Echoes (13 page)

She was trying really hard. And the prospect of a brand new phone was extremely tempting.

But not today.

“I’m not feeling so good,” I said. “I think I’m just going to go up to my room for the rest of the night.”

Her jaw tensed a little and her smile looked strained. “There’s nothing I can say to change your mind?”

“No, sorry—really. I can’t. Not tonight.”

She nodded. “I understand.”

But she didn’t. I saw the flash of annoyance in her eyes. To her, she was trying. I was not.

She went to turn away but I grabbed her arm. She tensed and looked back at me.

“I’m really sorry,” I said. “Honestly. But tonight’s really bad. I have a lot of things on my mind right now and...I just can’t, okay?”

She nodded again, but didn’t make eye contact. “We’ll find a way to connect very soon, Liv. I promise.”

I’d hurt her. And I hadn’t even been meaning to this time. Maybe I was just getting really good at being a bitch. Practice made perfect, after all.

Hurting everybody. Making them hate me.

Trapping a boy I liked in a dark, locked room in an abandoned warehouse because I thought he might be a monster.

Awesome start to a weekend. Really awesome.

I studied the grainy scan for so long my eyes started to burn.

The more I thought about it, the more I decided it was possible it could also be Frank’s ancestor to whom he just bore a striking resemblance. Frank could be Bree’s estranged uncle for all I knew. Why hadn’t I asked her that?

I scrambled for the phone and dialed her number from a memory I didn’t even know I still had.

She answered on the third ring. “What’s wrong?”

I guess she remembered my number too.

“Do you have an uncle named Frank who lives here in Ravenridge?”

A pause. “No. Why?”

“You’re sure? Gray beard. Gray hair. About five-ten. Likes to, um, drown his sorrows frequently with various forms of liquor?

“Sounds charming, but it’s not really ringing a bell for me.”

“Okay, well...never mind then. I need to go.” I ended the call after promising her again that I’d call tomorrow.

I eyed the pages apprehensively before I sat down in the middle of my bed and tried to read them. I say
tried
because that was just it—the handwriting was horrible, blurry, faded in spots. Most of the scans were of photos. The one I’d already seen of a trio of men including what looked like Frank. A picture of Main Street, or at least how it looked back then. And a picture of a metal box with initials engraved on the top.

On the journal pages, I was able to make out only a few phrases.

Upyri are truly immortal...my fear shames me when I know I must be...

...only weapon against these demon wraiths. Should they learn I am revenant, they will single me out from the...

He appeared again this morning bearing memories of my dear friend to utilize against me...so much like Jonathan I wanted to believe he wasn’t truly lost...

...vessel will trap them. The wraiths can be seen with intense concentration, but I must take a...

It continued onto another page, but whatever he was going to say next hadn’t been scanned.

Reading what little there was caused me nothing but frustration. I was no further ahead now than I was when I’d started.

I spent the rest of the night on the computer, looking for more clues that might help me. I researched Ravenridge’s history. Upyri. Vampires. I spent three hours reading just about vampires. The only real difference I could find is that an Upyri was bodiless and a regular vampire wasn’t. They both had to drink blood. They both were immortal.

There was nothing more helpful than that. It made me want to scream.

I looked up the word “revenant” from the journal. It meant one who returns after a long absence or one who returns...after death.

It was what an Upyr did after it took over a human body. That person would appear to have returned after death. I just didn’t understand what it meant in the context of the journal. He didn’t seem to have been talking about his friend who was killed and came back. He was talking about himself.

I read the journal pages again. And then I stared at the picture of the man who looked like Frank for so long my vision began to blur.

When I finally went to bed, I felt bone-weary right down to my very soul. Every time I closed my eyes I imagined the moment I opened them Ethan would be crawling in through my bedroom window. Only he wouldn’t be coming here to kiss me. He’d be coming here for revenge for what I’d done to him.

I was afraid to open my eyes to check, but I did anyway.

There was no one there. Besides, my window was locked and my curtains were closed. I was all alone.

There was a knock at my door just before midnight and I sat bolt upright in bed, clamping my hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t scream.

“Liv?” my father said. “You still awake?”

“Yeah,” I croaked.

“Sorry to bother you, but Mrs. Cole from down the street is on the phone. She asked to speak with you.”

Mrs. Cole. Oh, my God.

“Okay,” I replied, my throat thick.

I forced myself to go to the phone on my nightstand—its ringer was turned off at the moment so it wouldn’t wake me—and picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Olivia?”

“Yes?”

“I’m so sorry to disturb you, but I wasn’t sure who else to call. Have you seen Ethan tonight? He hasn’t come home yet and I’m getting worried. It’s not like him to stay out so late without letting me know where he is.”

“He walked me home after school.” The lie tasted bitter on my tongue. “I haven’t seen him since, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know where he could be, then.” The worry in her voice made guilt churn in my gut. “Maybe he’s with his friends. It is Friday night, after all. I—I just worry. But he’s probably out having some fun. His phone must be turned off.”

It was. I knew that for a fact since it was sitting on my desk inside his backpack.

“You’re probably right. I’m sure he’s fine. Don’t worry.”

“Thanks, Olivia. But if you hear from him, could you get him to call me?”

“Of course.”

I ended the call and placed the phone back on the receiver. My hand was shaking so I grasped it and held it tightly to my chest.

My first impulse was to pull on some jeans and a T-shirt and go out—back to the warehouse. I had to talk to him. It couldn’t wait till tomorrow.

But it had to wait.

I knew it would be a long time before I fell asleep. I wasn’t even sure if I could. Or if I wanted to.

I did, eventually. It wasn’t restful. It was filled with nightmares. Nightmares about Ethan—although it wasn’t the Ethan I’d come to know. It was a monster who looked like him, but with red eyes and sharp fangs, and there was no escape.

“I’m going to kill you for what you did to me.” Then he grabbed me and sank those razor sharp teeth into my throat, my blood spilling into his mouth as I screamed...and screamed...

When I woke up clutching my sheets, covered in sweat, there was a sliver of light seeping into my room past the heavy curtains. I thought I’d set my alarm clock, but I hadn’t. It was already noon.

It was Saturday, the day of junior prom. A day I’d been looking forward to for months—all year, really. I’d planned to go to the dance with Peter, of course. With Helen and her date—a guy named Trent, who fit her “perfect guy” profile as well as anyone at school could.

About ten of us were supposed to meet early. We’d made reservations at a local restaurant for dinner. And then we planned to head to the dance at eight.

No messages from Helen. And none from Peter. Not even a “by the way, in case there was any doubt, I
am
dumping you,” message.

I showered, blow-dried my hair, and got dressed. I went downstairs and made some toast and peanut butter that I forced myself to eat. I hadn’t had any dinner last night. The breakfast sat in my stomach like a lead weight.

“Have you decided if you’re going or not tonight? I hope you are.” My mother looked up at me from the magazine she read in the living room. “But if not we could make tonight the night we go out together.”

“I’m still going to go. I can’t miss Prom.” It had begun to disturb me how good I was getting at lying.

“Good.” She got a wistful look. “I have many memories of my junior prom. The high heels I wore gave me horrible blisters. Ruined my night until I decided I didn’t care anymore and took them off. Left them in the limo and went barefoot for the rest of the dance.” Her brows drew together when I didn’t reply. “Liv, is everything okay? You seem so distracted lately.”

“I’m fine.”

“I just want you to have a good time tonight.”

“I know.”

“And when it comes to the uneasiness between you and me—it’s going to be better very soon. I know it will. The future is bright. I want us to come to some sort of understanding that we—”

I cut her off. “I
know
, Mom. I’ve heard you a million times already. You’re sorry you left us. You’re back now. Loud and clear, okay? Just—sometimes I don’t really want to talk to you about my problems. Everything’s different now and it doesn’t really matter what you say, it’s going to stay that way.”

She nodded once before standing up from the couch and turning away from me, tucking her magazine under her arm. She began walking out of the room, but at the doorway she glanced back at me. The only emotion in her eyes was cold anger.

“When I was your age I was a self involved little bitch who didn’t think about anyone’s feelings but my own, too. I guess you come by this behavior naturally.”

“Yeah,” I bit out. “Well, hopefully I’ll grow out if it instead of taking off to Hawaii with some jerk and leaving my family behind.”

Her expression only grew colder before she left without another word.

Well, look at that. I guess I wasn’t over it after all.

It wasn’t as if my words had even hurt her, though. Didn’t she feel the least bit guilty about what she did? Or did she think two weeks was all the time we needed to heal ourselves back to a normal family?

I spent the next couple of hours pacing. Waiting. And reading the journal pages over again, hoping to glean something new from them, and wishing I had the entire thing. But maybe that wouldn’t help me any more than this did.

Finally, at four o’clock, I took a deep breath to give me courage and I left the house with the pages shoved into my purse and Ethan’s backpack with the silver knife inside it slung over my shoulder.

It was time.

o0o

The McGavin Hotel was my first stop.

There were two men to the side of the run-down hotel. Both looked big and scary and wore leather and chains. They drove motorcycles. They also looked familiar. I’d seen them around town many times before.

I forced myself to walk right up to them.

“Hey,” I said.

They looked at me. “Hey, yourself.”

“My name’s Olivia.”

Sunlight bounced off the man’s gold front tooth. “I’m Joe. This is Goliath.”

“Goliath?”

“It’s my nickname,” Goliath said.

It suited him. He was roughly the size of a small mountain.

“You live in town, right?” Men like this you didn’t forget if you’d seen them once or twice before.

“Yeah. We own the garage on Sycamore. Why? Got a car problem you want us to take a look at?”

I passed that garage nearly every day on my way home from school. It was called Goliath Auto Repair. That’s how I knew them. My father took his car there.

I’d approached the two of them with one thought in my head: This was Ravenridge. Crime-free Ravenridge. The place where people left their doors open and nothing bad ever seemed to happen. Boring-central.

At least, it had been until this week.

If these two bikers lived here and had for years, I’d hoped it meant that they were scary in looks only. Because I needed their help.

“There’s a guy in there.” I nodded at the bar. “I want to talk to him. But, I—I’m sort of scared. He was my stepfather and he used to be rough with me and my mom.”

Joe’s eyes narrowed. “What guy?”

“His name’s Frank.”

Goliath’s brows went up. “Frank?”

“You know him?”

“We know him. Weird dude. Keeps to himself.”

“I don’t want any trouble. I just want to talk to him about something. But I want to make sure someone’s watching my back just in case he gets out of hand.”

“Never seen him make any trouble before.”

I shrugged. “First time for everything.”

They exchanged a look. “You go talk to him, Olivia,” Joe said. “We’ll keep an eye on you. Promise.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.” I wasn’t proud I was adding more lies to my growing list, but the truth wasn’t my best friend right now.

I entered the dark, musty interior of the McGavin. I wasn’t completely positive he’d be there, but he was, bellied up to the bar exactly where he’d been the other day. Mid-afternoon on a Saturday.

Not normal.

But I had no illusions that Frank was anything near normal anymore. Now I was going to find out for sure.

His gaze moved to the mirror behind the bar and he watched my approach. He tossed back the shot of whiskey in front of him and signaled for another one, which the bartender poured.

“You’re back.”

“I am.”

“Where’s your boyfriend?”

“Haven’t seen him today.” It was the truth, no lie required.

He shrugged and turned his attention back to his alcohol. “You look okay. I’m guessing there’ve been no more attacks since the last time I saw you.”

“Not yet.” I hesitated. “Do you know why they’re keeping such a low profile?”

“No. I’m waiting just like you are to see what their next move is.”

“You usually wait for an impending attack by bloodthirsty monsters by getting drunk?”

His lips curved. “Can’t think of a better way, actually.”

“Have you been in town long, Frank?”

“Long enough.”

“I don’t remember seeing you before. I’ve lived here all my life.”

“It’s not that small of a town. And I figure you don’t exactly hang out the same places I do. Anyway,” he sloshed the liquid around in the glass before him, “when you see Ethan the next time, sweetheart, tell him I want to talk to him.”

“That’s going to be a bit difficult.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Because I killed him.”

The sloshing stopped. He didn’t move or speak for a very long time. The silence hung in the air between us like sticky cobwebs.

“You shouldn’t joke about things like that, little girl,” he growled.

“I’m not joking,” I said, choosing my next words very carefully. “I found out what he really is, I took his silver knife, and I sank it into his heart. He’s gone. A scorch mark’s all that’s left of him.”

His knuckles whitened on his shot glass as he tossed it back, but he still didn’t turn around. His eyes narrowed on my reflection in the mirror. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

Just a few words, spoken quietly, and Frank had just confirmed my very worst suspicions. I already knew in my gut it was true, but there was still a piece of me that desperately wanted to believe it wasn’t.