Witch & Wizard Read Online Free Page B

hall-monitor aspirations.
    Tossing a folder on the metal table, he nodded to the two guards, and they stepped back against the wall.
    “Have you been working out, Swain?” I asked, clenching my fists. “I mean, it doesn’t look it, but don’t you need to have at least
six
guards backing you up?”
    Swain’s face flushed bright red. “We both know why you’re here,” he said, pacing. “Hmmm?”
    The little twerp was trying to sound authoritative and manly, but his naturally whiny, nasal voice cracked through at the end of every sentence. His cold eyes didn’t leave my face. “The sooner you admit your secrets and tell us what we want to know, the better it will be for you and your freaky fire-breathing sister.”
    “Got no idea what you’re talking about, skippy,” I said.
    His weaselly eyes narrowed. Suddenly he leaned on the table, getting nose-to-nose with me.
    “You can back off the drama-queen performance, okay?” I told him.
    “Are you two miscreants protecting someone?!” he snapped, ignoring my taunts. “Well,
they’re
certainly not protecting you. Your good friends have already told us everything we need to know. We’re aware of your drinking problems,
Whitford.
And we hardly need corroboration of your sister’s pyromaniac tendencies. But those are just the license plates on the truckload of information your ‘friends’ delivered up. It was beautiful. I mean, a handful of marbles couldn’t have rolled any easier.”
    “That right?” I said. “Like, they told you where I keep my stash of doughnut holes? My gaming cheat codes? The D on my last bio test that my folks don’t know about? Somehow, getting grounded isn’t the threat it used to be!”
    “You almost flunked biology?” Wisty whispered as I watched a vein appear in Byron’s forehead. “Cool.”
    “Shut up, freak!” he roared at Wisty, who just stuck out her tongue. “I saw what you did earlier! You burst into flames! And you weren’t even hurt afterward! If that’s not sick and wrong, I don’t know what is! You think it’s bad, being here in this wussy prison? It will get a lot worse! Trust me on that, you deviants—a
lot
worse.”
    “You know, Byron,” Wisty said in her most insulting la-di-da voice, “
you’re
the freak, actually. We could put
you
on our secret voodoo witchcrafty to-do list.”
    At that, Swain snapped. Lunging across the table, he grabbed Wisty’s arm so hard she yelped. And then, the weirdest thing—and that’s saying something—a flash of blinding light leaped between my sister’s free hand and Byron’s chest.
    The creep squealed like a guinea pig and was thrown backward, falling on his butt near the astounded guards.
    My eyes nearly falling out of my head in disbelief, I looked over at my sister and realized she had just hit Byron with a lightning bolt.
    Lightning. A small bolt, sure, but
lightning!
From her
fingertips!
    “More proof!” Byron squeaked, his voice sounding extracrispy and his face almost purple. He was rubbing his chest, obviously horrified by the burn mark on his shirt. “You
are
a witch! You’ll be locked up forever!” He got to his unsteady feet and staggered from the interrogation room.
    “You’re throwing lightning at people now?” I asked Wisty. “I mean,
whoa.
”

Whit
    I MUST HAVE FALLEN OFF to sleep soon after Spud Swain’s visit. Then I woke in my cell with hot tears rolling down my cheeks.
    It’s not that I’m a total wuss, though I can be during sappy movies sometimes. I was crying because I’d just talked to Celia—in a dream, I guess it was a dream, but it felt so real to me. No, it
was
real. I remembered hugging Celia tight to my chest like we were on the most heart-breaking date of all time.
    “Hi, Whit, missed you,” she said, like it was perfectly normal for me to be seeing her again after all these months with her missing. “I’m trying to act casual, and failing pretty bad,” she said with a gentle smile. “Sorry.”
    “Celia, are