“Thanks, Sweet Boy.”
He wagged his tail happily and let out a single yip.
Ahead, Carlos stood before the sliding door to his sister’s stall, his forehead resting against the barred-off window, his hands gripping two of the bars tightly. I stopped a few feet away and crossed my arms over my chest. Jack, however, continued forward, sitting as close to Carlos as was physically possible without actually sitting on his feet. Inside the stall, Vanessa, Carlos’s eighteen-year-old sister and our resident Crazy, was experiencing a blessed—and rare—moment of quiet.
“So…what was that all about?” I asked.
Carlos exhaled heavily. “They were here because Jimmy, Dan, and Lawrence—” Seeing my blank stare, he clarified, “They’re Re-gen sparklers, but they’re not as good as me at electrotherapy.” I knew sparklers was his slang for people who could handle electricity like he could.
I coughed a laugh. “So humble…”
Carlos shrugged with minimal effort. “It’s true. They’re not as good at controlling the currents. And they’re weaker…and that makes the electrotherapy they give weaker. Maybe in time, after they’ve strengthened their own Abilities by electrotherapizing the shit out of each other, they’ll be way better than me, but now…?” Again, he shrugged.
“So what? You’re like name-brand electrotherapy and the others are knockoffs?” I glanced back up the empty stable aisle. “And not everybody’s getting Carlos-brand electrotherapy, are they?” I stuck out my bottom lip, just a little.
Carlos turned his head to look at me, his temple resting against one of the metal bars. “Yeah, and Mase and Becca and Camille have been really cutting down on who I work on—just them and the other sparklers, mostly. Everyone else gets one session with me per month.”
I was undeniably grateful to Mase, Camille, and Becca for their innate ability to more or less rule over the other Re-gens, as well as for their foresight where Carlos was concerned. Six months ago, when the Re-gens first arrived en masse, seeking our help to stave off their slow death by degeneration, Carlos had tried to help everyone, which had led to overexertion in less than a day and a period of burnout that had lasted for three full days. And when his Ability came back online, had Mase, Camille, and Becca not stepped up and reined in the Re-gen horde, they’d have begged and whined and pleaded and bullied Carlos into doing it all over again.
“It’s raining…it’s pourrrrring,” Vanessa sang from within her stall. “The old man is snorrrrrring.”
I eyed the shadows through the bars, uncomfortably grateful that I couldn’t see Carlos’s sister in the dimness. The intermittent rain and cloud cover was making all hours of daylight feel like dusk.
“He went to bed,” Vanessa continued, “and bumped his head and couldn’t get up in the morrrrrning.”
I shivered, and without a word, Carlos slipped his leather coat off and tucked it around my shoulders. “You know, soon it’ll be too cold for her to stay out here all the time,” Carlos said, and I didn’t need Zoe’s Ability to know that having his sister locked up because she was a danger to herself and others was killing him inside.
We’d loaded Vanessa’s space with all sorts of blankets, but without the electric heat the stable had been designed with, I knew he was right. We all did. What we didn’t know was what the hell to do with her. Could we get by with letting her stay in the house, simply keeping a guard on her day and night? It was a thought…
“It’s raining…it’s pourrrrring.” Vanessa’s voice was growing shriller with each word.
“We’ll figure something out,” I told Carlos, giving him a side hug.
“The brother thief is snorrrrring…”
I exchanged a look with Carlos. Brother thief was Vanessa’s name for me, we both knew it. We also both knew that whatever was going to come next in her revised version of the old song wouldn’t be overly pleasant.
“You should go,” Carlos said quickly.
“You’ll go to bed,” Vanessa sang. “Rosie’ll bash in your head, and you won’t ever get up again!”
I shivered, and this time it had nothing to do with the damp cold. Deep down, I hoped we never let her out of that stall again.
3
ANNA
NOVEMBER 25, 1AE
The Colony, Colorado
Anna tapped the nail of her index finger on her desk in a quick staccato while John rifled through the papers in the folder on his lap. He was an undeniably brilliant man, but Anna found that such people were usually lacking in some other fairly essential area. In John’s case, it was organizational skills. And social skills. And common sense.
“I know it’s here.” Carefully, he began to skim each sheet of paper before setting it on the floor beside his chair. “I was just looking at it in my office.” He glanced up at Anna, his eyes sliding down from her face to her tapping finger, and froze. “Do—do you want me to come back later…when I’ve found the results?”
Straightening in her chair, Anna clasped her hands together and set them on her lap. “No, John. What I want is for you to get your head out of your ass.”
She watched the high-strung man blanch and regretted her words instantly. She needed him, and he wasn’t the kind of scientist who thrived under extreme pressure. No, Dr. John Maxwell required careful handling and ideal working conditions. He was almost more trouble than he was worth. Almost.
Anna sighed heavily and allowed herself a long, slow blink. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I know you’re doing everything you can for Peter and the others. I just…” Another sigh slipped out of her, sounding far too resigned. “Can you summarize your findings and share the actual details later?”
“Yes!” John bobbed his head enthusiastically. “Yes, of course!” He scooted forward on his chair, the folder held tightly in his hands. “I’ve examined the bodies of all of the Re-gens General Herodson executed and, well, as it turns out, he might have inadvertently given us the key to stopping degeneration once and for all, reversing the effects even.” The thick file folder trembled in his grasp.
Anna licked her lips and leaned forward, her chest rising and falling at an increased rate to match her suddenly racing heartbeat. “Go on…” She placed her hands palm down on the surface of her desk.
John scooted forward in the chair a little more. Any further and he might find himself sitting on the floor with a bruised tailbone. “By having one of the electricity handlers carry out the executions, General Herodson was essentially conducting an informal study on what the direct application of that kind of electricity—human-derived electricity—does to a Re-gen’s body. And when I examined the bodies of the Re-gens executed yesterday, most signs of degeneration in the neural tissue were gone. Poof.” He clapped his hands together and made a fluttering motion as he pulled them apart. “Degeneration, be gone.”
Anna couldn’t help her look of astonishment. “This was true for all of them?”
“All thirty-eight,” John said with a nod.
“And you’re absolutely certain of the cause of their miraculous recoveries?”
“Ill-fated,” John mumbled, “but I guess you could call their ‘recoveries’ miraculous.”
Anna narrowed her eyes, refusing to let her hopes rise too high. “I see, well…” She was once again tapping her fingernail on the desk, this time in anticipation. “Start trials immediately. Pick the two strongest and most skilled electricity handlers, and use the seven Re-gens Gregory pardoned yesterday as your initial subjects, then work your way through the loyalists.” She paused her tap-tap-tapping, then resumed it noticeably faster. “The order doesn’t matter, so long as Peter is last.” Another pause. “And bring me the results before you try the new treatment on him.”
John started gathering the loose papers and documents off the floor, practically bubbling with anticipation. “I’ll need an executive order from General Herodson to appropriate some of the electricity handlers for the day. There are so few now…”
Anna nodded once, ro
lled her chair back, and stood. “Done. I’m on my way to a meeting with him right now. You’ll have what you need by midmorning.” She rounded the desk and retrieved her knee-length down parka from a hook on the wall beside the door. As she donned her winter armor, she turned around to give John a few final instructions. “If anyone gives you grief for borrowing their assigned Re-gens for the day, tell them they’ll be receiving a visit from both Gregory and me. And make it very clear that the visit won’t be a pleasant one.”
Gloves in hand, Anna opened the door and ushered John out into the hallway. Once she was finally outside in the below-freezing air, she allowed herself a brief moment of relief. Peter’s recovery was hardly a sure thing at this point, but his prospects had never looked this good.
She tamped down on her hopeful excitement, pulled her gloves onto her hands, and started off toward the headquarters building at a brisk pace, not wanting to spend a second more than necessary out in the cold. She’d always hated winter.
~~~~~
“You’re certain that it’s him?” Gregory was up and pacing, and when Gregory was pacing, everyone was on edge.
Sean, Gregory’s official spymaster and one of the Colony’s two remaining dreamwalkers after Gabriel’s flight, nodded. Despite Gabriel being the stronger dreamwalker and flat-out more capable man, Sean had been Gregory’s spymaster for nearly a decade, long before Gabriel was even aware of Abilities.
For about the millionth time, Anna missed the young scientist. He was a pain and a flirt, but he was also one of the kindest, most caring people she’d had the pleasure to work with in the Colony. Sean, on the other hand, was a shrewd man of few scruples—a perfect fit for his devious position.
“One of my agents spotted him in the market at New Bodega,” Sean explained. “Apparently he’s been posing as a trader of rare and luxury goods, including pharmaceuticals.”
“How fitting,” Gregory said dryly. “So, the elusive Dr. Cole Michaels isn’t dead after all.” He moved to stand behind his chair and gripped the top rail so tightly that the color drained from his nail beds. “This is unwelcome news, my friends, unwelcome news indeed. What of his twisted companion? Was news of Mandy’s demise at Lake Tahoe as inaccurate as the reports of Cole’s supposed death?”
It had been an unexpectedly happy day for Anna, as well as for Gregory, when the reports of the dynamic duo’s supposedly gory ending had come in, first from Danielle during her short stay, then from others as they looked into the issue. Ever since Cole and Mandy had broken free from Gregory’s leash over a decade ago, they’d been thorns in both Anna’s and Gregory’s sides—dangerous, unpredictable, power-hungry, slippery thorns. And no matter how hard Gregory’s people had tried, the combination of Mandy’s Ability to inspire unbreakable adoration and Cole’s mind control had made it all but impossible to eliminate them.
For years, Anna had felt like she was holding her breath, waiting for Cole and Mandy to discover that Gregory’s main leverage over Anna was her family. And she’d had no doubt that the duo would take swift, permanent action to shred Anna’s collar and release Gregory’s most powerful ally…by killing her children. Anna was, after all, Gregory’s main power source, boosting the strength of his Ability a hundredfold, maybe more. Without her strengthening him, Cole and Mandy would have been free to swoop in, dethrone Gregory, and take over the Colony.
And though Gregory was far from an ideal leader, at least he had an inkling of good intentions, an honest desire to make the future better—of course, his version of “better” didn’t quite match up with most other people’s. Cole, on the other hand, the mastermind who’d twisted what had once been a sweet, innocent young woman into an undeniable monster to function as his main ally, was pure, power-hungry evil. He’d pulled Mandy’s strings. He’d turned her into the sadistic cult leader she’d become. The people in the Colony deserved better than Gregory, Anna had no doubt of that, but Cole was far, far worse.
And according to Sean, who was almost always right, Cole was in New Bodega, just a handful of miles from Anna’s children.
Anna was suddenly so parched she doubted she would be able to speak. She blinked in surprise when someone set a full glass of water on the conference table in front of her, and she couldn’t hold in her grateful smile when she glanced up to find Gregory standing behind her. “Thanks,” she said, clearing her throat and raising the glass to her lips. She took several hasty sips, then set the glass back down, gripping the glass more tightly. She feared that if she let it go, her hands would be shaking visibly.
“Give us a moment,” Gregory said to the others. “I need to speak to my wife.” It wasn’t an order he gave often, but when he did, nobody ever argued. The room was cleared in a matter of seconds. “Darling…” Gregory pulled out the chair beside hers and sat. “I know how much this news must be troubling you.” He gently removed the glass from her hands and gathered them in his cool, firm grip. “Having him so close to your other children…”
Anna’s entire body stiffened. She hadn’t known that Gregory knew where Jason and Zoe were, not until now. His last Monitor on Zoe had imploded, and from the few communications she’d received from Gabriel after they first settled on their farm—before Gabriel had gone radio silent, which she could only assume was Jason’s doing—she’d believed they were safe.
“I may have lost my Monitors, but I’ve got Sean keeping an eye on them. They make frequent trips to New Bodega.” Gregory’s grip on her hands tightened painfully, a physical reminder of the punishment she’d received for contacting her other children and triggering the Monitors in the first place. “We’ll make sure that no harm comes to them, not from Cole.”
Anna was very conscious of Gregory’s wording. No harm would come to Jason or Zoe from Cole; it was very clear that if harm did come to them, it would be coming from Gregory himself.
“I—” Anna had to clear her throat. “Thank you, Gregory.” Her voice was laden with emotion, mainly fear—fear of Cole, and fear of Gregory. “It—it means so much to me that you’re looking out for them,” she lied. “Truly.”
Gregory smiled his double-edged smile. “Always.”
4
ZOE
NOVEMBER 27, 1AE
The Farm, California
With each side kick, right hook, and jab I landed on Sanchez during our sparring practice, confidence began to overshadow concentration. And for each of Sanchez’s strikes that I deflected, my thoughts flitted further and further away to possibilities I wasn’t sure I should explore—possibilities that seemed to swarm around one single question: had my disturbing dream been only a dream?
After a few days, the dream about my dad and Dr. Wesley—who I sometimes considered my mom, depending on how I was feeling about her—and the General still haunted me. Not just in darkness, when I closed my eyes, but when I watched Jason going about his chores and tasks around the farm, and I wondered if his mind housed veiled shadows of our past. And when I saw my dad, I felt a slight sting of betrayal, though I wasn’t sure it was warranted.
It could all have been a dream. Despite the numerous times I’d repeated that to myself, I had a niggling feeling that it wasn’t true, it hadn’t been just a dream. True, it was just one of many bizarre dreams my mind had conjured over the years, but unlike the others, this dream had actually felt real. It hadn’t been a nightmare I’d awakened from, shuddering at the memory of the featureless woman whose hands were too bony and whose voice alone could summon pure terror in my sleep. No, this dream had left behind a sinking heap of dread, a sadness and confusion that felt all too real.
Sanchez’s foot collided with my stomach, knocking the wind out of me as I flew backward. Although I used my hands to temper the fall, I rolled and cracked the back of my head against the semisoft ground.
“Shit,” I breathed and squeezed my eyes shut. “That’s going to ruin my day.” I tried to catch my breath, blinking a few times in hopes that the ringing and flashing circles behind my eyes would cease. I tried to f
ocus on the farmhouse standing almost teasingly on the other side of the lawn, wavering in and out of focus.
Sanchez crouched above me, her dark eyes and tanned skin cast in shadows against the midmorning sun, radiant above her. “You okay?” she asked, her voice equally skeptical and concerned.
I nodded, feeling the cool damp earth beneath me as I tried to lift myself up, and I instantly regretted it. “Just hit my head harder than I would’ve liked.”
Sanchez proffered her hand as I struggled to sit up.
My head throbbed, making it difficult for me to focus as I reached for her hand. With one determined tug, she pulled me up onto unsteady feet, holding onto me while I reacquainted myself with the world standing upright. “Let’s get you to Harper. You might have a concussion.”
I rubbed the base of my skull, and with a derisive noise, I moved to brush myself off, slowly to prevent the spinning world from whirling even faster. As the light dancing around Sanchez—a warm brown sugar that made me think of oatmeal—began to fade, I was certain a concussion was exactly what I had.
“Where the hell is your head today, Zoe? It’s like you’re on autopilot or something.”
I tucked a few dark strands of hair behind my ears and let out a recuperative breath. I wasn’t in a chatting mood, so I shrugged. “Somewhere else, I guess.”
“Yeah? No shit.” Sanchez uncapped a thermos of water and handed it to me. “Drink.”
Accepting it, I gave her a sheepish grin. “Thanks.” The water was cool and refreshing in my parched mouth, so I took a few sips more before I handed the thermos back to her.
“Let’s get you looked at,” she said, and slowly but surely we made our way into the farmhouse from the overgrown grassy patch beside it. “Harper’s probably out in the herb garden with Dani and Grayson,” I realized, but Sanchez was already shaking her head.
The Ending Series: The Complete Series Page 133