The Dominion Key (16 page)

In other words, all the things I was going through right now.

The last time this happened, I ended up obliterating the GLOM. What if I did the same to Winston? I have to admit, after what he’d done to Dr. Fleming—and what he was about to do to Milton—I wasn’t too worried about Winston one way or another. But Milton was right beneath him. Anything that harmed Winston would probably do the same to my best friend.

The light slithered outward, moments away from reaching Winston. Something had shifted in his yellow eyes. All the rage was gone. Now they were filled with fear. He must’ve been witnessing this too. And so was Milton. I could see recognition in his eyes. As if he could tell that he was moments away from being swallowed up by a glowing blast of pure destruction.

I did everything in my power to focus my mind, clamping down my concentration like a steel trap. Willing myself to stop the light. Every cell in my body straining. Wrestling to regain control.

But none of it worked.

And the light continued to drift.

Closer and closer.

I made one final desperate attempt to rein in my Gyft. And this time something happened. The slightest flicker. I doubled my focus. The effort was like doing a thousand mental push-ups. But it was actually working. The glowing string of energy faded. My fingertips trembled—barely noticeable, yet still a movement. I focused the last ounce of
my willpower on pulling back the light, as if playing tug-of-war with my power.

At last, the glow winked away. My head was filled with a sudden rush of noise and motion. The world coming back to life. I didn’t have much time to appreciate the moment. The effort of bringing my power back under my control had taken everything out of me. As soon as the world unfroze, I crumpled like a rag doll.

After that, it was lights-out.

I woke to see Milton looking down at me.

“Oh, good! You’re alive!” He exhaled a relieved breath. “You had me worried there.”

I tried to sit up, but the effort sent daggers through my brain. Dropping back to the floor, I blinked up at the ceiling.

“Where’s Winston?” I asked in a cracked voice.

“He ran off like a scared puppy. Guess he was freaked out by your special-effects display.”

Groaning, I rose to my elbows. The others were huddled close by. Sophie, Miranda, Cassie. And Dr. Fleming. He was staring at me with the strangest expression. Like he was seeing me in a totally different way.

Then he collapsed.

Winston’s attack had taken its toll. A bloody gash ran
down Dr. Fleming’s chest. His clothes were stained with blood. His face was pale.

Miranda jumped into action mode. “Quick,” she said to Milton. “Take your shirt off. We’ll use it as a bandage.”

Once Milton was down to his T-shirt and khakis, Sophie ripped his button-down shirt into strips that Miranda wrapped around Dr. Fleming’s chest. As she worked, the teacher’s eyelids flickered and his voice came out in a pained croak.

“I’ll never make it to the safe house in this condition,” he said. “You’ll have to go without me.”

“But—”

Dr. Fleming spoke over her protest. “Someone needs to destroy the Dominion Key. It’s our only hope. If we don’t—”

He broke into a weak cough. But I didn’t have any trouble finishing his sentence in my head.
If we don’t destroy the Dominion Key, Vex will rule the world
.

We couldn’t let that happen.

And so we came up with plan B. Cassie took hold of a brass lamp on the wall and pulled it down like a lever. A nearby bookcase swiveled sideways to reveal another entrance to the secret tunnel.

Helping Dr. Fleming into the tunnel, Sophie said, “You’ll be safe in here.”

The teacher settled against the stone wall. Cassie handed him the flashlight.

Dr. Fleming reached into his pocket and removed the photograph. His bloody thumbprint was smudged over the
picture of the log cabin. With a pen that he pulled from his other pocket, he wrote on the back of the photo.

“Bear Creek is in western Massachusetts,” Dr. Fleming explained. “A tiny little town. Sneeze while you’re driving through and you’ll miss it. At the edge of town, you’ll find a dirt road that seems to go on forever without any sign of civilization. Tall trees and not much else. Just when you’re sure the end of the earth is around the next turn, you see it—”

“The safe house,” Miranda said.

“Precisely. The location is so remote, the state never bothered to give the road a name.” Dr. Fleming pointed at the address.
Noname Rd
. “You could detonate five hundred pounds of heavy artillery in my backyard and nobody would notice. Believe me, I tried it out.”

Dr. Fleming pressed the photo into my hand.

“You must find the safe house,” he said. “Once Vex’s henchmen have vacated the school grounds, I’ll figure out another way off this island and meet you there.”

“You sure about this?” I asked.

“I’m sure we need to prevent Vex from getting his hands on the Dominion Key. There is nothing more important right now.”

Dr. Fleming fixed his gaze on me. And for the second
time, I saw that strange look in his eyes. Like he knew something about me that I didn’t.

It lasted for only a second. At the sound of motorcycle engines approaching, he cast a nervous glance toward the library door.

“Now go,” he said weakly. “There isn’t much time.”

“See you soon.”

Cassie raised the brass lamp and the bookcase swiveled back into place. We rushed across the ransacked library and back into the hallway. Frightened students peered out at us from their hiding places as we ran toward the door marked
NOT AN EXIT
. Cassie pushed her way inside and the rest of us followed.

I raced up the stairs, two at a time. Higher and higher. Grasping for the handrails. Up more and more spiraling steps, until we reached our destination.

The lighthouse.

Outside, the storm raged in the darkness. Sheets of rain pounded the glass walls. Inside, the massive lightbulb swiveled slowly. I glanced away as its beam swung in my direction.

At the other end of the glass room, the others were already climbing the ladder to the roof. Cassie pushed the trapdoor open. Rain and wind swept through the opening. As she heaved herself through the hatch and onto the roof, I turned back toward the lighthouse door. I could’ve sworn I’d heard footsteps pattering up the stairwell.

“Joshua! You coming?” Milton was halfway through the
opening. His wet hair stuck to his forehead as rain fell all around him.

“Be right there!” I called back. “You guys just make sure everything’s ready to go!”

Milton nodded and climbed the rest of the way through the hatch. I glanced toward the stairwell again. This time the sound was clear: feet pounding the stairs. I wasn’t too excited about saying hi to whoever was approaching. But if we hoped to have any chance of escape, we couldn’t risk being followed by the enemy.

I circled back the way I’d come. The banging from the stairwell was louder now. Like a jackhammer getting closer and closer. I reached for the door just as someone thrust it open from the other side.

And all of a sudden, I found myself face to face with Grifter.

“You?” Her features twisted with surprise.

I threw out my arms, spontaneous combustion surging through my veins. Grifter responded with a glance to her side. That was all it took for the telekinetic terror to rip the door off its hinges. The floating steel door swung my way. It would’ve knocked my head off if I hadn’t ducked in the nick of time.

I staggered backward to avoid another swipe—and
another
—until my back was against the glass wall. I waited, every muscle on edge for the next attack. Instead, I heard Grifter’s voice.

“Well, well.” She walked through the doorway. “Definitely didn’t expect to see you here. Our objective was to
nab some guy named Fleming. But I doubt Vex is gonna mind if we take you back as well.”

Lunk crashed into the room behind her. He was gripping a flamethrower. In his massive cement hands, the weapon looked like a toy. But that didn’t make it any less deadly.

When he noticed me, Lunk’s huge gray forehead crinkled with confusion. “What’s he doin’ here?”

“Must’ve thought he could hide from us on an island of Gyfted preppies,” said Grifter. “Am I right?”

Keeping a careful eye on the door floating eerily beside me, I edged an inch closer to the ladder. If I could somehow make it through the trapdoor, maybe I could call my friends for reinforcements. But Grifter guessed what I had in mind. With a flick of her attention toward the trapdoor, she swung it shut and sealed it closed.

Turning her sharp gaze back on me, she said, “Ya know, Vex wasn’t too pleased the last time we failed to capture you.”

“He called me an oversized cement doofus,” Lunk said.

“But once we bring back Nigel Fleming
and
Joshua Dread, he’s gonna give us a major promotion. No more taking our orders from nFinity and breaking into science labs. Vex will make us his top lieutenants. We’ll be at his side when he rules the world.”

Grifter grinned faintly, as if she could already imagine her big promotion.

“So here’s how it’s gonna go down,” she said. “You’ll come with us. Tell us where to find Fleming and we won’t hurt you too bad before handing you over to Vex. But if
you even
think
about putting up a fight, my friend here will show you what third-degree burns feel like.”

Lunk hefted his flamethrower in my direction.

My brain churned, but I could see only two options: make a run for the ladder and get burned to a crisp, or surrender to my deadliest enemies.

I wondered which was worse.

“Hurry up, Dread,” Grifter called. “We haven’t got all day.”

She was standing next to the slowly swiveling light. Beside her, Lunk held the flamethrower steady in his cement hands.

The trapdoor rattled. Milton’s muffled voice called out, “Joshua, you there? What’s going on? This thing’s stuck!”

I glanced around the lighthouse, looking for anything I could use as a weapon. With a flamethrower pointed my way and the floating door waiting to bash my brains in, I found it tough to think clearly. Then my eyes landed on the pool of water that had gathered at the foot of the ladder. An idea sparked in my brain.

I turned both hands so that my palms were pressed against the glass. Gritting my teeth, I concentrated my
power. Spontaneous combustion rippled through every inch of my body. And then—

CRAAASH!

I stepped away from the glass wall just as it broke into a thousand pieces. At first, it was just the panel behind me. But like dominoes, the other panels shattered one after the other in a circle around the room.

And all of a sudden, we had ourselves an open-air lighthouse.

“Raaarh!” Grifter pointed wildly at the floating door. I jumped aside as it swung my way. The door hurtled past me and vanished into the darkness.

The storm whipped in from all directions. Rain splashed my shoes, drenched my clothes. But I wasn’t the only one exposed to the elements. A wave of wind and rain slammed against Lunk. And like in the food court, the water had an instantaneous effect on the concrete giant. His gray skin melted away. It pooled around his feet and washed over the sides of the lighthouse.

All that was left was a wimpy teenager in his boxer shorts.

His flamethrower clattered to the ground. I made a move for it, but Grifter was too quick. The flamethrower rose into the air like it was dangling from invisible string. In an instant, it was aimed right at me.

“That was a neat trick, Dread,” Grifter spat. “But it’s too little, too late.”

She flexed her finger. Even though the flamethrower was five feet away, drifting in the air, the trigger pulled. Fire
burst across the lighthouse. I dove sideways and slid across the wet floor.

The flames barely missed me. But I was sprawled on my stomach now, surrounded by shards of broken glass, unable to flee any farther. The flamethrower swiveled in the air, pointing straight at me.