Into The Fire (The Ending Series) (37 page)

We stayed in each other’s arms for what felt like only
moments, but eventually, I noticed the sun shining brightly through the open
doorway of the tack room, and I could hear the others hustling around in the
house.

I was about to suggest that we head inside when I heard the
front door to the house fling open. “Zoe!” my brother roared. “Where the fuck
are you?”

I gave Jake an apologetic groan and wrapped my arms around
his broad shoulders, wishing I could have just one uninterrupted day with him.

“Damn it, Zoe! Dani’s in trouble!”

Dani?
I could hear Jason walking away from the stable,
and I hurried for my clothes.
Oh, shit.

28

DANI

MARCH
22, 1AE

Pain was the first thing I noticed when I came to. It lanced
the back of my skull, making me feel dizzy before I even opened my eyes. My
head was drooping, my chin resting against my chest, and I seemed to be sitting
up.
Yes
, I confirmed after assessing the rest of my body,
I’m
definitely sitting up…but I can’t move my arms or legs
.

I tugged both of my arms backward, but something cold and
hard was clamped around my wrists, immobilizing me. All I received for my
effort was a pulse of pain in the back of my head from the jarring motion. I
groaned. My poor brain had been taking a lot of damage lately…I was hoping none
of it ended up being permanent.

“She’s waking up,” an unfamiliar female voice said softly. “Tell
the General.”

Slowly, I cracked my eyes open and raised my head. Mase was
the first thing I saw, the only thing I saw for several long seconds. He was
hanging by his wrists, a thick metal chain stretched taut between him and the
ceiling, and his feet were barely touching the ground. He was standing on his
tiptoes, probably to alleviate some of the strain the metal cuffs placed on his
wrists and shoulders. The top of his fatigues had been stripped off, leaving
him in only a gray t-shirt and camouflage pants. His massive arm muscles
twitched with the effort to maintain his position as his eyes tracked something
else in the room. Based on the soft sounds of footsteps, he was watching
whoever was moving around behind me.
The woman who spoke?

“Mase,” I whispered, and his eyes snapped to mine.
Why
hasn’t he broken free?
I was certain he was strong enough. “You okay?”

His face softened a little, and he nodded.

“Oh, MA-one is doing just fine, aren’t ya, big guy?” It was
the unfamiliar female voice again, only this time it carried a sadistic edge. She
laughed, low and throaty. “For now, at least.”

Ignoring the pain as best I could—which really wasn’t all
that much—I turned my head to catch sight of the woman behind my chair. She moved
too quickly, and all I saw were the wispy ends of her long, golden blonde hair.
She doesn’t want me to see her…fine.
I scanned the rest of my
surroundings instead. I wasn’t overly excited by what I found.

I was in a concrete room—the walls, floor, ceiling, and even
my chair were all formed of concrete.
Comfy
, I thought sarcastically. I
guessed the room was larger than the average bedroom, maybe twenty feet on
either side, with me in the center and Mase several feet away in front of me.
Above us, florescent lights flickered and buzzed, washing out everything in the
room. The space had the feeling of a bunker or a basement…or a dungeon.
Oh
come on, who even has dungeons these days?
Unfortunately, part of my mind
answered,
General Herodson.

The room was suffocatingly enclosed, and unless there was a
door in the wall behind me, the only thing breaking up the unrelenting
stretches of dirty, gray concrete was the metal door behind Mase. Well, that
and the handful of guards lining the walls, armed just as heavily as the two
who had accompanied General Herodson into Dr. Wesley’s office. Each had an
assault rifle, a sidearm, a combat knife, and who knew what else hiding on
their persons. It was starting to make sense why Mase hadn’t pulled his bonds
free.

Suddenly, dizziness forced me to close my eyes or risk
throwing up on myself, and I really didn’t think vomit would improve the room’s
ambiance. I considered using my Ability, but if even opening my eyes pushed me
to the verge of nausea, communicating telepathically might knock me out
completely, and I couldn’t afford that at the moment.

With a metallic clang and the screech of rusty hinges, the
metal door swung open, and several sets of footsteps marched into the room. I
finally attained enough control over my roiling stomach and spinning head to
reopen my eyes. I wasn’t surprised by who I found standing off to one side of
the door—General Herodson and his human lie detector. I took a deep,
apprehensive breath.

Shuffling footsteps preceded the entrance of four more people,
including Dr. Wesley and Camille. Camille was the source of most of the
shuffling. She was being forced into the room by another guard, his unyielding
hold restraining her arms and torso and her feet dragging on the ground as she
was unwillingly hauled inside. The man who’d informed the General of my
telepathy use earlier—a lanky, scruffy-haired man—entered alongside them,
gripping Camille’s upper arm so tightly he had to be hurting her. Nobody else
entered behind them.

Complete and utter relief flooded me, temporarily easing my
headache. Gabe wasn’t there. I hoped it meant he’d managed to get away…to
hide…to do
something
.

“Delightful,” General Herodson remarked quietly. He reached
out a hand toward the door. “Come here, dear Anna. Come see the future of
mankind—it’s a beautiful thing.”

Dr. Wesley wound around the others to his side and linked
her arm with his. Her face was absolutely blank. If there was one thing I was
certain she’d passed on to her children, it was a knack for hiding her
emotions.

“I’d hoped this wouldn’t be necessary,” General Herodson
began, “but it would seem that some people are more resistant to my power of suggestion
than others.” He looked from me to Mase and back again. “Take MA-one, for
example. He’d been on this base for over a year and had always been loyal and
obedient. But once the Great Transformation began, every once in a while he
showed small displays of defiance. Now,
even
as a Re-gen, he defies me.”
General Herodson smiled congenially. “So you see, when you started displaying
similar signs of defiance, I could hardly make the same mistakes I made with
him.”

What’s he saying? That he’s not going to turn me into a
Re-gen? So is he just going to kill me?

He paused and watched me thoughtfully. “I would just kill
you, but I find myself in need of your rather unique talents. Telepaths I
have—practically more than I know what to do with—but none like you. They’re
all one-way radios, only sending, never receiving, but you send
and
receive.” He dropped Dr. Wesley’s arm and took several steps closer to me,
skirting around Mase with reasonable caution. The Re-gen’s feet weren’t secured
to the ground, and I didn’t doubt he could lash out with his legs, chained
wrists or not.

Stopping barely a foot from my chair, General Herodson cocked
his head from side to side, studying me. “Tiny little thing, aren’t you? Where
do you keep all of that power, I wonder?” He reached out with one hand to tilt
my face upward. “Pretty, too, if you like redheads. Myself, I prefer dark
hair.” His hand shifted, seizing my jaw, and he squeezed.

I didn’t want to do it—I hated doing it—but his grip grew
too painful, and I couldn’t help it. I cried out.

Mase’s chains rattled, a dull clanking, and concrete dust
rained down from the ceiling. It took me a moment to realize that the low, deep
rumbling I was hearing was Mase…growling. It sounded so similar to Jack’s
vicious growl that I half thought a dog had found its way into the room. It’s
funny, the random thoughts you have when you’re pretty sure you’re about to
die.

Without warning, General Herodson released my face and
hammered his fist down on my left forearm. There was a crack and a moment of
bright, glittering white light, which was instantly eclipsed by the sharpest
pain I’d ever felt. I howled in agony and squeezed my eyes shut, again fighting
nausea.

“If you do anything like that again,” I heard the General
say, sounding far away and tinny, “I’ll cut off her hand completely. A telepath
doesn’t need hands—at least, not both. Now, where was I?” Fingertips touched my
cheek, patting gently. “Open your eyes, Danielle. I wasn’t done speaking to
you.”

Gritting my teeth and panting, I somehow managed to peel my
eyelids open.

“Good!” General Herodson turned away from me, returning to
Dr. Wesley’s side. Was that a hint of strain I saw around her eyes? “Why do I
need you so badly, you must be wondering. Well, I’m having a bit of a problem
drawing people to me, and you seem to have been designed for exactly that.” He
smiled faintly. “I view it as destiny.”

I was tempted to tell him I hadn’t been
designed
for
anything, let alone his sick plans, but I was terrified of adding a second
broken arm to the count…or a missing hand.
I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you and
feed you to the animals, you sick fucking bastard.

General Herodson continued, oblivious to my silent defiance.
“The whole point of the Great Transformation was to scour the earth clean of
the cancer of humanity and start again—here. We’ll build a clean, stable,
crime-free civilization where this next evolution of mankind can thrive in
peace.”

“
Your
peace,” I managed to rasp.

The General patted Dr. Wesley’s hand and nodded sadly. “It
is the only peace there is…or at least, it will be, once we work out a few
kinks. Which brings us to our current task. There’s someone I’d like you to
meet.”

He motioned for someone behind me to approach him, and the
blonde woman rounded my concrete throne. She was tall, slender, and pretty, in
an ice princess kind of way, but there was something about her piercing blue
eyes that seemed off.

“This is one of the gifted people who make our new T-R
program possible. With her remarkable Ability, I can completely erase all of
your memories and implant new, useful ones that will promote our cause and make
you more…pliant.” He paused, then smiled. “Ah yes, I forgot to introduce you.
Danielle, this is Clara.”

Clara.
I stiffened.
Is it possible?
The age,
the hair, the oh-so-creepy eyes.
It’s her—it has to be
. Clara—the woman
who’d poisoned Zoe, who’d killed several of Zoe’s friends in a fire meant to destroy
them all—was here, staring at me.
Oh shit…oh shit…

Panic and pain flooded my body with adrenaline, and my mind
cleared momentarily. I had to get word to the others. I knew I didn’t have much
time—minutes at the most—and probably not even that, with the Ability-sensing
guy in the room.

I found Gabe’s mind almost instantly. He was above me and a
little ways off to the right, but not too far. I described my surroundings to
him and told him, if he could, to figure out some way to contact Jason and Zoe
and coordinate the rest of the escape with them. I didn’t wait for him to
respond, instead using my dwindling time to search for any of the rescue
party’s minds.

“Sir, she’s doing it again. I can tell it’s her this time.”

“Dose her. We’ll have to finish this later,” General Herodson
said. He sounded irritated.

I hadn’t noticed Clara leave his side, but suddenly she was
beside me, sticking something into my upper arm. In seconds, my world ceased to
be.
I
ceased to be.

“Wake up,” someone sang softly.

My head spun, and my eyes refused to open.

“Wake up,” the voice hissed.

I moaned.

“I said, ‘Wake up!’” the person—a woman—repeated,
immediately before she slapped me.

Groaning, I managed to crack one eyelid open. Clara’s face
was inches from mine.

She smiled sweetly, an expression that should have looked
angelic but fit on her face about as well as a lullaby in a horror movie. “I
sent the guards outside, so it’s just us girls,” she murmured conspiratorially.
She shot a glance over her shoulder, presumably at Mase. “Well,
him
too,
but he doesn’t really count, does he? I mean, it’s not like he’s a real
person.”

She tilted her head to the side as she studied me, reminding
me of a vulture. “I have something I’ve been
dying
to share with you.”
She giggled, sending a wash of chills over my skin. “I was with the team that
stole you away, and guess who I saw?” She paused, her eyebrows raised as though
she actually expected me to guess.

Again, I groaned. Her voice was making my vision swim, and I
just wanted her to shut up.

“You’re no fun!” she pouted. Her expression shifted
instantly, her mouth curving into a gleeful smile and her eyes alighting with
delight. “While we were hiding from your frantic little group, I spotted none
other than my dear, dear friend Zoe! What a small world!” she exclaimed. Her
voice turned razor sharp. “So you know what I’m thinking? You’re that bitch she
was always whining about—the one who was supposed to be with her brother.” Her
upper lip curled into a sneer. “She’s out there, isn’t she? Her and the
others…and
Jake.
They’re coming for you, aren’t they?”

My sluggish mind finally processed what she’d told me. While
my friends had been searching for me in the woods, Clara and who knew who else
had stood by, hiding, and watched.
How? How had they gone undetected?

“How?” I said, voicing my thought.

She snorted. “How should I know?” I had the feeling we were
talking about two different things, but my brain felt groggy enough that I
couldn’t connect the dots. With a supremely sinister grin, she said, “Even if
you
ever
get to see that whiny, sanctimonious bitch again, you won’t
know her. When I’m done with you, you won’t remember anyone…you won’t even know
who you are.”

Go to hell!
In the back of my mind, I wondered what
would happen if I never escaped, was never rescued, and ended up as the
General’s personal PA system. Death—my death—was a better option for everyone.

I started mumbling nonsense, hoping to lure Clara closer.

She leaned in. “What was that? It’s okay, you can tell me.”

“At least…she’ll have…Jake…you psycho…
bitch
.”