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  “Too bad you’re not as fast as she is,” Eric quips. “Where the heck were you anyway? I’m, like, on my fifth cup of coffee, here.”

  “Did you miss me?” I opt to say, instead of Sorry, but I was busy playing guitar in an old witch’s kitchen.

  “Actually yeah,” he says. He levels his gaze at me, and I notice a glint of vulnerability in his eyes. “How come you look so crazy beautiful? You couldn’t have had much more sleep than me.”

  Crazy beautiful? Never before has Wisteria Allgood been described as such. Crazy, yes. Beautiful…?

  This is so nice. I’m so not used to the attention.

  “Must be the wig,” I mumble, and glance down. He’s still staring at me. I can feel it. He’s reaching across the table… toward my hand…

  “Listen, Wisty,” he says. His fingers interlock with mine, and the cool metal touch of his insignia ring against my skin is exhilarating. I feel as if my spine has been replaced with an overcooked noodle.

  “I’m really sorry,” he says. I look up at him, and suddenly there’s only pain in his eyes now. Poor thing, taking this drumstick incident so seriously!

  “About the stick? It’s nothing -”

  I’m interrupted by a commotion at the door, and we both turn to look.

  Oh, kill me now. It’s my big brother with the savior complex.

  “Wisty, it’s a trap! Get out of there! Now!” Whit yells as a bunch of rock star-looking dudes appear from out of nowhere-and attempt to pin him to the wall.

  I try to jump to my feet, but Eric forcefully grabs my wrist.

  “I’m so sorry, Wisty,” he’s whispering. “I had no choice in this.”

  “What? What is this?” I demand to know.

  The Bionics singer and guitarist are standing at the opening of the booth now. And they’re chewing on unlit cigars.

  It can’t be. But I’m afraid it is.

  “Eric?” I ask, tears starting to spill from my eyes. But Drummer Bum only shrugs and looks away. Is he doing what I think he’s doing? How could he have been so wonderful one minute, and now he’s turning me over to the New Order?

  I’m wrong about people sometimes, but I’ve never been this wrong. I slump forward on the table, feeling as if I’ve just been stabbed in the chest.

  What is wrong with me for walking right into this trap?

  I look up into the face of my crush of five minutes ago. I’m searching for a clue, for any of the signs I missed.

  But all I see is his near perfect face, and genuine-seeming contrition.

  “I had to, Wisty. Don’t you see? You’re The One Who Has The Gift.”

  Chapter 36

  Whit

  BEFORE I CAN REACH Wisty to try to help her escape, somebody hits me hard. Just about all the wind rushes out of me and my knees buckle. I’d probably fall on my face if the three of them weren’t so busy trying to pin me to the wall. They’re strong-they may look like boys, but they fight like adults. Adult professionals, maybe New Order soldiers.

  I only hope I gave Wisty enough warning to help her get out; I only hope I managed to mess up their trap; I only -

  Ooomf!

  Another smashing blow, this one right to the middle of my face. Stars and bright colors explode everywhere. That couldn’t have been a fist. It was too hard.

  I’m starting to sink to the ground, but one of these creeps is holding me up and the other is turning my head by the ears, making me look at something.

  “See that, Big Brother?” the voice in my ear rings. “Not only did you fail to save your little sister, but we’re going to make you watch what the Council of Ones does to her!”

  My eyes dart down the length of the diner to where Wisty is being dragged out of her booth by the Bionics and one of the soldiers.

  And then, suddenly, the Bionics start-I don’t know how to describe it-morphing, I guess. They get bigger and older, as if they’ve aged from seventeen to thirty-five in the space of a few seconds. It’s scary-and gross beyond anything I can tell you in words.

  They’re burly, cigar-smoking soldiers now. All of them except one Bionic-the drummer, I think-who’s still sitting in the booth, looking like he just accidentally ran over a puppy.

  “Do it quickly, you idiots!” yells one of the thugs holding me.

  I notice three more soldier-commandos in black flak outfits, each leveling big-bore rifles right at my sister.

  “No!” I scream. “Leave her alone! Don’t shoot her!”

  They drop to a knee and pull their triggers almost in unison.

  “Wisty!”

  And then it’s as if time has slowed to a crawl. I watch as the muzzles issue explosions of compressed gas, each propelling a lethal-looking dart at my inhumanly manhandled sister…

  Wisty throws one last look at me and I catch it, hold on to it forever. More than anything, I don’t want her to die with that desperate look of shame on her face.

  I don’t want her to die, period.

  And then my mind seizes on the hurtling projectiles. Not bullets. Darts. I see the wicked hollow needles on the front of each fluffy-tailed syringe as it bullets toward my sister’s torso.

  They look big enough to drop a charging rhino, much less sedate a hundred-pound teenager.

  If I just push the first dart’s tail a little this way… and this dart a little this way… and this one just like this…

  Thwok -

  Thwok -

  And thwok!

  The former Bionics and the soldier holding her go wide-eyed as each dart finds its new target… right smack in the middle of each of their necks.

  They hit the floor.

  Thump.

  Thump.

  And THUMP.

  “Unnh!” gasps my sister.

  “What’s wrong, Wist?” I yell. “What happened?”

  My eyes lock on hers, which have gone wide and also a little vacant. And now her lids are fluttering… and she falls face-first right on top of her unconscious attackers.

  There’s a syringe sticking out of her back, the plunger pushed down.

  The drummer!

  He’s standing behind her. His face is twisted and crumpled with guilt.

  “Attaboy!” shouts the soldier who’s been holding me. “Now let’s get these two reprobates into the paddy wagon and collect our just rewards.”

  Chapter 37

  Whit

  THESE GOONS ARE LIGHTING up their victory cigars. Is consigning us to death basically like finishing a steak dinner? Or winning a sports championship? It sure looks like it.

  I’m now pinned on the ground, fighting to get my breath back, when a desperate thought pops into my head. Not counting the three guys on the floor with darts in their necks, there are seven cigar-smoking soldiers. There’s the drummer, too, but I’m guessing he’s just a regular kid. A horrible Tall Jonathan-esque traitor of a kid, but… a kid.

  I look at each smoldering cigar and, one by one, I visualize the rolled brown tobacco inside. Foul stuff. I hate nicotine poison.

  Then I imagine seven capsules filled with a toxic compound a teacher told us about in chemistry. It’s called trinitrotoluene. You may have heard of it by its more common name, TNT.

  In my mind, I carefully place a capsule inside each of their cigars, about an inch or so from the glowing tip. I wait; I count off the seconds; I hope this will work.

  And then, in almost perfect precision -

  Blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam!

  Suddenly there’s no more combat boot on my neck. I get to my feet and stumble through the acrid smoke to my sister. I pluck the syringe from her back. Then I throw Wisty over my shoulder.

  “Proud of yourself?” I ask the drummer.

  He looks at me coolly, and I want to punch him. I satisfy the urge by swiping Wisty’s drumstick out of his hand. “They’ll kill me,” he whispers.

  I pause. I don’t want the guy to be killed, really. But if I have to choose between my sister and an N.O. puppet, there’s no question what to d
o.

  “Tell somebody who cares,” I say, then race out of the diner.

  But I do care. Sometimes it feels rotten, putting on the face of steely, unwavering courage.

  Chapter 38

  Whit

  THERE’S NOTHING like a three-mile run with your kid sister slung over your shoulder to clear your head. I’ll never call her “Wispy” again, that’s for sure. She’s growing up fast. My back, my lungs, my legs… they all ache so much I want to stop and throw up.

  I hear the distant rumble of trucks and the squawks of N.O. loudspeakers. The thumping of a helicopter soon joins the mix-it’s coming our way quickly.

  I duck off the road and into the woods, hoping the trees will lend some cover.

  I find a path through the brush, but I get only about a hundred yards before it forks. The bigger track goes down into a gulley, and the smaller one winds along the side of a hill.

  “High road or low road, Wisty?” I say, not expecting her to answer. I prop my sister against a tree. I need to put her down for a few seconds or I’ll collapse into a heap.

  “There are ants all over this tree,” I hear her whisper.

  “You’re awake!” I’m stunned.

  Wisty’s already weakly swatting the little black insects off her arm. “Yep. I can even answer your question.”

  “You mean which road we should take?”

  Without missing a beat, she starts murmuring a poem.

  Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

  And sorry I could not travel both

  And be one traveler, long I stood

  And looked down one as far as I could…

  I shall be telling this with a sigh

  Somewhere ages and ages hence:

  Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -

  I took the one less traveled by,

  And that has made all the difference.

  “You wrote that?” I ask, aghast.

  “Bertrand Snow actually,” Wisty admits.

  “Well, you must be winning your battle with the drugs to remember anything from your lit class.”

  I throw her over my aching shoulder one more time, and just then we hear a vehicle skidding to a stop on the road. Suddenly the woods behind us are alive with heavy-booted footsteps, men yelling… and dogs barking angrily.

  “Maybe they’ll pick the wrong path,” I pant, and reflect that maybe we should have chosen the downward-sloping one. This trail has been 100 percent uphill so far.

  “Um, I don’t think they’ll pick the other path, Whit.”

  “Why not?”

  She’s craning her neck behind me.

  “Um, because I can already see them-and they can see us!”

  Chapter 39

  Whit

  I CURSE under my breath and turn to assess. Sure enough, two soldiers and three large German shepherds have crested the last rise in the hill and are charging up the path toward us.

  Only, wait-did I say two soldiers and three German shepherds? Because it’s actually one soldier and four German shepherds-or, wait, it’s all German shepherds -

  “Did you see that?” demands Wisty. “They’re turning themselves into dogs! Very fast dogs.”

  “Great,” I say, and stop running.

  “Why are you stopping?” yells Wisty.

  “There’s no point. I can’t outrun a pack of magical dogs with you on my back. It’s simple physics. I’d have to be a horse.”

  “Well, I’ve turned myself into a rodent before. Maybe you can turn yourself into a horse. Aim big, Brother. We don’t have much of a choice right now.”

  “I don’t know any horse spells -”

  “Look in your journal and pray that it’s getting good reception today!”

  I’m flipping the pages madly, and nothing about a horse catches my eye. It’s the first time in my life I actually wish I could look in an index.

  There’s no index, of course, but what I stumble on is even better:

  Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

  In the forests of the night,

  What immortal hand or eye

  Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

  In what distant deeps or skies

  Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

  On what wings dare he aspire?

  What the hand dare seize the fire?

  After I recite the weird poem, the next thing I know I’m on all fours, with black-and-orange-and-white fur, my clothes split up and down and hanging in tatters.

  So I turn to ask Wisty the obvious question: “Rrrrrrooaaarrr?”

  “You’re asking if a tiger can kick a bunch of dogs’ butts, right?” asks Wisty. “I think so. But let’s not experiment if we don’t have to, especially with me on your back. Yah, tiger, mush!”

  And then she digs her heels into my flanks. I yelp, and I take off up the hill-as a tiger. Ain’t magic great?

  The dogs howl in rage behind us, and then there’s another noise-another sort of roar? I look back over my striped shoulder and see that our pursuers are now turning themselves into bears, grizzlies actually, as they continue after us.

  Who are these guys? And where are they getting their magic?

  The answer, unfortunately, reveals itself all too quickly.

  We reach the clearing at the crest of the hill and are greeted by a tall bald man in an impeccable dark blue suit. He’s standing there as if he’s been waiting for us all his life.

  Chapter 40

  Whit

  I WHEEL around immediately. I’d rather face a troop of charging bears than The One Who Is The One. Heck, I’d rather face a lake filled with piranha, a full stampede of tyrannosaurs, a mechanized infantry division… I could go on and on.

  But even as we turn away, the trees of the forest weave their yellow-leaved branches and trunks together and seal up the path as if it had never been there. There’s no way through, no way out.

  The ground buckles and sends us sprawling backward toward the middle of the clearing. Wisty topples off my back and lands with a whimper on the ground.

  She’s still too messed up by the drugs to stand, but The One doesn’t cut her any slack-tree roots shoot out of the ground and quickly smother her in a dirty wickerwork of wooden tendrils.

  “Whit!” she screams. “I’m trapped! I can’t move!”

  There’s nothing worse than hearing someone you love scream your name in desperation. Rage boils up inside me. I spin and charge. Five hundred pounds of furious Siberian tiger ready to snap his bald-headed neck like a toothpick, ready to send my sharp teeth into whatever part of him I can reach first.

  Unfortunately, The One Who Is The One has other ideas. Suddenly the wind kicks up so fiercely I have to close my eyes. And it’s as if I’m a stuffed tiger, flimsy as a carnival prize-and somebody has turned on a giant leaf blower. I’m flipped into the air, and I can’t tell up from down. Leaves and dirt are pelting me, stinging me, cutting through even my dense fur, and then-wait!-the wind has stopped already.

  For a split second I can see the sky.

  And then, oh no-I can see the earth! I make out Wisty’s form so far, far below, pinned on the hilltop way down there like some human sacrifice. I must be a thousand feet above her.

  I hear laughter. His laughter… echoing up as if the entire forest is mocking us.

  And then I’m no longer a tiger.

  I’m just me in my torn clothing.

  Falling.

  Helpless.

  He’s taken away my mojo, my magic, probably my life.

  BOOK TWO. SOMETHING WICKED THIS DAY COMES

  Chapter 41

  “HAVE A SEAT,” says the solemn, tight-lipped man behind the heavy metal desk.

  Byron Swain nods nervously and sits on the threadbare couch as the man finishes some official-looking paperwork.

  “You took your time getting here,” says the stern adult, putting down his overchewed pencil.

  “I had to observe all the protocols -”

  “No excuses!” yells the man, sprayi
ng spittle across the metal desk at Byron. “Children of Ones don’t make excuses!”

  He again snatches up his battered pencil as if he is going to either break it in two or throw it at Byron’s face.

  Byron meekly recedes back into the couch, wishing he could somehow slide between the cushions like some accidental pocket change.

  “And you will stand up in my presence! Who do you think you are, Byron?”

  “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  “And stop calling me that! I am The One Who Tallies The Internal Revenues.”

  “Yes, sir, I’m sorry, sir,” says Byron, remembering how the Freelanders call his father “The One Who Counts The Beans” and making a mental note not to mention that. “I just -”

  “Excuses!” he screams. “By order of the New Order, and at the specific request of The One, you will now give me a complete report!”

  Byron feels a little pain growing like a cancer in his chest. He isn’t happy spying on the Freelanders, but what choice does he have? Wisty continues to reject him. He is nothing to her. To any of them really. And he is under direct orders from his father.

  Byron stands at attention and, shaking slightly, begins telling him everything.

  Chapter 42

  Wisty

  TRUST ME, you don’t know pain till you know what it feels like to wake up after getting nailed by a New Order tranquilizer dart. Or three. Or twelve.

  My eyes ache like they’ve been loaded on rusty metal springs. My temple throbs like somebody’s just nailed a red-hot horseshoe around the inside of it. The back of my head pulses like somebody’s trying to inflate it with a bicycle pump.

  And my mouth-my tongue feels like it’s a slug that’s crawled halfway across an equatorial desert and died, and my throat feels like it was just the parade route for a troop of hermit crabs.

  And my stomach… sloshing around like I’m in a car with no shock absorbers driven by a drunk who’s decided to take a shortcut through a timber yard. “Carsick” doesn’t cover it.