More Than an Echo (Echo Branson Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

just release me back to the state pretty soon? Can’t we just wait until then instead of sneaking out and risking your job?”
    He rose and motioned for me to follow. “You beat that boy up because of something you felt, didn’t you?”
    I nodded as I followed. “I knew as sure as if he’d said it. He was going to really hurt me, so I just kept hitting him so he wouldn’t get the chance.”
    “And what about Mary? You knew what was going on with her, huh?”
    “She’s scared of the shackles and being tied down. She can talk, you know.”
    “Can, but won’t.”
    “Won’t but does. Where are we going?” Big George was taking me down a locked hallway forbidden to the rest of us.
    “You’ll see.”
    We took a couple of squeaky turns down hallways filled with moaners, screamers, chatterbugs and singers. I knew where we were now. We were in the J ward where the hopelessly insane awaited removal to some other treatment facility where they would, most likely, live out the remainder of their pitiful lives.
    When Big George finally stopped, he peered into a small glass window in the door. “Look at this one in here.”
    I had to stand on tiptoe to see, and I recoiled. A poor, demented young girl was rocking back and forth, mouth hanging open with a foot long string of drool hanging from her chin. She looked no more than fifteen or sixteen. “What’s wrong with her?” I turned from the window, feeling chills and goose bumps on my arms. “She’s so...”
    “Crazy?”
    “So young to be crazy.”
    “She wasn’t always nuts. As a matter of fact, she wasn’t crazy at all when she got here.”
    I remembered Celeste’s words about this place making people crazy. “Did bringing her here make her mad?” 
    Big George sadly shook his head. “No, it’s not where she is that made her insane. It’s what she is that did that to her. You see...that sad little girl in there is...an empath. She came in here for the same reasons you did, but I couldn’t get her out in time. I couldn’t get her to Melika in time. And without my mother’s help, you’ll wind up just like her.”
    And so it turned out that Big George’s mother wasn’t just an empath, but a very powerful woman who spent her time teaching people new to the world of psionics how to adjust to and utilize their abilities; telepaths, clairvoyants, empaths and telekinetics came to her from all over the world if they were caught in time. The majority of us were not, and usually ended up in a rubber room or worse, like this poor girl.
    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