Echo Into Darkness: Book 2 in The Echo Saga (Teen Paranormal Romance) (27 page)

When that cuff settled into place, it was as if a switch went on. A tingle lit my nerve endings and my capillaries opened. Without my power, I only felt half alive.

She strung up a donkey next. "Your turn. Do you know pyrokinesis?"

"No."

"Then use whatever you've got."

It never occurred to me to refuse. I didn't know how I'd handle the new life, but the promise of going home made me breathless.

"If you bring your concentration to a point—" Gianna instructed.

"I've got this," I said, waving her off. My energy coiled from my feet upward, spiraled through my belly and into the room. The donkey's middle puffed, growing larger and fatter until the paper began to tear. The donkey splattered with a piercing
BOOM!
and its contents fell to the floor.

"Ooo, prizes," she said with complete lack of expression. She scooped two handfuls of candy.

"Can you at least tell me if Connor is in this building?" I asked.

She cast a cautious glance at the door. Swallowed. Her mouth started to form an answer, and Keenan and Jaxon walked in. She quickly set her jaw in a compliant smile and thrust a candy bar at me. "Twix?"

"No," I answered in a ragged breath.

"Yes," she said firmly, pressing the chocolate into my palm. She touched me for a beat longer than necessary. She was answering my question.
Yes. Connor is in the building.

Elation rippled through my chest.

"How did it go?" Keenan asked Gianna.

"She doesn't know pyrokinesis but she can ball her telekinesis and expand the energy just fine. I'd say she's ready for Stage Two."

He turned to me. "Gianna is quite something, isn't she? She's one of my best Coercion Agents."

"Thank you," she smiled, munching on a candy bar. "I've got a quiz in third period English, so…"

"Roth will give you a ride back into town," Keenan said.

I watched her go, trying to imagine slipping into my desk at school, carrying around a secret that threatened to bury me alive. Today, Gianna seemed more or less at peace with her life. I wondered what had made the girl snap, what had driven her to nearly jump to her death. Wondered if my future would end on that same bridge.

That tipping point lay in Connor's life. If anything happened to him, it would permanently stain my every breath, my every heartbeat. I wouldn't be able to live. I focused on passing their tests. If they allowed me to go home, Carina could locate me with the portal. Then I'd tell Connor's dad where his son was, and he would send a rescue team.

"You want my advice, skip all the low level tests. She's got what it takes to be Class A," Jaxon said.

"Class A isn't only about skill, it's a mentality." Keenan tilted his head, considering me from a new angle, wondering if I had what it took to become a psychic assassin.

"McCabe thought she was special. Let's find out why." Jaxon coiled a section of my hair around his finger. I swatted it away.

"Don't touch me," I hissed.

"Like you have a choice. You'll do as I say."

In the snap of a whip, Keenan's flat blue eyes grew dull and hard. The hostile look he flashed at his foster brother sent a shudder radiating down my spine.

"Perhaps Echo is Class A material." Keenan turned to me. "When you use your telekinesis, your aura grips the edges of the object that you're moving. Did you know that?"

"No."

He placed two fingers over Jaxon's windpipe. "Apply that pressure here," he ordered.

Jaxon brushed his brother's hand away. "Get one of the soldiers in here. I'm not her guinea pig."

"Do it, Echo."

"But—"

"Remember what Jaxon tried to do to you at his apartment? How did that make you feel? Did you enjoy being overpowered?"

I balled my fists against my thighs. I knew what he was trying to do, and it was working. Hot pinpricks assaulted my fingers and embedded under my nails.

"Knock it off, Keenan." Moisture broke out on Jaxon's upper lip.

"This is your test, Echo. Will you pass? Or fail?"

Jaxon watched wide-eyed as I settled my gaze on him, wondering the chance I would follow through with this order. But he wasn't stacking up the lies he told. He didn't see himself as a traitor.

I wrapped energetic fingers around his throat and pressed. He let out a single gurgle. His hand went to his windpipe.

"Keep going," Keenan said.

Jaxon's brows strained against his hairline. He struggled to inhale.

"Harder. Do not let go until I tell you to back down."

I squeezed, watching my target's knees weaken. An unfamiliar warmth cascaded down my back and my throat opened. It was as though I took pleasure in harming him. I did, I decided. Revenge gave me a satisfying rush.

Jaxon staggered and his liquid chocolate eyes landed on mine. The hostility and cockiness that seemed to anchor his personality slipped away, and for a fleeting second, I saw inside him. I saw beyond his façade, beyond his daily struggle for recognition and power. Right before my eyes, his face seemed to melt and reappear as a frightened young boy, exposing a life filled with weakness and vulnerability.

Something inside me clicked. The Jaxon I knew came into focus again. His lips were turning blue. He pleaded for release with his eyes. I did not know what had happened to turn him into a beast and traitor. Making him suffer would not fix anything.

Despite Keenan's order, I released him. He took a long, broken inhale.

Keenan watched this, puzzled and amused. "Why did you stop? Jaxon turned you over to us. Doesn't that make you furious? Don't you want him to feel the pain that he caused you?"

"What would it change?" The edge was gone from my voice. "If I got revenge like you wanted and suffocated Jaxon, would what difference would it make? Would you let Connor and I go and leave us alone for the rest of our lives?"

"I think you know the answer to that question."

I did. Keenan would never give us up, not like that. I could not help wonder, though, given the chance, would I trade someone's life for ours? If he
did
offer our freedom in exchange for ending someone's life, someone who caused mass pain and misery without conscience, what would I choose?

Two days ago, the answer would have been no. Today, imprisoned and facing a future filled with agony, I was not sure.

"Do you know what Class A is, Echo?" Keenan asked.

I did, but I shook my head passionately. "I can never be a psychic assassin. I won't do it. Put me in any of the other classifications."

"We'll see."

Chapter 32

My hairbrush hit the wall with a thud, then the bedside clock, a stack of leather-bound books, and my dinner fork. When I ran out of things to throw, I ripped the sheets off my bed, yelling and cursing and calling Keenan every name I could think of.

Submission did not suit me well.

My fury extended to my dad and Kimber. They were supposed to protect me, supposed to be smarter and stronger and keep me out of harm's way. Why hadn't they seen that something was wrong in my life? Why hadn't they forced me to tell them about my ability and the madness I was slowly descending into?

This was unfair, I knew. I hadn't trusted them enough to tell them what I was going through. I couldn't expect them to protect me from things they knew nothing about. None of that mattered as I whipped the lamp onto the floor and yanked the curtains from their rods.

I'd turned my room, my cage, into a disaster zone, but I didn't feel any better. I'd gotten a whole lot more satisfaction when I was able to telekinetically rip my room apart. Sometimes, after one of my outbursts, I felt cleansed. Now the rage continued to pool in my bones.

A cold platter of food sat on the small table—a baked potato, still in its tinfoil wrap, broccoli, and steak neatly cut into bite-sized pieces so I would have no need for a knife. I whipped the potato against the wall, and then immediately regretted it. I'd refused lunch and my stomach cramped from hunger.

Pretty much everything I'd thrown had slid behind the dresser. Cursing some more, I pulled the heavy furniture forward and reached behind it for the potato and fork. My cheek was squished against the wall, my fingers playing with the fork tines, when I noticed words etched into the back of the dresser.

John Bardo was here.

So was Elsie Cardon.

Doug Laramie

Gianna Peretti

I laid my hand on the wood over their names. Its firmness reassured me, gave me a sense of permanence when my life felt so very fleeting. Maybe that was why they had scratched their names into the grain, to leave proof that they existed, that they once walked this planet, even if Keenan was to decide they had no place at Feller Industries. No place in this world.

I debated carving mine beneath Gianna's and then decided against it. Adding my name to the list of Keenan's victims was the same as giving in.

*******

The noises you hear when you are half-asleep always seem exponentially louder than they really are. So when the deadbolt on my door clicked in the dark of night, it echoed like a stick of dynamite in my head.

My eyes flew open. I strained to see. My ears picked up light footsteps and lighter breathing. I froze, groggy and indecisive, while ugly possibilities raced through my head. What if Jaxon came to take what he hadn't gotten at his apartment? Or was it one of the soldiers, coming to finish me off?

Someone's hand settled on my chest and I lashed out with my arms.

"Hey, whoa. No need to get violent." Ivan clicked his flashlight on. The ray of light lit his grotesque face, showing where the burn mark darkened his cheek near his ear and lightened where it ended at the corner of his mouth. His cloudy eye had a translucent cast.

"Just checking to see if you're breathing," he said.

"Why wouldn't I be?" I snarled.

"You don't want to know the answer to that question. It's time to get up."

I slung my legs over the edge of the bed. The rush of adrenaline had left them tingling and momentarily useless.

"Ivan?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you know anything about the guy they kidnapped to get me to come here?"

"What about him?"

"Is he okay?"

Ivan hesitated, and I thought the length of that pause would kill me. "He'll live."

That was all I needed to know. Before his answer could spark my imagination with worry and what-ifs, I asked, "Gianna said I get to leave when I finish a mission. What about my friend? And when do you think I'll get to see him?"

Ivan's eyes shot to the door. We were still alone. "I think Keenan's waiting to see how you do. What your flaws are and all that. Or if you need motivation."

"I'm motivated! I'm doing everything they're telling me to."

He sighed. "Get dressed. You're expected in the testing center." He lit a path back to the door.

"Wait. Who are…John Bardo, Elsie Cardon, and Dan Laramie?"

Ivan stopped and looked over his shoulder at me. "Doug Laramie. How do you know those names?"

"I'm psychic," I sneered.

"Everyone knows you're not," he said without malice.

"Who are they?"

"They were recruits like you."

"Are they alive?" The question seemed reasonable in an environment like this.

"All but one." His voice was soft, and I had to lean in to hear. "Did Gianna say something to you?"

Interesting. He had come up with the one name I hadn't told him.

"I overheard someone talking about them."

"Not here, you didn't. Nobody would have mentioned those kids, so you'd better get your story straight."

Ivan gave me a muffin to eat on the way to the training center. It might have been early, but the tower was bustling with people. A somber group of kids left the center when we went in.

Keenan met us with a bright smile. "Good morning, Echo."

Yeah, whatever.

"You said I could see Connor if I did your tests. I want to see him now."

From the corner of the room, someone laughed.

"Is that her? Making demands already?" Luma, the tattooed girl that Jaxon had gone out with, sat on the weight bench. A large barbell rested across her knees. She puffed out her cheeks as she exhaled, the way she would if she were physically lifting a heavy load, but she was using her mind to raise the barbell. I'd seen guys bench-press that much weight, their shirts soaked from exertion. Luma didn't sweat a drop.

The barbell clanked to the floor and she slunk to us with feline grace. Her black gym tights and tank top curved over a sleek, toned physique. A studded collar glinted around her neck. She was older than I'd first thought, eighteen or nineteen. Her smile was radiant, and I swear she'd polished those collar studs to bring out their shine.

"Luma, this is Echo," Keenan said.

The girl raised a copper-colored eyebrow as she circled me. "So this is the one from the skatepark."