Earthbound

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Quinn’s lips are indescribably soft on mine, and I’m half afraid I’ll die from the burst of ecstasy that surges through me. Inside I’m quaking, but Rebecca’s hands, my hands, are steady as they find the ends of his cravat and pull gently. A raw wanting floods through me as the length of cloth loosens and the knot comes apart under capable fingers.

I look up at his face.

And everything comes together in a flash of insight. My fingers, my eyes, my mouth.

My Quinn.

Rebecca’s thoughts flow through my brain. My thoughts. Not now; they were my thoughts. I try to fight them, to block the invasion of my brain, but it feels too right, too familiar, and finally I relax and allow myself to just be Rebecca.

Again.

I’m helpless to resist when my hands—Rebecca’s—pull Quinn’s face down again, his gritty stubble velvet under my fingertips. His head snaps up and I try to force him back to me, but my hands won’t obey. I’m not in control—this is something that already happened, two hundred years ago. I can’t change it; I can only play my role, think the same thoughts she thought.

Once I understand that, our consciousnesses blend, and instead of feeling like I’m watching a movie, I’m there, in the scene. I run to the window beside him and gasp in fear as his arm tightens around me. A semicircle of at least fifty men on horseback surrounds us, their faces masked, torches burning. Each man has a rifle on his shoulder; many have two. I don’t know if they’re witch hunters or Reduciates; we’ve faced down both.

The problem is if it’s the Reduciata, they actually know how to kill us.

I cling to Quinn, watching through the windows as the riders spread out and close the circle around the entire house.

There will be no running.

Tears sting in my eyes and I have to take deep, gulping breaths to push them back. Not because I’m afraid—we’re far from defenseless—but because this means we’ll have to leave. We’ve lived here together secretly for more than a year. It has been a haven.

A heaven.

It’s always a fight for Earthbounds to be together, but here we’d won that fight. We found each other and unlocked a love most humans can only comprehend in blissful moments of sweet dreams.

And it’s been our reality.

These men—these beasts—are taking it all away.

Quinn’s hands are in my hair and his lips murmur, “Be strong.” His nose brushes my earlobe. “I need thirty seconds.” My fingers clench fistfuls of his shirt, drawing on his strength to feed my own. One more breath and I look up to meet his eyes.

It must be now.

I tear myself away and fly to the door, bursting out into the frigid night. The icy wind slaps my cheeks and I pull frozen air into my lungs, only to cough on the winter-kissed chill.

With my arms wrapped around my aching chest, I raise my head to the snorting horses surrounding me.

And the black gun barrels.

Dozens of them, pointed at me, their horses shoulder to shoulder in an arc so tight I cannot escape.

My eyes rise past the guns to the faces of the mounted men. They’re well covered, but even a mask can’t hide their eyes. These eyes—all of them—burn with hatred.

With murder.

Not a spark of mercy.

Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. Please, gods, let him be ready.

I spin back to the house, my braid flaring out in the darkness, the end stiff with cold. Without letting myself hesitate, I turn my back to them, praying they will give me the three seconds it will take to close the door.

I hear amused chuckles, and though anger slices my belly, I know their heartlessness is what will ultimately save my life.

I slam the door shut and the slam is drowned out by the explosion of guns from everywhere. My mouth opens in a piercing scream, then a steely hand wraps around my wrist and yanks me downward. A soft cloth covers my mouth to stifle the sound, and Quinn’s leaf-green eyes meet mine, calming me in an instant even as the roar of gunshots continues over my head.

Suddenly, his eyes roll skyward and we’re encased in total blackness.

“No,” I whisper, and it echoes in my mind instead of coming out of Rebecca’s mouth.

I can’t see him. He’s gone!

“No!” I cry louder, but it only makes my head hurt as my skull fills with the echoes of a scream that can’t escape my mouth.

My soul rips away again and I’m back in Tavia’s—my—broken body, surrounded by the ruins of my—Rebecca’s—home. Something’s restraining me and I thrash against it, trying to get free.

Trying to get back to him.

Quinn!

“Stop. Tavia, it’s me.”

“No, it’s not—it’s not you,” I sob. “You’re gone! Come back.” The keening sound is loud in my ears again instead of trapped in my skull, and somehow I figure out I’m in the present again.

I’m me. I’m not Rebecca anymore.

I’ve never hated being me so badly.

My chest shakes and I realize—so agonizingly slowly—that it’s Benson’s arms holding me in place.

“Tave, look at me,” Benson says, and I feel fingers on my chin, pulling my face up. Blue eyes boring into mine.

Blue.

Not green.

Blue.

Benson.

Tavia.

My mind can’t handle it and I feel like I’m ripping in two as Tavia and Rebecca struggle for control.

“Tavia, talk to me!”

He’s afraid.

Why is he afraid? I’m the one who’s dying.

The crunch of dead leaves under my back as I collapse onto the ground finally jolts me back to reality and I suck in a deep breath as my head whirls.

Was I holding my breath?

I breathe again and soothe my aching lungs. I must have quit breathing entirely. “I’m okay,” I whisper. I’m trying to convince myself as much as Benson.

“Are you sure?” His face is close to mine and his eyes look terrified.

All my bones are jelly, but I manage to nod.

“What happened?”

“We escaped.” The words are out of my mouth before I realize I know what happened. “We escaped!” I struggle to stand and push Benson away as I run to the very middle of the crumbled foundation and begin digging. Rocks and sticks tear at my fingernails, but I feel no pain. “Help me,” I beg Benson, desperation clawing at my chest.

“Help you what?” he asks, beside me.

“Dig.”

He pauses, and at first I think he won’t, but in a few seconds he brings over two thick sticks. He hands me one and holds onto the second.

It takes twenty minutes and nearly a foot before we hit something solid. “This is it,” I say, letting out a sigh of relief.

I’m not crazy.

And just this one time, maybe I’m not wrong.

Time slips by as we dig out a square of iron. We’re both filthy by the time we try to open it, and it takes the two of us pulling on the cast-iron handle with all our might before it begins to lift up and away from the ground.

I squeak in dismay as several large bugs crawl out, but soon I’m on my knees, peering in.

“Are there skeletons?” Benson asks, squinting at the edge of the dark hollow.

“No, we escaped,” I say again. The panic is gone and I feel strangely confident as I hop down into the cavern, which can’t be more than four feet by four feet. “I distracted them while Quinn got this place open. I came back, we hid, he made a shield first of wood to blend in with the floor and then cast iron, to protect us from the bullets. We took the tunnel. I created new dirt to fill in the path behind us. No human could have followed. That’s how we got to the dugout!”

Benson is staring at me in horror and I’m half horrified at myself. What did I just say? Created new dirt? But in my mind’s eye I see it—I feel it! Crawling down a tunnel, finally leaving the awful sound of gunshots behind. Thinking of dirt, picturing it, imagining it, just like everything else I’ve ever created.

And then it’s there—as clear as if it were happening right at this moment—blocking the tunnel, dulling all sound, leaving Quinn and me in silence and darkness.

Darkness.

The memory of being Rebecca is slipping away, leaving me empty, and I push at her, wanting my body to myself.

The necklace, her voice says in my mind just before relinquishing her hold.

“The necklace,” I echo aloud, almost without will. “I have to get the necklace. It … it has the answers.” My words make no sense, but they ring through my body with truth. I reach out my hand and Benson helps me crawl over the shallow edge of the grimy hole, where I pause, kneeling on the ground, trying to understand myself.

Who am I?

It used to be an easy question.

“Tave, please, you’re not making any sense. What the hell just happened?”

The sound of my name—my name now—jerks me back to the present and I look up at Benson.

“Benson.” His frightened eyes meet mine. I’ve hardly registered his presence, but now I see his face again, streaked with mud. And suddenly, I remember. I remember him. Remember that he’s the most important person in my entire world. I fling my arms around his neck, cling to him as he kneels in front of me. If I just hold onto him, the emotional hurricane won’t be able to blow me away.

“Tavia, you have to—”

I cut him off, covering his mouth with mine. Savagely I grasp at his jacket, pulling him closer. I throw a leg over his knees, sitting on his lap, my thighs hugging his torso, my face above his now, begging him to remind me of who I am.

That I am Tavia.

That I love Benson.

The thought makes me flinch back. I look down at his blue eyes—worried, confused, mirrors of my own—and I realize I want to see those eyes every day for the rest of my life. Screw Elizabeth, screw her warnings; this is my choice. He is my choice.

“Benson.” The words are a whisper before I kiss him again. I love him. The truth of that realization fills me, revitalizing me, giving me a strength I didn’t have ten seconds ago.

He tries to pull away, to say something, but I don’t let him. My mouth presses against his, just hard enough to hurt, but I don’t back off and neither does he. It’s not enough. Hands push into jackets, groping at skin. His. Mine. I feel him under my legs, against my hips, and a primal greed creeps over my body.

More.

He groans, and dimly I remember how battered he is, but I can’t care right now. I need the solidness of his weight pressed against me, the feel of his racing heart pulsing in his neck as my fingers caress his warm skin.

I need to feel grounded.

Benson’s mouth leaves mine and tiny gasps escape me as his lips trail down my neck, feasting, loving, needing me as much as I need him. We’re frantic, as though we have only brief, borrowed time.

It seems likely.

No.

“Don’t leave me,” I manage to say before claiming his mouth again.

“Never,” he growls. Our bodies are so close we feel like one as I wrap my arms around him, pulling him as tight against me as I can—filled with an irrational fear that he’ll disappear if I don’t.

I can almost hear Rebecca wailing in my head, but I shove all thoughts of her aside. All thoughts of Quinn.

I will not let Rebecca take Benson from me. I know what she had with Quinn. What I had with Quinn. The depth of that devotion, the joy of being a lover, of having that one person who knows everything.

She had it with Quinn.

Now I want it with Benson.