The Ending Series: The Complete Series

by Lindsey Fairleigh

Images flashed through my mind, and I was only partially grateful for her adeptness at communicating with me in the odd, Re-gen form of telepathy. What she showed me was stomach-churning.

  Camille sobbing as she ran back into a room with row after row of bunks.

  A guard catching Camille by the arms and asking her something.

  Camille lying on the floor, unconscious.

  Camille, waking up tied to a plastic chair with plastic restraints in a room stripped of all metal.

  A small child—a girl—strapped to another chair directly in front of her, crying.

  A guard, hitting the child.

  Camille mouthing, “I’m sorry.”

  My heart raced. General Herodson, in all his perverseness, had threatened Camille with the well-being of a little girl in exchange for information. I knew his manipulative Ability didn’t work the same on Re-gens as it did on what Mase and Camille called “normals,” but I hadn’t guessed the heinous alternatives the General would use to get his way. I should have.

  Oh God…what did she tell them? What could she have told him? Frantically, I searched through my memory for every interaction I’d had with Camille. Had I told her anything about Jason and Zoe? What did she know, besides enough information to damn Gabe, Mase, Dr. Wesley, and me?

  “Gabe,” I said silently, reaching out to my friend’s mind. He was still upstairs in his lab. “They know. Get out. Get out now!”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Probably not, but don’t you dare come down here.”

  “Dani—”

  “I mean it, Gabe! If you care about me at all, get somewhere safe right now!”

  “Danielle O’Connor. My new communications specialist,” General Herodson said. He was trim, slightly handsome, and easily the evilest person I’d ever met. He blew Mandy right out of the water, if only for the sheer scale of what he’d done. Why did the mind-manipulation Ability turn people into the worst versions of themselves? “What are you doing here, my dear?”

  Adjusting my telepathic aim, I found Jason almost instantly. My heart sank. He—all of them—were still at their camp, over fifty miles southwest of the Colony. “Jason,” I said to him alone. “Don’t panic, but we need to hurry things up a bit.”

  “Dani?” he responded, sounding furious. “What are you saying? Are you in trouble? Are you hurt?”

  General Herodson asked what I’m doing here…right. I pulled the cord over my neck, glad I’d already removed the keys, and held the red card proclaiming my health status as “not suited for work.” I forced a smile, trying my hardest to make it appear genuine, and said, “I was just returning this. My sleep wasn’t at all disturbed by my headache last night, so I figured I’d start work today.”

  “I’m fine for the moment, but I think they know,” I mind-spoke to Jason.

  “Tell me what’s happening,” he demanded.

  “Lie,” a woman said from behind the General. Like the guards, she was wearing fatigues, but she didn’t appear to be armed.

  Silently, I told Jason, “Oh yeah, they know.”

  “Fucking…fuck! Okay, listen. We’re about to leave. We’ll be waiting for you by the pond at the southern tip of the golf course south of the base. Carlos will signal our arrival and provide a distraction.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “An electromagnetic pulse. When the lights go out, you’ll know we’re there. Do what you have to do to stay alive, Red. I mean it. Anything. Just stay alive…for me, for you, for whoever. I don’t care so long as you stay alive.”

  “A pity,” General Herodson murmured. During the entire exchange, his eyes never left me. “I had hoped CL-one’s information was wrong. Restrain the telepath and the Re-gen,” he ordered, and his guards took a step forward.

  “No!” Mase bellowed. He stepped in front of me, blocking me from the guards. Predictably, they paused. With his Ability, nobody sane would confront him, but the mind-controlled guards were more living zombie slaves than sane humans. Still, they paused. Mase could be pretty goddamn scary.

  “Stop, Mase!” Camille cried out. “You’ll both live if you just do what he says. He promised. Let them restrain you.”

  “Camille? Why?” Mase asked, his voice breaking as his posture relaxed. No matter what, he would do what she asked.

  “I had no choice.”

  “Did you hear me?” Jason asked in my head.

  “Yes,” I said. I was having a hard time following both conversations. “Sorry. About to get restrained.”

  “It’s fine, Mase,” I told the behemoth—my friend—protecting me from the General’s lackeys. I rested a hand on his shoulder blade. “We’ll do as they say. We don’t want anyone to be hurt any further.” In his head, I added, “Especially not Camille.”

  His muscles tensed beneath my fingers, but he eventually backed down, following their commands as they bound his wrists behind his back with handcuffs. I was next.

  “Okay, I’m officially restrained now,” I told Jason.

  “How?” he asked.

  “My hands are handcuffed behind my back.”

  “How many?”

  “Handcuffs?”

  “Men,” Jason said, no hint of condescension accenting his tone.

  Oh, duh. “Two guards, the General, a woman who’s like Ben, and another man I don’t know. And they have Camille with them. She’s been beaten. And Mase is restrained like me. Oh, and Gabe was upstairs, but I warned him already.”

  The General turned his attention to Dr. Wesley, who was still sitting at her desk. “I sincerely hope you had nothing to do with this, Anna.” With his statement came the realization that Camille had managed to hold at least a few things back. Maybe more than a few. There was still hope, and where there was hope, there was still the possibility that things might work out.

  “No,” she said calmly, and when the Truth Guard nodded, confirming Dr. Wesley’s truthfulness, I knew the doctor was using her nulling Ability to prevent the other woman from feeling her lie.

  “Okay,” Jason said. “Sit tight for now. We’ll be there sometime this evening. If you haven’t found a way out by midnight, I’m nulling everyone in the whole fucking state and coming in.”

  “Jason, don’t! It’s too dangerous!”

  “If you’re not out by midnight…”

  “Sir,” the other man, the one I’d yet to identify, blurted. “Someone’s using an Ability, a really powerful one.”

  “I’m using my Ability, Gregory, to augment yours as usual,” Dr. Wesley said.

  The man shook his head. “There’s another.”

  “Knock the telepath out,” the General said quietly. “We can’t have her calling for help from God knows where.”

  “Jason, I—”

  Pain. Blackness. Nothing.

  27

  ZOE

  MARCH 22, 1AE

  I stood by the dusty, cobweb-infested window in my room. The inky sky steadily brightened over the jagged tops of the Rockies as dawn neared, and from the sound of it, everyone was still asleep downstairs. Is Jake down there? It was strange not waking up beside him. I’ve succeeded in pushing him away.

  I peered down at the street of dilapidated buildings stretching out on either side of the house. It was like I was living in an alternate dimension where everything was slightly off. I felt like my life had become a giant pinball machine, and around every corner there was another obstacle waiting to bounce me around. The world ends—ricochet to the right; get Dani back—launch upward; Dani’s abducted—recoil to the left; learn how to fight—win more time; a Crazy jumps out—bounce to the right; find out Mom didn’t die in a car accident—roll down to the bottom; another Crazy jumps out—careen to the left; fall in love with Jake—double points; Becca shows up—drain ball.

  Becca’s vision—the bottomless pit of dead, discarded Re-gens—had been replaying in my mind since I’d inadvertently witnessed it a few days before. I hadn’t told Jake about it; there hadn’t been a decent time. I wasn’t sure he
needed to know, not if we were planning on breaking her out of the Colony anyway, changing her fate. For Jake’s sake, I hoped Dani had been somewhat successful in finding her, in somehow convincing Becca to come with us. But I knew that was a long shot; Becca didn’t want to leave the Colony, and I knew Dani wasn’t willing to risk her own life in order to convince Becca we could protect her.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed, the morning chill biting at my ears and nose and fingers. I ignored it and lowered my eyes to my hands. My skin was darker, tanned from spending so much time in the sun, and my nails were short, uneven, and dirty.

  I shook my head at the implausible direction my life had gone—that all of our lives had gone—and I glanced over at the picture on the vanity. It was the one Dani had brought from my childhood bedroom, a photo of us sitting on the edge of the deck, her telling me a secret. I’d been arguing with Jason, and she’d come over to console me. To distract me, she’d admitted to having a crush on the new boy in school—Mark, or Mike, or something like that. As always, I’d felt better having her there. Only she could make me laugh and feel like a normal kid.

  A few days later, Dad had developed a roll of film—all pictures of his woodwork to add to his portfolio. Like me, he’d been surprised to find the photo of Dani and me mixed in the stack, and as I’d stood there, my teenage self in complete shock, I’d put two and two together: Jason had taken the picture. Even though he’d said I was a burden and that he wished I would just go away, he’d cared enough to snap the photo of us.

  I’d snatched the glossy picture out of the stack in my dad’s hands and run up to my room to frame it. I’d been happy my brother had made the effort to do something nice for me.

  I smiled at the memory.

  Cooper stirred from sleeping on the floor on my side of the bed, yawning as he stretched before curling back up into an oversized ball of fluffy fur to resume his slumber. I figured Jake had sent him into the room at some point during the night. My chest tightened and my eyes burned at the thoughtful gesture.

  I tried unsuccessfully to reduce our relationship to physical attraction. We don’t really know each other. I told myself we were just shells of who we’d once been, and therefore, there could be no depth or true connection between us. But in my heart, I knew I was wrong. Our old selves didn’t matter—we weren’t them anymore and never would be again. What mattered was that Jake had saved my life, that he’d been making it his mission to protect me ever since. He clearly cared about me. The hurt in his eyes every time I pushed him away mattered to me. How despondent I would be if he left me…mattered. My chest ached when I tried to diminish our relationship to something less than it was.

  Then why’d I put so much effort into distancing myself? I could have been savoring our time together. Why’d I work so hard to make everything harder than it already was?

  As if she was sitting on the edge of the bed beside me, her head resting on my shoulder and her wild hair tickling the side of my face while she patiently waited for me to gather my always-churning thoughts, I could almost hear what Dani would say to me, her words honest and her voice kind. “You’re scared, Zo. You’ve always been afraid you’ll lose me, and you did…and now you’re afraid you’ll lose Jake. I know you think you’re protecting yourself, but you’re not. You’re only hurting yourself. You can’t keep pushing people away.”

  A despondent, hysterical laugh escaped from my throat, and I threw myself back on the bed. I’m losing my mind.

  Taking a deep breath to steady my trembling chin, I rubbed my hands over my face in an attempt to scrub away the mounting pressure behind my eyes. Jake was right, too; I wasn’t like Jason. I couldn’t keep pushing everything beneath the surface and expect to remain in control.

  I couldn’t be who I once was, the guarded, almost friendless starving artist. Too much had transpired between Jake and me to simply push it all away and hope for the best, and realizing that made my heart swell with a sense of urgency. I needed him. I wanted him. Now.

  Not bothering to take the time to change, I pulled combat boots on over my sweatpants, leaving the laces untied, and hurried out the door. I left Cooper to resume his morning slumber and hoped I didn’t trip on my shoelaces as I rushed down the stairs.

  I half expected to see Jake lounging in a chair beside the fireplace, but nobody was sitting by the dying fire. Tavis and Sam were sleeping on their pallets on the floor, and Sanchez and Harper were asleep in the opposite corner of the parlor. I didn’t see Jake anywhere.

  I tiptoed to the front door, careful not to let it creak too loudly as I opened it, and stepped out into the pale light of the early morning. Easing the door to a close, I strode toward the weathered stable across the dirt road. Shadow and Wings were among the horses out in the attached pasture, grazing on dewy grass. They raised their heads, only partially acknowledging me before refocusing their attention on their morning meal.

  I’d had my hair in a ponytail, but it suddenly felt too tight. Anxiously, I pulled the rubber band out, and my scalp sang in relief as my hair fell from its snare.

  Jake wasn’t outside by the horses, or in the wagon area attached to the paddocks, but I heard a dull thud inside the stable, and then another. Assuming it was him, I meandered inside. A violet hue saturated the stable’s interior, and I inhaled the comforting scents of leather and alfalfa. I heard another thud. The noise was coming from the tack room a few doors down from the stable entrance, so I headed toward it.

  Leaning through the doorway, I peered inside. Jake was sitting with his back to me on the edge of an old, wooden bench that ran through the center of the room. His long sleeves were pushed up, his elbows were resting on his knees, and his face was lowered into his hands.

  I opened my mind to his, trying to gauge his mood. When I felt his overwhelming frustration and sadness, my eyes pricked with tears.

  “Hey,” I squeaked and cleared my throat.

  Surprised, Jake lifted his head, confusion and concern warring on his rugged features.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” I said as my eyes took in every inch of him. His scruff was thicker than usual, and his hair was disheveled, like he’d been running his fingers through it over and over again. He looked exhausted, and I wondered if he hadn’t slept all night.

  An invisible band tightened around my heart. I did this to him.

  Jake sat on the bench, appraising my face. The corners of his eyes wrinkled as he squinted, but he didn’t say anything.

  “I’m sorry,” I rasped. Unable to watch the increasing uncertainty in his eyes, the uncertainty I’d caused, I looked at the saddles on the racks and at the blankets hanging on the walls. I looked anywhere but at him. “I know I’ve been—”

  A tennis ball dropped to the ground as Jake shot to his feet, surprising me, and he took a step toward me. “Do you love me?”

  My eyes widened and my skin heated. “Um—”

  “Do you love me?” he repeated. The fierceness in his eyes and tense set of his jaw startled me.

  Do I love Jake? I took a hesitant step inside the room. “I…yes.” The moment I said it, any remaining doubt in my mind cleared. I was certain that things between us could—no, would—work out. I took another step closer to him.

  Jake seemed taken aback by my admission, but only for a split second. He strode toward me, confident and determined, and I could feel the flurry of his unusually impulsive emotions swirling around me: need—anticipation—excitement. They were like smoke invading my senses, making me feel feverish with desire.

  His eyes were keen and wild with growing impatience as he moved closer, his gaze shifting from my mouth to my eyes and back. Without ceremony, his rock-hard body forced me backward and pinned me against a saddle blanket hanging on the wall.

  “Don’t ever do that to me again,” he growled.

  Before I could respond, he was tugging off my sweatshirt with one hand and gripping my waist with the other. His mouth covered mine with a frenzied yearning. My boots and sweat
s were gone within seconds, and I was left to stand in my black boy shorts and tank top, and Jake in his jeans and untied boots.

  I jumped into his arms, my legs coiling around his hips, tightening to bring him closer. His mouth was rough and urgent against mine, pulling my bottom lip between his teeth. His hands caught in my hair, and my body arched against his. I gasped for air and licked my lips as he nipped and kissed the sensitive flesh beneath my jaw.

  Moaning, I tilted my head to the side, providing ample skin for him to ravage with his mouth. Everything about him was lust and desire, and the acuteness of what he was feeling devastated my composure, making me feel nothing but need—his need and mine. I needed his hands and lips on every inch of my body. I needed him to take me until I had nothing left to give. I could barely breathe…I didn’t want to breathe…I just wanted him.

  Craving more than Jake’s mouth, I wrapped my arms around his neck and leaned into him to steady myself as I lowered my legs to the ground. My nails raked over his shoulders and down his back as they skimmed toward his pants. I unzipped his jeans, letting them fall to his ankles, and grabbed on to his butt. The muscles flexed against my hand. He fumbled with his boots and kicked off his pants, while I shed my tank top and underwear. When I looked at him, he was completely naked.

  Jake’s hands were on me again, all over my body. I quaked under the power of his fingertips as they moved up my arms and over my shoulders to my back. He pressed harder into me, making my breasts ache and my body burn with an invisible fire. I could feel his arousal against my abdomen, and I gasped.

  He tightened his greedy hands around my waist, but took a step back, his possessive eyes raking down the pale peaks and valleys of my trembling body. An unruly hunger possessed him as he examined every visible inch of me.

  Unable to tolerate any distance between us, I pulled him closer. My arms wound around his neck, and I stole another taste of his deliciously curious tongue. I shuddered.