“No matter what happens next,” he whispers, “I love you too.”

He drops the necklace over my head.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The instant the metal touches my skin, I’m in a whirlwind of light and color that flashes before my eyes, brilliant, excruciating, blinding in its radiance. My fingertips dig into Benson’s arm as I try to find something to grasp onto to keep from being carried away.

But the storm rages only in my mind, and soon I have to close my eyes to the world and try to force the turmoil inside me to calm, to hush to a reasonable volume. As the pain builds, I grasp for respite. Rebecca has done this before; she knows how to manage it. Desperate, I surrender my mind to her and somehow she takes the invading burst of memories from me.

They solidify, somehow, though it’s still like watching a movie in fast-forward. Scenes in a montage that flash before my eyes for only the briefest of instants before they’re gone—long before I can make sense of them. But soon they grow bright again, wild; Rebecca can’t handle them either.

“Benson, I can’t stop it!”

The pressure is still rising inside my head and I clutch at my temples, willing it to slow, to just give me a moment of rest. An instant to catch my breath. I can feel Rebecca trying to do the same thing, but nothing is working and the pressure is building, pushing out against my skull until I’m afraid my cranial bones are going to literally burst.

She’s no good to us if her brain is destroyed. The words skitter through my mind and now I understand what they were worried about.

Someone’s screaming and I think it’s me.

Hands are on me, arms wrapped around me, and even though my eyes are open again, I see only blackness. Images race, and just as I’m ready to give up, I see a flash of gold in the smeared scenes.

“Quinn, help me,” I whisper through clenched teeth that rattle as I speak.

And then his eyes are there, still and green amid a sickly sea of memories. I focus on those eyes and the crazed turbulence ebbs the tiniest bit.

But it’s enough.

I grasp for control and it’s like swimming through tar toward the dimmest of lights. But it’s there. Quinn’s eyes sustain my equilibrium and Rebecca’s mind and mine meld—we are one, we are us—and I know what to do. Together, our thoughts reach out like a net to bridle the energy that’s been poured into me and somehow, I hold it. It fills every inch of me until I swear my skin must be stretched to bursting, but this time I can contain it.

My breath slows and when I blink again, a fuzzy green greets me. It takes a while longer before I can see the sun-imbued leaves clearly, but eventually my focus returns. My head is on Benson’s lap and I’m lying on the sparse grass just behind the Honda. I try to move and everything hurts. After a few seconds I give up and just turn my eyes to Benson.

The forest is a glade of silence until Benson breaks it with a deafening whisper. “Are you okay?”

I nod. I ache like I’ve been struck by lightning, but I’m okay. I’m more than okay.

I’m full.

But I don’t have words to express that; not ones that he would understand. I wouldn’t have understood before either. It’s beyond normal human comprehension.

I must be beyond human comprehension.

I am something else. My head aches and I close my eyes—the sunlight overwhelms my senses. But I know what I am now.

“Does it still hurt?”

I don’t try to deny it. “Not as bad as before.” And even speaking makes me want to whimper. “It’s like an entire library just got poured into my brain and there’s no room,” I choke out.

“Is that why you screamed?”

I look up at him and for the first time since touching the necklace I see him clearly, with my Tavia eyes. He’s pale and a sheen of sweat dots his brow. What have I done? “I’m so sorry, Benson.” Though I don’t know exactly what I’m sorry for. Scaring him? Putting him in this position at all?

Everything?

“You screamed and screamed,” he whispers, and his voice quavers and he won’t meet my eyes. “I thought you were going to break inside and die. I really did.”

“So did I,” I say, reaching for his hand.

He moves his arm, runs his fingers through his hair, a flash of hardness shining in his eyes.

But I don’t have the capacity to analyze it.

I lie with my head on his lap, my knees curled against my chest, for minutes that feel like hours as the pain recedes, slowly, so slowly, like the tide going out. Staring at the green leaves, the crumbly brown earth, straggly grass blades, distracts me enough to let my mind carefully make room for everything I’ve learned.

Everything I am.

“I’m exactly what they said,” I whisper, loosing my confession into reality.

“They?” Benson asks, his shaky words the barest hush on the wind.

“Elizabeth. Jay. They weren’t lying. I’m an Earthbound—I’m a goddess.” The word passes my lips for the first time and it’s not quite as frightening as I feared. But almost.

“Like … God, capital G?”

“No. Something else. Something different.” Ideas are whizzing through my head, making it hard to think in words. “I’m a creating goddess. But … cursed. I did … I did something wrong. A long time ago.”

Benson stays silent, but I have to talk. I discover my knowledge as it falls from my lips, and somehow it relieves the pressure in my head.