Into The Fire (The Ending Series) (27 page)

“No…no!”

Jake stepped further in, the water rising to his waist.

“Please take me back to the riverbank, Jake. Please?” I
gazed into his eyes, a desperate, innocent expression on my face. I felt a
thrill of excitement as he eyed me. I lifted my eyebrows, hopeful.

Jake shook his head, and a genuine, make-my-heart-flutter
smile spread across his face. “You’re always doing things the hard way.” He took
two more steps, holding me tighter against him.

“Okay, okay! Wait!” I peered into his eyes. “Wait until I
say, okay? Let me just think for a sec.”

“You can’t think about it. It only makes it worse…like
tearing off a Band-Aid. You’re horrible at this.”

The gang was cracking up behind me, and I wanted to flip
them off and laugh with them at the same time. I smiled at Jake instead, taking
a deep breath, and then nodded.

I let out an exhilarated scream and felt the icy water sting
my body as he submerged us both in the river. The moment he let me go, I bobbed
back up to the surface. The cold water felt like razor blades cutting my skin.
I gasped and cursed as I struggled to stand.

Jake emerged beside me, wiping the water off his face, and
then wrapped his fingers around my wrist to pull me back underwater.

I screamed again, invigorated and awakened in a way I hadn’t
felt in a long time. Laughing, I splashed him. The water was so cold that I
began to feel numb.

He splashed me back before he stood up. “Sanchez,” he
called, and a bottle of shampoo was flung into the air. Jake caught it with his
left hand and looked down at me. “Come here,” he said huskily. “Let’s get your
hair washed so you don’t die of hypothermia.”

I stepped closer to him in the chest-deep water and steadied
my feet on the rocks at the bottom. Jake’s fingers hurriedly kneaded my
prickling scalp, and I couldn’t let it go unnoticed that he was shaking too.

“I thought you could handle the cold water?” I asked, unable
to resist a smug smile.

“I
can
. Notice I’m not whining, like you.” He gently
tugged my head back down into the water to rinse again. He twisted the water
from my dripping hair, and as I clumsily made my way up to shore, he swatted me
on the butt. “You can shoot and stab people, cuss like a sailor, and knee a man
in the groin like it’s nothing, but water horrifies you?”

“
Cold
water, Jake. And it doesn’t horrify me. I just—I
hate it. I wish it was summer all year long,” I said through chattering teeth.
Forcing my feet to work, I scrambled for my towel.

Jake finished bathing quickly and joined me on dry land. He
picked up his towel, which had been draped beside my dry clothes, and began
wiping the droplets of water off his body.

I dried my feet and slipped them back into my flip-flops. “I
can’t believe you did that to me,” I muttered. “Traitor.”

Jake took a step toward me, and his body was suddenly so
close that his heat enveloped me, warming me more than the damp towel I’d
wrapped around my waist. He glanced around before he reached behind me and
untied the back of my bikini top.

“Hey!” I screeched, my hands flying up to my chest.

He said nothing, just stared into my eyes, letting his hand
linger on the skin of my back.

“You should probably get changed,” he said, his voice thick with
desire.

I nodded dumbly. “Hold the towel up for me?”

Jake unwrapped the towel from around my waist and held it
up, blocking me from everyone’s view, never taking his eyes off mine.

I removed my hands, untying the final tie around my neck,
allowing my green bikini top to fall with a soggy splat onto the rocks at my
feet. Jake’s eyes flicked to my chest for only an instant, but I could feel his
increasing arousal infuse with my own.

I was too busy battling our mutual desire to feel the least
bit self-conscious as I stood in front of him—in only my bikini bottoms and a
mess of scraggly hair hanging over my shoulders. He handed me the white tank
top I’d tossed on the tall boulder beside him.

“You should probably put this on.”

By late afternoon, we were approaching camp. I spotted Jason
in the distance, pacing back and forth in a clearing behind the stable. Each
step was deliberate and intense.
What the hell?

“What’s he…?” Carlos started to ask.

I peeked back at Chris, who looked as clueless as I felt.
Suddenly fearful something horrible had happened in our absence, we urged our
horses forward. An endless cycle of what-ifs looped through my mind.

I drew Wings to a halt mere feet from the matted line of
weeds Jason had trampled before I dismounted. “What’s wrong?” My eyes shifted
over his body, taking in the bandaged crossing his face.
He looks okay…

His eyes shifted to me, a wistful smile on his face, but it
instantly hardened into a scowl.

“Are you…okay?”
I can’t tell anymore.
Jason’s mood
was constantly changing, and I couldn’t keep up with them.

“Just that Dani and I’ve been waiting for you.” His words
startled me far more than his accusing glare.

“Dani?” I looked around like I might find her walking over
from the fallen log, where Jason and I had opened the box, or sitting on the
wooden pasture fence, although I knew she was miles away.

“Hey, Zo. Did you get all clean?
” Dani asked, and the
sound of her voice in my head eased the usual tension in my shoulders.

“Where’ve you been, Dani? You were supposed to check in
yesterday. We’ve been a little”—
I glanced at Jason—
“on edge waiting to
hear from you.”

Jason resumed his pacing.

“Yeah, um…I was just starting to tell Jason about that…”

Under his breath, Jason muttered to me, “If you don’t talk
out loud, I can’t hear what you’re saying to her.”

I rolled my eyes…even though he had a point.

“Long story short, I accidentally got this electroshock
therapy that—”

“What?”
Jason and I both shouted at the same time.

“Can you two be quiet so I can explain?”

Jason stopped his pacing long enough to shoot me a sideways
glance.

“Sorry,” I grumbled for the both of us.

“Anyway, they call it ‘electrotherapy’ and it’s specially
designed to increase the power of Abilities, but a side effect is that the
recipient of the treatment can’t use their Ability for a while. It was an
accident, mostly, but if it hadn’t been for two Re-gens, I would’ve been brain-fried,
extra crispy. But I wasn’t, so…yay…”

“Fucking…damn it all to fucking hell!” Jason was stalking
around, apparently looking for something to hit.

Trying not to picture Dani being electrocuted or brain-fried,
I frantically asked one of my many questions. “What’s a Re-gen, D?”

“Oh, right. I’ve made a few discoveries since I’ve been
out of commission. It worked, by the way—the electrotherapy, I mean. My
telepathy is way stronger than it was before. I’m not sure if it’s permanent,
or what, but anyway: Re-gens are people who died and have been brought back to
life.”

“Oh, shit,” I breathed.
Becca. That has to be what
happened to her.
This time I was the one who started pacing, periodically
looking over at Jake, who was standing a few yards away with the others. He was
completely oblivious to my realization.

“Really, it all boils down to Abilities and being able to
control people. Re-gens are still people, but their minds work differently, and
they don’t remember who they used to be. But two of them are different. They’re
helping me. They helped me when a guard—I mean, when the doctor snagged me and
started the electrotherapy.”

I peered over at Jason, wondering if he’d noticed Dani’s
hesitation.

“And, oh my God, you guys are never going to believe this—Chris
was right. Someone
did
orchestrate everything. I don’t know all the
details, but I do know who created the Virus. And, I gotta admit, I’m kind of
having a hard time not beating her face in…”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Jason practically growled.

“Of course not.”

I pictured Dani smiling impishly. “I’m not surprised about
the Re-gens. I’m almost positive we had one of them with us a few days ago.”

“What? Really?”
Dani seemed almost afraid to ask.

“It was Becca.” I paused. “Jake’s sister. We didn’t know
what
she was. We just knew she was…wrong.” Dying and coming back to life
definitely
wasn’t
normal. “We have to at least try to get her out too,
Dani. She’s back in the Colony now, but she may not be willing to leave.”

“Okay, wow. That’s crazy. But, yeah, I’ll see what I can
find out about her. What else has been going on down there?”

Jason crouched on the ground, seeming to focus on
controlling his anger. “Not a fucking thing,” he grumbled.

I hesitated, wondering how much to tell her, but I knew Dani
would be hurt if she found out I was keeping things from her, especially when
it came to the box. “Well, we had a few run-ins with some Crazies…and we opened
the box. But mostly—”

“You opened it? What’s in it?”

I was reluctant to answer her. Jason and I hadn’t spoken
about the box since that day. Beyond that, I wasn’t sure how much I
could
tell Dani without breaking down. I gazed over at the rest of my friends. They
were leaning against their horses casually as they waited for our conversation
with Dani to come to an end. Jake picked a piece of grass from his horse’s mane
and looked at me questioningly. His idle expression transformed to one of deep
concern.

Jason cleared his throat, capturing my attention. He glanced
up at me, his eyes full of caution. “Are you getting tired, Red? Do you need to
go? I don’t want you to get worn out, and—”

“No, I’m fine—better than fine. It’s easy now.”

Jason ran his fingers through his hair. It was nearly as
dark as mine and longer than I’d seen it in over a decade. He said nothing.

“Um, guys…the question about what was in the box wasn’t
supposed to be a stumper…”

Oh, right.
“We found out our dad was a liar,” I
blurted. “And that our mom’s alive. Or, at least, she was. There was a letter
from her explaining…well, not much.”

“Holy crap.”

“And there was a picture of her.” My voice was cold, but it
was better than crying about it.

“What did she look like?”
Dani asked. She sounded
nervous.

My eyes shifted to Jason’s once more, and I recalled the
argument we’d had before opening the box. “Like me,” I said. I wasn’t sure if
the quietness of my voice was a result of guilt, sadness, or anger. It was
probably all three.

A long moment passed, and when Dani didn’t respond, Jason
said, “Red? Are you okay? Are you sure this isn’t too much?”

“No, I’m fine, I promise. I just…that’s a huge thing. I’m
trying to wrap my mind around it.”
She paused, then added,
“Did you
learn anything else?”

“Umm, that our dad was in the military, and that’s how
they…”

Jason stood, his head lowered and hands clenched into fists.

“It doesn’t really matter
anymore,” I muttered, hoping to spare Jason further pain.

“Oh, I…I can’t believe he hid
all that for so long. But don’t you think he must’ve had a reason? Do you have
any clue as to why he kept all that from you?”

I shook my head, lazily stroking Wings’s velvety nose before
I realized Dani couldn’t see me. “It doesn’t matter,” I said bitterly, not
wanting to spend another second thinking about my parents and their lies.
“They’re dead now, so we’ll never know. We need to focus on getting you out of
there.”

“I know. I’ve only got a few days left until General
Douchebag starts using me to draw in more people…which would be bad. Really,
really
bad. The Re-gens aren’t the worst of his science experiments.”

Re-gens…Becca…“Father”…the General. It was all starting to
make sense.

Jason looked at me sharply. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know much, but there’s apparently another
program being developed here that creates mind-slaves without the need for mind
manipulation or labs and electricity. They’re not Re-gens—they’re something
else. They call them T-Rs.”

“Jesus, this guy is taking over the world one brain-dead
person at a time. I repeat: we’ve
got
to get you out of there, D,” I
said, gesturing emphatically.

Jason started pacing again. “Exactly how long until you need
to get out?”

“I start at the comm center in three days.”

“Then we’ll get you out the night before you’re supposed to
start. That gives you a couple more days to gather intel. What do you already
know?”

“Um…what do you
want
to know?”

“We need guard numbers and patterns, the General’s schedule
throughout the day, even at night, and anything else you think might help us
plan the extraction.”

“Gosh, you guys don’t want much, do you?”
Dani joked.

“It’s not funny, D,” I said, and Jason growled, “We just
want you back.”

There was a long pause.
“I know, sorry. Bad joke.”

“Is there anyone you can trust?” I asked. “Anyone who can
help you?”

“Um, yeah, there are a few people I can trust. Gabe, and
those two Re-gens I told you about. I’ll scout around tomorrow night with
Camille and Mase—they’re the Re-gens. They know a lot about this place and have
some ideas about where to look.”

“Be careful,” I pleaded.

“Promise. As for the info about the guards and stuff, and
the General’s schedule, I’ll ask Gabe tomorrow at dinner—”

Oh shit,
I thought, closing my eyes.

“What do you mean, ‘dinner’?” Jason asked, his voice low and
cold.