More Than an Echo (Echo Branson Series)

Copyright © 2010 Linda Kay Silva

Bella Books, Inc.

P.O. Box 10543

Tallahassee, FL 32302

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

First Edition

Editor: Katherine V. Forrest

Cover Designer: Linda Callaghan

ISBN 13: 978-1-59493-219-9

This one is dedicated to my dad, Ron Silva, who let me turn his house into our house, who encouraged me to build the library of my dreams, and who loves up my princess Lucy and makes her tail nearly wag off her body. He’s given me more than a place to park my Harley—he has given me a home filled with love and laughter, frogs and turtles, books and movies, and most of all, a place where I am finally free to be me. I love you.

Moving my life and my family back to California was not easy, but so many wonderful things have happened since we’ve been back. I want to take this time to thank those people who have helped turn California back into our home.

JUGS
(Just Us Girls):
Lil G, Irish, Easy Breezy, and Peligrosa, otherwise known as Gita, Catherine, Julie and Silvia. Riding with you guys brings me so much joy. Thank you for your friendship and support.

JUGS’
men: Rich and Gordon
. As guys go, you two totally rock! Thank you for your acceptance, your friendship, and your willingness to hang with five chicks with uber cool rides!

My daughters
,
Sunnie and Kelley:
Without you here with us, it just couldn’t be home. I am so proud of both of you. You have grown into fine young women who care about social change. Party on!

Paul and Ellen, Riley and Isaac:
As we start a new life, we begin new traditions. Thank you for being part of both. I consider your family an extension of ours.

My cousin Kris:
Thank you, thank you, thank you, for being my friend, and for taking care of Uncle Ronnie whenever we go away. You are truly one of the most giving people I know.

My other cousins, Otis, Katie and Tyler:
For loving me in spite of myself and for laughing with me through this crazy life of ours!

Aunt Cathy and Uncle Richard:
You accepted us when few others did. You’ll never know how much that means to me. You are the kind of Christians who make Christ proud.

My editor, Katherine V. Forrest:
Thank you for whipping me and Echo into shape. I have learned so much from you and have grown as a writer and woman because of it. Thank you for being my taskmaster.

Finally, my partner in crime,
Lori:
It takes courage to ride on the back of a Harley and to watch your daughter and partner jump from a plane. Your incredible courage is surpassed only by your capacity for love and your willingness to let me be me: rider, writer, player, traveler, and…sigh…zookeeper. Thank you will never be enough. Will a convertible suffice? LOL.

Thank you for all you do for me and dad. Without you, we’d be living on burnt toast and pop tarts, and wearing dirty clothes. You’re the best.

Linda Kay and her partner of 13 years have returned to her childhood home in the San Francisco Bay Area to care for her elderly father. There, she has reunited with old friends, met new ones, and fallen in love with her new Harley, Lucky.  She belongs to a women’s motorcycle club, plays on a tennis team, rescues turtles and tortoises, and travels around the world, having recently returned from Egypt. When she’s not Professor Silva teaching Early American and British Literature at a Military University, she is busy working on the third novel of her Across Time Series and her fourth installment of this series. Linda Kay can be found on Facebook and YouTube under Linda Kay Silva, as well as Twitter under iamstorm. She welcomes (and responds to) all email at
[email protected]
.

At the age of fourteen I became what I am today.

It nearly drove me insane.

They say your teenage years are the hardest. Imagine being a teenager and coming into a paranormal power no one believes in and you don’t even know you possess. Imagine being semi-normal one minute and supernatural the next. Imagine what would happen to your world if suddenly you
knew
what everyone around you was feeling. Every one. Every feeling. All the time.

Just imagine.

It was November of my freshman year in high school, and my best friend, Danica, and I were cutting through Mrs. Jorgensen’s creek on our way home. High school had started out great for us. I was in a really nice foster home with two other kids, neither of whom were foster kids. I had been in the home for over a year and finally felt like this one might be the one. Life was good for me. It was even better for Dani.

Danica was a cheerleader and well-liked by everyone. Half -black, half-white, she was considered almost exotic by my new family’s white-bread standards. We both attended a private school in Oakland, where most came from upper middle class white families. When I say most, I mean, I didn’t. I came from foster care. I could have been born in a mansion or a trailer park, but Danica didn’t care. Money and color meant nothing to her because she would never fully be accepted in either community. If the black kids didn’t like her, she just flipped them the bird. If the white kids didn’t like her, she would just flip them two birds. That was the beauty of Danica. She didn’t care who liked her.

Unfortunately for her, on this chilly November afternoon, someone liked her a little bit too much.

That someone had followed us to the creek as we walked and chatted on our way home from school. I’d used the path before without fear or trepidation, so I thought nothing of the pinpricks on the back of my neck as we neared the hole cut open in the cyclone fence.

But as we got closer to the fence, those pinpricks changed into something I had never experienced before. Like a blast of hot air on every nerve in my body, something warned me the person following us wasn’t just using the shortcut; whoever it was carried malicious intentions. I don’t know
how
I knew, but I knew it as surely as if it had already happened. I knew because I could feel it, as if I were wearing his skin.

Stopping just before the opening, I whirled around to face Todd Abrams, a linebacker on our football team. He was wearing the school uniform of maroon polo shirt and khaki pants. He was also wearing a smile much like the wolf must have worn in
Little Red Riding Hood
. I felt that grin before I saw it, and it made me nauseous.

“Hey,” he said, leering at Danica, his eyes traveling up and down her body. He never once looked my way; not once.

I didn’t mind. I was used to being invisible; used to people looking over and around me. What I
wasn’t
used to was feeling as if I were inside someone else’s head. I wasn’t used to swimming in an energy field that felt like static electricity a hundred times over. I have to say…it freaked me out big time.

Blinking several times, I swallowed back a small pocket of bile. Whatever hot blast I had felt, now radiated from my brain down to my fingertips and toes. It was almost as if I
were
Todd. I knew exactly what he wanted, exactly what his intentions were, exactly what he was feeling. They couldn’t have been more real had he whispered them to me. Something weird was going on with me, and if I hadn’t been so afraid of Todd’s feelings, I would’ve been scared to death of what was happening
to me.
My heart raced, my palms were sweaty, my breathing became shallow, and I knew... I
knew
we were in trouble.

“Come on, Dani. We’re going to be late,” I said, never taking my eyes off Todd. My hands were shaking as I reached out to push Danica through the opening before he could get any closer. I could sense his plan through every pore in my body, as if my soul kept jumping from my body to his and back again. It felt creepy and…dirty. When my hand reached out to touch Danica, I suddenly felt
her
emotions as well; it was as if I had leapfrogged from inside Todd to Dani. She was irritated by his interruption. Irritated and pissed off. I felt her emotions as if they were my own, and I had no idea how I was doing it.

It was the first time my powers kicked in and I had no clue what they were or how to stop it.

 But I
did
know one thing: we were in danger.

“Beat it, Todd. I already told you I’m not interested.” Danica casually tossed this out as she had done so many times before to other guys who didn’t quite understand her boundaries.

“Jane,” Todd said softly, looking over at me for the first time. His eyes might as well have glowed red. “Why don’t you scoot along and let me walk Danica home.”

Yes, my real name...the name bestowed upon me at birth, was Jane. Jane Doe. I was born one of many Jane Does that year and actually remained one until my eighteenth birthday when I changed it to something more fitting; something more in line with who I turned out to be. Something which raised its head this very minute.

Fighting back the strange feelings crawling beneath my skin like a bad drug, I tried to shake off the images pinging around my head like a pinball. Was I going crazy? Was there something wrong with me? Could they tell? Danica, bless her heart, was staring at Todd as if
he
were nuts. If she had
wanted
him to walk her home, she would have asked him to. Danica didn’t appreciate
anybody
telling her what to do or assuming they knew what
she
wanted.

The emotions rolling over me were definitely from Todd, and were as palpable to me as the very air I breathed. For a second, I thought I was going to faint from the overwhelming sensations whirling through my mind, confusing me, disorienting me.  It nearly took my breath away.

When I finally, and with great effort, was able to push the emotions away from me, I managed to say under my breath, “Danica. Please.
Go
.” This time, I shoved her with all my might.

Todd took a step toward the hole in the fence and I knew it was now or never. I knew it as if I were standing in his shoes; he wasn’t taking no for an answer. He was going to get what he came here for and if Danica wasn’t going to give it, he intended on taking it.

Without hesitation, I acted. Swinging my extraordinarily heavy backpack at him, I hit him square on the side of the head, knocking him away from the opening and onto the ground. He landed with a whoosh sound forced from his mouth, and was momentarily stunned. Then, with one final push, I shoved Danica completely through the hole.

“Run!” Turning back to Todd, who was lying on the ground holding his bloody head, I lost my mind. I grabbed my heavy geometry book that had spilled from my pack and continued my assault. Straddling his chest, I brought that book down again and again on his face. I couldn’t see where Danica went, but I felt her fear leave as I bashed Todd’s head over and over with my five-pound math book. As he struggled beneath my weight, I felt his lust and arousal transform instantly to anger and rage. He wanted to kill me.

I’m sure he would have, too.

So I kept hitting him. And hitting him.