Earthbound by Aprilynne Pike Page B

… 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