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  “Listen, you are going to stay with us. First of all, you have no clue where you’re going. Second of all, you don’t have any materials to survive out here. Third, we need you. Lastly, nothing good has come out of any of us separating, so you’re going to stick with us. When we get back to school, and only then, can you decide if you want to leave and go home.

  “I couldn’t care less if you walk away as ‘the person who quit when things got rough’ or ‘the person who walked away from his friends.’ Okay? I really couldn’t care less because it’s your choice, not mine. Just know, we need you—-and we are the only friends you have. Go ahead and make new ones. When you get back, make new friends and abandon them too! I’m not giving you back your Powers until you get in the stupid car, drive back, and make your choice,” Nick ranted.

  By this point, Nick and Will had made it back to the rest of their friends.

  “Everyone, get in the car and shut up for the rest of the ride. No yelling, no dying, no kidnapping—especially if I have anything to say! GOT IT?” Nick commanded.

  Will and everyone else were silent and stayed silent for the rest of the car ride. Four hours. Will paid attention to the road and dodged every bird, every power line, and never hit the ground once.

  Nick had his face in his hands, and the only sound in the car was the constant tapping of his foot up and down. Darla had her arms crossed and kept on looking out the window, never once turning around—as if she were having a staring contest with the window. Teddy just sat next to Darla leaning slightly away from her as if he were scared she would strike. Rachel morphed into a bat and hung upside-down from the mirror in the front.

  Ondrea was sitting in the passenger seat glancing at Will every once in a while to read his expression. Oliver sat by the other window with his head against it, drifting into a troubled sleep. Jessica was next to Oliver, leaning against him for mental support while she played a game on her phone. Everyone seemed depressed and exhausted.

  Meanwhile, Nick felt stressed out and sick. Nick sighed, which seemed to echo in the silence of the car. He put his head against the window, but when he moved his upper body his face twisted in pain. Nick closed his eyes and began to fall into a troubled sleep. He began to dream of The Stranger.

  The Stranger walked into a small octagonal room made of shiny black obsidian. The red lights made the walls look even more sinister. Nick’s body formed in a ghostly state, and he walked around the room. It appeared that The Stranger couldn’t see him. Nick walked up and stood next to The Stranger and glanced at the file The Stranger was holding. It read: “Avery Kendal. Patient file: Ondrea’s sister. Mission: Get her for the project.”

  “What the heck!” Nick gasped, his voice echoing, “Another person these sickos are trying to get—ONDREA’S SISTER! Why? Why does this keep happening?”

  Nick felt his stomach lurch. His dream began to fade. His stomach began to scream—or at least it felt like it was screaming. His dream went black.

  Nick woke up and yelled. His stomach pain had woken him from his dream. He didn’t realize how bad it would get! By this time, Will had looked over, his eyes glazed over just a little. Will blinked and the life came back to his eyes. “Nick! What’s . . . ”

  “Pull over! Please?” Nick begged. By this time, everyone was awake and staring with concern at Nick.

  “We are almost there. Can’t you . . . ”

  “PULL OVER, WILL!” Nick cried. Will slowly turned the wheel and set the car on the ground. Bat-Rachel flew away from the door as Nick opened it and she hid in the shadow. Nick collapsed to the ground. Oliver stumbled out of the car, helping Nick over to the grass. Oliver knew what would happen next.

  “Everyone, turn away!” Oliver called.

  As always, they listened to Oliver and quickly turned away. Nick felt his throat burn as he began to up-chuck bile onto the grass. He continued to do so for about twelve minutes, every time worse than the last.

  Finally, Nick felt no more and crawled away from his puddle of barf. His arms and legs shook very badly, and he collapsed again. But he quickly got back up before Oliver turned around and saw how weak Nick really was. Nick didn’t want Oliver to think it was all too much for him.

  Oliver turned around and looked at Nick for a while. Oliver began to walk over to Nick so they could get going, when a small blond girl with giant wings swooped down and lifted Nick off his feet. Oliver watched in horror as Nick was taken away.

  SEVENTEEN

  In Which Nick Is Taken And A Girl Is Discovered

  NO!” Oliver yelled. “NICK!”

  Everyone turned back around and began to ask questions.

  “What happened?” Darla asked.

  “Where did Nick go?” Jessica yelled.

  “Nick was swooped away by a blond-haired girl with giant wings. They looked like dragon wings!” Oliver answered.

  “Wasn’t me,” Rachel mentioned.

  “No duh,” Darla said sarcastically.

  “Blond hair! Dragon wings?” Ondrea wondered.

  “Yeah,” Oliver replied, his voice shaking.

  “That sounds like my sister’s Powers! And my sister! Granted it’s her only Power, but still!” Ondrea shouted. “Why would she take Nick?”

  17.2

  “Hey, what gives?” Nick croaked when they landed. The girl just stared at him with her red eyes. “All right! I’ve been through this too many times. What’s your name?” he asked, sitting up from the floor.

  Nick felt weak and decided to lie back down because he had a feeling he’d need his strength. Suddenly, the girl’s eyes changed back to blue, and she fell to the ground. Nick gasped and crawled over to her, fighting back his dizziness. He shook her, but she wouldn’t wake up.

  Nick looked around and found they both were in a dark room that looked and felt like a prison. The girl’s wings suddenly disappeared.

  Nick grabbed her hand and dragged her to the wall, using up most of his strength. As soon as he reached it, he dropped her and leaned back against the wall, vowing to watch her until she woke up. Soon, he fell asleep

  17.3

  Avery Kendal woke up with a start. She remembered she had captured a boy under the mind control of The Boss. It was dark and cold as she looked out the window of her little prison. It was night.

  The moonlight shone on a boy sitting just three feet away from her. His face was deathly pale. He had blond hair and was wearing a blue windbreaker, but despite the windbreaker, he was shivering. His jacket had been ripped by her dragon claws.

  She shuffled up to him and examined the boy closely. She poked his arm which was as cold as ice, although sweat coated his skin. She recoiled and wiped her finger on her hoodie.

  “Hello?” she said, as she nudged the unconscious boy with her foot. He awoke with a start and coughed nastily. “Ugh. Oh, hi, you’re awake. Are you okay?” she questioned quickly.

  “I guess so. What am I doing here? Did you bring me here?”

  “I don’t know. I think someone ordered me to capture you,” she sighed.

  “Why did you do it?”

  “He threatened my life, not to mention my sister’s safety. Plus, I think I was hypnotized!” Avery yelled, pacing around the room.

  “Oh, no! Who’s your sister?” Nick wondered, holding a certain someone in mind.

  “Her name is Ondrea Kendal,” she stated, pacing faster.

  “You’re Avery Kendal!” Nick exclaimed, pumping his fist as if he had just won a track meet.

  “Yes. I am. How did you know?” Avery wondered.

  “Ondrea told me,” Nick replied simply.

  “Are you Oliver, Teddy, Will, or Nick?” Avery questioned, her “thinking face” forming.

  “I’m Darla,” Nick teased.

  “Oh, ha ha. Who are you really?” she commanded.

  “Fine. I’m Nick. Nice to . . . well, in different circumstances, I would say nice to meet you,” he replied.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” she yelled in distress.<
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  Avery had been terrified of the dark since she, Ondrea, and her parents toured Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico when she was in elementary school. It had been really exciting until the guides turned off the lights for a minute, to show everyone how really dark the cave was. At that point, Avery had suddenly felt more afraid than she ever had in her life. It had been so dark, she couldn’t even see her hand in front of her face, and it felt like anything terrible could happen at any moment.

  She had reached out to grab her sister’s hand, but it felt wet and cold. It wasn’t Ondrea! When the lights came on, she realized no one had been standing there. Her mind had been playing tricks on her, although she hadn’t realized it at that age. Ever since then, she had been terrified of the dark.

  Avery started screaming at Nick to get her out of there. She couldn’t help herself.

  17.4

  The Stranger felt really guilty for letting The Boss hypnotically control that Avery kid.

  “I mean, she was just sitting there drawing in what kids call a sketchbook, and then I just tapped on her shoulder and locked her in a cell!” The Stranger thought. “I grabbed her sketchbook and the pencil she was holding. I put it in a magical container and put it on a chain that I’m wearing.”

  After going home and spending time with his 3-year-old—his only child at home now because he and his wife sent his other son off to military school years ago—he realized he shouldn’t have done that. Now here he was facing The Boss.

  He’d left the sketchbook and pencil necklace at home in his drawer because he knew The Boss would want it.

  “Yes, sir,” The Stranger said to The Boss, guiltily, “both of them are in the holding cell.” The Boss went to the holding cells while The Stranger put his face in his hands. The Boss rounded the corner and entered the holding cell. His watch read five o’clock in the morning. The two kids were asleep. The Boss’s eyes widened in anger.

  “No!” he yelled. “That stupid girl got the wrong boy!” The Boss’s shout woke them up, and Avery didn’t have but a split second before The Boss began to kick her.

  “Hey! Stop!” Nick yelled from behind The Boss. He dove at The Boss and grabbed his neck. Avery screamed. The door was open, so Nick let go and tried to throw The Boss out the door, but that didn’t turn out so well. The Boss turned around and kicked Nick in the stomach, forcing him toward the wall.

  Avery, seething with unbridled rage, grew claws from her fingernails. The Boss saw this and tried to hypnotize her, but Avery resisted and sprung toward him.

  She put her claws to his face and closed her eyes as she heard him screech in pain. Avery opened her eyes and then nonchalantly brushed off one of The Boss’s eyeballs from her claw. The Boss continued to scream as he held his hands over his left eye socket and stumbled out of the room.

  “Yes! Sucker!” she yelled as her claws shrank back into fingernails.

  She remembered why she had engaged The Boss in the first place. She scrambled over to Nick and grabbed the side of his head. It felt really warm, but she thought it was probably just sweat. She began to shake his head, but he didn’t wake up. Suddenly, she thought maybe something was worse than she realized. Avery placed her hand on Nick’s forehead only to find it blazing with heat.

  “Wow. That is one high fever,” she mumbled, worried. A noise came from the other side of the door.

  17.5

  When The Boss came back with one bloody eye socket and only one eyeball, The Stranger knew something was terribly wrong. Once he finished bandaging up his master’s eye socket, he gathered an eye patch from his kids’ costume collection and handed it to The Boss, who quickly put it on.

  The Boss settled back into his throne and spoke, “I’ve put both of them into a weakened state. Mostly the boy. The girl is practically rabid, so be careful. Not that I care,” The Boss growled.

  “Of course, Boss!” The Stranger exclaimed with an evil smile.

  As he walked in the direction of the prison, his mind exploded with thoughts. “What about the boy? What did The Boss do to him? Sure, it must have been the girl who gave The Boss the reason for the eye patch, but she was just defending herself. I have two kids who are boys . . . wait!”

  The Stranger quickly ran back to his hut without The Boss noticing and grabbed a little red sticky note. He wrote on it: Because your book has been in this Amulet for so long, it is enchanted. Figure it out from there. P.S. I heard that The Boss hurt the boy, and I’m sorry. I have two sons of my own, so please escape. Best regards, The Stranger. P.P.S. Tear up this note when you are done.

  He grabbed the amulet with the sketchbook and pencil and walked back to the prison quietly and quickly. The Stranger opened the door and saw the girl sitting against the wall with the boy’s head in her lap. She looked alarmed to see the man who had kidnapped her.

  “I’m so sorry,” he muttered, putting the note and Amulet in the middle of the room and backing up to the door.

  The girl stood up and walked swiftly towards the object, picked it up, and scrambled back toward the wall. The Stranger stood by the door as she read the note. She looked somberly at Nick when she was done reading the note.

  “Thank you. I understand,” Avery said firmly.

  17.6

  “Man! Nick and Avery are still missing!” Ondrea exclaimed from the comfort of her homeroom classroom.

  Will had decided to stay with the group.

  “Now that we’ve had time to sit down, I have to ask. Did Nick look okay to you before he got whisked off by Avery?” Oliver asked.

  “Not really. I looked over every so often, and he was sweating like a dog,” Will exclaimed.

  “Yeah, then he got out of the car and threw up,” Jessica added.

  “What if he was sick?” Teddy asked.

  “What if he still is and is getting worse?” Darla corrected.

  “What if it was really bad?” Rachel wondered.

  “What if it is really bad and getting worse!” Darla yelled.

  “Darla! Would you stop?” Will shouted.

  17.7

  Avery flipped through the sketchbook of all her beautiful sketches of Janet and the other characters Avery was drawing. She had a good idea of what The Stranger meant when he said that her sketchbook was enchanted. She wanted to make Janet come to life, but, then again, she didn’t want to die a bloody death quite yet.

  Avery spent the next twenty minutes drawing a really amazing and detailed picture of a plain, brown, wooden door. When the last details of the hinges were complete, she carefully ripped the drawing out of her sketchbook, removed the little pieces of paper from the notebook’s plastic rings, and placed the drawing against the wall of the dark, hot prison.

  The paper magically pressed itself against the wall very tightly, like silky fabric, and expanded to the size of a regular door. The white outline of unused paper disappeared, and the gold handle popped out in three dimensions.

  “Well, that’s totally awesome,” Avery said, putting her hands in her hoodie pockets and standing back to admire the work.

  She opened the door, which led to patch of ground covered in a shadow that looked like it had been there for years and never changed. She stepped back through the door to get Nick, and right then his eyes opened. Now that Avery could see because of the light, she saw he looked like a ghost. His eyes were eerily glassy, and his skin ghostly pale.

  She pulled him up, but it was difficult, considering she was a bit smaller than he was. She dragged him out the door and looked up. A giant cloud, bigger than anything she had ever seen, hovered higher up in the air than all the other clouds in the sky. She knew from her mom and Ondrea, that Superhero School was located on top of a cloud as big as this one.

  Avery knew it was a long shot, but that cloud could have the school on it. Her wings blazed into existence, as she unfolded them to their full length. Avery grabbed Nick by his hands and was ready to fly up, but she only got an inch off the ground before Nick’s hands began to slip from hers.

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bsp; “EEEEW! Nick, you’re too dang sweaty!” she yelled at him. He didn’t say anything.

  Out of desperation, she began to try to think of other ways to lift him to the cloud. Maybe her claws? No, she didn’t want to hurt him further. Unexpectedly, a long dark purple, scaly tail popped out of her lower back.

  “Whoa! Didn’t know I could do that,” she stated, smiling. Avery got an idea. First, she needed to let someone know she was coming up, just in case.

  17.8

  “What are we going to do?” Oliver yelled. “We haven’t even told Mrs. Macintosh about Mrs. Thomas!”

  “Guys! SHUT UP! I’M GETTING A CALL!” Ondrea screamed. She picked up her phone and answered.

  “AVERY! . . . Nick is with you? Nick is . . . Oh, wow. You are? Okay, I’ll tell him! Bye. Please be careful!”

  “What did she say?” Oliver asked.

  “Avery said that this guy named The Stranger kidnapped her. His Boss hypnotized her into being evil. The Boss told her to capture Oliver, but she got the wrong one—Nick. The Stranger locked them both in a little cell, and somehow Nick broke her hypnotized state.

  “Much later, The Stranger gave Avery her sketchbook back, but it was enchanted. She drew a door that led to under the school. She is going to fly Nick up here. She needs Oliver to stand at the edge just in case she drops Nick,” Ondrea explained.

  “Wow. Can do! Anything else?” Oliver stated sarcastically.

  “Actually, yes. She said that Nick is really sick. He has a fever that has gotten a lot worse than anyone could have thought,” Ondrea said, worrying.

  “Told ya!” Darla yelled.

  17.9

  Avery wrapped her tail around Nick’s waist and held tightly. Her wings flapped into action.

  “Don’t worry, Nick. You’ll be in good hands here in a sec,” Avery cooed, distractedly.

  “I already am,” Nick mumbled.

  Avery took off. Five minutes later, she could see a brown-haired boy standing at the edge of the school. Two minutes later, she could see him more clearly, and six minutes after that, she had landed on the school foundation. Avery dropped Nick onto the soft, but firm surface. Ondrea raced up to her sister and gave Avery the biggest hug ever.