Earthbound

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Benson parks against the curb in front of his off-campus house and by the time he gets around to my door, I’m already out and shifting from foot to foot, anxious to get inside. “You okay?” he asks, his hands softly rubbing up and down my arms. It’s the first thing he’s said since picking me up.

It was a little awkward—should I have greeted him with a kiss? Are we pretending last night never happened? I don’t even know.

So I said nothing.

Did nothing.

“Yeah. No,” I mumble. What was the question? “Can we go inside?”

Benson opens the door and beckons me in. There are a half a dozen guys lounging in the great room; three are playing some sort of video game in front of a humongous television and one in a chair near the front window looks at me with a flirtatious grin.

“New girlfriend?” he asks, addressing the question to Benson, though his eyes never leave my face.

“Not my girlfriend,” Benson responds blandly, without looking at him, his hand on my shoulder, ushering me toward the stairs. I stiffen, trying to shove away the dart of hurt that goes through my heart at his words.

“Good news for me,” the guy says, his smile growing even bigger.

“Underage,” Benson calls back.

“I am not,” I whisper.

“Trust me, it’s better if Dustin thinks you are,” Benson whispers back. “World’s only virginal self-proclaimed seducer, and he’s so desperate to lose it he’ll hit on anything even remotely feminine.”

I snicker.

“Don’t laugh,” Benson says wearily as we reach the top of the stairs. “He’s my roommate.” He pushes open the door and my eyes widen at the two walls so completely covered in topless women it might as well be the wallpaper.

“Nice,” I say dryly.

“I did warn you.” He shakes his head, then motions to the other half of the room. “This is my side.”

Benson’s bedroom is exactly what I would have expected. Sparse, but neat, with an eclectic collection of posters and knickknacks. He picks up a polo shirt draped across an armchair and gestures for me to sit.

“So?” he asks, taking a seat at the foot of his bed and tossing the shirt up onto his pillow.

Silence settles between us.

“I saw Quinn yesterday,” I blurt, realizing I’m going to have to start my confession there before I can explain the rest.

Benson just grimaces.

“It’s why I came to the library in the first place.” I clamp my mouth shut; that wasn’t the right thing to say either. Hey, guy I made out with last night, I only came to see you because of another guy. And then we kissed. And then I pulled magical ChapStick out of my pockets. Now I’m running from a conspiracy that might be trying to kill me. I groan and put my face in my hands. “I know this is so incredibly awkward, but I have to tell you about him or none of the rest makes any sense.”

“I’m listening,” Benson says, and though his voice is tight, it doesn’t sound angry.

Tentatively I say, “His name is Quinn.”

“You mentioned that. So … you guys talked?” Benson asks, still not looking at me.

“I told him that the stunt he pulled at my house was unacceptable.”

A tiny tick of a smile. “And he said he won’t do it again?”

Kind of. “Basically.” But it tastes like a lie and I don’t like to lie to Benson. “He talks kinda strange.”

“It sounds to me like everything about this guy is strange.”

I can’t argue with that. Instead I relay the whole conversation.

“Things to show you? What does that mean?” Benson asks.

“I don’t know, but … hopefully I’ll find out next time I see him.”

“Next time? You’re already planning it, aren’t you? Even though he’s talking about time running out and people you should fear.”

I just glare.

Benson fiddles with the zipper on his backpack sitting next to his bed. “I don’t understand, Tave,” he finally says, not meeting my eyes. “You’re so logical, so smart. It’s like all that disappeared when this guy showed up.”

My knee-jerk reaction is to be hurt, but a sting of conscience makes me admit that he’s right. I hardly recognize myself, my decisions, since this guy walked into my life. “It isn’t that I’m not being smart,” I insist automatically. “It’s something else, something I can’t really explain. I know he won’t hurt me. You have to trust me on this one.”

“What does he look like?” Benson asks after a minute.

“Why does everyone want to know what he looks like?” I ask, rolling my eyes.

“Who else did you tell?”

“Elizabeth totally dragged it out of me.”

“You told your therapist?”

“It is her job,” I mutter, even though I still kinda hate that I told her.

“So?”

“So what?”

“What does he look like?”

I tilt my head at him, not sure why he cares, but I rattle off the basics. “No horns, no fangs, no wings,” I tack on when I’m done.

“What did Elizabeth say about him?”

“She kind of encouraged me, actually,” I mutter, feeling instantly guilty.

He raises one eyebrow sardonically. “What the hell are you supposed to do when your shrink is crazier than you are?”

“You try not to let her kill you, I guess,” I say, my voice hollow. We’ve finally reached the reason I called him.

Benson bolts to his feet, staring down at me. “What do you mean, Tave?”

“After my session with Elizabeth, I went home. And I guess Reese didn’t hear me come in because she was on the phone with Elizabeth—she called her Liz, by the way, not Dr. Stanley—and they were talking about all kinds of crazy stuff.” As I speak, Benson drops to the floor in front of me, rubbing warmth into my icy-cold hands as I relay the conversation as best I can remember. I close my eyes and focus on the feeling of his hands on mine, trying to remember every secret, every threat, the fact that they expect me to be dead in a week. The words become heavier as I repeat them, as though my uttering them aloud suddenly makes them real.

“Tave?” Benson asks when I’ve finished.

He hesitates and I’m amused that he’s worried that he might be able to say anything to ruffle me. I feel like we’re miles past that point.

“Do you think this Quinn guy is the one looking for you?”

I was wrong.

My fingers clench around his and I clamp my teeth so quickly I catch the skin of my cheek. I wince at the pain and touch the tip of my tongue to the stinging spot in my mouth. “No,” I say without further explanation.

“Tave, you have to at least consider it.”

My head is already jerking back and forth. “No. He would never want to hurt me.”

“You don’t know that,” Benson says, leaning forward. “All kinds of people can want to hurt you. People you would never—you can’t know.”

“It could be anyone else, Benson. Like this lady when I scraped my head or—” My voice rises as soon as I think of it. “There’s this man with sunglasses. I’ve seen him twice now and—”

“And you’ve seen Quinn three times. Twice at your house,” Benson interrupts.

“He wouldn’t—” My voice cuts off as my head falls into my hands. “How can I explain it to you? I can’t even explain it to myself.” I slump against the arm of the chair. “I’m just so tired.”

“Stay here,” Benson says. “I’ll be right back.”

What?

I recline into the surprisingly soft armchair as Benson slips out the door, leaving it a few inches ajar. My head is starting to ache and I remember that the whole reason I went home at all was because I skipped lunch … and breakfast—I’ve got to start taking better care of myself. Woman cannot live on caffeine alone.

In a moment of clarity I wonder just how bad this can be. So my shrink is sharing information I gave her in confidence …

With my guardian who took me in with basically no warning and has provided for my every need for the last eight months. And who’s trying to hide me from someone. And getting ready to run. With me? Without me? After getting rid of me? I don’t even know.

No matter how I justify it, everything comes back to that.

Could Elizabeth be trying to hide me from Quinn? That doesn’t make any sense—why would she tell me it was okay to see him if she knew he was dangerous? And I refuse to consider that Benson might be right—that Quinn is the danger. It doesn’t fit.

I look over at Benson’s desk, trying to distract myself. There’s a small, framed picture and I lean over and grab it to get a better look. Benson, probably two or three years ago, with an older guy and a woman. His mom and brother, I assume. He mentions them fairly often.

I study their faces. Benson and his brother don’t look alike at all except for their matching brown hair, but I can see his mother’s features in his face. The angular jawline, high cheekbones, and wide eyes. They’re all smiling. Part of me feels like I should be jealous, resentful even. Benson has a family—minus a dad, apparently, but still—and mine are dead.

Of course I could never wish such a thing on Benson. I’m completely happy for him, I realize as I put the picture back. I’m glad I can be. Elizabeth says empathy is the most important part of being human.

Elizabeth.

I lean my head back and focus on Benson with his family instead. Dare to imagine myself in the scene with him. It feels like the most far-fetched of fantasies at the moment. My eyelids grow heavy and I let them slip closed. Just resting my eyes a bit.

I don’t hear Benson’s footsteps until the soft snick of the door closing makes my eyes snap open. “Here,” Benson says, handing me a large Tupperware. “I’ve been saving these since Halloween. The guys had this stupid idea that we should be ready to hand out candy even though I told them no kids live around here. But they bought a ton anyway and there are still leftovers.”

I lift the lid to find an assortment of mini candy bars, and my mouth instantly starts to water. I scarf about five of them before everything starts to feel significantly less stressful. “Thanks,” I say, unwrapping another mini Snickers.

Benson leans forward, his hands sitting on each side of my knees. His thumbs rub little circles on my jeans, soothing some of my tension as I eat a rather embarrassing amount of chocolate while I talk.

“What am I going to do, Benson?” I finally ask. My energy and resolve seem to have left along with the tension, and my bones feel like noodles. At this moment I’m not entirely certain I could stand up if my life depended on it. “They expect me to be dead in a week.”

He scoots forward a few more inches and his hands slide up my thighs. I don’t resist—it feels good. The warmth from his palms seeps through my jeans and into my skin and makes my fingers tingle, reminding me that I’m not numb. Not completely.

Not yet.

“I’m not going to tell you empty words,” Benson murmurs. “I won’t patronize you like that. But whatever’s going to happen, I’ll help you. I’ll be there with you.” He leans forward and I feel my heart pounding in my ears as his face draws closer.

Closer.

“It’ll be dangerous,” I protest, the words barely audible as they escape through my teeth. It’s my last opportunity to lean back, to pull away. But I don’t want to. All I can focus on is his face, his mouth. My nerves crackle and my tongue darts out to touch my bottom lip.

“I don’t care.”

My eyes drift closed and—

“Aw yeeeeaaaah!”

My head jerks up as the voice intrudes and we both look up to see Dustin’s face framed in the doorway.

“Not your girlfriend, my ass,” he says with a suggestive laugh that fills my stomach with mortification.

“Get the hell out of here,” Benson snaps.

“Next time put a sock on the door, bro—you know the rules,” Dustin taunts, still firmly wedged in the open door as my face burns crimson.

I clench the arms of the chair as my embarrassment boils over.

“Get the sock if you want to—ahhh!” A cascade of water hits Dustin in the face, forcing him to stagger back. His gurgling scream startles me and the water stops.

I clutch my hands to my chest as Benson kicks the door closed and scrambles to his feet to turn the dead bolt.

“Jeez, Ryder. What the hell was that?” Dustin yells through the door. “My nose is bleeding; you could have killed me.” He continues to yell, but he could be a faintly buzzing fly for all I hear him.

“Benson?” I say quietly.

“I’m so sorry,” Benson says. “I should have bolted it when I came up, but I was focused on getting you food and—”

“Benson?” I ask, my voice a little higher.

“I just didn’t think. I mean, he never comes up here except to sleep and—”

“Benson, I did that!” I shriek.

He finally turns and looks at me, his eyes confused.

“The water,” I say, struggling to keep my voice down. “I did that!”

“It’s okay; he’ll get over it. And truth is, he deserved it. Needed to cool off.”

“No, I made the water.”

That stops him. “Made?”

“Like the ChapStick,” I say slowly. “Where else did you think it came from?”

“Oh,” he says, and runs his hands through his hair before crossing his arms over his chest. “Yeah. We should probably talk about that.”