ECHO [Rewritten - NaNoWriMo '16]

Chapter 8: What is Normal?

A/N: Many thanks to Ryan for giving me some really helpful advice as to reverting back to the original story and putting date/location/POV at the beginning of each chapter. Anyways, thank all of you for reading! You are amazing, I hope you are enjoy reading this as much as I am writing it!

14 March 2016

Phoenix, Arizona

Wren

I was leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom. The shower was running heavily, Echo's blurred form standing under the steaming hot water. Paiute hadn't come further than the bedroom, choosing instead to remain in the bedroom where there wasn't any trace of water. It had been a few days since I had spoken to the young girl, but when I had come home from work last night, there were new sounds escaping the basement. I had chosen to stay in the kitchen instead, not wanting to witness the whole...scene again.

When Echo had finished she had come into the kitchen and revealed some information. That a powerful agent of ALDAR was in Arizona, powerful enough to hide the rumor of Echo's presence from slipping through the borders. And with that, she had turned on her heel and walked off. Despite everything, in some ways Echo was still human. For example, learning this news last night had deeply upset her. She had spent the entire night pacing the ground floor.

The shower stopped, I angled my head even further away. I could hear her wet feet touch the ground, the rustling of the towel wrapping around her body. The dripping water that escaped from her hair. She was the first to break the silence, "I've never understood certain aspects of what you people consider 'normal'. The first eight years of my life, I lived on the streets where showers were considered a luxury, not a necessity. The following year, I lived in a nightmare where both clothes and showers didn't exist for the most part. After that, when I was finally transferred, and lived with other agents there were showers but clothes were optional. The first thing to be eliminated was self-consciousness."

I was so startled by her sudden story that I nearly forgot to reply, "Did everyone had a familiar?"

"Yeah," Echo replied smoothly, "There was an interesting assortment of naked people, those dressed in ball gowns, and others who looked like the just rolled out of bed, and grabbed whatever clothes they could. Mixed in was an entire variety of animals both large and small, winged or with many legs."

"Did you have any friends?" I asked.

There was a pause. One where I noticed Paiute out of the corner of my eye flicked his tail, his eyes narrowing slightly. Then, "No. I kept to myself, and the fact that I was an Interrogator made everyone stay away from me."

"Is an Interrogator truly that rare and dangerous?" I asked softly.

Echo released a long breath, "There can be as many as fifty active Seducers or Shadows at one time. There is only one Interrogator. And another reason as to why we are so feared is because of our training. We are the only ones to live in the world of nightmares, and so very, very few escape from it. And when we do, our training has everything a Seducer and Shadow needs, but we have one more aspect. The torture that we know, how we are trained is it is inflicted upon us first. And when one is tortured daily, for years, you gain an incredibly high pain tolerance. And since I was so young, younger than anyone else. I was petrifying."

I remained silent. Pondering what she said. There was a soft knock next to me, and I turned to see Echo standing there. She smiled, "I'm not naked anymore."

"Thanks for the info," I blinked as I looked her over. Her face was flushed from the hot water, her hair bound in a braid, still dripping slightly. Her skin had a soft sheen to it. And she was so close. Close enough I could count every curling lash around her eyes. She was one of the most stunning women I had ever seen, but in this moment, she looked so young. I had known that she was younger than me at least, but when J had revealed her true age, I hadn't been able to believe it. But now, seeing her, I could. Before I could stop myself I said, "I didn't realize how young you were. I didn't believe it, until now."

"Hm?" Echo frowned, shifting slightly closer.

Her body was so warm, I could feel it. I swallowed, "You never look just eighteen."

"Why do I look eighteen now more so than any other time?" Echo looked at me with level eyes. She was only a few inches shorter than me, despite the fact that I towered at six foot.

"You have your guard down," I replied without thinking. "Your more open right at this moment, and for the first time, you look like a regular girl. Maybe even a high school girl."

She cocked her head at him, a small crease appearing between her brows. "I recognize that look on your face. My mentor, Thorn, gave me the same look. Called me 'beautiful'. Which I assume you think I am as well. Perhaps I am, I have never given my looks any sort of second thought. I don't give much thought to beauty or attractiveness. Looking at you, you could be considered attractive. You have masculine features, olive skin, and a healthy amount of hair. And eyes that are almost a honey brown. You have a warm heart that can be felt by anyone near you. Perhaps, once upon a time, you could have been just the right person to make it so I wasn't...this."

Echo inhaled sharply and looked down. I waited. When she looked back up, her face was guarded, "We need to be careful. The agent that is now in Arizona is not someone we want to test. If we aren't then everything you know will come crashing down around you."

"I already know a thing or two about that," I whispered, more to myself than her. "So, where are we going now?"

"We are going to visit someone I know."

"What's his name?" I asked.

She gave me an odd look before saying, "Howl."

"Let me guess, with a name like that he was an agent for ALDAR," I said.

"Mmhm."

"What was he?"

"An Interrogator."

"Wait...the one that...?"

"Yes," Echo replied. "The Interrogator I 'killed' so that I could take his place."

I felt sick, "He's like you."

"No. I'm much worse." She pushed away from the doorframe and came to stand next to the bed. She held out her hand, Paiute jumped onto her shoulder. "There's only one way in which he is worse."

"How's that?"

"How he disposes the bodies."

I didn't have the stomach to ask her what she meant as we headed outside to the car. On the way out, she had grabbed some hot sauce from my cabinets. Now, she opened the trunk to reveal a trash bag that was the approximate size for a body. She tossed the hot sauce on top of it and looked at me with a smile, "He eats them."