Witch & Wizard 04 - The Kiss (23 page)

Wisty kicks away the shards of glass and lies down on the floor.

“No, tomorrow we need to get out of this prison,” she says, yawning. “And then we need to deal with Bloom, and the Mountain King, and especially Pearce. Tomorrow’s booked.”

I ball my jacket up into a pillow and lie down next to her on the crude floor.

“And find food,” I add as my stomach growls. “Okay, so maybe we’ll work on good, happy magic the day after tomorrow.”

“Deal.”

Chapter 71

Wisty

WORST NIGHT OF SLEEP EVER.

I’m already having a seriously rough time on the hard floor of our prison cell when I groggily make out the hollow sound of something tapping against metal. Then a tug on the chain at my foot jerks me fully awake, and I open my eyes, annoyed now.

I look around for whoever thought it would be hilarious to make life just a little worse by depriving me of sleep, but I don’t see any guards outside our cell.

No. I see someone else. Someone I wasn’t expecting at all.

I see Heath.

“What are you doing here?” I gasp, too loud, and Whit shifts in his sleep.

I step carefully over my brother and face Heath on the other side of the bars. He looks as haggard as I feel—like he hasn’t slept in days.
Good.

“Heard you got some fancy new digs, and I wanted to check it out,” Heath answers, peering in. When I don’t laugh at the lame joke, he runs a hand nervously through his lush hair. “And I just wanted to see you. I
had
to see you.”

A tiny, pathetic part of my heart sings when he says that…. Fortunately, the rest of me remembers that I should hate him.

“I told you,” I whisper coldly. “I have no desire to talk to the spawn of evil.”

Heath rolls his eyes. “Come on, Wisty. You don’t really believe that. You think I’m evil? After everything we’ve been through together?”

I shift uncomfortably and he must see me falter, because he gives me one of those looks that, even in the dark, is bright and intense.

“After all the sparks? The flames?” he purrs in his sexy voice, and puts his hand on top of mine.

“Don’t!” I snatch it away and cross my arms. “You betrayed me,” I hiss. “Please just go.”

“Will you at least let me explain?”

I groan, but I can’t deny that it’s been killing me, not being able to understand his story. I deserve that much, right?

I’m looking at him, debating, when Whit sits up. When he sees Heath, he throws himself at the door, more ferocious-looking than I’ve ever seen him. “Get away from my sister!” he shouts angrily. “Guards!”

“Shhh!” I hiss, trying to cover Whit’s mouth. “We’re just talking.”

Whit furrows his brow, and I can tell he’s hurt. “What about everything you said last night?”

I sigh. “I know. I just… just give me a minute, okay?”

Whit nods curtly and stalks to the other side of the cell, opening and closing his fists in frustration. “He’s a
liar
, Wisty,” he warns over his shoulder. “Just remember that.”

I turn back to Heath and narrow my eyes. “Talk fast.”

“Okay…” Heath says. “Well, my mom is a witch, and I guess years ago, she and The One had something like what we have—”

“Had,” I interrupt, and he winces, but continues.

“Long story short, she rejected him—for reasons I won’t get into right now—and he went really crazy, fell in love with his own power instead, took over the City, and… you know the rest.”

Boy, do I ever.

“Uh-huh. And where were you in all this?” I ask.

“My mom kept me on the Mountain with my grandfather, but the old man was just as terrible. Controlling, maniacal. My mother tried to protect me from him, but I still have the scars.”

Harden your emotions
, I think, but still inch my hand a bit closer to his on the bars.

“Life on the Mountain was stifling,” he continues, “so I ran away to be with my father. I thought I could win his love, but…”

He clenches his jaw, and I can see the pain there, the rejection, still so raw, and my heart breaks for him. I just want to hug him, to hold him and protect him and… forgive him.

“When he died I just wanted a fresh start,” Heath says. “You know?”

“I’ve heard
that
before,” Whit huffs.

I shoot my brother an annoyed look, and he holds his hands up and walks to the far end of the cell, pacing angrily.

“But how could you not tell me that your dad was The One?” I ask. “I mean, come on! That’s a pretty big deal!”

Heath shrugs dejectedly. “Because I didn’t want to lose you.” He looks up at me, his brilliant eyes shining. “Because I was in love with you.”

My resolve softens at the sound of those words. We never said them aloud, but I know both of us felt them. It echoes in my thoughts:
I was in love with you
. Why, oh
why
do I only have to hear that in the past tense?

“Were,” I murmur, but in my head, it’s a question.

“I’m
still
in love with you, Wisty. Whether you like it or not.”

He reaches his hand through the cell bars, and I let him touch my face. Even though I shouldn’t, I reach up and put my hand over his.

“Don’t
touch
her!” my brother growls from a few paces away. “You have some nerve, creep,” he adds.

“As you command, Wizard.” Heath surprises me by gracefully slipping his hand out from mine and withdrawing it from the cell. Ever the gentleman.

I chew my lip anxiously. Can I forgive him? I don’t know if I’m ready to let Heath back into my heart completely right away, but maybe we can start over, try again….

Then I remember something that Heath still hasn’t explained.

“I just have one more question….” I say, and Heath looks at me expectantly. “Why were you working with the Mountain King?”

“What?”

“I saw you, on Bloom’s film. Why were you working for your grandfather if you believe he’s an abusive maniac?”

Heath blinks and lets out a slow breath. “I…” He taps the bars, stalling, and I glare at him impatiently. “I can’t talk about that right now. But I promise, if you just trust me, everything will make sense, soon. Very soon.”

“Trust you?” I repeat, and he nods. “We’re going to war,” I say angrily. “Bloom is going to shove us onto the battlefield and let us be slaughtered by the Wizard King’s army, and you’re
working for him
. How can I trust you when you’re still lying to me?”

Heath sighs heavily. “Then this is good-bye, I’m afraid,” he says, pulling back from the bars.

Seriously?
I scowl at him. I can’t believe I almost forgave this creep.

“Next time we meet, you’ll change your mind about me, though, I know it. I’m going to make all of this right.”

“See you on the battlefield,” I mutter.

Chapter 72

Whit

A BUCKET OF ice water hits me full in the face and I shoot up out of sleep, gasping.

“You’ll regret that!” I sputter angrily, but a kick to the gut with a steel-toed boot makes me double back over.

Two guards grip me under the arms and haul me to my feet. As they start to hustle me out of the cell, I whip my head around, more shocked than when the water hit me, not comprehending what I’m seeing. Or
not
seeing.

Wisty is gone.

“What did you do to her?” I yell, wrestling against their grip.

But my body’s weak from the beating it took on the Mountain, and my magic’s weaker. The guards ignore my protests as they drag me down the dark prison hallway, my clothes still dripping.

The prison van they throw me into is packed, and the air stinks with the sour smell of sweat and unwashed bodies. Something else, too. The small space, the hunger, the heat… it starts to mix up inside you, and when it comes out your pores, it smells like fear—mine along with everyone else’s.

Let me repeat: My little sister is
missing
.

“Wisty?” I call out desperately. “Are you in here?”

No answer. My heart wilts.

She could be scheduled for execution. She could be suffering through torture.

She could be with Heath.

The door’s closing on me now—closing on my chance to find Wisty.

“No!” I lunge, and it smashes into my nose with a sickening crunch. Tears spring to my eyes, and a bright-white pain seems to explode behind them. I stumble backward blindly, but the space is so dim and packed with bodies that I instantly run into elbows and step on feet.

“Watch it!” someone sneers, shoving me. I slam into someone else, and in an already tense situation, it doesn’t take long before everyone’s pushing and shouting.

“Keep it down in there!” A guard’s greasy face leers at us through a mesh screen.

I pinch my nose and feel the blood pooling between my fingers.

“Tell me where my sister is!” I demand, trying to inch closer to the single window.

“In a dark, dark place, with nobody to help her, where nobody can save her.” I can smell the booze on his breath. “But don’t worry,” he says with a grin. “You’ll see her in Shadowland soon enough.”

Then he hits the side of the van twice, and we pitch forward.

From what I can see through the small slit of window, it’s madness in the streets. A group of frantic citizens surrounds the van. We can hear them pleading for help and protection, and when the driver lays on the horn instead, their voices get more threatening.

The van starts to rock, and we bump against the sides and into one another. Then the engine revs and the van surges, and I cover my ears at the terrible sound of what I fear could only be bodies underneath the wheels. And then our tires squeal along the road away from the City.

The van goes absolutely silent, except for the sound of a few people retching. It reminds me of how Mrs. Highsmith described the buses that took my parents to the ghetto.

I look at the bowed heads and slumped shoulders as the van sways. “I’m looking for my sister, Wisty,” I call out into the darkness. “Did they take your families, too? Are they moving us to the barracks to join the other magicians?” But expressions are hard to distinguish in this light, and each prisoner huddles into himself. “Does
anyone
know what’s going on?” I plead.

“I’m no magician.” A kid sitting on the floor with his knees pulled up to his chin scowls at me. “The magicians took my little brother. I’m not going to let some demon King take everything I have left.”

He can’t mean…

“Where are we going, then?” I press.

The light from the window illuminates the boy for just a moment. His fingers tighten around a clublike piece of wood—a rolling pin, I think—and his eyes seem to jump from their sockets.

“To the Mountain,” a gruff, older voice answers from the darkness. “To war. Where else?”

And a crude little kitchen tool is this kid’s only weapon.

Chapter 73

Whit

THE FIRST THING that hits me when the truck door opens is the bracing wind raging down from the Mountain. It brings back some seriously bad memories. The guard shoves me out of the truck in chains and I immediately start scanning the swollen crowd in front of me for a flash of Wisty’s red hair.

Hundreds of terrified people are sprawled across the muddy field that faces the Mountain. Up on the front line, the magicians stand chained in snaking rows with stoic expressions. And behind them, the volunteer soldiers from the Gutter toy with their pathetic weapons—lengths of pipe and hunks of brick.

No one is dressed for the icy cold. No one is dressed for battle. This is a disaster already.

“Have you seen Wisty Allgood?” I tug at arms as the guard pushes me forward, my voice rising. “My sister, Wisty? The famous witch?”

People shrug me off or scowl or stare blankly ahead. Their silence can’t mean anything good, and my mind jumps to the worst.
What are you hiding? Is it so bad you won’t say?
I want to shake them, to scream in their faces, but the guard keeps shoving me forward.

He locks me into one of the back rows of magicians—with the so-called traitors. Like everyone else, I keep stealing nervous glances up the Mountain.

Where’s the man who dragged us here?

I spot Bloom’s sour-faced cronies first. They’re the only ones who are really armed. Still in their suits, they hold salvaged guns from the old arsenal in a delicate two-handed grip, at least a foot away from their bodies. Every time one of them turns, the row of people behind them duck for cover.

There’s
Bloom. He’s actually near the back of the army with the stragglers, the coward. I can just see the gray blob of his toupee floating back and forth as he paces. Finally, our fearless leader faces his ragged army and clears his throat directly into an oversize microphone
.

“Good citizens! The Mountain Wizard rides today, but not to fear! The magic makers swear their dark power can be used for good.”

There are a few crass protests from the hoodlums in the back. Bloom holds up his hands for order, but at the same time, he nods.

“I know, I know. But they claim to love our fair City, and I say let them prove it! Let them stand on our front lines and protect our honest citizens! And if any traitors have been aiding this villain, let them suffer at his hands!”

They’re really going to sacrifice us all?
That’s
Bloom’s war strategy?

I feel the panic building all around me, in the soft tinkling of chains as foot shifts to nervous foot. In the twitching muscles of almost still faces. I feel it in my bones before I can even hear the sound of horses’ hooves.

Panic.
Echoing closer. And closer. And closer.

I clench my fists together furiously, and flex every muscle against the chains. I want to fight, but not in the Wizard King’s war; I want to fight back
now
. I want to start a riot right here, to lock our arms and rush the stage and strangle Bloom with these chains until his nose bleeds and his cheeks turn blue.