Out Of The Ashes (The Ending Series, #3) (5 page)

As he’d done the
last time, Jason acted as the grounding wire to my telepathic lightning rod.
Using half of his Ability, he boosted mine, giving me back the control I so
desperately needed. The magnetic lure of the minds around me waned, fading into
the background.

I took a deep
breath, then another. Smiling, I filled my eyes with as much warmth as I could
and placed my hand over one of Jason’s, giving it a gentle, grateful squeeze.
“Thank—” My voice caught in my throat, and my chest clenched. Something was
wrong.

I couldn’t sense
Jason.

I looked at Zoe,
feeling my eyes widen. I couldn’t sense either of them. I could sense the
animals all around, but I couldn’t sense any human minds at all.

“Red…?” Jason’s
voice was soft, cautious.

“You’re gone,” I
whispered, feeling like I’d been kicked in the stomach. “You’re all gone.” I
looked into Zoe’s piercing blue eyes. “Gone.” My voice sounded hollow.

Zoe’s grip
tightened on my arm. “Um…”

Jason swiped the
pads of his thumbs under my eyes, wiping away the tears of strain streaming
down my cheeks. “Do you have control of it?” The concern filling his eyes
intensified, and his calm expression cracked. “I’ve got to stop boosting you. Zoe…”

Oh God. No.
Reality slammed into me like a punch in
the gut. Jason’s Ability had two parts: he could amplify others’ Abilities,
like he was currently doing for me, or he could nullify them completely, but he
couldn’t do both at the same time. If Zoe’s empathy kicked in as violently as
my telepathy just had, and if she started feeling other people’s emotions and
seeing their memories without knowing how to control it…

I nodded
vigorously. “I’m good. Help Z—”

Without warning,
Zoe gasped, and her hand clenched. Her fingernails dug into my arm.

We were too late.
The floodgates had opened.

4

ZOE

MARCH 28, 1AE

San Juan National Forest, Colorado

I gasped as an unused part of my
mind sparked to life. It seemed to shift and realign, jump-starting my true
consciousness as if I’d been running on autopilot, but was now finally in
control. Everything changed in the blink of an eye…I felt
whole
. At
least more “myself” than I had since the others found me.

For a brief moment, among the torrent
of feelings and memories flooding my mind, I thought the old me might
resurface, too. “I think I’m—”
Getting my memories back?
It was almost
too much to hope for.

As my mind spun, so did the
onslaught of conflicting emotions—too random and unrecognizable to have been my
own.

“Dani,” I breathed. My eyes met
hers, and I used the comfort I found in them as my anchor amid the impressions
of foreign lifetimes competing for space in my mind. “Something’s…not right.”
Dizziness enveloped me, and I gripped Dani’s arm more tightly, automatically
reaching for Jason, too.

“It’s your Ability, Zo,” Dani
said, composed and reassuring. “Don’t fight it—you’ll only make it worse.”

Images of Jason and Dani flickered
in my head, but instead of trying to push them away, I let them come, vivid and
countless as they were.

With what felt like a breath of
life, I inhaled, and everything in my mind’s eye sharpened. As unsteady as I
felt, the clarity brought a sense of relief I hadn’t expected, and the dark
recesses of my mind filled with colors and shapes and sounds—recollections of
the past. Dani and Jason’s pasts, but not mine.

“I’m so sorry, Zo,” Dani said, her
fingers brushing softly over the back of my hand. “This is all my fault.
Stupid…so stupid…”

I could feel her guilt, and I
shook my head, only vaguely aware of
why
she felt that way. Dani’s
concern replaced my confusion, her curiosity and hope quickly following.
Although I didn’t necessarily understand the onslaught, I welcomed it.
Everything I saw—everything I felt—was new and unexplored; my mind, once an
empty cave, suddenly housed echoes of the past, assembling them into an
irrefutable truth that seemed to lighten the darkness and partially fill the
lingering void inside me.

But as abruptly as the emotions
assaulted me, they vanished, and I felt empty again—the images and feelings
were nothing more than fading memories.

Disappointed, I turned to Jason.
“You’re taking it away?”

He exchanged a skeptical glance
with Dani. “Yeah?” he said, sounding unsure.

No longer needing to steady
myself, I loosened my grasp on his arm and looked at him beseechingly. “Please
don’t,” I said, self-conscious but
needing
this other part of me. “It
feels…right.”

Jason frowned. “Well…it’s your
choice,” he mumbled, and although he seemed baffled, he nodded.

In an instant, another flurry of
guilt, frustration, and despair swirled around in my mind.
I blinked, once again focusing on Dani as memories and
feelings poured out of her. Like a camera shutter opening and closing, I
saw
Dani for the first time. Yes, she was a fiery, red-haired pixie with bright
green eyes and a seemingly carefree nature, but she also felt lost and afraid
and confused. I could feel everything—her undeniable love for Jason, and the
relentless shadow of a not-too-long-ago broken heart. Inexplicably, I shared
her longing to see the woman who’d raised her, her grandma who was gone, and
her yearning to speak with her one last time. And then I saw an image of the
dead little girl, haunting Dani and flooding her with guilt.

My best friend, who I only knew
from her coalescing memories and our stilted conversations over the past week,
stood in front of me, and now I understood why she seemed to cry at the drop of
a hat. Her emotions were so raw, rampant, and fierce that they almost brought
tears to
my
eyes.

Enthralled by the insight I felt
bringing me closer to Dani, I vaguely registered Jason walking away.

I blinked again.

“Zo?” Dani’s hand rested on my
shoulder, sending acute waves of anxiety and eagerness rippling through me.
“Are you alright?” Her voice teetered between panic and remorse, and I could
feel
the questions practically jumping off her tongue. She was hoping that my
memories had returned, but felt guilty for thinking it, and she was worried
she’d accidently and irrevocably hurt me.

Forcing myself, I smiled, if a
little weakly, and refocused on her imploring eyes. “Yeah, I am. I’m fine.
Better than fine, actually.”

“Are you sure?”

Nodding, I tried to reassure her.
“I can see and feel it all so clearly.”

“Like you can feel what I’m
feeling?” A burst of apprehension flared inside her.

I bit the inside of my cheek,
trying to articulate it. “It’s more than that,” I said, my voice tinged with
excitement. “There are images…like memories, too…”

Dani’s eyes lit with hope. “You
remember?”

Crap
.
I sighed and shook
my head, feeling a tidal wave of excitement recede between the two of us. “No,
I don’t remember,” I admitted, watching the light in her eyes dim. “I still
don’t remember anything from before the golf course…but I
see
you, Dani.
I see you and me…my dad and Jason.” I shook my head. “It’s the strangest, most
horrifyingly amazing thing I’ve ever experienced.”

Although I had no attachment to
the memories themselves, Dani’s profound intimacy with each impression made me
feel like I’d found a small piece of myself within them. “It’s like I was
there…when you were sick and Jason found you…and then when you were alone and
at Grams’s house.” I tried to shake away the overwhelming fog in my head.
“There’s so much…”

Dani eyed me curiously, her
fingers stroking the sling cradling her injured arm.

“I can feel your pain,” I said,
studying her black removable cast. “I can see what happened at the Colony. I
feel like I finally understand what’s going on.”

Dani’s eyes widened as fear
replaced her curiosity, and the jumble of images focused, a tumultuous memory
flashing prominently through her mind.

Dani stood in a stark office, a
perfectly organized desk separating her from Dr. Wesley, who was sitting behind
it.

The doctor eyed Dani warily.
“So you know?”

Dani felt a pulse of rage.
“That Zoe and Jason are your kids? Yeah…”

Another more vivid memory
immediately followed.

In the same office, Dr. Wesley
still seated behind the desk and Dani standing opposite her, the
doctor’s features hardened into a frown. “If your actions kill my
children, then everything I’ve done to keep them safe will have been for
naught.
That’s
on you.”

Dani shook her head, so much
hurt and anger filling her that she could barely speak. “Zo and Jason might
blame themselves for everyone’s deaths if they knew about you, but I don’t. I
blame
you
,” she seethed and stormed to
the door.

“Would you rather I’d killed
myself, thus killing the two people you love so dearly? Gregory would have
found another geneticist to engineer his virus, and everyone would’ve died
anyway.”

The memory faded, leaving in its
place violent emotions tangled in my gut, nearly bringing me to my knees.

Dr. Wesley is my mom…
I’d completely forgotten that.

Dani took a step closer. “We
can’t
tell him,” she whispered as her eyes darted around us. “He can’t know about
your mom, Zo, not yet.”

I hedged. “But she’s our
mom
,
Dani. He’ll be furious if we don’t tell him, won’t he?” Lacking any tangible
connection to Jason, I still wanted to do what was right, and I’d seen enough
of his silent tantrums in her memories to know this instance would be no
exception.

“She’s your mom
and
she
killed nearly everyone to keep you guys safe.” Dani closed her eyes and took a
deep breath, her eyes pleading when she reopened them. “Please, Zo. Don’t say
anything. He’s not ready. Can’t you see…can’t you
feel
it?” Dani’s acute
panic and desperation were nearly overwhelming.

Rough laughter startled me, and I
glanced over to the cart to see Jason and Carlos chatting as they sat on the
bench, whittling. Although I had the impression that Jason wouldn’t want me to
pry around inside his head, I needed to; I needed to understand
why
Dani
was so adamant to keep the truth from him.

Focusing beyond her swirling
emotions, I searched for Jason’s. While Dani’s were easy to access, an
invisible wall surrounded Jason’s, cold and excruciatingly controlled. I
focused harder. It was difficult with Dani so close, her emotions so intense,
but I could see and feel just enough from Jason to understand. There had been
too much heartache, and too many lies and surprises to unleash another
tumultuous mess on him while he was already so distraught.

Like he could somehow sense my
cerebral intrusion, Jason stopped whittling for a moment and glanced over at
me. The instant his knowing eyes met mine, the invisible wall protecting his
mind solidified, blocking me out completely.

Standing there, with only a brief
impression of who he was fresh in my mind, I felt closer to him than I probably
ever would have had my Ability remained dormant. And I understood; Dani was
right. Learning that our mom was still alive, that she’d made the choice to
leave when Jason was a young child, and that she’d been the cause of so much
death would devastate him, especially while the real me wasn’t around to help bear
the weight of the discovery.

Dani clutched my hand, silently
pleading with me to keep quiet as Jason glanced between us.

With a quick squeeze in return, I
reassured her of my silence, at least for a while.

Harper and Chris emerged from the
nearest cluster of trees, chatting amiably as they made their way back to camp
with armfuls of firewood. When Harper’s eyes found mine, his relaxed expression
tensed, and he hurried over to us.

“You doing okay, Baby Girl?” His
expression was pinched with worry—a look I’d grown weary of over the last few
days. “You’re pale.”

“I’m fine,” I said, waving his
concern away. There was nothing like a resurgence of forgotten memories and
pitying glances to make me feel like the most pathetic woman in the world.

As I took a few steps toward
Harper and Chris, I stumbled, the bombardment of their worries, memories, and
emotions throwing me off kilter. Dropping his armful of firewood, Harper jogged
the final few steps between us to lend me a supporting hand.

I snickered.
Yep, I’m pathetic.

“I’m okay,” I said. “It’s just my
Ability…it’s a little overwhelming, and my head’s frazzled…I think.”

“So, Jason’s not…” Chris glanced
over at my brother. “A little advanced notice would’ve been nice,” she
grumbled, though I didn’t really understand her spike of irritation.

“It was an accident,” Dani chimed
in, sounding tired. She patted Wings’s neck. “I’ll send Wings and Shadow out to
pasture with the other horses, then head over and warn”—Dani’s gaze flicked to
me, and her cheeks reddened as shame emanated from her—“tell the others.” After
a brief moment, the sound of lazy, clomping hooves retreated behind me.

Harper helped me over to lean
against a lone tree trunk growing along the edge of the pond. His memories and
feelings resonated within me, and I mentally waded through the streaming
information, effortlessly absorbing pieces of who he was. He was so good and
confident and calm; I couldn’t help but admire him.

“You sure you’re alright, Baby
Girl?” he asked, scanning me as I gripped the trunk of the tree.

“Yeah. I’m okay, really.” I
blushed at being the center of unwanted attention.

With a pat on my shoulder, Chris
excused herself and headed over to join Jason and Carlos. I hadn’t missed her
and Harper’s silent, charged exchange before she walked away. Their growing
connection was impossible to miss, especially when I could
feel
their
mutual attraction.

Harper glanced over at Chris’s
retreating form, appraising her covertly, or so he thought. When he noticed me
eyeing him, he smiled, a knowing glint in his peridot-colored eyes.

“Interesting,” I said, eyebrows
raised in amusement.

He nudged my shoulder with his.
“You see too much,” he said and waggled his eyebrows.

I knew
that
was true, so
all I could do was shrug. “I’m still learning how to navigate this whole
Ability thing,” I said.

He winked at me. “You’ll get the
hang of it.”

“And in the meantime, you’ll all
avoid me like I’m a leper?” I asked acerbically. Being bitter wouldn’t help, but
it was hard not to be when people were suddenly running as far away from me as
possible, despite their smiles.