Read Out Of The Ashes (The Ending Series, #3) for Free Online

side of the bin, and
Jason hoisted himself up and settled on the bench seat of the nearest cart. He pulled
out a pocket knife and his latest whittling project—an as-yet-unrecognizable
hunk of wood about the size of a baseball.
    My eyes lingered
on him for a moment longer, tracing the angry red scar crossing his face from
hairline to jaw and the hunched set of his shoulders, before I bent over to
grab a soft-bristled brush and turned my attention to Wings.
    “Thanks for teaching
me all this horse stuff,” Zoe said from behind me.
    I glanced over my
shoulder to study her and frowned. I’d been doing that a lot lately, both
studying Zoe and frowning. The setting sun gleamed a burnished purple off her
and Shadow’s onyx hair. I’d offered to walk Zoe through the basics of horse grooming,
hoping that doing something with her, something I always found
soothing, might alleviate some of my infuriating aversion to her.
    Meeting her eyes,
I forced a tight smile. “No problem. You used to like helping me with grooming
them, back when we were in high school, so I thought…” I shrugged. “I don’t
know.” I returned my focus to Wings, running the brush over a coffee-brown
patch on her shoulder. “I just thought you might still like it.” I didn’t tell Zoe
that I was searching for some remnant of my best friend, some sliver of hope
that she was still her .
    There was a long
moment of silence, and then Zoe exhaled heavily. “I’ve been thinking about
that…about me before and me now. Do you think—” She paused. I could hear the
sound of soft bristles running over Shadow’s coat as Zoe started brushing him.
The black gelding was still recovering from the neglect he’d suffered at the
hands of a couple of Crazies, and the six-day trek through the southern Rockies
with only a half-day and night’s rest at Colorado Trails hadn’t done him any
favors. Although he was doing better than when Zoe’s group had first found him,
he was exhausted and hurting, much like the rest of us. I didn’t need my
Ability to know that.
    When Zoe didn’t
resume her question, I looked at her. “Do I think…?”
    She stopped
brushing, turned to lean her shoulder against Shadow, and sighed. “It’s just
that, if I don’t have any memories of what made me me , do you think I’m even still me ?”
    Do you think
I’m even still me?
    Zoe’s question
seemed to echo in my mind, burrowing deeply, mostly because it was pretty much
the same thing I’d been wondering since we first found her. Was Zoe still Zoe if she had no memory of experiencing the things that had made her
the loyal, guarded, and determined person I loved? A dull, incessant ache
spread through my chest, a yawning void created by her mental disappearance.
    My eyes stung— again —and
I cleared my throat. “You know, Zo…I think knowing who you really are is hard
for a lot of people.”
    Yes, I was
avoiding answering her question completely, but I meant what I said. After all,
I hardly recognized myself anymore. My frown reemerged. Anyone who cracked me
open in an attempt to find out what made me me would discover a rancid,
tangly wad of guilt. And self-loathing. And plain old misery.
    My best friend—thanks
to a psycho with the Ability to alter people’s perception, even erase their
memories—had no idea that she was my best friend. And the reason she’d
fallen into Clara’s manipulative little hands?
    Me.
    I’d been stupid
enough to get ambushed and abducted, and thanks to my bad judgment, Zoe wasn’t
really Zoe anymore. My frown deepened into a scowl. I really hated myself
sometimes.
    After a few more
strokes over the paint’s sculpted shoulder, which I was pretty sure soothed me
more than it soothed Wings, I glanced over at Jason. If he noticed me watching
him, he didn’t show it. It was like we’d traveled back in time ten years, to
the days when I’d spend every possible moment stealing glances at him, and he’d
spend just as much time ignoring