More Than an Echo (Echo Branson Series) (5 page)

Fear punched me in the gut. I was trapped in a cage with only one way out.

Life is filled with unlikely heroes and mine is no exception.

After Big George dropped his big bomb about my tenuous future, we got down to planning my escape. He could help me escape at night, but what then? I refused to do anything that would put him at risk. I had really grown to care about the big guy and I wouldn’t hear about him risking his job. All he needed to do was get me off the floor and the rest was up to me.

Or so I thought.

When I finally got the chance to talk to Danica, it was by phone and I had very little time for pleasantries. “There’s forty bucks in my backpack in the inner pocket. I need you to get me a fake ID. Just use my student body photograph when you go.”

“A fake ID? Are you nuts?”

“I will be if you don’t get me out of here.”

“What about money?”

“Big George is loaning me cash for a ticket, but I need an ID that says I’m eighteen.”

“Same name? I mean... Jane Doe already looks like a fake ID, know what I mean?”

I thought about my recently discovered powers and that what I felt from people was a little bit like hearing an echo. “Echo. I want my name to be Echo.”

“Sure you haven’t already lost your mind?”

“Funny. Echo is perfect. It suits me. Trust me on this. I am so much more of an Echo than I ever was a Jane.”

“Fine. Echo it is. And your last name?”

I thought about the only girl who had ever been nice to me in the foster homes I was in. “Branson.”

“Echo Branson?”

“Why not? I’m going to be starting a new life.”

“Are you ever going to tell me what really happened?”

I had written her several letters attempting to explain to her why I tried to crush Todd’s head in. I wanted her to know what I was, but I still didn’t have the words for it. It would be quite some time before I did. It’s hard to explain something you barely understand yourself.

“But why New Orleans?”

“There’s a...school there that specializes in my...issues.”

“What issues?”

“I’ll tell you as soon as I can explain it better. I’m still adjusting to the idea that I have these issues. You’ve got to get me out of here.”

“Of course I will, she said with the warmth in her voice that made me love her. And there’s forty bucks in your backpack.”

“Inside the small zipper pocket. Britt gave it to me before she left. She told me to spend it only when I was ready to run. I’m ready to run. Really, really fast.”

Our time was up and I hung up knowing that she would do everything she could to make that run possible.

Escape was easier than I thought. Once Big George got me off the floor undetected and wearing regular street clothes, I was able to walk casually out of the hospital as if I were just a visitor.

When I reached the parking lot, I looked around for Danica. I started to panic a little, but then I saw a black Trans Am screech into the parking lot. I felt a familiar presence, but since I had no experience with my “gift,” I couldn’t really pinpoint it.

“Need a lift?” someone asked from the car. I knew the voice as soon as I heard it.

“Britt?”

“Get in, doofus! You trying to get us busted or what? Come on, girl, we don’t have all day!”

The passenger side door opened and Danica stuck her head out and waved me over. “Come on!”

I hopped in next to Danica as Britt peeled away even before I could close the door.

“Parking lot cameras,” Britt muttered as an explanation for why she had floored it. “Don’t worry. We’ll be ditching this ride in a few.”

And so we did, snagging a white Explorer left in the middle of a mall parking lot. Hot-wiring cars was something Britt had learned from her time on the street and she was very good at it. We got in and out of that lot in under five minutes.

“Okay ladies, Oakland airport, here we come.”

I turned to Danica, but before I could ask my question she answered me.

“Britt wrote her cell number on the bills she gave you in big, red letters. I called her and—”

“Told me you’d finally wised up and decided to run. So, here I am.” She cut her eyes over to me. “You look ready to run.” Britt flipped her wallet open and pushed my fake ID out with her thumb.

“Echo Branson, eh, Jane?” Britt grinned as she drove. “Cool name. It suits you.”

I looked over at Britt. The streets had aged her overnight. She was seventeen going on thirty. Her short blond hair was blonder than I remembered, but her eyes were as blue as ever. She was wearing faded jeans with designer holes in the knees and a gray SFSU sweatshirt. I’d never been happier to see anyone than I was her. “Thank you so much, Britt.”

“Hey, we orphan Annies gotta stick together, you know? I’m just glad I could help.”

“You got money?” Danica asked.

I nodded. “A paperless ticket. Melika bought it for me.”

“Who’s that?” Britt asked.

I thought for a minute. “She’s the woman who’s going to save my life.”

Britt smiled. “Then you’re all set to go.”

And so I was.

Less than twenty-four hours later, I stepped off the plane and into a brand-new life of supernaturals.

For a kid who grew up in California, New Orleans might as well have been another country. Everything about it was unlike anything I had ever experienced; the smells, the sounds, the energy,
everything
was so foreign.

As I made my way through the airport, I found a kid standing at the baggage claim with a sign that read Echo Branson. I nearly walked by, my name not seared into my life yet, but he caught my eye and stopped me in my tracks. I had a headache from the emotions from a plane full of people, so I wasn’t thinking clearly. Sleep was my savior and had been the only thing that kept me from hearing the feelings crashing against my brain.

“Echo?” the boy asked.

He was the blackest boy I had ever seen, and I had seen
a lot
. His skin was so dark, it had a purple tinge to it. He was wearing black shorts, black Nike high-tops and a red T-shirt that said something about Alligator Adventures. He looked all of twelve.

“Oh. Yes. I’m sorry. That
is
me.”

He grinned with teeth whiter than white. “I know. Come.”

We got into a silver Towncar waiting for us at the curb. The air was hot and humid and felt like it clung to me.

“I’m Jacob,” the boy said, extending his hand.

I shook it. “Where’s Melika?”

“Oh, she hardly ever comes to town.”

“Town? Where does she live? Big George said she lives in New Orleans.”

Jacob kept grinning. “She does. She lives down in the Bayou.”

“The what?”

Jacob groaned. “Ah, man. You don’t know what the Bayou is?”

“No. Do you know what the Tenderloin is?”

“Uh...no.”

“Then we’re even.”

Jacob sighed and shook his head. “George shoulda warned you. I mean...the Bayou is...well...it’s not like any place on earth. You’ll see.”

We drove in silence through streets lined with homes that rivaled the Victorians in San Francisco. People of every description were everywhere on the streets and many of the areas reminded me of San Francisco, only older. I mean, this place was
old
. You could smell old heat in the air. It was if I had been transported back in time, and I was mesmerized by the vivid colors of everything from the homes to the clothes people wore. What a charming and wild little place this was. I loved it immediately.

“Pretty cool, eh?”

I nodded, looking out the window. People here were into things like voodoo and palm reading, not to mention food, food, and more food. I’d never seen so many restaurants. There was a restaurant every other building, and each was packed.

“Melika wanted you to see it because she said it would be a long time before you’d see it again. You have a lot of work to do and the city distracts from all that work. In the Bayou, there aren’t nearly as many folks around to bother the process.”

“The process?”

“That’s what we call it.”

“We?”

“You’ll stay in the Bayou with Melika and the rest of us while she teaches you what you need to know.” He shook his head. “Man, Big George musta had to get you outta there fast. Normally people come with a better idea of what we’re about.”

I nodded and leaned back. His somber tone reminded me this wasn’t a vacation. I was here to learn how to live. “How come I don’t feel any emotions from you? Ever since…well, for a while now, I’ve been picking up everything everyone around me is feeling.”

“I’m blocking. It’s a wall I’ve constructed to keep you from reading me. Melika will show you how, too.”

Sighing, I watched the landscape go by. This was my new life, my new beginning, and I was already realizing that I couldn’t have been more out of my element if I’d been on the moon.

“Don’t worry if you’re feeling overwhelmed. We all felt that way when we first got here.”

Watching a new world fly past, I thought about my last couple of days at the hospital. They had been pure torture, and I understood, all too clearly, why that poor drooling girl had cracked. I couldn’t get away from the emotional pounding of anyone who came near me. It was as if every one of them was screaming into my brain at the same time. As a result, I stayed in my room, seeing only Big George, and occasionally Celeste, but even then I could only take her in small doses.

So, here I was, coming to empathic boot camp, where I would, hopefully, learn to block out the noises threatening my sanity. This was serious; not a frivolous moment to be squandered. Yes, New Orleans was a most incredible place, but it was so much more than that to me. It was the keeper of a mysterious woman I knew little about, but who offered to teach me how to live with what had driven any number of people like me mad. And as we left New Orleans proper and started to wind our way to the Bayou, I looked forward to meeting this woman who was going to save my life. But as we floated lazily down the river, further and farther from the city, I was beginning to wonder if this was such a good idea.

An hour later, we pulled up to a tiny cinderblock house precariously perched on a sliver of land overlooking the brackish water. It looked like a shed behind one of the more dilapidated houses in the ghetto.

“She lives
here
?”

Jacob shook his head. “Nope. Bones lives here. He’s the boatman.”

“Boatman? We need to take a boat?”

This seemed to amuse Jacob. “You really don’t know much, do you? Where have you been? In a cave?”

“Actually, I’ve been in a psych ward,” I replied, leveling my gaze at him. “Sorry I didn’t have time to bone up on my geography.”

“Oh. Gee. I’m sorry.”

“Ya gone stan’ der yakkin’ all day, boy?” a tall, bony man asked. He looked like a skeleton with a black plastic bag pulled over his bones. He spoke with an accent I hadn’t heard before.

“Hold your horses, Bones. She’s one of Melika’s newbies. She’s new to the whole Bayou thing.”

Bones hobbled over to me and bent down to look in my eyes. His were two pieces of coal. “Ain’t nuddin’ to fear out here less’n you goes inda water. Dun’t go inda water.”

I swallowed loudly. “What’s in the water?”

“Death,” Bones said, shaking his head and pulling up a pants leg. He wore a two-foot long scar from his inner knee to the top of his raggedy boot. “Dey kint have old Bones,” he said, grinning. He had maybe half his teeth. Maybe.

“Stop scaring her, Bones, you old bag. You know Melika doesn’t like it when you scare them.”

“Den don’t tell her, boy.” Bones raised up and sent a warning glare over to Jacob. “You too old to be a tattler, Jacob Marley.”

Jacob Marley? Wasn’t he a character in the Dickens story?

“I won’t tell her, but stop scaring the girl. It’s hard enough.”

“Fine den. Come on, missy. Get inda boat.” He pronounced it boot.

I looked over at “the boat.” It looked like a cartoon boat that had been shot at by Elmer Fudd. “You want
me
to get in
that
?”

“It’s the only way,” Jacob said, heading over to the piece of Swiss cheese Bones called a boat.

“Get on in, missy,” Bones said, tossing two oars to Jacob before grabbing a really long pole. “’Gator getter,” he said.

Tentatively, I stepped into the rickety raft, my eyes scanning the water for alligators.

“Dey ain’t none near here,” Bones said, chuckling under his breath. “I sind dem away long time ago. Me and dem…unnerstand what’s what.”

Glad he did because I sure as hell didn’t. “Then what’s the stick for?”

“Um...just what he said. In case a ’gator gets curious, then he just pushes them away.”

I scooted to the very center of the raft. They had no right calling this thing a boat. It was a raft with punctured sides that looked like a family of termites had it for dinner.  “With a goddamned stick? Don’t you have a machete or a shotgun or something?”