Return was coming to Echo in terms of sense toward self. Sin felt wrong. Something stale in the air was palpable. She’d been undoing the harm she was a part of. There was Hyde who needed her most.

She’d not forgive herself for that. The notion wasn’t something Echo believed in—forgiveness.

Atoning would be something she’d aim to do for every mistake—owning each lesson cast forth by the universe at large would prove the most bountiful reward one could follow. To see a failure was to find an opportunity to right it no matter the reception. To make the proper effort felt the key, to not forget, to hold what she’d done as a part of herself in the truthful surrender it is.

Oria was still something she’d not resist.

Their grasp was a lifeblood and her body wouldn’t know or care to learn the means to withstand such temptation. She was learning through trial to not betray herself for the woman and it was proving unrewarding in terms of righting the relationship to something of reciprocity. She’d been owned in whole by cruel intentions and loved it. Every moment a blessing to the body. She wouldn’t have taken that back—Echo needed it and would cheat and steal to get what she deserved and been robbed of for her lineage and consequences from the soul she’d borne into this lifetime of brutal karma.

Touchdown of her physical self had been a sinch of synchronicity. The latticed webbing of Sin’s structure and the unique energy signatures each wing bore would prove a choice opportunity to blend and obscure from scopes of all manner.

Hardline had seen her out it’s open front on the underside of a utility hatch which hadn’t seen itself opened in ages. Bots were wielding fields of protection and in constant observance of needed upkeep on the great webbed starship. It’s movement was of leaps and bounds. Portholes would prove the needed key for existence within a galaxy so large for a lumbering beast of lowest efficiency in design.

Her entrance was seen to by the self she’d meet for only a moment. A strangest happening it was to see yourself in plain. They’d smiled at each other, shared a knowing gesture which called back to their youth on Earth, and then her visage blinked out.

Echo was cradling hope; The Cradle of Hope.

Her rail driver was back in grip. There was something stirring in her belly. Nothing here was going to be the same after this path she’d cut. Her entire cargo within Hardline was hefted by all her strength in arm and upon her back—bolts to last.

Three at once. She’d pinned the goons by head and throat and chest to wall.

It was a good first shot. The sounds reverberating through the hull and in the air were a mixture of divine destruction. It sounded like peace.

Every lessening of evil was felt. Every left turn a new soldier of these sisters so twisted by sleeping giants. Echo didn’t want this to be easy. She’d projected back across Sin into the chamber they’d been stowed in cryonic cacophonies—crypts of high magick.

The Mothers Two were waking up. She planned to give them time to remember who they were and what they’d done before she saw them through.

Blathering twerps emerged down a longest corridor of the west wing. She’d taken the first with a proper rail and exploded him lengthwise after he’d fallen prone to fire. One of the others—a slower sort—wretched it out behind while the other stormed to the only cover she could find.

Echo had that one. She’d liked her. She knew it no matter of choice as she’d opted for the quicker death and chosen an incendiary, corrosively explosive specialty bolt.

If the shot had been true it would have taken her with quickness. Something in Echo told it divine—her slightest misfire. The way they’d scrawled in screams.

How she’d crawled and begged. “Mommy! I miss my mommy!”

The plain bolt chosen for the lethargic one proved a shot to the heart. It hurt Echo the most. She’d felt it back in that moment—how much it was gutted.

When she’d walked past the girl then crying and looking back to the limited portion of her legs which were splattered about, Echo knew something true—it was best to leave this one and save the round. She’d need them all.

A few more left turns and a frustrating need to turn right had made the maddened empress of hope’s cradle feel need. She’d had the rail driver reloaded too long without a target.

His appearance would be a brightest spot of her life. The man had been her least favorite. He walked around a sham of a lie in projected presence—he’d feel himself some superior to the woman out of projected insecurity—wearing a mask to hide his ugliness—throwing it off when he stole from her.

She took his leg to the wall alone. The steaks of red were thinnest runs with blurts of glopping splatter. It was a work of art.

He fell hard and ate paint. He needed a shot of lead to the head and Echo would wait it out until he’d bled the most. She’d never seen so much. It made her woozy but this one was a special case. She was enjoying the show.

Echo even asked the boy, “You having a good time now?”

There wasn’t a need to waste another shot. Time would take him.

Time Throws Fire | Part Seven | Chapter Forty-One

the second novel in The Foundry series

Time Throws Fire

Part Six | The Sisters Two

Chapter Forty-One

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