The Last Echo (11 page)

Violet stood in front of the counter, examining the large corkboard covered in Polaroid snapshots. There were photographs of the café’s employees, each with a drink recommendation listed below it. It was also handwritten with bold, colorful markers. There were lots of hand-drawn hearts and stars and flowers, and a drawing of a big coffee mug with swirls of steam rising from it.

Violet glanced at the red-haired girl behind the counter, and despite her puffy red eyes, she recognized her Polaroid from the board: She was the brown-sugar caramel macchiato.

“I’ll have that,” Violet said, pointing at the girl’s drink recommendation. “Decaf, please,” she added quickly.

The girl just nodded as she turned to the espresso machine. While she worked, Violet scanned the rest of the photos, thinking that maybe Antonia Cornett would be on there, that maybe she’d worked here before she vanished.

But by the time the girl was foaming the milk for the macchiato, Violet had given up. Antonia wasn’t there.

She suddenly felt foolish for coming all this way over a simple receipt. How many insignificant receipts did she herself have lying around? More than she cared to admit.

She paid for her drink, took a sip of the sickly sweet concoction, and then dropped it in the trash can on her way out the door.

As she stood on the sidewalk once more, she struggled with what she should do next.

This area, the University District, was always bustling with activity, something Violet appreciated about the city. She could lose herself in a place like this, vanish in the rush of people and never even be noticed.

She stepped out of the way of foot traffic, students rushing past her with backpacks dangling from their shoulders and messenger bags slung across their chests. Even on a Friday afternoon, everyone had someplace to be. Everyone but Violet. She’d come all the way to Seattle hoping to find something useful, but had come up empty.

There was a bright red newspaper stand on the corner, and Violet dug in her purse for some quarters. She had no real plan, but maybe if she could find a place to sit and read for a while something would come to her, an idea. Dropping her coins into the slot, she pulled down the glass door and then paused.

Something felt off, and even though her first reaction was to dismiss it as just another strange side effect of the pills, she couldn’t just ignore the way the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. Even the ones inside her nose felt suddenly itchy, tingly.

She glanced around, her hand still poised over the newspaper inside the metal box.

She couldn’t describe the feeling exactly, but suddenly her chest felt tight, crushed. It was as if someone was watching her.

But everyone around her was moving, striding with purpose.

“Violet?”

She jumped at the sound of her name, catching her arm when she let go of the newspaper box’s door. She turned toward the boy’s voice and practically sighed with relief when she saw Sam standing there, looking at her curiously. Skinny, scrawny Sam, just another misfit in a sea of college students . . . in more ways than one. They were like peas in a pod.

“What—?” She grabbed her newspaper and let the door swing shut again, banging rustily. And then she turned to look behind her one last time, but there was nothing suspicious. Nothing out of place. “What are
you
doing here?” She glanced at him, at the button-down shirt that fit loosely from his gawky frame, and the messenger bag he gripped in front of his chest.

He smiled, making him look younger and even less like he belonged in the U District. “I could ask you the same thing. You don’t live around here, do you?”

She concentrated on folding her newspaper and tucked it beneath her arm, ignoring his original question, not really wanting to explain
why
she was here. “No. Buckley, actually,” she said. “What about you? Do you live nearby?”

He made a face, one that basically said:
You’re kidding, right?
“You don’t know?”

Violet shook her head, wondering what she’d missed. “Know what? Did something else happen?”

Sam laughed at that. “Wow, they really keep you in the dark, don’t they? Don’t worry, as soon as they know you’re gonna stick, they’ll let you in on all the cool secrets. But, to be completely honest, this hardly qualifies as cool.” He raised an eyebrow and glanced purposely at his fingernails. She knew he was trying to look cocky, but it was a totally dorky move. “I live in the dorms. I’m just your average boy genius, that’s all.”

“Wait, you mean you . . . ?” Violet asked, not trying to hide her disbelief. “You go to school here?”

“That’s pretty much what I’m sayin’.” Sam nodded, a pleased expression on his face.

Violet thought about that, about not even being sixteen yet and being a student at the university. “I had no idea.”

“Yeah, well, I guess it’s hard to see my enormous brains past . . . all of this.” He lifted one of his puny arms and flexed it, wiggling his eyebrows at her. Violet tried to hold back a giggle and then gave in, laughing at him.

Sam grinned back at her, and Violet was sort of amazed by his confidence. She wondered if she’d be so sure of herself if she were the one thrust into such an intimidating environment at such an early age.

“Hey, since you’re here, and since I’m done with my classes for the day, you wanna grab a cuppa coffee or something?” he asked.

Violet glanced back at the sign for The Mecca, and thought about the red-haired girl and her syrupy drink creation. “Sure,” she agreed, realizing it solved her dilemma and gave her something to do, at least. “But can we go somewhere with just plain old coffee?”

Violet used the flimsy red plastic stir stick to swirl more of the heavy white creamer into her cup, and then added three more sugar packets. The coffee at The Mecca might’ve been too sweet, but at Max’s Diner they didn’t mess around. Here, they served it hot and black.

“So how do you like it so far?” Sam asked, blowing on his cup before bringing it all the way to his lips. He looked like a little kid playing tea party . . . far too young to be taking his coffee black.

“I assume you don’t mean the coffee.” Violet grinned at him. She thought about it for a minute before answering. “The team? I like it okay. I guess what I really like is not always having to hide what I can do, not always lying to everyone, you know? Plus, if it hadn’t been for Sara and Rafe . . .” She hesitated. She didn’t think it was a secret, what had happened to her. Especially not one of the cool ones. “I wish I could be useful like that,” she said, instead of explaining her situation.

“Are you kidding? You have the coolest . . .” He lowered his voice to a whisper until it felt like they were playing Secret Agents. “You have the coolest gift of all of us,” he repeated. “I’d trade you if I could.”

Violet laughed. It was hard to take him seriously when he was staring at her with his overeager eyes, pale freckles splattered across his nose, kid genius or not. “You’re crazy. Psychometry is way cooler.”

Sam scoffed. “Sure it is, if you’re Rafe and have all the other stuff that goes with it. Me, I just have the garden-variety version. You know, feel an object and get a vibe. Or not. Mostly not.”

“Other stuff?” Violet asked, leaning closer. “What other stuff are you talking about?”

Sam’s brows rose, practically disappearing into his hairline. “Um, only the precog stuff!” When Violet didn’t respond, he added, “Precognition . . .” He dragged the word out like
he
was the one speaking to a child now. And then he continued in an awed tone, “I might be able to tell something about an object’s past, but Rafe can tell the person’s future. In fact, I take it back:
He
has the coolest gift of everyone.”

Violet was speechless. She’d known, of course, that Rafe had predicted she was in trouble, but she’d never really thought about
how
he’d done it. She’d thought he was like Sam, she supposed, more of your average garden-variety psychic; she didn’t realize that knowing things
before
they happened was . . . well, so unusual. “I—I had no idea.”

Sam’s mouth clamped shut, and he suddenly looked as if he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. His shoulders fell. “Damn,” he finally said. “I guess that was one of those cool secrets I was talking about.”

“It’s okay,” Violet assured him, lifting her cup to her lips. “I won’t say anything. Your secret’s safe with me. Well, I guess
Rafe’s
secret’s safe with me, but you get the point.”

“Good.” Sam sighed. “Because he already doesn’t like me. I’d hate to make things worse.”

“Who doesn’t like you? Rafe? Why wouldn’t he like you?”

“I don’t know,” Sam said, as genuinely surprised as Violet was. Honestly, he was a pretty likeable guy. “I don’t think he likes anyone, really.” And then Sam’s gaze lifted to hers, a faint smile lighting his boyish expression. “Except you, of course.”

Violet nearly choked on her coffee. “No,” she gasped, trying to talk as she struggled around her coughing fit. “You’re wrong. He doesn’t really like me, either. I think he just puts up with me, maybe because he saved my life and I’m indebted to him or something. Maybe he wants to make sure I pay him back.” She smiled wanly at the boy across from her, trying to convince him.

But he shook his head vehemently. “Then you’re blind. Or maybe it’s just ’cause you didn’t know him before you came on the team. He’s better now than he was then. Like, he’s a kinder, gentler Rafe . . . even though he’s still pretty foul most of the time.

“But before you were here, no one could even talk to him. He glared all the time. And God forbid someone tried to make nice and start a conversation.” Violet got the feeling Sam was talking about himself now as she listened, dazed. “He’d just bite their head off and storm away. He didn’t
want
anyone to like him. Sara was the only one he was actually nice to.”

Violet’s mind was churning. She thought about the things Krystal had told her, about no one liking Rafe, but it was hard to imagine he’d ever been so . . . so difficult. That wasn’t the Rafe she knew. Sure, he was walled off. And sarcastic, and even quick-tempered. But he was also sensitive and considerate. She knew because she’d seen that side of him.

She opened her mouth to say something, but words failed her, and she closed it again. She had no idea what she could possibly say to Sam. She was embarrassed, and she hoped he was wrong. She didn’t want to be the reason Rafe was different. She didn’t want to be the cause of a kinder, gentler Rafe.

Because that would mean Jay might be right.

That maybe Rafe’s feelings were more than just friendly.

IT FELT GOOD TO GET OUT OF THERE, TO BE AWAY
from her, even if the reprieve was only temporary. At least he could breathe again.

He walked his usual route, leaving his house and tracing his way around the university. He liked it there, all the old buildings swathed in vines and foliage. All the history and the architecture. All the places he could vanish, becoming whoever he wanted to be.

His frustration uncoiled a bit as he spied the familiar red awning of the café, even as he scolded himself for ending up here again. He stood back, not allowing himself to go any closer, not allowing himself to go inside. He knew it was a bad idea to come here, a place he’d been too many times before. It was breaking the rules.

He’d already broken them once, and look where that had gotten him.

He clenched his fists at his sides, trying to control his mounting rage as he pictured her . . . screaming. He needed to calm down.
She
needed him to calm down; it wouldn’t do either of them any good if he went back home while he was this angry.

But if he hadn’t been standing there, counting his breaths and trying to soothe himself, he might have missed her, the girl stepping out onto the sidewalk. She wasn’t his usual type; even from where he stood he could see that much. Her hair was wild and curly, not straight and silken. Her eyes, even though he couldn’t see the exact shade, were most definitely not dark, not the color of spiced cocoa or burnt mahogany. They didn’t warm him. They didn’t soothe him.

But there was something about her. Something that struck a chord in him. Something that made his head spin.

He reached for his phone, tucked deep in his pocket. He was careful with it, keeping his hand over the screen as he scrolled through the images he saved there, images meant only for his eyes.

He bit his lip when he found it, when he realized where he’d seen this girl before.

She’d been there, that day at the Pacific Storage warehouse when the police had arrived. He’d seen her in the parking lot as he’d stood in the crowd, making sure they found his ex-girlfriend, making sure his girl didn’t have to stay there in the dark . . . alone.

And here she was again, at the café—
his café
—standing silently, looking lost. Looking . . . lonely.

He didn’t know who she was, or why fate had intervened in this way, but when she started walking, he followed her, wondering the entire time what was wrong with him. He had a girlfriend, waiting for him . . . needing him.

He told himself it was nothing, less than nothing. She was just a girl. He was only watching her. It didn’t mean anything.

She stopped then at the newspaper machine, and just as she was poised to take her paper, she froze, every muscle in her body going rigid.

That was when he saw it. Fear.

He understood that.

He knew what it was like to be afraid. To be terrified and alone.

And he knew, too, that he needed to find out more about this girl. That he wasn’t going home just yet.