Free Everbound by Brodi Ashton

weight of my guilt returned. My guilt must’ve been a powerful emotion for it to come back so quickly. It was my constant reminder of Jack. The pain of missing him was such a part of me now that if I didn’t hold on to it, I felt as if I would disappear. I couldn’t let anyone ever take it away. The guilt was my strongest reminder of what I needed to do.
    I pushed off against the wall I’d been leaning on and ran into someone coming into the club. “Sorry—”
    “Nikki?”
    I glanced up. It was Jules. Looking pretty and light. I almost turned and ran back inside.
    Everywhere Jules went, it was as if she brought the sunshine with her. She was with Tara Bolton and Kaylee … somebody. I couldn’t remember her last name. They were girls in our grade.
    “Hey,” I said.
    Jules looked at the other girls. “You guys go ahead.”
    Tara shot me a curious glance, then went inside with Kaylee trailing behind.
    When I didn’t say anything, Jules said, “You know, I’m not really in the mood for a concert. You wanna grab a coffee? I’ve been wanting to ask you something.”
    Ask me something? I was almost more scared of her questions than I had been of the interrogation by the detective. Jules could always tell when I was lying.
    We crossed the street and went into the coffee parlor at Grounds&Ink. Half of the place was dedicated to pool tables and the other half to cozy booths and comfy chairs. We ducked into a booth near the entrance that gave me a good view of Harry O’s and flagged down a waitress.
    “Coffee?” Jules said.
    She nodded and returned moments later with two mugs.
    We sipped in silence. It was hard for me to look Jules in the face. If I had never come back, Jack would probably be with her, and they would be happy.
    Jules was so close to both of us, yet she had no idea what had really happened last March. In her mind, Jack had come back to me and then disappeared. How could she not blame me?
    She broke the silence first. “Detective Jackson keeps asking me questions about you.”
    “Like what?”
    She gave a faint smile. “They’re not very flattering questions. He wants to know if you’re mentally stable. If you’ve been seeing a shrink. If you’ve been acting weird. If I knew where you went when you disappeared before. Stuff like that.”
    I grimaced. “What did you tell him?”
    “That I don’t know anything. Because I don’t know anything.”
    I stared at my coffee mug and took a long sip. I could feel her eyes on me. “Jules, I’m really sorry. About everything.”
    She nodded. “Will you answer me one question?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you know where he is?”
    How I wanted to tell her the truth. Last year, there wasn’t anything I would’ve kept from her. But the instant I imagined saying yes, I also imagined what I would have to explain, starting with the fact that there is an underworld called the Everneath.
    I looked her in the eye and answered without any further hesitation. “I don’t know where he is.”
    “I believe you.”
    I felt my shoulders relax. “You do?”
    She smiled. “If I know one thing about you, it’s this. You would never do anything to purposely hurt Jack. And if you knew where he was, you’d do whatever it took to find him.”
    I wanted to leap across the table and hug her.
    Jules ran her finger over the rim of her mug. “Do you remember when the Caputo boys and their little gang of thugs used to ride past our houses?”
    My fingertips broke out in a sweat at the mention of the name Caputo. We were walking into dangerous territory. Memories. It was the memories of Jack that hurt the most. When I’d first come back from the Feed, I lived inside of those memories with him, because I knew he’d be okay. They were safe spots. But now, memories were just reminders that Jack was beyond my reach. That he’d never be safe again.
    Memories were part of what I kept secured in the dam around my heart.
    Jules watched me expectantly.
    “I remember,” I whispered,