Echo (Black Lotus #2)(76)

I’m helpless sitting here, not knowing where she is or what that f*cker is going to do to her or has done to her. Never have I wanted to save someone as much as I did when I believed her to be Nina. I would’ve done anything for her, and I did. My love for her was so strong that I never thought twice about turning myself into a monster too—for her.

As much as I hate her, as much as I want to hurt her, as much as I wish I’d never met her, I can’t walk away from someone I love so deeply that she’s in my marrow.

The girl is crazy and out of her mind, and for wanting her, I am too. Nothing can deny the force that pulls me to her, even in my most wretched thoughts, I’m still drawn to her.

“McKinnon!” Lachlan shouts. “Get your ass down here. Let’s go!”

Flying down the stairs, I ask, “What is it?”

“She’s in Edinburgh. The location of the car isn’t a pinpoint, but it’s close enough.”

“One second,” I tell him before rushing up to my bedroom to grab my gun.

Energy powers through me like lightning as I move quickly through the house, and when I make it outside and jump into Lachlan’s SUV, my heart races out of control.

“Talk to me. Where is she?”

He hands me the phone with the map open, and suddenly, my surge of optimism that we might know where she is morphs into dread.

“There’s no way. It’s too populated,” I say.

“It’s all we have to work off of. That’s where the car is.”

“That may be where the car is, but there is no way that’s where he’s got her,” I tell him as I look at a map of downtown Edinburgh.

“Who’re you calling?” he asks when I pull out my phone.

“Her. He’s got her phone.”

After one ring, the call connects, but there’s nothing but silence.

“Tell me where you are.”

My demand is met with a sinister laugh from this dick f*ck, before he responds, “Now why would I tell you that?”

“I have the money you asked for,” I lie.

“Very good, but I don’t want to touch it. I’ll give you the account information you’re to wire the money into. Once I get verification the money has been transferred, I’ll text you the location of wherever I decide to drop the bitch off.”

“I want to talk to her first.”

“I don’t know if she’s in the mood to talk right now.”

“I don’t give a f*ck!” I shout. “Put her on the phone or the deal is off. I can take or leave the bitch, so it’s up to you!” My words, fallacies.

Silence spans before he responds, “I don’t think so. You see, I don’t give a shit what you feel for the girl. I mean, I’m not gonna lie, I wanted to use her as leverage, but she isn’t the only leverage I have on you.”

“And what’s that?”

His next words drain my veins and then fill them with icy fear.

“Bennett Vanderwal.”

Fuck.





“WHAT DID HE say?” I ask timidly after hearing Richard tell Declan that if he couldn’t use me as leverage that he would use Bennett.

“Looks like you were telling me the truth.”

“What do you mean?”

“Seems Declan doesn’t give a shit about you.”

I knew it. I knew that if forced for an answer that I would never be it. And now I sit here, half-naked, beaten, and raped as the last of my heart incinerates into ash.

Go ahead and take a breath now because I’m finally ready to be blown into nothingness.

I now know my lies truly destroyed what I never wanted them to. I knew Declan was conflicted, I felt it in his push and pull, but I hoped there was a piece of him that still wanted me regardless of all my sins.

So I close my eyes, and green meets blue as Declan looks at me the way he did back in Chicago. He will never look at me with adoration as he once did. I ruined it for both of us. Now I’m left with this pain, ripping inside of me. It isn’t the pain of heartbreak though, because I’ve already lost that. My heart no longer exists. And it can’t be my soul, because I’m without that too.

But it’s real, the pain I feel. It comes from somewhere inside of me, a place I never knew I had, and it hurts deep. Hurts in a way I’ve never felt before. It’s so unbearable my body can’t fight it, so it shuts down on me. I’m lifeless, flesh and bone, the weakened muscle inside my chest beating slowly, pumping what I pray is venom into my veins.

I don’t want this anymore.

“What if he’s lying to you?”

Keeping my eyes closed because just hearing his voice is enough to console me, I lie down with my head in Pike’s lap, and he places a soothing hand gently over my swollen face.

“He’s not,” I whisper to him in response. “My destruction went far beyond the capacity of forgiveness.”

“What the f*ck are you talking about?” I hear Richard’s voice bark, but I shut it out and focus entirely on Pike.

Pike is all I want right now. He’s the constant that’s always been in my life. He never turns away from me, never stops comforting me, never stops caring for and loving me.

My face scrunches in despair as I try so hard to hold myself together. “I can’t stop missing you.”