The Gift

think that if I ask them to join hands one more time, everybody is going to start crying. Even bouncy Emmet has dark bags under his eyes. “Wisty,” he says, “shouldn’t we come up with another plan?”

My eyes follow the planes. “They’re not coming our way. They’re veering off toward -”

“Where we came from,” finishes Whit with a shudder. “Garfunkel’s.”

We don’t know if someone got their intel messed up on the New Order side, but they must think we’re still there. Because they proceed to drop what seems like their entire N.O. arsenal on the center of the town behind us. Right where Garfunkel’s is.

Or was.

Where some of the Resistance kids were still hiding out, after refusing to leave with the rest of us. They’d thought our quest was a suicide mission.

I look at Whit, and he’s squinting hard, obviously holding back tears. We watch as the store-and maybe even those kids-all go up in flames.

We’re mesmerized by the twisted fireworks finale until Sasha calls out again. He’s pointing toward the horizon-a horizon that’s disappearing under a black cloud… that isn’t a cloud at all. It’s still more New Order planes.

And under the black cloud are gray curtains, the way you can sometimes see rain falling beneath a distant thundercloud. Only in this case it’s not rain-it’s bombs.

As they hit the ground, there are eye-stinging flashes of blue light. We can feel the earth shaking, even from however many miles away we are.

Is it the beginning of the end? Or just the end?

Chapter 87

Whit

“LET’S GET EVERYONE UNDERGROUND!” I shout to Wisty. “I saw a manhole a while back. Maybe we can hide there.”

We manage to get the group to the manhole, and, as luck would have it, it’s an old steam tunnel rather than a sewer. Not the freshest air in the world, but the tunnel should be far enough underground to make us safe from explosions and flying shrapnel.

Once everyone’s in, Wisty pulls me aside.

“Unless you have any better ideas, I think you and I need to go to Mrs. Highsmith’s,” she tells me. “She’s powerful. She might be able to…” I don’t think she’s even sure what the woman can do for us.

“Give us options?” I finish the thought.

“Exactly.” Wisty nods. “Maybe even give us info about Mom and Dad. I just have this feeling she knows where they are…”

Just then Janine walks up to us, her eyes still tinged with red from watching our longtime home bite the dust. “What’s next, guys? Any bright ideas? Any dim ones?”

“Listen, Janine, we’ve got to go to Mrs. Highsmith,” I tell her. Then I put my hands on her arms. “You okay here with the group?”

“Yes, but…” Janine looks down at her black combat boots. I think she’s trying to hide that she’s getting choked up again.

I lift her chin gently and force her to look at me with those sage-green eyes.

“Why do I have this awful feeling that this is it? It’s the last time I’m going to say good-bye to you, isn’t it?” She speaks in a whispery voice. It sends a shiver rushing up my spine.

“The last time you’re going to say good-bye, yeah,” I acknowledge. “But not the last time you’ll see me. I promise.”

She can’t help the tears from spilling out of her eyes. My hands cup her face, and I wipe the streams away with my thumbs. Her hands slide down my arms to my wrists, as if she doesn’t want to let me go.

I’m not exactly sure what I feel for Janine. But I do know what I have to do right now.

So I kiss her sweetly. Long enough to tell her everything without words-some crazy, mixed-up jumble of admiration, appreciation, attraction. I feel all of those things for her right now. Deeply.

I don’t stop kissing her until Wisty’s finished saying her good-byes, and she tugs my shirt gently. “C’mon, Whit.”

I let Janine go, and she just nods. There are no more good-byes as Wisty and I climb the metal rungs up the manhole shaft to the war zone above.

Chapter 88

Whit

“YOU’RE LATE,” Mrs. Highsmith says through the intercom, buzzing open the building’s front door even before we can press her button. How did she know?

“We didn’t have an appointment, did we?” I ask Wisty, still mystified as we hurry up the stairs and find her apartment door open. And, in the kitchen, there’s that little old ninja lady, definitely looking more poet than ninja as she stands over a massive oil barrel that’s almost as tall as she is. She’s stirring something that smells pretty rank. She takes a sip and totally gags on her own brew.

This is the lady who’s going to be our game changer? Who can help save us?

“So we get to talk at last, Whitford. My crystal always revealed you to be a fairly good-looking young man, but now that I can get a nice, close-up view, I see you’re what they call a ‘hottie’ these days.”

Can I just confirm for you that it’s unbelievably creepy to be ogled by an old witch? I shift uncomfortably from foot to foot.

“Except you could learn to stand up a bit straighter, dear. Adds inches. Now, how did you two find the trip, by the way?” she asks as if we’ve just taken a little jaunt to Grandma’s house.

“Um, it was sort of… like, there’s a war going on out there?” I offer weakly.

Wisty sums up the hellacious journey of the last three and a half hours. “Let’s just say, Mrs. H., if you ever have the opportunity to sprint for your life ahead of a curtain of bombs that explode and burn so hot that the buildings and sidewalks and streets and the very dirt itself melt into glass… well, see what your other options are and embrace them with all your being!”

“Oh, I shall, Wisteria.” She laughs. “These old bones don’t sprint anywhere anymore anyway.” Can this lady be serious? “Yes,” she says, looking at me as if to warn me she might be able to read my mind. “It showed some real chutzpah, making the decision to come here through all of that. Your parents are very proud of you.”

“How do you know that?” Wisty blurts.

“Have you heard from them?” I ask at the same time.

“I have. And you are about to, my dears. I’ve been practicing my holographic technique and, wouldn’t you know, your parents just popped up!”

Wisty and I look at each other. “Isn’t that the same thing The One was talking about back at the BNW Center?” I exclaim, first with surprise, then with horror. For all we know, this strange little lady might be partners with the guy.

“But it’s not… real, is it?” Wisty’d hoped that the twisted hallucination of our parents