Page 73 of Echoes of War

My love for Seth would always be there. The kind of love that we shared didn’t disappear overnight. But I refused to let that cloud my judgment ever again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice … Well, I would never let that happen. There was no need to even finish that line of thought.

“Shh,” I said soothingly, “It’s okay, Reina. I believe you. It’s okay.”

“I’m a monster,” she mumbled, throwing herself down into the current.

I watched as she floated on her back. Peace took over her kind features. Her brown hair formed a halo around her head. It was fleeting. Her nose crinkled and her cheeks went red. The water masked her tears flowing into the quickening current.

“If you’re a monster, then we are all damned.”

Fighting to keep upright, I pulled her into me, cradling her until her tears stopped. The current slowed, and Reina abandoned floating, coming back to her feet. Her eyes opened, and she faced the sky, void of all emotion, a new mask taking over. Reina’s features had hardened. My sister was gone.

“Come on,” I said, grabbing her hand to guide us back to shore. “We need to make it to Billings before nightfall. We’ll be safe to set up camp along their borders. No need to go inside the town and see anyone you may know.”

She chuckled in response. “I don’t care much if I see them. I bet they’d hardly recognize me anyway.”

I examined her, not liking the sound of that. Shaking off where my thoughts were headed, I continued rifling through her bag, searching for some clean clothes for her to dress in. Abel watched on from the horses, an expression marked by worry. He turned away when Reina caught him, punishing him with a glare. His jaw ticked, and he redirected his attention out into the distance, continuing his surveillance over the perimeter.

Abel and I worked on setting up the tent for the night. Reina sat near the fire, poking it with a stick. She hadn’t spoken a word since we left the river, which was fine by me because I wasn’t sure what to say. Comforting someone had never been my strong suit, not in The Before and not in The After. That was Reina’s job.

I suddenly found myself in the same position as I had when Jax died. What do you do when the strong friend falls apart? Amaia was strong for us all, making the decisions we couldn’t and bearing the weight of it. Reina was strong in a different way. She shouldered our emotions when we couldn’t.

How the hell was I supposed to help someone who could take away our pain when the only thing I could offer was a pat on the back and false statements about how everything would be okay? Everything would not be okay. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Seth’s words echoed in my mind.I’ll come back for you too.Words that I heard every fucking night on replay before I fell asleep.

We nibbled on the deer Reina had caught at the precepts of sunset. With the fire now out to avoid detection, inside the tent was the warmest place. Abel snored the second his head hit the ground. Reina took it upon herself to take first watch, hanging near the flap of the tent. So I laid there, staring up into pitch black. My head spun, eyelids drooping low. I let the vision take over.

I’m … I’m Seth. A chill went down my spine. He had called for me, forced me into his mind from a distance against my will. He scanned a room full of screens and other electronics. Electricity? Shit. I mean, Duluth had power for lights and things, but this, wherever he was, had remained untouched from The Before. His tan, calloused hands fiddled with items, picking them up and placing them directly into his line of sight.

Seth was showing me something, something he wanted me to know. I had told him of the vision my sister had offered before her death. He was making sure I took in every inch of his surroundings, so I knew what we were up against. But why?

He glanced back at the wall of screens. My family’s portraits lined them. The words ‘Kill Order’ atop each of our heads. He stopped on mine. ‘Scholar - Seer’ was written in my description. Seth turned away, back to one of the devices he’d held in his hands the first few glimpses of the vision.

My line of sight was now on a keyboard. He began typing … ‘VeilSight Disruptor.’ What the hell … Seth stared back at the screen in front of him and clicked on a file. The details popped up on the fucking screen.

This device, disruptor or whatever the fuck it was, blocked out facial recognition to limit the exposure of Coverts spies, but it was more than that. He scrolled down. It emitted a low-level electromagnetic field that emitted pulses throughout the continental United States. It was why people who fled Covert Province had never been able to recall the details of their life there once they crossed through the borders. The second component was to attack memory, letting them only recall certain things.

Seth scrolled again, clicking into a subfile marked classified. If what he had shown me was declassified information, what the flying fuck did these assholes consider classified? With horror, I fought to maintain our wavering connection. I was losing strength from this. It was too vivid, too detailed.

Only approved individuals were granted the ability to walk through specific checkpoints with their memory intact.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Shit. What Seth was showing me was the answer to every problem I’d encountered these last few months when it came to my abilities. My visions. These assholes had been limiting my ability, every Seer’s ability,to see anything that went on within Covert Province. They were specifically targeting Seers’ minds, using the pulses to aim for brain waves that our minds patterned. It replaced detailed images with vague impressions and shifting shadows, making it difficult for us to gain any meaningful insights.

The vision faded, the already blurry images turning into tv static. Seth moved the mouse over to the corner of the screen, it hovered on a button, “OFF.” He clicked it back on, picking the device up and moving it a gemstone over toward its center. Before he could place it there, a loud thud sounded behind him.

He jumped at the noise, dropping the device. A tall man identical to Seth swayed into the room, his face red with anger. He grabbed Seth by his shirt, plowing him into the wall. Seth gasped out for air, cut off by a stocky older man whose hands now gripped around his neck.

His father searched through the clutter for the gemstone. Seth’s fingers reached out for a pen now scattered on the floor. The man tried to snatch it from him, but Seth resisted, stabbing him in the hand. When the man jumped back, Seth scrambled for a piece of paper.

The gemstone was returned and the world around him went to black, but not before his message was received.

Monterey. Coming 4 u now.

One of the shittiest things I’ve ever had to do in this life was look my family in the eye and pretend nothing was wrong. It was not easier the second time. In the days it took us to arrive at Casper, I had to put on a face of concealment. Pretending to be none the wiser that the closer we got to home, the closer we were to meeting our fate. I wasn’t sure if that fate would bring us doom or not. I spent most of my time tryingnotto know, actually.

Maybe it was a fool’s choice, but I couldn’t face the sight of watching my family stumble toward their deaths. I’d done it prior to arriving at Monterey, and I’d be damned to subject myself to that again. I couldn’t bear it. No one should have to watch theirfamily die twice. Four times if you were me. Twice within visions, and twice when it played out in real time.

Abel watched me, like he knew what I had seen. If he did, I knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t bite his tongue. Instead, he assumed something was off. I wasn’t sure if it was something Amaia and Riley had taught him, or if it was something he’d learned on his own the hard way, but there was a benefit in not asking questions. Especially if you knew something was amiss. Sometimes, with our gifts, not knowing was a gift in itself.

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