Echoes Read Free Page A

with her.
    When I saw her coming out of her apartment, I thought about heading back down the stairs. Lack of exercise had made my body weak, however, and carrying the beer up the steps wore me out. So I looked at the floor and attempted to scoot past, trying my best not to make eye contact. When she stepped in front of me, I tried to walk around her, but she sidestepped, blocking my path again.
    "What do you want?" I asked.
    She put both of her hands on my cheeks and lifted my face up. We locked eyes for what seemed like an hour but probably didn't last more than a few seconds.
    "You deserve better," she said. Then she walked around me and disappeared down the stairwell.
    That night I started searching the internet for better ways of controlling my mind, besides drowning it in beer.

Chapter 4
     
    Three hard knocks at the door jarred us out of the moment.
    "The landlord must have sprouted wings to get here this fast," I said. Pushing away from the table, I walked to the door.
    It wasn't the super waiting in the hallway. Three men stood there, all wearing suits in various stages of disarray. It looked like they had slept in them. When someone in a suit comes looking for you, it's never a good thing. When three of them show up you probably need a lawyer.
    The man in front wore a black suit and was clearly the head honcho. He wasn't particularly tall, maybe 5'10", and had a strong, wiry build. His face could have been chiseled out of granite. A long, thin scar ran down his left cheek that looked like it could have been caused by a knife. His graying cropped hair implied he had been, or still was, some kind of military. I'd seen guys like him while stationed in Iraq. You could always tell who the major players were: they wore suits in the middle of a warzone. He was one of those.
    Two very serious looking hombres flanked him on either side. Judging by their beards and thousand yard stares they were definitely Special Forces. The white guy on Scarface's left stood taller than the others, close to my height, with dirty blonde hair. He looked through me more than at me. The other one was significantly shorter and of Asian descent. His eyes scanned the apartment behind me.
    These guys weren't here for pizza and Pop Tarts.
    "I don't really need anymore magazine subscriptions," I said.
    I live on the fourth floor of a building with no elevator. Those four flights of stairs are a good way to measure if someone is in decent shape or not. Even a gym rat starts to perspire a little by the top. They must have floated up here because they weren't even breathing hard.
    "Asher Benson, my name is Smith," Scarface said.
    "Smith? How original."
    "Mr. Benson, we need you to come with us immediately," Smith said. His voice and expression were flat as a pancake.
    "Oh, you aren't selling magazine subscriptions? What are you peddling then? Vacuum cleaners? Religion?" I snapped my fingers. "I got it! Girl scout cookies. I probably could probably swing a few boxes of thin mints."
    "We believe your life is in danger." He looked past me and saw Samantha sitting at the table. "Who's the woman?"
    "The 'woman' is none of your business. Who the hell are you guys? Why would my life be in danger?"
    "Unfortunately, we don't have time to discuss this here. You'll be briefed when we're on the road. This isn't a negotiation." Even his diction was plain.
    I looked at all three of them, trying to gauge the situation.
    "So that's why you brought Chuck Norris and Jackie Chan – extra muscle to drag me out of here if I didn't cooperate. I appreciate you being concerned about my wellbeing, but there's a rerun of Cheers on tonight that I really want to watch, so—"
    "Please escort the young woman outside," Smith said over his shoulder to the Chuck Norris lookalike. "We need to leave now."
    "Don't even think about—"
    Jackie grabbed my arm, pulled me into the hallway, and twisted it behind my back before I even saw him move. His grip was like iron. I never had a