Into The Fire (The Ending Series) (16 page)

“Yeah?”

“Define ‘stupid.’”

Gabe threw his hands in the air as he continued his laps
around the room. “Pretty much anything. They need to just sit tight. We’ll need
to coordinate with them…use them to set up a distraction or something, but
we’ll need time to study the perimeter guards. I haven’t exactly had a need to
pay much attention to their routes and Abilities in the past.”

“Got it.” I followed him around the room with my eyes. “I’m
still mad at you, you know.”

“I know.”

Pursing my lips, I watched him stride into the kitchen and
take a saucepan and skillet out of the cupboards beneath the stove. Apparently
he was going to make dinner for me.
Where the heck does he live?
I was
surprised I hadn’t wondered about it earlier, since the only place I’d seen him
sleep was on the couch I was currently sitting on. But I didn’t ask; I had a
far more pressing issue. I needed to make sure my friends were okay.

Closing my eyes, I opened myself to the millions of minds
throbbing around me, and after spending a moment basking in the glory of the
collective, I focused only on the human minds. I knew the general direction of
my friends’ camp, and that knowledge, along with its distance from my current
location, should have been enough to guide my awareness to my friends’ minds.

It wasn’t. Or rather, they weren’t where they were supposed
to be.

Oh God…
did
something happen? Crazies, or…or the
General? But Dr. Wesley assured me they were fine…that if they’d been hurt, it
would’ve been noted in my file.
I suddenly felt like there was a
five-hundred-pound weight on my chest, suffocating me.
Had she been lying? Did
his people attack them when they took me? Are they hurt…or dead? No, no, no,
no, no…

They’re not dead! They can’t be! I need them to
not
be dead!

There were other human minds in the area a few miles away,
and I zeroed in on them. Relief flooded my body. It wasn’t all of them, but I
sensed Chris, Carlos, Zoe, and three others I was vaguely familiar with.
Where’s
Jason? And Ky and Ben? Mr. G? The rest of Zoe’s people?
I fought the urge
to curl into a ball under the sudden resurgence of anxiety.
Where are you,
Jason?

I took a deep, if shaky, breath and focused on Zoe. Each
individual’s mind had a certain feeling, almost like a signature or a
fingerprint. As far as I could tell, I only had to touch a mind once in order
to recognize it later. Zoe’s felt hard and focused, similar to Jason’s, but
with fewer of the thorny briars that guarded his.

“Zo? Can you hear me?”

“Holy shit, D! Am I imagining this?”
Zoe asked,
sounding completely flabbergasted.

“Uh…no?”
I felt giddy with relief at hearing her
mind-voice.

“Damn it, D! I felt your pain. I thought you were dead.
What was that? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay, I just—”

“We know you’re in the Colony. We were coming to get
you…but we ran into a few, um, issues. But we’ll find another way.”

I cringed and shook my head.
“No! Bad idea. Really,
really
bad idea. It’s too dangerous for you guys to try to get me out right now.”

“What? Why? What the hell are we supposed to do? We’re
freaking out over here.”
She was starting to sound kind of pissed. It
wasn’t like I’d wanted to get abducted.

“It’s just that going in blind would be a really great
way to get yourselves killed.
Everyone
here has an Ability, and they’ve
all been honing them, so they’re all super strong compared to us. And almost
everyone’s being mind-controlled.
I
was being mind-controlled at first,
but I’m not anymore. Gabe said—”

“Wait a second…who the hell is Gabe?”
Zoe asked,
cutting off my rambling explanation.

“Gabe is MG—that’s his real name,”
I began to explain
.
“And without him I’d still be one of Herodson’s mind slaves…Herodson’s the
General who’s doing the mind manipulation.”

“This is really bad. You do realize that this MG-Gabe guy
is the reason you’re there, right?”

I snorted.
“Yeah. We just had it out over that. It’s sort
of complicated, and he didn’t really have a choice. But he’s going to do
whatever he can to help me escape.”

“But you’re okay, right?”
Zoe asked, sounding
worried. God, I wanted to hug her.

“Yeah, I’m okay, more or less,”
I said.

“That’s…good.”
I could tell Zoe had more questions,
but thankfully, she let them go.
“So, what are we supposed to do in the meantime?”

“I just need some more time to gather intel and stuff.
Otherwise, anything we do is suicide, which sort of defeats the purpose. You
guys need to think about how you can use your Abilities to attack and defend,
and maybe create a distraction. Without using Abilities, there’s no chance—not
against these people.”

“Okay, but Jason’s not going to like this…just leaving
you there,”
she said, stating the obvious.

“So he’s okay?”
I exhaled with relief.
“I
thought…when I couldn’t find him, or some of the others…I thought you’d been
attacked or something.”
When she said nothing, I added,
“He
is
okay,
right?”

I had the impression that she was sighing.
“He’s nulling
constantly, so I’m not exactly sure how he’s doing, but I think he’s better
than he was.”

If he was surrounding himself with a nulling fog, it
explained why I couldn’t get through to him. It also meant he’d probably lost
control of his emotions, since they tended to impact his Ability.
“Was he
really
that
upset?”
I asked.

“Uh…yeah. He ran off to go after you, but came back
before he got himself killed. He’s calmed down some and is behaving
a
little
more rationally now.”

“Wow…that’s just, wow. Can you, you know, let him know
I’m trying to get through right now?”
I asked, feeling desperate in my need
to talk to him.

“It might be a while. He’s a little…out of it.”
At
her words, my heart seemed to pause for a few eternal seconds.

“What? Why?”
I asked, clenching my fists. Something
was wrong, I knew it. I could practically feel it in my bones.

“The bullet just grazed him—it’s not that big of a deal,”
she explained.
“Harper already stitched the wound up…and the cut on his
face.”

I had to take four deep, calming breaths before I could ask,
“He got shot? How?”

“We were in Cañon City, and some bad shit went down…he’ll
tell you about it,”
Zoe said, sounding way less freaked out than I felt.
“But
right now’s probably not the best time. He’s opted to dull the pain with
whiskey instead of painkillers. But I promise, D, he’s okay.”

I forced myself to stay calm, to not demand that she make
him let down his stupid nulling shield right that instant.
“Okay…I’ll try
him in the morning. Can you at least tell him I’m okay and that I…I don’t
know…that I miss him.”

“Yes, of course I will. And I’ll make sure he’s sobered
up to talk to you in the morning. I’m sure he’ll do it if he knows you’re
trying to get through to him.”

I smiled.
“Thanks, Zo…God, I miss you. I’m assuming you
guys are moving camp…since you’re somewhere else right now.”

“Yeah,”
she said.
“Some of the others went ahead
and are already setting it up…far away.”

“Okay, good. Don’t tell me where. If the General asks me,
I need to be able to honestly say I don’t know…he’s got people like Ben.”

“Of course he does,”
she said acerbically and then
paused.
“I’m really worried about you, D.”

“Honestly, I’m a little worried about me, too, but that
doesn’t mean I’ll let you guys risk your lives to get me out of here. Once we
know more, we’ll come up with a good,
safe
plan,”
I said, feeling
the first twinges of exhaustion.
“I hate to do this, but I gotta go. This is
starting to wear me out. Love you, Zo.”

“Love you too. Be safe.”
She paused, and then added,
“And
kick MG in the balls for me.”

“I’ll do my best,”
I agreed before letting the
connection go with an audible gasp of relief. Even with the power boost from
Dr. Wesley’s neutralizer, I was pooped.

11

ZOE

MARCH
16, 1AE

I was still covered in blood. It was just after nightfall, hours
after our altercation with the contingent of Colony soldiers in Cañon City. We
were finally miles away and clomping along toward shelter and safety…somewhere.

The day felt like it was never going to end. The wind was
picking up, and the sun had already sunk behind the Rockies, creating a violet-
and pink-hued watercolor that had faded all too quickly. I hoped we would find
a sufficient camping spot soon. I was worried I might fall asleep atop Wings,
and falling more than five feet to the ground wasn’t how I wanted to end my
day.

Harper had cleaned and stitched up Jason’s wounds and given
him a bottle of whiskey to help ease his pain somewhere near the suburbs of
Cañon City. My brother’s bullet wound was superficial, but there was no denying
that the gash across his face would leave a nasty scar. More than anything, he
needed rest; we all did. I just hoped the next shit pile didn’t land on us
before we found a safe place to stay.

After my mind-convo with Dani, we agreed we needed to keep
moving—the further into the mountains and away from our old camp, the better. We
rode in silence as our horses trudged across fields of tall grasses and between
sparse, squat fir trees.

Jake watched me closely. I knew he wanted to talk about
before, about what had happened in the abandoned shop, but I’d been trying to
avoid that as much as possible. Instead, I focused on Chris as she fussed over
Jason as we rode along. She checked his wounds and tried, unsuccessfully, to
influence his emotional grid. He wasn’t happy about Dani’s advice to hold back,
nor was he happy that he’d missed his opportunity to talk to her.

“Whoa,” Harper said, bringing his chestnut, Delilah, to a
stop.

“What the hell?” Sanchez said from her seat directly behind
me on Wings. I pulled the horse to a stop beside Delilah.

Cooper and Jack continued trotting along, their fluffy tails
wagging back and forth through the tall grass, but everyone else halted
alongside us.

I followed Harper’s line of sight and found the moonlit
outlines of what looked like several buildings.

“Looks like a town,” he said. “Jake, let’s check it out. The
rest of you…” He looked back at us, taking in our disheveled states: Jason
drunk, Chris struggling to keep him upright, Sanchez massaging her twisted
ankle, and me still a little shaky and covered in dried blood. “Um, the rest of
you just stay put.”

“I can come with you guys,” Carlos said, and he nudged Arrow
forward.

Harper nodded. “Let’s do it.” The three men coaxed their
horses into a trot and made their way through the scattered trees. Before they
reached the buildings, they dismounted, tied their horse’s reins to a couple of
scraggly branches, and readied their weapons—a pistol for Jake, an assault
rifle for Harper, and Chris’s shotgun for Carlos.

The three of them crept up to the side of the nearest
building, a structure that appeared to be covered in wood shingles, before
disappearing around a corner. I looked back at Chris, who just returned my
stare, the embodiment of calm, but I could feel her anticipation.
This could
be really bad, or really good,
I thought.

After a half hour, the horses were getting antsy, and I couldn’t
sit still in my saddle—especially not with Sanchez anxiously breathing down my
neck, literally.
What’s taking so long?

“Should one of us go after them?” I asked.                                            

“That would be stupid,” Jason slurred as he emptied the last
of the whiskey into his mouth.

I rolled my eyes. “How are you even staying on your horse?”

Whatever Jason’s smart-ass retort was, I didn’t hear it. I
felt a sudden sense of apprehension, and my muscles tensed—but it wasn’t my own
fear that made me uneasy. Someone
else
—someone new—was frightened.

Scanning the darkness around me, I sought out the source of
the fear. The moon was low and bright, providing a decent amount of light to
see.
Is someone hiding in the shadows?

“What is it?” Sanchez whispered, her head darting around
anxiously.
“Do you feel something?”

“Shhh,” I said, trying to push everyone’s growing concern
away. “Someone’s here.” I struggled to dismount, Sanchez still straddling Wings
behind me.

“Zoe—” But Jason’s objection was lost in the flash of a
memory belonging to a boy who felt uncertain and curious.

I saw the boy’s mom being brutally raped and then
murdered by Crazies in the alleyway behind their apartment. I watched his baby
sister being hauled away for only God knew what fate. All the while, the boy
writhed in pain, broken and bloody on the wet pavement, watching his family die
horrible deaths while he could do nothing.

The memory faded in and out, and then a man was there, a
gun shoved in his back pocket and a bow and quiver strapped to his back. He
killed the Crazies somehow, but the boy could barely see, his vision waning
along with his consciousness.

“It’s alright, boy,” the man said in a Australian accent.
“What’s your name?”

“Sam,” the boy barely breathed.

“Sam, I’m Tavis. You’ll be alright. I’ve got you now.” He
gathered the boy’s limp body into his arms.

Unwilling to see another of the boy’s memories, I closed my
mind to his, wherever he was. “Sam?” I ignored the others’ protests as I stepped
away from Wings, focusing on the shadows around me. For some reason, I wasn’t
scared. I knew he was only a boy and posed no danger to us. “Hello?” I called
out again. “Sam?”

Sanchez and Chris dismounted and readied their guns.

It was eerily silent for a moment before Wings’s head shot
up and I heard muffled footsteps in the grass a couple yards away.

“Who are you?” a small, distrusting voice asked. “And how do
you know my name?” Sam appeared from the shadows, a drawn arrow aimed at my
chest.

I raised my hands, palms out, in a placating gesture. “We
won’t hurt you.” I bit the inside of my cheek for a moment, unsure how willing
he was to listen. “My name is Zoe. These are my friends. That’s my brother Jason,”
I said, pointing. “That’s Chris, and this is Sanchez.”

The boy stared at me for another moment. “Why are you
covered in blood?” he asked, keeping his bow trained on me.

I examined my clothes, which appeared muddy in the
moonlight.
How can he tell it’s blood?
“There was an incident in town,”
I started. “We need a place to stay, to get cleaned up and rest for the night.”

The man from Sam’s memory, Tavis, stepped out from the
shadows behind Sam, two rabbits hanging from a tether held between his fingers.

“Stop right there,” Sanchez warned.

Like mine had, Tavis’s hands rose in appeasement as he
studied us. “Just a couple of dead rabbits,” he said in an Australian accent.
After a few seconds, he lowered his hands and refocused his attention on me. “So,
you got into a bit of trouble?”

“Soldiers from the Colony. They tried to kill us.” I stood
silently, waiting for his reaction.

“Did you kill any of them?” Sam asked, his voice flat.

I nodded, my mind eased by their growing sense of relief.

“How do you know my name?” Sam asked again, finally lowering
his bow.

I eyed the boy, considering how much to tell him. “I saw one
of your memories,” I admitted.

“Zoe,” Sanchez hissed.
“What the hell are you doing?”

I peered over my shoulder at her. “It’s okay…they’re okay.”

Sanchez scowled and took a deep breath.
“I hope you know
what you’re doing.”

Turning back to our new acquaintances, I sincerely hoped I
did too.

“Where are your mates?” Tavis asked, pointing to the three
horses tied up at the edge of the clearing.

“They’re checking things out,” I said. “Seeing if it’s safe
to stay here.”

Sam looked back at Tavis, who gave him a nod, and the boy started
to walk past us. “Come on then,” he said.

I couldn’t help but smile at the grown-up, matter-of-fact
way Sam had about him.

Tavis stopped in front of me, outstretching his hand.
“Tavis,” he offered, and I shook it. “It’s nice to meet people who aren’t completely
crazy.” His eyes were heavy with exhaustion and gratitude, and I wondered how
long it had been since he’d seen any sane, non-Colony survivors. “You heard the
kid,” he said with a smile to Chris and Sanchez. “Come on.”

I glanced at Sanchez, who took a deep, steadying breath.
“Shall we?” She motioned for the rest of us to follow them and headed over to
gather our other three horses, while I collected Wings’s reins.

“Are we sure about this?” Jason asked. I was surprised by
the lack of criticism in his voice.

I met his eyes and then Chris’s before nodding. “They’re
safe, unless Chris feels something I don’t,” I said quietly.

Chris shook her head, confirming my assessment, and led her
horse to follow our hosts as they approached a stable. “Sanchez,” she said as
we drew closer. “Give the guys a heads-up so they don’t accidently shoot us or
the boy, would you?”

“So…what is this place?” I called to Tavis.

He chuckled. “A ghost town. Welcome home.”

Unloading the last of our things, Sanchez, Harper, Carlos,
Chris, and I dispersed inside an old boarding house—
Sackett House
, the
faded, splintered sign above the door read. There were two parlor rooms we
could hunker down in on the ground floor and three bedrooms upstairs. Tavis
offered one of the bedrooms to Jason and Chris so he could rest comfortably and
she could keep an eye on him, one to Sanchez, and the third to me.

“We like to sleep by the fire,” Tavis had explained, but the
look in his eyes and the feelings of sympathy and protectiveness that filled
him at the thought told me there was more to the story. We didn’t argue.

After bringing in wood from a stack Tavis showed me behind
the house, I started a fire in the fireplace in the larger parlor and set a pot
filled with chili over the flames. I figured feeding our hosts was the least we
could do, since we’d encroached on their current home. Cleaning the blood off
of my face was the next logical thing to do, but I lingered by the fire, unsure
if I was ready to risk running into Jake outside in my search for water.

“Are you okay, Baby Girl?” Harper asked as he dropped his
duffel bag in the corner of the room between a rickety rocking chair and a
small reading table with a dusty oil lamp sitting on it.

I nodded and smiled. “Sure. I was just checking out our new
digs,” I lied. Lending credence to my words, I walked slowly around the room,
taking my time and studying the old federal-style furniture decorating the
rectangular space. The fireplace was situated in the center of the wall furthest
from the door, a bookcase on either side of it. The outer side of each bookcase
was flanked by a narrow, single-pane window. Even in the candle and firelight,
I could tell they were trimmed with cobwebs and adorned with yellow-stained,
moth-eaten lace curtains
.
An antique, faded pink sofa and two matching
chairs hugged a petite, water-stained table. A player piano was set against a
wall to the right all by itself, and beneath it was an octagonal area rug that
looked like it had been pulled straight out of a
Pottery Barn
magazine.
Right,
because that fits.
Everything needed to be refinished or replaced,
except
the rug.

Tavis entered the room, stacking another heap of wood beside
the fire. He had mussed, dirty blond hair, and when he smiled at me, his eyes
bright in the firelight, I could see they were a vibrant blue.

“About a week back,” he said unexpectedly, “Sam and I were
on our way to the Colony—just leaving Cañon City, actually—when we watched a
group of soldiers kill three blokes.” He paused for a moment, stoking the fire.
“I dunno why the patrol was in town or why they shot the poor bastards. Maybe
the three of ‘em were trying to leave—they were running
away
from the uniforms—but…”
He stared into the fire thoughtfully.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” I conceded.

Tavis’s eyes found mine, and he offered a sympathetic smile.
“If you want to get washed up, there’s a trough of fresh water out by the
stable. That’s what Sam and I’ve been using.”

I shifted my gaze to Sam, who was watching Sanchez and
Carlos intently. They were sitting on the worn wood floor, cleaning and
inventorying the weapons we’d collected from the black-bands. The boy appeared
to be around ten years old, with dark brown, disheveled hair that hung in his
shrewd, pale eyes. Like Carlos, Sam’s expression wasn’t that of a child, but of
someone much older.

Since we’d arrived, Sam’s excitement and Tavis’s sense of
relief had grown stronger, and I felt a stab of guilt. I had a group of
companions and a semblance of safety. I’d never really considered what
surviving would be like for the people who didn’t have what I did, who were
alone or without a means to protect themselves. While Sam and Tavis seemed to
have adapted well enough, it wasn’t without a price. I could see their
struggles in the lines on their faces and the weariness in their eyes.

“Something wrong?” Tavis asked, and I wondered how long I’d
been staring at the two of them.

I shook my head, offering a slightly embarrassed smile, and
went in search of something to clean myself off with. I knew there had to be something
I could use in place of the one towel and washcloth I’d brought with me. I
didn’t want to stain them with someone else’s blood.

“There’s linen napkins in the cupboard,” Tavis offered,
pointing to a door beneath the stairs.

“Thanks,” I said before he exited out the front door. I
opened the closet to find a propane lantern, along with spare propane,
batteries, and flashlights.
Yahtzee!
Then, thinking of the cold trough
water that awaited me, my excitement faded. I sighed, missing the luxury of a
hot shower.