But Jason’s weren’t.
Placing her palms on the counter, Anna hung her head. She could only think of one other time she’d felt so torn, so lost, so defeated. So utterly desperate. She was sick to her stomach with worry.
Leaving her family behind in Bodega Bay over two decades ago had been the hardest thing she’d ever done. It had ripped her apart, destroying parts of her soul with such devastation that the woman she’d become by the time she and Gregory reached Peterson Air Force Base—as the Colony had been called in those days—was hardly recognizable as the wife and mother she’d been just days before.
And now Jason was in the Colony. He’d strolled right into the lion’s den, alongside the only man Anna had ever had more negative feelings toward than Gregory. She wasn’t sure where they’d gone, but she desperately hoped Jason was being led by an invisible leash, because the possibility that he was a willing accomplice to whatever form Cole’s latest aspirational madness had taken was too terrifying a prospect. Her stomach twisted. She refused to believe that her own flesh and blood would choose to help Cole, and at the same time, she feared what might drive him to make that choice. Had something happened to Zoe and Tom? To Danielle? The prospects and possibilities were more disturbing than reality ever could be—at least, Anna hoped that was true.
She needed to track Jason down. Anna nodded to herself. Regardless of his reasons for being in the Colony, she needed to find him, somehow convince him to abandon whatever agreement he’d made with Cole—or dose him with the neutralizer, if he wasn’t assisting Cole by choice—and get him as far away from the Colony as quickly as possible. Because if Gregory discovered that Jason was there before Anna could find him…
“Anna?”
Startled, Anna clutched the gaping lapels of her robe and spun around.
“Darling, what are you—” Cutting himself off, Gregory raised his hands to waist height and made his way into the kitchen. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Anna shook her head and forced an anxious laugh. She was suddenly wide awake, so alert she was shaking. “It’s fine, Gregory. I’m fine.” And she needed him to believe that. The worst possible thing that could happen for Jason right now was for Gregory to learn of his presence in the Colony, and of his apparent alliance with Cole. “Though,” she added shakily, “it wouldn’t hurt if you made some noise before you attempted to startle me half to death.”
“Apologies, darling.” Gregory closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her, holding her in an oddly comforting embrace. “I merely missed you and wondered what was keeping you up.”
Anna couldn’t resist. She relaxed into him.
“You’ve been working so hard lately.” He stroked her hair. “You must be tired.”
Anna exhaled shakily. “I’m exhausted.”
“I’m not surprised. You’ve spending so much time and energy on Peter’s situation”—Anna stiffened at the thin film of bitterness coating his words—“you’ve hardly been able to focus on your other duties.” He kissed the top of her head, then pushed her back enough that he could look down at her. Though Gregory was only a few inches taller than Anna, he had this way of looking at her that made her feel like she was staring up at a giant about to crush her, body, heart, and soul. Maybe it was because he had already succeeded in crushing two out of three.
“I—” Anna licked her lips. “I’ve just been—”
“No matter.” Gregory smiled, a wolf in broadcloth pajamas. “But I’ll need my science advisor operating at full capacity tomorrow, which shouldn’t be a problem now that this Peter business is out of the way. Assuming you get some rest…”
Anna had to fight the sudden urge to scream. This Peter business? Was he kidding? Their son had practically been on his death bed—for the second time in his short life. What parent wouldn’t do everything in their power, wouldn’t commit every moment of their time and energy to finding a way to save their dying son? Gregory, it seemed.
Anna swallowed a bitter laugh and offered what she knew would appear to be a warm, loving smile instead. “Go back to bed.” She gave his arms a squeeze. “I’ll join you in a few minutes, after I’ve cleaned up.”
Gregory glanced at her untouched cup of tea. “Of course, my dear.”
Anna gritted her teeth, hating his placating tone. She needed a few more minutes alone to collect herself before climbing into bed with him. As Gregory walked out of the kitchen, she swallowed her rage and forced her face to remain placid, despite the grimace trying so hard to contort her features.
Quickly and quietly, Anna disposed of her tea and made her way upstairs, but she didn’t head straight to the bedroom she shared with Gregory. She stopped in the hallway just outside Peter’s room and eased the door open, poking her head inside. She fully expected to find Peter curled into a ball on his side, sound asleep. He’d always been a good sleeper, even when he was a baby…even near the end of his first life, a little over a year ago, when the leukemia and chemo had taken nearly all of his strength.
Though Peter was curled up in a ball on his side, he wasn’t asleep. Moonlight glinted off his eyes. The moon was full, or near to full, and it provided plenty of silvery light to make out his puffy eyes and tearstained cheeks.
Anna stepped inside, quickly but quietly shutting the door before crossing to Peter’s bed. She sat on the edge and reached out, combing her fingers through his short, brown hair. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
For a long time, she sat on the edge of his bed, holding one of his hands and combing her fingers through his hair while he wept silently. She could hardly bear to see him in so much emotional pain, but she could do little to help him when she had no idea what was upsetting him.
“Peter?” She gave his hand a squeeze. “Please, sweetheart, tell me what’s wrong.”
“I—” He sniffed wetly, then cleared his throat. “That song you were just humming—you used to sing it when I was little.”
Anna froze. She hadn’t realized she’d been humming—it was the same song she’d sung to both Jason and Peter when they’d had nightmares—but beyond that, Peter shouldn’t have been able to remember the song, let alone her singing it to him when he was younger. Like all Re-gens, his memory of his first life was extremely vague and spotty, and contained little in the way of specifics. Or so she’d thought. “You remember that?”
“No, Mom,” Peter said, sniffling again. He sat up and wiped his face on the sleeves of the navy blue PAFB sweatshirt he always slept in. “But you do…”
Anna eyed him, baffled.
“I met someone today, or”—he shook his head—“I guess I didn’t actually meet her, but I saw her walk down the hallway outside the electrotherapy lab. She could read and feel around in people’s minds.” He sniveled. “Now I can, too.”
Swallowing, Anna fought the urge to interrogate her son. He’d always been freer with his words when they came to him naturally, and he tended to clam up when nudged, however gently.
“I can’t believe how much I don’t remember. I had no idea…” Peter wiped his cheeks with a fresh part of his sleeve. “Like the sad girl. Remember her?”
Anna nodded, unsure where this was going.
“I used to dream about her, didn’t I?” Peter’s brow furrowed. “A lot…and it frightened you.”
Again, Anna nodded.
“I—I still see her,” Peter said softly. “She’s older now, but she’s still her.”
For a long time, Anna could only stare at her son.
Even before he’d become a Re-gen, Peter’s Ability had been unique, and to this day, Anna didn’t fully understand it. Maybe it was because he was second-generation, one of the few born with an Ability—like Jason and Zoe, but lacking the genetic block Anna had planted in her two older children to keep their Abilities from manifesting before they were old enough to understand how to hide them. Peter had grown up with his Ability. It was a part of him, always had been and always would be.
He’d always been able to sense the Ability of another person; all he required was a clear line of sight. But this had changed, or rather evolved, when he’d been going through the arduous chemotherapy and radiation treatments that had failed to send his leukemia into remission, allowing him to absorb pieces of other people’s Abilities for short periods of time. And after becoming a Re-gen, the daily electrotherapy treatments had only strengthened his Ability.
And then there were his “friends.” When Peter had been little, he’d exhibited strange quirks that Anna had chalked up to an overactive imagination—quirks that now, for the first time, Anna suspected might have been Ability-related. His dreams had been filled with the same cast of characters, people he’d spoken of as though they were real. But the one he’d spoken of the most, the one he’d claimed to dream about almost every night, had been the sad girl.
Anna hadn’t realized Peter was still seeing the sad girl in his dreams. “You never told me that you still dream about her.” Anna shook her head slowly, her eyes narrowed in thought. “Or that you remembered seeing her from before.”
Peter frowned. “I thought I was just imagining her, until now.” His eyes opened wide, and he smiled. “I mean, she seemed like a real person to me, someone with her own life and everything, but I thought it was just a Re-gen thing, like maybe I was just remembering someone I knew before…but after today, I get it. I know.”
It was Anna’s turn to frown. “Know what?” She tilted her head, trying to process the emotions filling his shadowed eyes. He seemed sad, confused, and scared, but also a bit excited. “What happened today that changed things, Peter—was it the new treatment? Or the woman you saw at the electrotherapy lab?”
Dread pooled in Anna’s chest. She was starting to suspect it was the latter, and that the woman was none other than the one who’d been with Jason and Cole at the west gate, who’d altered perception so she and her companions could enter the Colony seemingly undetected. If Anna’s suspicions were right and that woman had an Ability similar to Tom’s, allowing her not only to alter what people believed to be reality but to see inside their heads, to uncover their most private memories…
“The woman I saw—her name’s Larissa—but her Ability…it’s like I can remember now,” Peter said, but he shook his head. “I mean, I can’t remember, but I can see your memories.”
Anna’s heart sank. Her memories? So she’d been right about the woman with Cole and her Ability. And now, for a little while, this Larissa’s perception-altering and mind-reading skills would be integrated into Peter’s Ability, too. Anna had tried so hard to protect him from what she’d done, had done everything she could to keep this one, special person in her life from seeing her as a monster.
Peter nodded. “I’ve seen your memories of me. It’s like I remember, without actually remembering. But now I know that the woman I keep dreaming about is real…she’s the sad girl, all grown up. She has to be.”
“I see.” Anna swallowed roughly. She’d made so many impossible choices, done so many horrible things. She’d helped tear the world apart…destroyed billions of lives. “What—what else do you know now?”
“I know what you’ve done, Mom.” Peter’s eyes darkened, and Anna took a deep breath, preparing herself for the worst, waiting for the same look of disgust and betrayal she’d seen in Zoe’s eyes the one and only time her daughter had visited in a dream. “And what he’s done.” Peter turned his head to sneer at the bedroom door. “He’s horrible. I hate him.”
Nausea churned in Anna’s stomach. Closing her eyes, she breathed in and out through her nose several times. She looked at her son. “And me? Do you hate me, too?”
For a long moment, Peter was quiet, his expression considering. Finally, he shook his head. “You…you make me feel sad.” His gray eyes, so much like his father’s, filled with an earnest openness Gregory’s had never held. “Like Zoe.”
Anna’s breath caught. “Wha—what?”
Peter flashed her an uncertain smile, then looked away. “She’s, um—she’s the sad girl…and she’s why I was so upset.” He sniffled. “Mom, she’s in trouble.”
22
ZOE
DECEMBER 13, 1AE
Location Unknown
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Silence.
Tap. Tap.
Noise and a light so bright I was near blinded before I even opened my eyes woke me from what felt like the dead. I peeled my eyelids open, a feat akin to opening a window nailed shut. I blinked and squinted. My head was throbbing, and my body ached beyond discomfort. I blinked again, trying to focus past a blur of shapes and shadows as my fuzzy mind stirred.
I was in a bedroom. There was a pink accented wall across from me with empty picture frames hanging haphazardly along it. I blinked again. A white dresser sat a little to my left, a stack of folded clothes on top—what looked like my folded clothes—and a half-empty bottle of cheap vodka beside them. I peered down at my attire—a woman’s worn white T-shirt and gray sweatpants that felt a little too short. A prick of uncertainty registered as I wondered whose they were and how I’d come to be wearing them.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
With great effort, I turned toward the noise, half expecting to see a woodpecker on the wall. I held my breath.
A tallish, unfamiliar man with dark hair hanging loosely at the nape of his neck stood in front of a boarded-up window. With dark-stained hands, he braced either side of the window frame and stared out a small gap between two nearly rotted two-by-fours. He was wearing thick brown cargo pants, exposed steel-toed boots, and a dirty, tan long-sleeved shirt, like he’d just gone to work.
Tap. Tap. Tap. His index finger rapped against the wall like he was sending Morse code to someone on the other side. Remotely, I wondered if he was nervous or anxious, or maybe a little bit of both. I tried not to panic as I put the distorted pieces of what little I remembered back together. After a moment, my pulse quickened and realization began to set in.
And like he had a sixth sense to know that I’d awakened, the man at the window slowly turned to face me. Instantly, I noticed the scar above his right eye, and dread—too overwhelming to subdue—crashed over me.
I bolted upward, trying to sit up, to run, to flee, but the metal headboard clanked against the wall in my weak attempt, and I was jerked back down onto the mattress. My back was on fire, my left arm screaming in pain, and all I could do was gulp for air. I was restrained, unable to move beyond the wiggle of my fingers, and the asphyxiating cords of fear wrapped around my throat, squeezing.
I fought to breathe. I needed to breathe—to clear my mind so I could think. I barely registered my burning wrists as swirling images of Jones and Taylor, of Taylor’s hands on me, of the gleam in his eyes in the woods at Fort Knox, spun around and around in my mind. Pure horror and sheer doom were like overturned buckets above my head, washing over me until I was soaking in them.
“What—” I choked, and tried to swallow away the dryness of my throat, the heaviness of my tongue. “What do you want?” I rasped.
The scarred-faced man didn’t say anything, his gaze vacant as he seemed to stare straight through me. I couldn’t read his mind, couldn’t feel his intentions.
“Why did you bring me here?”
His long, black hair was tucked behind his ears, his sunken, sickly face covered in what looked like weeks of patchy scruff. A layer of sweat glistened on his brow and around the black holes of his eyes.
My rapid breaths faltered, my eyes widened, and my body flooded with ice. I remembered him. Realizing I’d seen him in New Bodega made my dread and the million horrific possibilities of what he wanted from me a living monster clawing inside me. I did my best to tamp it down, to make it stop.
Peering up at my restraints, I loosened my clenched fist and tried to maneuver my wrists out of the rope tied around them. But it was to no avail. I couldn’t allow myself to appear weak, no matter how innate my desire was to panic, to beg to be let go, to scream. Why was he
following us?
“Please,” I whispered. “Tell me what you want from me.” The possibilities circled through my mind, and despite my will to stay calm, a small whimper escaped.
The man’s vacant eyes enlivened, and he straightened, his gaze boring into me for a fleeting moment before it softened. He took two measured steps closer and slowly reached for me…reached past me…and grabbed a white cloth from the bedside table. I exhaled in relief.
When his eyes met mine again, they were asking and uncertain, but he only hesitated a moment before he extended the cloth toward my face. His gaze shifted to my quivering lips, then back to my eyes, which were frantically searching his drawn features for answers. The cloth was damp against my skin as he wiped the beading sweat from my temple and forehead. His eyes followed his every action, but he avoided looking into my eyes again. I wasn’t sure which I felt more, terror or relief. What was he thinking?
“You’re still healing,” he said in a gruff but quiet tone. The sharp scent of alcohol and a hint of soap wafted off him. “You need more rest.”
“Healing? What—” But then I registered the incessant pain in my shoulder and the burning in my left arm. I looked up at it tied above me. My bicep was wrapped in a blood-spotted bandage. I remembered hitting my head against the window as the van spun and tumbled and turned. I remembered the screaming pain in my arm as something sliced through it and the sound of metal scraping against asphalt. I remembered the sound of gunshots and the way Tavis’s face fell and the life faded from his eyes.
My dad…Jake… My vision blurred as my tongue moved too fast and the words tumbled from my lips. “Where’s my family? What did you do? Why did you do this?” What about Sanchez? And Gabe and Becca? My captor looked away from me, dropping the cloth back onto the side table before stepping over to the vodka bottle on the dresser. He fumbled to unscrew the cap and took one deep pull. Then another.
The Ending Series: The Complete Series Page 150