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There’s a flash—not of light but somehow of blackness—and she’s gone. Wisty. My sister. My best friend in the world.
My little sister is dead.
Whit
IF I’M STILL DRAWING air, it’s not because I care about living.
The last person in the Allgood family that I knew for certain to be alive, the person who knew me better than anyone else in the world, the person who looked up to me in everything, is gone. What an incredible waste of an incredible life.
Wisty died while I watched, and I could do nothing to help her.
The One just vaporized my sister… and that monster, without any hint of conscience, doesn’t even seem to have broken a sweat. He throws his arms in the air like he’s just scored a goal, like he’s mocking the pointlessness of human existence. I go weak in the knees. I feel as if I might throw up as I hear a deafening roar of approval sweep down the concrete canyon of this city—a place that now seems despicable and evil and beyond repair.
The One has just achieved his biggest public relations triumph ever. He basks in the adoration—but his usual impatience and anger soon erupt.
“Silence!”
His command sweeps across the city, obliterating every other noise.
But I’m unmoved. Still shell-shocked. Numb everywhere, including in places that I didn’t know existed.
“My good citizens,” he thunders, without aid of a microphone, “this is a truly magnificent occasion. What you have just witnessed is the obliteration of the last significant threat to our stewardship of the Overworld! Wisteria Allgood, a leader of the Resistance, has just been removed from this dimension. Forever.”
He raises his arms again, and a new gust of wind brings a thin layer of ash and the horrible smell of burnt hair across the crowd. These “good citizens” begin cheering again.
I’d collapse to my knees, but I’m surrounded on all sides. Then, suddenly, there is space for me to move. The cheering turns to screaming and the crowd is surging—moving backward—and I see a fiery explosion erupting not fifty yards from where I stand.
I know that fire.
“Oh yeah!” I shout as the mere sight of it makes my heart almost burst with joy. “Oh yeah, oh YEAH!”
That’s my sister! Wisty’s alive! She’s just set herself on fire, and that, believe it or not, is a good thing.
Wisty
AS SURE AS I am Wisteria Rose Allgood, I have only one thought: I’m gonna burn everything and everyone around me. Burn it all down.
I’ll start with the death-drenched stage, move on to this ridiculously pompous plaza, then hit the whole cold city of stone—this disastrous nightmare of a world. Even if I fry myself to ash in the process, I am going to obliterate all of this, all of them.
The One Who Is The One just killed my friend Margo up on that stage from hell. I recognized her even with a hood over her head. Her purple sneakers and black-and-purple cargo pants were the giveaway. The silver streaks and stars on the sneakers were the final clue. Margo, the last punk rocker on Earth. Margo, the most fearless and dedicated person I’ve ever known. Margo, my dear friend.
Don’t ask me why that monster in the black silk suit was pretending she was me. All I know is that I’m going to burn that evil madman to cinders.
So I turn myself into a human torch, just as I have in the past. Only this time I abandon all caution. Suddenly ten-, twenty-, thirty-foot tongues of flame are coursing around me, ripping upward in the formerly cool afternoon air.
The crowd backs away, screaming, and I can’t help myself: I smile. I nearly laugh out loud.
And I’m about to turn the heat up another notch—to send jets of fire everywhere around me, to burn brighter and hotter than ever before—when my breath catches in my throat.
I feel him. I feel his wretched, diseased mind. I feel his eyes somehow locking on to me.
A thousand soldiers turn my way in unison, and now it’s The One who’s smiling. He’s starting to laugh. And he’s laughing at me.
I wince as the air rushes out of me. How can he have so much power?
I have no choice but to run, at least to try to escape his wrath.
I throw myself into the panicked human tide, my small frame deftly ducking elbows and shoulders. But The One is too close. I can feel his icy gusts chasing me, reaching out with cold, bony finger–like wisps, grazing my face, my neck, sending a chill so cold it hurts everywhere at once.
