Breaking The Rules. Katie McGarry

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       Noah

      Echo was silent on the way back to camp and has remained that way as I gather everything we need to start a fire. Dark fell fast over the campground because of the thick clouds hanging overhead. Unfortunately, clouds aren’t the only thing dangling over us.

      It’s been a long time since I’ve lost Echo to her mind. Possibly since the first week after we took to the road, and I can’t say I’ve missed it.

      Sitting on a blanket next to our tent, she becomes a shell of the girl I love. Overall, she looks the same—same beautiful green eyes and red silky hair. Today she wears a white lace tank that shows a hint of the gifts God gave her and because I’m a lucky man, a skirt that ends mid-thigh.

      But in the light of the neighboring campfire, Echo’s green eyes possess the life of a dollar-store plastic doll, and she’s paler than normal, making her freckles stick out.

      In the span of a minute, something flipped in Echo’s brain. Only her brother and her mother have the power to haunt her. I’d like to serve them both with eviction notices from her mind.

      I drop the milk jugs I filled with water harder than I meant, and Echo switches her focus from the pine needles on the ground to me. Her brother’s ghost doesn’t bother me as much as her mother’s. Aires died, and I understand that type of pain, but I still hate to see Echo anything but happy.

      A breeze blows through the thick forest surrounding the campground, and a group of children runs past us on their way to the bathrooms. A few feet over, a boy around my youngest brother’s age plays with a toy fighter jet. Complete with the appropriate noises for war.

      I wish he’d shut the hell up. Echo’s brother died in Afghanistan.

      Since I entered foster care at the end of my freshman year, I’ve never been the boyfriend type, but Echo deserves the best. I scratch the back of my neck and try to do that making her feel better shit. “You okay?”

      She nods. “Just thinking about Aires.”

      Good. I still don’t handle her mother baggage well and after our fight at the Sand Dunes, I’m not eager to revisit those issues. “Want to talk about it?”

      “Not really.”

      Echo never does, and because she respects my privacy when it comes to the loss of my parents, I back off. She returns her attention to the ground near her feet, and I pop my neck to the side. We’ve only got a few days left on the trip, and this isn’t how I want it to end. “Tell me Aires’s myth.”

      Echo’s psychotic mother named them both after Greek myths. Last winter, Echo told me the myth associated with her name while she kicked my ass in pool. Maybe sharing a happy story will brighten her mood.

      Her forehead wrinkles. “I’ve told you that story.”

      I crouch and pile two logs then thread smaller sticks for kindling under them. “No, you haven’t.”

      “Yes,” she says with a bite. “I have.”

      That was out of left field. I check Echo from the corner of my eye, and my girl is glaring at me like she caught me groping a gaggle of cheerleaders. “You haven’t.”

      “I would tell you that story. You don’t remember me telling you. That would mean that I don’t discuss Aires, and I do!”

      That’s it right there—she doesn’t. “You hardly mention Aires. And before you say something smart back, think who you’re talking to. I mean what I say at all times. Don’t mess with my word. If I say you haven’t told the story, then you haven’t.”

      “Like you’re Mr. I-Share-Everything when it comes to your family?”

      “Mind retracting the claws?” I say in a low tone. “Because I don’t feel like bleeding.” Or feeling threatened.

      Echo blinks, and the anger drains from her face. “I am so sorry—”

      A high-pitched shriek cuts her off and pierces my soul. I heard that type of scream before, and it’s not one I’ve wanted to hear again. My entire body whips toward the sound, and I convulse at the sight of the toy airplane in the bonfire in front of the neighboring tent. The kid that was shooting down pretend targets seconds before is now crying and shaking as a small flame licks up his pants.

      Tyler.

      Jacob.

      My brothers.

      I snatch a blanket off the ground and in six strides I tackle the child. My heart pounds as I smack at the flame. The smell of burned flesh rushes through my mind, and the roar of flames lapping against walls fills my ears.

      “Noah!” a voice that’s familiar, but doesn’t belong in this nightmare, calls to me. “Noah, you put out the flame!”

      Soft fingers grasp my biceps, and it’s as if I’m yanked from a long, dark tunnel. I turn my head, and the girl I love, the girl that owns my heart, stares at me as if I’ve lost my mind.

      “Let him go,” she says. “The flames are out.”

      I look down, and a small child with black hair and blacker eyes gapes at me. My hands hold his blanket-covered leg. I lift my arms, and Echo removes the blanket, revealing singed, now threadbare, jeans. The skin beneath is only slightly red. Not even a real burn.