Echo Into Darkness: Book 2 in The Echo Saga (Teen Paranormal Romance) (15 page)

The smoke thickened and turned black. I got down on my belly to avoid the heaviest of the smoke. It made it harder for them to see me, too, but that wouldn't last long. The Cave was almost empty. When Luma and Roth did not find what they were looking for, they would come in and get it.

I scrambled across the floor, searching by feel for a place to hide. Now, with all the kids gone and from my low vantage point, I could see a sliver of light glowing along the wall next to the supply room. I crawled toward it, pushed through a door, and found myself in Joe's office. I grabbed my coat and slipped out the back exit that we used to dump garbage at the end of each shift.

Cold air chafed my lungs. My chest convulsed. I hacked up and spit out chemical-saturated smoke until I thoroughly grossed myself out.

I called Joe on his cell phone—he made us add his number to our contact list in case we had to make last-minute changes to our shift—and told him in a hoarse voice that I was out of the building and a safe distance away.

"Did you happen to see what started the fire?" he asked.

"I thought I saw one of the machines spark," I answered. "Then the room filled with smoke."

Joe gave me the okay to go home. If the fire department needed any more information, they'd be in touch.

My next call went to Kimber. I asked her to pick me up on a side street two blocks away, using the fire trucks and commotion as an excuse to get away from the Shack.

The few minutes I had to wait for her were agonizing. Roth and Luma hadn't seemed to be at the Smoothie Shack with any purpose in mind. Kids came from all over to hang out and play arcade games. Maybe they got lucky by showing up during my shift. Or—and this possibility shook me to the core—maybe coming to the Shack had been part of a deliberate strategy.

A block away, I spotted Kimber's car slowing at an intersection. In front of it, a black SUV picked up speed and ran the red light. Its front bumper was punched in, like it had been in an accident. The streetlights lit up the faces inside, giving me a flashing glimpse of the driver and copper-haired passenger. It was them. My body quaked when I read the license plate: WEOWNU.

We. Own. You.

*******

WEOWNU. I knew enough about the Mutila now to know that the license plate was a declaration of power. Once they captured you, you were under their control. Completely.

Still, I slept better that night than I had in a long time. I woke up ahead of my alarm, feeling calm. I had given the SUV's license plate information to Kimber, who gave it to Becca's dad, who was going to give it to the police. They were still trying to find out who ran into Becca's car. I hoped that when they tracked down the SUV and looked into its passengers, they'd find a rap sheet full of criminal activity and dump both of them in jail.

I felt looser and lighter than I had in weeks. On the way to school, I couldn't help but notice how the rising sun hovered right above Mount Hood, so that the mountain seemed to balance the bright yellow orb on its peak. The sun's colors washed into the clouds, like they were content to laze away the day there.

The Smoothie Shack news spread through school, like, well, wildfire.

"I hear you had an exciting night." Jaxon met me after first period.

"You don't know the half of it," I said. I told him what had happened.

His brow wrinkled in confusion. "How did they know you worked there?"

"I don't think they did. I think it was a coincidence they showed up. Anyway, I won't be running into them at the Shack for a while. I'm out of a job until they clean up the fire damage."

"So you've got some free time on your hands." He smelled nice, all shampoo and herbal soap. His fingers walked up my throat and settled on a tender spot there. They rose and fell when I swallowed, an uncomfortable sensation. I pulled his hand away. "What are the chances you can get ungrounded so we can go on that date?" he asked.

"I'd say none to none. I might be able to get ungrounded next week?" Kimber somehow found out I was going to sneak out with Jaxon the night he stood me up. She'd made it clear that dating was off limits. But now, with no job to go to, I'd have time to do extra chores. That might earn me points and get me out of house arrest.

"I don't think I can wait that long. You've got study hall last period, right?"

"I do."

"I'm going to skip my last class, and you and I are going to find a dark corner where we can be alone."

"You'll get in trouble," I said, but the mischief in his voice was enticing.

"Trouble suits me just fine." He brushed the hair away from my ear and whispered, "Meet me under the south stairwell."

My belly did a little flip. This was what I'd wanted, right? Alone time with Jaxon, to help mend that lingering ache in my chest. To help erase the memory of a green-eyed boy.

"Sure," I breathed. The no PDA rule was well enforced, though, and really, who wanted to hide out in a stairwell? Ick. "The auditorium will be empty. I'll meet you inside the side door."

I took my seat in Econ as the bell rang. It was Thursday, which our teacher, Mr. Katz, had nicknamed Get Your Goals In Gear Day. Kids called it Don't Get Your Hopes Up Day, because of his outrageous expectations.

"Everyone pull out the personal economic goals you set at the beginning of the year," Mr. Katz said. "Take a good look at the number you wrote down for your ten-year plan."

Kids dug out the worksheet from their folders.

"A million dollars," Lucas said from a back row.

"Two million," Becca said from next to him.

"How are you going to make that much as an archeology major?" Lucas chided.

"I don't need to go to college. Echo and I know where the big money is, right Echo?" Becca flashed toothy grin.

"Not gonna happen, Becca," I replied.

"Good, some of you have a plan. What's yours, Becca?" Mr. Katz asked.

"Oh, Echo and I are going to film a reality show featuring people with superpowers."

"Yep, we've got our investment capital all lined up." I rolled my eyes. She still thought she could convince me to take my 'magicky show on the road.'

"I bet that would be worth a few million, but if that falls through, you can learn something from today's Feature Success."

Mr. Katz held up the current issue of a national financial magazine.

"This man is an example of what you can achieve a few years out of high school."

The man on the cover smiled with one eye closed. His other eye, pale blue and fixed on us, negated any sense of warmth that he might have tried to communicate through the wink. His jawline was as crisp as the crease in his collar.

The man's arms were folded, and one hand rested in the crease of his elbow, where his fingers formed an upside down V.

"Cheesy," one of the kids said. "Who winks for a photo op?"

"And yo, let's flash an upside-down peace sign," said another.

"That's the guy!" Becca shouted and gaped at me.

All heads turned to Becca.

"You've met Keenan Feller?" Mr. Katz asked.

"Oops, my mistake. I thought that was Robert Pattinson," Becca joked.

All the kids laughed.

"Not even close. This man hasn't made his millions by sucking people's blood. Keenan Feller entered the financial market straight out of college and went on to start Feller Industries. He's the richest man in Portland, one of the richest on the West Coast, and he's just ten years out of high school. Think about
that
when you're revisiting your ten-year plan."

Mr. Katz moved on to a chapter in our textbook. Becca waited until his back was turned and flagged me. "That's him!" she mouthed.

"Who?"

She clenched her fists in frustration and signaled that we'd talk after class.

When the bell sounded, Becca flew to the front of the room. She exchanged a few words with Mr. Katz and he handed her the magazine. At my desk, she held up the cover.

"This is the guy I saw with Jaxon near Witch's Castle."

"That Keenan guy? Pfft. Not a chance."

She sucked in her cheeks, irked. I took the magazine and flipped pages until I came to the feature article.

"Mr. Feller owns an island on the Columbia River," I read out loud. "Which is the site of his multi-million dollar business." I skimmed further down the article. "He donated over a million dollars to children's charities last year, started a foundation for education…" I gave the magazine back. "This super-generous money mogul was not in the woods in the middle of the night."

"You're not hearing me.
This
is the guy who was with Jaxon, and the question isn't
if
he was there, it's
why
?"

The accompanying pictures showed Keenan lounging in his exclusive penthouse. The walls, carpet, and all the furnishings were done up in white. Even the chess game on the coffee table matched the interior—the pieces on both sides of the board were white. Dumbest idea ever, I thought. How were you supposed to tell who your opponent was if all the chess pieces looked the same?

In another shot, Keenan leaned against a sleek, expensive, high-end car.

"There's that sign again," I said. His hand formed the upside down peace sign.

"I guess you can get away with looking like a dork when you're ungodly rich. And this explains why they left in a Lamborghini." Off my perplexed look, she added: "That's the car they got into at the trailhead. You said Jaxon had a brother. Maybe it's this guy."

"No way. He would have told me if his brother was a bazillionaire."

I glanced at the classroom clock. Jaxon was expecting me to meet him in the auditorium in a few minutes. I'd spent a good part of Econ thinking about our hook up, but now I was more curious about his late night trip to Forest Park. I wanted to see for myself what was on that trail.

I thought for a moment. Becca had open study hall with me.

"Do you know how to get to Witch's Castle?" I asked.

"I've only been there a hundred times."

"Well I haven't, so grab your car keys, baby, 'cuz I call road trip."

Chapter 18

I texted Jaxon one word to explain that I wouldn't be meeting him in the auditorium:
Tomorrow
.

Okay, I was getting back at him a little bit for sending me that same message a few days ago. I'd accepted his apology, but I couldn't resist. By the time we started driving, he'd responded.
Your loss
. I sighed and tucked my phone in my bag.

If you spread out a map of Portland, you'd see Forest Park as an expansive green section that hugged the downtown perimeter and extended for eight miles into low, rolling mountains. The park got a lot of foot traffic, but because it was large and rambling, it held its share of surprises. In the time that I'd lived in Portland, two different sets of hikers had gotten lost on its miles of thick, mossy trails, and a jogger had stumbled across the long-deceased body of an ex-convict.

Becca wove down residential streets. A few minutes later, we were at the trailhead. The parking lot was shrouded in fog. Rain dripped from sluggish clouds that brooded over the treetops. I zipped my coat up to my neck and hunkered under my hood.

We started down a paved trail, but that soon turned to mud. Where the footing was slick, we held onto branches to keep from sliding down the steep creek bed. The other side of the trail was thick with ferns and ivy. Dead branches clothed in moss reached for us at unnatural angles, like goblin arms plucked from a frightening children's tale. It all added to the feeling that we were treading on cursed ground.

"I used to come up here for Wiccan inspiration, like if I wanted to make a new potion or spell," Becca said.

"You said something about sacrifices being held up here?" I slipped and planted a hand in a mud puddle to break my fall. "Eww."

She helped me up. Her cheeks were flushed, either from the cold or the excitement of the legend she was about to share.

"The story goes that the sacrifices were part of an initiation into a secret society. You had to sacrifice another person to show your loyalty. They used to find dead bodies up here all the time. Dozens of them." Her face lit up. Becca did love a good tale.

I raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, maybe not
dozens
," she corrected. "When I was in sixth grade, they found a couple of corpses up here. They might have been prostitutes or druggies, but I like the other version better."

My heel hit a slick spot and I nearly fell again. "I get it. Nobody in their right mind would come here at night. I'm going back to the car."

Becca took my sleeve to steady me. "We're almost there. See?"

Up ahead, where the trail forked, remains of a stone house nearly blended into the foliage. Its side walls were gone but the end walls stood strong, shaping the building's footprint. The window openings cut into the thick stone reminded me of empty eye sockets, vacant and soulless

She ran up the moss-covered staircase to the arched doorway, made a demon face, and pretended to slash through the air with a knife. Then she laughed and walked into the open-air house.