James Patterson - The Gift

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.

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 be. Just when you, Wisty, had a chance of making a breakthrough, your overzealous brother crushed it. I mean that quite literally. I was this close to securing Wisteria’s Gift.”

Whit’s still holding me, but I manage to struggle up, squinting, dazed, the horrid vision of our parents lingering with me.

“Breakthrough?” I choke out. “Are you telling me that whole horror show was just another test? ”

“I’m not telling you anything, Wisty. At this point, I’ve lost my patience with you.”

“Wha -?” So maybe my parents aren’t actually near-starved war refugees guarded by a Lost Thing? This is good! My heartbeat is settling.

“What do you want from me?” I demand. “I aced your test in the Dynasium and then got so sick that I almost vomited up my toenails. That’s about as good as it gets. I’m no A student.”

“How wrong you are, my Wistful. I should have known you would have ignored what I taught you about the true potential of your power. We had higher hopes for you, but you’ve proven yourself to be just another teenager who disrespects the guidance of her elders. So terribly sad.” He sighs. “I daresay you deserve some punishment for wasting so much of society’s time and resources. But where do I start? So many ways to punish, and so little time.” He chuckles. “Perhaps we’ll begin by vaporizing your friend.”

My stomach drops. I immediately think of Janine. Or maybe he means Emmet…

“Mr. Swain!” The One announces.

“What?” Whit blurts out.

“I will now disintegrate your good friend Byron.”

I’m so twisted with all of the horror, anxiety, and relief of the past few minutes that I can’t help bursting out with a laugh. It’s a nervous titter, but a laugh nonetheless. Inappropriate, yes. And maybe even a little insane.

His Coldness drops his arms in utter surprise and looks at me with undisguised hatred. “What is so funny?” he bellows. “Your humor misses me completely.”

Whit’s laughing now, too. “Go ahead,” he says. “Weasels are immune to vaporization anyhow.” As if demonstrating that he is the first to succumb to isolation psychosis, Whit starts pantomiming a jumping weasel, dodging vaporization rays. So I keep laughing. I mean, it looks really ridiculous.

The One Who Is The One stares at us, dumbstruck. “Fine,” he says quietly, and turns to me. “In that case, it will be you! ”

I stop laughing. So does Whit.

“I’ll admit I’m rather pleased by the results of my experiments with your parents so far. I’ve been getting stronger and stronger… and they, well… you’ve seen the fantastic results.” He gestures toward the scene of our latest mindfreak. “Even if it was a holographic projection. My latest dynacompetent mastery, by the way.” He breaks out in a self-congratulatory smile, which I return with a glare. “At this rate, I may not even need you, Allgood children. So I present you, Wisteria, with a deadline: twelve hours. Exactly twelve hours to manifest The Gift in a manner in which I may… partake of it. If you don’t, it will be you and your brother that I execute.”

And then, with a wave and an incantation, he chills the whole basement with a heavy snowfall- from the ceiling . The temperature plummets at least fifty degrees.

“That should help you concentrate,” he says. “I feel that the cold works wonders on most students.” And he swirls out of the room.

Wisty

AND THE SNOW JUST keeps falling.

My new definition of evil: anyone who makes me hate something that I love. Such as: I think I might hate chocolate now. That’s criminal. It’s the BNW Center’s fault. I think I hate Celia for driving Whit half mad. Definitely the N.O.’s fault. Now The One has made me hate snow. Which I used to adore.

I remember how, every snowfall, Whit and I would be outside finding a way to go sledding, no matter how old we were. The only thing that changed was how daring we’d get, even going down hills that had a “frozen” (we hoped) pond at the bottom. In recent years he’d even drag Celia along, and I must admit, I loved watching the two of them together. They were so happy being with each other.