Page 20 of Killer of the Bells
I didn’t care much for humanity, but I’d never hear the end of it from Gareth, and that was more headache than I needed.
I carried Echo to his apartment, using his keys to enter, and laid him down on his couch. I removed his shoes and tucked the TV remote into his hand. He would assume he’d fallen asleep, and I added a few fake memory prompts to help reinforce the assumption. Then I brushed my fingers over the bite mark I’d given him. I sent a wisp of magic into it and urged it to heal. By morning, the mark would be almost gone. He’d think he’d bruised it without noticing.
There was nothing to do about Echo’s phone, so hopefully he’d think he’d lost it. Gareth kept it and likely wouldn’t give it back. He’d take what he needed from it and then destroy it. It wasn’t necessary for him to do so, but Gareth would assume there was a chance Echo had been lying and or had installed something on his phone to allow him to remember what had happened, even though Echo was clearly a civilian and as threatening as a butterfly.
However, Gareth had contingencies upon contingencies and overprepared like all our lives were on the line, and since his paranoia had saved us all on more than one occasion, I didn’t argue with him.
Okay, that’s a lie. I argued with him all the time, but it was more of a hobby than a need to get results from it.
It’s better to let Gareth do his thing. It makes him happy and helps keep him calm. No one wants to see Gareth Hulk out. I’ve seen it once, and it was more than enough.
I looked around Echo’s apartment. It was jammed with little odds and ends, interesting rocks, framed pictures of him on dig sites, and, most notably, a questionably legal human jawbone. These all fit in with the aspiring archeology professor I’d caught peeks of in his mind.
And the lamp with an exposed wire sitting on his side table and the half-empty pack of cigarettes lying open on his table fit in with hisI want to die but I don’t want to be responsible for itmindset.
I placed a blanket on Echo, making sure to cover his small feet. His socks had little rainbow hearts on them, and something in my chest ached at the discovery.
It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant sensation.
I decided to stop mooning over Echo, his socks, and his cozy apartment, and went to his door to lock it and fasten the security chain.
I spared him one last glance before moving to exit from his window, my eyes lingering on the vibrant blue stripe covering his face.
Without thinking, I returned to Echo and tucked it behind his ear, feeling painfully aware that I would never see him again.
Pity. It would have been nice to talk to him one more time.
The sun was peeking over the horizon as I left Echo’s apartment. I hurried home so I could avoid having it brutally assault my eyes as it was so often delighted to do.
I entered my room through my window so I didn’t have to talk to anyone. If Baz had found his way home from the ravine I’d dumped him in, and if he said a single word to me, I’d likely try to choke him out. Then the filthy freak would want to fuck, and I wasn’t remotely in the mood.
Baz was a good fuck, but hardly worth the emotional drain on my reserves. Once Vix hooked up with Paris, I’d stopped taking Baz up on his many offers. Without Vix, I didn’t see the point.
I threw my clothes on the floor as I made my way to my bed. I heard the jingle of Echo’s apartment keys as my coat hit the floor. Odd. I wasn’t usually such a forgetful person.
The curse I was under included the longevity of the fae as well as their mental ability to retain vast amounts of knowledge. If the two didn’t come as a package deal, immortality would be more weight than I could bear. Imagine only being able to remember a human’s lifetime’s worth of information but being forced to live forever.
Perish the thought.
I lay on my bed, twirling Echo’s keys around my index finger.
Echo was an interesting little man. Maybe I’d subconsciously retained his keys so I could see him once more. The way he spoke, the way he thought, the way he cried out in my arms as he came… it was all enchanting.
I would do him a favor and make sure to return his car tomorrow.
I fell asleep holding his keys, and my last thought before the darkness consumed me was,He seemed to echo less when it was just the two of us.
Chapter
Seven
ECHO
My head was killing me. Like, seriously. I was considering using my living room window as a guillotine to relieve me of the ruckus it was causing.
Too bad the windowsill was dull. Physics suggested that were I to try it, I’d only end up with a bruised trachea to join my aching head.
The sun was blindingly high in the sky, and I thanked all the gods that I had the day off from teaching. Otherwise, I would have been in trouble big time because it was well after one in the afternoon.
