Dusk (Hero Society #3)
Jessica Florence
Prologue
Echo
2005
“Finished!” I threw the old rag over my shoulder and looked at the beautiful sight in front of me.
“Isn’t that something?” My pop stood next to me, awe in his voice. We’d been working for two years restoring the 1969 Chevrolet Camaro, and it was finally done, waxed and shining like the beauty she was. The all-black interior and exterior gave it a fierce edge.
It was Pop’s idea to get the old girl and fix her up for my sixteenth birthday. Today. We both just stood there, staring at all the hard work we’d put in. It looked fantastic and sounded even better once we turned the key.
“Well, I’ve got to admit, I had my doubts, but she looks great.” My mom’s voice broke into our moment of victory. I looked back at her and smiled. Momma wrapped her hands around my shoulders, a big grin on her face. Her tanned skin and raven-black hair of our Native American heritage made her look like an Indian badass, but her smile was what softened her face. Momma had a great smile.
“Yeah, our little mountain nymph did a great job.” Pop winked at me, and I rolled my eyes with his name calling. He did a lot of the work; I truly only helped here and there. School took up a lot of my time on the reservation, but I still contributed. It made me feel proud to have accomplished rebuilding my first car. I couldn’t wait to drive her to school after I got my license tomorrow—show her off.
“All right, supper is just about done. Get cleaned up so we can eat, and then Echo can take us for a drive around the neighborhood.” Mom squeezed my shoulders, which were a little sore from working so much, and walked back toward the house.
“I got to clean up out here; go wash up inside. I’ll be inside in a few.” Pop pulled me in for a hug, his big bear arms squeezing me tight. Little bits of gray were popping up in his long, black hair that he had tied behind his head into a ponytail. His face had a few wrinkles around his eyes from laughing all the time.
“Okay,” I told him and ran to the house on our farm.
I jogged up the stairs to my bathroom and jumped in as soon as I peeled my greasy clothes off.
“Yesssssss.” I mumbled under the hot water. My body was aching, and the water felt heavenly.
Tomorrow was going to be the best day ever. Momma said we could get my license first thing in the morning, and then I could drop her off and head to school in my badass car by myself.
Knowing that dinner was finished by now, and I would have a cake lit with candles all ready for me, I hurried out of the shower and dried off quickly.
My clothes were simple since it was just us tonight for my birthday dinner: jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. After brushing my long black hair out, I left my room and hopped down the stairs.
I paused just around the corner to the dining room, hearing Momma’s little whimpers she makes when Pop holds her and gives her kisses on her neck. As gross as it was to see them being touchy all the time, I couldn’t wait to be with a guy that loved me as much as Pop loved Momma. I coughed loudly, letting him know I was about to come into the room so they could knock it off.
“All right, I’m ready for my—” I stepped into the room, and my whole body froze.
Momma’s eyes were staring at me while she lay on the floor, tears rolling down her cheeks into a little puddle on the rug.
“Momma,” I whispered then moved over to her topless body that had small cuts all over of it and two large wounds in her back between her shoulder blades.
“Echo…” She tried to talk, but she was so weak, and so pale.
I ran to our phone in the kitchen and started to dial 911 when a shadow slipped through my peripheral vision. I whipped around to see who was here, but the room was empty. Then I looked at the ground and saw my dad lying on the floor too, a puddle of blood surrounding his big body.
“Run,” Momma croaked, and just as I looked back at her face, her gaze became still, and her breathing stopped.
“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”
I heard movement in the kitchen and spun around to look in the direction of the noise. My body was shaking, scared of what evil lurked in my house that would do something like this. Should I run like Momma wanted me to? I didn’t want to leave them.
I vaguely heard the dispatcher on the line talking to me, trying to get me to talk, but the words weren’t coming.
Then a hand touched my hair.
I panicked, dropping the phone and flailing my body around before taking off toward the door.
My feet were fast as I ran into the yard, then into the woods. I kept going, until I couldn’t run anymore.
My body was on fire, and my heart was broken.
A howl of despair filled the air from my lips. My momma was dead. Someone killed her and cut her up like she was nothing. And my pop—I didn’t even have a chance to check on him but I knew he wasn’t alive.
The pain in my heart was bad, but something else was breaking inside me. My body popping and cracking, the strange involuntarily jerking and excruciating pain making me fall to the ground.
I screamed as parts of me were broken and healed in the same second. Everything about me was changing, and all I could do was rip at my constricting clothes that kept my body from doing what it needed.
In what seemed like seconds later, the pain was gone, and I was staring up at the sky. The sun was setting, and dusk had taken over. A time of transition.
I tried to sit up and take deep breaths, but the movement wasn’t natural. Looking down at my body, I let out of shriek of shock. I wasn’t human, but an animal—a wolf, to be exact.
Falling back to the ground, I whimpered and cried for the lives that were lost tonight—my parents and my own. Things were never going to be the same as when dawn came this morning, the sun was falling on my old life. And there was no going back.
Chapter One
Echo
2017
Two Weeks Ago
Ouch!
The pinching from a needle being shoved in my back hurt like hell.
I felt so weak, so nauseated, and I couldn’t move my limbs.
“I got the sample,” a man said in triumph, and I heard the clinging of his syringe hitting a metal tray.
“Test it with the others. We are closer now than ever before to the host maintaining powers without failure. Master said one of this group of gifted will have some vital genetics toward our goal. Dispose of the bodies. Can’t have the Hero Society finding them.” Another man with a proper voice spoke and then walked out a door.
My head was muddled while trying to take in as much information as I could, so I could track these men down and bring them to justice once I was feeling myself again.
I’d been walking to my Camaro when something had pricked my neck, and my sight turned fuzzy.
Vaguely I remember turning into an animal, but I didn’t know which one. It happened randomly like that when I was distressed about something. I’d managed to control it a few years after my sixteenth birthday, but I guess being shot with some sort of dart filled with drugs will stress anyone out.
“Let’s go, kitty.” The man who poked me in the back petted my head and then started unlatching the belts that were holding me onto the table.
I knew I was a goner, even in my blurred mental state.
Fight.
I had to fight back somehow. I thought about being a tiger, then I could crush the man with my weight and escape, but nothing happened. Shit.
Willing my last bit of strength as he carried me off to my death, I unleashed my claws, and fought back.