But as much as everyone seemed to coexist easily enough, a cloud of tension hung over the group. I wasn’t sure I wanted to learn the cause yet. Trying to remember everyone’s names, their Abilities, and my relationship with each of them was chore enough.
Jake stopped short in front of me, and I ran into his back.
“Sorry,” I said, unable to stop a nervous laugh from bubbling out of me. “I got distracted.” I dropped the load in my arms on the ground near Becca.
Jake set my saddlebags down as well. “I’ll be right back,” he said and headed back toward the horses.
I watched him for a moment—watched the way he rubbed the back of his neck and the way his shoulders relaxed the further he was from me.
I turned to Becca, who was attempting to finish setting up our tent. “Thank you, Becca. I appreciate you offering to stay with me tonight.”
When I realized she was practically wrestling with the tent poles, I crouched beside her to show her how they worked. “It’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it,” I said. I was surprised I remembered silly things like that—how to set up a tent, how to excuse myself when I sneezed and cover my mouth when I coughed. Why can I remember those things but not others?
“You have done this before,” Becca said quietly, watching the way my fingers moved and how I maneuvered the fabric of the tent as I pushed the poles through the red nylon loops.
“Yeah, I guess I have. You’ve never been camping?” Slowly, I forced one end of the pole into the corner of the tent, and watched as Becca mimicked what I was doing.
“Not that I remember, no.” Her voice was distant, as if her mind was somewhere else.
“Yeah, me neither…at least, not that I can remember.”
Jake returned, dropping two more stuff sacks on the ground, what appeared to be another sleeping bag and pad. He looked at Becca. “Those are mine, but you use them tonight. We’ll stop somewhere tomorrow to get you your own gear.” Becca watched Jake, her mouth pulling into a barely-there smile. “Thank you, Jake.” The way she spoke to him seemed deliberate, like she meant more than what she said.
He watched her for a moment, his head tilting slightly to the side before he nodded. When his stare shifted to me, he appeared uncertain and regretful. There was a long, awkward silence before he said, “Will you please let me know if you need anything else?” His tone was soft, beseeching, even. There was something warm and inviting about his deep, velvety voice. “Anything,” he repeated, his eyes filled with a sadness I didn’t understand.
“Yes, I promise. Thank you,” I said. With a final nod, I watched him walk back toward his tent, which he had yet to finish setting up.
Becca unzipped the tent door behind me and I turned around, ready to follow her inside. But she just stood there.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, stepping up beside her. The light from the fire danced around inside, illuminating the tent enough to see there was nothing wrong with it.
“I guess I will sleep in my clothes,” she said so quietly I almost didn’t hear her.
“Is that all?” I asked and snatched up my saddlebags before sidestepping her and heading inside. “I’m sure I have something you can borrow.”
Becca followed me in, bringing the sleeping bags and pads in with her.
Fiddling with the ends of my hair, which were draped over my shoulder, I watched Becca as she just stood there. “Have a seat,” I said and opened my bag. I rummaged through the haphazardly folded clothes tucked inside, trying to find something for each of us to sleep in. “Here,” I finally said, handing her a long-sleeved thermal shirt and a pair of sweatpants. “These look comfy, and it looks like I packed…yep, two of each.”
Becca smiled, or at least I thought it was a smile; it was the first time I’d seen her be very expressive at all. “Thank you, Zoe.”
“Why don’t you have any clothes?” I asked, zipping up the tent to change.
Slowly, Becca peeled her clothes off one by one, until her ensemble was piled on the floor of the tent. “I have only just joined the group, along with Dr. McLaugh—I mean Gabe, Mase, and Camille. We were unexpected, so we are relying on your friends’ kindness to take us in. Dani and the clothes on our backs were all we brought with us.”
“Dani was with you?”
Becca made a noncommittal noise and pulled the sweatpants on. They were too long and very baggy on her, but I figured that meant they were perfect for sleeping. “Yes,” she said. “Dani was with Gabe and Dr. Wesley…in the Colony.” Becca’s voice was distant, her demeanor instantly shifting from open to hesitant.
I tugged my long-sleeved V-neck on over my head. “Did you not want to leave the Colony with Dani?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking. The more complicated things became, the more my curiosity amplified. “You don’t seem happy to be here…” I glanced over at Becca in time to see the bruises on the side of her body before she pulled her borrowed shirt down.
“I am happy to be away from there. It is just that things are not simple for me.” She looked at me. “Or for you.”
I shrugged. “Hopefully my memory will come back tomorrow.”
The look Becca gave me made me feel nauseous.
“You don’t think it will?” I asked.
“I do not know everything,” she said, offering me the slightest of smiles.
“Only some things?” I asked wryly.
Without hesitation, she said, “I have the gift of prophecy.”
Still unable to fully process the whole “Abilities” thing, I paused.
Becca bent down and began folding her clothes so meticulously that I thought she might be in the military. I looked over at my saddlebags and almost laughed. The clothes I’d changed out of were tossed on top, no rhyme or reason or organization. Feeling self-conscious, I gathered up my dirty socks, jeans, and shirt, and after unwadding them, I folded them as neatly as I could. My attempt was pathetic compared to Becca’s, but it sufficed.
Becca must’ve been watching me, because when I looked up at her, her smile turned genuine. “You are very different from the last time I saw you.”
My eyes widened. “How so?” I unrolled my sleeping pad, then pulled my sleeping bag out of its stuff sack and laid it out on top. Unzipping it, I crawled inside to keep my feet warm.
Becca studied me and did the same with Jake’s sleeping gear. “You and Jake were fighting.”
“Really?” I hadn’t been expecting that. “We were fighting?”
She nodded, her eyes fixed on mine like she was gauging my reaction. “He was going to leave you and your people and take me away; he said it was not safe. But Father sent a team to retrieve me, and I escaped during the gunfire.” Becca looked down at her fingers, which were laced on her knees. “I had to return to the Colony…Jake did not understand.”
“Did Father do that to you?” I asked, pointing to the bruised side of her body.
After contemplating my question for a moment, Becca nodded. “I had to get them out of there,” she said to herself, and I assumed she was talking about Dani and the others she’d escaped with.
My mind filled with images of a distraught Mase and newly-conscious Camille. “The others are like you, too,” I said, suddenly feeling an intense desire to know what had happened in the hours I’d lost my memory. “Mase and Camille, they’re…different, like you. The way you speak, and how you see things like it’s for the first time…they’re the same.”
Becca nodded. “Yes. We are called Re-gens at the Colony, though Jake says I am his sister as well.”
My brow furrowed at yet another surprising truth. Jake didn’t treat her like a sister—but then Jason didn’t treat me like one either, at least not how I thought a brother should treat a sister. I was beginning to think that whatever remaining perception of reality I had was both misleading and impractical.
“I saw things,” Becca continued, her voice a panicked whisper. “Horrible things. Things that I could not let come to pass. I had to tell them. I had t
o get away from there.” Becca continued to stare down at her hands. “I am not sure what to think anymore.”
“No?”
After a depleted sigh, she said, “No.”
Pulling the rubber band from my hair and letting it fall around my shoulders, I ran my fingers through the dark strands, wading through my limited memories, trying to determine how I felt…what I thought.
All I remembered were strange voices and surprised faces staring down at me as I huddled inside the closet. Did I really forget all that Becca just described? It seemed impossible, and a ravenous emptiness drained any optimism and hope I had left. A sick feeling settled in my stomach as it dawned on me: every single moment that shaped me into Zoe was gone.
I am no one.
“You are not ‘no one,’” Becca said, and I stirred, not realizing I’d been thinking aloud. She rested her hand on my shoulder. “You are important.”
“You’ve seen this?” My sudden curiosity to know more of what she’d seen was making me antsy; I twirled a strand of hair.
Becca shook her head. “No, I haven’t seen your future, nor do I know your purpose, but your mother is Dr. Wesley, I know that much. If you are her daughter, you are important.” She paused in thought. “Jake loves you, and he is important…I know that as well. So, you must be, too.”
Jake loves me? I wasn’t sure why I was surprised; Dani had told me much the same earlier. “He’s barely talked to me all day,” I said.
“All day, I have thought about two things,” Becca began, her voice a bit softer than before. “I considered what I might do now that I no longer have a home, a place I belong. And I thought about Jake. If what he says is true, if I am his sister, then he has lost both his sister and the woman he loves. Now, here we are again, and neither of us remembers him. I cannot imagine how he might feel.” Becca frowned. “I generally am not so…reflective, I think is the word, but much is changing…” She stretched out in her sleeping bag, staring up at the bouncing shadows on the nylon overhead.
We were quiet for a while, and I nearly allowed the crackling fire outside and the sound of crickets in the woods beyond our tent to lull me to sleep. But before I was out completely, I heard low voices by the fire.
“We’ve got to figure out a way to fix her,” Harper said, his voice low and thoughtful.
“It’s not like there are rules to any of this shit,” Jason grumbled.
The sound of wood being tossed in the fire filled the momentary silence.
“There has to be a way.” It was Jake’s baritone, followed by retreating footsteps.
I glanced over at Becca to see if she was awake, but her back was to me, and all I could see was the outline of her torso rising and falling with each breath. I lay there, listening to my “friends” discuss my condition like it was simply an infection needing proper treatment. My mind reeled with questions and mounting fear until their voices fell silent, and I eventually drifted to sleep.
~~~~~
A slight breeze caressed my skin as I sat on a dock, gazing out at a lake—its glassy surface was illuminated with pinks and oranges, like it was set aflame by the sun sinking behind the rolling hills.
My chest grew heavier, and I was nearly suffocating under the weight of too many emotions.
“I know what I want,” said a deep, rumbling voice.
I spun around to find Jake standing beside me, his luminous, amber eyes peering into the depths of my soul. He knew me; I could see it in the way he looked at me, those eyes filled with longing and uncertainty and need.
Like his emotions sparked my own, I felt the need to weep from the inexplicable love I felt for him.
“Jake, I—” I didn’t have time to think, to say anything.
In seconds his lips were pressed against mine, his kiss fierce and blazing. My hands moved of their own accord, grabbing a handful of his jacket and pulling him closer to me as his fingers tightened in my hair. An overwhelming, frenzied greed consumed us both as my arms snaked around his neck and his hands explored my body.
We were panting, and a low groan resonated deep inside his chest. My body throbbed with a pleasurable ache I wanted to both last forever and go away, ridding me of my torment.
Jake froze, sending an unnatural anger and despondency simmering through me. He stepped away, leaving me to stand there alone, the cool breeze turning icy against my exposed skin. Panic riddled my nerves, and I tried fervently to grasp hold of him.
He was pulling away from me…
He was leaving me…alone…
With a jolt, I opened my eyes. I was surrounded by darkness, only the starry sky overhead visible through the rectangles of netting on the roof of the tent. There was no more campfire, and there were no more voices. All I could hear was the wind whistling through the trees.
As I lay there, my heart still pounding from the dream, I felt completely lost and alone. I didn’t like the dangerous intoxication that settled over me as I remembered Jake’s hot breath…the thrill that sang through me as I recalled the feeling of his fingers pressing against my skin…
“Zoe? Are you alright?” Becca asked quietly.
“Yes,” I said quickly, not feeling comfortable talking to her about it.
“Are you sure?”
“I just had a strange dream. I’ll be fine.”
Becca was quiet for a moment. “Was it a dream or a memory?”
Rolling over, I studied her darkened outline. “A dream. At least, I think it was…”
“Do not fight it,” she said. “If it is your memory, you should not fight it.”
Had it been a memory? It had been so vivid, so charged with emotions I couldn’t remember ever feeling before, that part of me doubted it was even possible.
3
DANI
MARCH 28, 1AE
San Juan National Forest, Colorado
Carrying a small bin of grooming tools under my good arm, I led Wings toward a retention pond beside the field where we’d set up camp for the night. We passed between one of the three carts and the replica pioneer chuck wagon that we’d found in one of the barns back at Colorado Trails Ranch. We’d stayed at the ranch only one night, wanting to put as much distance between us and the Colony as possible, as soon as possible. That single night was just long enough for us to stock up on tack and another dozen horses from the area, redistribute our supplies among the packhorses and conveyances, and convene for a quick strategic meeting, and for Harper and Jake to attempt a regenerative blood transfusion on Zoe—which ended up being the most anti-climactic fail ever. She still remembered nothing of her life before the golf course.
Zoe’s memory loss was proving to be as stubborn as my best friend was…or used to be. This new Zoe, this not-Zoe Zoe, was different; she was less closed off, less severe, and every time she said or did something that emphasized just how much Clara’s violent mind-wiping had changed her, the thundercloud that had become my mood darkened. Just as it did every time I spoke to Jason—lied to Jason—avoided Gabe, or remembered my time in the General’s concrete interrogation room, or the way the light had faded from the child Crazy’s eyes as she bled out from the bullet wound I’d put in her chest.
Maybe if I hadn’t burned out my telepathy again, and I could speak with Wings, Jack, and Ray, as I’d grown so accustomed to doing over the past few months, I would’ve been able to find comfort in their steadfast companionship and stave off the looming negativity. But my Ability was burned out, and missing my usually lighthearted, sometimes philosophical conversations with my animal friends only added to my doom-and-gloom mood.
I spotted Mase and Camille, sitting at the edge of the pond while they filtered water into large plastic jugs, and nodded a hello.
Camille’s remarkable recovery was the only bright ray of hope keeping the thundercloud from overtaking me completely. She’d woken up five days ago, the night after we found Zoe and left Colorado Springs, her memory intact but her ability to speak apparently gone completely. Harper’s best guess w
as that certain parts of her brain must’ve suffered permanent damage during her seizure and resulting coma, and he’d even proposed that she might have had a stroke, though he couldn’t tell for sure without some pretty high-tech equipment. But she was awake, and more whole than she’d been since she’d died…the first time. Her recovery, at least, was something.
I sighed and shook my head.
Zoe was following Wings and me, Shadow trailing behind her. The other seventeen members of our group were moving among the tents clustered around the campfire or through the scattering of trees lining the field, searching for firewood. Except for Jason; he was absolutely committed to the task of nulling Zoe, of keeping her Ability from surfacing and pummeling her shattered mind with foreign memories and emotions, and therefore had become her ever-present second shadow…or third shadow, if you counted her horse.
I snorted at my lame silent pun, and blinked rapidly as my eyes started to sting. I would not start crying just because I found Jason’s commitment to protecting my best friend—the sister he’d successfully estranged through emotional and physical distance—so sweet, so admirable. It was like this tragedy had jumpstarted his brotherly instincts, making him realize all he’d missed out on over the years. His renewed devotion to her made me feel like such a crap friend in comparison, because the more time I spent with this Zoe—this hauntingly familiar stranger, devoid of everything that had made her my best friend—the less I wanted to be around her.
Like I said—crap friend.
Reaching the edge of the pond, I set the small bin of grooming tools on the ground and waited for Wings to amble closer. She did and ducked her head down to slurp at the water.
Zoe and Shadow took up a position a few feet away, just on the other side of the bin, and Jason hoisted himself up and settled on the bench seat of the nearest cart. He pulled out a pocket knife and his latest whittling project—an as-yet-unrecognizable hunk of wood about the size of a baseball.
Out Of The Ashes (The Ending Series, #3) Page 3