Witch and Wizard_ The Fire - James Patterson [56]
My breath catches. “It’ll never go out, Celia,” I choke. “I couldn’t bear it.”
She smiles, but it’s a sad smile filled with longing and untold secrets.
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” she whispers. “But right now, there are things you need to see in the Shadowland. Things all of you need to see,” she says as we approach the group of Resistance kids. “The others can come too. You too, Janine,” she adds as an afterthought.
Janine nods and looks away, and my ears heat up in shame. I want to take her hand, to explain, but I can’t.
Chapter 60
Wisty
I WALK TOWARD him, head held high, and for a moment time stops as The One and I take in each other, the disheveled, determined girl and the demonic dictator towering over her.
The fluorescent light flickers, casting gray-green shadows on his face. He looks garish, possessed.
Evil.
My confidence is zapped by his cold, cruel stare. I can’t do this. I step back from him, muscles twitching like a deer ready to bolt.
I turn, but The One grabs my wrist, lightning quick, nearly snapping the bones.
“Time’s up, child. I’m giving you the choice, the opportunity of an apprenticeship.” He twists my arm, his grasp fierce and unsparing. “Say you’ll take it, Wisteria. I’m losing —”
“Ah!” I grimace in pain.
“— patience.”
I swallow hard, concentrating all of my focus on the fantasy, the one where I’m able to strip The One completely of his power. It felt so real, so attainable, earlier. I have The Gift, right? I’m The Chosen One.
So why do I feel so small? Why do I feel myself shrinking from him, ready to forfeit?
And then in a flash I see that kid’s skin peel back from his head. I look at the cold glee on The One’s angular face, drunk with power, and I realize that there’s no time to hesitate, that it has to happen now.
The fire is building within me, ready to spark, and I laser in on him just like in the daydream. I distill every ounce of M I’ve been saving up, and I release it on this pathetic tyrant.
The One’s eyes widen as he looks down at my arm, flames licking through his grip. The heat is there, the fire, but it’s more than that. It’s control.
He makes a choking sound, and I feel the raw electric power pulse from my fingertips and connect with him. The One flies backward, crashing against the wall. He hovers several feet off the ground, clenching his manicured fingers and writhing in real pain.
It’s awful to watch, and I want to stop, to back off — I’m not connecting with his thoughts, can’t remember how — but I can’t look away. This is what I came here to do.
I send one final surge, and his limbs convulse as if zapped by a bolt of lightning, and he collapses in a heap on the hallway floor.
I’m too scared to move, too spent by this power to see what I’ve done. I don’t know what I’m capable of.
Could he be … dead?
But as soon as the thought crosses my mind, The One springs back up, his eyes insanely bright, and laughs weakly, the skin stretched tight across his stiff jaw, a puppet of horror.
“You’re doing it all wrong, Wisty. Backward. Oh, how it pains me.”
Then, as if he’s decided to relieve me of a great burden: “It appears that I am the only one who has any idea how to properly exercise your power. I can hardly bear the injustice of it. But perhaps we can strike a deal,” he offers with fake benevolence.
“I want to show you something. I want you to see my secret. I want to share.”
Chapter 61
Wisty
THE ONE ESCORTS me into his private quarters, through the entryway I recognize from earlier. He slams the door shut, and I flinch, claustrophobic with the sense that I may never get out of here.
I glance at the desk across the room, remembering the private, sensitive documents in there, and suddenly feel cold down to my bones, as if I’ve stepped into a walk-in refrigerator. Does he know?
He guides me across the room, maneuvering me with his hand on the small of my back, and I feel sick. I had him, but curiosity got the better of me, and now I’ve let