Zoe quickly glanced down, looking bashful, before gazing back up at him through her lashes.
“I love you, Zoe.” Jake let his words, his heart, linger in the inch between them. “I want you to be able to start over…with me.”
Licking her lips again, Zoe nodded, her eyes open wide and gleaming. “I love you, too,” she said, and rose to tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Okay.”
28
ZOE
MAY 25, 1AE
Bodega Bay, California
The sound of a low, rumbling voice woke me from yet another haunting dream about my mom, and my eyes flew open. There was a featherlight pressure against the right side of my face. I stared up at the stars through the netted top of the tent, trying to steady my breath.
“Are you alright?” Jake asked.
As my desperation and fear subsided, I let out a deep breath. “Did I wake anyone?” I whispered, turning my head to look at him.
“It doesn’t matter.” It was his nice way of saying probably. He pulled me into his arms, somehow knowing it was exactly what I needed.
“You’re becoming a pro at this,” I tried to joke, but Jake said nothing. He simply stroked my exposed arm with his thumb, and I rested my head on his chest.
“Why is this happening?” I whispered. “I have the answers I wanted…I know the truth, but the dreams just keep changing. Why won’t they go away?”
“Honestly,” Jake said, “it’s probably a test for me.”
“Really? How so?” I craned my neck to look up at his shadowed profile, barely able to see the hint of a smile.
“Because every night you have your dreams, I get to pull you into my arms and hold you as close as I ever really get to, until you fall asleep.”
I smiled. “And that’s a test because…”
“My self-control is diminishing.”
I could only chuckle softly. “You’re trying to distract me…”
“Is it working?” He smiled against my ear.
Laughing, I tightened my hold around him, unsure what the hell I would do if he weren’t there to comfort me. “Thank you,” I whispered.
“For?”
I propped myself up on my elbows and gazed down at the contours of his face. “For your patience…for always knowing what to do and what to say to make me feel better…for being you.” I leaned down to press a light kiss to his lips.
Jake reached his hand behind my head, his thumb gently brushing the side of my face as he kissed me a little deeper. Feeling the space between us charge to nearly unbearable levels, I knew what was to come. Us. Together. Our first time making love since my memory had returned.
It hadn’t escaped my notice that, like last time, he was holding me after a dream. But this time, it was different. I was the Zoe he wanted, the one who occupied his thoughts. And knowing that made me want him all the more. I wanted his strength and love and protection to fill every fiber of my being, to fill up the emptiness that lingered in the days since my memories had returned. We were finally…right.
I kissed him deeper still.
“Zoe.” The mere sound of him saying my name made my heart swell to near bursting. He pressed his lips against mine, giving me a slow, savoring kiss so intoxicating I thought I might die from withdrawal if he ever stopped.
Jake’s warm hand found its way under the hem of my t-shirt, his fingers light as they trailed up my back. His body was hot, but mine was near burning. I needed air…needed to be rid of the confines of my clothes. I pulled my shirt over my head, flinging it into the corner of the tent.
“That was easier than I thought,” he muttered, and I could feel the heat of his gaze as it raked over my body.
“Easy? So you planned this?” Jake shrugged, and I leaned into him, my lips brushing against his ear as I said, “You’d better be careful…or I’ll have to punish you…”
“Punish me?” I could picture his broad grin curving his lips into a delectable smile. “You don’t have it in you.”
“No? Well, a lot’s changed in the last month, and I have you right where I want you…”
Jake leaned his head back as much as his pillow would allow and let out a deep laugh. His chest rumbled, and I could feel the column of his throat move up and down as I pressed my lips against it.
“That was a bad move,” I informed him. I nestled my face in the crook of his neck, lightly dragging the tip of my tongue against the scruffy, sensitive skin beneath his jaw. He smelled of leather and tasted of salt.
Groaning, Jake gripped my hips.
I tried to stifle a laugh as I straightened. “See what happens when you don’t take me seriously?”
His hands splayed against my back, urging me back down to him. The moment his mouth, his tongue, found my collarbone and then the base of my throat, my eyes closed, and I let out a strangled whimper. He kissed an invisible line down to each of my breasts, each graze of his lips leaving behind an excruciatingly blissful throb that spiraled downward, making me desperate to cry out.
His grip on my torso tightened, and he rolled me over onto my back. I lost myself in a laugh of pure elation and to an overwhelming desire for more. I craved it. Needed it. I wasn’t sure I could live another moment without it. Without him.
Fleetingly, I thought of the others, of the quietness that surrounded us, but then I realized my pants were gone, replaced by his hot, solid body on top of mine. By his insistent hands. By his devouring lips. And all else was completely forgotten.
~~~~~
After taking Shadow for a long stroll around the ranch, trying to come to terms with our decision to stay so close to home, I opened the pasture gate and led him through to graze with the other content horses. Unhooking his halter, I draped it over my shoulder.
“Thanks for being such a good boy,” I said softly and brushed his scraggly, black forelock from his eyes. I would’ve trimmed it for him, but according to Dani, he preferred that I didn’t. I gave Shadow’s nose a gentle stroke with the back of my curled finger and patted the side of neck before pushing him away. He ambled toward Arrow and Brutus, gave them a little nicker, and lowered his head to the ground for a late morning snack.
It was our last day at Riders’ Ranch, and I figured the horses might as well enjoy their final meal in the lush pasture before we headed for our new home in Petaluma. We’d never seen the farm, and aside from knowing it was big enough for all of us, we didn’t really know what to expect.
Leaving the horses to their grazing, I walked back to the gate and closed it behind me.
Squeaking hinges and a hollow bang startled me, and I craned my neck in time to see Sarah storm out of the ranch house, wobble down the steps, and lumber around the side of the house and behind the shed as fast as her legs would carry her.
I waited for Biggs to run out after her, but instead, it was Mase who came to the screen door. He filled the wooden frame completely and peeked his head outside, a mixture of trepidation and fear twisting his features as he scanned the yard around the house. When he saw me standing in front of the pasture gate a couple dozen yards away, he shrugged.
Muffled sobbing and screaming reclaimed my attention, and I looked back over at the shed. Sarah walked a few steps away from it, her arms flailing emphatically, and she turned and disappeared behind the shed once more.
I gave Mase what I hoped was a reassuring nod then sprinted toward Sarah, more than a little concerned.
As I drew closer, I could barely make out what she was shrieking. “…not even real. It’s not even real…” Coming up alongside the shed, I stopped, horrified by the images that were filling my head, by the feelings that were fogging my mind.
Sarah, scrawny and homeless with tattered clothes and more-wild-than-usual hair, walked into a cramped, nondescript building, where a man in a white lab coat stood with a clipboard in hand. Holding it out to her, the man pointed to the top paper. Sarah nodded, biting her lower lip as her eyes scoured the document. With a heavy exhale, she signed the bot
tom of the sheet, and the man smiled.
Like her memories were resurfacing from a long-buried past, another image emerged.
Sarah woke up in a hospital bed, IVs in her arms, tubes in her mouth, and electrodes attached to her head.
Stepping around the corner of the shed, my mind spinning, I watched her.
She was completely oblivious to my presence until she turned around again, stopping after taking a few awkward steps in my direction. Her eyes narrowed, then widened, and I could feel her inner battle—see her different selves fighting for space in her mind. It was like I was observing someone with multiple personality disorder carrying out several conversations with herself. Two images of Sarah flickered to life in my mind’s eye, two different versions of her, screaming at each other about who was real, who was right…who should be in charge of her.
Sarah, strong and formidable, stood in the library of a grand home—what I’d thought was her grand home. She looked like a completely different person, a determined, almost angry glare pinching her features. Her curly brown hair was pulled back into a tight knot atop her head, her clothes were black and form-fitting, and a handgun was gripped in her fingers.
“There were no family photos,” I said, remembering the walls adorned with original artwork, but nothing personal, no portraits of her wealthy parents or candid images from her childhood. We’d never even found her parents.
Sarah watched as men in fatigues removed a handful of bloodied bodies from the house, and a team of people hustled around her, removing photos and certificates from the walls, scouring through the hundreds of books lining the shelves, and tossing trophies into oversized garbage bags.
Sarah started pacing again. “I don’t understand.” She let out a whimper. “I don’t understand. It’s all a goddamn lie! What am I supposed to do? What am I—” When she glanced up again, it was like she was noticing me for the first time. She stopped in her tracks, tears pouring down her face as she wrapped her arms around her belly. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Zoe,” she wailed and fell to her knees.
“Oh my God, Sarah, be careful!” I said, closing the distance between us and kneeling beside her. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, trying to steady her shaking body. “What the hell happened?”
Completely despondent and unable to formulate a single coherent word, Sarah continued to sob. Unsure what I should do, I pulled her tighter against me, my love for my friend clouding the fear I should’ve been feeling in seeing her true past, in feeling the burning hatred she intermittently felt for me.
Purposefully, I watched a storm of jumbled images flash through her mind…images that made the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stand on end.
Sarah was walking beside a man in fatigues, her clothes changed into jeans and a cardigan, her hair down and bouncing with each leisurely step, and a softer expression on her face and a shimmer of innocence in her eyes.
I balked and stared down at my wailing, quivering friend. A torrent of emotions assaulted us both: resentment, terror, determination, eagerness mixed with affection, gratitude, guilt, and uncertainty.
“Sarah?” I said, recalling the night I’d dug around in her mind and had found nothing like the two lives I could now see commingling as one.
Sarah and I were in her bedroom back in St. Louis, jumping up and down and giggling so much that we could barely breathe. Biggs was there, standing in the doorway, and upon simply seeing him, adoration filled her entire being…
…Sarah, wearing her black pants and combat boots, was kneeling on the ground. A murderous look hardened her features as she dragged a blade across an old man’s throat. His eyes were wide with terror before his face, twisted in pain, slackened as he bled out in Sarah’s arms. Her expression was blank, except for the victorious glint in her eyes.
I swallowed the dread nestled thick in my throat.
Sarah and Jordan walked in through the front door of my house in Salem, both smiling at me. Sarah proffered her hand in greeting, like she was a completely different person than the woman holding the knife…
The truth was glaring me in the face, suffocating, and I resisted the urge to scream.
I was sitting on my bed back at Fort Knox, Sarah brushing my hair…
…Sarah was watching over me while I slept, crying with concern as I lay in the hospital bed…
…Sarah was sitting at my kitchen table back in Salem, eating my food in my house, watching TV in my house, even when Jordan was out of town or at work.
I struggled to reconcile the two versions of the woman in my arms—trained, dangerous Sarah and bubbly, naive Sarah, who I’d grown to love almost like a sister. Having known it was possible, even likely, that she wasn’t who we—who she—thought she was didn’t make the realization any easier as I watched each memory of our experiences together fuse with those of a Sarah I didn’t recognize, a Sarah I didn’t trust, a Sarah who was frightening.
A Sarah who was trained to kill me.
“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, clutching onto me desperately. “I don’t know what’s happening to me, I don’t understand—” She let out an agonizing cry and clutched her stomach. “Oh my God!” She struggled for breath. “The babies…something’s wrong with the babies…”
“Shit,” I hissed. As she knelt beside me, gasping in excruciating pain, I let the impending truth of her betrayal fall by the wayside, and my instincts took over. “Come on, Sarah. We’ve got to get you inside.”
She screamed again as I tried to lift her. “I can’t move, Zoe. I can’t—” Another piercing scream echoed through the late morning, and I hoped that by the time I could get her to her feet, the others would be there, ready to help.
“Hold on, Sarah. We’ve got to get you inside—”
“I can’t,” she breathed. “It hurts so bad, I—” She let out another bloodcurdling scream.
Squeezing her shoulders, I stared into her eyes. “Sarah, you can’t have your babies in the dirt. You would never forgive me. We have to get you up.”
Biggs and Harper barreled around the corner of the shed, horror filling Biggs’s eyes. They were still dressed in their gear from going into town to scavenge, but their jackets and gun holsters didn’t inhibit them—especially not Biggs. He fell to his knees on Sarah’s other side.
“Babe,” he gasped. “Are you alright…is it the babies?”
Sarah let out another wail in answer, and Harper helped Biggs lift her up to take her into the house.
“Sarah, you have to relax,” Harper said. “It’s just like we practiced—”
“I can’t relax!” she snarled.
“Deep inhale, Babe. Please,” Biggs begged, smoothing her hair back from her face.
She did as she was told, but the pain from the contractions made it difficult for her to concentrate for long.
“Zoe, we’ll need the blankets and towels from the trunk in the cart, and I need my medical bag. Hurry—we don’t have long.” Harper’s voice was controlled as he and Biggs made their way toward the house with Sarah propped between them.
I nodded, staring into Sarah’s frightened eyes, before turning to run toward the barn.
“Zoe,” Harper called. “Get Chris, too; we’re gonna need her.”
“Okay!” I said and picked up the pace.
“What can I do?” Dani asked as I sprinted past her and Annie.
“Get Chris, and we’ll need water and soap for anyone doing any handling.” Dani nodded and hustled away, leaving me to gather Harper’s medical bag and the towels and blankets.
When I finally arrived back at the ranch house, out of breath, Chris and Biggs were helping Sarah settle on the makeshift delivery bed consisting of carefully arranged couch cushions on a small kitchen table. Dani straightened as she finished laying the sheet over it, and I nearly flung myself at her in gratitude. Her work at the ranch years ago, combined with her more recent, temporary use of it as a safe haven mere months ago, provided her a familiarity with the place the rest of us
lacked.
Dani glanced from me to Sarah and back, her face scrunched in sympathy. I had to fight the urge to run to her, to cry into her arms and tell her what I’d seen—that I was finally certain Sarah was a Monitor. But Sarah’s screaming diverted my attention, sobering my thoughts and bringing me back to the urgent task at hand.
Becca ran inside, the screen door slamming behind her and a wide-eyed look on her face. “Here are more pillows,” she said.
I pointed to Dani, who grabbed the pillows, layering them behind Sarah’s head to prop her up a bit more. Sarah offered Dani a brief, tight smile of thanks, and my stomach knotted. As harmless as Sarah appeared to be in the midst of giving birth, I couldn’t ignore the unease I felt at seeing my best friend standing so close to someone so dangerous.
Sarah’s eyes met mine, and I saw the roaring emotions and pain darkening them.
“Zoe?” Harper said, making me jump.
I shook my head and stepped closer, nearly stumbling on the tangle of clothes and gear that he and Biggs had shed in the chaos of moving Sarah. I handed Harper his medical bag and started gathering up the pile of gear from the floor and dumping it onto the seat of the antique armchair that had been pushed into one corner.
“Thanks, Baby Girl,” Harper said, distracted as he opened his bag. “Biggs, get her breathing leveled out or she’s going to hyperventilate.”
Biggs and Chris were murmuring reassurances and instructions to Sarah, while Becca, Dani, and I stood by, dumbfounded and waiting for another command.
Becca glanced at me. “I’ll be outside with Carlos,” she whispered. “Let us know if you need anything else.” The way she singled me out and squeezed my arm reassuringly made me wonder if somehow she knew my insides were riddled with fear and sadness—or if maybe she’d had a vision of what had happened to Sarah, that she knew a war had broken out in Sarah’s mind. A war Sarah was losing.
The Ending Series: The Complete Series Page 122