Earthbound e-1 Read online

  I force my legs to move, bursting with sudden speed, but before I’ve gone three feet a thick forearm snakes out and catches me across the throat, and suddenly hands are grasping at my waist, my legs, pulling me away from Benson. The icy barrel of a gun presses against my temple and I still as I hear the words, “One more move and you’re dead. Forever.”

  I force myself to be still, but my eyes search for Benson, who’s fighting against his captors. “Stop! No! Leave her alone. I told you—” His words cut off with a sharp crack and I can’t stifle a cry as Benson’s head snaps to one side with the force of a blow to his temple.

  I glance around at the dozen or so faces. I don’t see Sunglasses Guy, but without his distinguishing shades—not to mention the shadows of the tree branches crisscrossing all of the faces—he could be any of them.

  “Ben, it’s okay,” I chance saying, though I don’t move a muscle. “I’m all right.”

  “Aw, isn’t that cute,” Marie says in a tone so unlike her quiet librarian voice that I freeze. “He got the Earthbound to crush on him. That was over and above even for a Reduciate, Benson.”

  “It’s not like that,” Benson says, still struggling toward me. Blood trickling down his cheek, mingling with the pouring rain, making red streaks like macabre tears. “Let me go!”

  “All in good time,” Marie replies—the embodiment of calm—eyeing me as the world seems to spin, everything turning upside down. “You know, when that hotel room was empty this morning, I was pretty sure you had run away on us, but I see you took your little lesson to heart,” she says, brushing the purple bruise under Benson’s eye. He flinches away from her touch.

  Time flows around me in slow motion as I turn my head. “Benson?” Did I even say it out loud?

  His face is a mask of desperation. “Tavia. I didn’t mean to. I thought—you have no idea.”

  “You did this?” I whisper. I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it. “No!” I yell the word at Marie. “You’re lying!”

  “Am I?” the woman says, so quietly I barely catch her words. “Show her his mark.”

  The man holding Benson spins him roughly around and Benson groans as the man tightens an arm around his bruised ribs, yanking his T-shirt up until I can see the skin of his left shoulder.

  The shadow of the tattoo I saw through his white shirt last night.

  It’s part ankh.

  Part shepherd’s crook.

  No.

  It’s true.

  The whole time.

  My stomach clenches and I want to double over and clutch it and it’s all I can do to stay upright. A crash of lightning chooses this moment to split open the sky and I gasp at the sudden light.

  Everyone is motionless. One, two, three, four. Then a deafening rumble of thunder envelops the space around us, filling everyone’s ears. Only when the silence returns does the chaos begin to move again.

  The man behind Benson lets him go, but a foot to his back knocks the boy I was sure I loved to his knees. He looks up at me, his injuries suddenly making more sense. A message, Sammi had said a few minutes earlier. I only wish I know who it was for. She’d know now. If she was alive.

  “I didn’t want to,” Benson says, pleading in his eyes. “I had no choice! Last night—I tried to get away.”

  I sift through memories of the last few days—the candy bars and french fries he knew I needed to eat, the way he accepted my powers so easily, running away with me, even the stupid wallet-size lock picks. The reality of how much he lied—how far he’d gone to deceive me—snaps into place with a clarity that makes my stomach writhe.

  “The entire time, you were—” It’s all I can get out before the urge to retch overtakes me and I gag, my hand clasped over my mouth, the drum of the rain filling my ears. My head, blocking out my thoughts.

  “Tave, please,” Benson pleads, but Marie interrupts with an almost casual wave of her hand.

  “Take him to the truck.”

  Another man grabs Benson’s arms and starts dragging him away.

  “Tavia! Don’t listen. Don’t tell them—ah!” Benson gasps for air as the man elbows him in his already-bruised ribs. I can’t tear my eyes away. My heart aches for the cruel way he’s being treated even as everything inside me feels like ashes, crumbling to nothingness. Turning me into nothingness.

  I can’t move.

  I can’t breathe.

  Benson, who has been there through everything. Who told me he loved me.

  And I believed him.

  But my mind races, finding more proof I refused see before—knowing what the Latin names for the brotherhoods meant, his knowledge that I had to get to Logan, his insistence that we needed to talk on the bus, his cryptic apologies, even his quick thought to use my powers to get us out of the fire when I forgot I had them.

  Because he’s been a Reduciate all along.

  He’s known about Earthbounds all along.

  My heart pounds a too-slow rhythm that feels like a funeral dirge and part of me wishes it was mine.

  “The truth hurts, doesn’t it, Tavia?” Marie says, and for the first time, she pronounces my name correctly. I wonder if she got a sick pleasure out of annoying me with that for so many months. “But that’s what the Reduciata are all about. The truth. The cold, hard truth that nobody else wants to face.”

  Her voice is poison in my ears.

  She looks over where a truck door closes on Benson, muffling his protests.

  “You should have a little sympathy for him, I suppose,” she says, almost sounding kind. “It took a lot of effort to get him to go along with it. The guy we had follow you, the car that almost ended you, all reminders to Benson of what would happen if he failed.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I say, trying to wrench my arms away from the two people holding me. “He accepted the job.”

  “Yes, he did,” Marie says, a very small smile sliding over her face.

  “The Reduciata kill Earthbounds,” I say through gritted teeth. “Why are you helping them?”

  She laughs now, and it’s a laugh I’ve heard before. A laugh that sounds like a warbling bird. A laugh I remember from back when she was Marie, the sweet, hovering librarian. Now it vibrates down into my bones, rattling my sinews. Another crack of lightning, but this time the thunder follows more closely. “I don’t help the Reduciata, Tavia Michaels; I lead them. And there are many Earthbounds among our members. Elite Earthbound, who want to restore us to the lives we were meant to lead. You could join us. Willingly, I mean. I think it’s obvious that we want you—need what’s in that pretty, damaged little head of yours. You could accept your role and be one of the privileged. It would certainly be easier on you. There’s no true reason for this enmity to go on.”

  A groan escapes my clenched teeth and Marie laughs again.

  “I didn’t think so, but never let it be said that I didn’t give you the chance.”

  My mind races and I try to think of what I can create to get out of this mess.

  As though reading my thoughts, the woman clucks her tongue. “I wouldn’t try anything if I were you. I’m far more powerful than a pitiful demigoddess a step away from permanent death.”

  “Then why don’t you just kill me?” I snarl between clenched teeth.

  “Because it turns out you’re not who we thought you were. Or, more appropriately, you’re more than just who we thought you were. When we saw what you did to that plane—” She sighs and shakes her head. “And to think we almost lost you.” She steps forward, and even though I try to jerk away, I have nowhere to go and have to grit my teeth as she runs one fingernail down the side of my face. “Don’t you remember? A bitter-cold night in England, on the hard, unforgiving ground, under a park bench? A night when no one should have been about. Where this game of chase all began?” She chuckles again, and I’m shocked by how badly I want to wrap my hands around her throat. “Benson told us you weren’t really remembering things, but I wasn’t convinced he was telling the truth. Maybe he was
. Still, surely you remember me.”

  Her expression softens and she looks directly into my eyes. My chest constricts and a pain builds up in the back of my head and even though I try to fight it back, for the second time that day, my soul is ripped away.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  I’m lying on something hard and lumpy and my clothing is slightly damp, making the freezing wind all the more biting. My nose is so cold it feels like needles are jabbing into it and I’m afraid to open my eyes.

  But I have to.

  Because whenever this happened, I did, and all I can do is lie here and replay the memory exactly as I once lived it. I give in and let the vision overtake me.

  Voices draw near, and soon my view of the snow-covered park is blocked by a voluminous black skirt with silver brocade. Leather boots and the bottom of a greatcoat join her and I stifle a tiny sigh of relief as the thick fabrics block some of the punishing wind. I try to go back to sleep—to take advantage of the slight warmth before they stand and leave, but the words they’re saying keep waking me up.

  “It will destroy nearly all of them. And half the Earthbounds. We can start over. It will be the Reduciata’s finest moment. Our finest moment.”

  “It’s not ready yet. You cannot release it without the antidote.”

  “How many more lifetimes? Three? Ten? I grow impatient and the Curatoria … they grow bothersome.”

  “Don’t you think I know that better than you?”

  Earthbound … Reduciata … Curatoria.

  I don’t know what the words mean, but my mind latches onto them and clings, forcing my eyes open, my thoughts spinning.

  And spinning.

  And then something else.

  A sensation unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. Pictures flash before my eyes, and it feels as though someone has opened up my head and poured in hot broth. It fills me with warmth, with knowledge, with voices.

  Voices that warn me into silence.

  I try to remain quiet, but as lovely as the warmth is, it’s also a hurricane of … something I have no words for. Like suddenly I am a hundred people all at once.

  I gasp and feel beads of sweat forming on my brow, despite having been so desperately cold only moments before.

  Moments?

  Yes, it has only been moments.

  Suddenly a hand is wrapping around my arm and the man yanks me out from beneath the bench. His face is inches from mine and he shakes me with teeth-rattling force. I am still too full of those strange feelings to hear a word he says, but I manage to whisper, over and over, “I heard nothing, sir. I heard nothing!”

  He stops shaking and it’s all I can do to keep my head up at all. I stare at that face, craggy, with a short beard and a scar along the side of his cheek. I can’t be sure if he’s a gentleman or a rough sort.

  But his eyes are a light, ale-colored brown and I stare at him for long, silent seconds.

  I know this face.

  I’m certain I’ve never met him before, but I know this face.

  “She’s just a little human child,” a woman’s voice says from out of view. I spin my eyes over to her. She’s going to save me!

  But what greets me is the small barrel of a flintlock pistol, nearly touching the skin on my forehead, held in a delicate, gloved hand.

  “No one will miss her,” the woman finishes. My eyes widen and I look into her face. She looks kind, regal, almost beautiful.

  But she shows no remorse or hesitation as she draws back the hammer of the gun, and my last moment is flooded with the earsplitting report of a shot as my head snaps backward, alight with pain.

  And then my soul rips away again.

  I gasp for breath, my lungs begging for air. I touch my forehead and find whole skin there. Perspiration mingles with splattering rain, but I am unharmed.

  I’m alive.

  It was only a memory.

  I look up at Marie; there is no gun this time, but I see that same look, devoid of emotion.

  “It’s such a shame,” she says evenly. “You and I, we were friends once, before you sided with the Curatoria. So many aeons ago and yet I still remember the ages we spent making a river, a canyon, whose great walls and beautiful landscape would be legendary, just because we could. You creating high mountains, me carving out those deep ravines. Give-and-take, balanced exactly the way the Earthmakers were intended to be. The two of us making something beautiful while our lovers quarreled and fought. I still have a tiny twinge of regret every time someone speaks of the Grand Canyon.”

  I’m still trying to make sense of her words when a stinging slap flings my head to the side.

  “That’s for leaving me behind,” she says softly.

  Anger roils inside me, filling me with a rage that blots out any pain from the slap. My life, my parents, my love; she is responsible for everything I no longer have.

  “You have taken everything from me,” I shriek, a flash of lightning accentuating my words.

  “Yes, I suppose we have,” she says, utterly calm.

  But even as I’m sure the rage is going to overwhelm me, something shifts inside and a black calm settles in my mind.

  No more. Voices I don’t recognize echo in my head as a razor fury makes a pit in my stomach, white-hot anger at wrongs I can’t remember—and yet the pain, the agonizing loss, that I recall with perfect clarity. Not one. More. Damn. Thing.

  I push my hands out in front of me, pour out my rage, and instantly I’m standing before a mountain: a dusty red behemoth of crags and sharp boulders that towers hundreds of feet above my head, the sheer face of a cliff an arm’s length away. The forest that was is nothing more than a destroyed memory, swept away by stone.

  For an instant.

  It blinks out of existence. Not the normal five-minute way—it’s forced out of existence, leaving Marie standing there, looking almost bored, surrounded by splintered trees as far as I can see in the murky dusk.

  Marie the Destroyer.

  But I’m not done. That was only a test.

  Lava, steel, bullets. They come from every direction as the women in my head pick weapons from memories out past my reach. And I let them. I surrender my mind, allowing the Tavias of old to let loose every drop of anger and pain I’ve built up for millennia.

  One voice, one memory fights to the surface.

  The night I was in the water, when I was Rebecca—the face I saw above me, just past the icy surface.

  It was her.

  How many times has this face been my last sight?

  My concentration wavers. She’s killed me before—she’s going to do it again.

  No.

  I won’t drown; I won’t die. Not this time.

  Power surges within me, filling my body to bursting and creating a noise in my head so loud I’m sure I’ll be deaf if I survive this.

  If.

  I don’t even care.

  More rage, more white-hot heat, more molten anguish pours from me. I can’t see anything as the fullness begins to ebb, leaving me completely bereft of energy. I teeter, not certain I can stand any longer. Rain falls in soft rivulets down my face, but it feels almost warm.

  “Tavia, come on!”

  Elizabeth’s voice, her hands, dragging me. I can’t see and stumble as I try to follow her, running blindly, steered only by Elizabeth’s hand clenched around my arm. The sound of a car door, a shove that sends me down onto a seat.

  I blink and stars swim in front of my eyes. My head lolls to the side as Elizabeth drops into the seat beside me. Thank gods the car wasn’t crushed by my mountain. I’ve just made a hell of a lot of trouble as it is.

  And I’m not even sure just what I did.

  I look out at what’s left of the forest, and an enormous pile of rubble, silhouetted by the glow of molten rock, stares back. Every kind of matter I can imagine is in a smoldering heap where Marie was standing, barely visible through the trees.

  It won’t last long; she’s too good. It’s already blinking away, bit b
y bit, as though I never made it at all. As nonexistent as the mountain that once was. People are running toward us. I recognize one as the guy who dragged Benson off. They’ve almost reached the car.

  The engine roars and Elizabeth peels out backward, smacking a tree, the crunch of the bumper a macabre harmony with the squealing tires.

  Dark shapes whirl around us and I feel the dull thud of flesh on metal at the back of Elizabeth’s car. I try not to think too hard about that as my throat convulses. But Elizabeth is already throwing the car into drive, lurching forward, gaining speed.

  I don’t look back; I don’t want to see anything else. I already have the sight of Sammi and Mark’s decimated bodies to haunt my dreams.

  And Benson’s betrayal.

  I can’t even think of him without a vile sickness clutching at my stomach.

  Desperate to distract myself, I click my seat belt just before Elizabeth almost dumps me into her lap turning a sharp corner.

  “There’s no time to get to the plane—assuming the Reduciata haven’t taken control of it already,” Elizabeth shouts, forcing me to pay attention. “I’m going to drop you off at an alley two blocks south of the Greyhound station,” she continues, her eyes glued to the road. “Take this.”

  My fingers wrap around the cell phone she proffers even as she spins the car around another bend. As soon as I’ve taken the phone, her burned hands are back on the wheel, and as we pass under a streetlight, the steering wheel glints wet.

  Blood.

  I remember her falling against the charred car—the scream she let out.

  This drive must be killing her hands.

  “Get on a bus—the next bus,” Elizabeth orders, her eyes still fixed on the road. “It doesn’t matter where it’s going. Just get on it no matter what it takes. Understand?”

  “Yeah,” I say weakly, bracing my arms against the door for another squealing corner.

  Another flash of light; her hands are red and seeping.

  “Elizabeth, your hands—”

  “Will heal,” she says through gritted teeth. “I’ll call you when it’s safe. I don’t know when that will be. Don’t you call anyone. Especially Benson. You have to accept it; you can never have any contact with him ever again.”