Out Of The Ashes (The Ending Series, #3) (21 page)

“Sneaky.” I smiled. “What else?”

Jake’s hand drew languid circles in the
middle of my lower back, and I felt my mind start to drift. “You like to leave
your clothes all over the tent, and you never fold anything…not really, anyway.
You claim it’s pointless.”

I thought of the disarray my side of
Becca’s tent was currently in. “What else?” I whispered.

Jake was quiet a moment, and for a second
I thought he might have fallen asleep, but then he spoke. “You hog the bed,
and…”

I peered up at him, the intensity of his
gaze making my stomach flutter. Admiration and affection stirred within him,
lulling as it passed over me like a warm blanket of promise and hope and
safety.

He was hesitant, scared even, to love me
the way he once did, but for some reason, it didn’t upset me. Maybe I finally
understood, or maybe it just didn’t matter anymore. Either way, he was trying.
I could feel his vulnerability: longing—desire—uncertainty—wonder. It was the
most amazing thing I’d ever felt, and I had to resist the urge to tell him that
Gabe and I were working on a plan for me to get my memory back. I couldn’t bear
to think about his disappointment if it didn’t work.

“You also do this all the time,” he said,
rubbing his sock-covered feet against mine. “Every single night, you rub your
feet against the bottom of the sleeping bag until they finally find mine…and
then you fall asleep.”

I glanced down at my feet, which were
tangled with his, and realized how deeply I could fall in love with Jake. It
wasn’t his emotions or guilt making me feel obligated this time, and it wasn’t
a looming pressure to be someone I no longer was. It was a simmering love I’d
felt since the first moment I saw him, the sad man standing in the doorway of
the abandoned house.

Propping myself up on my elbow, I leaned
in without hesitation and kissed him, more fervently than the last time. I
wanted Jake to know how I felt, wished I could share with him the feelings he,
unbeknownst to him, had shared with me.

“I love you,” I whispered against his
mouth, not wanting to let another moment pass without him knowing how I felt.

Afraid to open my eyes, to see his
reaction illuminated on his face, I kept them closed and pressed my lips to his
once more. “I love you,” I repeated.

Ignoring his pain, Jake pulled me closer
with his injured arm, his kiss tender and his body exuding waves of
unmistakable relief.

17

DANI

APRIL 29, 1AE

Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, Nevada

I “woke” with a groan.
I hadn’t been sleeping; I’d been stalking squirrels with some bobcats. And I’d
meant
to be sleeping.

I’d essentially
passed out in the wee hours of the morning, intent on remaining asleep and
resting my mind and
not
drifting into any animal minds. But I
had
drifted,
and because my subconscious had been in charge when I left my body, I’d drifted
from creature to creature like a sleepwalker, unwilling, or possibly unable, to
return to my body by choice.

Jason trailed his
fingertips over the sensitive skin on the side of my neck, giving rise to goose
bumps. I could feel the heat of him close against my side despite the two
insulated layers of sleeping bags separating our bodies.

“Good dream?” he
asked.

Opening my eyes,
I stared up at the green nylon canopy of our tent and frowned. “I…I can’t
remember,” I lied, glancing at him. He was lying on his side, his head resting
on his curled-up arm. “Why do you ask?”

Jason’s piercing
blue eyes held a hint of the sparkle that usually accompanied a smile. “You
were hard to wake.” He rolled onto his back.

I forced a smile
and shrugged. I hadn’t been having a good dream—or
any
dream—because
I hadn’t even been
asleep. But I
didn’t want to worry Jason or anyone else with such a minor problem compared to
what had just happened the night before. Ben was dead, Ky was who knows where,
and one of the mares had a bad gash on her rear that Harper feared would become
infected.
And
I’d led the horses in what could easily
be called a slaughter-by-stampede. Suddenly,
child-murderer
and
liar
didn’t seem to be the worst things I
could be called.

I sighed and
rubbed my hands over my face, wiping away the crusty sleep in the corners of my
eyes. “I need some fresh air.” I crawled out of my sleeping bag and toward the
tent door.

“Wait,” Jason
said when I had the top part of the flap unzipped.

I glanced back at
him.

“Aren’t you
forgetting something?”

“What?”

His eyes trailed
down the length of my body, zeroing in on my butt. The attention to my nether
parts made me notice the draftiness around my lower half. I’d fallen asleep in
only one of Jason’s t-shirts and my underwear, and that was still all I had on.

The blush started
on my chest and burned its way up my neck.
I cleared my throat and shot a cursory glance around the tent
before I remembered that we’d had to burn the sweatpants I’d been wearing the
previous night because they’d been soaked through with blood…and
bits
. Which
sucked so much more because they were my last pair.

“Here,” Jason
said, reaching for something on his side of the tent. He handed me a pair of
black leggings. “Camille gave these to me after you conked out…thought you
might need ’em.”

“Oh…” I took the
soft, stretchy pants. “Thanks.”

He lifted one
shoulder. “Thank Camille.”

“I will.” I
pulled the leggings on quickly, then fished a pair of clean socks out of my
duffel bag and wiggled my feet into my boots, which were much cleaner than
they’d been when I’d removed them earlier that morning. “Did you clean these?”
I asked, noting that the combat knife had been replaced in the boot sheath.

Jason nodded.

I offered him a
grateful smile. “Thank you.”

He held my gaze,
not returning my smile. “You scared the shit out of me last night.”

I licked my lips.
“I know.” I’d scared the shit out of
myself
, too.

“Your eyes…” He
shook his head. “They were different.
You
were different.”

I looked down at
my hand, watching my fingers toy with the leather at the top of my boot. When I
spoke, my voice was quiet. “I know.”

And I did know;
I’d been less like me, and more like
them
.

~~~~~

“Excuse me, um,
Dani?” Ralph, a.k.a.
prey
, said from behind me.

I was perched on
a rock at the edge of the creek near camp. The afternoon sun shone high
overhead, but its rays couldn’t warm the part of me deep inside, chilled with
fear over what I was becoming. I glanced over my shoulder as I heard Ralph’s
footsteps draw nearer.

“Do you mind if I
join you? I thought we might have a little chat sometime before you and your
people continue on your way.”

Widening my eyes,
I brushed my palm against my borrowed leggings and bit my lip. I wanted to talk
to him and had been planning to hunt him down later. “Now’s as good a time as
any.”

Ralph smiled,
bowed his head, and crossed the creek. He sat on a rock a little larger than
mine and scratched his graying beard.

I picked up a
small handful of pebbles and started tossing them into the water one by one.
“So…what’d you do to get on their bad side?”

“Scott and his
pack
?”

I met Ralph’s
eyes for the briefest moment. “Yeah.” I hadn’t known the leader’s name, Ray’s
killer’s name—hadn’t wanted to—and now I felt like even more of a murderer. So
much for vengeance being sweet…

“Existed,” Ralph
said bitterly. “Me and my son, Bobby—he was a drifter, too—we came out here
after we realized how much we’d changed. I’ve had a cabin in the area for
years, and living in a place secluded from people but teeming with animal
life…” He shrugged. “It just felt right.”

I nodded, finding
that I could relate a little too well to what he was saying.

“Scott caught
wind of us a few weeks back and wanted us to join his ‘pack,’ but Bobby and me
didn’t like the way their minds felt, especially not Scott and the other
drifter in the pack.” He squinted up at the sun. “Like they weren’t quite human
anymore. We thanked him and passed on his offer and returned to our new,
secluded way of life.” He lowered his gaze, his warm, brown eyes meeting mine.
“We’d already noticed the changes in ourselves when we drifted too much, and we
decided it was time to use some restraint before we ended up turning into wild
men like Scott and his pack.”

I swallowed
roughly. This was exactly the kind of thing that I wanted to talk about…that I
was terrified to talk about.

Ralph sighed and
shook his head. “But it was too late for Bobby. He couldn’t stop. Every time he
went to sleep, he ended up drifting, and every day, instinct ruled him just a
little bit more…until about a week ago.”

“What happened?”

“He disappeared,
and I found him two days later…at the base of a cliff.”

“Was he, um…”

Ralph raised his
eyebrows. “Dead?” He nodded slowly.

“Scott?”

He continued to
nod. “He didn’t mind us so much when we hadn’t ‘fully embraced the gift,’ as
Scott liked to say, but once Bobby
had
, Scott claimed that he couldn’t
allow a competitor in his territory.” Ralph sighed. “And then he decided his
pack needed some entertainment, so they started hunting me.” He flashed me a
weak smile. “When I felt your mind, I knew you’d be my only chance…that Scott
wouldn’t be able to resist the pull of a female drifter.”

I scowled, and
when I spoke, my voice was flat. “So I was meant to be a diversion.”

“I hate to admit
it, but yeah.” He frowned. “But here you were with an army of humans
and
animals…couldn’t
have guessed that.” His head tilted to the side. “Your connection with the
creatures is different—deeper—and they trust you more, seem to genuinely care
about your well-being, even accept you as one of their own, where they just
tolerate the rest of us drifters playing at being a part of their kingdom. But
then, it’s not like I’ve met many of us, and you’re the first female drifter
I’ve met, so…” Again, he shrugged. “Makes sense that that sort of thing would
matter to the animals.”

A harsh laugh
escaped from my throat. “Great…so when I turn wild, I can frolic around with
all my animal friends and be their lady Mowgli. Awesome.”

Ralph studied me
for a long, uncomfortable moment. “So it’s started for you, too, then, has it?”

I nodded. “Last
night—or this morning, I mean—was the first time.” Another humorless laugh and
shake of my head. “Went to sleep and woke up drifting.” I stared across the creek
at him, pleading with my eyes. “Do you know how to stop it from happening?”

Frowning, Ralph
shook his head. “Once that starts happening, it seems to be inevitable that
you’ll, well, you know…change.”

I blinked, and a
few tears escaped over the brim of my eyelids. “I don’t want to change; I want
to stay
me
.” I hugged my middle and squeezed my eyes shut.

“I wish I could
tell you how to manage it, but it seems that’s something each of us has to
figure out on our own. The best two pieces of advice I can give you are these:
you’ve got to want to stop drifting with every fiber of your being, or else
that part of you that takes over when you sleep is going to keep pushing you
out into the critters—and you have to stop,
now
.
If that means you try not to sleep for days, then you try not
to sleep for days. Maybe the compulsion to drift will lessen the longer you go
without doing it. Maybe…”

I took several
deep breaths, trying to collect what little remained of my tattered composure.
My voice shook when I spoke next. “I see.” I was terrified, because I knew that
a part of me never wanted to stop drifting, and I had no idea how to convince
that tiny, stubborn part of me to give it up.

Sometimes, I
really hated myself.

~~~~~

Standing beside
Wings, I took a tiny bottle of caffeine pills out of my saddlebag, opened it,
and shook a pill out to pop into my mouth. For the fifth time today.
I hadn’t even tried to sleep the previous
night, and even with the aid of the caffeine pills I’d lifted from Harper’s
medical supplies while everyone was fussing over a returned and repentant Ky, I’d
almost succumbed to the pull of sleep three times during the day’s ride; the
resulting imminent fall could have been devastating.

I dry-swallowed
the caffeine pill, then tucked the bottle back into the saddlebag, glancing
around to make sure nobody was watching me. At least we were done traveling for
the day, so I wouldn’t have to risk sliding out of the saddle for another twelve
hours. Of course, that also meant I had to get through my second consecutive
night of resisting sleep.

Tomorrow
night,
I told myself.
I’ll
try to sleep tomorrow night.

“Red…”

Startled, I
jumped and spun around, only to find Jason standing a few feet away, watching
me. His eyes were tight with concern.

“Yeah?” I said,
skirting eye contact. I wasn’t sure if he’d seen me gulp down the pill.

“Take a walk with
me?” he said, holding out his hand.

I looked over my
shoulder at Wings. “But I have to—”

“Carlos’ll take
care of her.”

“Yeah,” Carlos
said, walking up and coaxing Wings’s attention away from me with the promise of
an apple. “She’s an easy one.”

“But…” I trailed
off as I realized that only a few horses remained in the area near the paddock
we were using to store the tack for the night while the rest roamed around, unburdened
as they grazed. A glance off to my left told me the tents were already up in
the corner of a tiny farm’s parched hay field, and the fire was well on its way
to roaring. “How…?”

“You must’ve
zoned out,” Jason said, reaching for my good hand and linking our fingers when
I showed no sign of intending to meet him halfway. “You were just standing
there, staring at your saddlebag.”

I closed my eyes
in a prolonged blink, letting Jason lead me away from Wings and Carlos and our
camp. He headed for the solitary, one-story farmhouse located on the other side
of the almost nonexistent creek. A single row of tall, skinny trees covered in
scraggly new growth lined the property as a windbreak. Jason led me around the
house on a lawn that was so brown and patchy it blended in almost seamlessly
with the barren desert floor surrounding it, only stopping once we reached the
opposite side. He stared down at me, looming unintentionally.

Sighing, I rubbed
my eyes; they felt grainy from lack of sleep. “What are we doing out here? I
still have to check in with all of the horses and set up scouts for—”

“You’re off scouting
duty,” he said quietly, calmly. “We can do it the old-fashioned way for a few
days.” And still, he stared down at me. I felt like a preserved specimen in a
jar.

“What?” I
blurted, first widening, then narrowing my eyes. “Why?”