“Oh, but I do,” Byron says, finally unlocking his eyes from mine and looking at Whit. “Even you, jockstrap. I’ve been reading your journal. Very interesting stuff. Had no idea about your special Gift.”
Whit looks surprised. “For writing, you mean?”
Byron snorts. “Are you kidding me? Most of that writing’s straight from Ms. Magruder’s class. And the stuff that isn’t is—well, let’s face it—utter dreck.” The guy really has no fear of the fact that my brother can deck him, does he? “Do you mean to tell me you have no idea of your Gift?”
“First of all, Byron, I told you to quit talking like that,” I jump in. It’s obviously going to take a woman to move this conversation forward. “Second, just tell us what you’re getting at. Please?”
“The evidence is there with a little interpolation,” Byron continues in his stiff, blustery tone, “but I’m fairly convinced that Whit is clairvoyant.”
Chapter 80
Whit
I WANT PROOF.
Because I know I’ve written some pretty grim things in my journal.
Including, but not limited to, the death of my sister.
“Would you care to,” I sneer, “interpolate that statement for us?”
“That doesn’t even make any sense.” Byron looks annoyed. “I suppose you weren’t always listening in Ms. Magruder’s class. But, for starters, perhaps you’d like to explain to Wisty how you knew that the little Bionic Drummer Boy was going to get his arms… amputated.”
My stomach curdles, and Wisty looks at me in shock as the weasel continues. “And it’s also apparent that you know The One is going to bomb every inch of Freeland very soon. There are plenty of examples, but I suggest we save the rest of this fascinating discussion for better times.”
I hear some disturbing growling start up outside the door, and Byron swiftly blows a few strong notes on his Command Pipe, which results in instant chill.
“Look, we know you’re full of it, Swain, so let’s move on to plan B.”
“Yeah,” Wisty jumps in. “Can’t we agree to a nice, simple plan that doesn’t end in a suicide pact?”
“And how about we start with you giving me back my journal?”
“You’re in luck, Whit, because that’s actually a part of my new plan.” He turns his full attention back to Wisty. I’m continually stunned by the intense looks he throws her. Like she’s his… Celia.
Wow. Scary thought. I instinctively put my arm around Wisty, as if that’s going to protect her from his lustful eyes.
“Wisty, you and I both know that we could do great things together,” he says to her, and I tighten my grip on her shoulder. “You felt it onstage at Stockwood. You felt it when we made magic at the BNW. And your first major transformation was done on me, wasn’t it? In case you forgot, it wasn’t a weasel. Originally, you turned me into a lion. It was… electric.”
Wisty is speechless. Her stomach has to be cramping way worse than mine now.
“I know you don’t care all that much for me,” he continues in the understatement of the century. “But you and I are so much more powerful together than you and your brother. The fact is, Wisty, I believe that you and I could actually be the two children of the prophecies.”
“The prophecies say a brother and sister!” she spits out indignantly.
“The brother-sister detail is a technicality. I know you don’t want to admit this, but you and Whit haven’t yet executed the level of magic that Freeland needs in order to defeat The One. But when your energy goes through me, it becomes greater.”
“Prove it!” Wisty demands.
“You’ve been blind to how much I’ve been intertwined with your life, your magic. You didn’t even realize I was there when you turned everyone in Unger’s courtroom into horseflies. And remember who allowed you two to take your drumstick and your journal when you were captured by the New Order?”
We’re numb, speechless, confused, trying to process all of this.
Byron takes advantage of the moment, and as he strides away a few paces, we hear the growling behind the door stir up again. There are sharp scraping sounds—teeth or claws on metal?
Byron reaches for his Command Pipe but then suddenly drops it before he makes a sound.
“You have two options right now, Allgoods: We three can quickly end this hopeless quest as martyrs at the hands of the Kill Team. Or”—he lets us listen as the clamoring of hungry beasts gets more frenzied—“we take Whit to The One instead of Wisty. I believe he would accept your incredible Gift, Whit, instead of Wisty’s.”
“You don’t know that he would,” I say. “You don’t even know that I have any Gift to… fortune-tell.” I have to admit, I’m processing that one. “What about Wisty?”
“Wisty and I… well, together we can lead Freeland to victory.” I snort loudly, but he turns earnestly to Wisty. “I know it, Wisty! I have what you need… in so many ways.”
“No!” Wisty screams. “That’s sick. I’m never leaving Whit.”
Byron levels his gaze, increasingly focused and confident, at me. “Let’s just let your brother decide that.”
“What do you think I’m gonna say, Weasel?” I scoff. “We have other options that you don’t know about.” I’m looking at Wisty as if to say, Don’t we?
“But the latter option is the only one that Celia would approve of.”
Oh my God. He knows? How much does he know?
“She told you to turn yourself in, didn’t she, Whit? For the greater good? So you could be together again?”
It’s in my journal. He’s a real bastard, but he’s right. In my head I can hear her saying it, I feel her commanding me: Stop thinking about only what’s right in front of you. Think about the rest of the lost.
“It’s what was meant to be, Whit. Accept your fate.” Byron raises the Command Pipe to his lips. “Wisty, can I have your decision? My friends outside are very, very hungry.”
“No! No, no, no!” Wisty shouts furiously, but she shoots me a look and I think I can read it. She has a plan, and I’m pretty sure I know what it is. Maybe I can see into the future.
“Whit?” Byron asks.
“No,” I reply firmly. “Not a chance.”
“Well, then,” Byron responds with resignation, “we’re finished here.”
And then he sends out a command from his pipe—and the heavy rooftop door literally comes flying off its hinges.
Chapter 81
Wisty
THE SWARM OF BODIES, the claws and teeth, the screeches and growls, the stink and heat of their breath—it’s everywhere. It’s overwhelming, sickening. But I’ve never been more focused in my life.
The second that Byron blows the Command Pipe, I leap at him and it’s as if we’re two magnets. I’m on him—girl to boy—and I rip the pipe from his hands.
I’m surprised at how it slips easily out of his grip and into mine—but I’m one-tenth of a second too late.
I can already feel claws piercing the skin on my thighs.
There’s a moment where I think my life is going to end just the way Byron wanted it to. With me on top of him, clutching him for dear life, his raucous monsters taking both of us down at once. I don’t like the image one bit.
But my focus is back, and I no longer feel too much of the pain of whatever mutilation has already started on my back and legs. I close my eyes and hum the notes into the Command Pipe, the very same ones Byron used earlier to subdue his brutes.
Perfect pitch has never been more perfect. Over and over I send out the command until I have enough courage to let myself absorb what’s going on.
The beastly strikes have stopped. All I feel now is the pounding of Byron’s raging heart. He’s alive. I’m alive. And Whit?
Continuing with the series of notes, I open my eyes and roll off Byron. Whit’s just a few feet away, on top of the monster that had gotten to me a few seconds before. He actually has the beast in a stranglehold. My brother really is something else.
There’s thick, gloppy blood on me, on Byron, on the floor, on Whit. But what freaks me out more than anything else is what the creatures really look like. This is the first time we’re seeing them up close.
They’re kids. They’re human children. What has the New Order done to them?
I’m surging with energy and righteous anger and power. Looking up at the sky, and then at Whit, I transform us into birds. Really fast ones. In a heartbeat, we’re supersonic hummingbirds disappearing into the sky. The Command Pipe I’d been holding sails down toward the rooftop.
Far below, the last thing I see is the feral children descending on Byron.
I turn my head away. I can’t watch this.
Chapter 82
Wisty
THE DOWNSIDE OF CHANGING yourself into any flying creature is that you just might be a couple of hundred feet up in the air when your spell wears off. Fortunately the unfortunate happened when we were only a dozen or so feet off the ground, dipping down toward our final destination: the entry to Garfunkel’s.
We’re greeted on the ground floor of the department store with deeply pained faces. Something really bad has been going down here, I can feel it. When Whit comes back from a near-death adventure without being greeted by cheers and Janine throwing herself at him, you know something’s wrong.
At least Emmet’s got his arms around me before we can even say, “Hey.”
“I can’t believe you’re alive!” he chokes out, uncharacteristically emo.
“Since when do I make a habit of dying?” I try a bad joke.
“But it’s been… months!” He absently runs his fingers through my now-longer hair, as if to emphasize the point. “What happened to you guys?”
Whit and I look at each other, thoroughly confused about the timing for a moment. “The portal?” he guesses, referring to the mysterious time-warp quality of some portals.
I look around at the group and nod at Whit. Yes, more than just a few weeks have passed. Definitely. It’s almost as if everyone’s gone pale somehow. More unkempt, slouched. They all have sunken cheeks and eyes. Emmet looks as if he should be holding a tin can and asking for loose change.
“Where’s Janine?” Whit sounds alarmed.
“Back in Ladies’ Shoes. Running therapy sessions for some of the messed-up kids. Jamilla’s back there, too. But she’s a patient instead of the doctor this time. It’s been hard around here, guys,” he reports grimly.
“Let’s head to Accessories and get caught up,” Whit says to us.
“Why’s it so dark?” I ask as we move toward the back of the store.
“Brownout,” Emmet explains. “Too many bombs, every day, all day and night.”
Sasha’s back in Accessories strumming a particularly gloomy tune on his guitar. As he comes over to greet us, I notice that the zealot’s confidence is gone from his stride. In the next few minutes, the stories he and Emmet tell make it pretty clear why.
The past month saw the beginning of the next stage in the New Order’s plan for domination. The first wave of kids who were kidnapped and reprogrammed in facilities—those that weren’t vaporized anyway—were just then being released back into society so that their little ’bot brains could take root and flourish. Meanwhile, a second wave of intensive kidnappings began, and the New Order’s scout teams probed deep into Freeland. At least a dozen kids from Garfunkel’s had been captured when they were out on food-collection missions, including some of the kids we’d already saved once from other facilities.
Talk about three steps forward and one huge, megastep back.
We’ve lost our homes, friends, families—an entire world. And now we’re losing one another.
Chapter 83
Whit
JANINE MEETS UP with us on our way to Ladies’ Shoes—and I think she’s changed more than anyone else here. She’s thinner, which might have made her face even prettier, but she’s gotten harder and tougher, too.
She spots me, and though she’s definitely stressed, she greets me with a smile. “Whit, you’re finally back.” She glances at Wisty and just says her name. I’m not used to this kind of weak reception, and it hurts, but I don’t show anything. Everyone here has been through a lot.
“Hi, Janine. It’s good to see you. Really good,” I say, and leave it at that.
“I take it Sasha and Emmet brought you up to speed? It’s scary out there, guys. The New Order’s turned some kids… bestial,” she explains.
“They’re monsters.” I nod. “We’ve met them.”
“Good, then you and Wisty can probably help. If you’re planning on staying around, that is.” I guess I’m not exactly what you’d call a reliable constant in Janine’s life. “Help us get everyone moving, okay? Tell them what they can expect. Try not to scare them too much.” She looks over at her traumatized crew of kids. “How’s your magic? Your Gifts?”
“On and off,” I say. “We flew here, but then we crash-landed.”
“Well, let’s hope you’re more on than off today. We have to get out of this place, like, now. It was nice living in a department store while it lasted,” she says, looking around at the disheveled place the Freelanders had called home for so many months. Months that felt like an eternity.
Then Janine starts to clap her hands loudly and shout out orders. “We know from intelligence that the New Order is coming tonight, everyone. We have to get everyone out, and I mean everyone, even the sick and wounded. Let’s move it, everybody! We have a plan for evacuating. Let’s execute it perfectly.”
She stops for a breath and makes eye contact with me. “It’s good to see you, Whit. You look older. It suits you.”
Janine seems older, too—and it suits her.
Chapter 84
Whit
NOW THAT GARFUNKEL’S HAS BEEN seriously breached, we need to move to a new protected location, but no one’s sure exactly where. Janine, Sasha, Emmet, Wisty, and I debate the options as we hike through the tunnel underneath the once-famous department store that used to sponsor football games and the holiday parade.
“Within hours Freeland is going to be blanketed with bombs or totally teeming with New Order patrols. Or both.” I recount the details of what Byron had told me and Wisty at the factory. “We’re going to have to go back across the border into New Order territory. Maybe just lie low and wait it out.”
“But where?” Janine asks. “We’ve been living out of Garfunkel’s for so long we don’t really know what’s going on out there. That’s the problem with getting too comfortable.”
“How about the Stockwood reservoir?” Sasha suggests.
“Too risky,” I say. “The Bionics know about it, and we know they were working for The One.” I glance at Wisty’s pained face. “Most of them anyway.”
“How about the abandoned Electio factory, Whit?” Janine says.
“Breached by the enemy,” Sasha replies.
Wisty suggests the City of Progress. “They won’t bomb there, and maybe Mrs. Highsmith can help with the sick and wounded.”
After some discussion, we decide that’s the best plan we have. We’ll try to do a group transformation when we get closer—to disguise ourselves as a rally, or a parade of Sector Leader’s Stars of Honor. The old tunnels don’t run all the way there, though, so we’re faced with having to do the last piece of the journey aboveground and without a vehicle.
“Maybe there’s a portal that will get us there,” I suggest.
“Right. Let’s go hang out in the Shadowland,” scoffs Wisty. “They’re always rolling out the red carpet for us. Especially when they’re hungry.”
“We’re all exhausted,” Janine says. “We’ve been walking for hours, and a lot of us haven’t slept in at least a day. Let’s get a few hours’ rest before we make our break into the open.”
And that’s right about when the bombing begins. And it’s the worst ever.
With the tunnel shaking like a jackhammer, and without our knowing whether or not this tube is strong enough to wit
hstand the blasts, no one is getting much rest—let alone sleep. Instead we huddle together quietly and tightly—not for warmth but for safety.
Janine and I, leaning our backs against the wall, rest together. Wisty has her head in Emmet’s lap. Sasha is cradling his guitar. The rest of the kids are in a tangle around us.
We’re just waiting here to die, aren’t we?
Chapter 85
Wisty
WHIT AND I CHANCE a peek outside. The sun is high in a perfectly blue sky by the time the N.O. artillery has quieted down. We can see the City of Progress skyline a few miles away, across bombed-out Freeland. Now what?
Since none of us got much sleep, and miles of trekking ahead of us meant we’d need as much energy as possible, Whit and I had worked hard to conjure up a breakfast buffet for the entire group—complete with bacon, eggs, and waffles. This was a feast way bigger than Whit’s earlier soup-kitchen trick. Realizing that maybe we’d never have to survive solely on Garfunkel’s Cashew Crunch again was a definite breakthrough for us and our powers.
Here’s how we did it: taking a cue from what Whit and I learned at the BNW Center, we’d practiced doing our magic with the group, holding hands, and it worked like a dream. I’d even started taking stock in Byron’s wild theories about our magic becoming greater when it passes through others. This could be the secret to our success.…
Of course, waffles help a whole lot, too. We’ve been living in a tunnel for half a day, so sun plus breakfast equals a group of kids who are now officially sunny-side up.
And it’s a good thing, because it’s not that long before we spot a ponderous black V formation of at least fifty N.O. bombers creeping right toward us. This is the battle we’ve been waiting for, and we’d rehearsed our plan. To the extent that you can actually “rehearse” defeating a world-dominating enemy.