Zo’s really back. Joy swelled in my chest until I thought I might burst, spilling down my cheeks in the form of happy tears.
She’s really back…my Zo. Smiling and crying silently, I stared out at the lake and simply felt happy.
Zoe returned a few minutes later, placing a pair of scissors and a brush on top of my upraised knees before sitting on the sand in front of me, her back to me. “Have at it, D. And for God’s sake stop crying.” But she said it with a smile evident in her voice.
I freed my arms from my terrycloth straightjacket and wiped away the wetness coating my cheeks. “I know, I know…I’m such a crybaby.”
“It’s alright, D. That’s why I love ya.”
I cleared my throat and moved the scissors and brush to the sand beside me before shifting my legs so I was sitting cross-legged. I straightened my back and started brushing the tangles out of Zoe’s ridiculously long hair.
“Ow,” she said when I tugged on a particularly stubborn snarl.
Breathing out forcefully, I said in a sing-song voice, “Which is precisely why we’re cutting it…”
We fell into companionable silence while I continued to brush. Minutes passed with only the sound of dogs barking in the distance and seagulls cawing overhead.
“So,” Zoe said, drawing out the word. “How have you been sleeping?”
I paused mid-stroke. “Why are you asking me when you already know?” I said softly.
“Because I’d like you to tell me.” She paused. “I don’t want to snoop…unless I have to.”
I finished the stroke, then started to part her hair down the middle. “I thought you couldn’t help it…”
Zoe started drawing shapes in the sand to the right of her. “I guess it’s different now. I can shut it off a lot easier, thank God.”
I sighed in agreement. “Seriously.” I quickly added, “No offense.”
“You should’ve told someone about drifting, Dani.” Zoe’s voice was harsher than I’d expected, but not harsher than I deserved. “If I hadn’t known…”
Setting the brush down on my knee, I smoothed Zoe’s hair down her back and picked up the scissors. “I know.” I closed my eyes and shook my head, wishing I could make the weeks of drifting disappear so I no longer had to remember how good it felt. “Believe me, I know. I’m just lucky that you were still looking out for me, even if you weren’t really you while you were doing it.”
I put the scissors down on my other knee and wrapped my arms around Zoe’s shoulders, pressing my cheek against her wet hair. “Thank you for saving me.”
Zoe cleared her throat. “Please just promise me you’ll tell me if you need me…if you can’t do it on your own, or if Jason nulling you doesn’t help…” She swallowed loudly. “I can’t lose you, D.”
I nodded, messing up the smooth, damp curtain of hair I’d so carefully arranged down her back. “I promise,” I told her before pulling away and picking up the brush again to straighten out her hair.
Minutes later, I’d snipped off over a foot of hair and was setting in to evening out what would eventually be a decently fashionable, yet practical, shoulder-length haircut. I paused and peeked over her shoulder so I could see the side of her face. “Do you want to see how much I cut off?”
“I don’t know, do I?” she asked rhetorically.
I picked up a chunk and tossed it over her shoulder so it landed on the sand in front of her.
“Holy. Crap. That’s like a foot and a half…”
I laughed. “I know, right?” Under my breath, I grumbled, “Now, if I could only get Vanessa to let me chop off that rat’s nest she calls hair…”
Zoe snorted and started to turn her head to look over her shoulder at me.
“Hold still, Zo…unless you want a funky asymmetrical hairstyle.”
“Oh, sorry.” She faced forward again. After a long pause, she asked, “So, has Carlos told you anything about them?”
I frowned. “Such as…?”
“I was just curious if he shared his story with you, is all…what happened to his sister and Annie…and his brother.”
My frown deepened, verging on scowl territory. “Jesse? No, not really. Before yesterday, I knew he had a sister…but that’s about all I knew about his family.” I shook my head slowly.
“Maybe you should ask him about it. I’m sure he could use someone to talk to.”
“You won’t tell me?”
Zoe shook her head, and I had to retrieve the brush to straighten her hair out…again.
“Please, Zo…pretty please,” I said, my voice purposely whiny.
“If you really want me to, I will, but I think you should talk to him about it first. It’s not really my place, ya know?”
I nodded and, realizing she couldn’t see me, said, “Yeah, okay.”
As I finished Zoe’s haircut, my mind whirled with possible scenarios for how Vanessa and Annie had ended up living with a pack of wolves and wild dogs in the mountainous woods to the east of Lake Tahoe. Whatever the actual story ended up being, I was certain it wouldn’t be good.
~~~~~
“Hey,” I said as I approached Carlos. He, Vanessa, and Annie were sitting at a picnic table just outside the stable, snacking on beef jerky and packaged cheese and crackers. The trio had been easy enough to find, what with Annie’s mind being one of the few human minds I could actually sense.
“Thanks for taking care of everything,” I told him.
Looking up, Carlos nodded. He finished chewing before asking, “How’s Zoe? Is she really back to normal?”
I laughed softly and swung my leg over one side of the picnic table to straddle the same bench Annie was sitting on. “She’s good. Really good.”
Carlos was sitting directly across from me, keeping a close eye on his sister, whose hands were still bound, but not so restrictively that she couldn’t feed herself. His features were drawn, making him look older and wearier than I’d ever seen him. He’d been keeping his distance since we first arrived in Tahoe; I’d assumed it was because of the unexpected appearance of his sister, but now I suspected it was more than that. Though we were a few miles from the place that had hosted what was undeniably the most traumatic month of his life, we were pretty damn close. It would’ve been stupid to think his proximity to that place wouldn’t dredge up painful memories…wouldn’t haunt him.
“So, how are you doing?” I asked tentatively. “Being back here and all…?”
Carlos lowered his eyes, looking at the ground beside the table. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
The wind shifted, and I caught a whiff of the delightful odor that was so distinctly Vanessa’s. I wrinkled my nose.
“You don’t have to stay with us,” Carlos said, meeting my eyes then glancing at his sister. “I know it’s not the, uh, nicest place to be right now…and you should be with Zoe.”
I raised one shoulder and half smiled. “It’s cool. I got her all to myself for the first few hours. It’s time to share.” I shifted my attention to Annie, who had processed cheese product smeared all over the lower half of her right cheek.
She grinned at me, still gnawing on a piece of dried and salted meat.
Pressing my lips together in a disapproving line, I said, “You’re a mess, you know that?”
Annie nodded enthusiastically.
I snorted and rolled my eyes. “What am I going to do with you?”
Setting the remainder of her half-eaten jerky on the table, Annie declared, “Full!” She squirmed off the bench and ran toward the three canines—two wolves and one dog—who were lounging in the woods nearby. They were precisely the reason I’d left Jack back at the lodge with Jason, who was, once again, meeting with Holly and Hunter.
“Don’t go far,” I told Annie, then repeated the same command to the canines, adding a request that they keep her safe and bring her back before dark. All the members of Snowflake’s pack were protective enough of Annie—young two-legs, as they called her—that I knew she would be
safe with them, and more comfortable than if I forced her to be around the other human members of my group.
When I turned back to Carlos, I found him watching me. “You’re not gonna go after her?”
I shook my head, frowning the tiniest bit. “They’ll keep her safe, and she’ll come back…even if she doesn’t want to.”
“Listen, Dani…” Carlos hesitated briefly. He stared down at the uneven wooden surface of the table. “Annie’s not your responsibility. You don’t have to take her in and, you know, be her mom or whatever…not if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t mind,” I said, pretty sure I meant it. “It’s not like there’s anyone else really cut out to take care of a kid like her. Except for Ralph, I suppose…” I shrugged.
Carlos’s brow furrowed. “Well, you don’t have to, so if you change your mind, I’ll—” He took a deep breath, then sat up straighter as if the breath had given him strength, helped him decide. “I’ll take care of her.”
Now, why the hell would he say that? I studied the handsome young man with world-weary features sitting across from me, feeling nothing but compassion and sympathy and the kind of love I felt for Zoe…and one hell of a dose of curiosity. “Who is she, Carlos?” She had to be someone to him, based on what Zoe had implied.
He laughed dryly and shook his head, staring off into the woods near where Annie had disappeared. “Just some kid we found…at the beginning.” He glanced at his sister, his lips curving into a smile filled with regret. “Nessa and me, all we had was each other at first. Then we found Annie, and then my brother showed up…and then we made the mistake of coming down here.” He looked at me.
I tilted my head to the side and searched his guarded eyes. “So, why did you guys come all the way down here?”
Carlos inhaled and opened his mouth.
“To be safe!” Vanessa exclaimed, cutting him off before he could say anything. “Huh, Jesse?” She was staring at a space beyond the end of the picnic table as though somebody were standing there. She cackled for a moment, which seemed to be her go-to response to pretty much anything, then grew serious and started nodding. “It was mean of that guy to shoot you.” Her eyes shifted, and she glared at Carlos. “It’s not nice to shoot people.”
“Uh…” I frowned. “What’s she talking about?”
Carlos heaved a huge sigh. “Jesse, our brother, kept talking about this place in Tahoe where there were a bunch of survivors and shit. So, when we realized there was nothing left for us up in Yakima, we decided to come down here.” He shrugged. “Turned out this guy—Cole—had made Jesse bring us down here…like with mind control.” Carlos cleared his throat, his eyes becoming glassy, his gaze distant. “He shot Jesse when we got here—killed him—and then made me shoot at Nessa, but the bullet barely touched her arm. At least she was able to get away with Annie before I could really hurt her.”
I stared at him and his sister, at a loss for words.
“I know she’s a Crazy,” he said, turning his face to watch Vanessa continue her conversation with a hallucination of their dead brother. “But I have to take care of her.” He returned his gaze to me, his expression sorrowful but determined. “If that means I have to leave the rest of you…”
I reached across the table and took hold of his hand, strip of beef jerky and all. “Don’t be an idiot. You’re family.”
23
ZOE
MAY 22, 1AE
Petaluma, California
With my eyes closed and my fingers playing with the onyx fringe of Shadow’s mane, I turned my face to the sun and basked in its warm rays. I groaned in springtime-euphoria. I’d been impatiently waiting for spring for months, and now, like everything else that seemed to have popped up over the past month, it was finally here.
Amid my impromptu sunbathing, I could hear little blackbirds chirping. I knew from the couple of hours Shadow and I had been standing like sentinels outside the feed store that the blackbirds were hopping around the parking lot, looking for dropped seeds in and around the discarded food bins and perched on the forgotten forklifts behind the store.
Opening my eyes, I watched them, careless and oblivious to all that had happened in the world. One blackbird in particular had decided we weren’t nearly as threatening as the rest of his friends thought, and he was venturing closer and closer…only to fly away when Shadow flicked his tail. Maybe next time I should bring my sketchbook. While what I was doing was important—keeping my feelers open for any approaching danger—it was a good time to sketch, to document and write down what we were finding, what we’d seen, and what we’d learned about surviving.
Typically, being on intruder watch meant I needed to be on high alert, but now I was so in tune with my Ability—a result of all the electrotherapy sessions—that it was easy to multitask, at least so far. It had been over two weeks since we’d left Lake Tahoe, two weeks since I’d told Dani that my Ability felt different, and only now did I know to what extent. Now, as we neared the coast, it seemed that using my Ability had become effortless.
I could cast my feelers out for any unsettling minds that wandered too close. I didn’t need my eyes to know when danger was near because I could sense people—their emotions, their memories…the essence of who they were. I could reach further distances, a solid mile at least, and I didn’t have to worry about learning things others wanted to keep private unless I was purposefully looking. I could separate memories from emotions like they were oil and water. I could turn my Ability on and off at will.
Along with my memory returning, I was able to get back into a routine that felt more…me. I still helped Dani manage the horses each day and helped Ky scout for danger up ahead when we needed to find a place to rest each night, but I’d also earned myself a spot on a scavenging team whenever an extra scout was needed. I’d resumed self-defense and archery training just as intensely as I’d been doing before losing my memory and helping Harper gather and organize medical supplies when the opportunity presented itself. I had a purpose again, but even though I felt useful, something still felt off…
Leaning against Shadow, feeling his coarse mane between my fingers as I idly combed through it, I gazed out at the lowering sun. I’d seen many stunning sunsets over the past few months—traveling through Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and now through Northern California—but this sunset felt different, like it meant something. I figured it was just my antsiness that made it feel different, because tomorrow, I would go home.
Home. It was a place I both longed and loathed to visit. Returning there was one of the most petrifying things I could think of doing, more disturbing than seeing a wall of corpses and more unsettling than having a gun pointed at my face.
And my dreams had returned, haunting me like they used to. Sometimes my mom had a face, but it was distorted and permanently etched in a sneer, her voice cold and flat and menacing. Other times, she resembled herself—Dr. Wesley—but the malevolent gleam in her eyes continued to disturb me, even when I was awake. But none of those dreams were as horrible as the truth. My mom is alive. She created the Virus. She lives with the General. She has a family with him…
I let out a frustrated sigh. I needed to go home. It was all I had left of my dad, and I needed to say goodbye, and somehow I needed to leave all the disquieting memories of my past behind when I closed the front door for the final time.
No matter how honorable my mom’s intentions had been twenty-five years ago, she still killed billions of innocent people to save Jason, Dad, and me. She took Becca from Jake, Grams from Dani, and Dad from me…and I hated her for that. Part of me wondered how I could hate her when she was my mom, but the rest of me wondered how I could possibly forgive her. Was I even supposed to try? The questions looped through my mind, making it impossible to think of much else. Every time I thought I’d come to terms with my feelings toward her, thought I’d settled in to despising her, forgiveness and longing threatened to wash away all my anger and fear.
Shadow turned to me, nudg
ing my belt buckle with his nose. He let out a chuff of air, and his impatience made me smile.
“Uh-oh, was I neglecting you?” His eyes blinked sleepily as I began stroking his sleek, muscled neck. “So sorry. What was I thinking?”
…about Mom and why I can’t forgive her. I had to continuously remind myself that she was a horrible person. I couldn’t just forgive her for what she’d done…what she was still doing. But it was never as simple as black and white, because I couldn’t truly hate her, either. She was also the person who saved me, who helped save Dani…she was my mom.
Diverting my thoughts to something less unsettling, I stretched my feelers a bit and focused on the mood inside the feed store, where Jake, Chris, and Ky were gathering the last of the horse tack, grain, and assorted pet food we needed for the dogs and goats. Inside, the team’s mood seemed pleasant enough, so I let them be, happy to be out in the sunshine on my own.
It was nice to get away from camp every once in a while—mostly because I felt like an ass around Tavis, no matter how nice he was about my momentary fickleness and mixed messages. Nothing had happened between us, not really. But I was kicking myself for putting everyone in an awkward position. And being around Sarah was hard, too. She’d been such a loyal, kind friend, and I’d gone snooping around in her mind, finding nothing to make me feel uneasy, and yet I still did. She wasn’t stupid; she knew I was acting differently around her, and I hated that I couldn’t tell her why.
Wiping the moisture from my brow, I glanced down at Shadow. “Is it just me or is it getting too hot in the sun?” He simply stared ahead, his head hanging languorously as his eyelids grew heavier. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s park it in the shade.”
Welcoming any form of movement, Shadow perked right up as we headed to the shade of a few eucalyptus trees lining the side of the lot. I loosened Shadow’s reins so he could graze on a small patch of weeds growing beneath the trees.
The Ending Series: The Complete Series Page 114