"Guess we've sold our souls," I say. "Now let's figure out where the heck we are and how to get back to Freeland."
As we make our way to the rear of the cramped space, we figure out we're inside a shipping container. I grab a few books for the kids back at Resistance headquarters-The Blueprints of Bruno Genet and The Thirst Tournament, among others.
"You ready to face what's out there?" I ask as we reach the door.
"Or who's out there," Wisty echoes warily. "Lemme get focused, in case I have to light up or something."
On the count of three, we roll up the container door.
And there, staring right at us, are… our parents.
Chapter 9
Whit
Well, at least it's their heads anyway.
Our parents' photos are on a twenty-foot billboard, their faces looking lost and lonely in this abandoned rail yard. And below their mug shots are words that never cease to chill our bones: THREE MILLION B.N. REWARD
For Information Leading to the Apprehension and Arrest of BENJAMIN ALLGOOD and ELIZA ALLGOOD for Heinous Crimes Against Humanity and the New Order Text messages to "Informant2020" or visit your local N.O. Intelligence Office
Sure, we know our parents are wanted criminals-for the same bogus reasons we are. But having it in black and white for all the world to see-and slapping the pathetic price of three million beans on their heads!-is a cruel reminder that this nightmare may never come to a happy end.
Wisty, as usual, reads my mind and throws me a semihopeful bone. "They're still free," she points out quietly.
"At least they were," I say, "whenever this poster was put up." The paper does look a little weathered-faded, frayed, and even torn at the edges. We both fall silent as the powerful smell of aging books' brittle pages-full of dreams, stories, tragedies, laughter, and imagination-seems to swirl out from the open door of the trailer and smother us with the bittersweet memory of home.
How can you make peace with something when you don't even know what that "something" is? We can't know whether our parents are alive or dead or being interrogated in a New Order prison or… banished to the Shadowland like Celia. Are they suffering? Is there anything we can do about it? Or are we as helpless and useless as I feel right now?
I punch the billboard so hard my fist goes right through the pressboard backing.
Then I pull my hand out and try to pretend it didn't happen. Wisty gives me a concerned look, and I shrug. I'm sure my knuckles are bleeding, but I don't feel a thing.
I glance at her worried, grief-strained face and quickly look away. I have an urge to hug her, but I need to show her that I'm not letting my emotions take over. I swallow a golf ball-size lump in my throat and take Wisty's hand. "Let's get out of here."
There are no people on the outskirts of this eerie town. Just broken windows in warehouses. Streets strewn with rubble. The only new construction appears to be enormous video billboards and loudspeaker towers.
As we make our way to the town center, I imagine what it might have once been like here. Quaint. I see a redbrick high school, jungle gyms, a park with a gazebo, an overturned tricycle. A pang of sadness grips me. It reminds me of our old town-church steeples, neighborhood grocery stores, and actual trees.
Now I'm even more homesick. For Mom, Dad, home-even school. A little.
"I wonder where everybody is," Wisty whispers.
"I don't," I answer, maybe a little too quickly. "I mean… I don't really want to know."
And then I hear this: "You don't?… don't?… don't?… don't?… Why, Whit?"
I whirl my head around. Wisty stares at me.
There was definitely a voice. And it wasn't Wisty's. Or mine.
It was Celia's voice.
Maybe this is a ghost town. Literally.
Chapter 10
Whit
I'm off like a missile to find her. It's as if I don't even have a choice. As if this is my fate.
"Celia!" I run through barren streets, past empty shops, a police station with no police, a boarded-up middle school, a movie theater… I don't see her, or anyone else actually. Everything seems so unreal here. Is it real? Am I dreaming up all of this desolation?
"Celia!"
"Whit, wait!" I hear Wisty's voice coming from behind. The slapping of her sneakers against pavement. She's trying to keep up.
"Stop! Whit, please! You don't know it's her! It could be a trap!"
I do know it's her. You never, ever forget the voice of the one you love. Whether it's a whisper or a scream or a distant memory, I know when it's Celia. I guess Wisty doesn't understand that. She's never been in love.
And then I hear Celia again. But not from too far away. It feels as if she's all around me somehow.
"You don't want to know?… know?… know?… What happened to us?… us?… us?…"
I can't stand it-Celia feels so close now.
Her voice is so loud that it's as if she's broadcasting right into my head. It's unbearable… but also the most beautiful, incredible kind of pain. Torture I'd beg for. Does that make any sense?
"I do! I do want to know!" I halt in my tracks, then I sink to my knees in the middle of the town square. "Where are you, Celes? I need to see you again."
"Look up, Whit. She's right there."
It's Wisty's voice, to my left. And when I raise my head, I see what she sees.
There is my girlfriend-on-screen. Celia, on a New Order propaganda board. Her gorgeous face is more than twice my height, and every inch of it is as smooth and perfect and beautiful as I remember it. It's as if she's a movie star.
Chapter 11
Whit
"Did you forget about us, Whit? Did you forget about me?" Celia looks sad, making this even more painful for me. "I guess I can't blame you for moving on."
"What are you talking about, Celia? I never forget you. Everybody knows that. I never stop thinking about you, trying to find you. People think I'm crazy!"
"Maybe you haven't totally forgotten me, Whit. But I'm talking about us. The lost, the kidnapped, the murdered. The Half-lights." I shiver at her mention of the sad souls in the Shadowland. "I'm really not… me anymore. I'm part of something… bigger."
"Celia, you'll always be you. The Shadowland can't destroy you. Not for me. Where are you? The real you -?"
"You don't get it, Whit." Celia breaks into my words and smiles wistfully. "I've got to give you credit, baby. You really are the most sensitive football hero who ever walked the face of this world. But you're like a lot of guys in other ways, Whit. You're such a boy. You see and care about and protect only what's right in front of you."
"No." I shake my head in disbelief at her words. "That's not true. You know it isn't."
Why is she trying to hurt me?
"Yes, it is," Celia says, her eyes boring into mine. "Case in point. Where's your sister?"
I whirl around in a three-sixty. Wisty is…
Gone?
"What the…?" I start tearing around the square, looking down alleyways frantically. "Wisty!"
This can't be. Has she been kidnapped?
"You have to start thinking bigger, Whit." It's torture-Celia's voice is coursing through me like a living force, and all I want to do is capture it, surrender to it. But my sister…
"I know you're scared," she goes on, strangely unmoved by Wisty's disappearance. "You just lost someone you cared about, and you don't know how to deal with it. Think about that, Whit. It's the key."
"Wisty!" I scream. The only response is the whisking sound of an empty plastic bag skimming across the town square.
"Whit-up here. Look at me. I'm here to tell you more that you don't want to hear. You and Wisty need to stop running away from the New Order. Stop running from The One."
"Never! I'm going to find Wisty, and we're going back to the Shadowland-to find you. Not an image on a screen!"