“Maybe, but he’ll be here soon,” she said. “I told him you probably have a concussion.”
Telepathy, one-sided or not, had proven very handy living on such a sprawling piece of property. I felt bad having Harper rush to the house, especially knowing that I did, in fact, have a concussion and that there was little he could do for me at this point. But if the way Sanchez was eyeing me was any indication of the sort of mood she was in, I wasn’t going to argue with her.
“You’re making that angry face again,” I told her, groaning as we stepped up onto the porch.
“That’s because you’re being weird,” she said flatly. I could always rely on Sanchez to get right to the point. The screen door slammed shut behind us, making my head pound, and I was unable to suppress a cringe as we headed for the stairs. “The last couple of days, you’ve seemed confused or something.”
I grunted. “You could say that.” Confused was an adequate word. Had the damn dream been simply that—a dream—or was it a memory? Had the General actually been at my house, in my backyard? Had he really held me in his arms and threatened my life? These were all questions fighting for space in my mind, but the most trumping of all were: where, if it was a memory, had it been hiding all this time, and why was it resurfacing now?
Although she was clearly curious, Sanchez didn’t hound me for more information. She helped me up the stairs, into the master bedroom–turned–infirmary. “The ibuprofen is in the cabinet to your left,” I said and climbed up onto the exam bed. I’d spent way too much time working in this room over the past several months. I knew where everything was.
At first I’d helped Harper reorganize and reappropriate things: two tall dressers had been moved together and served as our supply drawers, Jason had made cupboards to fit on top of them to house our most frequented items, and we’d exchanged the queen-sized bed for one of the twins in another room; once it was lifted on cinderblocks, it served as a perfect exam bed for moments like this. But there were other things I knew about too, like where Harper stored our most crucial medications I inventoried on a monthly basis and where he stashed the lollipops to give to Annie when she was a good little patient.
Harper strode into the room as Sanchez opened the cabinet, a wink preceding his serious doctor face when he took in my rumpled appearance. “Get the shit kicked out of you today, Baby Girl?”
“You could say that,” I grumbled, accepting the three pills Sanchez placed in the palm of my hand. She uncapped the thermos again, offering me water to wash them down. “Thanks,” I murmured and swallowed the pills without a second thought. I was all for the incessant knocking in my head quieting as soon as possible.
“Well,” Sanchez said, handing me the cap to the thermos. “I think I’ve done all the damage I can do for one day.” She smirked at me. “I’m sure there’s something more productive for me to be doing.” She shook her head when she noticed her muddy boot print on the front of my shirt. “Sorry about that, Zoe. Let me know when you’re feeling better—I want a rematch. Distraction is a technicality, not a fair win.” With a nod, Sanchez headed out the door. “I’ll be in that tiny excuse for an armory with Tavis if you need me.” The sound of her quick, heavy footsteps down the stairs was all that was left in her wake.
“Rumor had it you were turning into a force to be reckoned with on the sparring field. What happened out there today?” Harper teased, shaking his head before leaning forward to shine his god-awful penlight into my retinas.
“I really hate that thing,” I muttered, causing Harper’s smile to widen.
“You know the drill, Baby Girl,” he said, and I trained my gaze on the light that blinded me, like I’d done almost daily during the weeks when my memory had been all but wiped.
“Since we know I have a concussion already,” I started, “can’t we skip the bright-ass light and call it good?”
Harper chuckled. “Sure. Let me clean up those cuts on your hands, and I’ll get some ice for your head.”
I glanced down at the abrasions on my palms. I hadn’t noticed them at first, but the longer I sat there, the more the raw flesh began to sting. “Wow, I’m more pathetic than I thought.”
Again, Harper laughed. “You think this is pathetic? Have you already forgotten what your fighting looked like nine months ago?”
I glared at him. “That’s rude.”
Harper only winked at me. “You’re supposed to get the snot kicked out of you every once in a while, Baby Girl. That’s how you learn.” He walked over to the gauze drawer I’d refilled the day before and pulled out two large, square bandages for my palms. “I’m going to clean and dress your palms for today, but tonight, when you go to bed, take the bandages off so they can breathe.”
“Doctor’s orders?” I asked, taking in the white coat he rarely wore anymore.
“Damn straight.” In true Harper fashion, his eyebrows danced and another generous smile brightened his face. “I figured if I wore my cowboy hat you wouldn’t take me seriously.”
I laughed. “No, I don’t think I could.”
He lifted the thermos Sanchez had left for me. “Drink more water and take more anti-inflammatories throughout the day,” he recommended. He set the thermos down beside me, then he headed back over to the counter. “If Sanchez’s side kick is as spot-on as I remember, you’re going to be sore tomorrow…and probably the day after that.” Using an antiseptic pad, he cleaned the scrapes on my palm. “I want you to take it easy for a while, but no sleeping, Baby Girl. You do have a little bit of a concussion.”
“I know,” I droned and let out a deep breath. It wasn’t the first time Sanchez—or anyone, for that matter—had kicked my ass during training.
Harper offered me a sympathetic grin as he opened one of the bandage packages. “I remember a time when you couldn’t even lift your own body weight, and all you knew how to do was knee a guy in the groin. And even that was a pathetic attempt.”
I flashed him an over-the-top grin. “Aww, you know how to make a girl feel so much better, H. You’re too sweet.”
Harper’s head fell back with a burst of laughter. “I know. What can I say?” And with a steadying breath, he adhered a bandage onto one palm and then the other.
We sat in amicable silence until the heavy clomping of boots up the staircase alerted us that someone was coming. It was Jason; I could tell by the nonexistent mind pattern.
“Heard you got your ass kicked,” he said from behind me. The bed creaked as I partially turned to face the doorway. A hint of a smile reflected in his jewel-blue eyes, though his expression was his usual stark somberness that rarely gave anything away.
I shook my head. “I’m so happy everyone knows already. It’s only been, what…” I peered down at my naked wrist. “Ten minutes?”
“Sanchez is only trying to rile you up for her rematch, Baby Girl,” Harper said as he sauntered into the master bath. I could hear the water splashing around as he washed his hands in the large washing bowl.
“Oh,” I said blandly, “I know, and it’s working.”
Jason stepped into the room, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“I’ll get you some ice,” Harper said as he exited the bathroom. “Be right back.” Then he disappeared down the stairs.
Jason stepped up in front of me, scrutinizing the mess that was me. He pulled a twig out of my disheveled hair and deposited it in the trash bin behind him. “So, what happened?”
Although Jason had been more of a brother to me in the past six months than he’d been all of my life combined, I knew he wasn’t checking on me because I lost a sparring match. I rubbed the back of my head and stared down at the hardwood floor. “Why, what did Sanchez tell you?”
He sat on the edge of the bed beside me, his arms crossed over his chest. “That you’ve been distracted the last few days. And according to Jake”—I looked up at him—“you’ve been having nightmares again. What’s going on with you?” Jason’s gaze didn’t waver like it sometimes did. This
time, his scrutinizing eyes were fixed on me, determined and waiting.
I’d considered telling Jason and my dad about my dream many times over the past few days, but every time I told myself it couldn’t hurt for them to know, I remembered all the reasons why it would. “I’ve been dreaming about Mom and Dad. And the General…at our house, when I was little.”
Jason’s jaw clenched, but his eyes gave nothing away. He remained quiet.
“And I’m starting to think it’s not a dream, but a memory.”
This time his façade weakened, and his eyes narrowed minutely. “Why do you say that?”
I shrugged and stared down at the bandage on my left palm, picking at the corner of the adhesive with my index finger. “Because it feels real, like I was actually there—a scared little girl being threatened by the General so Mom would go back to the Colony with him.” In Jason’s silence, I peered up at him. The brilliance of his eyes darkened and his body tensed. But I continued, “She was pregnant in the dream, with Peter, I’m assuming.” I tried to pinpoint why it felt so real. “The General said he’d put Monitors on us to make sure she didn’t try to leave him again.” Jason simply blinked, and I internally squirmed in his silence. “I wasn’t sure I should tell you, in case it was nothing more than a dream.”
“But you think it’s something more.”
I stared up at the ceiling and groaned, “I don’t know.”
With a heavy sigh, Jason rubbed the side of his face. “I’m not sure that makes sense, Zoe. If you were little…” He shook his head, and I could tell he was running through the timeline of events, just like I had done over and over again. “You saw Sarah’s memories. She was a teenager—maybe a little older—when he brainwashed her. If he’d turned her when you were a kid, she would’ve been as old as you in her memories, just a kid.” Jason looked at me. “If that’s what he was talking about, that wouldn’t make any sense.”
I let my shoulders drop. “Unless she wasn’t my first Monitor… But I don’t know. That’s why I haven’t asked Dad about it. I don’t want to bring up all of this, making things harder on him—on us—if it’s just my brain making shit up. Because you know my brain, always, well…” I thought about all of my dreams, all similar in a lot of ways, but still filled with made-up shit.
We were both quiet. I didn’t pry into Jason’s mind; I was too lost in thoughts of our parents and how fucked up the whole situation was.
Jason finally looked at me. “What else?”
I shrugged. “What do you mean?”
“There’s obviously more that’s bugging you, Zoe. What are you thinking?”
Since Jason asked, I decided regurgitating all I’d pondered over the past few days was better than holding it all in. “Well, if Sarah was my first Monitor, the General could’ve had a reason to wait to put Monitors on us until we got older, or waited for the next phase of the Virus when he thought Mom might risk coming back for us again.” The ideas kept flowing, and my hand gestures could barely keep up. “Or maybe he was too busy having a son of his own to worry much about us after he got her back. I’m sure he knows she’d never leave Peter, she made that very clear.” Brushing a clump of mud from Sanchez’s footprint off my shirt, I tried to think like the General, but it was futile. “Who the hell knows why he did any of it.”
Then I remembered the strangest part of the dream. “There’s also the part where the dream starts to go backward and disintegrates until I can’t remember why I was so upset.”
Jason’s brow furrowed, and he crossed his arms over his chest again. He didn’t need to bark at me to continue; I did so willingly.
“I went from jumping forward through the dream—or memory, or whatever we’re calling it—chronologically, to moving backward, and then Dad said he’d make it go away.”
I watched as a play of emotions shadowed Jason’s eyes and hardened his features before his gaze shifted from the floor back to me. “You think he altered your memories?”
I leaned forward, my elbows braced on my knees as I rubbed my temples, exasperated and confused. “He could have.”
Jason nudged me, stirring my attention back to him. “You’ve had some pretty fucked-up dreams, Zoe. And now that we know about the Monitors, it makes sense you’d dream about them.”
“Yeah, nightmares of a faceless woman trying to communicate with me. Said faceless woman who was actually Mom. It’s like I really saw who she was this time, like it’s starting to make sense. In my dream this time, she went from her to faceless to”—I shrugged and shook my head—“to nothing.”
Jason studied me. “How old do you think you were in the dream?”
I scrunched my face as I tried to guess. “Maybe six-ish? You weren’t there, so it’s hard to tell. I couldn’t see myself, I just felt small and young.” I shut my eyes, thinking, wondering if there would ever be a time in my life when I didn’t feel like I was losing my mind.
When I opened my eyes again, Jason’s were boring into me with more intensity than I wanted to explore. I waited with bated breath for him to speak.
He blinked once, considering something, then said, “That’s about the time you started having your dreams.”
My heartbeat fumbled and slowed, the questions I’d been wracking my brain to answer solidifying into truths. “Really?”
Reluctantly, Jason nodded, his gaze blank and his thoughts clearly elsewhere. “I remember the first night perfectly,” he said, his voice distant. He paused a moment, and he frowned. “You were so scared…” Jason didn’t continue, even though a part of me wanted him to. When he looked at me, his expression was once again stoic and solidified in place. “Dad’s in town with Jake for most of the day; they’re getting some tools repaired. You should talk to him when he gets back.” When Jason stood, the bed creaked without his added weight. He hesitated to leave, and his lips flattened into a hard line. He looked at me. “If that son of bitch was at our house,” he said through gritted teeth. But instead of finishing his sentence, he ran his hands over his face and shook his head. “It’s not like it matters much now.”
Jason was right. It wouldn’t really fix or change anything if it was a memory versus a dream. But then again, it would make me feel better, less crazy and, strangely, a tiny bit more at peace if it were a repressed memory causing the nightmares that had plagued my dreams since childhood, rather than just my twisted mind.
Jason looked at me, and I thought I saw a soft sort of sympathy in his eyes. “It makes me wonder what else we can’t remember.”
I let out a despondent, somewhat hysterical laugh. “I know, right?”
Harper walked back into the room, and Jason seemed to take that as his cue to leave. “Let me know if you need anything,” he said, and then my brother left, his shoulders slumped a little bit more than before, and I hated that it was because of me.
~~~~~
Later that afternoon, while Annie and I were outside, chatting with the goats—my attempt to keep Annie out of trouble since I was on “light duty” and both Dani and Becca were gone for the afternoon, visiting the Re-gen farms—I waited impatiently for my dad and Jake to come home from New Bodega. Now that Jason knew about the dream, it seemed imperative that I get answers from my dad, that we learn the truth about what happened so many years ago and find out if there were other truths we should know about.
“Hey, Zoe.” I turned around to find Gabe striding toward the fence I was leaning against. “I heard you got your ass—I meant butt,” he self-corrected.
Annie paused her conversation with Cinnamon, the russet-colored goat, to listen in on our human conversation.
Gabe cleared his throat. “I heard Sanchez knocked the wind out of you. You okay?”
“I’m fine, thanks,” I said. “Just taking it easy, doctor’s orders.”
Gabe smiled. “Good.” He braced his elbows against the fence and peered around at the pens and pastures beyond. “Everything’s so green here. I’m used to snow right about now.”
“Yea
h, no snow here.” I peered up at the gray haze above us. “It’s just gloomy a lot during the winter,” I said. “With intermittent sunshine,” I finished in my cheesiest weatherman impression.
Gabe smiled. He was a strange mixture of ease and discomfort, as usual. Like the others, I felt the hum of his mood, the distant flicker of his thoughts, and could sense his feelings, though they’d all become easy enough to ignore. But Gabe was more withdrawn than the others, and I found my mind often drifted to his, opening up so I could understand him more.
“Everything okay?” I asked, knowing he’d had a difficult time settling into a new life here, despite having Jake and Becca back. Now he was away from the conveniences of the Colony—the facilities to make scientific advancements, the electricity and running water. He’d left behind the Colony and everything he’d known for the past several years, only to be surrounded by Re-gens all over again. Not being under the General’s thumb had to be a major win, but I could tell Gabe was going a little stir-crazy around the farm with no structured schedule or defined purpose. I just wished he felt more at home like, well, family should.
Running his fingers through his blond hair, Gabe nodded. “Yep, everything’s fine.”
I gazed over the hill peppered with a rainbow of grazing horses, toward the Re-gen settlement in the northern portion of Hope Valley. “How are things going with the Re-gens? Dani told me Carlos is in high demand.”
Gabe made a derisive noise, but his gaze remained on the cultivated land around us. “Yeah. Between Becca, Camille, and Mase, we’re working it out. But humans—Re-gens or not—aren’t so easy to rein in when their lives hang in the balance. Desperation is a tricky thing.”
Although degeneration wasn’t something I, personally, needed to worry about, I was concerned about Becca and the possibility that she might be taken from Jake again as a result of her new physiology. So much was changing; we still understood so little, regarding both the Re-gens and degeneration, and with the rest of us “normals”—as the Re-gens called us—and our Abilities. It was impossible to ignore just how much our Abilities had changed over the past year, especially my own.
The Ending Series: The Complete Series Page 134