Echoes (Dance With My Demons, #2)

by Steph Macca

"I have mental illness. I'm not mental illness. I'm worth more than what you paint me as psychologically." "Ms. White?" "What?" "Be sure to close the door on the way out. I'll have the guard escort you to your room for the remainder of the session."

"If it only happened this morning, wouldn't she be here?" Avery asks.

"I don't believe Capello killed herself," I tell her, looking over at her slumped figure. "I don't think she's dead at all."

Avery blinks at me, her gray eyes scanning my face curiously. "What do you mean?" I straighten up, resting my hands in my pockets. "I told you this place has secrets. I think they are about to be cracked wide open."

"We're bonded by this blood. Together, the King and Queen of the Unhinged."

I'll kill every last person until we're the last two left. And then we'll burn the world down together.

It's the sincerest apology I can muster. At the end of the day, he is the one I care the most about in this place, and I'm not too proud to realize that I've fucked up with him. He's my brother, my best friend… the one I need for the next steps in my plan.

Christopher runs a hand through his hair, shaking his head. "Avery's been on Arthur's list for a while. And whatever you fucking did has pushed him over the edge."

"I was trying to get her out of Lilydale," he says sharply. "That way Arthur and your father couldn't get to her. I knew she was a target."

"My family owns the facility, Ashwood. They have a very

generous financial contract in place with the government—human testing on mentally ill youths for scientific research. It's how they get the bulk of their money."

"We've managed to stop it the past few months, but they will be getting desperate. Charitable donations aren't enough to cover the maintenance costs to run this place. That's why I invented Cirque des Morts—to stop them."

What sane person would pull shards of glass out of someone's back and assume it was there by accident? What sick and twisted person would look at my bleeding intimate parts, surmising that I'd had normal intercourse? They all had their chance to report

but if they did, nothing was ever done. The people with authority had opportunities to pull me out of that house, but no one ever came."

Is that why I want to love them both? Is that why I let Damon kiss me? The more people that want me, the more I will believe that I'm worthy?

His blue eyes scan my face before he turns away, nodding to someone by the door. "Take Ms. White to the lab. The doctors are waiting for her."