Earthbound
Page 48
When I glance back, Quinn doesn’t look nearly as nervous as me, but then, he knows what’s going on. Freed from the time-shrunken door frame, the ancient door swings on its squeaky iron hinges. The sound grates in my eardrums and I open it just enough for Quinn and me to slip through.
The scent of mold and paper and damp dirt hits my nose in a pungent wave. I gag and then cough as I pull in another lungful of the musty air and remind myself how glad I am to be out of the falling snow and swirling wind. I flash my light around, but the beam is too small to make out much. Crates, mostly. What look like books bound in thick brown paper but torn through on the corners. Chewed through, maybe.
Don’t even think about that.
Or the fact that my phone’s battery is going to give out any minute. Maybe I could make a flashlight? Do I know how to make a flashlight? I grit my teeth—I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Hopefully I won’t have to.
There’s a long wooden table, covered with grainy clumps of dirt—probably from the root-braided ceiling—strewn with papers and several items I’m not close enough to identify, like whoever made the place left in a hurry. I step forward, my feet silent in the warm, soft-floored burrow.
A book, several scattered bits of paper, some pieces of tarnished silver jewelry. Coins.
Coins?
I squint at them, then pick one up. The metal is heavy in my hand. Solid gold. I don’t think these are actual money, but I feel like a thief even touching one. The ice-cold surface seems to burn into my palm.
I set it back down and turn to the open book instead.
It’s covered with the same layer of dirt as the rest of the table, and I lean closer to flick the rubble away from one of the pages, trying not to smudge it into the fragile paper. I wish I had some kind of brush or cloth.
My light shines near my fingers and my mind catches several of the words before I’ve cleared them.
Like you this way.
A tingle of warning jets through my belly and I hold my breath, trying not to show any kind of reaction as I clear more of the dirt away, my eyes straining to read the faded, curlicued cursive.
Before I could stop him, he touched my cheek and whispered, “You’re beautiful, you know that? I like you this way.” Never has a man spoken to me thusly!
My breathing is ragged and tight, but my eyes are already darting ahead.
Especially not Mr. Quinn Avery, whom every girl in town is pining for, though he be only a newcomer. I should have struck his face, walked away, shamed him. But I only stood, as though spelled there. Mayhap I was. Spelled by those green eyes.
I refuse to look back at Quinn—it can’t possibly actually be his name, not after this. Pretending I saw nothing, I gingerly flip the pages, looking for the title page.
I know what I’m going to find, but I need one more scrap of proof. My fingers are shaking as I turn to that front page and read the name etched there.
Rebecca Fielding.
Becca.
I whirl around to face Quinn before he can do whatever sinister thing he has planned, my phone held up like a weapon. But my beam of light shows an empty space where Quinn was standing. I haven’t decided if he’s a run-of-the-mill stalker/murderer, or maybe in league with Sunglasses Guy and whoever else is chasing me, but I am not waiting for him to come back.
Sweeping up the journal, I run for the entrance, bursting out without bothering to close the door. I have to get to Benson!
I stop.
My footprints are completely gone.
A good couple of inches of unbroken snow has covered everything in the brief time I was in the dugout and now I have nothing to follow. I’m disoriented, but I have a fuzzy sense of which direction we came in. As long as I keep running that way, I should—at worst—pop out on the main road.
I’ll be able to find Benson from there. Hopefully, before I freeze to death. And before the people hunting us find me.
I don’t even know which people that means anymore.
My ears strain for the sound of footsteps behind me as I tear through the forest, not bothering to keep quiet. My leg throbs and my lungs ache from the frosty air, and it’s all I can do to keep running at all. The snowflakes sting my already-freezing face and blur the forest all around me until I feel like I’m running in circles.
Maybe I am.
Gratitude fills me when I see lights peeking between the tall tree trunks, and in a shorter amount of time than I thought possible, I’m back on the road.
But I’m not safe.
I’m on the wrong side of Camden; that’s why I got to the road so quickly. In order to reach Benson, I’m going to have to go all the way through the middle of the city.
There’s no other option. I have to keep running.
It’s past two in the morning now and the streets are full of ghostly silence and a few drunk people, probably wending their way back to chintzy bed-and-breakfasts. I stand out, I’m sure. But I suspect no one will stop me unless they see a tall guy in Revolutionary War era clothing chasing me.
And then he’ll be caught.
And he won’t be able to bother me again.
I hate that tears are streaking down my face, making icy lines along my cheekbones. I was so certain—every instinct within me screamed that I could trust Quinn. It’s bad enough when you can’t trust your family or your therapist. Now I can’t even trust myself.
Maybe I never could.
My body is so exhausted I can barely see when I finally get to the other side of the town. The sidewalk ends and turns into a crumbly shoulder thick with wet mounds of new snow and my feet skid out from under me. I can’t think of a word bad enough to express the agony that shoots up my hip when I land hard on my side, so I clamp my teeth down against a weak whimper instead. I take one second—maybe only half a second—to sweep my eyes back, peering into the flake-speckled darkness behind me.
The scent of mold and paper and damp dirt hits my nose in a pungent wave. I gag and then cough as I pull in another lungful of the musty air and remind myself how glad I am to be out of the falling snow and swirling wind. I flash my light around, but the beam is too small to make out much. Crates, mostly. What look like books bound in thick brown paper but torn through on the corners. Chewed through, maybe.
Don’t even think about that.
Or the fact that my phone’s battery is going to give out any minute. Maybe I could make a flashlight? Do I know how to make a flashlight? I grit my teeth—I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Hopefully I won’t have to.
There’s a long wooden table, covered with grainy clumps of dirt—probably from the root-braided ceiling—strewn with papers and several items I’m not close enough to identify, like whoever made the place left in a hurry. I step forward, my feet silent in the warm, soft-floored burrow.
A book, several scattered bits of paper, some pieces of tarnished silver jewelry. Coins.
Coins?
I squint at them, then pick one up. The metal is heavy in my hand. Solid gold. I don’t think these are actual money, but I feel like a thief even touching one. The ice-cold surface seems to burn into my palm.
I set it back down and turn to the open book instead.
It’s covered with the same layer of dirt as the rest of the table, and I lean closer to flick the rubble away from one of the pages, trying not to smudge it into the fragile paper. I wish I had some kind of brush or cloth.
My light shines near my fingers and my mind catches several of the words before I’ve cleared them.
Like you this way.
A tingle of warning jets through my belly and I hold my breath, trying not to show any kind of reaction as I clear more of the dirt away, my eyes straining to read the faded, curlicued cursive.
Before I could stop him, he touched my cheek and whispered, “You’re beautiful, you know that? I like you this way.” Never has a man spoken to me thusly!
My breathing is ragged and tight, but my eyes are already darting ahead.
Especially not Mr. Quinn Avery, whom every girl in town is pining for, though he be only a newcomer. I should have struck his face, walked away, shamed him. But I only stood, as though spelled there. Mayhap I was. Spelled by those green eyes.
I refuse to look back at Quinn—it can’t possibly actually be his name, not after this. Pretending I saw nothing, I gingerly flip the pages, looking for the title page.
I know what I’m going to find, but I need one more scrap of proof. My fingers are shaking as I turn to that front page and read the name etched there.
Rebecca Fielding.
Becca.
I whirl around to face Quinn before he can do whatever sinister thing he has planned, my phone held up like a weapon. But my beam of light shows an empty space where Quinn was standing. I haven’t decided if he’s a run-of-the-mill stalker/murderer, or maybe in league with Sunglasses Guy and whoever else is chasing me, but I am not waiting for him to come back.
Sweeping up the journal, I run for the entrance, bursting out without bothering to close the door. I have to get to Benson!
I stop.
My footprints are completely gone.
A good couple of inches of unbroken snow has covered everything in the brief time I was in the dugout and now I have nothing to follow. I’m disoriented, but I have a fuzzy sense of which direction we came in. As long as I keep running that way, I should—at worst—pop out on the main road.
I’ll be able to find Benson from there. Hopefully, before I freeze to death. And before the people hunting us find me.
I don’t even know which people that means anymore.
My ears strain for the sound of footsteps behind me as I tear through the forest, not bothering to keep quiet. My leg throbs and my lungs ache from the frosty air, and it’s all I can do to keep running at all. The snowflakes sting my already-freezing face and blur the forest all around me until I feel like I’m running in circles.
Maybe I am.
Gratitude fills me when I see lights peeking between the tall tree trunks, and in a shorter amount of time than I thought possible, I’m back on the road.
But I’m not safe.
I’m on the wrong side of Camden; that’s why I got to the road so quickly. In order to reach Benson, I’m going to have to go all the way through the middle of the city.
There’s no other option. I have to keep running.
It’s past two in the morning now and the streets are full of ghostly silence and a few drunk people, probably wending their way back to chintzy bed-and-breakfasts. I stand out, I’m sure. But I suspect no one will stop me unless they see a tall guy in Revolutionary War era clothing chasing me.
And then he’ll be caught.
And he won’t be able to bother me again.
I hate that tears are streaking down my face, making icy lines along my cheekbones. I was so certain—every instinct within me screamed that I could trust Quinn. It’s bad enough when you can’t trust your family or your therapist. Now I can’t even trust myself.
Maybe I never could.
My body is so exhausted I can barely see when I finally get to the other side of the town. The sidewalk ends and turns into a crumbly shoulder thick with wet mounds of new snow and my feet skid out from under me. I can’t think of a word bad enough to express the agony that shoots up my hip when I land hard on my side, so I clamp my teeth down against a weak whimper instead. I take one second—maybe only half a second—to sweep my eyes back, peering into the flake-speckled darkness behind me.
