Into The Fire (The Ending Series) (21 page)

“Promise me,” I demanded quietly.

Finally, he met my eyes. “I promise I’ll come with you when
you leave.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, releasing his wrist and letting
him go.

15

ZOE

MARCH
18, 1AE

Unable to wait idly by, wondering why Dani hadn’t contacted
Jason first thing this morning as planned, I needed to preoccupy myself. Since
the box was fresh on my mind, I decided it was time to open the damn thing.

Jason seemed wound more tightly than usual, so I wasn’t
surprised by his absence in the house. Knowing he had the box and would want to
open it with me, I was resolved to find him. Since my brother was still
healing, I knew he couldn’t have gone very far, so I could investigate the
ghost town in the process of looking for him.

After I donned a fresh pair of cargo pants and a white tank
top, I heard footsteps in the hallway.

“You look like you’re on a mission,” Jake said from the
doorway.

I glanced up from tying my boots. “Sort of.”

He leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms over
his chest, waiting for me to explain.

“I’m going to find Jason. There’s something we need to talk
about.” I didn’t mean to be so vague, but I had enough on my mind.

“Sounds serious,” he said lightly, and when I didn’t answer
he continued, “He’s been in a bad mood lately. Are you sure—”

“Jason’s always in a bad mood. I’ll be fine.” I smiled weakly
and stood up. It was hard to ignore Jake’s penetrating stare as he attempted to
gauge my mood; he wanted to say more.

I snatched my leather jacket off the back of the chair.

“Zoe, we need to—”

“I can’t really talk right now, Jake.” I shrugged on my
jacket. “Maybe later?” Giving him a pleading look, I strode past.

He reached out to stop me. “Zoe—”

“There’s a lot going on right now, Jake.” I knew the longer
I stood there, the harder it would be to walk away. “We’re both treading water,
just trying to stay afloat, and I think we need to take a step back for a
while. Get some clarity.” The words tasted sour and wrong, but needed to be
said all the same.

Without giving him a chance to respond, I patted the gun
attached to my thigh, ensuring it was there, and hurried down the stairs,
calling for Cooper to accompany me outside as added protection. We made our way
out of the old house, and I took a much-needed, deep, calming breath.

Pulling my hair up into a ponytail, I plodded down the four
wooden steps on the porch and stepped onto the dirt road that ran through the
center of town. Main Street, I supposed…but then, as far as I could tell, it
was the
only
street.

The weather was warmer than it had been in a while, but a
little gusty, causing mini dust devils to whirl here and there along the
abandoned street and the hanging signs to clack and clang against the Old West
storefronts. The smell of wood and dust reminded me a little of the barn at our
old camp. I liked it.

Standing in front of the Sackett House afforded me a decent
view of the town. Two surprisingly well-maintained rows of antique buildings
stretched out before me. Upon noticing the saloon sign at the end of the road advertising
“a good time,” I smiled. The church to the left of it resembled a log cabin,
and the general store to the right was rickety enough to believe it might have
been completely authentic.

If
I were Jason,
where would I be?
I
figured he wasn’t morbid enough to hang out at the undertaker’s, so I continued
on and headed quickly toward a log structure quite a bit smaller than the
church—the sheriff’s office a few buildings down from the boarding house.
That
seemed a little more like a spot Jason would choose to hang out in. Pausing on
the road in front of the sheriff’s, I studied the building. It looked like the
door hadn’t been opened in a while, but I assumed there was a back entrance, so
that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

Quietly, I walked up onto the front porch to the door and stilled,
listening closely. I could hear a muted scraping sound—like metal on wood, a
sound that reminded me of my woodsmith dad—and I placed my hand on the hilt of
my pistol. The repetitive scratching continued, broken only by the sound of
someone clearing their throat behind the sun-bleached wooden door.

I crept toward the window set off to the right, careful not
to alert whoever was inside in case it wasn’t one of my companions, and peered
through the dusty glass. I let out a relieved breath; it was Jason. He was
sitting near the window in an old wooden chair by a simple oak desk, hunched
over, with his back to me.

I moved back to the door and opened it.

Jason jumped in his seat, then turned his head to glare at
me. Even Jack started from his curled position in a patch of sunlight streaming
through the window.

“Sorry,” I said, trying not to enjoy his surprise too much.
“What are you doing in here?” I glanced over at the single jail cell and the
sign above it that read,
Take Your Picture Here!

“Nothing.”

My eyebrow rose in question, but I didn’t push the issue.
Jason wasn’t one for sharing, and like me, he had a lot to deal with, so I
tried to respect his privacy by pretending I didn’t care. I approached the
chair on the other side of the desk and plopped down, slouching like I was back
in high school and had
so
many better places to be.

“What do you want?” He shifted in his seat, hunching his
shoulders even more. His combat knife was in his hand, and it made me think of
the rolled-up carving tool kit I’d spotted when I’d been rummaging through his
bag in search of a sweatshirt. “You’re carving again?”

Jason looked down at the desk, where an “R” and an “E” were
carved into its surface. He covered the letters with his palm.

“Not that,” I said, rolling my eyes. “The kit. I saw it in
your bag. I also stole one of your sweatshirts,” I added in case he cared.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Jason work with
wood. For years, he and Dad had been nearly inseparable, spending hours upon
hours out in Dad’s workshop. But that changed when Jason left for the Army.
He’d left his tools behind, and everything fell apart after that. Dad hadn’t
worked in the shop as much, and his constant state of distraction had worsened,
especially when Jason stopped calling or coming home when he was on leave.

Like Jason, my dad was the epitome of “emotionally
unavailable.” When I was younger it hadn’t seemed so bad, but as I grew older
they both became more withdrawn. If it hadn’t been for Dani, I would have been
utterly alone. It was like Jason had been the glue keeping our fractured family
together.

“I miss the smell of his shop,” I said absently. Jason only
stared at me. I also missed the smell of Dad’s aftershave and the smoky
barbeque scent that clung to the house whenever Jason was making dinner.

“Why can’t I remember things like that more often instead of
having those stupid dreams all the time?” I asked, not expecting him to answer.

“Of Mom? You’re still having them?” He set down his knife
and leaned back in his chair.

Surprised by his interest, I nodded. Jason hadn’t seemed
interested in my dreams of the faceless woman since I was a little girl. When I
was five years old, I’d run crying into his room across the hall after one of
my nightmares, as I’d done countless times before. But
unlike
all the
times before, he’d refused to let me crawl into bed beside him. “Grow up, Zoe,”
he’d said.
Was that the night everything changed between us?
I couldn’t
help but wonder
what
had caused the change.
Was it Dad? Was it
something I did?
Maybe it had nothing to do with me at all.

“I stopped having them for a while, before the shit hit the
fan, but they’re back. They’ve changed a little, but they’re the same basic
thing as before.”

Jason glanced out the window, and I wished I knew what he
was thinking.

“I’m tired of it, Jason.” I fiddled with my fingers, nervous
what his reaction might be. “I want the dreams to stop.”

He looked back at me expectantly.

“Dani told me you have the box…and the key.”

Jason said nothing, simply reclaiming his knife and twisting
it point-first on the desk.

“I want to open it,” I said without hesitation. I wanted to
open our dad’s box to rid myself of the looming burden of the unknown. “What if
whatever’s in it could fix…could stop the dreams?”

My brother’s eyes met mine—really met them for the first
time in days—and for an instant I saw a reflection of my own curiosity flicker
in their blue depths. It only lasted a moment. Jason narrowed his eyes and
shook his head, disappointed. “Dani’s still with
them,
and you’re
worried about the fucking box?” His voice was cold, everything I should’ve
expected but hadn’t been prepared for.

I stood up, resentment surmounting my weariness. “Like I could
forget,” I snapped. “Opening the box isn’t only up to
you
, Jason.”

While my brother was currently living in a world devoid of
any emotions other than anger and despair, I was haunted by fear and an acute
loneliness that I didn’t understand. I wanted to open the damn box and finally
gain some resolution.

“I’m the one who has nightmares almost every night. I’m the
one who can’t remember Mom. Jesus, Jason, I’ve never even
seen
a picture
of her,” I screeched. Desperation bubbled in my voice. “I’m sick of being in
the dark!”
I’m sick of feeling like an outcast in my own family!

My brother just watched me, emotionless, still twirling the
knife on its point.

“I don’t know why I expected you to care. You never have
before,” I spit out and rushed to the door. I needed to distance myself from him
before I said something worse, something I would regret
.

Sensing no alarming emotions, I fled, Cooper trotting beside
me. I cared little where my feet landed as I tromped across the dirt road,
between two unmarked buildings, and into the woods beyond.
Why does he have
to make everything so damn difficult?
Ever since Dani’s kidnapping, all
Jason did was rage and brood and act like he’d lost everything. Part of me
understood him, could relate to the anger and turmoil that blazed in his eyes.
But he wasn’t the only one hurting. I’d lost Dani, too. And our dad. I’d lost
my friends and family, and I was somehow coping with it.

Stumbling out into a clearing of moss-covered boulders and
fallen trees, I sat down on the thick trunk of a pine that had toppled over
long ago. It was smothered in lichen, and I began adamantly picking the orange
and green fungus from its defenseless host, each pick and gouge of my thumb and
index finger more determined than the last. I barely noticed Cooper loping off
to explore the surrounding woods.

After all that’s changed…after everything, Jason is
still…Jason.
His stubborn, closed-off attitude seemed like the only thing
in the world that hadn’t changed. It had been too much to hope that he would
really
talk to me. For the first time in…ever, I felt like we actually had
something
to talk about—the end of the world, him sleeping with my best friend, him
knowing Sanchez from before—but he clearly didn’t agree.

I’m opening that fucking box.

You’re frowning again, Zo,
Dani’s voice echoed in my
head.
It’s not pretty. You should really stop.
It wasn’t really her, but
the imaginary version of her I’d come to rely on over the past few months.
Sometimes I wondered if I might be going a little bit crazy.

I leaned forward, my elbows resting on my knees as my
fingertips found their way to my temples, massaging in an attempt to loosen the
pressure wrapping itself around my brain. I thought about never finding Dani
and of my brother’s infuriating…everything. I thought about Jake and his sister
and losing him for good.

“Nothing is okay anymore,” I whispered as I let out a much-needed
breath. I exhaled again, my eyes stinging.

“One day at a time, Zo,” I said after exhaling another deep
breath.

A gray squirrel scurried from boulder to boulder, stopping
momentarily to sniff the air. His beady eyes met mine before he bounded away,
his scraggly tail undulating behind him.

Slow, heavy footsteps interrupted my musings. I didn’t
bother looking back. The complete void of any emotion settling in my mind told
me it was Jason.

He stopped behind me but said nothing.

I didn’t turn around. “What do you want?”

I heard a long, deep exhale. “Once we open the box, there’ll
be nothing left,” he said. He’d obviously
thought
about opening it, even
if he was opposed to doing it at the moment. I understood his hesitancy. Part
of me was nervous to discover what was inside, to open it and examine the last
remaining pieces we had left of our parents. But the burden of not knowing what
was in the box outweighed my reluctance.

“I
need
to know, Jason.” My voice was only a whisper
among the sound of chirping finches jumping from branch to branch and
woodpeckers hammering on a nearby tree.

“Know what? What the hell do you think’s in there? Mom and
Dad won’t come back to life just because you—”

“Answers!” I shouted and stood to face him. “I think
there’ll be answers!”

Jason looked at me like I was nuts. “Answers to
what
?”

“Umm, I don’t know. Let me think—what happened to
us
,
maybe,” I said, laying on sarcasm as thickly as possible. “Or what the hell is
so damn secret that Dad would hide the box in the first place.”

“What do you mean, ‘what happened to us’?” he asked, and his
obliviousness pissed me off even more.