Ever (The Ever Series Book 4) Read online

  I am sitting in the driver’s seat of the Maserati, again tormented by indecision as she walks around the classroom collecting her supplies. I know that my hostility over the weekend cut her like a blade, and unable to read my thoughts, she assumes the worst while still maintaining a shred of hope.

  Could he be any more confusing? she thinks.

  The sound of the bell interrupts her reverie, and she looks to her left, taken aback by my absence. Her thoughts race, and her pulse speeds up as Gideon begins speaking about portraiture.

  “… Today, your classmates will serve as your subjects. Turn to the person next to you, because he or she is going to be your new best friend for this assignment,” Gideon says.

  The girl to Wren’s right, Mandy Simmons, snorts her displeasure at partnering with Wren.

  Great. Prepare for a week of torture, Wren thinks miserably.

  I try to persuade myself that my act is altruistic, even if I know I am giving in to my selfish instincts as I shift to the hallway and walk into the classroom, smiling self-deprecatingly for Gideon’s benefit.

  “Mr. Casey, contrary to commonly held beliefs, attendance, even in an elective course, is not optional.”

  At the sound of my name, Wren looks up with such relief that it causes an ache to wash over me. Then she pictures painting the girl next to her as a gargoyle, and I have to restrain myself from laughing aloud. Walking across the room, I gather supplies before sitting next to her. She looks over shyly, but when I lift my eyes to meet hers, I maintain the same icy expression.

  What was I thinking? That he would turn human overnight? she thinks as she tries to stifle her disappointment.

  She turns and listens to Gideon conclude his brief lecture.

  “It’s a good idea to do a few rough sketches before you try anything with oil paints. You can work simultaneously, but most of you would do better to take turns and have the other person sit still. I know that may be a challenge for a few of you.”

  Certainly won’t be a problem in Ever’s case, Gideon thinks. Wish I had sixty more like him.

  Wren remains very still for several moments, horrified at the prospect of having to render my likeness on canvas. She imagines my head on a stick figure or cave drawing, complete with loincloth. Blushing, she continues to panic. Can I blame her after my behavior? This is what I wanted, is it not? When she refuses to turn in my direction, I lean closer to her, inhaling the smell of her skin.

  “I’ll go first, if you don’t mind,” I say firmly, not leaving room for debate.

  She wilts in relief and turns slightly to face me, her eyes darting around the room as she tries to ascertain whether she is dreaming or not. When she imagines herself taking a standardized test clad only in her underthings, I close my eyes briefly, redirecting my thoughts. Finally, she takes a deep breath.

  “I really can’t draw or paint, so I’m sorry for whatever I’m going to do to you—”

  She bites her lip, mercifully unaware of the scene that briefly flashed in my mind before I could prevent it.

  Oh my god! Why do I always have to turn into a raving moron around him? she thinks.

  “I mean, if your picture comes out looking like a goblin or something, don’t take offense. All right?” she says, looking for me to reassure her.

  Maintaining an even expression, I turn back to the canvas.

  Now he’s an unfriendly jerk again? How am I supposed to keep up?

  “And I wanted to thank you again for helping me on Saturday …” she continues.

  I remain silent, my hand already moving across the sheet in front of me as she stares at the far wall.

  Any time I try to thank him for anything, he shuts down. Almost human one day, alien probe the next.

  I smile at the canvas as her face emerges.

  “All right. Whatever,” she shrugs in defeat.

  She sits almost perfectly still—or as still as a human can. Every few seconds, her eyes dart to the clock at the front of the classroom. I am more than capable of painting her likeness from memory; yet this assignment allows me the perfect opportunity to look upon her. Each time my eyes meet hers, her pupils dilate and her heart rate increases. I genuinely enjoy watching her under the guise of a class assignment. She, conversely, is stricken the entire time. Turning away from the canvas, I look at her just before the bell sounds.

  I retrieve my canvas and return my supplies before she has an opportunity to collect her belongings. Even as I walk away from her, I can feel what is coming for her. I feel the weight of my world encroaching upon her. When I shift to the rooftop of the school, I look at the air molecules surrounding me and then up at the sky. The veil is thin. Victor could return at any time, and each of us knows it.

  If I had killed Wren that first day, would that have been the end? Better yet, could I have forgiven myself? Long ago, I would have said there was no choice. Now I know there is always choice, and for the first time I have allowed myself to see the smallest glimmer of hope in my future, which has grown brighter each day despite my reluctant attempts to snuff it out.

  The cloud-blackened sky, the low hum of the Gathering, the feeling at the core of my being. Today is the day from the time loop.

  During the lunch hour, I remain on the rooftop as Wren searches in vain for my presence. Always aware of her, my mind remains inextricably linked to hers. Now, though, all of my energy must remain focused on what is coming for her.

  She feels the change in the air as well. Rising, she walks across the room and stares up at the sky, shivering, unaware that I am directly above her. When she turns and begins walking toward her friends, she sees Jeffrey Summers, his arm hooked possessively around his girlfriend. As soon as Wren reaches her friends, Ashley Stewart points at her.

  “Guess who Wren’s partnered with in Art for the portrait.”

  “No way!” Lindsay Gallo cries. “What’s with that?”

  Wren looks down.

  “It sucks. He’s going to look like a troll when I get done.”

  Tarabocchia guffaws, encouraged by her seeming lack of enthusiasm for being in my company.

  “Impossible,” the Gallo girl scoffs as she leans closer to Wren. “And poor you. You get to stare at him all week.”

  Wren smiles crookedly before looking down at her mathematics assignment. When she asks for assistance, Tarabocchia scrambles from his seat and looks over her shoulder, scrutinizing her assignment.

  “You forgot a minus sign on that one,” the boy says, leaning forward to smell her hair.

  I feel a flash of anger as he rests his hand next to hers in hopes that she will take notice of his bicep muscle.

  “Thanks,” Wren mumbles.

  “No problem.”

  I feel heartened as she tries to think of a strategy that would force this unobservant schoolboy to notice the girl who is in fact interested in him. Taylor Nguyen looks as miserable as Wren is uncomfortable. I have empathy for the Nguyen girl, seeing as the object of my affection believes I am indifferent to her.

  Wouldn’t I be better off if I took my own advice—and ignored my alternating fascination and aggravation with Ever Casey? Wren wonders, comparing her perceived one-sided fascination with me to Tarabocchia’s infatuation with her.

  Her internal question is one she cannot possibly understand the true scope of. She believes that her fascination is harmful to her emotional welfare, when, in truth, it is my fascination for her that puts her at greater risk than she can imagine.

  I follow her movements for the remaining hours of the school day, watching as she declines Tarabocchia’s latest entreaty for her to accept a ride home. At the final bell, she walks to her locker before exiting through the school’s main entrance. I shift to the car as she walks toward the bus stop. Passing the stop, Wren smiles broadly as she plugs the earphones into her mobile phone and continues walking in the direction of her house. Excited by the departure in her typical routine, she again has no idea the danger she puts herself in.

  Growling, I
feel the car’s engine come to life beneath me. As I pull out of the space, the tires squeal on the wet pavement and I hear a chorus of alarmed voices in my mind as the car threads between cars in various states of egress from the parking lot. Perhaps, at another time, I might have enjoyed the irony that it is Tarabocchia who manages to hinder my forward progress by reversing without looking behind him. At the moment, I have the ill-timed urge to … I have no time to finish my thought, as Wren has just turned the corner, the volume of her music loud.

  With a low curse, I briefly shift the car’s trajectory into reverse and cut to the other side of the parking lot, swerving around the remaining vehicles in my path before reaching the road. It takes less than a minute for me to overtake Wren, who fails to notice the Maserati as I pass her under the cover of a delivery truck in the neighboring lane. When I reach the intersection from the time loop, I park the car on the road and leave the hazard lights illuminated before shifting fifty paces behind Wren.

  I search the minds of men who own pickup trucks and are drinking in the middle of the afternoon, but there are more than one might expect, most of them drinking for similar reasons. There are at least five within driving distance of the intersection, and unless I am inclined to incapacitate all of them, my surest course of action is to follow Wren and wait until no one—including her—is likely to notice my intervention.

  Then I sense it. A pickup traveling at a higher than average rate of speed in the opposite direction. Another man is in the parking lot of a bar a few blocks from the intersection, searching for his keys, which he has dropped beneath the truck.

  I continue walking slowly, keeping well behind Wren when thunder claps overhead. Wren looks up, blinking as an enormous drop hits her face. A moment later, the sky opens up, and I watch as Wren pulls up the hood of her jacket and tightens it. She walks a few more steps, approaching the intersection where my car is waiting.

  On the other side of the West Hills, her mother picks up her work phone and dials Wren’s number. I watch as Wren reaches for her phone and begins talking with her mother. Suddenly the truck that had been traveling in the opposite direction cuts off the driver in the next lane and performs a U-turn before hurtling in this direction.

  Watching Wren approach the intersection, I shift a block away from the speeding truck and cast enough energy in its direction to short circuit the electrical system. Robbed of power, the truck skids to a stop just as one of the other four minds disappears, undoubtedly masked by something that does not want me to sense its presence.

  Closing my eyes, I see Wren step into the intersection. She turns at the sound of colliding metal before looking up. Then her mind disappears from my view, which indicates only one of two possibilities. Either she already has been taken, or her fear is so great that I can no longer track her mind.

  Shifting to the intersection, I see her—millimeters from the truck’s grille. I have limited options. Reaching her, I wrap an arm around her waist. She looks into my eyes the moment I send out a shockwave strong enough to halt the vehicle’s progress. Shifting to the side of the road where my car is waiting, I look down at her face. She remains so still that I fear the concussion from the shockwave—or the shift through time and space—has rendered permanent damage. I gently set her on the concrete walkway and place my hand on her chest as her mother again calls Wren’s mobile phone, which is sitting several yards away on the asphalt.

  Gasping, Wren sits up as the current of energy flows through her. Her eyes remain squeezed shut, and as I search her vital signs, I realize that the only malady currently afflicting her is that of motion sickness. I shift to retrieve her phone and book bag. The bag I place in the backseat of the car; the phone I slip into her jacket pocket while her eyes are closed.

  How strange. Here I am thinking … about being dead, she contemplates calmly.

  “You’re not dead,” I hiss.

  I am not angry at her, but rather at the possibility that she very nearly could have been killed. She frowns at the sound of my voice. Finally she begins to take a mental inventory of her physical state, realizing that her eyes are closed and her hands are balled into fists at her sides. When she opens her eyes, a vicious bout of dizziness overcomes her—the result of the shift … or possibly the shockwave. In actuality, I cannot ascertain which event was responsible, but I would prefer not to repeat either one simply to determine the source of her nausea.

  She closes her eyes and feels the illusion of the world spinning around her. Even after the shift, it stands to reason that the perilymph in her inner ear has continued to swirl, causing the cilia at the bottom of her inner ear to bend in the direction of the swirling—thus her continued sensation of a circular motion. However, she clearly is lucid, which indicates I should exercise caution in anything I say to her. Emergency vehicles are only a few blocks away, and I would prefer to remove her prior to their arrival.

  “Are you injured? Can you move?” I ask in a politely concerned tone.

  “Um,” she mumbles.

  She shakes her head dizzily, feeling her stomach heave slightly with the motion. She reluctantly opens her eyes again and stares for a long moment at my legs as I stand before her. The blare of sirens has become audible to human ears as Wren continues to slowly piece together her current situation. Hastily I reach out and lift her to her feet.

  Please don’t throw up, Wren. Anything but that.

  Smiling at her silent plea, I begin to urge her toward the car. She turns and sees the emergency vehicles that have come from the fire station two miles away. Then she catches sight of the pickup truck wrapped around the lamppost on the corner and begins to remember what happened as the driver stumbles from the truck with no memory of the accident or his momentary possession.

  Opening the door and carefully depositing her into the seat, I reach across and fasten her safety belt, watching as her eyes track my arm’s movement with dizzy fascination. As soon as I have shut the door, I walk at a human pace to the driver’s side and open the door. After disabling the hazard lights, I turn and watch as Wren frowns at the scent of the car’s interior—afraid her wet clothing is ruining the material. Despite the warmth pouring from vents, for a moment I feel the temptation to reach out and touch her hand. The energy would immediately dry her clothing, but instead, I increase the vehicle’s speed. Wren turns and studies my face before her features light up with panic.

  “Wait! Aren’t we fleeing the scene of an accident?”

  “Were you in an accident?” I ask, glancing in her direction with an expression of skepticism.

  Pausing, she envisions herself stepping into the street before seeing the truck about to strike her.

  “Um … I guess not. But then how … ?”

  I look at her briefly before staring through the windshield as though I need to concentrate.

  “I found you dazed on the side of the road. You must have jumped out of the way of that truck. Then I helped you to the curb. Perhaps you hit your head when you fell.” I look at her as though studying her for damage. “Are you feeling all right now?”

  Nodding, she tries to align my version of events with what she remembers. She shakes her head as she attempts to envision herself springing out of the way of the truck. My fingers tighten imperceptibly on the steering wheel as she conjures a vague image of the truck suspended in time and space before ricocheting across the street. Cautiously, I begin to pull the image further into her subconscious.

  Her mother, on the verge of panic, calls her daughter’s phone again. Startled, Wren jumps forward, which triggers the safety belt’s mechanism. She reaches up and rubs her clavicle.

  My mom! Wait, how did my phone get—

  The persistent buzzing of the phone interrupts her suspicions about recent events, and she finally answers the call.

  “Mom?” she says carefully.

  “Wren, are you all right?” her mother asks breathlessly. “I heard a screeching sound, and then your phone cut out. I thought something happened. I’
ve been calling …”

  Caroline Sullivan’s voice catches as Wren decides she needs to dispense with her own suspicions in favor of calming her mother.

  “Mom, calm down. There was an accident across the street. Sorry, I forgot to call you back.”

  Shouldn’t be lying to my mom, but it’s not like I even remember exactly what happened. Not good …

  “Honey, you nearly gave me a heart attack,” her mother scolds. “Are you still walking?”

  Tread carefully here, Wren thinks nervously.

  “Um, a friend from school was passing by and offered me a ride.”

  “Ashley?” her mother asks, clearly relieved.

  Wren frowns.

  “It’s …”

  She glances surreptitiously in my direction.

  “Oh!” her mother says with increasing excitement. “It’s that boy, isn’t it? What’s his name? Jake? Josh!”

  Wren blushes, embarrassed and annoyed with her mother’s enthusiasm about Joshua Tarabocchia.

  Restrain yourself, Mother! she commands silently, causing me to smile as I stop in front of her house.

  “I’ve gotta go, Mom. Love you.”

  She ends the call, unaware that we have arrived at her house. Looking out the window, she sees that we have come to a stop and turns to face me, still embarrassed by the conversation with her mother.

  Can’t stop staring at him, but hey, at least I’m used to his bizarre mental silence. Who’d have thunk that not hearing someone’s thoughts would be weirder than hearing them? Not like I can ask him why I can’t hear him without revealing that I can snoop around people’s heads. Well … everyone’s head except for his.

  She frowns and glances out the window as the silence stretches out. Her eyes narrow as she realizes that we are parked in front of her house. Panic sets in as she tries to find a logical reason for why I know where she lives. She turns to face me and raises an eyebrow.

  He’s definitely not stalking me … but I can totally see people stalking him.

  “I asked where you lived when I found you,” I tell her quietly, watching shock spread across her features.