The Paladin Prophecy Read Online Free PDF Page B

together .
    Will made a PB and J and wolfed it down as he prowled the house. He looked at the meager possessions they’d dragged around to six cities in fourteen years. They owned a small TV but seldom watched anything but news. All they did with their free time was read. Shelves lined every wall in the house—scientific, medical, legal texts.

#82: WITHOUT A LIFE OF THE MIND, YOU’LL LIVE A MINDLESS LIFE.
    His eye landed on a shelf of family photos. He picked up a picture of his parents on their wedding day, playfully feeding each other cake. Belinda wore a gathered velvet gown, her long black hair woven with lace. Dad sported a burgundy velvet tux and a doofus grad-school haircut and scruffy beard.
    Happy, laughing, carefree. He’d always felt a special connection to this picture, because he could glimpse the start of his own life in this moment, as if his spirit were right there, hovering, unseen: the spark in his parents’ eyes.
    He thought of the glimpse of “Belinda’s” eyes he’d gotten when her sunglasses had slipped down—empty, vacant—and compared it to the vibrant woman in this picture. That’s what was different. Her soul was missing.
    What had they done to her? Would they try to do the same thing to him?
    He heard a car door shut and peeked out the window. Three black sedans had stopped in front. Men in black caps and jackets were headed for the house. One of them, a bald man, was pointing and giving orders.
    Will’s chest tightened, and the air in the room clamped down: RUN, WILL. He fled out the back door, hopped the fence, and headed north. With a startled flap of wings, the little blackbird lifted off the fence and settled in a nearby tree. Two hours and change until Dad got home.
    Dad will know what to do .
*  *  *
    The bald man in the black cap jogged around the side of the house. Raising binoculars, he caught a glimpse of Will as he disappeared over a rise, sprinting toward the hills. He ordered the others to hold back and spoke into his wrist mic. “He’s on the fire road, headed north.”
    “Is he Awake?”
    “Hard to say,” said the bald man. “But we can’t take any chances. Bring me the Carver.”

PROWLER
    Will reached the trail beyond the last house at the end of the street and followed it up a slope to a locked gate at the base of the fire road. Slipping through a gap between posts, he headed straight up the fire road. The sun dipped low in the west, painting the slopes above him in vibrant crystalline light.
    Air pumped through Will’s lungs as he followed a series of severe switchbacks carved into the canyon. The road leveled off and ran flat along a ridge before grading up again. Deep thickets of chaparral and dried bramble lined both sides of the road. Sharp sunlight around him faded to dusk. He stopped to look behind him and noticed a strange circle of light farther down the hill, as if the sun’s last rays had shot through a huge magnifying glass. The light looked so intensely bright, he thought the brush might burst into flame.
    The weirdest day of my life , he thought. Dr. Robbins shows up right after the black sedan, the Prowler, and just before the fake Belinda. But if there’s a connection—and according to Rule #27 there has to be—what is it?
    The test. That had to be it. What if his score had raised a red flag that caught someone else’s eye? Someone whose interest in him wasn’t nearly as positive or benign as the Center’s?
    What if that test had set in motion whatever happened to his mom?
    Will heard an odd noise, faint and scratchy. Something was moving through the underbrush near where he’d noticed that peculiar circle of light, which had now faded. He heard branches cracking; it was a deer, most likely. These hills were full of whitetails. Then there was more rustling off to the other side of the road. Louder.
    Will stopped. The crackling in the brush stopped as well. When he ran forward again, the sounds picked back up, paralleling his