Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
I have always been the Darkness. Something foreign and alone that was born in the realm of infinity. Forever looking for a way to fit in and experience this world in a way that makes sense.
Because the realm of infinity is emptiness and all I want is to be full.
Dark Me is still straddling my hips, but now he lies down on my chest. Then… then he melts into me. Just… merges with me.
And that’s that, I guess.
We are One.
Once again, I sit up in the earth, gasping for breath. And once again, I feel like this is reality, but I can’t be sure.
I look around, expecting to see nothing but dirt, but that’s not what I see.
I see light. Purple and gold light. Thin strands of it weaving all through the ground around me like a web. Like the Darkness is a spider that spun a web and I am caught in the middle of it.
When the ground lights up like this, the earth actually disappears.
Or… maybe it’s the other way around? I’m not sure. But when I travel in the earth, I’m not walking through dirt. It’s just mist.
But I’ve been here many times before and now, like any other time, I enter the Dark highway in the ground and I move towards the place I want to be and the next thing I know, I’m emerging from a wall inside my cave. The whole place is thick with purple and gold mist. Which is magic. Which is good. Because Little Baby Dark Echo is going to need that magic if she wants to rise again.
I walk over to the pool and slip into the water. It’s warm and feels wonderful on my naked body.
Then I turn and take a good long look at my work.
Little Baby’s skin is very pale, but she is whole again. Her hair is long and silver, her body lithe and slim, yet full in all the right places.
She is a vessel and inside her is me.
Though I still don’t trust the Darkness, even if it is me, what it said makes sense.
If I put Dark power inside Echo to keep it safe from Paul, this would explain my sudden irrational desire to save her.
Of course, loneliness would explain this as well. But loneliness is sad and pathetic.
A grand plan to usurp Paul though? That’s not sad and pathetic at all.
That’s clever.
Which means this girl in the water with me truly is something special.
6 - Echo
I want him to eat me all night and day.
He is crooning in my ear when I wake. “I love you, Little Baby.”
And Lucia is gone.
Was she ever here?
Was I dreaming?
Oh, please, God. I beg of you, let this all be a nightmare. Let me wake up in my parents’ house in Spokane. Let me be in my childhood bedroom wearing layers upon layers of black eyeliner. Let me be wearing that tattered Offspring t-shirt, and my black velvet bell-bottoms, and my Docs, and let me be in my lumpy twin bed that I’ve been sleeping in since I was four. Let my parents be downstairs, fighting. Screaming at each other. Drunk and high. Let me be there. I would give anything to just go back.
“Welcome, my Little Baby. Welcome back to your new life.”
I begin to sob, my whole body shaking.
His arms are around me, and I’m in the pool, and I want to pray for my own soul, which I am now very sure exists and has been sold with my full consent.
But before I can do that, his lips touch mine and a drop of blood slips into my mouth. And then… then the fight is over.
I am the definition of lost.
That’s all it takes. Just one drop. Because in this drop lives everything I could ever want.
I close my eyes and go limp in his arms, letting the rhythm of his chest, moving up and down under my body, lull me into a half-waking slumber.
Be careful.
The words in my head aren’t mine, they’re Lucia’s. It’s a warning. That I should not let this monster overtake me.
You know what’s happening here, Echo.
“I’m not Echo.” To my surprise, my words come flowing right out of my mouth. Well, they don’t exactly flow, they are more of a croak. But it startles me because for a moment there I think I forgot I existed.
It’s the blood, darling. And again, it’s Lucia’s voice in my head. It will always be your weakness and you will always want it. There’s no getting around that, Little Echo.
“Little Baby?” Josep says. His voice is so low and rumbly. So soothing and calm.
He’s a complete psychopath, Lucia coos. But do you know, even psychopaths have weaknesses? He left me alone for centuries. Do you want to know how I got him to do that?