Echoes (US Edition)

by Laura Tisdall

  She wants to believe him. She wants to, but…

  ‘Then why did you do it?’ she asks, the words streaming out all loud and angry. ‘No one would do all that, not for someone they’ve never met, that they don’t know!’

  The room goes silent. Warden’s eyes drop to the floor. He’s gone strangely still, grating against how wired Mallory feels right now.

  ‘I know you,’ he says softly, barely more than a whisper. ‘I know you, Echo.’ His eyes flick back up to her and they are glassy now, too. Mallory feels like she can’t move. ‘I know you don’t like peanut butter,’ he says. ‘You told me once that you liked peanuts and you liked butter, but not the two together because of the texture. I agree,’ he goes on, ‘it’s weird.’ Then, ‘I know you like football, the American kind, not soccer. You talk about the stats sometimes, how you like to run them in your head, and you’re always a little more animated after a game night.’ His voice gets faster. ‘I know you think rom coms are stupid, but you also like watching them because they’re usually predictable and that’s safe. I know talking about how you really feel makes you nervous.’ His voice shakes. ‘I know that because you always swear at me in chat when I do, or you just stop talking back. But at the same time I don’t think it’s because you don’t feel – which is what you seem to want to project – I think it’s because you feel everything a little bit too much and you can’t really cope with it if you say it out loud.’ Then, ‘I know you like solving problems and fixing things, like I do, and that sometimes The Asker and the Forum feel more real to you than your real life does. I know you care about your family, though, so much so that you’d do absolutely anything for them.’ He hesitates. ‘I know I like talking to you,’ he says. ‘I may not have seen your face until yesterday, but I know you – Echo Six, Mallory Park, whatever it is you want to call yourself.’ Tears are rolling down his cheeks now, his cheeks that are all flushed bright red. ‘And you know me.’ Mallory stays rooted to the spot, her eyes locked on his, her whole unmoving body feeling like it’s pulsing with fiery energy, like what he’s saying is reverberating inside of her with a truth she would never have admitted before.

  ‘You want to know why I flew right across the country to help you?’ he asks. ‘Because you’re my best friend.’ He lets out a kind of sharp laugh – a laugh with no real laugh in it at all. ‘Does that sound stupid to you? But see, I don’t have that many at school,’ he goes on, speaking a mile a minute, that way Warden does. ‘I mean there are classmates I sit with, but I find it hard to get close to people, you know? Well, you do because I never lied to you – though you keep seeming to think I did – and so you know how I have a knack of pissing people off just by talking, so that’s school out. And home? My brothers are jerks and my dad wishes I was more like them because apparently that’s what being a proper man looks like. My mom loves me, but she’s drunk half the time because he’s been cheating on her for years and she knows it.’ His voice rises. ‘So then there’s you and the Forum. I care about The Asker because the Forum saved me too. It’s the best part of my day, talking to you, being Warden and not sodding Bertie. I hate that name, but my dad still calls me it and I bloody hate it. Maybe it is ridiculous,’ he says, ‘coming all this way because I thought you were in trouble – blowing most of the money I was saving for the Lampertz safe on the ticket, because there weren’t any economy ones left that’d get me here on time – maybe it was even bloody stupid, but that’s why I did it.’ His voice falls away. ‘So don’t give me crap about not trusting me,’ he whispers. ‘Just don’t, because I’d never hurt you. I never bloody would.’

  He looks like an open book, just stands there, wiping his eyes, everything he’s feeling written like sentences across his face – and something in Mallory just can’t really bear it, can’t bear to see him so upset like that and…

  ‘Warden,’ she says simply, a whole lot of meaning scrunched up in that one name. He looks at her and she feels both crumpled up and blown open all at the same time and – for the briefest moment – it has nothing at all to do with her picture on the screen. She steps towards him, her whole body feeling electrified…

  Another step…

  Then another…

  And then she’s reaching out to him, pins and needles running all up and down her arms and…

  ‘Warden – ’ she repeats.

  ‘Mallory!’ The door to her room slams open. Mallory drops her arm like she’s been stung. It’s Roger, Jed beside him. They’re both in their sports gear, sweaty-faced and out of breath. ‘What’s going on?’ Roger asks, eyes flicking from her to Warden. ‘We heard shouting.’

  ‘Mal?’ Jed asks. ‘Mal, are you crying?’

  Damn it. Damn it!

  She moves to block her laptop from view and wipes her cheeks, looking back at Jed, his small face full of concern, a face – Warden’s right – that she would do anything to protect. And then she remembers her face in that image from the security feed, and whatever just happened between her and Warden falls away…

  And, suddenly, it becomes all about that damn picture again.

  She doesn’t know how the CoD got it, but she doesn’t think it was from the boy standing just across from her. However it happened, though, it could lead them here. A very real and very close fear skitters through her. It could lead the people who kidnapped The Asker, and likely the others too, who implied that they were prepared to kill him to get what they want, right here…

  To Jed. To Roger.

  No.

  That thought is solid, unwavering. Mallory doesn’t know what she is going to do about so many things, but this one thing is clear. She will keep them safe.

  ‘You need to go,’ she says.

  ‘What?’ asks Roger. ‘Look, what’s going on?’ He glances at Warden, Warden’s own eyes still red. ‘Did he hurt you?’

  ‘No,’ Mallory says firmly, the same time as Warden. Roger looks between the two of them. Jed is just glaring at Warden. ‘No,’ she repeats, ‘just, something… something has happened and it means you can’t be here right now. I need you to go.’ She stands up straighter. She wipes her face again and walks towards the door, towards her family.

  ‘What do you mean, go?’ says Roger, eyes narrowing as she reaches him.

  ‘I mean you need to pack a bag, now. You got ten minutes. Then you’re taking the Chevy, leaving this house and going to stay in a motel for a few days. You drive out northeast and don’t stop till you’re past Hartford. And you do not stop for gas at all, you hear me? You use the can in the trunk if you need it.’ Gas stations have CCTV and she doesn’t know what to trust any more. Maybe she’s being paranoid, but if they got her image at the club, she doesn’t know what resources they have or how widespread they are. The picture was blurry, but if they do have access to a database and manage to actually ID her from it – no, no, no – they’ll know she has a family. If they were prepared to use The Asker to get her to do what they want, they’d sure use her little brother.

  And that sure as hell is not going to happen.

  Mallory pushes past them. She heads straight to Jed’s room, dragging his old brown suitcase from under the bed.

  ‘Mallory,’ Roger says, clearly agitated.

  ‘Go pack,’ she orders. There isn’t time for this.

  ‘This doesn’t make any sense – ’

  ‘I said fucking go pack!’ She shouts it at him, practically screams it. She hears him gasp, the way he always does at loud noises. ‘Just do it!’ She doesn’t let herself look back to see what it did to him, focusing only on taking clothes for Jed out of the painted blue chest of drawers by his bed and putting them in the case. ‘Enough for a few days,’ she says and she hears the floorboards creak as Roger walks away, hears him open the door to his room. Jed starts collecting things up himself without a further challenge and she feels a fierce rush of affection for him. ‘Sorry,’ she mutters. ‘Sorry I swore.’ Especially that word.

  Within ten minutes, they are standing by the front door
, two small suitcases shoved into the Chevy’s trunk. Mallory gives Roger half the cash she keeps stashed in her desk drawer for emergencies, telling him not to use an ATM unless he absolutely has to. Yes, she’s being paranoid, but then The Asker was paranoid and that wasn’t enough, was it?

  ‘I’ll call you when you can come back,’ she says. Roger doesn’t go though, just stands there in the doorway, fists clenched tight like hers.

  ‘Look, Mal,’ he says, ‘if you’re in trouble, let us help. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. We can call, we can call the police – ’

  ‘No,’ Mallory snaps. She takes a shaky breath, knowing what it must have cost him to suggest that, but, ‘No, whatever you do, you can’t call the police. You can’t.’

  ‘But we – ’

  ‘You can’t!’

  ‘Then let me help you,’ he says. There’s a pleading in his eyes, but also something else, something she hasn’t seen in so long it makes her chest tighten… He looks defiant.

  ‘You can help me by looking after Jed,’ she tells him, ‘by going.’

  ‘No,’ he says. Mallory stares at him.

  ‘What – ’ she begins.

  ‘No,’ he repeats, stronger this time. He looks down at her, a full head taller. ‘I am not leaving you, Mallory, not like this. This is crazy.’ He locks his jaw. ‘Now, you’re gonna tell me what’s going on and I’m gonna help you out of it. No police,’ he adds, ‘okay, but if you’re in trouble, we work it out together.’

  Mallory still just stares at him, dumbstruck. He hasn’t told her ‘no’ since Jeanie left and he wouldn’t tell her where she went or why he wouldn’t fight for her. She’s wanted him to, wanted him to tell her off for things, to give her boundaries, to care enough to step in. So many damn times she’s wanted him to, and now… now, here he is doing it, this moment of all the moments he could have picked…

  The one moment she can’t accept it.

  Mallory looks into her dad’s eyes, light brown like Jed’s. The defiance is there still, but she knows him, knows how paper thin it will be, how easy to tear apart… She lets herself feel it, though, feel it just for a second, feel him looking at her with that concern, taking control of the situation and being like the dad she only just remembers, the dad who always protected her, who she misses…

  Oh shit, she misses him so damn much…

  And she lets herself feel it…

  And then…

  Then…

  ‘You’re going to do what I say,’ she says, her voice like ice, even as inside it feels like she’s splintering.

  ‘Mal, listen – ’ he begins.

  ‘No, you fucking listen!’ she shouts. She yells it so hard her throat hurts and he flinches back, but she doesn’t stop. ‘You think you know better than me? I’ve been keeping this family safe for over four years. Me. I have. Four years you had to act like a parent and you didn’t!’ The words rip out of her. ‘So now you’re gonna listen to what I say we need to do here, because you bailed, Roger. You backed away every single time.’ It’s cruel. And it’s like she can see him breaking, see his resistance falling away, falling so damn easily it hurts to watch, but she keeps going because he has to listen. It’s her fault this has happened and she has to make absolutely sure he’ll do what she says. She has to keep him safe, keep Jed safe. ‘You want to start being yourself again, start being a father again, then great, but you do it to Jed and not to me, because you’re too damn late and Jed’s the one who needs you now. You look after him. That’s what I want from you.’

  He fades away right before her eyes, the spark blowing out as he clasps his fists tighter and bites his lip to keep from crying and…

  Shit, shit, shit…

  ‘It’s all I want.’ She hands him the keys to the Chevy, forcing herself to keep looking at him, though she doesn’t want to, she doesn’t want…

  ‘I’ll look after him,’ he says finally, voice hoarse. Mallory nods once. Roger blinks too many times and backs out the door without another word.

  ‘Are you going to argue too?’ Mallory asks Jed. She hopes it’s a no because she doesn’t think she could take that.

  ‘No, Mal,’ he says, and she feels it again, that rush of affection.

  ‘Why not?’ she asks. ‘Why do you never argue with me?’ She glances over at Warden, hanging back by the stairs. He’s right. Jed’s eleven now. He should argue with her, but he never does, not really. She looks down at him.

  ‘Because we look after each other,’ he says. Then all of a sudden he’s hugging her – hugging her for all the hugs she never gave him, because she couldn’t, because she couldn’t. She feels it, everywhere he’s holding her, but she doesn’t let herself pull away, makes herself hug him back, trying to tell him in it that she’s grateful and she’ll sort this out, and that she’s so very proud of him…

  Jed steps away, into the doorway, then he looks back at Warden.

  ‘You hurt my sister,’ he says, ‘and I’ll kill you.’ Mallory is too taken aback to respond.

  ‘I wouldn’t – ’ Warden begins, but Jed walks straight out to the Chevy, not waiting for an answer.

  Echo Six

  Mallory watches until the car turns off the road, exhaust rattling away – no time to fix it now. She can’t get the image of Roger’s stony face behind the windshield out of her head, even after they’ve gone. They’re safe, though. That’s what’s important. She wanders back inside, locking the front door, staring at the wood, the varnish scratched and fading like a lot of things in their house.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Warden asks. Then, ‘Sorry, bad question, of course you’re not. Echo, that was… Look, I don’t know what to do but I swear to you…’ And the words just start pouring out of him again. Mallory closes her eyes as he tells her again how he’s on her side, how he wouldn’t hurt her. He brings up the safe again and it’s almost like she’s back up in her room talking to him across three thousand miles of internet. Warden is right, she does know him; his speech patterns, the things he says, the things he likes – that he would never betray her, and she feels ashamed for even thinking it. She knows him, and maybe, just maybe, she would have flown right across the country for him too. ‘I swear I didn’t tell anyone anything,’ he continues. ‘And those texts I’ve been getting, they’re from my mother. You can look but it’s pretty much just her calling me poppet, saying how I’m growing up too fast, looking at colleges and making her feel old, and asking when I’ll be coming home.’

  ‘What did you tell her?’ Mallory says quietly, turning back to him. Warden pauses.

  ‘…That I needed a little longer,’ he says. Then, ‘Here,’ he says holding out his phone, and he doesn’t even sound angry – though maybe he should, he should be mad at her – just determined to prove his innocence, as if what she thinks is all that really matters to him, and it moves her in a way that she doesn’t really know how to respond to. ‘Here, you can check, and you can look through anything you want on my laptop. And you can search through my suitcase, my coat, my pockets, whatever you need to – ’

  ‘I believe you,’ she interrupts.

  ‘But – ’

  ‘I trust you.’

  ‘Oh,’ he says. And he stops. Mallory flushes with guilt again, and so much other pent up emotion, she doesn’t know what to say.

  What comes out is a very soft, ‘It’s kind of all snowballed like I didn’t expect.’ Then, ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m so sorry, Warden.’ She makes herself repeat it, clearer the second time. ‘If you want to go back home, I’ll understand, with everything that’s happened. They only have my picture at the moment. Like you said, it’s Echo Six they want.’

  ‘I don’t want to go,’ Warden tells her – even after everything she said to him – and the words fill her with relief because she doesn’t want him to go either, she doesn’t want him to. ‘I mean,’ he adds, ‘I’m pretty sodding scared, being honest, but I don’t want to go… if you still want my help, that is.’

  Mallory bites d
own on her lip, closes her eyes, just for a moment.

  ‘I’ll always want that,’ she says.

  ***

  Mallory sits down at her desk. Warden is perched on the bed behind her, checking the feed again. She doesn’t ask him what’s going on in it, though, not just then. Instead, she reaches for her own computer and opens up the Forum window. She doesn’t feel like she used to as Echo Six, sitting there and looking at the message boards. She doesn’t feel strong. She feels vulnerable… frightened, just like Warden had said he was. And it’s like a loss, like something there is already damaged beyond repair. She shuts her eyes. She is Echo, and she isn’t. Either way, someone who shouldn’t know her face does now, so what they call her doesn’t really matter. It was only ever a wall to hide behind anyway…

  Echo Six is just a name, she tells herself. I did everything she did. And, in the club, that was me… Something stirs inside of her. And before that, with Connor, and Bobby, that was me…

  She is wrung out, but, as she sits there, a new, driving purpose begins to grow; a desire – no, a solid determination – to fix what has gone wrong. Everything that matters to her is at risk now, both sides of her world and the people in them, and it is not okay. And she is angry.

  It is not okay that the Children of Daedalus have taken The Asker – and maybe the others, whoever they are, wherever they are. It is not okay that they have threatened him.

  It is not okay that they have her picture.

  It is not okay that her family is now in danger.

  Echo is just a name.

  It is not okay, what she is going to have to do now.

  Mallory opens her eyes. What she has to do now is something that Echo never would. It’s what she should have done the moment she got that ransom message, but she couldn’t even face thinking it. Enough is enough, though. She goes into the message boards and writes out a new post. It is a simple one, and it will be the last from Echo Six.