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 Ks 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.”
THREE
NOW
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.
I blinked my eyes open and stared at the page. The symbols were their own entities again.
Suddenly the door swung open and Max stood there. He glanced around the room, at the open books strewn across the floor and the loose papers scattered on top of my bed. He went over to the window and threw open the curtains.
I held up my hand to shield my eyes from the light.
“This is what you’ve been ditching practice for?” he said. “Working on your Greek alphabet?”
I lowered my head and focused on the book in my hands. “I have to know how she did it. How she survived.”
Max sighed audibly and closed the door behind him. He sat in one of the few clear spots on my floor.
“We’ve got deadlines,” he said, absentmindedly picking up one of the loose papers and glancing at it before setting it aside. “We’ve got fans waiting on us. We’ve got everything we ever wanted.”
“Not everything,” I said, finally looking him in the eye. “Don’t you want to rule the Everneath?”
He narrowed his eyes skeptically. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes it does. Do you want the kingdom?”
He picked up the guitar leaning against my bed, plucked the E string, then turned the corresponding tuner. “Everyone wants it. But how do we know Nikki can get it?”
“I’m not saying she can. But we do know that the only ones who have overthrown the queen are the ones who survived the Feed. Nikki survived it, yes. She’s free now, yes. But what if we can find out how she did it? And then, at the next Feed, we find someone just like her.” I closed the book in my lap but kept my eyes on Max. “I have to know. I have to find out, and I’m not going to back down.”
Max frowned, but he stopped tuning my guitar.
“C’mon, Max. This is our chance for the throne. Our chance to end the slavery.”
“You think we’re slaves, but I think we’re gods.” He strummed a bright chord. “We’re rich. We live forever. We can change people’s attitudes simply by breathing. We have all the power, and we never grow old. We’re gods.”
“Gods who have to answer to a queen. Gods who, if we fail to meet our quota of sacrifices, will be destroyed. Or fed to the Shades. Gods who are slaves to their next meal. Yes, I’d rather be an Everliving slave than a human, but that doesn’t mean we can’t strive for more. For power.”
Max sighed, and a look of resignation passed over his face. “Other Everliving have searched for the same info and come up short. What makes us different?”
“They didn’t have Nikki. We can combine what we find out with what we know about her. That gives us the edge.”
Max’s hand froze over the strings of my guitar. We stared at each other for a few long moments. Finally Max set aside the guitar. “If you want to find out how she survived the Feed, you’re looking in the wrong place. These … manuscripts are only ancient versions of modern-day myths. They won’t tell you anything you don’t already know. The D.O.P., however, keep meticulous records of every Forfeit. If we’re going to start somewhere, we should start with them.”