Witch And Wizard: Fire Part 12

"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 c.o.c.ks his head, surveying the fire pit and the prey with the innocence of a child. Lost Ones obviously have no moral compa.s.s.

"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 h.e.l.l. 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 circ.u.mstances." She peers out at me through the cage, her face sincere.

The confession hangs between me and Janine as Sasha's hoa.r.s.e 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 pa.s.sion 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 G.o.dforsaken 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 b.e.s.t.i.a.lity.

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.

Chapter 50.

Wisty TOOTHBRUSH IN HAND, I'm with my fellow New Order Youths, scrubbing the barracks inch by inch. Even though they're already spotless. Even though we scrubbed them for four hours yesterday and the day before.

My comrades, in their crisp uniforms and ribboned hair, are way more social than I would've thought. Contrary to the ideals of the New Order, during barracks detail they're positively chatty. Many of the girls have especially warmed up to me now that I'm one of them, a sort of older sister even, and I'm starting to learn that inside each programmed killing machine of the New Order Youth is a scared, manipulated child, brainwashed into submission.

Kathy's going on about the flirty comment Joseph made to Naomi after drills yesterday, and we're all kind of giggling when, without warning, the door to the barracks bangs open on its metal hinges, the hard wood slamming loudly against the wall.

There is an almost audible collective intake of breath as Pearce stalks in, his white-blond hair combed slickly off his forehead, his expression impossibly sinister.

"Well!" Pearce trumpets, clapping his hands together loudly like an enthusiastic camp counselor. The girl next to me flinches at the sound. "It's everyone's favorite day! Evaluation day! How's the cleaning coming, gang?" His smile is manic as he peeks into corners and behind bedposts, scanning for offending dirt.

One of the younger kids whimpers, but everyone else is silent, eyes trained forward, shoulders hunched into themselves anything to melt into the background.

I tense up, white noise flooding my ears and goose b.u.mps erupting on my arms. I keep my head down and wait to be exposed. Someone finally gave me up.

But this doesn't seem to be about me after all. Pearce takes his time surveying the quarters, then squats down by one of the boys, surveying his work.

"You missed a spot," he points out with a smile, and the boy seems to shake all over. He furiously polishes the offending area with his toothbrush, but I can see there's a yellow wet spot forming on the seat of his crisp white uniform.