Earthbound

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“Let’s all stay calm,” Jay says in a soft, even tone that makes me want to reach out and smack him. My mind spins with defensive plans.

More cast iron, insta-shotguns, bulletproof glass … assuming I could make something that high tech, which I’m suddenly not convinced is within my capabilities.

But Benson is here.

I won’t risk him.

Can’t risk him.

This is the problem with love.

“Peace offering,” Jay says, drawing my attention back. He’s holding up what I vaguely recognize as several of the organic, all-natural protein bars that Reese keeps around the house.

A weird nostalgia hits me. That will never be my life again.

“No one’s here to kill you, Tave,” Jay says, as though reading my mind. “All of this—” His hand takes in the unseen guns surrounding us, hidden from sight by the broad-leafed trees. “Just a precaution. After what you did to Elizabeth and me, I think it’s understandable.”

He edges forward like he’s approaching a skittish colt. Despite what he just said, he doesn’t seem afraid of me; he looks like he’s worried I’m afraid of him.

Which I am. Terrified. But I don’t want him to know.

The sun is shining down into the middle of the clearing with a vengeance that defies the bitter cold of the last few days, but despite that, my veins are ice water.

“I know you need to eat,” Jay says, still holding out the bars. “I’m not sure what you’ve been doing, but I’ve seen enough Earthbounds on the run to recognize that look; you’re about five minutes away from fainting.”

Even though every nerve in my body is poised to bolt, I force myself to meet his eyes and then take two slow steps forward and snatch the protein bars, immediately retreating back to Benson as soon as the food is in my hand. I rip open the wrapper and take a bite, keeping my eyes on Jay the whole time.

To tell the truth, he looks awful. Those circles under his eyes—they speak of more than sleep deprivation. And his skin has a weird quality to it—like it grew a size too big and is now hanging off him. Melting, almost. “Are you all right, Jay?” I ask through a half-chewed protein bar.

Jay doesn’t answer, just makes a small motion, and Reese and Elizabeth step out from the brush and join him with that same tentative slowness. I’ve already torn open the next protein bar and taken a big bite, but at the sight of those two my mouth turns dry.

Even though I know they were telling the truth.

Even though it was probably a mistake to leave them in the first place.

But they’re still the ones controlling the guns pointed at me—at the guy I love. It’s hard not to think of them as the enemy when they’re pointing weapons at us.

“We just want to talk,” Reese says, before I can speak.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask when the second bar is gone—which takes a remarkably short time, and I’m already opening the third. “I thought you were Curatoria. Aren’t you supposed to help Earthbound?”

Are they?

Supposed to. Or so they say.

Rebecca considered them more trustworthy than the Reduciata, but what kind of standard is that?

“We are,” Reese says. “And we’re trying our damnedest to keep you alive, but you’re not making it very easy.”

The shock of the whole situation is wearing off and I’m not afraid anymore.

I’m pissed.

“If you had trusted me with any amount of information, maybe I wouldn’t have been so high strung. Do you have any idea what the last week has been like for me?” I snap.

“If you had trusted us with any information about what you were experiencing, maybe we could have helped,” she replies without emotion.

I close my mouth. I’m not going to play this blame-trading game. “You’re not my aunt and uncle, are you?” I ask, not bothering to hide the accusation in my voice.

The question hangs in the air, one they obviously don’t want to answer. “No,” Reese finally says. “My name is Samantha. Sammi.”

I almost laugh at the nickname. It matches her pert blond hair and doll-like stature but is completely at odds with her formal, businesslike personality. “And you?” I say, whipping my head around to Jay, who I realize is leaning against the tree now—like standing takes too much effort.

“Mark. Just Mark,” he adds awkwardly.

“Why pretend?” I ask, shooting my words at him.

“To get you into protective custody without shocking you with everything all at once. It was hard enough for you to deal with your parents dying—not to mention the physical trauma—without pushing a bunch of supernatural stuff on you as well. We were trying to be gentle, while still keeping you safe and hidden.”

“Did you kill my real aunt and uncle before you stole their identities?”

“That is not how we work, Tavia,” Sammi snaps, plainly offended. “They’re alive and well and think you died in the crash. And trust me, falsifying TSA documents is no picnic.”

“Tavia,” Elizabeth says, speaking up for the first time, “if there’s anything I have ever said that you believed, please believe this: Sammi and Mark and I have dedicated every waking moment for more than the last year to keeping you safe.”

“Not to mention eighteen years ago,” Reese—Sammi—adds in a mutter.

Elizabeth shoots her a look and continues. “We almost lost you in the plane crash, and that failure has plagued us every single day. There are no three people in the world who you’re safer with than us. I promise you that.”

Safer than with Benson? I think wryly. Not a chance. But I say nothing, just reach back for Benson’s hands. He’s staying quiet, letting me speak, rant, accuse. But he hasn’t moved an inch, his warm chest a solid support against my back. As steadfast as any of these ancient trees. He makes me feel strong. Bold. Better.

“Please,” Elizabeth says, “let us take you somewhere safe—we’ll talk about anything you want then, but we’re tempting fate by staying out here in the open.”

“We’re pretty off-road,” I reply sarcastically, gesturing at the thick foliage around us.

“Anything but bulletproof walls is out in the open as far as I’m concerned,” Sammi snaps. “Please, let us take you to a safe house.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I retort. “I don’t want anything to do with the Curatoria or the Reduciata.”

“To be honest, I don’t think you’ll last long on your own. I’ve never seen the Reduciata hunt someone this seriously. Taking down an entire plane?” Mark says, confirming my suspicions. “That’s brutal even for them. We managed to get to the car crash in Bath about an hour after it happened, and to tell the truth, we thought they’d gotten you at that hotel in Freeport.”

I clench my jaw. They were never far behind. But still farther behind than the Reduciata, who have been getting progressively closer and closer. I want to take Benson and run—I want it so badly—but would it be a death sentence for us both?

“They want you,” Mark continues. “Specifically, and very badly. After the plane wreck we had to take you and hide you because when you were the sole survivor, the Reduciata immediately knew they’d failed to assassinate you. Only an Earthbound could have survived that crash.”

My fingers clutch Benson’s icy skin. “What is it about this crash that started everything? I don’t understand. I didn’t know anything then.”

“An Earthbound’s self-preservation instinct is incredibly strong,” Sammi says simply, as though we were discussing the migratory patterns of butterflies. “Awareness that borders on precognition, impulse self-defense in disciplines the Earthbound has never learned in conscious memory, that sort of thing. Sudden re-awakenings of powers in life-threatening scenarios is the least of what I’ve seen in my time. The simple need to stay alive brought your ability forth. We’re not sure exactly what you did, but somehow your instincts kicked in and you created something to save yourself.”

My throat is constricting now as the obvious question slams into me like a boulder. “I did it? I kept myself alive?” I whisper, and I can see in Elizabeth’s eyes that she knows what’s coming next. I blink, but that only makes the tears spill onto my cheeks—searing spots on my skin. “Then why couldn’t I save them too?”

“I don’t think your unconscious instincts could do anything beyond self-preservation,” Mark says, empathy—real or not—heavy in his tone. “You can’t feel guilty about that, Tavia.”

But I do.

If I—even without consciously understanding my powers—could rescue myself, then I could have rescued them.

And I didn’t.

Benson wraps his arm around my waist and I cling to him, forcing myself to fill my lungs several times even though it feels like knives are stabbing my chest.

The truth should be simple. And this is not simple. This is a fairy tale. And not the Prince-Charming-kissed-the-princess kind of fairy tale; the kind where the wolf eats the grandmother, the mermaid turns into sea foam, and the dancer gets her feet cut off.

“How did you guys even know who I was?” I choke out.

“Oh, Tave, so much research,” Sammi says, and she looks tired at the thought. “Generations of research. My family have been Curatoriates for more than ten generations; membership in both brotherhoods is often a family affair.”

“Like the mob,” Benson says dryly, speaking for the first time.

Sammi shoots him an annoyed look but continues as though he hadn’t spoken. “Since I was sixteen and trained under my father, I’ve spent my life searching for the Earthbound. We have a lot of methods, none of them simple or foolproof. Honestly, if you didn’t look the same from lifetime to lifetime, I think we’d be hopelessly lost.”

I remember the vision of Rebecca. Longer hair, but otherwise identical.

“I—I have a bit of a connection with you, actually,” Sammi says.

“What kind of connection?” I ask, and I can’t keep the suspicion out of my voice.

She reaches into the large bag at her hip and I step back and throw my arms out in front of Benson, but Sammi’s hand emerges clutching a file folder with the symbol of the feather and the flame. She walks toward me, raising the folder like a white flag.

It feels strange, exchanging folders of documents in the forest, with brown leaves crunching under our feet, but what about this whole experience hasn’t been strange? I take the folder warily and try to keep my eyes on Sammi even as I open the cover.

It’s odd to see my face stare out from a picture I don’t remember being in. It has that sepia tinge that old photos take on, and I see myself in a wide-necked sweater and high-waisted jeans, lying on my stomach, reading a book. “When is this?” I ask, studying all the little facial details I’ve become so intimately acquainted with over the years.

It’s strange how foreign they look now.

“Eighteen years ago,” Sammi says, and I remember her cryptic statement a few minutes ago.

I wrinkle my brow. “I died young.”

“You did.”

My finger reaches out to touch another face in the picture—the sharp chin of teenage Samantha. Shorter hair, a little thinner, but definitely her. “That’s you.”

“Yes, that’s me as a teenager, and that’s you as Sonya. And despite everything,” she adds with a laugh, “you are so much easier to live with this time around.”

“‘Belligerent,’” I recite from the next page in the file, but there’s no humor in my voice. I’m not ready to think of any of this as amusing.

“That basically sums it up. You didn’t trust us, even after we were able to give you your memories back. And you wouldn’t tell us anything.”

I reach the bottom of the file, and everything inside me clenches up in denial. “It says here that I killed myself. If you Curatoria people are so helpful and trustworthy, why did I do that?”

Sammi is quiet for long time, twisting her wedding ring around and around. When she speaks, her voice is low and serious. “The bond between partners is so strong, it often becomes an Earthbound’s motivation for living. Right before we found you, we found your partner. His name was Darius then. But we weren’t the only ones who found him. Unfortunately, he left too much of a trail and the Reduciata located him … and …” She spreads her hands out in front of her. “You have to understand, Tavia. For an Earthbound, death isn’t the same as for the rest of us. It’s not the end; it’s more like a reset button. It wasn’t that you stopped wanting to live but that you wanted to be on the same timeline as Darius. Quinn. Whatever you want to call him. You didn’t want to be twenty-three years older than him when you found his new incarnation. You wanted to be at the same stage so the two of you might have a chance of a long life together.”

“So I killed myself?” I ask. The cold logic of the act doesn’t make it any less gruesome.

“It was hard on me too,” Sammi admitted. “Even though I understood what it meant. Since then I’ve dedicated much of my service as a Curatoriate to finding you and Darius and getting you together again. To right that wrong. It’s been my life’s work. So when I recognized your painting style last year from a few pieces we have by Rebecca, I was finally able to complete the first step in my mission.”

“Well, you can stop now. I don’t want to be with him.” I take Benson’s hand again, twine my fingers through his, and smile. “I want to be with Benson. We don’t need you and we certainly don’t need this guy—Darius, Quinn, whoever. We only need each other.”

Benson smiles back, but he looks nervous—edgy. His hand grips mine like he’s afraid I’ll bolt at any moment.

“Don’t you even want to see him?” Sammi asks.

“See who?”

“Your partner, Quinn Avery. Who he is today?” She holds out another file.

I try not to be affected. I have a boy who loves me; I certainly don’t need another one. But Sammi continues to hold it out, and finally I give up my show of nonchalance and grab it and read the label.

“‘Logan Sikes,’” I read.

I hold the file, count to three, open it.

And there he is.

An eight-by-ten of a guy—a teenager, just like me. Somewhere in the back of my head a new voice I vaguely recognize as Sonya cheers. It worked! And even as I push her away, I realize she’s right. We’re the same age. We could be together—have an entire lifetime.

Except.

I don’t want him.

Not me.

They do. They want him so badly I’m not sure my brain can handle the split decision without tearing apart.

Stalling, I reach my fingertips out to touch Quinn’s familiar face, made modern in this Logan guy. His hair is shorter, tousled and hanging almost to his green eyes instead of tied with a ribbon. Jeans and a T-shirt look so odd on him, and yet he seems very at home, glancing just over his shoulder.

I can deny my heart, cling to Benson, ignore Elizabeth’s warning, shut out Rebecca and Sonya’s voices.

But I can’t escape those eyes.

I know those eyes. I’ve loved those eyes. Looked into them while they loved me. Hundreds of times. Thousands. My breath feels sharp as I stare into his eyes and am hypnotized.

Desperately, I push my gaze to the date at the bottom of the picture. “This was taken yesterday?” I gasp, and Sammi nods, mistaking my dismay for delight.

“As he was walking to school. I saw him myself. In the flesh, not this vision of Quinn Avery that you’ve been seeing the last week. He’s real. It’s the reason I had to go to Phoenix so abruptly. That’s where he is.”

Phoenix. I almost went there. Meeting up with ghost Quinn nearly ripped apart my heart and soul; what would seeing the real Logan have done to me?

Sammi leans forward. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before that I thought I’d found him—I see now that I should have—but … Tavia, it almost destroyed me when you killed yourself while under my care. I was there when my father told you Darius was dead. You—you can’t even imagine the devastation I saw in your eyes. Maybe you can,” she said wryly. “Surely you remember that part.”

I hesitate. “I don’t, actually. I don’t remember a lot of things. Mostly just my life as Rebecca, but even that’s vague. I … I sense,” I decide on, not really sure how to better describe it, “that this isn’t the way it’s supposed to happen. That this whole remembering thing should be easier.” I let the unasked question hang in the air.

“You don’t remember anything about Sonya? At all?” Sammi asks.

“Just a … familiarity,” I admit. “A trickle of a voice in my head.”

“Do you remember—” But she cuts off. “Now’s not the time; we can discuss Sonya later. Liz did a ton of research after the plane crash, and she theorized that the damage your brain suffered would make things more difficult. The same way it was so hard for you to start drawing again.”

“It’s why we were worrying about damaging you further,” Elizabeth tacks on.

“Will it always hurt?” I ask in a weak voice, my whole body on edge at even the thought of the pain the necklace had invoked.

Sammi’s chin shoots up. “It—”

“The brains of Earthbounds don’t function quite the same as ours—not even the same as those of us who have Earthbound as kin,” Elizabeth interrupts. “It’s the reason you see things the rest of us can’t.” She pauses. “Like the glowing triangles.”

My eyes widen and I try to ask about that, but Elizabeth cuts me off.

“As far as we can tell, the synaptic pathways both connect and fire differently. What we aren’t certain of is how the damage to your brain will affect that. But no, it shouldn’t hurt.” She hesitates, understanding how bad it must have been even though I didn’t say so. “I don’t know if it will continue to be a painful process or not, but now that you’ve had your initial memory pull from one of your creations, the worst should be over. From here on out it will hopefully just be a matter of sifting through the memories from the change you’ve already invoked.”

“I had hoped to find a way to bring Logan back with me and pull his memories while you were together.” Sammi’s voice is soft and even, but I’ve lived with her long enough to hear the current of frustration. “But your running away kind of put a wrench in that.”

“If you’re waiting for me to apologize, it’s going to be a long night,” I say, leaning closer to Benson with my arms folded over the files, holding them against me.

I’m not giving them back.

“I’m not waiting for anything. We know where Logan is; we’ll take you to him tonight.” She looks up and meets my eyes. “By force, if necessary.”

“What do you mean by force?” I snap. “I think you’re being a little melodramatic.”

Sammi looks at Mark and they have a silent conversation with their eyes. I rest one hand on my hip to wait for them to finish deciding if they are going to continue lying to me. But Mark gives a tiny nod and Sammi turns back to me with genuinely haunted eyes.

“Mark has the virus.”