Prologue | FIRE AND WATER

One

HANNAH WILLIS WAS a second-year law student at Virginia, and everything that lay ahead of her seemed bright and promising—except, of course, that she was about to die in these dark, gloomy, dismal woods.

Go, Hannah, she told herself. Just go. Stop thinking. Whining and crying won't help you now. Running just might.

Hannah stumbled and staggered forward until her hands found another tree trunk to hold on to. She leaned her aching body into it, waiting for the strength to take another breath. And then to move another burst of steps forward.

Keep going, or you'll die right here in these woods. It's that simple.

The bullet lodged somewhere in her lower back made every movement, every breath an agony, more pain than Hannah had ever known was possible. It was only the threat of a second bullet, or maybe worse, that kept her on her feet and going at all.

God, the woods were almost pitch-black back in here. A quarter moon drooping over the thick forest canopy did little to light the ground below. Trees were shadows. Thorns and brambles were invisible in the underbrush; they pierced and raked her legs bloody as she pushed through. What little she'd been wearing to begin with—just an expensive black lace teddy—now hung in shreds off her shoulders.

None of that mattered, though, or even registered with Hannah anymore. The only clear thought that cut through the pain, and the panic, was go, girl. The rest was a wordless, directionless nightmare.

Finally, and very suddenly—had it been an hour? more?—the low canopy of trees opened up around her. "What the..." Dirt turned to gravel underfoot, and Hannah stumbled to her knees with nothing to hang on to.

In the hazy moonlight, she could make out the ghost of a double line, showing the curve of a country road. It was like a miracle to her. Half of one, anyway; she knew she wasn't out of this mess yet.

When a motor sounded in the distance, Hannah leaned on her hands and pushed up off the gravel. Summoning strength she didn't know she still had, she stood again, then staggered into the middle of the road. Her world blurred through sweat and fresh tears.

Please, dear god, don't let this be them. This can't be those two bastards.

You can't be so cruel, can you?

A red truck careened around the bend then, coming at her fast. Too fast! Suddenly, she was just as blind as she'd been before, in the woods, but from the truck's headlights.

"Stop! Please stop! Pleee-ase!" she screamed. "Stop, you sonofabitch!"

At the last possible second, the tires squealed on the pavement. The red pickup skidded into full view and stopped just short of flattening her right there into roadkill. She could feel heat coming off the engine through the grille.

"Hey, sweetheart, nice outfit! All you had to do was stick out your thumb."

The voice was unfamiliar—which was good, really good. Loud country music was blasting from the cab too—Charlie Daniels Band, her mind vaguely registered, just before Hannah collapsed onto the pavement.

The driver was down there on the road a second later as she regained consciousness. "oh, my god, I didn't... What happened to you? Are you—what happened to you?"

"Please." She barely mustered the word. "If they find me here, they'll kill us both."

The man's strong hands wrapped around her, grazing the dime-sized hole in her back as he picked her up. She only exhaled, too weak to scream now. A cluster of gray and indistinct moments later, they were inside the truck and moving really fast down the two-lane highway.

"Hang in there, darlin'." the driver's voice was shaky now. "tell me who did this to you."

Hannah could feel her consciousness slipping away again. "the men..."

"the men? What men, sweetheart? Who are you talking about?"

An answer floated vaguely through Hannah's mind, and she wasn't sure if she said it out loud or maybe just thought it before everything went away.

The men from the White House.

Two

HIS NAME WAS Johnny tucci, but the boys back in his South Philadelphia neighborhood all called him Johnny twitchy, on account of the way his eyes jumped around when he was nervous, which was most of the time.

Of course, after tonight, the boys in Philly could go screw themselves. This was the night Johnny got into the game for real. This was man time. He had "the package," didn't he?

It was a simple job but a real goody, because he was alone and had to take full responsibility. He'd already picked up the package. Scared him, but he'd done just fine.

No one ever said so, but once you started making deliveries like this, it meant you had something on the family, and they had something on you. In other words, there was a relationship. After tonight, there'd be no more running numbers for Johnny, no more scrapping for crumbs in southside neighborhoods. It was like the bumper sticker that said, today is the first day of the rest of your life.

So naturally, he was pumped—and just a little bit nervous.

His uncle eddie's warning kept playing like a tape in his mind. Don't blow this opportunity, twitchy, eddie had said. I'm way out on a limb here for you. Like he was doing him some kind of big favor with this job, which Johnny supposed maybe he was, but still. His own uncle didn't have to rub his face in it, did he?

He reached over and turned up the radio. Even the country music they played down here was better than listening to eddie's nagging in his head all night long. Turned out, it was an old Charlie Daniels Band tune, "the Devil Went Down to georgia." He even knew some of the words. But the familiar lyrics couldn't keep eddie's voice out of Johnny's head.

Don't blow this opportunity, twitchy.

I'm way out on a limb for you.

Oh, fuck!

Blue flashers danced off his rearview mirror—coming out of nowhere. Two, three seconds ago, he could have sworn he had I-95 all to himself.

Apparently not.

Johnny felt the corner of his right eye start to twitch.

He goosed the gas; maybe he could make a run for it. Then he remembered the piece-of-shit Dodge he was driving, lifted out of a Motel 6 parking lot back in essington. Goddamnit! Should have gone to the Marriott. Got a Jap car.

Still, it was possible the stolen Dodge hadn't been flagged yet. Whoever owned it was probably sleeping back at that motel. With any luck, Johnny could just eat the ticket and no one would ever have to know.

But that was the kind of luck other people had, not him.

It took the cops forever and a day to get out of their cruiser, which was a bad sign—the worst. They were checking the make and the plates. By the time they came up on either side of the Dodge, Johnny's eyes were going like a couple of Mexican jumping beans.

He tried to be cool. "evening, officers. What seems to be..."

The one on his side, a tall dude with a redneck accent, opened the driver's door. "Just keep your mouth shut tight. Step out of the vehicle."

It didn't take them any time at all to find the package. After they checked the front and back seats, they popped the trunk, pulled the spare-tire cover, and that was that.

"Holy Mother of god!" one of the troopers shone his light down on it. The other one gagged at the sight. "What the hell did you do?"

Johnny didn't stick around to answer the question. He was already running for his life.

Three

NOBODY HAD EVER been any deader, or dumber, than he was right now. Johnny tucci knew that, even as he broke across the tree line and started slip-sliding down a ravine at the side of the highway.

He could hide from these cops, maybe, but not from the Family. Not in jail, not anywhere. It was a fact of life. You didn't lose a "package" like this without becoming one yourself.

Voices came from up the slope, and then dancing flashlight beams. Johnny dropped down low and threw himself under a clump of bushes. He was trembling all over, his heart was going so fast it hurt, and his lungs were heaving from too many cigarettes. It was almost impossible to keep still and keep quiet.

Oh shit, I am so dead. I am so, so dead.

"You see anything? See that little bastard? that freak?"

"Nothing yet. We'll get him. He's down here somewhere. Can't be far."

The troopers fanned out on either side of him, working their way down. Very deliberate and efficient.

Even as he caught his breath now, the trembling only got worse, and not just because of the cops. It was because he'd started to figure out what he had to do next. Strictly speaking, there were only two real options. One involved the .38 he had holstered to his ankle. The other, the package—and who owned it. It was only a question of which way he wanted to die.

And in that cold moonlight, it didn't really seem like much of a question at all.

Moving as slowly as he could, he reached down and pulled the .38. With a badly shaking hand, he fitted the barrel in his mouth. The damn metal clacked hard against his teeth and tasted sour on his tongue. He was ashamed of the tears coming down his face, but that couldn't be helped, and who would ever know but him anyway?

Jesus, was it really going down this way? Crying like a punk, all alone in the woods? What a crummy world this was.

He could just hear the boys now. Sure wouldn't want to go out the way Johnny did. Johnny twitchy. They'd put it on his gravestone—just for spite. Those heathen bastards!

The whole time, Johnny's brain was saying pull, but his trigger finger wouldn't do it. He tried again, both hands on the grip this time, but it was no go. He couldn't even do this right.

He finally spit the gun barrel out, still crying like a little kid. Somehow, knowing he was going to live another day didn't do a thing to stop the tears. He just lay there, biting his lips, feeling sorry for himself, until the cops got as far as the stream at the bottom of the ravine.

Then Johnny twitchy crawled real fast back up the way he'd come, ran across the interstate, and dropped into the woods on the other side—wondering how in Christ he was going to make himself disappear off the face of the earth, knowing that it just wasn't going to happen.

He'd looked. He'd seen what was in "the package."

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CHAPTER ONE

It's way too early in the morning for dead people.

That's what I'd be thinking, were I actually thinking clearly right now. I'm not.

The second I turn the corner on my way to work and see the crowd, the commotion, the dingy gray body bags being wheeled out of that oh-so-chichi hotel, I reach for my camera. I can't help it. It's instinct on my part.

Click, click, click.

Don't think about what's happened here. Just shoot, Kristin.

My head whips left and right, the lens of my Leica R9 leading the way. I focus first on the faces around me – the gawkers, the lookie-loos. That's what Annie Leibovitz would do. A businessman in wide pinstripes, a bike messenger, a mother with her stroller, they all stand and stare at theterrible murder scene. Like it or not, this is the highlight of their day. And it's not yet eight a.m.

I move forward, even as something inside me is saying, "Look away, walk away." Even as something says, "You know where you are. This hotel. You know, Kristin."

I'm weaving my way toward the entrance to the hotel. Closer and closer, I'm being pulled – as if by an undertow that I can't resist. And I keep shooting pictures as though I'm on assignment for the New York Times or Newsweek.

Click, click, click.

Parked at jagged angles, police cars and ambulances fill the street. ilook up from their sirens, tracing the twirling beams of blue-and-red light as they dance against the surrounding brownstones.

I spy more gawkers in the windows of nearby apartments. A woman wearing curlers takes a bite of a bagel. Click.

Something catches my eye. It's a refl ection, the sun bouncing off the rail of the last gurney being wheeled out of the hotel. That makes four. What happened in there? Murder? Mass murder?

They sit, gathered on the sidewalk – four gurneys – each holding a body bag. It's horrifying. Just awful.

My wrist twists, and I go wide-angle to shoot them as a group – like a family. My wrist twists back, and I go tight, shooting them one by one. Who were they? What happened to these poor people? How did they die?

Don't think, Kristin, just shoot.

Two muscular paramedics walk out of the hotel and approach a couple of cops. Detectives, like on Law & Order. They all talk, they all shake their heads, and they all have that hardened New York look to them, as if they've seen it all before.

One of the detectives – older, rail thin – looks my way. I think he sees me.

Click, click, click.

Having burned through a roll of film, I furiously load another.

There's really nothing more to shoot, and yet I keep firing away. I'm late for work, but it doesn't matter. It's as if I can't leave.

Wait!

My head snaps back to the gurneys as something catches my eye. At first, I can't believe it. Maybe it's the wind, or just my mind playing tricks early in the morning.

Then it happens again, and I gasp. The last body bag...it moved!

Did I just see what I think I saw?

I'm terrifi ed and want to run away. Instead, I edge even closer. Instinct? Undertow?

I'm staring at that zipped-up body bag, and all I know is that there's been a horrible mistake by the police or the EMS.

The zipper!

It's creeping backward. That body bag is opening from the inside!

My eyes bulge, and my knees buckle. Literally. I stagger through the crowd, staring through my lens in shock and disbelief.

I see a finger emerge, then an entire hand. Oh, God, and there's blood!

"Help!" I scream, lowering my camera. "That person is alive!"

The crowd turns, the cops and paramedics too. They glance at me and scoff in disbelief or reproach, shaking their heads as if I just escaped from Bellevue. They think I'm nuts!

I stab the air, pointing at the body bag as the hand pushes through the plastic, desperately reaching out for help. I think it's a woman's hand.

Do something, Kris! You have to save her!

I raise my camera again, and –

CHAPTER TWO

I JOLT UP SO FAST I nearly break my neck. I'm drenched with sweat, crying hysterically, and have no idea where I am. Everything is blurry, so I try to rub my eyes into focus, but it's hard because my hands are trembling out of control. Actually, my whole body is trembling.

I plead with myself, C'mon, Kris.

Finally, shapes begin to appear before me, followed by outlines . . . and, like a Polaroid, it all becomes clear.

It was just a dream, you spaz! Just a dream.

Collapsing back into my pillow, I let out the world's hugest sigh of relief. Never have I been so happy to be alone in my own bed.

But it was so real.

The body bags . . . a woman's hand coming out of one of them.

I turn to my alarm clock – a little before six a.m. Good, I can still get a few more minutes of sleep. But the moment I close my eyes, they pop right open again.

I hear something, a pounding, and it's not just my stressedout heart. Someone's at the door.

Throwing on the same blue terry cloth robe I've had since my Boston College days, I trudge across my tiny apartment, which is decorated with the very finest furnishings from the Crate & Barrel factory-reject sale. So what if my couch has only three legs and belongs in a Farrelly brothers movie?

The pounding gets louder. More urgent and annoying.

All right already, hold your horses!

Approaching the door, I don't call out and ask who it is. That's what peepholes are for, especially in Manhattan.

Quietly, I lean forward and squint to look with a tired eye.

Shit.

Her.

I open the door. Glaring at me through a pair of drugstore bifocals is my nosy old neighbor from down the hall, Mrs. Rosencrantz. She's clearly ticked off about something, and that makes two of us.

"Do you realize what time it is?" I grumble.

"Do you realize what time it is?" she shoots back. "Once and for all, you've got to stop this psychotic screaming every morning."

I look at Mrs. Rosencrantz – all four feet ten of her – as if she's the one who's psychotic. I may have been crying, but I certainly wasn't screaming.

"You know, if you really want to hassle someone about noise, Mrs. Rosencrantz, you should find out who's playing that music at six a.m."

She gives me a sideways look. "What music?"

"C'mon, you don't hear that? It's coming from . . ." I step into the hallway, turning my head left and right.

Wait – where exactly is it coming from?

Mrs. Rosencrantz shakes her head and huffs. "I don't hear any music, Ms. Burns. And if you're trying to be a little smartass with me, I'm telling you right now I don't appreciate it."

"Mrs. Rosencrantz, I'm not trying to –"

She cuts me off. "Don't think I can't get you evicted, because I can."

I frown at the old bat, who happens to look even more unpleasant and haggard than usual, if that's possible. You want smart-ass, lady? I'll give you smart-ass!

"Mrs. Rosencrantz, I'm going back to bed now . . . and if you don't mind my saying so, you could use a little more beauty sleep yourself."

With that, I promptly close the door on her stunned, sourpuss face.

I'm about to turn and make a beeline for my bed, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror by the coat closet. Whoa! I'm sporting some serious raccoon eyes and a pretty spectacular case of bedhead. Omigod, I look almost as bad as Mrs. Rosencrantz!

Supposedly, I have this killer wink that everybody loves. I wink at myself in the mirror. It doesn't help. I wink at myself again. Nope, nothing.

I laugh out loud, and for a moment, I forget about the horrible dream and my neighbor from hell.

But only for a moment.

Because I still can't figure out the music and where it's coming from.

Walking around my apartment like Elmer Fudd hunting rabbits, I press my ear against the walls. Feeling totally ridiculous, I drop to my knees and try listening through the floorboards.

Only after grabbing a chair to climb closer to the ceiling do I realize what's going on. The music isn't coming from anywhere.

The music is inside my head.

One

AT THE TIME of his formal sentencing in Alexandria, Virginia, for eleven known murders, the former FBI agent and pattern killer Kyle Craig, known as the Mastermind, was lectured and condescended to by U.S. District Judge Nina Wolff. At least that’s the way he took the judicial scolding, and he definitely took it personally, and very much to heart.

“Mr. Craig, you are, by any criteria I know, the most evil human being who has ever come before me in this courtroom, and some despicable characters have come —”

Craig interrupted, “Thank you so very much, Judge Wolff. I’m honored by your kind and, I’m quite sure, thoughtful words. Who wouldn’t be pleased to be the best? Do continue. This is music to my ears.”

Judge Wolff nodded calmly, then went on as if Craig hadn’t spoken a word.

“In reparation for these unspeakable murders and repeated acts of torture, you are hereby sentenced to death. Until such sentence is carried out, you will spend the remainder of your life in a supermaximum-security prison. Once there, you will be cut off from human contact as most of us know it. You will never see the sun again. Take him out of my sight!”

“Very dramatic,” Kyle Craig called to Judge Wolff as he was escorted from the courtroom, “but it’s not going to happen that way. You’ve just given yourself a death sentence.

“I will see the sun again, and I’ll see you, Judge Wolff. You can bet on it. I’ll see Alex Cross again. For sure, I will see Alex Cross. And his charming family. You have my word on it, my solemn promise before all these witnesses, this pathetic audience of thrill seekers and press hyenas, and all the rest of you who honor me with your presence today. You haven’t seen the last of Kyle Craig.”

In the audience, among the “thrill seekers and press hyenas,” was Alex Cross. He listened to his former friend’s empty threats. And yet he couldn’t help hoping that ADX Florence was as secure as it was supposed to be.

Two

FOUR YEARS TO THE DAY LATER, Kyle Craig was still being held, or perhaps smothered was the more apt description, in the maximum-security prison in Florence, Colorado, about a hundred miles from Denver. He hadn’t seen the sun in all that time. He was cut off from most human contact. His anger was growing, blossoming, and that was a terrifying thing to consider.

His fellow inmates included the Unabomber — Ted Kaczynski; Oklahoma City conspirator Terry Nichols; and Al Qaeda terrorists Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui. None of them had required much sunblock lately either. The prisoners were kept locked away in soundproof, seven-by-twelve concrete cells for twenty-three hours every day, completely isolated from anyone other than their lawyers and high-security guards. The solitary experience at ADX Florence had been compared to “dying every single day.”

Even Kyle admitted that escaping from Florence was a daunting challenge, maybe impossible. In fact, none of the prisoners inside had ever succeeded, or even come close. Still, one could only hope, one could dream, one could plot and exercise the old imagination. One could most definitely plan a little revenge.

His case was currently on appeal, and his lawyer from Denver, Mason Wainwright, visited once a week. This day, he arrived as he always did, promptly at four p.m.

Mason Wainwright sported a long silver-gray ponytail, scuffed black cowboy boots, and a cowboy hat worn jauntily back on his head. He had on a buckskin jacket, a snakeskin belt, and large horn-rimmed glasses that gave him the appearance of a rather studious country-and-western singer, or a country-and-western-loving college professor, take your pick. He seemed a curious choice as an attorney, but Kyle Craig had a reputation for brilliance, so the selection of Wainwright wasn’t seriously questioned.

Craig and the lawyer hugged when Wainwright arrived. As he usually did, Kyle whispered near the lawyer’s ear, “There’s no videotaping permitted in this room? That rule is still in force? You’re sure of it, Mr. Wainwright?”

“There’s no videotape,” answered Wainwright. “You have attorney-client privilege, even in this pathetic hellhole. I’m sorry that I can’t do more for you. I sincerely apologize for that. You know how I feel about you.”

“I don’t question your loyalty, Mason.”

Following the hug, Craig and the lawyer sat on opposite sides of a gray metal conference table, which was bolted securely to the concrete floor. So were the chairs.

Kyle now asked the lawyer eight specific questions, always the same questions, in session after session. He asked them rapidly, leaving no time for any answers by his attorney, who just sat there in respectful silence.

“That great consoler of mass-murdering prisoners, Truman Capote, once said that he was afraid of two things, and two things only. So which of these is worse, betrayal or abandonment?” Kyle Craig began, then went right to the next question.

“What was the very first thing you forced yourself not to cry over, and how old were you when it occurred?”

And then, “Tell me this, Counselor: what is the average length of time it takes a drowning person to lose consciousness?

“Here’s something I’m curious about — do most murders take place indoors or out?

“Why is laughing at a funeral considered unacceptable, while crying at a wedding is not?

“Can you hear the sound of one hand clapping if all the flesh is removed from the hand?

“How many ways are there to skin a cat, if you wish it to remain alive through the entire process?

“And, oh yes, how are my Boston Red Sox doing?”

Then there was silence between Kyle and the lawyer. Occasionally, the convicted murderer would ask a few more specifics — perhaps additional detail about the Red Sox or about the Yankees, whom he despised, or about some interesting killer working on the outside whom the lawyer had informed him about.

Then came another hug as Mason Wainwright was about to leave the room.

The lawyer whispered against Kyle’s cheek. “They’re ready to go. The preparations are complete. There will be important doings in Washington, DC, soon. There will be payback. We expect a large audience. All in your honor.”

Kyle Craig didn’t say anything to this news, but he put his index fingers together and pressed them hard against the lawyer’s skull. Very hard indeed, and he made an unmistakable impression that traveled instantly to Mason Wainwright’s brain.

The fingers were in the shape of a cross.

Prologue | YOU'RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE

Wisty

IT'S OVERWHELMING. A city's worth of angry faces staring at me like I'm a wicked criminal—which, I promise you, I'm not. The stadium is filled to capacity—past capacity. People are standing in the aisles, the stairwells, on the concrete ramparts, and a few extra thousand are camped out on the playing field. There are no football teams here today. They wouldn't be able to get out of the locker-room tunnels if they tried.

This total abomination is being broadcast on TV and the Internet too. All the useless magazines are here, and the useless newspapers. Yep, I see cameramen in elevated roosts at intervals around the stadium.

There's even one of those remote-controlled cameras that runs around on wires above the field. There it is—hovering just in front of the stage, bobbing slightly in the breeze.

So there are undoubtedly millions more eyes watching than I can see. But it's the ones here in the stadium that are breaking my heart. To be confronted with tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of curious, uncaring, or at least indifferent, faces...talk about frightening.

And there are no moist eyes, never mind tears.

No words of protest.

No stomping feet.

No fists raised in solidarity.

No inkling that anybody's even thinking of surging forward, breaking through the security cordon, and carrying my family to safety.

Clearly, this is not a good day for us Allgoods.

In fact, as the countdown ticker flashes on the giant video screens at either end of the stadium, it's looking like this will be our last day.

It's a point driven home by the very tall, bald man up in the tower they've erected midfield—he looks like a cross between a Supreme Court chief justice and Ming the Merciless. I know who he is. I've actually met him. He's The One Who Is The One.

Directly behind his Oneness is a huge N.O. banner—

THE NEW ORDER.

And then the crowd begins to chant, almost sing, "The One Who Is The One! The One Who Is The One!"

Imperiously, The One raises his hand, and his hooded lackeys on the stage push us forward, at least as far as the ropes around our necks will allow.

I see my brother, Whit, handsome and brave, looking

down at the platform mechanism. Calculating if there's any way to jam it, some means of keeping it from unlatching and dropping us to our neck-snapping deaths. Wondering if there's a last-minute way out of this.

See my mother crying quietly. Not for herself, of course, but for Whit and me.

I see my father, his tall frame stooped with resignation, smiling at me and my brother—trying to keep our spirits up, reminding us that there's no point in being miserable in our last moments on this planet.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm supposed to be providing an introduction here, not the details of our public execution.

So let's go back a bit....

Part One | NO CRIME JUST PUNISHMENT

Chapter 1

Whit

SOMETIMES YOU WAKE UP and the world is just plain different.

The noise of a circling helicopter is what made me open my eyes. A cold, blue-white light forced its way through the blinds and flooded the living room. Almost like it was day.

But it wasn't.

I peered at the clock on the DVD player through blurry eyes: 2:10 a.m.

I became aware of a steady drub, drub, drub—like the sound of a heavy heartbeat. Throbbing. Pressing in. Getting closer.

What's going on?

I staggered to the window, forcing my body back to life after two hours of being passed out on the sofa, and peeked through the slats.

And then I stepped back and rubbed my eyes. Hard.

Because there's no way I had seen what I'd seen. And there was no way I had heard what I'd heard.

Was it really the steady, relentless footfall of hundreds of soldiers? Marching on my street in perfect unison?

The road wasn't close enough to the center of town to be on any holiday parade routes, much less to have armed men in combat fatigues coursing down it in the dead of night.

I shook my head and bounced up and down a few times, kind of like I do in my warm-ups. Wake up, Whit. I slapped myself for good measure. And then I looked again.

There they were. Soldiers marching down our street. Hundreds of them as clear as day, made visible by a half-dozen truck-mounted spotlights.

Just one thought was running laps inside my head: This can't be happening. This can't be happening. This can't be happening.

Then I remembered the elections, the new government, the ravings of my parents about the trouble the country was in, the special broadcasts on TV, the political petitions my classmates were circulating online, the heated debates between teachers at school. None of it meant anything to me until that second.

And before I could piece it all together, the vanguard of the formation stopped in front of my house.

Almost faster than I could comprehend, two armed squads detached themselves from the phalanx and sprinted across the lawn like commandos, one running around the back of the house, the other taking position in front.

I jumped away from the window. I could tell they weren't here to protect me and my family. I had to warn Mom, Dad, Wisty—

But just as I started to yell, the front door was knocked off its hinges.

Part One | NO CRIME JUST PUNISHMENT

Chapter 2

Wisty

IT'S QUITE HIDEOUS to get kidnapped in the dead of night, right inside your own home. It went something like this.

I woke to the chaotic crashing of overturning furniture, quickly followed by the sounds of shattering glass, possibly some of Mom's china.

Oh God, Whit, I thought, shaking my head sleepily. My older brother had grown four inches and gained thirty pounds of muscle in the past year. Which made him the biggest and fastest quarterback around, and, I must say, the most intimidating player on our regional high school's undefeated football team.

Off the playing field, though, Whit could be about as clumsy as your average bear—if your average bear were hopped-up on a case of Red Bull and full of himself because he could bench-press 275 and every girl in school thought he was the hunk of all hunks.

I rolled over and pulled my pillow around my head.

Even before the drinking started, Whit couldn't walk through our house without knocking something over. Total bull-in-a-china-shop syndrome.

But that wasn't the real problem tonight, I knew.

Because three months ago, his girlfriend, Celia, had literally vanished without a trace. And by now everyone was thinking she probably would never come back. Her parents were totally messed up about it, and so was Whit. To be honest, so was I. Celia was—is—very pretty, smart, not conceited at all. She's this totally cool girl, even though she has money. Celia's father owns the luxury-car dealership in town, and her mom is a former beauty queen. I couldn't believe something like that would happen to someone like Celia.

I heard my parents' bedroom door open and snuggled back down into my cozy, flannel-sheeted bed.

Next came Dad's booming voice, and he was as angry as I've ever heard him.

"This can't be happening! You have no right to be here. Leave our house now!"

I bolted upright, wide awake. Then came more crashing sounds, and I thought I heard someone moan in pain. Had Whit fallen and cracked his head? Had my dad been hurt?

Jeez, Louise, I thought, scrambling out of bed. "I'm coming, Dad! Are you all right? Dad?"

And then the nightmare to start a lifetime of nightmares truly began.

I gasped as my bedroom door crashed open. Two hulking men in dark-gray uniforms burst into my room, glaring at me as if I were a fugitive terrorist-cell operative.

"It's her! Wisteria Allgood!" one said, and a light bright enough to illuminate an airplane hangar obliterated the darkness.

I tried to shield my eyes as my heart kicked into overdrive. "Who are you?!" I asked. "What are you doing in my freaking bedroom?"

Part One | NO CRIME JUST PUNISHMENT

Chapter 3

Wisty

"BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL with her!" one of the humongous men cautioned. They looked like Special Forces operatives with giant white numbers on their uniforms. "You know she can—"

The other nodded, glancing around my room nervously. "You!" he snapped harshly. "Come with us! We're from the New Order. Move one step out of line, and we will punish you severely!"

I stared at him, my head spinning. The New Order? These weren't ordinary policemen or EMS personnel. "Um—I—I—," I stammered. "I need to put on some clothes. Can I...can I have a little privacy?" "Shut up!" the first commando guy barked. "Grab her! And protect yourself. She's dangerous—all of them are." "No! Stop! Don't you dare!" I screamed. "Dad! Mom! Whit!"

Then it hit me like a runaway tractor trailer on ice. This was what had happened to Celia, wasn't it?

Oh God! Cold sweat beaded on the back of my neck. I need to get out of here, I thought desperately. Somehow, some way.

I need to disappear.

Part One | NO CRIME JUST PUNISHMENT

Chapter 4

Wisty

THE SERIOUSLY MUSCLE-BOUND MEN in gray suddenly froze, their blocklike heads whipping back and forth like puppets on strings.

"Where is she? She's gone! Vanished! Where'd she go?" one said, his voice hoarse and panicky.

They shone flashlights around the room. One of them dropped to his knees and searched under my bed; the other rushed over to look in my closet.

Where'd I go? Were these guys totally insane? I was right there. What was going on?

Maybe they were trying to trick me into running for it so they had an excuse to use force. Or maybe they were escapees from an asylum who had come to get me the way they'd come to get poor Celia—

"Wisty!" My mom's anxious shout from the hallway pierced the fog that had invaded my brain. "Run away, sweetheart!"

"Mom!" I shrieked. The two guys blinked and stepped back in surprise.

"There she is! Grab her! She's right there! quick, before she disappears again!"

Big klutzy hands grabbed my arms and legs, then my head. "Let me go!" I screamed, kicking and struggling. "Let. Me. Go."

But their grip was like steel as they dragged me down the hall to the family room and dumped me on the floor like a sack of trash.

I quickly scrambled to my feet, more floodlights whiting out my vision. Then I heard Whit shouting as he was thrown onto the living room floor next to me.

"Whit, what's going on? Who are these...monsters?"

"Wisty!" he gasped, coherently enough. "You okay?"

"No." I almost cried, but I couldn't, wouldn't, absolutely refused, to let them see me wuss out. Every awful true-crime movie I'd ever seen flashed through my head, and my stomach heaved. I nestled close to my brother, who took my hand in his and squeezed.

Suddenly the floodlights turned off, leaving us blinking and shaking.

"Mom?" Whit shouted. "Dad?" If my brother hadn't been stone-cold sober already, he sure was now.

I gasped. My parents were standing there, still in their rumpled pajamas, but held from behind like they were dangerous criminals. Sure, we lived on the wrong side of the tracks, but no one in our family had ever been in trouble before.

Part One | NO CRIME JUST PUNISHMENT

Chapter 5

Wisty

ONE OF THE MOST TERRIFYING THINGS in the world you can never hope to see is your parents, wide-eyed, helpless, and truly scared out of their wits.

My parents. I thought they could protect us from anything. They were different from other parents...so smart, gentle, accepting, knowing...and I could tell at this moment that they knew something Whit and I didn't.

They know what is going on. And they're terrified of it, whatever it is.

"Mom...?" I asked, staring hard into her eyes, trying to get any message I could, any signal about what I should do now.

As I looked at Mom, I had a flash, a collage of memories. She and Dad saying stuff like "You and Whit are special, honey. Really special. Sometimes people are afraid of those who are different. Being afraid makes them angry and unreasonable." But all parents thought their kids were special, right? "I mean, you're really special, Wisty," Mom had said once, taking my chin in her palm. "Pay attention, dear."

Then three more figures stepped forward from the shadows. Two of them had guns on their belts. This was really getting out of hand. Guns? Soldiers? In our house? In a free country? In the middle of the night? A school night, even.

"Wisteria Allgood?" As they moved into the light, I saw two men and...

Byron Swain?

Byron was a kid from my high school, a year older than I, a year younger than Whit. As far as I knew, we both hated his guts. Everyone did.

"What are you doing here, Swain?" Whit snarled. "Get out of our house."

Byron. It was like his parents knew he'd turn out to be a snot, so they'd named him appropriately.

"Make me," Byron said to Whit, then he gave a smarmy, oily smile, vividly bringing to life all the times I'd seen him in school and thought, What a total butt. He had slicked-back brown hair, perfectly combed, and cold hazel eyes. Like an iguana's.

So this jerk extraordinaire was flanked by two commandos in dark uniforms, shiny black boots that came above their knees, and metal helmets. The entire world was turning upside down, with me in my ridiculous pink kitty jammies.

"What are you doing here?" I echoed Whit.

"Wisteria Allgood," Byron monotoned like a bailiff, and pulled out an actual scroll of official-looking paper. "The New Order is taking you into custody until your trial. You are hereby accused of being a witch."

My jaw dropped. "A witch? Are you nuts?" I shrieked.

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Prologue | YOU'RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE

Wisty

IT'S OVERWHELMING. A city's worth of angry faces staring at me like I'm a wicked criminal—which, I promise you, I'm not. The stadium is filled to capacity—past capacity. People are standing in the aisles, the stairwells, on the concrete ramparts, and a few extra thousand are camped out on the playing field. There are no football teams here today. They wouldn't be able to get out of the locker-room tunnels if they tried.

This total abomination is being broadcast on TV and the Internet too. All the useless magazines are here, and the useless newspapers. Yep, I see cameramen in elevated roosts at intervals around the stadium.

There's even one of those remote-controlled cameras that runs around on wires above the field. There it is—hovering just in front of the stage, bobbing slightly in the breeze.

So there are undoubtedly millions more eyes watching than I can see. But it's the ones here in the stadium that are breaking my heart. To be confronted with tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of curious, uncaring, or at least indifferent, faces...talk about frightening.

And there are no moist eyes, never mind tears.

No words of protest.

No stomping feet.

No fists raised in solidarity.

No inkling that anybody's even thinking of surging forward, breaking through the security cordon, and carrying my family to safety.

Clearly, this is not a good day for us Allgoods.

In fact, as the countdown ticker flashes on the giant video screens at either end of the stadium, it's looking like this will be our last day.

It's a point driven home by the very tall, bald man up in the tower they've erected midfield—he looks like a cross between a Supreme Court chief justice and Ming the Merciless. I know who he is. I've actually met him. He's The One Who Is The One.

Directly behind his Oneness is a huge N.O. banner—

THE NEW ORDER.

And then the crowd begins to chant, almost sing, "The One Who Is The One! The One Who Is The One!"

Imperiously, The One raises his hand, and his hooded lackeys on the stage push us forward, at least as far as the ropes around our necks will allow.

I see my brother, Whit, handsome and brave, looking

down at the platform mechanism. Calculating if there's any way to jam it, some means of keeping it from unlatching and dropping us to our neck-snapping deaths. Wondering if there's a last-minute way out of this.

See my mother crying quietly. Not for herself, of course, but for Whit and me.

I see my father, his tall frame stooped with resignation, smiling at me and my brother—trying to keep our spirits up, reminding us that there's no point in being miserable in our last moments on this planet.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm supposed to be providing an introduction here, not the details of our public execution.

So let's go back a bit....

Part One | NO CRIME JUST PUNISHMENT

Chapter 1

Whit

SOMETIMES YOU WAKE UP and the world is just plain different.

The noise of a circling helicopter is what made me open my eyes. A cold, blue-white light forced its way through the blinds and flooded the living room. Almost like it was day.

But it wasn't.

I peered at the clock on the DVD player through blurry eyes: 2:10 a.m.

I became aware of a steady drub, drub, drub—like the sound of a heavy heartbeat. Throbbing. Pressing in. Getting closer.

What's going on?

I staggered to the window, forcing my body back to life after two hours of being passed out on the sofa, and peeked through the slats.

And then I stepped back and rubbed my eyes. Hard.

Because there's no way I had seen what I'd seen. And there was no way I had heard what I'd heard.

Was it really the steady, relentless footfall of hundreds of soldiers? Marching on my street in perfect unison?

The road wasn't close enough to the center of town to be on any holiday parade routes, much less to have armed men in combat fatigues coursing down it in the dead of night.

I shook my head and bounced up and down a few times, kind of like I do in my warm-ups. Wake up, Whit. I slapped myself for good measure. And then I looked again.

There they were. Soldiers marching down our street. Hundreds of them as clear as day, made visible by a half-dozen truck-mounted spotlights.

Just one thought was running laps inside my head: This can't be happening. This can't be happening. This can't be happening.

Then I remembered the elections, the new government, the ravings of my parents about the trouble the country was in, the special broadcasts on TV, the political petitions my classmates were circulating online, the heated debates between teachers at school. None of it meant anything to me until that second.

And before I could piece it all together, the vanguard of the formation stopped in front of my house.

Almost faster than I could comprehend, two armed squads detached themselves from the phalanx and sprinted across the lawn like commandos, one running around the back of the house, the other taking position in front.

I jumped away from the window. I could tell they weren't here to protect me and my family. I had to warn Mom, Dad, Wisty—

But just as I started to yell, the front door was knocked off its hinges.

Part One | NO CRIME JUST PUNISHMENT

Chapter 2

Wisty

IT'S QUITE HIDEOUS to get kidnapped in the dead of night, right inside your own home. It went something like this.

I woke to the chaotic crashing of overturning furniture, quickly followed by the sounds of shattering glass, possibly some of Mom's china.

Oh God, Whit, I thought, shaking my head sleepily. My older brother had grown four inches and gained thirty pounds of muscle in the past year. Which made him the biggest and fastest quarterback around, and, I must say, the most intimidating player on our regional high school's undefeated football team.

Off the playing field, though, Whit could be about as clumsy as your average bear—if your average bear were hopped-up on a case of Red Bull and full of himself because he could bench-press 275 and every girl in school thought he was the hunk of all hunks.

I rolled over and pulled my pillow around my head.

Even before the drinking started, Whit couldn't walk through our house without knocking something over. Total bull-in-a-china-shop syndrome.

But that wasn't the real problem tonight, I knew.

Because three months ago, his girlfriend, Celia, had literally vanished without a trace. And by now everyone was thinking she probably would never come back. Her parents were totally messed up about it, and so was Whit. To be honest, so was I. Celia was—is—very pretty, smart, not conceited at all. She's this totally cool girl, even though she has money. Celia's father owns the luxury-car dealership in town, and her mom is a former beauty queen. I couldn't believe something like that would happen to someone like Celia.

I heard my parents' bedroom door open and snuggled back down into my cozy, flannel-sheeted bed.

Next came Dad's booming voice, and he was as angry as I've ever heard him.

"This can't be happening! You have no right to be here. Leave our house now!"

I bolted upright, wide awake. Then came more crashing sounds, and I thought I heard someone moan in pain. Had Whit fallen and cracked his head? Had my dad been hurt?

Jeez, Louise, I thought, scrambling out of bed. "I'm coming, Dad! Are you all right? Dad?"

And then the nightmare to start a lifetime of nightmares truly began.

I gasped as my bedroom door crashed open. Two hulking men in dark-gray uniforms burst into my room, glaring at me as if I were a fugitive terrorist-cell operative.

"It's her! Wisteria Allgood!" one said, and a light bright enough to illuminate an airplane hangar obliterated the darkness.

I tried to shield my eyes as my heart kicked into overdrive. "Who are you?!" I asked. "What are you doing in my freaking bedroom?"

Part One | NO CRIME JUST PUNISHMENT

Chapter 3

Wisty

"BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL with her!" one of the humongous men cautioned. They looked like Special Forces operatives with giant white numbers on their uniforms. "You know she can—"

The other nodded, glancing around my room nervously. "You!" he snapped harshly. "Come with us! We're from the New Order. Move one step out of line, and we will punish you severely!"

I stared at him, my head spinning. The New Order? These weren't ordinary policemen or EMS personnel. "Um—I—I—," I stammered. "I need to put on some clothes. Can I...can I have a little privacy?" "Shut up!" the first commando guy barked. "Grab her! And protect yourself. She's dangerous—all of them are." "No! Stop! Don't you dare!" I screamed. "Dad! Mom! Whit!"

Then it hit me like a runaway tractor trailer on ice. This was what had happened to Celia, wasn't it?

Oh God! Cold sweat beaded on the back of my neck. I need to get out of here, I thought desperately. Somehow, some way.

I need to disappear.

Part One | NO CRIME JUST PUNISHMENT

Chapter 4

Wisty

THE SERIOUSLY MUSCLE-BOUND MEN in gray suddenly froze, their blocklike heads whipping back and forth like puppets on strings.

"Where is she? She's gone! Vanished! Where'd she go?" one said, his voice hoarse and panicky.

They shone flashlights around the room. One of them dropped to his knees and searched under my bed; the other rushed over to look in my closet.

Where'd I go? Were these guys totally insane? I was right there. What was going on?

Maybe they were trying to trick me into running for it so they had an excuse to use force. Or maybe they were escapees from an asylum who had come to get me the way they'd come to get poor Celia—

"Wisty!" My mom's anxious shout from the hallway pierced the fog that had invaded my brain. "Run away, sweetheart!"

"Mom!" I shrieked. The two guys blinked and stepped back in surprise.

"There she is! Grab her! She's right there! quick, before she disappears again!"

Big klutzy hands grabbed my arms and legs, then my head. "Let me go!" I screamed, kicking and struggling. "Let. Me. Go."

But their grip was like steel as they dragged me down the hall to the family room and dumped me on the floor like a sack of trash.

I quickly scrambled to my feet, more floodlights whiting out my vision. Then I heard Whit shouting as he was thrown onto the living room floor next to me.

"Whit, what's going on? Who are these...monsters?"

"Wisty!" he gasped, coherently enough. "You okay?"

"No." I almost cried, but I couldn't, wouldn't, absolutely refused, to let them see me wuss out. Every awful true-crime movie I'd ever seen flashed through my head, and my stomach heaved. I nestled close to my brother, who took my hand in his and squeezed.

Suddenly the floodlights turned off, leaving us blinking and shaking.

"Mom?" Whit shouted. "Dad?" If my brother hadn't been stone-cold sober already, he sure was now.

I gasped. My parents were standing there, still in their rumpled pajamas, but held from behind like they were dangerous criminals. Sure, we lived on the wrong side of the tracks, but no one in our family had ever been in trouble before.

Part One | NO CRIME JUST PUNISHMENT

Chapter 5

Wisty

ONE OF THE MOST TERRIFYING THINGS in the world you can never hope to see is your parents, wide-eyed, helpless, and truly scared out of their wits.

My parents. I thought they could protect us from anything. They were different from other parents...so smart, gentle, accepting, knowing...and I could tell at this moment that they knew something Whit and I didn't.

They know what is going on. And they're terrified of it, whatever it is.

"Mom...?" I asked, staring hard into her eyes, trying to get any message I could, any signal about what I should do now.

As I looked at Mom, I had a flash, a collage of memories. She and Dad saying stuff like "You and Whit are special, honey. Really special. Sometimes people are afraid of those who are different. Being afraid makes them angry and unreasonable." But all parents thought their kids were special, right? "I mean, you're really special, Wisty," Mom had said once, taking my chin in her palm. "Pay attention, dear."

Then three more figures stepped forward from the shadows. Two of them had guns on their belts. This was really getting out of hand. Guns? Soldiers? In our house? In a free country? In the middle of the night? A school night, even.

"Wisteria Allgood?" As they moved into the light, I saw two men and...

Byron Swain?

Byron was a kid from my high school, a year older than I, a year younger than Whit. As far as I knew, we both hated his guts. Everyone did.

"What are you doing here, Swain?" Whit snarled. "Get out of our house."

Byron. It was like his parents knew he'd turn out to be a snot, so they'd named him appropriately.

"Make me," Byron said to Whit, then he gave a smarmy, oily smile, vividly bringing to life all the times I'd seen him in school and thought, What a total butt. He had slicked-back brown hair, perfectly combed, and cold hazel eyes. Like an iguana's.

So this jerk extraordinaire was flanked by two commandos in dark uniforms, shiny black boots that came above their knees, and metal helmets. The entire world was turning upside down, with me in my ridiculous pink kitty jammies.

"What are you doing here?" I echoed Whit.

"Wisteria Allgood," Byron monotoned like a bailiff, and pulled out an actual scroll of official-looking paper. "The New Order is taking you into custody until your trial. You are hereby accused of being a witch."

My jaw dropped. "A witch? Are you nuts?" I shrieked.