Echoes Marissa Lete (best ereader for students .TXT) 📖

Maverick looks determined to convince me I should stay out of it. “This is big, Laura. This operation she has—it’s not just going to be an easy waltz-in-and-stop-her kind of deal. It’s going to be messy. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

What he doesn’t know is that I’m determined to help anyway. “I don’t care. I want to help.”

We look at each other, eyes fixed in place like it’s some kind of staring contest, and neither of us wants to lose. Part of me knows that what I’m asking for is terrible. Dangerous. But the other part of me knows that I don’t really have a choice, not after learning about Maverick and our shared past, about what Alice has done to him and to others. What she might try to do to me. I’m a part of this, now. I have to be.

Finally, Maverick drops his gaze and breathes one word: “Okay.”

Chapter 26

I pull into the parking lot, my hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. I crane my neck, but it doesn’t take long for my eyes to spot Maverick, sitting on a rusty bench in front of the building.

After our conversation last night, we knew there was more we needed to discuss, but my curfew was approaching swiftly, so we decided to meet up again another time. That meeting was now, right after school on Friday, at none other than Louise’s.

I park the car, then hop out and walk over to him. He stands when he sees me, and I take in the sight of him. He seems to favor dark, simple clothes, because his long-sleeved shirt looks almost exactly the same as the last one I’d seen him wearing, only a few shades lighter.

He opens the door for me, and when I step inside a wall of sound hits me. The jukebox is playing a classic rock tune that almost gets drowned out by the voices of people deep in conversation and by the clinking of dishes throughout the room. None of the noise is from the present, as usual. I follow Maverick to a booth by a window, where we are immediately greeted by Penny.

“Can’t get enough of us, can you?” she says to me.

I throw her my best smile. “Guess not!”

She looks between me and Maverick with a glint in her eye, and I have to squash the blush forming in my cheeks when I realize that to her, this probably looks very much like a date. Technically, we’re meeting up to discuss plans to stop a crazy woman who wants to use Maverick’s memory-erasing ability to kidnap innocent people, but Maverick and I had been together, so I guess it could quite possibly be a date. But I’m still trying to make up my mind about him, so for now, it shouldn’t be.

“Well, what can I get you two to drink?” Penny asks.

I order my usual Cherry Coke and Maverick gets water, and when Penny is gone, he opens his menu. “This is my advice: don’t get the fries. The deep fryer is a little old, and Tony could never quite figure out that he couldn’t just use the preset timer when making them.”

I nod in understanding. “That explains a lot.”

“The onion rings, on the other hand, aren’t too bad when he makes them. But I know you don’t like them.”

It still feels weird, but of course, he would know that, especially after dating for so long. He knows all of these little details about me, yet in some ways, he still feels like a complete stranger since I don’t know anything about him. In another way, however, he feels like the only person who might actually understand me. He knows about my ability, and he even has his own that complicates his life, too. He knows what I’ve been through when I never thought anyone on the planet would ever be able to understand. How could something like that even happen? I let out a half-laugh, half-sigh at the thought.

Maverick raises an eyebrow at me.

“It’s just so weird hearing you say that,” I tell him.

He nods thoughtfully. “It’s weird for me, too. That you kind of remember me, but only bits and pieces, right?” he says gently, like he’s unwrapping a bandage around a wound that might reopen at the slightest amount of pressure.

“I wouldn’t exactly call them memories,” I say. “They’re more like… I don’t know. Like watching a TV show about myself where my life is totally different and it doesn’t seem real, but I know that it is. Except the screen on the TV only has a picture of the place, no characters. Just a setting and then sound.” It’s weird to be explaining the echoes to him so casually. With everyone else I’d ever had to explain them to, I felt like I was trying to convince them I wasn’t crazy. With Maverick, it’s just a simple explanation that he doesn’t even question.

“That is weird,” he agrees, studying me with a look of fascination that makes my stomach do a little dance. “Can you hear them right now? The—what did you call them?”

“Echoes,” I reply. Then, as if on cue, an echo of a baby screaming appears right behind me. “I hear them all the time. Like right now, it was a lot busier in here last year. So there’s music playing, people talking, and someone’s child just started throwing a fit right there,” I point over my shoulder.

Maverick frowns. “That sounds awful. I guess that explains why you never wanted to go places that were very busy while we were dating. And when I did convince you to go, we never stayed long.”

I wonder at the thought. That’s pretty much how I am with Grace and