You’re delirious, Eden. Please don’t think about that right now, you have to concentrate your efforts into making it through this, not on being mad at me.
I’m not crazy, Echo. The insults and ridiculing never stop with you, do they? I am lying here on the ground bleeding all over Drew, and you pick now to start calling me crazy?
No, Eden, I mean it literally! You are in shock and delirious because of how much blood you’ve lost and the amount of raw pain you are feeling.
I felt Echo’s emotional state shift and then settle. It was the kind of sensation that came with her making a resolute decision. She was concentrating really hard, and then I felt the transfer and knew what had happened. Echo had taken the reins, and I’d been pushed back into the passenger seat just like the night she’d attacked Drew in my room.
“I know you don’t understand Eden, but you will thank me later for not asking and just acting.”
She’d said it aloud, and it was strange hearing my voice but not being the one to speak. Drew looked down, and an expression of alarm crossed his already frazzled features.
“Relax lover boy,” Echo told Drew in an all-business tone, “I’m not going to try killing you this time, Eden’s conscious needs a break and I can handle the pain better because I’m not—hardwired like she is. I’m more like Wi-Fi. Her body needs to stay awake, and in her current condition, her conscious just can’t keep up. It’s the side effects of being the rightful owner of the body, I can separate myself from the pain a little better than she can—but damn even with that being the case this still really hurts.”
“I don’t trust you when it comes to Eden’s wellbeing because of what I know about you. It isn’t much, but two things I know for sure are that you’re selfish and immature.”
“Oh, you don’t have to trust me, Drew, and I could really care less if you do. The bottom line is either we do this, or she dies! You don’t have a choice, and neither do I. So if we are done with this little debate, I am going to go back to keeping Eden’s body stable until she gets the care she needs to keep her from dying.”
Drew looked doubtful. I could tell he didn’t trust Echo as I slipped further into the layers of my conscious.
“You will give her control again when she is better, though, right?”
Echo scoffed like that was the stupidest question she’d ever heard. I understood why Drew asked it, though.
“After she bounces back from her temporarily crippling condition, I won’t have much choice. Eden’s will is too strong for me to be able to control her for too long without some type of strong emotional surge.”
She was right, of course, but then weirder things had happened after all here we were, and she had full control—no emotional spike needed.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mi casa es Su casa
(Echo)
I was starting to worry. It had been almost twenty-four hours. Even when Eden had been younger, I’d next to never had control over her body for quite this long. Even in the times where I did have extended control, I could still talk to her and feel her emotions clearly, but now? I could still feel her, but it was faint and her thoughts? Nothing, she hadn’t uttered a single word since her conscience retreated into the deeper corners of her mind. I knew how to get there, but for me to reach her, I’d have to turn over control. The problem was, with Eden being on hiatus, there was no one to relinquish control to, so I was stuck. The most annoying part about the whole thing was that Drew believed I was doing it on purpose. The boy was infuriating. He acted like I'd tried to kill him or something. Okay, to be fair, I guess I did do that, but damn it, I’d been justified! I warned them. It wasn’t my fault they couldn’t follow simple damn directions.
“Great news Miss Garrows,” a young woman said as she walked into the hospital room. “You are stable enough to go home. I bet you are ready to get out of this stuffy place, huh?”
It didn’t take me long to realize who the doctor was, and I felt instant aggression. You’d think after almost twenty years that my resentment toward an old classmate would have disappeared, but no. All the resentment I felt toward this particular person came flooding back, and I found it beyond irritating that she’d clearly made a successful life for herself. She was a damn doctor! The world just wasn’t fair because the only thing I had succeeded in—was dying.
“Yup, ready to get away from this hospital and its ridiculous excuse for a staff. They’ll make anyone a doctor, it seems!”
I eyed her up and down and didn’t try to conceal my disgust in the least. Her bright smile and relaxed demeanor faltered, and the grown version of my high school nemesis more accurately resembled what I remembered from all those years ago.
“I’m sorry, was someone rude to you, hun? Has someone mistreated you since you’ve been with us? I’ll see that it is dealt with immediately. We don’t tolerate abuse here—of any kind here,” she told me.
I recoiled in surprise and realized that her concern was genuine. There were no pretenses about her at all. Typical, that the little bitch grew a conscience after I was dead and gone. Well, that was just peachy, but she was a day late and a dollar short.
“Do you remember,” I glanced down at her nameplate to see what name she was going by these days,
