More Than an Echo (Echo Branson Series) Read Online Free Page B

to the dayroom, Big George, Tall Tommy and Small Sal were all cornering the girl known as The Mute. To my horror, she held a pair of scissors to her own neck. She had every intention of pushing them in, too. She wasn’t bluffing.
    “Get back, Jane!” one of the nurses ordered.
    “Stop!” I yelled over them. All three orderlies turned to me. When Big George saw that it was me who was shouting, he muttered something to the other orderlies before approaching me. “Let her through.”
    The nurses let me go.
    “What you doin’, sweetpea?”
    “She’s not bluffing, Big George. Please. If you guys get any closer, she will shove those scissors into her neck.”
    Big George looked hard at me and whispered, “How do you know this, girl?”
    “I...I don’t know.” I lowered my voice. “I just do. You have to believe me, she’s not kidding.”
    Big George peered into my eyes so long, it made me uncomfortable. Finally, he turned back to the dayroom. “Hang on a second, guys. Back off and give her a little breathing room.”
    One of the younger doctors pushed through the crowd. “What’s going on here? I thought I said to sedate her. Can’t the three of you handle her? She’s just a girl.” The doctor was a smallish Asian man who weighed all of one hundred pounds.
    Big George cut his eyes over to me. “Jane?”
    Making my way over to her, I was nearly knocked down by the fear coming from The Mute. “What’s her name?” I whispered to Big George as I walked by.
    “Mary. Her name is Mary.”
    “What in the hell is going on here? I told you how I wanted  this handled!” The little doctor was getting irritated that nobody would listen to him.
    I ignored the remainder of their conversation and focused on Mary The Mute. Her fear was overpowering; not just because of the shackles, which she hated, but of what she was willing to do to herself.
    “I know you’re really scared,” I said softly as I approached her.
    Her eyes were on fire and she looked at me; wild with fear, distress and anxiety. I felt every single emotion she was experiencing, and she was feeling them all loudly in her silence. “I know you’re not kidding about using those.” I motioned to the scissors. “I had the same thoughts when they had me all trussed up, too. It’s the shackles, isn’t it?”
    Mary swallowed hard and then barely nodded. The scissor tip remained pressed against her throat, but I felt some of her fear ebb.
    I stepped closer to her. She blinked several times, but made no move to step away or to use the scissors. “You don’t need to be so scared. I don’t trust anyone here, either, except Big George. You can trust him. I swear.” I watched Mary’s eyes move over my shoulder to Big George. “And you can trust me. I’m not a loon or a nutjob. I’m afraid, too.”
    Mary lowered the scissors a little. It was so very strange. I felt...I felt like I could hear her through her emotions. She couldn’t speak...she didn’t have to; not to me.
    “I’m scared shitless,” I said, “because I have no place to go from here. I have no family, no home, nothing. It totally sucks. Do you have a family?”
    Mary nodded.
    “Lucky you. I know...none of us here are very lucky. I mean, we’re here in this horrible place that insists it’s helping us with its drugs and restraints. What a joke. I’m sure some of us belong here. Hell, maybe I do, too, but at least you have some place to go when this nightmare is over. But you know the beauty of nightmares? Eventually, they end. They all do. This one will, too. For all of us. And when it does, don’t you want to be around?”
    Mary hesitated before lowering the scissors. She trusted me...trusted my words. I turned to Big George. “Can you please put those shackles away? She doesn’t need them. Please don’t rush her.”
    Big George nodded and signaled to the other orderlies to back away. Then, he said something to the doctor, who stepped aside. “Go ahead, Jane.”
    I sat down