Page 58 of Lost Echoes
“You have to walk away.” My voice cracks. “Luke, you can’t risk everything you’ve built. We’ll figure something else out. Maybe Billa’s having luck with her mom at Radley.”
His hands hover above the keyboard, trembling. “I can’t walk away from you, Ember. You’re in too deep.”
“Luke.” I force him to look at me. “I’ll keep going, but I won’t be alone. I’ve got the other survivors, plus Billa and everyone she’s found. You’ve already helped so much more than you could know.”
He just shakes his head.
“I can’t lose another person!” I blurt out, my voice trembling. “It would kill me if anything happened to you. You have to walk away.”
Before he can respond, another line blinks onto the screen.
L00kCl0ser:
Last chance. Decide before the curtain rises. Blood will spill.
Luke exhales through his nose, sharp and ragged. His voice is steady, though his eyes are anything but. “Then I guess I just lost my job.”
Terror grips me. “No! Don’t do this. You can’t risk it. What about the kids you work with? What if they go after them?”
Color drains from his face. “They only threatened my job.”
“You think they’d stop there? Not these people.”
We stare at each other, wordless.
Another chat window pops open on the screen.
L00kCl0ser:
Did you make the right choice? Time’s ticking…
I throw Luke a pleading glance. “Give him what he wants! You can still help in the background, but don’t put your students at risk. What if they decide to go after your family? This has gotten too dangerous.”
He looks defeated, and finally he nods. “But I’m not giving up on you. I’ll protect you until the day I die.”
Then he responds to the message, saying that he’s out.
Relief and terror crash over me at once. Because if they can threaten his job, it means they’re closer than we thought.
29
Billa
The air is damp with river fog when Florencia and I slip through the side door of the abandoned civic hall. The windows are blacked out, but I can still feel people watching as we step inside.
Chairs are set in a rough circle. No names, no introductions, just a silent agreement that we’re here because of what was done to us. Some faces are familiar from last time, and some are new.
The woman with platinum hair sits directly across from me, her posture elegant, her tone measured. She speaks first, like she can’t stand silence. “They said it was therapy. Different facilities, different words. But always the same objects.” She glances at her hands. “For me, it was the spool. White thread. Always spinning.”
A shiver runs down my spine. The spool again.
Then another survivor, an older man with sunken eyes, nods. “North Ridge called it Wing B. They used the spool as a test. Watch the thread, follow the line. I was only twelve.”
A woman with trembling hands whispers. “At Willow Glen, it was the same. The white spool. They told us the thread would lead us out. But it always led back.”
The circle falls into a heavy hush.
Florencia leans forward. “Radley, North Ridge, Willow Glen. Three facilities and three stages of the same performance.” She glances around, her journalist’s instinct breaking through the anonymity. “If we can connect them publicly?—”
