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“Where’s Fisher?” Echo asked, stumbling toward the window.
“On a job.”
The dam broke, but not until he was outside and almost to the bottom of the scaffolding. It started with a small tremble in his hands that caused him to lose his grip and drop to the ground below. It wasn’t far, but a pain shot through his ankle.
Rogue yanked him up and shoved him toward the sidewalk.
Echo ran.
Hauling ass around the apartment building, he ran full out through the pain until he was about a mile away. Then, and only then, did he hunch over in a deserted alley.
Rogue was nowhere to be seen, but the assassin was like that—disappearing and reappearing at will.
Lifting the bottom of his mask, Echo puked his guts out. He hadn’t played with a kill in months.
Spitting bile into the trashcan behind a closed fast-food place, he pulled his hood down and walked back to retrieve his vehicle. His ankle hurt like hell and he started limping halfway there.
Could shit get anymore fucked up? He wiped at his nose beneath the mask with one messy glove.
All he wanted now was to collect his ID and cell phone, destroy his clothing, and shower. And then hide away and sleep for a fucking month.
And not remember the past.
It was sometime a week later that Echo stumbled groggily from his rumpled bed. The sheet and blanket were in a pile of mess and one of his pillows lay on the floor. He’d been feeling weird for days, like his nerves were raw. An off and on-again pounding headache didn’t help.
Flashes of the kill flickered on replay, and his skin felt tingly and tight. A feeling of impending doom created a fog in his brain that he couldn’t seem to shake.
Checking his phone, he found that Fisher had sent him a text the night before.
Fisher: Rogue is worried.
Echo: I’m okay.
Fisher: Stay safe.
Echo: You too.
He sat there for a moment recalling how the three of them along with Jinx and Fox had watched each other’s backs through their training—if you could call what Solomon had done as training. Torture was more like it. Although, it had made him the man he was today.
Was that a good thing? He didn’t know, but it was all he knew. This was his life, and that fact had been pounded into his head since the age of ten. That he’d killed the john before Solomon caught him worked in Solomon’s favor in turning him into a killing machine.
Maybe it had been his destiny. Echo thought of Jinx and Fox, they’d made it out and stayed out along with several others. And Echo was glad for them both. He, Fisher, and Rogue hadn’t been that lucky. Oh, he’d tried to leave once and had stayed gone for six years, but family had eventually brought him back.
Maybe they weren’t related by blood, but he considered Fisher and Rogue his brothers.
After making and sipping on a much-needed cup of coffee, Echo selected a nine-millimeter handgun from his small collection of weapons, and settled in at his small kitchen table. He meticulously broke down the weapon and cleaned it, purposely keeping his mind blank. Reassembling the nine-millimeter, he twisted on a new silencer.
He would start carrying it, even if only for a few days until he felt safe again. If he’d had his gun, things would have turned out quite differently that night. With the barrel of a nine-millimeter pointed in the face, a mark would have been too scared to fight.
When his cell phone pinged with an incoming text, he stared down at the video that came through. Usually, he just deleted this type of bullshit, but something made him hit the play button.
“Motherfucker,” he whispered and stared in disbelief at the screen when he saw himself slicing open the throat of a mark he’d done just last week.
Slamming down his weapon on the table, the sound cracked through the room and he glared at the video.
The phone rang from the same number, and Echo snatched it up. “How’d you get my phone number, you motherfucker!”
“Meet me. Two-thirty a.m. at the Ventura pier if you don’t want this made public,” a robotic voice responded and hung up.
