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Page 5

  What was my problem?

  I’d known he would be here. I thought I’d been prepared. But now that he was in front of me, I wasn’t thinking about lost hearts or mysterious wrist shackles or the fact that I’d just fainted minutes before.

  All I could focus on was the hate.

  FIVE

  NOW

  The Surface. Mrs. Stone’s classroom.

  My hand froze with my pencil midair, as if I were posing with a dart, about to throw it at a target. The tip of the pencil pointed toward Cole.

  He caught my eye and smirked, then turned to Mrs. Stone. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic. ”

  Mrs. Stone narrowed her eyes. “Not a great precedent to set on the first day of class, Mr. . . . ?”

  “Black. Neal Black. ”

  I couldn’t move. Mrs. Stone nodded toward me, and for a moment I was terrified she would say something like You know Nikki, I’m sure.

  But then I realized she wasn’t looking at me; she was looking at the seat next to me, on the opposite side from Jules. With dread I noticed it was the only empty seat in the room. And considering my uncontrollable reaction to Cole, I wasn’t sure I would survive sitting by him for the entire class.

  I grabbed the sides of my desk, as if I were about to pick it up and move it. Like a crazy person.

  Cole walked over and noticed how I was grabbing my desk. He raised an eyebrow. “I think when Mrs. Stone said to take our seats, she didn’t mean literally take our seats. ”

  I released the desk.

  He plopped down in the chair and whispered, “What’s wrong? You knew I was coming. ”

  I took a few deep breaths in and out. “I know. But I hate you. ”

  He smiled. “Did you just figure that out?”

  I closed my eyes and leaned over my desk. “It’s, like, painful. ” I made an O shape with my mouth and blew out some breaths, just like I’d seen women in labor do on television.

  Cole put his hand on my back. “Breathe. Just breathe. Try not to die of hate. ”

  Mrs. Stone struck her ruler on the end of her table. “If I may continue?”

  Cole sat up straight and nodded as if to say You may proceed.

  “As I was saying, we are first going to cover the structure of haiku, and just to make it interesting, we’re going to add a taste of mythology. Specifically, Hercules. Yes, the strong man often is perceived as an oaf. Light on the brain cells, heavy on the biceps. ”

  Cole leaned over and said under his breath, “We all know someone like that, don’t we?”

  I didn’t take my eyes off Mrs. Stone.

  “But he was victim to one of the worst curses in mythology: the inability to know good from evil. Because of this, he committed many acts of violence. Even murder. Later in his life the curse was lifted. ” She paused dramatically. “Can you imagine the pain? Having to face the things you had done in your life at a time when you had no morals? A time when you didn’t know right from wrong? In this way, lifting the curse placed a whole new curse on Hercules. The curse of remorse. ” She pointed to what she had written on the board, about the twelve labors. “We will divide up into teams of two, and each team will be assigned one of Hercules’s twelve labors. Throughout the course, as we learn about the different writing styles, you will write about that particular labor in that particular style. Now, choose your teammate. ”

  Crap. I turned to Jules, but Tara Bolton whipped around in her seat as if she’d heard a gunshot or something. Jules looked from Tara to me and gave me an apologetic shrug.

  I turned behind me, but Lisa Papadakis was leaning to her right, making plans with Shalese Glenn. I desperately looked to the front of the room just as Cole pushed his desk next to mine with a loud squeak against the tile floor.

  I threw my hand against his desk, but I couldn’t do anything more than slow it down. I didn’t want him anywhere near me.

  “It’s not necessary to push our desks together,” I said, but he ignored me.

  “Everyone paired up?” Mrs. Stone said. “Good. I’ll assign each team a number, and you will get the task of the corresponding number. ”

  Cole and I were assigned number five. The task of cleaning the Augean stables in a single day.

  “As I said, your first writing style is the haiku. ” She spent the next twenty minutes reviewing the form and the history behind it, and then gave us the rest of the class time to start our own haiku.

  The background hum of the rest of the class gave me the chance to speak without whispering. And as long as we were together now . . .

  “I want my heart,” I said, my voice shaking.

  Again he ignored me. “Cleaning stables in haiku form,” he said, leaning closer to me than necessary. “I love high school. ”

  “I want my heart. ”

  “Do you want to write or shall I?” Cole said loudly, ignoring me.

  Mrs. Stone glanced at us, so I pulled out a notebook and started writing in it as if we were working.

  “I want my heart. I’ll trade you for it. I’ll give you anything. Almost anything. ”

  He tilted his head forward in a challenging way. “Give me you. ”

  “Anything else. ”

  Cole raised an eyebrow. “You think I care about anything else?”

  I looked down at the floor. “Where is my heart?” I said.

  “You’re always asking the wrong question. ”

  I raised my head. “What’s the right question?”

  He paused dramatically. “Why are you going to summer school when you’re dying?”

  I froze with my pencil hovering above the paper. “I am not dying. You made me immortal. ”

  Quick as a flash, he grabbed my wrist and pushed up my sleeve. He studied my wrist for a moment before I yanked my hand away. “The shackle,” he said. “It’s there. ”

  “So?” I pulled my sleeve back down.

  He frowned, and when he spoke again his voice was soft. “You’re getting weak, aren’t you?” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. “Quickly, too. ”

  “No,” I said. The word came out shaky.

  Cole ran his hand through his messy hair. “Yes, you are. And that means you’re beginning the transition. Your body doesn’t know how to metabolize outside energy sources yet. ”

  I leaned closer. “That’s ridiculous. I fed off Jack twice last year. ” I tried not to think about all the times I’d tried to feed on him in the past two weeks only to fail.

  “But you were human then. ”

  “I still am human. ”

  “No, you’re not. Now your energy isn’t simply energy. It’s life. It’s your survival. And until you make the full transition, until you feed on a human for a century, you will be in this limbo state, where there’s only one source of nutrition. ”

  I froze. One source of nutrition?

  Mrs. Stone rapped her ruler on her desk. “Time’s up. Do I have any volunteers to read their haikus?”

  The class collectively sank a little lower in their seats. I couldn’t take my eyes off Cole.

  “Mr. Black. You and Miss Beckett seemed intent on the assignment,” she said with a suspicious gaze. “Care to share?”

  I opened my mouth to explain we hadn’t come up with anything yet, but Cole spoke first.

  “For the fifth labor

  what better treat than to sling

  giant chunks of dung. ”

  There were a few snickers throughout the room. Tara sat there with her mouth open. Stephanie Jarmon looked at Cole as if he had just written the Declaration of Independence in thirty seconds.

  Mrs. Stone gave one more rap of her ruler. “Well, Neal. You certainly have the haiku format down, although your word choice could use a little . . . finesse. ”

  “We are talking about cleaning stables,” Cole said, a cheeky grin on his lips.

  She couldn’t help a smile, then checked her watch. “We’ll take a five-minute break. Go do what you need to do. Be back her
e by eleven. ”

  The classroom broke out into a loud murmur. I heard bits and pieces. Mostly about how “Neal” spontaneously haikued.

  All I could think about was what my one source of nutrition would be.

  I left my books on my desk and followed Cole out of the room. I grabbed his arm and started to pull him toward the courtyard. Nobody would be there. We could talk without everyone staring.

  Cole let me pull him, saying loudly, “Lead on. I like a woman who—”

  “Shut up. ”

  We got to the courtyard and I looked around to make sure we were alone, then closed the door behind us and went over to one of the tables.

  “Talk,” I commanded.

  “About what?”

  As if he didn’t know. “What’s happening to me?”

  “Ah, that. ” He leaned back and lifted his feet to rest them on another chair. “Nik, you’re going through the change, from human to Everliving. ” The way he said “the change” made me think of parents giving their child “the talk. ” He sighed. “The shackle means you’ve started the transition. Like I said. That means you can no longer make your own energy. You have to get it from somewhere else. ”

  “Why can’t I feed off Jack?”

  He frowned at the mention of Jack. “Because your body doesn’t know how to convert other people’s energy into your own immortality yet. You’re like a newborn bird. You don’t have the skills yet to feed yourself, so you have to depend on your mother bird for sustenance until you make the full transition. ”

  “What if I don’t want to make the full transition?”

  He took in a deep breath, looking pained for only a moment before he spoke. “Silly Nik. Always looking for ways to die. Here’s the deal. Until your first Century Feed, you survive only by eating the food the mother bird brings for you. But the food from the mother bird will sustain you for only so long, just as a baby can only survive for so long on formula. When it’s time for you to Century Feed, a second shackle will appear on your other wrist. The process takes different lengths of time for everyone. ”

  “I thought I wouldn’t have to . . . Century Feed for another ninety-nine years, with all the other Everlivings. ”

  He pursed his lips. “That’s not how it works with new baby Everlivings. As soon as the nutrition from the mother bird stops working, usually a few weeks after you lose your heart, you have to bring a Forfeit for a Century Feed. ”

  Everything around us seemed to go blurry. A few weeks? I’d thought I had ninety-nine years. He had to be wrong.

  I narrowed my eyes, bringing my vision into focus again. “Who, exactly, is this mother bird?”

  He clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “That’s the best part. The mother bird is the Everliving who holds your heart. ”

  The Everliving who holds my heart. Cole stole my heart from my bedroom two weeks ago. He’d said there were special perks for the Everliving who held it. Cole was the mother bird? I closed my eyes.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I am your only source of survival. ” His face broke out into a wide grin. “I wish Gavin were here. I’d have him give me a drum roll. ”

  “Stop playing games. Tell me. ”

  He raised an eyebrow, gave me a devilish wink, then grabbed me and kissed me.

  SIX

  NOW

  The Surface. The school courtyard.

  I tried to pull away, but then I felt the unmistakable surge of power from Cole’s lips to mine; and with that first morsel of energy, my limbs, which had previously felt like noodles, suddenly filled with vitality.

  I didn’t realize how weak I’d become until I felt how much life was being restored.

  And it wasn’t just energy that transferred to me. Images began to flood my mind. A flash of a blond boy, working the fields, on a farm, maybe, in a place where the sky was insanely blue and the mountains encroached on the little valley. That blond boy had to be Cole, somewhere in Norway from a time before he was immortal. Whatever the memory was, it became embedded in my brain.

  I remembered getting bits and pieces of his memories when he’d fed me in the Everneath. But I didn’t want to focus on his memory now. All I cared about was the strength I was getting.

  I felt it rush through me, reaching my fingertips, my toes, and finally lifting to my face.

  When he pulled away, I was the one who leaned in for more.

  “Now do you understand?” he said, his voice breathless. He closed his eyes and whispered, “Nik, we are each other’s lifeblood. We always will be. ”

  I couldn’t speak. The drinking fountain in the corner of the courtyard shuddered to life, and I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the stainless steel. Even in that distorted vision, I could see that my cheeks had color in them and that the circles underneath my eyes had disappeared.

  And the change wasn’t just on the outside. I could feel it under my skin. It took me maybe ten seconds to understand the implications of what had just happened. I’d been getting weak, and Cole had made me strong.