Never (The Ever Series Book 2) (3 page)

“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 happy 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.”

As the pieces begin to fall into place, I summon a vision of Alex, his copper hair blazing in the rising sun. I focus on it, and suddenly Ever’s hands lock on the steering wheel. When he turns to face me, there’s no trace of a smile left on his features.

“Wren?”

I swallow.

“I … I was thinking about him,” I whisper.

Ever curses under his breath, and I grip the armrest as the car begins weaving through traffic. Some small part of me remembers that Ever won’t crash, but I still cringe when we slice between a cement truck and a minivan. Seconds later, we pull into the student parking lot, and I see Audra and Chasen standing at the curb waiting for us. The car skids to a stop right in front of them, and I hear the doors open. Almost instantaneously Ever’s two perfect companions appear in the backseat.

“He marked her,” Ever spits.

I feel the blood drain from my face.

“Are you certain?” Audra asks.

Ever touches my hand, and I jump.

“Lift your hair,” he says.

The iciness has returned to his voice. Confused, I do what he says, and Audra gasps. Her shock is so out of character that I turn and stare at her.

“And we’re not going after him?” Chasen snarls.

Dropping my hair, I swivel to face Ever. Staring into his eyes, I open my mind with all my strength and gasp when I see a copper sun etched into the skin on the back of
my
neck. I reach back and touch the spot. It’s warm.

“
No
! Ever? How?”

Ever blinks and stares at me like I just slapped him. Then he grabs my hand.

“Wren, you could have hurt yourself.”

“I’m stronger than I look—and you weren’t telling me anything!” I argue.

Audra leans forward.

“Ever, did she just … ?”

He pinches his brow between his thumb and index finger.

“She can get into your head? That’s why they want her!” Audra cries. “You should have told us! If she’s this powerful now, then …”

“All right,” I snap. “You guys can stay here and argue. I’m going to class.”

Opening the car door, I get out and start walking toward the attendance office to drop off my mom’s note. I’ve only taken a few steps when Ever joins me.

“Wren, I’m sorry.”

I exhale.

“That jerk tattooed my neck!”

How or when, I can’t remember—which is probably for the best. Ever opens the door to the main office, and Mrs. Heinz looks up and smiles. I’m surprised she still remembers me from my first day of school. Then again, on my second day, I left school in an ambulance, which I’m guessing makes me a little more memorable than I would have been otherwise. When she looks at Ever, her pupils dilate and her expression changes.

That young man is something else. If I was thirty years younger …

Oh. No. I look down and hurry into the adjoining office.

“Maybe it’s you we should be worried about,” I whisper to Ever. “Mrs. Heinz thinks you’re a tasty snack.”

I give him a wry look as he takes my hand. For a few seconds, I can almost stop worrying enough to enjoy the simple act of walking to class with him. When we reach Mr. Gideon’s room, Ever gestures for me to go ahead of him, and the girl I’ve had the unfortunate pleasure of sitting next to since I got to Springview High School looks up. Her eyes narrow, and she treats me to an extra dose of silent insults the second she sees my hand linked to Ever’s. I smile when I think of how embarrassed she would be if she knew that at least two people in this school could hear her crass insults. Or maybe she just wouldn’t care.

“Wren!” Ashley shouts from behind me.

I turn around, and a second later she practically tackles me.

“How are you feeling?” she asks.

“Better,” I smile, trying to look like I’m recovering from the flu.

She looks me up and down suspiciously.

“Are you sure you didn’t fly down to Southern California and spend a long weekend on the beach? ’Cause I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

I stare blankly at her and start shaking my head.

“I was in bed the whole time. … Why?”

“You kind of look different.” She cocks her head and studies me. “Glowing almost—like you’ve been on vacation or something.”

I force myself to smile.

“I might have had a fever. Does that count? So? Did anything interesting happen while I was out?”

“You could say that,” she laughs.

I raise an eyebrow, but the bell rings before I can get any information out of her. Sitting down next to Ever, I look at my hands. I’m still pale by anyone’s standards, but my skin does have the slightest glow to it. It makes me think of Ever, Audra, Chasen, Alistair, Persephone. Iago-Alex, too.

Had part of them rubbed off on me? I wonder.

In second period, Mr. Bellarmine performs his usual feat—teaching straight from the textbook. This would be fine, if I already understood what was in the book. Unfortunately, I had been hoping to have a real human being explain the quadratic equation. Instead, I end up staring at the clock for the better part of class. When the nutrition bell rings, I go to my locker and unload the pile of books I’ve been carrying around. Slamming the locker door closed, I jump at the sight of Ever.

Suddenly I know that I will always be a little jumpy. And I will
never
get over the sensation of someone pulling me into oblivion. This makes me desperate for some normalcy. I look at Ever, and he smiles.

“Go.”

I touch his hand and then hurry toward Ashley’s locker. Turning the corner, I’m thankful that at least one thing hasn’t changed. It’s just the girls hanging around during nutrition. Then I notice a fourth person standing with Ashley, Lindsay, and Taylor. I rock to a stop when I recognize who it is. Audra. With
my
friends. Just how much had changed in the time I was gone? I walk up a little more cautiously than normal. When Lindsay turns and sees me, she throws an arm around my neck.