The Ending Series: The Complete Series

by Lindsey Fairleigh

  “I’m not avoiding you, not exactly,” he finally said. “I want to give you your space…a chance to get used to things.”

  Zoe shook her head. “You’re all so worried I’ll see too much, so you avoid me. It just makes everything worse…harder.” She bent her knee and pulled it up, hugging it against her chest. “I want to feel normal, but how can I when everyone acts differently around me, when everyone tries to censor themselves…their memories?” She stared into the fire, lost in thought.

  Jake watched her as she bit the inside of her cheek. He’d never thought about it in that way.

  When he didn’t reply, Zoe peered at him, her eyes softening. “I know this must be hard for you, too, and I’m sorry I don’t remember you or us. But maybe if you just give me some time…” Her eyebrows pinched together, and her voice sounded near pleading.

  Jake studied her a moment. “I don’t want to rush you,” he said, and he forced himself to say the next words, wanting, more than anything, to comfort her. “You’ll remember…soon.”

  Zoe offered him a weak smile. “Maybe.” Her ambiguity was evident.

  “You don’t think so?”

  Zoe shrugged. “I feel like it would’ve happened already, but…” She shook her head, her hair falling around her face again. “Anyway, I just wanted you to know that you don’t have to avoid me…”

  Abruptly, she rose, and without thought, Jake reached for her hand.

  When she froze and glanced down at his fingers entwined with hers, a weak smile tugged at her lips. She cleared her throat. “Goodnight,” she whispered.

  “Goodnight,” he said, and he thought he felt Zoe squeeze his fingers slightly before letting go and walking away. He tried not to let his heart swell with too much hope as she returned to her spot on the other side of the fire, Sam and Tavis laughing with one another and smiling at her as she plopped down between them.

  6

  DANI

  MARCH 28, 1AE

  San Juan National Forest, Colorado

  I sat atop the bench of the chuck wagon, the highest spot in camp, keeping watch by staring out at the moonlit field of tall grasses and the wooded foothills beyond that. Not that the “keeping watch” part of keeping watch was strictly necessary now that my Ability had returned, even only partially; dozens of nocturnal creatures were linked into my telepathic network, ready to alert me of any incoming two-legs, and their senses were so much better than mine, even when I was paying super close attention. Which, I was a little ashamed to admit, I definitely wasn’t doing at the moment.

  Part of me was wondering what Jason was doing, since he’d originally been scheduled to be my watch partner tonight, and part of me couldn’t get enough of basking in the gentle touch of the non-human minds all around me. It was one of those things I hadn’t truly appreciated until I’d thought it was gone, maybe forever. I couldn’t help but dwell on the possibility that my relationship with Jason might be headed in that same direction.

  Apparently I was paying too much attention to those things, and not nearly enough to my surroundings. Someone touched my knee—clearly not a “dangerous” someone, since the animals hadn’t warned me, but that didn’t stop me from being startled. My left elbow nicked the armrest, and just that small impact sent a shock of pain branching out along my forearm.

  “Owww…” I scrunched up my face. Which also hurt, thanks to Clara getting a little too slap-happy with me during my time in one of the Colony’s subterranean interrogation rooms.

  “Careful,” Carlos murmured as he hauled himself up onto the wagon’s bench seat. He draped an arm over my shoulders and tucked me close against his side. Since my escape, he’d been hovering around me nearly as much as Jason had been, but unlike Jason, Carlos hadn’t built an impenetrable fortress—with a mote and alligators—around his emotions. Having Carlos around was comforting rather than draining. In the several months since we’d freed him from the mind-controlling clutches of a madwoman, he’d become the little brother I never had.

  I smiled up at him. He was a good half-foot taller than me, despite being only sixteen. But then, pretty much everyone was taller than me. Even Sam was taller than me, and he was only ten. I sighed my most damsel-in-distress sigh. “What would I ever do without you?”

  “You don’t want me to answer that.” Carlos’s tone was dry, but one corner of his mouth quirked upward.

  My eyes narrowed. “Smart-ass.” Inside, I grinned, just a little. At least Jason’s sullenness wasn’t rubbing off on his protégée like his general mess-with-me-and-I’ll-rip-your-face-off attitude and absolutely filthy mouth were.

  “So where is Jason, anyway? Not that I’m disappointed to have you join me, but he was supposed to be my partner for first watch…”

  Carlos gave my shoulders a squeeze. “He fell asleep after dinner, when you were off with Zoe and Chris at the creek.” He chuckled softly. “He was just sitting by the fire, his head hanging down like this.” Carlos’s arm slipped away, and he mimed nodding off with his chin lowered to his chest. “So I offered to take his place. He’s passed out in your tent.”

  He scooted over, putting a few inches between us. “So, um…I haven’t really been using my Ability since the breakout thing. I mean, I don’t know if you noticed or anything…”

  I had noticed, mostly because I’d been told about his Ability—that he had some sort of control over electricity—but other than knowing he’d knocked the power out during the escape from the Colony, I’d yet to see him use it up close. He’d overexerted it, resulting in Ability burnout just like me, but his had come back online days ago. He seemed reluctant to use it, and I assumed it was because he feared he would burn it out again.

  “I noticed,” I told him with a slow nod, continuing to scan the circle of colorful tents that made up our camp and the darkness surrounding them. “Sure, I’m totally curious to see you work your electricity mojo, but I’ve lost access to my Ability a couple times now, and I get it—losing it, even for just a little while…” I shook my head. “It’s like going blind or deaf…or getting a hand chopped off, you know? You think about it—miss it—all the time, because it’s not there.” I sighed. And sometimes, when it comes back, it’s broken, I didn’t say.

  Carlos crossed his arms over his chest and stared out at the horses, who were milling around in the overgrown grasses. “I guess, yeah, I was scared of losing it again. At first, I mean. I thought using it might burn it out again, and then I started thinking…what if something happens and, like, those people take you again—take any of us—and we have to do it all over again? What if that happened, and I couldn’t send out an EMP blast?”

  I studied his profile, thinking I should probably say something comforting or wise or Grams-like. Nothing. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. I touched my hand to the silver medallion hanging around my neck; it had belonged to Grams, and I was hoping to draw on some of her maternal wisdom through it. Nope; no such luck.

  Carlos shrugged, still not looking at me. “But then I—” He met my eyes for the briefest moment and laughed a soft, humorless laugh. “It was like I could hear my sister yelling at me, telling me I was being stupid, that it was okay to be scared, but not to let it rule me, you know?”

  It was the first time he’d ever mentioned a sister, but it wasn’t a surprise that he’d never mentioned her before. Not many of my companions spent much time talking about the people they’d lost, myself included. Talking about it made it seem that much more real, that much fresher; it made us really acknowledge the fact that we would never see any of them again. Because of Zo and Jason’s mom…

  “So I started practicing again. Turning stuff on, sending out small EM pulses, and, well…” Carlos turned his moon-shadowed eyes on me, looking at me fully for the first time since joining me on the wagon’s bench seat. “If I show you something, will you keep it a secret? I just—I don’t want everyone to know yet.” He smiled and shook his head and, for once, looked like the teen boy he was. “I’m n
ot that good at it…yet.”

  I swallowed, searching his eyes for some clue of what he was about to share with me. Finally, I nodded.

  “Hold out your hand?”

  I frowned, and hurt filled his eyes.

  “You don’t trust me?”

  My heart felt like it dropped into my stomach. “No—I mean, yes, of course I trust you. I’d trust you with my life,” I said in a rush. I held out my hand, palm up, and forced a smile that I hoped offered him some reassurance. “Please. Show me.”

  Relief filled Carlos’s shadowed eyes, and he returned my smile with a tentative one of his own. “Don’t move, okay?” When I nodded, he extended his hand, holding his palm directly over mine. “I found a physics textbook and have been reading up on electromagnetic fields and charges and Faraday’s Law, and how—” He laughed and shook his head. “You don’t care about that stuff.”

  But he was wrong. I did care about “that stuff.” I cared that he was actively seeking out information that might help him explore his Ability. Electromagnetic fields, charges, and something called “Faraday’s Law” sounded like fairly ambitious research topics, especially for a sixteen-year-old. He should talk to Gabe…

  “That stuff I read got me thinking,” Carlos continued. “And I tried some different things, and…well, I came up with this.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was nearly a whisper. “Ready?”

  Again, I nodded.

  He took a deep breath, and a gentle tingling sensation spread over my palm. It felt odd—a little itchy, but not unpleasant. Gradually, almost like I was dipping my hand into hot water slowly enough to allow my skin to grow accustomed to the temperature, the tingling sensation spread, climbing around to the back of my hand and up to my wrist and higher. When it reached my shoulder and just started to extend onto my torso, I drew in a shaky breath. “What—what is this?”

  “Does it feel okay?” he asked, his eyes searching my face. “It doesn’t hurt, does it?”

  “No, no,” I said, laughing a little. “It’s just, um, I don’t even know. It’s almost fuzzy…sort of. Does that sound right?”

  The tightness around Carlos’s eyes relaxed, and he nodded. The tingling sensation started spreading down my torso and up my neck much faster.

  “I got the idea from you, actually.” A quick smile flashed across his face before it retreated under his increasingly tense mask of concentration. “I thought, maybe if I could control it enough, we could do our own version of that electrotherapy stuff you mentioned, but without the torture part.” His eyebrows drew together as the tingling reached my opposite arm and my thighs. “You know, so like, a lot slower and with less electricity and stuff, but still enough to make our Abilities stronger…?”

  I had to stifle my first instinct at hearing him mention electrotherapy, which was to shudder and pull away. “I—” I took a deep breath. “I think that’s an excellent idea. I bet Gabe would love to hel—”

  “No.” Carlos retracted his hand, and the tingling sensation evaporated immediately. “Not him. We can’t trust him, not after what he did to you.”

  That earned another frown. “Carlos…” I reached over and touched his wrist. “Ouch!” As soon as our skin made contact, electricity shocked my fingertips, numbing my hand almost instantly.

  Carlos leapt off the wagon, stumbling as he landed on the ground. “I’m sorry!” He spun around and stared up at me, his eyes opened too wide. “Shit, Dani, I’m so sorry!”

  “Carlos—”

  “You can’t touch me when I’ve been doing stuff like that. I forgot to tell you—Jesus fucking—I could’ve killed you!”

  Shaking out my arm, I laughed, aiming for nonchalant, but hitting nervous perfectly. “No worries. Just killed the nerves in my hand for a few seconds.” I held up my hand and wiggled my fingers. “It’s already going away.”

  Carlos didn’t look the least bit reassured. “I’m sorry. I should’ve warned you.” He hit his forehead with the heel of his hand several times. “I wasn’t thinking. It was stupid. I—”

  “It’s fine, really,” I said as I moved to the end of the bench seat and hopped down. I took two steps toward him and offered a tight-lipped smile. “It’s better than fine, really.” Pausing, I looked into his haunted eyes. “This could be a game-changer down the road. If we can use this to increase our Abilities…” As I trailed off, I shook my head. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the undefined period of having a nonfunctioning Ability that resulted from electrotherapy while my invigorated synapses settled back down, but there was no denying how badly we needed to be as strong, as capable, and as dangerous as we could possibly be. And, a tiny voice said in the back of my mind, maybe this could fix my broken Ability…

  Carlos’s brow furrowed, uncertainty and hope clear on his face. “You think this could work the same as the electroshock stuff they did to you?”

  I took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “I do,” I said with a nod. “But I really think you should talk to Gabe about—” I held up my hand, cutting off Carlos’s protests as soon as he opened his mouth. “He knows more about this kind of thing than anyone else. He’s experienced it—firsthand—just like me, and he’s a freaking genius. If you want your non-torture version of electrotherapy to work, he’s your best bet.”

  Carlos’s gaze shifted to some point low and off to the side. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Hey,” I said, and without thinking, I reached for his arm. “Maybe—”

  He backpedaled out of reach so quickly that I flinched.

  “I’m sorry.” I held my hand up. “That was stupid. My fault, okay?”

  Carlos stared at me with wide, horrified eyes. “You can’t do that shit around me, Dani. If you—if I—I could—”

  “Kill me, I know.” I sighed, frustrated with myself for upsetting him. He’d already been through so much—too much for most people to experience and be able to keep going. And now he had one more problem to deal with—worrying about whether or not he might accidentally electrocute the rest of us if we touched him at an inopportune time. There was only one person who could help him with his new problem. I placed my hand on my hip and straightened my spine. “Do you have any clue what his job was?”

  Carlos raised his eyebrows. “Huh?”

  “Gabe—back at the Colony. Do you know what his job was?” I repeated.

  Carlos kicked a small rock. “No.”

  “He was in charge of Ability research.”

  “He was?” Carlos looked up, interest flitting over his features.

  “Yep.” I moved across the trampled grass to stand in front of him. “And if anyone can, he’s the one who can help you figure out how to do the electrotherapy thing safely and effectively and learn how to control that whole zapping people thing.” I looked up, met Carlos’s eyes, and waited.

  A second.

  Three.

  Twenty.

  Carlos pressed his lips into a flat line, inhaled deeply, and nodded. “Fine. Okay. Yeah, I’ll do it.”

  “You will?” I said, doing a really poor job of hiding my surprise. Jason’s stubbornness had been rubbing off on Carlos in a really unfortunate way.

  Carlos looked at the ground. “Yeah, but…not yet. I mean, I want to get a little better at all this first, and…can we not tell Jason?” He met my eyes briefly, then looked away. “It’s just that he hates Gabe, and I don’t want him to, like, think I’m betraying him or something.”

  My stomach flip-flopped, making me feel a little ill. “Uh…yeah. Sure. Why not?” What’s the harm in one more secret, anyway?

  I ignored the part of me that whispered, You mean, what’s the harm in one more lie?

  “We can help, too,” Mase said as he stepped out from between two of the carts, little more than a hulking shadow.

  I yelped and jumped at least a foot off the ground. “Jesus, Mase!”

  “Sorry.” Mase ducked his head as he moved closer. Camille followed close behind him, her own slender, shadowed f
orm half his size. They stopped a yard or so away from Carlos and me. “I knew you had first watch tonight, and we wanted—”

  Camille hit his arm with the back of her hand.

  Scowling, Mase corrected himself. “I wanted to tell you something Camille told me earlier.”

  My eyebrows rose as my gaze slipped from Mase’s hard, dark features to Camille’s pale, elfin face. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. I glanced down at the small dry-erase board she was clutching to her chest. It was another of the items we’d taken from Colorado Trails Lodge. Camille still wasn’t “speaking” much, but it seemed that Mase had managed to get her writing during the hours they’d spent driving a cart together earlier today.

  I returned my attention to Mase.

  “Dr. Wesley is a liar.”

  I frowned and glanced at Carlos, who shrugged before pulling himself back up onto the wagon. I refocused on Mase. “About…?”

  “She loves him.”

  I cocked my head the side. “I’m sorry, Mase, I’m not following…”

  “Father—General Herodson. She loves him.”

  My mouth fell open. “That’s not…” I started to shake my head. “That’s not possible.” She’d gone out of her way to save me by making the neutralizer and attuning it to my blood—twice. And Zoe…Dr. Wesley had shown up before Clara—the General’s shiny new toy—could do more harm to Zoe than simply wiping away her memories. Dr. Wesley had been leading the anti-Herodson rebellion by supplying neutralizer to a trusted few, including Gabe and, before he’d been killed and made into a Re-gen, Mase. She hated General Herodson.

  Except…she hadn’t really done anything to stop him, and she had an Ability that could tear the foundation of his power, his mind-control Ability, right out from under his feet. She was even stronger than Jason and could probably nullify every damn Ability in the Colony all at the same time. So why hadn’t she? Why didn’t she do it after the Virus—the gene therapy—destroyed the world as we knew it and the General could no longer keep tabs on Dr. Wesley’s family, could no longer hold their well-being over her head as additional motivation to behave?