Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Echo turns around to study me. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. It was really lucky. But the new house we ended up in was pretty bad. The dad worked a lot because he didn’t want to deal with anything at home, and the mom was a barely functioning alcoholic. There were four other boys in the house, and all six of us ran wild. We did that for a few years, and by the time we were fourteen, we were a wolf pack of brats, the likes of which you can only imagine.”
Echo out and out grins. “Oh, I can imagine.” It surprises me that she’d take delight in that mental image, but I guess the way I just put it out there was quite funny, though I do still feel pain at the way we grew up. There are little twinges and sadness and a pressing on my chest, but most of it has been erased by the fact that after Granny adopted us, we had a rocking life, and all of that led us to her. We’ve also done a lot of online therapy over the years, and I guess I’ve dealt with it in healthy ways to get to this point.
So, yes. I can smile at myself too.
“We were all interested in computers, our wolf pack of fourteen-year-old wannabe badasses. The house had a computer, but that quickly went by the wayside, so we started stealing shit. The other kids were really good at it, but Atlas and I never participated much in that. We did, however, participate in what everyone was learning, and that was how to be really bad online. I don’t know where they picked it up, but those four other boys were like sponges for bad information to pass through, but it stuck to them like the whole glue and insults thing, and they never forgot anything they learned. We were naturally good at it. My brother and I were shit at school, but we were actually smart. It wasn’t long before we were doing amateur hacking, and naturally, we thought we were the shit.”
“Naturally.”
“We kept messing around, learning shit. Anyway, eventually, all the laptops died, and we were in between trying to get another one for the house, and Atlas figured out that the public library, which was a pretty badass place, had computers we could go and use for free.”
“Not to hack on!” Echo sounds totally scandalized.
I laugh. “Well, you know how it ended up. We got caught, and the cops were called and everything. Granny had a friend who worked in the justice system that kind of kept an eye out for youth who would be a good fit for her family. She’d already adopted a few boys and said she was open to adopting more. She’d been very successful at what they saw as rehabilitating problem kids, so they were open to letting her have another crack at it. She worked her magic and got us out of there. It wasn’t that much longer before she officially adopted us and taught us how to hone those shit skills that we thought we were rocking so we could become real pros. I mean, not pros, but…okay, well, you know the truth. I don’t have to lie to you.”
Her eyes flick down to the wooden plywood floor. “No,” she says softly. “I guess there’s no point in that. When I found you, all I wanted to do was find you and free myself with those papers. I never imagined what I’d really be walking into.”
“You probably never foresaw getting chased by killer raccoons either.”
She throws her head back and laughs, and the sound is so lovely and joyous that it floods the treehouse, and it’s like happy unicorn glitter magic. I can’t believe how cool Echo is about everything. I guess it comes with her having to be heavily adaptable in order to survive, but still.
I should apologize to her. She deserves to hear it from me.
And I want to, but suddenly, Granny’s shrill voice pierces the still morning. “If you want hot grub and not stone-cold grub, you better get your bottoms out of that treehouse right this minute.”
Yes, it’s entirely possible for her to reduce me to a naughty five-year-old and also a guilty teenager at the same time. I hope she didn’t think we were doing something up here. In the treehouse. Together. Echo and I. Because no, we’re not. We would definitely not be doing something like that. Just because I’d love to kiss her doesn’t mean I actually ever would.
Wait. What?
“I guess that’s our cue to get our arses down that ladder,” she says dryly. “It’s not like the whole neighborhood heard that or anything.”
“See what you have to look forward to if you join the family? Endless fun. It’s never boring. Never. And not just because we travel the world, have a ton of different identities, live lives that people can only guess at, and do some pretty heroic work along the way. It’s because we’re family. That’s the best part.”