The Ending Series: The Complete Series

by Lindsey Fairleigh

  She was smiling, almost peacefully. At me.

  20

  ZOE

  DECEMBER 12, 1AE

  Northern California Interstate

  I-80 was wet, the asphalt reflecting the dying, golden light as the sun sank behind the Sierra Mountains. The rainstorm we’d been driving through for the past couple hours had finally let up, but as we neared our exit toward Tahoe, we were all too aware that any impending rainfall would likely turn to snow. I hated snow.

  I thought about the outbreak back in Salem, when all of this began, about Sarah and our journey with Dave. I thought about how cold it would be once the snow started to fall and how hidden everything would become—how much more dangerous everything would be.

  Jake drove carefully—too slowly for the urgency that kept my mind hopping and my body fidgeting. I tried not to nag him as he maneuvered the potholes and abandoned cars scattered along the slick interstate.

  At first, it was easy; I was distracted. My eyes were glued to the vehicles on the road, like a string of freak show exhibits I couldn’t look away from. All of them were gruesome and sad.

  Each vehicle housed more than death; they embodied heart-pricking reminders of the past. Proud Parent of an Honor Student, humorous, and political stickers covered rusted and cobwebbed bumpers and back windows. Bodies—animal and human, both skeletal and still decaying—filled most of them, some windows and doors open, the rest shut. Babies and children were wrapped in blankets, still grasping their toys and stuffed animals in their eternal slumber.

  It was unnerving, the poignancy of driving through a graveyard depicting the past; it was a reminder of what could’ve been and how lucky we were to have gotten this far despite the uncertainty of what lay ahead.

  Eventually, dwelling on what could have been became too morose, and I made myself look away. I focused on the last rays of light splaying up from beyond the untended rice fields in the distance, making the world glow. Then, I watched the citrus and walnut orchards that were no longer pruned or harvested pass by the window. The scattered billboards were tattered and sun-bleached, and the sporadic dealerships and restaurants that we passed were all eerily dark and, not surprisingly, abandoned. A year had passed since the outbreak, and had I not known any better, it would’ve seemed as if we were the only people left in the world.

  Noisily, my dad wrestled with a map in the front passenger seat. He’d been scouring it since we’d been on the road, searching for a quicker, safer route. I knew there was none, as did he, though he couldn’t stop examining the map crinkling in his hands long enough to accept it.

  I glanced up to the front of the van, my eyes locking with Jake’s as they flicked to the rearview mirror.

  “Do we know if our Tahoe friends are expecting us tonight?” Gabe asked from his slouched position in the seat in front of me. His voice was hoarse from drifting in and out of sleep.

  My dad twisted in his seat and peered at us, scanning the five faces staring back at him, all waiting for an answer. “Lance said he’d keep working on the communication.” My dad’s eyes settled on Gabe. “As soon as you can find a sleeping mind, we’ll know for sure.” He looked at Sanchez. “Otherwise, we’ll have to rely on you when we get closer.”

  “There are still a dozen of them there,” Sanchez said, stretching as she stirred from her half-sleep. “It shouldn’t be too hard to contact them.”

  I balled up my leather jacket as a pillow and leaned back, looking out the window. “I just can’t handle the silent waiting,” I mumbled.

  “You’ve never been a patient girl, Zoe,” my dad said. Had it been under different circumstances, he might’ve laughed. At least, I imagined he would have. Instead, he sighed.

  Wondering what my dad could possibly have to hold over me—the one who’d reminded him to go grocery shopping and did it myself whenever he forgot, who did the laundry and made sure he’d paid the bills on time—I looked at him. “Well I’m not impatient.”

  “You couldn’t wait for the newest Disney movie to come out,” he explained, “even though you swore you didn’t care about the princesses at all.” He faced the front again, watching the scenery whip by, and I rolled my eyes. “And you couldn’t wait until you turned ten so you could collect your allowance, and you couldn’t wait until you were sixteen and old enough to drive…you couldn’t even wait for the laundry to dry before you pulled it out of the dryer, grabbing whatever it was you were waiting for and claiming the rest would ‘air dry.’”

  Tavis chuckled from the seat beside me.

  Involuntarily, I smiled and stared out the window. I’d forgotten about things like that. “This is a little different, I think.”

  “True,” my dad said, more than a hint of amusement in his voice. “But patience has never been your strong suit.”

  When my dad didn’t get another rise out of me, he continued, “Zoe, you don’t need to worry. Jason’s still alive, I promise you.”

  I resisted the urge to shake my head again. “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because they took him alive for a reason. Cole could’ve done whatever he wanted to your brother, but he clearly needed him alive.” He paused for a moment, waiting for my eyes to meet his in the dimming light. “He needs Jason so badly that he was willing to risk everything by showing up in New Bodega to get him.”

  For some inexplicable reason, it helped knowing that Jason had chosen to let Cole into his mind in order to save Dani, and that Jason had made a choice he could live with knowing the potential consequences. But the thought of my brother—someone I loved and whose Ability was so strong—being brainwashed and under the influence of someone like Cole was still incredibly disturbing. A small part of me worried about what we would do if, for whatever reason, we couldn’t convince Jason to come back with us. What if we couldn’t find a way to break Cole’s hold on his mind?

  “Cole’s mind control is a little different than Herodson’s,” my dad said, responding to my train of thought. “It’s unbreakable while it’s active, so far as I’ve ever seen, but it requires skin-to-skin contact to work, and it wears off in time, as we saw with Dani and her Ability.”

  I let out a tired breath, recalling the memories I’d seen of Dani and Jason’s dealings with the cult, with Mandy and Cole at the helm, Carlos and so many others at their mercy. But I shoved the memories away, instead watching the newly formed moon shadows play across the window as we drove, though our speed wasn’t nearly fast enough. Although it had felt like the longest day of my life—waking after my dream about Jason, Dani’s unearthed memory, a hurried trip into and out of New Bodega, and now our journey to Colorado—I was too wound up to relax or sleep, even if I knew I’d regret it later.

  Tavis nudged me. “Uh, want to play a game or something?”

  I stifled a laugh and shook my head. I appreciated his attempt to keep my thoughts in check. But then, as much as I wanted to say no thanks, I felt compelled say yes, to think about something that wasn’t morbid and so sinister. “Okay, sure,” I said and turned to face him. “What did you have in mind?”

  Tavis’s eyes turned round and questioning, and with a sheepish grin he shrugged. He hadn’t expected me to say yes. I smiled as he smirked and scratched the side of his face. “I don’t know any car games, actually.”

  “You don’t know any car games? What about the license plate game or I Spy?”

  Tavis frowned. “I think it’s a bit dark for either of those, and our options are somewhat”—he peered around at the darkened scenery—“limited.”

  “You could always play truth or dare,” Sanchez piped in with a soft snort from her seat in front of Tavis.

  “That would be entertaining.” Gabe chuckled beside her.

  “Only if you play, Sanchez,” Tavis teased in return, flashing a half grin.

  “Ha. No.”

  I knew Sanchez wasn’t likely to partake in any games, and to be honest, I wasn’t quite up to playing one myself, but the idea of asking Tavis something, anythin
g, in a game of truth or, well, truth was very appealing. He’d always been more of an open book than the others, something I liked about Tavis. But I’d never asked him the fun, interesting questions. I’d never probed his mind or searched for answers to all my curiosities, even when things had occasionally felt uncomfortable or curious. As with everyone else, it seemed important that I let his past remain buried. But now, needing a bit of intrigue to keep my mind off of Jason, I went for it.

  “I have a question, actually,” I said, turning in my seat to face him properly.

  Tavis chuckled. “Okay, shoot.”

  “You’re clearly not from here, originally, anyway, and I know you rescued Sam from Crazies.” I narrowed my gaze at him. “But what was your life like before the Ending? What did you do?” I tried to picture Tavis’s occupation and how he might’ve lived. Had he always been a simple, laid-back kind of guy? Had he left Australia for work?

  Tavis let out a brusque laugh, not light and amused as usual. “Umm, back home I was a defense lawyer,” he said, shocking the hell out of me. He laughed again as he took in my surprise.

  I shut my gaping mouth. “You don’t really give off the whole you-can’t-handle-the-truth, attorney-at-law sort of vibe.”

  “Yeah, well, get me in front of a jury and I can persuade them with my charm and skill.” Tavis’s grim smile faded to nothing, and he stared out the window. “Throw me into this world and I’m a fish out of water, so to speak.”

  I glanced over at Becca, who was gazing, unblinking, out her window. I wondered if she already knew this about him, like she seemed to know so many other things about all of us.

  “So,” I continued, “you practiced law here, in the states? Is it a family thing?”

  Even in the darkness, I could see that Tavis’s expression remained blank—a look that seemed familiar, like the strange longing I sometimes noticed in his gaze. I wasn’t sure if it was the memories of an old life that haunted him or something else.

  “Sorry,” I said, more quietly. “You don’t have to answer.”

  Tavis shrugged, deflated, and finally pulled his gaze from the window. “It’s fine.” He cleared his throat. “It wasn’t a family thing. My family were country folks, had sheep and cattle. That wasn’t what I wanted.” He paused a moment, considering something. “I was here on holiday with my girlfriend, Alice. We were here as a sort of a last-ditch effort to make things work between us. Alice claimed I worked too much and didn’t appreciate what I had, even though it was right in front of me…she said nothing was ever good enough and she couldn’t live like that anymore.”

  I could see the harsh reality of her words—the memories—swirling through his mind as I opened my senses up to him, for some reason needing to understand the sudden dullness of his eyes, the defeat in his tone. The pained expression I’d seen earlier in the armory returned.

  “She said that if we couldn’t have a nice holiday together, without me working, our relationship was over.”

  Moments from Tavis’s life flashed in my mind. I saw the pain- and regret-filled days that followed the outbreak of the Virus, the night Alice had died in his arms, leaving him to hate the man he’d become and wander the decomposing world without her.

  “You loved her,” I whispered. Even if he hadn’t known how to show her at the time, he loved her very much, more than he’d ever loved anyone. I realized my mistake before I could take the words back. I winced. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  Tavis’s eyes shifted to mine, but his expression was constant.

  Unable to stop myself, not really wanting to, I dug deeper. When Tavis had found Sam a week later, he knew that the boy needed his help, needed someone to take care of him, like Alice had needed in her final moments. More than anything, Tavis had wanted to prove to himself that he could become someone other than the misguided man he’d turned out to be. He had to prove his life was worth living, that he could be someone else, someone capable of caring for another person and worth the second chance he’d been given.

  Then my breath hitched. I saw an image of me in Tavis’s mind, and I finally understood the look that sometimes flashed in his eyes, why he felt a connection to me the moment he’d seen me. I didn’t look like Alice, not really. Her hair had been long and blonde, and her eyes had been a deep brown that radiated her every emotion. But like me, freckles had dotted her nose, and she’d been, at times, strong-willed and outspoken. She’d been determined to fight for them, for what she’d wanted, and Tavis felt the need to help me—he needed to be the man he’d been unable to be for Alice, in any way that he could.

  “You can’t blame yourself,” I whispered. Between Tavis’s emotions and my own, I couldn’t look him in the eye. “We were all different before.”

  When he said nothing, I ventured a glance at him. His grave but apologetic gaze met mine, and I felt insurmountable sorrow radiating from him for the first time in all the months that I’d known him.

  “That doesn’t change the past,” he said, his voice clipped.

  Our game had quickly turned into a torturous revisiting of our lives before, and we were both left sitting in a van with five other people, extremely uncomfortable. We exchanged one more disquieted glance before my mind went blank, like had happened in New Bodega. In place of Tavis’s emotions, of the white noise of all of my companions’ thoughts and emotions I’d grown used to ignoring, was a void, nothingness…

  “Something’s wrong—” There was a bump in the road before I could finish, causing all of us to grab ahold of whatever we could to hang on.

  Jake cursed, and the van swerved. Tires skidded on the wet pavement as the van spun. I could hear my dad’s voice. He was shouting for everyone to hold on.

  Metal grinded against metal. I could hear the sound of breaking glass and someone’s scream, but all I could think about was the pain in my head, and something was cutting into my bicep as we flipped over and over.

  Then everything went black.

  ~~~~~

  I had no idea how much time had passed before I opened my eyes again, but the gray-blue night stretched out above me, and my back burned like hell. Body too weak and mind too fuzzy to concentrate, I let my head loll to the side. Nighttime came in and out of focus.

  Tavis was cringing beside me, tugging on me—on my arm? We were on asphalt. He was dragging me. His mouth was moving; he was saying something. But a ringing echoed in my ears…I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I didn’t understand.

  There was a crack off in the distance. Then two more.

  Tavis froze, eyes wide as he looked down at me, meeting my incoherent gaze for the first time. I tried to read his thoughts, to see into his mind—to understand. But his mind wasn’t there.

  I blinked rapidly as I tried to focus. Color drained from Tavis’s face, and the pain and tension in his features relaxed. He stared at me like I wasn’t even there. A moment later, his eyes rolled back in his head.

  “Tavis,” I rasped, panic quickly taking hold of my semiconsciousness, the looming impression that I’d never see him again making it impossible to think. I tried to reach for him, but my arm was too heavy. “Tavis,” I repeated.

  I could hear voices around me, but they were distant and unfamiliar. “Jake,” I tried to shout as I attempted to reach for Tavis, for anyone, but my arm screamed in pain. I couldn’t lift it.

  No. None of it made sense. Slowly I blinked, staring up at the naked, withered branches that seemed to be reaching for me from the trees above.

  I blinked again…and again…until I could barely keep my eyes open.

  Through my lashes, I saw a man loom over me, a scar over his right eye and brown, stringy hair hanging around his sunken face. I don’t understand. “Tavis,” I mumbled, but it was becoming harder and harder to keep my eyes open, to think.

  The man knelt down.

  Before the darkness of unconsciousness consumed me, I managed to whisper, “Please…”

  21

  ANNA

  DECEMBE
R 13, 1AE

  The Colony, Colorado

  Anna stared at the white porcelain mug sitting on the kitchen counter in front of her, eyes heavy and mind awhirl. Her rear end was numb from sitting on the stool for so long—long enough for her tea to cool to that unpleasant tepid temperature that made it more or less undrinkable. Her dangling feet were rapidly approaching a painful state beyond numbness, a deep-seated ache that seemed to resonate from her bones.

  She stared at the blinking clock on the microwave; the green numbers read 2:10. It hadn’t been blinking when she’d first sat down with her cup of tea just after midnight. Realizing that the power had gone out again, Anna made a mental note to check with Gregory’s infrastructure advisor. Things weren’t going well around the Colony, not when there were only 752 people to keep the place running—755, if the new stowaways were being counted—a dramatic drop from the Colony’s population before the Re-gen rebellion.

  Groaning, Anna scooted off the stool and lumbered around the kitchen island to the stove, glancing at her watch along the way. Setting the clock was becoming automatic, and she did it quickly, without a second thought about the significance of the task. Unreliable electricity was a trifling matter compared to the two that weighed heavy on her mind.

  Peter was going to be okay, if his body’s initial response to his first treatment was anything to go by. The new, human-derived electrotherapy was nothing short of miraculous, not just for Peter, but for all of the Re-gens still residing in the Colony. Anna should have been overjoyed…should have been filled with so much relief that she should have been making up for her weeks and weeks of lost sleep at that very moment. For the first time in a long time, Peter’s prospects for a long, healthy future were promising.