by Anna Argent
Echo shifted nervously on her feet as they discussed her. “Uh, she’s pretty sure she doesn’t belong underground at all.”
Eden smiled and held out her hand. “Then you have nothing to fear.”
Echo stared at Eden’s hand. Indecision wrinkled her face and fogged her pale teal eyes.
“She’s thinking about bolting,” Stygian said.
Eden shook her black curls. “She’s too curious to run. Aren’t you? You want to know what’s inside of you—who is inside of you. Don’t you? All those souls voicing their wishes and opinions…it can make a girl go crazy if she doesn’t know which ones she can trust.”
Echo’s chin tilted up in defiance. “Except I don’t know you. How can I trust you to tell me the truth?”
“You won’t need trust, Echo. You’ll know. All you have to do is take my hand.”
Indecision waged a vicious battle across Echo’s face, but in the end, it was the army of curiosity that was victorious.
She put her hand in Eden’s and said, “Next time, when the voices tell me to sneak in and leave someone a gift, I’ll just ignore them.”
***
Echo had spent a lot of time wondering how she was going to die. She had nightmares about being slaughtered by giant rats, the way her family had been. She’d imagined being killed in her sleep while she sat parked at a rest stop, too tired to keep driving. She’d even pictured something mundane, like dying in a car crash or being hit by a bus as she crossed the street. But even in her most wildly vivid dreams, she’d never suspected that her death would come by the hand of a pretty teenage girl in braces while a big, intriguing stranger and an even bigger tattooed albino watched.
She thought about running for half a second before she realized that she’d never make it three steps before Stygian caught her.
The man had reflexes faster than anything she’d ever seen, and she’d spent most of her life living on the streets where fast reflexes were a dominant survival trait.
Besides, she had always wondered about the voices she carried around inside of her. All she knew was that they were often loud and obnoxious, making ridiculous demands on her for no apparent reason whatsoever. And if she didn’t comply, they just kept getting louder and more obnoxious until she gave in or they gave up. Usually the former.
Maybe if she knew what they really wanted—what their end game was—she could just give it to them and spend the rest of her life in peace and quiet, like a normal person.
Or at least she could stay one step ahead of the rat man without so many mouthy distractions.
Eden tightened her dark fingers on Echo’s hand.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” said the girl. “You really don’t want Argo to get involved, do you?”
Echo glanced at the giant albino. She guessed him to be in his fifties, but he was built like a man half his age, with thick muscle and tight skin. And while the bizarre tattoos were unsettling, it was his eyes that really creeped her out. They were the color of ice cubes, and just about as warm.
“It’s going to be fine,” Eden said. “Just close your eyes and let me do my job. It’s the only way we can move forward.”
In the end, Echo did the only thing that wouldn’t end up in a fight she had no hope of winning. She gave up looking for a way out and closed her eyes.
Instantly, the world fell away and Echo was taken over by a swooping, spinning sensation, like she’d been lifted up and set down somewhere else halfway around the world. When her head stopped whirling enough for her to open her eyes, she no longer saw the giant building filled with furniture, gardens and swimming pools. Instead, everything was dark.
Heavy velvet curtains edged with gold rope fringe parted, revealing a dozen people standing on risers. They wore gray choir robes, but that was the only thing about them that was similar. They were of varying ages, from a tiny toddler to an old crone with deep wrinkles and wispy, white hair. Men and women, different ethnicities, children and adults. They all stood there, staring at her for guidance, as if she were the conductor.
The air here smelled different. Familiar, like the cheap shampoo mom used and the bubblegum lip gloss her sister had always worn.
Those scents wove their spell around her, bringing up old memories and making her stomach clench with longing. She was instantly homesick and in desperate need of a hug from her family.
Mom had said that a little piece of their grandparents had been with her since the day they’d died. She’d said that it was one of the only things that made dealing with the infection worth it.
Your grandparents aren’t loud enough to hear, but I can feel them with me. They’re so proud of you girls.
Mom had always been able to sugar-coat things like that, making them seem far better than they really were.
Echo wished she’d inherited that power along with the others.
Wherever she was now, in this dark place, she felt different. Almost ethereal, as if she lacked substance.
She scanned the strangers standing in front of her, searching for her mother’s face, for her sister’s smile. They had to be here somewhere. She could smell them. Feel them.
Echo opened her mouth to call out their names but as soon as her lips parted, the choir broke out in song, letting out a blast of harmony so pure and perfect she nearly fell over backward.
Shock clamped her lips shut and the choir instantly fell silent again.
Echo looked around, searching for some reason for the insanity before her. She didn’t know these people. She didn’t know why they were here or why they were staring at her. The longer they stared, as if waiting for her commands, the more creeped out she became.
A few feet behind her stood Eden, only instead of wearing a sweaty tank top and gym shorts, her dark skin was draped in a flowing white gown that billowed around her. Her hair fell in perfect, tight ringlet curls, and a light poured out of her like a luminescent fog. Her braces were gone, as were all signs of youth. She was a grown woman, so beautiful, it was hard for Echo to look directly at her.
Power radiated out of her, unseen, but palpable. It shimmered in the air like a barrier, like a warning to any who dared to come near: touch at your own risk.
Echo didn’t.
“She’s not with them,” Eden said, pointing into the gloom on the far side of the stage. Her voice was deeper here, stronger. Every word she spoke seemed to fill the space, reaching to the darkest corners.
The group of figures trembled in response to her words.
Echo looked at where Eden indicated and she could just barely see a small cage made out of thick, black bars. Inside was a beautiful woman in her mid-thirties, with long, tangled brown hair and vivid green eyes. She crouched inside the cage, clutching the bars with dirty hands. Her fingernails were long and ragged, as if they hadn’t been trimmed in years. Her skin was sun-starved pale, and her body bone thin from starvation.
“Let me out,” she said, her voice an urgent, pleading whisper.
A wave of sympathy swept through Echo at the sight. The poor woman had clearly been in the cage for a long, long time and it didn’t seem right to treat her that way.
Echo took a step to open the cage and free her.
“Don’t,” warned Eden.
Echo opened her mouth to ask why, but the choir let out another burst of music, drowning out her words.
Apparently, Eden didn’t need to hear the unspoken question in Echo's head.
“They put her in there,” Eden said, motioning to the now silent choir. “They keep her caged for your safety.”
“That is not true,” said the woman in the cage. “I would never hurt you, Harmony.”
No one called Echo by that name except her mother. Not even her sisters called her that after she took on her nickname. That this woman would know her birth name only added to the serious mountain of questions piling up.
“We can’t stay,” Eden said. “It isn’t safe. The witch will find a way to trick you into freeing her.”
&
nbsp; The witch? Is that what that woman was? She looked more like a war refugee than some cauldron-bubbling, warty-nosed monster.
Eden nodded once. “I’ve seen all I need to see. You can let go of my hand now.”
Echo started to tell the girl that she wasn’t holding her hand, but the force of the choir’s song knocked the words right out of her. She fell back, and when she opened her eyes, she was no longer standing in front of imaginary strangers. Instead, she was splayed on her ass, on the floor in front of real ones, back in the main room of the industrial building these people lived in.
Stygian crouched above her, his indigo eyes filled with concern. “Are you okay?”
Echo nodded, afraid that if she opened her mouth she’d hear music again.
“It’s okay,” Eden told her. “You can speak again.”
There was only one thing that needed to be said. “What the hell was that?”
Stygian took her hand and pulled her to her feet. The feel of his fingers wrapped around hers was good. Real. Solid. Warm. Nothing otherworldly about it, other than the way his touch made her shiver from her core out.
“They are your shards. Those people are the ones you hear in your head. You carry around pieces of their souls.”
Until now, Echo had always thought of them as annoying cartoon characters with bulbous heads and too-big eyes. She’d painted them all in garish shades of pinks and purples, perhaps in an effort to make them not so scary to her sixteen-year-old self.
That’s how old she’d been when she’d inherited the mouthy group, and her imagination’s wild musings had stuck. Seeing them as real people without all of the colorful embellishments was just plain eerie.
Real people. Living in her head. She couldn’t get past the image of herself as some kind of walking cemetery.
Stygian pulled his fingers from her grip, and until then, she hadn’t realized she’d been clinging to him like a lifeline.
Maybe she needed a dog—something she could cuddle so she wasn’t so starved for physical contact.
Immediately, she rejected the idea. She couldn’t go through losing another pet. She couldn’t stand the idea of putting another poor, defenseless animal at risk again. If she was hungry for cuddles, she was just going to have to be content with the fleeting touches from a man who made her insides hum.
Better stock up now, she told herself. It’s time to hit the road.
“They’re a musical lot,” she said in the hopes that speaking might break some of the tension thrumming through her.
“Are you okay?” Stygian asked. He put his hands on her shoulders and bent his knees to get on eye level with her.
All she could think about was how much better it had felt to have his hands on her bare skin, rather than feeling his touch through a layer of clothing.
“What did you see?” he asked.
“A creepy, undead choir holding a witch hostage in a metal cage.” She shrugged. “You know, the usual.”
He gave her shoulders a sympathetic squeeze. “We all see strange things when Eden judges us. The shards manifest themselves in different ways. Mine are always in a gladiatorial arena, covered in blood and dirt.”
“Good times,” Echo said.
Stygian turned to address Eden. “So? How does she balance out?”
“She’s not dangerous to any of us,” Eden said, motioning to her and Argo. “But to you? That’s a different story.”
“What do you mean?” Stygian asked.
Echo forcibly threw off the effects of seeing the spirits who haunted her so she could stop this conversation before it spun out of control. “I don’t know what you think you saw up there, but I’m not a danger to Stygian or anyone else.”
Eden shook her head. “You’re wrong.”
Argo shifted his position to put himself between Eden and the world. If Echo wasn’t mistaken, he actually growled.
“What did you see, Eden?” Stygian asked.
“We should talk privately,” Eden said, glancing quickly at Echo and back.
“You all go do as much talking as you want. Just point me toward the exit and I’ll be on my way.”
Echo took a step back, away from the group, away from Stygian’s big, warm hands. Before she could take a second one, he grabbed her arm and pulled her right back to his side. “You’re not going anywhere. Not until we’re done here. There are things you need to know.”
She wasn’t used to being touched. In fact, Stygian had touched her more in the past few minutes than everyone else combined had touched her in the past year. To get close enough to a stranger to be within arm’s reach was dangerous. But with Stygian, none of her usual alarms went off. All she felt was the warmth of his hand on her skin and carefully restrained strength vibrating through his fingers.
It was good. Really good.
She felt almost like she was a normal girl again, without all of the voices shouting warnings in her head.
Trust him.
“He’s right, Echo,” Eden said. “It’s not safe for you to leave.”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s only one reason those souls inside you would keep another soul caged like that.”
“What reason is that?”
Eden let out a small, sad sigh. “Because if she’s set free, she will probably make you kill someone. And you may not realize it until it’s too late.”
Chapter Five
Stygian’s instant reaction to Eden’s statement was both fast and violent. The idea that Echo carried around a dark shard that meant her harm made him want to lash out and kill something.
Such violent urges were caused by his own precarious balance of nasty shards whispering to him, but that didn’t change the very real danger Echo was in.
“I don’t want to kill anyone,” Echo said, her voice high and frightened. “Not even the asshole who keeps following me.”
While having a stalker was dangerous, Stygian was going to have to deal with that problem later. Right now, the more pressing danger was the one she carried around inside of her.
“What can we do about the threat?” he asked Eden.
She shook her black curls. “I don’t know. All I could tell was that while most of Echo’s shards are good, the one that isn’t is as powerful as she is evil.” She flicked her gaze to Echo then back to Stygian. Her voice dropped to a near whisper, as if her words were meant for him alone. “I recognized her, Stygian. You would, too. Instantly.”
Shock rocked him back on his heels for a second before he recovered.
No. Eden had to be wrong. The alternative was too dangerous.
It took him a moment to find his voice. “I thought I had almost all of that bitch’s shards in me.”
Eden shook her head. “Almost being the key word. We knew there were a few more pieces of her floating around. She could be what drew Echo here. To you.”
Echo shifted in agitation. “Can someone please tell me what’s going on?”
If Eden was right and Echo had been drawn here because of a single shard, then it was Stygian’s responsibility to explain things to her. After all, it might be his fault—or the fault of the shards he carried, at least—that she was here.
He took the ancient page of prophecy in the zip top bag and handed it to Argo. “Take this to the librarian. Let’s see what he has to say about it. I’ll explain things to Echo.”
Argo nodded and left with Eden at his side and the prophetic page dangling from two fingers like a leaking bag of toxic waste.
Stygian grabbed Echo’s hand and led her to the kitchen. Her skin was soft and pliant beneath his fingertips. She fit perfectly inside his grip, as if made for that very spot. The physical contact eased some of his prowling fear for her safety.
Maybe that was why he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her. Then again, it could simply be that she felt so damn good.
He wondered how good it would feel to have her laid out, naked and eager for his hands to roam her lithe body. He could touch his fil
l and maybe even make her beg for more.
His jeans tightened across his fly as his wayward imagination got the best of him.
This woman went to his head, and not just the lower one. She seemed to creep into him and linger there, tempting him to learn more about her, to demand more of her than just her presence.
She is yours, whispered a voice far too familiar.
Stygian didn’t dare trust the witch. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the gleaming white countertops of the kitchen and forced his mind to go just as blank.
He ushered Echo into the booth seat, intent on caging her in where she couldn’t easily slip away.
“Tea? Coffee?” he asked.
“Just the truth. I’m too freaked out for caffeine.”
Stygian slid in beside her, blocking her exit. He could smell her clean, light scent filling the air around her, and it took more effort than reasonable to keep himself from leaning closer to breathe her in.
She smells so good. You should see how she tastes. Kiss her.
He ignored the witch and asked Echo, “What do you know about the shards?”
“That they’re a genetic curse. And that they’re annoying as hell because they won’t shut up. And that when you get them, you know someone you love has died. In my case, two someones.”
He flinched at the pain in her tone and covered her hand with his. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Ancient history,” she said, though her voice shook enough to call her a liar.
“Do you know what they are?” he asked.
“My sister used to tell me ghost stories about them, but I was never sure if what she said was real or made up. She loved to freak me out.”
He noted the use of past tense when she spoke about her sister and knew she was one of the people Echo had lost. He wanted to ask her about it, but tabled that discussion for a later time. No sense in getting her upset over questions about a dead sister when what he had to tell her was going to be upsetting enough as it was.
“I’ll start at the beginning to make sure that none of your information is wrong. There are a lot of rumors about the shards and the people from whom they came, and even more misinformation.”
