Read Everbound for Free Online Page B

wrap around it, and my feet left the ground. Darkness surrounded me.
    In the next moment, my back hit something hard and flat, and the impact crushed my ribs. Coughing, I rolled over and felt rocks against my cheek. I was lying on an asphalt road. I couldn’t see very well. It looked like the sun had just set.
    “Dammit, Nikki!” Cole’s voice from somewhere above me. “How many times do I have to explain? Do you know what you’ve done?! If you want to kill yourself, do it in a way that I won’t be getting a phone call from Ezra about!”
    It took me a few long minutes to figure out what he was talking about. I was back on the Surface, but not at the Shop-n-Go. I was on a road. No Shades on me. No Jack.
    No Jack .
    I turned onto my back and closed my eyes. Cole had come for me. Did Ezra really call him? He must have. Or Cole had already figured out where I was going. In between shallow gasps, I said, “Sorry about the phone call. If there was another entrance besides the Shop-n-Go, I would’ve used it.”
    Cole’s shoes crunched on the loose asphalt as he came over to me. He crouched down, and I saw his face. His lips pressed together so hard they had turned white. He shook his head.
    “There are other ways to kill yourself. Next time, try a gun. Or a knife.” Maybe it was because of the pitiful state I was in, but as he looked at me, the hard edges of his face softened. “Or a length of rope. Or starvation. Or even old age.” He sank fully to the ground and brought his knees up to his chest; his nostrils flared.
    “I wasn’t trying to kill myself.” I pushed against the asphalt road and sat up, and immediately wished I hadn’t. My head felt as if it were full of clouds. I closed my eyes. “Whoa.”
    Cole put an arm around me to steady me. “Yeah, that’s what happens when you face down an army of Shades.” As soon as I was balanced, he released me. Quickly. He breathed out of his nose, his jaw set. “What were you thinking? If you weren’t trying to kill yourself, what the hell were you doing?”
    “I was trying to get to Jack.”
    Cole grunted. Loudly. He straightened up and ran his hands roughly through his hair. His lips pulled back from his teeth, and his eyes closed. When he opened them, they looked wild. I’d never seen him so frustrated. “That’s what this is about? Some suicide quest borne out of your own guilt? You have no idea what you’ve done!”
    “What have I done?”
    “You’re different, Nik!” He took a deep breath and lowered his voice. “You survived the Feed. You’re a threat to the queen. And here you are, parading yourself in front of her like the prized calf at the slaughterhouse. If anyone from today’s fiasco realized what you are …”
    “Then what?”
    Cole leaned his head back and stared at the darkening sky.
    “What, Cole?”
    He looked at me. “Then you’re dead. Or worse.”
    I didn’t need to ask if he was serious. His eyes were blazing. “Well, I was only there for a few seconds.”
    “I was twenty minutes behind you. You were probably there for hours.”
    I’d forgotten about the time discrepancy between the Everneath and the Surface. A hundred years in the Feed had only equaled six months on the Surface. “So next time I go I’ll be more careful. I’ll avoid the …”—I searched for the word—“… city square.”
    He raised his eyebrows. “You can’t avoid it.” He chuckled. “The Shop-n-Go entrance will dump you in the same place every time. And why are we even talking about you going back? Have you already forgotten about the exploding man?”
    I could feel the blood drain from my face as I remembered. “What was that whole thing?”
    He sighed. “It was the weekly slaughter, where people who find themselves on the wrong side of the queen get skewered and fed to the masses. The queen oversees it herself.” I tensed, remembering the beautiful woman in white, and Cole noticed. “Yes. That was the queen. Lovely, isn’t