Out Of The Ashes (The Ending Series, #3) (45 page)

“I am not sure
I’m cut out for this, D,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

I paused, turning
just enough that I could see her through the stall door. “You volunteered to
take care of them…”

“You would’ve
done the same thing in my place.” She gave me a sidelong glance before she
peered down at the baby she was holding; I assumed it was Ellie, given the pink
blanket the infant was swaddled in.

“I suppose…” I
continued shoveling. “So, I forgot to ask you about this earlier—I heard you
screaming in your sleep again last night. Are those dreams about your mom still
bothering you?”

“I don’t
know…yeah.” Zoe was quiet for a moment, then she added, “It’s just, all of this
stuff about her creating the Virus and having this other family…it just seems
so crazy, you know? I mean, my
mom
is the fucking doctor responsible for
it all.” She leaned against one of the stable doors and let out a slow, deep
breath. “It’s a lot to take in, I guess.”

As though she
were responding to a cue, our resident Crazy squealed, the high-pitched noise
trailing off with a girlish giggle.

Which Ellie
didn’t like at all. There was a brief windup period, filled with cute little
noises, but soon she was wailing away, and bringing Everett right along with
her.

“Uh-oh,” Annie
remarked wisely from the aisle floor. Jack, who’d been enjoying the belly rub
of all belly rubs, rolled onto his feet and, hackles rising, started to growl
in Vanessa’s direction.

“Stop that,”
I told him, and he sat, quieting
immediately, though not taking his eyes from the locked stall at the end.

And all the
while, the babies cried like their lives depended on it.

“Damn it!”
Standing, Zoe crossed the aisle and entered the stall, thrusting the distraught
infant at me.

I held out my
shovel. “What am I—”

“Just for a sec,
D, please?” Zoe said, barely giving me time to set the shovel against the wall
and peel off my work gloves before leaving me with Ellie and rushing out of the
stall to pick up Everett. “Shhh…shhh…shhh, baby boy. Please, Everett…please go
back to sleep.” She walked around in circles with the baby, cooing and shushing
and rocking him gently. “Shhh…shhh…shhh…”

Unfortunately,
Everett didn’t seem to understand.

Frowning, I
looked down at Ellie. Remarkably,
she’d
stopped crying. She stared up at
me with enormous blue eyes and started making bubbles with her mouth, and I
couldn’t help but smile.

“Hey there,
little girl…you’re not so scary, are you?” I said as I walked through the open
stall door leading out to the pasture to bask in the afternoon sunlight.
“You’re just a little snuggle bug, huh?”

Ellie blinked.

“Yes you are,” I
cooed. “You’re just the cutest little princess there ever was.”

I heard Zoe’s
low, soft chuckle from behind me and froze, caught in the act of being a total
softy. Slowly, I turned around.

Zoe stood in the
exterior stall door, Everett in her arms, soothed into silent sleep. She was
shaking her head and clicking her tongue at me in disbelief. “First Annie, now
Ellie…it’s only a matter of time, D.” Her rueful smile broadened.

“A matter of time
for what?”

“Babies,” she
mouthed, her brow dancing excitedly as she sidled up next to me and nudged my
arm with her elbow.

I readjusted my
hold on Ellie, shifting her head higher, and sighed. “A matter of time?” I
wanted my own family with Jason…someday. But not yet.
Definitely
not
yet. Our world was just too unstable. Plus, we already had two infants, a
little girl, and an adolescent boy to take care of on the farm. Any more kids
might break us.

“I can see the
gleam in your eyes, D. I know you want to see what it would be like to have
your own…” Her teasing ceased and suddenly her eyes turned pleading. “Just for
a little while, as least?”

I rolled my eyes,
nearly snorting. “I knew there was an ulterior motive in there somewhere…” I
flashed her my most innocent smile and batted my eyelashes. “Sure, if you want
to muck out the stable that badly, I’ll take the twins for a while. You can
shovel, and I’ll watch the munchkins.”

Zoe’s smile
withered under the threat of yards of moldy hay and manure. She glanced down at
Everett. “I think I’ve had my share of poop for a
long
time.”

“Ahem,” someone
said from the stable aisle behind Zoe.

We both jumped a
little, Zoe spinning while she did.

Ky lounged
against the stall’s doorframe. “Dinner’s ready, and Jason and Grayson want everyone
up there so they can do one of their patented dinner–team meeting things. They’re
waiting up at the tables now.”

I forced a scowl
to hide a smile. He’d surprised us on purpose, I knew it. “Did Jason finish the
windmill?” It had looked a lot more like a multiday project than a
one-afternooner, so I doubted it.

Ky shrugged and
started for the stable’s backdoor. “I’ll be up in a bit…gotta track down the
others,” he said over his shoulder.

“Alrighty…Jason
summons, we come.” I walked back into the stable to retrieve Annie and my dog
while Zoe started gathering the twins’ things into a baby bag one-handed. I
paused in the stable doorway to wait for her and Everett.

Zoe waved a hand
at me. “You guys go on up. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Okeydokey.” With
Annie and Jack in tow and Ellie sleeping soundly in my arms, I emerged from the
stable and headed straight for the three round tables we’d moved from the barn
to the flagstone patio surrounding the behemoth of a brick oven. Jason, Carlos,
Mase, and Grayson were sitting at one of the tables, Jason deep in conversation
with Grayson while simultaneously taking notes. Camille was standing in front
of the oven’s arched mouth, using spatulas to flip what looked like some sort
of biscuit or flatbread cooking in cast-iron skillets. The rest of the group
had yet to arrive.

When we were
about halfway between the stable and the patio, Carlos spotted my little
entourage and nudged Jason, leaning in to murmur something, and Jason looked
our way. He’d been writing in his notebook, but his pen stilled almost as soon
as his eyes landed on me. The corners of his mouth curved upward the barest
amount, and his expression, filled with yearning more than desire, seared
through my heart. Beside him, Carlos was grinning from ear to ear.
Jason said something to Grayson and,
pushing back his chair, stood and started striding toward us.

“Jason!” Annie
squealed. She ran ahead, throwing herself into his waiting arms.

He lifted her up
by the armpits, spinning her around in a circle and earning a second, prolonged
squeal. When he finally set her down again, he was laughing, and Annie’s face
was flushed with excitement.

“We scooped
poop!” she told him, pride emanating from her.

“Did you?” He
held onto one of her hands, leading her back the way she’d come. “You’re
turning into quite the farmer. We’ll have to start calling you Farmer Annie,
soon.”

Annie nodded
enthusiastically, but Jason didn’t see it because his eyes were locked on me.

“I think Camille
needs your help,” Jason said to the little girl, and she skipped away. When he
reached me, Jason raised one hand to clasp the back of my neck and leaned in,
brushing his lips against my cheek. “Well, hello there.”

Hiding a smile, I
pulled back and peered up into his jewel-blue eyes. “What’s put you in such a
good mood?”

“You.”

Skeptical, I
frowned; I smelled like horse manure and sweat, and I was fairly certain I had
clown hair, so it definitely wasn’t my present state that was inspiring such
happiness. My eyes narrowed and I peeked around him at Carlos. “What’d Carlos
say to you?” Because whatever the teenager had said had to be the spark.

Placing his palms
on either side of my face, his fingers forming a gentle cage around my head,
Jason leaned in again, this time brushing his lips against mine. He lingered,
giving me the sweetest, most tender kiss possible. Pulling away, he smiled. “I
believe it was…‘Check it out.’”

“‘Check it out?’
That
made you all…uber-happy
?
” I pulled back and studied his face. “
Why
?
”

“If you’d seen
you, with the baby and Annie and Jack, you’d be smiling, too,” he said as his
focus shifted to a spot behind me. He raised his voice. “How’re the twins
today?”

I glanced over my
shoulder to see Zoe approaching, Everett nestled peacefully in her arms. “See
for yourself,” she said as she neared. She paused just long enough to say,
“Consider it practice,” barely containing a smile as she handed Everett to
Jason, then continued on her way up to the tables.

I rolled my eyes.
Why she suddenly wanted to add more screaming babies to the mix was beyond me.

Jason stared down
at the baby that had suddenly appeared in his hands, then looked at me,
eyebrows raised in curiosity. “What was that all about?”

I smiled wryly.
“Let’s just say she’s not beyond using any means necessary to finagle some help
with the babies. As it turns out, motherhood is hard, having twins is harder,
and raising someone
else’s
twins is turning out to be the hardest of
all.”

~~~~~

An hour later, we
were all seated at the tables on the patio, empty bowls in front of us and only
a few stray biscuits remaining in the baskets set in the center of each table. Zoe’d
retreated into the farmhouse with the twins to put them to bed as soon and
Jason and I had handed them back over to her, and she’d yet to reemerge.

Harper reached
for another biscuit and glanced at Jason, who was sitting on my left. “So,
what’s the plan for tomorrow? Infirmary’s good to go, or as good as it can be
with the supplies we’ve got right now.”

Jason brushed
biscuit crumbs off his hands while he chewed his final bite. He nodded slowly
as he swallowed. “We’ve got to head into town, stock up on what we need to get
this place running.”

“I’d like to come
along,” Harper said before tearing off a quarter of the biscuit and popping it
into his mouth.

Again, Jason
nodded, the motion slow and contemplative. “That works.” He shifted his eyes to
me. “You up for a day trip?”

I smiled but
shook my head. For some reason I couldn’t explain, I felt like if I left the
farm, I might never return. And beyond that, I wasn’t the right person for the
job, not while my Ability was burned out. “Much as I’d like to go with you, I
think I’m more useful here, with the animals.” When Jason didn’t respond, only
blinked, I continued, “Ky’s just as good at scouting, anyway”—I looked at Ky,
who raised a shoulder—“and
way
better in a sticky situation. You three
boys go…scout stuff…do manly things.”

Meeting Jason’s
eyes, I stared into their unfathomable depths until he shifted his attention to
Ky and Harper.

Out of the corner
of my eye, I caught Ky watching us with a strange intensity, but when I looked
at him fully, whatever I’d seen was gone, and he wore his usual lazy smile.

“Right, so here’s
the deal,” Jason said. “We’ve got four objectives tomorrow: assess Petaluma for
any present or future dangers to the farm, load up on the seeds on this list…”
He paused to tear a piece of paper out of the notebook he’d been writing in
when he’d been talking to Grayson, handing it to Harper. “I know there are a
few seed banks in town. They were big on sustainability and that
grow-your-own-food shit here, before…”

“Good for us,”
Harper commented.

“That it is,”
Jason said with a nod. “We’ll also load up on medical supplies, and search any
bookstores, libraries, or anywhere else we can think of for books on”—he looked
down at his open notebook—“managing an orchard, gardening, sanitation,
irrigation, food preservation, composting, beekeeping…”

“I’m glad you’re
staying tomorrow,” Grayson said from across the table, and it took me a moment
to realize he’d been speaking to me. “I know you have some knowledge about
herbs and such, and I thought you might be interested in converting the
vegetable garden, or at least part of it, into an herbal garden.”

“Oh…yeah. That
would be great, actually.” His timing was perfect, uncanny even, considering
what Carlos and I had talked about briefly during our walk up to the well pump.

Grayson smiled,
excitement lighting his eyes.

Jason gave my
shoulder a squeeze and leaned in to press a kiss against my cheek. “Are you
done? Because I am…”

Harper and Ky
reached for another biscuit at the same time, and as their fingers brushed,
Harper jumped to his feet, knocking his chair backward, and pulled his pistol.
He leveled it at Ky’s chest.

Ky did the same,
only he aimed his gun at Jason.

The rest of us
froze.

The backdoor to
the farmhouse slammed open, and Zoe yelled, “Jason! Ky’s one of them!”