Echo (The Soul Seekers 2)

Xotichl

“Stop the car!”

Auden slams hard on the brakes, arcs his arm toward me, trying to protect me from crashing into the dashboard, but I’m already out the door.

Already seeking purchase with the slick, wet road, before moving to the center of the street where I turn my face skyward, allowing fat drops of snow to fall onto my cheeks.

“What are you doing? What is she doing?” Lita cries, throwing open her door and racing to catch up with me. Her tone instantly switching from reproach to delight when she says, “No. Freaking. Way!” She runs up beside me, as Auden joins me on my other side. “Time to pay up, Auden!” she cries, voice jubilant as she wraps her arms around me and does a little dance as she carefully spins me. “Looks like Xotichl was right—it really is the season of miracles!” She returns me to Auden, freeing herself to skip up and down the street. Or at least I think that’s what she’s doing judging by the surge in her energy, the swish of her feet.

“Hey, flower, looks like you got your Christmas wish after all. I promise I’ll never doubt you again.” Auden’s lips find mine, his kiss reverent and sweet. Breaking away when he says, “So, why are you crying?”

I burrow deep into his arms, bury my head in the hollow of his neck. Seeking comfort in his strength, his scent—unwilling to speak the words aloud, make them any more real than they are in my head.

Unwilling to speak the horrible truth that lives deep inside me.

This is no ordinary snow flurry.

This is no meteorological inevitability.

Not when it sings like the wind—yet warms like the sun.

Falling from the sky in a rainbow of hues—accompanied by the most pure and glorious swell of symphony I’ve ever heard.

It’s the sound of angels.

It’s the sound of Daire saying good-bye.

Leaving us this one final gift—the snow as her elegy.

Dace

“Where is she?”

I cast about wildly. The words hardly more than a wet gurgled rasp, but I know that he heard me. Know he understood exactly what I asked.

I can feel him beside me.

Inside me.

All around me.

The boundaries between us now blurred.

We’re connected like never before.

I gaze upon my freak of a twin, now returned to human form, bearing not a single mark—unlike me and the fountain of blood that continuously sprays from my neck.

Pressing a hand to my wound, hoping to stanch the flow, I gather the strength to say, “What the hell have you done with her?”

While the question doesn’t sound quite like it did in my head, the smile that greets me is nothing shy of hideous, telling me he understood every word.

“Little glowing man took her,” he says. “My guess is they’re headed for the Upperworld. A world you’ll never be able to crack. Or at least not now, anyway. They’re a snooty, elitist group. The ultimate country club. They don’t welcome our kind. Still, it’s not like that stops us from trying. I’m desperate to breach it, and I’ve no doubt I will. I hear everything sparkles and glows in those parts—that they have a perfect view of everyone else. I’d really love to see that. Maybe someday, we can.” He shoots me a sardonic look.

I hate his use of we.

Hate that it’s true.

Hate that I was led by my hate.