Echoes of Us Read Online Free PDF

miracles> Addie said quietly.
    “We have our own car,” Marion was protesting. She had her keys in hand. “We’ll just follow behind.”
    “No one’s following behind,” Peter said. “Give us a number, or some other way to contact you.”
    Marion frowned. Next to Peter, she seemed young, and slight, and faint with her pale looks and breathy voice. “How do I know you’ll call?”
    Peter held out his hand. His expression had gone rigid, his eyes stony. “I’m asking for a contact,” he said. “That’s the best you’re going to get.”
    They faced off for a moment, neither looking like retreat was an option. Finally, Marion nodded. She scribbled a number on a business card and handed it to Peter. But when he was busy loading the last of the luggage, she brushed by Addie and me and pushed another card into our hands. We didn’t need to look to know what was written on it.
    “Call me,” she said over her shoulder.

FIVE
    A fter the rush and frenzy of packing, being on the road again was strangely anticlimatic. For the first half hour or so, we all sat in rigid silence. Peter seemed focused on nothing but the stretch of highway in front of us and the steering wheel he gripped with both hands. We’d left the farmhouse behind, were encroaching now on the edges of small towns, the narrow highway threading between them.
    Addie hugged our arms around our purse, like it might protect us.
     she asked.
    I hadn’t been thinking about Jackson. I’d been worrying about where Peter was taking us next, and how safe it would be, and whether Emalia and Henri had really been captured. I’d been noticing every time Ryan shifted in his seat, the way his shoulders were tensed, even when he tried to smile at us.
    But Addie had been thinking of Jackson, and so I felt a pang of guilt that I hadn’t been doing the same.
    God only knew what he’d been through since the night we’d last seen him.
     I said.
    She nodded absently. Held the purse a little tighter against our stomach.
     Her voice faltered.
    The words were accompanied by a dagger-sharp jab of pain. It slipped in between breaths. Made our lungs hitch.
    Jackson had told us about the years he’d spent in an institution, before Peter rescued him. The windowless rooms. The terrified children. The hopelessness of it all.
    I couldn’t help imagining him somewhere similar now. Or someplace even worse. If they threw innocent hybrid children into horrific institutions, what would they do with a hybrid criminal?
    I was still searching for the right thing to say when the siren blared.
    We dove to the floor. Yanked Ryan down with us, crouching in the space between our seats. Our fingers were vises on Ryan’s arm. He squeezed our shoulder, then rose slightly to check the backseat. Hally had ushered Kitty and Jaime down, too.
    Addie and I glanced through the back window. It wasn’t a normal-looking police car. This was a van, like ours, but smaller. Sleek and black. It was still a few cars behind us. The siren wailed. Lights flashed.
    I found myself in control of our limbs, our tongue. “Peter?” I said tightly.
    His eyes met ours in the rearview mirror. “Stay low.”
    “Are we going to stop?” Hally whispered. Beside her, Kitty had curled around her knees, her small hands clasped tightly. She stared at the scruffy floor of the van, her mouth thin.
    Dr. Lyanne spoke just loudly enough to be heard. “We don’t know if it’s for us.”
    Ryan and I looked at each other. The police van gained, the other cars slowing and pulling out of its way.
    No one else was going to say it, so I did. “It’s for us.”
    Peter didn’t slow. He didn’t speed up, either.
    The police van was right behind us now.
    “Peter,” Dr. Lyanne said. His eyes flickered to her. Then, finally, the car began to