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Authors: Lindsey Fairleigh,Lindsey Pogue

Out Of The Ashes (The Ending Series, #3) (29 page)

BOOK: Out Of The Ashes (The Ending Series, #3)
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Excitement enlivened Sam’s eyes,
though he offered her a casual smile.

“Drawing tonight?” Zoe asked him,
and Sam gave her a quick nod before they were swallowed up in the excitement of
the group. Sanchez offered Zoe a tight-lipped hello, allowing a slight smile to
curve her lips, and Sarah rejoined them after she’d had a moment to compose
herself.

After a few minutes passed, Chris
came to stand beside Jake. The two of them watched the crowd of their friends
with their happy faces and listened to their incessant chatter as they asked
Zoe questions about what had happened to her, what it had been like, and what
Gabe had done to help her.

“Any idea where Jason and Dani are?”
Jake asked Chris, knowing they were the two people Zoe needed to see the most.

Chris placed her hands on her
hips. “Sanchez contacted everyone; they should be here soon.”

“Thank you for helping her,” Jake
said quietly. When Chris looked at him, he gave her a grateful nod.

Resting her hand on Jake’s arm,
Chris said, “I’m just glad I could be there. I—”

When she paused, Jake followed her
gaze. Jason was wading through the group, his face uncharacteristically expressive
as he drew closer to Zoe. Just as she noticed him and turned around, Jason
wrapped his arms around her, and everyone grew silent, watching. Even Jake
found it difficult to look away.

Jason’s eyes were closed as he
held onto his sister. “Don’t ever do that to me again,” he said so quietly that
Jake could barely hear him.

Zoe wound her arms around her
brother’s back. When Jake noticed her body quaking in Jason’s arms, Jake,
Chris, and everyone else turned to leave the siblings in a silent reunion that
was long overdue.

 

22

DANI

MAY 7, 1AE

Lake Tahoe, Nevada

 

“But I don’t
want
to!”
Annie whined in my head.
“It’s
cold
!

I knelt in front
of her on the sandy beach and reached for her little hands. We were both
wearing swimsuits; mine was a purple-and-white-striped bikini and Annie’s a
one-piece covered in inch-wide neon polka dots. I’d “scavenged” them from the
tourist shop in the lodge, thinking that “going swimming”—ahem, washing the
months of filth off Annie—would be the perfect way to stay out of Jason’s hair
while he, Grayson, and Sanchez spent the morning meeting with Holly, Hunter,
and a few others from the Tahoe clan. They were discussing the possibility of
setting up some sort of self-reliant, self-sustaining community together on the
coastal farmlands.

As I stared out
at the lake, I was just grateful that it was a moderately balmy day. Not that
the high-sixties air temperature did anything for the
extremely
cold
water, but the sunshine was a nice perk. I’d stuck my toes into the lake, and I
had to agree with the little girl; it
was
freezing
.

“Annie, sweetie,
remember to use your words,” I told her. She’d only spoken out loud a few times
since I’d practically adopted her the previous afternoon, and even when she
had, she’d only used one or two words at a time. I feared that the months she’d
gone without actually speaking had hindered her ability to use human
language…but not as much as I feared that she’d lost her humanity completely.

It was clear that
she’d embraced being a drifter wholeheartedly, but she didn’t feel quite so far
gone as Scott had, like she’d somehow managed to find a happy medium between
embracing the ability to drift into other creatures’ minds and rejecting
drifting altogether—something Ralph had believed impossible.

“Cold!” Annie
said, crossing her arms and stomping her foot. Zoe—
old
Zoe—would have
backed her up, possibly arguing that dirty and stinky was better than clean if
frigid water
had
to be involved in the bathing process.

I sighed.
“Believe me, Annie, I know. But I promise, I’ll be right beside you.”

Annie stuck her
lower lip out in a pout. When I didn’t react, didn’t relent, she sucked it in
between her teeth.
“Snowflake”
—I assumed she was referring to the female
wolf I’d met in the woods who’d been more or less taking care of Annie—
“says
I have to do what you say.”

At least I’ve
got the wolf’s support…
“Great! Awesome! Okay, let’s get cleaned up, hmmm?”

I released one of
Annie’s hands and stood, walking with her to the water’s edge, where I’d set my
handy bottle of all-in-one shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. It smelled like
tropical fruit, which was a whole lot better than Annie’s current
eau-de-wolf-musk scent.

I glanced over my
shoulder, giving Carlos a quick thumbs-up; he was sitting on the beach about a
dozen yards back, his partially restrained and still-filthy sister, Vanessa,
sitting beside him chattering nonstop to her imaginary friends, which seemed to
include her mom, her other brother, Jesse, and someone named “Rosie”—all of whom
Carlos assured me were deceased. Which wasn’t creepy or anything…

Looking down at
the little girl holding my hand, I raised my eyebrows and grinned as widely as
I could to show her how excited I was. “Alright, we’re going to run in, dunk
our heads, then run back out as quickly as we can, okay?”

Smiling wide
enough that her chubby cheeks appeared even fuller, Annie nodded.

“Okay! Ready…” I
crouched down like I was getting ready to run a race. “Get set…” I met her
eyes, grinning with genuine anticipation. I was actually starting to have a
little fun. “Go!”

Giggling and
squealing and gasping, we lunged into Lake Tahoe side by side, ducked our heads
under the water to wet our hair, then scrambled back out of the lake.

“Oh my God…oh my
God…oh my God,” I said, shivering and rubbing my arms.

Annie was doing
the same, all the while looking up at me and giggling.

I bent over to
retrieve the bottle of suds and flipped the top open, squirting a hearty dollop
onto my palm. “Let me get your hair soaped up first, okay? Then I’ll let you do
the rest while I wash myself.” I didn’t really think I needed to explain the
whole bathing process to her—Annie was a little wild and young, but she wasn’t
an imbecile—but I wanted to speak to her as much as possible, to help her
remember what it was like to interact with people who weren’t Vanessa. Everyone
was wary around my brand-new, unrequested wild child, and I desperately wanted
her to fit in, to be accepted, and to
not
be alone for the rest of her
life.

Annie nodded,
accepting my washing routine without argument.

It seemed to take
ages to wash her hair. I lathered the liquid soap up until it formed a grimy,
fruity helmet around her head, then dropped my hands to my sides and sighed. “I
hate to say it, kiddo, but we might have to have a round two.”

Annie didn’t seem
upset by the idea; she simply stared up at me and blinked her big blue eyes
every few seconds. I thanked my lucky stars that she wasn’t a complainer. The
whole insta-kid situation would have been a lot worse if she had been.

About ten minutes
later, we were in the middle of our final, icy rinse, when Sanchez’s voice
reverberated in my mind.
“Come to the highway…we’re between the lodge
parking lot and the campground parking lot. Zoe’s back.”

Head barely above
water, I froze.
Zoe’s back…from where?

A heartbeat
later, I thought,
maybe
, that I understood.
Does she mean that Zo—
my
Zo—is back?
Heart racing, I spun around to look at Carlos. “Did you
hear—”

“Sanchez? Yeah.”
He stood, brushing off the back of his jeans before reaching down to grab his sister’s
wrist bindings and pulling her up to her feet as well.

“Do you
think—does she mean…?”

Carlos shrugged.
“Only one way to find out.”

“Come on, Annie.
Time to go.” I captured her hand and pulled her back to the beach, ignoring my
shivers as we raced across the sand toward Carlos and Vanessa.

“Can you take
her?” I asked, holding Annie’s hand out to Carlos. I glanced at his sister, who
was quiet for once as she stared down at the freshly clean little girl I’d
uncovered under all of the dirt, then back at him. “Dry her off and—and—” I
shook my head, incapable of thinking clearly. I was just too damn excited.
Zoe’s
back….
Zo
is back!

“Yeah, it’s fine.
Go,” Carlos said. He pulled Annie’s hand out of mine and gave my shoulder a
little shove, pushing me in the direction of the lodge’s parking lot. “I got
this.”

“Thanks!” I
called over my shoulder as I started to run. I didn’t think my legs had ever
moved so quickly, especially not on bare feet.

Every other
member of our group was clustered in the middle of the highway, looking like
they were starting to disperse. Jake and Chris were walking away, toward the
campground, Gabe close behind them, and Harper, Sarah, and most of the others
were headed to the lodge. And between them, in the middle of the highway, Jason
was embracing Zoe in a fierce hug.

The pavement was
rough under my feet, and every few steps a tiny rock would jab into my skin,
but I hardly noticed. “Zo!” I called. “
Zoeeeeeee!

I reached Zoe
just as Jason released her. I threw myself at her, locking my arms around her
neck and doing my own unique combination of laughing and crying.

Her arms wrapped
around me, and she hugged me so hard that she lifted me off my feet. She was
laughing, I thought, until I heard the distinct, rare sound of Zoe giving in to
tears.

“Hey, D.” Her
voice was a rough whisper. After another tight squeeze, she set me down and
pulled away. Wiping the tears from her cheeks, she appraised my appearance and
smiled. “Did I interrupt something?”

“Huh?”

“You’re all wet…”
She glanced down. “And wearing a bikini.”

I waved one hand
dismissively. “I was getting Annie cleaned up—she’s a little girl I found
yesterday when—”

“I know, D,” Zoe
said with a soft chuckle. “I remember.”

I frowned, and
then my eyes widened. For some reason that didn’t make any sense to the logical
part of my brain, I’d assumed she didn’t remember any of the things “new Zoe”
had experienced. In my mind, they were two different people.

“Everything?” I
felt a surge of shame.

She nodded once
before offering me a slight smile. “We can talk about it later.”

Looking down at
my feet, nearly rubbing a hole in the asphalt with my big toe. “Okay…”

“Hey,” Zoe said,
poking my shoulder, and I raised my eyes to hers. “Want some company down at
the lake? I could use a little rejuvenation.”

“Really?” I
smiled wanly. “Yeah, okay. That’d be great.” I didn’t actually need to get back
in the water, but I
did
need some alone time with my best friend.
Perking up at the thought, I linked my arm with hers and tugged her in the
direction of the lodge.

“Um, D, the
water’s that way.” Zoe pointed to the lakeshore beyond the parking lot on our
right.

“I know, but you
need a swimsuit.”

“But I already
have
a swimsuit…”

“I know,” I
repeated. “But camp is
so
far away—”

“It’s just across
the street…”

“—and besides,
you could use a new one. You’ve had that old green bikini
forever
.” I
dragged her up the stairs to the lodge’s front porch. “And I know just where
you can get one at a freemium price.”

Zoe laughed as I
pulled open the glass double doors. “You’re such a dork…I missed you.”

I forced a smile
and met Zoe’s eyes briefly. “Me too, Zo. Me too.”

 

~~~~~

 

Zoe and I managed
to splash around in the water for all of
maybe
a minute before running
back onto the beach, screaming like little girls. Zoe stole my bottle of shampoo–conditioner–body
wash and took an impressively quick “bath” using as little lake water as
possible. When she finished, she took lurching steps up the beach and huddled
in an oversized towel—also liberated from one of the shops in the lodge—beside
me on the bright yellow hull of an overturned kayak. I was already snuggled
cozily in my own towel.

“So…still hate
cold water?” I asked.

Zoe shrugged.
“Yes and no,” she said, wrapping her towel more tightly around herself. “But
mostly yes.”

“Zo, I—” I hesitated,
closed my mouth, then took a deep breath and opened it again. “I know I
probably could have been a better friend to her—you—” I shook my head and
frowned. “To the other you…the not
you
you.” I stared out at the lake’s
shimmering surface, squinting slightly from a thousand shards of reflected
sunlight.

“D…”

“It was just…she
wasn’t
you
.
You
weren’t you.” Again, I shook my head, irritated
at myself for fumbling so much with my words. “But I should have treated you
like I normally would have, and I didn’t, and I feel like such a jerkface.” I
sighed. “I don’t think that made any sense.”

Zoe laughed
halfheartedly, ending in a sigh of her own. “It’s okay, D.” She stared down at
her toes sticking out from beneath her towel. “It’s not like I knew any
different anyway,” she said. “And it’s not like anyone else treated me like,
well,
me
.”

Except for
Jake,
I thought,
recalling the handful of mornings I’d seen Zoe emerging from his tent recently.
He
seemed to have figured out a way to see her as the Zoe he’d fallen in
love with. So why hadn’t I been able to do the same?

Zoe closed her
eyes and tilted her face up to the sun, basking in its warm rays. “Looks can be
deceiving,” she said, her voice so quiet that I barely heard her. “Jake tried,
but I knew the whole time that it wasn’t the same for him…as much as he wanted
it to be.” She snorted and let her head fall back. “At least I know he prefers
this
me.”

“Did you guys…you
know…?” I asked, wiggling my eyebrows suggestively.

Her head shot up,
and she looked over at me, biting the inside of her cheek like she always did
when she was anxious.

“Oh my God, you
did
.”
I giggled and blushed and really tried to stop, but I just couldn’t. “Wow,
that’s just…wow. Talk about an awkward first time…”

Zoe shook her
head. “It wasn’t our first time, but it
was
a little awkward, at least
for him.” She rested her cheek on her knees. “I think I sort of blindsided
him…I’m not sure he would’ve done it otherwise. I felt sorta bad.”

BOOK: Out Of The Ashes (The Ending Series, #3)
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