After the Ending

by Lindsey Fairleigh

  “Can you tell the difference between people and animals when you’re, you know…in observation mode?”

  I nodded.

  “What’s your range?” she asked. At my confused look, she amended her question. “How far can you ‘see’?”

  “I…,” I began but had to clear my throat. “I don’t know. I could feel everyone in the camp, but that’s not that far.”

  “Hmmm…,” she said, pulling a map out from the pack she’d set down beside her rock. “According to your ‘scouts’, the last group of people we passed was in that little town about five miles back. Can you try to reach that far?”

  I nodded again and reentered the state of concentration. Reaching out, I expanded the diameter of my awareness, each new life increasing the lure of the Siren song. Suddenly, a cluster of armored, human minds appeared, and I gasped.

  Gritting my teeth, I said, “I…feel…them.”

  “Go further,” Chris’s distant voice instructed. I pushed on.

  The further I stretched my awareness, the more clumps of humans appeared. It wasn’t tiring exactly, just difficult to resist completing the connections. I was about to pull back—overwhelmed by the millions of living creatures pulsing around me—when I noticed it. It was like the glow of city lights in the dead of night, barely visible over a hillcrest. It drew me in, and again, I pushed on.

  As a throng of human minds appeared, the sliver of a gap between my mind and all others threatened to vanish. I was so painfully close to connecting to all of them, thousands of human minds. If I did, I was certain it would permanently fry my brain, but I didn’t seem to be strong enough to resist their magnetic pull.

  “No…no…too close…too many…,” I repeated over and over. I was vaguely aware that I’d begun rocking back and forth on my boulder and had buried my face in my gloved hands.

  Suddenly, I was no longer moving, and my mumbling stopped. I could barely think through the need to close that final infinitesimal distance separating my mind from all of the others. Someone was pulling on my wrists, trying to remove my hands from my face.

  “Dani, look at me!” Jason’s voice was strong, deep, and reassuring. But it also held terror…his was a voice that should never sound terrified.

  Barely cracking open my eyelids, I peeked at the man kneeling on the ground before me. His eyes were bright, wild, and his face was ferocious.

  He looked away and roared at Chris, “WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?”

  “Not…Chris’s…fault,” I groaned, reaching up to grasp Jason’s wrist. “Too far…too many people…too much…can’t stop…”

  Jason pulled off my gloves and grasped my hands almost painfully, but his voice was calm when he spoke. “Focus, Dani. Come back to me. You have to fight. You can do this.”

  The pulsing minds didn’t blink out of existence, not like when I’d stopped using my Ability completely, but they suddenly stopped pulling me toward them. It was like I’d flipped a switch that muted their enticing song. I quickly retracted my awareness until it barely extended beyond our camp. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t passed out, why I didn’t feel the bone-deep exhaustion I’d grown used to, but I certainly didn’t mind.

  Smiling weakly at Jason, I removed his hands from my shoulders and held them in my lap, ignoring the salty tears on my cheeks. “Thank you.”

  He scooted forward, wedging himself between my knees, and wrapped me in a fierce embrace. “Sometimes you scare the shit out of me,” he said, his voice gruff.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to.” If a mind voice could tremble, mine did.

  Chris rose and quickly skirted around us, saying, “I’m just going to go do…something…not here…”

  “Fuck! I’m not used to this!” Jason exclaimed as he stood and stepped backward, leaving me alone on my rock. The lure of the minds instantly resurfaced at full force.

  “Oh!” I exclaimed and leapt up after him. When I seized his hand, the lure faded again. “It’s you!”

  Jason didn’t seem to hear me. Unexpectedly, he turned to me, grabbed my face with his hands, and crushed his lips against mine. Rising on tiptoes, I clutched his jacket at his sides and pulled his body closer. I made an involuntary, throaty noise and readied to reel in my awareness completely. The minds! The lure! Jason!

  “Jason, wait!” I gasped as he started backing me toward our tent. He had taken to setting it up a short distance from the others, so we’d at least have the appearance of privacy. Even so, I was exceptionally grateful the sun had set and our companions couldn’t watch us groping each other.

  “Jason!” I said sharply once we reached our tent. “Wait! I have to tell you something.”

  “What?” He unzipped the tent, and then did the same with his coat, shrugging it off and tossing it inside. Our enormous, moss-green tent had two “rooms” and was a few inches taller than me at its apex.

  “Something happens when you touch me,” I told him.

  He held my eyes, unzipping my down jacket and sliding his hands along my shoulders to slip it off. “You have no idea what can happen when I touch you,” he said, tossing the coat on top of his in the tent.

  As Jason clenched my waist in his hands, pulling my body to his, I took a deep breath and held on tightly to my thoughts. But his hands were moving under my shirt, sliding up my ribcage. His thumbs traced along the curve of my satiny bra just under my breasts. I shook my head, refocusing. “I mean…something happens to my telepathy when you touch me,” I told him, and he stilled, his mouth inches from mine.

  “What?”

  “I gained control when you touched me, then lost some of it when you walked away, and then it came back when I grabbed your hand. It’s like you make me stronger.”

  His face was unreadable, his hands unmoving.

  “Jason…I think you have an Ability, too.” Not for the first time, I wondered if MG had been right when he’d told me that everyone who survived the Virus would eventually develop a strange new skill…at least, everyone who wasn’t a Crazy.

  “And that Ability is what, exactly?”

  Thinking hard, I bit the right side of my lower lip. It was a silly, manufactured habit that had become second nature. I could remember Zoe laughing at me when I’d practiced it on her in seventh grade. Around that time, I’d realized that teenage boys were less interested in smart, nice girls, and instead preferred pretty, flirty girls. So, I’d practiced being flirtatious until I no longer had to think about it. I’d transformed.

  Jason’s eyes flicked from mine, lower, to the soft, pink flesh pulled between my teeth. His hands tightened around my ribs, and he licked his lips.

  “Maybe it’s like a megaphone, but it amplifies other people’s Abilities instead of their voices?” I tapped my pointer finger gently against my lips—another of those silly habits—before pressing it against his chest. “Or…it could be like a volume dial, turning other people’s Abilities up or down. That could be super useful!”

  “Sounds boring.”

  “Not even! What if someone was going to hurt us with their fancy superpower, and they could…I don’t know…shoot lasers out of their eyeballs or something…and you could stop them by using your own crazy awesome Ability!?”

  He straightened, looking down at me with narrowed eyes. “You think it’s possible?”

  I smiled. “I think you’re already doing it.”

  When he raised his eyebrows, I explained, “So, there’s kind of this guy who can enter people’s dreams…and he was entering mine, mostly when I was on my own. He did it a few times in the week before I left…but not when you stayed with me that one night. But anyway, he helped me figure out what I can do…he’s actually where the ‘Ability’ thing came from. And…he hasn’t shown up since I rejoined you guys. So I’m thinking…it’s you. You must be blocking him somehow.”

  Stupidly, I’d become lost in my explanation and hadn’t noticed Jason’s face harden to emotionless stone. Crap! Idiot!

  His jaw clenched, sharpening his feature
s, and then he spoke. “Some guy’s been visiting your dreams? For weeks?”

  I nodded reluctantly.

  “Who is he?” Jason’s voice was hot and cold in an uncomfortable mixture that made me want to run away from him.

  Instead, I locked my knees, refusing to take a step backward. “I don’t know exactly,” I told him truthfully. “I call him MG, for Mystery Guy. He’s never told me his name.”

  “What does he do when he visits?”

  “Let’s see…he was helping me figure out how to use my telepathy. And, he would get rid of my nightmares about Cam, but I don’t really have those anymore.” Cringing, I added, “And he comforted me the night I found out about Grams.”

  “Comforted you? How?”

  “He held me,” I snapped. “That’s all.” I pushed Jason’s hands away and tried to step around him into the tent, but his arm shot out, blocking me.

  “I told you, I’m not used to this,” he said, looking straight ahead into the moonlit woods. Lightning lit up the night sky as Jason looked at me, and his eyes glowed like blue fire for a fraction of a second. When darkness returned, I could still feel the heat of his gaze. As thunder rumbled through the mountains, Jason’s right arm—the one blocking my path into the tent—flexed and wrapped around me, pulling me into a tight embrace.

  My desires overpowered my mind, and I smiled against his sweatshirt. “You can be such an asshole…but God, I want you.”

  He laughed, deep and rumbling, and rested his chin on top of my head. He began running his fingertips down my back, tracing my spine through my sweater, gently, smoothly, tantalizingly. “Even though I’m such an asshole?” he teased, his voice low.

  “I said can be…you’re not always an asshole. Mmm…that feels good,” I purred, squeezing him tighter. “You remember that one winter formal when you were a senior? I think it was the only dance we were both at.”

  I was the only eighth-grader there, invited by a freshman boy who lived down the street from me—Tommy. He was cute but had possessed a decidedly flimsy backbone. When we joined up with his group of friends before the dance, the girls slowly pressured him into ignoring me. By the time we arrived at the dance—oohing and ahhing at the tacky attempts to turn the gym into a fantastical ice kingdom—I might as well have been invisible.

  “Yeah, I remember,” Jason said. “I didn’t like seeing you sitting there alone.”

  Jason had found me sitting by myself at a table in the corner of the gym, near tears, my dress’s layered, purple tulle skirt fluffed out around me. He’d sat in the chair next to me and lifted my chin with a single finger. “What’d he do?” he’d asked.

  “Nothing,” I’d whimpered. That had been the problem—it was my first high school dance, and my date hadn’t talked to me since we’d arrived, let alone danced with me. And I’d always loved to dance, not that I was any good at it.

  “Want me to kick his ass?” Jason had asked, making me smile a tiny, sad smile while I shook my head. He’d grinned then, heartbreakingly handsome in a charcoal-gray suit with a tie that matched his sapphire-blue eyes perfectly. “Want to dance?”

  I’d looked up at him as he’d stood and offered his hand, my mouth widening to an elated smile. “Um…yeah…I’d love to,” I’d said, feeling like the most beautiful girl in the gymnasium. He’d danced with me for four songs—including a slow dance—before his friends caught on, passing me around like the belle of the ball. One of them, a junior at the time, I actually dated the following year.

  “You made me a legend that night, you know,” I told Jason, laughing.

  “What do you mean?”

  “On the first day of school the next year, I showed up, and all the girls either wanted to be me or hated me because ‘Jason Cartwright totally had a thing for that redhead’,” I quoted. “It took me two months to convince everyone I wasn’t your secret girlfriend—ridiculous, I know—and then a ton of guys asked me out because they thought I had been your secret girlfriend at one point. As if you, Mr. Hot-shit senior, would’ve dated an eighth-grader.”

  Chuckling, Jason said, “My date was pissed. She didn’t talk to me for the rest of the night…but then, we didn’t usually…” He paused. “Did you notice your little shit of a date wasn’t nearly as popular the next year?”

  “What’d you do?” I wondered, looking up at him with fascinated horror.

  Jason smirked wickedly. “I didn’t actually do anything to him…but my boys and I did threaten to kick the shit out of anyone who was nice to him.”

  “Jason!” I scolded, smacking his chest.

  “What? He deserved it,” he said, lowering his head to press his lips against mine. It was the perfect way to shut me up. “No more talking,” he breathed. His hands slipped between us, and he unfastened the top button of my jeans.

  In response, I pulled away from him, stepped into the tent, and slipped off my boots. I removed my sweater, long-sleeve shirt, and tank top in one smooth motion. At the sound of the tent zipper, I turned to see Jason had followed me in, zipped the tent, and was watching me as he removed his boots. My jeans and long underwear came off together, collecting my socks along the way. In the chill of the winter night, I was standing in a dark tent, nearly naked, with a fully clothed man. With Jason. Despite the cold, I felt near melting.

  “I wish I could see you better,” Jason whispered, his rough voice sounding too loud. He disrobed quickly, not even pausing before removing his snug boxer briefs.

  Lightening flashed again, illuminating him completely for an instant. He was so terrifyingly masculine…so powerful and so beautiful. A low, appreciative sound escaped from my throat.

  I’d seen him naked once, though he didn’t know it. Near the end of my junior year of high school, Jason had come home on leave after finishing a tour in Afghanistan. I’d been laying in Zoe’s bed—my best friend sleeping deeply beside me—and had turned to face the partially open door when he’d walked by. It was early, maybe five in the morning—he probably hadn’t expected anyone else to be awake. At least, that was the only excuse I could come up with for why he’d walked from his room to the bathroom, completely nude. Even in the dim morning light, I’d been able to see his incredibly defined physique and his impressive manly attributes. It had actually been the first time I’d ever seen a fully nude man in real life. He’d ruined all other men for me, setting a standard they couldn’t meet simply because they weren’t him.

  I twisted my arms behind me to unclasp my neon-green bra and flung it on top of the pile of my other clothes. Or at least I thought I did—I was too busy savoring the sight of the statuesque man before me to care. I didn’t have time to slip out of my underwear before Jason reached me.

  “Let me,” he said, plucking my hands from the top of my panties. He frowned suddenly. “Do we need—”

  “I’m on the pill,” I told him, cutting him off. I’d been good about taking my little yellow pills and had scavenged a several-year supply, just to be safe. The last thing I wanted to bring into the tortured world was a kid. And then I remembered it was Jason, a man who’d been with who-knew-how-many women. Unwanted pregnancy might not be the only thing I needed to worry about. “Unless…you know…we need to because…um…” Awkward…

  He shook his head. “I’m good.” I bet you are…

  After a long, lingering kiss, Jason’s mouth laid a path over my chin and down my throat. On his way to my purple boy shorts he was diverted by various landmarks, paying special attention to a couple of popular ones and a few less visited, before reaching his destination. He took note of the touches that made me gasp or giggle or clench my fingers in his hair. Each time he looked up at me, I knew that no guy, not even my beloved Cam, had stood a chance against the man immortalizing my body with his mouth.

  As Jason knelt and slid my panties down, freeing first one foot, then the other, I shivered.

  “Are you cold?” he asked, his voice even rougher than usual.

  Under his penetrating stare, I shivered agai
n. “No.”

  Holding my gaze, Jason slid his hands up my legs, from ankle to thigh, and higher. I gasped—Jason was finally touching me where I’d wanted him to touch for over a decade. When he felt the evidence of my desire for him, he growled. My throaty moans grew more ardent as his fingers gave way to his mouth, to his tongue. Eventually, his firm grasp on my hips was the only thing keeping me upright.

  When Jason stood again, I was frustratingly close to the edge and aching to feel him inside me. I needed him more than I needed air to breathe or gravity to hold me to the earth. As I closed my hand around his length—asking, demanding—he inhaled sharply.

  He wasted no time in easing me down to the sleeping bags and settling himself between my thighs. My legs shook as he entered me in one smooth motion. He wasn’t gentle. His eyes never left mine, darkening to obsidian when I wrapped my legs around his body and urged him on—to hold nothing back.

  Hovering above me, he sheltered me from the harsh, decimated world while we joined in one of the few truly beautiful legacies of our broken species. We needed each other, needed to feel connected—more than we needed satisfaction—though the end result came regardless.

  As he pushed me to ecstasy, I groaned and arched and trembled beneath him. His climax erupted immediately after mine. I savored his every sound and expression as he shuddered within me. Around me. Over me.

  “I never thought this would happen,” I told him quietly, running my fingernails up and down his smooth back. He nuzzled my neck in response, his breathing ragged.

  Later, when we were lying together in the joined sleeping bags, he tightened the arm he’d wrapped around my middle and pulled me closer to his still unclothed body. “Did you think about it often?” he asked, and I could feel his breath against the back of my neck.

  I nodded, burying my face in the little half-pillow. “But I think you already knew that,” I mumbled, embarrassed.

  His deep chuckle confirmed my suspicions—Jason had known I’d wanted him for…pretty much ever. “Will you keep thinking about it?” he asked, kissing my shoulder. His low, rough voice made me want him again, made my body ready for him.