Blood Echo Read online

  Realizing I was talking a lot, or at least a lot for me, I gave an apologetic shrug and took a token stab at one of the soggy fries on my plate. I didn’t even bother to raise it to my lips. Jade seemed pleased with my answer.

  “I agree, it takes a certain kind of person to be able to find beauty in tragedy, to see light in darkness.”

  Her voice was rich and smooth, velvety. She was obviously American, but I still had no idea where she must have moved from to come here, and it seemed rude to ask. I liked her, though, the way she spoke about the book, the fact she had spoken to me about anything.

  “I like Greek mythology and vampire books.”

  The mention of the V word made my blood run cold with guilt as I offered her what I was sure was a watery smile. I was out of practice with all this, but curiosity drove me to pursue the conversation.

  “Some of the myths are interesting, the stories of all the gods and goddesses,” I agreed with a nod. “I don’t know about the vampire stuff, I prefer to stick with more…realistic things.”

  I had to say it. Somehow, I had to defend myself from the unspoken accusation that I was a liar, that I knew too much.

  Jade Pearce arched one perfectly sculpted eyebrow, and I wished I had never spoken, though her expression quickly cracked into a smile.

  “You think it’s impossible they exist somewhere out there? Or are you just scared?”

  Her tone was even, and unreadable as anything more than just casual chit-chat, curiosity, but it made me nervous. I wanted to get up and leave, to protect my thoughts from this girl who seemed to have an unnervingly accurate feel of them, although I knew it was impossible.

  “I’m not scared. I mean… If they did exist, they’re just people with a specific diet. Some people eat dogs, doesn’t mean every dog should be afraid of a person…” My metaphor was tactless, and it made me cringe, heat crawling up my neck to color my cheeks a little deeper.

  “I… I don’t eat dogs, I love dogs…it’s just…the same thing, you know? I don’t know….” I hoped she would drop it.

  My bumbled answer seemed to amuse her, as she continued to twirl her fork between her fingers with a dexterity that forced me to watch the movement until she spoke again.

  “For my next class, I have politics.”

  Her smile was infectious, and though I wasn’t sure how the watered-down, washed-out politics course the school taught was anything at all to be excited for, I nodded in recognition.

  “Rayne, could you show me the way? I don’t want to be a nuisance, so…”

  I was already shaking my head.

  “It’s right on the way to my English class, it’s no problem.”

  I shoved my book back into my backpack. Eyes followed us, Jade and me, as we began to weave our way out of the cafeteria, the foot traffic only just starting to thin ready for next class. We were polar opposites. She was tall, taller than most of the students we passed, and her perfectly proportioned features and smooth dark hair turned head after head as we walked side by side down the corridor. I was shorter, my long blonde hair twisted into a thick braid, hanging down to my waist, my clothes plain, the jeans and T-shirt that were my regulation school wardrobe meant to draw as little attention as humanly possible.

  Jade lurched beside me. I reached out without thinking, catching her around the arm, as she steadied herself on her feet. My heart was racing and sinking all at once, and my chest felt too tight. The amount of panic propelling my hand forward in that split-second, the aversion I felt to any kind of harm coming to her caught me by surprise. I had known her barely half an hour. My cheeks were flaming on her behalf, but as I looked up at her, she didn’t seem quite as affected by her stumble.

  “Thanks. I’m the clumsiest dancer you’ll ever meet…”

  Even raised to find me over the swell of conversation around us, her voice was still so ethereal, and I thought I could listen to her all day long.

  “You’re in 209, right?” I paused as best I could outside the doorway, though elbows and backpacks continually bumped my back, my shoulder, as bodies continued to push by us. Nobody seemed to run into Jade that way, but Jade hadn’t spent the last four years at the school making herself invisible.

  “I believe I am.” She looked down briefly at the palm of her hand at neat, but smudged, blue scrawl. “Thank you, Rayne, meeting you has been a pleasure.”

  I nodded, trying to keep the heat out of my cheeks—a constant struggle.

  “Me too. I’ll…see you.”

  With one last smile, I left, disappearing back into the crowd, heading toward English, and back toward my invisibility. This month was so full of the unexpected: my lunch companion, my father’s visitors, my visitor… Of course the last one, she was the only thing that stayed on my mind. I settled back into my seat, content to think of her and gaze at the empty chalkboard, as Mr. Wattley talked about the themes in a book I had read close to twenty times already.

  Chapter Three

  THERE WERE A hundred other things I should be doing. Letters were becoming my enemy. Unpaid bills formed a neat stack of doom on the kitchen counter, and I didn’t dare to open any of them.

  My father had kept what little money he had stuffed in a sock down the back of the air conditioning unit in his room, money that was now in my wallet and was lasting fairly well, mostly thanks to how infrequently I remembered to eat. I was holding myself firmly in my regular routine, but such trivial things as food had lost all importance. If my energy wasn’t so consumed by other things, I might have been worried.

  His debit card was there too, along with three shiny credit cards I was sure could help with the bill situation, and probably with sending me to jail for card fraud. So instead of using them, or looking for a way out of this, I headed back to my room for another night of pretending to read when, really, I was just thinking about her.

  The crash that came from downstairs made my blood run cold, icy panic spreading from my chest through every piece of me. The fear was white-hot, and it froze me in place, perched on the end of my bed, a book still in my hands. I knew the sound. Somebody was in the house.

  I had to hide. Call the police. Climb out the window and run screaming to the neighbor, though he smoked so much marijuana I wondered if he would be conscious enough to help. My heart hammered, pounding against my ribs painfully, driven by fear so salient that for a split-second I was lying at the bottom of the stairs again. Then, now—this was the same feeling, waiting to die.

  I had to hide, but my body refused to move, fear-frozen as I heard dragging, staggering footsteps, the crash of a glass breaking in the kitchen. My father. He was my first thought. Somehow, he had survived, somehow, he was back for me now, back to finish what the angel of death had stolen from him.

  My hand covered my mouth with a soft slap. I realized I was shaking, my whole body vibrating with nervous energy dying to pour out of me. I couldn’t let myself scream.

  I had to move.

  Counting down, I waited, ready to bolt… Three, two, one… But still, I didn’t move. Those fumbling footsteps were headed for the stairs, and I tried again. This time, on one, I ran, running for my life, not quietly, just fast, my half-laced sneakers thudding against the carpet as I ran across the hall and into the bathroom. I slammed the door shut and locked it behind me—that was one of the first changes I had made after my father’s death. I looked at the little lock now, the alloy fresh and bright against the faded paint and dirty tile of the bathroom. I silently pleaded it would be enough to save me.

  He was coming. Faster now, desperate, the cadence of his footsteps was all wrong, but he was hurt, I could almost feel that he was hurt, a wounded animal, come to take me down with the last of his strength. I was in the tub, pressed back behind the shower curtain, my shaking hands still clamped over my mouth, and I wanted her. I wanted her to be here again, to save me again, but he was in the hall now, coming for me.

  Six years to die like this. Six years without my mother. I hoped it was fast,
I hoped it didn’t hurt. It was going to hurt—it always hurt. He tried the handle and I shook my head, desperate, as if that had ever stopped him—as if it ever would.

  My little lock was holding fast, my final defiance, and I wished I’d tightened the screws more, bought a bigger one, but it was all I had now. Though the handle turned, the door rattled, it held out for me, keeping me in, keeping him out.

  A blood-curdling scream filled the air. It stole the oxygen from my chest until I tasted the very bottom of my lungs. It pierced my mind and blanched my vision into a muted, faded television scene. I watched the door, the last barrier between us, buckle in on itself until it was broken open.

  It was her.

  I stopped screaming because it was her… She must have chased him away, thrown him aside, perhaps down the stairs, but she was here, and she was hurt.

  Dark hair was plastered to her face, soaked from the rain, clinging to her skin. Her eyes were hollow, and I rushed toward her, because he had done this, he’d done this to her and she had come here for me. I tripped out of the tub, falling painfully on my knees, but I got back up as fast as my adrenaline-hobbled legs would allow—I barely felt them. My stomach seemed to fall through the floor as I came closer.

  She was covered in blood, gashes down her bare arms, chunks of flesh missing from her neck, her legs, and to my horror, a deep crack running down her cheek, almost as if she was made of stone. I couldn’t even find the words to apologize for what he had done. I tasted my own tears as, fear-drunk, I reached for her. To my surprise, she reached back.

  We were kindred flames, opposite poles, and she pulled me to her while I pulled her closer. She was safety. She came in my darkest moments to save me, she followed me silently through the mundane wreckage my life had become ever since she had walked into it. She was my savior, my lifeboat in the cold dark waters I had long since learned to swim in, though I knew I wouldn’t have survived much longer.

  I knew her, I could feel her, her presence made something burn bright in my chest. I ached to speak her name, to taste it on my lips. Cold fingers locked around my wrist in a vise grip, dragging me forward, closing the last of the distance between us.

  What happened next should have surprised me, but it didn’t. Life hurt, the things I loved hurt me, and by now, I was sure I loved her somehow. I needed her; she was the only thing I had left.

  The way she yanked my wrist upward sent pain searing through the joint and down my fingers. The bones breaking, twisting and tearing as they grated over each other, was audible to me. It only got worse as I fell to my knees, still looking up at her, at the sunken dark eyes that were nothing like those from my dreams.

  I cried, pleading silently. She wasn’t supposed to hurt me. She wasn’t supposed to be hurt like this… She fell when I fell, and we struggled for just a moment. She was stronger, unnaturally strong, and as soon as she twisted my wrist back up to her mouth, lunging for me sloppily, everything went quiet, still.

  I sobbed, my breath hitching, my chest jerking, tears wet on my cheeks, soaking my ashy pale hair as it splayed on the tile around me, though the action was losing momentum. I felt young again, six years old, finally giving up the fight to uphold the tears when my mother soothed me.

  Where her mouth connected haphazardly with my wrist, there was a dull ache that intensified as, with a dragging sensation, she drew more from me. Then, like the tide, the drag stopped, and I was able to catch my breath. This was what she needed, I could tell, and that feeling filled me up, beyond my broken bones, beyond the strange pull or the way my fingers were alarmingly cold.

  She was here, looking at me, and I stared back at her, my cheek against the cold hard tile of the bathroom floor, while she half lay, half crouched beside me. Tears were still falling, though my breathing was evening out, and they felt like relief, like the first rain after a scorching dry summer.

  Her mouth wasn’t flush against me, but I knew she was drinking my blood. Somehow, the knowledge didn’t scare me. I lay there anesthetized by her presence, a silent audience as her mismatched eyes regained their brilliant colors and began to dance for me. She watched my face intensely, emitting soft little noises of approval into the silence, now and then.

  I flinched when it was over. The way she jerked my broken wrist away from her mouth hurt, but I didn’t make a sound. My hand hung limply in her grasp, and I studied the odd angle at which my fingers hung in comparison to the rest of my arm. Everything started to move, the room around her, the colors in her eyes, one green, one brown, and I was dizzy and sick.

  I tried to cling to the present, to her, watching as she raised a finger to her mouth and pressed hard against a spot on my wrist that stung like a tiny speck of fire. I wanted to ask her what she was doing, but I couldn’t find the words, so I continued to watch, trying to cling to consciousness. Brilliant eyes were studying my ruined arm intensely, and her face was half veiled by her long dark hair as she leaned forward and gave the limp limb in her grasp a soft shake. The pain the motion caused made my stomach roll; I grit my teeth so as not to interrupt whatever seemed to be fascinating her so.

  Then I screamed.

  In one swift motion she jerked my hand up straight, and again I felt it, the bones grating against each other as she snapped the joint back straight and held it there, though I tried to pull away.

  Pain. It swallowed me up, and I twisted and writhed, trying desperately to escape her iron grasp, but she held me still. Her breath smelled of whiskey, and that surprised me. What surprised me more was she gazed at my face now, though I was too delirious to really look back at her, to decipher her expression.

  “Stop.”

  It was a single word, a single command, undeniable, and in spite of myself, I did. My shoulders lifted rhythmically from the floor under the force of my breathing. It still hurt, but I tried to stay silent, the pain squeezing tears down my cold cheeks.

  The only sign of approval she gave was a small nod, yet she watched me intensely. I looked at her, struggling to breathe and remain still.

  By the time I noticed the pain subsiding it had let up substantially. She hovered over me now. For the first time, I could really take her in. Her face was almost impossible to read, though I sensed she was uncomfortable, or at least thought I did, but what did I know about her?

  She was so different from the single dimensioned thing she had become in my dreams, so vibrant, so vivid, and so intense as she loomed over me. Her presence alone was enough to rob me entirely of my voice. I knew I wouldn’t be able to speak to her, even if I had the nerve to try.

  Eventually, she lowered my arm to rest against the cold tile, and although it ached, the horrible burning was gone.

  “Don’t…”

  My voice was too pitchy, too laden with panic as I called out. Immediately she began to get up. She had just come back to me, and I wasn’t ready to let her leave again, not yet, not until I had answers, maybe not even after. Her presence was a drug now, and I craved it, I wanted her to stay, to remain close to me, and somehow, I sensed we needed to be near each other.

  Bloodied black patent heels were sleek and shining, close to my head, and I studied them for a second before I looked back to her face. She seemed to be considering, her galaxy eyes tumultuous, and I felt the war inside her. I desperately wanted her to stay, but I didn’t dare to ask her again.

  The way she lowered herself down beside me was slow, repentant, and I waited, my heart hammering in my chest; although I was unsure, I wasn’t afraid. The pads of her fingers skirted across my stomach as she slid her arm around my waist. She settled her head on the tile, and I turned mine so I could look at her face. All I tasted was the whiskey and iron on her breath.

  Dark eyes looked back at me. All the wounds were gone now, her skin was flawless, though still stained with blood. I reached up without thinking, the fingers of my good hand running over where the crack in her cheek had been. To my surprise, she leaned into the touch and pressed her body closer against mine.

/>   For a split-second, the gravity of the situation dawned on me. I was here, and she was holding me, the woman who I was sure had just broken my arm, who had killed my father. I didn’t care. Her embrace was cool, but it filled me up, and as the adrenaline subsided, I found myself breathing easier than I had in a long time.

  There was no denying she was terrible, my blood still drying at the corners of her lips; but with her, I was safe.

  We lay like that for a long time, my legs numb from lying on the floor, but when I finally let my mind drift from trying to soak her in completely, I flexed my fingers and realized my broken arm didn’t hurt at all.

  “You fixed me?”

  My whispered words sounded like gunshots in the silence, and it felt strange to be so nervous to speak to the woman who held me so intimately, unlike anything I had ever experienced.

  “I broke you…”

  Her voice was black coffee and dark chocolate, rich and smooth, low and heavy. I shook my head, even though what she’d said was true. She ran her tongue over her lips, and I sensed the moment to talk had passed.

  Butterflies danced on the edges of my ribs and tumbled down into my stomach when she reached up to touch my face. I lay very still, afraid to break the moment, afraid to do anything but savor it. The pads of her fingers were cool against my skin, not unpleasant, but definitely tepid, as they ran over my cheek.

  Questions loomed, threatening to spill from my lips and ruin this moment, but I held them at bay. The intensity with which she watched me scared me, and it made me feel alive, visible, and for once, I didn’t mind.

  One cool hand cupped my cheek, and she looked at me as if I was her most precious possession. I wondered silently if this was what love felt like. She cared for me, something was warm in my chest, but it wasn’t my own emotion. Never in my life had I been able to sense someone’s mood like this, to taste what they felt with so few words exchanged—if this was even real outside my head. That thought stung. I wanted her to care for me like I thought she might.