Sirens wailed in the distance. I glanced down at my hand, the one that had touched his cheek.

This had to stop. I had to stop.

FOURTEEN.

NOW.

My bedroom. Less than three months left.

The halfway point of my Return had come and gone, and I still wasn't any closer to saying good-bye. The only thing I had actually accomplished was getting Jack beat up. It was n.o.body's fault but my own.

When I got home after the accident, Cole was waiting for me in my room, as usual. But today was the first time I actually wanted him there.

"I'm ready to leave."

He sat upright. "You are? I..." he started, as if wondering what he should pack. Apparently I'd surprised him. "Sorry, I just... Wow. I thought you'd take a lot more convincing. Let's go."

He stood and held out his hand. I didn't take it. "I said I'm ready to leave. Not that I'm going with you."

He let his hand drop to his side. "What do you mean?"

I took a deep breath. "I'm ready to go to the Tunnels." At my words, the mark began to writhe underneath my skin, like a muscle spasm.

A scowl replaced Cole's smile, and he sat back down on the bed and started playing his guitar as if I hadn't said anything.

"I want to go," I said.

"See ya."

He wasn't looking at me. I pressed my lips together and balled my hands into fists. "How do I do it, Cole?" He strummed another chord. "The Tunnels want me. They're going to take me anyway. How do I go there now?"

He shrugged. "My best guess? It's called the Everneath for a reason, so aim that way"-he pointed toward the floor- "and go."

I sat on the bed next to him and grabbed his hand before he could strum another chord. He stared at my hand, wrapped around his.

"Please, Cole. This situation can't be good for you, either. You obviously aren't moving on. I don't know what's out there for you, but there has to be something more than this-hanging around me. Trying to convince me of something that will never happen."

He jerked his hand away and looked at me. "Once you choose to Return, there's no getting out of it early. Except to go with me. I can help you."

"You'd help me ... lose my heart. Right? That's what it would mean to go with you. I'd lose my heart. And then to survive, I'd have to ruin someone else's life. Sentence them to the Tunnels."

Cole stood and walked over to the window. "I can't talk to you when you're like this. Let me know when the reality of your circ.u.mstances has sunk in. Then maybe I can help."

"Wait."

He paused. "What?"

"When we were in the Everneath, did you ever tell me about Orpheus and Eurydice?"

He narrowed his eyes. "No."

"But you said you told me all the stories of the Everneath. Why not-"

He didn't let me finish. "Because that one never happened." The iPhone in his pocket vibrated, and he stared at the screen. "I have to go." He started to climb out the window.

"Bu-"

"Nik, now's not the time for an education." He tilted his head toward my shoulder. The one that held the mark. "Time's running out."

He slid out the window, slamming it shut behind him with such force that the framed picture of me and my mom crashed to the floor.

I checked my mark. It had tripled in size. And it was still tingling from when I'd talked about going to the Tunnels early, as if the Shade beneath my skin had gotten jittery at the mention of its home.

I sank into my chair for a moment. The last time Cole was here and he'd gotten a text, he'd ended up with Max at the convenience store.

I knew what I had to do. I'd been stupid to go to the store when Max and Cole weren't there. Maybe whatever happened at the store was triggered only by Max or Cole.

I sprinted out of my room and down the hall to the kitchen to grab my car keys. If there was a chance I could catch them both at the store, maybe I'd understand.

The Shop-n-Go.

I stopped up the street from the Shop-n-Go and walked the rest of the way. Cole's bike wasn't parked out front, and I wasn't at the right angle to see inside the gla.s.s windows of the store.

Maybe Cole wasn't here. Maybe the text was about something else.

I crept closer to the building, ducking down in case Cole was nearby, but then I rolled my eyes. Why would Cole be hiding out? Waiting to ambush me on the off chance I might be strolling down the street?

I made my way to the side of the store, where the windows gave me a clear view inside to the spot near the back. No one was there. No old man, no Maxwell, no bottle. From my position, I could look through the store windows and see the front door too. I decided to wait and see if either Cole or Maxwell showed up.

The thin hoodie I'd thrown on wasn't doing much to keep out the chill, and I rubbed my arms and bounced up and down, trying to get warm. After a few minutes of this, the front doors of the shop swung open. I stepped a little closer to the gla.s.s to get a clear view, and I saw Maxwell go in with a woman I'd never seen before. My breath fogged up the gla.s.s a little, so I wiped it down and kept watching.

The woman was blond, with a bad dye job and a few inches of regrowth. She wore a short skirt, a tight, sequined tube top that was missing every other sequin, and an overcoat that was a few sizes too big, as if it were made for a man.

She had black smudges below her eyes and streaks of mascara running down her cheeks. She didn't look like the usual Dead Elvises groupie.

Maxwell nodded to the clerk-Ezra again-as they pa.s.sed, and Ezra waved lazily. The woman was staggering, and Maxwell put an arm around her to steady her. What was he doing with her?

They made their way to the spot by the chocolate-covered raisins, and I scooted back so there was no way Maxwell could see me if he happened to glance out the window. I couldn't remember there being anything behind me, so when I backed into something, I jumped.

Two strong arms wrapped around me from behind, pinning my arms to my sides.

"Hey, Nik. Thought you might show up." Cole's voice was at my ear.

I struggled to get out of his grasp.

"Let me go!"

"Why? You wanted to know what happens at the Shop-n-Go. Let's find out, shall we?" He forced me closer to the window. The woman was sitting on the floor, leaning against the racks of powdered doughnuts. Maxwell crouched down beside her and held out a small white object in the palm of his hand.

"What is that?" I said.

"Shhh. Just watch."

The woman looked up at Maxwell with a pathetic expression on her face, and then she nodded resolutely. Max handed her the object, and the woman brought it to her lips.

"No!" I shouted, and I threw my weight against Cole, trying to break free. I didn't even know what the pill contained, but coming from Maxwell it couldn't be good. I put my foot against the wall below the window and pushed off, but Cole absorbed the force and grabbed my wrist, pinning it behind my back and twisting to cause enough pain to make me freeze.

"Stop fighting, Nik. I'm not trying to hurt you." He let up a tiny bit. "Do you promise to settle down?" I nodded. "Good. I just don't want you to miss the one thing you've been dying to see."

The woman put the pill in her mouth and swallowed. She closed her eyes and sank further against the racks. Maxwell left her there and walked out of the store. The woman looked like she had fallen asleep.

And then something strange happened. Her skin developed a glossy sheen, as if she were suddenly covered in liquid. Her eyes shot open, and her mouth contorted into a silent scream ... then she dropped through the ground.

What the...? I blinked, trying to make sense of what I just saw. She'd slipped through the floor, as if she were a ghost. There was no gaping hole left behind, no fissure in the tile. Nothing left.

Cole eased his grip on my wrist and helped me stand. He held my hand in his, examining the welts he'd made on my skin. "Sorry, Nik."

I yanked my hand away, and he gave me an impish grin.

"No permanent damage."

I pointed at the window. "What was that? What happened to her?"

"I told you we have to make sacrifices to our queen. Feed the Tunnels. That woman you saw in there was a sad, lost soul, looking for an easy way out of her miserable existence. Maxwell gave it to her."

"The Tunnels? An easy way out?" I said, incredulous.

Cole nodded. "Think about it, Nik. It's a h.e.l.l of a lot better than suicide. It's like suicide lite. She'll become a physical part of the Tunnels, and it will be a long time before she feels pain, because she has so many layers of self-loathing."

"What was the pill she took? Drugs?"

"You know we don't need drugs. That pill contained a few of Maxwell's hairs. You can't get to the Everneath without an Everliving host. What do your mythology books call him? A ferryman? That pill is the ferryman who escorts humans to the Everneath. The sacrifice takes the pill, and she has part of an Everliving inside of her. It's the only way she can go through."

"Why does it happen here? What's so special about the Shop-n-Go?"

"You've heard of the River Styx?" I nodded. "There are several spots throughout the world like it, where the wall separating the Surface and the Everneath is thin. Paper thin. Legend calls these places rivers. A way to get from one world to the other. Entrances to the Everneath. This store was built over one of the rivers. Around here it's the easiest access to the Everneath."

"I don't remember you taking me here before the Feed."

"That's because you had a personal host-me. I can take you to the Everneath anytime. From anywhere."

"Then why don't you take me now?"

He gave me a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Help you leave early? I'd never be able to live with myself." His voice grew quiet. "Even now I'm not sure I'll be able to survive without you."

I shook my head slowly. "Sacrifices. Offerings. Suicide lite. I'd say there's not much left you couldn't live with. There's no end to your evil."

Cole chuckled. "There is no evil. There is no good. There is only life, and the absence of life." He stepped in front of me and leaned in closer. I was up against the wall, so there was nowhere for me to go. "We are life."

I squeezed my eyes shut and leaned my head back against the wall until I could feel that Cole had moved away.

"So, Nik. You wanted a quick way to the Tunnels." He gestured toward the Shop-n-Go. "This is the gateway to the Everneath. It's like your own River Styx." He pulled me in front of the window so we had a clear view of the floor in the back of the store. "I won't take you there personally, but I'll give you a piece of my hair." He plucked one off his head and put it in my hand and closed my fingers around it. "All you have to do is go inside and swallow it."

He let go of my hand. "You'll slip through the floor, to the Fields, where hundreds of Shades will find you, wrap you in darkness, and carry you off to the Tunnels." He put his lips to my ear, so I could feel his breath on my neck, and whispered, "You were so desperate to go. Here's your chance. It's now or never. Are you going to take it?"

My breath fogged up the window as I thought about that woman, her face a silent scream, and then gone forever. I thought about my father, and Tommy, and the fact that I wasn't ready to say good-bye. There hadn't been enough time to make up for anything.

I thought about Jack, and how he was so angry with me, and how I wasn't finished with him. How his hand used to fit mine so perfectly, and if I left now, I'd never have the chance to feel it again. I couldn't leave him the way things were now.

And then I realized the truth. I left him once on the other side of the century. I couldn't leave him of my own volition ever again. The Tunnels were going to have to take me. I didn't have what it took to go early.

"You win," I said to Cole. "I won't go early."

He kissed me on the cheek and let out a sigh. "I don't know what I'd do without you, Nik."

I remembered when I'd said the same thing to him. I'd thought he was my hero.

LAST YEAR.

The GraphX Shop. One week before the Feed.

"Have you heard from Jack?"

Cole and I were in the back room of the GraphX Shop again, making more T-shirts with the Elvis wraith picture. Cole had been right. On the night of the concert at the Dead Goat Saloon, the T-shirts had sold out, and a long list of people had signed up for more.

I agreed to help him, mostly because it was a good way to pa.s.s the time.

"He's not allowed to communicate with the outside world," I answered. "Something about keeping his head in the game."

Cole gave me a strange look. "Huh. Max heard from Meredith, but maybe she was breaking the rules."

I shrugged. "Did she have any good stories?"

"No," he answered immediately, and then he was quiet. We worked in silence for a few minutes. His guitar hung down his back. Cole could be rock climbing and he'd probably still carry the thing.

"Do you ever take it off?" I said. "The guitar, I mean."

Cole laid a shirt on the counter and smoothed the wrinkles. "Nope."

"Why not?"