Out Of The Ashes (The Ending Series, #3) (13 page)

Sanchez retorted with something
sarcastic, but I was distracted by Jake’s perpetual glances down at me, cradled
in his arms as I was, and the way he absently stroked the side of my face,
resting against his chest.

“Here,” he said, stirring me from
his memories. “Put
your
foot right here.”

I smiled at how careful he was
with me. I could imagine how being around him had made me feel. His hands tightened
reassuringly around mine, and I had no doubt that he’d made me feel safe.

Without warning, another memory
assaulted me.

I saw myself, crumpled on a
cement floor in what appeared to be a cafeteria, my face blue and bile and
sweat covering my body. But Jake didn’t seem to mind any of that as he gathered
me into his arms. I could feel his fear, anger, and self-loathing as he called
for help and rushed me away to find Harper.

And then another…

I was lying on a hospital
table, unconscious, with IVs in my arms and tubes up my nose and down my
throat. Jake paced back and forth, desperately waiting.

“It was your blood,” I whispered,
resisting as he pulled on my hands, urging me forward.

Jake let up. “What?”

I shook my head, amazed every time
I learned something new about him…about us. “Do you ever get tired of saving my
life?” Though the question was little more than a whisper, it was still a
question I needed him to answer.

With the exception of Dani and how
much we’d relied on each other growing up, I was suddenly certain that no one
had ever done as much for me in my entire lifetime as Jake had done in the few
months we’d known each other. “Do you?” I persisted.

He furrowed his brow.

“Even after Dr. Wesley found me,
you tried the transfusion again—you tried to help me. It seems I’m always
getting myself into trouble, and you’re always having to get me out of it. Do
you ever get tired of saving my life?” I repeated, barely noticing Cooper
chasing a lizard in the crevasses in the rocks beneath our feet.

Jake stared at me a moment longer
before looking away. “It’s just the way it is.” I could feel a hint of irritation
coming from him.

“But it can’t be easy for you…”

His eyes found mine again, an
unsettling disquiet burning within them, scorching any remaining questions off
my tongue. “No,” he said carefully. “It’s not. But I’m glad I can be there when
you need me, regardless of how much it bothers you.”

“It bothers me?” I asked, more
than a little curious. It seemed unlikely that I would be annoyed at having my
own knight in shining armor.

“I could be wrong, but I don’t
think you’re used to relying on other people.”

“It makes sense, I guess.” I
stepped up to stand on the rock beside him. “And what about you?” I asked more
playfully. “Are you a habitual hero, or am I just one lucky girl?”

Jake’s expression hardened, and he
stared down at our joined hands. “I’m still getting used to having someone
I”—he paused and let go of my hand—“someone I
want
to take care of.”

I barely heard the words as the
wind whooshed past my ears, but I
had
heard him, and my heart skittered
in my chest. “I—” I cleared my throat. “I see.”

We continued our climb to the
ledge.

“Well, whatever’s happened in our
past,” I ventured. “I hope I’ve told you that I appreciate all that you’ve done
for me.”

Finally, he smiled again, and my
heart felt a little lighter. “I know you do,” he said, pulling me toward him.
“This has been a learning curve for both of us.”

We stood there quietly for a long
moment, staring at one another.

“I’d probably be dead right now if
it weren’t for you,” I said. After all I’d seen, it was obvious.

Jake narrowed his eyes the barest
amount, no doubt gauging what my reaction to his answer might be. “Probably,”
he said. “But then, I don’t think you would’ve had so many close calls if it
weren’t for me, either.”
Jake peered out at
the view and reached for my hand once more. “Stop distracting me, would you?” I
was relieved by his lighthearted tone. “I promise, you’re going to like this.”

Stepping up onto a flat rock, I
froze beside him, gripping his arm to steady myself, and gaped in awe. I didn’t
care how high up we were, the desert was the most picturesque, undisturbed
landscape I’d ever seen. It stretched on as far as I could see, eroded
sandstone towers standing vigil over the valley floor, casting protective
shadows over every fissure etched in its basin. Fuchsia cactus flowers edged
down the mountain we stood atop of, meeting a valley floor with bursts of
yellow and purple wildflowers. The reddish hue of the late afternoon created an
almost alien glow over the horizon, and I felt like I was on another planet. It
was amazingly beautiful, and standing there, looking up at Jake, his eyes
glowing golden brown, I never wanted to leave. This place was ours.

“It’s so beautiful. Thank you for
bringing me here.” I took both of his hands in mine. The urge to kiss him, to
create new memories between us, was almost too intense to resist. So I didn’t.

Leaning forward, I appreciated the
soft smile that pulled at his lips and lost myself in his asking eyes, and my
excitement trumped my lingering uncertainties.

But with another surfacing memory,
I hesitated.

We stood in an old house, blood
covering me as I peered up at him with a pained expression on my face. Moving
tentatively in to kiss me, Jake yearned for forgiveness and a sense of
familiarity. His kiss was controlled, but desperate and full of more emotion
than he knew what to do with. He needed me—
her
.
He wanted
her
…he
loved
her
.

My mind filled with emotional
vomit I couldn’t process, and I took a step back, unable to bring myself to
follow through—to try to be
her.
Feeling something cool on my cheek, I
blinked and wiped a lone tear away. I couldn’t do this; I couldn’t take the
chance—not right now, not yet.

“What’s wrong?” Jake asked,
concern creasing his brow and an expression of longing on his face
.

Reaching out to hold his hand was
the most I could offer him. I flashed him a weak smile and turned toward the
sunset. “The sun’s setting,” I said hoarsely. “Let’s get comfortable.”

APRIL

1AE

10

DANI

APRIL 20, 1AE

Great Basin Desert, Nevada

For almost three
weeks, we traveled across Utah and into Nevada in relative peace. We
encountered no Crazies, no megalomaniacal dictators, no mind-controlling cult
leaders. No human enemies crossed our path, which seemed almost miraculous. But
in a wasteland as expansive as the Great Basin Desert, there was no need for
human
enemies. The desert itself was enemy enough.

The first horse
fell before the sun even reached its zenith. It didn’t matter that it was early
spring and the days never reached blisteringly hot temperatures; what mattered
was that we hadn’t encountered freshwater in two days, and our reserve supply
was dangerously low—too low for a caravan of over two dozen horses, nineteen
people, a few goats, and two dogs. The last “town” we’d passed—it was really
little more than a cluster of farms—we actually had to circumvent widely due to
a large population of Crazies who, according to Zoe, were exceedingly
bloodthirsty, and the last three bodies of water we’d come across were saltwater,
not fresh. The Fates, it seemed, had turned against us.

I was riding
beside Jason and his as-yet-unnamed horse at the front of our column when Sarah
shrieked. Jason and I exchanged wide-eyed glances and quickly guided our horses
back down the length of the caravan to find out the cause of Sarah’s shriek. If
she was going into labor…now…

Near the back,
just ahead of the covered wagon, Houdini, an older palomino thoroughbred who’d
been with us since leaving Bodega Bay months ago—who I’d befriended years ago,
when I worked at the Bodega Bay Riders’ Ranch—lay on the gravel shoulder. He
was partially on his side, his legs slightly curled and his head resting limp
on the ground, and some of the stuff sacks and a duffel bag that had been
strapped to his pack saddle were strewn around him on the gravel. His sides
heaved with each too-quick breath.

“Oh God, no!” I
swung my leg over Wings’s rump and jumped down, not caring that the sharp
movement jarred my broken arm. I lunged toward Houdini, dropping to my knees by
his head. “Dini…” My fingers brushed over his forehead, moving his blond bangs
away from his eyes so he could see. Those brown eyes were wide and filled with
terror.

I strengthened
the telepathic link between us automatically,
needing
to comfort him, to
ease his mounting panic.
“It’s okay, Houdini…it’s okay,”
I murmured in
his mind.
“I’m here. You’ll be fine. Just breathe, old friend. Just breathe,
and you’ll be okay. I’ll take care of you.”

Lies. All lies.
He wouldn’t be okay. And the worst part was that he knew it.

I reached for the
nearest buckle on his pack saddle, the one over his shoulder, but my fingers
were trembling too badly to be effective. I balled my hand into a fist and
glanced up at the humans standing in a loose circle around us. I didn’t
understand why they were just standing there.

“Help me!” I said,
tugging ineffectively at the buckle once more. “Get this damn thing off him.”
The words came out broken, an almost sob. “Please!”

Jason was
suddenly there, and Zoe and Carlos and Mase. Everyone moved closer, wanting to
help. But they couldn’t help, not in any way that
really
mattered.

I scooted closer,
lifting Houdini’s heavy head up onto my knees awkwardly with only one arm, and
huddled over him. I hugged his neck and whispered empty reassurances in his
mind.

As his pain
increased, so did his panic, and he started fading in and out of coherency.

“Red? Dani?”
Jason touched my shoulder. “We did what we could with the saddle, but he’s
lying on part of it, so…”

It didn’t matter
anyway. I raised my head and met Jason’s eyes. He knew. Or at least, he
suspected.

“Dehydration?”

I nodded. I
couldn’t speak; anything I attempted to say would come out garbled and
incomprehensible.

“What else can we
do?”

I stroked my hand
along the length of Houdini’s neck and took several deep breaths. Clearing my
throat, I said, “Give the horses the rest of the water.”

Jason stared at
me for a few seconds, blinking but not speaking. Finally, he shook his head.
“We’ll give each of them a drink, but we have to save some…”

I felt my
expression harden, but I didn’t argue.

Again, he stared
and didn’t respond for long seconds. “What do you want to do now?”

I swallowed.
Talking about water was making my throat feel painfully parched. “Tell the others
to keep moving until they can’t see us anymore…and to take Wings and Nameless
with them.” I wiped my cheek on my shoulder. “And
nobody
gets back in
the saddle. We’re walking until we find freshwater.”

Jason nodded
before standing and striding toward our other companions, who were clustered
behind the wagon. I couldn’t spare much attention for them, not with Houdini
growing more and more afraid with each passing minute. I did what I could for
him, reminding him that I was still there, that I wouldn’t leave him, that I
loved him and would always be there with him. That I would never abandon him,
not while he still breathed.

I was vaguely
aware of someone, possibly multiple someones, gathering the items that had been
on Houdini’s pack saddle.

“Dani?” It was
Zoe.

I continued to
stare into Houdini’s wild eye, continued to murmur nonsensical things, impossible
things, aloud and in his mind.

Zoe touched my
shoulder. “Do you want to give him some water, too?”

I sniffled and
shook my head. There was no point, and we couldn’t afford to waste it.

Crunching gravel,
receding footsteps, and then Houdini and I were alone again.

I wasn’t sure how
long it took—maybe fifteen minutes, maybe more—but the caravan started to move
west again, leaving Jason, Houdini, and me behind on the shoulder of the
highway.

“Where’s the best
place to do it?” Jason asked softly as he knelt behind Houdini’s head.

I touched my
fingers to a spot on the palomino’s forehead, then leaned over and pressed my
lips against his bristly hair. “I love you, old friend,” I whispered.
Maintaining the telepathic connection, I continued to soothe Houdini, even as I
stood and took several steps backward.

“You don’t have
to watch,” Jason said.

“Yes, Jason, I
do.”

On his exhale,
Jason nodded and pulled the pistol from his shoulder holster. His aim was true,
and Houdini was gone almost as soon as the bullet entered his skull.

“Goodbye, old
friend.”

~~~~~

By the time we
caught up to the caravan, the sun was directly overhead. Our companions were
clustered on the side of the road, talking over one another. Jason and I didn’t
notice it at first. Maybe because we didn’t want to, and maybe because it
didn’t seem possible after what we’d just been through. It wasn’t until we were
just several dozen yards away and I was in the process of checking in with the
rest of the horses that I felt it: panic—pain—terror.

Two more horses
were down.

It was one of the
driving teams, which explained why the humans were clustered beside one of the
carts. One of the cart horses had collapsed, and she’d dragged her companion
down with her, fracturing the other mare’s leg in the process. Carlos and Jake
were working on freeing the healthier horse, not that it mattered, while the
others were arguing about what to do next.

Jason’s hold
tightened on my hand.

“—that lake we
passed a couple miles ago,” Ben said.

“Yeah,” Ky
agreed. “Couldn’t we, I don’t know, boil it and capture the vapor or something.
That would be freshwater…”

Grayson shook his
head. “The amount of wood required to boil enough water…it’s too inefficient.
It won’t produce enough drinkable water fast enough.”

“So we go to this
next town,” Sanchez said, holding up a partially folded map and shaking it. “No
matter what, we go here, clear out any Crazies—”

“But what if
there are other people?” Sarah said.

Sanchez pressed
her lips into a thin line and took a deep breath. “If there are other people,
we’ll make them see reason.” She raised her eyebrows. “This is the only option.
We didn’t survive this long just to die of dehydration in the middle of a
fucking desert.”

Silences settled
over the group.

Jason and I
stopped on the periphery, earning hasty glances and tight smiles. They’d all
heard the shot; they knew Houdini’s fate and knew the cart horses—along with
any other horse that collapsed—would suffer the same fate.

“I’m with
Sanchez,” Jason said. “I think heading for the nearest town and doing whatever
it takes to get access to their water supply is our only move at this point.”
He looked at me, and when I nodded, he shifted his focus to Grayson. “Daniel?”

The eldest and
undeniably wisest member of our group nodded as well, and one by one, so did
the others.

By the time we
reached the “town”—the label was even less applicable to this one than it had
been to the last—we’d lost another horse and were down to only one cart and the
wagon. As far as I could tell, it appeared to be a single farm, lonesome and
dried up in the middle of the high desert. We stopped about a quarter of a mile
away to assess any possible dangers before diving in.

“Do you sense
anything?” Jason asked Zoe as she walked to the front of the caravan. When she
shook her head, he shifted his focus to me. “And your scouts still aren’t picking
up on anything?”

I, too, shook my
head and, staring up at the sky, watched the pale pinpoint that was Ray grow as
she glided closer.

Jason exhaled
heavily and nodded in slow motion. It was clear that he was reticent to believe
we’d caught a break. Eager, but reticent.

I started
salivating at the thought of gulping down water. How I still had enough
moisture in my body to salivate was beyond me, but I couldn’t wait to suck down
as much water as my stomach could hold. I hadn’t had to pee since just after waking,
and even that had been a lackluster effort—not overly encouraging regarding my
own state of dehydration. And the dark spots taunting me as they danced around
the outer edges of my vision…I didn’t think those were a great sign, either.

By the time we
reached the farm, our pace slow to exert as little effort as possible, the
spots were no longer only on the outer edge, but creeping across my vision like
ashes floating in the drafts of heat over a campfire. We sought refuge in the
largest, shadiest building—a slightly rundown barn. Most of us worked together
to unburden the horses while Jason, Carlos, and Jake split off to work on
gaining access to the remote farm’s water supply. Carlos’s Ability was more
than strong enough to power a well pump, as he’d started doing pretty much
everywhere we stopped that had a well so we could stock up. Unfortunately, the
deeper we plunged into the Great Basin Desert, the fewer and farther between
those places seemed to be.

While I moved
from horse to horse in the barn alongside Zoe, I imagined the sensation of
water filling my mouth, cool and refreshing…trickling down my throat…dripping
down my chin…over my head…

“I hate to have
to say this…” Jason’s voice was low, even.

I looked up,
focusing with some effort on the barn doorway. Jason, Carlos, and Jake stood,
silhouetted in the opening by the late afternoon sun. I didn’t need to be able
to see any of their shadowed faces for dread to sprout and flourish inside me.

“…but the water’s
no good.”

I noticed the
others straighten, turn to face him, exchange a confused look with whoever was
nearest to them.

“What do you
mean?” Sanchez asked. She took several steps toward the trio, away from the
wagon team she was helping Grayson unharness.

“There are bodies
in the house.” Jason paused. “And in the water tank.”

Grayson joined
Sanchez. “We can disconnect the pump, and—”

“Won’t work,”
Jake said from beside Jason. “Someone disabled it. It’s gonna take some time to
fix, and there’s no guarantee…”

Sanchez placed
her hands on her hips. “What about those pickups over by the house? At least
one of them’s gotta be—”

Jake shook his
head, his expression grim.

“Someone clearly
wanted to cut off these people’s access to water,” Jason said. “There’s no
water here.”

No water.
It wasn’t possible. I shook my head as my
knees gave out, and I plopped on my butt on the dirt floor. This couldn’t be
happening. We couldn’t die here…not after everything. But we would.

We’re going to
die here.

I rubbed my hand
over my mouth.

We’re going to
die
here
.

I felt whiskers
tickle the side of my neck, closely followed by the warmth of a velvety muzzle.
“No,”
Wings said in my mind.
“We will not die here. You will lead us
to water. We trust you.”