Earthbound. Aprilynne Pike

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СКАЧАТЬ lips hold a ghost of a smile. Her tone is casual—as if we were discussing the decor. “Maybe. Tavia, it’s just a tool. Would you like to finish?”

      Her quiet question calms me. I look back at the rough sketch and do as she asks, though my lines aren’t as true as before. I don’t draw much more, but enough that Elizabeth could probably pick him out of a crowd—or a lineup.

      Enough that I know I can do it.

      “This is amazing, really,” Elizabeth says when I put the pen down. “You have a real gift.”

      I shrug.

      “He must be someone very special to break through your artist’s block like that,” she adds in a soft voice. “What’s his name?”

      “Quinn. Quinn Avery.” It’s the first time I’ve said his full name aloud and it echoes in my head, setting off a mass of tingles in my brain, like static electricity trying to escape.

      Elizabeth nods. “So you’ve spoken to him. That’s reassuring.”

      “There’s … there’s actually something else,” I say, suddenly desperate to not talk about Quinn anymore. Part of me wants to change the subject to Benson—to get Elizabeth’s advice about him. But how would that look? Not going there.

      “I think … I think I’m seeing things,” I force myself to say before the terror can seal my throat.

      Elizabeth leans forward. “What kind of things?”

      I meet her eyes. “Triangles.”

      Her head tilts ever so slightly to the side, but she doesn’t break eye contact. “Triangles?”

      “On his house,” I add, trying not to sound completely insane. I don’t want her to tell me that triangles are everywhere. These triangles are different. “There was a triangle over the door of the house where I first saw Quinn.”

      “Have you seen that triangle again?”

      “On another house. Down on Fifth Street—in the old section of town. I like to take walks there. I didn’t notice it at the time, but I found it later in a picture I took.”

      “Can you show me?”

      I nod and pull out my phone. When I reach the right photo, I zoom in on the white wood above the door and point. “There,” I whisper.

      Elizabeth looks, squints, looks again. She doesn’t say anything, but I can tell she doesn’t see it. My hearts slides into my stomach and I want to crumple into the couch.

      After zooming in and out a couple times, Elizabeth hands the phone back. “Why didn’t you want to tell me before?”

      “I was afraid,” I admit in a whisper.

      “Afraid of what?”

      “That you would say I was crazy. Or worse, that I needed to go back to the neurologist.” There’s a long hush, then I rush on. “After everything that’s happened, you would think that would be the least of my worries. But when it feels like nothing else in my body works, at least I’m still sane and if—if you take that away …” I can’t finish. There are no words for the darkness that losing my mind represents.

      The darkness that feels like it’s looming, waiting to devour me.

      “I don’t think you’re crazy,” Elizabeth says gently, but with a firmness that tells me she’s telling the truth. Or, at the very least, that she thinks she’s telling the truth. “You’ve made so much progress lately that I’ve actually been expecting you to start experiencing some … some changes.”

      “What do you mean, changes?” Like my pockets of infinite ChapStick? Should I tell her about that too?

      But even as I think it, I know I can’t. Seeing things? Well, that can be explained. Hallucinations are an ordinary side effect of traumatic brain injury. Magic pockets are not.

      “I want to continue to explore some of these things. Quinn, the triangles,” she says, not really answering my question. “And Tavia, you might have more strange things happen. Unexplainable things. And that’s okay. Just know that you can trust me and that I’ll do my best to get your life back on track. That’s what I’m here for.”

      I nod, but I don’t mean it. It’s not that I don’t trust her; it’s just that this is too big, too impossible. Maybe after I figure it out—when I can explain myself before she has me committed.

      Or arrested.

      What do you do with people who can magically pull lip balm from their pockets?

      “Do you think maybe you’ll draw anything else before our next appointment?” Elizabeth asks, sounding light and casual; but we both know we’re walking on thin ice with my artist’s block and if she pushes too hard, it’ll break. I’ll break.

      “Maybe,” I mumble, not willing to commit to more than that.

      “Well, do you mind if I keep this picture until our next session?” Elizabeth asks, pulling me out of my thoughts.

      She holds up the drawing and a zing of jealous possession rushes through me. I suppress the urge to snatch the drawing back, take a breath, and remind myself that if I managed to draw one, I can draw another. Or ten. Or a hundred.

      Besides, it’s only a couple of days.

      So then why does my heart ache like it’s gone forever? Like he’s gone forever?

      CHAPTER TEN

      It’s pouring by the time our session is done. Elizabeth offers me a ride, but I turn it down. I have a lot to mull over—a walk in the rain is just what I need. And I managed to have the foresight to wear an actual raincoat today instead of my usual hoodie; I’ll stay dry enough. Elizabeth tries to insist—says I’ll get too cold. But she finally lets me go when I tell her I’m just heading to the library.

      When I reach the curb of the parking lot, I look up and barely catch sight of a man half hidden by a bush. He’s leaning casually against one of the buildings across the street from Elizabeth’s office plaza and doesn’t seem to have seen me yet. But he looks familiar.

      It’s only when he lifts one hand to adjust his sunglasses—sunglasses in the rain?—that I realize it’s the man who was staring at me when I ran into the wall. Have I got another stalker? Or should I add paranoia to the list of mental disorders brought on by my injuries? Most likely he just lives nearby, and now that I’ve noticed him, I’ll see him all the time—like how when you buy a new car, you suddenly start seeing the same model everywhere you go. Still, I’m creeped out, so I duck my head and grip my backpack straps as I pivot and head in the opposite direction.

      I’m only two blocks from Elizabeth’s office when my stomach rumbles. I was so nervous about my appointment—not to mention keyed up about Benson—that I forgot to eat breakfast. Now I’m famished.

      I’ve been hungry a lot lately. Like, starving hungry. When I came in from СКАЧАТЬ