by Anna Argent
She looked at the drawing of the brick detail and the puppy lying at the bottom. As she surveyed the wall again, she could almost remember little Solo laying there, exhausted from keeping up with the young girls.
“I think what we’re looking for is in this area,” she said, pointing to the spot behind the bench.
Stygian put both hands on the old wood and simply ripped it off of its moorings. Wood crunched and splintered. His muscles flexed in a mouthwatering show of strength that made heat dance low in her belly.
That fantasy world of hers began to take shape again, blotting out reality as an inconvenient nuisance.
It took a force of will for her to concentrate on her task.
The sun was high enough in the sky to shine on the bottom half of the wall. With the bench out of the way, she could easily see every crack in the mortar and chip in the bricks.
She held the drawing up, counting the number of bricks from the doorway. “This one. I think this is it.”
“Stand back. If it’s booby trapped, I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be fine. And if I’m not, you’ll still be able to drive me to the hospital.”
She was confused by how careful he was with her safety, as if she were important. Maybe it was just because she could read the map and he couldn’t, but they’d found the general area the locket was in. All he needed was some time to find the right brick.
His thick fingers gripped each brick, wiggling it to see if it had any give. He worked in a methodical pattern until one of them moved.
Excitement rushed through Echo’s system. She hadn’t realized until just now how compelling this treasure hunt was. Even with the walk down memory lane, she was still thrilled with the idea of getting at least one of the noisy people out of her head.
She could only imagine how Stygian must feel with nearly a whole soul taking up residence inside him. How much louder were the voices for him? How much more annoying?
He pulled, sliding the loose brick out of its hole with a grating sound. Dust and chips of mortar trickled out to land in the same spot Solo had slept as a puppy.
Echo suffered through a brief spurt of grief as she remembered her faithful childhood companion. He’d died too soon, but had gifted her with years of love and laughter before he’d passed. He was the brightest spot in an otherwise tarnished childhood.
A gaping hole was left where the brick had once been. Stygian crouched to see what was inside. “Stand back.”
“Do you see the locket?” she asked.
“No, but there’s definitely something.” He reached into the hole and pulled out a plastic bag. “It feels like paper.” He handed it to her.
“There’s no locket?” she asked.
He shook his head. “None. Either it was never there or someone else already found it.”
Disappointment fell hard on her shoulders, bowing them with the weight. She’d been so sure that they were on the right track—that the key to his salvation was in reach. Instead, all she had was another bit of paper that hummed for her attention.
She opened the bag and pulled out the rolled tube of paper. The loose brick had crushed it flat, but nothing had torn. She unrolled the page and saw more of her mother’s handwriting. A key had been taped at the bottom of the page, but the accompanying note made no sense.
“What is it?” Stygian asked.
“It says ‘Solo’s last song.’”
“What does that mean?”
Echo shrugged, confused.
Stygian stood behind her to peer over her shoulder. “I can’t even make out the words. Looks like a bunch of gibberish to me. Can I see the key?”
She peeled it away from the brittle, yellowed tape and handed it to him.
“It’s nothing special. Just a standard door key.”
“But to what door?”
Stygian shook his head. “I can’t even read the note, so I’m of absolutely no use.”
“Solo was the name of my dog. But I don’t know where his last song was sung. He would howl into any hollow object he could find, though his favorite was a trash can. He tipped over a lot of them just so he could hear himself sing.” The memory made her smile and left a bittersweet ache in her chest.
“I hate to ask, but how did he die?”
“I was fourteen and thought Mom was an idiot for dragging us around the country. I wanted to go to school like a real kid, and after months of whining, Mom finally relented. She got a waitressing job and rented a tiny apartment so she could enroll me in public school. They didn’t allow pets, and Solo was used to sleeping in the car, so we put him there at night.
“One night he woke us up howling and barking. Mom freaked. At first, I thought it was because we were going to get kicked out of the apartment, but later I realized that wasn’t it at all.”
“What was it?”
“She was terrified that something had found us.” Echo shivered, remembering that night. “She was right.”
He rubbed her arms as if trying to warm them. “What happened?”
“We all raced out to him. Mom tried to keep us close and get us to the car so we could run, but when I opened the door to get in, Solo leaped out and ran straight past me. That was the first night I saw one of those rat creatures like the one that attacked us before.”
His body tensed. His fists clenched. “What happened?”
For a moment, she couldn’t speak. Emotion strangled her, threatening to rain down tears she couldn’t stand to shed.
He was just a dog, but at the time, he’d been her best friend. So many horrible things had happened since that night, but it was the first time she could remember facing loss—the kind that stripped away all joy and hope and made you wish everything would end so you didn’t have to suffer through even one more second of the pain.
“Solo died protecting you, didn’t he?” Stygian asked.
Echo nodded, her throat still clogged with the memory of that night. She thought that horrible time had been lost in the back of her brain, but she was wrong. Now that she was here, holding this note left behind by her dead mother, everything came flooding back.
Solo was no match for the rat monster, though he didn’t let that stop him. He was brave and fierce and loyal, showing an almost terrifying ferocity that left her shocked to her core. The sweet, clumsy puppy she’d come to love became an avenging angel, but with teeth instead of a blazing sword. He fought with everything he had, keeping the rat away from his family long enough for them to escape.
The need to cry pitched her voice two octaves higher. “I tried to go after him, but Mom shoved me into the car and we took off. I watched out the back window as the rat monster killed Solo.”
She swallowed down bile.
It hadn’t just killed her beloved pet. It had torn out his throat with its teeth, nearly decapitating him. Blood was still spraying when the monster turned, its muzzle coated red and dripping as it came racing after them.
She shivered in revulsion at the memory, wishing it would recede back into the foggy depths of forgotten trauma and hazy nightmares.
Stygian pulled her into his arms, stroking her back in a soothing sweep of his hand. “He saved you. All of you.”
His touch felt good. Each stroke helped peel away another layer of horror, grounding her back in the here-and-now.
Her voice was stronger this time, though she was still reeling from the devastating memory. “Mom wouldn’t let us go back for his body. She said that it was too dangerous, but we found a quiet spot in a park across from an elementary school in Kansas and buried his leash. He always loved kids, so I wanted to think of him there, watching over the playground, not in that bloody street where we left him.”
He hugged her tight. “I’m so sorry, Echo. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you. You were just a little girl.”
Had she been? Had she or her sisters ever really been regular kids? Mom trained them to be tougher, smarte
r, quicker. None of them had been big enough to be physically strong, but Mom made sure they’d known how to stay out of trouble, even if that meant running.
Sometimes Echo felt like her whole life had been one long marathon to escape the things that lurked in the dark.
She was tired of running, but it was all she knew. Besides, what choice did she have? She wasn’t the stand-and-fight type. She was sneaky, smart and determined, but she wasn’t delusional enough to think she was a fighter.
That was the domain of people like Stygian and Argo. Even Marvel and Eden fought in their own ways. Sure, Marvel wasn’t big and buff, but she had skills that Echo could only dream about. And Eden, she was vital to the fight, giving the Riven intelligence that no other living soul could provide.
Echo couldn’t even make sense of clues left behind by her own mother.
Stygian’s grip around her tightened. She rested her head on his shoulder and tried to steady her nerves. How long it had been since she’d had the luxury of being comforted? How long would she go next time, after this fleeting moment of warmth and companionship faded into her normal life of isolated fear?
She could get used to this. Easily. Quickly.
And then what?
The problem with having something good was that it could always be taken away. Going without may not have been better, but it was less heartbreaking. As many cracks as Echo had running through her, she couldn’t afford another blow.
She pushed herself upright and eased out of his strong embrace.
The air seemed colder on the other side. Her memories were darker and heavier. But she was strong. She always had been. She always would be. Relying on herself had given her that trait, and it was ready for her now, when she needed to stand on her own two feet.
Stygian’s expression closed up. His lips flattened into a blank line that revealed nothing of what he felt about her rejecting his offer of comfort.
She was on her own, just where she belonged.
“What now?” he asked.
She searched her mind for a hint of what her mother meant by Solo’s last song. After a moment, she hit on something. “We made Solo a grave marker out of wet concrete we mixed in a little plastic trash can and then buried the can with his leash inside of it so he’d always have a place to sing.”
As the memory of that sad day washed over her, she realized what her mother’s note meant.
“Mom had us sing a hymn at his funeral and said that it was his last song, not the one that woke us up and saved us.” Not that horrible, terrified howl of warning.
“Do you think she buried something in his grave?”
“Let’s hope so.”
“Do you know where Solo was laid to rest?”
She nodded. “That I’ll never forget. It was in Wichita, Kansas.”
He checked his watch. “If we hurry, we can be there before dark.”
Just in time for monsters like the rat man to come out and play.
Lovely.
Chapter Eleven
Hedy fell to the ground, vomiting.
Teleportation may have been the fastest way to travel, but it sure as hell wasn’t the easiest.
It took several minutes for the nausea and dizziness to pass enough that she could stand. As soon as she was able, she texted Phoenix to let her know that she’d made it safely to her destination.
The pasture she’d landed in was a wide, open space, dotted sparsely with cattle. The air was warm and the clear sky was a bright, hopeful blue.
Definitely Wichita, Kansas, where Phoenix said prophecy demanded Hedy go. Echo would be here soon, and when she came, Hedy was going to be waiting.
She would do anything for Phoenix. Anything.
But first she needed some wheels.
Landing in an uninhabited, rural area away from prying eyes was necessary, but inconvenient. Not even Phoenix, with her vast power, could teleport an entire car. It was up to Hedy to make due.
She hiked out to the nearest blacktop road and started walking. About twenty minutes later, an old man in a rusty truck pulled to a stop beside her.
“You okay?” he asked. “Just getting a walk in?”
Hedy knew how she looked. Innocent, sweet, with two dimples and a scattering of freckles that made her appear younger than her twenty-one years. Funny, but she would have thought that all those years of torture would have aged her more.
She gave the man a relieved smile. “Actually, my beater broke down on me. There’s no cell service out here. Could you give me a lift to town?”
“Sure. I’m headed there anyway. Hop in.”
She stepped up on the dented running board and settled in the passenger seat.
The inside of the truck was in far better shape than the outside, as if the interior had recently been redone. There was a smell of new plastic mixed with the mustiness of the old man. Twangy, old-school country music played low in the background.
He grinned at her, revealing a shiny, white set of false teeth. “Good thing today was grocery day, or you’d be waiting out here for a while.”
“Definitely my lucky day.”
He put the truck in gear and veered back onto the blacktop. “What brought you all the way out here?”
“Work,” she answered easily.
He frowned at that. “What kind of work does a little thing like you do all the way out here?”
She hated small talk, and the music was grating on her nerves more and more by the second. All she wanted to do was find Echo and demand to know why her sister had abandoned her.
She let you be captured, tortured. All those years. All that pain. She never loved you. Never saw you as her real sister.
Hedy gritted her teeth against the voices in her head.
“Are you okay?” asked the old man. “You look a little green around the gills.”
He is going to gut you like a fish.
Shut up! she told the voices silently. Leave me alone.
She fumbled in her pocket for one of the vials Phoenix had given her filled with a potion that kept the voices quiet. She’d taken one before she left, but all that puking must have purged it from her system.
“Are you going to be sick, girl?” the man asked.
Hedy ignored him and drank the potion down, hoping it would act fast.
Not fast enough. He will kill you, and ours will be the last voices you ever hear.
She closed her eyes and rocked in her seat, humming to herself to block out the noise.
It didn’t work. The only song that had ever worked had been Mom’s. And she was dead.
Echo let her die. She let Melody die. She didn’t even try to find you.
A violent wave of hatred rushed through Hedy, stealing her breath.
Echo was going to pay for what she did—pay for every beating, every flicker of shame, every day of starvation, every terrified moment spent dying at the hands of a sadist.
The man pulled the truck over onto the shoulder. “If you’re on the drugs, you need to tell me now. I can get you help. My pastor sent the Williams boy to a place and they cleaned him right up.”
“Shut up,” she growled at the man.
Make him.
“Excuse me? I don’t know where you’re from, but around here, we’re polite to the people who do us a favor.”
He thinks he can boss you around. He has no idea the kind of power you wield. Show him.
“You’re not my father.”
“Damn right, I’m not. I would have whooped your butt when you were little so you’d remember how to treat your elders.”
He will beat you. Hurt you. Kill him before he can!
Hedy’s fingers twitched. It was only then that she realized that she’d pulled her knife from inside her jacket. The blade wasn’t visible, but it was ready, willing and eager to taste this man’s blood.
Kill him.
The voices wouldn’t stop until she obeyed. Only Phoenix’s potion and Mom’s songs had ever been able to quiet them.
&nb
sp; Kill him!
Hedy gripped the knife and lunged at the man. Her blade slid between his ribs, angled up so that it sliced right into his heart.
His saggy eyes went wide in shock and pain. He shoved her back, his arms frail and weak.
He was already dead. All that was left now was the messy part where he realized it.
Hedy straddled his lap and gripped his chin in one hand. She stared into his eyes as his blood poured out, hot and wet between them. It soaked her clothes, but she didn’t care.
“You’ll never be able to hurt me now,” she told him. “No one will ever hurt me again.”
His brown eyes softened, and she swore that what she saw there wasn’t pain or fear of his impending death.
It was sympathy.
He was the one who was dying, but he felt sorry for her?
She scrambled back as he let out his very last breath. With bloody hands, she adjusted the rearview mirror so that she could look at herself.
What did he see in her that was so pitiful? She was a strong, fierce, loyal warrior. She had a destiny. Prophecy had been written about her. Phoenix had told her so.
Hedy stared into the mirror, but the person who stared back was not strong or fierce. She was weak and afraid. She was bloody and broken.
She was that little girl who’d spent years cowering in fear, wondering when the next beating would come, when the monster would slip in to torture and kill her. She woke up every day wondering how she’d die that night, what misery would be heaped upon her.
She’d done what the voices told her, but she was still that same frightened little girl. Killing the man hadn’t made things better—hadn’t quieted the noise in her head.
With shaking, bloody hands, she pulled out her phone to call Phoenix. She would know what to do.
Don’t tell her, whispered the voices. She’ll know you’re weak. She’ll know you’ll fail.
“I won’t fail,” she told her reflection and any of the voices that were listening. “I will find Echo and bring her home.”
With a corpse in the truck?
Hedy put the phone away, reached past the old man, opened his door and shoved his body out onto the road. Once that was done, she got out and dragged him into the tall weeds along the shoulder.
