The Last Echo

He was covered in tattoos that were almost tribal-looking, finding space on his forearms, hands, neck, and his face. Every place his skin was exposed. His black hair was short as if his head had once been shaved, but was now growing back, springing up lightly over his scalp . . . thin, like new grass.

Somewhere nearby, she heard the hum of Rafe’s voice, trying to break through to her, to reach her, but she was too distracted to make it out clearly.

The moment was surreal, as Violet felt immediately detached from everyone around her. It was just her . . . and the boy. And the echoes—the imprints—that whispered to her.

One was a haunting choir of voices, constant and eerie.

Simultaneously, candied apples, sweet and tart, licked across her tongue, making her mouth water. That was another.

And then there were the tattoos. She almost didn’t notice what was so unusual about them at first. One seemed to blend with the next—those were the ones that were real, the ones that were visible to everyone, and not just to Violet. But then she saw some of them move, shifting and slithering like black vines just beneath the surface of the boy’s skin. They snaked in and around his permanent tattoos, the ink that would never move or change. They stopped now and then to form a new pattern or a shape: interlocking circles, a rose, smoky swirls, a dagger dripping with blood. But then, before her eyes could fully adjust, they’d moved again, reshaping. That was the third distinct imprint, these ever-changing tattoos.

There were other imprints too. Some she could make out, and some that were too tangled with the rest to distinguish clearly.

“What’re you lookin’ at?” The man-boy wearing the imprints of the dead snarled at her, and Violet’s skin puckered, chilling her all the way through.

She glanced away, trying to decide if the icy blast she felt was yet another imprint or if it was just the sensation of being so near a killer.

Violet glanced nervously, first to Rafe and then to Krystal, both of whom were watching her now, even as she saw one of the officers shove the boy: “Shut up! Don’t talk to her.”

“I’ll talk to whoever I want, bitch,” he shot back, his voice bold and full of menace.

He turned to Violet then, his stare intense. The creeping vine of a tattoo wound its way around his brow, framing his black eyes with dark tendrils. The whispering chant remained steady, filling the small space with its ghostly cacophony.

Violet pressed herself closer to Rafe, trying not to look at the boy, but unable to look away from the ink curling and creeping beneath his skin. She shook her head, her heart racing, bruising her ribs.

He was directly in front of her now, being led to wherever they were taking him.

At last, Rafe’s voice broke through Violet’s reverie and she heard him talking to her softly. “V, look at me.”

“I’m okay,” she tried to say, but the words didn’t quite reach her lips.

She could see in the boy’s eyes that her fear incited him, and he jerked toward her, throwing his body in her direction, struggling against his restraints like a madman. He held her gaze as he tried to get to her. “You like me, girl? You like what you see?”

But he didn’t get far.

Two of the officers pushed him down, forcing him to his knees. “I said shut up!” One of them was yelling as they gripped his handcuffs, hauling him upward until his shoulders were so contorted they looked like they might snap.

Violet squeezed as far back against the bench as she could. When the boy lifted his head, she found herself staring into his black eyes. A menacing smile curled his lips as his gaze roved from the top of her head down to her feet, pausing only momentarily over her chest. “You’d like me even better if we were alone,” he promised, licking his lips lasciviously.

Violet glared at him. She hated that he could see her fear, that he knew he’d gotten to her.

He laughed then, a vulgar bark that sounded like a growl. “I knew she liked me. Me and her would get along just fine,” he said to the cop as he was yanked to his feet again and dragged away.

And then everything was moving again, in real time. Voices rose around her, returning to their normal, fevered pitch. She would never admit how her pulse choked her, or how her breath felt hot and shallow, hard to find like the air was suddenly too thin in that cramped space. But she was grateful when Rafe’s hand closed over hers . . . when she felt the familiar spark from his touch. She didn’t care that he practically hauled her up from the bench, his body shielding her from the boy being taken into custody.

By the time Sara arrived, she looked as if she could spit fire at the three of them. Her gaze leveled on Rafe as the door closed behind her.

And then she paused when she saw Violet—when she saw the way Rafe stood in front of her like a sentinel—and the furious scowl she was wearing cracked, fracturing into something . . . softer. “What? Did something happen?”

“It’s Violet. Some guy just threatened her,” Rafe explained, his voice hard and filled with lingering menace.

Violet had just barely managed to control her shaking, and the unearthly choral voices had vanished. She realized she could have left it at that. That she could have let them both believe that the boy had simply frightened her. But now that he was gone, his imprints tucked away somewhere deeper in the building, she could feel her pulse steadying. “No. That—that’s not it,” she stammered. “He was . . .” She felt stupid for faltering, for her fear.

Violet felt Krystal’s hand on her shoulder, and felt her fingers tightening. It was reassuring in a way Violet couldn’t explain, and she relaxed. Despite what they’d been through tonight, these were exactly the people she could talk to about this.