fireeyes13 answered to your post: 2014 Reading Challenge
My goal is set at 50 right now, but I am hoping I can get as high as 100
That's what I did last year, I set my goal for 52 (1 book per week) but by June I'd passed it so I just incrementally set it higher. I think that's a good way to go. Good luck!
Echo blinked slowly, looking around the crappy motel room she was currently in, the peeling yellow wallpaper and khaki carpet made those in her head who appreciate aesthetics groan in disgust. She smiled, however, seeing the pair of worn, bare feet standing in front of a matching yellow counter, waiting by the toaster.
"Morning, Alpha." Echo yawned, stretching her cramped muscles, having been curled up beside him for most of the night. Alpha turned around, his eyebrows raised in slight surprise, a large grin spreading over his features.
"Well, hello there, my sweet potato!" He said, a distinct southern twang buttering his words. "How is Miss Crystal this morning?"
Echo grinned, easily slipping into the personality of Crystal who was currently wailing to be let out and allowed to talk to her man. “Bobby!” She cried, excitedly. She hopped off of the bed, wearing only a large, pale blue shirt and boxers, running to Alpha’s open arms.
"Bobby, I got awful scared last time we talked…" It had been close to years now since she had regressed to this personality, the girl from the night of her composite event. This personality - this girl - seemed doubtful for a moment before leaning her weight on one foot and scuffing the ground with the other, "But I understand now, I think…"
"Well of course you understand, it would take a complete idiot not to." Alpha hissed, losing the comforting accent, switching back to his compound personality as he shook his head, "No, it would take someone completely brain-dead to not understand." He snapped.
Echo pulled away, glaring at him, “How the hell was she supposed to understand the first time around?” She spat back at him, her compound personality shining through. “She is a complete moron, but she was the only one in there.”
The two glared at each other for a tense moment before the toast pops out of the toaster and Alpha turns to tend to it. Echo goes back to sit at the wonky table, on the camping chair.
"I thought about skinning you alive last night." Alpha remarks calmly, pulling a jar of peanut butter from the plastic bag beside himself.
"But wouldn’t it be boring without me?" Echo grinned, despite the fact that Alpha couldn’t see it, she knew he could hear it through her tone.
"I suppose." Alpha mock sighed, leaving his toast and spread forgotten behind himself, "How poor in quality my life would be! My very existence would cease without you, milady!" He cried, his hands over his heart. Echo smiled back at him, before standing, arms outstretched.
"And I without you, milord!" She teased, giggling. Alpha smiled, wrapping his arms around Echo and lifting her up as he kissed her, swinging her around as the two laughed at the exchange.
Alpha set her down, his arms around her waist as Echo draped her arms around his neck, the two rested their foreheads against one another.
"Terry wants me to kill you." Echo whispered, looking into Alpha’s brown eyes. A dangerous smirk and glint in Alpha’s eyes makes Echo frown slightly.
"Would you like me to cut him out of you?" He murmured back. Echo rolled her eyes, he had made this offer numerous times before, whenever one of her imprints stirred up a particular amount of trouble.
“Then Terry can go to Hell.” Echo and Alpha chorused, as it was Alpha’s response whenever she didn’t give in to his ever-present demand to cut open her head and look at her brain.
"How did I ever end up with a peach like you?" Alpha sighed, smiling, an emotional depth in his eyes that only Echo had seen.
"You know what they say, ‘opposites attract’." Echo smiled back at him, a playful smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
"We’re not that different, if we were magnets, we would probably expel one another a slow speed… Because we are rather - quite - similar." Alpha said, letting go of Echo and going to pick up his plate of toast he placed it on the table pushing it to the middle so both he and Echo could eat slices.
"We also live in a tospy-turvy world with different people in our heads and you technically killed yourself. Logic doesn’t apply to us." Echo grinned, taking a slice of toast and biting the corner off.
"You’ve lost me." Alpha frowned, shaking his head and devouring his own slice of toast.
"First of all; I doubt that. Secondly, I’m adding onto the magnet theory, saying that even if we are opposites (which we don’t see to be, honestly) we still would find each other, because we change the world around us, Alpha. We defy logic." Echo stared at Alpha with such an intensity that it almost made him uncomfortable.
"Caroline and Karl were pretty much opposites." He said, quietly.
"Karl’s dead." Echo remarked. Alpha looked as though he was about to add something, but Echo continued, "And Caroline can shut up and listen." She took Alpha’s hands in her own, smearing peanut butter across both their palms. "I love you, Alpha. You’re the one who made me special, you’re the one who made me better.”
"Echo, you’ve always been special, you make me want to be better." Alpha confided, before chuckling, "You used to hate me, Sugar Plum. That’s what I’m asking." Echo softened slightly, before smiling at him.
"Alpha is a beautiful human being," she muttered, "you help me. You know what I’m going through, you can match me intellectually and we can compare humour at any given moment. You were designed to be the perfect person for so many people; but you’ve shaped yourself into the perfect person for me.” She pressed her lips to his, her hands running through his hair. “Also,” she mumbled, pulling away, “not trying to kill me or my original personality helps.” She chuckled.
"Its hard with all these wack-jobs in my head." Alpha remarked, smirking.
"You should have that seen to." Echo teased, grinning back at him. Alpha put on a solemn face, giving Echo a grim smile as she laughed at his seriousness.
"Don’t worry, Miss, I’m a Doctor." He paused, letting the act slide before he outright grinned, "I’m many things and I’m very good at those many things."
"You could say you’re the best at those things." Echo shook her head slightly, chuckling.
