Witch and Wizard_ The Fire - James Patterson [24]
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