Echoes by Marissa Lete (best books for students to read txt) 📕

knew him back then. And how little I know about him now. I’m not sure I can trust him.

But right now, I’m not sure I have a choice.

I take a step forward. “Okay,” I whisper.

“Follow me,” he says, and I do.

We take off, sprinting back down the hallway in the direction I’d just come from. Maverick is faster than me, but he slows down when he notices I’m struggling to keep up. He leads us around the corner and just before we get to the room I’d been held in, there’s another staircase entrance. When we get to the first floor, Maverick peers through the window on the door into the main hallway.

“Wait here. I’ll take care of the guards. Don’t let them see you,” he whispers, staring directly into my eyes to make sure I understand. His eyes don’t miss a thing, not the fear in mine, not the tremble of my hands, not the heat that forms in my cheeks under his gaze. I can tell by the depth of them, the endless pools of amber that don’t drift a millimeter away from mine.

I steady my breath and nod, and then he slips through the door. I watch through the small rectangular window as he rushes to the first guard and places his hands on the guard’s arms, shoving him toward the ground. It doesn’t look like that hard of a shove, but the guard falls, rolling onto his back, and goes still.

A second guard rushes toward Maverick, pushing him against the wall. They move just outside of the range of vision provided by the small window, and I strain to see what’s happening. I hear a loud thump, the sound of a body hitting the ground, and I wait, my breath coming out in short gasps. A beat later, Maverick appears in front of the window, then pulls the door open.

“Come on,” he says, voice low, gesturing for me to follow him. I slip through the door and he leads us down the main hallway. I can see two double glass doors directly in front of us, a hundred yards away. Outside, the sun is shining, but there’s a faded, reddish tint to the light that tells me it must be sometime in the evening.

When we get about halfway to the door, a person steps in front of it, blocking our path.

“Not so fast,” Alice calls out, her voice echoing down the hall. Maverick grabs my arm and pushes me behind him protectively. “Don’t. Move.” Alice says, and then I notice the gun. Pointed directly at us. We both freeze.

Behind me, I hear footsteps. I whip my head around, noticing two guards who are also holding guns.

“Did you think you could get away so easily?” Alice asks, then tilts her head back and lets out a short laugh.

Maverick doesn’t miss a beat. Just then, in one swift movement, he places his hand on a door next to us, pushes me inside, and slams it shut. He grabs the closest piece of furniture, a chair, and wedges it under the doorknob just as I hear Alice yell, “Get them!”

The door vibrates as the guards bang on it, the sound kicking my adrenaline to a new level. Maverick goes over to the window on the back wall and gives it a hard kick with his shoe. The glass shatters, and a gust of cold air bursts into the room. This window, unlike the one in the room I’d woken up in, isn’t barred. Either we got lucky, or Maverick knows his way around this place.

“You go first,” he tells me, and I throw my leg over the window sill. It’s a relatively short drop and I land on a bed of pine needles, shrubs on either side of me. Maverick drops a second later, and from inside the room, I hear the scraping of furniture along the floor. “Run,” he says, and he doesn’t have to wait for my response.

We take off, tearing across a small lawn, then crashing into woods. Thorns and branches reach out at us, scraping as we move through the vegetation. I ignore them, my need to escape outweighing the pain of a few cuts. I glance behind us and see two figures making their way across the turf behind us. They’re a good distance away, so we might have a decent chance of losing them.

I face forward and press on, sticking as close to Maverick’s side as I can. I’m not sure where we’re going, but it seems like Maverick has a destination in mind because he makes purposeful turns through the woods. Eventually, we reach a small clearing and at the opposite end, a small car is parked. When we get closer, I recognize it: the little black sport’s car. The one I’d seen at the school and in the driveway of the abandoned house across the street.

“Get in on this side,” Maverick gestures toward the driver’s side as he opens the door, and I remember seeing the entire right side crushed in. Because he’d pulled in front of the Suburban, stopping it from chasing me.

I climb in, scooting across the center console into the passenger seat. It’s tiny, with barely enough room to fit my legs. And sure enough, the right side door is crushed in; even from the inside it looks pretty badly damaged.

Maverick slides in next to me, cranking the engine up. He drives forward slowly, winding the car between trees until we reach a road. Maverick makes a right turn, pressing his foot down on the accelerator.

The car’s powerful engine hums beneath us as we drive. Maverick doesn’t take his eyes off the road, and I don’t take mine off the speedometer slowly creeping upward. I’m not sure where we are—or where we are going, for that matter—but I know that even I have a limit to how