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

mouth. “Kara and Jeff. My name is Laura. I’m here to help you,” I tell them.

Mom looks at me, hope in her eyes. “Where are we?”

I try to come up with an explanation, but it’s a little trickier with my parents. Maverick had known about the anomalies, Alice, and his own power. When I told him that his memories had been erased, he understood because he knew what he was capable of. But my parents know nothing, not about me, not about Alice, not about any of it.

“It doesn’t matter, what matters is that we get out,” I tell her. Then I look between the three of them. “I need you all to follow me closely and do exactly what I say, okay?”

They all nod in unison.

I start down the hallway, then move up the stairs. We walk in a line: me, Maverick, Mom, then Dad. My gun is in my hands, ready to fire at any moment. I just want to get us out of here. I’ll figure out what to do about the rest of this place later. I just need my parents and Maverick to be safe.

When we get upstairs, no one is around. As if everyone decided to run after Alice got shot. Eventually, we have to pass by her office to get to the main doors. I glance inside to see if Dave is still in there.

What I see spikes my adrenaline, and I veer into the room.

Dave is laying on the ground, gasping for air. Alice’s body is gone. I rush to Dave, waves of shock coursing through me. He’s clutching his chest, blood soaking through his shirt.

“Dave? Where’s Alice? What happened to you?” I ask, landing on my knees next to him.

His eyes are wide, staring up but not seeing anything.

I pat his face. “Dave. Please. Are you there?”

Finally, he fixes his gaze on me. “Laura—” he chokes out.

“What happened to you? Where’s Alice?” I ask, desperate.

He struggles to breathe. “She’s alive,” he says, barely above a whisper. “I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what? How is she alive?” I shake him, trying to keep him with me.

“She’s one of you,” he manages. “She’s an anomaly.”

A flash of the file I’d pulled from her cabinet appears in my mind. Alice Wight, Anomaly ID#: 1. “What is her ability?” I ask, afraid I might already know the answer.

“She… she…” Dave starts. He coughs up blood.

And then I watch the life drain from his eyes.

Behind us, laughter fills the air. I whip around, spotting Alice standing in the doorway. There’s a hole and dried blood on her shirt where she had been shot. But she seems perfectly fine, displaying no signs of pain.

“What are you?” I demand.

She just laughs, almost hysterical. I raise my gun at her, but her laughter only grows louder. “You thought you got the best of me. You thought you won with that little stunt you pulled on Dave, didn’t you?”

She’s not afraid, not even when I cock the gun. She just shakes her head, staring at me with a combination of malice and pity.

“Sweet thing. How does it feel to not be the only one with missing memories?” she taunts. Maverick and my parents are to my left, but I don’t look at them. I keep my gaze solely on Alice.

I grip the gun tighter around my hands, finger curling around the trigger.

“It’s too bad things had to end up this way. But I tried to give you the choice.”

“Shut up!” I yell.

Alice isn’t fazed. She just grins. “This is all your fault, Laura.” Then she starts to move, reaching for the door to the room.

In that moment, I hear Grace’s voice, accusing me of the same exact thing. She blamed me for getting her in trouble, for ruining her happy little bubble she’d created with Andy. But that wasn’t my fault. If she had made better choices, perhaps none of those things would have happened. And now Alice is blaming me for Maverick and my parents' loss of memories. But I didn’t do anything. Alice was the one who decided to pull the stunt, and it’s not my fault that me not helping her made her angry enough to do it. Sure, Alice is just trying to get in my head, but both she and Grace have successfully made me feel guilty about something that is entirely out of my hands.

And I’m sick of it.

I pull the trigger.

My shot hits Alice in the arm and she staggers back. Blood stains her skin, and her face tightens in pain. Then, almost instantaneously, it relaxes. I stare at her arm as the bleeding stops, the bullet hole shrinks, then closes up. In seconds.

I gasp as Alice wipes the fresh blood off on her shirt. Her skin is smooth. Unscathed.

Her lips curl into a snarl, and suddenly I understand.

Alice can heal. That’s her ability. Alice, the woman claiming that anomalies are dangerous, is an anomaly herself. And not only that, but her ability is the least dangerous of all. In fact, it’s probably the most useful, if she can come back from a bullet wound that fast.

Maybe she’s right about all anomalies being dangerous; even a harmless ability can be dangerous on the wrong person.

“You’re going to pay for that,” Alice spits at me. Then she turns, rips the door open.

I fire my gun at her as she moves, but I miss. Not that the bullet would stop her anyway.

She steps out of the room, smiles at me for the slightest of seconds, then bolts down the hallway. I race after her, trying my best to keep up, but she’s fast. She reaches the end of the hallway several seconds before I do, then exits through a set of double doors that lead outside. Through