Page 10 of The Echo of Forever

I bit my lip and flinched at once.

“I’d rather die than feel this kind of pain for the rest of my life,” I whispered, stretching and sliding down into the water.

Before immersing myself completely, I stared at nothing in particular.

Do it.

They won’t miss you.

They don’t care. Don’t love you.

I imagined the words flashed before my eyes as I thought them up, hoping all I’d been feeling lately would give me the courage to end it all… but nothing.

The urge to want to kill myself just wasn’t there. Even though I thought about it all the time.

“Are you trying to die?”

I blinked at the sound of my mother’s voice.

When had she arrived?

“I wish that were the case,” I told her truthfully, lazily bringing my blurred vision to her. “Wouldn’t you feel better if I was gone?”

She got down and braced herself on the side of the tub.

“Why would I ever feel that way?”

I shook my head and looked away.

“What do you know about the Cannon family? Anything I should be privy to?”

She hummed and stood; I watched her turn toward the vanity out of the corner of my eye.

“Besides me being the one who killed Gerald Cannon? Nothing of importance.”

Nothing of importance.

Gerald was Demetrius’s father.

“Do you know why they wanted Gerald dead? Or are we always out of the loop on the important details?”

Every family within the society had a niche. Some were doctors, school teachers, lawyers, or politicians.

My people were nothing but killers, had been for generations.

No matter what you were assigned, the goal was the same. Live and die for the Collective. Their agenda became yours, too.

Make Everwood superior.

Make outsiders fear but also want to be us. We were nothing but pawns, soldiers no matter the job.

“The details don’t matter, honey.”

She got down again and held her hand out, a little white pill sitting dead in the center of her palm.

“For the pain.”

I looked away.