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“Echo. You kept your Beta name, huh?” Most Betas are given names from the military alphabet and most change them when they get to be fifteen or seventeen or so, after it’s sure they won’t ascend as an Omega or an Alpha. I didn’t.
I nod.
“I uhh…” She crouches down just outside of my open-door cage and rubs her chin. She glances around quickly and, with the coast clear, she leans in. “So what’s it like? Being an Omega?”
I shake my head and shrug. “Uninteresting.” It’s not true, but I don’t bother telling her about the life of a scavenger. She already lives it.
“You don’t have any secret powers or anything?”
I shake my head and spread my blanket out on the floor.
“No mind reading?”
Head shake.
“No telekinesis?”
Head shake.
“Can’t change into a bird?”
Head shake.
“Can’t even change your eye color?”
My lips twitch at that. Woah. Was that a smile? Not quite, but close. It’s been a while.
“Shit. You got the short end of the stick, beautiful. You’re an Alpha magnet with no extra powers to protect you,” she says bluntly, as if this wasn’t something I already knew. And then more quietly, “And you still made it six weeks.” She whistles between the gap in her front teeth.
The sound chills me. I don’t like it. Because while sounding impressed, she makes me think that I’ve already outlived my timeline.
“Alright, fine then. Keep your rabbit outsides and your rabbit insides, too. I’d give you back the boots, but you know I can’t. Got a city to run here.”
“It’s not a city, it’s a compound.”
She smirks. “For now.”
I give her a funny look.
“Want the rabbits back or not? I won’t ask a third time.” She shakes the pelt and sack of dried meat in front of me and I reach up and take the bundles gladly. Getting back the dried, salted rabbit is a gift. One I don’t take lightly. I squirrel it away into my pack before she reconsiders, along with the rabbit fur I’ll have to make shoes out of later.
“ButEcho?”
I look up at her.
She offers me something perhaps even more rare than rabbit. Even more rare than boots. A smile full enough to show all of her teeth — the ones that are left. “You’re gonna die soon, but until then, I’m rootin’ for you.”
I snort.
“Need to be out by morning.” She turns to walk away, beat up sneakers squeaking on the patchwork metal flooring. From around the corner I hear her say, “And thanks for the boots.”
2 | Echo
Gang Mountain
My toes are cold.Scratch that. My toes are fucking freezing in my rabbit skin shoes — if you can even call them that. It’s colder today, more miserable. There’s a sticky fog that lingers in the air like icicles suspended from the stars. Every time I move, it’s like those imagined icicles stab deeper into my clothes. I shiver. And then I shiver some more.
Fear is present again today, though I don’t know why. She just stands in the woods waving at me every once in a while. Pain’s lurking behind her, even further back, just waiting to pounce on my feet anytime I move them. She’s my other friend. My only other friend, besides Fear. Pain likes me quite a bit, too.
