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If you only knew, kid.
“Yeah, that’s what I heard too. I want to see how he got caught,” Cash said.
“He wasn’t caught. He was locked up,” pretty boy twin said, his soft voice rough from sleep.
“I wonder what he did to piss Solomon off?” Cash said.
“I didn’t do anything,” Echo murmured, and the young man jumped, dropped the stone, and stumbled away from the cage. Echo rolled to sit up and then stood. Walking to the bars, he gripped them and studied the guy. He may have been young, but Cash looked sturdy, like he was getting enough to eat. Rogue’s doing? Echo wondered.
“Why aren’t you locked up?” Echo asked.
“I’m twenty-one now.”
Echo knew what that meant. Instead of being taken from the cage and told to kill and then locked back up, Cash had reached the age where all Solomon had to do was tell the young man to point and shoot.
“Why haven’t you gotten your own place?”
“I don’t have the money.” Cash hung his head.
Ah, that was right, boys this young couldn’t work for Erebus. He had blanked out a lot of his youth, but some things had stuck. Like having to stick around until he had the skills to become a paid assassin plus have Solomon trust him enough to pay him. When Solomon started working for Dave, they still had to wait. Even after Dave’s interview, Echo still had to wait until Solomon said he could work for Erebus.
“It’ll be another year or two before he’ll pay you,” Echo told Cash.
“But at least I’m not locked up,” Cash whispered. Echo saw it all on the boy’s face—the pain, anger, the fear.
“What are your names?” Echo asked the twins. If they spoke to him at all, they would give him their assassin names, but it was better than bossy and pretty boy. The pair were standing and holding onto their cell bars. Apparently, he’d lost his scariness and they felt bold enough to get up from their constant huddle.
I’m Apollo,” the bossy twin said and with a jerk of his chin toward the pretty twin, “and this is Azrael,”
“Are those your real names?” Echo asked just to confirm.
“No,” Azrael said.
Apollo glanced up to where the ceiling met the wall and Echo knew what the twin was looking at. The camera hung pointed at the cages. If anything, Solomon was thorough. Although at this time of the night, Echo would bet money—and if Solomon stayed true to form—that the fucker would be fast asleep and nowhere near this warehouse.
“What about you, is Cash your real name?” Echo asked the kid who had lost some of his fear and moved closer to his cage.
Cash shook his head.
“And you’ve been here a year. How long have you been killing?” Echo asked the twins.
“A couple of months,” Apollo said.
“And you’ve been killing for a few years now?” Echo asked Cash, who nodded.
“Cash, can you open the door and let me out?”
The kid sputtered—yes, at twenty-one to his thirty, Cash was still a kid. Eyes wide, Cash vehemently shook his head.
“I can’t do that.”
“Come on, I’m not going anywhere. I’m one of the originals. And I do need to use the washroom,” Echo coaxed.
“I don’t have the key,” Cash whispered.
“But you know where it is, don’t you?”
Cash swallowed hard, gazing at him through a fall of hair, his eyes filled with fear.
