“Dad,” I breathed out shakily, wrapping my arms more tightly around myself. I couldn’t ignore the distance that grew between us as I stood only a few feet away from him. I didn’t want to lose him too, on top of everything else. I couldn’t. “Daddy…”
Finally, he stopped, his chest heaving and his eyes softening as he took in the sight of me. I wiped a straggling tear from my cheek and covered my eyes with my hand, unable to stop the rest of the hot tears I wished would wait just a little while longer. I wanted to disappear.
“It’s—” I choked on a sob. “It’s happening again, isn’t it?” Seeing him so upset, so closed off from me, was more than I could bear. “I’m going to lose you, too.” I sniffled, one hand crossed over my stomach, gripping onto my side almost painfully as I tried to keep myself rooted—keep myself standing—the other hand still shielding my tears. I didn’t want to upset my dad more than he already was, but I couldn’t stop the racking sobs that threatened to drop me to my knees.
“Oh, sweetheart,” my dad said, and before I knew it, his arms were around me and he was holding me. “I’m so sorry,” he could barely say, emotion choking his words until they were little more than a croak.
I wrapped my arms around him, gripping his jacket as I tried to hold on to the last person I had left in my family. “Why does this keep happening?” I wept, feeling like a little girl in need of her dad all over again. Only this time, he was actually here with me, comforting me.
My dad’s arms tightened around me. “I don’t know,” he said, sounding defeated. He laid his cheek against my forehead. “I don’t know.” He took a deep breath and then another, though it didn’t seem to help him reel in his fear and sadness, his anger and confusion. His tears dampened my hair, and I could feel his chest heaving with each escaped sob.
“I can’t lose you again,” I whispered, trying to catch my breath. “Not like last time.”
“Shhh,” he crooned. “You won’t lose me again, Zoe. I promise. You won’t lose me again.” He held my shoulders and stepped back, using his thumbs to wipe the tears from under my eyes. “I need you too, you know?” He made no empty promises or reassurances that everything would be okay, but the fact that he was standing there with me, completely vulnerable, was somehow reassuring enough. He wiped the dampness from under his eyes and offered me a weak smile.
“Hey, Tom, what do you know about the San Rafael area—” Gabe stopped mid-step and glanced back and forth between us. “Oh, uh, sorry. I didn’t mean to, uh…”
I stepped back, the blood draining from my face as I looked at him. “No…”
“No what?” Gabe looked confused until his widened eyes narrowed and he frowned. “What is it?”
Like Dani, Gabe was surrounded by color. A light purple haze so soft it was almost gray surrounded him. “You—you’re glowing.”
Gabe straightened, taken aback. “I beg your pardon, I’m what?”
I took another step backward. “I think I’m finally losing my mind.” My hands clenched and unclenched at my sides, and I couldn’t help what was probably a gaping, horror-stricken expression.
“Come, sit down, sweetheart.” My dad led me over to a rusted folding chair. “You’re just tired. You need to rest—”
“What do you mean, ‘glowing,’ Zoe?” Gabe asked, his eyes narrowing as he stepped closer. “What does it look like?”
I let out a slightly strangled laugh and dabbed my damp eyes with my sleeve. Of course Gabe—the mad scientist, so to speak—was curious, not condemning. “It’s glowing all around you,” I said dryly. “A lavender, pulsating light.” I stared at my dad for a moment, seeing no colorful glow surrounding him. “Why does this keep happening to me,” I said under my breath. When Gabe’s right eyebrow rose, I explained. “Dani was glowing, too.”
“Really?” Gabe widened his stance and crossed his arms over his chest. “And when did that start?”
My dad’s grip tightened on my shoulder in supportive reassurance.
“A couple days ago—” I hesitated, wondering if that was true. “At least, I think it was a couple days ago. I’ve been seeing colors around people off and on lately, but I’m not sure this is the same thing. I had a concussion the first time, I think, so I’m not sure that counts.” My eyes widened. “Do you think it was more than a concussion? What if I have brain damage?” I knew it wasn’t likely, but at the same time, I felt a tad desperate for answers.
Gabe didn’t seem convinced. “Not if it’s only Dani—and now me—that you’ve seen these glowing colors around.”
I glanced from him to my dad and back, the inside of my cheek raw from pulling it between my teeth. “Do you think I’m losing my mind?” I was beginning to grow seriously concerned.
“You’re not losing your mind, sweetheart.” My dad let out a soft chuckle and patted my knee.
Thankfully, Gabe shook his head as well, a small smile quirking the side of his mouth, which made me feel a little better. “I don’t think it’s quite that bad yet, Zoe.” He studied my face, like the answers to my puzzling mind were etched someplace only he could see. “There’s been a lot going on this past week, and with you experiencing everyone else’s emotions…it’s more than you’re used to. It makes sense that your Ability might be attempting to cope with the onslaught by transforming the emotional input it receives into something you can sense in a more traditional way.”
“So it’ll probably go away,” I prompted.
Gabe shrugged. “There’s no way to know for sure. This could be your Ability evolving, or it could just be your mind’s way of coping, like I said. Give me some time to study these changes, then I’ll have some answers for you…hopefully. Unfortunately,” he said, his gaze shifting back and forth between my dad and me, “let’s just say that if this has anything to do with the influx of strong emotions, I don’t think it’ll go away any time soon. Not with everything going on around here.”
I felt a small anvil sink to the pit of my stomach. I didn’t want to think about how long our world would be turned upside down, inside out, and wrung out and exposed. Clearing my throat, I asked, “But why colors? Why are people glowing? That doesn’t even seem connected to emotions…at all.”
Gabe started to shake his head, like he wasn’t sure. “Could be a form of synesthesia, I suppose…” He paused. “Maybe if we think of your Ability in terms of changing energy levels and intensity—” Gabe stopped, his brow furrowed. “What? Why are you smiling?”
I hadn’t realized I was. “I’m just remembering the last time you provided me with the bruised peach analogy, and an hour later my mind was being ripped open and all my monsters were jumping out at me.”
Gabe feigned amusement. “Analogies help me process, okay? Besides, I was right, wasn’t I?” Crouching down a few feet from me, one arm draped over a knee, Gabe started to draw in the layer of sawdust covering the workshop floor with the other. “Now, if we consider the fact that your Ability is emotion-driven, that it likely picks up on other people’s raw energy and brainwaves…” He drew what looked like a prism with wavelengths coming out of it, letters—which I assumed represented colors—in each section he drew. “Energy and light…color…” he muttered to himself.
Gabe squinted up at me. “If we consider the increase in everyone’s emotional output—especially the intensity of Dani’s,” he said, and his voice dropped as the brightness of his eyes slightly dimmed. He took a deep breath. “It could be that you are, in a sense, seeing people’s emotions now, not just feeling them. Maybe like the intensity—the frequency—is reaching new levels and creating an energy source strong enough that your mind is processing it the only way it knows how…the way the vision centers in our brains process light and color.”
“But Dani’s color hasn’t changed with her emotions,” I countered, realizing instantly how strange it was that Dani had “a color” to begin with. “It’s been the same since it first appeared.”
Gabe ran his fingers through his long, blond hair. “I
don’t know. It’s just a theory. I could be wrong…wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Or,” my dad said, and Gabe and I both looked at him, “maybe it’s not necessarily her emotions you’re seeing. You’ve been able to feel people on an intrinsic level since you got your memory back—who they are, what they’ve done, their fears and passions and everything they don’t want you to know about them, all of it in the forefront of your mind if you want it to be.” His eyes narrowed. “If Gabe’s right, then maybe your Ability is allowing you not only to feel their emotions and who they are, deep down, but to actually see who they are now.” He pointed down to Gabe’s sketch on the floor. “Maybe this visible energy Gabe’s talking about isn’t for each heightened emotion, but is a manifestation of the basic, raw connection you have with each of them.”
“Which would be even more interesting,” Gabe piped in. “We’re always giving off energy, right? It’s what animates our bodies, after all. You’ve already tapped into our frequencies, so to speak—maybe now you can see them.”
“You mean, like an aura?” I asked.
“I don’t really know. I guess, yeah. I mean, considering the general state of genetic instability the rest of us are in, I wouldn’t rule out any possibilities at this point.” He shrugged. “It’s different for you, being second-generation. Your body didn’t mutate spontaneously; you were born this way. Your Ability may have remained dormant until triggered by Wes’s clever little genetic stowaway in the Virus, but you were born with a body physically and mentally equipped to handle your Ability. Your situation is unique, which makes it extremely difficult for me to diagnose what’s happening to you.” He scratched the stubble on his jaw. “If this new element of your Ability goes away, I guess we’ll have an answer…or, at least, part of one.”
“And that would be…” I hedged. I was still struggling to wrap my mind around what exactly they were trying to explain.
“To put it simply, Zoe,” Gabe said with an exhale, “you’re stressed out—at max capacity—and it’s showing through your Ability, for better or worse.”
With a grunt, I let out an exhale of my own. My dad’s eyes were pensive and waiting. I could tell he anticipated a less-than-ideal reaction from me. But I was almost beyond the ability to react.
Gabe turned his head slightly to the side, also waiting for a response.
After a moment, I threw my hands up. “Well, then I guess that’s settled,” I said, standing. They both looked at me, expectantly. “I need a drink.”
9
DANI
DECEMBER 7, 1AE
The Farm, California
I stabbed my trowel into the soil, taking out my irritation, my anger, on the defenseless earth. I inhaled deeply, the dark, rich smell of damp soil at the peak of fertility filling my nostrils, then huffed, “I will find you…whatever your name is.” I’d spent every night for the past week using my drifting time to search for Jason and her. But despite the keener senses of the animals whose bodies I’d shared, I’d found nothing. Zilch. Nada.
I stabbed the earth once more.
Jack trotted toward me between two rows of raised soil, mud caked in his fur. He shook himself off enthusiastically, then planted himself butt-first well within my personal space. His nose was wet and cool, but his tongue was warm. And slimy.
“Seriously?” I raised my shoulder to wipe my slobbered-on cheek against my hoodie, but his presence was far from unwelcome.
“Mother…upset.” Jack’s deep mental voice was somber. “But I am here.” He scooted even closer—though how that was possible, I wasn’t sure—and nuzzled my neck, the side of my face, my hair. He was dead set on making sure that I knew I wasn’t alone, that I knew he was with me. The animals had been big on that kind of thing since Jason’s disappearance. They’d become my lifeline. Them, and Zoe. But then hadn’t that always been the case?
I set a baby spinach plant down in the shallow hole I’d dug and turned to wrap my arms around my dog. “I know, Sweet Boy,” I told Jack both aloud and telepathically. “I know. And I love you so much.”
He stood partway, the entire back half of his body wiggling with his overenthusiastic tail wag. “Run with me?”
I stared into his amber eyes, knowing full well that he didn’t want me to throw down my trowel and launch into a sprint alongside him; he wanted me to drift into him, to mentally and spiritually run with him. “Later, Sweet Boy.” Looking away, I reached for another spinach plant with one hand and my trowel with the other. “I’ve got work to do right now.”
Without Jason around to null my Ability while I slept, I’d had no choice but to run with Jack—drifting into his mind and that of countless other animals—every night. As a result, restful sleep had become a foreign concept to me once again and nausea a standard facet of daily life, along with fatigue, shaking hands, and an inability to concentrate on much besides when I might be able to drift again.
The animals’ minds offered a refuge not only from the concerned stares of my friends but also from the mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion that had become my status quo. I was a wreck, a junkie; I knew it, and I knew that the others were keeping a close eye on me for that very reason. But there really was nothing I could do about it. And considering that it was the most effective way I could assist in the search, there wasn’t much I wanted to do about it. I wished I knew how Annie managed to survive by only drifting, never sleeping, but I doubted it was anything replicable. Chris and Gabe hypothesized that it had something to do with the fact that Annie’s brain was still developing, and because it was still so malleable, it was able to adapt to her Ability. Unlike my developed, unmalleable brain…
Jack whimpered and once again planted himself essentially on my boot.
I sighed. “What is it, Sweet Boy?”
“Angry…sad…scared…lost…” His whine was high-pitched and heartbreaking. “Don’t want to leave you alone.”
I gently buried the little spinach plant’s bundle of roots, then leaned my head on Jack’s muddy, furry shoulder. “I’m never alone,” I whispered. “Not when you’re around.”
And it was the absolute truth. I’d yet to find an animal I couldn’t communicate with, but my connection to some was much stronger than my connection to others. And with Jack and Wings, especially with all of the time I’d spent wholly submerged in their minds lately, it was almost impossible for me to separate myself from either of them completely. We were well and truly tied together. And I didn’t mind it one bit.
“Now go help Annie,” I said, raising my head and nodding toward the orchard some fifty yards from the vegetable garden. Despite the many things that we shared with our neighboring farm friends—the Re-gens and the Tahoe clan—the orchard and garden were hands-off to anyone who didn’t live in the farmhouse or cottage and would hopefully one day produce all of our personal fruits and vegetables, as well as the herbs and other plants Harper and I were growing for medicinal purposes.
I scanned the dormant apple, plum, and cherry trees until I spotted Annie’s blonde head. I’d been able to sense her mental signature, but her little forest-green raincoat allowed her to melt right into the background of overgrown companion plants—hyssop, yarrow, and chives, for the most part—as she crawled around on the ground in search of earthworms. She was a small child on a mission, and her focus was commendable.
“Go,” I repeated, and Jack obeyed with only the slightest hesitation.
I returned to my work, digging, planting, burying, over and over again. I lost myself in the cathartic motions, finding the ache that settled into my hands a pleasant distraction. I’d opted not to wear gloves, and the sensation of my fingers digging into the cool, damp soil, of the dirt lodging under my fingernails, made me feel connected to the earth…to everything. Even to Jason, wherever he was. Alive or…not.
“Stop it,” I said under my breath.
“You shouldn’t be out here, D.”
I started, nearly tearing the root bundle of a spinach plant
in two. It wasn’t easy for people to sneak up on me, what with my ability to sense their minds and all, but Zoe’d been making a habit of it lately. Or maybe it was that I’d been making a habit of being more or less oblivious to my surroundings.
“Sorry.” Zoe gingerly stepped over the row of freshly planted spinach and knelt in the dirt facing me. “Thought you heard me.”
I shrugged, then continued my work. “You’re getting your jeans dirty.”
She ignored my comment. “Have you eaten anything today?” There was a sharp edge to her voice, an accusatory tone that told me she already knew the answer.
Again, I shrugged.
“I thought we made a deal, D.” She sounded exasperated. “Until you’re able to keep some food down, you rest inside. What happens if you pass out or get sick while you’re out here, alone?”
I tucked another baby plant into its earthy cradle. Zoe’s long, slender fingers wrapped around my wrist, preventing me from reaching for another plant. “Have you heard a single word I’ve said?” She squeezed, her nails digging into the inside of my wrist. “Jesus, D, do you even care?”
I breathed in and out. In and out. In and out. And then I raised my gaze to meet hers.
Zoe’s tone, her words, the hurt swimming around in her eyes—this was one of those moments that was a surefire trigger to tears. Or it would have been a week ago, maybe. But now all I felt was emptiness, and a need to push…to work…to do and do and do until all of my muscles ached and my brain wasn’t capable of thinking or feeling anymore. Until I was no longer capable of remembering that day.
Until I was no longer in danger of thinking about that day.
Zoe sighed, and I could tell her patience was thinning. “Why don’t we find something for you to do inside at least?” It wasn’t really a question. “Come on,” Zoe said, her voice somehow both soft and firm. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” She pulled me up to my feet. I offered no resistance, not that I would’ve been able to fend her off anyway. With all of her physical training over the past year, she’d become almost as indomitable as Chris and Sanchez.
The Ending Series: The Complete Series Page 139