He made me forget I was alone in the world, made me forget there was pain and suffering. And I couldn’t forget about any of that. I needed to hold onto it like a lifeline so I could summon the courage to walk into the pits of Hell and kill Kostucha.
I took a deep breath, feeling it inflate my lungs for the first time since I had awoken that morning. Maybe for the first time since the Event. I needed to remember the mission, my reason, my purpose.
“Have you heard from Kalinda?” I asked.
Jet swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the effort. “No, I haven’t. It’s been less than a day, she’ll need more time.”
“She’s had all night.”
He hopped off the table and slid his T-shirt over his head. All the muscles in his body strained with the movement. It was… fascinating.
“We need to give her longer,” he said. “If we go back too soon she’ll panic. Give it a few days.”
We didn’t have a few days. I felt every minute screech past like it was screaming for each of the spirits. They were hurting.
All. The. Time.
But Jet was right. Kalinda’s mental state was as unstable as a loose piece of dynamite. If we lost her for good she wouldn’t be able to help us with the translations at all. And I got the feeling if that happened we’d also lose her grandparents’ help.
I stepped closer to the door. “Right. Then we’ll wait. Give her some time.” My hand was on the doorknob, I had to get out of there. Jet was standing too near, his eyes were too sad. I was too close to breaking and calling back all my painful words.
“Wait. Where are you going?” he asked, faltering my step.
“To do what I can to help the spirits.”
“Let me come with you.”
“No,” I said, too quickly. I was twisting the knife I’d already stabbed him with. And I hated myself for it. I tried to cover it with a Band-Aid. “I’m just going to be doing research or something. Nothing I need help with. You have better things to do. Kendall is here, she’s waiting in the cavern for you.”
“What’s she doing here?”
“Looking for you. I don’t know.”
Jet nodded, his eyes never leaving mine. I really wished he would look away so I could move again. “Are you hungry? Have you eaten?”
My appetite was gone.
“I’m fine.”
He knew I was lying, his face betrayed too much when he looked at me. “Please let me come with you.”
My hand turned the knob and I pulled the door open. My brain was screaming at my feet to run and get as far away from Jet as possible.
I wished they’d listen.
“Please, Ever. Let me help you. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean-”
“Jet, I… just… no. Okay? I need to go.” One foot in front of the other. Then another.
And then I was running.
Out of the tunnels and into the sun aboveground. I didn’t stop in the daylight, my heavy footsteps thudded onto the broken sidewalk as I ran like my life depended on it.
I loved Oliver.
I loved Oliver.
How could I possibly let someone else affect me like that? How could Jet make the cracks in my heart just that tiny bit more bearable? Why was I letting myself feel that way?
Why? Why? Why?
If I had any way of repairing the chasm of guilt that was tearing me apart, it was to stay away from Jet. To not be alone with him, to not talk to him about things I didn’t dare say to others, and to certainly not let myself dream about what could be.
I loved Oliver.
I was just missing him, that’s all. I was so desperate to have someone fill the void in my chest that I was imagining things. I was molding Jet into the space Oliver left behind and I was delusional. My feelings for him weren’t real, just like his for me were imagined.
I found myself in an area of the city I rarely ventured when I finally pulled myself out of my head and paid attention to my surroundings. It was the area where I had found the last traces of Faith, the building to my right was where I retrieved the picture burning a hole in my pocket.
My pace slowed.
Once, I would have been scared to be walking through unknown parts of the city alone. There was no honor or dignity to the residents anymore, they were all after whatever they could steal from others.
Sometimes that was food, sometimes it was clothes, sometimes it was a sense that they were more powerful.
Nobody came near me now. And I knew it was because of Jet. The thought made me even more depressed. He had made it clear to everyone that I belonged to him. I was his property, and if anyone hurt me, they were declaring battle with him.
But it didn’t mean anything.
Jet didn’t mean it.
Without realizing what I was doing, the picture of my sister and me was in my hand and I was waving it in front of every person I came across.
Every one of the wretched kids shook their heads and said they had no idea who the girl was. They’d never seen her, they didn’t know of her whereabouts.
Always the same answer.
Always.
The moment I freed the spirits, and then the moment I found my sister, we’d disappear together. Maybe we’d leave the city, live out in the country with nobody else to hassle us. Just like that family we helped. We’d be happy.
We wouldn’t be lonely anymore.
We would have each other and not need anyone else.
“What’s she doing out here?” the spirit of the old man standing to my left started. They had been following me for some time, nearly since the tunnels.
“She’s trying to find that girl.”
“It’s her sister.”
“She’s lost her sister? How’d that happen?”
“How does anything happen these days?”
“She looks sad.”
“She’s almost as desperate as we are.”
“Nobody is as desperate as we are.”
“At least she’s alive. That’s more than we have.”
“Why do you always have to be so mean? She’s trying, okay?”
The middle-aged woman’s leap to my defense made me smile. I was so used to hearing the spirits’ commentary on my life that I rarely paid much attention. It was much easier to tune them out than to defend myself.
“She keeps going into the tunnels.”
“Probably to get away from you.”
“I wonder what’s down there.”
“I guess we’ll never know.”
“That boy said it was Hell.”
“Literally?”
“Yeah. He said Hell was in the center of Earth and she was sending that demon there.”
“Which she did.”
“But we’re still here.”
“But not that boy. He’s passed on.”
“Lucky him.”
The only good thing to come from vanquishing Kostucha to Hell was that he couldn’t consume their souls. Before, he fed off them, making him stronger with every one he destroyed. That helped them a bit, at least they weren’t in fear for their eternal souls anymore.
Now if only they could cross over to the hereafter, they’d all get out of my hair.
I wasted an entire morning looking for my sister and getting nowhere. My mood was like broken glass, ready to cut anyone that got too close. It was not the kind of mood that endeared people to my cause.
It was my gift to the city to take myself to the library where I could be alone. The librarian gave me a head nod as I walked through. She obviously hadn’t worked out I stole one of her books yet.
That day would come, no doubt.
And then I would no longer be welcome at the library.
I buried myself in the books that couldn’t talk back to me or be offended by my curt words. My stomach grumbled as the hours passed by, leaving a dull ache deep in my gut that only food could quell.
All afternoon I searched through the books. The oldest ones were the hardest. They had the
smallest print, the mustiest pages, and were in languages I couldn’t even comprehend.
Another day gone.
Another waste of time.
My feet dragged all the way back to my apartment. The thought of eating fuelled my every step. The tunnels were closer to the library but that idea was instantly dismissed. I had one concrete plan: stay away from Jet.
Because Jet was dangerous.
And he was standing outside the front door of my apartment.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, trying – and failing – to keep the bitterness from my voice.
“You said not to use my key. So I’m waiting for you,” he replied, like that was the answer to the question I was asking.
It wasn’t.
I opened the door and he followed me inside. Food was my number one priority. I wasted no time in opening a can of honey carrots and setting them over the camping stove.
“Since when do you not use your key?” I said, curious why he would start now when all my other pleas had fallen on deaf ears.
Jet shrugged, staring at his feet. “I’m trying to respect your wishes.”
“And yet you’re here.”
“You didn’t say I couldn’t come over.”
No, I didn’t.
Because a part of me couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing Jet again. I hated the way he made me feel better just by his sheer presence.
I hated it.
I hated it.
I hated it.
He continued on as if the topic was closed. “What did you do today?”
“Went to the library.”
“Find anything?”
“No. What did you do today?”
“Went back to where the fight was yesterday.” He wasn’t meeting my gaze, looking everywhere except at me. “I had to see if there was anyone in the area that needed my help.”
Always helping.
Jet was a damn saint.
“And was there?” Why was my voice so sharp? I could cut through diamonds with my tone.
“A few kids. Some were hiding, too scared to come out.”
“Lucky you were there then.”
Jet looked up, he was chewing on his bottom lip. I did not want to kiss those lips.
I did not want to kiss those lips.
“Did you find out what Kendall wanted?” I asked, desperately trying to distract myself.
“Nothing, really. I think she was bored out on the farm. Adam said you were asking around about your sister this morning,” Jet said, instantly snapping my attention back to reality. Away from those lips.
“You had your people spying on me?”
“No, he just… noticed. And then told me about it.”
“So, spying.”
I took the carrots off the stove and offered Jet a fork. We sat on the blanket of my makeshift bed and shared the meal. My stomach grizzled with the sudden food after being empty for so long.
“I wasn’t spying on you, I swear.”
“It’s okay, I believe you.” God knows why, but I did. Jet wasn’t the kind of guy who would have me followed. He would have just done it himself.
A conversation from long ago filtered through my head. I had walked away from Jet once before, said I didn’t want anything to do with him ever again.
He’d said something.
Something I always thought he said just to keep me there.
Once brought to the forefront of my mind, I couldn’t get rid of it again. I had to bring it up. I took a deep breath. “You said you knew what happened to my sister.”
Chapter Ten
“Were you lying?” I asked, finally allowing my voice to soften.
The fork faltered in his mouth as he froze. Every muscle of his arms tensed. Probably his body too, if I could have seen more skin I would know for sure. I waited for an answer, my breath caught in my throat.
I finished the carrots.
Tidied up the kitchen.
He still hadn’t said a word.
“Well?” I prompted. He needed to say something. Anything.
He pulled away the fork, swallowed, cleared his throat, swallowed again. I wanted to scream at him to tell me what he knew. The waiting was the worst of all.
I was wrong.
His next words were the worst of all.
“I do know what happened to her,” he said quietly. So, so quietly.
All the blood in my body started running with ice. I suddenly didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to hear what he was about to say. He was being too evasive. Every part of his body language said he didn’t want to tell me what he knew.
“Tell me.” My voice belonged to someone else, someone far braver than I was.
“Maybe you should sit down.” Jet patted the part of the blanket beside him. I sat, purely because crashing into the bare concrete of the floor would create a mess with my blood going everywhere when I fainted.
“You’re scaring me,” I said, swallowing down my fear.
“You look just like her, you know that? The moment I saw you, I just knew you had to be her sister.”
“What happened?”
He looked up, reading all the answers to my question on the ceiling. His heavy eyes flicked back to me, held me there, told me everything I needed to know without even one more word being spoken.
“She’s gone,” Jet whispered.
“Gone where? She left the city? Where did she go?” Because, surely, surely, he couldn’t mean what I thought he did. Surely I was mistaken, misreading him, not understanding English like I’d forgotten all the words in the world.
“She died, Everly. I’m so sorry. I’ve tried telling you so many times but I chickened out every time. I didn’t know how to say it, how to do that to you.” His words all rushed out in one breath, bouncing off me like I was made out of rubber and splashing against the wall until they were all I could think of. “I’m sorry.”
My mouth tasted like metal. I was biting my cheek so hard it was bleeding.
Faith couldn’t be gone. I had found her home, people said they saw her. I had her picture. She had to still be here. Still in the city and searching for me as desperately as I was for her.
“How? How did it happen? What happened to her?” I demanded. I needed details, anything to prove that it wasn’t her, that Jet was mistaken.
It had to be a mistake.
But… Oliver had tried to warn me. He told me to stop looking for her.
“She was one of the kids that came to me for help. She said she was trying to find her sister but she was injured. She’d been attacked, hurt badly.” Jet’s eyes fluttered over me, gauging whether I was strong enough to hear any more.
I must have passed his test because he continued. “There was nothing I could do for her. You have to believe me, Everly. I swear I did everything I could but she must have been bleeding internally or something. She slipped away before I had a chance…”
His voice trailed off, lost in the memory of the final moments of my sister’s life.
“Are you sure it was really her? I mean, you didn’t know her, you didn’t know me. You might be wrong.”
His warm hands clasped around mine, letting all the words he couldn’t say flow into me. “Her name was Faith Hilton and she said her sister was named Everly. She said she had been trying to find you but couldn’t. She got turned around and grew lost, she didn’t know how to get back to where you were staying. She told me to tell you how much she loved you and that dinosaurs were really purple. She said you’d understand what that meant if I ever found you.”
Everything started spinning as the nausea twisted its way up my throat and threatened to strangle me on my own vomit. Every breath burned my lungs and seared them with fire until they were charcoal.
It really was her.
Faith used to tell me that all dinosaurs were purple and nobody could say she was wrong because no human had ever seen one. I always told her that scientists didn’t have to see one to know they weren’t purple bu
t she never believed me.
She never believed me.
Faith was dead.
Gone.
All the tears I had been saving up, too stubborn to cry, burst from my eyes. I hadn’t known it at the time, but they were all waiting for this one moment. This one perfect moment where they could drown me in grief.
Strong arms wrapped around me, pulling me close against a warm chest. I buried my face there, letting the sobs take over my body.
“I’m so, so sorry, Ever,” Jet whispered into my hair.
My family was all gone.
Oliver was gone.
Everyone I ever knew and loved were dead.
I really was alone.
Poor little Faith. I had one job after the Event and that was to keep my sister safe. One job and I had failed her in the worst possible way. She died because I lost her. Her life was cut short because I was too irresponsible to look after her.
She was only nine years old. She would never get to grow up, never fall in love, never know the freedom of making decisions. Never know the consequences of making the wrong ones.
When she was four years old, I hated her. She would always run into my room at five o’clock in the morning and jump on my bed. She would sing at the top of her lungs this stupid song she made up. ‘Get up, get up, the day has begun. Don’t be late because you’re a lazy one’.
It used to bug the hell out of me.
Like, seriously. I wanted to throw her out the window every single morning.
Now, I would die a thousand deaths just to hear it again.
Oliver must have seen her spirit, known Faith was no longer missing. Was he there to help her wake up in the spirit world? Would he have been the one to hold her hand and whisper that things would be okay? How did he manage to keep that from me for so long?
I knew Oliver had only been trying to keep the pain of her loss from me but it wasn’t his decision to make. He should have told me so at least I knew. I guessed there was no point blaming him now.
I was never going to stop crying. My tears were going to flood the apartment and drown us in their sorrow. Maybe they would wipe out the entire city.
The rest of the night was a blur.
At some stage, Jet helped me out of my coat. He laid me down and wrapped me in a blanket like it was a cocoon. His body pressed up against my back, pulling me against him so I couldn’t forget I wasn’t alone. His arms embraced me, holding me so tight it was like a silent promise to never let me go.
We Are Always Forever Page 10