Into The Fire (The Ending Series) by Lindsey Fairleigh, Lindsey Pogue

pseudo-craftsman style. From the outside it looked perfect,
displaying its glaringly white two-car garage with evident pride. Momentarily,
I wondered if a new car came with my new home. The whole thing felt surreal,
like winning the lotto without buying a ticket.
    “General Herodson keeps a strict order around here, but
because of Project Eden—the reproduction program—some of the men think they can
take liberties with any woman they want.”
    “Right,” I said, hearing but not processing a single word
he’d uttered. My attention was completely focused on the living room we’d
entered. It was more luxurious than I’d expected for a house on a military
base, with hardwood floors, huge, bright windows, and an open ceiling that
allowed me to see the second-floor landing. There were two tasteful microsuede
armchairs and a sofa in cream and sage green, with pillows, throws, and
curtains in bolder reds and browns. “Does somebody already live here?” I asked,
shifting my eyes from the furnishings to the ridiculously high vaulted ceiling.
“You know, ’cause it looks like someone lives here…”
    “Not anymore,” Gabe said, and I heard him shut and lock the
front door.
    For some reason, his words resonated with me, and I suddenly
had an overpowering sense of déjà vu. Except, in my head, it was someone else’s
voice uttering those words— not anymore— and I was in a completely different
place. What…?
    “Dani? Are you okay?” Gabe asked.
    I could have sworn I was forgetting something important.
Shaking my head, I looked up at his face and attempted a smile. “Yeah…just déjà
vu.”
    Gabe sighed and continued on, guiding me further into the
house. “The bedrooms are all upstairs,” he said, pointing to the polished
wooden staircase leading up to the second floor from the entryway as we passed
by.
    I followed him down the hallway parallel to the stairs.
“This place is big,” I said as a dining room came into view on the left. It was
completely open to the hallway. Just like the living room, the dining room had
been decorated by someone with elegant, if restrained, taste. A heavy, mission-style
oak table was set up to provide seating for eight people. It was all so much
more than one person needed.
    “Um…shouldn’t this place be used by a family or something?”
I asked.
    Gabe paused, and I nearly bumped into him. He didn’t notice.
Instead, he gestured with his hand toward a shorter hallway shooting off to the
right. “This leads to the downstairs bathroom and the laundry room.”
    “You didn’t answer my question,” I told him, barely glancing
down the hall.
    Reluctantly, Gabe met my eyes. “I know.” He took a deep
breath, holding it for a second too long. “You see, Dani, General Herodson is
hoping this will become a family’s home… your family’s home.”
    Baffled, I shook my head. “But I don’t have any family left.
How…?”
    “You have a very desirable Ability, one the General would
like to have passed on to the next generation,” he said softly.
    That made me raise my eyebrows. “What if I don’t want
to have kids? And”—my eyes widened as I remembered it took two people to make a
child—“who would I even have kids with? Some soldier? A stranger? You ?”
I asked, pretending to be offended. Okay, I was a little offended. I
liked the General, but I wasn’t his possession to pass around as he saw fit.
    Gabe started backing further down the main hallway, entering
a large, open space. “Now, I never said—”
    “Calm down, I know you’re just the messenger,” I said,
swatting his arm. I swept past him and into the room, pausing to peer back at
him. “Besides, you’d be a better choice than any military guy.”
    As the words left my mouth, they tasted wrong—untrue—but I
had no idea why. It wasn’t like the man standing several feet behind me
couldn’t have stepped out of most women’s fantasies; he was handsome,
put-together, charismatic, and kind. In his