Out Of The Ashes (The Ending Series, #3) (41 page)

I took a step backward. “I have to
tell Jason. I—”

Sarah nodded. “Just…get Biggs
first…please.”

Sobbing, I turned to leave,
knowing this was the last time I was going to see my friend with any semblance
of the Sarah I knew and loved;
that
Sarah was losing. She tried to
stifle her crying as I walked away, and I had to fight the urge to fall to my
knees. Her anguish, as well as mine, was so crushing that I tried to convince
myself I didn’t have to tell Jason. That she wouldn’t act on it…

But I knew, deep down, that
eventually she would attempt to complete her mission, and when she did, I would
be dead. Sarah couldn’t be trusted, no matter how badly I wished things were
different.

I stepped into the sunshine and
immediately headed toward the stable, where Jason and Jake stood with Harper.
The moment my gaze met Jake’s, tears blurred my vision once more, and I
struggled to breathe.
A
nother sob escaped from
my throat as I stepped into Jake’s arms, and I nearly crumpled in his hold.
“Where’s Biggs?” I choked out. “Sarah wanted—”

A muffled gunshot came from inside
the ranch house.

Devoid of thought and driven by my
gut reaction, I spun, stumbling momentarily, and ran toward the house, wiping
the tears from my eyes so I could see. I called out for Sarah, oblivious to any
other cries or shouts around me as I flung open the screen door and flew into
the house.

As my worst fear was confirmed, I
fell to my knees in the entry. Sarah’s body was crumpled on the floor by the
antique chair in the corner.

Screaming her name, I scrambled
over to her and pulled her lifeless body into my arms. “Sarah,” I breathed,
guilt and sadness making it too difficult to speak. As I readjusted my hold on
her, my fingers splayed across a warm, wet opening in the back of her head, and
I could only feel wetness and clumped hair against my hand.

Screaming, this time in horror, I
let go, and her body fell limply back to the floor.

Biggs and Harper were suddenly
beside me, Harper pulling me away from Sarah’s body and shoving me into someone
else’s arms—into Dani’s.

I grabbed onto her, clasping her
as tightly as I could, never wanting to let go. I refused to accept what was
happening, unsure I ever
could
.

“I’m here, Zo,” Dani said. “I’m
here. It’ll be okay.”

I was shaking my head before I
realized what I was saying. “No, it won’t…it’s my fault.”

29

JAKE

MAY 25, 1AE

Bodega Bay, California

Jake walked toward the barn that
seemed to glow in the dimming light, two bottles of warm formula in his hands.
He couldn’t believe how much had happened in the last few hours. There were two
infant additions to the group, Sarah was dead, and Biggs was so despondent he’d
become a completely different person. And for reasons Jake didn’t entirely
understand, Zoe had been inconsolable. Although Sarah had been Zoe’s close
friend, there was something else—something in the way that Jason looked at her,
in the way that Dani consoled her, in the way that Gabe and Becca hovered
nearby—that made him think Sarah’s death was more than it seemed.

“—know we can’t tell him the truth,
Zo.” Jake could barely hear Dani’s voice over the crickets and evening breeze.
“We can’t tell
any
of them the truth. Not until we know who the other
Monitor is.”

Jake stopped in the doorway,
curious but not wanting to intrude on Dani and Zoe’s whispered conversation.

Dani peered over at him, her eyes widening
with surprise.

“He already knows, sort of,” Zoe
said, shrugging Dani’s concern away before her eyes quickly drifted back down to
the baby girl in her arms.

For an instant, Dani seemed
worried, but then she finally gave Jake a weak smile. Like Zoe, she gazed back
down at the baby boy she was holding.

Remembering the bottles in his
hands, Jake strode over to the picnic table where the two women were sitting
and crouched between them. “Here,” he said softly and handed them each a
bottle. “Chris said you’d need these.”

Dani accepted one before her gaze
shifted to Zoe, expectant.

“He won’t even look at them,” Zoe
said, her voice hoarse and distant. She continued to rock the infant cradled in
the crook of her arm.

“Zo, Jake brought the babies’ bottles.
I don’t know about that little princess, but this monster’s getting hungry.”

As if on cue, the baby girl began
to fuss. Absently, Zoe reached for the bottle Jake was holding out to her.
“They need names…”

Jake swallowed thickly. “Biggs
said he wanted to talk to Sarah about naming them after his mother and father,”
he offered, finally getting Zoe’s attention.

Her bloodshot eyes met his.
“Really?”

Jake nodded. “Ellie and Everett.”

Her eyes began to shimmer, and she
returned her attention to the tiny little girl. “Sarah should be here…feeding
them…naming them…”

“It’s not your fault, Zo. Sarah
wasn’t herself; she wasn’t
Sarah
.”

As much as Jake wanted to know
what exactly had happened, to know how much truth was intertwined with the
story he’d put together in his mind, he couldn’t bring himself to ask. Not when
Zoe was so distraught.

Zoe shook her head and squeezed
her eyes shut. “But she was, don’t you see?” she said to Dani. “She killed
herself so she wouldn’t hurt me…it’s
my
fault…”

“No,” Dani said, her tone firm.
“It’s not.”

Zoe craned her neck to look back
at her friend.

“It’s not
your
fault, Zo.
It’s Dr. Wesley’s fault. It’s the
General’s
fault.”

Zoe didn’t say anything; instead
she peered down at the infant in Dani’s arms. “Everett and Ellie…I hope that’s
what he picks.”

“Harper’s talking to him now,”
Jake said as he stood. “Hopefully he’ll come around soon.”

“Is Biggs still keeping to the
living room?” Dani asked as she gazed up at him.

Jake nodded. “He’s not ready to
leave yet.”

“And what exactly is Harper going
to say to him?” Zoe asked bitterly. “That it was postpartum depression? That
Sarah was so depressed she took her own life?” She shook her head. “It’s a
lie.”

“It’s the only option we have
right now, Zo, unless we want to put everyone else in danger.”

“You mean put me and Jason in
danger,” Zoe corrected.

Dani took a deep, steadying
breath. “And what makes you think that no one else will be caught up in this
shit storm? We can’t risk telling Biggs, for
everyone’s
sake.” She
glanced down at Everett. “For
their
sake.”

Approaching footsteps brought
their attention to the barn door. Harper paused in the doorway before striding
inside.

“How is he?” Zoe asked.

Harper shook his head. “He’s
angry,” he said simply and sat down on the opposite side of the picnic table.
“He doesn’t understand that this happens sometimes…that it can be too much.”

Jake could tell by the despondency
in Harper’s voice, the sadness, that he truly believed that was what had
happened.

“We should give him more time,”
Dani said.

Harper rested his elbows on the
table and rubbed his hands over his face. “Jason and Ky are digging a grave.
We’ll bury her tonight and give Biggs some time to process before we move on.”

Zoe held the bottle to Ellie’s mouth
as the infant began to gurgle and fuss more loudly. “Does he want to see them
yet?”

Harper gazed down at the two swaddled
newborns, then up at Zoe. “No, not yet. He’s not thinking clearly right now,
Baby Girl. He—”

“He blames them,” she finished for
him.

“They have us until he comes
around. They’ll be fine.”

Zoe nodded, but she didn’t seem to
be listening, nor did she seem to notice as a tear rolled down her cheek.

Jake hated that this would become
just one more unsettling memory to add to those that already haunted her.

30

DANI

MAY 26, 1AE

Petaluma, California

“Should be just
up ahead,” Jason said to me, pointing through a break in the trees lining the
left side of the country road. We were on the floor of a shallow valley
surrounded by a gently rolling sea of emerald—grasses, low shrubs, and a few
clusters of wild oaks here and there, the largest of which spread out beyond a
several-acre field beside the road. Jason glanced down at the map he’d folded
to show this specific part of Sonoma County and added, “Just beyond that patch
of woods.”

He stopped his
chestnut horse, and Wings drew to a halt beside the gelding without me having
to ask. Turning in his saddle, Jason scanned the rest of our somber group,
spread out in a loose column behind us. It jarred me every time I looked at the
wagon and
didn’t
see Sarah sitting on its high bench seat.

“Let’s hold up
here,” Jason called out. “Let Dani, Zoe, and Ky do their thing.”

Zoe and Ky guided
their horses up to the head of the caravan, and the three of us took turns
doing “our thing.” Thankfully, neither Zoe nor Ky found anything of note in
their mental examination of the valley.

We only continued
our trek to the appointed farm once my animal scouts had scanned the area
around each of the farm buildings, reporting that there were no signs of two-legs
and that, according to a drake, there had been none since his hen’s ducklings
had hatched. He showed me an image of baby ducks that had to be at least a
couple weeks old.

Several hundred
yards later, there was a longer gap in the windbreak of trees lining the road,
and I caught a glimpse of several large structures. They were the first
buildings we’d seen since entering the secluded little valley, and each had
weathered wooden siding and orangish roof shingles that, even from a distance,
looked relatively new.

“That must be
it,” I said to nobody in particular, and a sudden thrill of excitement made me
bounce a little in my saddle.

Jason was
glancing at me sideways, a small smile playing on his lips.

I forced myself
to be still and shrugged, feeling a little ashamed to be showing so much
giddiness so soon after Sarah…after the chaos the group had been through the
previous day. But the shame didn’t decrease my giddiness; if anything, it only
fanned it higher. This place—this cluster of farm buildings surrounded by
fenced-in pastures and patches of oak trees and land just begging to be
converted into vegetable gardens and fields of grains—this was our chance for a
fresh start. This was our chance to settle down someplace new to all of us,
leaving behind the horrors and sadness and disturbing memories of everything
we’d experienced beyond these hills.

Wings picked up
on my excitement and sped up, first to a fast walk, then to a trot, until she
was cantering up the road. I laughed, unable to hold in the joy of running with
Wings—a feeling I’d once allowed myself to feel
through
her, but now had
to settle for experiencing from the saddle. I caught flashes of a large white
building through the trees, glimpses of what I assumed was the farmhouse.

When Wings and I
reached the gravel driveway flanked by two fenced-in pastures, my assumption
was confirmed, and my mouth fell open. The house was huge. And gorgeous. And
belonged in a museum.

As Wings drew to
a stop in front of a wrought-iron gate set between two wide stone piers, I
stared at the house at the end of the drive and waited for the others to catch
up. Maybe I should’ve expected our new home to be this impressive. Maybe I
should’ve assumed that the New Bodega Town Council would direct us toward the
farm most able to hold us all in relative comfort. Maybe I should’ve let myself
believe that, for once, something good would be coming our way. But I hadn’t,
and that alone made the sight so much more wondrous.

Fifty yards ahead,
the gravel driveway gave way to a wide, two-story Victorian farmhouse that
gleamed like a beacon shouting, “Welcome home! You’re finally
home
!” It
was painted a yellow so pale it could easily be mistaken as white, with white
window trim as well as white columns and a white bannister wrapping around the
front and sides, separating a wraparound porch from the lawn below. Whitewashed
stairs led up to the porch and a dark-stained, screened-off front door, to the
right of which were a couple of large, wooden rocking chairs.

The patch of
dense woods we’d seen from the road crept up on the left side of the house. An
old wooden cottage sat across from it, and beyond that, I could see a cluster
of farm buildings surrounding a wide, gravel roundabout.

The whole scene
was almost laughably idyllic.
Grams would’ve loved this place,
I
thought, and for the first time in a long time, thinking of her didn’t bring
more sadness than fond remembrance.

At the sound of
hooves and cart wheels on pavement, I looked over my shoulder to find Jason
still hanging back in the lead of the caravan. He was watching me, smiling and
shaking his head, as his horse—and behind him, the rest of our animals and
people—slowly closed the distance between us.

I placed my hands
on my hips and raised my eyebrows, feigning offense. “What?”

“I just love
watching you ride,
really
ride…that’s all,” Jason said as his horse came
to a halt on the left side of Wings. He reached for my hand and lifted it up to
his lips, pressing a gentle kiss against the smooth wooden ring on my third
finger.

Happiness flooded
me, and I looked away, focusing on the gate, on the fields on either side of
the driveway, on the gravel itself…on anything but Jason. It felt wrong to be
happy, and self-loathing quickly replaced my joy.

Carlos, sitting
atop Arrow, rode up to sit on my right side. The wagon, driven by Grayson, came
to a halt on the gravel at the base of the driveway, the cart stopping behind
it, and the rest of the horses, riderless and ridden, milling in the road.

“What’s the
holdup?” Chris asked as she guided Cookie in to squeeze between Carlos and the
fence. “Oh, a gate.
Great
.”

Jason glanced
over his shoulder. “Mase! We need your strength up here.”

There was a loud
thump, quickly followed by the crunching of gravel under boots as Mase jogged
up to the front of the caravan, stopping behind our mounts. “What do you need
me to do?”

Jason pointed to
the center of the gate. “Can you force it open?”

After an
unconcerned shrug, Mase made his way around Jason’s horse to the gate, stopping
in the dead center. He wrapped his hands around the second bar from the middle
on either side, took a deep breath, and pushed. Groaning, the gate doors slowly
moved inward, a few inches, then a foot.

I held my breath,
waiting…waiting…waiting…

There was a metal
thwang
, and Mase stumbled forward as the gates
opened with no further resistance.

“Thank you,
Mase,” Jason said with a nod. He nudged his horse forward, leading our people
up the driveway. Looking back at me, he flashed one of his increasingly
frequent, though no less devastating, smiles and uttered the same words I’d
been thinking since the farmhouse first came into view.

“Welcome home.”

~~~~~

Annie screamed, but
it wasn’t the squeal of joy we were all so used to hearing from her. It was a
scream of outrage…of fear…of danger.

I froze in the
middle of slipping Wings’s saddle off and met Jason’s eyes as he unsaddled his
own horse. Without a word, I dropped the saddle on the gravel, turned on my
heel, and sprinted in the direction of Annie’s mind signature; it was just
beyond the opposite side of the farmhouse. I didn’t think I’d ever run so fast
in my entire life.

Again, Annie
screamed.

Jack raced past
me as I sped across the overgrown lawn in front of the house and down the
gentle slope on the other side. I pumped my arms harder, forced my legs to move
even faster.

As a large pond
came into view, half surrounded by wild oaks, I finally caught sight of Annie.
Vanessa was struggling with her in the water. It looked like the small woman
was trying to hold Annie
under
the water, but couldn’t quite get a good
enough grip on her.

“Vanessa!” I
shouted. “Stop!”

The insane young
woman paused and looked up at me just long enough for Annie to lash out. Her
little fingernails dragged down Vanessa’s neck, doing nearly as much damage as
a small animal’s claws would have done, and Vanessa shrieked. But she also
released Annie.

The little girl
floundered away, crawling toward the pond’s edge.

Jack leapt into
the water only a few seconds before me, snarling and snapping at Vanessa, but
not actually striking. I aimed for Annie, yanking her up and out of the water
and carrying her the rest of the way toward the edge of the pond.

She clung to me,
sniffling and shaking and making pathetic whining noises. I didn’t bother
trying to disengage her surprisingly strong little arms from around my neck or
her legs from around my waist, because Jason and Carlos were only a few strides
from the pond, and pretty much everyone else wasn’t far behind them.

Jason and Carlos
had no trouble overpowering Vanessa. Jason dragged her up to the grass with
Carlos right behind him, turned to mutter something to Carlos, then thrust
Vanessa toward her younger brother. Reeling in his carefully restrained anger,
Jason approached the spot where Annie and I were huddled in the unkempt grass,
soaking wet and shaking and stinking of pond water.

He knelt on the
ground and wrapped his arms around both of us. “Are you okay?”

I nodded, still
breathing hard from the mad dash across the farm.

“But I
had
to,”
Vanessa shrieked, drawing both Jason’s and my attention.

Jason pulled away
just enough that he could watch Carlos attempt to reason with his
not-so-harmless sister.

“You had to
what
,
Nessa?” Carlos was crouched in front of Vanessa, who was
sitting with her legs curled under her and rubbing her hands up and down her
arms.

“Give her a bath.
I had to wash her, don’t you see? I
had
to!”

Carlos shook his
head, the gesture giving off a sense of hopelessness. “No, I
don’t
see.
Why would you think—”

“I don’t think. I
know
!” she shrieked. Standing up on her knees, she reached for Carlos,
clawlike fingers latching onto his sleeves. “Mom told me I’d lose her if I
didn’t do it. She doesn’t love me anymore. I’m losing her, and Mom said I had
to act more like
her
”—she threw her arm in the general direction of
Jason, Annie, and me—“so Annie would love me like she’s starting to love her. I
had
to!”

Chris approached
the pair of siblings cautiously, holding out her hands. “Shhh…” she murmured
when Vanessa turned wide, wild eyes on her. “Hush now, hon.” Stopping behind Vanessa,
she reached down and took hold of the smaller woman’s arm to pull her to her
feet. “Come on. Let’s get you dried off and settled in.”

After a silent
exchange and a nod, Chris and Carlos each held onto one of Vanessa’s arms while
they led her back across the lawn toward the farm buildings.

Closing my eyes,
I took a deep breath, hugged Annie tighter, and leaned my cheek on Jason’s
shoulder. “What are we going to do with her?” I asked softly.

With a heavy
exhale, Jason shrugged.

I pulled away
just enough that I could see his face. “Do you think—do you think that Colonel
Marshall might have been right? That we should—that we’ll have to, um, you
know…
put her down
?
” I said, mouthing the last part.

“No.” There was a
surprising amount of conviction in Jason’s eyes.

“How can we be
sure she won’t try something like this again? She could’ve drowned Annie.”

Jason hesitated,
then said, “We’ll keep her locked up—in a stable stall, like we did back at the
ranch.”

“Forever?” I
said, my brow furrowed. “But she’ll be miserable.”

Again, Jason
shrugged. “As miserable as Carlos would be if he lost her again?” He shook his
head resolutely. “The kid’s been through enough. I’m not putting him through
that.”

I sighed and
pulled away further, uncrossing my legs in preparation to rise. “I suppose
you’re right.”

~~~~~

About an hour
later, after Annie and I had washed off in the creek that fed the pond and were
dressed in cleaner, drier clothes, I walked the little girl back toward the
farmhouse. We were just approaching the front steps leading up to the porch, me
eager to get a peek inside, when Ky opened the front door.

“Let her air out
a bit first, ’kay?” he said through the screen door.