“Huh. Brooke. You were planning on taking these girls as Forfeits in your accelerated Feed, to, what, bulk up for battle?”

He nodded. “That was the general idea.”

“Why not take more Daughters of Persephone? Why look for innocent girls?”

“It’s an accelerated Feed, outside of the rules. The Daughters don’t get mixed up with that, although there are other groups of Forfeits who would be willing to go. But we want to find the strongest.”

My heart sank as I realized what he meant, and when I spoke, I looked at Jack. “You’re looking for people with earthly attachments. You want them to survive.”

Max nodded.

“If one of them survives, then why can’t you use her to take over the throne?”

“Because it’s an accelerated Feed.” At my confused expression, he elaborated. “Imagine a marathon—it takes years of intense training. Surviving the accelerated Feed would be like depending on a sugar rush to get you through the race. They wouldn’t be strong enough to take over the throne because it’s not a full Feed. But they’ll add to the strength of our army.”

“That’s . . . that’s despicable.” I held my stomach for fear I would lose my coffee. “Will they have to go to the Tunnels after the Feed?”

“Unless we take over the throne, they’ll have to go to the Tunnels like every other Forfeit. Well, most every other Forfeit.” Max put his hand on my shoulder, which was more voluntary contact than he’d ever made with me before. “But that’s not going to happen. This is how much faith we have in you. You will be our queen.”

Jack swatted Max’s hand away. “Don’t touch her. Don’t ever touch her.”

Max held up his hands. He started to walk back into Grounds&Ink, but Jack stepped in front of him. “Turn around and go somewhere else. Anywhere else. Now.”

Max narrowed his eyes and hesitated for a moment. “I’ll see you soon,” he said.

I shook my head as he walked away. He crossed the parking lot to his motorcycle, kicked it to life, and roared away. As soon as he had disappeared from view, I turned to Jack.

“You know what this means?”

“I know, Becks.”

“They’re going after innocent girls. Girls with earthly attachments. Girls like Ariel, who has a boyfriend.”

“But Tara doesn’t have a boyfriend,” Jack said.

“It doesn’t have to be a boyfriend. The tether between a mother and a daughter could probably save a Forfeit just as easily.” I pressed my lips together and shook my head. “Innocent people are going to die, all to make me queen.”

Jack took me in his arms. “It’s not your fault, Becks.”

“Then why does it feel like my fault?” I stepped back, looked at the ground for a moment, took a deep breath, and raised my eyes to meet Jack’s. “We’ve got to go find Ariel. Jules will take care of Tara, I think. Now we have to find Ariel and get her back together with Luke, who I’m sure never cheated on her. And then we have to find Brooke Chase, because she’s going with Oliver. . . .

“We have to find the girl he’s homed in on and get her away from him. Then we have to watch them to see who they’re going to go after next—”

“Becks,” Jack interrupted.

“We have to.” I looked away toward the mountain, blinking rapidly.

He put his hands on my shoulders and leaned down so we were eye to eye and I would have to look at him. “We can’t do it all. Maybe we can save Tara and then Ariel, but what’s to stop the Deads from going somewhere else and finding more girls?”

I sniffed. “You’re right. There will always be more girls. Even after this, word will get out about how to survive a Feed, and there will be more innocent lives lost, and Everlivings will prey on ordinary human beings with all sorts of attachments and . . . and . . .” I grabbed my hair, pulling at it, and paced to the end of the parking lot, where I turned around. “We have to destroy it.”

“What?”

I walked back to him. “We have to destroy the entire thing. It’s the only way.”

Jack dropped his hands. “No. We have to save you first. We have to focus on finding the cure for you.”

“That’s not as important.”

Jack grabbed my shoulders again, strong enough to make me wince. “Don’t you dare say that. Saving you is the only important thing.”

Slowly I brought my hands up and placed them on either side of his face. “But I can’t live with blood on my hands. I can’t live knowing I’m the reason that girls like Tara and Ariel will become targets of the immortals. I can’t. Saving me will mean nothing if more people die. The only way to save me . . . really save me . . . is to destroy the Everneath.”

He closed his eyes and then hesitantly released his grip on my arms. “Okay. Then we destroy the Everneath.”

EIGHT

NOW

The Surface. In Jack’s car.

Jack and I dropped off Jules and Tara at Tara’s house. Tara didn’t say anything on the way, but Jules sat next to her and told her that everything would be okay. I wasn’t sure if she believed us or if she thought we were all crazy, but regardless, Tara was safe for now. Jules was going to stay with her.

Once we were alone, Jack pulled over to the side of the road. He threw the car into park. I wasn’t sure what he was doing.

He looked into my eyes. “We will try to take down the Everneath,” he said.

I gave him a confused look. “I know.”

“But promise me, Becks. Promise me it won’t get in the way of keeping you alive. Promise you will do whatever it takes to survive.”

“Why are you saying this?” I said.

“Because I can see the switch in your eyes. The second you found out about the accelerated Feed, you went from survival to martyr mode.”

“I’m not planning on martyring myself,” I said, shaking my head.

“I know you,” Jack said. “So here’s the deal. You make it through this. You feed on Cole. We both make it to the other side of this. Okay?”

I nodded, knowing this was a promise that I couldn’t guarantee, but also realizing that, at this moment, it was a promise I needed to make to Jack.

“I swear. I will.”

Since it was nearly dinnertime, Jack dropped me off at my house. He wouldn’t have left me alone, but it was Monday night, and my dad had this archaic rule that Monday nights were strictly reserved for family. Heaven help the telemarketer who dared interrupt family night.

That night my dad brought home Chinese takeout for dinner. I picked at the ham fried rice, anxious about where I was going tonight. Luckily, Tommy was excited about an extra-credit summer project for school for which he had to bake a cake in the shape of Utah and decorate the geography of it using brown sugar for the deserts and chocolate Kisses for the mountainous regions.

It was enough of a distraction that my father didn’t notice I was preoccupied with something else, namely the fact that at midnight, Jack and I were going to Cole’s condo so Cole could feed me. And tomorrow I was going to start my mission to blow up the Underworld.

But for now I had to focus on surviving a night with Jack watching while Cole fed me. Suddenly this feat seemed the more difficult of the two.

The Surface. My bedroom.

I climbed out my window and ran down the street to where Jack’s car was parked. Jack was leaning against the driver’s-side door, waiting for me. When he saw me, he opened the door wide.

I climbed in. “Have you been waiting long?”

“My entire life,” he said.

I smiled. He used to say that all the time, that he had loved me ever since he’d known me, and until we got together he was just waiting. Then I would make a joke about how he spent his time waiting by dating everything in a skirt.

But I didn’t make those jokes anymore.

We were quiet on the drive to Deer Valley. Jack’s hold on the steering wheel was relaxed, and I wondered how many trees he had pummeled to reach this state of zen. I stayed quiet, not wanting to do anything to mess that up, especially by talking about what was going to happen tonight.

If I could feed off Cole without our lips touching . . .

If I could feed off Cole from across the room . . . even better.

From across the Earth . . . best.

I knew that what we were doing would save me, but I couldn’t help feeling as if I were participating in a death march.

When we got there, we stood in front of the door for a while. It looked like it had been recently repaired. Jack looked at me and grabbed my hand.

“We’ll be okay,” he said.

I leaned toward him, and he put his arm around me. “Sometimes I actually believe it,” I said.

“We will,” he insisted. “We survive until we can strike.”

He pulled me close. “Hold on to me. This storm will pass, and until then I’m leaning into the wind.”

I settled into his chest, inhaling his clean-boy smell. “Are you going to be okay tonight? I mean, my lips have to get really close to his.”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Jack said. “Nothing will convince me it does.”

Too soon, and before we had a chance to knock, the door swung open, and Cole stood in the threshold. He saw our embrace, and for a moment his confident smirk faltered, but he recovered quickly.

He looked at Jack. Took in the sheer size of him. “Damn, you’re huge,” he said. “I mean, I knew that would happen, but—”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “What did happen to him?”

Cole raised an eyebrow. “He climbed out of the Tunnels. The energy it took to do that was massive. Each inch would’ve been the equivalent of, I don’t know, say a hundred weight-lifting sessions. So someone who was beefy before would become . . . extra beefy.” He seemed suddenly bored with the explanation. “So, Nik,” he said. “On to more exciting things than Jack’s biceps. Where do you want to . . . consummate—”

Jack stepped in between us, effectively cutting Cole off. “Say ‘consummate’ again. Please.” He clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white.

“Anywhere,” I said. I reached for one of Jack’s hands and urged it open, and then laced my fingers through his.

If he was this tense now, how would he last the night?

We followed Cole into the living room, and that was when I saw that we weren’t alone. Gavin was there, on one of the chairs; and sitting next to him, running her fingers through his hair, was Ariel Hughes. Jules was right.

Yesterday she’d been head over heels for Luke, but tonight she was groping an immortal from the Underworld. She had no idea what she was getting into.

“Hi, Nikki,” Gavin said. Ariel didn’t even bother looking up from Gavin’s neck.

“Hey, Gavin,” I said. “I thought that latest STD test came back positive?” Ariel’s head shot up. Good, I had her attention. I kept my eyes on Gavin. “I’m happy to be wrong, though.”

Ariel pushed herself up off Gavin and stood there.

“It’s not true,” Gavin said, a disbelieving smile on his face. “I’ve never even been tested.”

“I’m out of here,” Ariel said. She grabbed her purse and stalked past me and Jack and out the front door.

Gavin shot me a dirty look. “Thanks a lot, Nikki.”

Cole’s lips twitched, obviously amused at what had just happened.

“You’ll find someone else,” Cole said. He gestured for us to follow him. “Let’s go to my room. Privacy.”

The last place I wanted to go was Cole’s bedroom, but no setting would make what was about to happen less awkward. Jack and I followed Cole down the hallway. As we walked in, I noticed there was still a giant hole in the wall where Jack had ripped the safe out.

“Don’t worry,” Cole said. “I’ll cover the expenses.”

He sat on the edge of his bed, but Jack and I stayed standing.

Crap. We were finally here, the moment I’d been dreading. Neither of us moved. I knew I needed to feed off Cole. I could feel it in my weak muscles; the exhaustion that had been building all day had reached all the way to my bones. I could only imagine how I’d have felt if a full day had gone by. And now that I was so close to getting energy, my body could no longer support itself.

“You’d better put your arm around her, Jack,” Cole said.

Jack turned toward me, surprised. He hadn’t realized I was sinking. He put his arm around my waist and held me up, and yet he made no move to help me get over to Cole. I tried to assemble my frayed thoughts enough to give Jack my speech about how this was the only way to keep me alive, but I couldn’t get the pieces together to form the words.

“Look,” Cole said, leveling his gaze on Jack. “I know you love her. I know what that looks like on a person. You would do anything for her. You want everything for her. And so do I. The problem is, we disagree on what her future should look like. But no matter which path she ends up on, she needs to survive the night. Right here. Right now. That’s something we both can agree on, right?”