Echo (The Halo Series Book 2)

by Melody Robinette

  Her neck hurt.

  Really bad.

  Maybe it was from the awkward angle at which she’d been sitting or the whiplash from the earlier bus wreck.

  But as Aurora’s eyes fluttered open, a sharp pain ran from her neck down her left side.

  Given the chaos of the past few days, it took her quite a bit longer than it should have to realize where she was. Partly because she couldn’t remember ever coming here in the first place.

  Ignoring the shooting pain in her neck, she scanned the area, slowly processing her surroundings.

  She was in a moderately sized, white-walled and spotlessly clean bedroom. The only furniture was the bed on which she lay and a large red armchair in the corner. Noticing a crack that ran through the ceiling in the shape of Florida, Aurora’s eyes grew wide.

  She’d been in this room before…many times.

  It had been different back then—more furniture and messier—but this was definitely the same room. It was a place she’d often visited in her nightmares.

  Moving to get out of the bed, Aurora realized each of her hands were tied to the solid iron bed frame. A steadily building panic rose in her chest, and she tugged at the bindings on her wrists, a soft metal mesh cutting into her skin.

  Unable to stop herself, she let out a shout of frustration.

  The last person she wanted to see stepped into the room. Pale skin. Straight, dark hair. Burning eyes of ice.

  “Don’t make me gag you again, little lamb,” David murmured.

  “I’m not a fucking lamb.”

  A maddening smile painted its way across his face. “Well, you don’t exactly look like a lion right now, do you?”

  “I’m not an animal,” she spat. “I’m a Halo, and I’m going to murder you.”

  “No, I don’t believe you are.” David moved from the threshold to the red armchair in the corner, sinking into it and leaning lazily back, as if he were watching an entertaining television show rather than tormenting a prisoner.

  Coming to the obvious realization that pulling against the ties at her wrists was doing more harm than good, Aurora collapsed back against the twisted metal headboard. “What do you want with me? Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with?”

  Clearly, she didn’t wish to die—especially since she knew Gray would lose his life too—but she wanted David near her. Near enough that she could do some sort of physical damage to him.

  Her eyes traveled to a single mirror on the side wall. If only she could break it, get a large shard of the glass. She knew exactly where to cut him. The Power angels had taught them about the most fatal places to aim for. The carotid artery was her best bet.

  Yet there she was, weaponless and tied up like an abused animal.

  David shook his head, that terrible smile of his still there. “I don’t want to kill you.” He stood then, walking around the bed until he was standing to her left. Bending down, he whispered in her ear. “Remember all the fun we used to have together?”

  Aurora jerked her face away from him. His hand stretched out, grasping her chin, moving it forcibly back, so she had to look him in the eyes. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I want to have fun like that again. Forget about this holy war…forget about angels and demons, heaven and hell.”

  He was on the bed beside her now, left hand holding firm on her chin as the right traced a line from the base of her neck, down to her vest, clutching at the zipper and tugging it down.

  Aurora thrashed and, when he wouldn’t release her, she spat in his face.

  Letting out a disgusted growl, David moved from the bed, wiping his face.

  His next words were calculating and cold. “You’ll give in to me soon enough, little lamb.”

  “I won’t be giving anything to you.”

  “Oh, no, I believe you will... Because I have something of yours.”

  Aurora’s thoughts moved to her mom and brother.

  What if he’d taken them after he knocked her out in her mother’s apartment?

  What if they were here too? Or Gray?

  What if David had gone after him when she left Echo?

  She tried to keep her face from communicating her thoughts as she narrowed her eyes at him, a challenge. “You have nothing.’’

  “I do, though. It’s only fair, really. You took this from me long ago. Threw it away like yesterday’s garbage…without even asking if I’d want it. But, don't you worry, I got it back.”

  Aurora’s previously paranoid thoughts were now muddled in confusion. “What the hell are you talking about? Got what back?”

  “More of a who than a what, actually…” he said. Then, raising his voice in a shout, he called, “SOREN. Come in here a moment.”

  Aurora looked from David to the open door, unaware that anyone else was in the nightmare apartment.

  The first thing she saw was a shock of dark hair. A child—a boy—was now hovering in the doorway.

  Something about him was familiar to her, making a dull ache twist in her gut. His dark blue eyes moved from David to her and back in a nervous manner.

  “Aurora...” David stood, placing a hand on the small boy’s shoulder. “Allow me to re-introduce you to our son.”

  Forty-One

  BRIELLE

  Ever since she’d admitted her feelings to Logan and come to her unlabeled sexuality, Brielle felt her confidence meter go from almost empty to nearly full. Like when the Grinch realized the true meaning of Christmas and his heart grew all of those sizes.

  That was how Brielle felt.

  Only better.

  As the light of the Dominions’ staffs shattered through the darkness, Brielle slid her dagger across the neck of a demented beast.

  It wasn’t that she hadn’t been a good fighter before Logan. She was. But, after a few of Logan’s “life lessons,” she actually owned her badassery a little bit now.

  It felt good to no longer be the odd one out of the group. That role seemed to have shifted to Luna, who was a complete wreck, standing in the middle of the fountain, leaning back against the angel statue.

  “Luna!” Brielle shouted as a horned demon leaped over the edge of the fountain, charging in the blonde’s direction. “Watch it!”

  Luna turned in slow motion—as if she wasn’t completely mentally there—and held up her sword, which stabbed the creature through the skull.

  The demon fell, bleeding black into the fountain water.

  Registering this, Logan moved from behind Brielle towards Luna, grabbing her sister by the shoulders. “Snap out of it, Luna! Gray’s just a stupid boy.”

  Luna’s wide gray eyes glistened with tears.

  Chord’s voice broke through the melee. “Holy shit, guys. Look.”

  Upon the Bethesda Terrace, one of the tall male Dominions was approaching an even taller female figure. With giant silver wings and long robes of gray, Brielle could only assume she was an angel.

  The soul keeper.

  It seemed fitting this would be the person in charge of all the souls in the New York City area given that she looked like a skyscraper in human form.

  The soul keeper wore a jagged crown upon her head, reminiscent of the one worn by Lady Liberty.

  The Dominion approaching her reached within his shirt and produced what looked like a long chain, at the end of which dangled an iridescent pendant filled with a blinding white light run through with a prism of colors, shimmering like a pearl. Tugging this over his head, he held it before him.

  The soul keeper accepted the trinket with a low bow, holding the pendant in the palm of her hand, letting the chain spill down like a metal waterfall. She raised her arm out before her, pulsing light clutched in her hand.

  Brielle watched all of this between slashes of her crux and knife, ducking blows sent by demons and beasts, some of whom seemed just as distracted as she was by the actions of the Dominion and the soul keeper.

  Taking advantage of the diversion, a beast pummeled into Brielle, pushing her do
wn into the fountain until she was completely submerged by water. The beast’s hands wrapped around her throat, squeezing tightly. Brielle kicked out, but the beast was straddling her now.

  She could see his mutilated face through the waves of the fountain, the wire tied sickeningly through his lips to keep him from speaking.

  Suddenly the entire surface of the water irradiated with a brilliant light, making the beast fall backward off of her.

  Brielle sat up, gasping and gulping down precious air as she blinked the fountain water out of her eyes, looking wildly around. Some of the demons were fleeing from the painful holy light. Others burned with its contact.

  The beasts seemed to decide they’d failed at their task and charged away, shooting mutinous glares over their shoulders.

  The blinding light flickered out, and Brielle looked back to the terrace to see that the soul keeper was no longer there. The Dominion who had delivered the Light stood looking awestruck.

  “We did it,” Brielle whispered to herself. “We locked both of our cities.”

  “Now what?” Chord wondered aloud.

  “Now we go find Aurora and Gray,” Logan answered. “Before my sister has a complete conniption.”

  Forty-Two

  AURORA

  Aurora had been a teenager when she’d found out she was pregnant. Only seventeen years old.

  It had been a little over a month after David had forced himself on her. She’d already started her way to healing, to building herself back up, to making sure no man ever did what David had.

  Then her period never came.

  After drinking a gallon of water, she’d taken about twenty pregnancy tests, hoping one would cast some sort of doubt over the others, but they didn’t. They were all positive. All of them.

  Sitting on her bathroom floor, Aurora had squeezed her folded legs to her stomach and placed her head between her knees.

  She couldn’t be pregnant.

  She couldn’t.

  It had only been one time.

  One time without protection. But there she was, surrounded by plastic cups filled with pee and twenty unwrapped tests with plus signs, smiley faces, and two pink lines.

  The worst part was that this was half David’s baby. She didn’t want any part of him near her ever again, yet she was literally carrying his DNA within her body.

  She couldn’t stand it.

  Without telling her mom, she’d called an abortion clinic, made an appointment, and drove straight there to wait. At that time, in the state of Washington, parental permission wasn’t required.

  Her whole body shook as she sat in the parking lot with her car still running. White knuckles gripped the steering wheel and hot tears poured down her cheeks in a steady stream.

  Most girls she knew always talked about wanting to be a mom someday. They’d named their kids, talked about what sports they would be in and how they would raise them, promising to be less strict than their own parents.

  Aurora had never joined in on this banter. She had little interest in ever being a mother. She could barely handle taking care of herself, much less a little baby. Why would she want the responsibility of having a child she would ultimately screw up?

  But there she sat in the parking lot of the clinic: seventeen, pregnant, and scared to death. She didn’t want to have this baby. And she didn’t want this baby to have her.

  But then the time for her appointment came, and she didn’t move, didn’t get out of the car.

  Then she was a minute late…ten minutes late…thirty minutes late…an hour.

  She sat there until it grew dark outside and she let out a loud, window-shaking wail of sorrow as she punched the steering wheel. Then she drove back home.

  So, without any real conscious decision about it, she didn’t abort the baby. But she wasn’t going to keep it either. Not only because she had no money, no parenting skills, and no desire to acquire them…but because this child would be a constant reminder of what had happened to her.

  And she was afraid that, when she looked at him, she’d see David.

  Because she wasn’t going to abort the baby or keep it, she contacted an adoption agency. Aurora then had to look through a multitude of files to decide who she wanted to give her child to.

  The couples all looked nice and happy and perfect—they always did in those adoption forms. She ended up picking a really nice couple in their late thirties—a doctor and a teacher. Seemed like a perfect combination for a child.

  One of the hardest parts about the whole ordeal was that she had to keep it from her mom. Because, if her mom knew about this child, she might want her to keep it. She’d tell Aurora that she would help raise him and that she didn’t want to lose her grandchild.

  So, she ran away from home, staying with an old friend who was stoned for the same amount of hours he was awake.

  She got a terrible job at a terrible restaurant in the worst part of town, but she got lots of tips because people felt sorry for her and her swelling stomach.

  And when she wasn't working, she was taking classes at an alternative school to get her high school diploma, all while building up the walls that were sure to barricade her heart forever—walls that promised to keep all boys out.

  Always.

  The day she had the child—a boy—she told the nurse not to bring the baby back after they took him to get cleaned. Just the sound of his little cry was enough to make her feel like she was being ripped from the inside out.

  Mothers weren’t meant to be torn away from their babies.

  But she also knew that he was better off.

  She hadn’t seen or heard from her son since the day he was born, though she’d thought of him often.

  She wondered what his new parents were really like, outside of the forced niceties they’d shown her during their brief interviews.

  She wondered if he was happy.

  She wondered if he looked like her—she’d hoped he didn’t look like David.

  She wondered if he liked sports or reading better. If he was outgoing, or shy.

  But, most of all, she wondered what his name was. She’d never asked, and his adoptive parents had never told her.

  Now she knew.

  “Soren,” she breathed.

  The small boy looked from Aurora and back to David. “Who is she?”

  Aurora flinched at these words. Of course Soren wouldn’t know who she was. He’d never met her—not technically anyway.

  David leaned down, so he was kneeling next to him. “Remember the woman I told you about before? That’s her.”

  Soren’s eyes darkened at this, and a frown creased his brows. “Oh.”

  “I’m going to leave you two to get more acquainted with one another,” David said with a hint of malevolence in his cold blue eyes before walking past Soren out the door.

  Aurora knew he had ulterior motives for bringing their son here. If only just to torture Aurora even further. If that was his ultimate goal, he was going to reach it in no time.

  Standing incredibly still and rigid for a young child, Soren watched Aurora with cautious eyes. It was clear he didn’t trust her, and she didn’t blame him. He had no reason to. She’d abandoned him. And now David was making her pay for it.

  Unlike hers, his hair was dark brown—nearly black. Like David’s. But instead of board straight, it was slightly curly like hers. And the roundness and color of his eyes, the heart-shape of his face, the smooth swoop of his nose, even the light dusting of freckles…they were all hers.

  “You’ve gotten big,” she noted lamely, not sure what else to say to the boy she’d left behind.

  “People grow.”

  The way his face was set communicated hidden anger and resentment. Aurora realized with a sharp twist in her gut that he probably hated her. Hated that she’d given him up with no explanation.

  “Where are your parents?” Aurora asked.

  Something flashed in his eyes before he looked to the ground. “Dead.”

 
; Aurora’s heart sank to her stomach. “Both of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they—?”

  Soren cut her off. “Halos killed them. Power Halos.”

  “Halos?” This wasn’t at all what Aurora had been expecting. A car wreck, maybe. Or a robbery gone wrong. But Halos? Halos were created for good. What kind of Halos would kill innocent people? Unless—

  “My parents were beasts,” Soren clarified, answering Aurora’s unasked question. “They became beasts a few weeks ago.”

  His dark blue eyes met hers then. The anger was still there, but also blame. She wondered if he thought his parents’ deaths were somehow her fault. She shifted on the bed, trying to get somewhat comfortable, which was practically impossible with the inflexible metal tied to her wrists. She winced as she pulled at the ties and felt a wound open, blood blossoming and dripping down her arms.

  This small reaction seemed to make Soren ever so slightly less hardened towards her. He took another step into the room, still standing with his arms glued to his sides like a little toy soldier. His eyes were on Aurora’s wrists, a trace amount of sympathy in their depths.

  She searched her brain for something to say to the boy who’d clearly felt more than just abandoned by her. “I’m so sorry about your parents, Soren.”

  This was the wrong thing to say. Soren’s eyes narrowed, and he took a step back again. “They weren’t my real parents. My real parents didn’t want me.”

  Pain like a dagger shattered through Aurora’s sternum, and she found it difficult to take a breath. This was what she’d been afraid of all those years ago. She’d feared he would think he wasn’t wanted, that he wasn’t worth keeping.

  “That’s not true.” Her voice was barely louder than a whisper.

  “Yes it is. You gave me away. You didn’t want to keep me.”

  “I was young and had almost no money…I wanted you to have a beautiful home with two parents who loved you.”

  Soren’s head bowed, making him look like he was speaking to the ground rather than to her. “David—my dad—said you didn’t tell him about me. He said he would have wanted me.”