Into The Fire (The Ending Series) (14 page)

10

DANI

MARCH
16, 1AE

In a room filled with someone else’s things, in a house
given to me by one of the three people whose death would inspire me to dance a
merry jig—Herodson, Clara, and Cece—I paced. I’d been walking from the window
to the dresser and back for the past two hours, ever since I woke up in the bed…which
led to the question of when and how I’d ended up in the bed
in the first
place. The last thing I remembered was screaming out my pain as all of the
memories and heartache of the last four months burst to life in my mind.
It
doesn’t matter
,
I told myself.
The only thing that matters is
tearing apart the bastard who tried to control me.

Each step solidified my hatred for General Herodson. Each
step also brought to mind a new, more idiotic plan for destroying him, or at
least allowed me to add some creative embellishments. As I approached the
expansive oak dresser and envisioned acting out my most recent scheme in
Operation: Kill General Dickhead—to march straight into his office with a
butter knife hidden in my bra and shank him in the eye—I felt the urge to
scream and punch something simultaneously. I’d been riding a nonstop wave of
fury and adrenaline, and as a result, I couldn’t stop shaking.

General Herodson’s revolting charity surrounded me…taunted
me. I was in the Colony, comfortable and encased in luxury—not just because he
allowed it, but because he wanted it. Sure, I might have been freed from his
mental control, but I was still doing exactly what he wanted. I was still
wearing the ridiculous yellow armbands he’d given me, like I’d been marked as
his
property.
Goddamn bastard.
Dead
goddamn bastard.

I kicked the dresser, hard. It knocked against the wall,
shuddered, and stilled. Just as I pivoted to march back toward the window, the
bedroom door opened. I spun to face the intruder.

“Everything okay in here?” MG—or, rather, Gabe—asked. He’d
poked his head through the gap in the doorway and was watching me, his eyes
filled with some heavy emotion—worry, or possibly guilt.
Did he bring me
back here? Did he put me to bed?

I remembered being under the General’s control. I remembered
practically throwing myself at Gabe. I remembered him injecting me with the
neon liquid, and I remembered screaming and screaming…and screaming. And then,
nothing.
That liquid must’ve been the “neutralizer” he’d been talking to Dr.
Wesley about. So…the “neutralizer” must do just that: neutralize the General’s
Ability. Gabe saved me from the General’s mind control.
Finally, the doubt
which had made me hesitant to trust Gabe, the doubt I’d felt ever since
overhearing that conversation between him and the doctor, evaporated.

When I didn’t say anything, instead opting to stand and do
my best impersonation of a marble statue, Gabe entered the room the rest of the
way.

“What do you remember?” he asked as he drew closer, shaking
his head. “Christ, Dani…do you have any idea what you did?”

Huh? What
I
did?
I shook my head slowly. “I
didn’t…you’re the one who…what are you talking about?”

Gabe raised his hands like he was reaching for me, then
pulled them back and shoved them into his pants pockets. “After I gave you the neutralizer
and Herodson’s hold wore off, you started to scream…do you remember that?”

I nodded.

He cleared his throat. “Well, when you screamed, you used
your telepathy.” He rubbed his hand over his smoothed-back hair. “From what I
can tell, everyone in the damn building heard it…
felt
it. There were
even a few bloody noses, and one person supposedly fainted.” Taking a deep
breath, he watched me, assessing. “Did you know you could do that…hurt people
with your Ability?”

Eyes wide, I shook my head.

He rubbed the faint stubble on one side of his jaw. “I, uh,
don’t think
he
can track it back to the source, so you should be safe
enough, but if he finds out you can do that…” He was shaking his head slowly.
“Shit. He’ll weaponize you in a heartbeat and use any means of motivation
necessary.”

Taking several dazed steps, I sank down onto the foot of the
bed. “I didn’t know I could…I’ve never…holy crap.”

It was Gabe’s turn to start pacing. “Use your Ability. Try
to sense the minds around you.”

“Right now? Why?”

He shot me the briefest possible glance. “Because—just do
it. It’s important.”

Frowning, I did as he directed, focusing on the part of my
brain that enabled me to speak in other minds. And there was nothing. “I…I
can’t.”

Gabe was nodding. “Burnout. Interesting,” he muttered.

I stood and placed myself in front of him on his way back to
the window. “Burnout? What do you mean,
burnout
? Did I…oh God, did I
destroy my Ability completely?” I reached for him and squeezed his arm. “What
does that mean?” I was panicking. God, I was sick of panicking.

Gabe placed his hands on my elbows and bent down to meet my
eyes. “I’ve seen burnout a few times, and it’s never been permanent. But”—he
hesitated—“each consecutive time the same person burned out their Ability, it
took longer to return. You need to be more careful.”

My voice was small when I said, “I didn’t mean to do it.” I
looked away. There’d just been so much pain…too much to contain. And it was
still there.

Gabe raised his hands to my face, gently turning it back to
him. “What made you…was it the neutralizer?” There was no mistaking the guilt
in his eyes.

“I suppose.” I stepped away from him, from his touch, and
crossed to the window. Looking down at the neighborhood street from the second
story of “my” house, I could almost imagine the world was normal…almost. “When
he
did what he did, he made me forget just about everything that’s happened to
me since this whole nightmare began. And then you injected me with that…that stuff,
and I remembered. Everything. It’s like it all just happened again—everyone
dying, my trip here, Jason—everything.” I paused, taking a deep breath. “I
killed people, Gabe.”

“It can be like that when his hold is broken, especially if
he included a command to forget,” Gabe said, rambling. “It’s a lot to handle, I
know, but—”

“You know? Really?” I retorted, spinning to face him.
“You’ve been here—hiding from what’s really going on. So what could you
possibly know?” I was fully aware that Gabe had done nothing but help me, but I
had
to lash out at something. I felt like a mindless, wounded animal. “Do
you know about the man I killed with a shovel? Or the one I shot in the head?
How about the cult freaks—the Prophets of the New World—do you know about them?
Do you know about anything going on out there? How’d you even end up in here?”

Gabe shook his head. “Dani—”

I held up my hand, cutting him off. “The woman in charge of
the cult, Mandy, she was like General Herodson with that mind control crap. She
controlled hundreds of people—forced them to kill—raped them and made them
think they liked it.” I thought back on everything Carlos had told me over our
weeks of horseback travel, recalled all the twisted things that bitch had made
her
flock
do.

My gaze was steady, locked on Gabe’s pale blue eyes.
“Mandy’s dead, and I’m glad I was there when Jason put the bullet through her
skull.”
And I’ll do everything possible to make General Herodson just as
dead.

Recognition filled Gabe’s clear eyes. “Dani, with the
General…you can’t—”

“He’s dead,” I hissed, stalking toward Gabe. “He just
doesn’t know it yet.”

Gabe scoffed. “And what are you going to do, just walk up to
him and shoot him? Or maybe you’re planning to stab him instead, hmmm? Make it
a little more personal?”

Actually, yeah, that’s the current plan.
I said
nothing.

“Listen to me!” he shouted. His hands were on my upper arms,
his grip demanding. “Going after him like that…trying to assassinate him…that
won’t work. I agree—he needs to die—but he’s too powerful for whatever you’re
planning to work. You can’t do this alone, and you can’t do it now. We need
time…people…resources.”

Unwilling to let his words permeate my thick skull, I shook
my head.

“Damn it, Dani!” Gabe yelled, shaking me. “You don’t believe
me? Then I’ll show you. If you still want to go all kamikaze after you see
everything, I won’t stop you.”

I glared daggers—no, broadswords—at him until he let me go.

“Take a few minutes to get yourself together, then come down,”
he said as he stopped in the doorway. “There are only a few hours until curfew,
and there’s a lot to see.”

Not quite slamming the door, Gabe left me alone with my
unsettling thoughts. I would see what he had to show me, use it if I could—and
then
I would kill the General.

“There are people here now,” I noted as Gabe and I walked
through his lab to his office. Unlike this morning, the place was a veritable
scientific anthill, teeming with efficient men and women in white lab coats
with yellow bands around their upper arms.
What’s the deal with the
armbands?

Gabe shot me a brief glance. “Yeah, well, I couldn’t close
the department down for very long.”

“Why
did
you close it down? Because you’ve been with
me? Can’t they function without you?” I asked.

Gabe herded me quickly through the lab and into his office.
When the door clicked shut, he explained, “They can, but sometimes they get a
little too enthusiastic about their work and harm their test subjects. I try to
be here as much as possible to keep them under control.”

I lowered my eyebrows. “Harm people? Why would they want
to—”

Gabe raised his eyebrows.

The General
,
I realized.
He probably
commanded them all to get results using whatever means necessary.
“Oh…got
it.”

Gabe picked up a manila envelope that had been resting on
his keyboard. He opened it and slid some colored plastic cards into his hand.
They looked like hotel keycards attached to navy blue, nylon lanyards. Handing
me a bright red card, he explained, “These are from Wes—Dr. Wesley. Red means
you’re still recovering—not healthy enough to work.” He cut off my impending
protest with a raised hand. “Think of it like a doctor’s sick note. Keep it
with you at all times. It’ll keep people like them”—he nodded toward the door—“or
that guard at headquarters, or anyone else wearing a yellow armband from
getting ahold of you and doing something you’re not okay with—like, um…hurting
you.” A flash of concern lit his eyes.

I glanced down at one of my own yellow armbands. “What do
they mean—the armbands?”

“Different things based on the color. Yellow means
mind-controlled. Black indicates someone who’s following Herodson willingly.”
He held out his own arm, drawing my attention to the white armbands he was
wearing. I hadn’t noticed them during my first day here; they hadn’t stood out
against his white shirt. “White means the wearer has a leadership role—in
charge of a department or is one of
his
advisors.”

I watched him slip the other lanyard over his head. The
attached card was plain white, like his armbands. “And a white
card
is
like a free pass. It means I have an excuse not to work and can pretty much go
anywhere on base—at least, anywhere that’s not restricted.”

“Not work? But what about them?” I asked, mimicking his earlier
nod toward the door.

“Wes agreed to check in on them every half hour.”

“She’s going to walk all the way over here from the hospital
every half hour just to check on your people?” I asked incredulously.

Shaking his head, Gabe said, “Her main office is downstairs.
She only works in the hospital when her duties require it. Technically, she’s
more of a research doctor than a medical doctor.”

“Oh.” My thoughts drifted to the doctor in question as I
settled the red card’s cord around my neck. “Dr. Wesley’s being very
accommodating. How’d she end up with so much power here, anyway?
He
must
really trust her.”

Gabe shot me a sharp look. “It’s a long story. What you need
to know is that it’s her blood that makes the neutralizer work. Her Ability
blocks those of others. Probably a lot like your friend’s.”

My friend’s…Jason’s.
Thinking of him made my heart
hurt.
Oh, crap—I kissed Gabe
. It had been a melt-your-panties-off kiss…except
I hadn’t been wearing any.
Oh my God…kill me now.
If I told Jason about
the kiss, he might kill Gabe, or at least maul him. Because, though my
mind-controlled self had been the one to kiss Gabe, he’d kissed me back…and
he’d been in full control of his mind.

Jason can never know.

“Anyway,” Gabe continued, “while we’re out in public, you
need to pretend you’re still under Herodson’s control. Be
very
careful
of what you say. You never know who might be listening…or how.”

Frowning, I said, “I’ll just talk in your head. Or, at least,
I will once I stop being so burned out.”

Gabe shook his aforementioned head. “Won’t work—I use the neutralizer,
too.”

Damn.
I hadn’t thought about that. A light bulb was
slowly turning on in my mind. “Gabe, does the neutralizer do anything else?”

“What do you mean?”

“Besides nulling—neutralizing—other people’s Abilities, does
it, say, give us a little power boost, too?”

Gabe froze in the process of zipping up his brown and tan
ski coat. “Is your telepathy back online?”

“No.”

“Then how the hell could you have possibly known that?”

Smiling mysteriously, I told him, “A girl can have a few
secrets, can’t she?”

He studied me suspiciously, but after a few heartbeats,
nodded. “Just make sure they’re the right secrets,” he said, walking to the
door. He opened it, motioned for me to follow him out, and secured the lock.
“Time for the tour.”