I nodded and got out of the car. My father, Tommy, and I ate a simple dinner that night. French toast. Breakfast for dinner. Just what the mayor needed after a tiring campaign. When I first got to the Everneath, I sometimes pictured what I would say to my dad and Tommy if I had the chance. But imagining the scene was very different from living it.

Tonight I had nothing to say. No wisdom to impart. No tearful good-byes. I had once had the words, but now they fell through me, as if I were a defunct sieve. Just one more ordinary dinner, in our ordinary kitchen, under ordinary circumstances. As if nothing were different.

I realized then that my Return had been painful. More painful than I ever could have imagined, with birthdays of Tommy’s that I’d never get to see, and the inauguration of my dad that I wouldn’t be able to attend, and good-byes I’d never be able to say.

But it’d been beautiful, too. The moments I could cling to, like the touch of Tommy’s golden hair beneath my fingers, and the sound of my dad’s voice as he talked to my mom when he thought no one else was listening.

When we were done, I hurried and did the dishes, and then I hugged Tommy and said good night.

“You never hug,” Tommy said.

I kissed the top of his head, scruffed up his hair. If this worked, I would do everything I could to make life normal for my little brother. I headed down the hall to my room, opened the door, and shut it behind me.

Jack was lying on his back on my bed, his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Without a word, I laid down next to him, facing him. He turned to look at me.

We were quiet for a moment. I studied his face—the bend of his cheekbones, the curve of his lips. Softly, I touched the post in his eyebrow.

His eyes crinkled in response.

“When did you get it?” I asked.

“A month after you left,” he said, “my mom told me to forget you. That you were gone, and you were never coming back, and that I was better off without you.” His lip quirked up in a half smile. “I knew she would hate it.”

I smiled, then leaned in and kissed his eyebrow.

His eyes flicked to my arm. The mark crept along, unstoppable, and as I watched it, the weight of all the things I couldn’t change came crashing down on me. This was the last night. Our last night. The last time I would feel his calloused hands on my skin. I looked at his beautiful face, and I couldn’t bear it.

Every breath I took meant another grain of sand in my hourglass disappeared, and I only had a few left. I tried not breathing. I was losing it, and I turned away.

Jack put his arm around my waist and pulled me tight against him, so my back was cradled against his chest. He knew exactly what I was feeling. He breathed slowly, deliberately near my ear, willing my own breathing to mirror his.

“Do you want to know the first time I ever saw you?” he said with his lips at my ear.

I knew the story, but I nodded anyway, frantically.

“Your family had just moved in. You were … how old were you, Becks?”

I shrugged, and he ran his fingers over my head, calming me. He knew the answer.

“You were eleven,” he said. “I was twelve. I remember Joey Velasquez talking about the pretty new girl in the neighborhood. Actually his exact words were ‘the hot chick.’ But I didn’t think a thing about it until I saw you at the baseball field. We were having practice at the park and your family showed up for a picnic. You had so much dark hair, and it was hiding your face. Remember?”

I nodded. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

He ignored me. “I had to see if Joey was right, about the hot chick part, and I kept trying to get a good look at your face, but you never looked over our way. I hit home run after home run trying to get your attention, but you couldn’t be bothered with my record-shattering, superhuman performance.”

I smiled, and breathed in slowly. I’d heard this story so many times before. The familiarity of it enveloped me with warmth. “So what did you do?” I asked, fully aware of the answer.

“I did the only thing I could think of. I went up to bat, lined my feet up in the direction of your head, and swung away.”

“Hitting the foulest foul ball anyone had ever seen,” I continued the story.

I felt him chuckle next to me. “Yep. I figured in order to return the ball, you’d have to get really close to me, because…” He waited for me to fill in the blank.

“Because someone made the mistake of assuming I would throw like a girl,” I said softly.

He pressed his lips against my head before he went on. “Which, of course, was stupid of me to think. You stood right where you were and chucked the ball farther than I’d ever seen a girl, or even any guy, chuck it.”

“It was all those years of Bonnet Ball my parents forced on me.”

“The entire team went nuts. You gave a little tiny shrug, like it was no big deal, and sat back down with your family. Completely ignoring me again. So my plan totally backfired. Not only did you get the attention of every boy on the field— which was not my intention—but I got reamed by the coach, who couldn’t understand why I suddenly decided to stand perpendicular to home plate.”

It’d worked. My breathing was slow again. I turned against his body, so I was facing him, and wrapped my arms around his back and tangled my legs up with his.

I’d spent a hundred years with Cole, in a similar position, but this was nothing like it. There were no outside forces keeping us together. No otherworldly powers interfering with this simple act.

No. Jack wanted me close because he wanted me. Separating from him now would be worse than anything I’d felt before. Separating from him now would make me bleed, and I would never stop.

I didn’t tell him this. I didn’t have to.

We stayed like that for hours—my head on his stomach— trying so hard not to fall asleep. As if we could stop time.

THIRTY-TWO

NOW

My house. Hours left.

In the morning, Jack left to go pick up Will, and I went to my kitchen and took out a pen and two pieces of paper. My dad and Tommy deserved letters this time. They were the closest thing I had to a real good-bye. In the letters, I tried to explain that I was gone, and that I wasn’t coming back. I tried to express my love. I tried to make it all okay. I tried.

When I was finished, I folded up the letters and placed them under the milk carton. Except for the rare dinner of French toast, the only time my family ever drank milk was at breakfast, so I was pretty sure my dad wouldn’t discover the letters until tomorrow morning at the earliest. If I made it back, I could get them before they were ever read.

Jack was back on my porch within the hour. “Sorry, it took me a little while to find Will.”

“Is he sober?” I asked.

He nodded. “Mostly. Enough to drive his own car. You ready?”

I glanced behind me, toward the empty house and the letters to my family, and then I turned back to Jack. “Yes.”

Jack took my hand and pulled me toward his car. I looked up at him as we walked. The sun was behind his head, burning through his hair, and I had the feeling that the way he looked right then would be the picture in my head forever. “Jack, do me a favor?” I said.

“Anything, Becks.”

“Don’t let go of my hand. And if the Tunnels come for me, don’t let go until the last moment.”

“If the Tunnels come for you, I’ll hold on, and they won’t be able to take you.”

I smiled at the sentiment, even though I knew that no one would be able to hold on.

Jack and I drove toward the condo in a new state of mind. We’d both been stripped of all the evasiveness, all the lies, everything we’d ever kept from each other. Layer by layer, we had given up our defenses and our excuses and our demands for whys and hows, and what was left were two broken beings. Clinging to one last shred of hope. Tethered to each other.

I couldn’t speak as to what occupied Jack’s mind on that drive, but I knew what I was hoping for. That Jack would be able to recover. That he would heal. That those who loved him would soon repair the broken sheathing around his raw soul, and that his memories of me, while tender, wouldn’t define him. I couldn’t tell him this, because then he would know the doubt in my mind, and now wasn’t the time for doubt.

First, I hoped we would succeed in destroying Cole’s guitar. The other things were a silent prayer, kept close to my heart, for just in case.

As we got closer to Cole’s condo, Jack and I went over our plan again. It wasn’t very complex. I would let Cole believe I’d chosen him over the Tunnels, and then when we found the guitar, we’d make a break for it and toss it off the balcony and into the cement courtyard. Or smash it against the floor. But tossing it sounded better, because then nobody would be near enough to fight us.

We didn’t talk about my dad, or Tommy, or Jules. We didn’t talk about failing. We didn’t talk about how the mark was about a finger-width’s distance from my wrist line.

I remembered the bend in the road that would reveal the massive condo on the hillside closest to the resort ski lift. I’d made this drive almost exactly one year ago. That time, there’d been an early spring, and the road was clear. Now it was covered with a couple of inches of packed snow.

Jack parked as close to the door as possible, and we climbed the stairs. Outside the front door, I looked at Jack and he nodded. I knocked. Maxwell opened it, and I shoved my way past him.

“Where’s Cole?” I said. Before he could answer, I raised my voice. “Cole! Get down here.”

“Nik?”

I looked up in the direction the voice came from. Cole was leaning on the second-floor railing that looked over the spacious living room. I couldn’t see his guitar.

I held up my arm. “I’m out of time, Cole.”

“I know. I’d almost given up.” He looked from me to Jack, and his forehead creased with pain for a flash, and then it was gone. Replaced by a calm expression, his eyes suddenly dark. “I hope you didn’t come here to ask for my help. You know I have no power over the balance of the Everneath.” He glanced at Jack. “Sorry, bro. Even with your biceps, we can’t fight the force of nature.”

Jack’s mouth tightened, but he held back his response.

“Cole, look at me,” I said. Cole hesitated for a moment and then swung his gaze back to me, and I met his stare. “I’m going with you.”

He froze. Didn’t move for a full thirty seconds. Maxwell and Gavin appeared from the back room, silently watching.

Cole stood up straight. “I’m not buying it.” He turned around.

“Wait!” Jack called. Cole stopped. “It was my idea.”

Cole turned to face us slowly.

“I convinced her to go with you. She’s going away anyway. Better to rule hell than serve it.”

I stepped forward and raised my arm, showing my wrist. “Cole, please come talk to us.”

He narrowed his eyes, skeptical, and I thought it was over then and there. But then he said, “Be right there.”

He turned back and disappeared down the hall that would lead to the stairs. I looked up at Jack. He whispered, “Let’s hope he brings the guitar.”

But when Cole descended the last flight of stairs, his hands were in his pockets. No guitar strap over his shoulder. I tried not to let even a hint of disappointment show in my face. We had a backup plan.

Cole followed us outside to the balcony of the condo, and we made sure that his back was to the front door. The air outside stirred with a rush of unseasonably warm air. I looked at my wrist. The marks had stopped moving. I pulled my sleeve forward to cover it and stared at Cole’s face. I had to focus extra hard on watching Cole, so my eyes wouldn’t flick one bit when Will made his move.

Will knew exactly what to do. The army had trained him for this. When he appeared in my peripheral vision, behind Cole, he was wearing his army fatigues and camouflage. I fought a smile as he slipped inside the open condo door. He would be in and out before the rest of the band even knew what was happening.

Jack stepped aside, shuffling his feet against the wood to mask any noise, and leaned back against the wall. He looked away as Cole spoke to me.

“What’s this all about, Nik?” Cole said.

“I’m going with you. I don’t want to be in the Tunnels.”

“But you’ll have to Feed.”

“I know. Why are you being like this?” I said. “I thought you’d be happy.”

“Because it seems so unlike you. I’ve never followed someone during the Return, but I know for a fact nobody would choose the Tunnels over the Court. Except you. You’re stalwart in your selflessness, to the point of self-destruction, which is why I’ll ask you again. What are you doing here?” Softer, he added, “You would never come with me.”

Behind him I saw movement from the doorway of his condo. Will was at the threshold, Cole’s guitar in his hand. I grabbed Cole’s arm to stop him from going any farther.