Page 8 of The Echo of Forever
“But I’ll do my best to pull through unscathed,” I added, giving them what they wanted to hear even though it was all bullshit.
One day I would die.
We all would.
I lived like there was no tomorrow for that reason alone.
CHAPTER 3
FOREVER
Where are you?
I clearedthe text and focused my attention on Cannon towers to the right of me with my one-eye binocular.
Text back now or we’ll have a problem.
Blah. Blah.
Another swipe of my phone’s screen did the trick.
Threats never worked, and my father still hadn’t caught on yet.
Demetrius was standing in front of his office’s floor-to-ceiling windows. It’d been a little over a week since his file landed on my desk, but only a few days since his return to Everwood.
I wanted him to know I was watching, that his time was almost up. Nothing had excited me this way in a long time. Things were becoming too black and white in my world.
Everwood was made up of two groups of people, those who were part of the Collective and those who rejected. There weren’t many families that turned the society away as a whole. And none of them had ever made a name for themselves like the Cannons.
Maybe that’s why my skin prickled with goosebumps when thoughts of taking him out filtered through my mind.
As what they called a society kid, born into a family notoriously loyal to the Collective, I heard stories about rejectors. How hard it was for them to make a living within the confines of Everwood. Most left and built lives elsewhere, but somehow this singular family defied the norm.
My phone, attached to the dashboard, dinged again, and I cut my gaze at it.
Ignoring your father again??
I was tempted to text my brother back, but he’d only report it to our father, who would continue to harass me until I gave in and responded.
Forever James, don’t make me come looking for you.
My mother called after sending her threat. The makings of a migraine pulsed on the right side of my face.
“What do you want?”
She had the nerve to laugh, never one to take anything seriously.
“Do you have a migraine?” she asked. “You only get like this when you have one.”
I didn’t respond; instead, I watched Demetrius’s brother enter the building.
“You should see the doctor for more meds,” she went on, used to having one-sided conversations with me these days. “I was at your apartment and saw you ran out. But the refill date passed, so I can’t get them for you.”
There was no reason to respond. I was done taking migraine medicine. Done letting doctors prod my head, stick me inmachine after machine, only to tell me nothing was wrong. Even though the constant ache in my head felt otherwise.
Chronic migraines were what they diagnosed me with after I threatened to kill the next doctor who used the words “nothing” and “wrong” in my presence again.
I was supposed to live the rest of my life like this. In pain and pissed off at everyone around me, family and enemies alike.
