13. Forever #2
“You don’t have to,” I told him, pushing my door open. “But it’s appreciated.”
I stood just outside his truck now but dipped in to tell him one more thing.
“Thank you for being patient with me, Demetrius.”
He smiled and shook his head.
“Echo, baby. Call me Echo.”
I shut the door, popped the lock on my pretty Corvette, and slid inside.
“Call him Echo,” I murmured, pulling onto the street and driving in the direction of my apartment. “Such a weird name and an even weirder man.”
But true to his word, he followed right up until I pulled into the parking garage.
Though I couldn’t see him driving away, I felt the loss of his protective presence.
I showered with him on my mind. Every part of my routine consisted of something infused with Vanilla.
His scent was taking over my life, but nothing was as good as the real thing. The way it mixed with his body chemistry made my pussy wet.
I snatched up the phone he’d given me from the nightstand and headed into the kitchen to heat up leftover Indian food from earlier in the night.
Once I stuffed a few bites in my mouth, I pushed it aside and scrolled through the already unlocked phone.
First, the call log.
His number was the only one I’d ever called. Some conversations were short, while others were hours long.
“When was the last time I sat on the phone with someone into the wee hours of the morning?” I murmured, amazed at this version of myself.
The texts made my heart race, though.
He was so kind. And sweet. A little funny but nasty too. I found myself squirming a little at how often we talked about fucking.
I can still taste you. Come back to keep it from going away.
Echo, stop. I’m working, and now my pussy is wet.
Lemme clean you up. I won’t take long
And my fast ass let him.
Laughter sputtered from lips, but it didn’t last long. The more I read, the easier it was for me to replace feelings of lust with anger.
Every I love you and I miss you settled so deep it hurt. The come see, lay, and eat with me, too.
It was the hard proof that he and I were something, and it was special.
My heart mourned a loss I didn’t remember, and it was easier to be angry than cry about it.
I got up and dressed, pulling on an all black bodysuit, combat boots, and a leather jacket.
At the back of my closet was a built-in wall safe behind sliding shelves; inside was a small armory and a few go bags for different jobs. I grabbed the suede backpack, knowing I’d just repacked it and set off on foot.
There was someone I needed to see.
No, they needed to see me.
Many doctors in society lived in the same neighborhood, but not the Logans, who were nestled in my area of town, away from their counterparts.
For no other reason than they ranked higher than them and felt superior.
I walked right up to their door and gave the doorbell camera the middle finger after ringing, but before covering it with my hand.
It was four in the morning, and I didn’t give a fuck if they were sound asleep or fucking themselves into a coma.
Everybody needed to wake the fuck up.
“Who is it!” Dr. Adrian Logan yelled through the speaker. “Do you know what time it is?”
I dropped my hand and smiled into the camera.
“I know exactly what time it is,” I mused, picking at my nails. “Come let me in or I’ll kill you and every Logan in a five-mile radius.”
Not even ten seconds later, the door swung open and the first man who treated me after my “job gone bad” incident stood before me.
There weren’t a lot of white people in Everwood, making them the minority.
He was mixed with something, though, and I wasn’t sure if he knew it.
“Ms. James, if your head is hurting, you should go to an urgent care.”
I drew on him, and he took steps back, hands up as I stepped inside and shut the door behind me.
“Where’s the wife and kid?”
He opened and closed his mouth.
“A-Across town at her parents,” he managed to get out, stumbling into the bottom of the stairwell once there was nowhere else to go. “Wh-Wh-What’s this about?”
I tapped my head with the gun, and he tried shrinking further away right before my eyes.
“Regardless of what’s said, I’m going to kill you, Adrian,” I told him, pressing the barrel of my pistol under his chin. “But how you die is up to you.”
His chest heaved, and his eyes went wide as I disengaged the safety.
“Tell me what I need to do.”
I hummed.
“When you examined me, were there any indicators of memory loss beyond that one night?”
He nodded and kept nodding until I spoke again.
“Is that why I have these migraines?”
More nodding that only made me angrier.
“Open your fucking mouth and speak!”
He scrambled to sit up on the steps.
“I-I don’t have the details of your accident, but can only assume you were hit in the head, which caused a concussion. I’m almost certain you have a mild traumatic brain injury, but there’s testing you’d need to determine it. I was not authorized to inform you of this.”
My body and head had been in so much pain when I woke up that day in my bed, but there was nothing to show for it but slight bruising. Like maybe I’d been down for longer than they said and healed a bit.
Fuck.
I hated that I couldn’t remember.
“Who all knows the truth?”
He shook his head.
“That’s above my pay grade. I only followed orders.”
“Whose orders? My father?”
“N-No. It came from the top to keep your possible TBI from you.”
From the top?
“Do they know? My family.”
“N-Not to m-my knowledge.”
I nodded.
He relaxed when I stepped back, but there was no need for that. Anybody who knowingly deceived me had to die.
“The Collective thanks you for your service. Be blessed.”
I emptied the clip into his body and dropped my calling card on top of it.
When the police saw the deep maroon dragonfly, they’d know who to come see.
One down, four to go.