Earthbound e-1 Page 16

  But it balances out the numbness that has enveloped me on the inside.

  “You were right,” I whisper against the soft fabric of his jacket. “About Quinn, I mean. He’s—he’s dangerous and obsessed and … and … you were right.”

  His hands are suddenly tight on my arms. “Did he hurt you?” he asks, eyes flashing fire. “Did he lay a single finger on you? I’ll kill the bastard!”

  “No, no,” I say before he can get any louder. “I’m fine. I promise. I just …”

  “Do we need to call the cops?”

  I feel tears build as Quinn’s betrayal sweeps through me again, but I push them back—I will not shed another tear over him. “No. Technically he didn’t do anything. And I have nothing to tell them even if he did. His name’s not even Quinn. Everything he ever told me is a lie.”

  “Tavia, seriously, did he hurt you?”

  “He never touched me. He just led me to this old … cellar, I guess. It was kind of hidden.”

  “A hidden cellar?” Benson asks, not exactly disbelieving, but there’s a hint of that.

  I open my backpack and, after a quick look around, pull out the ancient journal.

  An impressed whistle escapes Benson’s mouth as he reaches for the book. “You’re good,” he says, smiling in earnest now, and I feel a faint glow at his compliment. I crave his approval, though I’m not sure quite why. Maybe I just need someone to believe I’m not out of my mind.

  Just psychic.

  And magic.

  And something called an Earthbound.

  I’m so in over my head.

  “This is seriously impressive.” Benson flips through the pages, and something clanks onto the table.

  “Holy crap,” I say, picking up the gold coin. “I didn’t mean to take this.”

  “Is that … ?” Benson’s eyes shoot up to mine.

  “I think so.”

  He holds it up, turning it and watching the light glint off it. “Is it really awful if we keep this?” he asks, his voice tense.

  “I am not taking it back,” I say. “I’m never going there again.”

  “Ten tanks of gas,” Benson says, pocketing the coin and turning his attention back to the journal. “So this was just sitting in there?”

  “Whoa! Benson, look!” I close the journal, and on the front cover is a triangle, each side at least six inches long. “You can see that, right?” I ask, a little paranoid.

  “Yeah,” Benson says quietly. “The triangle; I can see this one.”

  I trace the small indentation with my finger, going around all three sides. A strange flicker crosses my vision and I see another hand following my fingers.

  But I blink, and it’s gone.

  Holding back a sigh at yet another disappearing image, I flip to the front of the journal. “Right before we went in, he called me Becca.”

  “Rebecca Fielding,” Benson says softly, his eyes on the curly script. “1804.”

  I skim the book in silence, Benson giving me peace. The darkness inside my chest spreads as I find more and more familiar words. “It’s all in here,” I say, paging carefully through the book, each new entry making the waffles I just ate feel heavier and heavier in my stomach. “Everything he ever said to me. Look, here she talks about how he had things to show her. Here he asks her to trust him. How he messed everything up and frightened her. And this part”—I point at the book—“this is the part I read last night. It’s word for word what he said to me. He’s obsessed with this dead Rebecca and trying to reenact his sick fantasies with modern-day girls. With … with me. But there could be others. He could be a freaking serial killer!”

  A hard look is pasted on Benson’s face as he leans over the book. “This is so weird,” he says.

  I flip back toward the beginning and a name catches my eye. “Benson!” I can feel all the blood draining from my face as I read the passage.

  “What?” he asks, leaning over the page and looking where I’m pointing, his vague expression indicating that he doesn’t see what I’m so upset about.

  “It says she first saw him when she was walking past his house, and he was minding his little sister.”

  Benson is trying really hard, but his face is completely blank.

  “There was a little girl with Quinn when I first saw him! In Portsmouth, a few days ago. Do … do you think he kidnapped her?” My heart is beating wildly as I wonder just how major of a psychopath I’ve run into.

  “There’s no way,” Benson says. “I don’t know how he got that girl to play the part, but we’d have heard something on the news if a little girl was missing.”

  It makes sense, and I try to latch onto Benson’s confidence to calm myself. “But the house was gone too,” I think aloud. “When I went back, it wasn’t there anymore. It wasn’t real. Maybe the little girl wasn’t real either.”

  “Maybe this Quinn guy isn’t real,” Benson says, and there’s a low simmer of hostility in his tone.

  “No,” I say dismissively, still focused on the words in the journal. “He talks to me. He got that door open in the dugout. He is definitely real.”

  “The journal’s real too,” Benson says. “Not just physically real,” he adds, rapping a knuckle softly against the cover. “It appears to be authentic. Do you think Quinn just stumbled onto it somewhere?”

  “I don’t know,” I admit in a small voice. “Honestly, I haven’t had the time or energy to think of anything except that I was a complete moron.”

  “No,” Benson says, rubbing a hand on my arm. “People like this are always über-charismatic and nice and all that. I mean, come on, every time a serial killer gets caught, what do the neighbors say? Oh, he was such a nice guy.”

  “You’re not making me feel better,” I mutter, laying my head down on the table.

  “Point is, it’s not your fault he’s a creeper; it’s his.”

  Mentally, I know it’s true, but I don’t feel that way.

  “So … it looks like maybe Quinn has nothing to do with … the … the Earthbound thing?” he asks hesitantly.

  I stare at him, uncomprehending for a moment. “Oh, right,” I say, feeling even more defeated. “The fact that I can create matter out of thin air just got bumped down to second on the list of drama in my life. Fabulous.” I clasp my hands in front of me. “But no. I think he’s like me, Benson. I think he can do what I can do. At the very least he knows about it.”

  “You talked to him about it?”

  “Sort of. Do you think he’s working with Sunglasses Guy?”

  “Dragging you out somewhere alone in the middle of a snowy night and abandoning you? Whether he’s working for that guy or not, I think we can assume he is some seriously bad news, Tave.”

  I let my head fall onto my arms. “No kidding,” I mutter. I feel like such a complete moron.

  Benson rocks back and forth a few times. “Maybe we should look up Rebecca and the original Quinn. On microfiche.” Benson continues with an eyebrow raised, “Though considering the era, we’re likely to find more on Quinn than Rebecca.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he was a man,” Benson says dryly.

  “True.”

  He leans his head close over the table and grins. “Surely along with the chipper attitudes and polyester pants, we could find a library around here somewhere.”

  I nod stoically. “Okay, let’s do it.”

  He scoots out from the booth and holds out a hand for me. I wince as I stand, and Benson’s hands go to my waist. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks. “You look like you’re hurting.”

  “I’ll heal,” I tell him. And I hope it’s true. My bruises will go away, but I can’t imagine ever losing this amazing but terrible compulsion I feel toward Quinn. I take one more look up at the television, where the reporter is still going on and on about the virus. She looks at the camera, her face so serious it borders on grave.

  And then flickers.

  I gasp aloud and Benson looks back at me.

/>   Along with half the restaurant.

  “Did you see that? She flickered.”

  About ten heads turn to the TV.

  “Were you watching?” I ask an older woman sitting close to me. “Did you see her flicker?”

  “Well, sometimes the service isn’t perfect. But Flo gives us the television for free, so I don’t think you should be complaining.”

  “Not the television, the woman. The reporter.” My head is screaming at me to keep my mouth shut—to avoid looking crazier than I am and, at the very least, to not make a scene. But now that I’ve started talking, I can’t seem to stop. “The woman, not the scene behind her, just the woman. She was gone for just a second. You didn’t see it?”

  I look around me. Forget half, now everyone in the restaurant is staring.

  “Tave, we gotta go.” Benson’s voice finally breaks through, and I duck my head and turn in the direction he’s leading me. He keeps one hand at my elbow and escorts me around to the car. “What was that?” he asks when we’re finally out of earshot.

  “The reporter, she flickered. Just like the lady who gave me the Band-Aid and the guy at the candy store. No one sees it except me.”

  Benson purses his lips and studies me for a long moment. “We need to get out of here. We have to assume that if Quinn knows we were in Camden last night, other people do too. We have to keep moving.”

  I nod, not sure if Benson doesn’t believe me or if he’s just as bewildered as I am. “Can you drive for a bit?” I ask.

  “Drive the Beemer again? I’m afraid you’re going to have to twist my arm,” he says, grinning.

  I roll my eyes as we both get in. I guess I shouldn’t be surprise that even in the face of death and magic and mystery, boys still like their fancy cars.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Hey, Baklava, we’re here,” Benson says, poking my ribs.

  I must have fallen asleep. “Did you seriously just call me Baklava?” I grumble, throwing my arm over my eyes as I blink against the midday sunlight.

  “Don’t sweat the small stuff—I found a library.”

  I grumble something that was probably better unheard.

  “Your phone rang a bunch of times while we were driving,” Benson says, ignoring my mutterings. “I couldn’t get it out of your pocket to turn it off.”

  And I was apparently so zonked I didn’t even hear it. I take my phone out and check the screen.

  Six missed calls.

  “Jay,” I mutter as I shove it back into my pocket. “The man doesn’t give up.”

  Once inside, we make our way to the microfiche lab and I realize I feel better already. Benson is someone who’s proved I can trust him, and a library—even a new one—feels like a safe haven. While I’m here, with him, I can deal.

  As Benson predicted, when we look up the names in the database, there’s one reference to a Rebecca Fielding, and seven to Quinn Avery.

  “Captain Quinn Avery,” Benson says. “Looks like he owned some kind of boat.” He writes down some references, then starts pulling tiny films out of file cabinets with a practiced efficiency. “Here,” he says, handing me the first film. “You start while I pull the others.”

  Library nerds are the best.

  “There’s a whole story on him,” I say, skimming an article. “You were right—he was the captain of a shipping boat.” I keep reading as Benson opens and closes file cabinet drawers. “Weird,” I murmur, then louder, so Benson can hear me, I add, “So this article says that just as he was really starting to make a name for himself in the shipping biz, he disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?” Benson asks. He places a small stack of films on the desk beside me and pulls up another chair.

  I point at the screen as I keep reading. “Yeah. He lived at the edge of Camden—that totally explains why Psycho Quinn told me to go there—and one night there was a huge disturbance, gunshots and tons of noise. Neighbors went to his house, and all four walls were, like, totally riddled with bullets, everything inside ransacked and destroyed, but the house was empty.” I lean forward and keep skimming. “They never found any bodies, but neither he nor a local banker’s daughter was ever heard from again.” I turn to Benson. “Do you think that was Rebecca?”

  “It seems likely,” Benson says, his eyes fixed on the screen.

  “This would have been a major scandal, right?”

  “Murder and an illicit love affair in the early 1800s? Oh yeah.”

  “Can it be a coincidence?”

  “What?”

  “That the original Captain Avery seduced women and may have either murdered them or been murdered for his deeds?” I ask, fear fluttering in my chest again.

  “Coincidence? I doubt it. But the question is, did today’s Quinn choose this identity because of its sordid past or did he just find someone in history to match his preferred crimes?”

  Crimes. I hate using that word to describe Quinn.

  What is wrong with me? Even after last night, I’m still trying to find a way to justify his actions.

  “And why me?” I ask quietly. “I don’t see how any of this relates to me.” I read another paragraph, then turn fully to Benson. “Do you think he tracks down people who can do what I do? Do you think there are more people like me?”

  “It seems possible,” Benson says hesitantly.

  I wonder if he found any. If they’re still alive.

  I swallow hard and scroll down farther. Suddenly the world swirls around me and I can’t stifle the loud gasp that escapes my throat.

  It’s him.

  It’s a sketch, not a photo—possibly done after his disappearance. But it’s definitely him. I can’t tear my gaze away from those eyes. Soft green eyes that the artist has captured well, even in monochrome. I reach out and touch his sharp cheekbones, then am shocked when I have to hold my breath to stifle a sob. My emotions are a hurricane inside me fighting to get out.

  “That’s him, Benson!”

  “Quinn? Like, the guy you saw last night?”

  I can’t speak; I only nod. Before I have time to process the thought, I hit the print button.

  “That is seriously weird,” Benson says. “You’re sure?”

  “That’s exactly what he looks like,” I say, and my voice is unsteady.

  “This guy must be way hard core,” Benson says, leaning in close to the picture.

  Zac Brown Band starts playing, and it takes about five seconds before I realize it’s my phone’s ring tone. Instinctively I hit the talk button and put the phone to my ear, my gaze still fixed on the microfiche screen. “’lo?”

  “Tavia, thank goodness. Please don’t hang up.”

  I freeze as Reese’s voice sounds in my ear, pouring jagged ice down my spine.

  “I just got back and Jay told me. Please let us talk to you. You’re in so much danger. Where are you? Just tell us—”

  I hit the end button with a shaky finger and feel all the blood draining from my face. I answered my phone? What the hell was I thinking? That’s the kind of mistake that could get me killed. Me and Benson. “I have to get rid of this,” I say, and I’m not sure if I’m talking to Benson or myself. It’s been easy to push Reese and Jay into the back of my mind since leaving Portsmouth—my head has been full of Quinn.

  But my phone is a tether to them and I can’t keep it anymore.

  I walk over to the printer and gather up the small handful of papers and clutch them to my chest. “I gotta go,” I mumble, not sure who I’m talking to. What I’m doing.

  The phone.

  Get rid of the phone.

  Completely distracted, I turn to walk out and almost yelp when I feel Benson’s hand on my arm. My instinct is to yank it away, but rational thought wriggles into my consciousness and I remember who he is.

  He’s Benson. He’s helping me.

  He’s the only one who can.

  “Tavia?” His hand is still on my arm.

  I slow my breathing and make myself focus, feeling a semblanc
e of calm start to fill me again. “Yeah?”

  “Wait for me,” he says quietly. “Let me grab my stuff.”

  Everything I’m feeling about Quinn and Reese and Jay and Elizabeth right now is too big. It fills my mind and heart until I’m too full to feel anything for Benson. And I can’t be around him when I feel this way.

  Flee! my mind is shouting at me, and my breath is shallow and short. The desperation to get rid of my phone—to cut off all contact with Reese—is like a compulsion it almost hurts to resist.

  As soon as he turns, I start walking again—making my way to the doors.

  “Miss, miss?” It’s not Quinn’s voice, but the memory of the words he said last night covers me, smothers me with despair. I duck my head and walk faster.

  “Tave!” Benson’s voice is too loud for a library, but still I don’t stop. I know I’m running away, but it’s too much. I can’t stay in there, not one second longer.

  “You need to pay for your copies,” the librarian calls after me, scolding.

  As I pull on the doors, I chance a look back at Benson, standing by the reference desk with desperation in his eyes and pulling out his wallet in a panicked hurry.

  It’s now or never.

  The wind hits my face as I exit the library and stride out onto the street. I don’t know anything about this town, so I just pick a direction and start power-walking with my head down, my phone clutched in my hand.

  I wish I could close my fingers and crush it to pieces.

  Once I’m out of sight of the library I pause to catch my breath and lean against the red-brick wall of a nondescript office building. I glance down at the printouts, now wrinkly from being crushed against my chest. When I hold them out to get a better look, a big raindrop plops down, smearing some of the text. I gasp my dismay and jog a few more steps to the shelter of an overhang before crouching down against the wall. At least it’s not snowing. Yet.

  My thoughts whirl as I stare at the sketch. It looks exactly like Quinn. I mean, it’s not a photograph, so there could be subtle differences, but they would have to be damn subtle. Their faces are the same, right down to the bone structure. I’ve drawn the shadows beneath that prominent brow, the rise of those cheekbones, the square straightness of that jaw. You can’t fake that kind of thing with a costume and a dye job.