“Uh, yeah,” he responded, smoothing his blond hair against his scalp—it was pulled back into his usual low ponytail, the few inches of gathered hair fanning neatly down the back of his neck.
“What exactly is it that you’re in charge of?” Even if there were a gun held to my head, I couldn’t have guessed the purpose of most of the obviously priceless equipment.
Gabe shot a quick look over his shoulder as he led the way down an aisle between two counters. “I’m in charge of the Ability Research Department.”
“That sounds important.”
“It is.”
“Wow, you’ve really got that whole humility thing down, huh?” I said, shaking my head. As I scanned around the lab—the unoccupied lab—I frowned. There were three rows of work counters and dozens of stools, but no scientists. “Where are all of your worker bees? I mean, I’m assuming someone with such an ‘important’ job has a handful of science slaves, but this place is totally empty.”
He unlocked a taupe fire door. “I told them to work on their other projects this morning.” At my cocked head, he added, “We don’t have enough scientifically-inclined people to devote a large number of them to one department alone…even if it is the most important department.”
“Seriously, Gabe?” I asked, swatting his forearm. “Get over yourself already, you’re not that amazing.” Like a battering ram, the déjà vu hit me again, nearly knocking me breathless. I hunched over, gasping.
“Dani? What’s wrong? Is it your head?” Gabe asked in a rush. He held my elbow in a gentle but strong grip and led me through the doorway to a worn couch in one corner of what could only be his office. The room was a mixture of neatness and clutter that was purely Gabe, and it held the faintest trace of his clean scent.
“I’m fine,” I said, between slow, deep breaths. “I just need a second to rest.”
“Are you sure?” His voice was filled with concern.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Okay. Well, while you rest, I need to run a quick errand. Will you be fine here?”
I glanced up at him through the stray crimson curls that had fallen in front of my eyes. “Oh, I’m sure I’ll survive.”
Gabe, who’d been backing toward the door, hesitated, and I offered him a faint reassuring smile. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes.”
“Gabe?” I called as he was shutting the door.
He poked his head back into the office. “Yeah?”
“Who’s MG?” I asked, recalling the two letters that had brought our previous night’s kiss to a screeching halt.
Gabe said nothing for several long seconds, simply blinked slowly and studied me. Finally, he said, “Someone you trusted…and he betrayed you.”
“Did you know him?”
He nodded, the crease between his eyebrows reappearing. “I’ll tell you all about him when I get back…if you want.”
With a smile, I rested my head against the back of the couch and closed my eyes. “Yeah, I’d like that. Thanks.”
He’d been gone for only a few minutes when I heard it: a scream. It was the kind of scream made by a mother giving birth, or by a torture victim being slowly flayed.
I rose from my comfortable, reclined position on the sofa and cracked open the door to the lab, listening. At first, silence greeted me, but it was closely followed by a second, nearly identical scream. What the hell?
As quietly as possible, I inched the door further open and slipped out into the empty lab. After a brief moment of deep-ish contemplation, I ghosted across the lab toward the door to the hallway. I snagged a smudged, white lab coat that had been draped over a nearby stool and shrugged into it.
After peeking from the lab doorway into the hallway and seeing nobody, I stepped all the way out, trying my hardest to look like I belonged there. I explored every hallway on the floor without hearing the scream again. I was about to give up and return to Gabe’s office when another piercing howl emanated from a door to the stairwell.
My hand wanted to shake as it reached for the doorknob, but I wouldn’t let it. Images of what could cause someone to make such a gut-wrenching noise overflowed in my imagination. Whatever the cause, I knew it couldn’t be anything good.
I was inching the heavy metal door open, waiting for the scream to waylay me, when something touched my shoulder.
“Wha—” I shouted, spinning and backing away in a single motion. Of its own accord, my hand reached across my body for something at the side of my rib cage, but all it found was the bottom of my breast. I instantly lowered my hand, no idea why I’d raised it in the first place. “Holy crap, Gabe! Why’d you feel the need to scare the living bejeezus out of me?” I snapped.
Gabe, still standing before the stairwell door, held his hands out in front of him in a placating gesture. “Sorry,” he said, taking a step toward me. “I thought you heard me.”
“Obviously not,” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest.
He looked from me to the door, then back. “Going somewhere?”
“I heard a scream…like a horror-movie, being-slashed-to-pieces scream.”
“And you were, what—investigating?” Gabe’s eyebrows shot up. “Because nothing’s safer than searching out the cause of a being-slashed-to-pieces scream.”
I shrugged, realizing that finding the screamer would also have brought me face-to-face with whoever—or whatever—was making them scream, which was more than a little stupid. “Not exactly,” I mumbled.
Gabe sighed and turned away from me, walking briskly back toward his lab. “Good. That would be unwise.” Gee, you think?
Scampering after him, which would have been embarrassing had he been looking at me, I followed Gabe back up the hall, through his lab, and into his office.
“No dry cleaning?” I asked, plopping back down on the couch. All that had changed between pre-errand and post-errand Gabe was the addition of the dictionary-sized, brushed metal case he was carrying.
“Huh?”
“Stamps?” I suggested.
“What?” He glanced at me, bafflement scrunching his brow.
I shrugged. “I swear, every time someone says they have to ‘run errands,’ it’s to go pick up dry cleaning or get stamps. Maybe not lately, but you know what I mean.”
“Right…uh, no then,” Gabe said. Turning away from me, he placed the case on his desk and opened it, revealing two items encased in dark gray foam. One was a glass vial filled with neon blue liquid that looked like it might, if consumed, give its drinker either radiation sickness or a massive hangover. The other item resembled a shiny, steel gun, but I knew that wasn’t what it was.
I watched as Gabe inserted the vial into an opening in the top of the inoculator and took a step away from his desk…toward me. I shot to my feet. “What are you doing?”
Gabe held his hands low, one gripping the inoculator, the other reaching for me. “It’ll make you feel better, I promise. I’m just trying to help you, Dani.”
“I don’t need help,” I said, backing toward the door. “I feel fine…great, actually. No more headache. All better,” I lied.
Holding up the inoculator so I could see it better, Gabe said, “Dani, it’ll barely even hurt. Just a little pinch, and then everything—the confusion and weird déjà vu moments—it’ll all be gone.”
“I know what that is.” I backed into the door and slid my hands behind me to grip the doorknob. My chest was suddenly tight with terror. Even though I didn’t remember why, some part of my brain knew I didn’t want him injecting me with whatever was in the vial. “You want to hurt me. That’s why you’ve been acting so strange toward me…why you wouldn’t…why last night…”
Gabe shook his head, pleading with his eyes. It seemed genuine, but some visceral feeling inside me told me it was just…wrong. This is all WRONG!
“I want to help you, Dani. Please trust me.”
I wanted him to stop saying my name. “I can’t,” I whispered, finding the door
handle behind me and shoving the door open. I spun and dashed into the lab.
Unfortunately, Gabe’s legs ate up about twice as much distance as mine with each stride; he overtook me in a matter of seconds. He tackled me, wrapping his arms around my body and trapping my arms at my sides. Turning our bodies, he cushioned my fall so that I landed on him instead of the unyielding linoleum floor.
“Why…are you…doing this?” I grunted, trying to wriggle out of his grasp.
“I’m trying to help you.” After several deep breaths, Gabe whispered, “You’ll understand soon.”
He rolled until I was flat on my stomach on the cold, gray and white-speckled floor and he was straddling my back, holding my arms immobile against my sides with his knees. I could kick backward, a little, but it didn’t do me any good.
“I’m sorry this had to be so difficult,” Gabe said as he pressed the muzzle of the inoculator against the side of my neck. With the sound of compressed air being released, I felt a sharp pinch in my neck. It was quickly followed by a dull throb as the toxic-looking liquid entered my body.
“You’re a bastard,” I hissed.
“So much more than you realize.” He sounded regretful.
“I’m going to…to…” I growled, floundering for an adequate form of violent, painful revenge, but Gabe cut off my train of thought by releasing me and standing.
I glared up at his towering form as I turned over and scooted backward until my shoulder rammed into a cabinet. I tried to stand, but fuzziness was filling my head and the floor seemed to be tilting like a carnival ride. “What’d you do to me?”
“Just wait,” he said, crossing his arms and leaning his hip against the opposite counter. He was watching me, waiting for something.
“I—” Whatever words I’d intended to say died on my tongue.
An image of Callie, my roommate back in Seattle, burst into my head. She was curled in the fetal position on her bathroom floor, my dog beside her and the smell of vomit lingering in the air.
And then I was sitting on top of Cam, beating his lifeless body in an attempt to make him wake back up.
In another instant, a note from Grams appeared in my shaking hand. Her written words told me she was dying, but that she hoped I would survive.
“No. No! NO!” I wailed, clutching my head. They’re dead. They’re all dead…how could I have forgotten?
Hundreds of memories of Jason—of fighting with him, of watching him, of searching abandoned buildings with him, of feeling him lying beside me—overwhelmed all my senses. It had been Jason and Zoe, along with Chris, Ky, and the others I’d encountered since the outbreak, or my suppressed memory of them, who had come to me in my dreams, urging me to remember. “Oh God…”
And then I was with Zoe, hugging her and jumping up and down. She was alive…I’d found her. Was that really only two days ago?
General Herodson’s voice—his words—were the final memory to return. “Oh my God,” I whispered, suddenly recalling his exact words…words I hadn’t really heard until now.
“I’m very sorry to hear that, Danielle. I had really hoped you would feel more at home here and that I wouldn’t have to bend your mind like all the others. My most loyal are those who choose to follow me of their own accord. Oh, well. You will do exactly as I say. You will agree to stay in the Colony and be excited about moving into the house I’m providing for you. You will forget anyone and everything you experienced since you were infected with the Virus, up until you arrived here. You will forget any negative opinions you may have formed about the Colony or me. You will only remember that you traveled here alone—this has always been your destination—that Gabe is your friend, and, of course, how to use your remarkable Ability. You will always tell me the truth. And, most importantly, you will work for me, doing whatever I wish you to do, and be happy about it. Does that sound acceptable?”
General Herodson had manipulated my mind; he’d torn away my most valued memories and controlled my every decision. As his words replayed in my head, rage, hotter and more explosive than anything I’d ever felt, boiled within me. It rushed through my veins, flooding my muscles with adrenaline and white-hot fury.
I began to scream, channeling the single, concentrated emotion into the sound. I screamed until my throat was raw and my voice had faded to a rough rasp.
9
ZOE
MARCH 16, 1AE
Another set of gunshots cracked in the distance, and something clicked inside Jake. His fallen features transformed into something fierce and focused as he reached for my hand. All his chaotic emotions were shadowed by protective determination. For me? He looked at his sister. No, for Becca. I felt unsettled—an unpleasant mixture of hyperawareness and emotional numbness—and I was unsteady on my feet as he hauled me over to the display case and pulled out our duffel bag of weapons and ammunition.
There was more gunfire.
“Get your asses out here!” Sanchez’s voice echoed in our heads.
They’re still here? An unexpected sense of relief washed over me.
“We’re by the movie theater, in the center of downtown. Chris and I are cornered in the ice cream shop, and Jason, Harper, and Carlos are holed up a few stores down. There’s at least a half dozen black-bands scattered across the street. Come around the corner of Sixth and Main so they don’t see you.”
Jake lugged the bag out and opened it, tossing me extra ammunition before zipping it back up and heaving it over his shoulder. I slipped the two extra magazines for my pistol into the waist of my cargo pants, swallowed the bile rising in my throat, and tried to exhale the burning sensation in my stomach. I’d grown far too used to the taste of fear.
The touch of Jake’s warm palm on my cheek startled me. “Stay down and stay focused.” He raised his eyebrows, waiting for me to process his words.
I nodded back at him and offered a weak, but grateful smile. He kissed me. I didn’t have time to overthink us, but I was confused.
“We’ll come back for you,” Jake told his sister, and before I really knew what was happening, he captured my hand again and we were running out the door.
We slinked around cars and buildings for a couple blocks, drawing closer to the mayhem. Approaching a drugstore at the corner of Sixth and Main, we sidled up to the cement wall to catch our breath. Jake peered around the corner of the building, his fingers still gripping mine.
A few gunshots cracked in the air and Jake pulled back, straightening. “There are three soldiers about two blocks down, and there are a couple of them making their way toward us. The ice cream shop is a couple stores down, and I think the rest of our people are in the restaurant and flower shop the next block over, but I can’t be sure.” He shoved our bag into a mass of juniper bushes lining the side of the drugstore. “We have to get closer. We’ll use the flower beds for cover.”
We rounded the corner of the drugstore and headed toward the firefight in the heart of downtown. “Stay low and keep quiet,” Jake mouthed. Two black-bands, using abandoned cars as cover over a dozen yards away, were yelling at one another.
I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants, gripping the fabric like it was a stress ball. After another gunshot, I heard a pained shout, and my heart stopped momentarily. Jason.
“Over here,” Jake said, tugging me down behind one of the raised cement flower beds. The pool table–sized beds lined both sides of the street, their contents dormant for the winter, aside from the garbage can–camouflaging shrubbery on one side; it was the only thing keeping Jake and me out of sight.
I heard my brother shout in pain again and Jake stiffened. “Stay here, keep your gun ready, and shoot anyone who even sees you,” he whispered, releasing my hand.
I nodded and removed my pistol from my thigh holster.
“I’ll come back for you. Don’t come out unless I call your name. Okay?” He saw hesitation in my eyes. “They’re military-trained, Zoe, not Crazies. If they shoot at you, they won’t miss.”
I nodded, feelin
g dumb while I watched Jake covertly crawl behind the cover of an abandoned Audi and disappear around a small, empty deli a few shops beyond the drugstore.
Upon hearing approaching footsteps, I froze. Multiple someones, probably the black-bands we’d seen arguing, stopped on the other side of the flower bed. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them and feel their emotions—an unnerving mix of exhilaration and determination—as they scuffled closer to my hiding place. When they opened fire on my friends across the street, my ears rang, my hands started trembling, and I broke out in a cold sweat.
A bullet hit the shop window just a couple yards behind me, and I watched as the glass spider webbed around the hole. Catching sight of myself in the broken window, I momentarily panicked. I can see them. The two black-bands were crouched beside a VW bus, their backs to me as they aimed their rifles through the vehicle’s busted windows. If I can see them, they could see me. I couldn’t risk idly waiting, hoping they wouldn’t turn around.
Closing my eyes, I considered my options…but I already knew what I needed to do. I needed to kill them, before they killed me. Briefly, I wondered if Jake’s blood still coursed through my veins from the transfusion back at Fort Knox—blood which would help me to heal if I was wounded—but either way, I didn’t have any other choice. I have to kill them.
I had shitty aim compared to the soldiers, but I had the element of surprise. Besides, they were really close…which was both a blessing and a curse. The shrubbery in front of me was tall and thick enough to obscure their view of me, allowing me the opportunity to shoot them before being seen. If nothing else, I could at least slow them down…shoot them in the leg so they can’t walk, or maybe the arm to wound them or ruin their aim…something…
Jump-started by the sound of Jason swearing in agony across the street, I looked down at the gun in my shaking hand and took a few steadying breaths. As quietly as I could, I aimed through the bushes. The sound of gunshots continued to scream through the air.
The Ending Series: The Complete Series Page 60