Echo Into Darkness: Book 2 in The Echo Saga (Teen Paranormal Romance) (19 page)

He seemed to pick and choose his next words. "And I think the Mutila destroyed my foster family. Everyone except my foster brother was killed in a car accident while I was living in West Region."

"Oh, Jaxon." I didn't know what else to say.

"The more I think about the strange meetings my foster dad held—the kids in the garage, the levitating ball—I'm almost sure he was one of their soldiers. I want to find out for sure."

"What are you going to do if you find out he was?" I finally said.

"Nothing, probably. I just want to know."

This was way more than I was ready to take in. If Jaxon was right, his father was responsible for some horrible crimes.

"Did you get Luma's last name?" I asked.

He hesitated. "Uh, Van Astor."

I wrote this down next to Keenan's picture. Wild thoughts raced through my head. When I first started my hunt, I wanted to be able to identify the dangerous people so I could stay clear of them, stay safe. Now I wanted to expose what they were doing and bring it out to the public. Names were a good start but I needed proof of their crimes, of the pain they were causing.

He watched me scribble notes on the dog-eared magazine. "What are you going to do with that?"

I got to my feet and gave him a kiss on the forehead. "Good things. Thank you for your help."

I scoped the cafeteria for Becca. She was seated at the jocks' table, her tiny figure scrunched between Lucas and a linebacker for the football team. I tapped her on the shoulder.

"Nice bodyguards," I joked when she squeezed out of her spot.

"Are you still freaked out about last night?"

"Nope. You?"

She twisted a lip. "Nah. A little bit. I mean, it's not like we saw anyone get murdered."

Not this time
, I almost said.

"I want to go back to the house tonight. If they're there, I'm going to get a video of their license plates and whatever they're doing in that room."

"Uhhhhhh….I don't think I want to do that," Becca said slowly. "I mean, it was cool to see that one time, but…why not ask Jaxon to take you? I bet he'd go."

I thought up an excuse why he wouldn't be part of this. "No. He's got his hands full."

She got very quiet. "Do you think the girl is okay?"

"As long as she does what she's told. That could change at any time."

She picked nervously at a hangnail. "I'll think about going back, all right?"

I answered with a nod. All I needed was footage. That, along with Keenan Feller's name, would be enough to take to the police. The bell rang and I dumped my lunch in the garbage. I'd been too excited to eat.

*******

Trigonometry class started off with a quiz. I whipped through it, sure of my answers, and turned it face down on my desk. I savored this small sense of accomplishment. The simple things were important to me now—sitting among my classmates, hearing my pencil scroll across the quiz paper, watching Ms. Fullner sit peacefully at her desk—because over the next few days, my life was going to change drastically.

I'd come to the decision that I was done hoarding secrets. One after another, I'd taken the hard truths about my life—my paranormal gifts, my relationship with Connor, my uncertain future—and stuffed them into an invisible backpack that I carried everywhere. The weight had become crushing. The closer I got to revealing the Mutila and their criminal acts, the more confident I became that it was time to reveal the truth about me, too. Not to everyone, of course. The planet wasn't ready for
that
. But my dad deserved to know.

I would show him the telekinesis first, then levitation. Then, assuming he didn't suffer a stroke, I'd lay out what I knew about the criminal secret society. Giving the police an anonymous tip didn't seem like the right approach anymore. I had to do more. My dad would know what to do with the evidence I'd gathered.

One by one, the rest of the kids finished their quizzes.

"Time's up," the teacher said. "Please hand your papers to the front."

Most of the kids did as they were told, but there was a holdup in the far row.

"You too, Gianna. Stop writing and turn your quiz in," the teacher pressed.

We all craned our necks to see who was going over the time limit. When I spotted her in the back row, I gasped so loudly the boy next to me said, "You all right?"

The girl who was slow to finish her quiz felt me staring. She gave me a subtle, sideways glance and her face went dead. It was the girl from the bridge. The girl from the house last night.

Chapter 22

I recognized Gianna from two of my first semester classes. If I had felt her aura then, when I was a paranormal rookie, I wouldn't have been able to separate it from the stew of fitful teenage energy. Not that it mattered, because this girl was an expert at cloaking her aura. From where I sat, I felt none of the dread that slowly crept over her delicate features.

Her desk at the opposite end of the room had been empty most of spring semester, making me think she rarely attended class. Gianna had nearly mastered the art of invisibility. She sat in the back, staying low in her seat. Never made eye contact. Never spoke a word. Dark clothing, mousy hair and a bland, expressionless face made her anonymous among the thousand-plus student body.

She might have gone unnoticed the entire semester, but for one mistake. She had not conformed when the teacher asked for everyone's quizzes. She became visible. And looking at her now, there was no question she was the one I'd seen on the platform.

The bell rang and I cut her off at the door.

"Gianna…"

She shoulder-checked me, and released her aura into mine. Her grief and ache nearly flattened me.

"Wait. Please," I said. She hurried into the sea of students.

"Stay away," she hissed when got near.

"I just want to talk." I put my hand on her shoulder. Big mistake. The rage in her eyes ran so deep, I thought she was going to throw a punch. Her aura leaked misery, deliberately making me feel sick.

"I wanted to see if you're okay. I saw you at the house last night with the men in masks," I said.

She tilted her head, as an animal might if it were trying to process human language. A twinge of distress pinched my gut; her body language was so feral.

Gianna grabbed the front of my shirt and shoved me into the janitor's alcove. Kids jumped out of our way. Someone yelled "Girl fight!" but nobody tried to stop us.

"You saw nothing. Get it?" she spat.

When I tried to push her off, her sleeve slid to her elbow. A red scar starting at her wrist ran the length of her forearm. I sucked in a breath.

"You're the one who left a note in my locker, aren't you? You were trying to warn me," I said.

"You have no idea what you're getting into," she sputtered. "You're nosing around like you're invincible and you're not."

"I know about Keenan and Luma. I'm going to tell my dad and I'm going to the police."

She gawked at me as if I'd crawled out of a cradle. I yanked the crumpled magazine out of my folder and pointed at Keenan's picture. "He was at the house with you last night, wasn't he? Was he the guy behind the gold mask?"

Gianna began to tremble. "You're s-so n-n-naïve. You can't
stop
him. He's into everything, like a-a-a disease. He forces people to work with him. That's what you saw last night. You think those men w-w-wanted to be in that room with Keenan?"

Her eyes jumped to the ceiling, to the wall behind us. Was she afraid we were being watched?

"You want to know how d-d-deep this runs? Forget Keenan and his soldiers. Forget your tiny existence."

She ripped the magazine from my hand and thrust the cover in my face.

"See what he's doing?" Gianna replicated the two-fingered gesture, the upside down peace sign.

"It's a calling card to his soldiers and agents, and a warning to anyone who tries to resist him.
Here I am, in front of everyone, gaining more and more power, and nobody can do a thing about it.
" Her breath was hot against my cheek. "The symbols are everywhere, but do you think anyone notices? People cruise through life with their eyes wide shut."

The whites of her eyes grew comically large. The girl sounded insane. My fear started to drift and was replaced by doubt.

"Okaaaay, where do you see these symbols?" I asked carefully.

Gianna flipped to another article, nearly tearing pages as she did. Her finger landed on a photo of a local music star who recorded top ten singles and platinum albums. The singer flashed a million watt smile, and rested two fingers over her closed left eye.

"Keenan owns her. She's not paranormal but she will do anything he tells her to. Her handler is on the set, making sure she flashes the sign. Movies, music videos, politics, everywhere in the U.S. He's gotten to the police. The mayor." Her hand flitted through the air. "It's all right in your face. Keenan is behind the scenes, enslaving gifted people to take control. First Portland, then the state and then the region and then the country. And they all do this," she stabbed at the picture, "to flaunt their control."

My mouth hung open. I didn't know what to say.

"You don't believe me," she said.

"I…am trying to. It's a little…" I searched for the right word.

"Crazy? Yeah. Thanks."

"I didn't mean it that way."

"If you don't believe me, then it's easy for you to walk away."

What she said was difficult to conceive, almost impossible. But Connor had alluded to the exact same scenario—factions working behind the scenes to assert control over the country's population. Eventually, they would control the eastern portion of it.

Gianna read my hesitation as resistance, and she seemed to come to a decision. As she leaned away, her aura broke free and hammered me full force. It jabbed me in the stomach, landing a thrusting blow that barreled through my intestines and into my backbone. I doubled over from the pain.

"This is how my life feels, and it's all because of
them
. Is this what you want?" she spat.

I needed my breath to answer. I had none.

She lowered her voice. "I pretend you don't exist even though I know what you can do. If you go to the police, Keenan will make it worse for you. If he finds out I know about you and didn't turn you in, he will hurt me. Then he will find you, and you will feel like
this
for the rest of your life." Her aura wrenched me harder. "That doesn't have to happen, you know. If you hide your ability and mind your own business, they might stop looking for you." She released me. "Don't talk to me ever again. Don't even look at me."

I exhaled short puffs of air. "Why haven't you turned me in?" I asked before she could leave.

Her despair parted, a tiny smoke ring of an opening, and behind it, a sliver of optimism. "Somebody has to fight them. You could, if you live long enough."

She scurried into the packed hallway, taking her tortured energy with her. A full minute passed before I was able to stand upright.

I took a long look at the picture. Wondered how one man could spark terror in so many people.

Gianna was risking her life by sparing mine, which put me in a precarious position. There was no way I could have known that doing the right thing—investigating, reporting the Mutila to the authorities—was worse than doing nothing at all. By going after Luma and Keenan, I was betraying her.

The night I stopped Gianna from jumping to her death, she told me there was no way out, that the soldiers would eventually find me. Now she thought they might stop looking for me. I wondered what had changed her mind.

Her terror and rage clung to my skin like an oily film. I was desperate for a shower. Before I could go home, I had one more important conversation to cover.

"I want us to take a break," I told Jaxon when I found him in the parking lot after school.

"Are we breaking up? Shouldn't we actually start dating first?"

"No, it's this whole Mutila thing. I'm not going to do it anymore. I found the girl who was on the bridge and…we're getting in too deep."

"Is she okay?"

I shrugged. What qualified as okay? "She's not dead."

"And you're going to…what? Go back into hiding?"

"She said I'd be safer that way. We need to stop looking for them. Now."

He looked at me as if he preferred not to go down that path. "What if I want to keep going? Without you?"

My brow furrowed. Gianna's warning hadn't included Jaxon. But still. "I don't think it's a good idea."

"I want to find out what my foster dad did in the Mutila," he said.

I held my palms between us. I had to draw a line. "Do whatever you want, but if you're going to keep looking, then we can't spend time together."

Jaxon was still. "Why should it matter as long as you're not the one digging around?"

"You're a direct link to me."

"So I have to choose." That sarcastic smile that I expected never materialized. For once, he was taking me seriously.