Alchemist Academy: Book 2 (10 page)

The lights shut off.

A green exit sign lit up a small area near the front door. I sucked in a quick breath and pulled a stone from my pocket, holding it in its thin wrapping. Scanning the windows, I begged my eyes to adjust to the darkness.

“I thought I heard a motorcycle,” I said.

“He’s found us,” Mark whispered, staying shoulder to shoulder with me.

“Just a power outage. We get them out here in the sticks,” Jarrod said, walking around the counter with a flashlight.

“Who are you guys talking about?” Kylie said, looking up at the lights as if expecting them to turn back on at any second.

She needed to know the dangers we were up against. “Someone was chasing us. He’s sort of the reason we came to the Academy.”

“Dark alchies?” Wes asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Great. And you didn’t think it was important to mention that to us?” Kylie said.

I couldn’t come up with the words for it and looked away from their judging eyes.

“I think if we group up and make a run for the car, maybe we have a chance. We brought a few stones with us,” Mark said.

Kylie scanned the windows. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw our car parked near the front door. We could get to it in seconds.

Grouping up in the chip aisle, we formed a simple plan. Mark, Jackie, and I would take the front because we had the stones.

“Remember, we need to get in the car and haul ass,” I said, my heart pounding as we neared the front door. Jackie smelled of nacho cheese but she was holding a stone in her hand and looked irate. So much so, in fact, that she made me nervous standing next to her.

“Or this could just be a power outage, like I said,” Jarrod called from the back of the store, shining his flashlight down the back hallway.

“Forget him,” Kylie said. “If dark alchies are out there, a run for the car is our best chance.”

“Agreed,” I said.

“I’ll take lead,” Mark said, and Jackie huffed. “Three.” He put his hand on the door. “Two.
One
.” He shoved the door open and we flooded out.

I caught a glimpse of a man hugging the wall and I had a split second to react. I side-armed the stone and it hit the wall next to him. He flinched back with surprise, but quickly retaliated.

The white stone stuck out in the black of night. It seemed to glow as it zipped through the air. Mesmerized, I followed its path until it struck the ground in front of my feet and broke open.

Blindness.

A light much brighter than the sun blasted out from the broken stone. I covered my eyes and felt a strong pain, as if my retinas had been burned.

Everything was a blur. People were screaming, but they were just shapes. I couldn’t focus. I fumbled with the next stone in my pocket, knowing I only had a moment to get it right. When I yanked it free, it fell to the ground.

“Get in the car!” Wes yelled.

I felt Mark’s strong hand pulling me into the car. I fell to the floorboards and felt the car shaking with more people getting in. I got up and my eyes cleared enough to see the struggle outside. Iggy’s stood near the door, arms waving and her feet were stuck to the sidewalk in some kind of goo.

“Help!” Iggy cried out when another stone hit the side of the car, freezing over a window.

“Get out of here!” David screamed.

Wes started the car and slammed it into reverse.

“
No
, she’s still out there!” Jackie screeched, and reached for her door.

The car tires squealed.

“Go, go!” Kylie demanded.

“We can’t just leave her,” Jackie said.

Wes ignored our protests and kept the pedal pressed to the floor. He accelerated out of the parking lot and down the road. I turned and stared through the back window. Iggy and two other guys formed a dark silhouette near the pumps at the gas station. They didn’t appear to be moving toward us or putting up any kind of chase.

“We have to turn around.” Jackie squeezed between the two front seats and I wondered if she would grab the wheel and turn the car around herself. “I have a couple of stones left, and I think Mark still has one. We can take them.”

Wes gripped the wheel and twisted, creating a rubbing sound. “Kylie?” he asked.

“I only saw two of them,” I added, staring out the back window. The gas station had disappeared as we crested over a small hill.

“Maybe the teachers can help us?” David said.

“Dammit,” Wes said.

The car skidded to a near stop and we doubled back. The engine roared, and I turned to face the front windshield. The dark gas station came into view, but it looked deserted.

“Drive around the building. She might be in the back.” Jackie hovered near the front seats and then switched to the side window as we passed around the gas station. My heart sank. I’d allowed this to happen.

“Where did they go?” Wes asked.

After making a complete circle around the gas station, he parked near the front door.

I followed Mark out of the car and it became apparent that Iggy and the men were gone.

“Maybe they’re holed up in the store?” Kylie said.

Jarrod stepped out with a flashlight and shone it our way. “Oh, hey. You guys stocking up tonight?” he asked in a playful manner.

“Did you see where they took her, or which way they went?” Kylie asked.

“Who? What are you talking about?” Jarrod said.

Kylie took a deep breath and turned back to us. “Memory stone.” She shook her head and walked closer to me. “You must have pissed off the wrong people. Exactly who did you say was chasing you?”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. How could I tell someone the whole truth without revealing our plans? Would they even believe it if I did?

“The power’s out. You guys can still get whatever you want. I just hope you brought a token.” He shone the light on us. “New friends?” Jarrod asked.

“Just go away, Jarrod,” Jackie said. “We freaking need to find Iggy. She could be a mile down the road by this point.” She looked down the dark street with her hands on her hips.

“More than likely, they used a portal stone,” Mark said.

I stared into the darkness. There were no lights on the horizon, and no sign of Iggy anywhere. “She’s gone.” The weight of it sank in.

“Why would they take her?” Kylie asked.

“She looks kind of like Allie, and she was in the center of our group when we left. I bet they assumed she was the special,” Jackie said.

I shot her a sharp look. She needed to temper her loose tongue.

“You’re a special?” Kylie’s eyes went wide as she whipped around to look at me.

I shrugged. “They just wanted us because we got away from them. That’s all.” What I was didn’t matter, and now I had one more thing to add to my list. Get Iggy back. I wouldn’t be surprised if they mind-wiped her and dumped her in the Dark Academy. “I think we’d better get back to the Academy and tell them a student was kidnapped.”

“You sure this is the right door?” I asked.

Kylie nodded and knocked again. The sound resonated through the small hallway. If it didn’t get Wendy’s attention, it would probably wake up all the rest of the teachers who were sleeping.

Jackie walked up to the door and kicked it three solid times. “That should wake the comatose hag.”

A faint rustling sounded from within the room and I took a step back as the door slid open. A sleepy-eyed Wendy stood at the door, dressed in white pajamas. She looked flummoxed at the group of people standing in the hallway. “Do you know what hour it is?” she asked with a bit of morning rasp in her voice.

We flooded her at all once with our information.

“Wait. What are you saying? One at a time, please. Someone was kidnapped?” The glazed look left her wide eyes.

“We left the Academy and went to a gas station nearby. Iggy was kidnapped,” Kylie said.

Wendy shook her head in disbelief. She grabbed a tablet and scrolled through the pages on the screen. “She’s not in school.” She looked past us down the hall.

“We need to get some people and find her,” Jackie said.

“Don’t be a fool,” Wendy said in a clear voice. “We need to tell President Foster.” She marched out of the room, bumping into me and not slowing.

We rushed after her, but she didn’t offer any more explanations. After jogging across the empty commons, we filed into an elevator under the president’s egg-shaped home that jutted out of the side of the wall.

The elevator sped upward and then stopped. We exited on a large landing with a single white door carved into a curved wall.

Wendy darted to the door and touched the digital panel next to it. A siren sounded, like a smoked detector going off. The door was flung open to reveal a confused-looking President Foster. He was wearing a similar white uniform, with brown slippers poking out from the bottom of his pants.

“Wendy, what’s going on?” Foster said, looking over each of us. “Who are these students with you?”

“No time for that, Nick. A wolf took one of our sheep.”

His face paled. “Please, come in.” He motioned. “How did this happen? Did they get through the tunnel again?”

“No. These kids here went for a midnight stroll into the city.” She looked back at us. “Go on and tell him about it.”

Foster’s stern gaze passed over us and no one talked. The words choked in my throat. I couldn’t tell the man how badly we’d messed up.

Kylie broke first, going into detail about our journey and ending with Iggy’s kidnapping. She left out the part about people being after me. Maybe she’d forgotten, or maybe she was trying to protect me. Either way, at this point it didn’t matter. A life was at stake.

“There’s something else I have to tell you, President Foster. The reason we came here,” I jumped in. Once he’d nodded, I continued to tell him about the Dark Academy, Verity, Red versus Blue, all of it. It spilled from me as an uncontrollable river of information. No one dared interrupt the flow, and when I finished, I felt breathless.

I dared a few glances at them and each had a shocked look mixed with some skepticism. I didn’t know if I would believe it myself, if I were them. Hearing it spoken out loud, it seemed ridiculous, but if the information could help get Iggy back, I had to share it. I would just have to ignore the stank-eye Jackie was throwing my way.

Foster rubbed the stubble on his chin. “If they have her, there’s little we can do about it here, but I’ll alert the proper people to take care of this.”

“The Intrepid?” I asked.

“No, I’m not in direct contact with them. Besides, we have a more civil group of people to handle these matters. They’ll contact Quinn within the hour. If she was taken by Axiom’s men, he’ll be able to help.”

Shot down, I slumped back. Two of the names he had mentioned stirred up new questions. “Who is Axiom?”

Foster winced at the question and preceded with caution. “You already know his sister, Verity. He watches over much of L.A. While he’s not the best of character, he
has
helped us from time to time.”

Not only did I know his sister, I was dead sure he’d been the man chasing us through the construction yard. He was a male version of Verity.

“Or this could escalate things, Nick. We’re at the edge right now,” Wendy said.

Nick took a deep breath and looked around his foyer. A pair of white chairs flanked a large picture of a simple house in need of repairs. I couldn’t see much farther into the house, but the white-on-white motif seemed to be carried throughout.

“We will be judicious in this matter,” Nick said with authority.

“And you think this Quinn guy is going to help out?” I asked.

“If anyone on their side can help, it’s him.”

“Who’s Quinn?” Jackie asked.

“He rules over the alchemists of L.A., including Verity and Axiom. You’ve never heard of him?”

“I have,” Kylie replied.

Jackie shrugged. “I’ve been in a bubble for the last couple of years, and my
Alchemist Monthly
subscription ran out.”

“He’s the most powerful alchemist of the modern age. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of him.” He glanced at Mark. “But he has been helpful in bringing many things to resolution.”

Wendy jumped in. “Yes, but now we have evidence of this Dark Academy. If Verity is running it, we might be able to use that as further proof that Quinn is hiding things from us. I hear he’s getting close—”

“That’s enough, Wendy.” Foster looked sharply at her. “We will not speculate. If this is all true, we’re looking at very dark times ahead,” Foster said. “Our response must be calculated.”

“They took her. We don’t have time for calculations,” I said.

“That is all,” Foster said, raising an eyebrow and looking at Wendy.

Wendy nodded and didn’t say anything else on the matter.

Frustrated and deflated, we left Foster’s office without a solid plan to get Iggy back. If he wasn’t in contact with the Intrepid, then who was? I doubted the conversations and calculated responses would prove fruitful.

Wendy left us in the commons with an order to go back to our domiciles. Nothing felt fair or easy anymore. Maybe I’d taken advantage of my previous life with Janet and Spencer. They had been horrible to me but they still let me live in their house while all other ties had been severed from me to them. I hadn’t thought of them in a while. They didn’t even register on my hate chart anymore.

We crossed the commons with a little less energy than when we’d left. The idea of someone being taken in front of us sank in and made my feet heavy. My whole body felt weighed down, pulling me toward the ground. I wanted to find my bed and try to figure out a way to make things right.

Kylie and her group split off from us and appeared to be having an angry debate near a tree. We stayed on our path toward the housing unit.

“What do you think they’re doing to her?” Jackie asked.

I moved closer to Mark and wrapped my arm around his waist. He took me in under his arm. I didn’t want to even think about what they were doing to poor Iggy. I was sure she had parents or siblings and friends who would be devastated if something happened to her.

“Hopefully they’ll realize she isn’t Allie and give her back,” Mark said.

What reason did they have for wanting me, anyway? Sure, I could make difficult stones, but so could Bridget and probably many others around the world.

“We need to talk with you guys,” Kylie said, hustling to catch up with us. Turning to look back to Foster’s house, she added, “But not here.”

She led us to the edge of the garden where the tomatoes were turning red and about ready to be picked. That seemed strange. Weren’t they just buds a little while ago?

Kylie tugged on her braid. “We don’t want to sit around and wait for diplomacy. We want to get Iggy back.” Tears formed in her eyes, but she kept a steady voice. “We can contact the Intrepid and I bet they could get something done.”

“You’re in contact with them?” My chin dropped. I couldn’t believe these were their contacts inside the Academy, not some teacher or disgruntled janitor, but actual students.

“Yes. Our parents dumped us in here for safety reasons. Same as you, I suppose.” Kylie faced me. “Our moms work together. I heard you mention your mom’s name. Cathy? Cathy Norton, I take it?”

“Yes.” Hearing my mom’s full name fall from her lips sent chills down my arms. I wanted to shake more information from her.

“She basically runs the Intrepid, you know?”

I shook my head. I hadn’t known that. I apparently didn’t know a thing. “How do you contact them?” I asked, stepping closer.

“You heard Foster mention that tunnel, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s just say it isn’t as locked or as hidden as they think,” Kylie said. “I meet with my mom once a week. She sort of makes me.”

Wes stood back, shaking his head.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “She’s just here checking on you?”

“Yeah. After so many kids have been taken over the last few years, most parents are jittery. Why do you think this place is so jammed?”

“When are you meeting with her next?”

“Tomorrow.”

I closed my eyes and turned away. I didn’t know if I could wait another day. This place was already feeling restrictive and small, like the Dark Academy. So much was going on in the world outside and I wanted to be a part of it. With my abilities, I could help. “I’m going with you tomorrow.”

“I don’t know. My mom doesn’t trust strangers. She won’t like you showing up.”

“She will when she hears I’m the daughter of Cathy Norton.”