The Power Page 0,50

on somebody's legs.

Cassie heard the thudding of the tires as they drove over the bridge to the mainland. After that there were a lot of turns, and then a long ride on a bumpy road. When they finally stopped, it was very quiet.

They were in the middle of a forest. Birch and beech and oak, the native trees of Massachusetts, grew thickly all around. They let Cassie out of the car, and then the guys marched her into the woods. Cassie could hear the lighter footsteps of the girls following. It seemed like a long walk, farther and farther away from the road and any semblance of civilization. As dark fell, they reached a clearing.

Somebody had been here before. Logan's flashlight showed a fire pit, and ropes hanging from a tree. Portia and Sally - Cassie had been right, it was Sally - made a fire in the pit, while the guys tied Cassie to the tree. They used a lot more rope than Cassie thought necessary.

And she didn't like the look of that fire.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked Logan as he stepped back from tying her. When she could see their faces she could tell Logan from Jordan - Jordan was the one with shark's eyes.

"Because you're a witch," Logan said briefly.

"That's a reason?"

Portia stepped forward. "You lied," she said accusingly. "About the boy on the beach, about everything. All the time, you were a witch yourself."

"I wasn't then," Cassie said, trying to keep her voice steady. "I am now."

"Then you admit it. Well, we're going to do now what we should have done then."

A hard fist of fear clenched in Cassie's stomach, and she looked at the fire again. Jordan was putting something in it, something long and metal.

I'm in trouble, Cassie realized. I am in very, very bad trouble.

She needed help. She knew that, and knew of only one way to call for it. Her only weapon was her power.

All right, she told herself; do what you did to call to Sean. Get ready, stay calm - now.

Adam, she tried to call to him with her mind. Adam, it's Cassie. I'm in trouble. She wished she had the chalcedony rose to hold while she called; Adam had told her it would help make contact with him. But the chalcedony rose was Diana's.

Don't think about that now. Think about Adam. You need to make Adam hear you.

Adam, she called again, putting all her strength behind it. Strange that the ability to push with her mind, to do whatever she did to send the power lancing out, didn't seem to deteriorate with use. Instead, it was like a muscle, getting stronger as she exercised it. Adam, she called again, keeping the message simple and clear. It's Cassie. I need help.

He'll come, she told herself. He'll find this place somehow; he'll come if I can just stay calm and wait. It was the thought of what might happen before Adam came that chilled the blood in her veins.

So here she was, stuck in the middle of nowhere with four witch hunters. And the silence was getting on her nerves.

"The least you can do," she said slowly, speaking to Logan and Sally because she didn't think Jordan or Portia would answer, "is explain yourselves. You've got me out here, and the least you can do is tell me why you hate witches so much. Because I don't understand."

"Are you crazy?" Logan said, as if it should be perfectly obvious. Then, as she continued to stare at him, he said simply, "Because they're evil."

"Logan ..." Cassie searched his face in the firelight. "We're just like you. We're more - in touch - with nature, that's all. We study it and we celebrate it, and sometimes we can get it to do things for us. But we're not evil. Look," she said, as Logan turned away, "we have our faults like everybody else, but basically we try to be good."

"What about Faye Chamberlain?" Sally snapped, joining the conversation suddenly. "Is she good?"

"There's good in Faye," Cassie said, even more slowly. "Diana said that once to me, and it's true. Faye just has to find it. But anyway, you can't judge all of us by one person."

"How about what they did to the entire school for years? You're calling that good? They treated everybody like slaves!"

"That was wrong, I admit it," Cassie said. "But Diana didn't do that - if people treated her like a princess, it wasn't her fault. Faye was