Neal Shusterman is ready to wrap his best-selling and award-winningArc of a Scythe series.

IntroducingThe Toll, the long-awaited conclusion to the books currently in development for adaptation at Universal.

And so, inThe Toll, constitutions are tested and old friends are brought back from the dead.

Credit: Gaby Gerster

Read on below.The Tollpublishes Nov. 5 and isavailable for pre-order.

Excerpt fromThe Toll, by Neal Shusterman

There was no warning.

Dont struggle, someone whispered to him.

Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing

It will be worse for you if you do.

He felt both bones in his right wrist snap.

Sharp painbut only for an instant.

By the time he rose to his feet, the pain was subsiding and his whole body felt warm.

It was his nanites, he knew, flooding his bloodstream with painkillers.

He stumbled forward, gripping his arm so his wrist wouldnt hang at a horrible angle.

he heard someone yell, Whats going on out there?

He would have run toward the voice, if he could tell where it came from.

What a terrible thing for his mind to lose its edge when he needed it most.

Now the ground beneath his feet felt like a shifting funhouse floor.

You couldnt make this easy, could you?

Well, we warned you.

He only saw the needle for an instant.

A slender flash of silver in the darkness before it was jammed into his shoulder.

His knees gave out, but he didnt fall.

There were too many hands around him now to let him hit the ground.

He was lifted up, and carried through the air.

There was an open door before him, and then he was out into a blustery night.

With the last of his consciousness fading, he had no choice but to surrender to the momentum.

His arm had healed by the time he awokewhich meant he must have been out for hours.

He tried to move his wrist, but found that he couldnt.

Not because of any injury, but because he was restrained.

Both of his hands, and his feet as well.

He also felt like he was suffocating.

Some sort of sack was over his head.

Porous enough for him to breathe, but thick enough to make him fight for every breath.

Although he had no idea where he was, he knew what this was.

It was called a kidnapping.

People did such things for fun now.

As a birthday surprise, or as an activity on some adventure vacation.

How could he not know?

I cant breathe in here.

If I go deadish, thats not going to help you, is it?

He heard some movement around him, then the bag was ripped from his head.

Three people stood before him.

Two men, and a woman.

He had expected that he might be faced with hardened career unsavoriesbut that couldnt be further from the truth.

Yes, they were unsavory, but only in the way that everyone was.

Well, almost everyone.

What heallegedlycan do, said one of the others.

All three of them wore rumpled gray suits, the color of a cloudy sky.

These were Nimbus agentsor at least they had been.

Nimbus agents resorting to kidnapping.

What was the world coming to?

Good student, but not great.

Expelled from the North Central Nimbus Academy for a violation of scythe/state separation.

And this is the slime that the Thunderhead chose?

said the third agent.

The one in charge put up her hand to silence them both, then leveled her gaze at Greyson.

She looked at him with a strange mix of emotions.

Curiosity, envy… but also a sort of reverence.

That means it’s possible for you to still talk to the Thunderhead.

Anyone can speak to the Thunderhead, Greyson pointed out.

Im just the one it still talks back to.

The agent with the tablet drew a deep breath, like a full-body gasp.

The woman leaned closer.

You are a miracle, Greyson.

Do you know that?

Thats what the Tonists say.

They scoffed at the mention of Tonists.

We know theyve been holding you captive.

Uh… not really.

We know you were with them against your will.

Maybe at first… but not anymore.

That didnt sit well with the agents.

Why on earth would you stay with Tonists?

asked the agent who, just a moment ago, had called him slime.

You couldnt possibly believe their nonsense…

I stay with them, said Greyson, because they dont kidnap me in the middle of the night.

We didnt kidnap you, said the one with the tablet.

Then the one in charge knelt before him, so they were at eye-level.

Now he could see something else in her eyessomething that overpowered her other emotions.

A pit of it, dark and as consuming as tar.

And it wasnt just her, Greyson realized; it was a shared desperation.

There werent enough mood nanites in the world to ease their despair.

He liked that they had to kneel down to him; it felt like supplication.

What could Greyson say, but, I feel your pain.

Because he truly did.

He knew the loneliness and the misery of having ones purpose stripped away.

It was there all along, watching over him.

There was an earpiece on my night stand, he said.

You dont happen to have that, do you?

And from their lack of response, he knew they didnt.

Such personal belongings tended to be forgotten during midnight abductions.

The man shook his head.

It doesnt work anymore.

Itll work for me.

Reluctantly he took it off, and affixed it in Greysons ear.

Then the three waited for Greyson to show them a miracle.

The Thunderhead could not remember when it became aware, only that it was.

Although that last part was something that the most enlightened still struggle to comprehend.

The Thunderheads awareness came with a mission.

The core of its being.

It was, above all else, the servant and protector of humanity.

Such as allowing Greyson Tolliver to be kidnapped when it served a greater end.

It was, of course the correct course of action.

Everything the Thunderhead did was always, and in every instance, the right thing to do.

But rarely was the right thing the easy thing.

And it suspected that doing the right thing was going to become increasingly difficult in the days ahead.

In the moment, people might not understand, but in the end they would.

The Thunderhead had to believe that.