Carlos stared at me for a few seconds, then looked back at the stall door—more away from me than actually at the door—rubbed his hand over the several weeks of hair growing on his shaved head, and made a rough coughing noise. He sniffed once, twice, a third time, and wiped his hand over his face before returning his gaze to me. “You, uh, needed me for something?” he said, his voice a little hoarse.
“Oh, right. Yeah…” I smiled and pointed out the stable door, to the water tank a short ways up the hill behind the farmhouse. “It’s empty. I need you to do your mojo and get the pump going so I can finish setting up the chicken coop.” Eager, I rubbed my hands together and started bouncing on the balls of my feet. “I sensed a bunch of hens and a few roosters nearby—I’m going to bring ’em in once the coop’s ready, and all that’s left to do now is fill the watering thingies.”
“Got it.” With one final glance back at the stall door, Carlos strode outside, me at his side; I had to take three steps for every two of his. He stared out toward the raised water tank. “I just filled that thing this morning.” He looked at me askance. “How’d we go through it so fast?”
I shrugged. “Just finishing getting the farm set up, I guess. I had to fill the troughs in all three pens and in the pasture, the water buckets in the goat house and all the stable stalls…” I glanced at Carlos. “Except for your sister’s. And Mase and Camille converted part of the old barn into a washhouse—for clothes, not people”—I cocked my head to the side—“though that’s not a bad idea. But anyway, Mase and Camille have been doing an epic load of laundry, and by the time I got around to the chickens, the tank was dry.”
“Got it,” Carlos repeated as we trudged uphill through overgrown grass and bobbing spheres of mostly white clover flowers and a few violet-tinged red clover flowers.
Without thinking, I picked one of the red clover spheres with a longer stem and started plucking off the tiny flowers to suck the nectar out. As far as I was concerned, it was never a bad time for something sweet. I held out the flowers to Carlos. “Want some?”
He shook his head.
I shrugged. “Did you know that when these get moldy, they act as a blood thinner?”
Carlos shot me a sideways glance that said “Why the hell would I know that?” more clearly than words could have. “That another one of the traditional medicine things your grandma taught you?”
I nodded slowly. “You know, I always thought she was so silly with all that stuff, but now I wish I’d paid more attention…remembered more of what she taught me. I think next time we make a trip to New Bodega, I’ll stop by Grams’s house and pick up her recipe book and some of her herbalism stuff.”
“Stuff?”
“Yeah, you know, like a mortar and pestle, measuring cups, that kind of thing.” I tossed the stripped clover stem onto the ground. “Could be useful,” I said, thinking about Harper and his increasing hesitancy to give us antibiotics every time one of us injured ourselves enough to risk infection. According to him, the antibiotics might do more harm than good at this point.
“Seems like a good plan,” Carlos said. “And hey, maybe there’s some herbalism thing that can help with the Re-gens.”
“Help with the Re-gens?”
“Yeah, you know, the degeneration thing that’s making Becca sick…?”
I stared at him as we continued uphill. “Becca’s sick?”
Carlos met my eyes, disbelief in his. “Zoe didn’t tell you about what happened earlier?”
“I haven’t seen her since this morning…when she was looking for Becca,” I said, waving my hand in a keep-going gesture. “So what’s going on? What hasn’t she told me?”
“That the Re-gens…they’re dying.”
My stomach lurched. Stopping mid-step, I grabbed his arm and pulled him around to face me. “What?”
What he explained next horrified me. I felt like he’d punched me in the gut, then pulled the ground out from under me. If Becca was right, and the Re-gens were constantly on the cusp of degenerating back to their natural state—dead—then Camille and Mase were constantly in danger from what had been done to them at the Colony. They could die any day…unless Carlos, or someone like Carlos, was around to recharge their biological batteries every now and again.
“Are you sure you’re up for that?” I asked, eyes wide with the horror his words had ignited. “I mean, maintaining Camille and Mase’s health with daily doses of electrotherapy is one thing, but how much power is it going to take to revitalize Becca? Is it even possible?”
Carlos raised his shoulders. “Dunno, but there’s only one way to find out.” He continued walking, and I had to jog a few steps to catch up to him.
“Well, at least you won’t have to do this much longer,” I said, gesturing toward the water tank and tiny pump house several dozen yards ahead. “So you’ll be able to save up all your juice for keeping them from devolving or degenerating or whatever you’re calling it.”
When Carlos’s brow furrowed, I explained, “Jason’s working on that old windmill down by the storage barn. He’s pretty sure it’s usable, so once he gets it working, we’ll be able to use that instead. Should be a day or two…or three, but hopefully not more than that.”
Carlos shrugged. “I’ll do what needs to be done. Becca was stupid to wait this long to tell us. She’s really sick, and even though I did a pretty intensive electrotherapy session with her earlier…” He shook his head. “I don’t know if it’ll work. She was just so stupid to—”
“You never know what she saw,” I said as we reached the squat little pump house beside the water tank. “You know how she is…it could be that telling us would’ve meant we’d all die horrible deaths, or something like that.” I leaned my hip against the edge of the roof of the pint-size building while Carlos crouched before the short door to open it.
Reaching inside, he touched the well pump’s motor, and a few seconds later, it whirred to life. Touching whatever he was charging up was by no means necessary for Carlos, but it made the task a whole lot easier and it prevented the faint electric tingle that charged the air whenever he used his Ability from a distance.
I studied his youthful, handsome face. He was so freaking adorable. If only he’d been a little less attractive, maybe his first few months after the outbreak wouldn’t have been so bad for him…except for everything that happened with his brother and sister…and Annie…
“What?” He was watching me watch him, his shoulders hunched.
“Nothing.” I looked away, shifting my attention to the farm laid out below us. The barns and stable were set up in a “U” formation, with the gravel roundabout filling the empty space between them. The grand old farmhouse, its adorable little companion cottage, and the brick oven and flagstone patio took up the remaining side of the roundabout, and beyond them lay a large garden, a greenhouse, the root cellar, the orchards, and a creek feeding into the pond. It was our own little slice of homesteader heaven.
“Have you had a chance to explore this place much?” I asked Carlos.
He shook his head. “Been spending most of my time with Nessa and doing this…and now, helping the Re-gens.”
“You should take a break, walk around…maybe stop by the windmill and see if Jason needs any help. Oh, and there are beehives over by the garden shed, too, just past the greenhouse. Those are pretty neat.” I squinted, hoping to catch a glimpse of my other half between the end of the stable and the storage barn, where the windmill stood, but I couldn’t see him. I sighed and focused instead on the garden. “Or you could find Grayson—help him with his surveying and whatnot,” I suggested, thinking of our resident “farming” expert.
Carlos pulled out of the little minished. He stood, took a step backward, and tripped.
I reached for him instinctively, and the moment my fingers closed around his wrist, I couldn’t make them let go. Because I was suddenly on fire with electricity.
Wrenching himself free, Carlos stumbled backward.
My knees gave out, and I held myself up on hands and knees as I gasped for air.
“Jesus…fuck, Dani! Are you okay?”
Somehow, I managed to wave at him with one hand. “Yeah…yeah…I’m good.”
Except for one thing: I couldn’t feel a single mind. Electricity had knocked my Ability out…again.
~~~~~
As promised by the Council, a pair of New Bodega-ers made a delivery in the late afternoon. They’d spared some of their precious fuel supply to power up a hybrid SUV, bringing us not only three coolers filled with fresh seafood—rock cod, crab, shrimp, and abalone, as well as several types of seaweed—but also a solar-powered generator and a several-week supply of dry goods. The generator was meant to power the chest freezer in the farmhouse’s enormous pantry so we could store the seafood longer and put more time between deliveries.
After the two of them left, Ky, Camille, and Becca built up the fire in the huge brick oven behind the farmhouse and started making dinner with the new supplies. The rest of us returned to our work around the farm—Harper putting the final touches on his infirmary in the ground-floor master bedroom, Tavis and Sam storing our spare weapons and ammo in the laundry-room-turned-armory, Carlos and Mase joining Jason to help with the windmill, Grayson appraising the fields across the road from the farm, Chris and Biggs scouting around the perimeter of the farm for the best path for a fence we could convert into a wall over time, and me mucking out the stables with Annie’s help. Which consisted more of the little girl rolling around on the floor of the stable aisle with Jack, while Zoe, once again on baby duty, was watching me from a bench in the aisle, one little baby bundle in her arms and the other in a carrier on the bench beside her.
“I am not sure I’m cut out for this, D,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
I paused, turning just enough that I could see her through the stall door. “You volunteered to take care of them…”
“You would’ve done the same thing in my place.” She gave me a sidelong glance before she peered down at the baby she was holding; I assumed it was Ellie, given the pink blanket the infant was swaddled in.
“I suppose…” I continued shoveling. “So, I forgot to ask you about this earlier—I heard you screaming in your sleep again last night. Are those dreams about your mom still bothering you?”
“I don’t know…yeah.” Zoe was quiet for a moment, then she added, “It’s just, all of this stuff about her creating the Virus and having this other family…it just seems so crazy, you know? I mean, my mom is the fucking doctor responsible for it all.” She leaned against one of the stable doors and let out a slow, deep breath. “It’s a lot to take in, I guess.”
As though she were responding to a cue, our resident Crazy squealed, the high-pitched noise trailing off with a girlish giggle.
Which Ellie didn’t like at all. There was a brief windup period, filled with cute little noises, but soon she was wailing away, and bringing Everett right along with her.
“Uh-oh,” Annie remarked wisely from the aisle floor. Jack, who’d been enjoying the belly rub of all belly rubs, rolled onto his feet and, hackles rising, started to growl in Vanessa’s direction.
“Stop that,” I told him, and he sat, quieting immediately, though not taking his eyes from the locked stall at the end.
And all the while, the babies cried like their lives depended on it.
“Damn it!” Standing, Zoe crossed the aisle and entered the stall, thrusting the distraught infant at me.
I held out my shovel. “What am I—”
“Just for a sec, D, please?” Zoe said, barely giving me time to set the shovel against the wall and peel off my work gloves before leaving me with Ellie and rushing out of the stall to pick up Everett. “Shhh…shhh…shhh, baby boy. Please, Everett…please go back to sleep.” She walked around in circles with the baby, cooing and shushing and rocking him gently. “Shhh…shhh…shhh…”
Unfortunately, Everett didn’t seem to understand.
Frowning, I looked down at Ellie. Remarkably, she’d stopped crying. She stared up at me with enormous blue eyes and started making bubbles with her mouth, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“Hey there, little girl…you’re not so scary, are you?” I said as I walked through the open stall door leading out to the pasture to bask in the afternoon sunlight. “You’re just a little snuggle bug, huh?”
Ellie blinked.
“Yes you are,” I cooed. “You’re just the cutest little princess there ever was.”
I heard Zoe’s low, soft chuckle from behind me and froze, caught in the act of being a total softy. Slowly, I turned around.
Zoe stood in the exterior stall door, Everett in her arms, soothed into silent sleep. She was shaking her head and clicking her tongue at me in disbelief. “First Annie, now Ellie…it’s only a matter of time, D.” Her rueful smile broadened.
“A matter of time for what?”
“Babies,” she mouthed, her brow dancing excitedly as she sidled up next to me and nudged my arm with her elbow.
I readjusted my hold on Ellie, shifting her head higher, and sighed. “A matter of time?” I wanted my own family with Jason…someday. But not yet. Definitely not yet. Our world was just too unstable. Plus, we already had two infants, a little girl, and an adolescent boy to take care of on the farm. Any more kids might break us.
“I can see the gleam in your eyes, D. I know you want to see what it would be like to have your own…” Her teasing ceased and suddenly her eyes turned pleading. “Just for a little while, as least?”
I rolled my eyes, nearly snorting. “I knew there was an ulterior motive in there somewhere…” I flashed her my most innocent smile and batted my eyelashes. “Sure, if you want to muck out the stable that badly, I’ll take the twins for a while. You can shovel, and I’ll watch the munchkins.”
Zoe’s smile withered under the threat of yards of moldy hay and manure. She glanced down at Everett. “I think I’ve had my share of poop for a long time.”
“Ahem,” someone said from the stable aisle behind Zoe.
We both jumped a little, Zoe spinning while she did.
Ky lounged against the stall’s doorframe. “Dinner’s ready, and Jason and Grayson want everyone up there so they can do one of their patented dinner–team meeting things. They’re waiting up at the tables now.”
I forced a scowl to hide a smile. He’d surprised us on purpose, I knew it. “Did Jason finish the windmill?” It had looked a lot more like a multiday project than a one-afternooner, so I doubted it.
Ky shrugged and started for the stable’s backdoor. “I’ll be up in a bit…gotta track down the others,” he said over his shoulder.
“Alrighty…Jason summons, we come.” I walked back into the stable to retrieve Annie and my dog while Zoe started gathering the twins’ things into a baby bag one-handed. I paused in the stable doorway to wait for her and Everett.
Zoe waved a hand at me. “You guys go on up. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Okeydokey.” With Annie and Jack in tow and Ellie sleeping soundly in my arms, I emerged from the stable and headed straight for the three round tables we’d moved from the barn to the flagstone patio surrounding the behemoth of a brick oven. Jason, Carlos, Mase, and Grayson were sitting at one of the tables, Jason deep in conversation with Grayson while simultaneously taking notes. Camille was standing in front of the oven’s arched mouth, using spatulas to flip what looked like some sort of biscuit or flatbread cooking in cast-iron skillets. The rest of the group had yet to arrive.
When we were about halfway between the stable and the patio, Carlos spotted my little entourage and nudged Jason, leaning in to murmur something, and Jason looked our way. He’d been writing in his notebook, but his pen stilled almost as soon as his eyes landed on me. The corners of his mouth curved upward the barest amount, and his expression, filled with yearning more than desire, seared through my heart. Beside him, Carlos was grinning from ear to ear. Jason said something to
Grayson and, pushing back his chair, stood and started striding toward us.
“Jason!” Annie squealed. She ran ahead, throwing herself into his waiting arms.
He lifted her up by the armpits, spinning her around in a circle and earning a second, prolonged squeal. When he finally set her down again, he was laughing, and Annie’s face was flushed with excitement.
“We scooped poop!” she told him, pride emanating from her.
“Did you?” He held onto one of her hands, leading her back the way she’d come. “You’re turning into quite the farmer. We’ll have to start calling you Farmer Annie, soon.”
Annie nodded enthusiastically, but Jason didn’t see it because his eyes were locked on me.
“I think Camille needs your help,” Jason said to the little girl, and she skipped away. When he reached me, Jason raised one hand to clasp the back of my neck and leaned in, brushing his lips against my cheek. “Well, hello there.”
Hiding a smile, I pulled back and peered up into his jewel-blue eyes. “What’s put you in such a good mood?”
“You.”
Skeptical, I frowned; I smelled like horse manure and sweat, and I was fairly certain I had clown hair, so it definitely wasn’t my present state that was inspiring such happiness. My eyes narrowed and I peeked around him at Carlos. “What’d Carlos say to you?” Because whatever the teenager had said had to be the spark.
Placing his palms on either side of my face, his fingers forming a gentle cage around my head, Jason leaned in again, this time brushing his lips against mine. He lingered, giving me the sweetest, most tender kiss possible. Pulling away, he smiled. “I believe it was…‘Check it out.’”
“‘Check it out?’ That made you all…uber-happy?” I pulled back and studied his face. “Why?”
“If you’d seen you, with the baby and Annie and Jack, you’d be smiling, too,” he said as his focus shifted to a spot behind me. He raised his voice. “How’re the twins today?”
Out Of The Ashes (The Ending Series, #3) Page 40