Out Of The Ashes (The Ending Series, #3) (36 page)

I shook my head at the husk of a
life I’d lived, at the lies I’d thought were memories of my childhood—they
were
memories, but they were skewed and shadowed with more lies than I’d probably
ever fully understand.

Dani was watching me, her face a
careful, cautious mask that did little to hide the gentle waves of anticipation
I could feel resonating around her. “It’s weird, huh? Like it’s the same, but
different, too…”

Peering around the room, I
realized that was exactly how it felt: everything was just as it had been when
I’d left years ago, like absolutely nothing had changed. Only I saw things
differently now, and the months I’d spent traversing the country with my
friends had felt more like home than the dreary house I was standing in.

I headed toward the kitchen,
poking my head through the doorway to find nothing out of place, except…
“Someone’s been here,” I said with a mixture of dread and hope as I stared at
the dirty plates in the sink.

“Jason and me—those are from the
last time we were here.”

My heart sank a little, but I
shrugged and gave Dani a weak smile. Nudging her arm with mine, I turned and
walked up the stairs toward my bedroom, each step bringing me closer to an
impending clash of pre-Ending Zoe and new Zoe.

As I stepped into the hallway, I
noticed my dad’s bedroom door was closed, giving the hall an ominous feeling
that made me slightly uncomfortable. I opened my mind completely, letting my
feelers wander through the house in search of my dad’s mind, but there was no
one there but the four of us. I wasn’t surprised.
He’s gone, Zoe.

Stopping in the hallway between
Jason’s room and mine, I stared through his open doorway. His room was a
complete mess; clothes were strewn all around, the contents of his closet were
spilling out onto the carpet, and his bedding was rumpled.

Recalling the dishes in the sink,
I eyed Dani skeptically, hoping I wasn’t looking at the aftermath of one of
their sexcapades.

Dani rolled her eyes and raised
her right hand. “On my honor as your best friend, I swear we’ve never done
anything
here. This is just the aftermath of hurricane Jason, when he was going
through his stuff, figuring out what he wanted to take with him.”

With a snort, I shook my head,
ecstatic that I could easily block out those memories that I didn’t want to
see, and stepped into my bedroom. It seemed just as I’d left it; my queen-size
bed was covered with my favorite purple and green comforter, a mountain of
pillows were tossed messily at the head, and my cluttered desk seemed untouched
against the wall across from it.

I vaguely registered Dani sitting
down on my bed as I walked up to the corkboard hanging above my desk. I stared
at the photos and drawings and notes I’d stuck to its surface over the years.

“There are so many memories,” I
thought aloud. “It’s easy to forget about the good times.” I wasn’t sure which
memories to hold onto…which keepsakes to take with me. Squinting, I stared at
one particular picture, then pulled it from the board. It was the single photo
I had of Jason and my dad, working in the woodshop.

I handed it to Dani. “Remember how
upset my dad was when we took this?”

I heard the bedsprings creak as
Dani stood. She drew closer to my side and linked her arm with mine. “I guess
his aversion to having his picture taken sort of makes sense now…”

Nodding, I gently pulled my arm
from Dani’s and crouched down to open the bottom drawer of my desk. I needed to
get the items I wanted to take with me and get the hell out of the house. It
felt too strange being there, too much like a bad dream.

The woodcarving kit I’d had since
I was nine years old lay rolled up in the drawer, exactly where I’d left it.
“This might come in handy,” I said, setting it on the floor beside me. Prepared
to close the drawer, I noticed the large, black canvas scrapbook I’d been
putting together for Dani before she left for Washington, one that I’d
obviously neglected in my rushed decision to move to Salem.

“I forgot about this,” I said,
pleasantly surprised, and handed it to Dani. “I’d meant it to be a project to
work on when I came home to visit, since all my collage stuff is here. I guess
I hadn’t come back as often as I’d planned.” I cringed, feeling a little guilty
as I realized how absent a best friend I’d been over the past couple years.

Dani accepted it and stared at the
photo framed in the window on the front cover—my favorite picture from our
“boycott prom” camping trip, with our faces smooshed together, cheek to cheek,
our hair concealed in beanies, and the ocean just barely visible behind us.

“What…” Seconds passed before Dani
tore her eyes away from the photo. Blinking rapidly, she looked at me, her green
eyes luminous. “What is this?”

Unsure why Dani’s stunned reaction
was affecting me so much, I bit at the side of my cheek and cleared my throat.
“It’s a scrapbook…of us.” I opened it, so she could see the decorated pages
inside. “I thought it would be nice if you had something in Washington,
something that would remind you to come home every once in a while. But like a
crappy friend,
I
ended up leaving, and I never finished it—obviously.”

“Oh…well, I—” Dani shook her head,
apparently at a loss for words. “I—none of that matters anymore.” She shrugged.
“Besides, I left first…” With an apologetic smile, she returned her attention
to the scrapbook and slowly walked back to the bed. Lying on her stomach, she
sprawled out on the comforter, scooting over to make room for me. “Come on.
Let’s see what kind of silliness you packed in this thing.”

“I hardly remember,” I said,
crawling up next to her. I settled in, resting my cheek on my hand. When I
glanced over at Dani, I grew equally as excited as she was. “This is going to
be like Christmas for both of us…”

~~~~~

After Dani and I pilfered through
my room a bit longer, I decided nothing I owned, save for the woodcarving kit
and a whittled starfish figurine I’d made with my dad’s help when I was twelve,
was worth taking. Everything seemed frivolous and unnecessary or reminded me of
a life I wasn’t sure I needed to remember. Dani and I exited my room and
plodded down the stairs, through the living room, and out the back sliding door
to find the guys.

We stopped mid-step at the sight
of Jason and Jake sitting in the cushioned deck chairs, smoking cigars. I
glanced between them, amused. “Since when do you guys smoke cigars?” I asked
with feigned admonishment.

Jason took a few quick pulls of
his stogie and looked over at us. “Since we found Dad’s stash in the woodshop.”

“Dad had a cigar stash?” I was
beginning to think I hadn’t known my dad—the scatterbrained woodworker who
spent more time in his shop than with his own kids—at all.
Who the hell were
you, Tom Cartwright?
The fact that I didn’t know stung a little.

I glanced at Dani, whose nose was
wrinkled. “Now you’re going to be stinky,” she said, making a show of waving
the smoke away from her with one arm while she hugged the scrapbook to her chest
with the other.

Jason only chuckled and nodded to
the scrapbook. “What’s that?”

“Something Zo made for me,” Dani
said, a smile spreading her lips.

Jason made a funny face. “Were you
doing arts and crafts up there, or—”

Dani walked by him and swatted his
arm on the way toward the deck stairs. Jason responded by swatting her in
return—on the butt—eliciting a high squeal and giggle from her.

“Come on,” she said. “We’ve got a meeting
to prep for. We need to get back to the ranch and wrangle in the others.”

Jason heaved a sigh, but laid his
head back against the cushioned chair instead of standing and closed his eyes
against the glaring afternoon sun. “I just need a few more minutes,” he
groaned, reminding me of a little boy begging his mom for just a few more
minutes of sleep.

“It might be faster to gather
everyone over here; it doesn’t look like he’s moving anytime soon,” I teased.

“That’d be great,” Jason said, and
he let a small smile tug at his lips. It was nice to see my brother so peaceful
and…happy, a state I didn’t think I’d ever see him in.

“That’s all you’re bringing back
with you?” Jake asked, nodding to the whittling kit rolled up in my back pocket
as he stood.

He’d been so quiet, sitting there,
observing.
What’s it like for him to be at my house, in my hometown…smoking
a cigar with my brother?
I’d gleaned enough about Jake’s past—seen the
death of his mother and sister, seen Joe and knew how badly Jake missed him—but
I thought I would’ve liked to spend a day with him and the old man in another
life.

I shook my head. “This is it,
there’s nothing else I want to bring with me.” I fingered the outline of the
starfish in my front pocket, strangely content with the fact that my past life
had boiled down to only two items that connected me to my dad.

Oblivious to my inner musings,
Jake took a final puff of his cigar. It seemed strangely natural to see him
with one in his hand.

Walking over to him, I linked my
fingers with his. “What about you guys? Did you find anything besides cigars?”

Jake gave my hand a quick squeeze.
“Some tools that’ll come in handy when we’re ready to settle. Jason and I were
talking, and we’re partial to this area. Some of that farmland back around
Petaluma was pretty ideal for what we’ve been discussing.”

“Yeah?” I was surprised to hear
Jake say that, a sudden feeling of unease making my heartbeat quicken.

He eyed me for a moment. “That
okay with you?”

With a slight smile, I nodded. “I
guess I just figured we’d keep going, a little further north, maybe. Not so
close to…everything.”

He gave me a quizzical look.

“There weren’t as many tools as I
thought,” Jason interrupted. “Umph,” he grumbled as he peeled himself out of
the padded chair. “Damn, I forgot how comfortable these things are.”

“Let’s take them,” I said, untying
the cushions from the chair closest to me. “We can use them—”

“For?” Jason asked, curious.

“For extra padding on the cart and
wagon benches…for sitting around the campfire…for your throne, your highness.”
I snorted. “Consider it my wedding gift to you.”

Jason laughed as he walked down
the stairs toward Dani. “I kinda like the sound of that:
Your Highness
.”

“I’m sure you do,” I muttered.

“Come on guys, we gotta go!” Dani
called from atop Wings. “Aren’t you finished with those nasty cigars yet?”

Jason, Jake, and I chuckled in
response.

As Jake and I finished untying all
the cushions, I glanced around at my friends, at my family.

Jason leaned against Wings,
fingering the fringe of her chocolate- and white-colored mane as he gazed up at
my best friend, his new bride. There was no doubt in my mind that he was
murmuring something inappropriate as he received a playful smack on his arm and
a giggle from Dani. They truly loved each other, and although I wasn’t sure
when
exactly they’d fallen in love, I was pretty ecstatic that they had.

“What are we doing with these?”
Jake asked from beside me as he held up the cushions.

I looked up at him, unable to
resist smiling at his beautifully rugged face and the warmth in his voice. “We
can tie them to the saddles.”

“Are they really necessary?” he
asked. I could see the curiosity twinkling in his eyes.

I shrugged a shoulder and wrapped
my arms more securely around the three overstuffed cushions I was holding.
“They’re not necessary at all, actually, but we came here to get some things,
so why not?”

“I think you made your brother’s
day.”

I gave him a mock bow. “It’s the
least I can do.”

Jake leaned into me and pressed a
soft kiss against my lips.

“We should get going,” I said
quietly and watched him as he walked down the steps.

Despite the craziness that had
become our lives, for the first time in years, I felt content. I even ventured
so far as to think that, if we all stayed together—even if we stayed around
here
—we
could be happy.

26

DANI

MAY 24, 1AE

Bodega Bay, California

It was late
afternoon, though the gray, misty cloud cover spreading from horizon to horizon
and blocking out the sun made it feel more like evening. I stared up at the
endless cloudy mass, trying to pick out the spot where the sun should’ve been.

“At least we don’t
have to deal with the fog,” Zoe said.

“For once,” I
grumbled, and Jason emitted a noncommittal snort. It wasn’t the “foggy season,”
but the fog didn’t seem to care; it had been ever present since we’d arrived,
lingering until only a few hours ago. By the time Jason, Zoe, Jake, and I had returned
to the ranch from our excursion to the Casa di Cartwright, the dewy fog had
finally dissipated.

As the only
members of our group who were actually from Bodega Bay, Jason, Zoe, Grayson,
and I were heading up our envoy to the “New Bodega” town meeting. Sitting atop
our respective mounts, we rode along Westshore Road, past the turnoff to our
home street, and followed it as it curved onto the peninsula. The bay was on
our left, and our entourage of Gabe, Carlos, Jake, and Becca fanned out behind
us. We’d selected which of us would attend the town meeting carefully, wanting people
who could offer varying perspectives of the current state of the country.

Movement in the harbor
caught my attention. “Look!” I pointed out at what I realized was the nearest
of a handful of small vessels—both metal rowboats and inflatable
dinghies—moving slowly as their oarsmen rowed them around the harbor.

Asking Wings to
stop, I unbuckled my right horn bag and pulled out a small pair of binoculars,
raising them to my eyes. The nearest boat stopped at a tiny buoy that was half
red and half white. A quick scan of the water’s rippling surface around the
boat revealed dozens of other buoys, all red and white.

The others drew
to a halt around me to peer out at the activity in the harbor, and I glanced at
Grayson. “Red and white buoy—that’s crab, right?”

“Yes,” Grayson
said, squinting. “I count—”

“Seven boats,
some with two people,” Jason said. “That’s a pretty big operation for a group
of seventy.”

Grayson nodded.
“Indeed, it is. We couldn’t have coordinated something like this before…”

I frowned. It
made sense that others would have joined the Bodega Bay survivors, considering they
had established the most stable—and sane—community we’d come across since all
hell broke loose. And yet, I wasn’t overly excited about the prospect of leaping
back into a settlement governed by
anyone
who wasn’t among
my closest, most trusted companions. Sure, it helped that Grayson had been a
member of the Town Council back when there were fewer than a hundred survivors,
but he hadn’t been a part of the group for over four months. A lot could have changed
in that amount of time, especially when the world as we knew it had ended in a
matter of days.

“Look beyond
them…to the harbor mouth,” Grayson said, pointing beyond the little boats. “A
sail.”

Again, I brought
the binoculars up to my eyes. “There are two more behind it a ways.” A thrill
of excitement sizzled over my skin, and grinning, I handed the binoculars to Jason.
I’d always loved watching the sailboats glide in and out of the harbor.

“Think they’ll be
interested in our proposition?” I asked Grayson, not taking my eyes from the
tiny triangle of white that was slowly closing in on the marina’s jetty. Though
there were probably a few new faces on the Town Council, Grayson knew better
than any of us if they would be interested in the plan we’d been hashing up
since arriving in Tahoe. We wanted to settle somewhere we could be
self-sufficient, but not completely isolated, and there was so much abandoned
farmland in the nearby valleys, just a dozen or so miles inland. But if they
didn’t want us here, rivals for what limited supplies remained in the area…

“Setting up a
satellite agricultural settlement would only be to their benefit,” Grayson
said. “I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t be interested in a mutually beneficial
trade arrangement.”

“Only one way to
find out,” Jason said, tugging his reins to the right and nudging his horse
into motion.

Zoe, Grayson, and
I followed suit, our horses falling into step beside each other while Jason led
the way. I could hear the others’ mounts clip-clopping behind us. Everyone was
being exceptionally quiet, and I assumed it was because they were otherwise
occupied, examining their surroundings.

I returned the
binoculars to my horn bag, then shot Zoe a sideways glance and frowned when I
saw her expression. Her eyes were narrowed as she focused on the road ahead.

I did the same.
“What is it?”

“A wall.”

It took me a
moment—Zoe’s vision had always been better than mine—but I could just make out
a tall, gray wall. It stretched away from the road on either side, extending to
the left a dozen or so yards, all the way across the shallow beach until it
sank below the water’s surface, and to the right, crawling uphill until it
disappeared over the low crest. It was topped with an endless corkscrew of
razor wire, and a chain-link gate crossed the road.

At my direction,
Wings picked up the pace a little, carrying me ahead to ride beside Jason.

“What do you
think?” I asked him. The wall was still at least a hundred yards ahead, but we
were closing in quickly, and I could make out the shapes of a couple people
standing on the other side of the gate. One was definitely carrying a gun…a big
one.

“Smart,” Jason said,
nodding slowly. “If they did what I think they did, and this wall cuts across
all the way to the ocean…” He stared at the place where the wall disappeared
over the hilltop. “They isolated the whole peninsula…pretty fucking smart.”

“It’s got to be
at least a mile from here to the other side,” I said.

“We’ve been gone
for almost five months, Red. That’s plenty of time to build a mile-long wall.”

As much as I
agreed with his assessment—that building a wall and isolating the peninsula
had
been a smart move—I couldn’t help the creepy feeling that bunched my shoulders
and made my skin crawl. Walls were built for two reasons: to keep something
out, or to keep something in. And sometimes, both. I shivered.

Zoe caught up to
us, guiding Shadow in close on my other side. “What are you afraid of?” she
asked, and I appreciated that she hadn’t simply peeked into my mind to find
which memories were floating closest to the surface.

I met her eyes
for a moment. “Just déjà vu.”

“Ahhh…I’m sure
this won’t be anything like the Colony.” She offered me a supportive smile as
our horses drew to a halt before the tall, chain-link gate, but I could see
doubt shadow her eyes.

The two men on
the other side of the gate watched us as we dismounted but didn’t say anything
until Jason, Zoe, Grayson, and I stepped up to the fencing.

“Which one of you
is Daniel Grayson?” the man without a gun asked. He was the younger of the two,
maybe in his late thirties, and was wearing khaki slacks and a light blue
button-down shirt, giving him a clean, businessman vibe. In lieu of a weapon,
he was holding a clipboard. The other man, dressed in dark attire more
appropriate for guard duty, scanned our group with a cautious, watchful eye.

Grayson bowed his
head for a moment. “I’m Daniel Grayson, envoy for the Bodega Bay Town Council
to the Colony.”

The businessman
nodded in greeting. “I’m Lance, the Town Council’s secretary. I was sent here
to meet you and to give you a brief tour of New Bodega before the meeting.” His
eyes moved from Grayson to me, Zoe, and Jason, then grazed over the others, who
were still sitting in their saddles behind us. His attention returned to
Grayson. “We weren’t expecting all of you to come.”

“This isn’t all
of us,” Jason said.

Again, Lance’s
attention shifted to Jason. “I’ll need to gather some information from each of
you and go over some ground rules before you enter.”

Jason exchanged a
look with Grayson. When the older man raised his graying, bushy eyebrows and
shrugged, Jason nodded once. “Fair enough.”

Lance looked down
at his clipboard. “I’ll need the name, place of origin, and type of mutation of
every person who walks through these gates.”

“Type of
mutation?” Gabe said from behind me. After a brief moment of creaking leather,
I heard his footsteps on the asphalt as he approached. “That’s not quite
accurate. Everyone here went through the same mutation—”

“—which you can
tell Lance and the Town Council all about when we meet with them,” Grayson
said, cutting Gabe off before he had the chance to launch into full-blown
scientist mode. “You already know my name,” he said to Lance. “I’m from Bodega
Bay, and my
mutation
has yet to be identified.”

I waved. “And I’m
Danielle O’Connor. I’m from Bodega Bay, too, but I was living in Seattle when
everything happened, and I’m a drifter—a two-way telepath, but only with
animals.”

Lance scribbled
down my information quickly, then turned his attention to Zoe.

“Zoe Cartwright,
from Bodega Bay but was living in Salem, Massachusetts, and I’m an empath.”

Getting the
bizarre impression that we were introducing ourselves at some sort of an
addicts support group meeting, I stifled a giggle. I always reacted
inappropriately when I was anxious.

Lance stopped
writing and glanced back up at Zoe. “Can you be more specific, please?”

Zoe bit the
inside of her cheek. “I can, uh, sense other people’s emotions and see their
memories.”

Nonplussed, Lance
nodded while his pen moved across his page. When he once again raised his eyes,
he looked at Jason.

“Jason
Cartwright, Bodega Bay by way of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, and I can increase
and decrease others’ Abilities—er, mutations.”

“Army?” Lance
asked.

“Yes, sir—Green
Beret.”

Lance raised his
eyebrows. “Colonel Marshall, the man in charge of the defenses around here,
will be very interested in your service record.”

“Colonel…is he
Army?” Jason asked.

Maintaining eye
contact, Lance shook his head. “Marine Corps.”

Jason frowned
thoughtfully, looking somewhat impressed. His eyes moved to the wall. “His
idea, I take it.”

Lance nodded. “It
wasn’t easy, but it’s proved more than worth it.”

“Has there been
trouble? Zoe tells us the area’s been clear for over a month—no sightings of
the ‘Lost Ones’—based on intel from
your
Town Council. If they
misinformed us, and we’ve been operating under false pretenses…” Jason’s voice
contained the subtlest hint of warning.

“Ah, no,” Lance
said, glancing at Zoe. “What they told you was accurate. But when we first put
up the wall, before Colonel Marshall and his people managed to dedicate much
effort to any sort of offensive strike on the Lost Ones, we had several attacks
that likely would have resulted in fatalities had the wall not already been in
place. But it
has
been over a month since we’ve seen any of the Lost Ones.”

Apparently
appeased, Jason nodded. “Glad to hear it.”

The others dismounted
and made their introductions and declarations.

“Very well,”
Lance said. “I just need each of you to answer one question, and I’ll be able
to tell if you’re lying.”

I raised my
eyebrows. So Lance was a human lie detector, like Ben had been. It went a long
way in explaining how he’d come by his current gig.

Lance looked at
Grayson. “Do you have any intention of doing something that could cause any
kind of harm to the people of New Bodega or to the settlement itself?”

“No,” Grayson
said, and one by one, the other seven of us echoed him.

Lance nodded. “Alright,
the rules here are simple and few, but essential to ensure the safety of our
people. Don’t steal, and don’t harm another person intentionally. If you end up
becoming permanent citizens of New Bodega, certain things will be required of
you—”

“Such as?” Jason
said.

“Do your
part—everyone has a role to fulfill here, and if you can’t come up with
something that benefits the settlement on your own, the Council will assign you
a job—don’t take more than you need, and never do anything that puts New Bodega
at risk. When a transgression has occurred, the Town Council makes all final
decisions regarding guilt. There is a single course of action on the rare
occasions that the Council determines a party is guilty: banishment from New
Bodega.”

A low, humorless
laugh rumbled in Jason’s chest. “A little harsh as a one-size-fits-all
punishment.”

Lance met his
eyes, cold smile for cold smile. “These are troubling times, and as I said, the
rules are simple and few. But New Bodega is a good place, filled with good
people, and
that
gives the threat of banishment almost more weight than
capital punishment. There aren’t many other places people can go.”