Page 13 of Hidden Echoes

“What if she kills me?”

“Well, I’ve got a clean-up team on standby for that, too, so don’t worry. You’ll get a proper funeral,” she says, before hanging up on me.

Fuck.

“I won’t kill you.”

The voice behind me makes me jump, and I turn to find Mia standing there, looking as calm as ever.

“Okay,” I reply, still not really believing her. I mean, I don’t even know this girl. What was I thinking, letting Charlie guilt-trip me into this?

“Zane,” she says, her voice low and smooth. The way she says my name makes my pulse race. She leans in just slightly, a faint smile on her lips. “You asked me to trust you. I did. Now I’m going to need you to trust me back. I won’t hurt you.”

She repeats my words back to me, and for a moment, I’m frozen.

Her voice, soft and unassuming, wraps around my own doubts like a weight I wasn’t prepared for.

It’s the sincerity in it—genuine, without the slightest trace of manipulation—that makes me feel like a total asshole for ever questioning her in the first place. But the truth is, the doubt still lingers, crawling through me like a slow poison. I don't even know how to be around her.

I've spent most of my life alone. Alone in the sense that no one was ever truly there, not in the way a person should be. My mom was a constant, brutal storm—always drunk, always shouting.

I used to be a social butterfly back in high school, but after I left that life behind, everything got quiet. And honestly, I like it that way.

When you grow up surrounded by the constant noise of shouting, slamming doors, and broken glass, silence becomes more than just the absence of sound—it becomes a refuge. A sanctuary you can retreat to when the world outside feels like it’s falling apart.

The stillness is where I can breathe, where I can simply exist without the weight of the world pressing down on me.

Mia, though, is nothing but loud and messy.

The way she exists in the world is foreign to me, unpredictable.

I’m usually good with unpredictable—that’s just how I live.

But this? I don’t know if I’m ready for it.

“You should shower,” I say, trying to sound like I know what I’m doing. But Mia just looks at me, her expression clouded with confusion.

“Okay,” she shrugs.

Before I can explain further, the hospital gown she’s wearing slips off, and just like that, she’s standing before me, exposed, not a single shred of modesty between us.

Fuck. My. Life.

I immediately avert my gaze, hoping my face isn’t a complete disaster of red, but it’s too late. My eyes catch something—just a glimpse—and that damn image is burned into my brain. Her pinky rosy nipples, the delicate curve of her body, and Jesus, this is so fucking wrong. I knew it. I knew it would be like this. I should have seen it coming.

“Mia—” I start, my voice tight, but she interrupts me before I can find any kind of balance.

“You know, you need to look at me in order to bathe me, Zane. Have you ever done that?” she asks, her tone oddly playful, almost like she’s trying to teach me something.

I sigh, frustrated with myself, trying to ignore how this situation has me all twisted up.

I’m about to say something, anything, when the door swings open, and Carter strolls in without a care in the world.

My instinct kicks in before I can think—I move, closing the space between us, shielding Mia with my body. Without hesitation.

“Dude, I told you I wouldn’t be okay with you banging people in my house,” Carter grumbles from the doorway, clearly still half asleep.

“It’s not what you think,” I blurt, my words tumbling out before I can stop them.

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