. There was no way I was going to lose consciousness. There was no way I was going to let him out of my sight. “No, I am not okay. Is it really you?”
Jack nodded.
“How?”
“I’m not sure. I was buried alive. Then I felt your hand. You gave me the note. And you kissed my fingertips.”
He smiled because as he was saying those words, I was already kissing his fingertips.
“I held on. Waiting for you to come back. Eventually the note started to pull away, as if it were attached to a string or something; and I thought it meant you were leaving. But I wouldn’t let go. It pulled away, and I followed. It was the digging-out part that felt like it took days. I dug and scratched until I was out of the wall. I couldn’t see anything, but the note was still pulling away. I was so tired. So weak. But I held on to the note, and the next thing I knew, I was in the air. At least it felt that way. I couldn’t see.”
It sounded almost like a kick, but he was being pulled out of the Everneath instead of being pushed.
He blinked a few times and squinted. “I still can’t see very well. I wish I could see your face.”
I took his hand and rested my cheek in the palm. “You can.”
He leaned in close; and when he was only a couple of inches away, I felt the whoosh of my energy going out of me and into him. He must’ve been so empty. I knew, because when I’d returned so drained after the Feed, I’d stolen energy from him in the same way.
“I’m sorry,” Jack said. He tried to pull back, but I wouldn’t let him.
“Kiss me.”
“But—”
“No arguing.” He didn’t move, so I basically tackled him. And then our lips were smashed together. We kissed until the initial rush of emotions from me to him had calmed, and then we kissed some more.
Then I was grabbing at him and digging my fingers into his shoulders. His back. Knotting them in his hair. Keeping him here, and keeping him real. He kissed me back with a similar fierceness, and I thought about how no dream could feel this tangible.
And it was a long time before we remembered where we were. We slept with our fingers and legs tangled together.
THIRTY-THREE
NOW
The Surface. My bedroom.
The next morning I watched him sleep. The fluttering of his eyelids. The twitches of his lips, as if he was dreaming of kissing me.
The swelling in his face had gone down some, but many of the cuts on his body still bled. I was so focused on having him back and in my arms, I hadn’t been very good at tending to his wounds.
I inched away from him and tried to creep out of bed, but in a lightning-quick move, his hand wrapped around my wrist.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said.
“But your cuts—”
He pulled me to him, interrupting my words with his lips so fast that it literally took my breath away.
The sun had risen high in the sky before we stopped again. Finally, I insisted that he had to eat something and we had to get him cleaned up. There were people who were just as invested in Jack as I was, and they needed to know he was back. Will. Jack’s mom. Jules. Even my family.
My dad was at work, and Tommy was fishing with a friend, so we had the place to ourselves. I let Jack rest while I threw a frozen pepperoni pizza into the microwave.
It had been cooking for thirty seconds when I heard a commotion coming from my bedroom. I raced down the hallway to find Jack leaning against the wall.
“I don’t think I was quite ready for the whole upright thing.”
I put his arm around my shoulders and noticed again how much he’d changed. He wasn’t only taller. He was bigger too. I nearly disappeared under his arm. I shook my head. Maybe I was remembering his dimensions wrong.
He regained his balance; and when the pizza was finished cooking, he ate it. The entire thing. While standing.
I sat on the kitchen counter, watching him. It was so good to see him eat. It was so normal.
But I noticed the size thing again as his hands folded the slices of pizza in half. They seemed bigger. Everything about him seemed large, from the muscles that wrapped his arms like ropes to the broadness of his shoulders.
“You’re bigger,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow, midbite. He’d given me the same face many times when he thought I’d said something funny. The only difference now was that his eyes weren’t focused on my face. He still couldn’t see me clearly.
“You are,” I said. “Look at you.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve looked at me.”
“Well, you should.” I held up my hand. “But not right now. You’re sort of a mess.”
He touched his face. “Are all the features
where they’re supposed to be?”
I pursed my lips. “Yes. But it looks like you’ve been swimming in ashes. And it smells like it too.”
He dropped the piece of pizza on the cardboard box, unfinished, and came to stand in front of me. Putting his hands on either side of my legs, he leaned toward me. “You always said you liked that campfire smell.”
I still had to look up to meet his gaze. I wasn’t imagining it. “You’re taller too, I think.”
His eyes fluttered, and he stumbled backward. I jumped off the counter and put his arm over my shoulders. “Whoa. Are you okay?”
He nodded but didn’t answer.
“Let’s get you lying down.”
I took him to my room, where he collapsed on my bed. After only a few moments, his eyes were closed and his breathing even. I stood up, but he grabbed my arm.
“Don’t go.”
I smiled. “I’m not. I’m just going to get a wet cloth. So I can try and clean up the mess that is your face.”
His grip on my arm loosened. “Okay. But come right back.” When he let go, his fingers left white marks on my arm. I couldn’t believe how strong he was. When I’d pictured him in the Tunnels for years, I’d imagined him growing weaker. But right now, except for the almost fainting, he seemed stronger than he’d ever been.
And larger.
I couldn’t imagine why. It wasn’t from anything that had happened on the Surface. He came back this way. What had happened in the Tunnels?
I shook my head at how many more unanswered questions we’d probably have. At least now we had time to figure it out. Grabbing a washcloth, a towel, soap, and a bowl of hot water, I hurried back into the room. His eyes were still closed. I sat on the edge of the bed, dipped the cloth into the water, and started with his forehead. After a few scrubs his features were visible.
“Hi, you,” I said.
He smiled. “Hi.”
“I still can’t believe you’re here. Yesterday I was convinced nothing would ever be right again. But here you are.”
“What happened yesterday?”
I shook my head, hesitant to tell him about Mrs. Jenkins’s horrifying death. “Nothing we need to get into right now. But there is one pressing matter.”
“What’s that?”
“Your mom. She hired a detective to track you down. You have to see her. Let her know you’re okay.”
“We’ll go together.”
I thought about my last encounter with his mom. At Jack’s graduation. It seemed so long ago, but the memory would be fresh in her mind. “You should probably go alone. I think she’d rather see you … without me.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“I promise, it would be better—”
He grabbed my hand, so fast I could hardly see the movement. “I’m. Not. Leaving. You.”
I winced. “Okay. Just … let up a bit.” I started to pull his fingers away from my hand so the circulation could return.
“Sorry, Becks.”
I smiled. “Like I said. You’re bigger now.”
I called Will and told him to make sure his mom was home. I wouldn’t tell him anything else, except to say I’d be right over.
Once we were out front, Jack started toward his family’s door, and I leaned against my car.
“C’mon, Becks.”
He held out his hand to me. I shook my head. “Your family deserves this moment. Alone. Please trust me. I’ll be right here.”
He looked unsure, but he knocked anyway. The door swung open, and then Will was tackling his little brother. Jack was always taller, but now he seemed to have at least half a foot on Will.
Mrs. Caputo came onto the front porch and embraced her lost son, tears streaming down her face.
Will raised his hand to me, and I waved back. The three of them stood in a circle, their arms linked with one another’s. The scene was incredibly tender. I didn’t know what Jack would tell his mom about where he’d been. That was up to him.
I walked down the street and around the corner. They deserved this time together without me there.
I wound through the neighborhoods, contemplating the events of the past two days. How had it happened? How had it worked out like this?
Yesterday I had thought my world was splitting at the seams. But now … Yes, Mrs. Jenkins was still dead. But I didn’t have anything to do with that. Maybe she was dead because of her association with the Daughters of Persephone. But that wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t a threat to the queen. I was human, and I wasn’t going back to the Everneath anytime soon.
And what about Cole? Where did he go? Had he planned this?
If he had, then where was he? Did he know how it had all turned out? No. If he did, he would’ve been back in my room, gloating over how much he had sacrificed for me and demanding some sort of payback.
Wouldn’t he?
What if his absence was a sign of something more sinister? The last time I saw him was in the Tunnels. Not the friendliest environment. What if something had happened to him after I’d left?
There were too many questions. But only one answer I cared about right now. Jack was back. And I would never let him go again.
When I rounded the final corner heading to the Caputo home, Jack came loping toward me. His sunglasses were perched on his nose. His old Giants T-shirt stretched tight across his chest.
He threw his arms around me and picked me up in a tight embrace. “You said you’d stay right there.”
My feet were dangling in the air. I buried my face against his neck. His hair was damp. “You showered.”
He kissed my neck. “I had to get rid of the ashy smell.”
“What did you tell your mom?”
He set me down and frowned. “I told her I’ve been away. It was hard to explain, so I didn’t even try. I have no idea what to say that will … satisfy her.”
I brushed his hair off his forehead. “I know exactly what you mean.”
“Where do we go now?”
We walked toward my car. “There’s someone else we need to see right away.”
Jules was sitting on her bar stool next to the Scentsy candle shop in the center of the walkway at the mall. When she saw Jack, her face broke out in a giant smile, and then she burst into tears.
I stood back so Jack could be with her, but Jules grabbed my hand and pulled me close. And then the three of us were hugging. And crying.
THIRTY-FOUR
NOW
The Surface. My bedroom.
That night, after a visit with my dad and then dinner with his own family, Jack sneaked into my room, although I don’t know how much sneaking was involved. There was no way his mother thought he wouldn’t.
We were on our sides on my bed, facing each other, as we had done every night. Only now we could touch. Hand to hand. Palm to palm. Skin to skin. I couldn’t get over him.
“How did you find your way out?” I asked. “Once you were free of the Tunnels. Where did you land?”
“It’s all a blur, really. I was so out of it. It’s like I was slingshotted out from the Tunnels, and then I ended up on the floor of the Shop-n-Go.”
He shook his head as if it all sounded so ludicrous.
“That’s the weak spot,” I said. “Between the Everneath and the Surface.”
He stroked my hair. “It was late at night. I couldn’t open my eyes. I could barely walk. I didn’t know where I was going; I only knew I had to find you.”
I smiled. “You found me.”
He kissed my head. “I found you.”
I nestled in closer to him. He smelled like Jack, and I breathed in deeply. I looked at his face again, traced the lines again.
I touched his eyebrow. The steel post that had been there was gone, and in its place was a gash. It must’ve been ripped out at some point.
He brushed some hair out of my eyes. “How did you do it, Becks? How did you find me?”
I grimaced. “It’s a really long story. Cole helped me. He transpor
ted me there. Helped me the whole way.” I thought about explaining the tether from my heart to his, but that was a story for another time.
“Cole helped you?”
I nodded, wincing as I remembered the strange, confusing ending to our journey.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter. You’re here.”
“I’m here.”
“That’s all that matters.”
He brought my face up to meet his and then easily pulled me so I was on top of him. We were kissing again. But we were both exhausted.
The entire night was spent kissing and dozing and kissing some more. I couldn’t imagine anything better.
I woke up with a start and a gasp. I wiped my forehead. It was dripping with sweat. What had woken me?
It was just a nightmare, I told myself. Just a nightmare.
But something wasn’t right. I glanced down at Jack next to me. He was sleeping peacefully, snoring a little. I sighed. As long as he was here, I could take anything.
I looked around the room, trying to find the source of whatever had changed. But I couldn’t see anything. Everything seemed the same.
I tried to lie back down, but before I knew it I was up and wandering the room. My breath came out in shallow puffs. I put my hand on my chest in an effort to calm my breathing, but it didn’t feel right. Was I still dreaming?
I heard a scrape at my window. Someone was opening it. I moved to wake up Jack, but before I could, Cole came through. Dove in, more like. But quietly, and agilely, like a cat.
We locked eyes, my hand still over my heart.
At first I felt relief at seeing his face, before anger took over. “What the hell happened back there? You kicked me!” Then I took a few deep, calming breaths, and in a complete turnaround, I threw my arms around him. “Where have you been?”
Cole hugged me back, but his arms felt stiff; his back went rigid. I released him and looked at his face. “What’s wrong?”
He smiled. “Nothing. I’m good. I’ll explain it all.” His voice drifted off as his eyes darted around my room. “First, I need you to tell me if there’s anything strange about your room. Anything here that wasn’t here before.”
Everbound: An Everneath Novel Page 25