Earthbound (24 page)

“That was a really good idea,” I say when I get a moment to take a breath. “I’d have blacked out before we got here for sure.”

“And I don’t even want to think about how I’d try to explain
that
to some stranger who saw us on the side of the road,” Benson says grimly.

“No kidding,” I murmur. We eat a while longer. “Thank you.”

“It’s just food,” he replies with a grin.

“No, seriously.” I turn to face him fully. “Thank you for
everything
. Not freaking out, believing me even when I sound crazy; everything, Benson.”

“You’re welcome, I guess,” he says, and I can’t help but notice there’s a smear of mustard just above his lip.

I smile and reach a finger out to wipe it off. “You missed a spot,” I whisper when his eyes darken—no, deepen—pinning me to my seat in a flutter of nerves and delight. He reaches for my hand and lifts my fingers to his lips, kissing each one briefly.

“Thank
you
,” he whispers, with an intensity I don’t understand but revel in. I hide my sappy grin behind my sandwich and we both finish our meal in silence.

When my food is gone and I’m so full I’m just on this side of being uncomfortable, I wipe the oil off my hands and reach for Quinn’s journal while Benson finishes.

“Listen to this,” I say, pointing to a short passage.
“Of the brotherhoods trust ye the Curatoria but tenuously, and the Reduciata not at all. Give none of them your secrets. Above all, tell the Reduciata nothing of Rebecca. If you know her whereabouts, deceive them.”
I think about Elizabeth blurting out that name—Reduciata. “Who do you think the Reduciata are?”

“No clue,” he says around a big bite.

“Must be someone bad,” I say, flipping another page. “Reese and Elizabeth were worried Quinn was a … Reduciate? That must be what they call their members.” I point at that paragraph. “I have a feeling he wasn’t.”

“Sounds like this Rebecca chick was in some serious trouble,” Benson says, peering over my shoulder.

“Quinn too. It’s got such old-fashioned wording—I’m going to have to read it carefully—but he talks about storing the gold
to brace against disaster
, and here,
running to ground like a hare in the hunt
.” I pause as a sinking feeling hits my heart. “Sounds like us, doesn’t it?”

“Sadly.”

“He says not to trust the Curatoria, but from what I can tell, it’s the Reduciata they’re always running from.” I pause, mulling the name over in my head. “
Reduciata
; it sounds kinda like
Illuminati
. Maybe they’re both secret societies trying to … I don’t know, run the government?”

“Wasn’t much of a government back then,” Benson says. “Or at least not much of a United States. Not yet.”

“True. But I don’t think they were just based in the United States. Look.” I tilt the book toward him. “You can see a drawing of a pyramid here, and the ankh symbol is from ancient Egypt.” I read that section, trying to make sense of Quinn’s old-fashioned prose. “It looks like the Reduciata and the Curatoria were behind all the pharaohs of ancient Egypt—fighting to be the one in true control. It says the pyramids were built to hoard their belongings, kinda like Rebecca and Quinn’s dugout.”

“That sounds a little far-fetched. People took their myths pretty seriously back then, though.”

“Well, that
is
what they did with the pyramids, right? Filled them full of the pharaohs’ belongings? They would even bury servants alive in there.”

“Yeah, but … the pyramids, really?”

My fingers hesitate at the bottom of the page. “The pyramids. Benson, the pyramids are triangles. Triangles that face all four directions.”

“I’m … not following,” Benson says, sounding almost wary.

“The Curatoria and the Reduciata have symbols; doesn’t it seem like the Earthbound would too? It’s got to be the triangle. That’s why Reese said the triangle changed everything. Think about it. If you were an ancient Egyptian and you saw someone do the things I can do, what would you do?”

“Stone him?” Benson suggests.

I smack his shoulder. “Or make him your
leader
. In fact,” I add on, grinning as the idea occurs to me, “you might decide your pharaohs are
gods
. Even though they really aren’t,” I tack on quickly. “I think it makes total sense.”

This time Benson nods. “I can see that. Does he say anything else in there?”

“It’s hard to make it out,” I say, not bothering to hide my disappointment. “I’ve only figured out that one bit about the two groups.” I chuckle morosely. “I’m just making the rest of this stuff up.”

“And you’re sure Quinn didn’t die in that cabin?” Benson asks as he crumples up our trash.

“No. They were supposed to,” I say, wrenching my attention away from the journal—what little there is of it. “But … they escaped.” An ache starts as I try to think about that, but it’s not so overwhelming now that I’ve eaten.

“How do you know?”

“It’s like remembering a movie you watched a long time ago. You remember the basics, but not all the details. And the more I try to remember, the harder it is.”

“Maybe Quinn is trying to speak through you and that painting was, like, some kind of supernatural gateway.”

I raise my eyebrow at him. “He picked some random, totally broken teenage girl to communicate through?”

“Not random,” Benson insists. “Another Earthbound. Like him. Maybe that’s the only way it works.”

I consider that and it makes a horrible sense. I admit, I don’t want to be an Earthbound—whatever that really means. I don’t want to be special. But if Quinn chose me, there must be
something
I can do for him. “I think we need to go to the house, Quinn’s house, the one from the newspaper article.”

“Problem. We don’t know where—”

“I do,” I whisper, realization dawning, “I know where it is.”

Benson peers at the clock on the dash, his skepticism unconcealed. “It’s too late to go now, and honestly, I don’t think you’re in any condition to do
anything
.”

I nod wearily. “Tomorrow, maybe?”

His brow furrows in concentration. “If you want.”

A contented drowsiness is starting to overtake me. “I do. I have to—to figure this out.”

“I know,” Benson says with a loud sigh, and it strikes me as an odd answer, but he’s probably exhausted too.

“We should find a place to sleep; I’m going to pass out soon.”

A smile crosses his face now. “Your wish is my command.” He checks the rearview, then pulls out. “Go to sleep,” he says as he scans the sparse traffic. “It’ll take about twenty minutes.”

“Where are we going?”

“Just sleep. It’s a surprise.”

I feel like I’ve scarcely closed my eyes before Benson is nudging me.

“We’re here.”

I don’t understand why he’s waking me up just to let me know it’s time to sleep until my fatigue-heavy eyes catch the light.

I’ve never been so happy to see a simple Holiday Inn. “Are we staying here?” I ask, practically pushing my nose up against the window.

“No,” Benson says. “I just drove you here to tempt you with a real shower. We can leave now.”

This time, his shoulder gets a punch, but my brain has a death grip on the words
real shower
.

I grab my backpack—feeling a little guilty that I’m the only one who has a clean change of clothes—and scan the items in the trunk, trying to decide what’s most important. “The journals,” I finally decide. “I need to bring them in. I have to read them.” My brain is still fuzzy, and that’s as far as I get before Benson scoops them up.

“Let’s just get inside. I don’t want anyone to see you.”

“It’ll be fine,” I say, as though the words would make it so. “Where are we?”

“Freeport. It’s about sixty miles from Camden, but it’s a town we haven’t been to yet. I’m trying to keep us safe,” he finishes in a mumble.

“You’re doing great,” I say, glad he’s being careful. Whoever’s following us is smart and persistent, and as much as I generally admire both those qualities, I like them much less when they’re working to make me … dead. As we cross the parking lot, I step a little closer to Benson, letting my shoulder brush his. “You’re my Superman.” I reach up and tap his glasses. “Specs and all.”

“I’m no hero,” he says softly.

Feeling bold, I reach down and slip my hand into his instead, entwining our fingers. “You’re
my
hero.”

He squeezes my hand and unlocks the door, and I try not to feel fluttery about the fact that I’m going into a hotel room. Alone. With Benson.

“Why don’t you go ahead and shower,” Benson says, hovering in the doorway, probably having just come to the same realization I did. “I need to go sell some more of this gold.”

“Now?” I ask, the panic of him leaving way worse than the similar panic of him staying.

“I’d rather go at night when the car is less likely to be recognized,” he says, looking down at the carpet. “I saw a pawnshop on the way into town—had one of those ‘we buy gold’ signs. If I get it done tonight, tomorrow we can just take off.”

His shyness is oddly emboldening, and I step forward and rest my hands on his hips. “I wish we could just take off now.”

“Me too,” he says, barely loud enough to hear. He hesitates and then draws his head a little closer to mine. “Are you sure you’ll be okay on your own for an hour or so?” he whispers.

What does
okay
mean, really? It’s not the same definition I had yesterday, or last week, or last month. For the moment,
okay
means I’m alive. “Sure,” I say, but I know I can’t sound very convincing.

Benson tugs me closer. Our foreheads touch, and for a while I think that’s all he’s going to do. Then he traces one finger down my jawbone and lifts my chin. The kiss is barely more than a brush of his lips, but it’s like liquid comfort pouring into my belly and spreading through my limbs.

“Take a shower. And it’s okay if you go to sleep—I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

I nod, knowing I’ll never be able to sleep until he’s back and I’m sure he’s safe. “Be careful.”

“Don’t open the door for anyone,” he warns, even though he knows I don’t need it.

“Only you,” I promise, holding eye contact until the door closes between us. “Only you,” I repeat, setting the whispered words free.

F
ive minutes later I step into a scalding shower and sigh in sheer pleasure. After lathering twice I knead my sore neck, then look down to take stock of my sad, battered body. The pink scars on my right side from the plane crash—small lines where two broken ribs pierced through my skin, a staple-marked scar on my thigh where they put the worst of my broken bones back together with a metal plate, even my comparatively tiny trach and feeding tube scars—are so familiar now that it’s hard to remember what I looked like without them.

I shake my head, thinking of Elizabeth’s declaration that I’m an Earthbound. This body, riddled with scars and aches, should be proof enough that she’s wrong. Mistaken. A supernatural being couldn’t be so broken. If not for my
gift
, I wouldn’t believe her at all.

And now I have new marks.

An enormous bruise is purpling on my left hip from where I fell running from Quinn last night. The edges are just starting to turn yellow and the middle resembles an eggplant. My knees and hands are both scraped from the pavement earlier today and still sting a little from the vigorous scrubbing I gave them a few minutes ago.

Visually seeking out a vague throbbing on my upper arm, I see the shadow of forming bruises where Benson’s fingers dug in when he dragged me away from the car crash.

When he rescued me.

The coming bruise makes me chuckle and shake my head. I won’t tell him. He’d feel awful. Benson would never hurt me. Not intentionally.

Sometimes I think he’s the only one.

My mom.

My dad.

But they’re gone.

A small surge of guilt shoots through me as I realize I’ve hardly thought of my parents the last few days. Slowly, so slowly I didn’t realize it until just this moment, Benson has slipped into their place. The person I can trust with everything. Not just life-altering secrets like my powers and the people trying to kill me, but silly ones. The time in fourth grade when I laughed so hard I wet my pants, the baby bird that fell out of its nest that I tried to save … and how I cried when it inevitably died. The kind you only share with true intimates.

Family.

I straighten in surprise as the word races about in my brain and then settles.

But why
shouldn’t
Benson have become my family?

I think of Elizabeth’s warnings against him yet again and a prickle of anger makes my face heat. No one,
no one
, has proved as loyal as Benson. I would take him over the whole lot of them.

I stand under the hot spray until my whole body is pink, then take my time getting dressed, first blow-drying my short hair with the loud hotel blow dryer, then pulling on a simple baby tee and yoga capris and finally slathering some hotel lotion over my scratched arms and hands. It all feels like such a luxury.

I’m too keyed up to sleep. I try watching TV, but all the stations are talking about another breakout of the mysterious virus—this time in a small town just north of the Canadian border.

A one hundred percent fatality rate. It makes my stomach churn.

Jay’s words echo through my head:
My work, we’ve found connections between the Reduciates and the virus, and if you walk away, I’m not sure I—

What was he going to say next? For the first time, I almost wish I’d stayed. I wish I’d listened. Could something this devastating, this random, be the work of an organization that had nothing better to do than hunt down an eighteen-year-old girl? It seemed impossible.

There’s a doctor on the news now, outlining the symptoms of the virus, the possible vectors of infection. I close my eyes, not wanting to hear.

I’m so sick of bad news.

I click off the television and turn to look at the two ancient journals. I haven’t had a chance to even skim through Rebecca’s journal since this morning, so I flip to the end so I can check out this mystery language.