The Fire Page 6

  “Only, Whit?” I call after him.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m not quite ready for another all-night journey through the lion’s den of the New Order just yet. I think I’ll take you up on that offer to find someplace to sleep first.”

  Whit bangs on the side of the Dumpster. The mealy, gag-inducing stench of rotting meat is wafting over. Oh no. I am so not going to —

  “Got a better idea?” my know-it-all brother asks.

  He plants his hand and vaults his legs over in a graceful move even I have to admire. Whit has always been athletic, but in the weeks we were apart, he must’ve been training on his own nonstop. He’s gotten, as Celia would say, “seriously ripped.”

  I scramble in after him. As much as I don’t want to lay my head to rest among the scraps of the New Order citizenry’s garbage, it’s strangely fitting, actually. Kinda poetic.

  It’s also sheltered. And out of the way. And, as my brother has already discovered, full of food. Well, if you can call “food” a quarter pound of deep-fried meat that consists of the body parts of hundreds of different animals and is now discarded in a crumpled bag in the bottom of a Dumpster.

  Whit sees my expression and shrugs. “I’m starving,” he says, chomping off a chunk of a half-eaten One-Der Biggie Burger. Three words: Dis. Gust. Ing.

  My stomach complains loudly and Whit grins, holding the bag out to me. “Happy Holiday,” my brother says, mouth full. Reluctantly I reach into the sack.

  But the only thing left in this bag is a kid’s plastic action figure of The One, bald head shining in the weak light of the Dumpster.

  My temper simmers, and I melt The One down to nothing in my hand.

  “Whoa,” says Whit. “You’ve got some mojo in you after all.”

  I shake my head. “That’s not mojo. That’s just pure hatred.”

  Chapter 21

  Whit

  “WHIT, BABY? CAN you hear me?”

  I wake — or think I wake — to the sweetest voice I’ve ever heard.

  Her face — her perfect, beautiful face — is just inches from mine, and I swear, if my heart stopped beating right now, I’d die happy. Her long dark curls frame her face, and she’s looking into my eyes in that calm, unself-conscious way that always did me in. I hold my breath and inhale her scent.

  If this is a dream, I never want to wake up.

  “Celes, is that really you? I so want it to be you.” Chasing Celia’s image has gotten me into trouble before, and Wisty’s convinced it’s The One trying to manipulate me. If so, I have to admit, he’s using the right angle. Celia’s the one thing I can’t say no to. I’d probably run into a snarling pile of zombie wolves if she asked me to.

  Celia surveys the Dumpster. “Nice digs you got here, baby. A little fancier than the Shadowland, I’ll give you that, but I have to say, you smell worse than a herd of Lost Ones.” She wriggles her nose in mock disgust.

  I grin. That’s my girl.

  I reach out to touch her face, her smooth, soft skin, and she turns her cheek, mimes kissing my hand even though it’s only air. My heart aches. She’s never felt more real, but moments like this don’t last very long.

  “Oh! I almost forgot!” Celia reaches into her pocket. “I brought you a present for the Holiday,” she says, and smiles in that way of hers — shyly — that brings back a rush of memories so potent I almost can’t take it: the first time she placed her hand in mine, her slender fingers so warm; her face when I scored the winning touchdown; the day she first introduced me as her boyfriend; the first time I saw her, as a ghost, after she disappeared.

  She places the object in my hand, and I can actually feel it. It’s a fountain pen — sleek, shiny, perfectly crafted — just like Celia. I’ve never used one of these, but I can’t wait to try it.

  “Celia, it’s … this is beautiful,” I say, turning over the pen in my hands.

  She smiles, pleased. “It’s not as old-school as it seems. Really. You can write with it anywhere, on any surface, and it’ll record your words wherever you want. You can write your story, no matter where The One forces you to run.”

  “I’ll write your story, too,” I vow.

  But suddenly Celia’s eyes look far away, like she’s reading from a letter. “And, Whit? There’s something else I have for you. A message. From your parents.”

  My heart seizes up. If my parents can still contact us through Celia, if we can still communicate, it’s as if they’re not really gone. “My parents? You’ve seen them?” I manage.

  “Your dad said to remind you: You and Wisty need to share your Gifts if you’re going to get anywhere. And your mom said to be brave, and not to be afraid to let go.” Celia smiles sadly. “But you and I both know you’re not very good at letting go, right, baby?”

  The air around her is cold, way colder than it should be.

  She’s leaving. She’s always leaving.

  I jerk awake and bump my head against the metal of the Dumpster. My hand, still reaching for Celia, is thrown over the side and is freezing in the night air.

  Hopelessness floods through me. I love her so freaking much — but what’s the use in loving someone so fiercely who is dead?

  I’m clutching something in my other hand, clutching it for dear life.

  The pen.

  I must’ve created it from the dream. Apparently I’ve got some M left after all.

  Chapter 22

  Whit

  “WHIT, WAIT UP,” Wisty whines.

  We’re on the outskirts of the City of Progress, and I’m barreling ahead of my sister on streets where New Order–confiscated middle-class homes jockey for space among abandoned, dilapidated buildings. I know neither Wisty nor I got the best night’s sleep behind One-Der Barfer, but sometimes when an idea strikes you just gotta move on it.

  There are few armed soldiers this far out, but I can still hear the shrill howls of dogs scrabbling in the distance. Dogs that have been trained on our scent. Mobs probably lurking in every alleyway, eager to burn us to ashes. We have to keep moving, and now that I have a destination in mind, I want to get there as soon as possible.

  Wisty jogs to catch up. “I thought we agreed we were going to head to the steam pipe. You’re going the wrong way.”

  “I know, but I was thinking we’d take a little detour first.” Wisty stops and crosses her arms, and I clear my throat. “A short trip to the clinic where you volunteered with those sick kids, for example?”

  Wisty doesn’t say anything. She’s probably thinking of her still-healing scabs and the terrifying fever-induced delusions she endured when she almost died just a few days ago.

  I don’t blame her. It’s just that I can’t get that “message from our parents,” from Celia, out of my head, even if it was all a dream. “Don’t kill me! Listen, when I used my M to heal you, I felt this amazing relief to have you back, but there was something else, too. It felt right, like healing was exactly what my magic was meant for.”

  “Hmm.” She leans against a rusting chain-link fence and examines the blister on her heel. She looks up, eyebrows raised, impatient.

  “Then I had this crazy dream, and … I’m just starting to get this feeling that we should be doing more, and if I can help a few sick kids to get better and grow up to keep fighting against The One, that doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.”

  I expect Wisty to protest at least a little, but she nods thoughtfully. “Yeah. After what Pearl said about fulfilling the Prophecy, I’ve been thinking about what we can do to help, too. I do want to find the Resistance members if there’s a chance. But the steam-pipe area is likely toxic, heavily guarded, or both. Who knows? Maybe someone at the clinic has heard something about our friends.”

  “Great,” I say, relieved. “Let’s get going, then, slowpoke.” I take off.

  “Whit?” Wisty calls after me.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s in the other direction.”

  Chapter 23

  Whit

 
AS WE NEAR the center, it’s like I can feel the power within me growing. Seeing all of these people in need in one place seems to help reopen the channels of magic that The One’s influence has shut down. I look to my sister, and I don’t even have to ask.

  “I feel it, too,” she says. “I think I might even have enough juice to do a morph. Might be safer.”

  Disguised as middle-aged hospital staff, we head into the clinic, which is in an old parking garage from the days before the New Order restricted vehicle use for officials only. Wisty’s rocking a blond perm and a fake tan, and I look like the once popular comedian Mark Dark, all scruff and slouch. I make a mental note to keep up my workout routine into my forties. The paunch is not working for me.

  Inside it’s way worse than I expected, and apparently a whole lot worse than when Wisty was last here. For one, it’s all kids.

  Moaning, bleeding, dying kids. Kids on filthy cots or sprawled on mats on the floor among the decades-old auto grease.

  Wisty gasps, her hand covering her mouth. We’ve seen a lot under this brutal regime, but this is … too much.

  “It’s The One Who Is The One’s latest ‘cleansing program,’ ” a nurse says from behind us. Her face is lined with worry, and she looks like she hasn’t slept in weeks. “Or at least that’s what the rumor is. The New Order wants to expand its fancy headquarters into the old town, and the youth in that district seem especially tough to convert. So if the cleansing can take out a few thousand young potential dissenters in the process, that’s just icing on the cake.”

  I want to hit someone. That’s not accurate. I don’t want to hit just anyone. Just One person. I want to bash his bald head in.

  “Let’s get on with it,” Wisty says bitterly, and I know she’s just trying to keep it together. She still knows her way around the clinic and heads to the end with the youngest kids, where the floor starts to slant up to the next level.

  A young nurse named Lenora whom Wisty recognizes nods to us as we gather bandages. We help her move a few of the delirious kids from the floor to free cots. They feel like tiny birds in my arms, hearts racing.

  “There’s never enough beds,” Lenora huffs, wiping the sweat from her freckled forehead. “We try to keep the sickest off the floor, but the plague seems to be mutating.” She unwraps a toddler’s soiled, unsightly dressings and uses fresh gauze to cover the sores, cooing to him as he cries. “Before, some had a chance, the fighters could pull through. Now, it takes almost every single one, and quickly. These children aren’t in good shape, but those over there are faring the worst. If you can stomach it, what they could really use is someone to hold their hands. All any of them wants is a mother.”

  We walk over to where she’s pointing. It’s darker, and quieter. The kids don’t talk or cry in this part of the garage; there’s only the sound of labored, shallow breathing. Wisty is pressing her lips together, her face pale. I know she’d hold every single kid’s hand as he died if it would help, but I’m hoping we can do better than that.

  The first patient we visit is a little boy with sallow skin and the telltale plague scabs on his face. His big brown eyes are still lucid as they peer at us, but they’re shot with red. He doesn’t say anything as I put my hands on his shoulders, just sucks his thumb and squeezes his eyes shut against the pain.

  I don’t want to think about what has happened to his mother.

  I nod to my sister, and she places her hands over mine. For a moment nothing happens, and worry fills my chest, but then I feel the jolt of energy as our power surges into this boy. We watch in awe as his breathing evens out and the red drains from his eyes.

  “I can’t believe that actually worked.” Wisty gapes.

  I shrug self-consciously. But then the boy smiles up at me, and I feel … like God.

  Wisty and I get a sort of assembly line of healing going, and while we’re not able to save everyone — some of them are too far gone — in just a short while we’ve got half the clinic on the way to better.

  Each healing process takes a lot out of me, and I can feel my energy draining, but when I put my hands on these kids’ frail shoulders and feel the M flow into them, it’s nothing short of incredible. My fingertips heat up, and my heart, and I feel this surge of — I can’t explain it. Light, energy, warmth. Love.

  It’s seriously addicting.

  Wisty and I are just about to focus our energy on an eight-year-old girl emaciated with sickness when my sister looks up as if coming out of a trance. “Wisty!” I say, irritated. We have to keep going if we want to get to everyone. But I stop when I see her face. She looks like she’s seen a ghost.

  “Is that …” Wisty squints, striding across the dimly lit space. She beckons me over toward the far end, where there are an alarming number of recently vacated cots waiting to be cleaned. My sister is standing over a thin, dark-skinned girl who looks around seventeen.

  “Whit, I think it’s Jamilla.”

  Chapter 24

  Wisty

  “IT CAN’T BE her,” my brother whispers.

  It’s obvious what he means. The Jamilla we knew, our old friend from the Resistance and the house shaman back at Garfunkel’s, was cheerful, vibrant, and easily more than two hundred pounds. This poor plague victim has been stripped of all hope and is so emaciated by the sickness that I’m not sure her bones can even support her.

  I look into the sick girl’s face, at her sunken cheeks and mottled skin. I recognize her corkscrew hair. Her eyes, though bloodshot, still have the depth I remember.

  She’s a ghost of her former self, but it’s Jamilla, all right.

  “Jamilla,” I whisper. Her eyes drift over us, unfocused.

  “We’re still all morphed out,” Whit reminds me. “She probably doesn’t recognize us.”

  I bend over her. “Jamilla, can you hear me? It’s us — Whit and Wisty.”

  “You!” she says hoarsely, fear creeping into her eyes. “It’s you!”

  Whit looks at me uneasily.

  “Yeah, it’s us,” I say, trying to sound reassuring. “We’re not going to hurt you. We’re here to help you.” She whimpers, and I want to comfort her. She’s scared, really scared.

  Scared of us.

  But Jamilla’s tormented mind can’t stay focused on us for long. Her eyes roll back and she’s delirious again, mumbling about the “plague of the poor” and moaning names I recognize: Sasha. Janine. Emmet.

  I want to ask about Emmet especially, since we’d been pretty close, but there’s a change in the mood of the place that’s putting me on edge. Minutes ago the kids we’d healed were lying in peace, contentedly beginning their recovery. Now, many of them have struggled out of bed and are huddled together, whispering. They have a look of utter terror in their eyes, like the Grim Reaper himself has come with his scythe to rip them from safety.

  “It’s Pearce, for sure,” a healthier boy says gravely as he sneaks back up from the first level. The whispers are replaced by harsh silence as this sinks in.

  “What’re they saying?” Whit asks, straining to listen to their whispers.

  “No. No, not him, not —,” Jamilla whimpers. Her breathing speeds up until she’s hyperventilating. “Get out!” she rasps. I don’t know if she’s talking to us or them.

  Whit puts a cool cloth on her head, trying to calm her down as I peek around the corner to see what is making everyone panic: two New Order soldiers are stalking among the cots with the air of hyenas circling an injured calf.

  Whit and I are disguised, but my breath still quickens. There’s something about the way dozens of kids are reacting to these two that makes my skin crawl. These aren’t just the normal drones we see every day in the streets practicing their swagger; these men are corporate.

  The soldiers seem to be doing a routine inspection of some sort, working their way across the room with a clipboard. A woman — the nurse who first greeted us — is following behind them, nervously twisting her shirt in her hands. No one else moves, and the air is heavy with
the smell of fear.

  One of them can’t be much older than my brother, but he has a distinct air of authority about him. He’s tall, with white-blond hair and sharp, angular features, and I’m weirdly drawn to him. He’d be really attractive if something about him didn’t seem so soulless.

  A broad, almost garish smile plays across his face as he joins us on the second level and takes in the hordes of near-death children, and when his piercing blue eyes settle on mine, it’s as if ice water is flooding my veins.

  I catch Whit’s eye. This morph isn’t going to last forever, and I sure as heck don’t want to be in a claustrophobic obstacle course of a room crawling with cops when I return to my usual, conspicuously redheaded self.

  I start to pack up supplies as Whit whispers healing words to Jamilla, but sucking the plague out of so many kids has taken a lot out of him already, and I can see that his M is weak.

  The soldiers are selecting beds to be wheeled into an armored truck.

  “No!” the nurse protests as they begin to cart away a weak little girl who has already started to heal. She wails, and tears spring to the nurse’s eyes. “Have you no heart? These people are sick, dying. You can’t just snatch them up like rats to run your ‘tests’ on!”

  “The One Who Is The One demands compliance.” The soldier with the clipboard cocks an eyebrow, his young face alight with cruelty. “Unless you’d like to go in her place?”

  The nurse steps back, terrified, and the soldier laughs, high-pitched and haunting, and I’m reminded again of the hyena. “Thought not.”

  Jamilla moans in pain.

  “Whit,” I plead, “can’t you do something? We’re losing her.” Whit places his hands gently on her shoulders again and concentrates.