Earthbound

“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.