Page 23 of Hidden Echoes

"Where are you taking me?"Mia asks, her voice tinged with confusion.

She probably would’ve known if she hadn’t been asleep for over twelve hours. I thought about waking her up, but she looked so peaceful I didn’t have the heart to. So I just let her sleep until we actually had to go.

Besides, there wasn’t much time to explain everything. My attention was drawn to packing a suitcase, carefully folding clothes and focusing on the little details.

I’m not a huge fan of talking. I prefer my time alone.

You’re avoiding her,my inner voice adds.

Yeah, that too.

"Los Angeles," I reply, glancing over at her. "You woke up just in time for my tattoo conference, and I’ve got a client to meet there. So, I guess you won a free trip since Charlie insists I be your nanny."

"Cool," she responds, a wide grin spreading across her face, her tone almost childlike. "What’s Los Angeles?"

I stop, staring at her, caught off guard. "You’re kidding, right?"

She looks at me, deadpan. "I don’t know. Am I?" Her expression is so genuine, it throws me off.

Whoisthis girl?

It’s not just her blank stare—it’s the way she carries herself, like she’s trying to make sense of a world she doesn’t understand. But there’s something else too. She looks so much like her—same eyes, same hair, same gentle voice.

"The city," I say, trying to keep it simple. "Do you know what a city is?"

She tilts her head, thinking for a moment before answering mechanically, "A city is a territory, a cluster of people situated in a geographically delimited area, containing houses, industries, and agricultural spaces… a city."

I blink, processing her answer. "You’ve never traveled before?"

She shrugs, as if it’s no big deal. "Dallas," she says, her voice soft and matter-of-fact. "I thought Dallas was a hospital."

I raise an eyebrow. "No, Dallas is a city. You were in a hospital, but it was in Dallas."

Her brow furrows slightly, processing the information. "Oh. I see." She pauses, looking at me curiously. "You really don’t know these things?

"No," she replies with a sigh. " I was never allowed to leave. I was raised in confinement until I was ten with my brother, One. But he was separated from me, and I was assigned to a Master when I was fourteen."

Her voice is so casual, as if she's gossiping about something harmless, like some weird anecdote. But the words are as fucked up as they get.

My theory was right.

She’s one of them. One of the girls held captive by the Cartel.

Maybe they fucking sold her as a baby, and that’s why she doesn’t remember shit about society—Jesus. That just makes this whole mess even more fucked up.

I've heard about it. Hell, it always made my skin crawl. She's like Seth Evans—another soul rescued from that kind of nightmare.

Fuck.

I remind myself again: stay out of this. I don't want to get dragged into her world. I really don’t.

But we're about to spend twenty hours in a car together, so I guess I'll figure her out—whether I want to or not.

I connect my phone to the car, and the travel playlist kicks in. As Blackpink’s “Kill This Love” blasts through the speakers, I glance over at Mia. Her eyes widen as if she's seeing something completely foreign, like a newborn discovering color for the first time.

She stares at the screen, then looks back at me, her expression more curious than I expected. "What is this?" she asks, trying to absorb every note of the music. "I don’t understand some of the words they’re saying."

I struggle to keep a straight face. It's hard not to laugh, but not in a way that’s mocking her. It's just... she’s so genuinely curious, and that’s hard to not find endearing. "Yes, because they're speaking Korean."

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