Earthbound e-1 Read online

  I should turn—I should listen, but my eyes are fixed on the excruciating, sweet pain of seeing Quinn hold someone else. His hand cups her cheek, his thumb traces her jawline. I reach my hand up to my own face, as though I can will those hands to be on me instead of her.

  My heart races, then immediately slows, and every breath is an effort as I wonder if agony or ecstasy will kill me first—I’m certain one of them is going to. I can’t bear this much longer.

  Just as I realize agony is going to win, I feel as though my soul is ripping from my body and then I’m looking down on myself.

  But only for a moment.

  I’m settling.

  Settling into a familiar place.

  I’m home.

  Where I belong.

  A cool metal is heavy against my throat and my eyelashes rise to meet a white-shirted chest in front of my eyes. Insistent fingers are tilting my chin up to meet warm lips, while an arm pulls me close.

  Of course. My mind sees it before I do and my heart rushes to catch up.

  He’s holding this woman.

  He’s caressing Rebecca.

  He’s kissing me.

  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.

&
nbsp; 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.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Sobs are wracking my body before I realize I’ve started crying. And almost as soon as I do, I’m laughing, laughing at the power Rebecca’s trying to exert over me as soon as I want someone who isn’t Quinn.

  “Get out of my head!” I scream to the sky, and she retreats, but her presence is still there, slowly melding, and I know it’s only a matter of time before it is not her and me, but us.

  “Tave,” Benson says, his hands still on my face. I take a calming breath and ground myself by studying him—his wire-rimmed glasses, slightly askew, the streak of mud across his forehead, his lips. They’re red from my rough affections and all I want to do is kiss them again.

  I try to speak, but my teeth are chattering from both cold and nerves and I can’t get anything understandable out.

  “Come here,” Benson says, opening his jacket to me. I tuck myself close against his chest and he wraps me up as best he can, holding me tight as the chattering turns into full-body shudders, then slowly subsides.

  “Can you talk about it now?” Benson whispers.

  I don’t lift my head; I’m not sure I can make this confession while looking at him. “I saw the whole thing. The night they were supposed to die.”

  “You mean like you were seeing through Quinn?”

  I shake my head violently. “No, I had that part totally wrong. This was never about Quinn; it was about me! Quinn’s not trying to possess me—he’s just trying to get me to remember who I am.”

  “And who are you?”

  “I’m Rebecca Fielding.” Saying it aloud threatens my grip on reality. Less than a week ago, I thought loving a stranger was crazy. Where does that leave me now? “I was. Two hundred years ago, I was her, and I was here. With Quinn. We’re …”

  We’re Earthbound. That word in Rebecca’s head. The word Elizabeth spoke. The one I read in Quinn’s journal.

  But there’s another word, too. One that terrifies me to my bones.

  Gods. I am a goddess. But I don’t say the words out loud. I hardly dare to think them, but their truth resonates through me. Even though I’m still not entirely sure what they mean.

  For months I’ve accepted my limitations, accepted the parts of me that will never heal. Accepted that I am less than I once was.

  But now I’m not.

  I’m more. So much more.

  I am forever. I am eternal. I am powerful beyond imagination. It’s why I can make things. Rebecca could. Quinn could. And now I can. The cast-iron covering Benson and I dug up, like the cast-iron manacles I trapped Elizabeth in. I understand why, in that moment, it seemed so familiar.

  And that’s only a fraction of what I can do.

  Rebecca and Quinn were better than I am now. My creations disappear—two hundred years later, theirs are still here.

  I have the potential to do the same thing.

  But I have to do something. And not just anything—the most important something in the world.

  It will unlock my abilities … . if only I can remember what it is.

  My body starts to shake again. That kind of power makes everything more dangerous, more dire. Maybe I can harness it, but if I can’t, it could destroy u
s all.

  “I don’t understand,” Benson says, and his voice is unsteady. “Like, a past life?”

  “Yes. And not just one. A hundred. A thousand. At first I saw Rebecca, the same way I’ve always seen Quinn. But then, it’s like my—my soul, I guess, came out of me and I was inside Rebecca, looking out of her eyes and feeling everything that she felt on the night they tried to kill her.”

  Benson is silent, but his brow wrinkles in obvious thought.

  “And it was … familiar. I knew I’d been in that body before.” It was like coming home, I think. But I don’t say it.

  “So, do you … remember things now?”

  “Sort of. Flashes. It’s not much,” I admit. “But she … I was so afraid. They’re after her, Benson.”

  “Who?”

  “The Reduciata.” Just saying the word makes a storm of fear roil in my chest.

  He swallows hard.

  “And that’s why they’re after me. Because she is me. I can’t let them catch me. They’ll—they’ll—” I don’t know how to end that sentence. But the terror that twists my insides in knots is enough to let me know that I would rather die than be in Reduciata custody.

  Again.

  Again?

  “You can’t even imagine what they’ll do,” I finally say, my voice soft. I shake off the awful memories.

  Not even memories—shadows, hints of memories.

  “We can’t go to the Curatoria either. I have to do this on my own.” Panic quivers inside me and I spin back to Benson. “Not alone,” I emphasize when I see the despairing expression on his face. “Please help me?”

  He reaches for my shoulder, then changes his mind and lets his hands drop. “What do you need me to do?”

  “I need—”

  The necklace. Rebecca’s voice, I think. It sounds so much like my own.

  “The necklace,” I obediently parrot. “The one Quinn wrote about in his journal—then I’ll remember.” I don’t want to give Rebecca more access to my head—to my heart—but somehow I know that getting the necklace will give me more power, not less. I have to have that power.

  “Do you think it’s in the dugout place?” he asks.

  “It’s got to be.”

  “Let’s go back to the car.” He helps me to my feet, but my fingers and toes are numb and I stagger.