The Paris Mysteries (Confessions #3)(48)

“Those barbarians!” Hewitt spits out vehemently.

I’m giving it every ounce of strength I’ve got, but I’m feeling exactly what Pearl’s feeling: my heart spasming, my lungs filling with blood, choking off my oxygen. My brain shooting off electric charges of terror.

I’m capable of thinking two things. The first: I faced down the evil Mountain King to rescue this kid, and I am not going to give up now.

And the second: how awful it is to die.

“Her blood’s going acidic—” Janine calls.

My eyes fly open and I see Wisty blaze in and skid to a stop, her eyes sparking in fear.

“Whit,” she cries. “You’re bleeding!” She stumbles toward me and a nurse grabs her, holding her back. Wisty pushes her off, but another nurse snatches her other arm, and now they’ve got her pinned.

“Let her go,” I gasp through intense throbbing, trying to keep focus on Pearl. I can’t let this little girl die. She’s like another sister to me.

The staff is no match for a determined Wisty, who shakes them off like gnats. Then she’s at my side, yelling.

“Whit, you have to stop. It’s killing you—”

Her voice sounds like it’s a million miles away. When she hits me, hard, on the arm, I can barely feel it.

“Blood!” Wisty screams. “Blood is pouring out of your ears!”





Chapter





2


Whit


I’M BLEEDING out of my ears? That might explain the agonizing pain in my head, like something’s inside my brain and chopping at it with an axe.

“More time,” I gasp. My hands are sticky with gore and the spells are gone. Pearl and I are racing together to the gates of Shadowland.

Then Wisty’s grabbing at my shirt, pulling me away. She’s screaming my name. No! I want to shout. I can’t leave Pearl now. Not ever. But Wisty’s using magic now, too—on me. She yanks me back against the wall.

Pearl’s eyes fly open, silver and unseeing. They roll back in her head. Then her body shudders—and goes still.

Wisty wraps her arms around me. “It’s over,” she whispers. “We lost her.”

I slide out of Wisty’s embrace and sink to the floor. “Exsanguination”: bleeding to death. A terrible word for an even more terrible fate. “No, I lost her,” I moan.

Wisty crouches down by my side. “It was too late,” she says gently. “No one could have saved her. Not even you.” Tears glitter in her eyes and she tries to blink them away. Behind her, I can see Mama May and Hewitt holding each other, rocking back and forth in their grief. I’m too wrecked to cry.

“Don’t listen to them,” Wisty urges.

I don’t know what she’s talking about. I’m numb. “Don’t listen to who?” I say flatly.

That’s when I start to hear them: all the nurses and doctors who watched the battle I lost to Death.

“Freak,” one of them says.

“No one should have such unholy powers,” says another.

And I realize they’re talking about me.

Janine’s voice cuts through the noise, pleading. “Please,” she says. “Be reasonable—he’s saved so many lives—”

But no one’s listening to her. The angry clamor builds until I want to cover my ears.

“He’s a monster.”

“He might have helped kill that little girl.”

I clench my fists until my nails cut gashes into my palms. Those people have no idea how much Pearl gave to me, to my family. How much she suffered, too.

“He needs to submit,” says a tall, sour-faced doctor.

Wisty stiffens and her cheeks flush red. “Don’t even say that word around me,” she yells.

The doctor’s face contorts into a cruel grimace. “Submit,” he says again. “Give up your dark magic. Both of you.”

He doesn’t care that Wisty and I stopped General Matthias Bloom from surrendering our City to the wicked Mountain King. Or that we defeated The One Who Is The One and ended his totalitarian reign of terror. No: all that matters to this man is how much he hates our powers.

Our powers—the phrase taunts me. How could I save an entire City but not one little girl’s life?

“Abomination,” says a nurse.

“Speak for yourself,” Wisty says defiantly. “I didn’t see any of you saving Pearl’s life.” Then she reaches out and grabs my bloodstained hands. “Get up, Whit. You need to show me you’re okay.”

I hear the fear in her voice, and I struggle to stand. As Wisty hurries me away, Janine catches my eye. But Mama May and Hewitt don’t look at me as they clutch each other in their overwhelming grief. I will never be able to make up for this loss.

When we get outside, the sunlight feels like a slap in the face. Pearl is dead, and everyone in the hospital thinks I’m a demon. Maybe even the Needermans do, too.

The sobs come now in a wretched-sounding torrent. “How could the Family do that to a little girl?” I croak.

Wisty’s face goes dark. “Actually,” she says, and then stops and shakes her head.

“Actually what?”

“The Family didn’t kill Pearl, Whit.” She swallows. “She was a member of the Family.”