Earthbound (29 page)

“Cursed by who?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

“You remember this?”

“No. But I remember Rebecca remembering it.”
Quinn told her.
“We failed our stewardship.” The words are part of a proclamation—a sentence—burned into my memories. “Our immortality was taken away. Kind of. We became mortal, but with our souls tied—bound—to the earth. We live again and again, among the beings we created. Searching, always searching.”

“Searching for what?”

“Our
diligo
,” I say, trying out the unfamiliar word on my tongue.

“What does that mean?”

“Lover,” I say, not meeting his eyes. “Bound to earth, bound together,” I whisper.
“Reus ut terra, reus una.”

Quinn.

But …

No.

“The Reduciata try to kill the Earthbounds before they can reunite with their lovers.”

“That’s why they’re trying to kill you?” Benson murmurs.

But I shake my head. “It’s more than that with me. I … I know something. A secret. A secret that could destroy everything.”

“What secret?” Benson asks, breathing in short gasps now.

But I just shake my head. “I don’t remember. Something, something I didn’t even tell Quinn because it was too dangerous. That’s what the men who came to our house were trying to get rid of. That knowledge. Something … something about the Reduciata and the Curatoria. Arg!” I growl. “It hurts to even think about it.” I force a deep breath into my lungs and bury my face in Benson’s shirt.

“Those names have Latin roots,” Benson says, and I look up at him, confused. “What?” he asks sheepishly. “I looked them up on my phone after I saw them in Quinn’s journal.
Curator
means ‘to keep and preserve.’
Reduco
means ‘to—”

“‘Reduce,’” I interrupt with bitterness. “‘To kill.’”

“No,” Benson says softly. “It means ‘to lead.’”

I’m silent, trying to affix meaning to this new information, but my brain is too tired.

“I guess that’s why their symbol is that ankh thing. The ankh for eternity and shepherd’s crook for leading.”

“What about the other?”

“Other?”

It hurts so much to think. “The feather and flame.”

Benson chews on his lip and looks up at the sky for a few seconds. “Maybe a
phoenix
? You know, they die and are born again, like Earthbound.”

“And stronger every time,” I say, unsure whose words they are. “If the Curatoria does their job, the Earthbound get stronger.”

I don’t even know what that means, but the effort pulls me into silence again.

“Can you sit up?” Benson asks after a while.

“Maybe.”

He helps me up and lets me lean against him. My muscles ache and I’m hungry again. I stiffen as I realize every time I do anything that has to do with being an Earthbound, I get hungry. “I’m hungry. All the time,” I say in a flat voice.

“What?” Benson asks.

“Ever since the crash, I’m hungry all the time. But especially since I started using my powers.” I look up at Benson. “And Reese and Jay, they’re always trying to get me to eat more. Even Elizabeth told me I had to get over my guilt and eat. They all knew—my Earthbound body needs to eat more.”

“I guess it makes sense,” Benson says slowly. “You make something out of nothing and I suspect your brain works on overdrive. That kind of thing needs fuel.”

“But it was only after the crash. I’ve always been an Earthbound; you don’t
become
an Earthbound. Everything started happening after the crash. What was it about the crash that made this part of me … wake up?”

Benson sighs. “I have no clue, Tave. I’m discovering just how little I really know about anything,” he mutters.

Is he mad? Or just confused and frustrated, like me?

I can’t think anymore.

“We should go,” I say. “I need food and we have to get away.”

“I think you need a few more minutes,” Benson says, steadying me as I wobble to my feet.

“We may not have a few minutes. Someone’s got to know about this place.” My words are slurring and I take a deep breath and concentrate harder. “Don’t underestimate the brotherhoods. It’ll kill you.”

Rebecca’s memories flit through my head like fireflies, shining and dimming almost at random. Meeting Quinn, our life, our escape, the dugout, writing the journal.

The journal.

“I need the journal,” I say. “Rebecca’s.” I’m moving toward the car door and Benson is scrambling to help me stay upright. “I need to make sure …” I snatch it up and rifle through the pages until I reach the strange language, and a smile curls across my face. A grin. A chuckle. Then I throw my head back and laugh, the sound filling the trees. “I can read it! Oh, Benson, she was brilliant! This is Latin—not exactly Latin, like you said. A common Latin. It’s—” I think, trying to get the specifics from a memory bank that’s like a closet I can’t open more than a crack. “It’s from Rome—ancient Rome.” My head pounds from the effort of retrieving that tiny fact.

I look up, surprised, when Benson snorts. “Vulgar Latin?” he asks. “You can read Vulgar Latin?”

“It’s not vulgar,” I counter.

“No, that’s what the common Latin is called—I read about it last semester. It’s from like 800
A.D.
when the Romans were trying to create a universal language throughout the empire. It’s basically the parent language of
all
the Romance languages. And you can read it.” He grins. “That’s awesome.”

I sober as I look down at the journal. “This is where my answers are. She left it in the dugout for me. It’s our own personal pyramid, just like Quinn’s journal said. A place where we stashed all our stuff so we could remember someday. We created it just for something like this. So we could rely on each other, not on either of the brotherhoods. After that night, we left. We never came back.”

“But you escaped. You didn’t die. What happened?”

“I died eventually,” I say, and something snaps within me and the memory trickles back and I want to gag and clench my fists against it, pushing it away.
Please don’t ask, please don’t ask.
If he asks, it’ll re-ignite the sensations and I’ll have to feel it all over again and I’m not sure I have the stamina for that.

“How did you die?”

I look up at him as the all-too-familiar, body-numbing chill crashes over me. “I—” I brace myself against him as the cold that exists only in my mind paralyzes me. “I drowned. In a lake.”

The nightmare of my last moments as Rebecca replays in my head until my whole body is quaking with cold. I can’t sense any details—don’t know why, where, when. All I know for sure is that
they
did it—the Reduciata. That fact burns in my mind like a searing fire, melting a tiny layer of ice. “They’ve been hunting me. For over two hundred years. Me, specifically. They’ve killed me so many times. I … I think they’re the ones who made my plane crash.”

Benson’s hands tighten on me.

My body courses with crazy energy now. “Of course, Benson, it makes total sense.”

“Total,” Benson says dryly.

“I’ve been reborn. Not just now, a hundred times. A thousand times.” I lean against him with a groan as the scope of that thought makes my brain ache. Then my eyes pop open. “And they’re chasing me through lifetimes, trying to keep their secret—whatever it is—quiet! The Curatoria located me—lured me to them with the promise of a fancy art school, to protect me until they could awaken me, just like Elizabeth said. But the Reduciata found out—brought the plane down. All to silence their secret.” My eyes widen and the implication sinks in. “They’ll kill anyone to get me.
Anyone
who stands in their way.”

Anyone like him.

“Y
ou need to find him, don’t you?” Benson says after a while, his face a tableau of anguish.

“Who?”

His hands are chilly to the touch. “Quinn. Whoever he is now.”

“Quinn?” I’m not sure how we even got to this subject. It feels foreign. Wrong. I don’t need Quinn, I need Benson.

Don’t I?

When did even the barest doubt enter into my mind?

And how can I get rid of it?

“If you’ve been reborn, then he has too, right?”

“Yes, of course,” I say, as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. And right then, it is. “The Earthbound are never dead—their souls simply move from one body to the next.”

His hands are tight around my fingers and I can hear his heart beating.

Not beating. Racing.

Pounding.

“You have to find him, then. It’s … it’s the only way you’ll be safe.”

I stare up at him part in horror and part in wonder. I won’t leave Benson—but my mind is screaming that I
will
be safer with Quinn. How does Benson know that?

“And—and I won’t stand in your way,” he continues in a whisper. “I knew things would change when you remembered. And even though I—”

“No,” I interrupt. “No, Benson. That’s not what I want.” I force these feelings, this doubt away. I am my own master. I may be a goddess and the brotherhoods may think I have a path I’m not allowed to stray from, but they’re wrong. I can
choose
, and I will.

“These people are chasing you because of a secret you knew two hundred years ago—do you think they’re just going to give up now?” Benson shakes his head, as if frustrated with himself. “You two need to be together. And I—” His voice breaks off and his hands tighten even more and the next words he says seem to take physical effort to force out. “I’ll help you.”

My head feels too heavy on my neck, but I force my face up so I can meet his eyes. “No, Benson, no. I don’t want him. I want
you
.”

“But—but you’re Rebecca now.”

I lift my hands to frame his face. “I am
not
Rebecca. I
was
, absolutely. But I’m not now. I’m Tavia and I love
you
, Benson.”

He’s silent for a long time before he whispers, “It’s not as easy as that.”

“It can be.”

“People are trying to kill you, Tave. That’s more important.”

My thumb touches his cheekbone, just under the cut. “
Nothing
is more important than this.”

His voice sounds frantic, and icy fear clenches at my heart. “But at the house, after your vision, you said—”

“
I
didn’t say anything,” I counter, a little pissed that he believes I would turn on him so easily. “
Rebecca
said a lot of things before I got control back. It’s what
she
wants, Benson. But she’s not in charge this time around.
I
am.”

Benson’s eyes are wide and then he closes his mouth and clenches his teeth, the muscles standing out on his cheeks. “I just … I assumed, I mean you’ve had lifetimes with him, right?”

“I guess, but—”

“Everything you’ve done the last three days has been about you trying to get to Quinn, to figure out Quinn, to complete this mystery task Quinn had for you. Not Rebecca—
you
.” His hands are tight on my arms, not holding me back, more like holding himself back from me. I loosen his hands, and his expression turns chastened until I step forward and lay my head on his shoulder, wrapping my arms around him as lightly as possible.

“I thought I might be in love with him; I did. I thought that desperate feeling of obsession was love. And maybe it’s a
kind
of love. But it isn’t the kind I like.” I pull back and look at him. “Rebecca will always be there inside me. And there are—others—who may come out in time. But I won’t let them choose my life.” I lean my head back so I can see Benson’s face, so I can look him in the eye. “I don’t want him, Benson. I want you. I don’t love him.” I take a deep breath. “I love
you
.”

The moment stretches and everything is still. Benson’s eyes stare into me, searching for truth. Maybe searching for lies.

But there are none. The feelings I have for Quinn will always be there—I understand that now, and I can’t purge an entire part of me, especially one as big as my past lives—but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my long recovery, it’s to live every day like it’s my last.

And if today is my last day, I want to spend it with Benson.

He looks shocked, so I reach for the back of his neck and bring his lips down to mine. Benson comes to life, his arms twisting around me, holding me close. Pained groans sound against my mouth, but he doesn’t release me; his kiss is hard, as though branding me his in a way words alone cannot.

His fingers stroke close to my scar and then across it. I freeze, waiting for him to … I’m not even sure. Pull away? Push against it? At the very least, ask questions. But his cheek rubs across my forehead and his hands continue their gentle exploration as though he didn’t notice. He slides his fingers to each side of my face, warming my clammy skin.

“Tave,” he whispers, his lips feather light.

“What?” I whisper back, my fingers finding a sensitive curve of his neck and making him shiver.

He bends his head so his mouth is right by my ear. “Run away with me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s go underground,” he says, gripping my hand in tight fists. One of the cuts on his right knuckle cracks open and oozes a tiny droplet of blood. “These people chasing you—Reduciata, Curatoria, whoever—if you stay here, they’re going to find you. And when they do, they are going to
kill you
.” He looks down and shifts back and forth a few times. “I was going to suggest you take the money and leave on your own to find whoever Quinn is now, but if—if you really want me—”

“I do, Benson,” I interrupt, not willing to let him have the slightest moment’s doubt about that.

“Then—then I’ll come too. But we have to be fast and thorough. These people, they’ve found us again and again and I can’t let them hurt you. Not now. We have to go seriously underground, Tave. It’s going to be hard core. Leave my phone, ditch the car, change our identities,
everything
.” The fear in his eyes terrifies the glee out of me.

“What about your family?” I ask. “This isn’t like when you left Portsmouth with me. If we run tonight, I don’t know if there’s any coming back. Ever.”