Page 153 of The Never List

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“Feel what?” I ask, suddenly feeling nothing at all.

Not the pulse beneath my skin or the breath in my lungs.

“Oh, how tragic.” Evaluna purses her lips as she glances to her friends. “She doesn’t know.”

“Know what?” I beg.

Evaluna gives me a pitying look. “You’re dead.”

47

Jax

One second, I surrender myself to the bond that connects me to Rylee as she undergoes the Athanry, dreaming of all the ways we’re going to spend our eternity, and the next—

Searing pain snaps through me, like being struck by lightning.

Something in my soul severs…as if a vital piece of myself has been chopped off.

Rylee!

My eyes snap open, my heart racing.

I slide my hand over my chest, checking to make sure I haven’t been stabbed in the heart.

Pierce’s eyes are wide with panic, too, and Kal’s and Axl’s.

Something’s wrong.

That connection that bound Rylee to me moments ago, the one that was blazing hot with an icy fire that froze and burned me from the inside out, is deadlynumb.

Internally, I grapple for it, reaching out with my mental fingers in an attempt to catch it, but it’s as useless as trying to grab smoke.

I race toward the doorway, where Rylee is suspended in the silver liquid.

She falls forward the second I touch her, the liquid releasing her in one quick move.

“Rylee.” Her name is a cry from my lips, her body slamming into mine with the weight of a free fall.

I gather her into my arms, dropping to my knees before the statue of my mother. She’s not breathing. I press my ear to her chest, desperate to hear her heart beating.

Nothing.

There’s nothing.

Rage and grief and despair split me open from the inside out.

“What’s happened, son?” Baydel asks, but I can’t see him, can’t hear him properly as I hold Rylee.

“Jax!” Pierce is there, next to me, then Axl and Kal.

“She’s…she’s dead,” I roar.

Ifeelit.

“I can’t feel her anymore,” Pierce says, grief coloring his voice.

“No,” Axl growls. “No, she can’t be.”

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