Into The Fire (The Ending Series)

by Lindsey Fairleigh

  “I thought you might need this,” he said, holding up a small metal case. I desperately hoped it held the neutralizer. Without pretense, he removed an inoculator and a glass vial, fitted them together, and injected the neon liquid into my neck.

  Within seconds, I felt the General’s influence erode until it released me completely. Luckily, it wasn’t like the previous time, when all my old, painful memories had resurfaced at once. Unluckily, it was physical pain that threatened to drown me. I stiffened, shutting my eyes tightly while I struggled to hold on to consciousness under the sheer agony. I gritted my teeth. I won’t give in! Slowly, it abated, fading to a more manageable level.

  I reached for Gabe’s hand with my good arm and gave it a squeeze. “Thanks. Let’s get out of here.” Tugging on his hand, I pulled him through the doorway, took a single step into the hallway, and froze again. At least that time it wasn’t because of the General’s commands.

  A pretty, dark-haired woman wearing jeans and a navy-blue hooded jacket waited with Mase and Camille, her words speeding and her gestures emphatic as she spoke to them. I caught snippets of what she was saying…had a vision…slaughter…warned them…uprising…all Re-gens…so much blood…

  She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her. “Gabe, who…?”

  “Ah, yes,” Gabe said. “This is the woman I told you about…RV-one. I mean, Becca.”

  “Becca,” I repeated, and her familiarity slipped into place. I’d recognized her from the photo in her dossier. I was staring at Rebecca Vaughn, the formerly dead sister of Jake Vaughn. I’d forgotten all about her, about trying to find her and taking her with me when I fled. “How’d you—”

  “Not now. Right now we need to run.”

  As if our friends on the outside heard him, the power flickered several times, then failed completely, leaving us in total darkness. It was my signal.

  “Aw…you’ve got to be kidding me,” Gabe muttered.

  “No, it’s good. It’s Carlos,” I told him. “It’s my people. They’re here.”

  “I’ve seen this,” Becca said off to the left, her voice raspy. The way she said “seen” reminded me of her Ability—prophetic visions. “We must go now. The rebellion will only distract Father and his guards for so long, and not all are restrained by CL-one’s power. They will be here soon. I know the way; I’ve seen it. Come. We must hold hands.”

  Gabe didn’t give me a chance to protest. One second I was standing, holding his hand and gaping into the darkness, the next I was pulled into a fast walk.

  Mentally, I found Ray, who I was still connected to by a thin tether. I pictured Jason and showed her the image. By the time Ray reached him, drawing me to his exact location, we were outside and running down the street, the half-moon glowing like a beacon in the night sky. I was surprised to discover that my concrete prison had been in the basement of the communications building.

  My telepathy was slipperier than usual, making it almost impossible to lock on to Jason. Finally, after multiple failed attempts, I made contact. “We’re on our way,” I told him, barely managing to complete the thought before my telepathy sputtered and winked out of commission. I’d burned it out—again. Shit!

  But I didn’t have time to worry about my damaged Ability. I needed to focus on my feet, on keeping them moving. Each step jarred my arm, making invisible shards of glass stab into the swollen flesh.

  At least I’m not dead, I told myself.

  31

  ZOE

  MARCH 22, 1AE

  Jason shot up from his squatted position. “She’s coming,” he said as he started pacing.

  With a sporadic, increasingly loud hum, the electricity flickered back to life, once more illuminating the darkness beyond the golf course. My head snapped to Carlos, who was still unsteady on his feet from overexerting his Ability for the first time.

  “Fuck, they’re back in business,” Jason spat. A few seconds later, the humming dissipated and the Colony faded back into blackness.

  Carlos dropped to his knees, his breathing labored and his palms seeming to be the only thing keeping him from falling completely over.

  Without hesitation, Chris ran to his side. “Carlos! Why would you…” she asked, her words trailing off as she wrapped an arm around him, trying to soothe him.

  I began to feel strange…foggy. Is it his exhaustion? Anticipation?

  “They’re going to be looking for the source of that, now,” Harper said.

  I glanced around at the others. “What do we do?” I was growing dizzy, and I blinked the sensation away. A splitting pain shot through my mind, and I stumbled forward.

  Jake caught me by the arm and pulled me against him. “Are you alright?”

  I nodded, squeezing his hand in reassurance before pointing to a willow tree a few yards away. “I think Carlos’s emotions are getting to me. I just need to sit down for a minute.”

  Although I felt his apprehension, Jake helped me over to the tree, easing me down to sit at its base. “I’ll be fine,” I said, leaning my head back against the trunk, trying to breathe away the dense fog creeping into my mind.

  “Zoe!” Harper called from over near Carlos. “Bring me the med-kit from my saddle bag.”

  When I tried to stand, Jake’s arm eased me back against the tree. “I’ll get it.” I could feel his concern and conceded.

  Jake jogged toward the horses, who were drinking out of the pond.

  “Zoe.” In my muddled mind, I thought I heard Dani’s soft, frightened voice. “Zoe.”

  I tensed. It is her.

  The voice wasn’t in my head, though, like her normal telepathic communications, but echoing all around me. I couldn’t hear the others, my mind too fuzzy to concentrate on anything other than Dani’s voice.

  “Dani?” I whispered.

  “Zoe!” I heard the acute panic in her tone. “Where are you, Zoe? I need your help…please!”

  Oh my God, Dani! I rose unsteadily to my feet as I looked for her in the darkness—running toward me, sending me a signal, something…anything. I squinted, trying to see her, as my heart raced.

  “Come find me, Zoe!” With her words, an image of Dani hiding in a copse of trees at the border of the Colony came to mind, and I knew where to find her.

  I turned to call for the others, who were all huddled around Carlos. Can’t they hear her? But before I could call to them, I was distracted by Dani’s urgency and fear. It felt like I was the one hiding, scared and alone. I needed to get to the trees. I needed to help her.

  Without a second thought, I ran straight for the Colony…toward Dani.

  32

  DANI

  MARCH 22, 1AE

  Our crazed dash from the communications building to the golf course was the longest mile I’d ever run. It was as though the laws of physics chose that moment to rearrange, expanding distance and slowing time; the distance was endless, the time it took to cross it, eternal.

  Exhaustion clawed at my hamstrings and quadriceps while pain-induced adrenaline raged through my body, keeping me from collapsing into a trembling, twitching pile of limbs. My heart pounded, warring with my lungs for space, and my vision narrowed to a dark tunnel seeming to accent my route with silver and red starlight.

  Swollen and bruised, my face slowly stopped aching. The shards of pain shooting up my arm dulled, and my feet turned leaden. They belonged to someone else, someone who had the will to keep moving…fleeing…surviving.

  We were getting closer to the south end of the Colony, closer to the golf course and my friends and safety…so close.

  Two men dressed in brown long underwear and wearing yellow armbands sprinted directly across our path only a few yards ahead. Three more people—Re-gens, based on the scrubs they were wearing—followed them, close on their heels.

  “What—” I gasped and stumbled.

  Gabe’s arm latched around my waist, gripping so tightly that it was almost painful. Or, it would’ve been painful if I’d been able to feel a single thing
in my body. I could use my limbs, clumsily, but they didn’t follow my brain’s commands well enough to keep me moving ahead. If it hadn’t been for Gabe, I would’ve been on the ground.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Gabe grated hoarsely as he dragged me along beside him. “If they’re not after us, we just ignore them and keep going.”

  “But…who—why—what’s going on?” I managed to ask between several short breaths.

  “The Re-gens rebelled. Becca had a vision of Herodson ordering and carrying out their mass-execution…and told them about it. There are enough of them to give Herodson’s forces a good fight.”

  I was shocked, or as surprised as I could’ve been on the verge of passing out from exhaustion. A Re-gen rebellion on the night of our escape was an eerie coincidence. “Good…for them,” I breathed. And then for minutes, or maybe hours, all I did was run.

  With the power down, passing through the usually electrified chain-link fence surrounding the Colony and into the overgrown golf course was easy enough. Camille was able to multitask with her Ability enough to tear a man-sized hole in the fence, allowing the five of us passage, and surprisingly, the border patrol guards were absent. They must have been called away from the fences to help squash the rebellion. It was weirdly convenient, but I wasn’t about to complain.

  Suddenly, shouting surrounded me, a chaotic miasma of sound that sent my head spinning. I couldn’t make sense of it.

  “Hurry!”

  “Get to the horses! They’re here…”

  “Dani? Holy fuck, what—?”

  “Help her! Please!”

  “What’s wrong with her? Let me see…”

  I scanned the darkness ahead of me, but all I could see were shadows. There were too many voices, too much confusion. I couldn’t tell who was saying what.

  “We need to go—now!”

  “No! We find Zoe first!”

  “What’s she doing here?”

  “Becca? How did you—”

  Hands jerked me away from Gabe’s supportive hold, jarring my broken arm. The new hands shook as they traveled over my face and clothes, searching.

  “Can you ride?” Belatedly, I realized the question had come from Jason. It was his hands that examined me, tender and trembling.

  “Her arm’s broken, and she almost dropped on the way here. I’d guess she’s on the verge of passing out.”

  That’s Gabe, I realized. No matter how hard I focused, coherent thought slipped further away.

  “Uh, guys? This one’s not looking so good.”

  “What are you talk—” Jason started to snap, but his words cut off as my knees gave out. He eased me to the ground, cradling me against his body. “Dani.” If he said anything more, I didn’t hear it.

  There was only silence…and darkness.

  In the past four months, I’d lost consciousness more than I had in the previous twenty-six years of my life—knocked out, drugged, or fainted. It was getting old.

  “Dani?” Jason whispered softly, his warm breath brushing my face. I wasn’t surprised to find his eyes inches from mine, sapphire turned midnight-blue in the dark of night. They held so much emotion, so much fear and elation. Too much. They swallowed me, becoming my whole world.

  Heart soaring, I raised my left hand to his face. Before I reached him, before I moved my arm a scant inch, pain enveloped me, and I whimpered. But I didn’t look away from his beautiful eyes.

  “It’s okay,” he murmured as he brushed a sweaty curl out of my face. “We’ll get you fixed up as soon as we get somewhere safe. No one else is going to hurt you. I’ve got you now.” Feather-light, he pressed his lips against mine.

  Someone else licked my cheek. Not someone…Jack!

  “Help me up?” I asked, pushing off the overgrown grass with my good hand. Beside me, my dog wagged his tail excitedly.

  Jason’s arms were gentle as he raised me to a sitting position and ran a hand up and down my spine. I maneuvered my feet under me, and carefully rose first to my knees, then my feet. I wasn’t standing for long.

  “Oh my God! Camille!” I wailed.

  Chris, Gabe, Harper, and Mase were kneeling around Camille, her body stretched out on the grass. I stumbled the several yards separating us and fell to the ground beside Mase, who was holding her head on his lap. Silvery moonlight made her paler than usual. She looked almost dead.

  “Is she okay?” I asked.

  Shocking the hell out of me, Camille’s eyes snapped open and focused on mine. “Dani,” she breathed. Dark, thick blood streamed from her nose, staining her lips and teeth a ghastly crimson. “Come closer.” Her voice was thin, strained.

  I did as she asked, leaning in so all she had to do was whisper. Dread solidified in my stomach when I noticed that her nose wasn’t the only thing bleeding. Less intensely, but no less frightening, blood leaked from her ears as well. Does that mean her brain is bleeding…like Frank’s?

  “I had to let go. I’m sorry.” She took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Let go? It’s fine, Camille.” I hadn’t noticed the tears leaking from my eyes until a sob bubbled up from my chest. “We did it…we made it out. We’re gonna be okay…you’re gonna be okay.”

  She smiled, and her gaze shifted to the man stroking her dark hair with intimate delicacy. “Giant?”

  “Yeah?” Mase’s voice was hoarse.

  “I have to tell you something…come here.”

  Mase leaned over her, turning his ear to her lips. I could see her jaw moving, but her words were too faint to hear. Mase’s eyebrows drew down, and he frowned as she spoke, but when she was done, his face hardened with resolve. He nodded and pulled away.

  Camille’s eyes didn’t leave him as she mouthed, “I love—” Abruptly they rolled back into her skull, and her mouth formed a small “O.” Her body starting jerking violently.

  “Hold her down!” Harper exclaimed, securing her legs. “She’s seizing!”

  Someone nudged me out of the way with careful forcefulness. Jason, I realized as I scooted off to the side, only to have Carlos crouch down and wrap a sturdy arm around me. Huddling together, we watched as Jason helped Gabe restrain Camille’s shoulders while Chris sat astride her, holding down her midsection, and Mase cradled her head. I’d never felt so useless.

  Almost as suddenly as they started, the tremors ceased. Camille was absolutely motionless. The others froze in place, seeming to hold their breath.

  “Is she…breathing?” I choked out. Shock had interrupted my tears, but the sorrow swelled anew in my chest. I did this…this is my fault…I asked her to…it’s my fault…

  “No pulse,” Harper said. He’d reached up to her wrist, though I hadn’t noticed him move.

  “Camille?” Mase sobbed, bending over her head. “Camille!”

  Chris shoved Jason’s shoulder and shouted, “Move him! We have to open her airway!”

  Jason met Gabe’s eyes and nodded once in Mase’s direction. They moved behind the Re-gen, crouching to drag him back several feet. He dragged Camille with him.

  “You have to let go, Mase, or they can’t help her!” I cried. His eyes met mine, pleading, and I crawled closer. “Let go, Mase, please. Let go.”

  After a breath—a lifetime—he did. Jason and Gabe tugged him backward, and Chris rose up on her knees, lifted Camille’s neck so her head tilted back, and swept a finger into her mouth, making sure her airway was clear. Locking her hands together, Chris placed them on Camille’s chest and glanced back at Harper. “I’ll do the chest compressions, you do the breaths?”

  Harper nodded and crawled around Camille’s body until he was kneeling by her head.

  “Now,” she said, then waited for him to act as Camille’s lungs before resuming compressions.

  Three times they went through the cycle with no change. Three times Chris barked, “Now,” and three times we all watched as Harper touched his mouth to Camille’s, offering her his breath. On the beginning of the fourth cycle, a strange, cackling sound
rang out above us, breaking through the repetitive sounds of CPR.

  “Kak-kak-kak. Kak-kak-kak.”

  I stared up into the starlit sky, searching for the source of the sound. A shape, white against the darkness, swooped down. It glided past, barely a few yards from my head, and repeated, “Kak-kak-kak. Kak-kak-kak.”

  “One of yours?” Jason asked, catching my eye. “It’s been following us since early this morning.”

  Understanding almost brought a smile to my face. “Ray!” Before I could reach out to the gleaming falcon with my mind, before I could even find out if my Ability worked, gunshots cracked in the not-too-far-off distance in the same direction Ray had come from. Is she warning us?

  An instant later, two people coalesced in the moon shadows between the trees separating our current stretch of grass from that of another hole.

  “Chris! Harper!” Jason hissed in warning as he rose to his feet. “Jake and Sanchez are returning. Sanchez says there’s no sign of her. You’ve got until they reach us to bring the girl back or call it.” He paused to study the two people sprinting toward us. “I’d say you’ve got thirty seconds, max.”

  I glanced around at my companions and then back out at the approaching runners, realizing Zoe was nowhere in sight. “Where’s Zoe?” I asked, gut clenching.

  Jason’s jaw tensed, but he did answer. “We don’t know.” It wasn’t much of an answer. “Can you ride?” Jason asked Mase, tossing him a pistol.

  Mase caught the gun and shrugged.

  “What do you mean? You don’t know where she is?” I shrieked. I shot a look at Chris, who was pumping Camille’s chest with renewed fervor. C’mon, Camille, breathe! “Zo came with you guys, right?”

  “She wandered off. Now we can’t find her.” Suddenly, Jason’s night-darkened eyes pinned me in place. “Can you feel her?”

  I opened myself up to my telepathy—or tried to—but I couldn’t reach it. “I can’t…I can’t feel anyone. Oh God, Zo!” I started to wring my hands but winced at the sharp stab of pain the motion caused. “Burnout. My telepathy’s not working at all,” I whispered, terrified. “We have to keep looking for her! We can’t just leave her!” Zoe…gone. Camille…dead. And why? So I can be with my friends again? My life’s not worth theirs! How could I be so selfish? How could I let them risk themselves for me? How could I—