Earthbound

Perfect. “Let’s start there,” I say, clicking on the right-turn signal.

“How come?”

Tell no one. The words sound in my head as if Quinn was sitting in the backseat screaming them. “Just a hunch.”

“They headed east,” he says, standing in front of my desk. The one I despise.

I look up into my own reflection, fish-eyed in the dark glass. “Take those off; I hate when I can’t see your eyes,” I say sharply. As sharply as I can in a whisper.

He removes his sunglasses sheepishly. A sheep, I think acerbically. That’s exactly what he is. It’s what most of these humans are. Not that it’s really their fault. It’s what we always wanted them to be.

“Did you get a couple shots in?” I ask once his eyes are visible.

“Any more and I might have actually hit her.”

I smile, just a little. “Perfect,” I say. “Scared and on the run. Just the way I like her.”

“Should I move my guys in?”

“Not yet,” I say, picturing her in my mind. Panicking. Doing everything wrong. Acting like the human she still thinks she is. “Stay close—watch her.” I lift one eyebrow. “Don’t you want to see what happens next?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I’m not sure why I’m not telling Benson the truth about where we’re going. Why we’re going there—aversion to drama, maybe. I hardly need the guy I’m kissing to spend hours in my stolen car driving to the guy my heart can’t leave alone. Awkward silence much?

Instead, we talk about anything and everything except the last week and Benson does a good job of distracting me when I lapse into silence for too long. When I’m quiet, my mind races, and I can’t help wondering who—or what—I really am.

Part of me is actually relieved—relieved that Elizabeth showed up with a gun, relieved that Sunglasses Guy tried to kill me—because it means I’m not crazy. On the other hand, today I put my therapist and guardian in chains and stole a car to get away from them. There’s something inside me that knows how to do that. Something I don’t understand—a person I don’t know. It makes me question everything—my life, myself, my memories. How much of my life has been a lie? Am I a lie?

But a light touch of Benson’s fingers against my hand, a lame joke, pointing out a funny billboard—those pull me back into the now. Once I get out of this car, I’ll have to think about the disaster of my life. But until then, Benson and I laugh, and talk, and tease, wrapped up in a small, four-door-sedan world of our own.

Due to construction and traffic, five or six hours turn into eight. Every time we have to slow down, I find myself drumming my fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. Benson’s been keeping a watch out the back windshield and, as far as we can tell, no one’s tailing us. With that worry at least temporarily assuaged, all I can think of is getting there.

Camden means Quinn.

And Quinn means answers.

I’m not sure which one I’m more anxious for. I can’t give up the idea of being with Quinn despite the last two days with Benson. Quinn makes me feel alive in a way I haven’t experienced since the plane crash, like a part of me has lain dormant and only he can bring it back into existence.

And there’s that familiarity. I can’t shake it.

Hopefully once we find him in Camden, I can sort it out. Maybe I do know him. Maybe I’ve always known him.

Regardless, he’ll have the answers. I have to believe that.

Jay has tried to call four times. Well, four times before I turned my phone off. I wonder if I need to get rid of it. I hate feeling like I have no good choices. And I hate that I can’t trust Jay. I guess I really was clinging to that thread of hope that it was only Reese and Elizabeth who were involved—that Jay was as clueless as me.

After what feels like an eternity, Benson and I pull into Camden about the time everyone is closing their stores and heading home.

The buildings are all old and fairly short, two floors at the most, and there isn’t a chain store in sight. But neither are there the bright storefronts I’m used to seeing in Portsmouth. Everything has a tidy-but-subdued brick- red hue about it. It’s like the whole town got lifted out of the 1950s. Trees shade clean sidewalks, and all around me shopkeepers are sweeping their walks or pulling in sandwich boards so they can lock up. The closed shops are free of metal grilles, lending the impression that nothing bad ever happens here.

Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe that’s why Quinn sent me.

Quaint, I decide. And classic. If I was here for a different reason, I’d probably start scouring the city for interesting houses and historic markers, the way I did in Portsmouth. But if I should be seeing something special here, we haven’t reached it yet. Quinn seemed to think I would know exactly what he was talking about when he told me to come here.

Have I been here before?

It doesn’t feel familiar. I scan the shops around me, looking for symbols, but I don’t see anything like that, either—though, with as dark as it is already, I might have to check again when the sun’s up.

“We need gas again,” I say, peering at the gauge.

“I’ll get it this time,” Benson says as we pull into a faded gas station. He gets out of the car and walks around to the pump.

“What are we going to do when we’re out of gas money?” I ask as we both watch the dollar signs click up.

“I have a credit card,” Benson says, nonchalant, but I can tell he’s concerned too.

“Can’t they track those things?” I sigh and lean against the driver’s-side door.

“There’s another option, Tave …” Benson begins hesitantly, and I know what he’s going to say. I’ve been avoiding this conversation since I realized how little cash I had back at Reese and Jay’s.

“If we do get desperate, couldn’t you just … you know?”

“It disappears in five minutes, Benson. It’s still stealing.”

“I did say desperate. I’m not talking about now.”

I look down at my shoes as Benson replaces the gas nozzle after the tank is full. Full of gas he paid for from his own—likely meager—student funds. For me.

“It’s not really even the stealing,” I blurt, and considering the ownership status of the vehicle we’re both leaning against, I think the clarification is necessary. “Everything began when I started using my … powers— whatever you want to call it. Even before I knew what I was doing. Like with the ChapStick. Everything has gone to hell since then. Not you, obviously, but pretty much everything else. I just don’t think it’s a good idea to use my talent”—I whisper the word—“unless we have no other choice. It’s unpredictable and dangerous.”

“It’s your call,” Benson says, draping his arm lightly around my shoulders. “I won’t push you.” He glances around the gas station parking lot, then leans close. “Let’s get out of here, though. I don’t like being out in public when, for all we know, our names and faces could be on the evening news.”

I sigh, hating that appearing on someone’s Most Wanted list seems an only too likely ending to our little “adventure.”

“You want me to drive a bit?” Benson asks, and the cramps in my legs insist I accept his offer. He gets into the driver’s seat and looks at me for a minute before I realize he’s waiting for me to give him directions.