The Fire

  I have no idea what he’s talking about, but right then a door in one of the buildings opens up and dozens of puppies come bounding out of it, tongues waving in the air. I look around, and none of my Youth Troop peers even cracks a smile. They look like they’re facing down a plague of locusts.

  I’m uneasy about what all of this means — the N.O. has a history of using dogs as killer weapons — but I have a serious soft spot for all canines, and I can’t help crouching down to pet one. The dog goes crazy, licking my hands and face, its little tail wagging a mile a minute.

  And then, zap! The little dog collapses to the ground, seizing. What the —?

  One of my N.O. comrades, a small pigtailed girl with missing front teeth, stands over him with some sort of stun-gun apparatus, grinning like a banshee, and then takes off for her next victim.

  I look around and watch the other dogs yelping as the brainwashed kids gleefully stun them, and I feel the familiar heat building in my body, the anger reaching a boil. But now is not the time to flame out. I’m in the middle of a heavily guarded N.O. facility, and if I’m lucky, I just might get my chance to see The One. But trying not to let my rage get the best of me is literally making smoke come out of my ears.

  Stop, Wisty. Slow down. Pause. I snap my fingers as if to break my swelling energy, to stop the eruption of flame, and suddenly —

  Everyone stops moving. Everyone but me.

  The puppies run around, barking happily again, but the sour-faced New Order Youth have all become statues with stun guns raised in midair, their faces petrified in expressions of evil glee.

  Okay! Wasn’t expecting that, but it’ll work.

  This is the perfect opportunity to take a look around the complex for The One. The last time I saw him, he boiled the ocean into a tsunami wave of terror — with Whit and me surfing on top of it — right before he vaporized my parents.

  I sit, leaning against one of the unmoving kids as the stupidity of what I’m about to attempt really hits me. I’m not ready for this.

  All I want to do is run from this place, and keep running until I’m free: run into my mother’s arms, back into my childhood, to a place where the New Order never existed, and where I was never a witch, where I was never the one people were counting on.

  But that’s not how it is, and it’s not how it’s ever going to be again.

  So I ignore every warning screaming through my body, every flight response my nerves are sending out in alert. Instead, I stand back up. Instead, I walk toward my fate, head held high. I am going to find the most powerful being in our universe, and, though it seems like suicide, I’m going to fight him.

  Because I’m the only one who can.

  I shoo the little dogs away and creep across the courtyard. I’m not sure if my immobilization spell affected everyone or just the trainees, and I’m not taking chances.

  I inch my way to the edge of the building and stealthily peer around the corner.

  And immediately pull back in fear and drop to a crouch.

  Because there, across the grounds on his way into an imposing red building, I see him.

  The One Who Is The One.

  The clouds part in front of him, and his bald head gleams in the sunlight. He strides along confidently with a New Order comrade, and he radiates power — a ruthlessness that makes my resolve crack and shatter.

  As they get closer, I can see him more vividly, his handsome face hard, his Technicolor eyes hypnotic.

  My breath is virtually knocked out of me as I realize who’s with him: none other than the weasel, Byron Swain. I look at the gravel rocks around my feet and consider lobbing one at his rodenty, traitorous little head.

  That, or a lightning bolt.

  Chapter 46

  Whit

  THE LOST ONES are preparing for dinner.

  The valley is abuzz with activity as the zombie-eyed undead stroll back and forth to the forest, gathering bones for the fire.

  Lost Children add brush; Lost Men, a tower of skulls. Do bones really burn? Apparently. An older Lost Woman gnashes her teeth at us and positions a long spear, sharpened at both ends, over the pile. A spit.

  The only thing they have left to add is the meat.

  Us.

  Janine is with the Resistance kids on the other side of the fire pit, her hands wrapped tightly along a section of rope. A steady stream of tears is leaking out of her eyes, and she’s no longer making a move to brush them away. The kids look shell-shocked and paralyzed, and I don’t blame them.

  How do you prepare to be eaten alive?

  They’ve separated me from the others and bound me with twice the rope, so I can only assume I’ll be the first to burn.

  Feffer lies at my feet, her legs bound together and sticking straight up in the air. The dog howls, and the sound is full of despair; she had guessed at the Lost Ones’ plans long before we did.

  Shouts from the forest add to the din, and another chain of kids is dragged into the camp, a couple of them struggling hard against the ropes and passionately demanding justice. I sigh with relief to see that it’s Sasha yelling, with Emmet on his heels. They’re alive —

  But not for long. My relief is immediately followed by an overwhelming queasiness. This is going to be the end of the entire Resistance.

  “You’re not really planning to eat us, are you?” I say to a passing Lost One, who looks around my age. Despite Celia’s warnings, despite the feasting preparations, I can’t really make myself believe it.

  “Of course,” the Lost One says, licking his scabby lips. “Why wouldn’t we?”

  “Because these are people!” I scream, near hysterics. “Because these people have emotions, and lives. You can’t just go around eating them!”

  “No?” he cocks his head, surveying the fire pit and the prey with the innocence of a child. Lost Ones obviously have no moral compass.

  “I wish you were next,” the Lost Girl with the low, haunting voice says, tracing her decaying fingers along my arm. “You look yummy.”

  “You mean I’m not next?” I manage to get out.

  “Of course not,” she says matter-of-factly. “You’re our savior. Why would we eat you?”

  Chapter 47

  Whit

  “YOU ARE THE healer, aren’t you, Whit?” The Lost Girl peers at me with her hollowed eyes, and I shiver as she touches my face, the flesh on her arm falling away from the bone. “Can you heal me? Fix all of us? Can you free us from the Shadowland?”

  These poor creatures, I think, despite my revulsion. These decaying, monstrous beings somehow believe I can make them better.

  But … what if I can? What if this is what I was brought here to do?

  Something Mrs. Highsmith said echoes in my mind: You shouldn’t fear the dead. Is this what she meant?

  The girl reads my hesitation and pounces. “Help me, Whit. Set me free,” she groans urgently.

  The other Lost Ones, sensing that this girl might be awarded something they want, scramble over one another greedily. They plead to be the first to be saved, and paw at my face and still-bound arms. The stench closes in on me, and I’m gagging, trapped.

  “I don’t know how to help you!” I shout, panic rising in my voice.

  A Lost Woman shoves the others aside, her stringy hair peeling back from her forehead, her yellow eyes haunted. She claws at my shoulders, shaking me. “If you are the child of the Prophecy, you must heal me!” she demands. “This wasn’t part of the deal!”

  “Don’t listen to them, Whit!” Sasha shouts over the crowd, and I remember that he has a lot more experience with these creatures than I do. “Why do you think they’re here? They don’t deserve your mercy!”

  “What do you mean, this wasn’t part of the deal?” I turn back to the Lost Woman, still confused about how she and the others got this way.

  “For strangling the children. I was supposed to live forever,” she answers in a detached voice. “I want what I deserve.”

  “Children? You murdered
them?” I whisper, thinking of Celia.

  “I was only following The One’s orders.” She smiles, revealing blackened, chipped teeth with sharp points. “But I promise I won’t do it again.”

  “And you think I’m just going to heal you, to send you back into the world?” I ask, bitterness creeping into my voice. The other Lost Ones eagerly shuffle toward me again at the mention of being healed.

  “Don’t you get it?” I shout. “This is what you deserve. It’s not just your flesh that’s rotting, it’s your souls, because of what you’ve done. All of you. I wouldn’t set you free even if you tortured me, if you ripped me apart limb from limb.”

  “We could arrange for that,” the woman says darkly.

  I steel myself for the attack, but it doesn’t come. Instead, the Lost Ones lunge for the Resistance kids, wrenching Emmet and Sasha and the others to their feet.

  Sasha pushes against them in fury, his hair whipping around his face, a revolutionary to the end. But Emmet, normally a big teddy bear, looks at me steely-eyed, his jaw set into tight resolve. He shakes his head once, as if to say, No deals. Never give in. No matter what.

  “Whit!” Janine shouts as they seize her.

  “Janine!” Her name tears through me.

  She shakes her head. “It’s okay. You’ll survive this, and the Resistance will live on.” She’s trying to be so, so strong, but her arms grasp at the air in protest, and terror dances in her eyes. I can’t pretend this’ll end well.

  The Lost Ones drag the group into an enclosed pen in front of me, untying their wrists from the rope. They actually want their prey to move around — something about tenderizing the meat — but the sharp metal mesh that lines the cage looks like it’ll prevent any of them from breaking free.

  The Lost Ones select the first kid — a boy around twelve with light, dirty hair — and drag him near the pit. He’s struggling fiercely against these creatures, but they pin him down with ease, tying him to the roasting spit I saw earlier.

  Panic erupts, and the kids in the pen get hysterical, throwing themselves against the cage, wailing to be freed, reaching out toward their friend on the stake, whose unthinkable fate awaits each and every one of us. But the Lost Ones only howl in response — a horrible, ear-shattering cacophony of pain that I can’t shut out.

  If I won’t heal the Lost Ones, they’ll force me to hear every shriek, to smell the sulfurous stench, to feel the whole grisly event as each of my friends goes up in flames. As the Resistance is entirely extinguished in a gruesome holocaust.

  My body buzzes with grief, and my heart breaks in defeat.

  “No!” I roar. I won’t let this happen. I thrash against the ropes, and they gouge lines into my wrists. I summon all of my strength and buck frantically, but nothing budges. I’m in position to watch the horror show unfold.

  My head hangs, despair washing over me, and just when the situation seems most dire, the Lost Girl who was talking to me earlier reappears, holding a bucket. And then, with a grisly smile plastered across her skeletal face, she slathers sauce and spices all over my dearest friends.

  She’s basting them.

  Chapter 48

  Whit

  THE RED FOG presses in claustrophobically, and beyond, the bones of the forest stretch upward, like arms clawing their way out of this hell. Lost Ones swarm around us, and the smell of burnt hair gags me as they add discarded animal pelts to the flame. I ache for a spell, for a way out, but my magic doesn’t seem to work on the dead. The fire pit grows hotter, and hope is just a pipe dream.

  “Whit?” Janine whispers from the pen five feet in front of me, and I drag my eyes away from the macabre preparations and look down at her gorgeous, strangely calm face.

  “Yeah?” I murmur.

  “It’s okay.” She grips the metal mesh of the pen, her knuckles white with the effort. She needs to believe that it really is okay. But I can’t. I can see the pit from here, and they’re wrapping that poor boy tighter and tighter on the spit.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, despair creeping into my voice. “Janine, look at where we are. Nothing is okay.”

  “It’s going to be, though. Even if we don’t make it,” she says, that strong, determined look that I know so well returning to her eyes, “we’ll still have won. Because we’ll never be this.” She looks around.

  “You’re right.” I nod. “We’ll never be like them.”

  “But before they … take us” — her voice cracks —“t here’s something I want to say.” She takes a deep breath. “I think you’re stupid. And crazy. And crazy stupid.” I know she’s desperately trying to find a way to make me smile, as if it’s what she wants her last sight of me to be before a tragic end. “And I’ll never forgive you for coming back here after you promised me a million years ago that you’d steer clear of this wretched place. What kind of pigheaded guy tries to take on not only the totally corrupt ruler of the Overworld but all of the evil in the Shadowland on top of it?” I chuckle weakly. It’s what she wants me to do. “But I must be crazy stupid, too,” she goes on, “because I actually think you can do it. Because you always made me believe in you in the worst of circumstances.” She peers out at me through the cage, her face sincere.

  The confession hangs between me and Janine as Sasha’s hoarse voice screaming insults at the Lost Ones from the other side of the pen drowns out everything else.

  “You’re not stupid. Or crazy,” I say. “You’re amazing, and you —”

  “And you’re going to get out of here, you know,” she interrupts. “And when you do, you’d better not give up the fight, because this is not the end, and —”

  “We’re both going to get out of here,” I say stubbornly, even though it’s clearly a lie. “And regardless of what happens, don’t act like you’re just some lackey falling by the wayside. You are this cause, Janine. You’re the whole brains and passion behind it, and without you, The One would’ve wiped out every shred of the Resistance a long time ago.” She looks at the ground, and I swallow. “And you’re so, so beautiful,” I say before I can stop myself, memorizing her features.

  “Beautiful, yeah right.” Janine manages a self-deprecating laugh, looking down at her body. “These grubby combat boots and this unwashed hair, and now the last image you have of me is with basting sauce.”

  “You look beautiful,” I whisper, and mean it. She doesn’t say anything, so I try for the lighter tone she’d been hoping to get out of me. “Who else can pull off apocalyptic chic?”

  “Whit …” A tear slides down her cheek. “I think I love you,” she whispers, her wide green eyes looking directly into mine. My heart lurches.

  “Janine, I —”

  But before I can say anything else, her eyes narrow, squinting at something behind me.

  Oh no. Please don’t let it be time yet.

  Chapter 49

  Whit

  “WHAT?” I ASK. “Janine?” I look over my shoulder to see a Lost One approaching us through the red mist, a girl with a halo of wild dark curls, a girl who is kind of pretty, who, when she was alive, might even have been beautiful.

  Or maybe she isn’t a Lost One at all …?

  Okay. I get it now. This is how it’s going to go: this is the Angel of Death, come to carry us away from this grisly place, come to help us truly cross over. I guess it makes sense. Why did we ever think we’d make it out of the maze?

  There’s a bitter taste in my mouth as I feel all the fight finally go out of me. I was supposedly part of this epic Prophecy, but it was a lie. Just like everything else in this godforsaken world. I’m no different, no more special, than anyone else.

  With anguish I think of my family. How will Wisty know? Will she think I’ve abandoned her? And what will my parents do, now that I’ve failed them?

  If I was meant to die, if the Prophecy was all a hoax, I wish I could’ve just gone out with my parents when they were executed. Like a hero. Like a man. Instead of as a withering part of a miserable, barbaric, pathetic act
of bestiality.

  I shut my eyes, and the angel whispers my name. I wince. The truth is, I’m still not ready. No, I’m not ready for this at all.

  But the voice is sweet, soothing. It sounds familiar, actually, like it’s something I’ve been waiting for all my life. Realization hits me like a sledgehammer to the chest.

  I am a total freaking idiot. Of course she came.

  “Celia!” I shout. I see the hurt wash over Janine’s face, and I cringe.

  After my outburst, I shoot an anxious glance at the Lost Ones, but they seem too preoccupied to have noticed Celia or the disruption.

  That, or maybe she really isn’t here and I’m just hallucinating.

  Emmet is on a pole farther down the line from me and Janine, and I see his eyes widen at the sight of this shimmering apparition. So I haven’t totally lost it yet, at least.

  Celia looks paler than before, and flickery. More like a ghost than an angel, to be honest.

  “You’re not … Lost now, are you?” I whisper.

  She draws back from me, a look of disgust on her face. “Not a chance, Whit. I’m not a murderer; I was murdered.”

  I sigh with relief and then realize this could be our ticket out. “I’m so glad you’re here. We don’t have much time, and —”

  “Neither do I, Whit,” she cuts in. “I’m sorry, but I can’t bail you out this time. My light is already fading.”

  I glance at a Lost One, the empty sockets of its eyes gaping and emotionless. It licks the raw flesh where its lips should be, and panic builds in my chest. She wouldn’t just leave us, would she?

  Celia strokes my cheek, her touch lighter than air. I wish I could feel it. Then her hand falls away abruptly. “I’m sure you’ll be fine, Whit.” She glances at Janine. “You and your girlfriend.” Her voice is detached, devoid of its usual sweetness, and her words slice through my heart.

  “Celia, wait!”

  Then the light goes out completely and Celia is gone again, and all of my hope with her.