Page 96 of The Echo of Forever

“You’ve become predictable…” She cut her eyes at me as I pulled in front of the Hollands’ private clinic near the compound.

Alyssa and her husband lived and worked on our private grounds, but the Holland family as a unit was successful enough to fend for themselves and lived all over the city near their many free clinics.

“Oh yeah? Did you guess I’d bring you here, or is there something else on your mind, Dragonfly?”

Since meeting her, she was either my forever or my pretty dragonfly. Whatever the situation called for.

Her silence felt more related to work than anything personal.

“I know you don’t want to do anything that’ll put us in harm’s way—”

I shook my head.

“Don’t take my willfulness to give in to your every desire as a weakness you need to fix, Forever…” She took her seat belt offand turned to face me. “Your wants are my needs, don’t make me tell you again.”

This was about my mother, and it didn’t need to be.

“I know you see working with them as an opportunity to break free completely,” I added, not giving her time to fight me on it. “Do I have permission to walk the same path as you? Life or death, all I want is to be together.”

She stared like I made no sense, but deep down, I could tell my words were feeding the old her. The one who would kneel for me if I asked.

“Saying no to you is becoming my worst opposition,” my pretty dragonfly replied, a tiny frown tugging at her full lips. “Permission granted. But if I feel like you’re being used in a way that harms more than helps, I’ll kill everybody, and you aren’t allowed to stop me.”

I stuck my pinky out and she tipped her head at it.

“What does that mean?”

“This is me agreeing and sealing the deal. Pinky promise.”

Forever looked up, nose and eyebrows scrunched, but didn’t hesitate to hook her pinky with mine.

“Are you always this childish?”

I nodded, and her lips spread.

Mmhm. You love me already, don’t you?

“We have to press our thumbs together,” she said, frowning, then smiling again in quick succession. “I remember this.”

Before I came into the picture, the woman had never sworn or promised to do anything in her life that hadn’t equated to ending a life.

I pressed my thumb to hers, and we leaned in to kiss them at the same time. She tried to pull back after it was complete, but I wrapped her fingers up with mine and tightened the hold.

“Now be a good dragonfly,” I murmured, giving a quick kiss before releasing her. “Alyssa fit you in for blood work and scans on her off day, be nice.”

She snorted and pushed her door open.

“Why would I be mean toAlyssa?”

My lips lifted until they couldn’t anymore, but I didn’t respond until we were on the sidewalk together.

“I’ll never lie to you. Ask the question, my forever.”

She crossed her arms, not liking how well I could read her. Even after she’d fallen for me, my ability to pick up on cues nobody else paid attention to wasn’t easy for my girl.

“You two look at one another like there were feelings before,” she said, staring up at me like whatever I told her, she’d believe it. “The idea of that fills me with a lot of rage, but I won’t be mean. She didn’t do anything to me.”

There was my sweet assassin.