Earthbound
Page 88

I have no idea where the bus station is and I hope it’s as easy to find as Elizabeth said.
Elizabeth.
Don’t think about her—don’t think about her. Don’t think about any of them. Think about surviving.
I nearly burst into tears of relief when I see the telltale bright lights ahead. My lungs are aching, but I’m almost there.
Then I hear it.
The clattering of footsteps behind me.
Something whistles past my ear and I shriek when the cinder blocks beside me shatter, spraying me with tiny beads of rock.
They found me.
The lights of the bus station are so close, but I’m not sure I can reach them in time.
And even if I do, what then? I don’t have minutes to stand in line—seconds to buy a ticket—much less hours to sit around and wait for the next bus.
I’ll be dead by then, my body riddled with bullets.
And then the world will slowly die because I was too blind to realize what Benson really was.
It’s too much—I can’t think that big.
A boyish face with golden hair flashes into my mind, almost certainly courtesy of Rebecca.
Logan. I can focus on Logan.
He doesn’t know.
I have to go to him.
I grit my teeth and hoist my backpack higher. If I die tonight, I’ll never find Logan. Never again. It will be over for both of us. In a flash of understanding, I realize I don’t want to cease to exist without meeting him—even if it’s for the last time.
With his green eyes vivid in my mind, I reach for one more surge of energy and force myself to ignore the screaming pain in my leg as I run, stretching my strides, feet slapping the pavement, lungs burning for air.
Once I reach the lights, the people, surely the Reduciates chasing me will have to back off to avoid being discovered. Or at least take a more subtle approach. But then, human life is obviously not high on their priority list. They’d probably just kill all the witnesses. More deaths to be laid at my feet.
Just run!
I hear the gentle rumble of a bus before I see it. It’s the only bus that isn’t silent and parked behind a fence.
It’s ready to go.
I have to get on that bus.
But I’m a full fifty feet away when the last person in line boards. The driver smiles and then looks around the sparsely populated bus station. “Pittsburgh?” he yells. “Anyone else for Pittsburgh?”
Pittsburgh. Good enough.
I don’t have a ticket.
Yet.
Twenty more feet.
Ten seconds.
I squeeze my eyes shut for an instant and try to remember the last time I took a Greyhound bus. It was when I was sixteen and went to visit a friend who had moved out of state.
The ticket. What did it look like?
My mind swirls and I try to recall the details, the feel of the cardboard in my hand, the green of the logo, the meaningless words.
The bar code.
What if they have to scan a bar code? My heart beats so wildly it feels like the flutter of a hummingbird’s wings.
I can’t do this.
I’m going to die.
I can almost feel the bullets ripping through the skin on my back already.
The driver makes eye contact with me and smiles. I stagger to a walk and refuse to let myself look around. As I cover the last few steps, sweat pours down my neck and yet I shiver.
I stop in front of him.
He holds out his hand.
I lift my arm, but it’s only when my hand reaches waist height that I feel the sharp corner of a cardboard square prick my skin.
The uniformed man scarcely looks at the white and green miracle before waving me onto the bus with a pleasant, “Just in time.”
I cling to the handrail with wet hands, my palms sliding down it as I try to pull myself up—to make a leg that no longer has the strength to stand lift me another step. The adrenaline is gone and my entire body feels like spaghetti.
The driver seems to sense my desperation and I feel a large, warm hand at my elbow, helping me climb those last two steps.
“Noticed you were limping as you came up,” the bus driver whispers. “You just rest now.”
God bless you, sir.
But I don’t say the words out loud. If I open my mouth, I’m going to lose it entirely. I nod instead and try to show my appreciation with my eyes.
As I set down my backpack, I accidentally drop my ticket. My fingers fumble desperately for the piece of cardboard that saved my life. It has a corner folded down and I straighten it with near reverence.
Truth be told, I didn’t do a very good job. Garbled letters march along the bottom, and I think the only word I really got right is Pittsburgh. There is a bar code, but as I squint in the darkness, I realize all the bars are the same length and width. It would never have worked if they’d actually scanned it.
But the logo is there, looking very much as I remembered. My breathing speeds up again as I realize just how crappy my ticket is—how lucky I am the driver didn’t look closer.
But he didn’t.
And so I am alive.
The doors are unfolding now—closing—and the driver is pulling his seat belt across his wide belly. I look out the window and see two men in black pants and polos jog into the parking lot.
Go, go, go! I silently urge, and the bus driver settles in and begins to ease the gearshift out of park. I keep my eyes on the two men, knowing they can’t see me through the tinted windows. They glance at the bus, but it was literally thirty seconds between my running into the parking lot and the bus leaving.
I shouldn’t be on this bus.