Everbound by Brodi Ashton Page B

Cole. The same Cole who did everything he could to keep you and Jack apart.”
    I sighed. “I’d be more worried about Cole’s motives if Max wasn’t so intent on keeping me away from him. If Cole had some evil plan, Max would be in on it. Not objecting to it.”
    He looked forward, a helpless expression on his face. I opened my door. “I’ll see you soon. Maybe even tonight.”
    Will only nodded.
    “Watch after my family.”
    He nodded again.
    I slipped out, and before I was halfway up the staircase outside Cole’s condo, Will drove away. I put my hand in my pocket and pressed my fingertips against Jack’s note, feeling closer to him already.

TWELVE
NOW
    The Surface. Cole’s condo .
    C ole swung open the door and gestured for me to come inside. A clicking sound made me turn toward the living room, where Max was lounging on the couch. He fiddled with a silver lighter in his hand.
    “What’s he doing here?” I asked.
    “He’s coming with us.” At my expression, Cole added, “More specifically, he’s coming to keep me in line. I tend to make galactically stupid decisions when it comes to you, and the Everneath is not a place where you want to make stupid decisions. Besides, two of us will hide your energy better than just one.”
    I held up my hands in a fine by me gesture. Cole was taking me to the Everneath. I wasn’t about to argue with anything, although I was pretty sure Max was also going to keep me from messing up Cole again.
    Cole took off the guitar that had been strapped over his shoulder and placed the instrument gently in its case in the corner of the room.
    “I’m going to miss you,” he said tenderly, his mouth turned up in a half smile.
    “You’re not bringing your guitar?” I said. I rarely saw him without it.
    Max and Cole both looked at me with alarmed expressions. “No,” Cole said. “I don’t want to die.”
    “What do you mean?” I said warily.
    “Music. It’s forbidden. Like the penalty-of-death kind of forbidden.”
    “Why?”
    Max clicked his lighter closed. “Because music is a powerful manipulator of emotions, and the Shades can’t control it,” he said.
    “And the Shades don’t like things they can’t control.” Cole snapped the case shut and straightened up. “Speaking of things you can’t control, did you bring your token?”
    I pulled the note out of my pocket. “Yes, but I don’t think I’m going to need it.”
    “That’s because you’re currently standing on the Surface. Your brain is still intact.”
    I sighed and slipped the paper back into my pocket. “When we get there … well, how will we avoid getting caught?”
    Cole frowned and ran a hand through his hair. “Last time you dropped down in the New York City of the Everneath. I’m going to take us to … Oklahoma.” I must’ve looked lost, because he raced to the kitchen and came back with a piece of blank paper and a pencil in hand. With a sweeping gesture, he cleared the coffee table of everything on it, sending a few books, sheets of music, and a dirty coffee mug to the carpet. Then he put the paper down on top.
    “Watch carefully.” He proceeded to draw a large circle, then a slightly smaller one inside it, and another and another until he had drawn five concentric circles leading to a bull’s-eye in the middle. “The Everneath is made up of elemental rings. The outermost one”—he pointed his pencil to the largest ring—“is the Ring of Earth. The five Common areas—cities, so to speak—are spread out evenly in this Ring of Earth.” He drew smaller circles evenly spaced within the Ring of Earth. “When you took off with a tuft of my hair in your hands, you landed in one of these Commons.” He pointed to one of the smaller circles in the outer ring. “This particular Common you went to is called Ouros. It means ‘mountain.’ It’s named that because the entrance—at the Shop-n-Go—is located in a mountain. Each Common has several entrances, or ‘rivers’ as your