Out Of The Ashes (The Ending Series, #3) (20 page)

Jake joined
Harper in shielding his sister.

“I didn’t know,”
Becca said, a tremor in her voice. “I swear it…I do.” I’d never heard the
chronically composed Re-gen sound so distraught. “I’m so sorry about your
brother, I—”

Ky threw his
hands up in the air. “You know what? Fuck you.” He pointed around Harper at
Becca, then aimed his finger first at Harper, then at Jake. “Fuck you and you.”
He swept his arm around in a broad, sweeping gesture. “Fuck you all, very
much.”

Jason took a step
toward him. “Ky—”

But Ky flung his
hand up, turned, and stalked out into the night. “I’m taking Ben. I’m done with
all this bullshit.”

Again, Jason and
I exchanged a look, bafflement this time. “He’ll be back,” I said, my chest
clenching.

“Yeah,” Jason
agreed.

But neither of
our voices contained any amount of certainty.

A dog barked, a
second joined it, and I felt Jack’s mind as he and Cooper trotted into the ring
of tents. My eyes closed, and I exhaled in relief. At least Jack was okay.

16

ZOE

APRIL 28, 1AE

Humboldt-Toiyabe
National Forest, Nevada

It was the dead of night. Ben was dead, Ky
was gone, Becca had practically been assaulted
by
Ky, and a piece of
Jake’s arm had been torn off; sleep was the last thing on any of our minds.
Well, except for Dani. She was exhausted after melding with the minds of the
animal battalion that had come to our aid.

Sitting by the fire, I tried to collect
myself. My mind had already felt a little fried after sneaking in a quick,
headache-inducing electrotherapy session with Gabe and Carlos early today. And
after I’d seen Jake’s arm—a bloody mess that needed tending—followed by the
mental replay of the wild man who’d literally torn a piece out of him with his
teeth, it was all I could do not to burst into hysterics.

Other than questioning the guy who’d been
fleeing from the pack of wild men, a middle-aged man named Ralph, Jason hadn’t
said much; his concern for Dani had become all-consuming.
My
concern for
her was heightened as well, but for another reason.
What’s to stop Dani from
becoming like them?
I knew she’d been drifting more and more, and now that
I’d seen some of Ralph’s memories, I knew Dani wasn’t safe…from herself. Even
as she lay inside her tent, trying to sleep, I could feel her mind drifting.

Hearing Jake’s rumbling voice behind me as
he thanked Carlos for frying the man who’d gnawed on his arm, I glanced over my
shoulder at him. I could see that Jake’s sleeve was dark with blood, and I knew
someone needed to look at the wound. Harper had taken a walk with Becca, trying
to reassure her that there was nothing she could’ve done for Ky or Ben, leaving
me a sorry stand-in.

Whether it was
overexertion or his body actively regenerating itself, I could feel Jake’s
exhaustion, prompting me to head over
to
the chuck wagon. I dug around inside one of the cubbies for the medical kit I thought
had been crammed in there somewhere. I was considering where else it might be
hiding when I finally found it behind a stack of paper plates and napkins.

Ready to put on my nurse cap and attempt
to look like I knew what I was doing, I turned back toward the fire, my gaze
automatically gravitating to Jake, who was still standing with Carlos by his
tent.

I made my way over to them, then stopped a
few yards away and waited for their discussion to end. When Carlos noticed me,
he nodded in my direction, and Jake turned around. I held the medical kit up
and gestured toward the fire that was ever present in the center of our camp. It
wasn’t usually blazing
in the middle of the night, but tonight was
obviously an exception.

After Jake dipped his chin in
acknowledgement, I headed over to the campfire to find a place for us to sit. I
knew he was different than the rest of us, that he could heal faster than
everyone else, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t in pain or that he didn’t need to
take care of himself.

Plopping down into an empty folding chair,
I anxiously waited for him to join me. Mase had built the fire to roaring, and
its flames would provide ample light to tend Jake’s wound. Losing myself to the
sound of crackling fire and the undulating flames, I thought about how many
other times he’d been injured, about the memories I’d seen of his burned body…

“This seat for me?”

My gaze slipped away from the mesmerizing
pull of the fire and met Jake’s. He offered me a lopsided smile, but it wasn’t
reassuring. I could feel his exhaustion even more acutely with him standing
beside me and could see it plainly enough on his face. He needed rest.

“Of course,” I said, leaning forward in my
seat. “Now, how are we going to do this?” I asked, holding up the kit again as
he sat down.

Using his good arm to tug the long-sleeved
shirt over his head, Jake grimaced as he gingerly pulled the blood-dried fabric
off his arm. “You playing nurse again?”

Suddenly, I realized Jake had removed his
shirt. I cleared my throat and busied myself as I opened the medical box.
“Nurse? No, I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“That’s comforting.”

I glanced over at him with a smirk, in
time to see Jake’s smile…and exposed chest. It was the first time I’d ever seen
Jake without a shirt on, the first time I learned of the light brown hair
dusting his chest and leading down his lower abdomen.

But as much as I wanted to study his body,
I zeroed in on the chunk missing from the inside of his forearm—a fleshy,
gaping hole layered with folds of blood-crusted, unevenly torn muscle and
tissue, some of it more pink than red, a sign of his quick healing. Even the
traumatized skin surrounding the wound was colored with faint green and yellow
bruises, as if they were already days old.

While
I
felt my heart seize at the
sight of the bite wound, Jake seemed unfazed. “You sure you want to do this?”
he asked. “I can have one of the others—”

“No,” I said quickly. “I don’t mind,
really.” I squeezed his hand before turning my attention back to the medical
kit in my lap. “I want to make sure someone tends to it before it heals wrong
or gets infected or something.”

“It won’t heal wrong,” he said, “and it
won’t get infected.” I saw an image of him lying in the snow, a bullet in one
hand and his other palm against his chest.

I glanced up at his torso, seeing no scar
from a bullet wound. “Maybe not, but it still hurts, doesn’t it?”

“Like hell.”

“Well then, let’s do what we can to help
your body instead of making it do
all
the work.”

I evaluated the contents of the kit,
trying to decide where to start. “I suppose cleaning it is the first order of
business,” I thought aloud. I curled my lip as I examined the flesh once more.
“I take it you’ve not done that yet…”

Jake tried not to smile. “No, I haven’t
had the chance.”

I cleared my throat and swallowed. “Clearly.”
Removing an alcohol pad from its wrapper, I cleaned the skin around the wound,
which was half the size of my palm.

Jake chuckled softly.

“Am I entertaining you?”

“Your determination is very…you.”

My eyes met his for a brief a moment.
“Thank you, I think.” We were quiet for a few breaths, the fire and the chatting
around us only white noise. I held up a small bottle of rubbing alcohol. “What
do you think?”

Jake frowned. “I don’t think you need to
go that far.”

I smiled, happy to be the one amused this
time. I gave an innocent shrug. “I’m just trying to help.”

“Helping or hurting?” he asked glumly.

Shaking my head, I relented. “You’re no
fun.” I exchanged the bottle of alcohol for one of saline solution and squirted
around in the wound, repeating the action a few more times until I felt it was
sufficiently clean. I reached for the alcohol pad to wipe the excess saline
solution dripping from his arm. “I’ll wrap this up for you and then you can go
rest.”

Jake shook his head. “I can’t. Ralph has
some information he wanted to—”

I glared at him. “Can’t you let Jason talk
to him? Or at least wait until the sun comes up, when you have some of your
strength back? No offense, but you look like you’re about to fall over. You
think you can keep going at this rate with your body trying to heal itself?” As
I wrapped the clean gauze around his forearm, both his amusement and exhaustion
flowed into me. “Can we at least go lie down for a little bit?”

I struggled with the small role of
adhesive tape but finally managed to tear a piece off. When I looked back up at
Jake, his expression seemed part perplexed and part entertained.

“What?” I asked, giving him a sidelong
glance.

He raised his eyebrows. “We?”

“We what?” Then it hit me. Realizing what
I’d said, I busied myself by taping down the bandage and putting the supplies
back into the medical kit. “Well,
you
at least. I’m not trying to be
obnoxious, but I really don’t feel like you’re taking this whole regenerating
thing seriously. You’re not superhuman, you know.”

Jake turned his shirt right-side out.

“In all seriousness,” I added in his
silence, “have you considered at all how much your Ability has changed you?”

“What do you mean?” Exhaustion and pain
getting the better of him, Jake struggled to lift his wounded arm.

“Here,” I said, gently peeling the
half-donned shirt back off of him. “We’ll get you a zip-up sweatshirt, that’ll
be easier.” Jake sat there patiently while I manhandled him. “If your body
regenerates itself, will you stop aging?”

He chuckled weakly.
      

I smacked his good arm. “I’m serious. You
can’t die—”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” he said. “Just
like your Ability has limitations, mine has to as well. I’m just not sure what
they are, and I don’t really want to test any theories.” He obviously didn’t
want to talk about it, and I had to admit that it was too deep of a
conversation for us to be having when he could barely keep his eyes open as it
was.
“Come on,” he said. He
stood and, taking the kit out of my hand, set it on his chair and intertwined his
fingers with mine.

Without a word, I followed him to his
tent. I’d never been in it before, and the thought of being in his private space
with
him
was thrilling.

He unzipped the door and stepped inside,
guiding me in gently behind him. His tent was larger than the one I shared with
Becca; ours was snug, barely fitting the two of us and our things. I was fine
with it, though; it was what I was used to, and it made me feel safe. Jake’s
tent, on the other hand, was big enough for four people, which I thought was sort
of strange. It was only him, a single, open duffel bag, which his clothes were
perfectly rolled and stacked inside, and his sleeping bag. Granted, it was
actually two sleeping bags conjoined, but still. It seemed a big tent for one
man.

“Shoes off,” he said, standing slightly
slouched by the entrance, which apparently served as his designated “shoe”
area. “That’s my
one
rule,” he said. “And don’t try to get out of it.
I’ll hold you to it this time.”

I was confused. “Wait, what?” As far as I
knew, we’d never once talked about a “no shoes in the tent” rule. But then I
realized…he was talking about
before
. Surrendering, I toed off my tennis
shoes and moved to the side, nearly able to stand up straight at the tent’s
peak.

Jake zipped the door shut and, favoring
his right arm, lay down on the sleeping bags with a groan. I hadn’t realized
there were two pillows until he wadded one of them up beneath his head.

“One of the pillows is mine,” I thought
aloud. I felt stupid for not making the connection earlier. The joined sleeping
bags, the bigger tent—this wasn’t just
his
, it was
ours
.

“Yep,” he said, his eyes meeting mine. The
campfire outside, only a few yards away, brightened the inside of Jake’s tent
enough for me to see how intently he was watching me.

“And, let me guess, I don’t like the ‘no
shoes’ rule.”

A weak smile pulled at his lips.
The firelight cast shadows against the
tent’s blue nylon walls. The flickering light and dark made the brown stubble
on Jake’s jaw glow then turn sable before it began glowing again.

“No,” he finally said. “You don’t like my ‘no
shoes’ rule.”

I smiled. “I don’t think it’s so bad now.”

He made a derisive noise and patted the
area beside him. “You’re making me anxious standing over me like that.”

“I need to get you a sweatshirt,” I said a
little warily. I stepped over to his bag and stared at the items rolled and
folded inside. “Since this is organized immaculately, I have a feeling you know
exactly where your sweatshirts are.”

“There should be one tucked in the right
corner.”

Just as he’d said, I felt the cool zipper
against my fingertips and carefully pulled out a black, zip-up, hooded
sweatshirt so not to mess up the rest of his clothes.

“Here you go,” I said, lowering myself
down to him. “You need to sit up, just for a minute. I’ll make it fast, I
promise.”

With a grunt, Jake sat up and held his
injured arm out first. After I pulled the sweatshirt on as gently as possible,
I helped him with the other sleeve, and then he lay back down. Lifting his good
arm, Jake welcomed me to lie against him, and I automatically accepted his
offer.

My head fit perfectly in the crux of his
arm, and I leaned into him, draping my arm over his middle. My entire body
eased, the tension fleeing my muscles as I was consumed by Jake’s warmth. He
smelled smoky, like campfire, and the faint sound of his heart was steady and
reassuring.

“What
do
I like?” I asked.

A small smile pulled at Jake’s lips. “Well,
you like sleeping with two pillows. At least you say that, but you only ever
really use one. So I gave one of yours to Camille and Mase.” His voice was
velvety.