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

rain falling over the parking lot. “We could sit in the car,” he says.

I nod. We stand, and Maverick pays for our food, leaving—I notice—a very generous tip. We climb into his Corolla and he cranks the car, turning the heat on.

“So what’s the plan? How are we going to stop her?” I ask him.

“First, there are a few things you need to know.” He’s all business now, the playful, smirking Maverick left behind in the restaurant the moment I’d flinched at his touch. “Alice has a lot of people working for her. She’s not someone to be underestimated.”

I think of the giant laboratory tucked in the mountains, the guards attempting to halt our escape, the men in the black Suburban who’d kidnapped us. I nod.

“She’s powerful. And dangerous. And because of that, we have to be careful about how we do this. You’ll need to learn some basic self-defense. And carry a weapon.”

A ball of nervousness punches me in the stomach. “A weapon?”

“Yes.” His eyes pierce into mine across the center console. “A gun.”

I take a gulp of air. I’ve never touched a gun before, not even for fun. The thought of having one terrifies me, but what scares me even more is the chance that I might have to use it. “I don’t know… ” I breathe.

“You want to get involved. I don’t want anything to happen to you. So you need to be able to defend yourself in case we run into her. Consider it a compromise,” he says firmly.

“O—okay,” I stutter.

“We need to gather more information before we do anything. I want to know what she’s capable of, what other things we need to look out for.”

“How do we do that?”

“She has a practice here in town. Where she does her… day job, so to speak.”

“What can we find there?”

“She keeps patient records. So we might be able to figure out who she’s been studying. I’m not sure if there’ll be any information about her research and what she’s trying to develop, but it’s worth a try. It’s the safest place to start, I guess.”

I nod.

“I’m going to stake out her office for a few days so I can figure out the best time to sneak in. I’ll let you know when I’ve decided on a time, and we can hopefully get some answers.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” I say. We sit there in the enclosed space of the car, and I wait for him to say something else. But he doesn’t. A heavy silence falls around us, threatening to suffocate me.

I’m starting to get the sense that this conversation is over, but I don’t want it to be. All I want right now is to sit down and talk to Maverick, to learn more about him, about us. But by recoiling at a simple brush of our hands, I fear that I may have snapped the tiny, fragile strings that were attempting to pull us closer to each other. I don’t know how to put them back.

“I guess I better get going,” I finally break the silence.

Maverick looks at me, but his expression is unreadable. “Stay safe. I’ll be in touch soon,” he tells me and I nod, stepping out into the rainy parking lot and closing the door of the car behind me.

✽✽✽✽✽

Soon turns out to be not soon enough, because after a week goes by, I’m convinced that I’ll never get to talk to Maverick again. It disappoints me that he hasn’t called yet, but not because I want to know more about Alice and how to stop her. Actually, it’s Maverick that I’m interested in, and I can’t stop thinking about him. At Louise’s, we’d gone from flirting to cold distance in the blink of an eye. I want that other part of him back, the one that was similar to the echoes of his calm, casual charm and his easy understanding. But after I’d basically freaked out at his touch, he just pulled away. I’m sure he still feels guilty about what he did, but hadn’t we been on the path to moving past it? I’m sure that someday I’ll be able to forgive him, but will he ever be able to forgive himself? I hope so, because now that I know him, all I want is to know more about him, and I can’t do that if I never get to speak to him again.

The commotion in the school parking lot on Friday morning is enough to bury my thoughts of Maverick for a while, though.

First I see Grace, trying to sidestep a boy that’s blocking her path, saying something to her. Then I see Andy and two of his friends leaning against a car a few feet away, laughing. As I get closer, I start to hear what they’re saying.

“Get out of my way before I punch you in the face,” Grace says, giving the boy one of her best death glares.

“Before you what? Go psycho and tell my mom on me?” The boy spits at her feet. “Andy was right, you actually are insane,” he snarls, then steps to the side to finally let her past. But Grace doesn’t move.

“Why don’t you tell Andy to come over here and say it to my face, then, huh? Or is he actually so much of a coward that he has to send someone else to do it for him?” Grace fires back, loud enough for Andy—and everyone in the surrounding area—to hear. I watch as heads turn, and a few people nearby pause to see the showdown.

Andy pushes himself off the car, then walks over to Grace, arms crossed, chomping on a piece of gum. He smiles snarkily. “What do you want me to say? That I love you and want you back? Sorry, sweetie, but in case you didn’t know,