1. echo #3
“Because tomorrow matters,” Samael said, and the words took enough of the humor out of the room that I stopped pushing the chair.
He leaned forward, his forearms braced on his thighs, all patience gone from his face.
“Aldrich is not a warehouse. It’s not an alley.
It’s not one of your undergrad favors where you can scare someone into giving you a name and disappear before anyone knows you were there.
It has money, security, records, cameras, and people who will notice if a body drops in the middle of orientation. ”
I clicked my tongue. “You say that like I was planning to be messy.”
“I say it because I know you.”
Runo huffed a laugh, but Samael didn’t soften.
He tapped the Aldrich file once, drawing my attention back to the crest stamped across the top page.
My enrollment was clean, my housing was set, my schedule looked boring enough to be believable, and every piece of access had been built to get me close without setting the whole campus on fire the second I walked through the gates.
The sensible part of me understood that.
Unfortunately, the sensible part of me was about the size of a raisin and had been outvoted by every other part that wanted Nichlas on his knees.
“I know the plan,” I said, quieter this time. “I go in. I learn the school. I confirm what we have. I don’t touch him until I know who’s around him, who’s protecting him, and what happens when he screams.”
Samael held my gaze for another beat before he nodded. It wasn’t approval exactly. Father Three didn’t hand out approval like candy. It was more of a temporary stay of execution for my bad judgment.
Runo studied me from the desk, his head tilted. “And if you see him tomorrow?”
My fingers flexed once against the arm of the chair. I smiled because that was easier than admitting my whole body had lit up at the thought of it. “Then I’ll be charming.”
Samael closed his eyes.
“What?” I asked. “I can be charming. People have said that.”
“People under duress don’t count.”
“They count more. They’re motivated to be honest.”
Runo laughed, but Samael only stood and gathered the remaining files into a neat stack.
The movement had the familiar finality of him deciding a conversation was over before I found a way to make it worse.
“Nichlas isn’t going anywhere tonight or tomorrow,” he said.
“You have waited a year. You can wait one more day.”
One more day sounded ridiculous when his photograph was right there, when Aldrich was right there, when the whole shape of his safe little life had finally stopped hiding behind blank spaces and false names.
I looked at the board again, at the clean lines of the campus map and the blurry proof of him walking around alive, rested, and unpunished.
My scar itched beneath my shirt, a long remembered line down my side, and I pressed my palm against it until the feeling passed.
Nichlas had gotten school and protection and a future someone else paid for.
I had gotten a pitchfork through me and a year of learning how many ways a person could vanish when the right monsters wanted him hidden.
“Echo,” Samael said, and his voice was softer this time.
“I know.” I hated that I did. I hated that he was right. I hated that revenge had logistics. “No bodies tomorrow.”
Runo’s brows lifted.
I sighed. “Fine. No intentional bodies tomorrow.”
Samael gave me the look again.
“Oh my god. Fine. No bodies at all tomorrow,” I corrected, because apparently Father Three had no respect for careful legal phrasing.
He crossed the room and rested a hand briefly against the back of my neck as he passed, squeezing once before heading toward the front of the office.
Runo followed more slowly, pausing long enough to tap one finger against the edge of Nichlas’ photograph.
“Do it wisely, baby,” he said, and because he was the only one allowed to call me that without losing a finger, I let it slide.
Then he left too, taking the last of the laughter with him.
I stayed where I was after they were gone, facing the wall of dead ends that had finally become a road.
My eyes moved across every bad address, every vanished account, every person who had lied, every mile between where Nichlas had been and where I had stood looking for him.
Then they settled on Aldrich, on his photograph, on his name printed cleanly beneath the crest of a school that thought metal detectors and money could keep monsters out.
The smile came back slowly enough that it felt less like humor and more like something sharpening.
“You used to be my ride or die, Nicky boy,” I purred as I ran a finger across his face before digging into my pocket for a letter opener I stole earlier.
“I trusted you and maybe that was my mistake but you gave me up? And for what?” I dug the sharp edge into one of his eyes, remembering the pain for weeks afterward.
I still didn’t know who chased me or what they wanted.
I just knew Nichlas was dead. “I hope whatever it was, was worth it,” I said, my voice dropping a few octaves as I dug out the other eye and then drew a line where his lips were.
“Because you’re going to pay,” I told his picture, quiet enough that only the empty office heard me.
Tomorrow was my first day of school, and Nichlas’ last year of breathing easy had already ended.