13. echo
echo
By lunch, the backs of both my heels were bleeding badly enough that I stopped pretending the shoes deserved a chance.
They were objectively gorgeous, which only made me hate them more.
Black leather, narrow heel, soft enough everywhere else that somebody had probably massaged the cow before killing it, and fitted perfectly except for the two places currently trying to peel the skin off my feet.
I’d made it through one lecture, most of a seminar, and the walk across the main quad before deciding Hunter’s wardrobe rules did not include a blood sacrifice.
I stopped beside one of the stone benches outside the humanities building, slipped them off, and hooked both heels over two fingers.
Cold pavement pressed against my soles when I stood again. It felt fucking wonderful.
A few people looked as I started across campus barefoot, but people had been looking at me all morning anyway.
At least now I was giving them something worth the effort.
The modified uniform itself wasn’t the problem.
I actually liked the way the skirt fit, and whoever had altered the jacket understood that having tits did not mean every piece of clothing needed to hang off them like a tent.
The shoes were the problem. My boots had never betrayed me like this.
My phone started vibrating before I reached the quieter path behind the humanities building. Runo’s name filled the screen, and I answered on video while still walking because there was no point waiting for privacy with that family. If he wanted privacy, he would have raised somebody else.
His face appeared much too close to the camera. Dark curls took up half the screen until he leaned back, ocean-grey eyes moving over whatever tiny portion of me the phone showed him. “Why are you outside without shoes?”
I lifted the heels into frame. “Because these are instruments of war and I refuse to die for fashion before I kill Nichlas.”
Aeron appeared over Runo’s shoulder almost immediately, wiping his hands on a dish towel. “Your feet are bleeding, sweetheart. Sit down before you walk dirt into them, and tell me you’ve eaten something that wasn’t coffee.”
“I ate.”
“That answer has never meant anything useful when it comes from you.”
I found a low stone wall bordering one of the gardens and sat, setting the shoes beside me while Aeron continued looking offended by the state of my feet from several states away.
The blisters were worse now that I could actually see them, raw crescents at both heels with enough blood to ruin the backs of the shoes.
“They took my boots,” I told him. “Apparently I dress like I’m planning a robbery, so the local dictators decided to improve me. ”
Slash’s voice came from somewhere outside the frame. “Get the boots back.”
“Thank you. Finally, somebody parenting correctly.”
He came into view a second later with an apple in one hand and a small knife in the other, which made the criticism feel more legitimate. “Wear whatever they want when it matters. Change the shoes when it doesn’t. If they care enough to fight you about footwear, they have too much free time.”
Aeron gave him a look. “Or she could bandage the wounds and stop walking barefoot through a public place.”
“I’m going to do one of those things.”
“Echo.”
I smiled at him and leaned back on one hand. “You called me. What do you want?”
Runo had been watching the whole exchange with the kind of amusement that usually meant he was about to make my life worse.
“I wanted to know how school was going, but now I’m much more interested in your dictators.
You’ve mentioned rules, stolen boots, and Nichlas in less than two minutes. That sounds like a predicament.”
“It’s not a predicament. It’s an arrangement.
” I shifted the phone so they could see less sky and more of my face.
“I came here to kill Nichlas. Turns out he’s wrapped up in this whole Quorum thing, and the three men running the school decided I can’t touch him because protection means something to them even when the person being protected is a useless coward.
So now I do work for them, follow enough rules to keep Hunter from developing an aneurysm, and eventually they give me Nichlas. ”
Aeron’s brows went up. Slash stopped cutting the apple. Samael appeared at the edge of the kitchen behind them, drawn in by the word Quorum even though he had probably been listening the entire time.
Runo smiled slowly. “Three men?”
“That is not the important part.”
“It might be. You’ve complained about all three of them every time you’ve checked in, and somehow I know more about the one who keeps following you than I know about what you’re studying. Which one are you sweet on?”
I stared at him. “I am not sweet on anybody.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Don’t ‘mm-hm’ me. Malakai is a fucking barnacle.
He appears places. I’ll be in the library and suddenly he’s sitting there touching my shit.
I leave class, there he is. I go eat, somehow he’s eating my food.
Yesterday he followed me across campus for no reason except apparently he had nothing better to do. ”
Runo’s smile spread wider with every sentence. “That was a lot of information about a man you’re not sweet on.”
“He’s annoying enough to require documentation.”
Slash leaned closer to the phone. “What does he do besides follow you?”
“He’s chemical engineering, which was deeply disappointing because I assumed he majored in hitting people.”
That caught Slash’s attention properly. He lowered the apple. “Chemical engineering is useful.”
“He’s smart as fuck, unfortunately. I’m trying not to encourage him.” I let out a small sigh. “I also threatened to rip out his tongue piercing yesterday. Does that help?”
“It really doesn’t.”
I flipped him off through the phone, which only made him laugh harder.
Samael stayed quiet behind them, watching me in that way that usually meant he had something else on his mind.
I noticed before the others stopped teasing because Pops did not stand around family video calls looking serious unless there was a reason.
“What happened?” I asked.
Runo’s expression changed first. The laughter dropped out of it without disappearing completely, and Samael stepped closer to the counter so I could see him properly.
“Someone’s been pulling at old records,” he said.
“Primrose property, archived cases, identifiers we stopped using years ago. Nothing direct enough to tell us whether they know what they’re looking for, but it’s more than somebody typing a name into a search bar. ”
My hand stopped where I’d been rubbing the edge of one blister. “How long?”
“Last few days. We noticed because two of the identifiers should have been dead ends and somebody followed them far enough to touch records that don’t connect unless you already have a reason to look.”
Hunter had told me he was going to dig. I’d expected school records, Westbridge, whatever he could pull on Nichlas and the year I spent finding him. I had not expected him to start reaching backward far enough to brush Primrose.
I looked down at my bare feet, then across the empty stretch of garden while I worked through what I wanted more.
The answer should have been simple. I had spent a year hunting Nichlas and longer than that wanting him dead.
I was finally close enough to make him afraid every day, and walking away now would feel like ripping out something I had carried too long to abandon.
None of that mattered more than my fathers.
“I don’t want to stop,” I said, looking back at the phone.
“I’m finally where I need to be, and I’m not giving Nichlas another fucking year if I can help it.
But if staying here starts pulling your old lives back into daylight, I will.
I’m not dragging Primrose behind me because I got stubborn over one coward. ”
Aeron’s face softened, but Samael answered before he could.
“You’re not dragging anything anywhere. We told you because you need to know somebody is looking, not because we need you to fix it for us.
Send me anything unusual from your end. Names, questions, anything one of those men asks that feels too specific. We’ll handle the rest.”
Slash nodded beside him, cutting another piece from the apple with the same calm precision he used for everything.
“If whoever’s looking finds an old name, that doesn’t mean they understand what they found.
There are too many layers between then and now for one search to open the whole thing. Let us worry about our history.”
I still didn’t like it. “If it’s Hunter, he’s good enough that he’ll keep going once he realizes something doesn’t fit.”
“Then he keeps going,” Runo said, leaning closer until his face filled more of the screen again.
His tone had lost the teasing, warm without becoming soft.
“Baby, we survived everything attached to those names before you ever walked into our house. You don’t need to drop what you came for because somebody knocked on one of our old doors.
If this Hunter finds something inconvenient, we’ll decide what to do about Hunter.
You go deal with the problem that belongs to you. ”
I studied him for a moment, still trying to decide whether that was reassurance or permission to make several worse decisions in quick succession. With Runo, it was usually both. “You’re sure?”
“We’re sure,” Aeron said. “And while you’re dealing with your problem, please find a pharmacy before those feet get infected. I am begging you to have one normal concern today.”
Runo’s grin came back. “Go get your boy.”
I groaned hard enough that the woman crossing the path nearby glanced over. “He is not my boy. He’s an irritating asshole with no concept of personal space who has apparently decided I’m his extracurricular activity.”
“That sounds even worse for your argument.”
“It’s not an argument. It’s a fact.”