Afterglow (Wildefire) (32 page)

Shortly thereafter, the
Renaissance
blared its horn and pulled out of the dock. It took several hours after that for Johanna to completely lose sight of the New Zealand coast, at which point she knew she was far enough out to sea for what needed to happen next. She pointed her finger up in the air and fired a single firework, a flare that
burst into a million fireflies at the peak of its journey.

Joaquin was there in under a minute. She heard his lumbering footsteps on the stacked shipping crates before he even said anything. Still, she waited for him to come up behind her, draping his elephantine arms over her shoulders as affectionately as a giant his size could.

“It’s done?” Joaquin asked.

She nodded. “He came, just like Ashline anticipated he would.”

He spun her around and held her out at arm’s length. “And you’re positive you want to follow through with this?”

Johanna considered this for just a moment. She walked over to the shipping crate and ran her hands over the metal doors. If this were just about her, just about revenge, she might have talked herself out of it.

But Ashline and Evelyn Wilde had stopped Colt the last time, not out of malice, but for the love of their families.

Now Johanna had loved ones to protect too.

“Thousands of years’ worth of accumulated wisdom and memories,” she said, and she half-hoped Colt could hear her inside. “And all he had to do was learn from one mistake.” With that, she tapped twice on the shipping crate door and stepped away.

Joaquin lifted his head to the night sky. As the moonlight bathed over him, his eyes turned an inky black. His already rippling muscles swelled.

He walked over to the side of the shipping crate, pressed two hands and his shoulder against the metal wall. Drew in a deep breath.

And he pushed the shipping crate off the edge of the boat, into the water.

Johanna and Joaquin sat together with their legs dangling off the boat, watching as the
Renaissance
left the sinking container behind. The dark Pacific waters swallowed it before it even reached the end of the boat.

“You know, there’s a silver lining to Colt Halliday’s story,” Johanna said.

Joaquin slipped his hand through her hair and planted a kiss on the top of her head. “And what’s that, love?”

“If Colt hadn’t done all those awful things to get Pele back, Ashline would have never written that story . . . and I would have never found you again.” She smiled, and the moonlight illuminated the tears of nostalgic joy in her eyes. Her hands cupped the side of his face, and her eyes were a hundred years deep as she peered into his. “Some loves are too small for just one lifetime, Wesley Towers.”

Inside the shipping crate, Colt slammed against the wall, then the ceiling, as the container fell off the side of the ship. There was a tremendous
whoosh
as it hit the ocean and sank beneath the surface, at which point the crate’s rotation slowed. Meanwhile, water slowly trickled through the seams around the doors.

Two minutes and an eternity later the crate struck
the seafloor, and Colt’s world was righted again. He had to untangle himself from the chain, which had coiled around his leg like a metal boa constrictor while the container spun.

Miraculously, the antique lantern hadn’t smashed during his prison’s descent or been doused by the water, although from the dimming light he could tell it was almost out of fuel. He picked it up and started with some trepidation toward the corner where the “gift” Johanna had left for him floated in the rising ankle-deep water.

The three books were tied together with a red bow. His trembling fingers managed to unknot it on the third try, and he held up the book on top.

The title read:
Wildefire
.

He flipped to the soggy first page. The flickering light of the lantern illuminated the words in a vengeful crimson only long enough for him to read the very first sentence, before the lamp consumed the last of the kerosene and immersed Colt’s underwater prison in darkness for good.

“Ashline Wilde,” the book began, “was a human mood ring.”

Let me begin by saying that all young-adult authors, myself included, are neurotic, emotionally unstable worry-warts prone to extended periods of paralyzing self-doubt and angst—which is, I suppose, why we are so well-qualified to write from a teenage perspective.

On outward appearance, when you see us at book signings or author events, we may seem cool as a cucumber (an expression that I’ve never entirely understood, since most cucumbers that I’ve encountered have been room temperature at best). But in the three years since I entered the tumultuous world of publishing, I have yet to meet an author—debut or established, contemporary or fantasy, human or cucumber—who hasn’t developed Chicken Little syndrome in the weeks surrounding the launch of his or her latest book. This anxiety ultimately boils down to one question: Who on earth is going to read this book?

This goes doubly so for series authors, who after years of avoiding basic arithmetic, decide to dabble in the black magic that is calculus with nonsensical equations that look like:

If
x
people read my first book,

And only
y
% of those readers pick up the sequel,

And only 1/
z
of
those
readers bother with the third one,

Then how many marshmallows can I fit in my mouth at once?

But sooner or later you have to stop worrying about who’s not reading your book, and focus on the readers who have, and are, and will. Which is why I’d like to thank just a handful of the readers who have made this experience so rewarding, particularly Rachel Clarke, Cindy Thomas, Alexandra Cenni, Kari Olson, and everyone who has stuck with Ashline Wilde until the bitter end. Every tweet, message, e-mail, review, and carrier pigeon you’ve sent my way has gone neither unnoticed nor unappreciated.

To my favorite bookstore owner, Peter Glassman. If I could build a pillow fort and live inside one bookstore in this world, it would be Books of Wonder.

To my new editor, Kristin Ostby. It’s a somewhat thankless job to seize the reins of a trilogy on the third and final installment. Somehow, in the course of one summer, you were able to absorb all three books and still dazzle me with incisive, contemplative insight into my characters that had never occurred to me before—and I’ve lived with these characters for four years now. Your fresh perspectives have made me a better storyteller, and for that, I thank you.

To my former editor, Courtney Bongiolatti. I have
missed your wit and wisdom these last few months. But more than anything, I missed the opportunity to gloat when the Giants didn’t make the playoffs.

To Bernard Ozarowski and Lili Corn, for your hospitality in letting me crash with you and your seven hundred cats in the Lower East Side whenever I have an author event in New York City.

To Steve Dicheck, who you would think is my publicist based solely on the number of times he has whipped out his iPhone to show random strangers the eBook of
Wildefire
.

To Lydia Finn, who you would think is my publicist because she, in fact, is.

To Justin Chanda, Mary Kole, Laura Antonacci, Colin Riley, and all the hardworking bookworms at Simon & Schuster, Simon & Schuster Canada, and Andrea Brown Literary Agency who have given me the experience of a lifetime.

To Mom, Dad, Erin, Kelsey, Ray, and Victoria, for continually putting up with me even though my adolescence has clearly spilled over into my late twenties.

At the time that I’m writing this, it’s been exactly 997 days since I got a phone call from New York that changed my life. I only hope that the next 997 days make for a formidable sequel.

TEEN.SimonandSchuster.com

Also by
Karsten Knight

WILDEFIRE EMBERS & ECHOES

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2013 by Karsten Knight Photograph copyright © 2013 by Ashton Worthington All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.