We"re deeper into the Shadowland than I"ve ever been before, and the lightening sky isn"t a comfort when the clouds are bloodred and the forest seems carnivorous. The trees, which appear to be made of bone? lurch toward us, whispering things I can"t decipher. I stop for a second, ears perked up.
"What is it?" Byron asks, but I shake my head. I can"t explain why, but I feel like I can hear Celia"s musical voice echoing through the hollow pa.s.sage, and I can sense my brother, as if he had been here not long ago.
"Nothing, I just think we"re on the right path."
Just then, a bone snaps behind us, and I jump a mile high. Byron lets out a yelp, which doesn"t exactly defuse the tension.
A low chuckle erupts at our expense. I whip around to see Pearce, calm and striking, blond head leaning against a tree, gazing with fascination at his prey.
My whole body tenses. I try to block it, but the kiss Pearce forced on me flashes in my mind again. Now just the sight of him evokes both shame and seething rage.
"You may indeed have been on the right path to find your family, Ms. Allgood. It"s a shame you"ll never reach them now," he says almost apologetically.
I turn to Byron. "Pearce is a Curve?" I whisper harshly, jabbing him in the ribs.
Byron grimaces and rubs his temples. "I probably should"ve told you, but I wasn"t sure. He"s younger than most of the N.O. soldiers and highly perceptive, so I suspected he might be."
Pearce smiles with smug satisfaction. "You don"t do me justice, Swain. I wasn"t just a Curve, but a former N.O.P.E. officer, no less. Not that it matters anyway, since The One Who Is The One has now breached the final frontier."
The realization blows my mind. "The One is in the Shadowland?" I murmur. The end. That"s what the rumor meant. "How ?"
"Oh, I"d guess that you helped him out with your little power surge back at the palace." Pearce chucks a bone at a tree across the path with surprising force, and it snaps cleanly in two. I"m guessing he hasn"t forgotten the power surge I gave him either.
He grins, and his sparkling white teeth look positively deadly. "But, regardless, The One has surely reached the rest of the Allgood family by now." He c.o.c.ks his head. "You remember watching your dear parents go up in smoke, don"t you, Wisty?" The pain hits me like a jolt of electricity, and my hands ball into fists.
"Of course I remember," I say through clenched teeth.
Pearce looks off into the distance, gesturing at a fake scene with his hands. "Well, imagine, if you will, your helpless parents and your weak joke of a brother being truly vaporized this time, from the Shadowland to the depths of h.e.l.l." He looks at his wrist as if checking the time. "That should be happening right about now."
That"s when I hurl myself at him.
Byron panics and tries to hold me back, but I"m practically foaming at the mouth.
"Wisty, you can"t!" He tugs at my arms. "Don"t make him stronger! Let me fight!"
I cast a glance at this scrawny guy, so hopeful, so reckless, such a good friend. "No, B. We"ll do it together," I tell him.
"Oh, this should be good." Pearce laughs. "The princess and the toad, joining forces. All right, then. Here we go."
Pearce walks up the tree as if unbound by gravity, then pushes off and pounces toward us, catlike. I duck, but he manipulates the wind to raise me up and catches me in the face with a stinging backhand. It hurts, but I know it"s just a fraction of what he"s capable of.
He"s playing with us.
I try to focus my power, but then he just disappears.
The air ripples behind us, and I dodge out of the way as Pearce materializes, but he"s already swiped a boot under Byron"s leg, sending him careening to the ground.
"I could kill you right now, of course, but you guys are just so much fun." He laughs, watching Byron scramble off the floor.
I s.n.a.t.c.h Byron"s hand and center all of my power through our connection, a raging, deadly ball of energy circulating through our fingertips and searing into Pearce.
"You still don"t get how this works, do you?" Pearce hovers above us, unfazed. "Tell me, how is it possible that the Prophecy could revolve around someone so imbecilic? You"ve made The One stronger, made me stronger. Every time you use your "Gift" " - he makes air quotes -"on us, we take a little more and you get weaker. You. Can"t. Win."
My anger fuels another astonishing burst of fuel through Byron and me, and Pearce winces. Light erupts around us, and I can feel the supernaturally powerful electrical current surging, stinging, smoking.
But though I may be ten times stronger than I"ve ever been, though we"re zapping Pearce with a current far more potent than what almost killed him at the palace, he"s right.
He"s stronger than we are. Still.
The realization hits me right as Pearce throws one of my own currents right back in our direction. The jolt tears through us, and Byron flies backward, ripped from my grasp. He lies twenty feet from me, his body twisted at appalling angles. Unmoving.
With the connection lost, I"m weaker than ever and can"t fend off this monster any longer. I try to scramble away, but he grabs at my hair with one hand, wrenching me backward and off my feet.
Pearce starts to get his claws around my head, and I wince, bracing for the end.
Chapter 74.
Whit MY TIMING IS perfect. I see Wisty caught in Pearce"s death grip, and alarm bells explode in my head. I"m seeing red.
I streak toward them from the woods and slam my whole body into Pearce with the force of a thousand rabid soul-suckers, pounding him to the ground. He"s wickedly strong, but in that moment he"s no match for my absolute need to save my sister.
He"s down, but probably not for long.
I rush over to Wisty, crumpled on the forest floor. Relief sweeps through me as I realize my sister is alive. She"s coughing and choking on the ground and she"s got a nasty welt on the side of her cheek, but she"s alive.
"Hey." Wisty eyes me, pain written all over her face. "I was wondering when you"d show up. Not that I didn"t" - she collapses in a coughing fit -"have the situation under control."
"Shh," I tell her. "Take it easy." But as I rub my sister"s back, I"m filled with debilitating fury. I survey the situation and see the pale, bloodied form of Byron Swain curled lifelessly against a stump.
I feel the color drain from my face. No one deserves to go out like this.
"Don"t. Move," I sneer as Pearce starts to get up, iron in my voice. "I"ll kill you where you stand."
Pearce smiles, jovial as ever behind those cold eyes. "Let me get this straight: You"re telling me not to move? I don"t think you quite understand who"s in charge of this situation here, whiz kid." His eyes flash a warning. "Or who is going to be the one to die."
I stand up and move away from Wisty, keeping on the b.a.l.l.s of my feet, keeping ready.
"You forget that we don"t have to fear you, Pearce. You can"t kill us. The One wants us alive, otherwise he can"t take our magic. You"re the only vulnerable party here." I try not to look at Byron"s mangled body off to the side.
Pearce laughs. "Ah, Whit. Naive, sensitive, idiotic Whitford Allgood. It may amuse you to learn that I"ve discovered a way to absorb your magic, actually. The only thing it requires is your death. The thing is, if I kill you, I"ll grow even stronger. Then the only part left to do - and I"m really sad you"re going to miss out on this - will be to bring your beloved sister back to The One to do the honors of the slaughter."
His face changes, and I see that he"s got his own agenda behind that loyal mask. "That is, if I feel like it. I don"t really need his a.s.sistance at all anymore, if we"re being honest."
Chapter 75.
Whit MY HANDS ARE balled into fists, but sweat still pools in my palms as we maneuver around each other.
As I step over Byron"s motionless body - one arm still flung across his head protectively, the other reaching for my sister - I feel such hatred for Pearce that I"m surprised I"m not the one shooting fire.
He is going to pay.
I"m angry but not stupid. I try to keep my distance from him at first, crouching low and moving slowly through the eerie red light, antic.i.p.ating his first move. He"s uncharacteristically silent, which puts me even more on edge.
Considering our last encounter, I expected Pearce to be afraid of me, or at least to show some respect. Instead he exudes confidence with that taunting little smile. He stays on the offensive, his long strides pushing me farther and farther into the woods, where the volume of magic is increasingly oppressive.
I"m dizzy before the fight even starts.
Soon the path narrows, the arms of the bone trees reaching for us like hungry demons. He"s got me backed into a corner. I"ve beaten Pearce before, but I"ll be honest, there"s no way I can take his being anywhere near my skull again. If I close my eyes, I can almost still feel the white-hot pain searing through my temples.
I look at this kid with his sociopathic stare, and my hands go cold, my pulse thundering in my ears. I"m confronted by my oldest enemy: Fear.
Then I remember my injured sister and my dead friend lying on the ground among the roaches and bones, and I lunge at the snake with a heart full of vengeance.
I"ve got him beaten on physical strength and bulk alone, but he moves quickly and athletically, effortlessly dodging most of the punches I throw. He must"ve taken my last "mano a mano" challenge to heart, because I"m seriously paying for it now. He clearly has extensive military combat under his belt, and soon I"m dripping with sweat and breathing hard.
The magic in this place is making me weaker, my punches clumsy. How stupid was I not to think about how this forest affected me the last time?
Pearce catches me in the side, and I stumble off the path into a tree, coming face-to-face with a decaying, grinning skull that snaps its jaws. When I turn from it in horror, Pearce is already coming at me again with a jaunty, almost playful step, and I finally start to realize that the odds are not in my favor here.
He seems vastly stronger now than he was before. He may be an arrogant jerk with delusions of grandeur, but when he says he doesn"t need The One"s help anymore, I believe him.
Which means I"m a bit overmatched.
I get lucky and nail him with a crushing hook to the jaw that should"ve downed him, but somehow he stays upright.
Pearce takes advantage with a jab in my stomach, quick and vicious. I bend at the waist with a shocked groan, and by the time I suck in a wheezing breath of sour air, he"s spun me into a deadly choke hold.
All I can think is You are a star athlete, Whit. How did this even happen?
I"m going to die here today.
And then he"s going to kill my little sister before she even gets to see our parents again.
I kick and flail, shoving my elbows into him, my face puffing up with the strain, but I can"t seem to break free from his grasp.
"Now, now, hold still, Whitford. This"ll only hurt for a second." He laughs cruelly. "Okay, that"s not really true."
I"m almost unconscious, and at first I think he"s going to melt my face, but that doesn"t seem to be on the agenda.
He"s suddenly grabbing my legs, compressing them all the way up to my stomach - no, into my stomach. My organs are being crushed. Imagine being disemboweled with your own body parts, the agony vibrating from both sides, and you might be close to where I"m at right now.
Looks like Pearce has been practicing a new death trick.
What information can I give him to make him stop? my mind screams. But of course I don"t have any, and he wouldn"t anyway.
And it just gets worse.
I can"t say what"s happening, but in every single cell of my body I feel the most excruciating pain, as if he"s forcing my limbs and torso inside my own skull, creating a human foolball of me. I can see his hands, but that"s all. I am beyond thought. I can only watch in horror as Pearce points a finger into the distant wilderness of the Shadowland.
"Go long!" he shouts to Wisty, whom I can"t see, though I can hear her pitiful begging, her useless sobs. "No? No matter. I"m sure one of the bone trees will catch him."
And then my compressed body is falling from his hands, only to connect with his steel-toed boot in a vicious dropkick that sends me sailing through the air. It"s all I can do not to howl. Instead I focus my strength on absorbing the blow, on reversing the spell, on anything but the inevitable.
The world turns itself inside out and back again as I spin through the air, barreling closer and closer to one of those mammoth trunks at astonishing speed, a car facing a head-on collision. Oh no.
No, no, no My skull smashes into a bone tree with the force of a freight train, but I don"t shatter. I don"t die.
I bounce.
As I whip through the air, my body is forced back out of the skull ball with seemingly no broken bones or permanent damage.
I"m alive, but I"ve never been more freaking ticked off in my life.
I hurl myself forward, rage distorting my features and my vision. I have time only to see the astonished look on Pearce"s stupid mug before I plow into his chest, clawing and thrashing at eighty miles an hour.
Safe to say he"s down for the count.
Chapter 76.
Wisty "WE SHOULD"VE CHECKED," I mumble to my brother. "We should"ve made sure we finished the job."
Whit and I are carrying the unconscious, wounded - but decidedly not dead - Byron Swain across the difficult terrain, and with every step I think I can hear Pearce trailing us.
"Drop it, Wist. I told you. He"s done. Let"s just focus on getting Byron to the river. We"re almost there anyway."
"We are?"
My brother nods, hiking Byron up, and my mind whirs. The only thing in my line of vision is the steep hill we"re trudging up, shadows snaking together in the dry gra.s.s. Behind us, the dark presence of the bone forest looms. But what"s beyond the hill?
I quicken my pace, struggling against Byron"s weight to climb higher, faster. I"m light-headed. I didn"t believe we"d really get here, that I"d ever see my parents again. I know that Whit has already seen them, but I shut out the thought anyway. If I let myself believe in the possibility and it turns out to be a mirage, like every other time we"ve seen them, I think it will destroy me.