Witch & Wizard 04 - The Kiss Read Free Page A

homemade fireworks, and Razz went nuts. “Those are mine!” he yelled belligerently. As a warning, Razz’s captor dragged an edge of jagged glass across the boy’s throat, drawing a thin line of blood, but Razz clenched his teeth, refusing to scream.
    The man who’d grabbed Pearl spun her around to face him, holding her off the ground, his giant hands wrapped around her throat. She was transfixed by his stare, so cold and empty. One eye was as milky as snow.
    Just as she started to see spots, the man threw her into the truck like a sack of garbage. Razz came hurling in after her, and he leaped up, clawing at the door. But the bolt had already closed, and the engine was rumbling.
    Pearl scrambled against the side of the truck, coughing and trying to get her breath back.
    “We didn’t hear a sound,” murmured Eddie from a corner, shaking his head. “Who can sneak up on us ? No one. These guys were like ghosts.”
    There were other kids inside the truck, too—a mix of gutter rats and rich kids, some stunned into silence, others all-out shrieking.
    “Shush! Stop being a baby!” Pearl hissed at one of the kids, then felt a little bad. “We got to figure this out.”
    Think, Pearl. Think.
    Her fingers fumbled inside her pockets, searching. They closed on something metal, and she exhaled. Her blade.
    She was deft with the knife, good at picking locks with her tiny fingers. But there were no screws or seams, and she couldn’t find a single weak spot in the metal; it didn’t seem like anything an ordinary man had made. And no matter how she worked the blade, the hard bolt wouldn’t budge.
    Pearl felt real panic rise inside her for the first time. These rough and weathered men were definitely not New Order—so who were they working for?
    And where were they taking her?
    There couldn’t be a new threat so soon. No way. Whit had said they were safe. He had promised.
    Pearl squinted through the bars, the capital’s distant lights blurring a little in her vision. They were already on the outskirts of the City. Soon they would reach the boundary line, and she had no idea what lay beyond.

Chapter 3
    Whit
    MY TURN.
    I am not an awkward person. But this is one of the most awkward moments of my life. Wisty lives for the spotlight, but me? I’d rather write the script.
    I step up to the small platform where Ross, the DJ, was spinning. Wisty hoots “ Woo! ” embarrassingly loudly, and Byron follows her lead with his best off-the-cuff cheer: “Go Whit!!”
    The Allgood magic has always felt kind of sacred, something not to be used lightly. I’ve used mine to escape from prison, heal the sick, and defeat the most evil dictator our world has ever known. But now that he’s gone, now that we’ve won, we all deserve a little joy. So, hey, I’ve been working on a new use for my M. I start with a poem.
    “Brush the ash from your bones.”
    I concentrate on the power building in me, and make it visual.
    “Cast aside your red tears.”
    The gathered crowd gasps in delight as a three-dimensional scene swirls behind me, morphing and changing with my words. The hologram isn’t much—just colors and energy. But it’s as beautiful as my sister’s fireworks, or the paintings on the wall. It’s a bit of performance art that has every soul in the place completely enraptured for a good five minutes. Until—
    My head throbs suddenly. I double over in pain as a bright light cuts through my vision.
    It feels like it’s slicing my brain.
    Janine grabs my arm, a worried look on her face. “You okay?” she asks quietly.
    I nod, standing up again. The hologram flickers behind me like static. I start reading the poem again, trying to get my bearings. Trying to get the energy back.
    “Weep for the fallen, stand against those you fear…”
    This time, as I continue, the expressions of the audience members change from concern to confusion and then shock.
    Something’s wrong. Something’s seriously wrong.
    I turn around, and the