I met Mase’s murky gaze. “You think he’s ready?”
Mase nodded. “I know he is, but I think the only way for him to know that, too, is to bring Gabe in on what we’re doing.”
Narrowing my eyes, I nodded slowly. “You can be incredibly insightful sometimes, you know that?”
With a shrug, Mase once again glanced at Carlos and Camille. “He has more in common with her than I do…now.” His voice was that of someone letting go.
I touched Mase’s thick forearm. “They may be around the same age and be able to relate to each other’s troubling pasts, but she loves you, Mase.”
Mase was quiet for a moment. When his eyes met mine, they were glassy. “She’s different now.”
I shook my head and laughed softly. “But she still loves you.”
“How do you know?”
I rolled my eyes and bumped his arm with my shoulder. “Because I see the way she looks at you, doofus.”
He frowned, apparently not buying my skills of observation and insight.
Sighing, I said, “Fine, don’t believe me. But you should talk to her about this. If you don’t, you’ll never know…”
Mase opened his mouth, but he was interrupted by Ray, who’d been circling overhead as my lookout. “Kak-kak-kak.” She swooped just over our heads. “Kak-kak-kak.”
I watched her land on a rock directly across the creek from us, ruffling and settling her black- and gray-speckled white feathers effortlessly. “Someone’s coming.” I translated stalk-of-wheat two-legs and, laughing, said, “It’s Gabe.”
“I need a few…more seconds,” Carlos said between clenched teeth. His hands were covering around Camille’s head like a flesh and bone skullcap.
I pivoted on the dusty rocks so I was facing Jack. My dog’s ears perked up, but he remained on his belly. “Please go after Gabe and distract him.”
Jack sprang to his feet and trotted away.
Mase watched the German shepherd go. “I can’t imagine being able to communicate with other creatures like that.”
A smile spread across my face, and I shook my head. “I can’t imagine facing the prospect of going through life without being able to talk to them—or fly or run with them—but it’s more than that. It’s like I’m a part of them.”
It was Mase’s turn to shake his head. “Like I said—I can’t imagine.”
“Okay, I’m done,” Carlos said, straightening and, once again, shaking out his hands and making that faint crackling sound.
Camille stood and stretched much more languorously than Mase had done before picking her way across the uneven rocks toward us.
“Thank you, Sweet Boy. Now, please bring Gabe to me,” I told Jack.
The crunch of rocks and dirt under boots alerted us to Gabe’s approach. Jack slinked ahead of him, loping the last few yards to reach us first. With a sigh, the German shepherd lay back down, rolling on his side in universal dog-speak for “rub my belly.”
“Good job, Sweet Boy,” I told him, scratching a spot that prompted him to kick out his leg in pleasure. I patted the side of his tummy before standing to greet Gabe. “Hey…do you have a minute?” I asked him, fiddling with my fingers. I still felt awkward every time I spoke to him, courtesy of all that had happened between us at the Colony.
Gabe leaned his shoulder against a scraggly tree, eyeing Carlos, Mase, and Camille with curiosity and a hint of caution. His pale blue eyes flicked to me, and he nodded.
I smiled shakily. “Right, so…” I glanced at Carlos, then back at Gabe. “I—we wanted to talk to you about Carlos’s Ability. It seems to be, um, evolving a bit, and—”
“Evolving how?” Gabe asked.
“Well…” Carlos picked up a twig and rolled it around between his fingers. “At first I could just turn stuff on and off, like radios and lights and stuff.” He paused, staring at the twig with intense focus. “But now…” There was a crackling sound, closely followed by sparks and threads dancing around the twig like blue lightning. Smoke drifted up from the twig, carrying the scent of burning wood, and Carlos dropped it on the dirt. “Now I can do that, too.”
Slowly, Gabe stepped closer to Carlos. He sank to a crouch a few feet from the teenager and reached for the twig. The second his fingertips made contact, he sucked in a sharp breath and pulled back. “Impressive…but why are you showing me?”
“Because he can do the same thing to a person, at the same intensity or much lower,” Mase said.
I crossed my arms over my chest and raised my eyebrows. “Remind you of anything?”
Standing, Gabe looked from Mase to Carlos to me, his eyes lighting up with interest. “It most certainly does.” He stepped closer to Carlos and held out his hand, palm up. “Show me.”
Carlos glanced at me. When I nodded, he extended his hand, holding it about an inch above Gabe’s. “Don’t move,” he told the older man. “And don’t touch me.” When Gabe’s head tilted to the side, Carlos said, “The twig.”
“Ah…so direct contact is more intense while you’re using your Ability?”
“And for a little while afterward,” I added.
Carlos pressed his lips into a thin line, and a few seconds later, Gabe’s breath hitched.
I watched, seeing no visible sign of Carlos’s Ability, but I could almost feel the hum of electricity flowing over Gabe’s skin.
“Don’t extend it any further up my arm,” Gabe said, his voice slightly hoarse. “I don’t want to risk you actually knocking my Ability out for who knows how long.”
Carlos shrugged and stepped backward, shaking out his hand for the third time that evening.
Gabe did the same and met my eyes, excitement shining in his. “What a pleasant surprise.”
Giving Gabe a tight smile, I nodded. “He thought of it and figured it might help give us an advantage down the road, especially if we come across any other people like Herodson. He’s been practicing pretty much every day with Camille and Mase.” I tapped my index finger against my lips. “The only problem is that he’s a little bit deadly if he accidently touches anyone at the wrong time.”
“We’d have to figure out a way around that…otherwise it’d be too dangerous to be practical.” Gabe’s gaze grew distant. “But I do think it could be useful, and for more than just your standard Ability-increasing electrotherapy.”
I frowned. “Like what—use Carlos as a weapon?”
“Not exactly what I was thinking, but it’s a definite possibility.” Gabe paused, taking a ponderous deep breath. “Electrotherapy is similar to part of the process that creates Re-gens.” He glanced at Camille and Mase. “We know that you two experienced an excessive amount of self-administered electrotherapy, and that by doing so, you regained some access to the memory centers in your brains, diminishing the retrograde amnesia we’d previously believed was an unavoidable side effect to the Re-gen creation process.”
I glanced at Carlos. “So…what? You think this could help Mase and Becca remember more of their lives before?”
Gabe grinned, his eyes gleaming with such fierce intelligence that he was almost frightening. “That, and it might help us with Camille’s little speaking problem…as well as a few other things.” He looked at Carlos. “Let’s take a walk, shall we? I have a few questions…”
~~~~~
That night, I lay beside Jason in the tent we’d been sharing for months and stared up at the green nylon roof, unable to think of anything but my desperate need to slip into another creature’s mind. I focused on the ever-present connection that stretched between myself and Ray, who was soaring through the night sky a mile or two to the west. With a sigh, I slipped into her mind.
I was Ray.
It was moon-time, and I was soaring among the stars. The cool night wind sliced between my feathers, reminding me how good it felt to be alive, to fly. I beat my wings once, twice, three times, climbing higher. And then I dove, ecstatic as she-who-flies-with-me made happy sounds.
CRACK.
Pain in my
right wing. So much pain. A flash of white.
The ground was growing too close. I beat my wings, needing to slow my descent, but my right wing refused to move. I tried again. Again. Again. Again.
Too late. As the ground rush toward me, I pushed she-who-flies-with-me away.
I slammed back into my body with a scream.
Scrambling out of my sleeping bag, I only remotely felt Jason’s arms wrap around me, one around my middle and one around my shoulders. I fought against him, needing to escape, to get outside, to get to Ray.
“Red! Dani! You have calm down!” Jason said, his voice harsh and demanding.
Like his words had flipped a switch inside me, I went limp, sagging back against him. “Ray…they shot Ray,” I sobbed. “Ray…”
“What—who shot Ray?” When I didn’t respond, only sobbed harder, Jason shook me. “Dani! Who shot her? Are we in danger?”
I took gasping breaths, trying to quiet the convulsive sobs wracking my body. “I—I don’t know. I don’t know…Ray…”
“Yeah?” Jason said, raising his voice. “No, we’re okay. Get everyone up and gathered—no fire. Something’s happened.” He relaxed the arm he’d wrapped around my shoulders and gently stroked my sweat-dampened hair, brushing back pieces that were stuck to my face. “What happened?” he asked, his voice dropping to barely a whisper.
“Ray…we were flying, and there was…” I swallowed several times. “A crack. And pain.” I squeezed my eyes shut at the remembered agony. “Her wing…someone shot her wing, and we were falling, and then I was back here…”
Pressing his cheek against the top of my head, Jason exhaled heavily. “Why weren’t you sleeping?”
“Why wasn’t I—” I wriggled out of his hold and turned on my knees to face him. “It doesn’t matter!” I said, shaking my head vehemently. “She’s out there. I can still feel her. She’s hurt badly, but she’s still alive. We have to go find her. We have to help her!”
Jason didn’t say anything for a long moment. He blinked. Watched me. Blinked. Stared. Measured. Blinked. “Alright. The others are gathering. Let’s go talk to them.”
I was yanking down the tent door’s zipper before he finished speaking. Barefoot and dressed in sweatpants and a way-too-big t-shirt I’d borrowed from Jason, I jogged to the center of camp where everyone was gathering, half-awake, half-dressed, and half-armed.
“Ray’s been shot!” I said as I reached them. “We have to go find her!”
“Shot?” Sanchez looked at me so intently that I felt certain we would be able to get to Ray in time. Sanchez was a woman who could get things done. “How far away?”
I pointed to the west and a little south. “A couple miles that way.”
Sanchez looked past me, and I could hear Jason’s footsteps as he jogged up behind me. “We’ve got potential hostiles to the southwest—armed,” she said to Jason. She glanced at the eastern horizon; it was just starting to lighten. “It’ll be another two hours at least until full light. We can either sit tight until we know more or move out now.”
My heart sank like lead in water. “We have to go after Ray,” I repeated.
“Wait, which one is Ray?” Sarah asked.
“She’s the white falcon,” Zoe said as she skirted around the group to reach me. She slipped an arm around my shoulders and squeezed gently. “How badly was she hurt, Dani?”
“I don’t know.” I focused on my mental connection with the falcon, opening myself up to more input. I shook my head as I listened to Ray’s terrified babbling. “She’s in a lot of pain. Her wing’s useless…she can’t fly, and her body hurts. She wants me to stay with her. She’s scared.”
I looked around at my companions, my friends, seeing pity on their faces, but not a single ounce of determination. Nobody intended to help Ray. I shoved away from Zoe with my good arm, a wild sort of energy pulsating through me. “We can’t just leave her out there.”
“Red…”
“It’s a bird,” Sanchez said. “I’m sorry, Dani, but we’re not risking our lives to rescue a damn bird.”
I rounded on her. “A damn bird?” I shouted. “A damn bird?” My chest heaved with each breath, indignation a living thing inside me. “That damn bird has done everything I’ve ever asked her to do for us. She left her territory…scouted for us day and night…warned us of other people…helped us find safe places and food…almost killed herself looking for water…” My fingers curved into claws; I wished they really were claws. “That damn bird is part of the reason we’re all still alive!”
Sanchez raised her hands defensively.
“Dani, calm down,” Jason said, stepping between Sanchez and me, blocking my view of the other woman. He placed his hands on my shoulders and repeated my name, drawing my eyes up to his face. “Let’s think about this. Maybe there’s another way. Could you use some of the other animals? Are there any you can send to retrieve her?”
“I—I—” I shook my head, searching his eyes. “Maybe, okay…maybe.”
I was in the process of scanning the area around where Ray had fallen when the falcon’s fear and panic quadrupled. Slipping into her mind, I immediately understood why.
I was Ray.
A two-legs stared down at me, his face inches from mine. I couldn’t move, and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to be alone, and I wasn’t, now that she-who-flies-with-me had returned. She was with me. I wasn’t alone. At least I wasn’t alone.
The two-legs showed me his teeth, then opened his mouth and made two-legs sounds. “I see you, she-drifter.”
He reached for me, and I tried to get away from him, but my body wasn’t working right.
“Hush now. Sleep.”
His hand stroked the feathers on my neck as his other hand covered my head. There was darkness. I felt—
“No!” I screamed, falling to my knees. “No…”
13
ZOE
APRIL 27, 1AE
Great Basin Desert, Nevada
“No!” Dani screamed, falling to her knees. “No…”
My eyes flooded with tears as I tried to swallow the anguish pouring out of her, one tormenting wave after another. It was almost more than I could bear. Attempting to comfort Dani, to help her quell the emotions burning a hole inside her, I knelt down and wrapped my arms around her shoulders.
“I’m so sorry, Dani.” She was completely despondent, but she let me hold her this time, and I rocked her in my arms as she sobbed. “Shhh…” I murmured. I couldn’t help the tears escaping down my cheeks as her grief consumed me. “Shhh…” I knew better than to tell her it would be okay—she was inconsolable, and even I would be forever changed by what she felt.
As I rocked her, I brushed stray curls out of her tear-dampened face every so often, trying to keep my own wild emotions in check. The rest of the group whispered around us. Some people left to give us our privacy, while others, like Jason, stood nearby, unwilling to leave Dani in such a distraught state, but also determined to give us space. His eyes were filled with untamed emotions, but his face remained blank.
Only hazily could I feel the sharp concern and unease breaking through the forbidding walls he’d so meticulously constructed around himself. Dani, it seemed, was the one person who could breach them.
I closed my eyes and held her tighter against me. “Shhh…” I whispered, and when my eyes opened, they briefly met Sam’s. He still lingered in the fading shadows of dawn, awestruck by the scene that had unfolded. He appeared more frightened than I’d ever seen him before. Quietly, Tavis nudged Sam’s shoulder, and with a nod toward their tent, the two of them retreated.
Though her body continued to tremble in my arms, Dani’s sobs eventually lessened. Leaning away, I glanced down at her red, swollen face. She didn’t seem to notice the distance I put between us any more than she registered the chilled air sending goose bumps over her bare arms; she simply stared past Jason with dull, glazed-over eyes.
She was numb. It was as if the life insid
e her had been emptied, like the way my life before had been stolen from me, leaving behind an unfillable void. There was nothing I could say to take away her pain. There was nothing I could do but hold her, reminding her that she wasn’t alone.
Rubbing my hands over Dani’s exposed skin to help keep her warm, I glanced at Chris and found her watching us intently. I nodded at her, silently requesting her help.
Quickly she approached us, clearly eager to do whatever she could. “I’ll get something to keep her warm.”
“Dani,” I said, but she didn’t seem to hear me. Her thoughts were far away. I could see vivid images of her flying through the star-filled sky with Ray—the wind against her feathered face, the air crisp and smelling of damp earth. Together, Dani and the falcon felt free…wild…alive.
“I’m so tired. Stay with me?” Cam, Dani’s late boyfriend, rasped and pulled the blankets tighter over himself. They were lying in bed, sick and exhausted.
In a blink, the scene shifted, and Dani was sitting on top of him, hitting his torso with her hands and pleading with him to stay alive, to come back to her.
And then, the little girl appeared, her eyes crazed and a snarl on her face before her body crumpled into a heap on the ground, fresh blood soaking through the front of her nightgown.
“It’s not your fault,” I whispered to her, my eyes flicking to Jason of their own accord. “None of it is.” I wondered if my brother—the love of Dani’s life—had any idea how deep her scars ran, or if he knew the weight of regret she carried.
Chris came up behind us and handed me a sweatshirt, socks, and a pair of shoes for Dani. “We need to get on the road soon,” she said quietly. Her words served as both a warning and an explanation for what she was about to do.
The Ending Series: The Complete Series Page 101