Earthbound
Page 68

“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.
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.