Part of me expects some smart-ass response from Jason, but he remains silent, a statue of barely-restrained menace, of promised death.
“I’m going to touch your hand,” the trader says as he approaches Jason. “You can lower your guns; you won’t be needing them.” He reaches out, taking hold of Jason’s wrist once it’s at hip level. “I’m going to compel you. Don’t attempt to nullify my Ability, or the girl will die. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” The single word is harsh on Jason’s lips.
“Good, good.” I can hear the smile in the trader’s voice. “Now, you will always obey me, you will never harm me, and you will constantly amplify my Ability, starting immediately.” After a brief pause, the trader sighs. “Oh God, the power,” he groans. “Together, Mandy and I were a force to be reckoned with, but you, Larissa, and I—we’re going to be unstoppable. That bastard won’t know what hit him.”
With the mention of that name—Mandy—memories click together in my mind, and I realize that the marketplace in New Bodega isn’t the first place I’ve seen this man. He was with the cult in Tahoe, one of the many controlled by Mandy’s Ability…or so we’d believed. Now, it’s becoming clear that he’d had a much more active role. Because he’d controlled Mandy? Or because he’d controlled them all? Just her, I think remotely, considering that most of the Tahoe people were now residents of Hope Valley, not under his mind control.
“I find it quite fitting that you’re the one who will help me get what I want,” Cole tells Jason, “considering that you’re the one who took it away from me to begin with. When you killed Mandy—”
“Cole,” the woman—Larissa—says as she moves around Jason and toward me. “Care to order your new pet to give me a little boost while I take care of the girl’s memory?”
“I could do that…” Cole moves to join Larissa, and both stop within an arm’s reach of me. “Or I could order him to kill her.”
Horror flashes across Larissa’s bold features, but it’s quickly masked behind bland amusement. “You could…” She makes a subtle pouty face. “But then I wouldn’t be able to practice, and you know how much better I get at creating memories after each attempt, especially when they contain such strong emotions.” She pauses and glances at me, panic alighting in her eyes, then quickly disappearing before she returns her gaze to Cole. “And how excited the emotions make me…”
Cole chuckles. “You’re such a greedy succubus.” He leans in toward her, his hand coming up to grasp her neck. He pauses just short of his lips touching hers. “Do as you wish, but make sure there are no loose ends. You cannot possibly imagine the things I will make you do to yourself if you fuck this up for me.” He kisses her, hard, then releases her and walks away to rejoin Jason.
Larissa exhales heavily, relief transforming her face. “Now don’t you worry, sugar,” she says, moving closer to me. She cuts her forearm with a pocketknife, then smears the blood on my hands, clothing, and face, even as I fight the urge to cringe. “For legitimacy, sugar. Trust me.” Finally, she places her hands on either side of my head and leans in to stare deeply into my eyes. “I’m going to make this all go away, so you can go home and live a good long life with your friends, just you wait and see.”
~~~~~
“Cole,” Tom said, slouching in his chair. “Of course it’s Cole.”
“Cole?” Zoe’s face was filled with confusion.
“He was one of the cult leaders with Mandy,” I told her. And holy shit, Jason’s really alive! I wanted to laugh out loud. I wanted to cry. I did a little bit of both, slapping my hands over my mouth almost as soon as the confused sound bubbled up from my throat. “Sorry,” I said after I’d collected myself. “I just can’t believe it’s really true.” I cleared my throat. “Jason’s really out there, alive.” I shook my head, tears welling in my eyes. “I thought it was impossible…thought there was no chance…”
“Don’t worry, D.” Zoe gave my hand a squeeze, her own eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “We get it, trust me.” She exchanged a look with her dad, who nodded.
I smiled weakly, then cleared my throat again. “Oh, but about Cole—we thought he was just another victim of Mandy’s. But…” I shrugged. “This explains how he knew what Jason could do.” I felt like kicking myself for not having recognized him sooner, but I had only met him the one time in Tahoe, and he’d looked so different then…
“If there’s one thing Cole’s never been,” Tom said, standing and stretching stiffly, “it’s a victim.”
“You knew him”—I shook my head—“know him?”
Slowly, Tom started pacing back and forth between the kitchen table and his chair. “A long time ago. He worked with Anna when Gregor—I mean, when Herodson’s plan was still in the developmental phase, then he became the leader of one of the satellite compounds where Herodson conducted research and slowly built his army of people with Abilities. Anna was far better acquainted with him; she even met Mandy before she became…” Tom took a deep breath. “Cole is the one who twisted Mandy into the monster she was when you met her in Tahoe, Dani.”
“Okay,” Zoe drew the word out slowly. “So, Cole wants Jason for—”
“Power,” Tom said without hesitation. “He’s going after Herodson. Cole’s going to try to get rid of him and take everything that he’s built.” I didn’t think it sounded so bad.
“Maybe we should let him,” Zoe said, voicing my thoughts. “Then Mom would be free…”
Tom shook his head. “Herodson’s a power-hungry bastard, but he at least tries to use his power to make the world better.” He held his hand up, cutting off both my and Zoe’s sputtered protestations. “Cole is much, much worse. He’s a psychopath. He just wants power so he can rule…so he can play with people’s lives…so he can create and destroy at will.” Tom closed his eyes and took several long, slow breaths. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this.” He opened his eyes and looked at us. “We have to go after them…to stop them.”
“And save Jason,” I said, adrenaline spiking in my bloodstream.
Tom nodded and closed his eyes, his features tensing. “And Herodson.”
16
ZOE
DECEMBER 12, 1AE
New Bodega, California
My dad and I stepped into what used to be the old Tide’s Wharf Restaurant, the building and surrounding parking lot now serving as the Transportation and Planning Department in New Bodega. Before, when New Bodega had simply been Bodega Bay and all of us were living our lives blissfully unaware, I’d eaten at the restaurant many times—soups and sandwiches on weekends or during summer breaks with Dani. I was still getting used to the fact that my hometown, which had once been sprawling, was now contained behind a wall dividing “out there” and “in here.”
We walked toward the receptionist, needing an “okay” from the manager to use one of New Bodega’s vehicles for our pressing trip to Colorado to save Jason…and, much to my displeasure, General Herodson. My shoulders tensed, and my hands clenched at my sides as I, for the millionth time, considered how ludicrous our situation was.
“My friend Lance said there was a pretty lady in charge of all exchanges and rentals—said that I should talk to Cynthia,” my dad said, flashing the cherub-faced woman a heart-stopping smile. Growing up, I’d seen that same smile make all the ladies in Bodega Bay blush. I thought back to his flirting with our neighbor, Charlene, and how he’d refused to let that budding relationship turn into anything more than a neighborly friendship. Knowing what I knew now, that he was wrecked and ruined in the wake of my mom’s leaving, I began to understand why.
The woman’s full cheeks flushed, and her pouty lips curved into a small smile. “I’m Cynthia,” she said. She straightened her shoulders.
He’s still got it. I pursed my lips to keep from smiling and turned away. Moving off to the side to let my dad work his magic, I stared out one of the numerous picture windows that lined the west side of the building.
The pampas grass a
nd wild wheat layering the hillsides in the distance bent to the wind’s will, their surrender a plea to the hiding sun. The gulls fought unyielding gusts above the choppy, gloom-colored waves. I remembered a time when all of it—the majesty of nature and the changing of the seasons—had been less ominous, when it had been beautiful. But now everything seemed antagonistic. And considering everything that had happened here—my mom’s escape with my dad, Herodson coming back for her, Cole taking my brother, Larissa messing with Dani’s head—this place I once thought was comfortable and safe was nothing but an illusion. Up until a year ago, my entire life had been an illusion.
I turned away from the window. I needed to stay focused. Peering up at the wood-planked ceiling, I took in the scent of the musty room—the brine and moisture in the air that fused to every fiber and settled into every woodgrain. It was the smell of what used to be home, of a life I barely remembered; it was almost stifling now.
But, in spite of my mind’s unwanted meanderings, watching the comings and goings of New Bodega citizens made me feel bizarrely normal. It was like I was waiting in line at the post office in the old days, with people hustling around, going about their lives completely oblivious to everyone else’s.
What were people’s lives like now that they didn’t have to sit in traffic or be on conference calls? Were they worried about the amount of food in their pantries? About clean water? And as far as I knew, no one—save for the exploration, trading, and scavenging teams—ever needed to leave the protection of the New Bodega community. Everyone had probably already forgotten what was out there, hidden in the abandoned alleyways and dark corners of the country. I wasn’t sure which was worse, remembering or not remembering. But given the easy, carefree steps of citizens wandering in and out of the building, it seemed they hadn’t a care in the world.
Curious, I allowed my cerebral tentacles to survey the surrounding minds. An older man sat in a chair against the far wall, waiting for a young, red-haired woman in the front of the Housing Commission line, decades of smoking causing his shallow, somewhat labored breathing. A bold-lettered sign drawn in black, heavy ink that read We Are Survivors hung above him. His companion was flirting with the clerk behind the conference table that served as the counter.
The old man’s mind was filled with acutely tangible memories of happiness and pain. His name was Winston. He’d lost his wife seven years back to bone cancer. And when she passed, his life became listless and empty—that was, until the Ending, when he decided that simply breathing in the desolate, dangerous world was no longer worth the effort.
I studied the lines on Winston’s face, my heart filling with heaviness as I witnessed memories of him and his wife over the years, memories that had made living without her pure torture for him. He’d been working up the courage to end his misery with a 12-gauge shotgun the day he’d heard a woman screaming outside his apartment building.
The woman speaking with the clerk in front of him was Debbie, and she wasn’t flirting with the mousey man behind the table, not really. Although Winston was some thirty years older than her, he and Debbie were connected in a way they never would’ve been before the world turned to shit. Winston had saved her life, had shot the crazed man attacking her, likely saving her from certain death or something far worse. Debbie’s gratitude and smile had given Winston a reason to live again, and in return, she’d gained a bristly old man to happily care for when she’d felt the most alone.
“Are you sure there’s no way we can hurry the paperwork along?” Debbie asked, her eyes wide and pleading as she worried her bottom lip. She leaned down, closer to the clerk, and whispered, “He’s my grandpa, the only person I have left. I’m not sure how much longer he has before…”
The clerk’s face instantly softened, and he glanced past her to the old man, who’d fallen into a coughing fit.
Feeling unexpected admiration for the woman, I let them be and scanned the rest of the people in the long line behind Debbie.
A girl, about twelve years old, was standing patiently with her father. He wasn’t her real father, but the man who had saved her and taken her in when he and his brother had found her in Arizona, seven months back. The girl was chatting telepathically with a terrier named Fritz, who sat obediently outside the window, like Annie and Dani regularly did with their flock of farm animals.
That’s when I saw Biggs. His blue eyes and boy-next-door smile flashed kindness and interest at the elderly woman he was speaking with outside, just on the other side of the glass door. “Stay away from my children,” he’d said. The sting of his last words to me had haunted me since the day he left. I’d wanted to speak to him, to apologize over and over for the pain of losing Sarah, for the lies. But Biggs hadn’t come back to us.
A man with a scar over his right eye and hair hanging in his face walked through the door, momentarily blocking my view of Biggs. Our eyes met for the briefest moment, the stranger’s narrowing before he turned and walked away. Frowning, I continued to stare through the glass door, trying to deduce Biggs’s state of mind, but I couldn’t sense anything from him. Then I noticed that the woman he’d been speaking with was walking away, leaving him standing there, alone.
My feet were carrying me toward the door before I knew what I was doing. My hand gripped the door handle, hesitation and relief warring as I tried to decide whether or not to make myself known.
“Excuse us,” Debbie said from behind me, and I flattened against the entry wall to let her and Winston pass. Just as I did, Biggs noticed me, and his relaxed features hardened, just a little.
Winston held the door open for me, a cantankerous look pinching his face as he waited for me to exit.
“Sorry,” I said and stepped outside. “Thank you.” The wind whipped my hair around my face, but all I could focus on were my sweating palms and my thrumming heartbeat…and Biggs, standing just a few yards away.
“Zoe,” Biggs said, straightening. His eyes were opened wide, and I could only hope that, as he wiped his palms on his pants like he was uncomfortable, he wouldn’t walk away from me.
Tentatively, I took a step toward him, an uncertain smile on my face. “Hey, Biggs.”
Biggs pursed his lips and offered me a nod as he shoved his hands into his pockets. We stood in silence for a few seconds. The sound of dock workers behind us and seagull cries from above filled the space left by all that was unsaid between us. This one time, when all I wanted was to read him, I couldn’t. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so inept and vulnerable—so normal.
“Biggs, I’m so sorry. I know—”
Biggs held up his hand. “Please, Zoe, don’t.” His voice was quiet, pained. “There’s no need.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, wondering if that was a good no need or an I’ll-never-forgive-you no need. I tried to shake my hindering nerves away and hoped for the best. “Well, you…you look well,” I said, gesturing to his cargo pants and long sleeves. He did look well—a little tired, perhaps, but well.
Biggs exhaled and rubbed the side of his head. “So do you, Zoe.” He cleared his throat. “How are things at the farm?” He gestured to the bench bolted into the sidewalk.
Relief bloomed inside me, and I followed him, clinging to a grain of hope that we might be able to repair our broken friendship.
The bench creaked beneath us as we sat down, and Biggs leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Harper said everything is going well.”
His obliviousness was surprising. I knew Harper had been to town since Jason’s disappearance, so I wondered why he hadn’t mentioned it to Biggs. “Things have been better,” I said. “We’re here securing a vehicle for an unexpected trip back to the Colony.”
Biggs stiffened and frowned. “What?” I could only imagine the resurfacing memories of our time there—of what the General had done to Sarah and her suicide plaguing his mind. “Why?”
“Jason’s been missing for a couple weeks, and we just found out that’s where he is.” I crossed my arms ove
r my chest and leaned back, gazing out at the green hills set against the coal-colored sky. “And Dani’s pregnant.” I granted myself a sidelong glance at Biggs.
“I heard about that,” he said, his voice distant. I could see that concern filled his baby-blue eyes, even if I couldn’t feel it, which was peculiar. “Is she okay?” I could only assume he meant both emotionally and physically, given the circumstances.
I pulled my bomber jacket tighter around me, attempting to stave off the sudden chill. “She will be,” I said firmly. “Once we get Jason back.”
Biggs eyed me.
I was about to change the subject to something less grim—to the twins—when I heard the door open and shut behind me. I expected to see my dad when I turned around, but it was the man with the scar over his eyebrow. I turned back around to Biggs.
“You know for a fact he’s at Peterson?”
“Pretty sure,” I said. “Where exactly, well…I guess we’ll have to figure that out when we get there.” Though I had a pretty good idea I’d find him with my mom.
“Well, you’ll be able to feel his mind, right? Or maybe see his memories as you get closer?” Biggs said, offering me more hope.
With a curt nod, I said, “Yep.” Though, truthfully, I didn’t want to think about the alternative—him nulling everyone—or that fact that we might get there too late.
“Will you stop along the way? Maybe the Tahoe folks can help you. Or have they all moved out here already?”
I finally realized why Harper might have withheld our situation from Biggs. He was growing more anxious by the minute, and our problems weren’t something he needed to worry about, not when he had two babies at home. “There are still a dozen or so survivors in Zephyr Cove. The plan is to stop there to regroup, then continue to Colorado, nonstop, if possible.”
The Ending Series: The Complete Series Page 146