Neverfall (2 page)

The new brunette was for me, I’d guess. Probably shipped from the D.O.P. Distribution Center just for this moment, to meet her Dead Elvis.

She’d give me whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it. She’d have been raised that way.

The piped-in club music blaring over the speakers did little to drown out the excitement wafting over the crowd from the girls at the table. I started to make my way across the dance floor, the band following close behind me. The crowd parted for us. I’d grown used to the stares that followed us most places, especially in hipster joints like this one.

That’s all they were though … stares. Rarely did someone have the guts to approach us. Maybe it was because we looked unapproachable. Max was, after all, wearing a silver, spiked dog collar tonight.

Someone bumped into my shoulder with enough force to knock me off my path.

“What the hell?” I said, pushing him off me.

“Hey, watch where you’re—” His slurred speech cut off as he got a good look at me. “Dude,” he said in that I-recognize-a-rock-star kind of way. “You’re a Dead.”

I rolled my eyes and resisted the urge to push him again just for fun.

“I’m a fan.” At the
f
sound in
fan
, I got sprayed with droplets of the man’s spit.

Maybe I should’ve had more patience, but I’d been doing this for hundreds of years. The Dead Elvises were only the latest incarnation of our band. We picked a new name, a new genre of music, a new identity every generation or so. But this generation was so digital, and our images were plastered everywhere. Next time we did this, we’d probably have to get face-lifts as well.

But the point was that tonight the crazed, drunken, spitting fan was becoming old.

Everything in my life was becoming old.

“Can I have an autograph?” the guy said.

I raised an eyebrow. “You have no pen and no paper.”

He stood there staring blankly at me, as if to say,
Why would I need a pen and paper?

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Find me later,
dude
. Okay?”

A smile broke across his face with such enthusiasm that I wondered if I’d accidentally said
How about you join the band?

He staggered away and disappeared into the crowd. It was guys like that who made me reconsider hiring a bodyguard. But bodyguards weren’t our style. Bodyguards signified a certain level of stardom, and we liked to cruise just below that level.

Once seated at the table, Meredith wedged herself in between Max and me. Max’s face lit up—at least as much as Max’s face ever lit up, which was about as much as Bill Gates’s would if he found out he had an extra million lying around. Max was lucky he found this Forfeit attractive. It would make the first few decades of the Feed more tolerable.

“Cole,” Meredith said, infusing more excitement into those four letters than I’d heard in a while. “This is Shacey. She’s from the Seattle chapter of the D.O.P.”

The brunette at the end of the table smiled shyly at me.

Shacey?
What kind of a name was Shacey?

Shacey bowed her head in the traditional greeting between potential Forfeit and Everliving. I don’t know who started the tradition, but the D.O.P. followed customs as if their lives depended on it.

I scooted down to the end of the table.

“Nice to meet you, Shacey,” I said.

At the sound of my voice, she raised her head slightly and looked at me through lowered lashes. Her expression became decidedly darker. I knew that look. One word from an Everliving and a D.O.P. was ready to jump his bones. Is that something the D.O.P. consciously taught? How to be equal parts shy schoolgirl and naughty sex kitten? How many times had she practiced that look in the mirror?

It wasn’t just limited to the Daughters, though. There were plenty of fans, male and female, with a similar kind of … talent.

Trying not to be obvious about it, I inhaled the air from Shacey’s direction and tasted what was there.

Pretty much exactly what I saw. Desire and anticipation, with a splash of trepidation—but only a splash. Every mother instilled her daughter with the same dichotomy of emotions. It was as if the D.O.P. had polled a hundred men about what attributes they found most appealing in a woman and then chose the top three. It was supposed to make the whole idea of a century underground with one person more appealing. But to me it felt old. Sure, any emotion could act as nutrition for an Everliving, but these old emotions felt as satisfying as watered-down wine.

Everything felt old.

Maybe there was something inside her besides those three things, but I couldn’t tell. All our abilities were dulled this close to the Feed. I wouldn’t have my full powers back until after it was over.

I looked at Gavin and Oliver, who high-fived each other after some joke. I envied them their enthusiasm. This would be their second Feed.

It was my tenth.

I turned to my designated Forfeit and said with a straight face, “So, Shacey, what brings you to Park City?”

For a moment she looked startled; her eyes went wide. Unsure, she glanced from me to Meredith.

“He’s kidding,” Meredith said. “Adorable, isn’t it?”

I was about to give some blazing retort, but then I caught a whiff of something in the air that made me freeze.

Anger. Pain. Hate. Joy. Elation. Layers and layers and layers of it, like some sort of elaborate birthday cake baked just for me. The taste of it against the back of my throat knocked me over.

I half expected to turn toward the smell and find a Girl Scout troop entangled with a bunch of newly released death row inmates; but upon spying the source, that’s not what I found. At the entrance to the club stood two girls. High school age. Maybe a couple years younger than my human age.

I sniffed a couple of times, trying to determine which one the smell was coming from. I hoped it wasn’t the blonde with the wavy hair. Blondes weren’t my type.

I breathed in once more. It definitely wasn’t the blonde. The origin of that tasty feast emanated from the girl next to her. The one with dark-brown hair, side-swept over one shoulder, hanging in soft curls to her chest. Giant brown eyes, big as whole notes on sheet music.

At that moment she reached up with the most delicate fingers I’d ever seen and brushed her hair off her shoulder and behind her.

A loud bass drum thumped through the speaker next to her. She jumped, startled, then smiled at her own reaction. It was endearing.

Oh, hell. Did I really just think the word
endearing
?

That should’ve been my first clue that after tonight, everything would change.

The mysterious girl said something to her blond friend, and whatever she said, it made her friend grab her by the arm and urge her farther into the club.

I was struck. But I couldn’t figure out exactly why.

It wasn’t as if she was particularly stunning, but her emotions were far from ordinary and unlike anything I’d ever tasted. Darker than a girl her age should have. I could tell even in my weakened state that this girl had been through something.

Maybe that was my problem with the D.O.P. They’d been raised with the sole purpose of the Feed. They were emotionally stunted because they hadn’t experienced life. They hadn’t been allowed to immerse themselves fully in the intense joys and pains of real human existence, and therefore their emotional bank suffered.

I’d thought this for a while now, but here was my theory proven, standing across the room from me. This girl had been through things … more things than most girls her age, I would guess.

The girl started walking over toward our table. Was it possible she felt the same connection I felt?

No. Her blond friend was waving at someone in our party.

At Meredith.

I glanced at Mer. “Friends of yours?”

“You know the D.O.P. don’t have outside friends,” she said with a smirk. “But yes, they go to my school. Juliana Taylor and Nikki Beckett.”

She
was
young. All those emotions in one teenager? It was too much.

“Which one’s the brunette?” I asked.

She eyed me suspiciously. “Nikki.”

Nikki. Nikki Beckett. I saw the letters of her name in my head. I could’ve written a song about how vines emerged from the
K
s in her name, branching out as if from a tree and wrapping around the inside of my brain.

“She’s the mayor’s daughter,” Meredith added, a hint of warning in her voice.

Mayor Beckett. I remembered seeing his name in the small regional paper this morning. Something about reading to a kindergarten class.

“They’re actually coming over,” Meredith said, averting her eyes. “Max, you be the one to say something. Divert them.”

“It’s fine,” I interrupted. “Let them come.”

Again, Meredith looked at me as if I’d grown a third eyebrow, but she didn’t argue.

Juliana and Nikki got to our table and stood there for a moment awkwardly.

“Hi, Juliana. Nikki.” Meredith emphasized Nikki’s name slightly, and I held back from kicking her under the table. “How did you get in?”

“Sean put us on the list,” the blonde answered.

Meredith looked away, and I rolled my eyes. I guess it was up to me. I stood and gestured for Shacey to switch to the other side of the table. She lowered her eyes and quickly obeyed, then I stepped out.

I caught Nikki’s eye and saw the glimmer of recognition in her face. Good. She knew who we were.

“Here. We can make room.” I cricked my finger toward Nikki to join me. “We can fit you here. Mer, make some room for her friend, will you?”

Meredith gave me an annoyed look but then slid down the bench without a word, pushing Max closer toward me. I ushered Nikki onto the bench and then followed behind, making a getaway difficult for her.

At this close proximity, that same delicious dichotomy of emotions rolled off her in waves. Even Max appreciated the fragrant bouquet. He sniffed the air as if he were at a wine tasting with a glass under his nose. He caught my eye with a smirk, finally understanding why I’d been so eager to have them over. How had he missed it before?
I’d
noticed it the moment she’d walked through the doorway.

Shacey didn’t say much the rest of the night. Or maybe she left. I wasn’t sure. All I could see … all I could
smell
… was Nikki. The waves of her brown hair had the perfect symmetry of one of Mozart’s minuets. Her emotional layers had the depth of a full symphony.

All I wanted was to bathe in her harmony.

When Nikki left the club, I stared after her.

“I didn’t think you’d still be on the prowl for girls this close to the Feed,” Meredith said. She drained the rest of her drink, but I only saw her from the corner of my eye.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the emotions that Nikki left in her wake.

“I’m not,” I said, but even I could hear the uncertainty in my own voice.

Meredith could too.

“She’s dating the school quarterback.”

“People date all the time. And they break up all the time.”

“Not these two,” Meredith said with a snort. “Their love is
epic
. Everyone at school knows it. He gave up his philandering ways to be with his longtime childhood bestie.”

I finally glanced at her sideways. “They’re in high school. High schoolers don’t philander.”

“Jack Caputo does. Or did.”

Glancing back at Nikki’s emotional wake, I didn’t answer Meredith. If she was right, if Jack was a supposed “philanderer,” maybe I could use that information to my own benefit someday.

But my benefit for what, exactly? What did I want from Nikki?

Now that the crowds had thinned, Shacey moved closer to me with a look on her face that said
My place or yours?

I hoped she couldn’t read my own thoughts as easily as I could read hers. I was thinking that I’d throw Shacey off a train if I could ever get someone like Nikki Beckett to become my Forfeit.

The Feed would no longer be just a Feed then. It would be a Feast.

I looked Meredith straight in the eye. “There’s no such thing as epic love.”

At the condo. A week after we played the club
.

A
week after that last concert, I was holed up in my room surrounded by dozens of leather-bound books, the pages of which were yellowed and faded from time. I closed one that contained bound Egyptian papyri and reached for another one that held Greek writings.

There was no internet search engine that could answer my questions. Any real information about the Everneath could only be found in ancient texts like these. I hadn’t ever had the urge to rifle through the dull records of the history of our civilization, but then again, I hadn’t ever had the need. Nikki changed that. Nikki changed everything.

A knock sounded at my door.

I didn’t answer. Instead, I flipped through the first few pages, checking the ancient Greek scribbles for anything to do with the Underworld. The symbols started to move in and out of focus, the lines bleeding together. I squeezed my eyes shut. If the eye really was a muscle, I had pulled it long ago.