Read Witch & Wizard 04 - The Kiss for Free Online

could see. His toes were all cut up and bloody. The King gave a clipped nod, and the boy winced, bringing a hand to his head. As Pearl watched, the boy walked to the wall… and began banging his head against it, over and over.
    “Be cleansed!” the other kids chorused in rhythm with the thunk, thunk of skull on rock.
    It was awful to watch. A stream of blood flowed from the gash on his forehead, but he kept striking himself, again and again, until the King finally turned away. Then the boy stumbled back, crumpling to the ground.
    Two more kids were called out, and the ritual repeated. Finally, when there were no more Failures, the brute dished out a large portion of food to everyone who remained.
    “New here, aren’t you? You still have the reek of the slums on you.” A gangly older girl sat down next to Pearl and the slum boys on the bench they shared with Eagle.
    “But we’ll be cleansed,” Razz echoed mockingly.
    “Better you’re up here than down there. The other gutter rats will be getting pretty thirsty, now that the King’s cut off the City’s water supply.”
    Pearl blinked hard as she thought of her parents, Mama May and Hewitt; of all her aunts and little cousins—all the other Needermans. Living under the New Order had been rough enough, but no water ?
    “No. The witch and wizard won’t stand for it,” she protested. “They’ll demand water, they’ll come up the mountain, they’ll—”
    “The King is counting on it,” Eagle said.
    A trap.
    “They destroyed The One Who Is The One! Whit could take on some stupid King.”
    “You sure about that, little girl?”
    “Of course I’m sure!”
    But she had been sure The One was the only threat to the Overworld. She had been sure Whit wouldn’t let anything happen to her. She had been sure her family was safe. She looked around her now, at the gaunt kids running the drills, and back at the leopard flag waving proudly overhead.
    In truth, Pearl didn’t know if she could be sure of anything anymore.

Chapter 9
    Whit
    “YOU’RE SURE THIS is the place?” I squint doubtfully at the blackened windows of a crumbling old video store near Industry Row—the Resistance’s new hideout.
    “It says The Tube .” Wisty looks at something written on the palm of her hand, and back up at the yellow letters painted on the side of the building. “That’s what Sasha’s friend Ross told me.”
    I yank on the door. “Then why is it locked?”
    “Dunno. I guess Ross forgot to pass along the info about the secret knock or secret entrance or whatever. We’ll have to find another way in. How about…”
    Her eyes flash, and she drums her fingers absently. I know that look. It’s got M written all over it. “Lead on, sister.”
    Well, being a cockroach wouldn’t have been my first choice, but I have missed morphing. That first tickle of power moving through your body is such a high, and the sensation of having six legs as I scurry after my witch-bug-sister under the door is definitely a first.
    It takes only a second to get in. The paint-coated space looks huge to my little roach eyes, which makes it all the more beautiful. Graffiti of mermaids swimming down the wall toward dinosaurs and marching soldiers crushing giant flowers look so real they seem to be growing right out of the wall. These are remnants of the inspired yet twisted visions of the repressed artists living under the New Order.
    Ross looms over us, a can of spray paint in hand, and Sasha almost squashes me as he steps back to admire the incredible mural. The others are crowded around a low table, playing a card game. Emmett looks relaxed, but Byron is sulking, and it looks like Janine is taking them both for everything they’ve got.
    “Hey, gang,” I say, morphing back into my human self. Beside me, Wisty does the same, shaking out her limbs, and Ross gapes at us.
    “Don’t worry, you get used to it,” Sasha promises him.
    “ You might,” Janine says, laughing. “I don’t think I’ll