The Extinction Series , Ellis, Tara [famous ebook reader .txt] 📗

forcing Jess to swallow and then clear her throat. “Do you know who my mom…who my biological dad is?”

Again, Akuba was shaking her head. “If they ever spoke of him, I never heard it. She would have only been two or three months pregnant when she met Dr. Davies. There’s a chance the other man never knew. As far as your parents were concerned, Dr. Davies was your dad, and they never said or acted any other way.”

“Until now,” Jess pointed out. She thought she’d be more emotional about it, but found she didn’t have the energy to get upset. It wouldn’t change things. “Do you think he feels anything?”

“I once knew a boy that was in a horrible accident,” Akuba said. She waited for Jess to finally tear her gaze from the sky and look at her. “He was only fourteen, but already working in the mines with his family. There was a slide, and he was partially crushed under some boulders.”

Jess frowned, wondering how the two stories could have anything to do with the other.

“I was only twelve, but had known him for years since our mothers were friends.” Glancing over her shoulder like she heard something, Akuba looked around the darkening yard before continuing. “We went to visit them months later, after he was home from the hospital. He could walk, and talk, and play…but he’d changed. He didn’t know who I was, and his personality was totally different. Yet, it was still him. My mother made me play with him, and we eventually became friends again.”

“I think this is a little different,” Jess scoffed.

“Is it?”

Jess’s face screwed up as she thought about it. “I told you what they did to Mr. Van. I want my dad back, not…him.”

Akuba sighed and moved over next to Jess on her lounge. “We don’t know for certain what happened to Mr. Van. And I’m not suggesting you can rebuild a relationship the same as I did with my friend, only that your dad didn’t choose this. That it’s the same as brain damage from any other injury. You know how much he loved you, Jess. That’s what you have to remember.”

Jess was going to comment on her use of the past-tense for love, when Amisha approached them, walking slowly across the grass without any sort of light. “Amisha!” Jess called out when she saw her. “What are you doing out alone? It’s getting dark, and you know—” she stopped when she saw the other girl’s face. It was ashen and tear-streaked, and she looked on the verge of collapse.

“She’s dead.” Amisha sat down in the grass near the edge of the cement with a blank expression. “Now they’re all gone.”

Jess jumped up and rushed to Amisha’s side. Sitting down beside her, she draped an arm around her shoulders. “You’re not alone.”

“You’ll sleep in here tonight,” Akuba said gently, reaching out a hand to help Amisha to her feet.

As she stood, Amisha looked at Jess and then Akuba, her eyes welling up with fresh tears. “I need to bury her, but she wanted to be with my dad and brother. I don’t know what to do.”

Jess guided her inside, and Akuba began moving about the kitchen, making tea. They’d need to turn the generator off when she was done, so Jess would have to start lighting candles soon. Leading Amisha to a stool at the counter, she thought back over their conversation from the night when she first arrived. “You said your dad and brother are…still in your house?” When Amisha nodded, Jess raised her eyebrows at Akuba. “Could Kavish take care of that for her?”

Akuba set the kettle on the stove before leaning on the counter opposite them. “He and Slaider are already going that way, and I’m sure they’d be willing to help. I believe your house is on the way out of town, toward Slaider’s village. I will have them take your mother with them, and—”

Amisha hung her head and began sobbing before Akuba could say the words that would confirm it was all really happening. That her whole family was dead.

Sitting there, trying to comfort her friend, Jess thought back over what Akuba had just said about her father. She wanted to believe it. That there could be a way to come to accept that it was just a change in his personality due to brain damage. But that didn’t change what she’d heard and seen her father doing at the Libi Nati. It didn’t change the stories Akuba and Kavish had already told her about the Kra Puru, and how it was all lining up to fall in with the ancient prophecies.

As Jess sat there holding Amisha, she wasn’t sure which one was in a worse situation. While her dad was still alive, Jess found herself mourning him the same as she would if he was dead.

Tomorrow, Amisha would be able to say goodbye to her mom and try to pick up the pieces.

Jess might never have that. Not when the pieces were still being withheld.

Chapter 9

TYLER

Near Barinas, Venezuela

“I’m not entirely sure what time zone we’re in anymore,” Jason said, as he slung a backpack over his shoulder. “But I’m guessing it’ll be getting dark in a couple of hours at the most. It’s time to move.”

Tyler helped Hernandez pull his boot on before grabbing two of the other bags piled next to them. What was going to be a short stop had turned into a couple of hours, and everyone was getting edgy. Jason found the road they’d spotted from the air, and he said it led to a farm with an old truck in the driveway. Considering everything that was going down in other big cities, and that the country they were in was already somewhat unsafe for traveling, it was decided it’d be best to