The Gift

“Our parents are good people. They haven’t changed,” I tell him as we arrive at the door. “Just… do your thing, Byron.”

Byron’s trembling-in real or acted fear, I don’t know or care-but he nods and sticks his piece of wire into the keyhole and starts feeling around.

After a small eternity, we hear a click.

Chapter 61

Whit

I GRAB THE HANDLE away from Byron and press down on the thumb latch. We’re greeted with another click, and then I slowly push open the creaky door.

Unlike the rest of this forsaken pit, the corridor ahead isn’t even dimly lit. It’s pitch-black.

“Can you see anything?” Wisty asks from behind me.

“Let your eyes adjust,” Byron suggests. He’s hanging back a little, clearly not thrilled that he suggested this little plan but complicit now. “You’ll see. I think.”

After a pause, my heart stops for a beat. There’s definitely something moving in the darkness ahead of us.

“Mom? Dad?” I call out tentatively.

Wisty takes my words to mean I think I’ve seen them, and she bolts out from behind me.

“Mom! Dad!” she cries.

I feel her flying by me in the dark. “Stay back!” I shout, and with a lucky reach, I catch her by the sleeve of her jumpsuit. Just in the nick of time, too.

Because right then I hear the loudest, most terrifying growl.

Wisty’s breathless. “S’okay, Whit,” she whispers. “I’m good with dogs.”

“It’s not a dog.” Byron’s voice drifts in. “Trust me on that one.”

It’s the next voice I hear that sends my heart racing. Or skydiving.

“Whit? Wisty? Did I hear your voices?”

It’s our mother!

“Yes, Mom!” Wisty calls into the dark. “We’re here! Are you and Dad okay?” Wisty is struggling to get free of me, but I won’t let her go yet. This can’t be safe. Something’s very wrong.

Then our mother says, “Don’t come near us! Get away!”

I can feel it now. Something really bad’s going to happen.

Our mother and father don’t want us here.

Chapter 62

Wisty

A FLICKERING COLD BLUISH LIGHT from I don’t know where suddenly illuminates the end of the hallway. It’s like a scene in a horror movie shot in monochrome.

My parents-gaunt, sunken-cheeked, listless-appear to be shackled to a far wall. My mother’s formerly thick and curly hair looks flat and matted with sweat. Her eyes are bulging as she stares, alarmed, into the darkness. She’s not seeing us, is she? I don’t think so.

And my father’s eyes are… closed. His body is so thin, and he’s limp. Is he -?

I can’t even begin to imagine this. It’s so wrong and impossible to comprehend.

“Dad!” I scream again. And that’s when I see a hulking animal emerge from the darkness. My mother yells out a second time, “Go back! I beg of you! Get away from us!”

The creature starts pacing in front of our mother and father. Whit’s grip on me tightens. The creature’s flesh is falling off, its mouth drips blood, patches of its skull bone are sticking out all over the place through patchy, mangy fur.

Whose blood is that on its muzzle? Don’t let it be my mother’s and father’s -

Suddenly the light in the shapeless space is brighter. I see that the wires hooked to my parents are glowing blue, eerily like the ones in the Reward Center where they sucked me dry.

“We have to take out that thing, Whit! Now! I’ll do it if you won’t.”

Byron’s voice urgently whispers from behind, “No, Wisty! It’s a spirit-sucker-a Lost One. If it gets you, you’re done! Even you can’t defeat it.”

“I don’t care!” I scream, struggling harder against Whit’s grip. “I’ll burn you, Whit. I swear I will.”

“Wisty, just wait a sec.” Whit’s eyes have been locked on the scene in shock, but now he lets me go. “Ow!” he yells. “You did it!”

I’m glowing. I’m getting hotter and hotter. I’m a firebrand. Maybe, just maybe, my M is rising? “I can do this. Mom and Dad, I’m coming to get you… don’t worry!”

“No! Turn back!” Mom moans. “Get away! I’m warning you, Wisty! You, too, Whit!”

I start tearing down the corridor, and Whit is just a half step behind me. I knew he’d fight! The creature turns to face us and starts bounding toward me. I see bloody, clumped, rotting fur swinging under its jawbone. Then I blast through a virtual wall of its foul, stinking breath.

As I take a flying leap toward the creature, all I’m thinking of is a tigress tackling a rabid jackal in the wilderness, concentrating on the sensation of claws pushing through my fingers, sharp enough to rip this horrid beast apart.

Please, please, let my magic work -

And then I’m engulfed in fur, bone, and teeth.

Chapter 63

Wisty

THE SECOND THAT WHIT lands on top of me, we body slam the floor and the room goes dark. Everything is gone. The creature, Mom and Dad, the eerie blue light-all of it. And then… all is explained.

“Well, well, well.” We hear a voice behind us. And it’s not Byron’s. “Once again, you have ruined everything, Whitford Allgood.”

Whit and I are still recovering from the impact and seeing stars, but that dimly backlit caned figure, combined with that frighteningly familiar voice, equals bad news, the worst news possible.

It’s The One, of course, standing there in his dark business suit, long arms folded, right in front of me and Whit. Byron the Traitor Weasel is nowhere to be seen.

“Wondering what I’m doing here? Taking time away from my frighteningly full schedule?” he goes on. “Well, I’m afraid I received a call from the school headmaster. Seems you’ve not been the model students we’d hoped you’d