Echo (Black Lotus #2)(62)

He walks over and sits on the edge of the bed, dropping his head.

“There too much pain in me. There’s so much rage and hate, and I don’t know how to get rid of it,” I tell him. “I’ve been fighting my whole life trying to rid myself of these feelings that won’t ever go away.” I move to sit across the room from him in one of the chairs. “I thought getting rid of Bennett would be what I’ve been needing. That somehow I would feel better about this life, but . . . ” I begin to cry, “I don’t feel better. Nothing feels better. And then I killed my brother, and I’m not entirely sure why, but I did, and I carry that with me every day. I plot revenge and I kill and I fight and I still hate this life. I still hurt and it won’t go away.”

I don’t even realize my eyes are closed and I’m bent over sobbing out my words until I feel his hands on my knees. I open my eyes to see him kneeling in front of me.

“But this hurts too,” I add. “Being here with you hurts me, and as much as I want to hate you for all the ways you’ve been humiliating me and punishing me, I’m scared to leave. I’m scared I’ll never see you again.”

“Was Pike the only one?”

“What?” I question, confused as to what he’s asking.

“You said you kill. Was he the only one?”

I hesitantly shake my head and shock streaks his face.

“How many?”

Closing my eyes, I confess, “Three.”

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters in disbelief. “Who else?”

“My foster parents,” I say when I look back down at him, and his shoulders lax a little.

His hands slide past my knees and grip my thighs with his question, “What happened?”

“Pike and I ran away together, and shortly after, we returned one night with a friend of his, and . . . ”

“I want to know everything,” he demands harshly. “I want to know how those f*ckers died.”

“Pike and his friend, Matt, they tied them to the bed and dumped a couple containers of gasoline on them,” I say. “I remember standing there, watching them scream and flail around, trying to break free. Matt handed me the match like it was a gift, wrapped in the most delicate silk bow, and it was. When I struck that match and threw it on that bed, it was the greatest gift anyone had ever given me,” I cry. “Those sick f*cks destroyed every piece of me. But here’s the really sick part, as happy as it made me to kill them, it still wasn’t enough. It’s never enough, Declan, because I’m still so alone. I still feel worthless and disgusting, and all I ever wanted was the one thing Bennett took away from me. I miss my dad.”

Declan pulls me out of the chair and onto the floor with him as I lose myself to the emotions I’m so used to caging up. He cradles me in his arms, gathering me up completely, and pressing me tightly against him.

“I miss him so much. It hurts so bad. But then I met you. And it took me a while to see it, to see how I felt about you because I’d never experienced that feeling before. I’d never loved like I did with you, never opened myself up like that. And when I look at you, I see parts of my dad in you. The way you’d comfort me and love me. No one has ever given me that.”

“What about Pike?”

“He was my brother. It was different. With you, I finally felt like I had a home. But I knew I had destroyed our love from the beginning. I knew we never had a chance.”

“But that didn’t stop you.”

“I was selfish. I knew that no amount of time with you would suffice to make it easier for me to walk away.”

His eyes only take a second to scorn. The flip is instant, like it always is with him, and I know what set him off when he spews, “But you did walk away.”

I don’t know what else to say, so I plead for penance in the absence of words. And as we sit, his touch on me fades as his animosity breeds. It stirs in the reticence between us, and I know our expiration date is near.

The awareness that we have this death sentence over us makes me want to do two things, but I don’t know which one to choose.

Do I run away, or do I stay and watch us die a painful death?





I’VE BEEN DRIVING around the countryside trying to find the house the old lady at the Water Lily told me about. I was able to track Nina down once I found out she was going by Elizabeth Archer again. Made my life a little easier, and when I found out where she was staying, I was grateful when the owner was forthcoming about where I could find her. She never doubted me when I lied and told her I was Elizabeth’s uncle and had been trying to get in contact with her.

I had to laugh to myself because when Bennett had me follow her not so long ago, she was the easiest little thing to trace. And now, exactly as I thought, she’s with the same bastard she was with back in Chicago.

But now, I’ve wasted the light of day because this f*cking town isn’t very considerate with street signs. I round yet another bend in the road with no houses in sight. I slow down, peering out the window, when my headlights catch a small plaque on a stone wall, and it’s then I see gates. Slowing more, the sign reads what I was told it would: Brunswickhill.

“Checkmate,” I mutter under my breath as I kill the headlights and pull up to the gate.

Stepping out of the car, I look up the steep hill, but can’t see anything in the dark. No lights. Nothing.