Книга - Earthquake

Earthquake
Aprilynne Pike


The heart-stopping sequel to Earthbound and an epic love triangle like you’ve never seen before!Tavia Michaels is an Earthbound – a fallen goddess with the power to remake the Earth or destroy it.The Reduciata, a rival faction of Earthbounds, has created a virus that is wiping out swathes of the planet. But before Tavia can act on this discovery, she is captured and imprisoned. Huddled in a cell with her eternal lover, Logan, she loses track of the days until they are mysteriously rescued…For Tavia isn’t like other Earthbound.As her powers awaken, her centuries-long relationship with Logan is threatened, and when Benson – the best friend who’s always stood by her – returns Tavia must again face a terrible choice between those she loves.Can Tavia stop the destruction of Earth and uncover the ultimate truth about the Earthbound before it’s too late?













To Ashley, because I miss you.


Table of Contents

Cover (#u26c2ef71-c358-57f2-ace1-61562dd89e65)

Title Page (#u76ba3feb-d0b4-573f-8163-a707721cd32b)

Dedication (#u352975b6-ed1e-5293-8fb8-c8151381e8d8)

Chapter One (#ue8b4e601-3347-5430-a2f2-8183c768c680)

Chapter Two (#uf22769b7-b35a-548f-ae76-44ede20b9ab7)

Chapter Three (#ue3567d12-5f61-53d5-8c24-5ed593fd04a3)

Chapter Four (#ubf5a52f6-69cf-5634-b4b6-82ebd654b99c)

Chapter Five (#uc8d29916-50b5-591a-83d9-86cf58503661)

Chapter Six (#u550289ad-93f7-5aa7-82f6-7a9e360567cd)

Chapter Seven (#u2d03af70-af83-5ee8-a584-22e864687035)

Chapter Eight (#u9d33951f-17d2-5884-90d8-c8999d7ed1cc)

Chapter Nine (#u96ff2369-1ef2-5bdf-b32e-18de9743d863)

Chapter Ten (#u9a6f6456-c4ce-5fc4-b844-341af090fd74)

Chapter Eleven (#u9ea552ba-197d-53c4-b477-db0f7c1e51fa)

Chapter Twelve (#u309c30d4-6129-5739-b50e-b9fef2b12f38)

Chapter Thirteen (#u2342de61-6e6a-5e03-92fc-457d4669b28b)

Chapter Fourteen (#u68226c88-fb4c-5c16-8597-3c11a9a4dbe9)

Chapter Fifteen (#ud1ccf1c4-b693-5b6d-b136-3c731f39c292)

Chapter Sixteen (#uf8530a1d-3ff2-513c-9a34-bf7df29b030b)

Chapter Seventeen (#u9a554cbc-4501-527c-9bdf-1a87ec327e06)

Chapter Eighteen (#u7f714074-8de8-52cc-bc66-968e7b7f9dbe)

Chapter Nineteen (#u6ecbb58a-2fbc-5fc5-8c9c-63e764ab3f45)

Chapter Twenty (#u1572131a-bbd9-5e46-b783-828a5731ec97)

Chapter Twenty-One (#u4ec72f98-3706-549e-ba23-f9d96eeff666)

Chapter Twenty-Two (#u745661de-61c7-518b-9815-8fbe081f33e8)

Chapter Twenty-Three (#u74dfa13c-2cec-5ef8-9379-4c08868db5bb)

Chapter Twenty-Four (#u1b3793a5-18c2-54f2-adf7-eb656093f480)

Chapter Twenty-Five (#u241b66ce-f5a0-5239-b56d-1a0502540f69)

Chapter Twenty-Six (#ua68d6bc1-99b3-572c-bd9e-9ae7446907cd)

Chapter Twenty-Seven (#u7db148f5-d5de-5d17-bec2-26ba9b67be2c)

Chapter Twenty-Eight (#ucec592bb-0d64-57ac-a0cd-51e6defc491a)

Chapter Twenty-Nine (#udbd2bfee-ad86-5a0d-aca9-ae0fcfd48416)

Chapter Thirty (#u64fbbadb-63fe-5e4a-a626-9f9e9073d6e5)

Chapter Thirty-One (#ue81e78de-3a63-5f22-993e-62cb67b6540a)

Chapter Thirty-Two (#ue94157d1-0a33-5a7d-b3b2-fbb741db6e82)

Chapter Thirty-Three (#ud5528553-032c-599c-a148-312c708685dd)

Chapter Thirty-Four (#u0c682708-b895-50b4-a9e3-179b655b170d)

Chapter Thirty-Five (#ue4d44341-5ade-53bb-b4ea-1f0f5eb95377)

Chapter Thirty-Six (#uec4ddc0f-91ec-58cb-b5a1-94f47afffdd7)

Chapter Thirty-Seven (#ub08cc510-0c87-57d1-a475-878066a8b3c9)

Chapter Thirty-Eight (#uda28dfcc-4bdc-5c2a-b1a0-1dd967f1fc07)

Chapter Thirty-Nine (#ufc392846-aed6-5597-a6b7-1cc1ced7b6bf)

Chapter Forty (#ue23f9c4b-0efa-5ecb-bbf7-0794946d155d)

Chapter Forty-One (#uef3d30ee-fac7-5f21-a598-0c11c672d616)

Chapter Forty-Two (#u7997fb67-f3f8-5319-84fa-6a2c12b29c4a)

Chapter Forty-Three (#ue3662bc1-dcd5-5a1e-9690-54265e761770)

Acknowledgments (#ufb97a411-7f7f-57b6-b697-758d80236148)

Copyright (#ue5c5a9b9-8459-5dc6-bbe2-4e70ab67a4ef)

About the Publisher (#u33e3b8ee-2d03-5751-94ea-9c9fb055d593)







(#ulink_44dad4e3-40fd-5d69-a8ca-85dfdc84072c)


My pulse throbs in my temples—a frantic rhythm that matches the pounding of my feet. I feel ridiculous stooping to something as primitive—as human—as running away, but I can’t beat them in my natural way.

I should be able to. My sudden increase in strength terrifies even me. But that’s the problem; I’m too afraid to unleash it. Afraid of what I might do. The people I might hurt. It’s too much all at once.

It’s not right. So I run.

But I’m not really a runner. Not the long-distance kind for sure. They’re gaining on me. It was inevitable. It’s not like I really thought I could get away; I just needed a few minutes to think. So I took off.

What are they going to do? Shoot me in the back? They need me alive and we all know it.

With my lungs aching, I gasp to a stop and they surround me, all of us breathing hard. I’m not completely sure where I am. An overpass. No, one of those pedestrian bridges over a freeway. Cars zoom beneath me, the sound of roaring engines echoing in my ears as vibrations shake the cement under my feet. The people around me have drawn their guns. Obviously they don’t care about creating a scene. They’ll kill any witnesses without a second thought.

But I care.

I care, damn it!

I grasp at the gritty edge of the cement railing. As I lean back the rushing wind from cars and trucks bursts up, tossing my hair and ruffling my shirt. A semi passes beneath the already swaying walkway. The driver must have seen us because he lets loose the long bellow of his horn as though in warning, and I wonder if he’s calling the cops even now.

Not that it matters. It’s too late.

“It’s over,” the closest man says, edging even nearer. “Come with us. We don’t want to hurt you.”

It’s a lie. We both know it.

My eyes scan their faces. Each and every one is a person I would once have called a friend. Not recently. Certainly not for a dozen lifetimes. But once.

I scrape my palms on the hot, crumbly concrete, using the pain to focus my mind. There’s no barrier. I could jump. But they’d save me. They’re already too close.

Think.

Think.

The answer hits me, and my breath catches in terror.

“Sonya, you’re being ridiculous.” Marianna’s voice—belittling as always—strengthens my determination, even though my bones feel like water. I would rather die than let her have me. Than let her figure out how to become like me.

Because if that ever happened, gods help the entire world.

For the thousandth time I consider killing her. Killing them. But the delay would be momentary at best. There are dozens of them.

And only one of me.

Fortunately, there are also more than six billion people to hide among.

I close my eyes and a ripple of apprehension goes through the handful of operatives pointing weapons at me. I might have three seconds before they do something stupid. I picture my heart, beating so steadily, if way too fast. A sob catches in my throat, but I push it away.

And turn my heart to stone.

Literally.

The agony in my chest tries to force a scream from my lips, but it’s too late. It takes only a moment, maybe two, before I know I’ve done it.

I’ve killed myself.

And I taste victory on my tongue as everything goes black.







(#ulink_26ca9d2d-7736-5f93-9414-e97e3978cca1)


I sit up with a muffled scream, my hands clutching my chest. Air is honey-sweet on my tongue as I suck in breaths—gripping my arm with my nails to feel the pain. To assure myself that I’m alive.

Three nights in a row it’s been like this. Dreams of Sonya. Sonya running from what I can only assume are Reduciates: Earthbound bad guys. Sonya afraid of her own powers—afraid to protect herself.

And, of course, Sonya taking her own life. But in the dreams I’m not looking down at her. I’m not an observer. In the dreams I am her.

Am myself, I guess. In my past life. My most recent life.

But unlike true memories, this dream shifts every time it comes to me, the way I end my life changing with each passing night. I’ve pulled the trigger of a gun pressed to my head, thrown myself in front of a speeding semi.

But turning my heart to literal stone? This one was the worst. I don’t know if that’s how it happened. If any of them are how it happened. I don’t understand why my mind is making me see her death over and over—and why I can’t remember how it all actually went down.

Or better yet, why.

Well, I know why, technically. The secret. The one from way back in Rebecca’s time—the girl I was in the early nineteenth century. The one I told no one, not even my partner, Quinn. I was silenced at the end of that life, silenced myself at the end of my life as Sonya. But I don’t know what that secret is.

And I have a feeling the dreams won’t end until I figure it out.

I should remember. I’m an Earthbound—a cursed goddess who lives life after life, seeking my perfect love. I should remember all my lives. But something about the injuries I received in a plane crash last year have made everything … difficult.

My body is covered with sweat, and it’s not all from the harrowing dream. The Phoenix heat is sweltering even in the dusky hours of dawn, and the air conditioning is … less reliable than the hotel manager insinuated. I drag myself from sticky sheets to twist the tap on the sink that’s inches from the foot of the tiny single bed.

The water dribbling from the tap is lukewarm at best, but I’m in no position to be picky.

The spring heat is too intense, topping 110 for several days even before I arrived. The temperature broke records every day last week. I wonder if it’s part of the weather phenomenon my former guardian Mark was sure the virus was somehow causing. It seems like it must be. Everything in the world is crazy right now. The virus is spreading so quickly no one can get a truly accurate death count. Five thousand yesterday, one news channel said. Ten, claimed another.

Either way, it’s out of control, and nature apparently isn’t immune.

I don’t know how the hell I can possibly stop this, but Mark and his wife, Sammi, were certain I held the key, if I could just resurge with Logan—the boy Quinn is in this life. I have to trust that. It’s all I’ve got.

As I splash myself I consider again the braid of twine that Sammi gave me. The one Sonya made. Sammi kept it from when she encountered Sonya eighteen years ago. Sammi and her father were Curatoriates. They’re supposed to be the good guys—the opposite of the Reduciates. I’m not convinced it’s that simple. Neither was Rebecca. I have a feeling Sonya wasn’t either.

I could find out. The little braid is still in my faded red backpack where Sammi put it last week. It’ll give me my memories back. The memories that Sonya had.

Probably.

But considering the way the last awakening went, I’m not completely sure I’d survive a second round. Not without someone to help me. And I can’t take any risks until I resurge with Logan.

Or we’ll both be dead forever and the rest of the world will die with us.

That is the single truth that keeps me here. Trying.

I’m desperate. That is also a truth. More true than anything else in my life today. Besides, what I really need is to figure out how to wake Logan up before the Reduciates who are after me kill us both. And Sonya’s memories won’t help with that since she never found him during her life.

I turn on the leaky showerhead and duck into the tiny stall, sluicing away sweat as though I could somehow cleanse myself of the awful dream. Of this awful week. Everything is falling to pieces. I lean my head against the tiled wall and review the last few dismal days as water beats down on my back.

It started out so well a mere three days ago. After sleeping the whole night in a real bed for the first time in almost two weeks—not to mention getting my first shower in eight days—I woke up on Sunday morning ready to take on anything. I was in Phoenix, I’d located Logan, and I knew he was the one. The rest would be easy, I was certain. I didn’t care that the hotel towels didn’t look quite clean, or that the clerk had vastly under-reported how loud the train just outside my back window would be.

That first night I didn’t even care about the lack of reliable AC. I had a home base that didn’t require ID. And more importantly—thanks to getting his number on Saturday—I had a date with Logan. Quinn. Whatever anyone in my head wanted to call him, I had a date with the love of my life. The love of my many, many lives.

And it went fabulously. We talked, we laughed, the sun glinted off his golden hair, short now and a lighter blond thanks to bleaching from the desert sun. At one point he even reached out and touched the end of my nose. It was perfect.

At that moment it was easy to forget the entire reason I was in Phoenix: because I’m being hunted by the Reduciata. Because we’re being hunted, really.

If they can kill us before we resurge—before we both remember our past lives and regain our powers—we’ll be gone permanently.

But none of that mattered as I sat there bantering with Logan. I knew, was sure I was only minutes away from reaching my goal. The Reduciata was way in the back of my head. As far as I was concerned, I’d practically won already.

Then it fell apart. I fell apart.

I’d told him I was a history buff, and right before dessert was served I pulled out what I said was a rare antique. A journal.

His journal.

This was the moment.

I’d realized that morning that I’d been stupid to think the necklace could bring his memories back. The necklace that initially brought my memories back. Some of my memories, anyway.

Of course, I thought it was Quinn who made the necklace …

Anyway, that didn’t matter—the journal, full of his handwriting, would give me back my destined lover. My Earthbound counterpart. The god to my goddess. I pulled it out, opened it, and wondered if he would recognize his own writing. Then I slid it across the table.

He laid his hands on the pages and … nothing.

I tried to smile. To act like everything was okay. But I could almost feel the shards of the world clattering down around me. On top of me.

In the previous weeks I’d run for my life, seen people die, had my entire view of reality revamped, and been betrayed deeper than I ever thought possible.

All to get me here to this boy. For him to remember me. To love me. And then for us to somehow save a world that’s dying more and more quickly every day from a mysterious virus I have no idea how to fix.

I couldn’t stay there at the restaurant with him. It was too hard. I threw down enough money to cover the bill, mumbled an apology, and took off without waiting for my sundae.

About ten feet from the table I stopped. I couldn’t help it; I looked back.

And he was just staring at me. He called my name—a question, almost—but I ignored him. And even if he had run after me—thrown the doors open, tried to look for me—he wouldn’t have found me. Because in that shadowed space between the two sets of doors, I changed.

Changed into my mother.

I do it every time I’m in public. Use my powers as an Earthbound to wear her face the way I desperately did on the bus in Portsmouth. I pretend it keeps me safe.

There’s a chance it does.

I walked back to my hotel and—of course—the door had been kicked open. I didn’t know if a Reduciate assassin was to blame or simply the fact that my hotel was so crappy, but it wasn’t worth risking my life to stay to find out. In a fear-fueled panic I grabbed my stuff and got the hell out of there.

Five minutes later, with nothing but the belongings in my backpack and an already aching leg—it still hasn’t fully healed from the plane crash that took everything from me—I moved to another cheap hotel. A less-than-pristine establishment that didn’t ask questions when I laid an antique gold coin on the dingy counter, one of many from a collection Quinn and I had stored two hundred years ago. It was a win for both parties; they got to feel like they were ripping me off, and I got a bed and shower that didn’t cost me anything I considered important.

The next day the bedbug welts showed up. Large, painfully itching bumps all over my arms and legs that make me look like I have a disease. Or, at the very least, cleanliness issues.

I hate them. And there is no lotion that takes that burning itch away.

If I’d been smart—no, not smart exactly, but slower and less desperate—I would have stopped at a store somewhere. Gotten a pretty, long-sleeved shirt to cover my scabby arms. After all, I have money. Plenty of money. I’ve been selling a little gold at slimy pawnshops in every city where the Greyhound gave us a break. Hoarding it. Just in case.

But I wasn’t smart and I wasn’t slow.

I was in love instead.

So I went to Logan’s house early Monday morning, walked to school with him. Followed him all the way to the front doors. Stuck to him like glue, hoping something—something!—would click in his head. I suspect it wasn’t any one thing that made him drop his eyes and lie to me when I asked if he had plans for dinner—it was everything all mixed together. The welts, the rumpled clothes, the stalker-ish behavior, the desperation emanating from me in waves.

I waited for him after school, but he must have seen me and gone another way. I should have camped out at his house instead. All I had to show for my two hours was a nasty sunburn.

Some goddess I’m turning out to be.

I’m ten minutes into my tepid shower—which actually feels pretty good on my reddened shoulders—when I realize I have one more item. One more shot at getting Logan to believe me. I shove my soggy head around the shower curtain to glance at the tiny clock. 7:04 a.m. Still time.

I get at least most of the suds out of my hair before half tripping out of the bathtub and drying off as fast as I can. Yesterday he left the house at 7:35. I can still make it. My hair is a mess, but it can’t look much worse than it did the last time he saw me, so it’ll have to suffice.

I grab a gold coin and clutch it in both hands, taking a moment to close my eyes and release my hopes into the universe. Just let this work! You’d think an Earthbound—a literal goddess—would be able to handle something as easy as restoring memories to her eternal partner. But none of my abilities can help with this.

My leg is throbbing as I approach his house, and I can’t stop my heart from racing when Logan bursts out of his front door. He looks around warily—I guess I really got to him—but he doesn’t notice me duck behind the bushes. I follow him from across the street and touch the heavy silver necklace for confidence. The one that brought me back my memories but failed to bring back Logan’s.

The one he made for me two hundred years ago. He just doesn’t know it.

Now.

I jog quietly up behind him before saying, “Logan?”

He whirls around, and I get a glimpse of real fear painted on his face before stubborn anger takes over.

“I have something to show you,” I announce before he can speak.

“Listen, Tavia,” Logan says, rubbing at his neck in what Rebecca-in-my-head instantly recognizes as his nervous twitch. “I don’t really understand why you keep bringing me stuff. It’s … it’s kind of weirding me out.”

“Will you at least look at it?” I beg. I have no pride left. Not anymore. None of my attempts have had any effect whatsoever, and everything I’ve sacrificed—everything others have died for—will mean nothing if I don’t succeed.

Logan studies me for a long time, and I try to keep my face relaxed. “Fine,” Logan finally replies after what feels like ages. “Whatever.”

I hold out my hand and pray—to whom, I don’t know; the God I was raised on, the other Earthbounds, whoever made the Earthbounds; I don’t care anymore—that this will work. The coin falls from my palm into his with a barely audible smacking sound.

He lifts the gold circle close to his face—but not too close—and studies it. Then he sighs and hands it back to me. In a show of what I can only imagine is pity, he curls my fingers around the coin and then his hand around mine. “Tavia, I know someone must have told you this is gold, but you’ve got to stop believing everyone so easily. I—” He hesitates, and my heart sinks. I can sense the impending rejection. “I think you’re a really nice person. And pretty,” he blurts out and then looks like he surprised himself with those words. “But I can’t help you.”

He’s talking again before I can latch onto the word pretty too hard. “I’m just a kid, and I think you seriously need some professional help.”

My hands are so weak from disappointment that I can barely hang on to the coin. It would be my luck that when we split up supplies, I took the bag of gold coins I made as Rebecca, and Benson got the bag that Quinn made. Or maybe I made them all—I’m a little fuzzy on the details.

I swallow hard at the thought of Benson—the boy I thought I was in love with … until he betrayed me—but push it away just as I have innumerable times in the last week. It hurts too much to dwell on. To wonder where the Reduciates are keeping him. If he’s being treated humanely. If … if …

I can’t. Logan. Focus on Logan.

“You don’t understand, Logan.” I can hear the crazy-laced desperation in my voice, but I can’t stop. I don’t know what else to do. If I don’t pull out something impressive I’m going to lose him.

“They’re coming after you,” I whisper, trying to sound so serious—and so sane. “They almost killed me last week and they’re after both of us now and I have got to find some way to make you remember and I’ve tried everything and—” I force myself to stop; I’m just babbling. I plead with my eyes for him to believe me.

“Who’s coming after me?” Logan asks after a second, indulging me as one would a very young child telling an obvious lie.

“The …” I almost tell him everything—that it’s the Reduciata who are on his trail. That they are going to kill him. Probably in a matter of days, if not sooner. Possibly the Curatoria too, considering Mark and Sammi were hiding me from them. But I know that the specifics will only make me sound even more like I have a couple of screws loose.

His face is a rumpled mess of emotions. Despite my failed attempts at subtlety, he obviously thinks I’m out of my mind.

But there’s something else—that pull that made him ask if he knew me the first day we met. That attraction that makes him want to forget all logic and throw himself at something completely unexplainable.

I understand. I felt that way toward him.

We stand there, steeping in the silence, and for just a moment it looks like he’ll believe me. Or at least that he’ll listen. But good sense takes over, and he sets his lips in a hard, straight line. “Tavia, I—”

“I’ll show you,” I interrupt, my hair starting to fall across my eyes in damp strands as sweat rolls down my temples. Even at seven thirty in the morning the heat is so intense I know it can’t be natural. “Watch.” I glance in both directions and then open my hands to reveal a pencil.

I probably should have come up with something more original.

Logan just rolls his eyes and starts to push past me.

“Wait!” I gesture vaguely at the yard to my left and conjure a table and two chairs into existence. Show him what I can do: create something from nothing. He doesn’t know it’ll disappear in five minutes.

It’s not just any dining set. It’s the hand-carved oak set we shared as Quinn and Rebecca two hundred years ago. Maybe … maybe seeing it will do something. Spark some memory. Maybe not enough for a full re-awakening, but enough that he’ll take me seriously.

I turn back. “They’re after us because we’re special,” I say with solid conviction, keeping my voice even. “You can do this too, you just don’t remember. And you have to remember. At least try!” I wave again, and the table fills with “our” dishes. A rug that used to sit in front of the fireplace. His favorite coat draped over the chair. I’m ready to recreate the entire house if I have to.

Each time I make a new item appear, I glance back to check his reaction—to see if I’m stimulating any memories.

But he just looks confused.

Then angry.

Anger does not come naturally to him—never has. I’m not sure who that thought comes from in my tangled web of memories—which one of my predecessors felt compelled to share this tidbit of information—but I know it’s true. Whatever I’ve done—whatever he thinks of me—this has pushed him over the edge.

“Stop!” he hisses very quietly, but with a harshness that swings me around to face him.

“Please,” I whisper, and somehow I know it’s the last word I’m going to get in.

“No,” he says. “Take your hidden cameras and practical jokes somewhere else. I’m done.”

“Logan—”

But he puts his hands on my shoulders—firmly, not roughly—and moves me out of his way. “Don’t follow me anymore.”

I’m gasping for breath as sobs of failure slam into me, overwhelming me like ocean breakers. I can’t … I can’t just—

An unseen force slaps my back and throws me against Logan as the world ripples beneath my feet. The motion tosses us to the sidewalk, splaying us both on the ground. My elbow stings, and blood drips from a cut across Logan’s eyebrows. I’m staring disbelievingly at the vibrant red when a burst of sound reaches us, deafening me even as I scream at the top of my lungs. Logan’s face contorts into a mask of horror, and I whip my head around to follow his line of sight.

All I see are flames.

Flames where Logan’s house used to sit.

We both scramble up and run toward it, our mutual desperation to see what’s happened so intense that I hardly feel the sharp pain jolting up my leg.

His house is gone.

A smoking pile of charred rubble sits in its place. Orange flames dance over its remains, staining the sky. If I didn’t already know, I couldn’t have guessed what sort of structure had previously stood there—everything has collapsed. The flames burn so hot that even from several hundred feet away the waves of heat feel like they might blister my skin.

This is a fire meant to kill.

Meant to kill Logan.

And I know who set it.

“We have to get out of here now,” I say, whirling and grabbing Logan’s arm, trying to drag him with me.

I might as well be trying to shove a boulder. He stares, dumbstruck, at the horrifying destruction.

A column of thick, murky smoke is already rising high. It’s going to attract the attention of everyone for miles around. Reduciata handiwork for sure—subtle is not in their vocabulary. If I have any shot of hiding the fact that Logan survived, I have to get him out of here. “Logan, please!”

I don’t hear the sound of tires screeching as a car pulls up beside us, but I smell the acrid scent of rubber a second before something comes down over my head, blocking my sight. I fight and tear against the suffocating material, but a sharp jab stings my arms, burns for a second, then blackness.







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I’m not sure how much time elapses before I haze into consciousness. My head aches and my throat is painfully dry as pinpricks of light worm through my lashes. I throw my arm over my face—my eyes are so sensitive; I must have been out for a while—and struggle to remember where I am.

And how I got here.

The explosion, Logan’s house, the bag over my head.

The stinging pain in my arm.

Drugs.

Logan! Where is he? My head whips around, making me dizzy even as I fight to focus. There’s something on the floor—a dark lump in the corner, and as soon as I realize what—who—it is I fling myself over to it, to him.

“Logan. Logan!” I roll him over, my head spinning, and he emits a low groan but doesn’t open his eyes. I curl my body protectively around him and throw my hands up to create something—anything—to protect us from whatever the Reduciata, or whoever, has in store. But a new bout of sharp pain thrusts through my arm, and again the world swirls in front of me.

I collapse onto the floor, and my cheek falls against chilly tile.

My eyelids close.

The next time I float back to reality I keep my eyes clamped shut and take a few minutes to think. I acted too quickly last time. That doesn’t help anyone. No sudden movements—that’s step one.

Slowly, I lift my eyelids just enough to peer through my lashes at my surroundings. I’m in a stark white room, and I can see a huge mirror on one side that throws my reflection back at me. A two-way mirror, no doubt.

I sniff and smell what I swear is fresh paint. Everything is so neat and new as to be almost sterile. The smooth white walls, squeaky-clean white tiled floor, even the grout between the tiles is scrubbed to a pristine cream color. Like they poured a huge bottle of bleach over this place before dumping us in here. I shudder, wondering just what they had to scrub away.

I’m lying on my side, curled against Logan, and the warmth from his body makes me feel a tiny bit better. Yes, we’re obviously in some kind of prison, I guess, but at least I’m not alone. He’s still unconscious. Last time I awoke I at least got him to groan, but now he doesn’t respond to my touch at all. I wonder if at the same time they injected me they also got him with … whatever was in the needle. I glance down at my arm, where I can see two red dots. They make me want to scream in anger, but I’ve got to keep my cool. I focus on Logan instead.

I pull his limp torso halfway upright across my lap and cradle his large frame against my chest. I tell myself it’s because I don’t want him to get too cold lying on the freezing tile floor, but the truth is, after three days of him not letting me get near, I just want to hold him. This is the first time I’ve really gotten a chance to look at him this close. His skin is so tan against the honey color of his hair. I run my fingers through the short strands, remembering when they were long. Remembering Rebecca remembering. I scrunch my eyebrows together at that. Close enough.

He has a smattering of freckles along his hairline and across his cheeks that didn’t used to be there. Probably from living in the desert. There’s dried blood from the cut over his eye. I prod it gingerly, but it doesn’t seem too deep. My arms tremble as I attempt to check him for further injuries. I’m not sure where we are or how much longer they’re going to let us live, but at least we’re together.

As long as we’re together, there’s hope. Logan is my hope.

An icy spike of fear makes its way through my intense relief, and I force myself to peer around with what I hope is a degree of subtlety. Not that there’s much to observe. The room is bare and small, and the only possible escape is beyond that mirror I can’t see through.

Glancing at my reflection, I curl my shoulders, trying to look both harmless, which isn’t too hard given my pathetic appearance—bad hair, bedbug welts, no makeup, a big red mark across my cheek—and ignorant. The latter is, of course, more challenging. What I want to do is scream and yell and demand they let us go, but I have a feeling I’ll have better luck if I try to act submissive. That tranquilizer is nasty stuff. And I have no intention of staying a prisoner for long. Not after everything I’ve done. We’ve done. I just need to bide my time for a little while. First things first, I have to get Logan awake. There is no way on earth I’m leaving him.

While I’m waiting for Logan to open his eyes, I feel out the situation. “Hello?” I call quietly. My throat is so parched that only a hiss of a whisper comes out.

A bottle of water appears on the floor in front of me. Appears. It doesn’t get pushed through a little door or anything. Just pops into existence. Now I know for sure that there are Earthbounds involved. But whether they’re Reduciata—as I suspect—Curatoria, or something else entirely, I can’t be sure.

I reach for the bottle tentatively and consider the risks. They’ll want me to talk—so this water probably isn’t poisoned.

Probably.

I could make my own, but it’ll only disappear a few minutes later; and besides, I have a feeling that would bring about unhappy consequences.

I unscrew the cap and intend to sip—hoping to maintain some semblance of decorum despite my desperate thirst—but as soon as the cold water touches my cotton-dry tongue I’m gulping, and in seconds the whole thing is gone. Trying to cover my embarrassment, I resume my hunched posture of submission and screw the lid back on with as much dignity as I can muster. Then I set the empty bottle in front of me.

It vanishes only to be replaced by a new one.

This time I manage to drink the first few sips more slowly, considering this a test to make sure that this water is safe to ingest. It’s too late for caution regarding the last one, but I’m not taking chances anymore. I begin counting to three hundred, deciding that if I make it through a full five minutes without croaking, then the water most likely hasn’t been tampered with.

By the time I reach the 290s, I’m satisfied that the water isn’t poisoned and start actively trying to rouse Logan. This bottle is for him.

“Logan?” I lift his eyelids, first one and then the other. I poke and pinch his arm, shake him back and forth, and pat his cheeks sharply, just shy of a slap. Finally he starts to groan again. I keep prodding, not willing to lose this progress. He rolls to the side and starts to raise himself up to a sitting position, his eyes eerily out of focus.

“Here,” I say, proffering the nearly full water bottle. Even in his fuzzy haze he takes it and gulps it down about as quickly as I did. He shakes his head and rubs at his face as I set the water bottle down. “More,” he murmurs, his lips chalky-white.

Looking up at what I still believe to be two-way glass, I echo Logan’s request with my eyes and am rewarded with a cold bottle a few seconds later. Now that we’re three bottles in, I hand the newest one directly over to Logan without testing it. I’m going to have to trust whoever is behind that mirror one more time. After all, if they wanted us dead they would have done it already. Right?

But I think of Logan’s house, and doubt curls in my stomach.

Maybe it is the Curatoria after all. Don’t the Reduciata just want to murder us? Sadly, the thought that we might be in the custody of the not-as-bad guys doesn’t make me feel much better.

Logan is halfway through his second water when his eyes gain focus and zero in on me. “You!” he exclaims. Liquid spews from his mouth as he tosses the bottle down and crab walks backward away from me. His arms crumple beneath him, but he keeps scooting until his back is up against the corner, as far from me as the suddenly claustrophobic room will allow. “You stay away from me!” he shouts.

“Logan, I—”

“You did this!” he yells. “You made—you made all of this happen. Stay the hell away from me!”

“I didn’t—”

“My house,” he’s almost talking to himself now, struggling to get to his feet. But his strength isn’t back yet, and he leans against the wall, staggering to the side when he attempts to stand. He covers his face with one hand and lets out an inhuman sound halfway between a bark and a sob. “My family.” He’s nearly hyperventilating, and one arm splays against the wall as though grounding himself against everything.

Against me.

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” He sounds like a little boy. But all I can do is give him the honest answer I know in my gut is true. I nod.

His breath is labored, the sound filling my ears. “Oh no. I can’t—they didn’t … Did I do something wrong?”

“You didn’t do anything,” I blurt. “It’s not your fault.”

My voice finds its way through his devastation, and his eyes narrow. “You’re right,” his says, his lips curling into a terrible grimace. “It’s your fault. Why couldn’t you leave me alone!”

“I was trying to save you,” I reply, my voice barely more than a whisper as I wilt beneath his accusations. My heart bleeds at his revulsion.

“Save me? The only reason I’m here is because of you.” He limps but manages to get across the room to the mirror, having clearly also identified it as the place where our captors are hidden. He pounds on it with both fists so hard I’m sure it’s going to shatter beneath his rage. “Please, get me away from her!”

“Logan, stop!” I shout, tears running down my face. I couldn’t stop them if I wanted to.

He’s right. I brought attention to him and in so doing I got his family killed.

I would hate me too.

There’s nothing I can do but crouch there on the cold, tiled floor, the strength drained from my body. It’s been eight months since my parents died, but watching Logan pound on the mirror, my mind flies back to the moment I realized our plane was crashing. Tears stream down my face in a torrent that splashes on the tile and joins the puddle of water that still drips out of Logan’s discarded bottle. For an instant it almost seems like the entire pool could have been formed from my tears.

It feels like hours before Logan relents. Finally, he crumbles into a heap on the floor, his face pressed to his arms, his forehead dotted with sweat.

I can only imagine what the people watching us are thinking.

Are they amused? Satisfied? Is this what they wanted? To watch us be so helpless? So at each other’s throats?

We’ve got to be in the hands of the Reduciata. Surely the Curatoria wouldn’t kill Logan’s family.

Surely.

But I can’t muster up a great deal of confidence to back that up.

My head aches from crying, and my eyes feel like cotton balls. But none of that compares to how my heart feels. Broken, shattered. No, something else. Empty.

After a while I feel my eyelids droop, and I fall into an exhausted, desperate sleep. Logan must as well because when I open my eyes again he’s calm. He’s back in his corner, far away from me, but his eyes are dark and glittering when they meet mine. He’s been waiting for me to wake up.

“Who are you?” he asks, his voice a little hoarse. Whether from screaming or disuse after sleeping I’m not sure. “And don’t lie this time.”

“I never lied,” I say, massaging my aching leg and trying to clear my foggy head. “I’m Tavia, like I said.”

“The whole truth.”

I look him in the eyes. What can I say to make him trust me? “I’m your eternal lover. We’ve been together since the beginning of time—in every lifetime that we could find one another.”

He lets out a harsh, mocking laugh. “Right. I should have known better than to even ask.”

“Then you tell me why you feel like you know me,” I say, my voice low. I’ve decided to focus on Logan and Logan alone, not the fact that we’re trapped or that we’re probably being watched by creeps who get their jollies from making us suffer; just Logan and getting through this conversation with him.

“Some people just seem familiar,” he says, brushing off my words. But I can tell, from the tiny creases between his eyebrows, that it bothers him. He doesn’t want to believe. He’s desperate not to believe.

“You saw me make that furniture,” I say, even as I wonder why I thought to make something so trivial.

He shakes his head. “A trick. Something to distract me while people were blowing up my house,” he says, the words a savage growl.

Okay, he’s right, that coincidence is not a happy one.

“Where did the water go?” I ask, and though a slight shake in my voice betrays me, I’m fighting not to let him know how much his mistrust is affecting me.

“What water?”

“The water bottle that spilled on the floor.”

He looks away. “They came and cleaned it up while we were asleep,” he says with total dismissal.

“Are you thirsty now?”

His eyes only dart toward me for a moment, but I can tell the answer is yes. I’m parched myself. And hungry. And I have to pee. But that’ll have to wait.

I take a chance and look directly at the glass, then hold up two fingers like I might to order coffee at a diner. If I have to depend upon my kidnappers, at least I can be sarcastic about it.

Within seconds two water bottles pop into existence on the floor. One within my reach and one within his. His jaw is shaking, and I wonder if I’ve just shoved him over that delicate precipice into insanity.

“I can’t … I can’t. No.” He turns away from the water and curls his face against his knees, his whole body shuddering. I don’t know if he’s crying or trying to keep his mind from cracking.

But clearly I’m not going to get any help from him until he figures out who he is. And that likely won’t happen unless I can get him out of here. Not that I don’t empathize. I was pretty much a wreck when all this stuff started happening to me too.

But the timing is … less than ideal.

I stand and walk the perimeter of the room, giving Logan as wide a berth as I can. My fingers stray up to Rebecca’s necklace and I fiddle with it as I consider the situation. I think about what happened when Logan pounded on the glass—how the surface rang with vibrations but never cracked. The material must be something stronger than glass. What can I create that could break it? And how could I do so without anyone noticing?

I take deep breaths, trying to keep my thoughts hidden. My shoulders slump as though in defeat but in my mind I see a heavy sledge hammer. In an instant my knuckles are white on a splintery wooden handle, and with a loud grunt I swing the newly formed hammer at the mirror. Shards of glass rain down like snow and my heart races for three beats, four, enjoying the sensation of success.

It doesn’t last. A burning that feels like knives assaults my arm.

I can’t move.

Every muscle in my body rebels and clenches tight, My tendons ache and twitch, and it’s only when the sensation releases me that I look down at my arm and realize that I’ve been tased.

Shit.

I fight for consciousness, my body already overwhelmed from whatever tranquilizer they gave me earlier and today’s lack of food.

Or has it been two days without food? I don’t even know.

My knees give out, and I sprawl to the floor. My fuzzy brain grasps for daylight, and I manage to push back the darkness gathering at the edges of my vision. I will not succumb again. I suck in air, focusing on my breath until I’m certain I’m not going to lose it.

I glance about me.

It’s as if my entire attempt never happened. The mirror is as it had been—whole and unbroken—the shards of glass I distinctly remember peppering my skin are gone. Even my bottle of water is sitting full and upright, just how it was when it first appeared.

“I suggest you don’t try that again.” A bored voice booms in from an unseen speaker, frightening me as much as anything. I know that voice. I just can’t put my finger on it. “As you can see, you can be instantaneously subdued if you try anything.”

I nod shortly—since it’s clear they can see me—anger trickling through my body as a weary absence of energy replaces the fierce tension of the electricity from the Taser. No using my powers. In any way, shape, or form. Got it.

I glare at the mirror, knowing that even though all I can see is my own scowling face—a red mark across my cheek—there must be people on the other side watching me. The familiar voice, for one. I stare at the mirror, willing my expression to travel through the thick glass the way my vision can’t, and all of a sudden the surface almost seems to turn transparent. At first I think it’s my imagination, but then something clicks and the lights on our side dim, and I know it’s not my tired body playing tricks on me; I can actually see through.

A man in a dark suit is standing at what appears to be a long counter. His hands are planted on the surface, and he’s leaning forward in a manner so menacing it can’t possibly be accidental.

I would have recognized him in an instant, even without his signature shades.

Sunglasses Guy. The guy who followed me for two weeks in Portsmouth. Who shot at me, and terrified me, and dragged Benson away on that terrible night.

And just over his shoulders, painted on a gray wall so obvious I can’t miss it, is a black symbol, at least four feet high. An ankh, with one side of the loop curled up like a shepherd’s crook.

The symbol of the Reduciata.





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