Out Of The Ashes (The Ending Series, #3) (17 page)

I couldn’t help
but smile as I resituated myself on the padded bench so my knees were angled
toward him, anxiously awaiting his explanation. “Fail…just what every test
subject wants to hear.” The cart creaked and swayed beneath us. “So, are you
going to tell me what it is we’re testing, or am I just supposed to comply and
hope for the best?”

“Oh, right—I may
have found a way for you to regain access to your memory.”

My heart skipped
several beats, and I opened my mouth to unleash a barrage of questions.

Gabe held up a
hand, cutting me off before I could ask any of them. “But we won’t know
anything until we get a chance to try a few things out. It’s far from a sure
thing.”

It’s far from
a sure thing.
I
understood that, but I couldn’t help the hope his words summoned. At first,
we’d all
hoped
that my memory would eventually come back, but after
weeks of waiting, I’d begun to assume that who I was now was who I would
always
be. Suddenly, the day—my future—seemed a little bit brighter.

“How…what do we
need to do?”

“I won’t bore you
with all the neurology babble,” he said with a kind smile. “Basically, we’re
going to immerse your mind in an electric field and slowly increase the
intensity while Chris keeps an eye on how the, uh,
treatment
is stimulating the memory centers in your brain.”

“An electric
field? Is it going to hurt?” I wasn’t sure I cared so much, as long as I could
be me again. Once more, hope swelled inside me.
Everything would be so much
easier…

Gabe’s smile
returned, but this time, it had a distinctly apologetic edge. “At the lowest
intensity it’ll feel odd—sort of tingly and fuzzy—but as we increase the
intensity, it could become quite painful.”

Given that there
was no electricity to make such a process possible, I knew it was ridiculous,
but I couldn’t help the image my mind conjured—me, hooked up to a horrifying
contraption with electrodes stuck all over my body. I cringed. “And
how
exactly
are you going to create this electric field?”

“You’re aware
that Carlos has some control over electricity?” When I nodded, Gabe continued.
“He’s recently developed the ability to create and manipulate an electric
charge with enough precision that he can actually surround anything—a stick, a
house, a person,
your brain
—with an electric field.” The side of his
mouth tensed. “We just have to work on his control a bit, make sure he doesn’t
accidentally fry any of us…”

I took a
steadying breath. “I see.” I sat there a moment, wading through the dozens of
questions I wanted answers to. “I know you’re smart and this sort of thing is
your specialty, but I have to ask—what makes you think it will even work?”

Gabe glanced over
his shoulder, and I followed his line of sight to Camille, who was riding in
the wagon with Sarah. “There’s a marked correlation between Camille regaining
memories of her former life and her extensive exposure to electric fields, so
it’s not too great of a leap to hypothesize that the same result would occur in
a non-Re-gen mind. I’ve spoken to Wes—”

“Wait, you talked
to Dr. Wesley—my mom?” It took me a moment to remember that Gabe could visit
people in their dreams.

Gabe shut his
mouth and stared at me for a few seconds. “I forget sometimes…that you’re her
daughter.” He raised one shoulder. “How it’s possible for me to forget is
beyond me, considering the resemblance, but…somehow I do.”

“So,
she
thinks it will work, too?”

“She agrees that
if Chris monitors the neurological response and guides Carlos to direct the
point charge…” He shook his head. “The point is—Wes agrees that with Chris and
Carlos working together, we
might
have a shot.” He shrugged. “And we’ll
at least be able to tell fairly quickly whether or not this ‘treatment’ will
even work on you.
And
,
even if it doesn’t restore
your memories, at least it should increase your Ability enough that you’ll have
better control over it.”

It was clear
Gabe’s “might” served as another warning that failure could be a likely
outcome, but I was stuck on the fact that it also
might
work. Optimism
and elation trumped my apprehension that Gabe’s theory wouldn’t work.

“Have you already
talked to Chris and Carlos? Are they willing to try?”

“Yep,” he said.

My mind reeled
with gratitude, hope, and fear. I glanced at Gabe, who was leaning forward with
his elbows on his knees as he stared out ahead.

“Thank you,” I
said. “When the transfusion didn’t work, I sorta lost hope…” I cleared my
throat, trying to rid my voice of unwanted emotion. “You have no idea what this
means to me. I—I know it may not work, but the fact that you’re going to try,
that you care even a little, means a lot to me.”

Gabe nodded.

“And…” I was torn
to say the next words. “I don’t think we should tell anyone, not until we know
if it’s really even possible.”

Gabe glanced at
me again, eyebrows raised.

“I wouldn’t want
anyone to get their hopes up and then have it not work…” I pictured the look of
disappointment on Dani’s and Jason’s faces, then on Jake’s.
I
would be
disappointed enough; I didn’t want to have to feel their disappointment as
well.

With a curt nod,
Gabe turned his attention back to the road.

For a few minutes
we sat there, the sound of distant chatter, clomping horse hooves against the
asphalt, and the creaking wagon and cart filling our silence. We were both lost
in thought, which was a bad thing; with his mind wandering while he was sitting
so close to me, it was difficult to prevent myself from seeing too much. It was
going to be a long ride, and if I was going to honor his request to stay out of
his head, I needed to keep myself busy.

I cleared my
throat. “Can I ask you something?”

“Hmmm…?”

“What’s she
like?”

“Who?” Gabe asked
absently.

I swallowed,
uncertain he would want to talk about her. “My…my mom.”

Gabe looked at
me, his eyebrows raised. His mouth curved in a thoughtful frown, and he
straightened, extending his arms over his head and arching his back in a
stretch. After a deep breath, he settled back in the bench seat. “Wes is…” He
scanned the way ahead. “To say she’s complicated would be an understatement. I
worked fairly closely with her for a few years, but sometimes I still think I
barely know her.” He shook his head. “I’ve never met somebody with as many
secrets as her. How she manages to juggle them all without falling flat on her
face is beyond me.”

“I’m assuming
Jason and I were one of her secrets…”

“Ah…no. At least,
not one of the secrets she kept from me.” He laughed wryly. “When I first
figured out the Virus’s origins—
her
, essentially—I was
not
happy.”
With a meaningful look, he said, “We had words. But, when I found out the
reason she’d done it, the reason she’d worked so diligently to help Herodson
with his ‘Great Transformation’…” For a long moment, he simply stared out at
the road in front of us and shook his head. “I couldn’t really blame her. I
can’t say I’d have done the same thing in her place, but I also can’t say I
wouldn’t have.”

I wondered what
my reaction to the truth about her and the Virus would’ve been a month ago.
“It’s difficult to wrap my mind around it,” I thought aloud. “She did all of
this…for us.”
And Jason still doesn’t know.

Gabe nodded.
“Which tells you quite a bit about her right there. She’s protective of those
she loves, and arguably loyal to a fault.” He smiled, the corners of his eyes
crinkling the barest amount. “She’s the most intelligent person I’ve ever met,
and more than a little uptight—the woman can’t take a joke to save her life.”
He rolled his eyes. “But considering everything Herodson’s put her through,
it’s impressive that she can even manage a smile now and again.”

I remembered her
kindness the night she found me with Clara, and it upset me to think what the
General might’ve done to her, especially as I recalled how he’d tortured Becca,
Mase, Camille, Dani… “Is he unkind to her?” I asked tentatively.

Gabe eyed me, his
expression guarded. “If you consider forcing her to play house for two decades,
forcing her to pretend to love him, unkind, then yeah”—he laughed
bitterly—“he’s unkind to her.” Gabe’s coiling hatred settled in the pit of my
stomach, and after a moment, he added, “Maybe it wouldn’t seem so bad if his
mind control actually worked on her and she was blissfully unaware…” He sighed.
“But she’s not.”

I still had
questions, tons of them, but I wasn’t sure I was ready for the answers, so I
kept them to myself. We rode in affable silence for a while, my thoughts
lingering on the possibility that soon I might have all my memories back.

14

JAKE

APRIL 28, 1AE

Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, Nevada

Unwilling to mill around by the
campfire, watching Tavis and Zoe act like lifelong friends or more, Jake
decided to walk the perimeter of their camp in the hopes of clearing his head.
With Cooper tagging along, Jake made his way down to a small, stagnant pond in
a gulch that dipped below their camp. The further away he drew from the sound
of everyone meandering around camp with routine and purpose, the clearer the
truth became. Jake knew he’d been grasping at straws, trying to hold onto
something—to
someone
—that hadn’t been his for weeks.

The headway he’d been making with
Zoe simply wasn’t enough. She’d needed a shoulder to cry on after Dani’s
breakdown, and she’d gone to Tavis. But if he was being honest with himself,
things with Zoe had been strained since the moment they’d found her in her
altered state. It seemed like every time they were alone together, she would
pull away from him, just like she’d done on the ledge overlooking the
canyon…just like she’d done the night of the rainstorm.

Whether she pulled away from Jake
because she was scared,
torn between him and
Tavis, or simply not interested, Jake had no idea.
Regardless, it was time for him to stop living in his
dream world of what-ifs and maybes.

He crouched by the pond’s edge and
stared out at its glassy surface. Zoe had woken up in a world she didn’t
understand. There was uneasiness in her eyes when she was around Dani, her
supposed best friend, and hesitation when she was around Jake. Everything about
her was different.

Grabbing a few rocks from the edge
of the pond, Jake rose and chucked one off into the water as far as he could.
Zoe had admitted herself that being around Tavis was easier. It was a difficult
truth to swallow, but Jake knew, deep down, that whatever had been between him
and Zoe before, Tavis and Zoe were more compatible now.

Jake heaved another rock. His
stomach churned with an aching longing as he realized that she was no longer
his and accepted that she might never be again.

How
exactly he’d fallen so absolutely in love with his Zoe
, he didn’t
know. From the
first moment he’d seen her, something had stirred inside him—a purpose…a
curiosity…a desire. And as he’d come to know her better, her stubbornness had
challenged him and her determination had inspired him. But she was different
now.

With the burning sting of
acceptance, Jake knew he had to let her go. He tossed the last rock further
than the rest, and anger hardened inside him. Turning on his heel, he headed
back toward camp.

His jaw ached and his teeth
clenched as he considered how often he would have to watch her with Tavis. His
heart tightened at the mere thought of her never sleeping in his arms again. It
would be easier to leave, to run away like the coward he’d been so many times
in his life. But he couldn’t do that, he couldn’t very well leave, not with his
sister carving out a place for herself in the group.

Running his hands over his head,
Jake let out a despondent groan.

After too many resentful thoughts,
he reached camp. As he approached the campfire, Cooper left Jake’s side and
pranced over to the Re-gens, who were sitting in a tight circle around Ben. He
was gesturing wildly, no doubt dramatizing some story about him and Ky in their
youth.

With a few hours to kill before his
watch started, Jake left Cooper to be fussed over by Camille and Becca and
headed past the group toward his tent. The little voice inside his head
wondered where Zoe was, causing his hands to clench into fists. He needed to
stop seeking her out.

Rubbing the tension from the back
of his neck, he glanced up and froze.

Zoe was pacing back and forth in
front of his tent. Her hair was braided, trailing down her back, the ends just
brushing the waist of her jeans. One arm was wrapped around her middle, the
other raised so that her hand clasped the back of her neck.

She continued to pace, giving him
no indication that she’d even realized he’d approached.
Sh
e looked just like she always had, statuesque and
thoughtful with each long stride, but inside she was fractured—pieces of her
old self clinging to the new, unwilling to let go. He saw glimpses of her old
self every now and again, and that made it all the more difficult to accept
that everything had changed, that he’d lost her.

When she finally looked up to see
him standing there, she stopped mid-step. “Something’s changed, hasn’t it?” she
asked.

Jake remained silent, her urgency
catching him off guard and the tremble in her voice thawing his anger and frustration.

She took a step toward him, her
eyes searching his. “You’ve been keeping your distance, and I can’t tell why.”

What could he tell her? Their
long, heavy silence only echoed the distance that had been growing between
them.

Jake took a deep breath. “I have
to let you go” was all he could say, but the words tasted ashen on his tongue.
He hated how confused he felt around her. “This isn’t right. You’re different
now—”

“Yes,” she said and took another step
forward. Finally her brilliant teal eyes met his, and she stared back at him
with an injured gaze. “I’m fully aware that I’m different.”

“You can’t be something you’re
not.” He hoped speaking the words would make it easier to accept the truth, but
when her eyes gleamed and her features hardened, he felt deplorable for saying
them at all. “We’re not the same as we were before. I have to accept that—”

“Do you still care about me?” she
blurted. “The way I am now…do you still want to be with me, at all?”

Jake’s heart began to race, and he
was about to open his mouth when she continued.

“Because after what happened with
Dani…” She shook her head. “I’ve felt more pain and regret and loneliness today
than I
ever
want to feel again.” Tucking a loose hair behind her ear,
she took another, more fortifying step toward him. “I’ve lost more in the last
few weeks than I may ever be able to fully comprehend, but I don’t want to have
any regrets in this new life.” She said each word pointedly, that strong will
and resolve he admired so much flaring to life. “You don’t get to make choices
for me,” she said.

Questions thrashed around in
Jake’s mind.

In his long, pregnant silence, she
added more tentatively, “But, if it’s too difficult for you to be with me, if
it’s not what
you
want, then that’s your choice…and I understand.”

“No you don’t,” he muttered,
shaking his head.

Her eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

“You don’t understand.” His tone
was harsher than he’d meant, but he needed to speak the truth. “You have no
idea how difficult this is.”

She straightened, her head shaking
and her glare boring into him. “Difficult…for
you
? Every time I think
we’re taking a step closer together you think of
her
. I’m not her, I’m—”

“I think about
you
.”

“No, it’s different.” Zoe’s hands
fisted at her side and she took two more obstinate steps closer. “You know it
is. I can’t
be
her, Jake. I can’t live up to that. I can’t be someone
I’m not.”

“Which is why I should let you go,”
he said. The words hung, suspended in the quiet that followed. After a few
steadying breaths, he continued, “This is torture, Zoe. I love you so much, and
it’s killing me that I can’t have you.” He slumped his shoulders and cursed. “I
can’t do this anymore.”

“Does what I want matter at all?”

Jake let out a bitter laugh. “I
know what you want.”

“Obviously not.”

He was growing impatient. “Tell me
then, what is it that you want, exactly, because I’m confused. Tavis is always
around—”

“So you’re ‘letting me go’ because
of Tavis?” She looked shell-shocked. “It’s not what you think,” she said,
pointing vehemently toward the campfire. “It’s easier to be with him, but—”

“Exactly.” Jake’s voice was a low
growl, and he was on the verge of walking away so he didn’t say something else,
something he would regret. “That’s why this isn’t going to work.”

Zoe recoiled.

Jake’s heart was pounding
violently, and his hands began to shake. He didn’t want this, he didn’t want
her to hate him, but it was too much to keep locked inside anymore.

“Despite what you may think,” she
started, “I didn’t go to him this morning—it just happened that way.” Her voice
cracked. “I wanted him to be you.” She closed the distance between them, her
eyes shimmering and her heaving chest mirroring his. “If you don’t want to be
with me, I understand,” she said. “But I don’t want to waste any more time
sidestepping everything because I’m scared that I won’t live up to her memory.
I don’t want to feel the kind of regret that’s simmering inside you…that’s
consuming Dani. I don’t want to be the reason I’m not happy.”

Jake was awed by this tenacious,
uninhibited side of Zoe. She was stunning.

Swallowing, she said, “Do you
still love me, even though I’m different?” Her eyes searched his, and she bit
the inside of her cheek.

Jake’s hand reached out and cupped
the side of her face. Yes, she was different, but she was still Zoe. “Of course
I do,” he whispered, emotion making it difficult to speak.

She covered his hand with hers,
the electricity of her touch rippling through him. “Good, because no matter
what you may think, right now, being with you is the only thing I want.” She
closed her eyes.

As Jake digested her words, his
chest tightened almost unbearably with immense joy. Standing so close together,
with only inches separating them, he felt more intimacy with her than he could
ever remember feeling before.

It’s still Zoe, he told himself,
knowing he might never get the
old
her back; they were still connected
in some intrinsic way. He could feel the heat radiating from their bodies and
gravity pulling them together, making it impossible to let her go. He moved
closer to her until their chests were touching.

When she opened her eyes, a tear
escaped from between her lashes.

“What is it?” Jake asked, and he
wiped the rogue tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb.

Blinking, Zoe closed her eyes
again, another teardrop sliding down her face. “I know this sounds so stupid,”
she said and let out a small, self-deprecating laugh as Jake brushed away the
second tear. “But I’ve never felt something like this before.” When she gazed
back up at him through her dark, fanning lashes, her radiant eyes seared into
his soul.

Zoe placed her open palm on his
chest, staring at it intently. Her fingers tensed against his thermal shirt,
then relaxed again. “It feels right.” Slowly, she leaned toward him, her eyes
searching his before her lids flitted shut, and she pressed her lips to his.

Automatically, Jake’s arms wrapped
around her waist, and he stifled a groan. The tension in his neck and shoulders
dissolved, and his wild, corrosive thoughts tamed. She was his, and like
always, they would figure everything out.

Zoe brushed a featherlight kiss
against his lower lip and then the corner of his mouth, like she was exploring
him. He reveled in the moment, letting her tender touch force back every
derisive thought and assumption he’d allowed himself to harbor. He’d missed
feeling the soft pressure of her lips. He’d missed the close proximity of her
body. He’d missed
her
.

Returning her kiss, Jake gently
pressed his lips to hers. He took his time reacquainting himself with the way
they felt, with the way her fingertips swirled small circles on the back of his
neck, and with the way she slowly rose onto her tiptoes, bringing her up even with
his height so she could kiss him deeper and hold him tighter.

Jake’s arms tightened around her
as his heartbeat droned steadily. He couldn’t think. He didn’t
want
to
think; he just wanted to feel her, to be in the moment and never second-guess
their relationship ever again.

But all too soon, she pulled away.

Opening his eyes, Jake saw a spark
of hope enliven hers again, replacing the hurt reflected in them only moments
ago.

“So,” she said huskily, eliciting
a strumming desire through his body. “We try then?”

With more relief than Jake knew
how to handle, he lowered his forehead to hers, tightened his hold around her,
and closed his eyes as he whispered, “We try.”