“—know we can’t tell him the truth, Zo.” Jake could barely hear Dani’s voice over the crickets and evening breeze. “We can’t tell any of them the truth. Not until we know who the other Monitor is.”
Jake stopped in the doorway, curious but not wanting to intrude on Dani and Zoe’s whispered conversation.
Dani peered over at him, her eyes widening with surprise.
“He already knows, sort of,” Zoe said, shrugging Dani’s concern away before her eyes quickly drifted back down to the baby girl in her arms.
For an instant, Dani seemed worried, but then she finally gave Jake a weak smile. Like Zoe, she gazed back down at the baby boy she was holding.
Remembering the bottles in his hands, Jake strode over to the picnic table where the two women were sitting and crouched between them. “Here,” he said softly and handed them each a bottle. “Chris said you’d need these.”
Dani accepted one before her gaze shifted to Zoe, expectant.
“He won’t even look at them,” Zoe said, her voice hoarse and distant. She continued to rock the infant cradled in the crook of her arm.
“Zo, Jake brought the babies’ bottles. I don’t know about that little princess, but this monster’s getting hungry.”
As if on cue, the baby girl began to fuss. Absently, Zoe reached for the bottle Jake was holding out to her. “They need names…”
Jake swallowed thickly. “Biggs said he wanted to talk to Sarah about naming them after his mother and father,” he offered, finally getting Zoe’s attention.
Her bloodshot eyes met his. “Really?”
Jake nodded. “Ellie and Everett.”
Her eyes began to shimmer, and she returned her attention to the tiny little girl. “Sarah should be here…feeding them…naming them…”
“It’s not your fault, Zo. Sarah wasn’t herself; she wasn’t Sarah.”
As much as Jake wanted to know what exactly had happened, to know how much truth was intertwined with the story he’d put together in his mind, he couldn’t bring himself to ask. Not when Zoe was so distraught.
Zoe shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. “But she was, don’t you see?” she said to Dani. “She killed herself so she wouldn’t hurt me…it’s my fault…”
“No,” Dani said, her tone firm. “It’s not.”
Zoe craned her neck to look back at her friend.
“It’s not your fault, Zo. It’s Dr. Wesley’s fault. It’s the General’s fault.”
Zoe didn’t say anything; instead she peered down at the infant in Dani’s arms. “Everett and Ellie…I hope that’s what he picks.”
“Harper’s talking to him now,” Jake said as he stood. “Hopefully he’ll come around soon.”
“Is Biggs still keeping to the living room?” Dani asked as she gazed up at him.
Jake nodded. “He’s not ready to leave yet.”
“And what exactly is Harper going to say to him?” Zoe asked bitterly. “That it was postpartum depression? That Sarah was so depressed she took her own life?” She shook her head. “It’s a lie.”
“It’s the only option we have right now, Zo, unless we want to put everyone else in danger.”
“You mean put me and Jason in danger,” Zoe corrected.
Dani took a deep, steadying breath. “And what makes you think that no one else will be caught up in this shit storm? We can’t risk telling Biggs, for everyone’s sake.” She glanced down at Everett. “For their sake.”
Approaching footsteps brought their attention to the barn door. Harper paused in the doorway before striding inside.
“How is he?” Zoe asked.
Harper shook his head. “He’s angry,” he said simply and sat down on the opposite side of the picnic table. “He doesn’t understand that this happens sometimes…that it can be too much.”
Jake could tell by the despondency in Harper’s voice, the sadness, that he truly believed that was what had happened.
“We should give him more time,” Dani said.
Harper rested his elbows on the table and rubbed his hands over his face. “Jason and Ky are digging a grave. We’ll bury her tonight and give Biggs some time to process before we move on.”
Zoe held the bottle to Ellie’s mouth as the infant began to gurgle and fuss more loudly. “Does he want to see them yet?”
Harper gazed down at the two swaddled newborns, then up at Zoe. “No, not yet. He’s not thinking clearly right now, Baby Girl. He—”
“He blames them,” she finished for him.
“They have us until he comes around. They’ll be fine.”
Zoe nodded, but she didn’t seem to be listening, nor did she seem to notice as a tear rolled down her cheek.
Jake hated that this would become just one more unsettling memory to add to those that already haunted her.
30
DANI
MAY 26, 1AE
Petaluma, California
“Should be just up ahead,” Jason said to me, pointing through a break in the trees lining the left side of the country road. We were on the floor of a shallow valley surrounded by a gently rolling sea of emerald—grasses, low shrubs, and a few clusters of wild oaks here and there, the largest of which spread out beyond a several-acre field beside the road. Jason glanced down at the map he’d folded to show this specific part of Sonoma County and added, “Just beyond that patch of woods.”
He stopped his chestnut horse, and Wings drew to a halt beside the gelding without me having to ask. Turning in his saddle, Jason scanned the rest of our somber group, spread out in a loose column behind us. It jarred me every time I looked at the wagon and didn’t see Sarah sitting on its high bench seat.
“Let’s hold up here,” Jason called out. “Let Dani, Zoe, and Ky do their thing.”
Zoe and Ky guided their horses up to the head of the caravan, and the three of us took turns doing “our thing.” Thankfully, neither Zoe nor Ky found anything of note in their mental examination of the valley.
We only continued our trek to the appointed farm once my animal scouts had scanned the area around each of the farm buildings, reporting that there were no signs of two-legs and that, according to a drake, there had been none since his hen’s ducklings had hatched. He showed me an image of baby ducks that had to be at least a couple weeks old.
Several hundred yards later, there was a longer gap in the windbreak of trees lining the road, and I caught a glimpse of several large structures. They were the first buildings we’d seen since entering the secluded little valley, and each had weathered wooden siding and orangish roof shingles that, even from a distance, looked relatively new.
“That must be it,” I said to nobody in particular, and a sudden thrill of excitement made me bounce a little in my saddle.
Jason was glancing at me sideways, a small smile playing on his lips.
I forced myself to be still and shrugged, feeling a little ashamed to be showing so much giddiness so soon after Sarah…after the chaos the group had been through the previous day. But the shame didn’t decrease my giddiness; if anything, it only fanned it higher. This place—this cluster of farm buildings surrounded by fenced-in pastures and patches of oak trees and land just begging to be converted into vegetable gardens and fields of grains—this was our chance for a fresh start. This was our chance to settle down someplace new to all of us, leaving behind the horrors and sadness and disturbing memories of everything we’d experienced beyond these hills.
Wings picked up on my excitement and sped up, first to a fast walk, then to a trot, until she was cantering up the road. I laughed, unable to hold in the joy of running with Wings—a feeling I’d once allowed myself to feel through her, but now had to settle for experiencing from the saddle. I caught flashes of a large white building through the trees, glimpses of what I assumed was the farmhouse.
When Wings and I reached the gravel driveway flanked by two fenced-in pastures, my assumption was confirmed, and my mouth fell open. The house was huge. And gorgeous. A
nd belonged in a museum.
As Wings drew to a stop in front of a wrought-iron gate set between two wide stone piers, I stared at the house at the end of the drive and waited for the others to catch up. Maybe I should’ve expected our new home to be this impressive. Maybe I should’ve assumed that the New Bodega Town Council would direct us toward the farm most able to hold us all in relative comfort. Maybe I should’ve let myself believe that, for once, something good would be coming our way. But I hadn’t, and that alone made the sight so much more wondrous.
Fifty yards ahead, the gravel driveway gave way to a wide, two-story Victorian farmhouse that gleamed like a beacon shouting, “Welcome home! You’re finally home!” It was painted a yellow so pale it could easily be mistaken as white, with white window trim as well as white columns and a white bannister wrapping around the front and sides, separating a wraparound porch from the lawn below. Whitewashed stairs led up to the porch and a dark-stained, screened-off front door, to the right of which were a couple of large, wooden rocking chairs.
The patch of dense woods we’d seen from the road crept up on the left side of the house. An old wooden cottage sat across from it, and beyond that, I could see a cluster of farm buildings surrounding a wide, gravel roundabout.
The whole scene was almost laughably idyllic. Grams would’ve loved this place, I thought, and for the first time in a long time, thinking of her didn’t bring more sadness than fond remembrance.
At the sound of hooves and cart wheels on pavement, I looked over my shoulder to find Jason still hanging back in the lead of the caravan. He was watching me, smiling and shaking his head, as his horse—and behind him, the rest of our animals and people—slowly closed the distance between us.
I placed my hands on my hips and raised my eyebrows, feigning offense. “What?”
“I just love watching you ride, really ride…that’s all,” Jason said as his horse came to a halt on the left side of Wings. He reached for my hand and lifted it up to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss against the smooth wooden ring on my third finger.
Happiness flooded me, and I looked away, focusing on the gate, on the fields on either side of the driveway, on the gravel itself…on anything but Jason. It felt wrong to be happy, and self-loathing quickly replaced my joy.
Carlos, sitting atop Arrow, rode up to sit on my right side. The wagon, driven by Grayson, came to a halt on the gravel at the base of the driveway, the cart stopping behind it, and the rest of the horses, riderless and ridden, milling in the road.
“What’s the holdup?” Chris asked as she guided Cookie in to squeeze between Carlos and the fence. “Oh, a gate. Great.”
Jason glanced over his shoulder. “Mase! We need your strength up here.”
There was a loud thump, quickly followed by the crunching of gravel under boots as Mase jogged up to the front of the caravan, stopping behind our mounts. “What do you need me to do?”
Jason pointed to the center of the gate. “Can you force it open?”
After an unconcerned shrug, Mase made his way around Jason’s horse to the gate, stopping in the dead center. He wrapped his hands around the second bar from the middle on either side, took a deep breath, and pushed. Groaning, the gate doors slowly moved inward, a few inches, then a foot.
I held my breath, waiting…waiting…waiting…
There was a metal thwang, and Mase stumbled forward as the gates opened with no further resistance.
“Thank you, Mase,” Jason said with a nod. He nudged his horse forward, leading our people up the driveway. Looking back at me, he flashed one of his increasingly frequent, though no less devastating, smiles and uttered the same words I’d been thinking since the farmhouse first came into view.
“Welcome home.”
~~~~~
Annie screamed, but it wasn’t the squeal of joy we were all so used to hearing from her. It was a scream of outrage…of fear…of danger.
I froze in the middle of slipping Wings’s saddle off and met Jason’s eyes as he unsaddled his own horse. Without a word, I dropped the saddle on the gravel, turned on my heel, and sprinted in the direction of Annie’s mind signature; it was just beyond the opposite side of the farmhouse. I didn’t think I’d ever run so fast in my entire life.
Again, Annie screamed.
Jack raced past me as I sped across the overgrown lawn in front of the house and down the gentle slope on the other side. I pumped my arms harder, forced my legs to move even faster.
As a large pond came into view, half surrounded by wild oaks, I finally caught sight of Annie. Vanessa was struggling with her in the water. It looked like the small woman was trying to hold Annie under the water, but couldn’t quite get a good enough grip on her.
“Vanessa!” I shouted. “Stop!”
The insane young woman paused and looked up at me just long enough for Annie to lash out. Her little fingernails dragged down Vanessa’s neck, doing nearly as much damage as a small animal’s claws would have done, and Vanessa shrieked. But she also released Annie.
The little girl floundered away, crawling toward the pond’s edge.
Jack leapt into the water only a few seconds before me, snarling and snapping at Vanessa, but not actually striking. I aimed for Annie, yanking her up and out of the water and carrying her the rest of the way toward the edge of the pond.
She clung to me, sniffling and shaking and making pathetic whining noises. I didn’t bother trying to disengage her surprisingly strong little arms from around my neck or her legs from around my waist, because Jason and Carlos were only a few strides from the pond, and pretty much everyone else wasn’t far behind them.
Jason and Carlos had no trouble overpowering Vanessa. Jason dragged her up to the grass with Carlos right behind him, turned to mutter something to Carlos, then thrust Vanessa toward her younger brother. Reeling in his carefully restrained anger, Jason approached the spot where Annie and I were huddled in the unkempt grass, soaking wet and shaking and stinking of pond water.
He knelt on the ground and wrapped his arms around both of us. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, still breathing hard from the mad dash across the farm.
“But I had to,” Vanessa shrieked, drawing both Jason’s and my attention.
Jason pulled away just enough that he could watch Carlos attempt to reason with his not-so-harmless sister.
“You had to what, Nessa?” Carlos was crouched in front of Vanessa, who was sitting with her legs curled under her and rubbing her hands up and down her arms.
“Give her a bath. I had to wash her, don’t you see? I had to!”
Carlos shook his head, the gesture giving off a sense of hopelessness. “No, I don’t see. Why would you think—”
“I don’t think. I know!” she shrieked. Standing up on her knees, she reached for Carlos, clawlike fingers latching onto his sleeves. “Mom told me I’d lose her if I didn’t do it. She doesn’t love me anymore. I’m losing her, and Mom said I had to act more like her”—she threw her arm in the general direction of Jason, Annie, and me—“so Annie would love me like she’s starting to love her. I had to!”
Chris approached the pair of siblings cautiously, holding out her hands. “Shhh…” she murmured when Vanessa turned wide, wild eyes on her. “Hush now, hon.” Stopping behind Vanessa, she reached down and took hold of the smaller woman’s arm to pull her to her feet. “Come on. Let’s get you dried off and settled in.”
After a silent exchange and a nod, Chris and Carlos each held onto one of Vanessa’s arms while they led her back across the lawn toward the farm buildings.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, hugged Annie tighter, and leaned my cheek on Jason’s shoulder. “What are we going to do with her?” I asked softly.
With a heavy exhale, Jason shrugged.
I pulled away just enough that I could see his face. “Do you think—do you think that Colonel Marshall might have been right? That we should—that we’ll have to, um, you know…put her down?” I said, mouthing th
e last part.
“No.” There was a surprising amount of conviction in Jason’s eyes.
“How can we be sure she won’t try something like this again? She could’ve drowned Annie.”
Jason hesitated, then said, “We’ll keep her locked up—in a stable stall, like we did back at the ranch.”
“Forever?” I said, my brow furrowed. “But she’ll be miserable.”
Again, Jason shrugged. “As miserable as Carlos would be if he lost her again?” He shook his head resolutely. “The kid’s been through enough. I’m not putting him through that.”
I sighed and pulled away further, uncrossing my legs in preparation to rise. “I suppose you’re right.”
~~~~~
About an hour later, after Annie and I had washed off in the creek that fed the pond and were dressed in cleaner, drier clothes, I walked the little girl back toward the farmhouse. We were just approaching the front steps leading up to the porch, me eager to get a peek inside, when Ky opened the front door.
“Let her air out a bit first, ’kay?” he said through the screen door.
Annie stepped onto the first stair and gave my hand a tug, but I didn’t budge. “Bodies?” I asked.
Ky nodded. “Looks like a married couple.”
I grimaced. “How bad is it?”
“Just a ruined mattress. Jason and Mase are taking it out back to burn with the bodies.” He lifted his shoulders, offering me a slight smile. “But the good news is, they’ve been dead long enough that the smell’s faded a bit. Should have the place aired out enough to be livable by tomorrow…if we keep every single door and window open.”
Out Of The Ashes (The Ending Series, #3) Page 37