Into The Fire (The Ending Series) (12 page)

Jake driving a black Jeep, Cooper sitting happily in the
back, Becca hanging her bare feet out the passenger-side window. She was
laughing and tossing popcorn at him, and I could tell he was trying not to
smile. She rolled her eyes and pushed the play button on the stereo. Immediately
dropping the bag of popcorn onto the floor, she wriggled and danced in her
seat, letting the kernels fall all over the interior of the car. Jake pointed
to the mess, trying to keep his eyes on the road, but she waved his anger away
as she continued singing, shimmying her shoulders and flailing around.

“Please untie me, Jake.” Becca’s voice was almost booming in
the silence.

I turned in time to see his eyes shoot to hers.

“Please? If I fail him again, he will be so angry. I do not
want to make Father angry.
Please
.”

Jake looked at me and then sat down on a plastic chair by
the window, making it creak under his weight. He covered his face with his
hands, and it looked like he was trying to rub away his own personal hell.

I glanced at Becca again, whose eyes were closed and chin
was quivering slightly. “I have to get back,” she rasped. “I have to warn
them.”

Warn them?
I approached her, the rubber soles of my
boots squeaking on the cement floor. “Warn who?” I asked her, but she didn’t
answer because Jake strode over. When he looked at me, his eyes were an inferno
of rage, resentment, and despondency. My stomach dropped and my defenses
flared.

“Jake,” I said, reaching for him, but he pulled his arm
away. “Please, talk to me.” I reached for him again, and as soon as I touched
him, my shoulders dropped; he was splintered inside, like wood being hacked
into a thousand, unmendable pieces. “Jake…” His name was barely a whisper.

He tugged his arm out of my grasp. “Don’t, Zoe,” he said
before he turned away from me.

“Don’t wha—”

“I can’t,” he began, glaring back at me. “I can’t do this. I
can’t send her back to that place…to that man.”

“What?” Becca screeched. “Jake, I have—”

“I can’t send her back, and I can’t…you…”

“Me, what? You’re scaring the shit out of me.” My voice was
trembling. “But she wants—”

“I can’t breathe!” He stalked to the storefront window, his
broad chest heaving under his t-shirt. “I should’ve known. I should’ve—”

“Known
what
, exactly? That she wasn’t really dead? Or
that they’d somehow bring her back to life and brainwash her?”

“I am not—”

I continued to talk over Becca, my voice harsh and defensive.
I couldn’t help it. I’d never seen Jake so distraught, so…I didn’t even know.
“You couldn’t have possibly known what she’d turn into or who she’d become.”

With one palm pressed against the wall by the window, Jake
bowed his head, drowning in the undertow of emotion. His jaw worked, his hand flexing
and shaking against the plaster.

“I have to leave, to get her out of here,” he said, adamant.
“I can’t just hand her over like she’s not my sister.”

“Jake,” Becca tried again. “I need to go back. I
have
to
go back.”

He only shook his head, refusing to listen. “I won’t let you
go back there, Becca, no matter what you want. I’m getting you out of here.”

I froze.
He’s leaving.
I glared at his back, but feeling
his misery, my anger quickly subsided. “We can figure something—”

“Stop!” He pulled his arm back and slammed his fist into the
wall, denting it. “There’s nothing to figure out. My sister will
not
be
used as a pawn.” His face fell. He leaned back and brought his hand up to pinch
the bridge of his nose. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

He’s already made up his mind
. Instantly, I started
to question everything about Jake and me…about us. My reservations from the
first time I met him—the first time he saved me, opened his mouth, and pushed
me away—flared to life, and I chided myself for being so naïve.
I knew
something like this would happen.

The questions jumped off my tongue before I could contain
them. “What about Dani? What about me? You’re just going to leave?”

When he didn’t respond, reality burst overhead like a
looming storm cloud, clearing away the fog that had settled in my heart and
mind.
How could I have been so stupid?

The conversation we’d had on the dock back in St. Louis
resurfaced from under a month’s worth of foolhardy emotions. Jake’s words
replayed in my mind.

“For whatever reason, I know you don’t want to let me
in…or maybe you just don’t know how…what are you afraid of?”

This. This fucking feeling of inexplicable loss was what I’d
been afraid of—the living lump of hysteria swelling in my throat, the
desperation in my heart. I couldn’t swallow it away.

Biting the inside of my cheek as hard as possible, I willed
myself to calm down.
Keep it together, Zoe.

Jake strode past me to Becca, pulling her up to her feet.

Lunging at him, I pushed against his chest as hard as I
could. “You’re leaving?” He stumbled away from Becca, and I pushed him again.
“You’re going to kill Dani!” I shoved against his shoulder. “You’re going to
kill us all if you take her!” I smacked his chest. “I won’t let you ruin
everything.”
I won’t let you break my heart!
I pushed, shoved, and
slapped him again and again. “You son of a bitch!”

Jake gripped my arms, immobilizing me and forcing me to look
up at him. His eyebrows lifted with sympathy…
or is it sorrow?
I was too
upset to differentiate between his emotions and mine.

“Let go,” I warbled.

As he opened his mouth to speak, a gunshot cracked through
the air and Jake yanked me down to the floor.

8

DANI

MARCH
16, 1AE

Pine needles pricked my bare arms as I wandered through a
shadowy forest. Towering redwoods and lodgepole pines shaded me from an
unusually hot summer sun and saved my skin from burning. Luckily, the
underbrush was sparse, consisting of scattered ferns and low, scraggly shrubs
which didn’t hinder my steps.

A sudden, loud rustle sounded off to my left. I paused
mid-stride, wondering if I’d disturbed a rabbit, or possibly a deer, but when I
peered in the direction of the noise, nothing moved between the thick, mossy
trunks. I resumed my steady pace. The only noise was the crunching of twigs and
dry pine needles underfoot…until I heard the sound again, closer and off to my
right.

I snapped my head around, searching. I caught a glimpse
of black near the ground before whoever—or whatever—had made the noise
disappeared behind a redwood at least forty yards away.

“Hello?” I called. “Is someone there?”
What if it’s a
bear? Oh God, I hope not!
I couldn’t remember the rules for confronting a
bear—was I supposed to stare it down, avoid eye contact, or make myself big and
loud?
Fat chance there
,
I thought. Loud I could do, but big was
so far outside of my wheelhouse, it was in a different country.

For minutes I heard nothing but wind, the sounds of birds
chirping, and small creatures scurrying through the branches overhead.

“Is someone there?” I called again, trying to keep my
voice steady. Adrenaline flooded my body, doing its best to convince me to turn
and flee.

From nowhere specific, a man whispered, “Dani.” My name
bounced around between the tree trunks, repeating and gaining strength. Not a
bear…a person.
Should I be relieved?
I wasn’t.

“Where are you?” I screeched, spinning around and
frantically searching for the speaker among the trees. “
Who
are you?”

I spotted the black thing again and realized it was a
boot. Before it disappeared behind a thick redwood twenty yards ahead of me, I
glimpsed the rest of the man it was attached to. He was tall, and his jeans and
black t-shirt did nothing to hide his powerful build. Too soon, he was gone,
hidden by the trees.

“Hey! Where are you going? How do you know my name?” I
tried to yell, though it came out strained and breathy. I jogged to the tree
he’d disappeared behind, but by the time I rounded its monstrous girth, there
was no one to find.

“Red,” he called out from everywhere and nowhere. Again,
the single word echoed off the endless forest of tree trunks. The rich sound of
his voice made my heart swell in longing.

Hearing the rustle of dried sticks and pine needles
directly behind me, I spun. For once, the man didn’t hide.

He was larger than I’d first thought, about a foot taller
than me. His dark hair was cropped close, and sapphire-blue eyes glowed in a
handsome, angular face. Every plane and ridge was precise, almost severe,
making him equally harsh and beautiful.
Jason?
He wasn’t alone.

From behind the trunks on either side of him, a handful
of people emerged. A slender, raven-haired woman whose jewel-blue eyes were
almost identical to Jason’s.

“Zo,” I breathed.

I scanned the rest of the faces. A blonde woman with kind
features. A teenage boy with dark hair, tan skin, and haunted eyes. A young
Asian man whose lips were curled into a playful smirk. A middle-aged man sporting
an impressive mountain-man beard. A beautiful young woman whose face was
contorted by a haughty sneer. They all felt so familiar, like their names were
on the tip of my tongue, but I didn’t recognize any of them.

“Why are you following me?” I whispered.

One side of Jason’s mouth quirked slightly upward, and a
barely-there dimple appeared on his cheek. He laughed, the sound rough and
baritone. “You need to remember.”

“Remember,” the others echoed in a ghostly chorus. It was
more than a little creepy.

“I need you to come back to me, Red,” Jason added.

“Why are you calling me that?”

He turned and began walking away. The others followed a
step behind him.

“Wait!” I called after them. I didn’t want to be left
alone in the forest. I tried to follow, but shrubs appeared around my sneakers,
tripping me with each attempted step.
“
Don’t leave me! Jason! Zo!”

“Wake up, Dani,” someone said. A hand was on my shoulder,
shaking me gently.

“No,” was my genius response. I rolled onto my side, away
from the offending human alarm clock. Gabe.

He laughed softly. “You weren’t supposed to fall asleep.”

I flopped onto my back and glared up at him through
sleep-swollen eyelids. “
You
weren’t supposed to
let
me fall
asleep.”

Gabe sighed, a deep, mournful sound. It was very dramatic.
“True, but you were getting far too cranky.” He didn’t sound the least bit
repentant.

I scowled. “What if I’d been hemorrhaging in my brain? What
if I’d died in my sleep because you didn’t want to deal with my crankiness?
What if—”

His laugh was full and slightly booming. “Okay, okay! I’m
sorry. I was far too careless with your life. I’m
so
sorry. Will you
ever forgive me?”

“I’ll think about it,” I told him. “Now, let me go back to
sleep. I’m obviously not going to slip into a coma.” Turning my head away from
him, I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to return to dreamland. I felt
like I’d been having the strangest dream, and for some reason, I desperately
wanted to return to it.

“Can’t do that,” Gabe said. “You’re coming with me to work
today.”

Groaning into my pillow, I mumbled, “Can’t you just let me
go back to sleep instead?”

“No can do.” The bed bounced as he stood. “If you get ready,
I’ll make you breakfast. You like pancakes?”

I stiffened, suddenly salivating. Pancakes.
How long has
it been since I’ve had pancakes?
“Throw in some bacon and you’ve got deal,”
I said, sounding way too excited. If I was being honest with myself, he had me
at “pancakes.”

“I think I can manage that.”

Entering Gabe’s lab was like walking into Willy Wonka’s
chocolate factory, but for science fanatics, which I’m not. Thanks to my
linguistics studies, I prefer tangling with syntax and semantics rather than
compounds and cellular structures, but even so, the room was still
awe-inspiring. Each consecutive counter in the long room was filled with more
fantastical and majestic equipment, and each machine, with its shiny baubles and
crystal-clear lenses, screamed of wonder and amazing discoveries. I brushed my
fingertips over the scope of something that looked like the lovechild of a
telescope and a machine gun.

“Please don’t touch that,” Gabe said.

Okay…
“So, this is your lab,” I noted as we passed by
counters filled with meticulously arranged high-tech devices, glass containers,
and yellow notepads.

“Yep.”

“You’re in charge of the whole thing?”

“Uh, yeah,” he responded, smoothing his blond hair against
his scalp—it was pulled back into his usual low ponytail, the few inches of
gathered hair fanning neatly down the back of his neck.

“What exactly is it that you’re in charge of?” Even if there
were a gun held to my head, I couldn’t have guessed the purpose of most of the
obviously priceless equipment.

Gabe shot a quick look over his shoulder as he led the way
down an aisle between two counters. “I’m in charge of the Ability Research
Department.”

“That sounds important.”

“It is.”

“Wow, you’ve really got that whole humility thing down,
huh?” I said, shaking my head. As I scanned around the lab—the unoccupied lab—I
frowned. There were three rows of work counters and dozens of stools, but no
scientists. “Where are all of your worker bees? I mean, I’m assuming someone
with such an ‘important’ job has a handful of science slaves, but this place is
totally empty.”

He unlocked a taupe fire door. “I told them to work on their
other projects this morning.” At my cocked head, he added, “We don’t have
enough scientifically-inclined people to devote a large number of them to one
department alone…even if it is
the
most important department.”

“Seriously, Gabe?” I asked, swatting his forearm. “Get over
yourself already, you’re not
that
amazing.” Like a battering ram, the
déjà vu hit me again, nearly knocking me breathless. I hunched over, gasping.

“Dani? What’s wrong? Is it your head?” Gabe asked in a rush.
He held my elbow in a gentle but strong grip and led me through the doorway to
a worn couch in one corner of what could only be his office. The room was a
mixture of neatness and clutter that was purely Gabe, and it held the faintest
trace of his clean scent.

“I’m fine,” I said, between slow, deep breaths. “I just need
a second to rest.”

“Are you sure?” His voice was filled with concern.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Okay. Well, while you rest, I need to run a quick errand.
Will you be fine here?”

I glanced up at him through the stray crimson curls that had
fallen in front of my eyes. “Oh, I’m sure I’ll survive.”

Gabe, who’d been backing toward the door, hesitated, and I
offered him a faint reassuring smile. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll be back in about
fifteen minutes.”

“Gabe?” I called as he was shutting the door.

He poked his head back into the office. “Yeah?”

“Who’s MG?” I asked, recalling the two letters that had
brought our previous night’s kiss to a screeching halt.

Gabe said nothing for several long seconds, simply blinked
slowly and studied me. Finally, he said, “Someone you trusted…and he betrayed
you.”

“Did you know him?”

He nodded, the crease between his eyebrows reappearing.
“I’ll tell you all about him when I get back…if you want.”

With a smile, I rested my head against the back of the couch
and closed my eyes. “Yeah, I’d like that. Thanks.”

He’d been gone for only a few minutes when I heard it: a scream.
It was the kind of scream made by a mother giving birth, or by a torture victim
being slowly flayed.

I rose from my comfortable, reclined position on the sofa
and cracked open the door to the lab, listening. At first, silence greeted me, but
it was closely followed by a second, nearly identical scream.
What the hell?

As quietly as possible, I inched the door further open and
slipped out into the empty lab. After a brief moment of deep-ish contemplation,
I ghosted across the lab toward the door to the hallway. I snagged a smudged,
white lab coat that had been draped over a nearby stool and shrugged into it.

After peeking from the lab doorway into the hallway and
seeing nobody, I stepped all the way out, trying my hardest to look like I
belonged there. I explored every hallway on the floor without hearing the
scream again. I was about to give up and return to Gabe’s office when another piercing
howl emanated from a door to the stairwell.

My hand wanted to shake as it reached for the doorknob, but
I wouldn’t let it. Images of what could cause someone to make such a
gut-wrenching noise overflowed in my imagination. Whatever the cause, I knew it
couldn’t be anything good.

I was inching the heavy metal door open, waiting for the
scream to waylay me, when something touched my shoulder.

“Wha—” I shouted, spinning and backing away in a single
motion. Of its own accord, my hand reached across my body for something at the
side of my rib cage, but all it found was the bottom of my breast. I instantly
lowered my hand, no idea why I’d raised it in the first place. “Holy crap,
Gabe! Why’d you feel the need to scare the living bejeezus out of me?” I
snapped.

Gabe, still standing before the stairwell door, held his
hands out in front of him in a placating gesture. “Sorry,” he said, taking a
step toward me. “I thought you heard me.”

“Obviously not,” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest.

He looked from me to the door, then back. “Going somewhere?”

“I heard a scream…like a horror-movie,
being-slashed-to-pieces scream.”

“And you were, what—investigating?” Gabe’s eyebrows shot up.
“Because nothing’s safer than searching out the cause of a
being-slashed-to-pieces scream.”

I shrugged, realizing that finding the screamer would also
have brought me face-to-face with whoever—or whatever—was making them scream, which
was more than a little stupid. “Not exactly,” I mumbled.

Gabe sighed and turned away from me, walking briskly back toward
his lab. “Good. That would be unwise.”
Gee, you think?

Scampering after him, which would have been embarrassing had
he been looking at me, I followed Gabe back up the hall, through his lab, and
into his office.

“No dry cleaning?” I asked, plopping back down on the couch.
All that had changed between pre-errand and post-errand Gabe was the addition
of the dictionary-sized, brushed metal case he was carrying.

“Huh?”

“Stamps?” I suggested.

“What?” He glanced at me, bafflement scrunching his brow.

I shrugged. “I swear, every time someone says they have to
‘run errands,’ it’s to go pick up dry cleaning or get stamps. Maybe not lately,
but you know what I mean.”

“Right…uh, no then,” Gabe said. Turning away from me, he
placed the case on his desk and opened it, revealing two items encased in dark
gray foam. One was a glass vial filled with neon blue liquid that looked like
it might, if consumed, give its drinker either radiation sickness or a massive
hangover. The other item resembled a shiny, steel gun, but I knew that wasn’t
what it was.