The Ending Series: The Complete Series

by Lindsey Fairleigh

  “Or,” Tom whispered, “you could stay with me.”

  41

  DANI

  DECEMBER 18, 1AE

  The Farm, California

  “I wish I could come with you guys,” I said, my face smooshed against the front of Jason’s damp raincoat. It was a chilly morning, and the half-risen sun didn’t seem to be making much of an impact on the clouds or drizzle.

  “I know, Red.” Jason’s arms tightened around me, and he pressed his lips against the top of my head in a prolonged kiss. “But,” he said as he pulled away just enough to not choke on my hair while he spoke, “Jack’ll be with us, so you’ll be there in spirit.”

  He had no idea how true his words were. I mean, he sort of knew, but nobody really knew…except for Annie…and other drifters…and maybe Peter, now, if he’d absorbed my Ability like he seemed to do with everyone else’s. It was just one of those things a person had to experience to understand.

  Not that I told Jason that. Instead, I nodded against his chest and sighed. Jack would be going with Jason on the scavenging trip up to Petaluma and Santa Rosa, along with Jason’s mom and Gabe to head up the search for scientific do-dads. Sanchez, Jake, and Larissa would also be joining them for added protection. With Jack accompanying them, I’d be remotely aware of where they were and what they were doing through our passive, ever-active bond. And through Cooper, who’d already left with Zoe, Tom, Grayson, and Biggs for New Bodega, I’d be able to drop in every now and again to check on their status without actually interrupting their progress. I would be, for the day, a glorified phone operator.

  Jason inhaled and exhaled, deep and slow. “I hate leaving you, even just for the day.” He kissed the top of my head once more. “Damn prophecies…”

  I laughed bitterly and pulled away enough that I could peer up at him. “Tell me about it.” Sure, many of us owed our lives to Becca’s prophecies, but still. I bared my teeth in an attempted smile. “I know leaving the farm before the baby comes might kill me, but staying here for another four months is definitely going to drive me batty.”

  Jason’s dimple appeared as he suppressed a smile. “Well, lucky for you, Vanessa’s stall just opened up…”

  “Don’t even!” I said, laughing and swatting his arm. “You’re such a turd sometimes.”

  “Ah,” Jason said, finally flashing a smile. “But I’m your turd.”

  I rolled my eyes, my chest shaking with barely contained amusement. “You are ridiculous…like, the biggest dork in the world.” I shook my head, chuckling. “Why am I the only one who seems to see that?”

  Jason’s smile broadened to a grin. “Because you’re the only one I let see it.” His eyes softened, heated, melted me. “Because you’re the only one I love.”

  And I was suddenly a puddle.

  I reached up and interlocked my fingers behind his neck so I could pull his face down to my level. I pressed—no, smashed—his lips against mine, kissing him more fiercely than I’d done in ages. “I love you, too, you big turd,” I said against his lips. “So be careful out there and come back to me.” I kissed him again, hard. “Or. Else.”

  Jason made a noise that was part laugh, part groan, and utterly hoarse. He pulled away, and I watched his eyes search mine, trace over the lines of my face, memorize me. Finally, he smiled, just a little. “Yes, ma’am.”

  And as he walked toward his horse, Nameless, as he rode out after the others, who were already almost to the end of the driveway, gravel crunching under hooves and the wheels of their cart, all I could think was, Come back to me…come back to me…come back to me…

  ~~~~~

  I was Jack.

  I trotted along beside Mother’s mate, looking around, listening, guarding my pack-mates, who had ventured into another large two-leg cave.

  The sad woman, who I knew from Mother was her mate’s own mother, emerged from the two-leg cave. “No luck here, either,” she said, and because of Mother’s presence, I understood her meaning. Sort of. She shook her head and made one of those sharp two-leg noises that was like she was tired or sad. “I’m not sure how far we’d have to travel to find a thermocycler or a spectrophotometer…”

  “It was a long shot anyway,” Mother’s mate said. “We’ll focus on weapons and ammo from here on out.”

  I barked my agreement, wagging my tail. Or perhaps it was Mother’s agreement. It was so hard to tell where she ended and I began when she was running with me. I wagged my tail harder. I loved when she was running with me.

  I felt her start to pull away, start to separate herself from me. I felt her sadness, her hesitancy. She didn’t want to leave. She never did.

  But still, leave she did.

  I inhaled deeply and opened my eyes, then leaned back in surprise. “What the—” Annie’s pixie face with those serene, too-wise baby blues was mere inches from mine. I clutched my chest and worked on slowing my suddenly rapid breathing. “Sweetie, we talked about you doing that—specifically, you not doing it, remember?”

  Nodding, Annie crawled into my lap, snaking her arms around my neck and nuzzling the crook of my shoulder. She was such a little creature sometimes. A nice, usually gentle creature, but a not-quite-human creature, nonetheless.

  I sighed and wrapped my arms around her, holding her close. I couldn’t be irritated with her when she was being so sweet and cuddly. “Any word from Snowflake’s pack?” I asked, referring to the Tahoe pack’s alpha, the wolf I’d spoken with last spring when I’d stumbled across Annie in the woods by Lake Tahoe and had promised to raise her as my own.

  Annie shook her head, her wild blonde curls tickling the side of my face. I smoothed them down before they could reach my nose and trigger a sneezing fit. “Snowflake let the other packs know,” she said, yawning. One glance at the sky, at the sun just barely glowing through the cloud cover, told me it was past time for my wild child’s afternoon nap—or rather, what accounted for a nap with a little girl who only drifted, never dreamed. I could’ve used a nap as well, but my mind wouldn’t allow rest, not while Jason and Zoe were away and our immediate future was so uncertain.

  “Did you tell her not to interfere?” I asked, biting my lip. The last thing I wanted was for such beautiful, noble hunters to fall casualty in a war that had nothing to do with them. “Her pack-mates just need to keep a watchful eye and let us know when they see more people. We don’t want them to get hurt.”

  Annie nodded and yawned once more. “Snowflake knows,” she said, rubbing her face against my shoulder sleepily.

  I took a deep breath and started the awkward process of standing up with a not-so-small child latched to my front. “Alright, monster, let’s get you settled in your nest so you can drift away.”

  “Can I go with Jack?” She knew to ask whenever she wanted to drift with Jack or Wings, just as I did whenever I planned on slipping into one of her favorite animals. We’d developed a drifter’s code of conduct, if you will. It sounded silly, but it was especially important in moments like this, because Annie drifting with Jack would effectively cut me off from him.

  “Not today, sweetie,” I told her as I carried her down the porch stairs. I couldn’t afford to be out of communication with either of my canine emissaries today. “You can choose anyone but Jack or Coop.”

  She made a very doglike whining noise, and I pulled away and craned my neck so I could see her face. Her bottom lip protruded in an adorable, if dramatic, pout.

  I gave her “the look”—my version of Grams’s go-to don’t-push-me expression.

  Annie, strange child that she was, pouted for a moment longer, then flashed me a brilliant grin. “’Kay. I’ll go with Snowflake.”

  “What a good idea,” I said, leaning in to press a kiss to her forehead. We reached the cottage’s front door a moment later, and it wasn’t long until Annie was peacefully drifting in her nest of pillows and blankets and I was heading back out into the patchy afternoon sunshine to check on our farm-based preparations.

  I followed the
sounds of grunts and shouts to the eastern pasture, just on the other side of the pond and its wall of willows and tall, leafy trees. My eyes widened as I took in the veritable army of Re-gens scattered in twos and threes throughout the overgrown hayfield, having made the short trek down valley to our farm to learn from our relative combat experts. I’d known there were nearly a hundred Re-gens, plus there were several dozen of the Tahoe folks thrown in the mix today, but I hadn’t seen the Re-gens all together since they first arrived, a shambling, muddy horde, so many months ago.

  We’d all wondered what Becca’s eerily recited words had meant the day she’d led them to our doorstep: “We need your help, and one day soon, you will need ours.” Now we knew, and I was happy as hell to have them with us, fighting for a mutual cause—our lives. With Dr. Wesley’s insider knowledge that the General had maybe a couple hundred even remotely battle-worthy people at his disposal, and that he was too cautious not to leave the bare minimum required to guard the Colony behind in Colorado—at least sixty of his soldiers and guards—it was looking like we’d at least have a chance.

  I spotted Chris several dozen yards away, her blonde ponytail swaying and bobbing as she demonstrated a dodge-and-lunge evasion move for a handful of captivated Re-gens. While Becca had been trained in self-defense back at the Colony, similar training hadn’t been a part of standard Re-gen “programing.” Being Herodson’s favorite, she’d received special, additional training alongside a few others. If the rest of the Re-gens wanted to stand and fight against their previous captor—and the massive turnout to Chris’s voluntary combat training session pointed overwhelmingly to a “hell yeah”—then they needed to learn, and fast. Luckily, being quick learners was one of the Re-gens’ most widespread, dependable characteristics.

  My galoshes squished and squelched in the mud beneath the grass as I picked my way across the field toward Chris, nodding hello to people as I passed.

  “Dani!” Mase called, his gravelly voice deep and booming.

  I turned halfway, barely catching my balance before I ended up on my butt in the mud.

  “Careful,” Mase said, jogging my way. “It’s slick out here.”

  I dug the heel of my rubber boot into the soft, slippery earth. “At least it’s a good cushion for all of the inevitable falls.”

  Mase nodded. “The hay, too. That’s why we chose this spot.” A crease appeared on his dark, stony face, just between his eyebrows. “You shouldn’t be out here. It’s too cold, and it might rain, and—”

  “Jason?” I asked, eyebrows raised. I folded my arms over my chest. “He told you to keep an eye on me, didn’t he?”

  Mase smiled, but the friendly expression did little to soften the stubborn glint in his murky gray eyes. “He asked me to look after you while he was away.” Mase placed his hand on my arm, his fingers engulfing my relatively weak limb easily.

  I opened my mouth to argue, but Mase cut me off before I could even get started. “We’ve got two groups out on missions today, and you’re the telepathic communication hub. They’re depending on you being ready and able to communicate with them if necessary. You need to be at full strength.”

  He had a point, so I didn’t complain when he started leading me back toward the pasture fence. “Why don’t you hang out with Carlos and Cami in the house?”

  I shook my head. “Carlos kicked me out.”

  Mase gave me a sidelong glance, eyebrows raised.

  “He doesn’t like having non-Re-gens around when he’s doing electrotherapy.” I shrugged. “Especially not when there are others administering it, too.” He and the other sparklers had taken over the living room midmorning as their electrotherapy headquarters while they carried out a massive effort to provide a daily electrotherapy session with each Re-gen until the General arrived. Carlos couldn’t do it, risking overexerting his Ability and burning out for who knew how long, because of his part of our defensive strategy to take Herodson’s vehicles out of play with an electromagnetic pulse. He had, however, insisted on coordinating the effort.

  Mase nodded thoughtfully. “I forget sometimes that electrotherapy affects you normals differently.”

  I snorted. Differently was an understatement; I knew firsthand, and thanks to Mase, I’d survived. “How are the Re-gens doing? Are they nervous? Or afraid?” I asked as we headed past the farmhouse and toward my little cottage.

  “They’re nervous—we all are,” Mase said. “And I suppose you could say they’re afraid, but not of getting hurt or dying.”

  “Oh?” Curious, I watched him as we made our way along the stone path.

  “What they fear more than anything is being enslaved again,” he said. “So many of us have regained so much out here, so much more than just our freedom and the right to think for ourselves, or even than our better health.” He shook his head, his eyes lighting up. “Since we left the Colony, it’s like we’ve all regained pieces of ourselves—our old selves. We’re not the same as we were in our past lives—we know we’ll never be that—but we’re somewhere in between, now. We all remember more, feel more, can live more…it’s not something any of us are willing to give up. We’d rather die fighting.”

  “Well, um…that’s great.” I just hoped it wouldn’t come to that. After everything, the Re-gens deserved a second chance at life. We all did.

  ~~~~~

  I sat in the recliner in front of the cottage’s hearth, staring into the flames while my mind was elsewhere. Not drifting elsewhere, just focused. I’d spent the past few hours rallying the animal troops, so to speak, conversing with nearby coyotes, foxes, and cougars to gauge how willing or able they’d be to assist in our defenses. I was planning on reaching out to the hawks next, then the ravens and crows, the bats, the porcupines…I had a list. It was a long list.

  But for the moment, I was taking a break to check in on my two-legged friends. I searched the familiar sparks of life surrounding Cooper until I found Zoe’s mind. They were still within New Bodega’s walls, but they were no longer stationary, as they’d been for hours during the afternoon. A quick peek through Cooper’s eyes had told me Zoe and the others were on horseback, making their way toward the gate.

  “Hey, Zo.”

  “Hey, D,” Zoe said, her mind-voice distracted.

  “Am I interrupting?”

  “No, no, it’s just…” Zoe sighed mentally. “I’d hoped for more. We all did.”

  I bit my lip to hide a frown. “So, not good news? I popped in a few times, but all I caught through Cooper was a lot of arguing.”

  Zoe laughed bitterly. “Arguing…tell me about it. They want to help, but they can’t afford to give much aid—just a handful of volunteers and enough weapons and ammo to arm them to the teeth.” She paused, and I could practically feel her frustration. “They’re scared. They say they can’t risk giving up too many of their guardsmen, especially not with the possibility of being attacked.”

  “But they won’t be attacked if we stop the General…”

  “Trust me, we tried that argument, but our logic fell on deaf ears.”

  I closed my eyes and rested my head back against the cushy chair. “Well, we can’t blame them for looking out for their own.”

  “But that’s just it, D,” Zoe said, and I could almost hear the threat of tears in her mind-voice. “We are their own.”

  42

  ZOE

  DECEMBER 21, 1AE

  Petaluma Valley, California

  “Feel anything yet?” Harper asked for the seventh time. He was referring to any other human minds—Crazy, Ability-altered, or other.

  “No,” I said, playing with Shadow’s fringy mane between my fingers. He was just that in the darkness of early morning, a shadow. I leaned against him, exhaling what felt like a week’s worth of anxiety. “Nothing.”

  Harper, Mase, my mom, and I were holed up in a barn with our four horses, hiding and waiting and growing more edgy with each passing minute.

  “And nothing from Sanchez at her post,” my mom
stated quietly and mostly to herself. She peered out the broken door of our hideaway, alongside Lakeville Highway. It was one of our group’s many hiding spots littered along the road—the route we knew Herodson would be along at any moment. Dani had checked in with a warning from our Tahoe animal friends hours ago. We’d been mostly ready then, and now we were just anxiously—and very impatiently—waiting.

  The air inside the barn was musty, but the space was relatively clean and empty, a fortune not all of our scattered groups up and down the road were lucky enough to share. We were in the heart of the eucalyptus-lined portion of the road Becca had seen in her vision, though there were about seven miles between our two furthest posts. Most disturbing was that we were also only about ten miles away from the farm—our home, where Dani along with Peter, Grayson, Camille, Vanessa, Larissa, and the kids were holding down the fort. And a ways beyond that were the frightened citizens of New Bodega. But unlike them, we weren’t willing to hide behind the walls, waiting. Stopping Herodson here was our greatest priority.

  “And,” I added, “no alarming communication from Dani back at the farm.” I was trying to reassure them and myself. “That’s a good thing.”

  Mase cleared his throat, and I couldn’t resist the question I knew rested on all three of our tongues. “Where are the Re-gens, Mase?” I asked. They’d left hours before us, and they still hadn’t arrived. All I could think about were the flashes of Harper’s vision in my mind. It was times like these that I wished Harper’s Ability had been more developed, easier to manipulate, so we knew what more to expect. Our numbers were pathetic without the Re-gens, and we wouldn’t stand a chance if they didn’t arrive soon.

  Mase shrugged. “They’ll be here,” he said in his gravelly voice, his eyes settling on each of us a moment. He didn’t speak much, but when he did it was impossible not to pay attention.