It seemed like as long as I continued to move quickly, my momentum kind of kept me steady. And it probably helped that I was barefoot and the pipe was pitted with rust and not very slippery. I just kept my eyes focused on the far side of the pipe and made sure not to look down.
Which ended up being sort of a mistake, because a rope was fastened around the pipe at the halfway point. I failed to notice it.
I stubbed my toe, lost my balance, and fell into space.
Chapter 86
Whit
“THAT TRAIN IS COMING!” Emmet howled, swiveling nervously in his seat. “Straight for us! Fast, really fast!
“Get out of here, kids!” he shouted, grabbing for the door. “Leave the van! Immediately! Now, now, now!”
“No!” Margo yelled. “Drive, Whit! Stay put, everybody! Nobody moves! We have to outrun it. There’s nowhere else for us to go!”
The van was actually starting to vibrate with the train’s approach. I cranked the key and got a dull sputtering sound.
Attention, passengers: the train bound for Instantaneous Death is now approaching the platform on track one.
“I want to go back to prison!” I heard one of the kids cry out from the din of screaming and sobbing.
I cranked the engine again. Nothing happened.
Cold sweat broke out on my forehead—small, very distinct worry beads. The train’s whistle swelled to a wail as the ground trembled. I tried to block out the screams.
I touched my hand to the key again.
Concentrate, I thought. I have life in my hands. This energy must pass through me…. This van MUST go. THESE KIDS… MUST… LIVE!
And then I did feel something coursing through me, unpleasant and weird, as if I’d stuck a wet finger in a light socket. My hands felt as if they were aflame as a physical force flew through my fingers and into the van’s key.
I had to admit: I felt like… I was a wizard. Like I had superpowers. Like I was guilty as charged by The One Who Judges.
Suddenly the engine roared to life like it was the Lazarus of minivans.
Everyone went silent. A hopeful silence. Of course, we were still on the subway tracks with a train barreling down on us.
I slammed my foot down on the gas pedal. The wheels spun, spitting rocks and garbage out behind us. The train’s headlight flooded our van, its horn so loud that it filled every inch of space inside my head.
And the van’s wheels continued to churn in place. Hope, crushed.
Good-bye, Wisty, I thought. So long, Mom and Dad.
Then there was a lurching, the bottom of the vehicle screeching against the metal tracks. We surged forward.
Margo was shouting, “Go! Go! Go!”
“Thanks for the tip!” I shouted back.
Chapter 87
Wisty
THE ROPE I TRIPPED OVER also saved my life. It gave me a mean friction burn, but I managed to grab it as I plunged past the pipe. I quickly wrapped my legs around its downward-stretched length.
From there—given that my name’s not Whit and I’m not exactly oversupplied with upper-body strength—climbing back up was out of the question. So I started sliding down, hopeful that the rope would take me close enough to the ground to jump off.
I heard a scuffle of boots and gooney guard voices shouting at one another from above. They’d witnessed my acrobatic feat and were heading back downstairs to tackle me from the courtyard.
This chase would be over if I didn’t get there first.
I didn’t even look down. I didn’t want to see how far I had to fall—and also I didn’t want to discover that I was going to run out of rope. Instead, I focused on the rows of cell-block window slits as I twisted my way down. Four stories to go, three stories to go, two stories to go—
But now my feet encountered something solid and cloth-covered, and I couldn’t keep sliding on my merry way.
In hindsight, I wish I hadn’t looked to see what it was. I wish I’d just jumped the remaining few yards to the ground and taken off running without a glance back. Because as I peered down, I saw that my feet were now resting on the sagging shoulders of the Visitor.
Or, at least, the shoulders of his bloated, long-dead body.
Chapter 88
Whit
UNFORTUNATELY, THE CHARGING TRAIN didn’t stop at the abandoned station we’d just left in the dust. The race was still on. The scraping, screeching sound of metal on metal made my jawbone rattle, but I continued to stomp on the gas pedal as hard as I could, the track’s cross timbers making the van jolt unbearably.
It was starting to dawn on me that we’d never be able to outrun that train. In a few seconds, it would slam into us, probably spinning us sideways, then smashing us flat against the tunnel’s cement wall.
I need another tunnel, I thought. I need a turnoff.
Problem was, I had no idea how to create one magically, and Wisty was busy being a mouse. I couldn’t think straight. Every bit of energy I had was focused on just holding on to the jouncing, jerking steering wheel and pressing the gas pedal almost through the floor.
“There!” Emmet shouted, pointing. “There! Whit, look!”
I saw it—a turnoff. The track actually split into two up ahead.
“Which way?” I yelled. “We don’t know which one the train will take!”
Emmet’s face was bone white as he stared wildly at the fork. I knew he had no way of knowing any more than I did. The train’s whistle continued to blare, as if the driver thought it would make us come to our senses and get the heck out of his way.
“Okay!” I yelled over the crazy din. “Okay! I think I know what to do!”
We sped toward the split, the train’s light filling our van like those overexposed scenes on TV where somebody always dies. I jerked into the right-hand tunnel, then flicked my left hand in back of me.
In my mind, I saw the track switch moving just as we passed over it.
The barreling train suddenly swerved and plunged into the left-hand tunnel, shooting away from us like a comet. Within seconds its terrifying whistle had faded to a dull whine.
We finally bounced to a stop, but I kept the engine running, just in case. My shirt was stuck to me with cold sweat.
The kids sobbed and hugged one another in the backseat. Emmet was still white as an alabaster statue and looked like he was going to either cry with relief or barf from motion sickness. Margo’s tense hands gripped the dashboard like claws, and then she reached over and grabbed my shoulder just as hard.
“You did it, Whit,” she whispered. “You saved our lives.”
It took us a few minutes to catch our breath and come down from the adrenaline-cliff edge. Then Emmet’s voice hissed excitedly through the sounds of celebration.
“This is the, uh, turnoff I was telling you about.” His voice was still shaking. “We can take the tunnel to the portal. And, from there, we’ll return safely to the basement of Garfunkel’s.” He leaned back in his seat, shell-shocked.
A tiny voice came from the rear of the van. “Are we really going to Garfunkel’s?”
Chapter 89
Wisty
I SCREAMED AND LET GO OF THE ROPE, landing painfully on the concrete. As the wind crept back into my lungs, I rolled over to look up at the swollen corpse.
There was a sign pinned to his chest—written in the large font of New Order officialdom—that read:
FAILURE TO EXECUTE NEW ORDER ORDERS
NECESSITATES THE EXECUTION OF HE WHO FAILED!
They had killed the Visitor for our escape.
I was almost starting to feel bad for him when a half-dozen enormous hands grabbed me. Roughly. The crew-cut, neckless bruisers hoisted me into the air and threw me against the concrete wall.
The leader jabbed a massive finger into my face and literally sprayed his rage at me. “Nobody. Ever. ESCAPES!” he screamed.
Something was broken inside of me. Feisty girl Wisty would have fought. Truant Wisty would have said something sarcastic back—lik
e pointing out that I had actually been breaking into this place rather than busting out. Bad, scary witch Wisty would have thrown a lightning bolt to teach him a good lesson about bullying girls who were one-quarter his size.
But my magic was dead.
I don’t know how to describe it, but it was like that little spark was gone.
So what did I do? Why, I burst into tears, of course.
Predictably enough, they mocked me. “Aw, the poor little thing,” one snickered, and another inanely quipped, “Well, one thing’s clear—with that many tears, I guess we’ve been giving her too much water.”
Which gave me the brilliant idea to spit in the guy’s face. In the absence of magic, there’s always saliva.
Okay, so it wasn’t one of my best ideas.
“Aaargh!” he screamed and grabbed my hair, twisting my head backward so hard I could almost see the tips of my toes dragging on the floor behind me. It felt like my neck might break.
This is the part where I’m supposed to explode into flame.
But there was no magic. Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Chapter 90
Wisty
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT. We aren’t missing any prisoners from the cell blocks,” the administrator told my guards. He was a neat little man who carried himself stiffly, probably trying to make sure he didn’t seem a fraction of an inch shorter than he was. “We had three transferred to the infirmary after interrogation last night, but every other inmate is present and accounted for.”
I felt the blood drain completely from my face. They’d injured three kids in interrogation?! At this point, it shouldn’t have surprised me that this cruel New Order would torture, but still, my despair sank to a new low.
“I’m going to ask you again,” he said, turning to me. “What’s your cell block?”
I was so torn apart I couldn’t even respond. He thought I was being defiant. But I knew the sad truth: I didn’t have much defiance left in me anymore.
The administrator’s headset glowed blue, and he turned away. He was getting a call.
“No, her hair hasn’t been cut to specifications. Yes, it is red…” Suddenly his face flushed, and he stood even more erect as he turned to regard me.
“Yes,” he continued, “about five feet two and not much more than a hundred pounds, I’d say…. Yes, yes.” His face broke into a prideful smile. “It certainly is a piece of good fortune.”
And then he said the words that really rocked my world.
“Now we only have to find her brother and parents, and the Allgood threat will be history.”
“What?!” I yelled.
The guards shoved me painfully back against the wall for daring to interrupt his conversation.
“Yes… very good,” he went on. “Consider it done… and congratulations to you too.” The administrator’s headset switched off, and he smiled at me mockingly.
“My parents aren’t in this prison?!” I shrieked at him, earning myself another bruising shove from the guards.
“Why would we put your parents in a children’s prison?” He snorted.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Because you’re all certifiably insane?”
The guards gave me yet another jab, but the administrator ignored me. “Why, indeed, would we keep them alive at all? You, we need to interrogate, but them… trust me, as soon as we have them, you can officially call yourself an orphan.”
He smiled menacingly, but for all his cruelty, I was taking some comfort in the fact that my parents were alive… and free.
“Put her in cell block D, cell four twelve,” he yelled at the guards, who dragged me away from his post and toward the place where I would spend the rest of my short life.
I stared around at the cell doors, their bars crowded with the hollow-eyed faces of kids, none over the age of sixteen.
A new anger was building inside me. Was Sasha a New Order spy? Had he fooled Whit and me to come here just so we’d be captured?
They dragged me up the stairs and over to cell 412, which, like all of them, was crowded with haunted, hopeless faces. How much longer would they be alive? How much longer would any of us be alive?
Chapter 91
Wisty
ONE THOUGHT HAUNTED ME as the guards shoved me against the bars and went to open the door. Even if Sasha had tricked us, the fact was that I’d failed. I’d failed these kids. I’d failed Emmet. I’d failed Margo. I’d failed Whit. I’d failed my parents.
For the second time that day, I cried like a baby.
But then the most remarkable thing happened. One of the kids, an emaciated little girl inside the cell, touched my arm through the bars and tried to cheer me up.
“Don’t cry. Remember, they’re doing all this because they’re scared. They’re afraid of you. They’re afraid of all of us.”
“What do you mean?”
“They know we can change everything. They know we have the power to fight back.”
“Shut up, you little piece of dirt!” one guard barked at her like a hellhound. The girl didn’t even flinch.
Which got me thinking. Here she was, emaciated and oppressed to the brink of death—a veritable Michael Clancy—and yet she had the strength to comfort me. She had the strength to hope.
Maybe I had just a flicker of faith inside me too. That 1 percent chance of survival that I’d hung on to so fiercely earlier.
They’re afraid of you. They’re afraid of all of us.
I turned to my hellhound guards as they manhandled me toward the now open cell door and heard myself yell like a girl possessed, “FREEZE!”
They laughed, and one of them clouted me over the head with a nightstick.
Stars danced in my vision, and I went limp. What was going on? I couldn’t hear the guards…. I was no longer being dragged…. And the kids in the cell were staring openmouthed like they’d just seen Santa Claus come down the chimney.
Yes. Yes! Some magic had worked! The guards were frozen!
With some minor straining of my wrists and elbows, I managed to pry myself loose of their stonelike grip.
It was still a long, long way to freedom. I stared up at the winking red light of a security camera that was even now swiveling toward me. Who knew how many hundreds of guards and dozens of steel doors I was going to have to get past to reach the outside?
And not just me, but my big fat conscience too. After all, the kids in my open cell could come with me, but what about all the hundreds of other haunted, pitiful faces looking at me in wonder through the bars of nearby cells? And the ones on the next level? And in the next cell block?
I took the master key from the belt of one of the frozen guards and moved down to the adjacent cell.
“You guys want to get out of here or what?” I yelled down the cell block.
My question was rewarded with hundreds of heart-breakingly hopeful cheers. I quickly made my way along the balcony, unlocking each cell as I went.
Then a siren began to wail, and about twenty guards stormed into the cell block.
Chapter 92
Wisty
THE JACKBOOTED BULLIES forged into the crowd of children I’d released from their cells, swinging clubs and firing stun guns with unfathomable cruelty.
The sight of two-hundred-pound-plus guards manhandling, beating, and hurting children, some of them a quarter their size, is something I will have nightmares about for the rest of my life.
At the time, it sickened me almost past the point of out-rage. Every cell in my body seemed to boil with anger. And then… whoosh!
And I mean, WHOOSH! Familiar two-, three-, and four-feet flames once again swirled around me.
The Flame Girl Strikes Back.
Still, it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference had I not had a massive stroke of luck right then.
The lucky strike was that I was right under a smoke alarm. And, time was, the people in charge of the world actually put a value on human life and put in a
safety precaution so that not everybody in the prison would die in a massive fire. The New Order, in taking over a jail that had been created by a society based on fairness and justice, had neglected to realize that the fire alarms in the prison automatically opened all the interior doors, including the doors to the cells themselves.
And so, as the smoke alarm added its siren wail to the cacophony all around us, I charged the guards, leaving fiery footprints everywhere I stepped. I had to lead these kids out of here, and that meant I had to clear a path.
The guards didn’t put up much resistance. I charged down the hallway after them all the way to the next cell block before they met reinforcements and tried to stand their ground. One guard was shouting orders into a walkie-talkie; the others had stun guns and nightsticks at the ready.
I took a deep breath and remembered what the kid had said: They’re afraid of all of us.
Well, they clearly were at least a little afraid of a furious fifteen-year-old firebrand flying toward them with her arms spread wide, screeching like a total maniac, “Fire really, really hurts!” and “I’m a bad, scary witch!”
I burst right through their ranks, not even a little upset by the shouting as their clothes caught on fire. Yelling “Stop, drop, and roll, you idiots,” I dashed into the next cell block.
“Everybody out!” I screamed at the kids there as well as those from the last block, who had been following me—sensibly—at a safe distance. “Fire! Everyone get out. Right now! See that stairwell there? That’s the way out!”
I was actually starting to feel a little scared myself. This was the longest I’d ever stayed on fire. Was there a point of no return from being charbroiled?
I couldn’t think about it now, because suddenly hundreds of skinny, dirty, terrified kids were pouring past me. And them, I didn’t want to catch on fire.