The Gift

Chapter 74

A geyser of fluttering shapes erupts out of the city ahead of Byron Swain and momentarily casts a shadow over him and his team of N.O. killers. Though calling them a "team?? is being too kind, or at the least is imprecise.

They had certainly been brainwashed to kill the person they had smelled on the broken drumstick that had been thrust into their cages. They were definitely powerful and fast. They had teeth designed for tearing through raw flesh, and they had long, untrimmed fingernails that looked and sliced like claws.

And they were just kids. Once human kids. Byron isn't quite sure what they are now. Only that they are the best of the best at one thing: killing other kids.

He is certain that any one of them could take apart a full-grown adult in a single pounce. A whole pack of them set loose on one victim is utterly gratuitous, and The One knows it. It is as if he wants Wisty to be brought back in as many pieces as possible, Byron thinks bitterly.

His feral soldiers are always hungry and easily distracted by anything that moves-i.e., potential food. So when the strange flock of boxlike birds sweeps toward the horizon, the little freaks take off running.

"What the…?" Byron wonders, trying to make sense of the enormous cloud forming over the city.

Not birds, but… books? Flapping books?

There is only one explanation for such an outrageous sight. The One has the power to do it, but he would never set an entire library free.

Only Wisteria Allgood can. And she would, too.

"They're close," he whispers. At first his heart leaps at the thought. He can save her-it's what he is meant to do.

And then it crashes again. There is no point in saving Wisty, really.

"They're close!" he yells, this time to his crew, pointing ahead toward the majestic plume in the sky. "Find her!"

There is no hope for him or for this world, he knows-indeed, he knows so much more than the rest of the innocents in Freeland. So he will proceed with his plan.

Byron Swain and Wisteria Allgood will both die-together-at the hands and teeth of his own feral soldiers.

Byron hangs back a bit farther than usual. The young killers probably aren't intelligent or experienced enough to notice, but he doesn't want them to see him cry.

It's just that… his heart aches so much.